Nova 1 Read online

  There was nothing to be seen out there but a few clumps of elephant grass. Then the white flare burned out. “They ought to put up another one,” 2911 on his right said worriedly.

  “A star in the east for men not born of women,” said 2910 half to himself, and regretted the blasphemy immediately.

  “That’s where they need it,” 29 n agreed. “The First is having it pretty hot over there. But we could use some light here too.”

  He was not listening. At home in Chicago, during that inexpressibly remote time which ran from a dim memory of playing on a lawn under the supervision of a smiling giantess to that moment two years ago when he had submitted to surgery to lose everybody and facial hair he possessed and undergo certain other minor alterations, he had been unconsciously preparing himself for this. Lifting weights and playing football to develop his body while he whetted his mind on a thousand books; all so that he might tell, making others feel at a remove . . .

  Another flare went up and there were three dark silhouettes sliding from the next-nearest clump of elephant grass to the nearest. He fired his M-19 at them, then heard the HORARS on either side of him fire too. From the sharp comer where their own platoon met the Second a machine gun opened up with tracer. The nearest grass clump sprang into the air and somersaulted amid spurts of earth.

  There was a moment of quiet, then five rounds of high explosive came in right behind them as though aimed for Pinocchio’s pit. Crump. Crump. Crump . . . Crump. Crump. (2900 would be running to ask Pinocchio if he were hurt.)

  Someone else had been moving down the trench toward them, and he could hear the mumble of the new voice become a gasp when the H.E. rounds came in. Then it resumed, a little louder and consequently a bit more easily understood. “How are you? You feel all right? Hit?”

  And most of the HORARS answering, I’m fine, sir,” or “We’re okay, sir,” but because HORARS did have a sense of humor some of them said things like, “How do we transfer to the Marines, sir?” or “My pulse just registered nine thou’, sir. 3000 took it with the mortar sight.”

  We often think of strength as associated with humorlessness, he had written in the news magazine which had, with the Army’s cooperation, planted him by subterfuge of surgery among these Homolog ORganisms (Army Replacement Simultations). But, he had continued, this is not actually the case. Humor is a prime defense of the mind, and knowing that to strip the mind of it is to leave it shieldless, the Army and the Synthetic Biology Service have wisely included a charming dash in the makeup of these synthesized replacements for human infantry.

  That had been before he discovered that the Army and the SBS had tried mightily to weed that sense of the ridiculous out, but found that if the HORARS were to maintain the desired intelligence level they could not.

  Brenner was behind him now, touching his shoulder. “How are you? Feel all right?”

  He wanted to say, I’m half as scared as you are, you dumb Dutchman,” but he knew that if he did the fear would sound in his voice; besides, the disrespect would be unthinkable to a HORAR.

  He also wanted to say simply, “A-okay, sir,” because if he did Brenner would pass on to 2911 and he would be safe. But he had a reputation for originality to keep up, and he needed that reputation to cover him when he slipped, as he often did, sidewise of HORAR standards. He answered: “You ought to look in on Pinocchio, sir. I think he’s cracking up.” From the other end of the squad, 2909’s quiet chuckle rewarded him, and Brenner, the man most dangerous to his disguise, continued down the trench . . .

  Fear was necessary because the will to survive was very necessary. And a humanoid form was needed if the HORARS were to utilize the mass of human equipment already on hand. Besides, a human-shaped (homolog? no, that merely meant similar, homological’) HORAR had outscored all the fantastic forms SBS had been able to dream up in a super-realistic (public opinion would never have permitted it with human soldiers) test carried out in the Everglades.

  (Were they merely duplicating? Had all this been worked out before with some greater war in mind? And had He Himself, the Scientist Himself, come to take the form of His creations to show that He too could bear the unendurable?)

  2909 was at his elbow, whispering, “Do you see something, Squad Leader? Over there?” Dawn had come without his noticing.

  With fingers clumsy from fatigue he switched the control of his M-19 to the lower, 40mm grenade-launching barrel. The grenade made a brief flash at the spot 2909 had indicated. “No,” he said, “I don’t see anything now.” The fine, soft rain which had been falling all night was getting stronger. The dark clouds seemed to roof the world. (Was he fated to reenact what had been done for mankind? It could happen. The Enemy took humans captive, but there was nothing they would not do to HORAR prisoners. Occasionally patrols found the bodies spread-eagled, with bamboo stakes driven through their limbs; and he could only be taken for a HORAR. He thought of a watercolor of the crucifixion he had seen once. Would the color of his own blood be crimson lake?)

  From the CP the observation ornithocopter rose on flapping wings.

  “I haven’t heard one of the mines go for quite a while,” 2909 said. Then there came the phony-sounding bang that so often during the past few weeks had closed similar probing attacks. Squares of paper were suddenly fluttering all over the camp.

  “Propaganda shell,” 2909 said unnecessarily, and 2911 climbed casually out of the trench to get a leaflet, then jumped back to his position. “Same as last week,” he said, smoothing out the damp rice paper.

  Looking over his shoulder, 2910 saw that he was correct. For some reason the Enemy never directed his propaganda at the HORARS, although it was no secret that reading skills were implanted in HORAR minds with the rest of their instinctive training. Instead it was always aimed at the humans in the camp, and played heavily on the distaste they were supposed to feel at being “confined with half-living flesh still stinking of chemicals.” Privately, 2910 thought they might have done better, at least with Lieutenant Kyle, to have dropped that approach and played up sex. He also got the impression from the propaganda that the Enemy thought there were far more humans in the camp than there actually were.

  Well, the Army—with far better opportunities to know—was wrong as well. With a few key generals excepted, the Army thought there were only two . . .

  He had made the All-American. How long ago it seemed. No coach, no sportswriter had ever compared his stocky, muscular physique with a HORAR’s. And he had majored in journalism, had been ambitious. How many men, with a little surgical help, could have passed here?

  “Think it sees anything?” he heard 29 n ask 2909. They were looking upward at the “bird” sailing overhead.

  The ornithocopter could do everything a real bird could except lay eggs. It could literally land on a strand of wire. It could ride thermals like a vulture, and dive like a hawk. And the bird-motion of its wings was wonderfully efficient, saving power-plant weight that could be used for zoom-lenses and telecameras. He wished he were in the CP watching the monitor screen with Lieutenant Kyle instead of standing with his face a scant foot above the mud (they had tried stalked eyes like a crab’s in the Everglades, he remembered, but the stalks had become infected by a fungus . . .

  As though in answer to his wish, 2900 called, “Show some snap for once, 2910. He says He wants us in the CP.”

  When he himself thought He, He meant God; but 2900 meant Lieutenant Kyle. That was why 2900 was a platoon leader, no doubt; that and the irrational prestige of a round number. He climbed out of the trench and followed him to the CP. They needed a communicating trench, but that was something there hadn’t been time for yet.

  Brenner had someone (2788? looked like him, but he couldn’t be certain) down on his table. Shrapnel, probably from a grenade. Brenner did not look up as they came in, but 2910 could see his face was still white with fear although the attack had been over for a full quarter of an hour. He and 2900 ignored the SBS man and saluted Lieutenant Kyle.


  The company commander smiled. “Stand at ease, HORARS. Have any trouble in your sector?”

  2900 said, “No, sir. The light machine gun got one group of three and 2910 here knocked off a group of two. Not much of an attack on our front, sir.”

  Lieutenant Kyle nodded. “I thought your platoon had the easiest time of it, 2900, and that’s why I’ve picked you to run a patrol for me this morning.”

  “That’s fine with us, sir.”

  “You’ll have Pinocchio, and I thought you’d want to go yourself and take 2910’s gang.”

  He glanced at 2910. “Your squad still at full strength?”

  2910 said, “Yes, sir,” making an effort to keep his face impassive. He wanted to say: I shouldn’t have to go on patrol. I’m human as you are, Kyle, and patrolling is for things grown in tubes, things fleshed out around metal skeletons, things with no family and no childhood behind them.

  Things like my friends.

  He added, “We’ve been the luckiest squad in the company, sir.”

  “Fine. Let’s hope your luck holds, 2910.” Kyle’s attention switched back to 2900. “I’ve gotten under the leaf canopy with the ornithocopter and done everything except make it walk around like a chicken. I can’t find a thing and it’s drawn no fire, so you ought to be okay. You’ll make a complete circuit of the camp without getting out of range of mortar support. Understand?”

  2900 and 2910 saluted, about-faced, and marched out. 2910 could feel the pulse in his neck; he flexed and unflexed his hands unobtrusively as he walked. 2900 asked, “Think we’ll catch any of them?” It was an unbending for him—the easy camaraderie of anticipated action.

  “I’d say so. I don’t think the CO’s had long enough with the bird to make certain of anything except that their main force has pulled out of range. I hope so.”

  And that’s the truth, he thought. Because a good hot fire-fight would probably do it—round the whole thing out so I can get out of here.

  Every two weeks a helicopter brought supplies and, when they were needed, replacements. Each trip it also carried a correspondent whose supposed duty was to interview the commanders of the camps the copter visited. The reporter’s name was Keith Thomas, and for the past two months he had been the only human being with whom 2910 could take off his mask.

  Thomas carried scribbled pages from the notebook under 2910’s air mattress when he left, and each time he came managed to find some corner in which they could speak in private for a few seconds. 2910 read his mail then and gave it back. It embarrassed him to realize that the older reporter viewed him with something not far removed from hero worship.

  I can get out of here, he repeated to himself. Write it up and tell Keith we’re ready to use the letter.

  2900 ordered crisply, “Fall in your squad. I’ll get Pinocchio and meet you at the south gate.”

  “Right.” He was suddenly seized with a desire to tell someone, even 2900, about the letter. Keith Thomas had it, and it was really only an undated note, but it was signed by a famous general at Corps Headquarters. Without explanation it directed that number 2910 be detached from his present assignment and placed under the temporary orders of Mr. K. Thomas, Accredited Correspondent. And Keith would use it any time he asked him to. In fact, he had wanted to on his last trip.

  He could not remember giving the order, but the squad was falling in, lining up in the rain for his inspection almost as smartly as they had on the drill field back at the crèche. He gave “At Ease” and looked them over while he outlined the objectives of the patrol. As always, their weapons were immaculate despite the dampness, their massive bodies ramrod-straight, their uniforms as clean as conditions permitted.

  The L.A. Rams with guns, he thought proudly. Barking “On Phones,” he flipped the switch on his helmet that would permit 2900 to knit him and the squad together with Pinocchio in a unified tactical unit. Another order and the HORARS deployed around Pinocchio with the smoothness of repeated drill, the wire closing the south gate was drawn back, and the patrol moved out.

  With his turret retracted, Pinocchio the robot tank stood just three feet high, and he was no wider than an automobile; but he was as long as three, so that from a distance he had something of the look of a railroad flatcar. In the jungle his narrow front enabled him to slip between the trunks of the unconquerable giant hardwoods, and the power in his treads could flatten saplings and bamboo. Yet resilient organics and sintered metals had turned the rumble of the old, manned tanks to a soft hiss for Pinocchio. Where the jungle was free of undergrowth he moved as silently as a hospital cart.

  His immediate precursor had been named “Punch,” apparently in the sort of simpering depreciation which found “Shillelagh” acceptable for a war rocket. “Punch”—a bust in the mouth.

  But Punch, which like Pinocchio had possessed a computer brain and no need of a crew (or for that matter room for one except for an exposed vestigial seat on his deck), had required wires to communicate with the infantry around him. Radio had been tried, but the problems posed by static, jamming, and outright enemy forgery of instructions had been too much for Punch.

  Then an improved model had done away with those wires and some imaginative officer had remembered that “Mr. Punch” had been a knockabout marionette—and the wireless improvement was suddenly very easy to name. But, like Punch and its fairy-tale namesake, it was vulnerable if it went out into the world alone.

  A brave man (and the Enemy had many) could hide himself until Pinocchio was within touching distance. And a well-instructed one could then place a hand grenade or a bottle of gasoline where it would destroy him. Pinocchio’s three-inch-thick armor needed the protection of flesh, and since he cost as much as a small city and could (if properly protected) fight a regiment to a stand, he got it.

  Two scouts from 2910’s squad preceded him through the jungle, forming the point of the diamond. Flankers moved on either side of him “beating the bush” and, when it seemed advisable, firing a pattern of fletchettes into any suspicious-looking piece of undergrowth. Cheerful, reliable 2909, the assistant squad leader, with one other HORAR formed the rear guard. As patrol leader 2900’s position was behind Pinocchio, and as squad leader 2910’s was in front.

  The jungle was quiet with an eerie stillness, and it was dark under the big trees. “Though I walk in the valley of the shadow . . .”

  Made tiny by the phones, 2900 squeaked in his ear, “Keep the left flankers farther out!” 2910 acknowledged and trotted over to put his own stamp on the correction, although the flankers, 2913, 2914, and 2915, had already heard it and were moving to obey. There was almost no chance of trouble this soon, but that was no excuse for a slovenly formation. As he squeezed between two trees something caught his eye and he halted for a moment to examine it. It was a skull; a skull of bone rather than a smooth HORAR skull of steel, and so probably an Enemy’s.

  A big “E” Enemy’s, he thought to himself. A man to whom the normal HORAR conditioning of exaggerated respect bordering on worship did not apply.

  Tiny and tinny, “Something holding you up, 2910?”

  “Be right there.” He tossed the skull aside. A man whom even a HORAR could disobey; a man even a HORAR could kill. The skull had looked old, but it could not have been old. The ants would have picked it clean in a few days, and in a few weeks it would rot. But it was probably at least seventeen or eighteen years old.

  The ornithocopter passed them on flapping wings, flying its own search pattern. The patrol went on.

  Casually 2910 asked his helmet mike, “How far are we going? Far as the creek?”

  2900’s voice squeaked, “We’ll work our way down the bank a quarter mile, then cut west,” then with noticeable sarcasm added, “if that’s okay with you?”

  Unexpectedly Lieutenant Kyle’s voice came over the phones. “2910’s your second in command, 2900. He has a duty to keep himself informed of your plans.”

  But 2910, realizing that a real HORAR would not have asked the question, suddenl
y also realized that he knew more about HORARS than the company commander did. It was not surprising, he ate and slept with them in a way Kyle could not, but it was disquieting. He probably knew more than Brenner, strict biological mechanics excepted, as well.

  The scouts had reported that they could see the sluggish jungle stream they called the creek when Lieutenant Kyle’s voice came over the phones again. As routinely as he had delivered his mild rebuke to 2900 he announced, “Situation Red here. An apparent battalion-level attack hitting the North Point. Let’s suck it back in, patrol.”

  Pinocchio swiveled 180 degrees by locking his right tread, and the squad turned in a clockwise circle around him. Kyle said distantly, “The recoillesses don’t seem to have found the range yet, so I’m going out to give them a hand. Mr. Brenner will be holding down the radio for the next few minutes.”

  2900 transmitted, “Were on our way, sir.”

  Then 2910 saw a burst of automatic weapon’s fire cut his scouts down. In an instant the jungle was a pandemonium of sound.

  Pinocchio’s radar had traced the bullets back to their source and his main armament slammed a 155mm shell at it, but crossfire was suddenly slicing in from all around them. The bullets striking Pinocchio’s turret screamed away like damned souls. 2910 saw grenades arc out of nowhere and something struck his thigh with terrible force. He made himself say, “I’m hit, 2909; take the squad,” before he looked at it. Mortar shells were dropping in now and if his assistant acknowledged, he did not hear.

  A bit of jagged metal from a grenade or a mortar round had laid the thigh open, but apparently missed the big artery supplying the lower leg. There was no spurt, only a rapid welling of blood, and shock still held the injury numb. Forcing himself, he pulled apart the lips of the wound to make sure it was clear of foreign matter. It was very deep but the bone was not broken; at least so it seemed.

  Keeping as low as he could, he used his trench knife to cut away the cloth of his trousers leg, then rigged a tourniquet with his belt. His aid packet contained a pad of gauze, and tape to hold it in place. When he had finished he lay still, holding his M-19 and looking for a spot where its fire might do some good. Pinocchio was firing his turret machine gun in routine bursts, sanitizing likely-looking patches of jungle; otherwise the fight seemed to have quieted down.