The Eternity Brigade (21 page)

“But it’s such a waste. We haven’t accomplished anything except smear our own records.”

“So? As I told Ibañez, what can they do to us that they haven’t already done?” When Hawker didn’t answer, Belilo propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him, although the darkness made them scarcely visible to one another. “Look, we’ve both been the army’s slaves for centuries. We’ve fought for causes we can’t understand, against beings we’ve never even met, on planets where we couldn’t even survive without help. We don’t even get a thank-you—just shoved under the scanner to have our patterns copied for the next time, and the next, and the time after that. We live, but we’re not alive, if you know what I mean.”

“Green said, when this whole experiment began, that we’d be losing our souls,” Hawker said quietly.

“He was right,” Belilo nodded. “Smart guy; I wish I’d known him better. But the point I’m trying to make is now, for the first time, we’re fighting for
ourselves
, for something
we
want. It doesn’t matter how hopeless the cause is; it’s
our
cause. That makes it worthwhile.”

She settled back onto the ground, staring up at the sky. “Did you see the expression on Singh’s face just as he flew off? I did. He was happy. I’ll bet Ibañez felt that way, too. Sure, we’re going to die eventually. The army’s too big to fight off forever. My biggest regret is I won’t remember this in my future lives. But the point is, we
are
free—and as long as we are, I intend to enjoy it. So don’t bother to apologize.”

Hawker lay silently on the ground, also staring at the sky while he tried to assimilate what she’d told him. Her hands were caressing him gently—and after a few minutes she rolled over on top of him, and Hawker found, much to his surprise, that he was capable again this soon after the last time.

***

The bubbles first appeared during Hawker’s watch, just as dawn was lighting.

He was sitting with his back to a tree at the edge of the forest, looking over the wide expanse of meadow. Behind him, hidden in the woods, Symington and Belilo slept, near Green’s gruesome body. Hawker had willed his mind to a state of semiblankness; he merely repeated the word “army” over and over again like a mantra until his mind relaxed in nothingness. It allowed him to relax, while at the same time keeping him awake in case some emergency arose.

His eye caught a movement in the sky to his right, bringing him instantly alert. His grip tightened on his rifle, which had lain casually in his lap, but he did not raise the weapon, nor did he cry out to wake his companions. The danger was not imminent yet, and he was too well trained to panic.

A group of translucent bubbles was floating across the sky. They looked like the soap bubbles he’d blown as a kid, drifting in the air and catching the dawning sunlight. It was impossible to tell how big or how high the globes were—but somehow, despite their fragile appearance, Hawker got the impression the bubbles were tougher than they looked.

He searched the memories implanted m his mind by the training probe when he’d been dubbed this time. He was reasonably sure the army had no such weapons or vehicles. Similarly, his experience with the aliens he’d been created to fight told him this was nothing in their arsenal, either.

He watched them over the course of the next half hour. They were beautiful to watch. There was some intelligence behind them; that was obvious from the way they interacted. They glided through the sky, perhaps twenty of them—they never held still long enough to count—dancing and interweaving with one another in an elaborately choreographed aerial ballet. The pattern was hypnotic as they spun and danced and glistened. Sometimes the bubbles touched and merged for a few minutes, only to separate again and fly apart. Sometimes they joined with a thin connector between them, like giant dumbbells, and whirl crazily through the sky. Their colors shifted in the changing sunlight, and sometimes they took on unexpected hues of their own. Some turned dark while others glowed so brightly they rivaled the rising sun itself.

More and more of the bubbles drifted over the horizon to join the ballet. Bedazzled, Hawker could only watch their giddy dance, until suddenly he realized there were hundreds of the bubbles filling nearly half the sky—and the approximate center of the complex dance pattern was moving slowly to a point overhead. Suddenly, the bubbles didn’t seem quite as innocent as they had before.

Moving quietly and not letting his attention stray from the aerial display, he backed into the forest and woke his two comrades. He explained in a few words that something unusual was happening, and brought them with him to the edge of the woods to observe the bubbles for themselves.

Symington and Belilo stood awestruck for several minutes by this airborne fantasy, not sure what to make of it. They suggested several possible explanations, but nothing very convincing. Like Hawker, they were reluctant to use their weapons on the globes unless provoked.

The bubbles now were so numerous it was impossible to follow all their intricate movements at once. It was Symington who first spotted the descending globe, drifting softly down from the sky to land in the field near the edge of the forest, barely fifty meters from where the trio stood. At this closer distance, they could see that the bubble, while seeming translucent, gave no indication of what might be inside it. It was considerably bigger than they’d estimated, more than twenty meters in diameter.

Nothing happened for several minutes, and the three soldiers stood with weapons raised, ready to fight at the slightest hostile move. Then a crack appeared in one side of the bubble, widening to form a doorway. A man stepped out—or at least, someone whose ancestors had probably been of human stock.

He was of average height, with a deep chocolate brown skin, but his body was oddly proportioned; his legs and waist seemed much too large for that trunk and head. He was naked except for two wide bands of red cloth, running from shoulder across the chest to opposite hip and up again around the back, forming an X front and rear. He had no body hair, but growing from his head was a magnificent set of antlers. Belilo snickered quietly and pointed with her rifle barrel to indicate that the man from the bubble had two penises.

The soldiers watched nervously as this being left his bubble and walked into the forest off to their right, apparently not noticing them. The door in the side of the bubble remained tantalizingly open. Hawker suggested they go in and investigate, but Belilo shook her head.

“Too risky. We have no idea what we’d be getting into. Those bubbles are some sort of craft, but we still don’t know what makes them go or how to work them. I think we might better try to capture our horny friend and see what information we can get out of him.”

The men agreed, and the trio fanned out through the forest, moving in the direction where they’d last seen their quarry. The man from the bubble made no attempt to conceal himself as he walked deeper into the woods at a leisurely pace, checking the trees as though looking for a special kind. Belilo gave the signal and ran out of her hiding place to tackle him. Hawker and Symington were there a scant second later to help her. Their victim, after his initial moment of surprise, put up no resistance.

“All right, friend, who are you?” Belilo asked.

The man stared up with wide, calm eyes. “Consakannis,” he replied. “And if I really am your friend, you have an odd way of showing it.”

The serenity with which he answered was a little unnerving, but Belilo had to tough it out. “You’re either our friend, or dead,” she told him. “The choice is entirely yours.”

“Oh.” He paused to consider that. “I suppose I might be your friend for a while. It could be amusing.”

“It’s anything but amusing,” Symington said. “There’s a lot at stake here.”

“Indeed?” If Consakannis had had eyebrows, one would have been lifted.

Hawker didn’t like the way this conversation was turning. “What’s that bubble you came down in?” he asked.

“That’s my home-sphere.”

Symington grabbed Consakannis by the crossing strips of cloth and pulled him roughly to his feet. “Take us in there.”

“If you like.”

The antlered man led the way back through the forest to the bubble, which rested quietly at the edge of the field exactly as he’d left it. He walked without hesitation through the doorway, and the three soldiers followed quickly after him, afraid he might make the bubble rise into the air once more and escape before they could stop him.

Inside, the bubble was lit with a soothing yellow glow that diffused from the walls. They were in a small compartment barely large enough for all four of them to move around. Holes in the ceiling and the other walls seemed to lead to other rooms. “A little cramped, isn’t it?” Symington asked.

“I wasn’t expecting guests,” Consakannis replied calmly. “I’ll just take a second to adjust it.”

He reached his left hand out against the wall and tapped his fingers lightly on the surface, like a typist tapping out a pattern. The outer wall remained as it was, but the inner walls receded until the room was large enough for them to walk around. “Is that better?” he asked.

“Much,” Belilo said, trying to disguise her worries about exactly what sort of person they’d captured. “But doesn’t it get boring living in a bare room? Don’t you have any furniture?”

“What kind would you like?” Consakannis tapped another pattern on the wall and the material of the floor began shifting, flowing upward and molding it itself into the shapes of a long blue sofa and two large green stuffed armchairs. “If the colors aren’t suitable,” he said, “l can always change them.”

“Do you live here by yourself?” Hawker asked, concentrating on the important questions to take his mind off the disturbing powers their prisoner possessed.

For the first time, Consakannis seemed perplexed. “Of course,” he said, tilting his head in puzzlement. “Who else could possibly live in
my
home? People visit from time to time, but….” His face brightened. “Would you like to go up and meet them?”

“No,” Belilo said emphatically. “We’re staying right here until we get all of this sorted out.”

“You really are antisocial, aren’t you?” Consakannis said. He crossed, the room and started to sit down in one of the armchairs.

“No one said you could sit,” Symington growled.

“It
is
my home.” The prisoner sat defiantly, crossing his legs.

Belilo was sweating. She could feel the situation slipping from her grasp. “We’re giving the orders around here,” she said. “You’ll sit when we tell you to, and not before.”

“This is getting boring,” Consakannis said, not moving from his comfortable position.

Belilo pointed her rifle directly at the captive’s midsection. “Get up, damn you!”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll shoot you where you are.”

“Then I’m afraid that’s what you’ll have to do. You’ve become too tiresome to bother with.”

Belilo glanced nervously at her companions. If she backed down now, they might as well just surrender, for they would be Consakannis’s prisoners within this bubble. Much as she hated to admit it, they’d lost control of their captive. He wasn’t afraid of them, and she saw plainly that nothing she could do would give her any power over him. Reluctantly she pressed the firing stud and watched the energy beam lash out to devour Consakannis’s body.

The man died instantly. Within moments of his death, the three soldiers felt the bubble around them shake as though in a massive earthquake. The glow from the walls died and the walls themselves blurred and turned a dead-leaf brown. The pieces of furniture curled at the edges and shriveled into themselves. The bubble, too, began collapsing. Strange indentations appeared in the originally smooth exterior shell, accompanied by a disgusting sucking sound.

Hawker and his friends looked about wildly, but the door through which they’d come had disappeared. The shaking continued, becoming even more violent, and they were knocked off their feet onto the hard floor while the walls around them continued their implosion.

As the shell closed in upon them, it turned into some gooey substance that clung to their skin and clothing like molasses. They reached up their arms, striving to tear holes through the goo so they could breathe, and just did manage to clear some space before the globe collapsed completely, bathing them in a syrupy swamp.

“What is this shit?” Symington asked, struggling to free his arms from the quagmire.

“No wonder Consakannis was confused when we asked if anyone else lived here with him,” Belilo said. “This literally
was
his house.” She was struggling, too, to pull herself out of the sticky liquid. “No wonder he wasn’t afraid of us. He must have thought we were incredibly stupid.’’

“He’ll be resurrected again anyway, won’t he?” Hawker asked.

“I guess so. They seem to have extended that privilege to everyone on this world. I’m just glad the bubble was on the ground when I shot him.”

By sheer force, she and Symington managed to pull themselves out of the ocean of goo, and Hawker belatedly followed suit. The viscous fluid clung to his clothing, skin and hair, and particularly to his boots, making walking difficult. “We’d better get back to Green” he panted. “I don’t think we’ll get any help from the bubble people.”