VILLAGER #5:
And yet you chose to serve.
PERRY:
I did. Although when I look back on it now, if I had known then what I know now, I might have chosen to stay in Ohio and die in my own bed. I would be lying if I didn’t say that when I signed up I had my own romantic notions of what military life would be like. I guess I thought I would be, oh, I don’t know, swashbuckling around and fighting Ming the Merciless and kissing green-skinned maidens. Although, come to think of it, I have kissed green-skinned maidens. (laughter) So maybe it hasn’t been so bad. But to be more serious again, the reality of life in the CDF is far different and far more difficult than I could have imagined.
Knowing what I know now, I would do it again, if only because I wouldn’t choose not to meet the people I have, and to have missed the opportunity to love them, even if only briefly. But I do wish I had the opportunity to have gone into this with open eyes. Maybe the CDF wouldn’t get as many recruits if they knew what they were getting into, but the ones they would get might be better prepared. And I suppose to come back around to Miss Savitri again, that would be an advantage to having colonials in the CDF. They would know what they’re getting into. Yes, sir.
VILLAGER #6:
You were saying earlier that this body you have is improved beyond the normal human limits.
PERRY:
That’s right. Improved senses, improved reflexes, improved physical agility. I even smell better. (laughter) You laugh, people, but it’s true.
VILLAGER #6:
I am curious, how strong are you?
PERRY:
I’ve never really tested it.
VILLAGER #6:
Could you break that table behind you? With your hands?
PERRY:
I probably could. But I won’t. Because that would hurt. (laughter) They’ve made me stronger, not impervious to pain.
VILLAGER #6:
Still, it must be nice to be that strong.
PERRY:
It’s useful, is what it is. I don’t notice being stronger or enhanced all that much, to tell you the truth. Most of the people I spend time with are enhanced just as much as I am, so I have no competitive advantage. I lose a lot at arm wrestling. (laughter) The other thing is that the reason we have these physical improvements is that they put us on an equal footing with the aliens we have to go up against. I remember my drill instructor telling us that these new bodies were the bare minimum we’d need to fight, which if you think about it is kind of a terrifying thought. All those alien species out there, each of them with native abilities that are better than our own. Some are faster, some are stronger, some are smarter. Some just plain have more limbs, which is really a problem in hand-to-hand combat. We’re just keeping up. The one real advantage that humans have is that on a pound-for-pound basis, we’re meaner. (laughter) Now, I said that to get a laugh, so I’m glad I got one. But when it gets right down to it, it’s also usually true. I imagine it’s kept our species alive more than once. Should I be wrapping things up now?
KULKARNI:
I think we have time for one last question. And if I may be so bold, I see that my Anjali has come into the room, and has a question.
PERRY:
So you’re the woman who made dessert.
VILLAGER #7:
I am.
PERRY:
I love you. (very loud laughter) And I want the recipe before I go. And I will be happy to answer your question.
VILLAGER #7:
Thank you. I came in late, but I have heard enough of what you’ve said that I can sense the depth of the violence you confront out there on other worlds. It seems to be a dangerous universe out there.
PERRY:
Yes.
VILLAGER #7:
My question is simple: Can we ever find peace in this universe?
PERRY:
(pause) I’ll share with you a story. About four months before the Battle of Coral, my ship, the Modesto, was part of an attack group bearing down on a colony held by the Ni-ni, who if you don’t know are a reptilian sort of race, about a yard tall, and venomous◦— not in their personalities, mind you, but in that they genuinely spit poison. It makes them very difficult to fight one on one.
The colony was Ni-nin, but there had been a human colony on it a decade or so before. The seed colonists had arrived just before a huge volcanic event that killed off the summer and made the winter unimaginably brutal; the colonists that survived abandoned the planet, and no one could have blamed them. So there were no humans when the Ni-nans arrived and set up shop. But it didn’t matter. The Colonial Union had it on the ledgers as our planet, and if it was ours, then anyone else on it was a problem.
And so there we were, the Modesto and about twenty other ships, with a total of about 20,000 CDF soldiers, which would have been more than enough to wipe out the Ni-nin colony about nine times in a row. We were in the process of suiting up for the attack when a Skip drone popped into our space and broadcast a general cancellation of the invasion. Apparently◦— in a shocking moment of clarity for both sides◦— the Ni-nins and the humans realized that they could actually share the planet. The Ni-nin colony was situated on the edge of an equatorial desert, which was blindingly hot for humans but suited the Ni-nins just fine, while the Union was planning a new seed colony in a temperate zone on an entirely different continent. So the Ni-nins and the Union decided to call off the war. It was just that simple.
The attack group all went home except for the Modesto, which was told to make a courtesy call on the colony. So I and my platoon spent the next three days in the company of the people who earlier we were going to kill. And you know what? We had a great time. The Ni-nins are ugly as hell◦— they look like exploded lizards◦— but their body chemistry is close enough to ours that we can eat their food. And these people are great cooks. Just dynamite. We stuffed ourselves silly and held spitting contests, which they are very serious about, by the way, and generally acted like civilized sentient beings.
And I remember sitting on a sand ridge with a couple of Ni-nans on the last day we were there, watching the sunset with the two of them, and thinking about just how easy it was not to fight every damn creature we came across. Then, of course, we packed up, headed out and found ourselves at a place called Cova Banda, trying to wipe an entirely different species who had a planet the Union decided was actually ours, but this time, no one wanted to share.
Can there be peace? Sure there can. We made peace with the Ni-ni, and it was a simple thing to do, and now we happily share a planet. But will there be peace? Well, that’s the question, I think. Making peace is often a simple thing, but simple isn’t the same thing as easy. I knew someone who said he believed the Union sometimes thought it was just easier to make war than to bother with peace. I didn’t much like this person, but from time to time I see some truth in what he said.