Chapter 7

When the third melt came, the colonists moved to the lake. It had taken all of the patriarch’s powers of persuasion to force the move and still they were reluctant. Four barges had been built and several huge rafts of logs. The women and belongings went in the former with a portion of the men while the remainder of the men guided the rafts down and beached them near the palisade. All this was done early in the melt, and when the herds came in earnest the men had already dragged the now empty barges back upstream to hunt the year’s meat supply.

Three weeks later the hunt was completed and the meat stored away in a new permafrost cellar. Then one group of the colonists began to construct permanent dwellings within the stockade from the timber rafts, while another began the back-breaking excavation of irrigation canals for a farm. Seeds were ready at hand, lying dormant in the desiccated soil, waiting for the next melt. River water rushed in some weeks later to provide an artificial melt. With Jan’s point proved, the colonists worked in earnest digging irrigation ditches against the next melt.

The snow came, bringing a halt to the digging, and the entire colony turned to the production of shelters. Like the upper colony’s, the first shelters at the lake were crude, but one substantial building was erected, a combination city hall and worship house. In the coming years the crude shelters would be replaced with solid homes.

Three months after the melt, Jan, Henri Staal, and Nur Mohammet hiked to the upper colony with a timber-cutting crew, then took the landing boat up to the Lydia.

Captain Childe met them with tears in his eyes. He had not seen another human face for more than a year, but he refused their entreaties that he descend to the planet. They toured the ship with him, marveling at the hydroponic setup he had built to sustain his life and noted the futile efforts he still made to repair the computer.

“You see,” he said, “I have rebuilt the logic unit of the navigation section. We may not know where we are, since the memory banks were destroyed, but we can leave here now to search out a better planet or merely to explore.”

Jan could not answer the captain, not having known him well, so it was Henri Staal who convinced the man that the colonists would never leave their new home.

They stayed a week, though their mission could have been accomplished in half that time. When they left, they carried makeshift nuclear devices jury rigged from the by-products of the Lydia’s drive unit. They landed at the passes north of the lower colony and blasted them shut, cutting off the herds from the plains near the lake where the colonists would establish their farms. Then they lifted off one last time in a shallow flight that landed them near the lower colony.

That night Henri Staal radioed to the Lydia and told Captain Childe of their success.

“Henri,” Childe asked, “are you content to stay there? If you had the choice of going with me in the Lydia to explore would you do so or would you stay where you are?”

“Why, stay, of course. What is the point of exploration now. We could not relay what we found to the Federation and it will be many generations before we even explore and populate this planet.”

“Don’t you feel the need to explore for its own sake?”

“Perhaps I did once, but no more.”

After they had signed off, Henri stepped out of the landing boat and looked up to where the Lydia hung in orbit. Sudden fire lanced the heavens. Staal stood transfixed, then ran back up the ramp and tried to raise the Lydia, but there was no response.

When he went outside again the heavens were empty. Lydia had gone exploring; Captain Childe had returned to his life’s work. Someday he would die and the Lydia would continue on whatever course he had set for her, endlessly seeking in the loneliness of space.

Anne lay beyond. She was dead. She was naked. She had been raped.

I dropped to my knees, tears streaming down my cheeks. Now I would have to wrap those two pitiful bodies and load them. Later I would prepare them for burial. I would dig the grave; I would throw the dirt upon them.

Major Bass’s hand was on my shoulder then and he drew me away from that haunted place. Some of his soldiers took the bodies away.

***

That night they struck the collar from my neck and the next morning Major Bass saw me in his office. I had not been there since the fifth day of my capture.

“I’m sending you offworld with the next supply ship.”

I was not surprised. “To a prison planet?”

He waved the notion aside. “Of course not. The Federation does not punish children for being their father’s sons. You will be sent to Aleph base for schooling.”

I said nothing, ready for a trap.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“What price is this favor? Are you trying to bribe me into betraying my father?”

He went to the map that covered one wall of his office and pointed directly to our home base. “Two weeks ago we raided here. Your father escaped with some of his men, but they are in entirely new territory now. There is nothing you could tell us of importance, even if you were willing to do so.”

“I am not.”

“I would hope that you are not. I respect loyalty.”

“Why then, damn you! Why have you punished me these last months if not to break my spirit – to get me to tell what I know.”

He took a long time answering. “When you came to me, my son had just been killed. Had you been an adult, I would probably have executed you. I, too, am not immune to revenge. But your youth made me think of my own son and what he might have become in your place. In memory of him I decided to see if there was a man worth salvaging under that fanatic’s shell. I was right; there was such a man. Had you been older, my tactics would not have worked.

“You have not been under punishment – I have been educating you.”

***

Jan never came to like Major Bass, nor did Bass ever come to like Jan, but their strange relationship persisted and they came to respect one another. When Bass rose to colonel, he supported Jan’s bid for Scout training. Had he not pulled strings, Jan’s background would have kept him out of Federation service. For that Jan owed him fully as much as for his harsh education on Hallam.

Why could he not marry Angi? Put simply – fear.

Fear for what the future held for them both. No one can fully gauge the depths of fanaticism who has not been a fanatic himself.

*****

I was never a fanatic, quite, but I had some of the certainty that a fanatic has. I grew up as a southern Southern Baptist, sure that the Bible was the pure and perfect word of God. If the Bible said it, it was so. If the Bible commanded something, that thing had to be done. No questions were allowed.

I lost my certainty, and I am glad to see it gone. That was as close to fanaticism as I ever want to come.

The labels had been reversed. For two hours I had been reading the Pertoskan Monomythos and had not known the difference.

I resolved to read neither thereafter, but the fascination of the flittering words in an otherwise barren room drew me back. For three days no one came near except to feed me and at the end of that time I had read both Monomythoses twice and realized for the first time how tiny were the differences between them.

We went on patrol then as we had done so many times before. I had been a prisoner five months by that time and my fourteenth birthday had come and gone. The first night we stopped at an isolated farmhouse. Major Bass tried to persuade the man and his wife to leave for the valley, warning of the danger from Dannelite raiders, but he would not go. It was his land, the man said, and no one could take it from him.

He had two daughters, one about the age Jennie would have been, sixteen or perhaps a year older, and the other about six. As I sat chained to a tree, apart from the family and the soldiers, the younger approached in shy wonderment.

“Why are you chained?” I did not reply, for I had cultivated silence as the only answer due to Bass and his allies. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Then why are you tied up?” She turned to her sister who was approaching, “Anne, why is this man tied up? He didn’t do anything.”

The elder sister pulled her back. “Yes, he did, Honey; he’s the son of the man who leads the Dannelites.”

“Is that any reason to treat him like a dog and tie him up?”

The question seemed to trouble the older sister, and, somewhat puzzled, she looked at me. “Now, Honey, he isn’t just the son of that man. He was a raider himself. He raided houses like ours and killed people like Daddy and Mummy.”

The younger sister turned to me, big-eyed and unbelieving. “Did you really do that, mister?”

I opened my mouth to say, “No,” then closed it again and turned away.

Later, when the soldiers had eaten and had given me my ration of dried meat, the girls returned with a bowl of fresh milk. The elder sister held little Honey back and extended the bowl to me, carefully not coming within reach. I took it and drank gratefully, but her reticence burned me. “What do you think I’m going to do, pull you down and strangle you on the spot?”

She squatted on her heels and watched me drink.

“Maybe. Maybe not, but maybe. How am I to know what you are capable of doing? Some of your kind have done worse.”

“Then why give me this milk?”

She gestured toward Honey, squatting big-eyed some distance away. “Because I want her to learn kindness.”

***

Two days later we returned to the farm after an unsuccessful scouting mission. The barns and house were gone, leaving only ash and embers to mark their passing. The man who had refused to leave his land lay sprawled in the yard. His wife lay in the doorway of the house, so badly burned as to be unrecognizable. The soldiers fanned out searching for the daughters.

Major Bass came to where I was tethered, his face more pale and angry than was usual, and dragged me along behind him. They lay beyond the bushes where the grass and flowers made a soft bed. Honey was crumpled, her back stained with dried, blackened blood. Anne lay beyond. She was dead. She was naked. She had been raped.

He came around the desk with speed amazing for a man so heavy and struck me down before I could dodge.

Three days later a steel collar with attached chain was riveted around my neck and I was led out and padlocked to the dashboard of a personnel skimmer. The officer who had interrogated me sat beside me and two privates sat forward, one piloting, one manning the machine rifle. What the officer had in mind, I could not guess.

We toured the valley where the Patrol base was situated, and I saw the blackened ruins we had made of once prosperous farms. I exulted in the destruction. It was not more than the Pertoskans deserved for driving us from our lands and killing off my sister and my friends.

The officer said nothing until the end of the tour, then asked, “Are you proud of what your people have done.”

“Yes!”

***

Thereafter, hardly a day passed that I was not escorted somewhere to view the destruction we Dannelites were perpetrating. I worked beside a Pertoskan whose house had been burned. For a week I labored with him to rebuild it, thinking all the while that if I escaped I would return and burn it again. Whenever a Pertoskan was killed, I dug the grave, wrapped the body, and watched the mourners as they trooped past. I spaded the dirt back into the grave.

At first I was proud of the destruction; then I reached a stage where I could no longer be proud, though I still accepted the destruction as necessary to free Hallam. After a while, it became apparent that Hallam would never again be a Dannelite paradise and I took solace in revenge.

After months of uncounted bodies, burned fields, and destroyed homes, I no longer wanted revenge. I had become numb.

At night I was locked away in the tiny cubicle. It was not imprisonment or punishment – it was to keep the Pertoskans from reaching the son of their persecutor.

Whenever a new raid occurred, I rode with Major Bass, my personal demon, to view the carnage. My pride lasted for two such missions. Thereafter I was merely dumb and resentful, moving as directed, bundling up the shattered bodies to be taken down to the valley for burial.

Sometimes we would sweep up the valleys on a skimmer and Bass would question me on this topic or that, trying to wring tactical information out of me. In this he was not successful.

On one such mission he turned to me and asked, “Do you think me cruel in my treatment of you?” When I did not answer, he went on, “Remember this, Jan; when your father stops butchering innocent people, you will no longer have to bury them.”

In my cell that night, I found a new addition to his arsenal of tortures. A technician had set up a reader so that it ran continuous spools of the Pertoskan and Danneline Monomythoses side by side. At first I ignored it, since it was cased in clear plastic and I could do it no harm. Then I thought that I would fool him by reading only the scriptures that had been my companions since infancy and deriving comfort from them. For two hours I read until something seemed wrong. The scriptures suddenly took a new slant and I realized that they had become foreign to me. I glanced at the parallel tape and realized that I had been fooled. The labels had been reversed. For two hours I had been reading the Pertoskan Monomythos and had not known the difference.

*****

No doubt many of you will recognize the source of some of this. During WWII Kurt Vonnegut had similar experiences. I had read Cat’s Cradle in high school, hated it, and avoided his other works, but I was aware of his background.

A high-explosive shell hit the spot where I had been standing. Everything went black.

And was black when I woke, but of a different kind. I felt suffocated and found myself bound. For a moment I panicked, then lucidity returned and I explored my bonds. Only I wasn’t bound as I had thought; rather my torso was encased in a hard plastic shell, either bandages or a cast – or both. I stood up, supported myself until the first dizziness had passed, then explored in the darkness. I had been lying on a pallet in a room no larger than a closet with cold, metallic walls and one door. There were no windows and no other facilities. After a while I lay down again and slept.

Light wakened me again and two men entered my cubicle. The elder seemed kindly enough, but his young, armed companion had the look of hate. Had he been alone I do not think I would have fared well.

“How do you feel?” the elder asked.

I shrugged. He ignored my reticence and took my pulse, then passed over me with a medical sensor, so I concluded he was a doctor. “What happened to me?”

“You were struck by the blast from an explosive and cracked three ribs, presumably when you hit the ground. This,” he tapped the plastic corset, “is a cast. In a month you will never know you were hurt.” He turned to his companion, “Conduct him to the head, then bring him back here, and provide food and water.”

After that the lights cycled on and off at regular intervals which corresponded to the day outside. I was fed, watered, doctored, and ignored for four days. On the fifth day I was escorted to an office and left there to face a Patrol officer.

I seated myself and said nothing. Let the soldier make the first move. He was somewhat older than my father, with the first hints of gray in his hair. He stared at me a long time before speaking.

“How old are you, son?”

“Old enough.”

“No doubt. How old is old enough?”

“Thirteen. ”

He nodded and made a job of lighting his pipe.

“What’s your name?” I said nothing. “You are Jan Andrax, son of Daniel Andrax, are you not?” Again I said nothing. “We had some local people identify you while you were still unconscious, you see. We would like to get your cooperation, in hopes of ending this pointless war. Your father can stay up in those hills and continue to wreak havoc for quite some time. I won’t lie to you, son; our job isn’t easy. But we will win. Eventually, we will win.”

I spat on his rug. Anger flared on his face but he controlled it. “If you will help us, we can save many lives, not only Pertoskan but your people’s as well. It’s time for your father to stop fighting a losing battle.”

Then we were both silent and he merely stared at me. For a few moments I matched his stare, then turned away, shamed by my weakness.

“Damn!” It seemed as if he were talking to himself, not me. “How can they do this to one so young?”

“I’m old enough to make you bastards bleed!”

“Yes, you certainly are. And inordinately proud of the fact.” He leaned forward, “Son . . .”

“I’m not your son!”

“No!” He struck the table with his fist. “No, you aren’t, dammit. My son was killed in that ambush.”

“Good!”

He came around the desk with speed amazing for a man so heavy and struck me down before I could dodge.

What my father thought of the changes in me, I did not know. As always he was aloof, brooding now about the loss of his lands, his position, and his daughter.

In those days Papa was often tied up with matters of administration. We made our headquarters in a cluster of log houses we took in a high valley. Every day more Dannelites straggled in, each influx fanning our angers with new tales of terror. That we also spread terror was my pride; only later could I see the whole affair in perspective.

Even when Papa could not go, Sabine and I went raiding. We stole stock and food, clothing, arms and ammunition, and sometimes we found ourselves in firefights. I watched men go down before my gun and heard them scream from cover. Many of the former were probably just wounded and some of the latter probably died. It was impossible to assess our successes and failures.

We survived.

Somehow the Pertoskans manage to maintain secrecy about our war. Then as now, there is no fast long-range communication except by ship. Synapse technology can send solid bodies but not messages. For a year we had the field to ourselves and mercilessly slaughtered each other for the glory of God, but eventually a ship landed and carried away rumors of rebels in the hills. The Patrol ship that investigated found more than rebels and returned for reinforcements.

When the Patrol peacekeeping force arrived I was a seasoned veteran of thirteen. The Pertoskans were subdued at once since they were tied to the towns. We simply changed enemies and kept on fighting.

More time passed and we were severely pressed, forced out of the foothills and into the high mountains. Food was scarce and ammunition could no longer be had at all when our scouts brought word of a detachment moving into our area. We laid an ambush.

They came up through a long valley and tumed toward our camp, cutting through the narrow ravine where we were poised. They had two civilian scouts, Pertoskans, ordered to duty but relishing a chance to take their revenge on us. We let them come until they were directly below us and opened fire. The Pertoskans went down together and the Patrol went to earth like the trained soldiers they were, leaving three of their number behind.

We waited then, having a commanding position, and kept them pinned down. The light duty half-track growled forward and to the left until it jammed between two trees, its driver slumped over the controls. Sabine and I slipped down to recover the supplies it carried.

We were fools. We should never have stayed there after our first burst of fire, but we were unused to fighting a modern force. Sabine and I worked our way down, taking our time, and were sorting through the half-track’s contents when we heard a strange humming. Sabine knew immediately what we were facing. He hit the bushes, shouting for me to follow, but I turned to see what was coming.

It was a silver bullet, whizzing across the treetops at a hundred kilometers an hour, ducted fans thrusting down the air which supported it, flattening the vegetation as it went. For an almost fatal moment I paused, then leaped for cover. A high-explosive shell hit the spot where I had been standing. Everything went black.