Chapter Seven

AS JULIA MURAT MOTIONED for Janice to wait by the tunnel entrance, Janice second-guessed for the thousandth time that day her decision to join the platoon heading up to the surface. Perhaps “join” was not the proper word. For while she was certainly joining in the journey, she was most certainly not joining in any of this insane fighting.

“It’s a climb to the ridge above,” Murat announced. Moving swiftly she started out, weaving up through the boulders. Janice could not determine whether the woman was offering this comment as a note of apology or derision. Janice marveled at how Julia, who was surely approaching her mid-sixties, tackled the rough terrain with such adroitness. She hardly appeared out of breath, which made for a sad comparison to Janice’s own labored attempts at climbing.

There was in Julia’s eyes an intensity that Janice could not define. She gazed out upon the view that Murat was transfixed by and noted its beauty. It was indeed breathtaking, an eerie transformation from the parched land found during the day. Stretching for miles, the mountains extended to the northern horizon in folds of buckled land and shaded slopes tinged with the harsh, red light of the dying day.

The battle around the northern entryways raged far below in the valley: smoke, fire, concussive blasts still thumping into the lungs. Perverse as it seemed to her, the view was glorious, thrilling, and she felt deep guilt at the pleasure. This was not history, she had to forcefully remind herself. This was reality. Good men and women were dying down there.

Janice’s gaze turned again to the sky, rising from the mountain peaks like a taut, platinum canvas. Streaked across the horizon were stains of crimson clouds, trailing their color as a reminder of earlier glory.

“The wounds of our people,” Julia whispered softly.

Janice hesitated, cautious of the pain in her companion’s voice.

“We could heal those wounds,” Janice offered gently.

“Heal our wounds, could you? Tell me, Dr. Eardman, with what would you propose to heal them?”

“With peace. Isn’t that preferable to the killing?”

“Yes, peace . . . the magical balm . . . our elixir of salvation.”

Julia stood immovable, drinking in the landscape as if its wild fierceness could temper the raging of her spirit. And yet she was obviously looking through a soldier’s eyes as well. Removing her binoculars, she carefully scanned the ground beyond the river and then across the face of the next ridgeline.

“Watching post. They must have had one over there and called in the air strike. Maybe we’ll see it from up here.”

Janice refused to believe that was the only reason Murat had climbed up here. Maybe it was to share something, maybe it was simply to soak in the open air, the windswept heights. God knows this woman deserves a moment of freedom from the dark confines below, Janice thought.

“This can end, Julia. Please let us end it.”

“You speak of a peace that my people do not understand. We have forgotten its meaning.”

“You could learn it again. Think of the lives that could be spared.”

With this, Murat turned and faced Janice. Her look was one of astonishment that slowly shifted to disgust.

“We are not barbarians simply because we fight, Doctor. We think of the lives that could be spared. How could you assume that we do not? To do so would be inhuman. Despite our forced habitation with the Tarn, we have maintained our humanity. We may be machines of war, we may fight to survive, we may kill often and effectively, but we have a conscience. We love our people.”

“I was not implying—”

“I know what you were implying. . . . But you’re wrong. . . . I think of the lives that could be spared. I think of the lives that haven’t been spared.”

The air turned chill with the blue-black hue of night.

“I had four other boys beside Lysander. Good boys. Tillean, the youngest, he understood the heart of his people. He fought for them; he fought to live, not simply to stay alive. He was called to disarm a bomb three years ago in one of the western wings.

“The men,” she chuckled gently, “they used to tease him about his skill as a bomb technician. Said he was better with wires and fuses than he was with a knife or planning military strategy. They were kidding, of course. Tillean could outmaneuver them all. Second only to Lysander. . . . They said the bomb was defused. He and his son, my first grandson, were shaking hands over their accomplishment when the warning light came on and the timer began ticking again. The room had been sealed off to prevent damage to the rest of the wing, so they were trapped inside. He had four seconds. . . . Four seconds to review his life.”

Murat turned to Janice again with a look of appeal in her eyes.

“What can you recall in four seconds, Doctor? A lifetime? Surely not.”

Murat’s gaze dropped from the helpless face of Janice and sought the mountains instead, now a soft shade of mahogany beneath a sky just beginning to glitter with pinpricks of silver.

Janice watched as the look of tender nostalgia was replaced by anger on the face of Murat. Her body stiffened with bitterness; her fingers writhed with frustration. The carefully maintained rigid demeanor crumpled beneath the naked pain of the memory of her son’s death. And then, suddenly, the tense muscles relaxed, the bearing softened. Julia Murat exhaled on a sigh of weariness.

Facing Janice, she said, “I do think of the lives that could be spared, Dr. Eardman. Those who have died, those who will die . . . their hearts beat alongside my own. I don’t take a single breath without feeling them breathe along with me. But I alone do not decide their fate. I am with them but I cannot save them. If it were within my power . . . it is not within my power, however. Lysander is a skilled warrior, a brilliant strategist . . . and he is a good man, however hardened. He is my son. . . . He is my son, Doctor, my last son. And I will fight for him. I will die for him.”

“So it’s to continue . . . forever?” Janice ventured.

“We must win this ourselves, Doctor. Otherwise all this was meaningless. You rush about thinking only of the gifts you bring, not of all the questions that will come afterward. This decision was made realizing that there would be such questions. If there is victory we must achieve it ourselves. Then we can hold our heads high and return to the Federation.”

“And your son made this decision?”

She was silent for a moment. “I had hoped they’d get arrogant after the attack, get careless and reveal their position. I guess not. Damn.”

Murat cased her field glasses and hoisted her rifle.

“Come, Doctor. You will get chilled if we stay much longer.”

Again the motherly tone; then Murat stiffened. “In any case, it won’t be safe here in a few moments. Their infrared systems are a lot better than ours.”

Murat turned and began the descent, leaving her companion to follow her lead. Janice was left standing, amazed at the malignant tone the evening had adopted. She had embraced Julia Murat, the Federation on Torgu-Va, with the practicality of the historian. Here, in a clinical sense, was war as history, an eternal war. Yet one could not stay clinically detached, not when one felt the rush of boiling air from a napalm strike. In spite of the years of training she could almost feel hate for the other side, and she struggled to control it.

She felt the hypocrisy of her words flood over her. How could she plead for peace so passionately and damn the enemy in the very next breath? There was no denying the insanity of this war. Yet here, in the wind, in the raw and hideous, poignant world of the Federation fighters, she dared to weigh the insanity against the hatred.

“The wounds of your people, Julia,” Janice whispered to herself before making her way down the mountainside in pursuit of Murat.

 

Julia Murat moved quickly, her mind heavy, her body sore. They would be reaching the tunnels within moments; she must decide what to do before then. She turned her head over her shoulder. Janice was keeping up. Not bad, she thought. The child is impulsive, young, but determined. Julia smiled cautiously. Her people could use a bit of this young doctor’s spirited temper.

The tunnel entrance was in sight. The women skirted the large boulders and found themselves in the dark mouth of the cave they had exited earlier in the day.

Clearing the outer guards, she led the way back down into the bowels of the city, and then, at the approach of the junction that led to the concealed chambers, she hesitated. She had been wrestling with the decision for two days now, ever since first contact. But the orders had been far too clear.

And yet there was something in the youthful idealism of the child following her that was disturbing. The offer from above was so patently simple, and so infinitely complex. Yes, there was the argument of history, of two hundred years of struggle that could not simply be turned off like a light. And yet there was something else, far more disturbing . . . the realization that the war was being lost. Six months ago they had been so confident of victory, the gaseous diffusion plant was online and within two years enough weapons-grade uranium would be separated to make the first bomb . . . but the Tarn had gotten there first. They were now at the very gates of the city; if they had a second bomb it would be used here. And when the Tarn used that second bomb, it was all over. A Federation victory was now impossible.

She stood silent, pondering, and then reached her decision.

“There has been a change in plans,” Julia said quietly. “We’ll not go back to the main level quite yet. I’d like to show you something.”

 

Once again, Janice followed the woman blindly through the continually changing system of tunnels. They exited into a room with vaulted ceilings. The standard team of three men were guarding an elevator.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Julia whispered as they approached the soldiers.

“ ‘Please’ would do just nicely,” Janice muttered, irritated. She thought she heard the muffled sound of one guard suppressing a laugh, but was unsure in the darkness.

“You, there. Stop.” An imposing voice disturbed the monotonous hum of the night. “This is a restricted area. What are you doing here?”

“Soldier, I’m checking the security of the area. Orders of Commander Murat.”

“Mrs. Murat? I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t recognize you at first. I wouldn’t have been as abrupt. . . . But, uh, ma’am, you still shouldn’t be here. I didn’t receive any orders from the commander to indicate that a security check would be in effect this evening.”

“Well, of course you didn’t. That would defeat the purpose of a check, now, wouldn’t it, soldier?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. I suppose so.”

“Well, never mind, we’re proceeding to the level below. This area is secure. The elevator, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. Have a good night.”

Julia Murat motioned to Janice to follow her onto the elevator. The two entered. Janice kept her eyes averted and stayed in the shadow of Murat. The doors began to close quietly when the soldier on guard quickly extended an arm to prevent the door from shutting. Janice drew in her breath sharply as Murat slowly cocked an eyebrow at the young man.

“Yes? What is it, soldier?”

“I just wanted to thank you, ma’am.”

“Thank me? . . . It’s just a security check. No thanks are needed.”

The man smiled slightly. Janice took in his lanky form, his toothy grin. His smile took away the edge that the oversized clothing and military boots added to his frame. He must have been only nineteen or twenty, Janice imagined.

“My daughter was in the wreckage of yesterday’s bombing. You pulled her out. . . . I wanted to thank you.”

Julia’s gaze of defensive effrontery diminished with the stark gratitude of the man.

And in an instant, Janice knew what it was that held this band of warriors together. It passed between the lieutenant and the woman; it made them equal. A look, a shared moment. The conveyance of that thing, more emotion than thought, more vague than definable. The essence of loyalty, the heart of bravery, that which embraces loss and nourishes sacrifice. It was there, hiding in their gaze, and they knew it was a thing to be felt and not mentioned.

With a pang of jealousy, Janice watched the two closely. She could not share their moment. Once again, she found herself merely the historian: noting, perceiving, processing.

And then the moment was gone. Murat nodded, breaking the mood, shifting it into the focus of real time.

“You have a beautiful daughter. . . . Good night, son.”

“Good night, ma’am.” The soldier stepped away from the doors.

As the doors shut another wave of explosions rocked the two.

“It’s getting closer,” Julia said absently. “I think they’re moving to breach an entrance.”

“And then what?” Janice asked coldly. “A slaughter?”

Before Julia could answer, the ancient iron-wickered elevator came to a stop, the door sliding open, and Janice gasped with astonishment.

 

Riker leaned against the rock wall, gasping for breath in the suffocating heat and smoke. They had sprinted all the way up from the center of the city. Lysander had not once slowed the pace as he led the company of troops up to point where the Tarn had secured a foothold inside an entryway. The invitation to join the group had been a taunting one and Riker had reluctantly gone along with it, frustrated as well by the knowledge that Janice had wandered off on a similar mission.

From the corridor ahead came a continual rattle of small-arms fire, explosions, screams of pain, triumphal roars of battle joy. Wounded streamed past, bearing word that the Tarn had gained a main access corridor and were fanning out.

Riker sighed at the inevitability of the situation. Murat’s men waited, weapons raised, the sound of battle rising and falling. Murat—indefatigable, Riker thought—stood near a bend in the corridor, tense and expectant.

Without warning he spoke, Riker his only audience in the dark tunnel. “There are tales in my family, tales of Lucian Murat.”

He hesitated for a moment then continued. “He used to sail ships on the oceans of Earth. I’ve seen pictures. Endless miles of open space all the color of a newborn’s eye. He used to say, even with all of that water stretching so far to the horizon that it blended into the sky, there was always more; for in reality, you were only looking at the top.”

Riker listened carefully. It was almost as if Lysander had talked to the legendary leader and the dreams of Earth had somehow been kept alive.

“I’ve been to the sea when I was a child.”

“Really? Where?”

“On Earth. The North Atlantic Ocean.”

“And it was like this?”

Will grinned with the childhood memory of an idyllic summer on the coast of Maine.

“Yes.”

“So much space. What would one do with it all?” Lysander’s arm swept in a stilted circular motion, indicating the tiny area they were trapped in. And the simple gesture conveyed to Will the longing, the instinctive ache to crawl up from under the ground, to feel the breeze coiling in from the sea, to smell the grass.

“The Tarn have free access to the surface while we rummage around in the ground like beasts,” Lysander said roughly. “Forced to eat in the dirt, bathe in the dirt.”

Lysander’s voice reverberated with the frustration of one who is accustomed to futile arguments with himself.

“Don’t you see why we must fight? The Tarn won’t just simply go away and leave us. They enjoy the fact that we have been chased underground, forced into hibernation while they roam freely, ravishing the land that is already so starved that it has begun to turn on itself for survival. They are more warlike than we are. We just fight to survive. But they, they enjoy it. Their kind are vicious savages, nothing more. They’ll never stop.”

“And how are you different, Commander? How is it that your hatred is less savage than theirs? They have the upper hand, obviously. But how different would it be if you were above ground?”

“We are different, Commander, because we aim to end the fighting. We are not creatures of war at heart.”

“No, you simply fight to extinguish the Tarn, to destroy their race or, at the very least, subdue them into slavery. You’re not fighting for peace,” Riker responded.

“There is no peace with the Tarn. Their kind are incapable of peace.”

“Negotiations have proven successful in the past. The Tarn have been persuaded to cease their expansionist policies. We exist in peace with the Tarn. You are the Federation leader. If you made a stand, the Tarn would be encouraged to listen. Perhaps they would follow suit with the remainder of their people who have chosen to live in harmony with the Federation. It would at least open the door to communication.”

“And then what?” Murat snarled. “Live on the surface of our lovely Torgu-Va with the Tarn . . . our new friends? The scaly beast that killed my brother would be invited to share my table, eat with my wife and daughter. Those who murdered our children would suddenly be our neighbors.”

Riker remained silent. Murat’s hatred filled the small enclosure.

A blast at the entrance to the corridor interrupted the moment of quiet. Two wounded soldiers came around the corner, one of them pausing to fire a long burst with an assault gun before dodging past Murat. “We’re it,” one of them cried, “they’re behind us!”

“On your feet!” Murat hissed. “Chang, rear security, attack pattern eight! Let’s go!”

Riker was momentarily caught off guard. The sound of the explosion was still ringing in his ears. The corridor ahead was filled with smoke. Lights flickered, the air alive with bullets, men and women going down around him, some dying, others crouching to fire back. An explosive roar erupted from a side corridor. Its concussion knocked Riker over. He lost sight of Murat, the others.

Wild confusion erupted, a tall shadowy figure rushed past, screaming, a Tarn, uniform on fire. More waded in, knives flashing out of scabbards, human and Tarn struggling hand-to-hand in the flame-lit corridor.

“They must not take this tunnel. Stand your ground!” Murat’s voice rose above the din.

Confused, Riker scrambled back. A Tarn came at him, blade lowered. Riker dodged the blow using the butt of his assault gun to knock the Tarn out. He gazed down at the creature, confused.

“Finish it!” someone screamed.

Riker saw a young woman, wide-eyed with battle fury, glaring at him. He refused, shaking his head, backing up. Before he could react she lowered her gun and emptied a burst into the Tarn.

Riker wanted to scream at her, to scream at all of them, to damn all of them to this hell of their own making.

An instant later the woman collapsed, clutching her side. At least here was something he could do, Riker thought. Slinging his gun, he reached over, grabbed the woman, and started to drag her back out of the fray.

“Leave me be, I can still fight,” she yelled.

Riker ignored her protest. Placing her gently on the ground, he turned and went back into the fight, pulling out a second soldier, who had a Tarn blade buried in his stomach. As Riker struggled to maintain a hold of the soldier’s uniform, he felt a brand sear through his chest. He lost his breath with the pain and gasped for air. His legs felt buoyant, flimsy beneath the weight of his chest. He fell to the ground, the world around him becoming oddly dim and muffled. Feet ran past him. He heard a distant cry of retreat. Riker could see the Tarn filling the corridor, their clay-caked boots rattling the earth where his ear lay.

The Federation fighters must have fallen back, or maybe it was just that he couldn’t hear them any longer. He could see the Tarn boots coming closer, a left shoe untied, a rare pair of shiny boots pausing in front of his face. He blinked quickly, struggling to remain alert as the Tarn in front of him knelt to his face.

“Not quite dead, I see,” the Tarn hissed.

“Karish,” Riker whispered. And then he knew no more.