Part II

Recruit

 

 

1.

 

The tall, gaunt general in the green uniform and red piping of Directorate Staff Planning strode back and forth across the rug. His desk was huge. Behind it was an old-style bookshelf with books. He claimed turning pages helped him concentrate. But then most people thought of him as eccentric—and that was a bad thing this near the ruling power. The nine directors of the Social Unity Directorate appreciated men and women they understood. Eccentrics, which in their mind meant “unpredictables,” were distrusted. Even worse, they were hated.

Secret Police General James Hawthorne ran a bony hand through his blond, wispy hair. He pivoted and paced back over the worn trail he’d made in his carpet. He had a sure stride, and he clasped his hands behind his back. Pacing helped him think. The pacing didn’t indicate nervousness. That was another of his eccentricities. He was trying to decide between two momentous avenues for the further prosecution of the war.

Most people thought he had the emotions of a large slab of rock. The belief occurred primarily because of his patrician mannerisms. The directors disliked such mannerisms. Social Unity preached egalitarianism, not the ways of aristocracy. So Hawthorne strove to keep his true nature hidden.

He read voraciously, military history being his special love. Among the great captains of history, he believed he most resembled Douglas MacArthur of the Twentieth Century, a brilliant man.

Before Hawthorne could pivot and retrace his steps, a chime sounded from his desk. He frowned. Then he forced his features into the blank look that he wore around people in power.

The door swished open and unannounced an old man hobbled into the office. That spoke of the man’s power. He had breached Hawthorne’s security net without any alarms going off.

The old man seemed more caricature than real. He had uncombed white hair and a leathery face with a thousand wrinkles. He used a cane, and he shivered as he shuffled a few steps at a time.

Behind the old man followed a strange creature. Not quite an android, it was difficult to call him a man. The common phrase was semi-prosthetic or bionic. Specialists had torn down the bodyguard and rebuilt him with artificial muscles, steel-reinforced bones and nerves protected by sheathing. The bionic guard wore a black slick-suit and a senso mask to hide his face.

A barely audible whine emanated from the bodyguard as he took one step at a time behind his master. At a word from the bent-over director, the bodyguard could tear the office apart with his bare hands. Although the bodyguard wore no outer weapons, at least one of his fingers likely contained an embedded mini-laser. Wonder glands could squirt drugs into his bloodstream, dulling pain and adding speed and strength.

“Director Enkov,” Hawthorne said, “this is a surprise.”

The ancient man with a thousand wrinkles struggled to lift his head. He had pale blue eyes. They were the keen eyes of a killer more murderous than any blood-maddened shark. They stared into General James Hawthorne’s eyes. After fifty days of infighting, and two sudden deaths, this wicked butcher had proved himself the strongest force on the Directorate governing Inner Planets.

Director Enkov dropped his gaze and struggled to the nearest chair. General Hawthorne would have sprung to the chair and slid it closer. But a single look into the director’s eyes had rooted Hawthorne’s feet and caused his tongue to freeze.

Despite his best efforts over the past few months, General Hawthorne had only gained driblets of information concerning Enkov. This much he knew. Unless he pleased this withered old man, the bionic monstrosity behind him.... General Hawthorne regained use of his tongue. He moved it in his cotton dry mouth. One misstep today and the bodyguard would destroy him in an undignified manner.

Director Enkov laboriously maneuvered himself into the chair. He grunted painfully as he sank his crooked back against the rest. He set the cane on his knees. And with a trembling, wrinkled hand, he reached into his coat and drew out a stimstick. He stuck it between his dry lips and inhaled sharply. Stimsticks automatically lit with the first puff. He worked the stimstick to the left side of his mouth and let it dangle.

The bionic bodyguard flanked the right side of the chair. There, he froze into immobility.

“General Hawthorne,” wheezed the director. The old man’s voice was raspy, pained and still filled with deadly menace.

“Sir!” said Hawthorne, snapping to attention.

Red smoke drifted out of the old man’s nostrils. “Shall we spout pleasantries, you and I, or shall we hew to the meat of the matter?”

“I am at the Director’s pleasure, sir.”

“What is the term…? Ah, yes. At ease, General, at ease.”

General Hawthorn’s stance grew minutely wider and he snapped his hands behind his back. His features remained blank.

More red smoke trickled out of the director’s nostrils. “I deplore subterfuge, General.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you may forgo the military routine.”

“Sir?”

“You’re a pacer, I hear. That’s what my profile team told me. When you talk you walk, at least if left to your own devices. So by all means walk.”

“I, ah….”

“Walk,” growled Enkov, indicating the worn carpet.

General Hawthorne did as ordered, although his stride was no longer as sure as before.

“Comfortable?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hawthorne.

“I deplore lying.”

General Hawthorne’s stride suddenly became surer. He was wondering how best to handle the situation, and when he thought he walked, just as Enkov had said.

Director Enkov’s eyes seemed to glitter and a tiny cruel smile appeared and then disappeared from his dry old lips.

“You asked for the truth, is that not right?” Hawthorne asked.

“Most certainly,” whispered Enkov.

“May I ask then why you are here?”

“Because we’re losing the war,” whispered Enkov.

General Hawthorne nodded, even as he considered Enkov’s presence here. Enkov had come with a single bodyguard into his office for a reason. Maybe it was to try to lull him, to put him at greater ease than otherwise. He would have to monitor his words with care. Yet it would be wise to pretend to be at ease, to let Enkov think his subtlety was working.

“During a war of this magnitude we must expect certain setbacks,” Hawthorne said. “I explained that during my Directorate interrogations.”

“Setbacks, yes,” whispered Enkov. “But we’ve received one defeat after another, and those defeats have come quickly.”

General Hawthorne shrugged as he pivoted and paced back the way he’d come. “New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Antarctica, we can well afford such losses.”

“Not in the swift manner we’ve lost them.”

General Hawthorne didn’t respond, even though Director Enkov was right. The Highborn had waged brilliant campaigns. They excelled at space combat. He had hoped land war would have stifled them just a little.

“Volunteers stream into their Free Earth Corps,” whispered Enkov.

“True. But it takes time to train good soldiers.”

“It takes less time to train garrison troops to hold what they’ve conquered. That frees the Highborn for further campaigns.”

Hawthorne nodded. It was the essential problem.

“Did you expect them to win so quickly?” the director whispered.

“No.”

“Then perhaps you’re not a traitor after all, merely incompetent.”

General Hawthorne stopped short.

“Or will you tell me that you miscalculated?”

“Miscalculated is too strong a word,” said Hawthorne. “I misjudged their timing.”

A dry chuckle escaped the old director. It made the smoldering tip of the stimstick bob up and down. “Whatever you call it, you were wrong.”

Cold fear settled in Hawthorne’s chest.

“A general who guesses wrong is useless.”

“But—”

Director Enkov lifted a trembling hand. “Swift, Highborn advances have demolished your estimated timeline. Even your little scheme of blowing Greater Sydney with a deep-core burst came to nothing. Worse, our propagandists have been working overtime to defeat the Highborn accusations that we planned such a thing. In all, General Hawthorne, your prosecution of the war leaves much to be desired.”

Sweat beaded Hawthorne’s upper lip. “I am to be relieved of command?”

“General Hawthorne, I believe you’re something of a historian. At least that’s what my briefing team told me.”

“They are correct, sir.”

“Splendid. Do you recall the history of an ancient city called Carthage?”

“Indeed.”

“I believe Hannibal marched from there.”

“Yes, sir, he did.”

“Yes….” Director Enkov shifted to a more comfortable position. “The Carthaginians had an interesting habit concerning generals.” The director’s features took on a more sinister cast, as he smiled cruelly. “If the Carthaginian general came back defeated or lost too many troops, the city fathers debated among themselves. If the judgment went against this general, they took the loser outside the city. There they stripped him of his rank and his clothes. Soldiers scourged him with whips. They nailed spikes through his wrists and his feet, hammering him onto a cross. That cross they propped upright. They crucified him, I believe is the term.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hawthorne, uneasily. “The Carthaginian’s invented the custom that the Romans later copied.”

“For the remainder of the war I wish you to consider yourself a Carthaginian general, and all it entails.”

Secret Police General James Hawthorne grew pale and found that he couldn’t speak. There was a hidden gun in the bottom left drawer of his desk. He wondered what his chances were of reaching it and killing these two.

“…Unless,” said Enkov.

“Yes,” croaked Hawthorne. He cleared his throat, hating his display of weakness.

“Surely you have a Plan B,” whispered Enkov.

“B, sir?”

“Something to implement in case your original theories proved false or misleading.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well?”

General Hawthorne thought once more about the hidden gun in his desk. Then he decided that Enkov’s briefing team surely knew about it. The bodyguard would undoubtedly kill him before he could open the drawer.

“Sir, there is a Plan B.”

“Splendid.”

“But it entails great risk.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, General.”

“I don’t see any other way out of our impasse, sir.”

“Not an impasse, General, but our defeat.”

“Yes, sir. Our defeat.”

General Hawthorne sat on the edge of his desk. He massaged his forehead and wiped the sheen of sweat from his upper lip. “Sir, to be blunt, the Highborn were a good idea that went bad.”

“A good idea?”

“Superior soldiers, sir. Or, to use a metaphor, a better sword than our foes in Outer Planets could wield. Only this sword has turned in our hand.”

“I see.”

“Actually, one could say it became a magic sword that turned and attacked us.”

“Yes, yes, quite colorful, General, but what is your point?”

“Our old swords, sir, break every time we try to defeat the magic sword. My first theory was to throw so many old swords against it that in time the magic sword would become nicked once too often and shatter. That doesn’t seem to be happening, or it’s not happening fast enough. What we need is a better sword.”

“You mean create more Highborn to throw at the first batch?”

“That’s not a bad idea, sir.”

“It’s lunacy. The first batch turned on us. Why not the second?”

“You’re probably right, sir.”

Enkov scowled. And by that, General Hawthorne believed that his time was limited.

“Sir, what about a new and better sword, even better than the first sword? This new sword we shall be able to control?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That in deep space a habitat orbits Neptune. Actually, it’s in deep-Neptune orbit. It appears to be like any other of the hundreds of habitats orbiting the gas giant. In actuality it’s the home to a secret and special project.”

“What project?”

“The creation of a new and better sword, sir.”

“Men, General?”

“Soldiers, sir, who can outfight Highborn.”

“Are you mad? What’s to stop them from turning on us like the Highborn have?”

“These are quite different creatures, sir. Their very makeup allows us to implant deep controls.”

“Out with it, man! What are they?”

“Cyborgs.”

The old withered eyes narrowed. Enkov glanced at his bodyguard. “You mean like him?”

“No, sir. Infinitely more deadly. And if I may say so, sir, most inhuman in their efficiency.”

“You’ve actually made enough of these… these cyborgs to change the war?”

“Not yet, sir.”

Director Enkov spat the stub of his stimstick onto the carpet. There it smoldered until the bodyguard crushed it with his foot. “What do you mean ‘not yet’?”

“I need the go ahead for phase two, sir.”

“What is phase two?”

“If the Director would be so kind as to glance at the holochart on my desk….”

For a second they stared eye to eye. Hawthorne wondered if the old man was going to order the bodyguard to kill him. He began to judge how fast he could jump for the gun in his desk.

Then, with a wheeze, ancient Director Enkov began to work his way to his feet to come and look at the holochart.