Oberheim (Voices): A Chronicle of War, Christopher Leadem [recommended reading TXT] 📗

window. There were the two from the previous night, as well as the poem to his wife. NIGHT

                Sipping sadness, from the young girl
                So afraid to go unnoticed

                Young man, stalking forests in his dreams
                Heightens all his senses
                        to you.

                Madman, racing knives across a windstorm
                Searching
                        For the blood that he will spill.

………………

EVIL

                Rising slowly
                        hideous figure
                                cast aside
                Black with bitter
                        twisted passions
                                seeking only

The murder of a child.

……………………….

And the last, to his wife:

PLIGHTED TROTH

                Ara
                What is my life without you?
                To be your knight
                        to fight for you
                Is all that holds my will together
                Unraveled, and dispossessed
                        by Distance, time and empty suffering

                Now you are taken from me,
                One comfort only can I find:
                That I loved you then, not less than now
                And thanked dear Heaven
                        you were mine.

……………………….

A year, a month, a day ago he might have cried; but this was not the time. Emotion and sentiment would not bring her back to him, nor would dashing his heart upon the rocks. The mind was the stronger instrument now, a bit cold, but maybe that was best. He gave it free rein to pursue its ends.

The poems showed him that indeed, both elements, love and hatred, yielding and aggression, lived inside him. And both were needed. Hadn't he felt them? Hadn't their constant battle for use and mastery tormented him? Yes! That was what had made him so miserable. Fool! It was simply (or merely) a question of knowing which to listen to at a given moment—-exerting supreme effort when called for, and having enough faith in God, or life, to accept the consequences of what was beyond human will to affect. Faith and disillusion, professed as different creeds, were one and the same, either half without the other like a man trying to stand on one leg.

With that he became calm again, knowing he must save his strength. Later that night he lit the candle and set it beside the picture of his wife, and prayed a short, fervent prayer to Whom he did not know. His own image was no longer important. He vowed to find his wife, however long it took, and to do what he could in the war, though he detested violence and a part of his prayer was that it would soon end.

The next day, the second of his confinement, passed without serious (personal) incident. That night he took one of the lozenges, knowing he would be unable to sleep without it. For the Morannon system, code-named Dracus by the Belgians, would be reached the following day, and they no longer moved in secret. The Alliance, apparently piercing their detection shields, had detached a fighter-destroyer group to intercept them. As near as anyone could tell, battle would be joined somewhere within the system itself.

In the morning he rose, and reported to the bridge, and with a hard bitter determination that grew out of and suppressed his anxiety, prepared himself for the fight. Because for all his introspection and self-doubt, there was another side of him, as yet only half realized.

Not for nothing had Dubcek made him his pupil; and not for nothing was he second officer to Mandlik. His military and psychological testing had revealed that whatever other characteristics he might possess, when cornered and left no option, he responded with a resourcefulness and tenacity that were almost off the scale. This fact was so striking in one of his (outwardly) skittish nature, that more than one of the military leaders who reviewed it (including Dubcek) went back to the examining psychologist to ask for an explanation.

The psychologist had told them simply, "It's no mistake. In ordinary circumstances he is much like Hamlet—-wavering, indecisive, introspective to a fault. But when pushed to the final need, somehow he raises himself to another level, and reacts with a courage and cunning that are. . .remarkable."

And that was well, because the fight came, hard and long, and in it the upper bridge was wracked by internal explosion, killing Mandlik and half his officers. Without the Soviet cruiser, which the Belgian-Swiss had not detected, the battle would almost certainly have gone against them. Brunner's first order, upon assuming command, was to stay near, and protect the planet's prison complex, which in their late desperation he feared the Alliance commanders might try to destroy. And he was right.

* * *

The browning, grapple wrist, raised stiffly before him like a manikin, or a marionette, preceded the old man from the chamber. The entire body moved with it in stiff, convulsive strides, out onto the porch of the Parthenon, between the pillars and onto the marble steps.

One not of that place might have been shocked by his appearance, distorted as it was by bony growths, the jaw torn to one side by a madman's rock. Some half-buried sense had drawn him—-sight it might be called—-to stand there and watch the night sky.

Distant lightnings played before his eyes, soft bursts of light and almost, a pool fancied, distant sounds. Perhaps Mars had come at last, to liberate and destroy them. Through the dull horror of his marrowmind, twisted like the frame, he recalled verses from a book long ago, that set his knife-tattered soul on edge.

From Olympus mighty thunderbolts rain down
As futile, Titans reach to steal the crown
Of He whose strength and glory forged the lands
For greater power, rests within His hands.

        His broken mouth produced a strange, pitiful utterance, as an
unbearable anguish of hope came over him.

* * *

As the last Alliance vessels retreated, or were caught and subdued by the tractor beams of the Leningrad, Brunner's thoughts returned quickly to the planet below. Though his battle fury was still running hot—-his own vessel was badly damaged, and there were wounded to look after—-his mind would think of nothing else. He started to assign damage and medical crews, but found the work was already being done. And their primary mission was, in fact, the release and rescue of the prisoners.

But with the main bridge knocked out and the lower malfunctioning, he could gather no news of the inhabitants of the prison-domes on the planet's surface. "Getting very confused readings," his scanning officer told him.

"Signs of life?" A momentary panic.

"Yes, Lieutenant, but they cannot be right."

"Why?"

"Well, sir, Intelligence reports over two million inhabitants were shipped here, and the internal structures are certainly large enough to house that number. But I register less than two hundred life-forms."

"WHAT?"

"It's got to be the equipment, sir: they don't even register as human. The calcium content is much too high." Even as he spoke the console went dead with a smell of burned fiber and sparks.

"Communications Officer." He could not remember her name. "Have you contacted Colonel Joyce?"

"Yes, Lieutenant. The viewscreens are out, but we still have audio."

"Very well. Put me through."

She handed him a headset.

"Colonel Joyce. Brunner. Do you still intend to call for Soviet reinforcements?"

"They are on the way."

"Will they be here soon enough to secure the area?"

"Yes."

"And will you provide transports for the prisoners?"

"That will not….. One thing at a time, Olaf."

"What do you mean? Those people have been separated from their families for months. What the hell are you waiting for?"

… "Is your scanning equipment working?"

"No, the upper bridge was destroyed. That's why I contacted you."

"And Mandlik?"

"Dead."

"You have assumed command?"

"Yes."

"Then I think you should organize a landing party and come to the Leningrad. Have you an operational shuttle?" Brunner turned to one of his officers, who nodded.

"Yes. For God's sake, what is happening?"

"I will tell you when you come."

"Sergei. My wife….."

"Not like this. Gather your party and come."

Brunner ordered the landing party assembled, and met it at the shuttle dock. Among those he found there was the nurse, the only medical persona that could be spared, whom he had been so aware of two days before. He tried not to look at her. With a knotting throat and a rising anxiety he could not contain, he guided the ship himself into the open receiving dock of the Leningrad.

One other shuttle craft entered behind them, landing also on the dull white metal floor, but no more. The bay doors were closed slowly and the dock began to repressurize. But in his drunken state the very sound of it was like her name hissed by witches.

As a double-line of Soviet personnel—-in breathing suits and armed—-emerged from an opened passage and made their way to the two large landing vessels, one of them a hospital ship, he opened the hatch of his own vehicle and moved weakly down the steps.

Colonel Joyce approached him with another, as if for support. Brunner recognized him from an earlier visit—-Chief Scientist Stoltzyn. He had no patience left.

"Why only two Coalition parties? Didn't you contact the other ships?"

"Two will be enough. . .to represent your peoples."

"Represent? What the HELL IS GOING ON?" Some of the Soviet technicians within the enclosure—-there were perhaps two dozen, wheeling in odd gear, among its contents special breathing masks for the Czechs—-looked over in surprise to hear a Soviet Colonel addressed in this way.

But none were more taken back than Joyce himself. He seemed unable to look Brunner in the eye or speak the words he had to speak, a thing which he had never experienced. Finally it was Stoltzyn who spoke.

"There's been some kind of plague."

Brunner felt his heart heave, then fall in upon itself like collapsing leprous flesh. His voice a fainting whisper.

"What? Sergei?"

Joyce finally master himself and spoke, though slowly. "Of the two million inhabitants, perhaps two hundred still live. Five of the six domes are emptied of life. You will be going to the sixth. But I. . .want you to be prepared."

"Tell me."

Joyce strode back and forth a few times, irritated, agitated, then faced Brunner almost angrily.

"Stoltzyn will tell you the rest. I am sorry, Olaf. I can say no more." He turned and left the enclosure.

The chief scientist was more composed. "There will be many corpses. Also, those who still live may be gruesome to look upon, and almost certainly will not be rational. Something in the atmosphere has caused the rapid growth and multiplication of bone cells and calcium deposits….."

Stoltzyn would have continued but the young German lieutenant had lost consciousness and slithered to the floor.

When Brunner came to he found the nurse, the one he did not wish to think about, looking into his face full of concern. All this took only a short time, so that as she and another helped him to his feet, the Soviet and Czech chief scientists (the latter with considerably less detachment) had only begun to discuss the dangers and consequences of such a landing.

"No," said the Russian. "There is no threat of contagion or epidemic. It is not a disease we are dealing with but a bodily reaction to impure atmosphere. We are safe so long as we retain the breathing gear, and probably without it for short periods, though we will not take that chance."

"And if the survivors are mad and beyond healing, as you suggest? What do we do then?"

"That is the purpose of