Oberheim (Voices) Part 38

No prisoners were taken.

For the next several days, in Western publications circulated throughout the settled galaxy, the headlines, columns and editorial pages all expressed the same outrage, decrying the viciousness and small-mindedness of the Palestinian attack; and the Israelis were freed once more to expound upon the necessities of their hard-nosed, aggressive, and completely intransigent foreign policies. They also took it upon themselves to retaliate, destroying the remaining forces and outer defenses of the exiled Arab planet, 'inadvertently' killing thousands of civilians in the process.

The moral? Pointless insanity on all sides, that had gone on for three centuries. BECAUSE IT HAD GONE UNCHALLENGED.

"The next time you start to get angry, count to ten."

ELEVEN

"Did it never strike you as just a trifle odd that the Cantons destroyed the Laurian ore planet, instead of just taking the colonies by force? They had the machinery."

"I don't know. I suppose I always thought that tactic psychological.

The whole affair with the gravity beam was quite impressive."

"Yes, and that was the lure of it. But think. Who stood to gain by such an expensive side show? Who paid the bill, and why?"

"The German States? I don't understand. I thought they sided with the Cantons out of principle." Dubcek looked at him like all the fools that had ever been born.

"Horse-s.h.i.t. They did it because they had the equipment to move in and salvage ninety percent of the planet's high-grade ore---the Cantons didn't---and because they could use the station again for other purposes. The move was purely economic: they got their original investment back three times over, and flexed their muscles a little in the process. And (so you know you weren't completely wrong) there is this. So long as people believe the West Germans are still n.a.z.is at heart, it gives them a tremendous psychological weapon: the aura of ruthlessness."

The young man stood bewildered, turned his head from side to side as if trying to see something through a fog. He paused, frozen it seemed, and then spoke.

"But the Canton fleets. Who supplied them? Not the German States.

That would make them direct accomplices, and---"

"Now you are beginning to think like a socialist. The ships were, in fact, of GS build, but they didn't just give them away. First they were sold to the Belgian-Swiss---along with the a.r.s.enal that's headed here---then pa.s.sed on. The Alliance needed someone to test the waters, and the Cantons were used for that purpose. The German States could not care less. Any instability only allows them greater opportunity for profit and expansion. Play both sides against the middle, then pick up the pieces; that is their game. Whether the fascists win or lose, they will get their cut." The young man looked incredulous, opened his mouth as if to speak.

"I know, I know---the ideologies. Ideology always seems the great motive to the young, the reason that nations rise and fall. It is time you learned that no one, except perhaps a few misguided knights, or here and there a religious fanatic, ever made war for anything other than personal gain. Though they may have told themselves otherwise."

He relit his pipe, looking thoughtful. BUT DUBCEK DIDN'T SMOKE.

"I remember when I was young, the great heroes and villains of history seemed to play out their parts as emissaries---the Churchills and Hitlers---instruments of good and evil upon the Earth. This was central to all my illusions. It gave my life as a soldier meaning, and drummed me full of patriotism, and a lot of other high-sounding excrement. But the hard truth is, Brunner, men make war because they think they can get something out of it, whether money or glory, it hardly matters. They hope to take something by force, that is otherwise denied to them.

"Because when you reach my age you come to realize, as they have, that there are no rules. . .except survival of the fittest. The great aggressors of history, from the Greeks to the Roman to whoever, took what they took because no one could stop them. It is very difficult to explain unless you have lived through it.....

"MEN rule the galaxy, Brunner. Men. There are no unseen forces at work, shaping our destinies to some more perfect end. You must learn to be cynical: it is the key to all truth. Forget your fairy-tale notions. We live or die by our own devices."

A lull.

"Then what..... What keeps you going?" The aging colonel rose and went to a dark window.

"Life is a game of chess. And I don't like to lose."

Brunner struggle beneath the coverings, feeling smothered. Suddenly he burst forward, eyes open.

"But you lost! You LOST. You lost....." His temples throbbed and he could not remember where he was. For he was not yet awake. His dream had played on him the cruelest trick of all. Thinking to escape from the nightmare world, he had jolted himself insufficiently, and only dreamed of waking. It was all right now. But no. There was something wrong with the room. Though incredibly lifelike, it was not quite square---the walls leaned and corners were uneven.

And then they were coming. Outside the dark window there was a sudden, blinding flash. THEY'RE COMING. His wife ran through the wall and disappeared. "Ara!"

COMING. The Americans. Nowhere to hide.....

His head shook violently. And finally, he was awake.

He lay on his back, his underclothes drenched with sweat. As if to rea.s.sure himself, he rolled over to embrace his wife and drive away the darkness. But she was not there: that much of the nightmare was real.

And then he remembered. He was not home on Athena II. Nor was he in his quarters aboard the Mongoose, waiting sleeplessly for the approach of the Alliance fleet. He was alone and on a Czech destroyer, one of several, escorted by a Soviet cruiser. Heading into Belgian s.p.a.ce. To search for the prisoners, taken from the colonies. Dubcek was dead.

He cried softly, hugging his knees, hating himself for his weakness.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n the Americans for ever helping them. I wish I was dead." He pushed his forehead hard against his knees.

It will be all right, he told himself. The Alliance has gone too far and now the Soviets will help us. The colonies will be retaken.

Schiller is gone, but Athena remains. My wife is alive. I will find her and we can go home again. She is alive. She must be alive!

He got up and checked the pa.s.sage of time. It was still an hour yet before what men called dawn---little brackets put around life to give it meaning and a mean understanding.

This was not what he wanted: four hours of sleep was not enough for him now, and his mind was dark again. Battle could come any day now---he was spoiling, and being eaten by the spoiling, for a fight.

And yet his energies continued to desert him. His strength grew less each day: no sleep. Not enough sleep. No appet.i.te. Anxiety. HE MUST PRESERVE HIS MENTAL ENDURANCE! He was the second officer of the first destroyer, and the man taken into the confidence of Soviet Colonel Joyce, Commander of the Leningrad. Leningrad. He was the go-between, the link between unlike and alien worlds, that now must work together.

He lifted the picture of his wife from the bedstead, kissed the cold gla.s.s that kept him from her. His mind was calm again, his emotions flat and worn out. And he shivered, realizing unexpectedly that it was cold in the room. He felt his brow: burning, always burning. The wet underclothes he peeled off and flung away, went into the bathroom, released a stream of clear, watery urine, turned the heat on high and took a steaming shower.

Dried and warm but already sweating and a little chilled he returned to the room and sat down at a desk, and touched a b.u.t.ton, and began studying charts of that quadrant. TRANSPORTS HAD BEEN REPORTED MOVING..... A WEEK AFTER THE TRANSPORTS BEARING THE PRISONERS.....

His wife was not on Athena. LATEST INTELLIGENCE. SOMETHING CALLED DRACUS.....

It all ran together in his mind, into a crater-pool of formless gray mud, edged with hard dark flecks. They were making for the Morannon system. They would be there in seventy. . .eight hours. Others must do the thinking now, he was tired. Too tired. He lay down again and forced himself to remain there until he fell asleep.

He woke two hours later, feeling better but for a slight headache. He recalled briefly as he rose the half-dream from which his consciousness had climbed. He was lying on the floor of a public bar, asleep, when a large rough man had seized him by the shoulders of his jacket and lifted him rudely, shook him, and told him to be gone. At first it seemed just another foolish night episode, until he remembered that the initial feeling of the strong, angry hands upon him had been pleasurable.

He wondered lamely if this were some sign of latent h.o.m.os.e.xuality---he often feared what might be revealed to him of his subconscious through dream---but the thought could not seriously upset him. A new day was at hand and he felt a little better. He dressed himself, performed the morning rituals of the bathroom and made his way to the bridge, feeling as he walked only a slight hollowness and queasiness of the stomach.

Captain Mandlik greeted him flatly, the small black eyes in their fleshy face neither kind nor cruel.

"You are up late this morning."

"Yes, forgive me. I didn't sleep well last night."

"You don't look well. Have you been to see the doctor?"

"No, there is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing he could do."

"Very well, but look after yourself. We cannot have you fading out on us." The captain looked more deeply into his face. "Colonel Joyce has been asking for you. He seems to take a special interest in you---believes you have some potential or understanding the rest of us lack."