All this time, we were trying to get the Taurans with laser fire, while they weaved and bounced around trying to get into the structures. We moved in as close to them as we could without putting ourselves in danger from the grenade blasts, yet too far away for good aim.
Still, we were getting them one by one and managed to destroy four of the seven buildings. Then, when there were only two aliens left, a nearby grenade blast flung one of them to within a few meters of a door. He dove in and several grenadiers fired salvos after him, but they all fell short or detonated harmlessly on the side. Bombs were falling all around, making an awful racket, but the sound was suddenly drowned out by a great sigh, like a giant’s intake of breath, and where the building had been was a thick cylindrical cloud of smoke, solid-looking, dwindling away into the stratosphere, straight as if laid down by a ruler. The other Tauran had been right at the base of the cylinder; I could see pieces of him flying. A second later, a shock wave hit us and I rolled helplessly, pinwheeling, to smash into the pile of Tauran bodies and roll beyond.
I picked myself up and panicked for a second when I saw there was blood all over my suit — when I realized it was only alien blood, I reIaxed but felt unclean.
“Catch the bastard! Catch him!” In the confusion, the Tauran had gotten free and was running for the grass. One platoon was chasing after him, losing ground, but then all of B team ran over and cut him off. I jogged over to join in the fun.
There were four people on top of him, and a ring around them of about fifty people, watching the struggle.
“Spread out, dammit! There might be a thousand more of them waiting to get us in one place.” We dispersed, grumbling. By unspoken agreement we were all sure that there were no more live Taurans on the face of the planet.
Cortez was walking toward the prisoner while I backed away. Suddenly the four men collapsed in a pile on top of the creature … Even from my distance I could see the foam spouting from his mouth-hole. His bubble had popped. Suicide.
“Damn!” Cortez was right diere. “Get off that bastard,” The four men got off and Cortez used his laser to slice the monster into a dozen quivering chunks. Heart-warming sight.
“That’s all right, though, we’ll find another one — everybody! Back in the arrowhead formation. Combat assault, on the Flower.”
Well, we assaulted the Flower, which had evidently run out of ammunition (it was still belching, but no bubbles), and it was empty. We scurried up ramps and through corridors, fingers at the ready, like kids playing soldier. There was nobody home.
The same lack of response at the antenna installation, the “Salami,” and twenty other major buildings, as well as the forty-four perimeter huts still intact. So we had “captured” dozens of buildings, mostly of incomprehensible purpose, but failed in our main mission, capturing a Tauran for the xenologists to experiment with. Oh well, they could have all the bits and pieces they’d ever want. That was something.
After we’d combed every last square centimeter of the base, a scoutship came in with the real exploration crew, the scientists. Cortez said, “All right, snap out of it,” and the hypnotic compulsion fell away.
At first it was pretty grim. A lot of the people, like Lucky and Marygay, almost went crazy with the memories of bloody murder multiplied a hundred times. Cortez ordered everybody to take a sedtab, two for the ones most upset. I took two without being specifically ordered to do so.
Because it was murder, unadorned butchery — once we had the antispacecraft weapon doped out, we hadn’t been in any danger. The Taurans hadn’t seemed to have any conception of person-to-person fighting. We had just herded them up and slaughtered them, the first encounter between mankind and another intelligent species. Maybe it was the second encounter, counting the teddy bears. What might have happened if we had sat down and tried to communicate? But they got the same treatment.
I spent a long time after that telling myself over and over that it hadn’t been me who so gleefully carved up those frightened, stampeding creatures. Back in the twentieth century, they had established to everybody’s satisfaction that “I was just following orders” was an inadequate excuse for inhuman conduct … but what can you do when the orders come from deep down in that puppet master of the unconscious?
Worst of all was the feeling that perhaps my actions weren’t all that inhuman. Ancestors only a few generations back would have done the same thing, even to their fellow men, without any hypnotic conditioning.
I was disgusted with the human race, disgusted with the army and horrified at the prospect of living with myself for another century or so … Well, there was always brainwipe.
A ship with alone Tauran survivor had escaped and had gotten away clean, the bulk of the planet shielding it from Earth’s Hope while it dropped into Aleph’s collapsar field. Escaped home, I guessed, wherever that was, to report what twenty men with handweapons could do to a hundred fleeing on foot, unarmed.
I suspected that the next time humans met Taurans in ground combat, we would be more evenly matched. And I was right.
SERGEANT MANDELLA
2007–2024 A.D.
1
I was scared enough.
Sub-major Stott was pacing back and forth behind the small podium in the assembly room/chop hall/gymnasium of the Anniversary. We had just made our final collapsar jump, from Tet-38 to Yod-4. We were decelerating at 1½ gravities and our velocity relative to that collapsar was a respectable .90c. We were being chased.
“I wish you people would relax for a while and just trust the ship’s computer. The Tauran vessel at any rate will not be within strike range for another two weeks. Mandella!”
He was always very careful to call me “Sergeant” Mandella in front of the company. But everybody at this particular briefing was either a sergeant or a corporaclass="underline" squad leaders.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re responsible for the psychological as well as the physical wellbeing of the men and women in your squad. Assuming that you are aware that there is a morale problem aboard this vessel, what have you done about it?”
“As far as my squad is concerned, sir?”
“Of course.”
“We talk it out, sir.”
“And have you arrived at any cogent conclusion?”
“Meaning no disrespect, sir, I think the major problem is obvious. My people have been cooped up in this ship for fourteen—”
“Ridiculous! Every one of us has been adequately conditioned against the pressures of living in close quarters and the enlisted people have the privilege of confraternity.” That was a delicate way of putting it. “Officers must remain celibate, and yet we have no morale problem.”
If he thought his officers were celibate, he should sit down and have a long talk with Lieutenant Harmony. Maybe he just meant line officers, though. That would be just him and Cortez. Probably 50 percent right. Cortez was awfully friendly with Corporal Karnehameha. “Sir, perhaps it was the detoxification back at Stargate; maybe—”
“No. The therapists only worked to erase the hate conditioning — everybody knows how I feel about that — and they may be misguided but they are skilled.
“Corporal Potter.” He always called her by her rank to remind her why she hadn’t been promoted as high as the rest of us. Too soft. “Have you ‘talked it out’ with your people, too?”
“We’ve discussed it, sir.”
The sub-major could “glare mildly” at people. He glared mildly at Marygay until she elaborated.