Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

“What then?” I’d asked. I’d been getting ready to leave for summer camp, leaving home for an extended period for the first time. “What do you think the judgment will be like?”

“I think He’ll wonder about people who never take time to look at the grandeur of things. ‘I gave you the stars and you never lifted your eyes above the rooftops.’ Or, maybe, ‘I gave you a brain. Why didn’t you use it?’“ She’d laughed. “Doesn’t mean forbidden pleasures are okay, Arthur.”

“ My point, ” said George, “ is that it’s a losing fight. You’re all but out of food. And okay, you’ve blunted a few attacks. Made some of these guys pay a price. But in the process, what’s changed? You think there won’t be another landing force in here next week? Or next month? So what have you accomplished? ”

I was thinking about it when Cathie got on the circuit. “ I’ve been looking at some of the pictures you’ve been sending up. Do you have more? ”

“I can get more.”

“ Do it. ”

“Why?”

“ Send them. As many as you can. Okay? ”

“Sure. If you want. What are you going to do with them?”

“ Try to get you some help. ”

She wouldn’t explain. Maybe someone had walked into the comm center. But it sounded as if McCarver was beginning to understand what was really happening on the ground.

Two hours later I watched helplessly as two armies clashed in the middle of a plain. George’s best estimate put the numbers involved at over a hundred thousand on each side. There were primitive armored vehicles, not tanks, but trucks used to carry troops, do hit-and-run maneuvers, and haul supplies. No robots, of course. There was a lot of artillery. Both sides just sat back and blasted away at the other. The ground troops made periodic charges. There were no automatic weapons, so the suicidal aspect of massing units for a frontal assault was missing. Or at least lightened. But they paid a heavy price.

Against George’s protests, we went in close and got more pictures. Shattered bodies on the battlefield. A medical unit tending to desperately wounded soldiers. Hordes of refugees trying to get out of harm’s way. And, that evening, when by mutual agreement the shooting had stopped, squads of soldiers spreading across the area to reclaim the bodies.

In the morning, I knew, it would all start again.

It was the only organized battle I saw during my entire time on Nok. But it was enough.

“ Even if Cathie could get you some help, ” said George, “ what good could it possibly do? At last count, there were seventeen national entities of one kind or another engaged in the war. It’s not even one war. It’s a whole bunch of wars going on simultaneously, and even the experts back in orbit don’t have it all sorted out. So suppose they do send a couple more guys like you, suppose they send a thousand , what difference will it make? ”

I’d been talking with McCarver, who wanted to know, at least, what my plans were. How long was this going to go on? I got no sense that he’d even watched the clips, let along been impacted by them. “ Good luck to you, ” he’d said, when I told him I needed a couple more days. “ I’m sure knowing you stepped in will be consolation when you’re sitting in a federal prison somewhere. ”

We were on the night side at about four thousand meters. I stared out of the lander at the sky. The Sheldrake and its accompanying vessels were lost up there somewhere. Below, fires raged from one horizon to the other. Towns and cities under attack. Port facilities. I could see an air strike in progress. A fleet of maybe a dozen dirigibles dropping bombs and incendiaries on God knew who.

“You know, George,” I said, “maybe you’re right.”

Bright lamps came on and blinked. “ Good, ” he said. “ At last. We’re going to admit it’s a no-win situation. ”

“It is that.”

“ I’m glad you’re finally seeing reason. ”

“Going after the local commanders doesn’t achieve anything. I should have realized that from the start.”

“ I don’t think I liked the sound of that. What do you mean, going after the local commanders? ”

Nok had a long list of dictators to choose from. One of the more malevolent, according to the research, was a character named Pierik Akatimi . Pierik the Beloved. I didn’t know a great deal about him. Dictators weren’t exactly my field of expertise. What stood out about Pierik was his appreciation for the simple pleasures: warmaking, arresting his citizens, and astronomy. He also liked sex. And feathers.

George supplied the dictator’s address, which was in Roka, the capital of a continental power, possibly the strongest of the belligerents. His headquarters was appropriately named Sunset House.

We scouted the place from the air. Sunset House was an exquisite brick-and-steel six-story oval with a lot of windows and porticoes and a small observatory on the roof. There was a park across the street, a courthouse on one side, and a museum on the other.

“We’ll land in the park,” I said. “Once I’m out, go hide in the woods until I call you.”

The military and political people had an extensive record on Pierik. As I said, he liked feathers. He wore them in a scarf, in his hats, and in his jacket. Nobody else had any. The word was that wearing a feather in his country constituted a capital offense. In fact, a wide range of offenses were capital crimes under Pierik, who didn’t bother much with jails. He disapproved of criticism, of course. He also didn’t much like citizens having a good time. Parties were forbidden, unless they marked certain specified occasions. The Nok equivalent of dancing brought swift retribution for everybody involved, the partners and anyone who stood around and didn’t call the police. Religious opinion was circumscribed. Everybody belonged to one faith, and Pierik was its Blessed One. The dictator was reported to be superstitious and seemed to subscribe fervently to the official doctrine.

Despite all this, the principal researcher had concluded Pierik was not the worst of the dictators. But he seemed to me the most likely to be affected by the voice of an invisible entity.

“ There is a character out of the popular literature of the twentieth century, ” said George, “ whose part you seem to be playing. ”

“And who might that be?” We were settling into an unoccupied section of the park while I strapped on the belt that activated the lightbender.

“ The Shadow. ”

“Never heard of him.” I turned toward the airlock.

George opened up and wished me luck. “ Be careful, ” he said. “ He will be well guarded. And don’t forget they can see your eyes. ”

Pierik’s capital could almost have been something out of the late nineteenth century. The larger buildings were stone and brick, rendered with an attention to aesthetics. Lots of arches, courtyards, fountains, spires, wheel windows. There were no towering structures, but the city was mathematically precise, laid out in squares and occasional triangles, with parks and theaters and libraries. The tallest structures served both religious and political functions. Religion and politics were combined, to varying degrees, in all the Nok nations. If they’d seen the consequences of such arrangements, they hadn’t worked out the solution.

The street separating the park from Sunset House was barricaded to control traffic. There were hordes of pedestrians. Most were sightseers. I remembered having read that Pierik approved of sightseeing, and that local families that never made it into the capital to gawk at the monuments were noted.