John Dalmas - Soldiers

Blushing, Esau bowed and shook each young woman's hand in turn. Then Ensign Hawkins called out above the crowd buzz.

"Captain Zenawi will be here in a few minutes. He says don't wait." He gestured at the other musicians. "We've only played together a few times, so I don't know very much of the music they'll do. They'll start off, and I'll join in when I can. Consider the party officially started!"

Then a caller named the dance, and pairs of laughing soldiers walked to the middle of the floor. All were men, except for Jael and the two women she'd brought. Ruta and Bjorg had accepted eager partners.

When they'd formed lines, the caller and the music began. The dance was energetic, and the two women were totally unfamiliar with it. Do-si-do meant absolutely nothing to them. But the confusions created were treated as fun, not problems, and before the number ended, everyone was laughing and sweating.

Almost everyone. Esau had discovered how awkward it was dancing with someone twenty inches taller and twice his mass. So before the next number began, they left the dance floor and went to one of the benches.

"Seems like we don't dance as well as we used to," Esau commented.

"It does, doesn't it? But we can still laugh together. And you can dance with Ruta and Bjorg. Actually I brought them for you."

The statement didn't surprise Esau. "I wish you wouldn't have," he said.

She nodded. "I thought you'd feel like that."

"Why then?" His voice was pained. "Why did you?"

"Honey, because I love you. And I want you to get used to touching other women. Organic women. I'm not trying to matchmake, although they're both heavyworlders, and very nice people. And pretty, don't you think?"

"Not as pretty as you."

"Why, Esau, what a nice thing to say! This model 7C warbot servo does look quite nice, and maybe in peacetime they'll let me polish it. But I never thought of it as pretty."

Esau had no reply. After a moment, Jael stood. "Let's go outside," she said quietly.

He didn't meet her gaze. Together they walked out into the now-freezing evening. "Esau," she said softly, gently, "please don't pout. It hurts me, especially when I'm trying hard to do what's right."

She stood with her hands on his thick shoulders, her large hands, larger than any organic human's, and crushingly strong. "This is a party, honey. It looks like the war may really be over, and the killing and dying done with. What I'd like best to do is sneak off with you somewhere-a water-heater room would be fine. But I can't… do… " Her voice broke unexpectedly, hitting him like a heavy punch in the chest, in the heart. "I can't do… the things we did any longer." She recovered herself quickly though. "I just can't be… your wife, your lover, any longer. No matter how much I'd like to. And I want you to find someone who can." Her fingers had tightened, and realizing it, she let her hands fall. Crouching, she peered earnestly, urgently into his eyes. "Do you see, honey?"

With that she broke entirely, sobbing and shaking despite having no tear glands. Esau watched silently dismayed, spilling enough tears of his own to do for both of them. Finding her hand, he led her farther from the mess hall, to the shelter of a large tree, where they embraced, metal against flesh. Without warning his control melted, grief surging out, grief he hadn't known was still there. Surged violently enough, bitterly enough, it snapped Jael out of her own grief. "It's all right," she murmured, a large hand patting him gently. "It's all right."

Half a minute sufficed him; then they separated. He discovered he didn't have a handkerchief, so he pulled out a shirttail, mopped his cheeks, then blew his juicy nose with his fingers, and wiped them on his pants, behind the thighs.

"There," he said, and surprised her with a shaky laugh. "I believe that's it. Sorry I was so messy. I still forget to carry a handkerchief sometimes." He smiled ruefully. "What d'you want to do?"

"We need to get an annulment. Not a divorce, an annulment. They're different. I talked to Sergeant Major Rinaldi and she checked with the chaplain." Jael paused. "But, honey, I want you to dance with those girls that came with me. I know them both. They're really nice. And if either of them makes a play for you-I'd feel so… " For a moment it seemed she might break again, but she rallied. "I'd feel so pleased if you'd go along with it."

Esau met her gaze. It was… metallic. There was a soul there, and goodness, and love, but the eyes weren't really eyes. He nodded. "I'll dance with them if you'll dance with Isaiah. He just now went in. I think it was him."

Now it was her turn to stand silent a moment. "All right," she said, "I will. But I need to tell you, dancing won't be the same wearing-this." She gestured at her body. "Not even with someone else my size. Now let's go back."

Esau danced with both women, several times during the next hour, but it was Ensign Aribau who made a pass at him. Ensign Gaughan, Esau's hutmate, saw them leave the mess hall, and told himself to stay away from the hut till the party was over.

Meanwhile, dancing with Isaiah was more enjoyable than Jael had expected. Moving her body-gracefully!-in time with the quick and lively music, was enjoyable by itself. Enough that she didn't notice Esau leave with Bjorg. When she realized they were gone, she felt warmly fond of them both. It was a milestone for her.

Soldiers has been the story of a war, and with the Treaty of Eridani Prime, the war and the story were over-officially, and pretty much in fact. But whether human or Wyzhnyny, those who'd survived had futures, reset by the war itself, and by the treaty.

The war had never been named, officially or otherwise. It was just "the war." There was no other. There hadn't been since that earlier turning point, that long-ago fraternal conflict known as the Troubles. In his speech announcing the peace agreement, President Chang asked that it not be referred to as the Wyzhnyny War. The surviving Wyzhnyny would become part of the Commonwealth, and their integration would not be eased by naming the war after them. Describe it as it was, he said, but call it simply "the Invasion."

A millennium earlier he'd never have gotten away with a suggestion like that. But now, near the end of the third millennium, his request was very largely complied with. Gradually over the centuries, humankind had become increasingly civilized, with a civility beyond political correctness. A consensus civility. Without it, civilization and quite possibly humankind would not have survived in the Sol System long enough to meet the Wyzhnyny. There was still significant and occasionally noisy social discord, but all in all, people were remarkably and comfortably civil.

Even on the hundreds of colony worlds settled by reclusive ethnic groups, and religious, political, and philosophical sects, civility tended to be the rule-at least as long as they were left alone, to live as they pleased.

Among the people of the forty-four human worlds conquered and depopulated by the Wyzhnyny, cultural disruption had been extreme. But the people lacked the passion, the zeal of their expatriate forebears. Many of the evacuees harbored bitterness or grief, but few felt gnawed upon for revenge.

And most did go home, arriving to find it unrecognizable. With Core World help they rebuilt farms, villages, and towns, but it would never be the same. The genie didn't fit in the bottle anymore. Their cultural realities had been irreparably changed by the war and their brief exiles.

On Terra, a number of antiwar activists had already been tried for terrorism. A remarkable phenomenon: antiwar terrorists! And among the Terran public, zeal had become even more distasteful than before.