War in the Galaxy
A Science Fiction Novel
Read Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.
9
The doors opened into a cavernous bay. It was well lit and clearly served as one-part hangar, one-part assembly room. One wall was covered in screens. There was a large bay door on one end. The main floor contained several automatic tanks, a few disabled quadcopters, some heavy excavation equipment, and some smashed drones. The tanks had almost certainly had their controls disabled and the excavation equipment looked damaged beyond repair.
The floor was covered in bodies. Men in the uniform of the Xing Coalition lay where they had fallen mere moments earlier, their bodies still warm. Their bodies showed no signs of damage, but they were thoroughly dead. As the Merian marines moved down among the dead to check pulses, they noticed telltale signs of ryxtristia - a painless poison invented in the twenty-third century. Ryxtristia killed within seconds and it could be carried in capsules no larger than a grain of sand. The men's uniforms were all torn just below the right shoulder and their eyes were open, slightly bloodshot. There was a faint odor of sulphur, but otherwise there was no smell from the bodies.
"They must have given the order right before we blew the door," said Gurney.
"Good timing," said Heni.
"What kind of army bugs out and leaves its men behind with orders to kill themselves?"
"What kind of society inspires men to follow such an order?" asked Heni. "Not a single one of them disobeyed."
He was right. As they prowled among the bodies, scanning for any traps, checking the equipment to see if anything was still operable, they didn't find any survivors. Nor did they find any drones or tanks which hadn't been destroyed beyond all repair. There were a few mines which were easily disabled. Clearly, they had been thrown down hastily.
"Perhaps the officers threatened to shoot anyone who didn't take the ryxtristia and watched to make sure everyone had before taking their own."
"Maybe," replied Heni. "I would have called their bluff and made them shoot me. Notice how unplanned it seems. It's like they were getting ready for a big fight and just at the last minute got the order."
"I expect we'll hear soon that a retreat was called in orbit and their navy bugged out immediately. No thought given to the men on the ground. This mass suicide trick must be standard procedure."
"You don't hear about us taking many prisoners," said Heni. "You always hear they fight to the death."
Over the next half hour, more marines trickled in from the surface. The screens and communications equipment were all smashed down here, but the men from the surface confirmed Gurney's suspicions. The admiral in system had given the order to retreat, and a simultaneous order had been given to the troops on the ground to destroy the equipment and kill themselves rather than falling into enemy hands. In mid-battle, dozens of ships had jumped to hyperspace and fled, and the rest had spun up as quickly as they could. The battle was over before the Merian forces realized what was happening.
Once Merian high command knew the battle was well and over, the work of clearing the trenches took mere hours. Within a day, Heni and Gurney were being spun out of system on a transport headed for the Reiogorn system for processing at the forward base there. Since their unit had been all but destroyed, they would be assigned to new units there. They might be allowed a month or two to recover, then they would be sent back to the front line somewhere.
Before their ship jumped into hyperspace, they stood in front of a viewplate and watched the dismantling of the Merian presence in this forgotten system. For how long they had spent there, it was surprisingly quick work. Already, ships were spinning up and leaving and transports were departing the surface of the desolate planet carrying heavy equipment. No one knew why they had been in this system. Few of them knew what it was called. They had been there because this was where the enemy was, and now that the enemy had been flushed, it was time to leave. Gurney wondered idly if they would be back. If the war dragged on long enough, who knew, maybe this forgotten system would become contested ground again and they would find themselves back there again, fighting the same battle in the same trenches.
The journey to Reiogorn took less than a day. Once they arrived, they were assigned to a barracks and a mess and told to report to Building G at 0700 the next morning. They turned in by 0800 that night and slept for ten hours.
The next morning, they made their way to Building G, freshly showered and wearing new uniforms which had been handed to them by a robotic orderly when they awoke. The clerk at the front desk asked them to state their names and ranks into the microphone.
"Private Henitao Klark."
"Sergeant Restion Gurney."
The clerk thanked them and told them the automated processor would check their records and assign them to new units.
For four hours, they sat and waited in the lobby where the clerk had told them to sit. They began to wish they'd eaten something before coming. Eventually, a young lieutenant came and took them back into an office.
"Your papers are being processed as we speak," he said. "Are you the only two from your unit who survived?"
"Yes sir," said Gurney.
"I see. Well, you will be assigned to new units momentarily and we will have you out of here within -:"
"We stay together, sir," said Gurney.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm telling you right now, sir, we stay together."
The lieutenant looked down the paper in his hand. "I'm not sure that that's..."
"I don't think you hear what we're saying, sir" said Gurney. "We stay together."
"Are you...?" The clerk looked up.
"We're brothers, sir."
The clerk looked from one to the other. He glanced down at his papers. "You have different surnames," he said. "And it says here that one of you was born in the Epsilon Eridani system and the other was born halfway across the galaxy. And you're, well..." He waved at them, as if to indicate that the five-foot-two Heni and the six-one Gurney couldn't possibly be brothers, especially since Gurney's skin was pale and his hair was light brown and Heni's skin and hair were darker.
Gurney sighed. He looked at Heni. Heni stayed quiet, indicating Gurney could handle this.
"We're as good as brothers, sir" Gurney said. "Even if he's not my brother by blood. We met at school on Danshak Four. Both of us lost our parents before the age of twenty. We don't have anyone else in the world except each other."
The lieutenant nodded. "I understand that," he said. "But you don't get a say. The Armed Forces of the Merian Federation decide for you."
“With all due respect, sir,” said Gurney. “We are the only ones who get a say. Heni’s my only friend in the world. I love my country, but he and I can serve the Merian Federation just fine by staying together.”
The officer looked from one face to the other. "You can't just decide to stay together," he said. "You will be sent wherever your country needs you and assigned to the companies your country assigns you to."
Gurney leaned forward. "You don't get it, sir" he said. "We're staying together. We'll resign otherwise. We'll quit."
The officer stared at him. "You do realize that if you do that, you both will be dishonorably discharged. You won't get your pensions. You can't be serious about quitting. After all this time and all your service. Why, you both have excellent records. If you stay in for the duration of the war, you'll be..."
"Dead," said Heni. "We'll be dead. Sir."
"We know the odds, sir." said Gurney. "This war isn't finishing up anytime soon. If we stay for the duration, there's not much chance of making it to the other side."
The officer stared at them in silence for a moment. "Very well, then," he said.
"Don't worry," said Heni. "We made peace with that, sir."
"Yeah, if you just let us stick together, we're in until death, sir." said Gurney. "Don't know what I'd do if I left the force anyway."
The officer kept staring at them. Then he made a show of shuffling some papers around on his desk. "Well," he said. "I don't know whether we can accommodate... your request... but I will see what can be done."
They watched him to make him more uncomfortable. Finally, he looked back up at them. "You can go," he said. He stood up. They followed. Gurney almost smiled as he saluted. The officer returned the salute stiffly.
Then they walked outside to wait. It wasn't long. The woman at the desk called them over after a few minutes to let them know their orders had been processed and they would be reassigned to a unit in Belvedair. They would report to Dix Forward Base, where they would spend a month training with their new unit before being sent to the front lines. Their ship for Belvedair would depart that night at 1730.
They thanked her and went outside to go find something to eat.
10
Lilia forgot to breathe. She caught herself before she became too obvious, but she was sure Sideney had seen the slight tensing of her left hand. She forced five steady breaths through her nose before she spoke.
“Actually,” she said. “My parents’ surname was Shrikkvahrah. I took the name Sackleton when I was in school. It was easier to go by a name my classmates could spell. As far as I know, I’m the only Sackleton in the Merian Federation. I did change it officially – legally, I mean. Made professional life easier.”
He regarded her for a moment, as if deciding whether he wanted to pretend to believe this.
“Interesting,” he said. “What did your parents think?”
“I don’t know,” said Lilia. “They died when I was young.” This time, she didn’t have to fake anything. This time, she was telling the truth.
Unfortunately, Sideney seemed to sense this. He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It happened many years ago,” replied Lilia. They had resumed walking along the railing, Lilia letting her left-hand trail along it, relaxed now. “Is Sideney your real name?”
“Yes,” said Sideney without hesitation. He was ready for the question, though, so this didn’t mean anything.
“I’ve never met anyone named Sideney before,” said Lilia.
“Neither have I,” said Sideney, “who isn’t related to me. Still, I am told that it was common enough in the country of England on Old Earth back during the sailing-ship age.”
“Is that when England was the most powerful country on Earth,” asked Lilia, “before the rise of the American Republic?”
“Yes,” said Sideney. “Like Meria is now.”
He used the old, anachronistic name for the Federation, which had gone out of fashion long before the Merian Republic had become the Merian Federation. These days, it was occasionally used by politicians to invoke nostalgia in their listeners, or by corporations in advertisements inevitably toned in sepia or black and white, even though holograms had been colorized for hundreds of years.
“You wanted to talk about my research?” asked Lilia.
“Yes,” said Sideney. “I was surprised upon encountering your name in the ship’s register. I had never heard of your work before.”
Lilia wished she could message the Director and tell him to change the agency policy regarding starliner logs. There should be a separate alias in the log from the alias used by any undercover agent. Admittedly, this might pose difficulties should anyone come calling, but any agent worth his or her salary should be able to memorize two separate aliases.
“I was surprised when you knocked on the door,” she said. “I had never heard of your work before, either.”
“It’s a big universe,” he said. And something about the way he said it made her stop and glance at him. He stopped, too, and she immediately glanced away, out into the cavernous room falling away beneath them. They had made it barely an eighth of the way around in all the time they had been talking, and in that moment it seemed almost to have swelled to three times its original size.
“Why do you say it that way?” she asked, turning back to regard him.
“In what way?”
“As though you hadn’t spent your whole life in the Milky Way Galaxy? As if you had some personal knowledge of the deep abysses and the unplumbed chasms of the universe – which for all the great advances of the human race could still swallow our galaxy whole tomorrow and leave not a trace we ever existed?”
Sideney frowned and cocked his head. “I suppose,” he said. “That it is because my research has taken me to some very strange places. I suppose I have seen some things I had rather not have seen. You know that if the Milky Way and all the matter in it were to disappear tomorrow, the density of the universe would be essentially unchanged?”
And just as Lilia had been telling the truth earlier about her parents, she suspected that he, too, was telling the truth right now.
“What kinds of places?” she asked.
Sideney smiled and didn’t reply.
"Medical research took you outside the Milky Way?" asked Lilia.
"It's surprising the places research will take you," replied Sideney.
"Fine. But I still don't understand. What reason would you have to go on an extragalactic expedition? Those are few and far between these days even for astronomers. There's not much money in it."
"So they say."
"So they say? Are you telling me there is money for extragalactic trips? Who is paying?"
"I can't tell you that," replied Sideney. They had reached the apex of one of the curves, where there was a broad corridor leading towards the rear of the starliner. Treaded vehicles drove up and down the center and pedestrians walked along the outside. Lilia and Sideney turned down the corridor, following some distance behind a group of teenagers who were poking each other and laughing.
"What can you tell me, then?" asked Lilia. "Your research sounds much more interesting – and surprising – than mine."
"Not much by way of particulars," said Sideney, "but I can tell you that there is more in that empty space between the galaxies than is known by the governments of any nation or kingdom."
"Is that so?" asked Lilia. "Then why would you tell me?"
"One question at a time. To the first, yes. Space isn't so empty as it appears. Between here and Andromeda, there is more energy than there is in most stars - if you know how to tap it. Space is more crowded than you might expect there, too. Lots of companies want to investigate the possibilities in deep space, mostly on the down and low. There are pirates hiding out in that space, too. Anarchists and dissidents and terrorist groups and smugglers - anyone who is wanted by some government and doesn't want to be found. As to your second question... well, let's just say the people I work for are always looking for potential new hires."
Lilia smiled. This, too, had the ring of truth to it. "Is that so?" she asked.
"It is."
They walked in silence for a minute or two. "Have you been to Andromeda?" she asked. "I've heard it's beautiful, although few people ever go there."
"It is beautiful," said Sideney. "The nebulae I saw there would put our Milky Way to shame. And there are worlds rich with resources. Some colonists have established a beachhead there. It isn't well-known, but they aren't keeping it a secret. They aren't affiliated with any Milky Way civilization, but they came mostly from Federation territory, as you might expect."
"Very interesting," said Lilia. She had heard, actually, about the colony. Merian citizens couldn't just take up residence in another galaxy without the agency knowing a little bit about it. "What else can you tell me?"
"I can tell you that the darkest night you have ever experienced is like the brightest day on Trant compared to the darkness of the darkest reaches between the galaxies. You have never known a nighttime like the nighttime you can see there. And when you see such darkness, you will know that there is no vista more stunning in all the universe, nor any mountain range or ocean which can take your breath away like the sight of it."
"How can that be?" asked Lilia. "I've seen some pretty dark nights. How much darker can it get? Once you can't see anything, what else is there?"
Sideney smiled. "The darkness you have seen," he said. "Is merely the absence of light. Just as the cold you have known has only ever been the absence of heat. There is a dark and a cold which is more than merely the absence of light and heat."
They turned out of the corridor, in through one of the circular doors leading to one of the many escalators throughout the ship's many decks. This one took them up to a viewing room, where they could gaze out at the galaxy outside. One whole wall was a screen, which purported to be glass, but which was really a wall inside the ship. They stood and stared at the screen along with dozens of other passengers as it rendered passing stars. They appeared as they would appear to an observer in that region of space, red or blue as the light shifted over the trillions and trillions of intervening miles. The two of them stared as one large blue star, almost a portal in the center of the screen, moved slowly towards the edge of the screen.
11
On Belvedair, Gurney and Heni were assigned to a new unit headed by a man named Major Tennant Galt. Their captain was a man named Miles Teller. Both of them were also given promotions to the rank of major, advance promotions which would only take effect at the end of the war, or at the end of the calendar year following the current one. Gurney wasn’t sure what calendar year they were in anymore, and Heni said he thought he knew, but that it didn’t matter anyway. They were being promised a generous promotion to keep them in the service, but it was being withheld so that they would stay in for the duration. The Merian Marines needed grunts, and so they would remain among the ranks of enlisted men for the time being.
They spent a month drilling and practicing with their new unit. Both men put on weight. Upon first looking at them during the medical examination, a doctor remarked that they had lost so much weight during the previous battle that he was surprised they were still walking around. Their uniforms hung from their shoulders limply and their jawbones stood out. After a month of unlimited food, steroid injections, and mandatory weight training, they had each gained thirty pounds.
It was one month to the day they arrived at Belvedair when they were told that a prominent Merian businessman aiding with the war effort was visiting the base and wanted to meet some of the troops. So they were turned out early in the morning by Captain Teller and marched down to an assembly-room to await the visitor.
“What the hell?” asked the man standing next to Gurney, whose name was Stalfort.
“Quiet, Private Stalfort,” said Captain Teller. “Our distinguished guest will be here any minute now.”
“Sir,” replied the private. “I just wanted to know why the Merian Marines were catering to the whims of a businessman. He’s a private citizen. Don’t we have better things to do than put on a show for him?”
“Private,” said Teller. “You will do what you’re told to do and go where the Merian Marines tell you to go and if the Merian Marines tell you that you’re going to meet a businessman, you’re going to stand here and behave your best and by damn meet that businessman. But, if you must know, this man is very valuable to the war effort. I’ll have you know that he has personally turned over hundreds of his factories to manufacturing lasers and spaceplanes, which he is either breaking even on or operating at a loss. He is selling medical transports to the navy at cost. And he personally donated more than ten million uniforms, along with several trillion dollars to fund the war effort.”
“What is he, sir, a prince?” Stalfort couldn’t resist asking.
“If the Kori is up on a given day and the Londo is down, he is the richest man in the entire Federation. His name is…”
“Zaphod,” came a voice. A boyish-faced man wearing a silver tunic over purple trousers strode into the room. He was wearing a green bowler hat. “And I’m currently shorting the Koria and betting heavily on Kapi, Rinot Motors, All Terra Firma, and Savoy, so it’s only if the Kori is down and the Londo is up – which they are – that I’m the richest man in the Federation.”
Gurney nudged Heni. “Remember him?” he asked.
“Looks like he’s ditched the jumpsuits for some even crazier clothes.”
Zaphod seemed to hear them and looked over. “I recognize those two,” he said. “You were guarding Earth. Was that two years ago? Three? I see the war is treating you well, gentlemen.”
They nodded at him.
“Captain, keep your eye on those men. They know how to execute their duty and they don’t take bribes. They’re solid men, who make their country proud.”
The captain considered this. “Thank you, Mr. Zaphod,” he said. “I am glad to hear my men are…”
“It’s just ‘Zaphod,’ please. No ‘Mr.’ – have you ever heard of a writer named Douglas Adams? He lived on Old Earth at the very beginning of the space age. You know – back when people were strapping themselves into metal tubes and exploding bombs out the back to hurl themselves to the Moon.”
“Nossir,” said the captain.
“Ah, well, a shame that. He wrote an important novel. I’m named for one of the characters, you see.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, my good man. I had my name legally changed a number of years ago now – I won’t tell you how long – and I like it better.”
“What was it that you wanted to see the men about?” asked Captain Teller. “Did you want me to march them out in the yard and have them practice formations? Or I can have them fire off a salute?”
Zaphod waved both hands. “None of that, good sir,” he said. “I just wanted to come and talk to a few of the men and shake their hands. It’s hard work supporting the war effort on the home front and I wanted to come out and see how it was paying off. And I want the men to be honest. If my equipment has malfunctioned or they have encountered any difficulties related to any of my products, I need to know. I don’t want to hear anything about any privates being punished for giving men honest answers to my questions.”
“Okay,” said Teller. “But if you ask about any clandestine information, I’m going to have to tell you now they can’t answer.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Zaphod, waving one hand this time. “You marines classify everything. You’d classify your own names if it didn’t prohibit the normal course of military operations. I’m not going to ask about troop movements. I’m going to ask about whether or not my helmets are working as designed and if my spaceplanes are holding up.”
He turned back to the men. He pointed at random and selected Stalfort. “You,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Stalfort.”
“Come here and shake my hand.”
Stalfort did so.
“Tell me, have you seen any combat yet in this war?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well,” said Zaphod leaning in and grinning. “What’s it, you know, like? Did you kill anyone?”
Stalfort looked at Captain Teller. “Don’t answer that,” said the captain.
Zaphod turned to look at the captain with displeasure on his face. “Captain Teller,” he said. “I’ll have you know – although I’m sure you’re aware – that because of my donations to the war effort, I have been granted an honorary rank of lieutenant colonel. It doesn’t come with any duties, and I haven’t been read into any programs. I don’t have any subordinates. But from time to time, I can use that rank to further my own efforts, so long as they are necessary to the successful prosecution of this terrible war. All of which is a long way of saying that I outrank you, sir.”
“Yes sir.”
“Now. I am going to ask these men about the war. I will not ask them about any sensitive information and I will not talk about what they tell me here with anyone outside of this room. Do you hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
“Very well then.” He turned back to Stalfort. “You were saying, then.”
Stalfort grinned. “Well,” he said, “If you must know…”
12
It turned out that Lilia had a difficult time turning up any information on Sideney’s research when she looked into it later in her cabin. All she found was a video of a lecture he’d given a year ago at the University of Sor.
After they had left the viewing room, Sideney had asked if she wanted anything to eat. He told her he was heading to one of the dining halls. She demurred, saying that she wanted to go back to her cabin and sleep, since she hadn’t been able to sleep well yet on the journey. He took her back to her room and bid her goodbye, saying that he wanted to talk further, but that he would call ahead next time. They had spoken only of pleasantries on the way back, and she hadn’t asked any more about how medical research took him out beyond the edge of the Milky Way galaxy.
The lecture was the only return she found for the name “Quentio Sideney,” but his face was instantly recognizable when she hit play. The little mustache ends turning up towards his eyes and the impeccable, if a little old-fashioned, suit and tie gave him away.
“Perhaps the most curious fact and the greatest disappointment,” he was saying, “in all of humanity’s long centuries exploring and colonizing the Milky Way galaxy, is the failure to find any signs of intelligent life anywhere. All of the life which now teems in this thoroughly-civilized galaxy was brought to the stars by us. Nowhere have we found evidence of life, let alone a civilization like ours. Expeditions to other galaxies have similarly yielded no signs of intelligence.
This fact haunts us. It pervades our worlds, hides behind our holographic screens, screams at us from the void we pass through on our way from planet to planet. It reminds us how small we are. Our galaxy is but a tiny corner in a cold, expanding universe. The frightening truth is that, despite the quintillions of human beings inhabiting tens of thousands of planets, we are desperately lonely.
We long for another face – a face like enough to ours as to be recognizable, but different enough from us that it can look at us and tell us what we desperately want to know, which is who we are. We are obsessed with intelligent life for the same reasons that we once obsessed about creating intelligent machines and communicating with whales and primates. The utter failure of those efforts – machine intelligence has left much to be desired, it can fly a spaceship, but it can’t recognize its own face in the mirror; all of the animals on Earth proved dumb and shallow, able only to tell us that they are hungry or desire to relieve themselves – only fueled the desire for us to find intelligent life somewhere in the galaxy. Somewhere, anywhere.
The desperation with which we pursued all of those efforts is evidence of our loneliness. For if all we have is ourselves, we will always be lonely, no matter how many of us there are. We colonize as many planets as we can in order to hide from the loneliness, but we can’t escape it. What we desire so desperately is someone outside of ourselves, someone who can look at us and tell us who we really are and what the meaning of life is. Someone who has the answers we seek.
But the robots never gave those answers to us and the animals never had them and as yet we have never met another creature like ourselves, no matter how desperately we searched for so long. And so we are left in the lonely galaxy, hoping someday to meet someone, looking everywhere for answers to questions we seek. Asking of our machines and the animals around us questions they cannot answer for us.
Perhaps we are looking in the wrong place. The field of medicine has been able to cure cancer and dementia, lengthen lifespans, and give the average citizen easy ways to remain fit and healthy throughout life. But in recent years, it has begun to turn to our brains and to our cells to ask if there is something more within us that we haven’t yet discovered. The studies conducted thus far have involved unorthodox methods and have been controversial, to say the least. But they do appear to have yielded some signs of stirring. Perhaps they will in time turn up answers to some of those questions we scream so desperately at the cold stars around us, hoping someone will hear us.
These research avenues have only just begun, and it remains to be seen what they will turn up. But I can promise that if my own research is allowed to progress, I will be able to say with confidence whether…”
The video ended. Lilia frowned. She hadn’t discovered why he had been to the Andromeda Galaxy, although he had made oblique references to expeditions outside the Milky Way. But – if he really was in medical research – she had at least discovered what he was doing.
Most of the scientific community considered it pseudoscience, and it had been very controversial in the last decade. But necromancy had grown as a field, in part because its advocates promised answers to some of the fundamental questions of human life. Lilia was agnostic on whether or not necromancy could provide those answers, or even whether or not necromancy constituted a real science, although she was inclined to think that it couldn’t and it wasn’t. But she felt herself intrigued nonetheless. On Old Earth, necromancy had referred to superstitious practices which fell under the category of black magic, and which at one time could earn someone a burning at the stake. But in modern medicine, it referred to a process of stimulating the brain cells of recently dead bodies in various ways in order to try to unlock supposedly hidden knowledge of the subconscious.
Lilia shut off her screen and went to bed. She would have much to discuss with Dr. Sideney – if that was his real name – in the morning.
Read Chapters 13 and 14.