The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (46 page)

One thing she’d always wondered was how far her courage went. People died all the time. Soldiers died when ordered to fight and the odds ran out. Sick people died because life was not worth living.

But, could she die by choice? Her courage had been tested throughout her career, and this last year to an extreme. But did she have the strength to pull that switch herself?

After prolonging the inevitable this long, it was rather moot, but her life wouldn’t be complete without the experiment. She armed the grenade, stared at it as her body burned from hypoxia, and tried to force her hand to open. Lungs empty now, she gritted her teeth, pursed her lips, and threw every nerve into the effort. Her wrist shook, thumb moving bit by bit. Willpower or self-preservation?

She was still conscious, though groggy, as her thumb came free and the fuse caught. Three seconds. Hypoxia segued to anoxia and her thoughts began to fade. The last one caused a triumphant smile to cross her face, even as tears pooled in her eyes.

Willpower.

On slabs of green and black marble in Freedom Park are the names of 216 soldiers who accepted orders they could not understand and knew meant their deaths. Words were said, prayers offered, and torches and guards of honour stand eternal watch over them. Their families received pensions, salutes and bright metal decorations on plain green ribbons, presented in inlaid wooden boxes.

One family received two.

THE HORARS OF WAR

Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe is one of the most respected voices in science fiction and fantasy, having won numerous awards including several World Fantasies as well as Nebulas, BSFAs and Rhyslings. He is probably best known for his ground-breaking four-volume
Book of the New Sun
and its associated series. “Write what you know” is an oft-quoted adage, particularly inappropriate for science fiction, where we try so hard to write what we don’t know, but solid real-life experience can provide an excellent springboard for the imagination, as this story demonstrates. Wolfe draws on his service as an engineer in the US military during the Korean War to infuse “The Horars of War” with convincing detail. First published in 1970, the story served early notice that a significant new voice had arrived.

T
HE THREE FRIENDS
in the trench looked very much alike as they laboured in the rain. Their hairless skulls were slickly naked to it, their torsos hairless too, and supple with smooth muscles that ran like oil under the wet gleam.

The two, who really were 2909 and 2911, did not mind the jungle around them although they detested the rain that rusted their weapons, and the snakes and insects, and hated the Enemy. But the one called 2910, the real as well as the official leader of the three, did; and that was because 2909 and 2911 had stainless-steel bones; but there was no 2910 and there never had been.

The camp they held was a triangle. In the centre, the CP-Aid Station where Lieutenant Kyle and Mr Brenner slept: a hut of ammo cases packed with dirt whose lower half was dug into the soggy earth. Around it were the mortar pit (NE), the recoilless rifle pit (NW), and Pinocchio’s pit (S); and beyond these were the straight lines of the trenches: First Platoon, Second Platoon, Third Platoon (the platoon of the three), outside of which were the primary wire and an antipersonnel mine field.

And outside that was the jungle. But not completely outside. The jungle set up outposts of its own of swift-sprouting bamboo and elephant grass, and its crawling creatures carried out untiring patrols of the trenches. The jungle sheltered the Enemy, taking him to its great fetid breast to be fed while it sopped up the rain and of it bred its stinging gnats and centipedes.

An ogre beside him, 2911 drove his shovel into the ooze filling the trench, lifted it to shoulder height, dumped it; 2910 did the same thing in his turn, then watched the rain work on the scoop of mud until it was slowly running back into the trench again. Following his eyes 2911 looked at him and grinned. The HORAR’s face was broad, hairless, flat-nosed and high-cheeked; his teeth were pointed and white like a big dog’s. And he, 2910, knew that that face was his own. Exactly his own. He told himself it was a dream, but he was very tired and could not get out.

Somewhere down the trench the bull voice of 2900 announced the evening meal and the others threw down their tools and jostled past towards the bowls of steaming mash; but the thought of food nauseated 2910 in his fatigue, and he stumbled into the bunker he shared with 2909 and 2911. Flat on his air mattress he could leave the nightmare for a time: return to the sane world of houses and sidewalks, or merely sink into the blessed nothingness that was far better …

Suddenly he was bolt upright on the cot, blackness still in his eyes even while his fingers groped with their own thought for his helmet and weapon. Bugles were blowing from the edge of the jungle, but he had time to run his hand under the inflated pad of the mattress and reassure himself that his hidden notes were safe before 2900 in the trench outside yelled, “Attack! Fall out! Man your firing points!”

It was one of the stock jokes, one of the jokes so stock, in fact, that it had ceased to be anything anyone laughed at, to say “Horar” your firing point (or whatever it was that according to the book should be “manned”). The HORARS in the squad he led used the expression to 2910 just as he used it with them, and when 2900 never employed it the omission had at first unsettled him. But 2900 did not really suspect. 2900 just took his rank seriously.

He got into position just as the mortars put up a parachute flare that hung over the camp like a white rose of fire. Whether because of his brief sleep or the excitement of the impending fight his fatigue had evaporated, leaving him nervously alert but unsteady. From the jungle a bugle sang. “Ta-taa … taa-taa …” and off to the platoon’s left rear the First opened up with their heavy weapons on a suicide squad they apparently thought they saw on the path leading to the northeast gate. He watched, and after half a minute something stood up on the path and grabbed for its midsection before it fell. So there
was
a suicide squad.

Some one
, he told himself.
Someone
. Not
something
. Someone grabbed for
his
midsection. They were all human out there.

The First began letting go with personal weapons as well, each deep cough representing a half-dozen dartlike flechettes flying in an inescapable pattern three feet broad. “Eyes front, 2910!” barked 2900.

There was nothing to be seen out there but a few clumps of elephant grass. Then the white flare burned out. “They ought to put up another one,” 2911 on his right said worriedly.

“A star in the east for men not born of women,” said 2910 half to himself, and regretted the blasphemy immediately.

“That’s where they need it,” 2911 agreed. “The First is having it pretty hot over there. But we could use some light here too.”

He was not listening. At home in Chicago, during that inexpressibly remote time which ran from a dim memory of playing on a lawn under the supervision of a smiling giantess to that moment two years ago when he had submitted to surgery to lose every body and facial hair he possessed and undergo certain other minor alterations, he had been unconsciously preparing himself for this. Lifting weights and playing football to develop his body while he whetted his mind on a thousand books; all so that he might tell, making others feel at a remove …

Another flare went up and there were three dark silhouettes sliding from the next-nearest clump of elephant grass to the nearest. He fired his M-19 at them, then heard the HORARS on either side of him fire too. From the sharp corner where their own platoon met the Second a machine gun opened up with tracer. The nearest grass clump sprang into the air and somersaulted amid spurts of earth.

There was a moment of quiet, then five rounds of high explosive came in right behind them as though aimed for Pinocchio’s pit.
Crump. Crump. Crump … Crump. Crump
. (2900 would be running to ask Pinocchio if he were hurt.)

Someone else had been moving down the trench towards them, and he could hear the mumble of the new voice become a gasp when the H.E. rounds came in. Then it resumed, a little louder and consequently a bit more easily understood. “How are you? You feel all right? Hit?”

And most of the HORARS were answering, “I’m fine, sir,” or “We’re OK, sir,” but because HORARS did have a sense of humour some of them said things like, “How do we transfer to the Marines, sir?” or, “My pulse just registered nine thou’, sir. 3000 took it with the mortar sight.”

We often think of strength as associated with humourlessness
, he had written in the news magazine which had, with the Army’s cooperation, planted him by subterfuge of surgery among these Homolog Organisms (Army Replacement Simulations).
But
, he had continued,
this is not actually the case. Humour is a prime defence of the mind, and, knowing that to strip the mind of it is to leave it shieldless, the Army and the Synthetic Biology Service have wisely included a charming dash in the make-up of these synthesized replacements for human infantry
.

That had been before he discovered that the Army and the SBS had tried mightily to weed that sense of the ridiculous out, but found that if the HORARS were to maintain the desired intelligence level they could not.

Brenner was behind him now, touching his shoulder. “How are you? Feel all right?”

He wanted to say, “I’m half as scared as you are, you dumb Dutchman,” but he knew that if he did the fear would sound in his voice; besides, the disrespect would be unthinkable to a HORAR.

He also wanted to say simply, “A-OK, sir,” because if he did Brenner would pass on to 2911 and he would be safe. But he had a reputation for originality to keep up, and he needed that reputation to cover him when he slipped, as he often did, sidewise of HORAR standards. He answered: “You ought to look in on Pinocchio, sir. I think he’s cracking up.” From the other end of the squad, 2909’s quiet chuckle rewarded him, and Brenner, the man most dangerous to his disguise, continued down the trench …

Fear was necessary because the will to survive was
very
necessary. And a humanoid form was needed if the HORARS were to utilize the mass of human equipment already on hand. Besides, a human-shaped (
homolog
? no, that merely meant
similar
,
homological
) HORAR had outscored all the fantastic forms SBS had been able to dream up in a super-realistic (public opinion would never have permitted it with human soldiers) test carried out in the Everglades.

(Were they merely duplicating? Had all this been worked out before with some greater war in mind? And had He Himself, the Scientist Himself, come to take the form of His creations to show that he too could bear the unendurable?)

2909 was at his elbow, whispering. “Do you see something, Squad Leader? Over there?” Dawn had come without his noticing.

With fingers clumsy from fatigue he switched the control of his M-19 to the lower, 40 mm grenade-launching barrel. The grenade made a brief flash at the spot 2909 had indicated. “No,” he said, “I don’t see anything now.” The fine, soft rain which had been falling all night was getting stronger. The dark clouds seemed to roof the world. (Was he fated to re-enact what had been done for mankind? It could happen. The enemy took humans captive, but there was nothing they would not do to HORAR prisoners. Occasionally patrols found the bodies spreadeagled, with bamboo stakes driven through their limbs; and he could only be taken for a HORAR. He thought of a watercolour of the crucifixion he had seen once. Would the colour of his own blood be crimson lake?

From the CP the observation ornithocopter rose on flapping wings.

“I haven’t heard one of the mines go for quite a while,” 2902 said. Then there came the phony-sounding bang that so often during the past few weeks had closed similar probing attacks. Squares of paper were suddenly fluttering all over the camp.

“Propaganda shell,” 2909 said unnecessarily, and 2911 climbed casually out of the trench to get a leaflet, then jumped back to his position. “Same as last week,” he said, smoothing out the damp rice paper.

Looking over his shoulder, 2910 saw that he was correct. For some reason the Enemy never directed his propaganda at the HORARS, although it was no secret that reading skills were implanted in HORAR minds with the rest of their instinctive training. Instead it was always aimed at the humans in the camp, and played heavily on the distaste they were supposed to feel at being “confined with half-living flesh still stinking of chemicals.” Privately, 2910 thought they might have done better, at least with Lieutenant Kyle, to have dropped that approach and played up sex. He also got the impression from the propaganda that the Enemy thought there were far more humans in the camp than there actually were.

Well, the Army – with far better opportunities to know – was wrong as well. With a few key generals excepted, the Army thought there were only two …

He had made the All-American. How long ago it seemed. No coach, no sportswriter had ever compared his stocky, muscular physique with a HORAR’s. And he had majored in journalism, had been ambitious. How many men, with a little surgical help, could have passed here?

“Think it sees anything?” he heard 2911 ask 2909. They were looking upward at the “bird” sailing overhead.

The ornithocopter could do everything a real bird could except lay eggs. It could literally land on a strand of wire. It could ride thermals like a vulture, and dive like a hawk. And the bird-motion of its wings was wonderfully efficient, saving powerplant weight that could be used for zoom-lenses and telecameras. He wished he were in the CP watching the monitor screen with Lieutenant Kyle instead of standing with his face a scant foot above the mud (they had tried stalked eyes like a crab’s in the Everglades, he remembered, but the stalks had become infected by a fungus …).