We got up early the next morning, Glen and I. I got up, washed a bit, and pulled on my loincloth. Glen pulled on his suit, and saw my grin.

“What?”

“You’ll regret it.”

“The suit?”

“Yeah,” I said. I went over to the door and opened it, showing Glen the pouring rain of early morning.

He looked down at his suit. It was, actually, kind of waterproof. But rain would get in the neck, and it would trickle down his back, and then it would…

“Do you have a spare?” he asked me, pulling his suit off.

—

“This is so bizarre,” he said, as we climbed up our third tree and he looked down at his loin cloth for the seventh time. “Does it always rain here?”

“Pretty much. I love it.”

“You, my friend, are wierd.”

“Here’s the first blind,” I said. “The first housing is just up here.”

I was impressed, actually, that when we got within about a quarter click I noticed a Riyahaln, still in his stupid suit, but a reasonably well placed lookout position, looking out… probably for enemy. I spotted him, first, of course. Stupid suit. Who wears white in the jungle?

He did see us, eventually, and I saw him turn and yell backwards toward where I knew the housing was. Soon we had another Riyahaln climbing down the tree toward us.

“How is it going?” I asked the Riyalan.

“Miserable,” he said. “Does it rain all the time?’

“Almost,” I said.

“Insha’Allah,” he said. “We sill survive. Where are the enemy?”

“On the floor of the jungle,” I said. “They hate climbing. They don’t even like looking up.”

“Allah be praised for small mercies,” he said. “So we hunt them from here?”

“Or lower, if you dare.”

“If we dare? We shall descend to the very depths to slay aliens.”

Glen laughed. “The way it is raining it seems you are already at the ‘very depths’.”

The Riyalahn laughed. Apparently this was his kind of humor.

“Let us show you the blinds,” I said.

—

I took Glen, next to the housing of my wise friend. There, too, we saw a lookout. This one, however, was dressed only in some sort of cloth wrapped around his underwear area. He, too, didn’t see us until long after I saw him. But I suppose it took a while to see things in the jungle.

“Greetings,” I said, coming up to the housing where I had left my friend.

“Greetings,” he said. He was alone in the housing.

“Where are your compatriots?” I asked.

“Two are out watching, one is out gathering food, and gathering the layout of the land.”

“And you?”

“I am meditating on the nature of life.”

Glenn laughed, but I didn’t get it. “Are you ready to get the materials that we talked about yesterday?”

“Certainly,” he said, leveraging himself up. He, too, was wearing this diaper like thing. “First,” he said, “can we get me, get us, some of those clothings you are wearing? Running around in my underwear is embarrassing.”

“So you are both from New Geneva?” the Riyalan asked, after we had navigated two trees down and one branch over.

“Yes,” Glenn said, but I said, “But I was born in CF. I’ve never been to New Geneva.”

“It must be hard,” he said.

“What?”

“Not knowing your home.”

“My home? My home is where my… my family is.”

“Ah, a ‘CF’ kid. I have read psychological profiles of children like you. I’m sorry,” he said, seeing my wounded look, “young men, and women, like you. Fascinating.”

“A Riyalan? Reading ‘psychological profiles’?”

“Know your enemy,” he said, and I glanced at him, trying to figure out if he meant it or if it was a bizarre joke.

“What is your name, anyway?” Glen asked. “I’m Glen, and this is Carl.”

“Hikmah,” the boy said.

“There one is,” I said.

“Ah… that is the tree?”

“Yes,” I said. He and Glen watched me as I sliced off a section of bark.

“If you would, four,” Hikmah said.

I carved off another three more and he wrapped them around his shoulders. “Now we need to get the dye,” I said.

“Dye?” Glen said.

“For the camouflage,” I said. “Wouldn’t you like to look like me?”

Glen laughed, “Not willingly would I mar myself so.”

The Rihalan looked at us, an Glen laughed again. “I’m not sure I need it,” he clarified. “Say, I have a question if you don’t mind.”

“Yes?” Hikmah said.

“How come those others do what you say?” It isn’t like you are higher ranked or anything, is it? I’ve noticed it before, especially when you all are in small groups.”

“Ah. No. No ‘rank’, per se. Not of the military sense. But perhaps ‘rank’ of another type.”
“You see, my friends, each of us, back on my planet, has our own different kind of rank… who our parents are, and what they do. One of my ‘friends’ here, is the son of a blacksmith. Another is the son of a small farmer. The third, his father deals in some drugs… the medicinal kind.”

“My father, on the other hand, is a very important merchant.”

“So… they just respect you for that?”

“In part but… you see, when we fight together, especially when, as you say, we are working in a small group, we become ‘blood brothers’. This relationship lasts for the rest of our life.”

“They know that, especially if they serve well here, with me, for the rest of their lives we will have ‘a relationship’.”

He saw our confused looks. “I don’t think this exists among you pagans,” he said, with a grin. “But amongst us, where relationship exists, both members gain from it. Obviously, since my father is rich and powerful, they stand to gain more than I will. If we live, and I return, then we will buy from the one’s farm, use the one’s blacksmith shop, etc. And then, when one of them has a need… a daughter that needs a dowry, a son that may need an apprenticeship. Their association with me will improve their lives… assuming that we survive, and that they please me. Among us, powerful connections are of powerful importance.”

<more here>

“Uncle, Uncle!” Jonathon burst in the door. “They’re coming!”

“They?”

“The aliens!”

I leapt out of bed and grabbed up my pistol and, together with everyone else, raced outside. “Where?” Uncle Andrew asked.

“There! Look, ladders.”

We had built our house on what you might call the fifth ‘story’ of the jungle… ie about five branches, big branches, high. The aliens, several dozen of them, were climbing up ladders, and had reached the ‘fourth’ story. I had just dropped flat to start shooting at them when I heard, from behind me, the ‘alarm’ that we had set up in the hut. From the way it was being beaten I knew that Justina must be beating it.

I had never seen anything like this outside of sims. There were literally dozens of enemy, adult enemy, coming up these ladders. They really were horrible climbers, but managed the ladders well enough.

They had to keep moving them up from level to level, though, which was what saved us. That, and the fact that they were armed mainly with knives and thing, not any kind of decent long range weapon. Two enemy, the two I shot first, had bows.

They found bows awkward, and had to hold them with a brace in their mouth, pulling back with one arm, and placing the ‘arrow’ with the third. It wasn’t really an arrow, more of a hooked Javelin, really.

“Aaah!” I heard from beside me, and, glancing over quickly, I saw that Bethany had been shot, in her leg. Keeping both eyes out for the enemy I schooshed over to where she was and examined the wound. The ‘arrow’, which must have been launched by an alien on her side, was still embedded in the wound, in her leg. The bleeding was minimal… either because it hadn’t hit anything major or, more likely, because it was blocking the bleeding.

“Medic!” I yelled, letting Adelphe know that her skills were required. “You OK?” I asked Bethany.

“I’ve had worse… in sim,” she said, doing her best to keep up her end of the battle. I fired several times leaning over her… I don’t think she had been quite keeping up before I got there. Of course, she was trained as a pathfinder, not a soldier.

It seemed forever that I lay there, next to her, looking and shooting in both directions before, suddenly, I heard Bethany squeal and felt her slide out from next to me. A quick glance showed that Adelphe, crouched very low, was dragging her back toward the hut.

“Where are the  Rihalans?” I heard Jonathon ask, from far off to the right. “Can’t they hear the alarm?”

“Most of them are probably too far away to hear it,” I said. “And the rest are so bad moving in trees that it will take them all day to get here.”

The Bnentarri were taking an awful beating. This kind of warfare was horrible for them. They are incredibly quick… on flat ground… but this climbing thing was impossible for them. It was hard for me to tell, covering so much ground, how many of those who fell fell because they were shot and how many simply because they lost their grip on the branches.

I heard a yell to my right and turned to see Jonathon struggling with a Bn. He had him up on  his hind legs, claws in arms, but the Bnentarri was still able to balance on his tail and get an occasional hind leg up and scratch him.

Cursing, or such curses as I knew, I dialed my pistol down to ‘narrow’ and ‘wound’. It wouldn’t do to poke a hole right through the Bnentarri into Jonathon. It took me four shots, leg shots, before I was able to wound one of the hind legs enough that the Bnentarri lost his ability to stand and dropped down.

Jonathon went with him, as we had been taught, and curled around onto the aliens back. From there it was just a frantic few second before, his throat cut, the alien thrashed into silence, and Jonathon dropped back down into firing postion.

“Medic!” I shouted, “Check Jonathon.”

I knew that saying ‘check’ would keep Adelphe from just abandoning Bethany in mid-operation to run out to Jonathon. “You OK?” I yelled at him.

“I’m bleeding pretty bad,” he said. “On my legs.”

“Well press on it if you can,” I said. If you can’t come over here.”

He must have handled it, because he didn’t comment more, and kept firing.

Suddenly I heard a roaring from above us, and saw a shuttle come in, hot. Zip lines came down, and soldiers raced down them. Seconds later, the lines, and the shuttle, were gone.

“Hey!” said a voice, as a body thumped down beside me. “How’s it going?”

I couldn’t quite recognize the voice, and the soldier was in a combat suit, which disguised him pretty completely. “Fine,” I said. “Two wounded, so far. Take over for Jonathon, over on my right… oh,” I said, as another soldier slid to a stop next to Jonathon. “Belay that, but tell him to send that one in for med,” I said. “He’s all scratched up, hind leg wounds.”

The soldier, his rifle never ceasing to move, spoke into his com and, seconds later, a soldier was helping Jonathon back into the hut.

“You guys came fast!” I said.

“We’re getting hit all over,” he said. “We were on our way to another station and got diverted here.

“Just because Bethany was hurt?” I asked, suddenly worried. “She looked OK to me.”

“No, not just that,” he said. “Your sister is in labor. She had radioed in earlier. We were going to bring a midwife down later but, given the attack, we brought her with us now.”

“Labor?!” I asked.

“Your wife’s hurt?” he asked, suddenly realizing what I’d said. “Bad?”

“Javelin wound, thigh,” I said, not wanting to answer his question with the term he had used.

“Get in there!” he said. “Your medic is in labor, and your own wife is hurt. We’ve got enough here, get moving. Family first!”

“Family first,” I echoed, and slid off to the door of the hut, tapping with our recognition pattern.

“Hey!” I heard, as the door opened to a suit dressed medic. “Hurt?” she asked.

“No,” I said, sliding in. “Family first.”

She looked in the corner, “Ah, yes, your wife. A bleeder, but Aliyah sewed it. If you can close, she can work on Jonathon, some, and then I can work on her. I have Jonathon stabilized with a bleed pack, but he needs some deep stitches.”

I went over to my wife. She had a nasty wound in her thigh. She was laying face down and gave me a wry grin over her shoulder. “Ouch!” she said.

“I guess,” I answered, picking up the needle and thread. “Hold still.”

We all knew how to do basic stitching, and I peeled back the poultice confidently. Much of my confidence evaporated when I saw the wound, however. It was long, and jagged. I tried to keep my face impassive, as she was still staring at me over her shoulder. “Does this hurt?” I asked, prodding carefully at the edge of the wound with a needle.

“No,” she said. “The anesthetic is working well.”

“Good,” I said and, after washing my hands in feverwash I got going.

I was about halfway done, having to do a lot more cleaning and cutting than I was comfortable with, when the tap sounded, urgently, on the door. I looked up. The soldier-medic was answering it, her pistol out in case of ‘company’.

“Bad one!” the soldier at the door said, pulling a Rihalan in. “Bite, upper arm.”

I replaced the poultice and left Bethany, arriving at the same time as Adelphe, who was clutching her stomach as she pulled back the field dressing. A bite indeed. The arm was pretty much gone from a few inches below the shoulder.

“I…” Adlephe said, and clutched her stomach.

“We’ll handle it,” the soldier-medic said. “Finish Jonathon if you can.”

She and I hauled the Riahlan over to the table, and up onto it. His clothes were half off already, and I made short work of the rest. He clutched at me a couple of times, as if objecting, but I ignored him. The soldier-medic was busy with feverwash and then the anesthesic poltice. “Anything else?” she asked me.

“He’s pretty raw in a few spots,” I said. “And a bunch of splinters. They must have drug him here over a bunch of rough spots.”

“Splinters can wait,” she said. “How is Bethany?”

“Half closed,” I said. “Otherwise OK. Vitals stable.”

“OK,” she said, “Wash up.”

We both washed well in the feverwash, and then she had me hold the boy down against the table. “I doubt the anesthetic has had time to work,” she said, “but we need to get this off before infection sets in.”

So saying she began scrubbing, hard, in the ripped area. The boy screamed and fought against me, trying to get at the medic… with curses flowing from his mouth. At least, I assumed they were curses, I never did learn to curse in Rihalan.

“Hold still!” I said, “Be a man.”

He said something to me after that in Rihalan and then, more calmly, “What is she doing?”

“Cutting your arm off,” I said. I didn’t believe in beating around the bush.

“What?!” he said, trying to turn his head to look.

“The Bnentarri bit it almost off,” I said. “If the medic leaves it on it will get infected and you will die.”

“But my arm!” he said, as if I didn’t know what I was saying.

“Is gone. It can’t be saved. Perhaps in a big hospital they could save it, but not here. Think, this will end your tour, and you can go home and get a wife.”

“What father will give me a wife, with only one arm?” he asked, despairingly.

“You will be a war hero!” I said. “Surely your family will boast about their son, who lost his arm while fighting the awful aliens.”

“Perhaps,” he said, nodding grudgingly, and then he screamed. I looked over. The medic was busy slicing through the remaining flesh, and had the bone saw ready.

“Hold now!” I said, “Show courage.”

He ‘held’… still anyway. His voice continued shriller and shriller until, finally, the medic was done, the flap of skin sewn over the gap, and he could relax.

She took over his care and I returned to Bethany, who was asleep. At first I panicked but a quick feel of her pulse showed that she was just asleep, not dead. I took my needle back up and she was out enough, and anesthetized enough, that she didn’t stir as I started sewing again.

“Ooooh!” Adlephe screamed, just as I finished sewing my last stitch. I looked over. She had finished with Jonathon, who was also sleeping, and the medic was crouching down between her legs. I had had the emergency child birth class, and the douala class, and knew what she was looking for.

“Sorry, only four,” the medic said, straightening up, and Adlephe, well, Adelphe wasn’t happy and she used words that I had never heard before (from her). The medic gave me a glance out of the corner of her eye and winked.

I looked back at Bethany. She was still asleep. “I think I will return to duty,” I said.

“Very well,” the medic said, after glancing, herself, at Bethany.

“How is it going?” I asked, plopping myself down next to my soldier friend.

“Better,” he said. “The attack is dying down.

“We need to visit the posts,” I said.

“True, that,” he said. He whistled and, in a few seconds, had us permission to go from Carl.

This soldier crawled down limbs better than the Rihalans, and we are able to go fairly quickly. At the first post we found three dead boys. “Stupid,” he said. “No sentries. These three were killed in their sleep.”

“There were supposed to be four, here,” I said, and he grimaced.

At the next post the boys were fighting, and doing well. We arrived and quickly killed two of the four enemy that were hiding near them.

My next stop was selfish. I led my soldier friend on to the post where I had left my ‘wise’ Rihalan. We approached cautiously, but all was quiet. I was sick with fear as we approached the post itself. We had been leapfrogging and it was the soldiers turn to go forward as we reached the post.

“Nobody here, no signs of a struggle,” he said.

“What?” I came in, myself. Sure enough, the post was completely empty. Suddenly we heard a whistling noise and, poking our heads out and looking up, we saw an arm wave from a branch far above us.

“Brothers,” a voice called, as we started to climb. “Good of you to come. We feared for you.”

We came up, three levels above, to a strange sight. The boys were all sitting, naked except for a small strip of cloth, all the colors of the jungle, each on different branches, yards apart from each other. Except for my ‘wise’ friend they were each looking down, scanning the jungle.

“We saw enemy coming and fled here,” my friend said. “I had arranged it as a backstop for us, and we had moved things up here. I had heard that the enemy didn’t like to climb, and that has proved to be true. They came to our post below, those that were still able to come, and, finding it empty, and our shots coming from above them, have largely been discouraged and gone away.”

“Largely?”

“We still have visitors from time to time,” he said, grinning. “

“We have been visiting the other posts, some of which are manned by dead men. Do you think you all can move a couple of posts closer? Maybe stay up at this height, but move over?”

“Sure,” the Rihalan said.

—

We visited two more posts, both untouched, and then went back towards our house. We came in sight and I saw Father sitting by the front door, while soldiers stood guard on the edges of the platform and out into the jungle. For some reason everyone but Father looked nervous, and he looked… sad?

“Father?” I said, sliding down a branch nearby and coming up to him. “Is everyone all right?” Just then I heard a shriek from inside the hut and paled. Father held up his hand,

“It’s just Aliyah,” he said, “having our baby.”

“Why aren’t you in there?” I blurted out, surprised. All the other fathers I had known had been present for the births of their children… when they could, of course. Family first.

“She doesn’t like me,” he said. At first I thought he meant ‘doesn’t like me there when she gives birth’, which really shouldn’t matter. But then I saw his face and realized this was their first.

“What?” I said, “She loves you! She tells me all the time. She tells you all the time,” I added, thinking about it.

“She may,” he said. “Probably she does. But she doesn’t like me.”

I stared at him and he said, finally, “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. But it hit me hard when she told me to leave.”

“You see, I made a big mistake back when we partnered. I didn’t do things the way I should have, and then I lied to her about it.”

“What, what did you do wrong?” I asked, amazed. Father had always seemed to me to be the best lover a partner could have… always worrying about what Adelphe wanted or needed. He wasn’t a husband, of course, which was sad, but he was better than most of the other partners I had seen.

“I forced her to partner with me, sort of. I was afraid to ask her, myself. You have no idea how shy I used to be. I had thought about partnering with several girls, but I couldn’t bear to ask them. And then, when I wanted to partner with Aliyah, I couldn’t bring myself to ask. And I knew if I joined the Colonization Force they would… they would force her to partner with me.”

“I went and looked her up, on the computer. You could do that. Indeed, they encouraged it. And she… well, you know her. Strong, capable, intellectual. She was everything I wasn’t, and I knew she would never agree to partner with me. So I… I was wandering down the street, and saw the office, and suddenly it all seemed to come together. I could avoid final choice, and everyone would be proud of me for joining up, and… and I would get Aliyah.”

I sat and tried to wrap my mind around this. It was all foreign to me. I had never thought I would have to ask some girl to marry me. The doctor would present my father with a list of choices, he would talk to the girl’s father, and then they would tell us about it.

Or, like had happened, he would need to send off for some girl… and force her! I realized, suddenly. Bethany. Sitting at home, with even an ‘exemption’ thing, suddenly getting a notice that she was forced to come and marry me! If Adelphe was upset at being culled for Father, how must Bethany feel?

“You can go in,” he said, suddenly, and I paled again. “Your wife was asking for you,” he added and, steeling myself, I went in.

“Who?!” said the soldier-medic but then, “Oh, it’s you. She’s over there,” she added, as I stood and stared at Adelphe. I had never, ever, seen her like this. She was standing, moaning, clutching herself… almost as if she was in a different world.

“Carl?” I heard, and I turned away from Adelphe.

“Bethany,” I said, hurrying over. She was laying on a mat, next to that Rihalan, holding Justina. The Rihalan was awake, if a bit bleary, and he changed his amazed gaze from Adelphe to me, as if he was in some bizarre dream. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said, moving a bit, wincing, and then, “or as fine as you can be when you get a Javelin through your thigh.”

“Brother?” Justina said, “Is Adelphe OK?”

She hadn’t seen too many births before, and had been asleep for much of mother’s last. “Yes, ‘Stina,” I said. “She will probably be OK. She’s just having a baby.”

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t like sugar coating things. Speaking of which…

“I’m sorry,” I said to Bethany.

“Oh, it wasn’t your fault!” she said to me, rubbing her leg above her wound, “More mine, if anything, but mostly the Bn.”

“No, I mean about our marriage.”

“What?!” she said, looking up at me sharply.

“I shouldn’t have let them force you to come,” I said.

“What?!! Do you… do you not like me?” she asked, sounding hurt and shocked.

“Oh, no. I mean, that’s not what I meant,” I said, not wanting her to misunderstand. Of course I liked her. She wasn’t that well trained, but it wasn’t her fault. “I was talking to Father, and he said that Adelphe didn’t like him because he forced her to partner with him…”

Bethany reached up and put her hand over my mouth, looking nervously at Adelphe… who was paying us not attention at all. “Hush, love. It isn’t like that at all. Not anymore. And she always liked him. You can like and hate someone at the same time, you know. You can especially love and hate them at the same time.”

I supposed you could, but what did that have to do with… “But why doesn’t she want him here?”

“What?” she said, “Oh, I must have been asleep. Tell him to come in.”

“But she said she doesn’t want…”

“Tell him I want to see him!” she commanded me, in a tone my mother would have used and, not knowing anything else to do, I hurried out.

“Bethany needs to see you,” I said, and Father, shocked, hurried in after me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hurrying up, and looking at Bethany, Justina, the Rihalan, everywere but at Adelphe.

“She needs you,” Bethany said, waving her head at Adelphe. “Get over there!”

“But,” he said, but she continued to use that same tone and said,

“Get over there, she needs you!”

I sat next to Bethany, who held my hand as Justina crawled onto my lap. I had never seen Father look so tentative but, when he got close, Adelphe looked up from her moaning, seemed to recognize him, relaxed, and said, “Oh, honey, hold me…” and he rushed forward the last few steps, supporting her.

That seemed to be all she needed because, a minute later, she squatted on the ground and, as I had seen so many times before, a baby came forth into the world. Not without so more screams and pushing and all, but it came forth.

“It’s a boy!” Father said, amazed, holding it up to her breast.

“Are you pleased?” Adelphe said, and I watched a look of fear cross his face until he looked, really looked, at Adelphe. And then he relaxed, and said,

“Oh, yes,” he said. I turned back to Bethany,

“Do you like me?” I asked Bethany.

She glanced nervously at Justina, but then patted me on the knee, “Yes, I like you. It has been a hard start, I don’t deny that. I’m sure I wasn’t the kind of girl you expected to marry. I hardly know what marriage is, the way that your people teach it. But I’m learning.”

“You… you’ve been doing fine!” I protested. Did she think I didn’t like her? I didn’t understand girls.

I shut up after that, as I didn’t seem to be helping what I was trying to do. It was awkward to apologize to someone who wouldn’t acknowledge what you had done wrong. I watched Adelphe and Father hug (he surely must be wrong about him not liking her) while the afterbirth was delivered (a truly gross activity) and then watched the baby nurse for a while, before I said, “I probably need to get back to work.”

I spent the next few days with my soldier friend rounding up Rihalans, pulling them back in tighter, and waging continual if light war against the enemy, who still seemed to be throwing themselves against each outpost of ours.

The baby did fine, and Adelphe bounced back quickly. Bethany did less well, as the wound got a bit infected. Adelphe and the soldier-medic kept treating her, but then Adelphe called me over one day and said, “We’re going to evac you. This climate is just great for infections, and she had a big wound. Father called for the shuttle, and it should be here in an hour. Get yourselves dressed,” she said, grinning, “I don’t think those clothes will go over on board.

I looked down at myself and over at Bethany and grinned, just trying to imagine what my aunts would say. I showered and changed and then bathed Bethany and Justina and I helped her into her suit.

“When will you come back, Carl?” Justina asked.

“I don’t know, ‘Stina. We need to fix up Bethany.”

She nodded, nervously. I was sure she would be fine with Adelphe and Father, though.

The shuttle ride was cool. It was the first time outside of sim that I got to put someone in a basket. Bethany protested, of course, but, really, she couldn’t walk or even stand long enough to really grab the line; so up in the basket she went. I followed on the line and, once I was aboard the shuttle took off.

“Where are we going next?” I asked the pilot, crawling through the hatch enough to stick my head in.

“Deliveries,” he said. “We have about half a dozen left to do, then up to the ship. Get back to your wife! Family first!”

“Family first,” I agreed, and went back to Bethany. But Adelphe had given her some sleepy tea before we left and it was taking effect, so I laid myself down next to her basket stretcher and, well, took a nap.

“Wake up, sport,” a voice said, “And help me carry your wife!”

I awoke to see a man, soldier dressed, shaking my shoulder. I rubbed my eyes and got to my feet, grabbing the tail end of Bethany’s stretcher. It only took us a minute to go from the shuttle to the  small compartement we used on ship for a sickbay (and other things). No one else was there, and we laid her on the bed. The soldier helped me unsnap the stretcher and move her onto the bed. I knew how to hook her up to the machines so, in a couple of minutes more, I had her undressed and hooked up, with a sheet over her which I knew the medic would take off but, Bethany was raised on New Texas and I knew she would appreciate it even for the couple of minutes.

“Well, how is my patient?” a voice asked and I turned to see an older lady, soldier medic dressed.

“Sleepy,” I said. “My sister gave her a tea before she came up, and she has been mostly sleeping since.” Bethany gave the lady a groggy look and, as if to prove me right, closed her eyes.

“Well, let’s see this leg,” the lady said, and pulled the sheet off Bethany’s leg. “Definitely infected,” she said, “but we should get that cleared up here fast enough. Those jungle environtments are just full of bugs. Not much in the way of bugs here, though, she said. Then she looked at me, “Except on you, perhaps. Go shower while I finish my exam.”

I nodded and went off obediently. Medics were worse than mothers for being obeyed. I had hardly made it to the shower before I was surrounded by my various cousins and all, all asking me about Bethany, about life on the surface, about the battle, and did I know how many of the pathfinders had died?”

No, I didn’t, I said to them, because we hadn’t heard. They all got quiet and then Brian, a good frind of mine who had just married himself two years ago, started in on the litany. I was appalled!

“Almost half of them,” he said. “And even more of the Rihalans.”

I… I almost cried. I mean, I knew most of them. I knew them pretty well, considering. I could remember bringing them fish, and barbecuing, and swimming. And Adephe! These were her friends, from her planet, that she had trained with! And half of them were dead!

I finished my shower, went through the UV sterilizer, dressed, and went back to Bethany. When I got there the medic had her completely hooked up to all the tubes and things. “Ah, the husband, good. We’re are about to start the deletion.”

A deletion! I hadn’t seen one of those in a while… since one of my friends had cancer. I knew they did them for bad infections too. “Ready?” she asked, and, when I nodded my head we watched, together, Bethany’s blood shoot up the tube.

“Now, this will just clear the pathogens out of the blood, of course,” the medic said. “For the leg we are going to be a bit more direct.”

I nodded. This next I had seen lots of times, and I watched, eagerly, as she positioned the machine over the wound. When she pushed the button there was nothing, really, to see, but I knew that the machine was zapping all of Bethany’s dead skin and infected bits, and then washing it out with ‘saline’ solution which had a strong antibiotic.

I looked at Bethany. She was sleeping, of course. These processes were kind of hard on the body, so the medic had given her some sleepy drug.

“By the way,” the medic said, “congratulations.”

“Umm, well, I wouldn’t exactly be that proud of what we did,” I said. “We were very lucky that no one was killed, and the soldier arriving really helped us.”

She looked at me as if I was an idiot, and then proved that I was. “I didn’t mean that! That was horrible, of course, and I’m glad you are alive. I meant the baby.”

Baby? Baby?! I looked at Bethany, then back at the medic. “You didn’t know?”

“No…” I said, “She didn’t tell me.”

“Well, maybe she didn’t know. It is her first, obviously, and she isn’t very far along. Didn’t you notice that her time hadn’t come, say, two weeks ago?”

I shook my head. I had been so busy with so many things going on that I hadn’t even thought about her ‘time’ and all.

“Well, anyways, congratulations. Just think, you’ll be the one to get to tell her when she wakes up.”

I looked down at Bethany, amazed at that idea. And then I looked around, grabbing a chair and sitting next to her. I had planned on going back to my friends while she slept but, with this news, I wasn’t going anywhere. The soldier medic looked at me, grinned, and said, “If you have time, she will need another bath, the materials are in that closet. And I believe that someone said that there are new letters from home, her home, anyway, and that some of them are addressed to you.

New letters from her home? To me? I thought about that, nervously, while I bathed Bethany; a basic skill that we had all learned in sim, and not the only time I had ever been assigned it. Why were they writing to me? Or, maybe, maybe it wasn’t to me, but to Bethany, and they just tagged me on the letter, in case, like, she died or something, so I could give the letters to Aliyah.

I finished her bath and then, went over to the computer, nervously, and pulled up my account. Sure enough, there were letters addressed to me. I scrolled down the list. Fifty letters?! And they were really for me; the headers showed only my address, with only a dead carbon copy to Aliyah and Bethany. Nervous and confused, I clicked on the first letter.

“Oh, Carl!” the lady on the letter looked kind of like Aliyah and kind of like Bethany. Only older and all. “They told us your name was Carl, you know. We didn’t find out about Andrew’s name until much later, but we found out yours right away.”

We hope to get letters from you, of course, although boys rarely write. But maybe Bethany will convince you to write. Let me tell you about  our family…

I sat back, an hour later, dazed. My new mother-in-law had, it seemed, written practically ever day. She had told me what they had for dinner! And which ones Bethany was good at making, in case I wanted her to make it. (Some of them had sounded good, too, although, in general, I didn’t like NT cooking, and much of it would be impossible to make here).

“Carl?” I whirled to the bed,

“Bethany?”

“Hey,” she said. She looked just terrible, all pale and everything, and she was reaching out toward me.

“Lay, still, love,” I said, going over and hugging her, and then putting her sheet back on from where it slipped.

“Where, where are we?”

“On our ship, Love, the pathfinder ship.”

“Why? Oh,” she said, looking at her leg. “Am I, am I going to be ok?”

“yes, yes love.” I said, stroking her shoulder. “The medic says you should be fine. Just relax.”

“Ok,” she said and, closing her eyes, seemed to fall asleep as soon as they closed. Too late, I realized I had forgotten to talk to her about… her condition. That was probably best, anyway, as she was so tired.

The colonel looked at me a bit oddly, but nobody said anything, and it was only a couple more minutes before everyone was in and seated. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I’m sure you are all aware of what has happened. We had never done anything like we did here, and never had a reaction like it either.”

“Our psych warfare boys think that what happened was that the human presence… not because it was human but just because it was a large presence of ‘animals’ big enough to be a threat’, triggered an almost automatic response in the aliens, an ‘attack’ response. All over the planet groups of aliens, we think basically any alien near enough to ‘sense’ our presence, hearing, sight, whatever, suddenly got spooked by how many of us there were, and decided to attack.”

“As you know we lost dozens of pathfinders as a result. And that, and the situation which still continues, with the enemy, those that are left, still attacking  pretty continuously, has forced us to reexamine our situation here.”

He paused, then said, “We have decided to abandon this planet as a colony.” There was a good deal of noise and he waited till it subsided. “Instead, we are going to make this planet a major soldier training base. Some have suggested that we call it ‘Hell’, and I’m not sure I disagree. Carl aside,” he said, nodding at me, “no one really liked the continual rainfall, and most of us had a hard time adapting to the conditions. As a training base for soldiers, however, it should be ideal. Enemy in basically every direction, primitive conditions, miserable weather… exactly what soldiers like to train in.” He grinned, although I didn’t quite get the joke.

“So where do we go next?” Grant asked. Grant hadn’t gotten caught out, he had arranged his house, and his soldiers, so that the enemy hadn’t even hardly gotten close, and they had killed hundreds.

“Headquarters,” the colonel said. “We are going to be merging with another unit, the three hundred twenty second. They have been having a hard time over the last few years and are down almost as low as we are. Then we will be plunging on even deeper into enemy territory.”

Headquarters! I thought, ignoring the rest of the discussion. I had never been there, but had always wanted to go. I slipped out… it wasn’t like I had to be at the meeting anyway, and hurried back to Bethany.

“Headquarters?” she asked. “I didn’t know… where is it?”

“Oh, it’s totally cool!” I said. “It’s this ice planet, with water on the inside, and the spinning of the planet keeps the inside water, while the outside’s ice.”

“Oh,” she said, looking confused. “And people live on it?”

“In it!” I said. “Like on submarines! Bit submarines that float around under the ice.”

“Why do we have our headquarters there?”

“Because there is no way the enemy will ever settle that planet,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, laying back.

“Tired, love?” I asked, and she nodded, so I just sat with her and stroked her shoulder and all.

—

“Hey,” Adelphe said from beside me. “How’s Bethany doing?”

“Much better,” I said, slipping under my blankets, with Justina curling up at my feet, like we used to do. Adelphe sat up, her baby at her breast, obviously wanting to talk instead of just nurse while the rest of us fell asleep. Uncle Andrew was laying on the other side of her, watching her nurse, with that silly grin he had so often nowadays. “They think she will be able to get up in about a week. Well, you knew that,” I said, for Adelphe was, of course, in charge of Bethany’s case. “She’s anxious to get up,” I said.

“Did you tell her, yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I said, “I don’t want her too excited. I’m thinking maybe tomorrow morning. That will give her all day to adjust. Do you… do you think she’ll be happy?” I asked, nervously.

“Of course!” Adelphe said. “Bethany has always wanted children.”

“Good,” I said. Then, to Andrew, “so, we’re going to headquarters!”

“Yep, to pick up more personell. Not in the normal way, either, not like we were picked.”

“How were we picked, anyway?” Adelphe asked. “I never did understand that.”

“Well, neither did I, until today,” Andrew said. “The colonel explained it all to us.”

We both looked at him and he blushed a bit, but went on, “You see, Carl, almost all our unit were prisoners, or cull married to prisoners. Your sister and I were about the only exceptions. The Colonel told us that that is usual for the special units. That there is usually something unusual in a prisoner, or a cull, that makes us better at the special units.”

“Not that they go by that, but he said it usually turns out that way. What they actually use is a series of rankings that they measure along the way. All sorts of things, from physical things like endurance, to the ability to take advanced training, and even how well the partnership goes. That was the one,” he continued, with a nervous glance at Adelphe, “that almost shot me down, I’m not a very good partner. But, anyway, each of the services is looking for specific traits, and the rankings give them an idea of who to look for. Then, once they have some people picked out, they change their training up a bit and see how they do with various other things. That’s where your sister and I really excelled, apparently, and so how we got picked for Pathfinders.”

“How you excelled,” Adelphe said, switching the baby to the other breast, “I never even got ranked. On our ship none of the girls did. At least, not where we could see,” she added, suddenly, sounding excited. “Were our rankings up in your training room? I always wondered why we could only see the boy’s rankings.”

Andrew’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. He did that, sometimes, and it was always funny to watch. “Those were *our* rankings, love.”

“What?!” she said, startling the baby into stopping nursing. “But they only had… oh, no. You mean… oh, I was such an idiot!”

Andrew and I both stared at her. Adelphe was the smartest woman I had ever known, and a brilliant doctor. How could she have been an idiot?

Apparently she wasn’t going to tell us, either, or not me, anyway, because she just said, “So, you say we won’t be getting new members in that same way?”

“No, we’ll be joining with another unit, one that has been hit about as hard as us.”

Adelphe’s eyes teared up. Andrew had told me, privately, just how bad she had taken the death of so many of her friends, and warned me to try not to talk about it.

“What unit?” I asked.

“The two hundred and second,” he said, and I gasped,

“But…?”

“But what?” Andrew said.

“But they’re from Hargrave!”

“Ok…?” Adelphe said, and Andrew just looked at me. Didn’t they understand? Of course, they were from New Texas.

“They’re… they’re New Catholics!” I said.

“Well, that might be a bit awkward…” Adelphe said.

“Awkward?” I said, sitting up. “Impossible!”

I had said that last a bit loud and Andrew said, “We’d better get to sleep, now.” Meaning me, of course, since Adelphe needed to finish nursing, Justina was asleep already, and Andrew would, no doubt, stay awake with her. I rolled over. Didn’t they understand?

—

“Impossible!” Justin said, echoing my thoughts. We were all down in our ‘work’ area. I had visited Bethany already, but she had been asleep so I had avoided the big new and come back to ‘work’ where we were discussing the merger. “What of our girls?”

Many of the New Texas men were standing around looking rather bemused, even Andrew. “I don’t understand,” Grant said, echoing the faces of the rest of the New Texans.

“I will explain the problem,” the Colonel said, “And then I will explain why it will not be a problem.”

“The problem,” he said, “Is that, for the most part, Catholics are not believers in Christ; not even New Catholics. New Catholics have made some serious improvements over Catholic doctrine, including a rejection of celibate priesthood and the authority of the Pope… or, at lease, the authority of the current Popes.”

“But they still reject, or seem to reject, the exclusive role of Christ in salvation. This makes their theology anathema to us. We are not dramatically pleased with much of what comes out of New Texas, but we have managed to reconcile us to marriages with them.”

“But marriages with Catholics is a far, far different thing. We are loath to put our sons in the position of having to lead a Catholic in marriage; and even more loath to put our daughter in the position of having to obey someone we consider a non-Christian.”

“However,” he said, looking at the NG men, “We will live through this. We have to. First of all, we are under orders. Just as Haddassah was given to a pagan king, our daughters may need to be given to pagan boys. Just as Joseph and Moses married pagan girls, so our sons may have to raise children in that environment.”

“We will have, you will have, about two weeks to prepare our widow, widowers, and children for meeting and, in many cases marrying, these Catholics.”

“Can I ask a question?” Grant said, and all eyes turned toward him.  “What is marriage? I mean, what is the difference between being married and having a partner.”

There were about fifty people in the room, and, except for a couple of toddlers and nursing babes, everyone grew still. The colonel glanced at Trenton, a soldier who served largely as the local NG elder. “It’s been hanging over us since the beginning, Pastor,” the colonel said, and the pastor nodded his head and got up. I sat down, as did a lot of other people, with couple sitting together including Andrew and Adelphe. A couple of the girls hurriedly put on their headcoverings.

“First of all,” the pastor said, “I need to let all of our friends from New Texas know that I’m not going to preach about anything new. What I am going to talk about today is what the church has always taught, including the church in New Texas, although in recent days the teaching has been somewhat suppressed.”

“Let me read from John Calvin,” he said, opening up his comp, “where he writes about the very beginning of marriage. Speaking of Genesis chapter 2 verse 22 Calvin says:

22.And brought her, etc Moses now relates that marriage was divinely instituted, which is especially useful to be known; for since Adam did not take a wife to himself at his own will, but received her as offered and appropriated to him by God, the sanctity of marriage hence more clearly appears, because we recognize God as its Author. The more Satan has endeavored to dishonor marriage, the more should we vindicate it from all reproach and abuse, that it may receive its due reverence. Thence it will follow that the children of God may embrace a conjugal life with a good and tranquil conscience, and husbands and wives may live together in chastity and honor. The artifice of Satan in attempting the defamation of marriage was twofold: first, that by means of the odium attached to it he might introduce the pestilential law of celibacy; and, secondly, that married persons might indulge themselves in whatever license they pleased. Therefore, by showing the dignity of marriage, we must remove superstition, lest it should in the slightest degree hinder the faithful from chastely using the lawful and pure ordinance of God; and further, we must oppose the lasciviousness of the flesh, in order that men may live modestly with their wives. But if no other reason influenced us, yet this alone ought to be abundantly sufficient, that unless we think and speak honorably of marriage, reproach is attached to its Author and Patron, for such God is here described as being by Moses.

Marriage, as an institution, has always been under attack, even back in Calvin’s time, and Christ’s time, and before. Satan hates marriage.

He paused, and seemed to take a deep breath. “Marriage is the institution by which a man and a woman become one flesh, in imitation of the great and glorious relationship of Christ and the church. Marriage is a sexual union, a sexual relationship, and one that produces children. But it is much, much more than that…”

He talked more, in the same vein, and all stuff I knew, for several minutes before winding down. He looked out over the crowd, which was still silent. “Any questions?” he asked, looking particularly at  Grant.

“Why do they not call it marriage on New Texas?” Grant asked. “I hardly ever went to church before, back home, and all of this is new to me, or new since we got on ship. Why do we say ‘partnére’ and you say ‘wife’? What is the difference?”

“In God’s eyes, none,” the pastor said, causing a bit of a stir. He held up his hand, “let me explain. In God’s eyes you partners have exactly the same responsibility as we husbands. You don’t get out of them by calling what you are doing something different.”

“But, to answer your question, the reason that the name is different is because, back on New Texas, some people were most upset when marriages began to be  ‘forced’.”

Forced? Oh, perhaps he meant like Adelphe and Andrew. That was kind of ‘forced’, wasn’t it?

“You see, back in the time before colonization, and especially before the war, couples married not only who they wanted to, as many people do still today, but when they wanted to. There was a bizarre relationship dance called ‘dating’ that these people engaged in to help them figure out who they wanted to marry, and when.”

“But we still do that,” Grant protested. “A boy will come to a girl that he wants to partner with and ask her to partner!”

The pastor laughed. “Not quite what I meant. What they would do is, when a boy was interested in a girl, he would ‘ask her out’.”

“Out where?”

“Like to go to some event together, or go to a resteraunt together.”

“Before they were partnered?”

“Yes. And they would talk about this and that, and maybe he would kiss her, or even go farther than that.”

“Before they were partners? Did they have to register after this?”

“Oh, no. They would do this with girl after girl until, finally, he found one that he was willing to partner with, or ‘marry’, and he would ask her. And if she wanted to too… then they would marry.”

“Several girls? And everybody would know about it?”

“Yes. It was called ‘dating’. And they would often date until they were 27 or 28 years old.”

“What?” Grant said. “Past final choice?”

“They didn’t have final choice back then. That was part of the whole change. Once we instituted final choice, and culling, and all, people began to complain that these weren’t ‘real’ marriages, because they didn’t ‘pick’ each other.”

“But, you on New Geneva, you still call them marriages?”

“Yes. When we look at Scripture, we don’t see God valuing how our wife or husband is picked, we see Him valuing the relationship itself. When we become one flesh with a woman, we have certain blessing and obligations, and we call those ‘marriage’.”

There was another rather loud silence, and then Grant said, “Well, so, you’re OK with it if I call my Jane my wife?”

“We would be very ‘OK’ with it,” the pastor said. We’ve already seen the way you, most of you, treat your ‘partnéres’ and it is very much as we would have you treat your ‘wives’.”

“And these Catholics,”  YYY asked. “Do they have ‘wives’ or ‘partners’?”

“They call them ‘wives’, as we do, as most of the colonies do. Only Newtonia and New Texas regularly use the word. Some of the other planet actually use both words, with the couple able to choose which kind of relationship they want.”

“But you said there was no difference,” Grant protested.

“No, I said that we didn’t see the blessings or responsibilities as any different. But people treat them as different, obviously. Even people that use the same name treat the relationship as different. Some couples believe that the wife should obey the husband, others don’t. Some have the wife take her husbands name. Their relationship in bed is different.”

“Some of the differences died with the war. It used to be, and I know you’ve been told this, that some couples would deliberately not have children, or not many, or not right away….”

Blushing, I realized that Bethany might be awake and, as quietly as I could, I hurried off. I noticed Adelphe grinning at me from the corner where she sat, nursing.

“Hey, love,” Bethany said from her bed. “Missed you.”

“Me too,” I said, coming up for a kiss and a rather more intimate cuddle than we had managed in the last few days. For one thing the soldier medic was not here, and it always bothered Bethany to cuddle in front of her. “I have news for you, love,’ I said, when we pause din our cuddle.

“Oh?”

“Yes. Really great news. Although maybe you already know it, and haven’t told me?”

She blushed. “I didn’t know, but I hoped. I didn’t want you to be disappointed. And then I got wounded… and I was worried that you might have to lose two of us.”

I kissed her, and we cuddled some more, stopping when we heard a discreet cough. “Adelphe!” I said, straightening up from the cuddle.

“So, have you two told each other your news?” she asked.

“You knew!” Bethany and I both exclaimed.

“Yes,” Adelphe said. “And I knew that it was for you to share, not me. Doctors can be officious at times.

“Thank you,” Bethany said, squeezing my hand.

“I try,” Adelphe said.

I sat with Beth-any, holding hands, in the Sick Bay, the two of us staring out at the monitor, which was showing a screen of  She was doing a lot better, but was still under close monitoring and had a rather large bandage on her thigh.  Not that most people got to see that, anymore, as Adelphe had, finally, given her leave to put clothes on on a regular basis.  “Wow,” she said, “That is cool. ”

I laughed at her choice of words.  Sure enough this ice planet, our sector headquarters, was indeed ‘cool’.  The light from the sun was bright, if not containing enough heat to melt the ice on the planet, and it was a brilliant blue white light, which showed up the ice, and the long, black, cracks in the ice, beautifully.

“And you’ve been here before?” she asked.

“Once, when I was a lot younger, when I was, what, five?”

“A lot younger,” she said, moving her hand on my leg.  We had just gotten to sleep together last night and were both really excited about it, even if we did have to be very careful.  I rubbed my own hand on her tummy.  She wasn’t showing yet and, praise the Creator, she wasn’t sick yet either, or not much.  Morning sick, I mean.  “I will miss you, while you are gone. ”

This was annoying timing, really.  We had gotten to come together just last night, and I had to leave her, this afternoon, for two days of meetings and things in headquarters.  Adelphe said she couldn’t go.  “I’ll miss you, too,” I said, and she caught my glance toward the door and giggled, struggling to get her clothes off.

“Come on, Carl,” Brother said, as I hurried out into the hallway.  “They are holding the connection for us. ”

I blushed, but he wasn’t at all upset.  I guess he understood how we must be feeling.  He had Justina by the hand and I hurried up and took her other hand and we hurried toward the airlock.

“What are we doing first, Uncle Andrew?” I asked, as the big door closed behind us and we started down the ladder, toward the others, who were, most of them, still in the corridor through the ice, climbing down into the ‘shuttle’ that would take us to the headquarters.

“We’re going to do the hard part, first,” he said.  “Meeting our new partners, and partnering. ”

I gulped.  I had several Uncles, and Aunts, and even one cousin, who would all be partnering with these Catholics.  I didn’t really understand all of the issues, but many of the men were rather upset.  I knew my cousin was really upset that  his betrothed wife had died, of course, but I didn’t really know how he felt about taking a new, Catholic, partenaire.  I mean, he hadn’t been able to come together with his old one, since he hadn’t yet been quite of age, although she had been.  He hadn’t really wanted to talk about it, at least, not with me.  He was probably jealous of me.

That all kind of ruined the shuttle ride for me, thinking of what was coming next.  I had so looked forward to this, too.  They had the walls all lit up with the view of the outside, the water, and all of the huge fish that, somehow, found enough to live on here. . .  with the bright light coming enough through the ice to bring the plants. . .  or plankton or whatever. . .  Adelphe had explained it all to me. . .  enough light to give them energy enough to grow.  and then the fish ate them, and got energy that way.

OK, so I kind of did get excited about the fish and all, and managed to forget what was happening until, with a kind of circular move, the shuttle shone it’s light on one of the huge headquarters ships.  It was all over airlocks, and we took a while to cruise along until we got to the right one.  The one we were attatching to was on the side, and we met up with a door that was on our side.  Which meant that, instead of a ladder, the doors opened us right into a big meeting room.  I was on the far side and was practically the last person into the room.

I walked in, behind everyone and, moving over to the edge of our group, saw a very interesting, very tense, sight.  Our two groups were not mixing and huggin and all, like we would normally do, but standing apart, men mostly in front and, in front of them, our Colonel was standing in front of our group, facign their colonel.

Not that we got to call him ‘colonel’ now.  the groups had two colonels, which we couldn’t do, and the other one was senior, so our colonel was now called a ‘light’ colonel.  Anyway, the two of them were out in front and , when the last of us came in and the ship crew, staring at this tableaou, closed the door behind us, our colonel reached out and shook the hand of the other one, in total silence.

“Welcome,” the other colonel said, finally, in tones that showed he knew how hollow his words were.  “We deeply regret  your loss, but we hear you fought well. ”

“huuurah,” the other group said, the men, all together.  It was traditional, altho I hadn’t expected it.

“Thank you,” our colonel said.  “We hear that you have brought honor on the corp as well. ”

With that our group, the pathfinders anyway, ‘hurrahed’.  I didn’t, soldiers didn’t do that.

“Well, we have business to take care of,” the colonel said.  “First of all. . . ” he turned to face our group, “Know all men present that, by the order of the CF high command, I hereby subsume command of the 501st pathfinder group under the 302nd pathfinder group until such time as these two groups can be reconstituted.  These two names, honorable names each, will be held in abeyance until such time as they can be reconsituted, and our combind group will be known as the 903rd pathfinders. ”

“Hooorah,” the men all said, seriously but loudly. . .  each of the two groups honoring the other, and honoring their new group and commander.  It wasn’t like our men didn’t respect the 302nd, either.  They had done really good work and fought hard in very difficult areas.  It was just the whole Catholic thing.

“Our second order of business is the re-establishment of broken households. ” He paused a bit, and then, consulting his comp, said, “Gregory MacDougal, stand forth. ”

Mr.  MacDougal not only stood forth, he brought his three children with him.  He had lost his wife, and their nursing babe, in the attack, in their hut itself, but had managed to kill the attacker and, with practically every child firing a pistol as the enemy took their hut apart piece by piece, had managed to keep the rest of them alive for the forty five minutes it had take a shuttle with soldiers to arrive.  He himself had gotten a nasty injury to his face, and had a really cool scar as a result.

“Cynthia LaTourneau, stand forth,” the colonel said, next, and, from the crowd opposite, a rather plump woman, with three children herself, including one babe in arms who had obviously been interuppted nursing, stepped forward.

“Greggory MacDougal, I present you with a replacement wife, and charge you to keep her in all honor,” the colonel said, a formula which must be common among New Catholics.  Neither one seemed to know what to do and, eventually, the woman, pulling her reluctant children, walked forward.  Mr.  MacDougal eyed  her, his face hard but then, suddenly, just as she reached him, her infant cried, and his face changed.

“Ach, the pair wee bairn,” he said, reaching forward and picking up the infant who, surprised, turned toward him and then, just as he brought it close, reached out and grabbed his long red beard.  “My bairns have always done that,” he said and turned, and led his new family through our group and out a door on the far side.

That set the order for the rest of the partnerships, with the woman going to the man, with her children, and the man leading them off.  Most of the women were from our group, actually, as many of the men had died defending their wives or partners and offspring.  But then, “Mark Trentin,” the colonel called, and my cousin came forward, very shyly, blushing furiously and, without even being called, a girl came forward from the other side, toward him.  He looked at her, and reached out both his hands, and the two of them looked at each other.  Then, switching to only one hand, he led her toward the door.

Then, suddenly, the room broke out in cheers, and catcalls, especially from the Catholic side.  I knew the New Texans didn’t do this but, amongst us, and especially amongst the New Catholics, apparently, it was rather common and ‘OK’ to give a newly married man a hard time about what he was about to do.  The couple, grinning and blushing, hurried off.

“Ok, next, briefing,” the colonel said, all business.  “Wives and kids. . .  or partenaires. . .  he said, “Can go off to their quarters, or stay, as they wish.  but if everyone would be seated. ”

We all sat down, facing the screen, and he began.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as some of you know, and other’s of you have guessed, we have a problem.  And, no, I’m not referring to our particular units.  I am referring to some changes in the aliens.  These changes are not widespread, yet, and don’t seem to be very definitive.  But several actions, most particularly the attack on New Texas, are read by our intelligence unit as indicating a change in their behavior, a very worrisome change.

The attack on New Texas was like nothing we have ever seen.  One thing we have always ‘known’ is that the enemy just don’t work together.  But on New Texas they did, a coordinated attack by three completely different units.

This is a serious development, obviously.  With all of our handicaps in fighting them, we don’t need this.

Our theory is that it is the result of a ‘super genious’ or, a metamorphisis one past that which we know already that we call ‘genious’ class.  Essentially we are thinking that the ‘genious’ is sort of the equivelant of a ‘Juvy’. . .  a creature that works alone well. . .  whereas the supergenious works well together, like ‘Pack’. . .  except, of course, on a much larger scale.

As a result our strategy is going to change, somewhat.  The fleet is going to be beefed up.  Up to now they have largely been confined to shuttling colonists and soldiers back and forth, and protecting them on the way.  We have had fleets protecting planets, of course, but largely against colonizing ships, not actual attacks.

But now we will have to beef up our fleets, and many are calling on us to take the battle to the enemy, finding and killing fleets before they get started.

For us, that means that our focus is going to change.  Before we were kind of ‘pre-colonists’.  We would go to planets that the scouts had found, and settle them ourselves for a while, and then invite the colonists in.  That is going to change.  From now on we go in right after the scouts and, basically, scout the ground.  Find out what is where, mark stuff out, and then get out.  The colonists are going to come in hot and heavy, and have to settle for themselves.

That is what most of the Pathfinders will be doing, at least.  Our particular unit has a different job.  The screen behind him lit up.  “This is Terra Bleu,” he said.  “Don’t ask me what the name means, I don’t get it either.  It doesn’t look very ‘bleu’ to me.  Probably some Francophone scout having a bad day. ”

But what is interesting, very interesting, is that this is an enemy planet, a long settled enemy planet, and yet. . .  look. ” He brought up a screen that we were all used to looking at; a screen that showed the alien population on a given planet.  But. . .  “That can’t be right,” Glenn said.  “Are those colors right? There isn’t any red anywhere, and hardly any yellow, except around those islands. ”

It was hugely different from anything I had seen before.  The jungle planet had been colored in red practically over the whole thing, and the desert planet, which had practically no enemy at all in the desserts, was still deep red along the coasts, and yellow in most of the oceans.

But this, this was largely light green. . .  meaning hardly any enemy at all.  Some of the ocean was yellow, and, as Glenn said, the islands were yellow as well.  I hadn’t seen that many maps, I guess, but this was really different.

“Exactly,” the colonel, the new colonel said.  “There is something really odd about this planet.  The scouts have just found it and they reported it back to here, of course.  And our job is to find out what is going on.  The scouts, in their quick survey, couldn’t find any reason for this, so it is up to us. ”

Put together the way we are, the 903rd is an excellent choice for this assignment.  We have some excellent doctors, from both units, and the 302nd has a molecular biologist.  The 501st did great work on ‘Hell’ and we have all of their data; including some very interesting biochemistry work and the development of a new killing drug.  All told we have been chosen to investigate this phenomemon.

He turned away from the screen and back to us.  “Hopefully you all see the point.  We hope that whatever it is that is killing the enemy here is something we can duplicate everywehre. ”

“Well, that’s the end of this briefing.  Now we need to finish our organization.  We will be sleeping in dorms here, except for those of us who are recently married. . .  we’ve given them cells.  But for the rest of us, we will have new shift and ship assignments. . . ”

I listened, worried, but Beth-any and I were assigned to the same ship and shift as Adelphe and Uncle Andrew.  But, but they had assigned half of each shift, on each shift, to Catholics, too.

I found our dorm and, as it was, technically, the middle of our new sleep shift, I went off to the shower.  A couple of Catholic boys had the same idea and came over and stood next to me.  One of them was about seven, and he looked at me, “You, you look funny!” he said, staring at me.

I guess I did, all naked like this.  The camaflouge still hadn’t completely worn off and, since I was buck naked, the part under my loincloth was totally white while the other bits, all of my other bits everywhere, were kind of splotchy.

“Camaflouge,” I said.  “We used it on Hell. ”

“You were on Hell?” the other boy asked.  He was almost my age, about a year younger, maybe.

“Of course, we all were.  We just came from there. ”

“Wow!” the boy said.  “How was it?”

“It was great,” I said, “all over jungle.  I got to climb all over, and hunt enemy all the time.  I made myself a fort, or a kind of blind, out of these limbs. . . ”

As I talked I noticed more and more people, Catholics, all listening to me.  I had to move out of the shower to let the men shower but I couldn’t get away.  All of the boys, adn even some of the men, kept asking me questions.  The boys all wanted to see my loincloth but, of course, I hadn’t brought it with me.  “I have pictures, though,” I said.

Eventually all of the other men and boys drifted off, but that one boy, the older one, stayed with me and we went out to go to bed.  “Where are you sleeping?” he asked me.

“I. . .  I can sleep anywhere I want, I guess,” I said.  “My wife is over on the other ship. ”

“Oh, you have a wife?” he asked me.

“Yep.  Not you, yet, I guess. ”

“No.  I still need to be certified.  We’ve been kind of busy. ”

“Certified? Like, to enter puberty?”

“Yeh.  The doctor was on the other shift, and he’s been really busy. . . ”

“My sister can certify you,” I said.  “She’s a great doctor. ”

“Oh, great!” he said, looking nervous and looking around.

“Oh, she’s not here right now,” I said.  But, seeing his disappointed look, I said, “we can do it by screen, if you are willing to have me take your blood. ”

“That that would be great,” he said.

“Come on,” I said, and took him back in the boy’s room.  “Hey, Adelphe,” I said, on the com, “I have a boy here needs to be certified.  You have time? I’ll take his blood. ”

“Sure, Carl,” she said.  “Beth-any is sleeping.  Is he there?”

I broadened out the video screen and waved him over.

“What’s your name?”  she asked.

“George, ma`am.  George Whitfield. ”

She had me move the video screen around a bit and then, “Well, George, it looks like you were ready quite a while ago.  Let Carl take your blood and I will talk to your folks. ”

“Thank you ma`am,” he said, and duly came forward to me.

“We better get to bed,” I said, after poking his finger and feeding the blood into the machine.

“Where are you going to sleep?” he asked me and I, grinning in side, gave into the inevitable.  Not that I minded.  “Next to you?” I said.

Next to him turned out to be next to his whole family, of course, of which he was the oldest boy.  His mother was kind of surprised when he told her, rather nervously, what he had done but just nodded and told us to lay down.

We had hardly laid down, however, when her comp beeped and, with a glance at her children, she and her husband wandered off, coming back some minutes later.

“George, get up,” his father said.

“Yes, father?” he asked, getting up.

“We’ve assigned you a wife,” his father said.  “From Hargrave, too, the saints be praised. ” He suddenly realized what he had just said and looked at me, rather apologetically.  “You will find that easier, anyway.  Her parents are just now telling her and we discussed it and think it would be best for you to come together now.  They’ve arranged a room and all, and we will take you there, meet her, and the two of you won’t have to come forth until it is time for us to leave. ”

“Oh, Father,” George said.  “That’s great!”

“That it is,” his father agreed.  “Say goodbye to your new friend, and come now. ”

“Bye,” he said.  “Sorry we won’t be bunkmates. ”

“We can, still,” I said.  “You and yours… you and your wife can sleep next to me an my wife, once we are on ship and on shift. ”

“I’d like that,” he said, and we shook hands and, quickly dressing, he followed his parents.

“Cool,” I mumbled to myself and, turning over, went to sleep.

I awoke, the next morning, with an eight year old girl staring at me.  “What happened to George,” she asked me, as I got up and put my blankets away.

“He got married, last night,” I said.

“Really?” she asked, leaping from her bed and following me as I went off toward the shower.  “To who?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and she stopped at the doorway of the boy’s room, obviously disappointed.

“It was Susan Hanson,” she told me, when she got back from her morning shower.  “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m Uncle Carl,” I said.

“You’re not my uncle,” she said.

“I am now,” I said.  “We got assigned together. ”

“That doesn’t make you my uncle,” she said, dubiously.

“They call it that, daughter,” her father said from behind her.  “The New Genevans and, I suppose, the New Texans as well.  If you are shift-mates then they call each other ‘Brother and Sister and Uncle and Aunt’. ”

“You don’t?”

“No,” he said to me.  “We use ‘mate’ sometime, but not often.  “I guess it just never caught on.  But, you are married? Where’s your wife?”

“Back on ship, med bay.  She got a nasty wound on Hell and she’s still recovering. ”

“Oh, sorry.  And your parents?”

“They died… on Hell,” I said, and he put his arm around my shoulder, which I didn’t really like.  And besides, I was  a soldier.  “I’m so sorry,” he said, sounding almost weepy.  I could tell these New Catholics were going to take a bit of getting  used to.

He forced me to walk with him, like that, all the way to the meeting, too.  Luckily once we got there I got assigned to a different planning group than I was in.  Our shift was going to be settling this one area, near this river.  Uncle Carl and Aunt Aliyah would be in charge of the medical/experimental group there, and Beth-any and I would form part of the soldier protection.  So my group was the soldier group, and we had to plan for forts and shelters and fields of fire and all of that.

“But remember, we will need to be capturing as many enemy as we kill,” our captain said.  “Our med teams will need lots of live specimens to experiment on and dissect for their trials. ”

“I don’t mind capturing them for that!” one of the New Catholics said, and I agreed with him.

“Well, good.  Has anyone here ever actually captured an enemy?” he asked and, suddenly, startled, I realized that my hand was the only one up.

“You there, what is your name?”

“Carl, sir, Corporal class. ”

“And you have captured an Enemy?”

“Just a Juvy, sir. ”

“Why was that? Foolign around? Wanted to eat it fresh?”

“No, sir.  We were experimenting with a drug to kill them, a drug I could put on my darts. ”

“You’re that Carl?! I would have thought you were older.  Well, how was it? Tell us how you did it. ”

I told them, and they all laughed at the story of my chest.  One boy asked, “You weren’t in armor?”

“No,” I said.  “My adopted parents are Pathfinders, and we were working on native tech.  I was just wearing a loincloth. ”

“Ow!” he said, and everyone grinned.

“So, a simple trap with some vines?” the captain asked.

“Yes, sir, but that was just for a Juvy. ”

“Well, we’ll need Juvies.  We have no idea what is causing this effect, and we will need to test all ages. ”

“yes, sir. ”

“I doubt that would work for Adults, or even Packs, though,” another man put in.

“True,” the captain said.  “And we won’t be limited to native tech anyway.  This isn’t a colonial plant, but a high priority experiment.  We will have all of the equipement we need.  So, what do we need?”

 

“Corporal Tome!” the Sergeant yelled, and I went forward at a fast crawl. “Sir!” I said. We looked, together, over the hill, down at the river. There were several juvies, crawling around in the mud at the side of the river. They only stayed near the river for a little while, so these must have recently hatched.
“Corporal, take your squad and move over there, to the far right. I will have the other two squads take the left and center.”
It was funny, him calling us ‘squads’. We had a bunch of boys, mostly, plus a few newly married men. The older men were all ranging out, watching out for us, so we could do our hunting in peace. “Sir!” I said, crawling off.
The boys and I, safely behind the hill, took off at a run, with another squad following us soon after. We reached our assigned position and we each got out our nets. These were cool, weighted nets with a way to draw them closed. We spread out and our right flank reached the river and our left flank reached the center squad, with each boy about ten yards apart. We sat for a minute or two and then, from the sergeant’s position, we heard our whistle. I was watching the Juvies at the time, and they kind of lifted their heads up, but none of them tried to run away or anything, but went back to kind of random nosing around, like they do when they just get out of the eggs.
We started to move forward, slowly and, so stupid were they after their egg phase, that we were practically on top of them by the time that they started to notice us and mill around. And then, almost as one accord, to charge at us.
There was a lot of yelling, and throwing, and confusion. As the ‘squad’ leader I mostly stood back and watched, watching how things were going. Thus it was that I saw the one that got away, darting between two of my boys and off over the hills.
“Sergeant,” I yelled, as my boys pulled their sacks closed. My squad had captured four, and the other squads had done almost as well. “I’d like to go get that one, the one that ran away. With our luck it will be the one Adelphe will need.”
Everyone accepted her as ‘Adelphe’ now. As I was the only New Genevan around she didn’t have any competition for the title and, as our doctor in charge (her orders mediated through Uncle Andrew, of course) she was highly respected and unique.
The Sergeant looked around, seeing everyone else tying up their bags, and nodded. “Don’t go too far,” he said.
I called to my boys and we set off. It was actually kind of easy to see where it went, as the dew was still on the grass and it had left a trail. We couldn’t go to fast, as the boys with the struggling Juvies on their backs had to go slowly. I cursed myself for a fool for not having asked the Sergeant to send, instead, the unencumbered boys with me.
Three hills we crossed, and a couple of the boys were starting to make ‘why do we have to go after one lousy Juvy’ noises when I heard a noise from over the hill and, with a wave of my hand, we all dropped flat. My assistant, Micah, and I crawled to the top of the hill we were on and looked down.
“Yuck!” Micah said, but my hears stood still. Down, below us, a solitary pack was busy eating the Juvy we were chasing, obviously recently killed.
I rolled over and waved a boy up, “Get to the others,” I said. “I want everyone here, right away.”
“The others?” he said, looking down at my squad, which I could have called to me with a wave of my hand.
“The one’s with the Sergeant, all of them. Tell them to loose their captives and come, here, now, right now. Go!” I whispered, urgently and, with an incredulous look, he crawled and then ran away.
“What?” Micah asked me.
“Get down there and tell our boys the same thing. Kill their Juvies, and take their sacks and surround that Pack. It must be taken alive.”
“What?!”
“Now,” I said, and, as he scampered away, I turned back to watch the scene. The longer I stared, the surer I was. This one had to be captured.
Our boys surrounded the Pack, but our lines were so thin I decided to wait. The Pack, however, had other ideas. I don’t know if it saw one of my boys, or just got full, because, about a minute after our last boy was in place, it started to move. I stood up, “Take it, boys! Alive!”
The boys, confused by my reasoning but not by my order, stood up. The ones behind the Pack darted forward, and the ones in front got ready to throw. The Pack, itself, turned toward me at my yell, and hesitated, then charged the nearest boy.
This boy, a little early, threw his net, which the Pack ducked around. Then, bravely or stupidly, we still discuss it, the boy stood his ground, his arms outspread.
The enemy, even lowly Packs, are too quick to wrestle, tho, and the Pack was on him in a second, biting him in the arm. He screamed and started beating at him with his other arm, while the boys next to him tried to throw their nets over the Pack.
The nets were designed for Juvies, though, and weren’t big enough to surround him. He did let go of our boy and snap at the nets, though.
“He’ll kill him!” I heard from beside me and looked to see the Sergeant, raising his pistol.
“No!” I shouted, pushing his pistol out of the way. Just then the two neighbor boys followed their nets and literally jumped on the Pack. Seconds later three other boys had piled on and the Juvy which, despite its speed and teeth still weighed less than any of the boys, started to falter under their weight, squirming frantically and only rarely scoring with its claws.
Micah, from the far said, and I were both running forward, reaching for the wires that we had on our belts for just such a circumstance. I reached the Pack seconds before Micah and had the prepared loop over one claw, getting myself nicely scratched. I stepped back and started to pull, immobilizing the limb, and Micah, and then the sergeant, did the same thing. One of the boys on top of the Pack managed to loop his wire and give it to another boy, while two other boys pulled the injured boy free of the pile and stared administering first aid.
“You had better have a very good explanation for your behavior, ‘Corporal’, the Sergeant said, his voice cold as he watched the boy getting worked on.”
“Yes, sir, I believe I do,” I answered, “If you please, that Pack needs to be taken back to headquarters, alive, and as soon as possible.”
Apparently my orders, which the sergeant had actually obeyed implicitly, had been relayed to headquarters and beyond because, by the time we got the struggling Pack back (the injured boy having been taken back by his squad mates long ahead of us) there was an entire inquisition waiting for us… for me. Led by Uncle Andrew, in the sense that he came first, the Pack was soon surrounded by a whole group from headquarters, including Adelphe and the Colonel.
“Well, corporal,” the colonel asked, after they all had stared at the Pack for a minute or so, “What makes this enemy worth almost getting one of yours killed? You are all soldiers, and expected to risk your lives, but I would like for the mission to be important. We were planning on capturing Packs, in a little while, so I hope it wasn’t just that.”
“No, sir,” I said, rather intimidated by the company. Just then Bethany took my hand, which was embarrassing but reassuring. “Sir, we were chasing a Juvy that got away from the egg area and we came upon this Pack. Sir, he had killed the Juvy.”
Most of the crowd didn’t look particularly impressed, but Andrew, Adelphe, the Colonel, and a couple of the others turned and stared at the Pack with more interest. “And, colonel, Adelphe, it’s markings aren’t right. They aren’t male, but they aren’t female either.”
“He’s right,” Adelphe said. “The colors are wrong. Subtly wrong, but wrong. What is this?”
“It’s not a pack?” the sergeant said.
“It’s that age,” she said. “And I expect the brain development will be about equal, but the markings are all wrong. Even the physiology is wrong. And you say it killed that Juvy?”
“I didn’t see it kill it,” I admitted, “but we were second behind over a hill, and it certainly sounded like that, and then looked like that.”
“Well, corporal,” the colonel said, “it seems you can think on your feet, and aren’t afraid of overruling your superiors when necessary. I’m afraid we can’t have a corporal like that. That sounds like the kind of thing a particularly lucky lieutenant might do. I hope you enjoy the extra study.”
I stared at him. I hadn’t done this to get promoted!
Bethany squeezed my hand, and the sergeant started barking orders about getting the Pack to a cage ‘so the doctor can examine it’. As everyone moved away the colonel, Uncle Andrew, and Adelphe came up to me. “Will he be OK, that boy?” I asked Adelphe.
“We’ll have to regrow part of his arm,” she said. “He’ll be evaced in a few minutes. This is an incredible find, Carl.”
I blushed. I hated being the center of attention like this. Adlephe hugged me, which made me feel even worse. The colonel, however, just handed me a couple of shoulder tabs, saluted, and walked away. Andrew… “What are you trying to do, Carl? Start your own video series? ‘Carl Tome, Pathfinder extraordinaire!’ You two take some time off to cuddle, and prove you’re human.”
We tried to walk away but, halfway back to our tent, we were surrounded by boys. “I don’t get it, Carl,” Micah said. “What’s up with this enemy?”
I stopped, annoyed. Usually when you were told you could cuddle no one bothered you but here a whole pack of them were keeping us from going off. “Didn’t you hear? It ate a Juvy. Packs don’t eat Juvies, unless they’re dead. So there is something different about this Pack.”
“He wasn’t in a pack, anyway,” one boy said, and I looked at him.
“That’s true,” I said, “I hadn’t thought of that.” Packs weren’t always in packs, actually, but it very much was the regular rule. “Anyway, can we go cuddle? You all go talk about it or something. See if you can catch another one. You saw the differences, right?”
“Hey, that sounds good,” Micah said, and the boys ran off.
“Finally!” I said, and Bethany giggled as I led her into our tent.

“Lieutenant, Lieutenant!” I heard, a half an hour later. “We found one!”

I sighed and got dressed. “Oh?” I said to the boy, coming out. “One what?”
“It’s one of the Juvies” the boy said, holding up a struggling Juvy for me to ‘look’ at,” but, look!”
I did look, and they were right. It was a Juvy, and it showed some of the same markings as the Pack I had brought in earlier. “Well, let’s show it to Adlephe,” I said leading the boys over to her tent.
“Hold it here, boys,” I said, enjoying their discomfitted look. They had two boys on the Juvy, one for each hind foot, but he was still getting an occasional scratch in.
“Carl,” Adelphe said, looking up from one of her instruments. I saw the Pack I had brought in in a cage in the corner, seemingly asleep. I could see it breathing. I could also see a variety of tubes and wires leading into it.
“We’ve got another one, a Juvy, same markings?”
“Really?!” she asked, turning from her instrument, “Let me see.” She went outside, examined the Juvy briefly, smiled at the poor boys trying to hold it, and then said, “Carl, if you could get a cage ready for it, I will examine this one after the other one.”
“Sure, Adelphe,” I said, and the boys eagerly followed me into the tent. I grabbed an extra cage and the boys, relieved, dropped the Juvy in, closed it, and left. I went over to Adelphe, though, and tried to see what she was doing. But all she was really doing was going over some figures on a computer screen.
“Have you figured out what is wrong with it, yet?” I asked.
“No, not yet. It’s nothing genetic, I know that already. His genetic pattern differs very little from that of the others. It is well within the norm.”
“So what gives it those funny markings?”
“I don’t know. I am beginning to think that the markings aren’t genetic at all, that they are hormonal.”
“Hormonal?” I asked, and she sighed.
“I wish you had a better education, Carl.”
I bristled, “I have all the education I need to be a soldier!”
Perhaps, but I need more than that right now. If I only had somebody…
“Do you want me to assign you a boy? Or a wife?”
“A wife would be good, actually. Even if she didn’t understand what I was doing she could still take samples and all.”
I left to get her somebody. I decided on Finella, the wife of one of the Catholic boys in my squad. I would have sent her Bethany but I knew she wasn’t up on all this medical stuff any more than I was. “Catch more of them, if you can,” Adelphe called after me. We need more. Some living Pack would be good, too, regular Pack.”
Well, that gave us something go do. I left at a run, yelling for my squad, and then we all went to get the sergeant. Oh, and I sent Bethany for Finella.
—
“So, what do we know so far?”
Adelphe stood in front of the entire crowd, looking a little nervous. The Colonel had asked Uncle Andrew, of course, but Adelphe answered: “Sir. I have discovered two thing so far, and have some suspicions about other things.”
She turned back to the computer and lit up the screen. “First of all, the physical difference.” She shifted the view to a picture of a Pack, cut in half. Not really, but the way the computer could pretend such a thing. I knew the real Pack wasn’t cut in half, I had seen it just an hour ago in her tent. “These are the, umm, these organs are what make a boy Pack a boy, she said, point to three small, round, little… things deep inside the Pack. “This is what they are supposed to look like.”
She clicked the computer again and the things, which I guess had looked like raisins, now looked like grapes, and had totally changed color, from a kind of reddish green, to a shiny black. “You see, they are basically dead.”
“So,” the Colonel said, “They aren’t ‘boys’ any more? They’ve been gelded? Like a steer?”
“Sort of,” Adelelphe said. “I traced the problem to one of the arteries, a large artery that gives blood to all three of these organs. Basically, it comes apart…” she moved the screen and we got to see what looked like a clotted up hose with some frayed pieces coming from it. “This takes the blood away from these organs, and they basically wither and die.”
“Well, that’s nice,” the Colonel said. “So they are unable to reproduce, I assume?”
“Yes, Colonel,” Adelphe said. “But that isn’t the big change.”
She flickered the screen again and suddenly some chemical formulas came up, and a bunch of charts and things. “You see there are also rather significant differences, chemically and hormonally, within the creature.”
“So, what does that do? Does it die?”
“No, sir, it seems to be stable. But I’m wondering if that isn’t what makes the Pack willing to kill its own. We took a Juvy, and put it in the Packs cage, and he ate the Juvy without any hesitation.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. We don’t know the physiology of the Bentarri that well. I don’t really know why they don’t eat each other, quite frankly. I’m not even sure I could point to a physiological reason why we don’t eat each other.”
The audience kind of laughed at that. “But given what would otherwise be a rather dramatic coincidence, I am inclined to believe that they are linked.”
“How do you think this happened?” the Colonel asked, after a pause.
“I have no idea,” Adelphe said. “I recommend that we communicate our findings to the other teams, and start a search for exactly that.”

Something had happened. The creatures which, before had run away or been eaten, were now responding to this new verbal skill. It had never used the verbal skill as the others had, to cooperate and grow food. Why would it? The world was filled with food. But now, the creatures were responding… doing what they were told.

And it had ideas, plans, visions. How things would fit together, what could be done with them. More and more it gave the creatures order, had them gather food, while it thought, and created.

And then, one day, the others came. They killed several creatures. Not eating them, just leaving them for the smaller creatures to eat. And capturing many of the smaller creatures. And the creatures seemed to do nothing…

I was laying in my bed, trying to convince myself that I really needed to get up. But, laying next to Bethany, it was hard. But the siren that went off made it a lot easier. Bethany, her swollen stomach making her look really funny as she leapt up, especially all naked and trying to pull on her uniform.

I leapt up, too, and pulled on my uniform, my armor, and grabbed my weapon, running out of the door. I knew that Bethany, along with the other pregnant women and children, would go to the shelter. It was my job to man the perimeter.

“What’s up?” I shouted at the sergeant as he, too, came plunging out of his tent.

“I dunno, sir. Alert from the overhead drone, by the signal. We probably overwhelmed the locals.

After our experience on Hell we had decided that too many humans in one place triggered some kind of instinctive reaction. So we had these drones… lighter than air, moving randomly around our bases, a couple to each base, to warn us in the case of an attack.

And, given the sounds of firing coming from up ahead, we were definitely under attack. “What’s up?” I asked my squad when I got to the top of the hill nearest my tent, and plopped myself down next to one of them.

“A second or two after the alert sounded a wave of normal adults came over that hill there, all armed with spears and things. We took them out, we and the other squad over there. But now they’ve stopped, coming.”

“Order, lieutenant?” the Sergeant asked, his voice just a touch sarcastically.

I waited a minute, and no more adults came. “This is really different,” I said. “Not hing like the attack on Hell. I’m going to take a couple of men up there to check it out.”

“Lieutenant?” he asked, but I had already waved a couple of the squad over and we were rushing down in the valley.

“Cover the idiot!” the Sergeant yelled. Not exactly great discipline, but I didn’t mind being ‘covered’.

We got near the top of the next hill and dropped into a crawl, I, myself, crawled up behind the corpse of an adult, and we looked over the hill.

There were adults there, dozens of them, but they were all running away from us. On the top of the far hill… “It’s one of them!” Ben said. “An adult one!”

One of them… one of the new kind of Bn. And definitely an adult… or more. I had never seen a genius but… “Is that a genius?” I asked, just as it disappeared over the hilltop. I cursed… not really but I felt like it… because here I had been, faced with my first genius, and I hadn’t even tried to shoot it. Should I, should we, give chase?

No, no I couldn’t. We were, at least theoretically, under attack. All of the adults, all of the living ones, were gone now, so I took my squad back to our line.

—

But nothing happened and, two hours later, we ‘leaders’ were all sitting in the dining tent and the Colonel, who had come down, was standing in front of us. “So, gentlemen, what was that? That was not a random attack by a single adult, but, then again, no more was it an overwhelming group attack like we got on hell.”

The conversation ran for a while and then I, tentatively, raised my hand. “Yes, my newest lieutenant?”

I stood… which I suppose I really didn’t need to do. “Sir, I think I saw a genius. And a new one, I mean, one of the new types, with the new markings.”

“Well, that could be,” the colonel said. “A genius attack, I mean. I accept your expertise on the ‘new’ markings. But perhaps this is the way a genius would attack. A brand new genius, that is. We certainly haven’t seen any of the signs of a genius starting up. But who knows how long that will take?”

I raised my hand again. “Yes, lieutenant?”

“Could I take a squad out and kill him? Or maybe we could call in an air strike?”

“Well, I think you have already told us why we can’t do that.”

“Sir?”

“You said it was one of the new marking types. That means that we need to study it, not kill it. Not right away, anyway.”

I cursed (I didn’t, you know that, but I felt like it). Here I had found my first genius, and I myself had made it so they wouldn’t let me kill it. If only I had thought to shoot it! But I had been so surprised!

—

My disappointment faded over the next hour, however, as it was gradually decided that ‘studying’ meant that we would get to go sneaking over there and ‘see what was going on’, including leaving devices behind to monitor them…

That hadn’t gone well. The new creatures had startling weapons that killed from afar. It’s own life had been at stake, with only random chance dictating that none of the weapon fire had hit it… which would almost certainly have been fatal.

It moved its group to decent distance from the new creatures, displacing, and in some cases commanding, several obedient ones along the way. He set the obedient ones to farming and began to think. New thoughts flowed though his brain, and he soon had other obedient ones searching for materials to test.

The weapons of the strange creatures did not seem like they would be easy to duplicate, even if it could get ahold of one of them. But they gave ideas for weapons, simpler weapons but still better than the weapons it knew now. Weapons that could strike from afar.

—

“Bows!” Benjamin whispered. “From spears to bows in a matter of days!”

“They’re not that good at shooting them, though,” Mac said from my other side, as we watched the row of adults shooting at some improvised targets.

“No. Being able to make bows and being able to shoot are not the same thing,” I said. “But that was amazingly quick.”

“Look,” Benjamin said, “that one’s headed to the water.”

Mac got out the tagger gun while Benjamin and I watched. Soon, just before the adult we were watching got to the top of the nearby hill, there was a soft pfft and, we hoped, the adult was tagged. Benjamin got out his com, and put on some earphones. We had wanted, we still wanted, to tag the genius. But the powers that be had told us to tag any adult going to the water, so that, hopefully, we could keep track of what was said… verifying or denying the theory that the females were the repositories of knowledge for the aliens.

—

It had invented the new weapons but, reviewing its memory of the system the alien creatures had used, they were obviously not going to be enough. It thought for a while…

“Call one of the older ones in,” It said to the younger ‘adult’ standing by its door. It worked on the table it was making while it waited… a table organizing the various elements that seemed to make up all of physical stuff. The table was a fascinating mix of brute reality and mathematical beauty. It was still considering what seemed to be a hole in the mathematics when an older creature walked in, bobbing its head in the ‘I am listening’ gesture that these strange creatures used. It truly was odd that they seemed so similar to it in someway, and so different in others. It had seen others like itself, only younger, before. Indeed, it had eaten several.

“I need you to go into the aliens camp and steal me one of those weapons it used against us.”

“Aliens?”

“The other creatures. The ones we attacked the other day.”

“Oh. So, one of those long shiny things that shot the light out and killed so many of us.”

“Yes. And be careful or it will kill you.”

The creature looked startled, but bobbed and left.

—

“We have an interesting exchange between the aliens,” Benjamin said, poking his head through the open flap of our tent. “Everyone’s talking about it in the mess tent.”

I looked at Bethany and, shrugging her shoulders, she levered herself to her feet. She did look very funny.

“What’s it about?” I asked, as I took Bethany’s hand and we walked out the tent flap.

“We haven’t been able to tag the leader, not yet,” Benjamin said. “But we tagged this one adult when he went for a swim.”

“How has that been going?” I asked. “I have been out scouting.”

“Oh, it’s going great. The scientists were right. The females talk pretty much all the time, and there are female geniuses, too. And they talk alot too… and still make babies. And they are all super smart, too. We don’t even have records for a lot of the words they are using.”

“And the males get smarter?”

“Not that we can tell. They are thinking that they just kind of ‘sit on’ their new knowledge until they become geniuses.”

They pushed aside the tent flap and joined the gathering crowd.

“Just kill it!” one boy was saying. “What’s to talk about?”

“This is a great chance to study them!” another boy said. I knew him. Joel. Loved to study. He wanted to be some kind of scientist. He was good for this assignment.

“But we can’t let him come in and grab a weapon!”

“Give him a fake!” I said, and everyone turned to me. “What? We could work out a fake gun, at least one to fool a normal adult Bn, no?”

“Why?” Joel asked. Ok, so he loved to study but wasn’t always very smart.

“It will let you study it as it comes in, and leaves. You could even wire the thing for sound and video and find out what happens when he brings it back to the genius. Wire it with explosives and kill it!”

That last was sheer frustration. Here I was… I knew there was a genious just a little way away, and I couldn’t go after it.

My idea, not the explosive part but the rest, caused quite a bit of fuss. And the the colonel got called in, and that caused even more fuss…

—

Finally it came back. “What took you so long?” I asked it… him. I had been studying the differences between us, wondering why it was that I was so easily able to do things that the others couldn’t do… and why they went off to the ocean from time to time, despite anything that I said or commanded.

I had finally analyzed the differences. It seemed that the creatures were divided into two different types; and it took both types to make new creatures. This type, here, I had decided to call ‘male’, and lived here on land, mostly; entering the ocean only to meet with the ‘females’ and fertilize their eggs, which the females then laid on the shore, ensuring the continuance of our race.

They also spent a good deal of time discussing things with the females, who seemed a repository of knowledge. I had learned a great deal by interviewing males who had returned from the ocean.

But I was neither a male nor a female. Anatomically I was, or had been, a male. But I had none of the instincts and, I suspected, I was missing some internal anatomy.And I had a very different set of instincts…

“Attention!” a voice said.. A voice coming from the weapon I was about to examine. “This is Colonel YYY, the leader of the aliens.”

Aliens? I thought I had invented that word!

“We have an ultimatum for you. You realize you are different from the others?”

“Yes…” I stammered out.

“You will not be able to destroy us. We have tools and other devices that can destroy you in an instant.”

“Why… why are you telling me this?” I asked, not really doubting the creatures ability to do what they said.

“We have a job for you. If you do it, you will rule this entire planet… except for the areas that we will colonize.”

“What is the job?”

“There are others that arise, like you, only the go to the water.”

“The males, yes.”

“Ah, that is a new term for us. The males, yes, but there are ones that have made the transformation you have, to where you can command others or your sort.”

“Ah… I did not know there were such ones, but it is logical. The physical transformation surely cannot be related to the injury I sustained.”

“That injury,” the voice said, sounding different than it had, “Do you know what caused it?”

“No,” I said. “I was swimming, I started to hurt inside, and then, later, it stopped hurting. Now, what do you want me to do?”

“Those others, those males, the ones that are like you. We want you to kill them.”

—

“Gladly,” the alien said. We were all sitting around in the mess tent. The colonel was sitting at the front of the room with a microphone and, in front of him, was an enormous vision screen, and we could see the alien plus, due to a variety of other cameras, we could see the rest of the room.

“Well,” the colonel said, turning back to us. “That takes care of one of our problems. We’ll keep a drone, several drones, overhead. But we’re no closer to solving our other problem.”

“Actually, sir, it really helped,” Adelphe said.

“What? How?”

“He said he was swimming at the time. So it needs to be something in the water. But it can’t be everywhere in the water, or it would affect all of them.”

“Ah… and does that help?”

“Well, it keeps us from looking at things on land, things they could eat, that is.”

I wasn’t the only one that had a look that said that that didn’t seem all that helpful.

“And it has to be water soluble,” she said, and this time it wasn’t her that wished that I had studied more technical stuff in school. Luckily someone else asked the question…

 

“They’re coming,” I said.

“Who?” Bethany asked, stretching herself. I suppose it was kind of hard for her, sleeping like this, in tents and all, on the hard ground,when she had to carry all that excess weight, and couldn’t lay right, and all. I was glad it was girls that got pregnant and not boys.

“The Newtonians.”

“Oh,”she said, flatly. None of us had been all that thrilled when it had been announced that Newtonia, on learning about our situation here, long before our most recent discoveries, had decided to form a study-colony. They were big on science, the Newtonians, and could organize themselves quickly where anything scientific was concerned. And the colony would be a permanent colony, too, living, growing, breeding, and studying the Bn. I had heard that there was a huge colony force coming from Grenwhich IV. This planet, with its light sprinkling of Bn, was ripe fruit for colonization.

But Bethany was less thrilled than most. I dunno what had happened on her way here, but she had gotten some bad vibes from Newtonians or something. I had never dealt with them much, except on board ship from time to time. Their kids were OK. All hothouse education brats, but fun to play with. My mom never let me go over to their quarters tho. She never would tell me why.

“When do they get here?”

“The advance team will be arriving this afternoon. Our group is going to go over and provide protection for their landing site. It’s pretty far back in the hills, so there really shouldn’t be much issue, but, still, the Colonel has asked us to go. In fact, he’s asked me to go. I think he is trying to give some of the other lieutenants an opportunity to make ‘discoveries’.”

“So a punishment assignment?”

“No, more of a ‘we have to do boring things, too, you know’ assignment.”

Bethany laughed, stretched again, dressed, and we went to breakfast.

—

“OK, squad, let’s get going,” I said, a half an hour later. We had supplied to bring too, and the site was a couple of hours march away, so I was eager to get going. Luckily they had chosen a site near a decent stream, so we didn’t have to bring more than emergency water.

I loved this, I thought to myself an hour later, as we started up again after our second rest break. I loved Bethany, of course, and Adelphe and all, but, still, I liked time by myself. Not that I was ‘by myself’ right now, but running like this I could feel alone. And I loved running, I loved using my body as the Creator intended, not sitting around at some computer or something.

I liked this scenery, too, although not as much as I had enjoyed ‘Hell’. Green grass, blue-green sky, rolling hills, purple moons… what wasn’t there to like?

All too soon we arrived at the location and I sent my squad out. I would have been sweating but the soldier suit I had to wear on an assignment like this was too temperature controlled for that. I didn’t even have to stop to pee, but, once the others were over the hill, I opened my suit and watered the ground. Somehow peeing in the suit always made me feel so, I dunno, mechanical or something. And then, of course, I would be drinking that same water a few minutes later. Antiseptic and all, I knew that, but it was still kind of gross. And unnecessary, I knew, as I waded out into the stream and my suit ‘drank’ water and ‘excreted’ waste… like all sorts of chemicals it would have filtered out of my sweat and all.

I popped down my heads up display and watched my squad filter out into their positions. And then, setting my suit to wake me if any one of a dozen different things happened, I lay down for a quick nap, letting the water mostly cover me up. Good camouflage, actually, since it helped take care of IR as well as visual. A lot of newbies found it odd and hard to do, though… laying down to go to sleep in a stream. But I’d been simming this since I could walk, practically.

—

The tone that woke me was a routine one, so I opened my eyes slowly and popped my heads up into position. The squad was still out there, most of them chatting away with each other, chat I could hear whenever I wanted, OR JUST watch a transcript of. Mostly talk about girls, of course. Jeremy was getting almost that age and the other liked to tease him about it.

The shuttles were definitely incoming though, and that was more interesting to watch. I moved my view from screen to screen in the shuttles, saying hi to the drivers and getting the view. Five hundred Newtonians, just in this initial wave, and then ten thousand to come in the next couple of days. A pretty big colony, if you asked me. Nobody did, of course.

The shuttles started their final flare up and I pulled myself up, standing in the stream, the water cascading off of me. I moved my suit off camouflage and popped my helmet open. I already knew which shuttle held the leader or the expedition and so, when it landed a few seconds after the lead shuttle, I loped over there.

When the door opened two younger men came out first, weapons in hand. We had exchanged recognition with each other, though, so they just nodded and climbed on top of the shuttle. I wasn’t upset they had their own security, it was foolish to assume too much.

Finally the leader came out. I could tell it was him both my the

marks on his jumpsuit, a dark blue, and by his bearing. His eyes scanned the horizon and them came to rest on me. “Lt Tome, sir,” I said, saluting. “In charge of ground security.”

“As you were,” he said, saluting me back. “Is the area secure?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “No enemy for at least ten clicks, and scouts out.”

“Good,” he said, and then turned to a man that had just come out. “That’s the hill we discussed,” he said to him, “Get the tent set up so the women can begin work.”

“Yes sir,” that other man said, with only the barest glance at me, and went to the back of the shuttle. I waited for the leader to turn back to me, but he didn’t, instead walking off toward another shuttle. In seconds this shuttle, the one I was standing in front of, started disgorging people, men and women, all seemingly far too busy to talk to me, or even acknowledge me.