The Martian Viking (16 page)

"Please," Felicia said.

But Angel Torquemada was already out the door.

"Felicia," Johnsmith said, as the grim prisoners rose and followed Torquemada. "What brought that on? This little outing could turn out to be very dangerous."

She turned to him with soulful eyes. "I want to be with you, Johnsmith Biberkopf," she said. "I want to be with you all the time."

"Well, that's nice, sweetheart," he said, genuinely touched, "but I don't think you should risk your life."

"It doesn't matter," she said. "The time that we live isn't what's important, but the way we live during that time. That's what really counts."

Johnsmith wasn't so sure about that, but kept his doubts to himself. At least she wasn't going along on the expedition to be used as particle beam fodder.

"Do you know why they didn't select me?" she said, with a touch of her pre-onee bitterness.

"No."

"Because of my family. They're giving me preferential treatment."

"But you
want
to go on the expedition, and Torquemada won't let you."

"Exactly, you naif. They're afraid of the consequences if I get killed or wounded . . .or captured by the enemy."

"I knew it," Johnsmith said. "You want to go over to the Arkies."

"Shh." She pressed her index finger against his lips and said softly, "I want
us
to go over to them, not just me."

"Us?" he whispered.

"You and me, guerillas together for the rest of our lives. And maybe Alderdice, too."

Johnsmith was moved and appalled at the same time. But all he said was: "Alderdice's obedience implants would probably prevent him from going over to the Arkies."

Felicia leaned close to him, close enough for him to kiss her. He did so, impulsively and deeply. It felt good, as if he had a new understanding of Felicia. Perhaps she was misguided, but she had a generous and giving spirit underneath the bitterness and resentment . . .sometimes.

She didn't give her love easily, but once she did, she gave all of it. It was just too bad that she had such crazy ideas.

But even while he was kissing her, he wondered if it was really crazy to think about defecting to the Arkies. Could it be any worse than this tedious nightmare of an interplanetary prison? At least the Arkies were free, living on the outside, not under the command of an imperious prig like Angel Torquemada.

"Well, it looks like we're going to see some action tomorrow," a woman's voice said from behind Johnsmith.

He turned and saw Frankie Lee Wisbar smiling at him. She smiled at Felicia, too, but Felicia looked away.

"You seem happy to be going into combat," Johnsmith said.

Frankie shrugged. "I might be killed," she said, "but so what? It's better than this living death." An expansive gesture indicated the entire compound.

Johnsmith was slightly startled to hear her say what he had been thinking; not in so many words, perhaps, but the sentiment was the same. Quiet desperation was the rule of thumb at Elysium, apparently. And those who had been here longer didn't like it any better.

"In combat, you're really alive," Frankie said. "It's something a pacifist could never understand."

"I've only been in combat once," Johnsmith said, "and I found it confusing and frightening."

"It won't get any better," Frankie Lee Wisbar replied, "but
you
will."

She walked away, leaving Johnsmith with a plainly resentful Felicia.

"She's after you," Felicia said.

"She's just trying to help," Johnsmith said, wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene.

"Trying to help!" Felicia shouted. "She's going off with you tomorrow, and I may never see you again."

"Felicia, this isn't going to be a romantic tryst tomorrow. We're going off to fight a war."

But Felicia wasn't listening. She got up, kicking over her plastic chair, and stalked out of the meeting room. Johnsmith was left alone with his thoughts. He wondered what had made Felicia so angry. Perhaps it was his defense of Frankie. After all, Felicia probably thought that marching off to war was a highly romantic proposition, especially if the goal was to join another band of revolutionary guerrillas. She was so screwed up, but he loved her anyway. Maybe he was crazy, loving a woman like that, but that was the way things had worked out . . .at least for now.

Frankie Lee Wisbar was packing her gear. She was the only one at Elysium camp who knew where they were going in the morning, besides Torquemada and Sergeant Daiv. Still, she was packing exactly what she'd been told to, and gave no indication that she possessed more information than any other prisoner.

The slightest suspicious action on her part might lead Torquemada to suspect that she was an Arkie. She had to keep that in mind at all times.

A light flared brilliantly, and a continuous roar sounded immediately afterward. Frankie Lee's muscles tensed and she dropped the pack. How could the Arkies attack without her knowing it?

She realized after a moment that it was only the Interplan ship's engines. Prudy the co-pilot was testing them, as she had done many times since the Captain had been captured by the Arkies, marooning her at Elysium as a result. It happened every few days, and she had learned to pay little or no attention to its thunder and fire. Tonight she was jumpy, thinking about what was going to happen tomorrow. There was no way to warn the Arkies about the imminent attack. What was worse, she would be one of the aggressors.

Maybe she could divert Torquemada and Sergeant Daiv long enough to let her compatriots know what was in store for them. It wasn't likely, but it was the best idea she could come up with on such short notice.

"I'm frightened."

She turned to see Alderdice V. Lumumba, sitting across the aisle from her on his bunk, packing his gear.

"That's okay, Alderdice," she said, ignoring the disapproving looks from the combat veterans bunking on either side of her. "Everybody is when they go into battle."

"I was completely ineffective during that first firefight," Alderdice said. "I was so scared I could hardly move."

"It's not unusual, especially the first time out."

Alderdice looked down at his bootless feet, plucking at one of his socks. "I don't think I'm any braver now than I was then, to tell the truth."

"You'll be okay." Frankie smiled at him. This poor man would probably get killed, she thought. He was just the sort to freeze up and present himself as an easy target. But there was no sense in scaring him. "Try not to worry."

"I will." Alderdice frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder why they're doing it?"

"Doing what?" Frankie went over and sat down on the edge of Alderdice's bed.

"The Arkies. I wonder why they're disseminating these special onees. I mean, I could understand it if they were raiding Elysium for food, or for other supplies. But what is it about these Viking hallucinations that's so special?"

"I don't know," Frankie Lee Wisbar lied.

"And why here at Elysium, the most heavily guarded military installation on Mars?"

Frankie shook her head innocently.

"Of course, they might be attacking every human habitation on the planet, for all I know," Alderdice mused. "But that still doesn't explain why they're doing it."

"No, I guess not."

Brow furrowed, Alderdice said earnestly, "You've been here a lot longer than me, Frankie. You must have heard something by this time. What do you think?"

"Torquemada doesn't tell us much," she said.

"No, I guess not. Still, there must be some reason for their behavior."

"Maybe they're trying to show us something," Frankie said. "Teach us something."

"In some misguided way, maybe," Alderdice allowed.

Frankie shrugged. "Who can say?"

"I guess it's hard for me to understand why anybody would do such a thing," Alderdice said.

"Why?"

"Because of my obedience implants. I used to work for the government, you know."

"I didn't realize that."

"I have a hard time understanding antisocial behavior. I was that way even before I applied for P.A."

"You were a P.A.?"

"Yeah."

Frankie smiled. "You don't seem the type, Alderdice."

"I suppose there's a good reason for that." Alderdice smiled a little, too. "I'm just not cut out to snoop and follow people around, even if they are in violation of Conglom law."

"Funny how people get into trouble," Frankie said. "I never believed that I'd done anything wrong, but they drafted me anyway."

"What happened?"

"I joined a group of freeps, and, even though I quit when the World Court ruled it illegal, I lost my job."

"You were a freep?" Alderdice had never paid much attention to the 'gram stories about the free-enterprise revivalists who had tried to start their own small businesses. He had assumed that they were all anticap, antisocial types, but Frankie Lee Wisbar certainly didn't fit the pattern.

"You're looking at a former neo-capitalist," Frankie said.

"Well, those kind of ideas are dangerous to the multinational way of life," Alderdice said, aware of the fact that he was spouting conventional wisdom, but unable to help himself. "The Conglom way is real capitalism. The freeps were revealed as anticap extremists."

"So they say," Frankie shrugged again. "So they say."

Alderdice turned toward his bunk. "Well, I guess it's time to get some rest."

"I guess so." Frankie wanted to give him some comfort, but she remembered that he wasn't interested in women. "Good night, Alderdice."

"Good night." He rolled over in his bunk, leaving Frankie alone with her secret knowledge.

Tomorrow they would go to war.

"GET ABOARD," SERGEANT Daiv ordered as the floating personnel carriers lined up outside the compound. Torquemada stood next to him, marking down the names and serial numbers of the reluctant soldiers on his ever present clipboard. It was a curiously, uncharacteristically, still morning, the tiny sun rising over the red desert as a flawless, golden disc.

Johnsmith climbed into the third carrier, along with Alderdice and Frankie Lee Wisbar. He sat near a transparent slash in the carrier's wall, so that he could look out as they crossed the desert. The first thing he saw was Felicia, who stood in the connecting tube between the barracks and the mess hall, watching for him.

He waved, but she didn't see him. There were too many people, and there wasn't enough time for her to pick him out before the carrier started to move forward.

"Here we go," Alderdice said from the seat next to him. He sounded as though he were dead already, Johnsmith thought. Well, maybe he was. Maybe they all were.

Torquemada was standing at the front of the carrier, facing the seated passengers.

"We're going to travel several hundred kilometers," he said, "almost due west. By the time we arrive at our destination, the sun will be high overhead—Martian noon."

So they were going to attack in broad daylight, thought Johnsmith. That should greatly increase his chances of being gunned down by a particle beam cannon.

"We're going to box the enemy in and make him either surrender or fight it out. Since our weapons and tactics are considerably more sophisticated than his, we expect him to surrender."

Johnsmith was quite a bit more than a little dubious, but he kept his opinions to himself. He didn't want to alienate Angel Torquemada—just on the off chance that he survived this insane adventure, he didn't want to be punished for contributing to a decline in morale.

"Where exactly is the enemy?" a guy asked from the back of the carrier.

"He is hiding in a network of lava tubes under the rupes at the base of Olympus Mons," Torquemada said with a self-satisfied smirk. "Geological surveys have shown only one place with a complex enough tube structure to house his subversive operation. It's less than two kilometers wide and there are a limited number of openings on the mountain side. If we cover them all, we can flush them out."

God, it was worse than Johnsmith had imagined. They were going to march blindly into a bunch of tunnels against armed insurgents, and there could only be one result. They were going to die like rats in a trap.

"We're going to provide a great service for the nations of the Earth," Torquemada went on. "Your loved ones back home will be proud of you if you fight bravely."

Oh, joy, Johnsmith thought. Oh, rapture.

"Are there any questions?" Torquemada said. Of course, his manner made it clear that he didn't expect that there would be any questions. It was just a matter of form.

"I have one," Alderdice said.

"Lumumba," acknowledged Angel Torquemada.

"Why are the Arkies such a threat to the Earth? I mean, we've used their onees over and over again, and we're okay, aren't we?"

"Are you?" Angel Torquemada said, pursuing the Socratic method of answering a question with another question. "Can any of you say that you are the same person you were before you touched an onee? Any one of you?"

Nobody spoke.

"It's one thing to have people on Mars or other system colonies using onees, but think of these dangerous electronic opiates flooding our dear home planet."

It occurred to Johnsmith that Torquemada was evading, rather than answering, Alderdice's question. He could think of several holes in this line of logic. For example, he happened to know that onees already flooded a good part of the Earth, and they were manufactured by the Conglom in the first place, contrary to the wording and the spirit of its own Interplanetary Charter. No, these
particular
onees were the problem.

"Could you be a little more specific?" Alderdice said, as if he could read Johnsmith's mind. "It seems that the imprinting of a certain set of archecoded images is the problem, not onees in general."

Torquemada's face darkened. "They're escaped prisoners, and they're subversives. That's all you need to know, Mr. Lumumba. Period."

Alderdice paled, realizing that he had gone too far. Now, if he lived through the imminent slaughter, his ass was grass when they got back to Elysium.

There was little dialogue between Torquemada and his troops after that. The desert sped by, and the shapes of distant mountains seemed to mutate as the perspective changed. Frost lay over the desert in the morning, and they either left the frozen water vapor behind the temperature went up enough to sublimate it; it vanished without turning to water.