Тим Пауэрс - Free Stories 2018

“I’ll do my best.”

But when they spotted Ludmilla, they stopped and smiled and just stood still as we went by.

Up ahead, there was a cleared area, and then a high berm made of plowed-up dirt, asphalt, and concrete, with carcasses of old trucks, cars, and vehicles. There was a stairway made of wood and metal, and I said, “This’ll give us a good view. Watch your step. This stairway is pretty beat-up and old.”

Yuri went up first, Ludmilla followed, and I took up the rear, moving as well as I could with one leg. At the top platform there was a soldier I knew, a Corporal Tanner, who was sitting on an old folding chair and with a spotter scope on a tripod set before him. At his feet was a small knapsack, and next to it, a field telephone with a phone line stretching out all the way back to the checkpoint.

He turned and said, “Hey, Sarge. What’s going on?”

“VIPs,” I said. “Russian Navy, here to check out our neighbors.”

Tanner whistled. “Sure came a long way to spot bugs. Don’t you have enough back home?”

Ludmilla said, “Yes, but we’re here… diplomacy mission. We’re here to destroy this Dome.”

Tanner said, “Have at it. Here, want to take a look?”

So he stood up and Ludmilla bent over to the spotting scope, and then she called over Yuri, and for a few minutes, they talked to each other in Russian, and then took turns looking out over the field to the Creeper Dome. It was its usual perfect dome shape, colored a dark gray-blue, and from the dirt berm before us, the land sloped down and across to the structure. The land was torn, blackened and blasted, with foundations of destroyed houses, burnt cars and trucks, and the rusting carcasses of artillery pieces and M1-A1 tanks.

Yuri said something to Ludmilla, who in turn said to Tanner, “How active is this Dome? Have a census been taken? How often do the bugs come out?”

Tanner grinned, scratched at his ear. “Active? Not very. The bugs come out when they want to… no set schedule that anybody knows of. And census? What’s that?”

Ludmilla looked serious. “You don’t do census? A count?”

Tanner looked to me, and then to Ludmilla. “They all look the same. How can you do a count?”

She said, “There are three classes of Creepers, da ? But in each type of Creeper, there are differences… marks on the legs, scorches on the abdomen, worn bits of armor. That way… you know how many bugs are in the Dome.”

“But why?” I asked.

Ludmilla smiled. “So you know how many is there when you kill them all.”

Yuri said something to Ludmilla, she said “ Da ,” picked up her bag. Yuri picked up his bag, and then they climbed over the berm and started heading to the dome.

“Hey!” I yelled out, and Tanner said, “Crap, what the hell are they doing?”

Ludmilla and Yuri walked a few meters and then dropped down, and I did my best to follow them, although with my fake leg and cane, it took a while. I fell, crawled, and stumbled, and when I got to them, their satchels were open and they were staring at the dome with binoculars, making marks on a notebook, talking to each other low.

I slid in behind them and said, “Are you two out of your freakin’ minds?”

Yuri grinned. Ludmilla said, “Out? No, we’re surveying. Doing our jobs.”

“You…”

Yuri said a series of words, and Ludmilla said, “The dilation. Opening into the dome. Where does it usually appear?”

“Straight ahead,” I said. “That’s why we have a spotter there, keeping an eye on what’s going on.”

“Ah,” Ludmilla said.

She and Yuri went back to work, and I tugged at her near boot and said, “You’ve got to get out of here, now! This whole area is a killing zone.”

Ludmilla smiled and I couldn’t be angry with her any more.

“ Da , and we’re here to kill them.”

Two more days followed where I escorted Ludmilla and Yuri around the Dome, where they made drawings, took measurements, and otherwise scoped out the Dome and its surroundings. I kept up as best as I could, though my right stump ached something fierce and twice when I was out with Ludmilla, I doubled over with nausea and vomited with no warning. Luckily, though, she never saw me in distress.

But on the third day, everything went wrong.

I rolled out of my bunk and the door to my room opened up, with a young orderly standing there, looking at my cluttered quarters and then at me, trying to put on my wooden and metal prosthetic.

“Yeah?” I said. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

“Sorry, Sergeant,” she said, staring at my stump. “Lieutenant Juarez needs to see you, soonest.”

“Got it,” I said. “Now get the hell out so I can get dressed.”

And about fifteen minutes later, I was in Lieutenant Juarez’s office, and she said without hesitation, “We’ve got a problem. One of the Russians is missing. Deserted.”

Something went thud in my chest. “Which one?”

“The male,” she said. “Yuri. Ran off last night.”

Then I hated myself right then, because I was torn. If one of the Russians had indeed deserted, I would want Ludmilla to have been the one. But by staying behind… I could see her again.

And maybe she would abandon her mission.

And live.

“Go see her,” Juarez said. “See what we can do… if anything.”

Ludmilla was in her own quarters, and it was crowded because there were four of the large black plastic cases that had come ashore when they had first landed. The tops of the cases were open and Ludmilla seemed to be checking the complicated gear and electronics nestled in dry black foam.

“Yes?” she said, still looking at the pages in a thick manual written in the odd-looking Russian-looking letters. “What is it, Walter?”

“I… sorry to hear about Yuri.”

She shrugged. “A temptation… being here in America, battered as you are. He and I, everyone else, they are volunteers.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Ludmilla looked at me like I had just suggested we flap our arms and go up to the Creepers’ Orbital Battle Station. “My duty, of course. I am going to do my duty.”

I leaned on my cane. “But I thought it took two… persons to do the job.”

“ Da , yes, usual. But this is not usual, correct? I have sworn to my family’s memory, to the Czar and my God, that I will do this mission. I will find a way.”

I said, “Ludmilla… don’t.”

“Don’t ask me that again. I have no choice.”

“But if you do it yourself, you might not make it.”

“What other choice do I have?”

My gut is churning, from fear and something else.

“I have an idea.”

She looked at me from her manual. “What is that, Walter?”

“I volunteer,” I said. “I’ll take Yuri’s place.”

After two day’s worth of arguing, meetings, more arguing, finally permission was granted.

And it all came down to our unit’s medic, who said to Lieutenant Juarez and myself the day before I was deployed, “I’m not sure how advanced the tumor is in Sergeant Hart’s stomach, but I know its inoperable and untreatable. Even in the best times, before pre-war, Sergeant Hart’s case would be a difficult one for long-term survival. Now…”

I didn’t need to hear any more.

And neither did my boss.

Her eyes moistened. “Are you sure, Sergeant Hart?”

“The end of my service was written last year,” I said, remembering the onset of my symptoms. “But the last page… it was going to be either in a hospice room somewhere, alone, or on the battlefield. I prefer the battlefield.”

Lieutenant Juarez just nodded, and in a quiet voice, whispered, “Bless you.”