Starfist: Lazarus Rising (16 page)

Others simply fell in Aries' eternal quest for blood. Whatever the particular circumstances of any one of their deaths, every one of them fell in defense of his fellow man. They may be dead, but they are not gone forever, never to be thought of again. They were Marines. As Marines take care of our own, we remember our comrades who precede us to whatever may come next. Their bodies are no longer among us, but they live on in our memories."

He faced to his left. "FIST Sergeant Major! Read the roll."

"Sir!" Sergeant Major Shiro barked, and lifted a hand in salute. "Aye aye, sir!"

Sturgeon returned the salute and took a single step backward. Shiro stepped forward and to his right, to stand to Sturgeon's right front. In his left hand he held a rolled parchment. An unseen drum began to beat a tattoo. Shiro unrolled the parchment and began to read from it.

"Corporal Alvetserati..." He paused a beat. "PFC Awatard..." Another beat.

"Gunnery Sergeant Charles Bass..." Only the discipline of a lifetime as a Marine kept his voice from breaking on that name. "Lance Corporal Bhendri... PFC Blipstein...

Sergeant Bunderbust... Ensign Chokwatami..."

The calling of the roll went on for a long time. When it finally ended, Shiro rerolled the parchment and tucked it under his left arm like a swagger stick. The drum ceased its tattoo and a lone bugle sounded with the ancient, haunting notes of Taps, in final farewell to fallen comrades.

"Sir, the roll is called," Shiro reported after the last note died. He couldn't keep the thickness out of his voice. "All Marines are accounted for."

"All Marines are accounted for, aye," Sturgeon replied. He paused a moment to ensure his composure, then said, "Sergeant Major, you may resume your place."

"Aye aye, sir." Shiro turned sharply and marched back to his position at the end of the rank behind Sturgeon.

"They were our comrades," the brigadier said when Shiro was back in his place.

"They live on within us." He raised his right hand in salute.

"Present, arms!" shouted Colonel Ramadan, the FIST Chief of Staff.

"Present, arms!" repeated Commander Van Winkle, Commander Foss, and the other subordinate unit commanders.

The thousand-man formation rippled as Marines brought blasters to the "Present arms" position; those who didn't carry blasters raised their right hands in salute to their fallen comrades.

Sturgeon swallowed, then cut his salute.

"Order, arms!" Colonel Ramadan commanded.

"Order, arms!" the subordinate commanders echoed.

The formation rippled again as the Marines cut their salutes and brought their blasters back down.

"Pass in review!" Ramadan shouted.

"Battalion, right shoulder, arms!" Van Winkle ordered. The Marines of the infantry battalion sharply lifted their blasters to rest on their shoulders.

"By companies, pass in review!"

On the company commander's command, Kilo Company stepped forward, pivoted right, marched to the end of the formation, turned left, left again, and marched past the reviewing stand. Company L followed ten meters behind. M

Company, with almost as many blue uniforms as red, trailed. Next came the composite squadron, then the artillery battery and the Dragon company. FIST

Headquarters Company brought up the rear.

As each company reached the reviewing stand, the commander cried out,
"Eyes
right!"
and saluted. The heads of the marching Marines snapped to the right, except for the right-hand column, whose men kept watching their front. Brigadier Sturgeon, Admiral Blankenvoort, and their staffs returned the salutes, and the company commanders cried out,
"Eyes front!"
as they cut their salutes The entire FIST passed by in only a few moments. The Marines shook hands with the navy officers who'd joined them for the solemn ceremony; the admiral and his staff murmured condolences. They adjourned to the officers' club.

There was no ceremony at the Stones; there never was. The Stones were in a remote corner of Camp Ellis, almost never seen by anyone who didn't go out of the way to visit them. They seldom had visitors and were almost never mentioned except by visitors. But they were there, reverently maintained by civilian workers. They were also, unhappily, updated frequently.

There were five of them, almost identical igneous boulders laboriously collected from all over the island of Niflheim and brought to stand their silent vigil. Each Stone, nearly two meters wide, towered more than three meters above the ground, with an additional meter or more anchoring it below the surface. A dense grove of firlike trees blanketed the hillsides that wrapped around the Stones, sheltering them from the prevailing winds. A broad flagstone walkway led along the front of the boulders. It extended beyond the last one, making room for more to be added to the line. A matching face of each of the boulders had been cut flat just a few degrees off vertical, and the flat face polished until it gleamed. The morning sun reflected blindingly from the polished faces. The faces of the two boulders on the left had engraved upon them the names of the Marines of 34th FIST who had died in combat before the FIST was stationed on Thorsfinni's World. The third Stone's face and three-quarters of the fourth Stone's were engraved with the names of FIST Marines who had been killed in action since the FIST began calling Camp Ellis home.

Much more than half of 34th FIST's existence was before it moved to Thorsfinni's World.

The day after the Farewell-to-Brothers Pass in Review, a crew of stonemasons engraved the new names on the face of the fourth Stone. It was a brisk morning, and an easy breeze lightly rustled the grove. The air smelled of fish, but nobody noticed; the air always smelled of fish.

The stonemasons could have done the engravings the quick and easy way, using the rock welders that vaporized stone to the desired depth and angle of cut. But they weren't engraving a cornerstone date, or a classical quote on a lintel, or a corporate name or slogan on the face of a building, or even the headstones of ordinary people.

These engravings were the names of Marines who had lived and died and now lived eternally in the hearts of the Marines who survived them. These names had to be engraved with a reverence modern methods simply didn't allow. Even if the Marines hadn't told them they wanted the engravings done the old-fashioned way, with hammers and chisels, the stonemasons would have used their ancient tools. They knew that when names are engraved in stone by hand, they had a connection to real people that machine-carved names could not.

Sergeant Major Shiro was at the Stones. Nominally, he was there to supervise the stonemasons and make sure they didn't miss any names, and that all of them had the right rank and were spelled correctly. The stonemasons didn't need the supervision; they had too much pride in their craftsmanship and too much respect for the work to make such errors. So Shiro stayed out of their way and made sure none of the Marines who attended the engraving got in their way. It was an easy job. Few Marines of 34th FIST ever visited the Stones. Even fewer came when new names were being engraved—most found it entirely too easy to imagine their own names being carved on the Stones.

Shiro wasn't surprised, however, that First Sergeant Myer was present. They nodded to each other. Myer offered a Fidel, Shiro accepted, then they lit up and quietly puffed away while they watched the stonemasons.

The Fidels were more than half gone before Myer broke the silence.

"What do they do when they have to take a name off the Stones?"

Shiro considered the question for a long moment, then pointed at the fourth Stone.

"See there, a couple of fingers above his left shoulder?"

Myer looked at the stonemason working on the left side of the fourth Stone, two fingers of space above the man's shoulder. The shine on the Stone's face at that point rippled, not quite in sync with the rest of the reflected glow.

"Got it," Myer said.

"That was before either of us were assigned here. The FIST was on a campaign on a world with large carnivores that preyed on people. They gobbled a few Marines. One got his left arm chomped off but managed to get away. His ID bracelet was found in the carnivore's scat, and it was presumed he was dead. He wasn't. He managed to tie off the stump, but then he got lost in the jungle and wasn't found until after the deployment. His name was already on the Stone by the time the FIST was notified. That's the only time a name ever had to come off one of the Stones. That's what it looks like."

"A blank space that isn't level with the rest of the face."

"That's right," Shiro said.

"That's the only one?"

"Yes."

"There's going to be two," Myer said.

Shiro sighed. "He's dead, Goldie. We've got his bracelet, we've got his DNA, we've got enough blood and tissue to know he was pulverized when that rail gun hit him."

"They had that Marine's ID bracelet and the carnivore's scat too."

Shiro slowly shook his head but didn't bother saying anything more. They resumed silently watching the stonemasons at their work.

At noon the masons put their tools aside and broke for lunch. Myer slowly walked to the fourth stone and squatted until the newest names were at eye level. He lightly brushed his fingertips over the freshly carved third new name and wondered why the names were so blurry when they should be sharp.

"I'll see you again, Charlie," he said softly.

He stood back up, stepped two paces back, and came to attention. He snapped the sharpest salute he'd made in years, then about-faced and marched away. Good thing there were so few Marines present, he thought. Something in the air must have gotten into his eyes. He could hardly see where he was going.

CHAPTER 12

Dominic de Tomas was used to being feared, hated, and despised. He was also used to maintaining a very low profile. While millions knew of him by reputation, few would have recognized him in public. He had preferred life that way, being the power behind the scenes, manipulating, planning, plotting, exercising the power of life and death in the shadows.

But now, with those long-deferred plans having come to fruition, all that had changed.

He was about to receive a special public obeisance simulcast on television hookups all across the continent. It was to be presented to him formally by members of the Young Folk League. To a cynic, that would have meant nothing because, as everyone knew, the youth of the organization de Tomas had created and nurtured over the years as a recruiting organ for the Special Group loved their leader. They loved him totally, without reservation, and few parents dared argue with their children about that. But they really did love the man, and what they were about to do that day, in front of the entire world, was a sincere tribute to Dominic de Tomas, the Leader.

The children, all dressed neatly in the simple black and silver uniform of the Young Folk, stood in three rows in the center of the Great Hall at Wayvelsberg, their faces freshly scrubbed, eyes shining brightly with all the enthusiasm one might expect of youth being admitted to the presence of their god.

Balthazar Shearer, Minister for Youth in de Tomas's new government, stepped forward smartly and saluted the Leader. Shearer, a fortyish, immaculately groomed, but portly man, had directed the Young Folk program for years. He had a talent for organizing and inspiring young people.

A huge brass plaque covered with a velvet drop sheet had been placed on a tripod in the center of the Great Hall. Two young boys stood on either side at rigid attention, waiting for the signal to remove the cover.

"My leader," Shearer began, "the young people assembled here today represent every chapter of the Young Folk League on Kingdom. They have come by express invitation to honor you, our beloved leader." He signaled the two boys, and they pulled the cover off the plaque. On it was a poem entitled, "Honor to Our Leader."

Shearer turned to the assembled Young Folk and, like an orchestral conductor, led them in a recitation of the poem, which began, "We live only to hear your ringing voice that strikes deep into our very souls, plunging us into wordless admiration, our very hands tremble in an ecstasy of adoration at every word," and on and on. It was a large plaque.

Gorman, standing beside de Tomas, whispered, "It's from a poem Shearer wrote called ‘The Song of the Loyal Ones.’ The Minister of Propaganda has had it published numerous times in the media and on thousands of broadsides which he's posted all over the country. It's a bit... saccharine, wouldn't you say, my leader?"

"Well,
I
like it, Herten," de Tomas whispered back.

Gorman flinched. "Well, I am told by respected authorities that it does have great artistic merit, my leader, but what do I, a simple soldier, know of art?"

"What's next, Herten?" de Tomas whispered, trying not to move his lips.

"Labor Service parade at Mars Field, and then lunch with Jayben Spears."

"Spears? Ah, lunch with that dour ambassadorial personage is like dining with the Commendatore in
Don Giovanni
—Death and Retribution at the dinner table!"

Gorman permitted himself a brief smile. He was familiar with the image from Mozart's opera, the ghost of the murdered man sent to seek the don's repentance.

"But after that, I've found a new candidate for you to interview, my leader," Gorman whispered excitedly. "I think you shall find her quite satisfactory."

"Bring this one up on the elevator, Herten. Damned stairs tires them all out. Even those in the best shape arrive cranky and sweaty. Besides, I don't want too many people knowing about that stairway."

The recitation, of which de Tomas did not hear another word, finished at last.

Shearer bowed to de Tomas and came to the position of attention. De Tomas stepped forward and held out his arms as if to embrace all the children.

"My dear ones, I thank you most respectfully and most humbly on behalf of the people of Kingdom for this singularly significant testament you have so graciously presented to me on this most auspicious occasion! It shall remain on display here always, as a monument to your love and unfailing loyalty, which I promise to return to you tenfold. The future of Kingdom is here this morning, and that future is
you
,"