The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (61 page)

“Yes.”

“Why’d you ask for me?”

“I’m a soldier,” the elf said, and put his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “I know that you are. I think you understand me more.”

“I don’t know about that. But I’ll listen.” The thought crossed his mind of being held hostage, of some irrational violent behavior, but he pretended it away and waved a hand at the other chair. “You want to sit down? You want something to drink? They’ll get it for you.”

“I’ll sit with you.” The elf came and took the other chair, and leaned his elbows on the table. The bruises on his wrists showed plainly under the light. “I thought you might have gone back to the front by now.”

“They give me a little time. I mean, there’s—”

(Don’t talk to him, the colonel had said. Let him talk.)

“—three hours. A while. You had a reason you wanted to see me. Something you wanted? Or just to talk. I’ll do that too.”

“Yes,” the elf said slowly, in his lilting lisp. And gazed at him with sea-green eyes. “Are you young, deFranco? You make me think of a young man.”

It set him off his balance. “I’m not all that young.”

“I have a son and a daughter. Have you?”

“No.”

“Parents?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Have you parents?”

“A mother. Long way from here.” He resented the questioning. Letters were all Nadya deFranco got, and not enough of them, and thank God she had closer sons. DeFranco sat staring at the elf who had gotten past his guard in two quick questions and managed to hit a sore spot; and he remembered what Finn had warned him. “You, elf?”

“Living parents. Yes. A lot of relatives?”

Damn, what trooper had they stripped getting that part of human language? Whose soul had they gotten into?

“What are you, Saitas? Why’d they hand you over like that?”

“To make peace. So the Saitas always does.”

“Tied up like that?”

“I came to be your prisoner. You understand that.”

“Well, it worked. I might have shot you; I don’t say I would’ve, but I might, except for that. It was a smart move, I guess it was. But hell, you could have called ahead. You come up on us in the dark—you looked to get your head blown off. Why didn’t you use the radio?”

A blink of sea-green eyes. “Others ask me that. Would you have come then?”

“Well, someone would. Listen, you speak at them in human language and they’d listen and they’d arrange something a lot safer.”

The elf stared, full of his own obscurities.

“Come on, they throw you out of there? They your enemies?”

“Who?”

“The ones who left you out there on the hill.”

“No.”

“Friends, huh?
Friends
left you out there?”

“They agreed with me. I agreed to be there. I was most afraid you’d shoot them. But you let them go.”

“Hell, look, I just follow orders.”

“And orders led you to let them go?”

“No. They say to talk if I ever got the chance. Look, me, personally, I never wanted to kill you guys. I wouldn’t, if I had the choice.”

“But you do.”

“Dammit, you took out our ships. Maybe that wasn’t personal on your side either, but we sure as hell can’t have you doing it as a habit. All you ever damn well had to do was go away and let us alone. You hit a world, elf. Maybe not much of one, but you killed more than a thousand people on that first ship. Thirty thousand at that base, good God, don’t sit there looking at me like that!”

“It was a mistake.”

“Mistake.” DeFranco found his hands shaking. No. Don’t raise the voice. Don’t lose it. (Be your own nice self, boy. Patronizingly. The colonel knew he was far out of his depth. And he knew.) “Aren’t most wars mistakes?”

“Do you think so?”

“If it is, can’t we stop it?” He felt the attention of unseen listeners, diplomats, scientists—himself, special ops, talking to an elvish negotiator and making a mess of it all, losing everything. (Be your own nice self—The colonel was crazy, the elf was, the war and the world were and he lumbered ahead desperately, attempting subtlety, attempting a caricatured simplicity toward a diplomat and knowing the one as transparent as the other.) “You know all you have to do is say quit and there’s ways to stop the shooting right off, ways to close it all down and then start talking about how we settle this. You say that’s what you came to do. You’re in the right place. All you have to do is get your side to stop. They’re killing each other out there, do you know that? You come in here to talk peace. And they’re coming at us all up and down the front. I just got word I lost a friend of mine out there. God knows what by now. It’s no damn sense. If you can stop it, then let’s stop it.”

“I’ll tell you what our peace will be.” The elf lifted his face placidly, spread his hands. “There is a camera, isn’t there? At least a microphone. They do listen.”

“Yes. They’ve got camera and mike. I know they will.”

“But your face is what I see. Your face is all human faces to me. They can listen, but I talk to you. Only to you. And this is our peace. The fighting will stop, and we’ll build ships again and we’ll go into space, and we won’t be enemies. The mistake won’t exist. That’s the peace I want.”

“So how do we do that?” (Be your own nice self, boy—DeFranco abandoned himself. Don’t see the skin, don’t see the face alien-like, just talk, talk like to a human, don’t worry about protocols.
Do
it, boy.) “How do we get the fighting stopped?”

“I’ve said it. They’ve heard.”

“Yes. They have.”

“They have two days to make this peace.”

DeFranco’s palms sweated. He clenched his hands on the chair. “Then what happens?”

“I’ll die. The war will go on.”

(God, now what do I do, what do I say? How far can I go?) “Listen, you don’t understand how long it takes us to make up our minds. We need more than any two days. They’re dying out there, your people are killing themselves against our lines, and it’s all for nothing. Stop it now. Talk to them. Tell them we’re going to talk. Shut it down.”

The slitted eyes blinked, remained in their buddha-like abstraction, looking askance into infinity. “DeFranco, there has to be payment.”

(Think, deFranco, think. Ask the right things.)

“What payment? Just exactly who are you talking for? All of you? A city? A district?”

“One peace will be enough for you—won’t it? You’ll go away. You’ll leave and we won’t see each other until we’ve built our ships again. You’ll begin to go—as soon as my peace is done.”

“Build the ships, for God’s sake. And come after us again?”

“No. The war is a mistake. There won’t be another war. This is enough.”

“But would everyone agree?”

“Everyone does agree. I’ll tell you my real name. It’s Angan. Angan Anassidi. I’m forty-one years old. I have a son named Agaita; a daughter named Siadi; I was born in a town named Daogisshi, but it’s burned now. My wife is Llaothai Sohail, and she was born in the city where we live now. I’m my wife’s only husband. My son is aged twelve, my daughter is nine. They live in the city with my wife alone now and her parents and mine.” The elvish voice acquired a subtle music on the names that lingered to obscure his other speech. “I’ve written—I told them I would write everything for them. I write in your language.”

“Told who?”

“The humans who asked me. I wrote it all.”

DeFranco stared at the elf, at a face immaculate and distant as a statue. “I don’t think I follow you. I don’t understand. We’re talking about the front. We’re talking about maybe that wife and those kids being in danger, aren’t we? About maybe my friends getting killed out there. About shells falling and people getting blown up. Can we do anything about it?”

“I’m here to make the peace. Saitas is what I am. A gift to you. I’m the payment.”

DeFranco blinked and shook his head. “Payment? I’m not sure I follow that.”

For a long moment there was quiet. “Kill me,” the elf said. “That’s why I came. To be the last dead. The saitas. To carry the mistake away.”

“Hell, no. No. We don’t shoot you. Look, elf—all we want is to stop the fighting. We don’t want your life. Nobody wants to kill you.”

“DeFranco, we haven’t any more resources. We want a peace.”

“So do we. Look, we just make a treaty—you understand
treaty
?”

“I’m the treaty.”

“A treaty, man, a treaty’s a piece of paper. We promise peace to each other and not to attack us, we promise not to attack you, we settle our borders, and you just go home to that wife and kids. And I go home and that’s it. No more dying. No more killing.”

“No.” The elf’s eyes glistened within the pale mask. “No, deFranco, no paper.”

“We make peace with a paper and ink. We write peace out and we make agreements and it’s good enough; we do what we say we’ll do.”

“Then write it in your language.”

“You have to sign it. Write your name on it. And keep the terms. That’s all, you understand that?”

“Two days. I’ll sign your paper. I’ll make your peace. It’s nothing. Our peace is in me. And I’m here to give it.”

“Dammit, we don’t kill people for treaties.”

The sea-colored eyes blinked. “Is one so hard and millions so easy?”

“It’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because—because—look, war’s for killing; peace is for staying alive.”

“I don’t understand why you fight. Nothing you do makes sense to us. But I think we almost understand. We talk to each other. We use the same words. DeFranco, don’t go on killing us.”

“Just you. Just you, is that it? Dammit, that’s crazy!”

“A cup would do. Or a gun. Whatever you like. DeFranco, have you never shot us before?”

“God, it’s not the same!”

“You say paper’s enough for you. That paper will take away all your mistakes and make the peace. But paper’s not enough for us. I’d never trust it. You have to make my peace too. So both sides will know it’s true. But there has to be a saitas for humans. Someone has to come to be a saitas for humans. Someone has to come to us.”

DeFranco sat there with his hands locked together. “You mean just go to your side and get killed.”

“The last dying.”

“Dammit, you are crazy. You’ll wait a long time for that, elf.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re damn right I don’t understand. Damn bloody-minded lunatics!” DeFranco shoved his hands down, needing to get up, to get away from that infinitely patient and not human face, that face that had somehow acquired subtle expressions, that voice which made him forget where the words had first come from. And then he remembered the listeners, the listeners taking notes, the colonel staring at him across the table. Information. Winning was not the issue. Questions were. Finding out what they could. Peace was no longer the game. They were dealing with the insane, with minds there was no peace with. Elves that died to spite their enemies. That suicided for a whim and thought nothing about wiping out someone else’s life.

He stayed in his chair. He drew another breath. He collected his wits and thought of something else worth learning. “What’d you do with the prisoners you learned the language from, huh? Tell me that?”

“Dead. We gave them the cup. One at a time they wanted it.”

“Did they.”

Again the spread of hands, of graceful fingers. “I’m here for all the mistakes. Whatever will be enough for them.”

“Dammit, elf!”

“Don’t call me that.” The voice acquired a faint music. “Remember my name. Remember my name. DeFranco—”

He had to get up. He had to get up and get clear of the alien, get away from that stare. He thrust himself back from the table and looked back, found the elf had turned. Saitas-Angan smelled of something dry and musky, like spice. The eyes never opened wide, citrine slits. They followed him.

“Talk to me,” the elf said. “Talk to me, deFranco.”

“About what? About handing one of us to you? It won’t happen. It bloody won’t happen. We’re not crazy.”

“Then the war won’t stop.”

“You’ll bloody die, every damn last one of you!”

“If that’s your intention,” the elf said, “yes. We don’t believe you want peace. We haven’t any more hope. So I come here. And the rest of us begin to die. Not the quiet dying. Our hearts won’t stop. We’ll fight.”

“Out there on the lines, you mean.”

“I’ll die as long as you want, here. I won’t stop my heart. The saitas can’t.”

“Dammit, that’s not what we’re after! That’s not what we want.”

“Neither can you stop yours. I know that. We’re not cruel. I still have hope in you. I still hope.”

“It won’t work.
We can’t do it,
do you understand me? It’s against our law. Do you understand law?”

“Law.”

“Right from wrong. Morality. For God’s sake, killing’s wrong.”

“Then you’ve done a lot of wrong. You have your mistake too, DeFranco. You’re a soldier like me. You know what your life’s value is.”

“You’re damn right I know. And I’m still alive.”

“We go off the course. We lose ourselves. You’ll die for war but not for peace. I don’t understand.”

“
I
don’t understand. You think we’re just going to pick some poor sod and send him to you.”

“You, deFranco. I’m asking you to make the peace.”

“Hell.” He shook his head, walked away to the door, colonel-be-hanged, listeners-be-hanged. His hand shook on the switch and he was afraid it showed. End the war. “The hell you say.”

The door shot open. He expected guards. Expected—

—It was open corridor, clean prefab, tiled floor. On the tiles lay a dark, round object, with the peculiar symmetry and ugliness of things meant to kill. Grenade. Intact.

His heart jolted. He felt the doorframe against his side and the sweat ran cold on his skin, his bowels went to water. He hung there looking at it and it did not go away. He began to shake all over as if it were already armed.

“Colonel Finn.” He turned around in the doorway and yelled at the unseen monitors. “Colonel Finn—get me out of here!”

No one answered. No door opened. The elf sat there staring at him in the closest thing to distress he had yet showed.

“Colonel!
Colonel, damn you!
”