There was going to be a war.
The Neutral Zone wasn't part of the Republic, not yet, but we sent patrols into it all the time. Our scout teams let us know if any invaders or bandits were near our borders, and the presence of our forces intimidated most troublemakers. Equally important, the patrols protected the people who lived between us and the barbarian kingdoms. Everyone deserves some security in this life; that's why governments exist.
The people in this commune hadn't had any safety. The raiders had encircled them and attacked, overrunning the hamlet before it could defend itself. A few of the local folks had died fighting, but it didn't look as if they'd drawn blood. Footprints showed that the attackers had marched north, taking the survivors with them—as slaves, or worse.
"They were Weyler's men," Colonel Washington said, holding up an arrow he'd found. "See the tip, Mr. Secretary? And the 'feathers'? Nobody else makes arrows like this."
"I know, Colonel." I took the arrow and studied it, not because I could learn anything from it, but because I wanted to stall. The arrow was a hand-turned wooden dowel, given its point on a pre-Collapse pencil sharpener. The feathers had been cut from old soft-drink cans, and laced to the shaft with sinew.
"Maybe Weyler's bully-boys didn't do this," I said. I was clutching at straws. "Other bandits might have bought the arrows from him, or taken them as booty."
"That's possible, sir," Washington said. His tone said he put more faith in the Easter Bunny, and he was right. Nobody sells weapons these days; the buyers are liable to turn around and kill you with them. If anyone had defeated and robbed some of Weyler's men, our spies would have heard.
Just the same, I wanted to believe that the raiders were nomads. The Republic might ignore that, but if they were locals, we would soon be at war with them—and I didn't want to see the Republic fall into another war. That may sound like an odd attitude for a Secretary of War, but my attitude was the reason I'd joined the Structuralist Party and accepted this post.
"Colonel!" One of Washington's scouts signaled us from the edge of an orchard. "We've got something, sir."
Washington and I walked into the orchard. It was a straggling, threadbare clump of apple trees. There was a large empty patch in the center of the grove, and a carved wooden pole had been driven into the dirt.
"A pagan war totem," Washington said in distaste. He pulled it from the ground, looked it over and handed it to me. "And these are Weyler's marks."
"So they are." Triple flames were carved in the soft wood, the same symbol Weyler's men paint on their chests and leather shields. The top of the pole had been carved into the nightmare shape of an Alien's head.
The face mocked us. Human civilization had folded up at its first contact with other worlds, it seemed to say. What made us think we could revive civilization? Weyler had chosen that symbol deliberately, to remind us how fragile our culture was, and how certain he was of ultimate victory.
I couldn't delay forever. We would have to go home and inform the Legislature. They would debate, but in the end they would declare war. I wish I could say I was entirely unhappy at the prospect.
The Legislature meets once a month, in the Forum Building: a barnlike structure which can seat up to five hundred people. It cost us a lot to build the Forum, both in material and work hours, but nobody begrudges the expense. A government body has to meet somewhere—and as anyone in the Republic can tell you, this is our government.
That doesn't always make it pleasant.
I was sitting on the stage, rather than on the main floor with the other Legislators. Colonel Washington stood at the podium in front of the speaker's chair, where he was winding up his testimony. He stood at parade rest, seemingly unfazed by the hostile faces in the amphitheater. "By the time the burial detail had finished tending to the dead villagers, the sun was setting. We scouted the area, determined that no hostile forces remained nearby, and made camp. The next day we returned to Northfort. That's all."
The questioning began at once, as several legislators rose to their feet. The speaker pointed her gavel at one of them. "The chair recognizes Gwen Parsons."
"Thank you, Madam Ryan." The leader of the Expansion Party gave the speaker a polite nod—solely out of deference to her position. Kate Ryan is the leader of my party, and the EPs don't like the fact that we outnumber them three to two.
At the moment Parsons seemed pleased, as well she might. I had gone on this scouting trip as an observer, but my actions—or lack of them—could give the Expansionists the leverage they needed to take control of the government.
Parsons faced the Colonel and raised her voice. "Colonel, by your estimate the raiders took over fifty captives. What became of them?"
Washington's brown face remained inscrutable. "This was obviously a slaving raid. The only possible conclusion is that the villagers were taken to Weyler's territory."
"Why didn't you pursue the raiders?" Parsons demanded. The acid in her voice surprised me at first. Aside from being one of the Founders, and the man who helped defeat the Aliens, he's the head of our militia. The Expansionists favor the use of military force to extend our domain; Parsons couldn't want to offend the Colonel.
My surprise lasted perhaps two seconds. Parsons wasn't attacking Colonel Washington; she was after me—and the Structuralists, through me.
"I had several reasons for not giving pursuit." Washington said. "By my estimate, the raiders had a full day's start on us. By the time we could have caught up with them, they would have been deep within Weyler's territory. I had a force of eight scouts, one automatic rifleman, and a limited supply of ammunition. I would have faced forty raiders, in addition to probable reinforcements. A rescue attempt would have been suicide."
"But you might have freed those hostages." An approving murmur answered Parsons, and some of my fellow Structuralists nodded agreement. I couldn't hold that against them. I wasn't sure myself that restraint had been the right move.
"I considered that, ma'am," the Colonel said. "I also considered that a battle might have killed many of the people we wanted to save—and that the outlanders would rather kill slaves than free them. In addition, I have standing orders to remain in the Neutral Zone."
Parsons shifted her attack. "You had an observer on this patrol. Didn't Secretary Woodman have anything to say about your decision?"
"Ma'am, I didn't consult him. Civilian observers have no place in making tactical decisions."
"This particular civilian is also the Secretary of War," Parsons countered. "That also makes him your superior. Why didn't he countermand your orders?"
Ryan rapped her gavel on the bench. "Madam Parsons, that question is out of order."
Parsons looked at her. "May I address it to Mr. Woodman?"
"Yes." Ryan nodded for me to take Washington's place.
Before the Collapse, I'm sure, the podium would have had a hot, bright light focused on it. We don't have such luxuries, but I felt as hot and naked as if I'd been pinned under a spotlight. Parsons eyed me for a moment as I stood at the podium. "Mr. Woodman, why didn't you countermand the Colonel's orders?"
"I don't countermand common sense," I told her bluntly. "And I have no authority to order the colonel to leave the Neutral Zone. I'm not empowered to start wars; that's the Legislature's duty."
That gave the EP chief pause—briefly. "Perhaps. . . but Weyler has de facto started a war—and a raid, even if it failed, would have shown our determination to revive civilization. That's the goal of both our parties, no matter how much we disagree on techniques."
Ryan rapped her gavel again. "Please, madam, no speeches during questioning."
"My apologies, madam." Even at this distance I could see the sardonic touch to her smile. "My point is that the outlanders invaded the Neutral Zone and took slaves. So far all this government has done is to bury the dead. Mr. Woodman, what do you propose to do?"
She had me—and the Speaker, and the whole Structuralist Party—neatly trapped with that question. "As Secretary of War, I'll follow the government's decisions. As a legislator and citizen, I favor any solution which will stop the raids—without endangering the Republic."
"Ah, yes." Parson's voice was just this side of a sneer. "I have no further questions, Madam Ryan—but I would like to make a motion." The other legislators sat down at once. The EPs sat to let their boss make her motion; our people sat because there was no point in stalling—and perhaps because a good many of them agreed with what was coming.
Parsons looked around the Forum, spoke in formal tones. "Madam Speaker, fellow legislators. In view of the Weyler raid, I move that we vote to declare war on Weyler, depose him and annex his lands."
Ryan sighed, a sound I could barely hear from where I stood. "Are there any objections?" she asked, and then waited through a stony silence. "Very well, the motion carries. We will vote after debate tomorrow. This body is dissolved for twenty-four hours."
That gave me one day to stop a war.
I drink at the Crushed Alien for two reasons: the view and the food.
The inn has a dining terrace which overlooks my home district. Zone Twenty-nine isn't much to see, by day or night, but I'm fond of it. The main attraction is the chemical plant, which produces everything from fertilizer through medicine and gasoline to gunpowder . . . all in inadequate amounts, I'll concede; but the output grows every year. Right now it produces enough to help support a nation of two million people, in a section of land that used to be Illinois.
The food? It's nothing fancy, which is a virtue. A lot of tavern cooks like to improvise pre-Collapse dishes, especially things that remind us oldsters of fast foods and other lost delights. That's not for me, thank you; I lost too much in the Collapse to dredge up old memories. A tavern is also a good place for a politician to do business. An office intimidates some people, especially when they have to face you across a desk. Shooting the breeze over stew and ale is another matter, as long as you remember that nothing you hear is trivial—not to the voter who's saying it.
Pete Bodo, a farmer on the western edge of my zone, was bending my ear. "I don't care about this war talk," he said. "Either Weyler throws in the towel, or we stomp him. Either way, it's all going to happen a couple hundred miles from here. Besides, I have other problems." Collapse or no Collapse, midwesterners are isolationists at heart. I gave him an encouraging nod. "It's not the water pumps again, is it?"
"Naw. You really got engineering straightened out on that." He set his mug down on the table. "Someone in my neck of the woods is shooting cats. I lost two of my best ratters this past month."
"I see." Rats don't just eat crops, although farmers like Bodo have had granaries ruined by them. The bubonic plague which decimated the East Coast after the Collapse was spread by rats, and no one forgets that. Cats are our first line of defense against rats. "Do you suspect anyone?"
"Naw. All I know is, it's someone with a .410 shotgun." He pulled a brass casing from a pocket and gave it to me. "Found this on the road, fifty yards from one of my dead ratters."
I looked at the shell, and wished that we could afford the luxury of a police department and detectives. We were lucky to have as little crime as we did—or perhaps it wasn't luck. I'd read somewhere that vigorous, pioneering cultures have little crime. "A small gauge like this can't be too common," I said. "Maybe I can find out who bought it."
"Good. Well, I thank you, Tad." We shook hands and he left.
I doubt it occurred to Bodo that finding his cat-killer would take a lot of my time. He was a dawn-to-dusk, light-of-the-moon farmer, the sort who thinks that no other farmer works half as hard as he does, and that all non-farmers are idle hands. Well, this would give me an excuse to nose around my zone and see how things stood.
I was almost finished eating when Gwen Parsons joined me. "Hello, Mr. Secretary," she said, seating herself.
"Mulch that, Gwen," I said. I suppose her formality was a way of apologizing for the debate, as if I might have taken it personally. Well, I might have, but I couldn't afford that. If I could convince her that a war was a bad idea, I'd gladly forget it. "What brings you out here?"
"You, of course." Gwen has the sort of face and voice that make everything she says sound deadly serious. "You know how the vote will go tomorrow, of course."
I nodded. "I'm still willing to act as though you might win anyway."
She acknowledged the hit with a crooked smile. "Tad, in the unlikely chance that we win, would you consider staying on as our Secretary of War?"
I decided not to fence with her. "You don't have your own choice lined up?"
"I do," Gwen said. "But there are two good reasons to keep you. One, we traditionally have a coalition government during a war. Two, it always takes a month for a new appointee to learn the ropes. We're not going to wait a month to attack."
"Ah." Passions can cool in a month. She'd want to attack Weyler while everyone was fired up over the raid.
" 'Ah,' nothing, Tad," she said. "We have guns, poison gas, cannon, even aircraft. Weyler has bows and arrows, and so forth. Yet he's just provoked us. He expects a war with us—and no one starts a war with the idea that they're going to lose."
"He can't win."
"You're certain?"
I stared at the horizon for a long while. The sun had just set, and a few electric lights came on here and there: at the chemical plant, along the Main Concourse, atop the towers of the radio station. Most of the lights were decoration, but they helped show off our accomplishments.
"He can't win," I repeated. "We have the technology, the numbers, the organization—and the will. If we fight, we can grind his kingdom into a pulp."
Gwen rested her hands on the terrace table. "But you don't want to fight."
"It's wasteful. Expensive. It takes as many work hours to build a cannon as it does to make a tractor. A soldier can't spend his time teaching or smelting iron. We're trying to rebuild civilization; every resource we divert from that delays the job."
"So you want to toe the Structuralist line." She tilted her head back and looked at the sky. " 'Make war only in self defense; let the barbarians join us when they see the virtues of civilization.' "
I nodded. "Coercion doesn't work—the victims always resent it. The Republic is expanding nicely as it is. In a few more years, Weyler's people will be with us."
"Yes—after a few years of living with slavery, superstition, and Weyler's version of monarchy. What sort of citizens will they be then? If we don't act fast . . ." Her voice trailed off. She craned her head and looked straight up. "Aw, nuts."
I looked and saw it, right on the zenith: the feathery shape of a fusion flame, drifting across Earth's sky like a lazy comet. The Alien ship itself was a silver pinpoint at the head of the drive flame.
After a quarter of a century the Aliens had returned.
I'd known that the Aliens were real when the tabloid papers all declared they were a CIA-created hoax.
Marcia, my first wife, had been beside herself ever since the Alien drive flame was spotted decelerating into the Solar System. Now that I was convinced, she could stop quibbling over a trivial point and get down to some serious arguing. It was going to be the biggest event in our history, she said; even if the visitors forced us to take some strong medicine, they would do it with benevolence and in our best interests.
After a while I'd come to enjoy her optimism. As the UFO neared Earth, the news and entertainment media filled with gloom and uncertainty. Along with were some idiotic speculation on invasion and conquest from space, there was a lot of conjecture about possible dangers to our culture. In the space of two months I heard about every primitive culture which ever collapsed in the face of a superior civilization.
After all the media hype, Scented Vines arrival in Earth orbit was almost an anticlimax. There'd been an accident on board, they informed us, and they'd stopped here to make repairs. Scented Vine was a cargo ship, going from one unimportant star to another. It had been a long, rough trip, and the Aliens (they never told us what they called themselves) wanted to take shore leave.
We believed them. It was disappointing to know that our first contact was brought on by a leaky fuel line, but there was no helping that. Shore leave wasn't the scientific, diplomatic, and cultural exchange everyone had envisioned, but it was better than nothing. Like South Sea islanders greeting a Yankee whaler, we welcomed them to our shores.
After a month I noticed that things were—not different, perhaps, but certainly not right. The Aliens were all over the TV, naturally, doing and saying colorful things. We weren't learning much about them, but they were learning a lot about us, especially our faults and foibles. They never had any suggestions on how to improve ourselves—they would never dream of upsetting the development of aboriginal cultures, they said—but they made plenty of disparaging comments, in the form of innocent questions. Had we ever thought about what would happen if we used those nuclear weapons we had developed? Our cults intrigued them, but why did we allow our shamans and priests to participate in serious political decisions?
The questions were not new, but hearing them from outsiders gave them a weight they had never had before. Our answers were neither new nor good, and they did not impress the Aliens, who made it clear that even by primitive standards we were fairly inept. The media echoed and amplified their remarks, until it seemed everyone was wondering if humanity was good for anything at all.
There were other things, worse things. One of Scented Vines's crew, the doctor, had agreed to spend an afternoon with a team from the World Health Organization. It broke the appointment when, on the way into New York, it spotted an astrologer's shop. While the WHO scientists cooled their heels the Alien had its horoscope cast. The networks gave the proceedings full coverage, and interviewed a variety of soothsayers on the technical problems of tailoring astrology to fit an Alien's birth. Someone with a pseudo-Gypsy name was blathering about planetary influences and the Zodiac when the Alien emerged from the shop. It announced its satisfaction with our sophisticated magic.
What happened next was news. A TV preacher came roaring out of the crowd, shouting about blasphemy and iniquity, vowing to smite the Beast. That was when we learned about the zapper. The preacher and a half-dozen sight-seers went down in convulsions, overcome by perfect bliss. One camera showed the televangelist's face as he dropped. For the first time in memory his fixed, money-making smile looked genuine. The next day he preached a brief, disjointed sermon on the Nirvana of the zapper.
It didn't take long for the chaser movement to begin. Within a month tens of thousands of people around the world were looking for the Aliens; when the creatures showed up the chasers would provoke the Aliens into zapping them. To the Aliens it was just another picturesque native activity, one they indulged without interest or sympathy.
More than American society was falling apart. Russia, Red China, Japan, Western Europe, India—no country could keep them out; they landed their shuttlecrafts where they pleased, and everywhere the Aliens turned up they created problems. Things became especially bad in the Soviet Union. Maybe the Soviets thought we were behind their troubles, or maybe they thought we had made a deal with the Aliens. All I know is that five months after the first Alien landing the President ordered a creeping mobilization of American forces. I was a reservist and I was called up, which took me away from home at the height of the Collapse.
I doubt that the full history of World War Three will ever be known. All I saw of it came one midnight in Kansas. I'd been in the Fort Riley Officers' Club, watching the "Tonight" show. The guest host began one of the stock routines, the one about the Native Chief and the Drunken Sailor, at which point I walked out. The audience knew who the characters symbolized, but I couldn't laugh with them. I went outside to smoke a cigarette.
The Soviets must have fired first. I saw the meteor trails of the warheads and rockets as they came in from the north, heading for our missile silos. SAC was on the ball that night, and I saw a pair of our MX missiles take off. Then warheads and missiles began exploding. Somewhere high over the Atlantic, Scented Vine was having target practice.
The next day the Aliens apologized for interfering with our tribal dispute, and explained that our fight would have endangered the Aliens among us. I don't know how many people heard their broadcast; things had become hectic, and panic evacuations and riots were running everywhere. The government's authority crumbled overnight. The close call with Armageddon had been bad enough, but the Aliens' casual intervention left the government looking ridiculous, like a naughty boy who'd just had his slingshot confiscated by his mommy. The federal government disintegrated within days. The Soviets held out for a full week before falling themselves. I suppose some governments survived a bit longer, until the growing chaos overwhelmed them.
I understood how those South Pacific natives felt, when their women became disease-ridden whores, and their men turned into alcoholics, and strange gods replaced their old faiths. Like them, we'd been helpless in the face of a superior culture. The fact that we'd seen it coming only made it worse.
For a while I thought that my wife and child were all right. After all, no A-bombs had gone off anywhere. Even when I heard about the widespread food riots, the raiders and vigilantes, I assumed that Marcia and our baby would pull through. It wasn't until my infantry unit disbanded and I went home that I learned otherwise. I don't want to remember that.
I saw the group of Aliens shortly after that, playing with a group of chasers. One of the Aliens had a zapper, while the others carried human rifles. They took turns, zapping and shooting their prey at random. The chasers didn't seem to care; their addiction was that powerful. I don't want to remember that, either.
I drifted for a while—and then I found the Colonel.
"I expect them to land near us," Colonel Washington said the next day. His voice, normally as flat as stale water, had an odd animation in it now. Eagerness for battle, perhaps, although I couldn't say. I've worked with the Colonel since before the foundation of the Republic, and I know next to nothing about him . . . aside from the fact that he gives the impression it is best to know nothing of him.
Gwen, the speaker, and I were the only ones in the room with him as the Colonel described the situation. "We have electric power, lights, and a radio service—and no reason to think that anyone else on Earth has our level of technology."
"We haven't picked up any radio signals," I agreed. Our radio service exists to serve the Republic's communication needs, but ever since it started, our techs have tried to contact other people out there. Being the only enclave of civilization in a darkening world is a lonely feeling. Hearing from other people would have been as welcome a morale boost as anything I can name.
"We can assume that the Aliens have already detected our signals," the Colonel said. "They must make an excellent beacon. Unless they land at random, they will want to investigate them. And us."
Speaker Ryan sighed. "In that case, we should plan for the worst. Colonel, can we repel an Alien landing?"
"I see no choice."
She looked impatient. "That doesn't answer my question."
The Colonel shrugged. "I have no idea of how this Alien ship is armed, or why it is here. The Scented Vine was a cargo ship; its crew carried only light hand weapons. We had no defense against them."
"We had you, Colonel," I said.
I wondered what the look on his face meant. "I believe my final assault surprised the Aliens. I cannot know. The worst case I can imagine is that this ship is a punitive expedition, here to punish us for fighting Scented Vine's crew. They could be heavily armed."
"In which case, we fight," the Speaker said. "You're correct, Colonel, we have no choice about that. The question is, what will we do if they show up and don't attack? That could be just as dangerous."
"No!" Gwen smacked a hand on the conference table. "This isn't 1997. We won't collapse the way the old world did when those monsters showed up—we can't. Madam Speaker, if they attack, we fight. If they decide to play tourist again, we tell them to screw themselves."
" 'Indulge in self-impregnation,' " the Colonel said. "Their translating machines didn't handle idioms very well."
"Whatever," Gwen said. "There's no danger of a repeat of 1997, so we've no cause to worry about it. The war with Weyler is our real problem. Now—"
A courier interrupted her. The young man came in, gave the Speaker a note and left. "Weyler's shown up at Coalville," she said.
I felt alarmed; Coalville supplies most of our energy. Gwen looked equally alarmed; if Weyler's men had done any serious damage there, then we had just lost more than a war. "What's the situation?" Washington asked.
"They came under a white flag," Ryan said. "Weyler, a small bodyguard, and some of his flunkies. He'll be here in a couple of days. He wants to negotiate a settlement."
"He can negotiate an unconditional surrender," Gwen said promptly.
"He won't do that," Washington said.
Gwen shrugged. "Then let's shoot the bastard, and let his successor surrender. Madam Speaker—"
"Cut it out, Gwen."
"Kate, we cannot afford to negotiate with Weyler." She jabbed the tabletop with a finger. "It's exactly what he wants: to be seen dealing with us as an equal. That'll give him a lot of prestige with the other warlords."
"We've negotiated with his kind before," I said.
"But we've always called the shots," Gwen said. "We've forced them to negotiate, and to give up everything we wanted. We've always used 'peace talks' to emphasize our supremacy. Let's not forget that."
"No one has forgotten," Washington said.
"Good." Gwen looked at him. "Colonel, what's the best course of action?"
Don't ask me what he thought before he answered. "The best course of action is for me to follow the orders I receive. If—"
The last time any of us had heard that noise had been when the last Alien shuttlecraft had lifted from Earth. It was a low, insistent throb, and it made the windowpanes vibrate. It got louder for a moment, then cut off abruptly.
Kate Ryan got up and looked out the window. "There's a force-field dome on top of Signal Hill."
Gwen joined her at the window. She spoke with the aplomb that had placed her in charge of the Expansionist Party. "Ah. So there is. Now, what are we going to do about Weyler?" That "we" wasn't presumption on Gwen's part; "we" were now a de facto coalition government.
Ryan turned away from the window. "We'll wait for Weyler to arrive. That will give us time to plan." She sighed. "I hope."
"We don't need time to plan," Gwen said. "We already know what to do."
I was at home, having breakfast, when Weyler's entourage arrived. I thanked the courier who brought me the note, closed the door and went back to the table. "Is it bad news?" Janie asked.
"Weyler's here." I put the note away and went back to eating.
"There's nothing about them?" Michael asked.
"No, the Aliens are still inside their bubble. Pass the salt?"
"Does anyone know when they'll come out?" Janie asked. "There's a lot of uncertainty, Tad. The Exchange was a madhouse yesterday. Wheat and corn prices have gone up twenty percent since they landed."
"The Aliens haven't announced any plans," I told her. After twenty-two years, I've learned not to soft-soap my wife. She can pin me down with the same ruthless ease she uses on the trading floor. "Colonel Washington has brought in two platoons to watch them, but they're going to give Weyler's tribe most of their attention."
She nodded. "Is the Colonel staying in town?"
"For the duration, sweets."
"Can he handle the Aliens?"
"Ma, he's the Colonel." Like most teenage boys, our youngest child has a tendency toward hero-worship. "Of course he can take them again!"
"Right." I finished my apple juice and got up. "I should get down to the Concourse now."
Signal Hill is the highest hill in the Capital City region. Back in the early days, you could see the entire Republic from its peak, so we mounted some heliographs up there and used it to flash messages everywhere. Now that damned Alien bubble was sending its own message to everyone within sight.
That sight depressed me as much as the uncertainty. Had they come back to finish the job the Scented Vine had begun? Back in 1997 the Aliens had destroyed Terran civilization with the deftness of a karate expert splitting a log. For all anyone knew, they derived artistic satisfaction from wrecking alien cultures. There was no telling what to expect.
The uncertainty was a killer for me. I'd lost everything in the Collapse, and so had Janie. Only the birth of the Republic, and the plans to restore civilization, had given us the confidence to start new lives. Things could never be the same, but we believed they would get better again.
Now it was 2024, we had our first grandchild, and what in hell could we expect next?
I was halfway to the Concourse when I saw Washington. I hurried to catch up with him; he has a quick, marching walk which discourages company. "I've arranged a campground for the savages on the north slope of Signal Hill," he told me. "If they make trouble, we can contain them with one platoon."
"And the Aliens?" I puffed.
"We now have three platoons nearby, plus a mortar team and four aircraft. That's all we can spare."
"How are things in the Neutral Zone?"
"Tense, Mr. Secretary. My scouts report that all of the local warlords are mobilizing. They expect the Aliens to destroy us and allow them to move in."
"Then they're in for a disappointment." Gwen Parsons joined us. "Colonel, could you slow down, please?"
"Certainly, ma'am." He slowed and I caught my breath.
"Thanks. We shouldn't let Weyler think we're in a hurry to see him."
A good point, that. "Are you ready to slit his throat?" I asked.
"That would backfire," the Colonel said. "Before Weyler left home, his shamans made a few convenient prophecies. If he dies here, even from natural causes, we'll take the blame."
"And he'll become a martyr?" Gwen sighed in resignation. "Oh, well."
The Colonel had given the savages a good place for a bivouac—good for us, that is. The ground was flat, with rises on all sides, and he had stationed a squad at each corner of a square. If the savages acted up, they'd die in the crossfire.
I had to wonder if Weyler wanted that. I'll never know if the man was insane or sincere, but he gave every sign of believing his paganisms. If he died here, he might become the kind of symbol that could unite the other outlanders against us in war. We could handle them one at a time, but not en masse.
The Colonel, Gwen, and I walked into Weyler's camp, under the eyes of our sentries. First and foremost, the camp stank. Sanitation was something Weyler's people had forgotten. They'd pitched a few lean-tos, to house their leader and his counselors. It looked like the dozen warriors who'd escorted them would sleep out in the open.
Outlanders. They were all male, of course. They wore uncured animal hides and warpaint, but the thing that got my attention was their necklaces. Each one was made of human finger bones, taken from killed enemies, supposedly as a magical way of retaining the enemy's strength.
Gwen seemed unmoved by that sight, or by the variety of knives, spears, and arrows the warriors carried. She glanced at all of them, then gave one a frankly female look that said you might not be too bad in the hay, if we got you cleaned up. Bless her for that; her look disconcerted them more than anything I could have said.
Weyler crawled out of his lean-to and approached us. I was surprised to see how old he was—about sixty, I'd say. Few outlanders live beyond their late twenties; even in the Republic, where we have plenty of food and some medicines, sixty years is quite an age—I should know; I'm pushing it myself. He looked ascetic rather than scrawny, with whipcord muscles under the tan and dirt. His eyes gleamed as he paused to look at the force field. No doubt their arrival was a new factor in his plans, but not one that would upset them.
He looked at us with contempt. "The weaklings of the New Renaissance. The people who would rebuild the old world and repeat its blunders. We have come to talk to your ruler."
"She's busy judging a beauty pageant," Gwen said. "You're a bit late to enter, but we can hold a spot for you and your chorus line in next year's contest."
The warriors shifted around uneasily. None of them looked old enough to remember chorus lines and beauty pageants, but they couldn't miss her mockery, and they weren't used to this treatment.
Only Weyler maintained any dignity. "We will wait. We have far more time than you." He turned and looked at the force field bubble. "The Dark Gods have numbered your days." He looked to Washington and spoke before Gwen could respond. "And is the beloved hero ready to fight them again?"
"I am," Washington said.
Weyler smiled cynically. "Will it matter to you if you win or lose? No, let it pass." Abruptly he returned to his lean-to.
We walked away, but I waited until we were out of earshot before speaking. "Were you trying to provoke him?" I asked Gwen.
"No," she said. "The absurdity got to me. Weyler's a grown man! He taught college before the Collapse. Now he talks like he believes that 'Dark Gods' granola, and he acts as if he has generations of tradition behind his noble-savage act."
"He might believe it," I said. "A lot of people cracked up during the Collapse."
"Fine. How are we supposed to negotiate with a lunatic?"
The Colonel chuckled. I'd always wondered what that would sound like, but the noise was much drier than I could have expected. "That was a common diplomatic problem even before the Collapse."
Gwen looked annoyed. "If he's really nuts, then that's all the more reason to blow him away—discreetly, of course. The sooner we free his 'tribe' from him, the better."
"We cannot simply liberate his people," the Colonel said, as we walked into his company base—a fancy name for a brace of tents, I'll admit. "If we try to bring them into the Republic, they will not cooperate."
"Colonel, they're savages," Gwen said. "Look at Weyler's men. If we gave them half a chance, they'd join us in half a second."
Washington shook his head. "My agents have tried to get them to defect. It hasn't worked because they're no longer 'nothing but savages.' Weyler has very carefully, and very thoroughly, indoctrinated his people with a new set of beliefs."
Gwen made a noise of disgust. "They believe that simpleminded trash about Dark Gods and magic?"
"They do," Washington said. "The mind that thought it up is anything but simple. He, Weyler, has created a mythology in which science is magic—a very weak magic. The Dark Gods destroyed the old civilization by appearing in the guise of a super-scientific race from the stars, and destroying us with stronger magic."
I shook my head. I didn't doubt the Colonel—understanding the outlanders was a big part of his job—but that was hard to swallow. "Colonel, a lot of Weyler's people were born long before the Collapse. How can they swallow that mulch? They know what science is."
"Do they know?" he asked. "Did they ever know?"
Another good point. Hell, even before the Collapse a lot of people thought of science as a kind of magic. I had no cause to act surprised if Weyler's savages were more open about it.
"There is another point," Washington said. "Weyler uses ritual to condition his people into the viewpoint of savages. He encourages slavery and vendettas to counteract the ideals of civilization. Human sacrifice is a prime example—when a victim is killed, the participants must either feel guilt over a murder, or see the act as a legitimate, even moral deed."
"So to live with their consciences, they have to become savages," I said. Gwen made a small noise; she shared my disgust.
"Indeed." Looking oddly unsettled, the Colonel excused himself and went into his tent. Gwen and I left the camp, heading back to the Concourse. "You met the Colonel in '97," Gwen said. "How well do you know him?"
"How well does anyone know him?" I asked. "He went to West Point, and he fought in Central America for a year—he was wounded and spent some time in Walter Reed. He's one of the Founders. Beyond that, I don't even know his first name. He keeps to himself. Why do you ask?"
"Remember what Weyler said back there? About whether it would matter if the Colonel won or lost to the Aliens? What in hell did that mean?"
"You've got me," I said. "I suppose he was just trying to confuse the issue." Gwen nodded ruefully, said goodbye and went her own way.
I'm a better politician than she is; she hadn't realized I was lying. I know Washington a little better than anyone else; I know his secret. An Alien zapped him during the Battle of Chicago.
The Battle, in which we threw the Aliens back into space, was as lopsided as the devil. On our side, we had a scratch regiment from the Eighty-second Airborne Division, supported by National Guard tanks and artillery, and reservists such as myself. The Aliens had their landing craft, their force-shield and anti-meteor weapon— and one zapper.
The force field deflected most of our small-weapons fire, while the meteor ray vaporized our bombs and shells as they came in. The shield had effectively unlimited power, and once we ran out of bombs and shells, our soldiers had to go in on foot, pitting M-16s against a zapper. No wonder most of them mutinied.
The zapper is a gentle weapon, which works by stimulating the pleasure center of a brain—any brain, Alien, human, or animal. On the one hand, as one of the Aliens explained, their race considered it barbaric to kill or injure other life-forms, no matter how primitive. On the other hand, a blast of pure pleasure can immobilize an attacker as effectively as death; no one can function during the ultimate orgasm. On the other hand (the Aliens have three), they had no idea that humans could become addicted to the zapper.
Everyone learned about that quickly. The zapper left its victims unconscious, to awake with the memory of ecstasy corroding their souls. All that the victims could think about was repeating the experience. Most chasers died of thirst, because drinking water distracted them from the pursuit of the Aliens.
The Colonel wasn't immune to its effects. At the climax of the Battle I saw him walk toward the Alien lander, when everyone else was either running or hiding. I was hiding behind a pile of concrete, and hoping that the zapper couldn't work through it. It was all I could do to peek over the rubble, and see the Colonel fall in convulsions as he was zapped.
I saw him get up and stagger toward the Alien with the zapper. I know he was hit again; I heard the zapper's burring noise, and I felt the pleasant sensation of its backlash. Before the monster could fire a third time, he was on top of it. The Colonel grabbed the Alien and slammed it against the pavement, killing it and wrecking the zapper. We'll never know how the other Aliens felt about that; they bugged out then. We saw Scented Vine's drive flame pushing it out of Earth orbit that night.
Maybe Washington's ability to withstand the zapper isn't surprising. His will power is fierce; he held his unit together throughout the Collapse. Lesser men did the same thing, and went on to become petty warlords; the Colonel turned his force into a servant of the Republic and civilization.
Did the experience change the Colonel? I couldn't say. Even before the Battle I had found this mythic-warrior reserve impenetrable. One thing was certain: I couldn't mention any of this to Gwen. Aside from being an intolerable breach of the Colonel's privacy, it would demoralize her, and everyone else, to learn that our national hero was a victim of the zapper.
It didn't do anything for my morale to know that—or to realize that Weyler knew it.
The Aliens came out of their lander that afternoon. They wore suits identical to those of Scented Vine's crew. The garments were said to be puncture-proof, which would prevent the spread of any micro-organisms in either direction. They had a mirror-like anti-laser coating that made it difficult to look at them. Three of them stood inside the haze of the force field, while one moved downhill toward the Concourse and the Forum. Soldiers and outlanders watched it silently, while the Colonel, Gwen, and I went out to speak to it.
I was there more through curiosity than necessity. The Colonel could assess their military potentials better than I could, and the only real plan the government had was to stall for time. Still, I was interested in the things.
Come, let us be honest. I wanted to see how Colonel Washington reacted. If he was hooked on the zapper, I wanted to know now.
The Alien recognized us as a delegation. It stopped in front of us and touched its translator plate. "I wish to visit your leader." The machine sounded as emotionless as the Colonel.
"She's taking the day off," Gwen said.
"My business with her is most urgent."
Gwen shrugged. "If she thought she had urgent business with you, she'd have shown up for work today."
"I wish to discuss the affair of the Scented Vine. I am convinced your leader finds this important."
I glanced at the Colonel. His face looked as blank as the Alien's gold visor. He'd noticed the zapper in its holster, along with other devices on the Alien's waistband, but it didn't hold his attention. At least, that's the way it seemed to me.
"Our leader has other things on her mind," Gwen said. "If you want to make an appointment, I think she can work you into her schedule sometime next week."
There was a long pause, and I wondered what was going on inside that helmet. "I will agree to an appointment," the Alien said at last.
"Fine. Speaker Ryan will see you Monday at noon."
"That is acceptable." The Alien spun around and went back to its lander. It walked gracefully, I'll admit; the three legs and three arms moved with a dancelike rhythm.
"Interesting," the Colonel said, as we walked back downhill. "It seemed almost desperate to see the Speaker."
" 'Almost,' nothing," I said. "I'd say it was desperate. Not to mention diplomatic."
"It wasn't diplomatic," Gwen said. "Patient, maybe. Stinking Weed's crew never accepted any sort of a delay, remember? That thing tolerated an unavoidable delay, nothing more. I wonder why?"
"It is not here to help us," Washington said. "If it was here to help undo the damage of their last visit, it would have said so."
"So they want something from us," I concluded. As conclusions went, that stank. What did we have that could interest the Aliens? Judging by the looks on their faces, Gwen and the Colonel were as much in the dark as I was.
"I see that the Dark God confounded you," Weyler said. He'd crept up behind us, as quiet as a cat but less welcome.
"Not at all," Gwen said. "It just made an appointment to see Speaker Ryan next week. You should do the same thing, Weyler, although I doubt she'll invite you to lunch."
His eyes glinted angrily. "So it confounded you after all."
"It almost sold us the Brooklyn Bridge," Gwen said cheerfully. "Weyler, why don't you walk up to one of those ugly bastards and tell it about your 'Dark Gods' silliness? Or get some of your clowns to pray to them—up close, where they can smell you?"
"The Dark Gods are not mocked!" he said, and stalked away.
Washington's eyes followed him. "I'd better speak to my men," he said. "They have orders to watch him at all times."
"Don't be too hard on them," Gwen said. "Weyler lives like an animal. He knows how to slither around."
"And my men are supposed to know how to follow him." The Colonel left.
I looked Gwen over as we walked down the Concourse. "Gwen, have you got something personal against Weyler?"
"You mean, why am I acting this way?" She shook her head. "Tad, I lost my husband and children to raiders. Maybe I wouldn't hate Weyler so much if he was just a savage, but he's deliberately working to tear apart what's left of civilization. He's no better than the Aliens."
"Is that any reason to bait him?" I asked. "Or them? If you can't be hypocritical enough—"
"I could," she said, and frowned thoughtfully. "But I won't. Treating them seriously is a mistake; it gives them credibility. I think we would have been all right if we'd laughed at those walking milk stools in '97. Don't ask me why we didn't. Well, we both have work waiting for us. Catch you later."
She left me alone with my thoughts. Gwen might provoke either the Aliens or Weyler into doing something dangerous, but politically she was making the right move. If the Republic survived both the Aliens and Weyler's plans, she'd come up smelling like a rose. If we collapsed, well, nothing would matter any more.
I went back to my office. Between Zone Twenty-nine and my War Department work, I had plenty to do. Mobilization was on my mind; if we were going to have a war, I wanted it done as efficiently as possible. There were reports of more incidents in the Neutral Zone; bands of raiders were probing everywhere, no doubt at Weyler's behest. They couldn't hurt us, but they tied down a considerable fraction of the Army.
One thing became obvious: mobilization was going to delay the Mesabi project. For the past twenty-seven years, all of our metals have come from salvage. Old cars, old plumbing, old wiring—there was plenty of scrap left after the Collapse, and so far it had met our needs. However, our industry was growing exponentially now, and we needed other sources. That meant reopening the iron mines in the Mesabi ranges, in upper Minnesota. Almost worked out in the last century, they still held enough ore to last us for decades.
That project was going on hold, I decided. The Mesabis were way outside our territory, and the expedition would have required at least a battalion of infantry for proper security—two battalions, once full-scale mining got under way. The Republic had a toehold on Lake Michigan, so we could reach the Mesabis without going overland, but the people up there were hostile to outsiders. We'd lost half our scouts to them.
We couldn't spare any soldiers now, which was a blow to our overall reconstruction plans. There would be repercussions; industry would suffer, employment would drop, farm outputs would decrease—hell. We'd muddle through, the way we always have, but I wouldn't like it.
You can understand why I was in a bad mood when the Alien waltzed into my office. My secretary was out to lunch, so the first warning I had came when I heard the thing's splayed feet tapping on the floor. It wasn't the one I'd met on the Concourse; the tool belt was different, and the zapper was bolstered differently. "Have a seat," I said maliciously. "I'll be with you in a moment."
"Misunderstanding," its translator said. "Anatomy is not compatible with human seating. Regrets at declining implied hospitality. Name, Dzhaz."
"Name, Woodman." Odd. No Alien had ever given its name to a mere human before. While it stood in front of my desk, I picked up a letter and started reading it. The note came from Pete Bodo, who told me that he'd found his cat-killer. A twelve-year-old boy on a neighboring farm was now supplying Bodo with a month of free labor. He thanked me for talking to the salesman who recalled selling the shotgun shells to one of his neighbors. Case closed.
I put the letter down and stared at my visitor. I had the feeling that the thing was uncomfortable. Perhaps I was just projecting human body language onto the Alien, but it kept shifting around in an interminable string of small movements. Fidgeting? Perhaps. "Now, what can I do for you?"
"Assignment, to observe routine of perceived leader or semi-leader. Correct status, request made with ritual polite-words?"
I think it was trying to say "please," certainly another first for an Alien. "I'm a member of the Legislature," I said. "I share the leadership with a large number of people."
" 'Legislature,' " Dzhaz repeated, as if taking a note. "Implies democratic or republican governing system. Permission, observe daily routine?"
"Why not?" I said. A soldier appeared in the door behind it, and I made a quick, casual gesture: everything's fine. I hoped it was. If that Alien really was nervous, it might reach for its zapper and cut loose.
It waited a moment before answering. Maybe the Aliens have trouble understanding that a question can be an answer. Finally Dzhaz touched the letter from Bodo. "Request, nature of document?"
"It's the conclusion of an important criminal matter," I said. "A farmer had two cats killed by a naughty child. I helped find the miscreant."
"This rates as important?"
I mulled that over. I'd meant to bamboozle the monster, but now that I thought of it— "Yes, I'd say so."
The Alien took one of the doohickeys from its belt and held it in front of its visor. "Statement of fact," Dzhaz said. "Statement of fact." I saw subdued lights race across part of the object, and I decided it was a lie detector.
Well, even Aliens have a right to be puzzled when a politician tells the truth. It dawned on me then that I was going to play everything straight with the monster. Scented Vine's crew had treated humanity like a bunch of savages—devious, shifty, untrustworthy. No doubt this thing had the same attitude, in which case a little candor might trip it up.
"Request, explanation of importance?"
"Well . . . aside from a cat's value as a ratter, there's the nature of the crime." I held up the letter, and a quick blip of light told me the Alien had recorded it. "A child enjoyed taking a gun and killing animals. Now he's being punished—"
"Request, brutalizing child is acceptable act?"
"Disciplining a child is acceptable," I said. "The boy might have decided that killing people is fun, too. Aside from paying for the damage he's done, he's also learning not to do things like that."
It fiddled with one of its instruments, a thing that looked like frozen quicksilver. "Request, importance of this to you?"
"I represent Bodo in the Legislature—" I stopped, feeling that didn't cover everything. "I represent society as well. The child wasn't fully responsible for his acts, so it was up to society—myself, Bodo, and the boy's family—to intervene."
"Request, explain why society must intervene?"
I wondered if it had a point to its questions. "No society can tolerate members who work against the society's best interests—"
"Request, attitude includes dissent?"
"Dissent is generally in society's interest," I said. That was a damned peculiar question; didn't the Alien understand the difference between dissent and disorder? "How reliable is your translator?"
Dzhaz touched its three hands together. "Uncertain. Use is made of records purchased from Scented Vine crew. Reliability perhaps not total, but adequate. Request, dissent is considered beneficial?"
"It's a good way of catching mistakes before they get out of control. Was that a serious question?" It sounded like something that might have been asked in the Kremlin, or the Nixon White House. I wouldn't have expected it from a star-traveler, no matter how non-human it was.
"All requests made for information,"
"That's what the Stinking Weed's crew told us," Gwen said, striding into my office. The look on her face was murderous.
The golden visor turned to her. "Name of earlier ship, Scented Vine."
"A rose by any other name," Gwen said, seating herself. "What in hell do you want here, monster?"
"Information, related to social degeneration, this planet."
"What's it to you?" she asked coolly.
"We are academicians. Topic of social collapse rates primary attention in many portions of culture. Hence, information sought."
"Why?" Gwen's face darkened. "So you can write a thesis? Title, How it Feels to Have Bug-Eyed Monsters Bugger Your World?"
I made a quick gesture, motioning for silence. The Alien's fidgeting had increased, and now I was certain it was a case of nerves. Gwen's hostility was plain, and I didn't doubt that the Alien's instruments could interpret human emotions for the creature. It might run amok with its zapper—or just stop talking. In either case, I wouldn't learn why it was here. "You didn't come all this way just to learn why we fell."
"Incorrect. As stated, object is to study social collapse."
"You're too late to study anything," Gwen told Dzhaz. "The damage was done before the Stinking Weed left. They could give you the whole story."
"Incorrect. They could only describe their activities. Self-evident that they could not describe pre-arrival or post-departure events. Scented Vine crew merely—" The translator chopped off suddenly. I heard a faint grinding noise from inside its helmet. Alien speech? Probably it was talking to its friends. "I will now return to shuttlecraft."
Gwen shut the door behind it after it left. "Did you learn anything, Tad?"
"I'm sure I did." The Alien's interests were real headscratchers. "They're interested in more than the Collapse. That one wanted to watch me at work—"
"And you let it?"
"Was I supposed to stop it?" I asked her. "Gwen, we're not in the Forum now, so quit campaigning. I talked to it about Bodo's cats. It asked me some questions—basic, simple ones."
"That has a familiar ring," Gwen said.
I nodded. The questions asked by Scented Vine's crew had helped spark the Collapse. There'd been a bored, arrogant indifference to their questions then, when they asked us why we used such primitive technology, or why our behavior was so barbaric. Such things, spread over international TV and radio, did little for the human race's pride. And yet—
"There was something different here," I told Gwen. "This one acted as if it was trying to get to the bottom of something. I think my answers puzzled it."
She didn't look pleased. "It may be trying a new approach to destroying us. Tad, I've always felt that Scented Vine trashed us on purpose, to destroy potential rivals to their species. These monsters must be here to check up on the job, and to tidy up loose ends."
"Such as the Republic." I caught myself drumming my fingers on my desk, something I do when I've got a tough problem on my mind. Gwen's theory fit the facts, but only if we were wrong about certain things. The Aliens could blast us back to the Stone Age, using their anti-meteor beam to destroy a few critical facilities. Despite their claims, Scented Vine's crew had had no compunctions about killing. Certainly the Collapse had led to some five billion deaths over the past quarter century, as most of Earth sank back to the subsistence level, and certainly the Collapse was their doing. The blood was on their hands. Given that, why would our current visitors destroy us the hard way? The facts just didn't jibe.
There was a polite knock at the door, and Washington entered. "You wanted to see me now, Mr. Secretary," he said, standing at parade-rest.
"Yes, I wanted to go over the new mobilization plans." I nodded at the window, in the general direction of Signal Hill. "We're still following Plan Seven, but we never laid any contingency plans for this. How much more time will you need to prepare?"
"One week," he said. "The forces watching Weyler and the Aliens are our 'fire brigade'—our emergency reserve," he explained to Gwen. "It will take a week to mobilize their replacements."
"We can afford that week," Gwen said, "How long do you think we'll need to defeat Weyler?"
"I don't think it's possible," he said, a statement that left Gwen looking as surprised as I felt. "The situation has changed."
"Because of the Aliens?" I asked.
"No, sir, the change preceded their arrival." He looked to Gwen. "Ma'am, I said that Weyler has indoctrinated his people."
"What's that got to do with anything?" she said. "They may believe his mumbo-jumbo now, but once we toss him out and send in our educators—"
"The same things were said about Vietnam and Nicaragua," Washington said. "The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the situation here is similar. Weyler has given his people a set of beliefs which explains the world; part of the explanation is that the Republic is a source of evil. An invasion will reinforce this belief."
"We'd defeat ourselves," I said. "Is that your point?"
"Not if our attack was impressive enough," Gwen said doggedly.
"Weyler knows enough to engage us in a guerrilla war," the Colonel said. "I fought in one for a year, in Nicaragua. Even against Stone Age weapons, we would take heavy casualties." He paused, and I got the impression that he was debating something with himself. "We would end up killing many of the people we wish to help."
Gwen looked somber. "That's always the case, Colonel," she said. "We're out to help all of them, even the ones who fight us. It's a choice between prolonged savagery and brief bloodshed—"
"Unending bloodshed is now on the list," he said, surprising me. I've never known him to interrupt anyone. "In Nicaragua, we found ourselves battling a large part of the population. We never knew who was on our side and who was not. I rose from second lieutenant to colonel because the guerrillas concentrated on the officers—and many of them found it impossible to stay alert at every moment."
"But you survived," Gwen argued, "And with your experience, you could avoid the mistakes made down there—"
"My experience," the Colonel said. "For the most part, I learned how to avoid combat. Everyone who wanted to survive did that. It held down casualties, but it was no way to win a war. As for the action I did see . . ." His voice trailed off and an introspective look showed on his face.
He started speaking again, as impassively as ever. "On my last day in Nicaragua, I was in a troop truck with a dozen other men, on the way to the airport. The communists hated the idea of any Americans leaving their country alive, so they made a last-minute attack on us. When the truck stopped at an intersection, a guerrilla ran up behind us with a grenade—"
"Please stop," Gwen said suddenly.
The Colonel ignored her. "I estimate he was ten years old. No doubt one of his parents gave him the grenade. That was common, because a large part of the population had been indoctrinated to fight at all costs. A military victory would have required genocide, you see, which would have been counterproductive."
"So that's when you were wounded," I said inanely.
"I was not wounded. I shot the guerrilla before he could throw the grenade. A medical officer learned about the incident when I returned stateside, and I was subjected to a psychiatric examination. I was confined to the psychiatric wing of Walter Reed for observation." His voice remained as matter-of-fact as ever. "It was the military's opinion that the things I did to survive were insane, even though I was following orders."
Gwen looked rattled. "But—but they decided you were all right eventually—"
"No, ma'am, I went AWOL from the hospital. I always felt my confinement was a mistake, being a decision made by people who had never been in combat and refused to understand the situation."
I felt my skin crawling. "So when you rejoined the Army—"
"The Collapse was well under way, Mr. Secretary. I knew no one could check on me, and there was a need for my skills." He checked his old wind-up watch. "I should return to my headquarters now."
"Okay." I nodded weakly and he left. My head was buzzing. This explained so much about the man, I thought. Small wonder that he had isolated himself from people. I couldn't imagine how he endured the loneliness that required.
"No wonder he keeps to himself," Gwen said quietly. "He couldn't afford to have anyone learn that—and neither can we."
"Is that all you can think about?" I asked. Granted, it would devastate everyone to learn that our national hero was a ruthless killer and an escaped lunatic, but the Colonel hadn't been speaking merely to unburden what was left of his conscience. "He was warning us not to start this war."
"I know. I just don't want to think about that right now." Gwen was slumping wearily in her chair, and for the first time I realized that she had as many gray hairs as I do. "It's times like this that I can't see why I went into politics."
"You and me both." I forced myself to consider our alternatives to the war. Attack was out, not if it would embroil us in a war we couldn't win . . . and produce more casualties like Washington. The hell of it was that we couldn't back down, which would demoralize our own people while encouraging more outlander attacks. Merely defending our borders wasn't enough, either. With our limited resources, it was either expand or die.
Facing our lack of options, it took me a moment to notice an odd rhythmic sound floating through my office window. The Aliens? I wondered, getting up. I couldn't see anything odd atop Signal Hill. The force field looked steady.
Gwen had noticed it, too. "That sounds like chanting," she said. "We'd better see if Weyler's up to something."
He was. We went down to the Concourse, where Weyler and half his men had arrayed themselves. Weyler himself sat cross-legged on the grass beside the boulevard, while his men formed a semicircle on the asphalt. They were chanting ottar-idle, hai! ottar-idle, hai!, over and over at the top of their lungs, while shuffling their feet in an odd step, left, left, right, and swinging their spears in the air. Several of our soldiers were watching them, baffled by the sight, while a crowd of spectators gathered. And then I saw the Alien.
Dzhaz had been on its way back to the shuttlecraft when the savages had blocked its path. Don't ask me why the beast didn't go around them. All I can think of is that it stopped to observe another quaint native activity, and then found itself surrounded by a horde of humans, cutting it off from its friends.
As I approached Dzhaz I knew it was scared. Nothing we or the savages had could cut its suit, but the shiny garment wouldn't protect it from impacts or crushing. I wanted to defuse the situation before its nerve broke and it reached for its zapper.
The Colonel must have had the same idea. I saw him push through the crowd, approaching the monster from its other side. I was slightly ahead of him, and I got to the Alien while he was forcing his way between two spear carriers. Then Weyler shrieked out something and his men lunged with their spears.
The Alien went for its zapper and my mind went into overdrive. Hundreds of people had gathered here. A few indiscriminate shots would turn many of them into chasers. Old as I am, I was on top of the monster before it could take aim.
The first thing I remember is something sharp digging into my ribs as we fell over. I had landed on top of Dzhaz, and something on its tool belt was poking my side. It bucked and tried to heave me aside as I clutched its arm and with both hands, trying to break its grip on the zapper.
I heard a frantic chittering inside its helmet, untranslated but a cry for help. A fainter scrabbling answered it, and I knew what it was saying. The evil eye! Show the savage your face! A silvery hand appeared and pushed the visor back.
It almost worked. I'd seen Alien faces before, but never like this, never as a writhing mass inside a clear plastic bubble. We rolled over and the Alien was on top of me, but I kept my grip. I could tell it wasn't as strong as a human; the arm inside the suit felt thin, almost skeletal. I held on with one hand and reached for the zapper with the other.
Two other hands clawed at mine. Without thinking I pulled one away. I saw the third one take the zapper. I had enough time to yell in horror as it took aim at me. A wave of pleasure roared through me, and I gloried in it even as it threw me into a convulsion. It faded, and in a last moment of sanity I knew the zapper had sunk its hooks in my soul. Then there was darkness and nightmares.
The Alien scientists wanted a new tool to destroy other worlds. They'd decided to improve the zapper, and they'd drafted me to help them. They had me trapped in the back of an old Army truck, and every so often they zapped me. They kept changing the settings on the weapon, so that it stimulated a different part of my brain. At each trial I felt loss, agony, misery, and painful new emotions that I hope will never earn names. I woke up with the sour taste of vomit in my mouth. I was in my bed at home, naked under the blanket. I had a dim memory of my sphincters letting go, and another memory of Janie bathing me. I felt light-headed as I sat up.
"He's awake!" Janie came into the room and stopped just inside the door. "Tad? Are you all right?"
I croaked out something that sounded like yes. There was a pitcher of water on the nightstand. I rinsed out my mouth and tried again. "I'm fine. How long was I out?"
"S-since yesterday."
"Yesterday?" That had an unreal sound. I felt like I'd been out for days. This must have been harder on Janie, though. Her bloodshot eyes and puffy face meant she'd done a lot of crying.
I reached out and touched her face. She's almost my age, but I suddenly realized that she carries the years better than I do. Her face has character. Beauty. I was amazed to find that, after twenty-plus years of marriage, I could look at her face and still feel that I was seeing it for the first time.
I was hugging her and wishing I had the strength for a lot more when it hit me. "Janie. The zapper. It didn't get to me."
I felt her tense. She must have thought I was crazy. "Tad, Tad—"
"I know what happened," I said. "It hit me, but I don't want it again."
She pulled back and looked at me. "You mean that."
I nodded vigorously and my head swam. "It didn't hook me."
"Maybe it wasn't on full force." Janie was still afraid of what had happened to me. "Maybe it was broken."
"No, I caught the full thing." I laughed nervously. "It just wasn't that good."
"You were scared of it," she said, trying to convince herself that I was all right after all. "You've had decades to immunize yourself that way."
"Yes." I didn't believe it, though. There was nothing special about me. How had I resisted addiction? Washington had done it, but he— No, I cut off that line of thought. It wasn't fair to him to say he was crazy, and it ducked the issue as well.
Janie was drained, physically and emotionally. I doubt she'd slept at all last night. I put her to bed, then dressed and went into the kitchen for some food. Michael came out of his room. "You all right, Dad?"
"Just hungry." I hugged him, hating that scared look on his face, hating the thought that I might have lost my family a second time. Was that what had saved me?
We had breakfast. I found that all the foods had strong, vivid flavors; the backlash of the zapper had sharpened my tastes—or maybe my close call with madness had done that. I ate day-old bread, dried fruits, and apple juice, and I felt like a gourmet with each mouthful. I looked out the kitchen window and admired the sky, which was filling with rain clouds that I might otherwise have found depressing. I could smell the rain coming, along with a heavy petroleum odor from the chemical works. Amazing, the number of things you can find to appreciate.
I sent Michael off to school and started on a second course. Washington appeared at my front door as I was finishing up. "It's good to see you back in health, Mr. Secretary," he said. "There have been some developments since yesterday."
That was the Colonel, I thought, as we went into the front room. Business as usual, no matter what. He sat down, although he held himself with parade-ground erectness. His eyes looked tired; it was obvious that Janie wasn't the only one to have spent a sleepless night. "Have the Aliens done anything?"
"They've withdrawn to their shuttlecraft. The Speaker has told them that they may not carry zappers among us. They have made no reply yet."
"They'll accept," I said suddenly. "Count on it. They want something from us badly enough to do that."
"I agree. However, I don't think they'll leave their lander again until after Weyler and his group are gone. The Aliens feel menaced by them."
"Tell them to get in line with the rest of us." I looked at him. "Weyler arranged that attack."
"Obviously. I think he hoped to turn as many of our people as possible into chasers." He looked pleased. "Your actions made that impossible. By the time the Alien finished with you, the spectators had fled out of the zapper's range."
That gave me a good feeling, the sort you can't get from a zapper or anything else. "I think he wanted something else, Colonel. Weyler didn't signal for the attack until after you were inside his ring of warriors. The purpose must have been to have the Alien zap you. If you were incapacitated, or changed into a chaser, we'd lose our best soldier. It would blow morale to hell, too."
He nodded at the logic. "It fits with the remark he made the other day. Evidently Weyler knows I have been zapped before. I suppose you weren't the only witness at the Battle of Chicago. No matter. It is obvious that neither of us are addicted."
"No." I had a sudden qualm. What would I do the next time I saw an Alien with a zapper? I hoped I'd never have to find out. "What's Weyler done lately?"
"After the attack a runner arrived from his homeland. He sent a messenger back a while later. I've no idea what the message said."
"Ditto. Whatever it was, it'll take a couple of days for it to reach his home." I shook my head. "There's one bright spot to all of this. If the Aliens stay holed up while Weyler's around, we'll only have to face one problem at a time."
"Possibly," the Colonel said. "But I feel that we must deal with the Aliens before we can deal with Weyler. A session of the Legislature has been scheduled for tomorrow to discuss the matter."
"I hope I have something to say to them." I scratched my chin, feeling the stubble. "Colonel, can you think of any alternative to war?"
"No, sir, I can't—but then my job is war. I do not permit myself to become involved in the decision-making process, as you know."
That was as close to a rebuke as I'd ever heard from him. It also explained some things. Washington knew that he was mentally unbalanced, and he confined himself to activities where he would be harmless, or useful. He avoided areas where he didn't trust his judgment.
He thinks of himself as a weapon, I thought as we left my home. A tool. The only way he could cope with his past was by letting other people assume the responsibility for his actions. That put the responsibility for anything he did square on my shoulders.
We were three paces outside the door when Washington grabbed my arm. He reached for his pistol, then stopped as one of Weyler's warriors rose out of the shrubbery. The war-paint on his face hid his expression well, and he walked away in silence.
"They're too damned elusive for us," Washington said. "We can't confine them to their bivouac and we can't track each of them. That surely figures in Weyler's plans."
"It makes it damned easy for him to spy on us," I said. I wondered what this one had been looking for. Later it would occur to me that he had seen the obvious: the zapper had had no effect on me. That, too, would figure in Weyler's plans.
I met a lot of people as I walked to the government office building. A politician never complains about attention, but it didn't take too long for me to figure out what was happening, and I started judging people's reactions. I'd say half of them wanted to know if I'd turned into a chaser, while the other half took me as proof that the zapper wasn't as formidable as legend had it. I think Gwen was solidly in the second camp. She seemed happy to see me up and around, although we didn't get the chance to talk much.
The rain started around the time I entered my office. It built up rapidly, and it was coming down in sheets when the Alien walked into the room.
I looked it over carefully. Its silver suit was bone dry, which didn't impress me. It was wearing the same belt as the one who'd visited me yesterday, which told me nothing. The holster was empty, as the Speaker had ordered, although any of its tools might have been a disguised zapper. The idea didn't affect me one way or another. "What do you want?" I asked, hoping that it would understand my tone as unpleasant.
"Continuation, discussion of prior day."
Fine and dandy, I thought. It zaps me, and then it wants to talk as if nothing had happened. "Then you'd better tell me what you want," I demanded, as Gwen came into my office, dripping wet.
"Reiterate, information regarding social disintegration."
Gwen looked it over, satisfying herself that the beast was unarmed. "Aren't you afraid of the savages?" she taunted.
"Rain should immobilize one group in holding area. Speculate Woodman will not repeat action prior day." Dzhaz was shivering with fear. Maybe it thought I had attacked it. "Need outweighs risk."
"I know you're after more than information," I told it. "I want you to tell me what makes your expedition worthwhile. Otherwise, you may as well go home now."
"Reiterate, information regarding social disintegration. Such information has vital application."
"What 'application'?" Gwen said angrily. "So ships like the Stinking Weed can do a better job? Aren't you satisfied with what they did here?"
"Not understood. Request clarification."
"Dzhaz is playing dumb," I told Gwen, as if it wasn't present. "Socratic inquiry. It's pretending not to know that Scented Vine's crew caused the Collapse."
At that, the Alien removed its translator plate, held it in front of its visor, then clipped it back on its belt. As expressionless as the helmet was, I had the impression that Dzhaz had just given the translator an incredulous look. "You can believe your ears," I said nastily, "if you have any. Scented Vine's crew engineered the Collapse."
"Impossibility is self-evident," Dzhaz said. "Task too difficult for small crew, restricted timeframe. Study of social disintegration my specialty. Knowledge certain."
"Some expert," Gwen said bitterly. "You can't explain it, so you deny it happened."
"Denial, hypothesis blaming Scented Vine," Dzhaz said. "Crew involvement in events marginal, limited to terminal phase. Did not initiate disintegration."
"That's convenient for you." I leaned forward, over my desk. "You can explain why your species isn't responsible for what hit us. Honest scholarship at its best."
"Ritual statement of anger." The shaking had stopped. Dzhaz might have been scared of us, but no academic will take that sort of abuse lying down. "Challenge, prove guilt of Scented Vine."
"Oh, I'll prove it." Gwen sounded murderously calm. "Fact. Whenever Scented Vine's crew said anything about humanity, they always belittled us. All of their questions implied that we were deliberately backward. When we asked them to explain things they said were 'obvious,' they suggested that the explanations were too hard for us to understand—even when they weren't."
"Request, explain why known falsehoods, subjective opinions of crew accepted as fact."
"These were people from an advanced civilization," Gwen said. "They'd seen who-knows-how-many worlds. They came here, looked around, and told us we couldn't make the grade. That was devastating."
"But it wasn't the only thing they did," I said. "The zapper. People got addicted to it. Scented Vine's crew made a sport out of it."
"Understood," Dzhaz agreed. "Crew activities on record, ship's log and interviews. Agree, actions unworthy. Request, explain nature of addiction."
"You know how the zapper works," I said. "By direct stimulation of the brain's pleasure center. We tried similar, cruder things on lab animals, and they became addicted. All they wanted was the pleasure."
"Explanation inadequate. Difference, experimental animals not sapient beings."
"That's got nothing to do with it," Gwen said. "It's physiological. Once the brain is imprinted, all it wants is more pleasure."
"Partial agreement," Dzhaz said.
" 'Partial,' my tush!" Gwen said. "You never saw the chasers. Once people got zapped, that was it. And when word spread, other people sought out the zapper. Lots of people, all over the world. They just dropped out of society. That helped push us over the edge."
"Request, number of chasers, relative to total population?"
"Well . . ." What was the highest number I'd heard? A hundred thousand? "About one in fifty or sixty thousand."
"Request, this was significant fraction of population?" One of its hands made a small circle in the air with each sentence. Alien body language, I decided: a gesture of emphasis. "Request, chaser subgroup contained philosophers, scientists, artists, social leaders? Request, subgroup made large effort to describe effect of zapper to non-subgroup? Request, subgroup forced others to become chasers?"
"Okay, so most of them were bums," Gwen conceded. "And most of them didn't care enough to talk. But there was that minister, what's-his-name, and that Harvard professor. They got on the news a lot before they died. People listened to them."
"Self-evident, few listened," Dzhaz said. "Self-evident, speakers no longer sane. Request, explain why anyone listened, took statements seriously? Request, explain why chasers viewed as serious problem?"
"All right, I can't explain it." Gwen looked exasperated. "It's like asking me which straw broke the camel's back. The thing is that everyone saw it as a serious problem, and there was no way to stop it—"
"Request, describe attempts made to stop chaser subgroup's expansion."
"We didn't have the time to decide on anything," Gwen said. "Nothing like this had ever happened before. We didn't know what to do."
"Incorrect." Two of Dzhaz's hands pressed together. More body language, although I couldn't guess its meaning. "I speak as expert on field, able to make deductions concerning your past through study of other social disintegrations. Long before arrival of Scented Vine, you had problems with other addictions. Pattern identical to chaser issue. Limited size, most members non-important to social balance, attempts to curb ineffective, situation viewed with alarm. Addictive behavior seen only in individuals who feel society has failed their needs. This attitude, one of many signs of advanced social disintegration."
I stared out the window at the rain. I felt as bleak and cold as the dark sky. "You're saying that the chasers were a symptom."
"Correct," Dzhaz said. "Consider fact, you are not zapper-addicted. Additional fact, zapper effects non-physical. Addiction possible only in individuals who lack ability, or motive, to resist addiction. Single exposure ineffective on typical member of healthy society. Exposure not sought by such members, not truly enjoyed.
"Additional symptoms," it continued. "Before arrival of Scented Vine, great speculation made concerning potential dangers of contact, speculations unfounded but taken seriously, thus showing awareness of social instability. Long before arrival, high incidence of antisocial and asocial acts, crimes, matched by ineffective attempts to restrict. Superstitions, illogical social and political doctrines taken seriously. Warfare considered primary answer to nation-state disagreements—"
"Enough!" Gwen snapped. She looked rattled by Dzhaz's dry assertions. I felt the same way. Maybe the Alien had learned about Earth's problems from Scented Vine's crew, but I didn't believe that even as I thought it. No, Dzhaz was describing typical events in disintegrating cultures. Ours was merely the latest in a string of intriguing, informative disasters.
You're a Polynesian, and white sailors and missionaries have left your tiny world in shambles. Your one consolation is that it wasn't your fault, that the outsiders were too much for you to resist. Then you came face to face with the fact that your society fell because it lacked the inner strength to survive—
Hell's bells, that comparison wasn't even fair. Most primitive cultures had fought to survive, and shown more resilience than we had.
Gwen's thoughts must have paralleled mine. "Maybe you have a point," she said grimly. "Okay, maybe what happened was our fault. But we might have solved our problems if it hadn't been for the war, and they started it. Why should they get away with that?"
"I can answer that," I said. "They didn't start it. It was human suspicion, with the Soviets thinking the Aliens had teamed up with us. Maybe folks in Washington thought the Aliens were working with the Reds, too."
Gwen gave me a look of betrayal. "There was more than that. They shot down all the missiles, which was the only favor they ever did us. Then they turned the war into a joke! A 'tribal squabble. Welcome chance to test repairs to anti-meteor system.' It was all a video game to them! And it brought the government down."
"Request, explain how," Dzhaz said.
"They didn't have enough time to accomplish anything," I said. The Alien's words had blasted me out of a mental rut, and things that should have been obvious all along were becoming clear now. I can't say that I felt any gratitude to Dzhaz for that. "Anyway, I think the governments are to blame. They failed, Gwen, they pushed the button. I doubt anyone would've let them have a second chance to blow us to hell, with or without the Aliens."
"We'll never find out," she said bitterly.
Dzhaz shifted around on his feet. "Request, continue talk at later time." After a moment of silence it left.
Gwen went to the window and watched it disappear into the rain. "They've done it again," she said, clutching the sill. "They're attacking our weaknesses. They won't be satisfied until we're all barbarians."
"I don't think that's what's happening," I said, feeling strangely bemused. "Or if they are trying that, Dzhaz just admitted it won't work."
She jerked around, startled. "When did it say that?"
"When it was talking about the zapper. What did it say? A single zap is ineffective against a member of a healthy society? Such people don't really enjoy getting zapped—right? It feels nice, but it's degrading, and you have better pleasures. Family. Work that means something. Accomplishment, hope, a future. When you have that you don't slip off into pipe dreams."
"What about the Colonel?" Gwen said. She still suspected an Alien trick, but she wanted to be convinced, to hear that there wouldn't be a second Collapse.
"The Colonel has his problems," I acknowledged. "But think about what he's like. A second Patton, the warrior incarnate. 'Duty, honor, country.' When he lost his first country, he set out to make a second one."
"The Republic didn't exist when he was zapped."
I nodded. "True, but his military unit did. He gave himself the responsibility of holding it together. He has a will that the zapper couldn't bend . . ."
Things clicked. Weyler had orchestrated the attack to get Washington zapped, assuming that it would break him. The spy at my house must have brought Weyler the impossible news that the zapper had failed with me and could not be trusted to work on the Colonel. If Weyler was going to remove Washington, it would have to be through other means.
And his warriors had a talent for sneaking around unseen—
I grabbed my coat and ran out the door. The path to the north slope and bivouac seemed all uphill in the rain, a waking nightmare. I was out of breath and my heart was pounding when I stumbled up to a sentry post. A soldier in a poncho kept me from falling over. I gasped out something about the Colonel and protecting him, and both sentries ran to his tent. I caught my breath and went after them.
The Colonel was in his tent, sitting up on his cot with the blanket over his legs. He was holding a revolver on a savage, although the look on Washington's face was deadly enough. "I cannot believe," he said in disgust, "that Weyler would try something so obvious."
I nodded absently at his soldierly esthetics. The savage glared at me. The rain had washed off his dirt and war-paint, revealing white skin and matted blond hair. It gave him an odd resemblance to a long-ago California surf bum. "Where's Weyler?" I demanded, as the sentries tied his hands behind him.
The savage—hell, the young man—spat at me. I noticed he had bad teeth. "Bring him with me," I told the sentries. I knew what I had to do now, risky as it was.
The rain had slacked off to a drizzle; the storm was passing. Weyler's camp had turned into mud, and the savages squatted under their lean-tos. "Weyler!" I shouted. "Get out here! Face me, you gutless wonder! Crawl out here, back-stabber!"
He came out into the open. He had to, with me calling him a coward in front of his advisors and warriors. He stood about ten feet from me. "What do you want, Renaissance Man?" he asked in contempt.
"You sent your boy to murder the Colonel," I said, as the sentries dragged the captive into the camp. "To kill him while he slept."
"What if I did?" he asked. Some of his men smiled at his cleverness. It was merely murder, an acceptable gambit to them—just as we had been ready to go to war to get what we want.
"You have no guts," I said. Using short, simple words is hell for a politician, but I wanted his men to understand me. They spoke English, yes, but only in a crude, limited way. I had to make certain that I left him no escape. "You are lower than a snake's belly. You are the dirt under the pile of crap. You send others to fight for you."
He spat. "So I fight the way you fight. Guns, cannons, airplanes. Your people hide behind them and kill at a coward's distance."
"We kill that way because you run from us," I taunted him. "You can only face unarmed villagers, and you are the biggest coward of all, hiding behind your warriors. You would not even fight me."
Weyler looked me over, up and down, and smiled. I was an old man, like him. I'd been zapped and I'd run a half-mile, and unlike him, I wasn't in prime condition. I was no hardy, hearty barbarian. "And you would not fight me with spear and knife."
"I would," I said.
The Colonel stepped up to my side. "Mr. Secretary, what in hell are you doing?"
"I don't have the time to explain." Across the muddy grounds, one of his warriors had produced a spear and knife. I sent one of the sentries to fetch it. "Think of it as the soldier's dream, Colonel. The leaders are going to slug it out."
"Single combat?"
"Just like David and Goliath." There'd been a time when armies sent out champions to do combat, allowing their gods to decide the outcome of battles through them. A good custom, I thought, peeling off my jacket. We couldn't have peace with Weyler, and we couldn't accomplish anything through full-scale war. This would give us a chance.
I looked at Weyler as he prepared for battle. He looked confident of victory, but he didn't know we were fighting according to my rules. To win, he had to kill me, but all I had to do was stay alive and wait for one opportunity.
Washington looked resigned, and far from optimistic. "Mr. Secretary, when fighting, keep your head down, to protect your throat. Face him sideways, to keep him from kicking you in the crotch. Keep your feet apart, so he won't knock you off balance easily."
"Okay, thanks." He'd taught me to fight years ago, when I'd joined him as a trooper, but it didn't hurt to hear that again. I removed my shoes and socks, and the sentry brought my weapons. The knife was poorly balanced, but I wasn't going to use it. The spear had a stone point, secured by sinew, and its shaft was good and solid. Fiber lacings served as grips. I tested them and decided they wouldn't slip or break.
"Weyler," I called. I had no right to make the Republic's foreign policy decisions, but I had to give Weyler a reason to fight without making him suspicious. "If you win, we will not attack your tribe, there will be no war. If I win, you will release, unharmed, all the captives taken on your last raid. Agreed?"
"Agreed," he said at once. Then he turned and faced Signal Hill, where the Alien force-field shimmered in the wet air. Several of the Aliens stood just inside the shield, watching us.
"Dark Gods!" Weyler shouted, raising spear and knife above his head. "Ottar-idle, hai! Give me victory!" Prayers said, he faced me and stepped forward, smiling.
I stepped forward. The long grass and mud squished under my toes. The mud was cold, but I'd never have kept my balance in my shoes. When I was within two or three paces of Weyler, I tossed the knife aside. I needed both hands for my spear.
He laughed as the knife splashed in the mud. "You won't win."
"Prove it." I circled slowly, waiting for him to make the first move. My feet grew numb in the cold mud, but as I moved around I tested the ground, noting which parts were slipperier than others, which might give decent footing. After a long moment I settled into a fairly solid patch of ground.
I heard grumblings from the barbarians. They wanted the warrior-king to prove himself in battle, and they disliked our dancing. Good. Every bit of pressure on my enemy helped.
He lunged at me with the spear. I parried it with mine, although the blow nearly knocked the spear from my hands. Gaunt as he looked, Weyler was stronger than me. Much stronger.
"Is that why you threw away your knife?" he asked. "To buy yourself more time?" He swung at me with the spear, twice, toying with me. He danced back, put his knife in his loincloth belt, lunged forward with his spear in both hands. He wasn't much faster than me, I saw. He was an old man, too.
I turned, and for a moment we were face to face, our spear shafts jammed together. "I'll never free any slaves," he whispered. "Even if you win."
"I know," I gasped. He kicked at my ankle and I tripped. I twisted away as he jabbed at me with the spear point. On my knees, I held the shaft above me as he brought his spear down on my head. The poles hit with a crack, jolting my shoulders. Weyler grabbed his spear with both hands and leaned forward, forcing me to support his weight.
"Still think you can kill me?" he asked.
"Don't want . . . kill you," I said.
You can't smile in a fight. Instead he grimaced. "You're soft, Civilized Man. Decadent. I'll free the world from your ilk."
"Really?" I grunted.
"You think me a fool." He could talk easily; he was in far better shape then me. "Your old world was a cancer. Build it again, and you'll bring another Collapse. I'll spare the world that suffering when I destroy you."
I was sagging under his weight. Suddenly I pushed up with one arm and let the other arm drop. He dropped as I twisted aside, shoving my spear against his. Weyler landed atop his spear, face down in the mud—and I had the opportunity I'd wanted.
Kill him? No, not with his shamans' prophecies, all ready to turn his death into martyrdom. Spare his life and trust him to keep his word, overawed by my mercy and fighting prowess? Come, now. There was only one way to defeat him.
He started to get up, groping for his spear with one hand, wiping mud from his face with the other. He wasn't worried about me; he'd decided I was weak, and he knew I was unarmed, so he was in no hurry to get up. That's when I kicked him in the ass, in full view of his entourage.
The pain made him yell. I'd hit him in one of the most sensitive parts of the human anatomy, right at the base of the spine. I kicked again, harder, and I felt something crunch. He sprawled in the mud, then tried to stand. Weyler fell down again, immobilized by the pain, and I took his knife. It was a good, pre-Collapse blade, and I put it into my own belt. Symbolism is important among savages. Disarming Weyler sealed my victory.
Gwen was standing next to Washington, her face flushed with anger. "Do you know what you've done?" she demanded as I joined them.
"I think I broke my toe," I said. It was just starting to throb.
"You didn't win anything," Gwen said, looking across the grounds. Two of Weyler's warriors had helped him up and were wiping away the mud. "He's down now, but what about tomorrow? He'll be out for revenge."
"I know, but right now I'm in control." I faced Weyler and raised my voice. "Weyler! Tomorrow the Legislature will meet in the Forum. Before you leave, you and your men will go to the meeting." I waved a hand at Signal Hill and the Alien watchers. "They will be there also."
One of Weyler's old men nodded to me. In the face of their leader's humiliation, they could do nothing but listen and obey—until they got over this. If tomorrow's events worked out right, though, they would never recover.
I turned to Washington. "Colonel, would you send a messenger to the Aliens? Inform them that if they want any cooperation from us they will have a representative at tomorrow's sessions."
"What's the idea?" Gwen asked, as the colonel left to carry out my orders.
"Gwen, you know that everything Dzhaz said was true. We're going to have to learn to live with it. If we can't, then we're just setting ourselves up for another Collapse."
"Peachy," she said. "What are you going to do? Get up in the Forum and say that the human race is decadent? Why make the Aliens' job easier for them?"
"They aren't here to provoke another Collapse," I said. "If I'm right, we're not in any danger of a Collapse. I can prove everything . . . and when I do, Weyler won't be a problem any more."
"If you're right."
"We'll have to handle things carefully," I said. I planned to play games with beliefs, both ours and the outlanders. That would present more dangers than my duel with Weyler.
While the camp medic came over to examine my foot, I looked at our savages. One of them was ministering to Weyler's injuries, by chanting and waving a gourd rattle over him. The others were on their knees, bowing and praying to the Aliens, hoping for a miracle. In my way I was doing the same thing, just as I'd done before the fight. My god was Reason, though, a much more demanding deity than any the savages worshiped. If it was going to deliver any miracles, I would have to work for them.
There was silence through the first part of my address. Shock, I suppose, at least among the other legislators. Weyler and his men seemed quietly pleased by my revisionist account of the Collapse. Perhaps it made up for yesterday's humiliation. They had chairs, but all of them were standing, no doubt because Weyler couldn't sit down. I was having trouble staying on my feet; willow-bark tea, our substitute for aspirin, wasn't doing much for the pain in my sprained toe.
Speaker Ryan had virtually handed control of the floor to me for the duration of my speech; only she and Gwen knew what I would say. Dzhaz had shown up, and he kept himself busy with his instruments while I talked about such things as decay, addiction, and the Collapse.
"So Scented Vine left and we started picking up the pieces," I said. "We never counted on a return visit from the Aliens, because Scented Vine was the equivalent of a tramp steamer, dropping anchor at a convenient port. We didn't think they'd tell anyone about their activities here. Even if they weren't responsible for the Collapse, they'd played a role in it, and some of their activities were criminal.
"Nevertheless, they talked. Word got around. A group of scholars heard about the incident. They interviewed Scented Vine's crew, purchased copies of their records. They came here to study the Collapse. Isn't that right, Dzhaz?"
The silvery suit turned to face me. "Correct."
I looked around the Forum. "Fascinating, isn't it? Scented Vine kept nothing secret, but only a few academics took any interest in their crimes. No galactic government or space patrol became curious. In any event, these scholars came to Earth, detected our radio station, and homed in on it. That brings up another strange point. Why investigate us?"
"Because we're rebuilding!" a legislator shouted. That got a scattering of applause.
"Exactly," I said. "They're interested in us because we're working to restore civilization—or to build a new one. But we have nothing to do with the Collapse; the Republic didn't arise until after things fell apart. Yet the Aliens were clearly, undeniably desperate to study us—us, not the savages or the warlords. Why?"
No one answered. "It must be vitally important; they even agreed not to carry their zappers among us. Does that mean they're willing to risk their lives to—what? Study a mishap on an obscure planet? Get information to write a footnote? What makes it worth their while?"
"Well, they're alien," someone suggested—an Expansionist legislator. I felt glad that a member of the opposition had suggested that. Let them look obtuse.
"I thought the same thing, at first," I said. "Dzhaz, one of the Aliens, visited my office the other day. We discussed one of my constituent's problems—two of his cats had been shot by a neighbor's boy. The questions he asked proved that Dzhaz had trouble understanding that we wanted dissent and order, that there's a difference between discipline and brutality, the need to assume responsibility—" Light began to dawn on some of the faces in the amphitheater. "You see? What sort of society produces someone like that?
"And what sort of society produces people like Scented Vine's crew? Or lets them run rampant? Without assuming responsibility for their acts?" I had to raise my voice over a growing murmur. The savages looked angry; I was blaspheming against their gods. "They're not 'alien,' any more than the twentieth century was 'alien.' They came here to learn about themselves." I faced Dzhaz. "Your civilization is collapsing, isn't it?"
"Statement of fact," Dzhaz said. Odd, how the translator's flat voice could sound so reluctant. "As experts, self, others able to recognize disintegration of own society. Organize selves into unit, ultimate objective, formulate method to halt or reverse process. One of many techniques, study social disintegration this planet. Last known collapse three thousand local years prior to your collapse; you present opportunity to collect information from survivors, generate new insights, possible solutions."
"You expected to find total anarchy, but when you got here you found the Republic," Gwen said. We'd worked out a compromise the night before, after I explained my perceptions to her. It was good politics to let the head Expansionist handle some of the questions—besides, she'd filled in a few of the gaps in my reasoning. "That changed your plans."
"Statement of fact," Dzhaz said. "Many known cases of planet-wide social disintegration in galaxy. Approximately one half never recover. Of successful half, recovery normally begins only after hundreds or thousands of local years. Full recovery process requires similar time frame."
"We're the exception to the rule," Gwen stated with pride. "And you want us to tell you what makes us so special."
"Partial statement of fact. Improbable, natives understand factors behind own success. You lack training, experience in academic matter. Best chance of success, conceal true motive of investigation, learn answers through indirect approach."
I nodded. There'd been nothing sinister in that; far from it. "It's a basic law of any science," I said. "The process of observation changes whatever you observe. You couldn't risk losing what you might learn here."
"Statement of fact." That had become a litany, confirming my hunches. "We do not know many things. Extreme importance, things we may learn from you—"
There was a sudden upset among the barbarians. The sergeants-at-arms waded in and pulled them apart. Two of Weyler's advisors had taken him and shoved him to the floor. "How can anything be unknown to the Dark Gods?" one demanded.
"Fact, we are like humans." I don't think Dzhaz was addressing the savages. None of the Aliens had ever shown any interest in them. "All sentient species share many traits, fact which makes studies useful. Gamble, can uncover your secret, apply to galactic culture, prevent total disintegration. Alternative, social disintegration on galactic scale, all habited planets and artificial worlds to experience your conditions or worse."
The Alien turned slowly on its three feet, and I had the impression it was sizing up the audience in the amphitheater. "Probability of success low. Evident that your success product of mental, emotional attitude, in itself product of unique conditions. Unlikely to reproduce attitude in other minds. Ultimate failure indicated."
A galaxy-wide Collapse was beyond my grasp. My concerns were closer to home. The Republic was in no danger from the Aliens—or the barbarians surrounding us. If the looks Weyler's men gave their "king" meant anything, the day of the warlords was over, at least in our corner of the world.
Then Gwen walked up to Dzhaz, something that wasn't in our script. I started to leave the podium; I was afraid she was going to say something vengeful, something that would upset everything. "So you need us to keep your own society from collapsing."
"Correct. Possibility, still time, opportunity to prevent disaster."
I was halfway down the steps when she spoke again. "We'll do what we can to help you."
I had not wanted to see this, but you can't duck your responsibilities, even when the thing you're responsible for is justice. I'd engineered Weyler's fall, and I had to be there at the end.
It had been two weeks since the meeting in the Forum, but things were already changing outside the Republic. The story was slowly percolating through the outlands: the Aliens came to the Republic for help. Their empire was falling apart. They expected the Republic to save them. In the Neutral Zone, the raids had stopped.
The story of Weyler's fall was spreading, too, and our outposts reported cautious overtures from the neighboring warlords and chieftains. They wanted to make arrangements with us, before their own people turned on them as well. We were ignoring their appeals.
Weyler's "castle" was a crude stone blockhouse, surrounded by a dry moat and abatis. Our rehabilitation team had pitched camp outside it, and was laying plans to bring twenty thousand ex-barbarians and freed slaves into the Republic. Meanwhile, the people made themselves ready to join us.
Gwen had come out to watch the ordeal. She had been rather subdued since the last Legislature session. "Their ship left yesterday," she said, after we finished breakfast in the camp mess.
"Yeah, I saw the shuttle go overhead. Did they say when they would return?"
"It won't be for two or three years, maybe longer. They can travel faster than light, but it's still a big galaxy."
"And we'll have a place in it."
"Along with the Aliens." Gwen looked bitter. "I didn't offer to help them because I forgive them."
"Gwen, you can't blame all of them because Scented Vine—"
"I blame them," she said. "Every time I looked at one of them, I saw my husband and children. We may have set ourselves up for the Collapse, but Stinking Weed's crew played a role in events. They were killers, too. Dzhaz never admitted any of that."
"Did you expect him to? He's a product of his society." I shook my head. "I doubt we can really help them."
"I don't care about that, Tad." She toyed with her coffee mug, turning it around and around on the mess hall table. "I made that offer for us. They need us to survive. If anything can prove to us, and the rest of the world, that we're coming out of the Collapse, it's that."
Gwen had a point. I had one, too, which I couldn't mention to her. One of the driving forces behind the Republic had always been our hatred of the Aliens, the feeling that they were to blame for everything. We were losing that now; it had been comforting, but illusions never last, and hate can be one of the worst illusions. It had kept us from seeing the realities behind the Collapse, and that blindness might have put us on the road to a second such disaster.
Even though I was glad we were shedding our hate, I could see the danger in losing part of our motivation. The belief that the Aliens had caused the Collapse had made it possible for us to think that there was nothing wrong with the human race, that we could recover from what had been done to us. Now we would have to take pride in what we were going to do.
There was a metallic clattering outside the camp, a sound like a garbage can being hit by stones. It was time for Weyler's end.
Many of his ex-subjects lined the path from the castle gate. Some of them had walked for days to get here, and they looked eager. Gwen and I climbed to the top of a hillock, where we could see the gauntlet Weyler would have to run.
Two of his warriors dragged Weyler through the gate. He was naked, and tied into a crude yoke. They pushed him down the road, and he stumbled along while the people reached out for him, laughing and cheering.
"It's something I suggested to the rehab team," Gwen said, seeing the confusion on my face. "They need something to rid themselves of Weyler's influences . . . but it had to be something that would break the cycle of killing."
"So you turned him into a scapegoat." A final paganism, I thought. By touching Weyler, they symbolically placed all their guilt on him, and drove it out into the wilderness.
"Executing him would have been too much like a human sacrifice," Gwen said. "Then I remembered hearing about scapegoats in Sunday school. It seemed fitting . . . and after all he's done, Tad, I want to see him suffer. This way, he can spend the rest of his life remembering what he's lost."
"What happens when he gets to the border?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I suppose he'll take refuge with another warlord. Let him; he'll never be a king again, but he'll remind the other chieftains of what's in store for them—and show their subjects what to do."
Gwen's vindictiveness made me uneasy, but I knew it wasn't her motive for punishing Weyler. Her punishment rendered him harmless, and it was fitting. After using people for so long, Weyler was being used to help fix the damage he'd done. There was justice in that.
Weyler followed the road, driven by his people, and vanished as the path curved behind a hill. The rehab team was already down among them, beginning the work of leading them out of their long night.