Kat gulped; the others turned pale despite the sun's warmth. "We're ready to take out a target," Kat told the doc, and tapped the commlink to hold.
"But which one?" the copilot breathed.
"That big mother," Kat said, pointing at their lowest priority target.
"Are you sure?" the copilot asked. They eyed each other for a long moment. Then both shrugged.
Kat pressed the first button. It was all she could do not to scream in pain. The rash had spread from her palms and was now up her wrists. The others were twitching, too. This better be the right target; there might not be enough of them left in an hour to fire off the next round.
The copilot pressed the second button; the box popped open. Kat adjusted it, taking as much of that three-peaked monster into the glass as she could fit.
The noise came; Kat was getting used to it. The flash was still bright. Blinking away the afterimage, Kat stared at where the mountain had been. It was gone, vanished, dust.
Kat's hands were bleeding. But was the rash still spreading up her arms? They looked at each other, the six of them, hardly breathing, hoping. Wondering.
Kat worked her commlink. Shrieks came from the speaker.
"He's coming down! He's coming down!" Doc Isaacs screamed as he jigged around Ray. "The Colonel's readouts are falling back to normal." Not fast enough to please any member of the medical profession, but a damn good sight for any human being.
Ray surveyed a field covered with the wreckage of a battle won. There, the guts ripped from a mastodon covered the bodies of a dozen headless redcoats. To Ray's right, the Dean's body was sliced in two, but three of Ney's cavalrymen lay crumpled at his feet. Numb and exhausted though he was. still a part of Ray's mind puzzled over what had gone on in the real world that his mind was struggling to contain in these images.
Behind him came a gasp; Ray turned. Dancer lay, a lance through his gut. Ray ran to him, knelt beside him.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"Don't you think you've done enough?" Dancer quipped, then grimaced at the pain of laughing at his own joke.
"Did we win?" Ray wanted to bite back the question as soon as he asked it. He sounded like some raw recruit in his first live fire exercise.
"I hope this is a victory. I don't know how a defeat could look any worse," Dancer said through clenched teeth.
"Are any of you left?" Ray asked.
"No," Dancer sighed, eyes resting on the lance in his belly. Ray was afraid that was his last word. After a moment, Dancer looked up, took in a shallow breath. "The President got most of us ... but you got him. Unfortunately, in getting him ... you got what was left of us.... I guess it's a decent trade."
"I'm sorry," Ray said-and discovered he meant it. He'd come to like Dancer.
"I know you are. That's why I'm going to show you something. Lek thought he could keep a secret from me. I kept asking him why, if you didn't like it here, you didn't just go home. He said you wouldn't let them, something about a virus, but I knew there was more." Dancer shuddered, coughed up blood. Ray held him as he had so many of his own troops.
"I know the way home, for you," Dancer whispered. "You do; too. It's in your head. Along with all the other junk we dumped in. Too much for you to figure out. Too much in there for you ever to find the map yourself. Let me show you."
Dancer reached up, touched Ray's forehead. Ray went inside. There, among the soaring towers and plunging caves, the history and the fables, was the course on starship navigation. There was the map of all the jump points, and how you treated each one to get to the place you wanted to go. And there was Wardhaven.
Ray knew the way home.
"Thank you," he whispered to Dancer. The computer image's eyes were open but unseeing. His mouth gaped wide, but there was no breath. Ray stood one more time to survey the battle scene. Nothing alive moved. The kids were not there; the doc must have pulled them out earlier.
Ray stepped back from the stone, smiled at the doc and the waiting kids, and collapsed onto the floor.
Eighteen
I KNOW THE way home," Ray muttered as he came awake. "I know the way home," he told Doc Isaacs as the blur before his eyes coalesced into a human face. "I'm not delirious. I have the map in my head."
Ray panicked. Had it only been a dream? But when he rummaged through the mush that was his brain, he found it, found the chart for this system-and for Wardhaven. And the one in between. No wonder Matt couldn't find a way home!
"It's okay, Ray. Matt is headed downsystem right now. We caught him coming in after another try. He wants to hear what you found."
"What about the others?"
'They're in better shape than you are. The nanos quit working the moment the President died. There were a lot of shamefaced people skulking out of the base yesterday morning, too. With the President gone, sanity, such as we humans claim, returned to a whole lot of people."
"Casualties?" Ray snapped.
"Surprisingly few, Colonel," Mary reported from over the doc's shoulder.
"I told you to stay out of here," Jerry growled without turning to face the marine.
"You're not in the chain of command, Doc," Mary growled right back, "and accurate info about his command is bound to help the Colonel more than your potions and spells."
"The medical profession never gets the respect it deserves from you overgrown children."
"Our side, their side?" Ray reminded them of his question.
"Two marines, sir. And we managed to keep from killing too many of them. We lost Cassie." Ray saw the pain in Mary's drawn face. Her friend, her partner, the one who saved Mary's life and she saved in return had not been saved this ¦ time. He nodded.
"She was a miner, never meant for killing. She'd seen too much killing in the war. Couldn't give the order for more. I should have spotted that. Should have relieved her."
Ray reached for Mary's hand. "We can't see everything coming, and we can't do everything right." He swallowed hard at the rejection of his words in Mary's eyes. "And I stood where you stand after you stopped my brigade, and it took me six months to get where I'm lying today, so I'll give you the time you need, Captain."
"Thank you, sir."
Ray nodded. Tired. Exhausted beyond words, he slipped back to sleep. There were things to do, but they could wait.
Ray came awake groggy and grouchy. "What's a man got to do to get fed around here?"
"Keep your pants on! The doctor is busy!" Jerry shouted.
Ray checked; he wore the usual hospital gown. "I don't got any pants to keep on. What's so important?"
"This little darling," Doc said, entering Ray's area with a tiny bundle in hand. "If you're expecting to be a practicing daddy real soon, you better start practicing."
On the other side of the slim partition in Ray's room, an exhausted woman rested in the bed. A proud man/husband/ daddy followed close on Doc's heels, as if to make sure the tiny bundle wouldn't take it into its head to vanish.
"Would you mind?" Doc only half-asked the father.
He nodded; even proud dads have a tough time arguing with doctors. Jerry carefully settled the baby in Ray's arms.
Ray flinched. "That's assuming we can ever go home," he reminded the doc.
"That little one says you can, Ray."
Ray looked into the tiny face, eyes open, roaming, quietly taking in this strange new world of light and smells. His heart skipped a beat. Would he ever hold his own little son, daughter? Dare he hope? Dare he risk? Ray started to growl a response to Doc, then felt the gentle touch of those inquiring eyes. He smiled softly into them, stroked a button nose with his finger, and pitched his voice for new ears. "Doesn't look like she's saying anything."
"Her blood will," Doc said, picking the baby up and depositing her in her father's arms. The dad's teeth clenched at the sight of the small needle Jerry produced to prick his daughter's heel. The baby took the new sensation in with all the others and answered with only a slight whimper. As Jerry held up his drop of blood, the father took his daughter back to his wife.
"What's in the blood?" Ray asked.
"I told you there were two viruses working on this planet. One caused the brain tumor and has us spooked. The other seemed to adjust our allergic reactions. I suspect it will make it possible for any human to live on any planet ever occupied by the Three. My problem was developing an inoculation against the first virus without inhibiting the second. I've spent the past month, while you soldiers were having so much fun running around," Doc said dryly, "working on it. I think I have it; at least it made one virus disappear from my blood after I inoculated myself. If that little girl is clean, and stays clean for the next few days, I'll know I have it under control."
"You want to give me a shot, too?"
Jerry frowned as he studied the baby's blood at his workstation. "How much do you want to mess with that map in your head? Your call."
Ray pulled the sheet up to cover himself, taking little comfort in the added warmth as the very thoughts coursing through his mind chilled him. His people needed the knowledge in his head. No matter what his personal price, he could not let down those who had fought with him, died for him. Maybe they could go home—all except him.
The next day, Ray felt recovered enough to set up a meeting with Matt and the key crew of
Second Chance
. Lek worked his usual miracle of wires and nets. Closing his eyes, Ray leaned against the stone and found himself in a planetarium. Above him, now-familiar stars moved across the ceiling/ sky of Santa Maria. Matt, his XO, and his jumpmaster, Sandy O'Malley, stood at his side.
"Neat setup you got here," Matt drawled.
"Yeah, I seem to have inherited it. Hope I can figure out how it works."
"First time we were lost," Sandy said, "we were in a system with four suns. Can you take us there?"
Ray rummaged around in his strange memories, keeping one finger firmly on the Santa Maria system. Images flashed by his mind's eye, some of star systems, most of other things. He shook his head. "I have no idea what kind of indexing system they use. It's like being turned loose in a vast library full of books written in languages I don't understand."
"Think we can get anything from the dead computer?" the jumpmaster asked.
"We wiped out a pretty big chunk of it, physically. I don't know what we did to it cognitively. We haven't heard so much as a peep from it in the past few days. Me, the kids, anyone. It was running a lot of folks around like zombies. I hear that they're fine, just haunted by the experience."
"Enough," Matt said, resting a supportive hand on Ray's shoulder. "Let's see how you work what the computer left you."
"Yes," Ray said. At his will, the stars moved as if they were rapidly accelerating away from Santa Maria, arrowing straight for the jump point marked with a red dot surrounded by a small green circle. Without orders from Ray, they began to rotate moments before they hit the jump.
On the other side was a barren system with three stars. "There's the second jump in this system!" Sandy exclaimed, "and look at the huge green circle around it. Bet that describes how far it can wander." Sandy was ready to explain at the drop of a hat how jump points orbited several star systems. From the perspective of a single system, they were very unpredictable.
Matt stepped forward to look around. "We dropped into this system on our second-to-last jump. Then the second jump was a good five hundred thousand klicks away. But the green circle from one overlaps the others'. If they were right next to each other when we blasted through, blind and dumb, we could have come in one jump and out the second without even knowing it."
"I think that's what we did," Sandy agreed.
"So let's see what's through the other jump," Ray grinned. Their viewpoint rushed at it as they again began to spin. On the other side was Wardhaven. "Home, sweet home."
"We can do this," Sandy crowed. "I'm recording this. I'll study it, calculate how much rotation and velocity we need. We can make it back."
"Good," Ray agreed. "The doc is working up more of his serum to inoculate your crew against this planet."
"We'll be in orbit in six hours, thanks to running in at three gees," Matt told Ray. "First shuttle down will pick up Kat and company. There's a break in the weather over her, and after two days of freezing they could use a lift out."
"Good. I understand they're getting awfully hungry."
Matt smiled but went on. "Ray, I'm only inoculating half my crew against the virus. The other half stays aboard ship. We'll be the control group to make sure you're not carrying anything."
That knocked the floor from under Ray. "Say again," he stammered.
"After just a week on this planet, you dirtside puppies tested positive for the virus. Jerry's going to eradicate the virus from everyone on the ground team but you. If none of my uninoculated shipfolk show signs of the virus by the time we're home, we'll know you're not a threat to Wardhaven."
"We'll have to talk about that," Ray snapped, afraid to touch the hope bubbling up inside him. He'd been around the block enough to know that if something was too good to be true, it usually was. He and Ray and the doc would have to talk—a lot.
The dining hall was back in operation. Tables and chairs of local wood replaced shattered plastic, scenting the air with the earthy tang of four worlds. From the repaired stoves and ovens wafted the smells of a feast drawn from both the larder of
Second Chance
and the local market. Tables were set with linen and china, the finest the locals could give in gratitude. The hall was crowded now for a victory feast... celebrating what they'd done here ... and that they were going home.
In the fields beyond the base, farmers worked from sunup to sundown, bringing in a crop that had matured and dried under ten days of incessant sun. People would eat between now and the next crop-maybe not well, but no one would starve. The starfolk and their guests had much to be thankful for.
Mary pushed back from her place at the head table. With a sigh she surveyed those present, and the missing faces at the feast She should have seen the change in Cassie. Maybe, if things had been slower, less desperate, she would have. That was something she'd have to learn to live with. Somehow, she doubted life would ever slow down enough to let her take things at her leisure, take all the hours she wanted to do what needed doing. Ray had paid the price in blood and pain for rushing her position. Cassie had paid the highest price for their trying to be everything and everywhere-and Mary would pay it, too.
Mary swallowed hard. Enough dark thoughts; today was a celebration.
Around her, plates were empty. Kat led a couple of middies as they filled wineglasses from a few bottles the padre had chased up. The Colonel also was leaning back in his chair, surveying what he'd done and what it had cost. Mary rose, raised her glass, and waited for quiet. It came quickly.
"To Colonel Ray Longknife, ambassador and whatever, who held us together and beat a whole damn planet."
To the Colonel," they answered, and sipped.
Mary did not sit down. "I got a request from three of my marines to stay on here." A week or two ago, she might have included her own name on that list. Not now, not after ordering Du to fire on these people, not after they'd stomped Cassie into the mud. Mary suppressed those thoughts and produced a smile.
"Seems they met the girl or boy of their life." From the table where the marines sat, there was kidding and elbowing. "The Colonel says I can process their discharge papers." That brought a cheer, if only from three voices.
"I've checked with Jeff, here." She nodded to where Jeff and Annie sat across from her. "He helped me incorporate you as the Santa Maria subsidiary of the 'Ours, by Damn, Mining Consortium.' Jeff will be our local CEO to keep you working"-groans at that-"and the padre has agreed to be chairman of our board to keep Jeff honest. Don't any of you forget. We'll be back." Mary raised her glass. "To us worker bees who make it all happen."
Another sip from glasses that could not be refilled.
Jeff was the next to rise, Annie beside him. They raised their glasses high. "To all of you, and the ones like you, no longer with us. You fought for us when we didn't know we needed to fight. You fought for us when we sure weren't deserving of your sweat and blood. Thank you." Another small sip.
"Hey, Jeff," Dumont called. "Where's your sister?"
Jeff laughed. "Last I saw, she was trudging along a railroad track, doing zombie duty for the computer. Maybe it taught her something, but I doubt it."
While they laughed at that, Ray got to his feet. The room went silent. "To we who serve, who stood, who waited, who fought, who won against something deadly and weird." Heads nodded.
"We had some good friends helping us.'" Ray raised his glass to the kids. Rose, David, and Jon waved their glasses, full of apple juice. "We had good advice and help from others." He raised his glass again to the padre, Jeff, Annie.
"But first and foremost, my toast is to you, you blood} bunch who never quit. You line beasts and spacers, chiefs, officers, and midshipmen," as each was named, Ray raised his glass to them. As he named them, they stood.