Vale of Stars (36 page)

The relief driver looked behind him in annoyance. When he recognized the face behind the glass, he fumbled to open the window. “Yes, Madame Prime?”

“I need to speak to the section commander.”

The relief driver blinked, then reached for the transmitter on the control panel. “Section Two lead transport, this is Transport Two-Two.”

“Two-One here.”

The relief driver glanced nervously at Yallia, and said, “Uh, I need Commander Didosken. Now.”

There was a pause and Didosken’s voice came over the speaker. “Didosken here.”

The relief driver handed the transmitter to Yallia through the cab window. Yallia had to shout to make herself heard over the wind. “This is Prime Original Yallia. Commander, we have a change in battle plans. All transports will redirect towards Valhalla Dome.”

“Madame Prime? Did I hear you correctly? You are changing targets?” Didosken asked.

“You heard correctly, Commander. Issue what orders you need to, but we are attacking the Dome itself. But, Commander?” She paused for emphasis. “You are not, under any circumstances, to contact the Family to inform them of the change. I repeat: do
not
tell the Family of the change.”

There was a considerable pause from the other end. Yallia sighed. She did not want to have to get nasty with this man, but it might be necessary if he balked at the change in order. Yallia knew she was trying to use the very idolatry she claimed to reject as leverage, but at the moment, she felt it necessary.

Didosken came back on. His voice sounded distant. “Orders understood, Madame Prime. I’ll devise a new battle plan and get back to you. Didosken out.”

“No need to get back to me. When you devise your battle plan, factor in minimal resistance from the Dome.”

“Minimal resistance, Madame Prime? With all due respect, I think—”

“Dome troops are in the installations, Commander. The Domes themselves will be lightly defended, if at all.”

“As you say, Madame Prime.” He paused, then said, “New estimated travel time is two hours.”

“Very good. Good-bye.” Yallia handed the relief driver the transmitter. “Thanks,” she said, and made her way back to her place in the bed of the halftrack. All around her she heard the news spreading, first as unbelieving questions, then as confirmed data.

She sat back down in her seat and let the conversations flow.

The female soldier that had spoken to her earlier finally addressed her directly. “Madame Prime?”

“Yes?”

“Are we…uh, did you…?”

“Don’t worry, soldier. You didn’t talk me into anything. This was always the plan.”

“It was?”

“Yes. I just…kept it secret for a while.” She sat back, mimicking the gesture the male soldier had made to end the conversation, and thought of Kahlman and Lawson back in the city.

The revised battle plan had been told to the troops only half an hour before the transports arrived at the Domes. Yallia listened with half an ear as the lieutenant on the transport detailed directions to the assembled troops. It wouldn’t matter if the plan was well-conceived or not—the Domes would be caught completely unprepared. Almost two hundred Family soldiers massed outside with explosives would be enough to make the Domers listen. And if necessary, a demonstration of Family resolve would force the Domers to their knees.

Valhalla Dome was smaller than Yallia thought it would be. She knew its dimensions from careful study, but those numbers had not translated into the awesome presence she had expected. In fact, the Dome looked shabby and bleached, no doubt a by-product of years of exposure to the withering chlorine atmosphere.

Yallia heard the force commanders shouting instructions to their troops. She stared at the Dome for a moment longer, then strode towards one of the transports that had been unpacked and now served as a communications base for the attack.

Three young Family soldiers bent over communications gear, listening intently and cross-routing information to officers. Yallia waited a moment, then caught the eye of one of the operators. “Pardon me, young man, but I wonder if I might have one of your transmitters for a while.”

The operator hesitated only a fraction of a second, then cleared his board and shoved the transmitter into Yallia’s hands. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Thank you. Can you please connect me to the Dome frequency? I think some of them inside might be wondering what we want.” She spoke sweetly, and the operator grinned. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said and adjusted some controls, then nodded to her.

Yallia’s tone hardened perceptibly. “This is Yallia, leader of the outcast group that is now outside your Valhalla Dome. I stand ready to dictate terms for your surrender.”

The other two operators gasped while Yallia’s technician made an incoherent but identifiable sound of exultation.

There was a considerable pause before the receiver crackled to life. “This is Commissar-General Nessel. You will disperse the mob outside our Dome immediately or we shall consider it an act of war and retaliate appropriately.”

“I’m sorry, Nessel, have we not made ourselves clear? This is already an act of war. The last act. If you do not agree to an immediate and unconditional surrender, my soldiers will blow a hole in your Valhalla Dome and kill everyone inside. If you try to send soldiers or police out of the Dome in environment suits, rest assured that they will be taken care of by sharpshooters who are even now at every Dome exit. If you send one of your flying drones after us, I shall set off the explosives.”

Yallia loved the irony. The explosives had not yet been set, and the “sharpshooters” were just Family men and woman armed with rifles. But the bluff was a good one precisely because it was so near the truth. Yallia knew that all available Dome personnel were at the nearest terraforming station waiting for an attack that would never come. She was taking a slight risk that the Dome did not have automatic defenses, but she was comforted by the presence of the spy amongst the Family. For the Domers to think they needed up-to-date intelligence meant they were not wholly certain of their own military superiority. Yallia was taking a chance, but it was a good one.

Again, a long pause preceded Nessel’s reply. “Nothing will be gained, for either of us, through violence. We agree to negotiations on whatever point you wish, but we will not submit to—”

Yallia interrupted angrily, “No negotiations. We demand your surrender. Open the Dome to us peacefully and we shall take over your administration without bloodshed. Refuse us and we will blast our way in and take over in any case. You have three minutes to decide.” She switched off the transmitter and tossed it back to the operator. “You might want to dial up the commanders, or do whatever it is you do to get in touch with them. Tell them what I’ve done.”

She listened indifferently to the three operators relay the story quickly and efficiently to the various commanders of the ragtag army. Presently, one of the technicians turned to her and said, “Ma’am, incoming message from Valhalla.”

Yallia nodded and Nessel’s voice once again filled the cabin. “We agree to your demands. You may enter through the southwest lock. We will offer no resistance unless you violate your part of the bargain, in which case we will have to defend ourselves.”

Despite herself, Yallia felt a grudging sense of admiration for her counterpart in the Dome. This Nessel knew she had been outmaneuvered but refused to give up completely. Yallia felt she was a woman with whom she could work.

“You have my word, Commissar-General: we will not initiate violence.” Yallia looked at the radio operator. “Get the force commanders on this. I want to talk to all of them at the same time.” When the technician indicated she was patched in, she issued instructions to the commanders. There was little debate—the commanders under her were in awe of her sudden, swift victory.

Scarcely an hour later, Yallia, accompanied by six of the Family’s most able soldiers, stepped into the offices of Commissar-General Liduth Nessel.

Nessel had chosen to meet Yallia with four of her own guards, taken from Valhalla’s police force, flanking her. Her office had not been designed for large meetings: the dozen people crowded the room and were forced to stand uncomfortably close to one another.

Yallia grinned as she saw Nessel and her men try not to grimace at the smell of chlorine. She knew that she and her entourage reeked of the stuff—it would give her even more of an edge in the conference. She decided to take the initiative and speak first.

“Commissar-General, I thank you for meeting with me in such a peaceful setting,” she said, eyeing the Domer’s guards pointedly. Yallia ignored Nessel’s returning stare at the Family guards stationed around her and continued. “Our demands are simple. You will turn over control of the Domes to the Family.”

“As exercised by you, no doubt?” said a scratchy voice that momentarily made Yallia’s spine shiver. She knew that voice…as she turned to face the speaker, her eyes confirmed the knowledge of her ears.

Carll Tann emerged from a side room and made his way to the center of Nessel’s office to stand face-to-face with Yallia. He gave no sign that he noticed her powerful odor. “I take it you speak for the entire Family, Yallia Verdafner?”

“I do not use that name,” Yallia said, her voice shaky.

“As you wish,” he said dismissively. He did not speak for a few moments, but he managed to convey disgust and contempt for Yallia, her guards, and the entire Family with a few facial gestures. He stopped his harrowing review and turned back to Yallia. “You want to control the Domes, do you?”

Yallia swallowed. She did not understand her own reactions. Why was this man affecting her so much? Could she still be frightened of him, after almost twenty-five years? He was a desiccated old man, on the brink of death—why was she so afraid of him? “You have perpetrated war on us, and we—”

“Ah. The classic rationalization of the barbarian: ‘you started it!’” he said in a faint imitation of a child’s indignant squeal. “And now, you come to take your vengeance on us, eh? You, Yallia Verdafner, will settle an old score even if it means you have to sacrifice your followers to do so.”

“That’s not it,” she said, and cursed herself for her defensive attitude. She did not have to explain herself to this man! She said, stridently, “We are taking control of this planet. You have nothing to say about it.”

“You would take control? You? You threatened to kill thousands of innocent people, children even, if we did not let you in. You come to us armed with explosives and demand to govern?”

Yallia was uncomfortably aware that her guards had shifted their positions somewhat—a bit of shuffling here, and nervous cough there—it all added up to uncertainty. She needed to recapture this conversation.

“You sent a robot flyer to kill four people. One of them was a child.”

Tann did not flinch from the accusation.  “True,” he said softly, “and for that, we are truly sorry. We were investigating the scientific anomaly as you were. Our flyer reacted inappropriately. We understand that one of your Family members was killed as a result. You have the Dome’s complete apology.” He paused to let the words sink in. “Now,” he said, his voice firm once more, “will you agree to negotiations? You must have grievances to come her so forcefully. We will hear them.”

Yallia ground her teeth. Here, now, at the very moment of her triumph, this man threatened to take it all away with sugared words. “We will not be deflected. You are willing to listen now, because you have no choice. As soon as we withdraw our forces, you will not listen. You will send troops to crush us. I have had a taste of your diplomacy before, Carll Tann. You will not fool me as you did my parents.”

“Your parents were quite wise, Yallia. They made a sacrifice to preserve the entire colony. Here, in the Domes at least, they are revered as heroes. Will you make even the smallest gesture of goodwill towards your fellow humans in the Domes? Or will you kill as many as you have to in order to be heard? I am listening now—Commissar-General Nessel is listening now. What more do you want?”

Yallia stopped herself from answering. What did she want? Why had she come here? She realized that she had wanted, like all children, to come home again. She had done so—was she not back inside the Domes?—but she could never turn the clock back. There was no going backwards. Only forwards.

At that instant of realization, she suddenly understood to whom this planet truly belonged. An image of Sirra, sitting quietly in the makeshift raft, looking down at the sea-creatures below, floated in her mind.

“I want the terraforming project abandoned.” Yallia said.

Tann smiled. He had obviously been expecting that answer. “Madam Verdafner, surely you see the benefits of the project. You and your kind can survive quite comfortably in an atmosphere devoid of chlorine. We cannot. Would you refuse your fellow humans, who, I might add, outnumber you ten to one, access to this world on a footing equal to your own?  The future of the colony depends on the terraforming project.”

“No, Tann. You’ve got it wrong. You’ve been thinking of the colony as the ‘pure’ humans in the Domes. Can’t you see that the Family is the colony? You Domers can create chlorine-adapted people at will instead of changing the planet to suit your needs.”

“And what of those hundred thousand people who will never be chlorine-breathers?”

“The Domes will support them for the rest of their lives. But the future belongs to us.”

Tann shook his head sadly. “Yallia, the tragedy here is that I think you truly believe what you are saying.” He sighed and suddenly seemed very old. “I had not wanted to reveal this next datum, for fear of being accused of bribery, but I can see I must.” He looked at the entire Family assemblage and said, “Our scientists have developed a way to reverse your mutation. We stand ready to accept you all back into the Domes. All will be forgiven.”

Yallia stared at Tann for a long moment. True or not, the statement was a master stroke. She felt something within her leap in anticipation of a grand welcome back to a mystical “home” even as the rational part of her fought for control. Images of a joyous home life, her parents, magically young again, and friends laughing with her at a party crowded out her inner protests. Tann had managed to tap into a deep desire she had not even realized she possessed.