Forty Thousand in Gehenna (27 page)

Something hissed. Jin Older slapped at something in his neck about the time his wife pushed through the crowd to get to him; and other kin—but Jin Older fell down, and a few tried to see to him, but one broke to ran for cover—a second hissing, and that woman staggered and sprawled.

“Take what you want,” Jin shouted, pointing a rigid arm at the village about them. “What you’ll need, you gather up—But plan to leave. You thought you were safe here, built on rock. But you leave these buildings, you just leave them for the flitters and be glad. You move now. They won’t like waiting.”

And then: “
Move!
” he shouted at them, because no one did, and then everyone did, a panicked scattering.

Cloud reached his own house, out of breath, and fumbled in the dark familiar corner for his bow, with only the fireplace coals to see by. He found his quiver on the peg, slung that to his shoulder and turned about again facing the door as a flurry of running steps came up to it, a flood of figures he knew even in the dark.

“It’s me,” he said before they could take fright—his wife Dal, his sister Pia, his grandmother Elly and his own son Tam, eight years old. His wife hugged him; he hugged her one-armed, and hugged his son and sister too. Tam was crying as he made to go; ma Elly put herself in his way.

“No,” Elly said. “Cloud, where are you going?”

He was afraid at the thought of shooting humans and calibans, but that was what he was off to, what was about to happen out there—what had already started, on the invaders’ side. He heard shouting, heard the hiss of calibans. Then he heard faint screams.

“Come back here.” Ma Elly clenched his shirt, pulled at him with all her might, a stout woman, the woman who had mothered him half his life. “You’ve got a family to see to, hear?”

“Ma Elly—if we don’t stop them out there together—”

“You’re not going out there. Come back here. They’ll kill you out there, and what good is that?”

His wife held him, her arms added to ma Elly’s, and young Tam held to his waist. They pulled him inside, and he lost his courage, lost all the fire that urged him to go out and die for them, because he was thinking now. Then what? ma Elly asked, and he had no answer, none. He patted his wife’s shoulder, hugged his sister. “All right,” he said.

“Gather everything,” ma Elly said, and they started at it, in the dark. Young Tam tossed a log on the hearth—“
No,”
Cloud said, and pulled the boy back and raked the log out with a stick before it took light, a scattering of coals. He took the boy by the shoulders and shook him. “No light. Get all the clothes you can find. Hear?”

The boy nodded, swallowed tears and went. Cloud looked rightward, where ma Elly was down on her knees among the scattered coals wrestling with the flagstones.

He squatted down and levered it up for her with his knife, asked no question as she pulled up the leather-wrapped books that were the treasure of Elly’s line. She hugged them to her and he helped her up while the business of packing went on around them. “Not going to live in any caliban hole,” ma Elly muttered. He heard her voice break. He had not heard Elly Flanahan cry since his mother died. “You hear me, Cloud. We go out that door, we keep going.”

“Yes,” he said. If he had seen no other way he would have surrendered for his family’s sake, for nothing else; but what ma Elly wanted suddenly fell into place with all his instincts. Of course that was where they would try to go. Of course that was where they had to try. Only—his mind shuddered under the truth it had kept shoving back for the last few moments—the invaders would get the old, the weak, the children: the calibans would have them, and the darts would strike down those that stood to fight. All that might get away was a family like his, with all its members able to run, even old ma Elly. Coward, something said to him; but—Fool, that something said when he thought of fighting calibans and darts at night.

He took up a bundle of something his wife gave him, and very quietly went to the door and looked out into the commons, where calibans moved between them and the common-hall lights. It was quiet yet. “Come on,” he said, “keep close. Pia, go last.”

“Yes,” she said, a hunter herself, for all she was fifteen. “Go on. I’m behind you.”

He slipped out, strung his bow, nocked an arrow as he went around the side of the house, toward the slope of the hill.

A gray thrashed toward him, sentry in the bushes. He whipped the bow up and fired, one true venomed shot. The gray hissed and whipped in its pain, and he ran, down the slope, collected his family again at the bottom, out of breath as they were, and started off again, a jog for a time, a walk, and then a mild run, gaining what ground they could, because he heard panic behind him.

“Fire,” Pia breathed.

He looked back. There was. He saw the glow. Houses were afire.

“Keep walking,” ma Elly said, a gasp for air. “Keep walking.”

A noise broke at their backs, a running, but not of caliban feet. Cloud aimed an arrow, but it was more of their own coming.

“Who are you?” Cloud hissed at them. But the runners just kept running—of shame, perhaps, or fear. His own family went as fast as it could already, and soon he carried young Tam, and Dal took the books from ma Elly, who tottered along at the limit of her strength.

He wept. He did not know it until he felt the wind on his face turn the tears cold. He looked back from time to time at the glow which marked the end of what he knew.

And if the calibans would hunt them further, if they had a mind to, he knew nowhere that they were safe. He only hoped they would forget. Calibans did, or seemed to, sometimes.

The Town

The snap of wires, flares in the dark—there was screaming, above all the commotion of people running in the streets.

They surged at the gates, at the wire, but the Base never saw them.

“Open up,” Dean cried, screamed, lost among the others. “Open the gates—”

But the Base would not. Would never open the gates at all, to let a rabble pour into their neat concrete gardens, come too near their doors, bring their tradecloth rags and their stink and their terror. Dean knew that before the others believed it. He turned away, ran, panting, crying at once, stopped in a clear place and looked over his shoulder at nightmare—

—at a seam opening in the earth, at houses beginning to fold in upon themselves under the floodlights and collapse in heaps of stone—at the rip growing and tilting the slabs of the paved road, and under the crowd itself, people falling.

A renewed screaming rang out.

The rift kept travelling.

And suddenly in the dark and the floodlights a monstrous head thrust up out of the earth.

Dean ran, everything abandoned, the way the calibans themselves had opened, across the ruined fields.

Once, at screams, a thin and pitiful screaming from behind, he looked back; and many of the lights had gone out, but such as were left shone on a puff of smoke, a billowing cloud amid the tall concrete buildings of main Base…and there was a building less than there had been.

The calibans were under the foundations of the Base. The Base itself was falling.

He ran, in terror, ran and ran and ran. He was not the only one to pass the wires. But he stayed for no one, found no companion, no friend, nothing, only drove himself further and further until he could no longer hear the screams.

In the Hills

They found him in the morning, among the rocks; and Cloud raised his bow, an arrow aimed across the narrow stream—because everything had become an enemy. But the townsman, wedged with his back to the rocks, only lifted a hand as if that could stop a flint-headed arrow and stared at them so bleakly, so wearily that Cloud lowered the bow and put the arrow away.

“Who are you?” Cloud asked when they squatted across the narrow stream from each other, while his sister Pia and his wife and son tended ma Elly, bathing her face and holding water for her to drink. “What name?”

“Name’s Dean,” the other said, hoarse, crouching there on his side with his arms about his knees and his fine town clothes in rags.

“Name’s Cloud,” Cloud said; and Dal came beside him and handed him some of the food they had brought, while the stranger sat across the stream just looking at them, not asking.

“He’s hungry,” Pia said. “We give him just a bit.”

Cloud thought about it, and finally took a morsel of bread and held it out to the townsman on his side.

The man unwound himself from his crouch and got up and waded across the stream. He took the bit they offered him and sank down again, and ate the bread very slowly. Tears started from his eyes, ran down his face, but there was never expression on it, never a real focus to his eyes.

“You come from town,” ma Elly said.

“Town’s gone,” he said.

There was none of them could think of what to say then. Town had always been, rich and powerful.

“Base buildings fell,” he said. “I saw it.”

“We go south,” Cloud said finally.

“They’ll hunt us,” Pia said.

“We go down the coast,” Cloud said, thinking through it, where the food was, where they could be sure of fresh water, streams coming to the sea.

“South is a big river,” said Dean in a quiet voice. “I know.”

They took the townsman with them. They found others as they went, some of their own kin, some that were only townsmen who had run far enough and fast enough—like themselves, those who could run, and those who would run, for whatever reason.

Others drifted to them, and sometimes calibans came, but kept their distance.

Message from Gehenna Station to Alliance Headquarters
couriered by
AS Winifred

“…intervention of station-based forces has secured the perimeter of the Base. Casualties among Base personnel are fourteen fatalities and forty six injuries, nine critical… All personnel except security forces and essential staff have been lifted to the station.

“Destruction in the town is total. Casualties are undetermined. Twenty are confirmed dead, but due to the extensive damage and the hazard of the ground, further search is not presently an option. Two hundred two survivors have reached the aid stations set up at the Base gate for treatment of injuries: most told of digging themselves free. Under the cover of darkness Calibans return to the ruin and dig in the rubble. Accompanying tape
#2
shows this activity…

“The hiller village also suffered extensive damage and orbiting survey has seen no sign of life there. The survivors of the town and village have scattered…

“The Station will make food drops attempting to consolidate the survivors where possible… The Station urgently requests exception to the noninterference mandate for humanitarian reasons. The mission recommends lifting the survivors offworld.”

Message: Alliance Headquarters Science Bureau to Gehenna Station
couriered by
AS Phoenix

“…with extreme regret and full appreciation of humanitarian concern the Bureau denies request for lifting of the non-interference mandate under any circumstance…

“Gehenna Base will be reestablished under maximum security with equipment arriving aboard this courier…

“It is Bureau policy that no interference be permitted in the territory of unconsenting sapience, even in benevolent intention…

“The Station will extend all possible cooperation and courtesy to Bureau agent Dr. K. Florio…”

Year 90, day 144 CR
Staff meeting: Gehenna Station

“It is a tragedy,” Florio said, making a fortress of his hands in front of him. He spoke quietly, eyed them all. “But those who disagree with policy have their option to be transferred.”

There was silence from the rest of the table, poses like his own, grim faces male and female. Old hands at Gehenna Station. Seniority considerable.

“We understand the rationale,” the Director said. “The reality is a little difficult to take.”

“Are they dying?” Florio asked softly. “No. The loss of life is done. The human population has stabilized. They’re surviving very efficiently down there.” He moved his hands and sorted through the survey reports. “If I lacked evidence to support the Bureau decision—it’s here. The world is put through turmoil and still two communities reassert themselves. One is well situated for observation from the Base. Both are surviving thanks to the food drops. The Bureau will sanction that much, through the winter, to maintain a viable population base. The final drop will be seed and tools. After that—”

“And those that come to the wire?”

“Have you been letting them in?”

“We’ve been delivering health care and food.”

Florio frowned, sorted through the papers. “The natives brought up here for critical treatment haven’t adjusted to Station life. Severe psychological upset. Is that humanitarian? I think it should be clear that good intentions have led to this disaster. Good intentions. I will tell you how it will be: the mission may observe without interference. There will be no program for acculturation. None. No firearms will be permitted onworld. No technological materials may be taken outside the Base perimeter except recording instruments.”

There was silence from the staff.

“There is study to be pursued here,” Florio said more softly still. “The Bureau has met measurable intelligences; it has never met an immeasurable one; it has never met a situation in which humanity is out-competed by an adaptive species which may violate the criteria. The Bureau puts a priority on this study. The tragedy of Gehenna is not inconsiderable…but it is a double tragedy, most indubitably a tragedy in terms of human lives. For the calibans—very possibly a tragedy. Rights are in question, the rights of sapients to order their affairs under their own law, and this includes the human inhabitants, who are not directly under Alliance law. Yes, it is an ethical question. I agree. The Bureau agrees. But it extends that ethical question to ask whether law itself is not a universal concept.