The Drift Wars (19 page)

The
timer dropped to zero, and he again switched the batteries. This
time it started with twenty-two seconds. Peter’s heart raced. He
looked toward the bow of the ship, in the general direction of the
Drift.

A
few hours earlier he had moved around the ship with a small bundle
of batteries, manually firing stabilizers and steering at the
shortest course to the Drift boundary. It was a broad target, but it
was also millions of miles away. If his adjustments were off by even
a hundredth of a degree, he would miss it completely.

If
he did reach the Drift, then the rest was up to providence. He could
end up anywhere inside, and without power he couldn’t even produce
a distress signal. He would be just another hunk of trash floating
through a vast empty space, hoping someone would notice him.

Peter
almost missed the countdown. He frantically switched the batteries.

Twelve
seconds.

He
kept his hands on the batteries as the seconds dropped, and he
swapped them back. Again the timer read twelve seconds. This was as
close as it was going to get. He counted aloud with the time,
jogging in place to keep his legs loose and warm.

Three.

Two.

One.

Peter
popped the batteries from the charger and slid them into a mesh bag
at his waist. Then he pulled the batteries from his own suit and did
the same—he was going to need all the power he could get, and his
suit’s insulation would keep him warm for several minutes. He
raced toward the hole in the side of the ship.

It
took forever. His artificial muscles, stiff from lack of power,
fought him every step of the way. Worse still, his right arm
wouldn’t move. He had no idea when it had gotten hurt—between
his artificial muscles and the painkiller from his Life Control
System, he had no way to notice. He cursed the suit for hiding this
from him but knew it was his own fault. He should have done a dry
run.

He
was sweating when he reached the engine, and the cold was seeping
in. The box of batteries was strapped to the engine, with twelve
sets of leads hanging over the edge. He fished a battery from the
pouch, using his foot to hold it down as he awkwardly twisted the
wire with his left hand. He did a quick wrap with the tape, dropped
it into the box, and started on the next one.

He
made it through eight batteries before his fingers were too stiff to
grip the wire. He slapped his hand against his thigh, forcing the
blood in, and managed to finish one more. But the tape got mangled,
sticking to itself more than anything else, and he finally just
tossed the whole jumble into the box. He scooped the tenth battery
from the bag, but it slipped from his hand and floated away.

There
was no point in chasing it or trying to wire in the last two
batteries. He had to press on.

Peter
had strung his homemade screwdriver around his wrist, and it took a
minute to maneuver it into his hand. He pressed the back of his
fingers to the engine case, tightening them to the screwdriver, then
dropped onto his back and shimmied under the engine.

Using
the screwdriver, he tapped the tiny preignition button, and the
indicator light blinked yellow as the engine ran its self-test. The
manual said this could take from fifteen seconds to two minutes.

Peter’s
body shook uncontrollably. He pedaled his legs in the air, trying to
raise his body temperature, but he was losing heat far faster than
he could hope to generate it. Space was just too cold.

The
yellow light turned solid green. The engine had passed.

Peter
jabbed at the ignition button, his hand trembling so badly that it
took three tries. Sparks flew from the batteries, and the box danced
as they exploded inside. But the ship began to vibrate, and the
engine’s exhaust glowed from deep within, warming up. He had done
it.

As
Peter relaxed against the hull, his eyes fell on a coil of rope at
his feet. He jerked up—he had forgotten to tether himself to the
ship. A white blade of light shot from the engine, the tip fading
into the distance. The ship began to move, leaving Peter behind.

Peter
dived for the rope, ducking below the engine’s blazing exhaust. He
drove his good arm through the coil, but the rope unspooled around
it. He twirled his arm, bringing the rope between his fingers, but
they wouldn’t close. He clamped it between his knees, but it
slipped through. The coil was running out; the ship was speeding
away.

Peter
kicked a leg up and spun, swinging it over the rope, then scissored
it back down and twisted. The rope slid up to his crotch and wrapped
around his legs like they were a mooring cleat. The knot tightened,
snapping his legs together. Peter was flipped head over heels and
jerked forward. He slammed into the hull, bounced off, and swung
toward the ship’s center—straight at the searing white tachyon
exhaust. If he touched it, it would shred the suit from his body.

He
kicked at the hull to straighten himself, but his reflexes were
tuned to his artificial muscles; lacking their strength, he only
face-planted. His visor scraped across the hull, then struck
something with a deafening crunch. Peter blacked out.

He
woke up a moment later. He couldn’t see much because a thick
rod—one of the ship’s sensors—had punctured his visor right
between his eyes. The sensor curved up, either into his skull or
over the top. Peter didn’t feel any pain, but he wouldn’t expect
to.

His
visor wasn’t leaking air and, between the rod and the rope, he was
held firmly to the ship. He tried to look ahead, but all he could
see was hull.

Peter
wasn’t cold anymore, only tired. It had all been so much work, but
he was done. He could relax, maybe even take a nap. Felt like he
hadn’t slept in days.

Wake
me up when I’m home
, he thought. He couldn’t wait to get
back, to open his eyes and find Linda looking down at him. He missed
her. He never wanted to be away from her for this long again. Or
this far.

It
was a long trip back. He hoped to sleep the whole way.

“Ah,
there you are,” the voice said. A friendly voice. A man’s voice.

Peter
opened his eyes, blinking against the white light. The man who
looked down at him sagged with weight and was bald except for a
laurel of white hair. He gave Peter a fat smile, his teeth as small
as a baby’s.

“What’s
the last thing you remember?” he asked.

“I…”
Peter cleared his throat; it was burned raw. “The engine fired. Am
I home?” Peter tried to sit up, but his right arm didn’t move;
it was gone, his shoulder nothing but a nub.

“Easy,
son,” the man said, laying a firm hand on Peter’s chest, then
looking back over his shoulder. “How about that?” he said. “The
boy wants to know if he’s home.”

Peter
craned his neck and saw two other people: Linda and her supervisor.
Neither looked happy.

“Hello,”
he said to Linda, his voice wavering. She crossed her arms and
glared at him with something deeper than anger. It was hate.

Colonel
Chiang San burst into the room in full parade dress. He motioned
everyone to attention as General Garvey followed him in.

Seeing
himself in the Great General’s uniform wasn’t as shocking the
second time around; Peter was more conscious of their differences
than their similarities. The General was in his early fifties, both
thinner and shorter than Peter. He had a cleft scar cutting his face
from brow to cheek, passing right over his left eye. He inspected
Peter, then turned to the balding man.

“Good
work, technician,” he said.

“Thank
you, sir,” the man replied. “It’s a similar procedure to what
we do here every day. I simply adjusted the—”

“Yes,”
the General cut in; then he turned to Peter. “Sixteen months ago I
sent thirty-seven teams into the Riel universe, each with the same
mission. You are the only man to return. My question is, did you
find the Riel homeworld and can you tell me where it is?”

Peter
swallowed and, clearing his throat, managed, “Yes.”

The
General glared.

“Yes,
sir,” Peter corrected, the effort searing his throat. He would
have said more, but the General raised a hand.

“The
colonel will take your full report,” he said. Then, to the
technician: “How long until he’s on his feet?”

“Two
hours, sir. Maybe three. First time we’ve ever done this.”

“Bring
him to me when he’s ready,” the General said. He turned to
Linda’s supervisor. “As of now, this is model 375,” he said.
There was a gravity to the words that Peter didn’t understand.
Linda choked up, her eyes red and wet.

“I’m
sorry,” the General said to her gravely. He turned on his heel and
strode out.

“You
heard him,” the supervisor barked at Linda. “Reset the—” But
Linda fled the room, hands over her face.

—   —   —

The
General grunted noncommittally, closing Peter’s report and laying
it on his large oak desk. “How accurate are these coordinates?”
he asked.

“Very
accurate, sir,” Peter said. “I remember them clearly.”

The
General nodded, motioning to the seat opposite. Peter practically
collapsed into it. The General had kept him at attention for a half
hour as he studied the transcript of Peter’s debriefing. It was an
officer’s privilege to keep his men on their feet, but given
Peter’s condition, it felt like a message: we might look alike,
but only one of us is the General.

Peter
was just glad to sit. It had only been two hours since he was
revived.

“You’re
a colonel now, if you hadn’t noticed.” The General pointed to
the silver eagle on Peter’s empty right sleeve, which was folded
up and pinned. Peter hadn’t noticed; he had been rushed in here as
soon as he could stand.

“No,
sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t
thank me,” the General said. “I didn’t promote you.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“So
you have no memory of Officer Training?”

“No,
sir.”

“No
memory of anything you did on base over the last thirteen months?”

“No,
sir. Should I?”

“Apparently
not,” the General said. “No one can agree on how your memory
works, other than that you have to die. You didn’t. Your ship was
found and you were resuscitated, thus your missing arm. We don’t
actually heal anybody out here; we rebuild them from scratch. Is
something amusing?”

“I
was just thinking, sir, about all the times I supposedly froze in
space. Now I actually have.”

The
General scrutinized Peter. “Yes,” he agreed dryly. “Speaking
of which, I apologize for having you shot. It’s against regulation
for men in the lower ranks to meet their own clones. At the time I
had no idea that you would remember anyway.”

“Apology
accepted, sir,” Peter said.

“Everything
I’m about to tell you is classified way above your rank, but you
already know a great deal more than you’re supposed to. You’ve
kept your mouth shut so far. Continue.

“The
UF charter allows us to clone any resident of the Livable
Territories, provided that they volunteer. We sample their DNA and
scan their memories, then we create a soldier. One soldier. The
charter is specific on that point, and as far as the civilian
population is concerned, one is all we make. But as you can plainly
see, that’s not the case.

“We
were losing the war, badly, and we had far more resources than
blueprints to build. So the government signed a secret order to give
us more flexibility. There are still limitations, specifically that
we can’t duplicate lines once we advance them—the memory of each
clone must start as that of the original.

“I
don’t see the point, myself, but I’m not woman-born. I trust the
homeworlders have their reasons.

“This
rule, however, has created a situation. Three months after you left
on your mission, your team was declared missing-presumed-dead, then
reinstated from their last recorded scan. Since that time, you—Peter
375—have had an impressive record, not the least of which was your
promotion to colonel and the receipt of top honors in Officer
Training. Your other version has been very successful, and it’s a
shame to lose him. But I guess it can’t be helped.”

“Sir?”

“I
need the information in your head. It is invaluable. So I’m
reinstating you as Peter 375.”

“Thank
you, sir,” Peter said.

The
General raised his eyebrows. “I’m simply making a strategic
decision. Your report here is a good start, but I’ll have more
questions. I’m planning the largest offensive in UF history, and
every detail is important. Frankly, if it wasn’t for that…”
The General trailed off, frowning.

It
was a long minute before he spoke again.

“The
privileges of a colonel—the rank your counterpart officially
earned just last month—include private quarters. Private quarters
he may share with a woman.”

Peter’s
stomach sank. “Linda.”

“Yes.
Linda.”

“I—”

“I
ordered all records of the other version destroyed,” the General
cut in. “You are 375 now. There is no going back.”

“And
Linda?” Peter asked.

“Are
you questioning me?” the General asked, rising to his feet.

Peter
snapped to attention. “No, sir,” he said.

“Entire
worlds are at stake here. Billions of lives. I don’t have time for
trivialities.”

“No,
sir.”

“Good,”
the General said, again calm. He sat down and turned to his
terminal, ignoring Peter as he spoke.

“You’re
demoted back to sergeant—you haven’t got the knowledge to be a
colonel—but I’m electing you for Officer Training.

“This
promotion has nothing to do with the other 375. He earned his rank
through hard experience, by winning unwinnable battles and gaining
the respect of his men. Your promotion is political. You are
under-qualified, but you have demonstrated unprecedented
determination in bringing back valuable information, and in that
you’ve succeeded where all others failed. Rewarding you sets a
good example for the men.”