Infinite Day (104 page)

“Is the rain causing a problem?”

The rainclouds shifted again, and he could now see cranes and machines with cabling and pipes.

The man grimaced. “Can't spray the remaining mirror ice on. Stuff needs a dry surface. Forecast says we may get it Saturday afternoon.” Merral and Anya exchanged glances. “And it's flooding our ditches, sir. Playing around with the electrics. But the defense coordinator figures it's really a blessing.”

The cloud shifted again and Merral glimpsed, behind a wall of rubble and sand, a line of gun barrels angled skyward.

“A blessing?”

“DC says that if anyone's watching, they aren't going to see much under this.”

A loud rumble echoed around as a heavy freight flier landed.

“True. Have the new Mark 2 blades arrived?”

“Yesterday. They are being issued. We'll have ten thousand troops here by Saturday noon. All will have the Mark 2, sir.”

“Good. Can you find someone to take Dr. Lewitz here to whoever is responsible for planning the defenses against the Krallen?”

A rotorcraft whistled loudly overhead; there were further shouts.

“Yes, sir.”

“And do you know this place well?”

“Yes, sir. I've been here since day one.”

“Then let me put my things in whatever is going to be my quarters, and then I want you to walk me and Lloyd around.”

“Which bits, sir?”

“All of it.”

With the uncomplaining Lloyd in tow, Merral spent the next six hours with the persistently deferential Major Clanadi, inspecting and surveying the sprawling and waterlogged site. Merral offered little in the way of comment but watched carefully and occasionally made notes on his diary. Every so often they took shelter from the constant rain with the soldiers or construction workers, tired but willing men and women who watched him with curious eyes and who seemed determined to show him they were both committed and courageous.

Merral found much to see. He realized that in a part of his mind he had assumed that Tahuma was just a larger Tezekal Ridge. But it wasn't. It was
very
much larger. Eight thousand soldiers were already in place, with another two thousand support and medical personnel and three thousand working desperately on the construction work.

Eventually soaked, tired, overloaded with thoughts, and with his uniform smeared with mud, he climbed up through sodden trenches running with rivulets of water toward the summit of the main ridge. Every so often, sheer walls up to ten meters high had been cut in the rocks. They gleamed with a strange silvery reflective sheen, and the rainwater raced down without hesitation.

Mirror ice
. He reached out and touched it, feeling his finger slide over it with an extraordinary ease.

“They won't climb that,” opined the mud-stained Major Clanadi.

“Not easily,” Merral added. “But they are resourceful. Never underestimate Krallen.”

The certainty in his voice disturbed him.
How like a soldier I now sound
. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror-ice wall: lean, hard, uniformed, and stained.
I am unrecognizable as Forester D'Avanos. Is this what I have become?
Warrior
D'Avanos? We lamented the absence of veterans at Fallambet; now I have become a veteran myself.
He looked away.
Lord, make this my last battle
.

“Okay, sir?” It was Lloyd. Merral turned to him, noticing the sodden uniform and seeing water dripping off the gun slung over his back.

“Yes, Sergeant. I've just decided that I would like this to be my last time on a battlefield.”

There was a grunt of agreement. “Can't say as I'd object myself. Not anymore.”

They walked upward, but instead of dropping down into the command bunker at the topmost crags, they climbed up some steps onto the rainswept summit. They walked along the spine between emplacements, in which drenched men and women were urgently assembling missile batteries, to the far end. There, ten meters below them, was a narrow suspension bridge that vibrated in the wind. Clouds scudded under it, parting briefly enough to reveal a chasm of wet rock below. On the far side, the bridge passed into a dark, open doorway near the top of a looming tower of wet rock. As far as they could see, the lower parts of the tower had vertical surfaces on which wet mirror ice gleamed. Merral realized that the peak of Tahuma-B was no less a building complex than anywhere else here; there were workers clustered precariously on ledges or balanced on rock slabs linking up wires and pipes.

“When will they finish the Gate core center?” he asked the major, raising his voice as a rotorcraft with a load of piping roared in just overhead.

“Tomorrow evening, sir. The Gate control unit is in place and being tested. It's the rest of the facilities.”

Too much is being completed barely hours before any attack. It's going to be tight. Maybe too tight.

Shortly afterward, Merral was led down to the defense command bunker deep inside Tahuma-A. It was a solid circular construction, windowless, made of silica-concrete with titanium reinforcing beams and shock-wave-absorbing blast doors. The floor was filled with a dozen tables with screens surrounded by chairs on which people in uniform were sitting. Every wall seemed covered by a high screen displaying some sort of data or imagery. The room was full and buzzed with talk and orders.

“Welcome to the Circle, sir,” said Major Clanadi.

As Merral entered the main room, the urgent talking fell silent. He was given a bout of saluting and then a round of applause.

They clap not for what I have done but in the hope that I will deliver them.

He dismissed the applause with a gesture.
Let's try to keep this light; there will be time for seriousness
. “Well, I've done all I can to avoid meeting you here: having prior engagements edgeward of the Assembly, getting marooned for a few weeks, even having a spell in the hospital, but here I am.” There was laughter—the brittle, brief laughter he had come to recognize as that of nervous men and women trying to forget their fears.

Merral continued. “We don't know whether we will be attacked. I want us to assume that we will be. And possibly as early as the Lord's Day. I've got a lot to learn in a short time. I would value your patience and your prayers. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to change into some dry clothes. We have a saying: ‘Beware the weather in the Made Worlds.' Old Earth seems to want to prove something.”

The major showed him into a tiny room with a shower and a bunk with some spare uniforms on it. He showered and changed and then sat on the bed and prayed for wisdom. Picking up a databoard, he went out into the Circle, where Lloyd was waiting for him.

Merral gazed around, looking for someone who would fit the bill as defense coordinator.

“Coffee, sir?” The voice at his side was quiet and unassertive. “And you, Sergeant?”

Merral turned to see a slightly built, blonde-haired woman with sharp brown eyes, carrying a tray of coffee mugs.

“Thanks,” he said and took a mug. He noticed that, in contrast to others in the room, she had her jacket carelessly open to display a T-shirt.
Not a natural soldier; but which of us is?

“I'm trying to spot the defense coordinator.” He sipped on the coffee.

“Not easy. A DC needs to be fast, fit, and capable of handling a dozen data streams at once. That's just for a start. See that seat, the one with all the gear? That's the DC's.” Merral saw an empty, high-backed chair with an arc of screens and switches around.

“It's empty.”

“Yeah. That's because she went to get you some coffee.” There was amusement in the voice.

Merral turned to the woman. “
You?
”

“The same.” The eyes smiled at him. “Lena Kelaart. But everyone calls me DC.”

Merral looked at Lloyd and caught the surprise on his face. “Well, DC, you make a good cup of coffee. Show me what else you can do.”

“Be a pleasure. Let's do a simulation.”

Merral soon decided that Lena the DC was
very
good.

She sat in her chair with her jacket off—“gives me freedom to move”—surrounded by switches, handgrips, toggles, and screens.

As the walls filled with flashing data and images of a simulated attack, her fingers began dancing on screens, while her eyes darted from screen to screen as she issued a stream of orders, some utterly incomprehensible to Merral. “Mis-Bat 5: lock on to bogey in quadrant Delta Nine. Await orders. Inf-16: prepare for K-boy attack. Deep-Def 2: incoming artil from 045.”

Every so often she would turn to Merral. “Chief, decision needed.” Then she would ask something like, “Troop reinforcements to Charlie 2 or Gamma 8?” and Merral would have to respond, generally with a guess.

Finally the simulation ended, and with all eyes on her, DC bounded out of her chair and stretched herself like an athlete. He saw Lloyd staring at the woman with open admiration.

DC turned to Merral with a smile. “Well, Chief, we may make a soldier out of you yet.”

“Thanks.” Merral smiled back.
Humor will be in short supply soon.
“Okay, DC, later I want you to replay all that and tell me what on earth was going on. But before we do that, I need to hold some meetings.”

Merral spent much of the rest of the afternoon in meetings. He met with men and women with such once-forgotten titles as “military specialist,” “defensive architect,” “ordinance engineer,” as well as captains and majors, surgeons and nurses, pilots and communication experts. He very nearly met with the head of catering but, at the last minute, passed him on to someone else.

Merral soon realized that, in addition to being viewed as a celebrity, he was indeed seen as being in charge. People clearly expected him to give orders and, with increasing confidence, he did just that.

Then he returned to the simulations and, guided by DC, began to master some of the issues
. She does the hard work of filtering and summarizing the data. I just have to act on the summaries
.