All of this in utter, inhuman silence, save for the shallow scratch of his own breathing, the constant incomprehensible chatter over his comms.
The Rock itself was a swarm of continual, baffling activity. Troopers crowded constantly past him, great files of them labouring from place to place carrying equipment and supplies. They were blank-faced, dogged, their suits carefully dusted with asteroid dirt in the probably vain hope that such camouflage would help them survive. Sometimes they stepped on Luca’s feet or legs, and he cowered against the dirt in his trench, trying to make himself small and invisible.
Bayla, the trooper on the charge of religious sedition, was with him, though. She had been assigned by Teel to ‘supervise’ him. Luca hadn’t seen anything of Teel herself since they had broken through the last cordon of Navy Spline ships and into the full battle light, and the final preparations had begun. Whatever fantasies he had had of working alongside Teel, of somehow participating in this effort, had long evaporated. The only human comfort he drew was from the warm pressure of Bayla’s leg against his own.
Bayla kept checking a chronometer and consulting lists that scrolled over the surface of her skinsuit sleeve. But every few minutes she took the time to check on Luca. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ Again he had to push back to let a file of troopers past. ‘I don’t understand how they can do their jobs.’
‘What else is there to do?’
‘They must be afraid.’
He could see her frown. ‘You learn to live with the fear. Like living with an illness.’
‘A fear of death, or injury?’
‘No, not that.’ She spoke slowly. She seemed serene. ‘It’s more that it might not make sense. You feel you’re in the wrong world, the wrong time. That it shouldn’t be like this. If you let that in, that’s the true fear.’
He didn’t understand, of course.
A patch of Bayla’s sleeve flashed orange. ‘Excuse me.’ Bayla barked a command.
A file of troopers came scurrying through the dirt and took their position. They were carrying tools, he saw. The troopers all seemed small, light. Young, he realised. Bayla held up her hand, checked the time again – then brought her arm down in a chop. The troopers swarmed up over the side of the trench, using rungs and cables or just footholds gouged into the harder rock.
In response, light stormed.
Some of the troops fell back immediately, limp, like dolls. The rest of the troopers flattened themselves on their bellies in the dirt, under the light, and began to crawl away, face down, out of Luca’s sight. Other troopers came scurrying along the trench with med cloaks. They wrapped up the fallen and took them away, limp bundles that were awkward to handle in the low gravity.
There was a swirl of cubical pixels before Luca. It coalesced into the compact form of Dolo. He wasn’t wearing a skinsuit, and his robe was clean. In this place of dirt and rock and fire he was like a vision of an unattainable paradise. He smiled. ‘How are we bearing up, Novice?’
Luca found it difficult to speak. ‘Those troopers who went out of the trench in the first wave. They were children.’ Perhaps some of them had come from the induction camp on New Earth.
‘Think of it in terms of efficiency. They are agile, easy to command. But they are poor soldiers. They suffer higher casualty rates than their adult counterparts, in part because their lack of maturity and experience leads them to take unnecessary risks. And their young bodies are more susceptible to complications if injured. But little has yet been invested in their training.’
‘So they are expendable.’
‘We are all expendable,’ Dolo said. ‘But some are more expendable than others. They will not suffer, Luca: if it comes, death here is usually rapid. And if they see their fellows fall they will not grieve; their childish empathy has been beaten out of them.’ The Virtual floated closer to Luca, studying his face, close enough for Luca to see the graininess of the pixels. ‘You are still thinking this is inhuman, aren’t you? The evolution of your conscience is proving a fascinating study, Novice. Of course it is inhuman. All that matters are the numbers, the rates of mortality, the probabilities and cost of success. This is a statistical war – as wars have always been.’
There was a piercing whistle-like blast over the comms unit. Virtual Dolo popped out of existence, grinning.
A few of the child soldiers scrambled back over the trench’s lip – a very few, and several of them were nursing injuries. More troops came scurrying like files of rats along the trench. Soon there was a double line of them, most carrying hand weapons or tools, peering up at the sky.
For a few heartbeats everybody was still, waiting.
Bayla was beside Luca, as intent as the rest. Luca whispered to her, ‘What was the last thing you did before we left the bio facility?’
‘I sent my daughter a Virtual.’
A daughter. Sons and daughters, like family life in general, were strictly anti-Doctrinal. ‘Where is she?’
‘On New Earth. I told her how as a baby she laughed when she looked at my face. How she slept in my arms, how we bathed together. I told her that when she grows up and wants to know about me she should ask her father or her aunt. Whatever becomes of me, she must never think of herself as a child without a mother. I will always be watching her.’
‘From your place at Timelike Infinity,’ he hazarded.
‘I want her to be good, and to be the kind of person others would like. But I told her I was sorry that I had been a poor mother, an absent mother. When she was very small she had a doll, a soldier. I carry it with me as a good-luck charm.’ She patted her dust-covered tunic. Luca saw a slight bulge there. ‘This way she is always with me. The last time I saw her was during my last leave on New Earth. She was with the other children. They lined up to wave flags and sing for us. It’s burned in my mind, her face that day. I told her that when she hears of my death she should be happy for me, for I will have achieved my ambition.’
‘You embrace death, but you dream of your family.’
Bayla glanced at him. ‘What else is there to do?’
Another piercing shriek in Luca’s comms unit. No, it was a word, he realised, a word yelled so loud it overwhelmed the system itself. In response there was a muffled roar – more voices, thousands of voices, shouting together, maybe every trooper on the Rock.
Bayla raised her hand again, watching lights flash on her sleeve. ‘Wait, wait.’ The cherry-red light in the sky was growing brighter, shading to pink. It was like a silent, gathering sunrise, as if the Rock was turning to face some vast source of heat, and the noise rose in response.
Bayla brought her arm chopping down.
The first row of troopers swarmed forward, struggling to get out of the trench. Red light flared. Most of them fell back immediately, broken, limp, gases venting from ruined suits, and the yelling was broken now by screams of pain. Without hesitation the second line pushed after the first. They trampled on the fallen bodies of their comrades, even those who still moved, pushing their way over flesh and dirt to get to the lip of the trench. But they fell back in their turn, as if their bodies were exploding. Yet another line of troopers gathered and began to rush over the lip of the trench.