Joe Haldeman - Future Weapons of War

Another burst shredded the growth as he fled, while burning with rage at not killing Sergeant.

He could not dwell on that now. He had to escape to make his Datadump, survive to fight again. Let the Enemy keep Sergeant and Cynd alive. They could tell them how the fight would go. Not only the soldiers, but the human settlers and their dogs and even the Leopards would fight.

Cap waited under a featherfern, eyes narrowed to cold slits, and held motionless as the Vertol passed over, then again, then a third time. They knew he was there, but couldn’t see him. Cap had played this game before, even though it wasn’t a game now. Despite their tools, people couldn’t find Leopards. Not one time in a hundred.

The Vertol flew over again, even lower, then the sound of it echoed away across the hills. In moments, the normal sounds of the northern forest returned, and Cap raised himself, all cuts and aches and bruises, to end his mission. It was nearly sunset, and he still had to hurry.

High in a tree, Capstick spent some time recovering from the exertion, feeling his heart thump, sensing his blood boil, hearing his thoughts roar. His injured shoulder was an agony that he would have to accept for now. At Home, it would need Surgery. His ribs might, also, and the wounds to his skin and tail. Then there was the pain within. He was weak, ill, and hot, but he would rest to recoup his strength and press on. The human doctors couldheal him, as they had before. People wore good at such things.

His thoughts were interrupted as his harness clicked and began its Datadump, and he heaved a deep sigh. He knew better than to roar in anger, pain, frustration.

David was dead. He knew other people, but David had been his friend his entire life. He could not yet think of existence without him. Loss… emptiness… he had no symbols to describe it properly.

Cap still had a purpose, however, and that would give him strength. But fatigue and exertion and his wounds called to him to rest. He would do that now. Tomorrow he would travel gingerly and painfully back to Home. There, he would be paired with a new friend, and he and that friend would hunt the invaders remorselessly. Perhaps the manhunters from Black Ops would join them. If not, he would teach his new friend what loyalty meant and they would hunt as a pair.

The Humans called it duty. To him it was simply the way things were.

Even though it seemed to take every last vestige of her strength to drag herself into the kitchen, Jenny found the impetus to cook breakfast. While she was waiting for the frying pan to do its work, she ate a bowl of bite-sized Shredded Wheat sprinkled with sultanas. Then she ate two fried eggs, two pork sausages, four rashers of bacon, three slices of fried bread and two fried tomatoes. She washed it all down with half a liter of orange and cranberry juice and three cups of coffee with sugar.

There had been a time when she was proudly eating for two, carrying the future of the human race in her abdomen; nowadays she was just ravenous. She had hoped that the food would restore her strength and sense of well-being, but it didn’t. She didn’t want to vomit, but she still felt utterly drained, hardly capable of movement. She had too much pride actually to crawl back to bed, especially as she had put so much effort into getting dressed, but she collapsed onto the settee like the proverbial ton of bricks.

She called Jackie first, but Jackie was at work and had her mobile switched off. The “Ride ol the Valkyries” ran its course and then gave way to voicemail. Jenny cursed, not having realized that it was already after nine. She didn’t leave a message. She called the Health Center, where she was due to pick up her Genetic Profile results—and, if necessary, to discuss their implications with Dr. Kitteredge.

Her hand was trembling as she held the phone to her ear, although it weighed next to nothing.

“This is Jennifer Loomis,” she said, as soon as the receptionist answered. “I have an appointment at eleven, but I can’t make it. It’s just not physically possible. I know you don’t like giving out results over the phone, but could you just tell me whether the baby’s Genetic Profile is clear? I think I’m going to have to ask the hospital if they can take me in today—I’m supposed to have three weeks plus to go, but I just can’t go on. If I weren’t living in a ground floor flat, the stairs would have done for me already.”

She felt thoroughly ashamed of herself as she finished the rambling speech. She had always thought of herself as a strong person, capable of heroic effort when the need arose, and she had tried with all her might to believe what the veterans of the prenatal class told her about every first-time mother being taken by surprise by the awfulness of the experience, but she could no longer doubt that something was seriously amiss. It was one thing to be so lethargic that Jackie had to do the shopping for her, but quite another to find it impossible to move from room to room within the flat. She’d got into this mess because she’d heard the famous metaphorical biological clock begin to tick too furiously, but now its tick had been replaced by the knell of doom.

The receptionist seemed to have taken forever to summon her notes to the screen. “It’s a good job you rang, Mrs. Loomis,” the receptionist said, scrupulously following the rule that required all maternity cases to be addressed as “Mrs.” Whether they were married or not. “Your appointment has had to be cancelled.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know,” Jenny said, unable to inject the requisite sarcasm into her tone. “He’s all clear genewise, then? Too bloody healthy by half, I dare say. It’s me that can’t take the strain.”

“I’m not able to confirm or deny that, Mrs. Loomis,” the receptionist said. “But there is a note here about contacting Dr. Gilfillan. It’s marked urgent. Will you call him or shall I?”

“I’m with Dr. Kitteredge,” Jenny told her.

“Yes, Mrs. Loomis, of course. Dr. Gilfillan is a consultant. It really would be better if you called him yourself. That way, you can describe your symptoms. His number—”

“Hang on!” Jenny complained. “What kind of consultant is he? What’s his specialism?”

“I really can’t tell you, Mrs. Loomis,” the receptionist said, frostily. “All I have here are his qualifications: PhD, RAMC.”

“PhD?” Jenny queried. “Isn’t it supposed to be MD, if not FRCS? And what the hell’s RAMC?”

“Royal Army Medical Corps,” the receptionist informed her, with a smugness that reminded Jenny of the general knowledge freak she’d got stuck with the last time Jackie had talked her into going down to the local pub on quiz night.

Awareness of what the voice at the other end of the phone had actually said burst in Jenny’s mind like a bomb just as the baby kicked her again, like a kangaroo taking a penalty. “A PhD in the Royal Army Medical Corps?” Jenny repeated, incredulously. “You mean he’s some biowarfare boffin from Porton Down? What the hell did that Genetic Profile throw up?”

“I really don’t know.” The receptionist’s disembodied voice suddenly seemed quite unhuman. “I dare say that he’ll explain everything when you call him. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. May I give you the number now?”

You absolute cow! Jenny thought—but all she said was: “Go ahead.” She tapped it into the phone’s memory as the receptionist read it off, and rang off as soon as she’d strangled a mumbled

“thank you,” without waiting to be told that she was welcome.

Jenny’s hand was really shaking now. She cursed several times. She’d known, of course, that the Genetic Profile wasn’t any mere formality—there were horror stories in the papers every day—but she’d had no reason to think that anything serious might be wrong. She had a better than average set of genes herself, and one of the pros of having selected an unwitting member of the armed forces as a potential father was supposed to be the screening that every recruit was put through nowadays. Except, of course, that she had had a reason to worry…