Orphan's Journey Read online

  I peeked backward over my shoulder, to locate the Chinese.

  When I looked forward again, a fridge-sized boulder jutted from the snow ahead. At eighty, even ninety, I might have steered around it.

  Pow.

  The ground-effect skirt clipped the boulder, and the GATr corkscrewed skyward. A ground-hugging GATr is unhittable. But an airborne GATr becomes a clay pigeon for a slider cannoneer.

  I cranked back the throttle, but the GATr floated on above the ridge line, barrel-rolling for endless seconds against the clear Tibetan sky. The slider gunners down in the valley adjusted aim, and fired.

  Proximity-fused cannon rounds detonated, the nearest forty feet behind me. My faceplate blackened against the flash, then the shock wave hammered the sled. Shrapnel crackled off my armor like tin rain.

  The ridge’s backside was a cirque, the bowl from which a glacier begins. I tumbled through space, beyond the bowl’s vertical end cliff. Below me, boulders on the ice looked smaller than spilled pepper.

  The sled spent its momentum, so I hung momentarily in the sky, like a holotoon coyote.

  The ’Puter slurred its last words. “Recommended maximum altitude two feet. Current altitude two thousand six hundred twenty feet.”

  Silence turned to wind howl, louder and louder as I fell, until I heard nothing. Just as well. I screamed all the way down.

  Three

  Four months later, I sat in my private room at New Bethesda Naval Hospital, while my Rehab chair flexed the hip and knee joints at both ends of my repaired femurs, and a nebulizing tube circulated antibiotic mist through my regrown lung. Eternad armor kept the fall in Tibet from killing me, Ord kept the Chinese infantry from killing me, and the State Department, of all people, sprung me from China before socialized medicine could kill me.

  Things were looking up. Until my therapist decided I was well enough to receive visitors.

  My second visitor was Lieutenant General Nathan M. Cobb. General Cobb was my commanding officer. For the second time in my career.

  The first time had been fourteen years ago, during the Battle of Ganymede. Then, a Slug round had left him naturally blind, and had left me in temporary charge of saving the human race.

  The last four years, tied by his wounds to a Pentagon desk, Nat Cobb dispatched me, and others under him at Army Advisory Command, to romantic foreign climes, all of which smelled like urine.

  There we trained partisans—and regular troops—aligned with American interest. Meaning we fomented or unfomented revolutions, coups d’état, or insurrections, wherever the United States deemed justice needed serving. Proving that justice was blind, though Nat Cobb now read faster with his Virtulenses than a naturally sighted English major.

  Before General Cobb arrived, my first visitor was a Quartermaster Colonel. Thin and bald, he wore a chestful of non-combat ribbons. He inquired after my health, then commented on the weather.

  I said, “What’s up, Colonel?”

  He sat down, flicked on a lap display, and kept his eyes on it. “General, you are Commander of the Fourth Military Advisory Team (Detached).”

  I nodded. MAT(D)4 was actually Ord and me, but it sounded like the Army of the Potomac.

  “Sir, before you enplaned en route to Nepal—”

  “Tibet.” I pointed at my slowly flexing legs. “All this happened after the Zoomies pushed us out over Tibet.”

  “Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China, Sir. You weren’t there.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I don’t suppose you know what happened to a Sherpa named Tensing, then?”

  “I have no information on Chinese Nationals, Sir.” The Colonel whispered a recall code and a document flashed up in the air between us.

  “Tensing thought he was a Tibetan, not a Chinese National.”

  “At all events, before you enplaned en route to—shall we say, your previous duty station—as MAT(D)4’s Commanding Officer, you thumbed for the standard equipment load.” He pointed at a scrolling form.

  “Sure. That’s my name under my thumbprint.”

  “As you know, what a Commander can’t sign back in, he reimburses the Army for. Normal wear and tear excepted.”

  “So?”

  The Colonel squirmed in his chair, then red-clicked a serial-numbered document line. “The Inspector General’s office has brought to our attention that a ground-effect attack transport signed out to you may have suffered abnormal wear.”

  I tried to shrug. “If you call cliff-diving abnormal.”

  He scowled.

  I said, “It was a combat loss.”

  “You were non-combatants in a non-combat zone.”

  My eyes bulged. “Me? Pay? You know what GATrs cost?”

  “To the dime.”

  My monitor beeps sped up, as I pointed at the IV tube curling from my forearm. “You want my blood? Line up. The test orderly already sucked today’s pint.”

  The Colonel switched off his audio recorder. “Take it easy, General. Show’s over.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I had to give you the lecture. Now listen up. Sir.” He was twenty years my senior, but I wore stars. “As of now, you’re thumbed out for that GATr.”

  “I never denied that.”

  “It won’t officially show up missing until you thumb MAT(D)4’s load back in, and the inventory turns up light.”

  “So?”

  “Where MAT(D)4 goes, that equipment goes. As long as MAT(D)4 is field-deployed, Quartermaster never inventories. Just keep MAT(D)4 in the field for a year and a half.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Stay of execution?”

  “Better. The first GATr Mark IIs are already coming off the production lines. In eighteen months, the Mark I you wrecked will be obsolete.” He waved a hand, and his display vanished like a magician’s rabbit. “Once the GATr Mark I is declared obsolete, we’ll write its book value down, and declare ’em all surplus.”

  “That’s stupid. They’ll still be top-drawer weapons.”

  “Of course. But Military Advisory Command is authorized to resell surplus abroad, cheap. India will buy anything, if it’s cheap enough. India badly wants Tibet as its Himalayan buffer from China. So India will buy, then quietly resell, the GATrs, at India’s cost. Which is?”

  “Cheap?”

  He smiled. “Who to? To those Tibetan rebels you’re so concerned about. Result? Your rebels will get top-drawer weapons. Coincidentally, your bill for that wrecked GATr will drop to less than a week’s pay.”

  I cocked my head. “Why are you doing me favors?”

  “I’ve never been shot at. I respect soldiers who have. The Army’s a big family, General.”

  “We are a family. Sorry I got pissy.”

  He pointed at my rebuilt legs, and smiled. “I’d get pissy too.”

  I smiled back. “I respect what you put up with, too, Colonel. Paper pushing’s the hell of command.”

  He stood with his display, then raised his eyebrows. “Really, Sir? I’d have thought the hell of command was ordering your family to die.”

  An hour later, my therapist led General Cobb in. He sat in a padded turquoise hospital chair across from me, Class-A’s crisp across his thin shoulders, chin high, lenses humming as they echo-located. “You look good, son.”

  After four months on my butt, I looked like unbaked bread.

  “Spoken like a blind man. Sir.”

  Nat Cobb chuckled. “Both of us are high-mileage units now, Jason.” His smile faded. “Leave us, please, Lieutenant.”

  General Cobb spoke to the room, but my therapist nodded, fluffed my pillows, and warned me to avoid sudden movements and emotional upset.

  She stepped out and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Nat Cobb adjusted his lenses.

  Then he sighed. “What were you thinking?”

  “Sir?”

  “Are we at war with China?”

  “Americans don’t know how China raped Tibet for the last century. Or we might be.”

  T
he general turned his head to the ceiling. “Americans know Greater China is two billion people. People who build 76 percent of our cars, and 94 percent of our holosets! Did Congress delegate its war powers to you?”

  I swallowed. “I guess you’re not here to pin a Purple Heart on my pillow.”

  “Your pillow?” He stood, turned, and stuck out his butt, bony as ever under his uniform trousers. “Last six months, the Foreign Relations Committee’s chewed this ass nine times. It’s me should be sitting on a pillow!”

  I gulped. Nat Cobb was a plain-spoken GI’s general. I’d never heard him raise his voice to a subordinate before.

  “The Chinese shot first, Sir. Ask Ord.” I leaned forward. “I heard he—”

  “He’s fine. Except for the case of Dumbass he caught from you. He told me you provoked the Chinese.”

  I studied a bandaged finger. “Sort of.”

  “I didn’t pair you with the best Non-Com in the Army so he could dig you out of some hole I can’t even pronounce.”

  “Bergschrund. It’s the crevasse where a glacier pulls away from its head wall.”

  “Whatever. If Ord hadn’t held off the Chinese, you’d be wolf shit now.”

  “What kind of shit am I now?”

  General Cobb stabbed the air in my general direction. “Don’t get smart!” He sat back, then sighed again. “Jason, what do I do with you now?”

  “We both know I’m not General Officer material. I’m a mediocre Company-Grade officer, with rank for show.”

  General Cobb pointed between my eyes. “Moose shit! I had you snuck into Command and General Staff College twice. You weaseled.”

  “My aptitude scores—”

  “Are so high you can define bergschrund! You just think administration and logistics are boring.”

  “No. I just think they’re hypocrisy. You wouldn’t believe the scheme some Quartermaster weasel laid on me an hour ago.”

  “I would. You’re not the first pup I’ve had that weasel bail out.”

  “Oh.”

  He sighed again. “Yes, command requires bureaucratic hocus-pocus. And you’re half right about your rank. You kept your field promotion because the world owed you—”

  “The world owed the soldiers who died, not me.”

  “And because a hero Major-General Adviser impresses Host Advisees. They usually get a middling Captain.”

  “Which is what I really am. So let me keep doing what I’m suited for.”

  “Suited for? Peru?”

  “He was a butcher.”

  “Kazakhstan?”

  “They were going to stone those women to death.”

  “That shoot-out in Sudan?”

  “Okay. Maybe I’m not suited for advising.”

  “The Pentagon thinks you’ve cowboyed up once too often. They think you’re suited for forced retirement.”

  I stiffened. Most people would think retirement on a Major General’s pension would suit a thirty-something bachelor. But the Slug War had cost me my family, the woman I loved, and more friends than I could count. The Army was the only family I had.

  I leaned forward. “No!” Something hissed in my chest. I coughed, which felt like gargling tacks. The monitor howled.

  My therapist tore the door open, like a first-grade teacher policing a food fight. She pointed, first at General Cobb, then at me. “The taxpayers paid to regrow that lung once. You two juveniles buy the next one.”

  She backed out, eyes narrow, then slammed the door.

  General Cobb waved his hand, palm down. “Easy, son.”

  “Sir, you know the Army’s all I’ve got. I’d die to save another GI.”

  “That’s exactly your problem.”

  “I should have let those Sherpas die?”

  He leaned forward. “If that would have saved the mission. For which they chose to bet their lives. Yes.” He stared down into his hands. “You’ve heard me say that rifleman is the world’s hardest job. The truth is, sending riflemen to die is harder. But more vital. Jason, the Army may be a big family, but command is an orphan’s journey.”

  “I know about being orphaned.”

  General Cobb pressed his lips together. Then he said, “So you do. That’s why I convinced the brass that you were worth salvaging. They approved an alternate assignment. An old friend of ours actually requested you. It’s a slush tour. Just buying you time to grow up, and buying the Army time to sweep your private wars under the rug.” He tugged his Chipman from his uniform jacket, and keyboarded faster than a Stenobot while he talked.

  “What if I never want to grow up and throw GIs into the meat grinder?”

  “The Army doesn’t want Peter Pan. Neither do the soldiers who depend on their commanders to spend their lives wisely.” He shook his head. “This is no debate, Jason. Grow up. Or ship out. Besides, this posting’s where you and Ord can’t get into trouble.”

  Old Nat had saved what remained of my ass! I nearly smiled. “There’s a place left on Earth where I can’t get into trouble?”

  General Cobb downloaded the orders he’d typed onto my Bedside Reader, then patted my arm as he turned to leave. “No. Oh, no.”

  In the doorway, he nearly bumped my therapist, then he pulled her head close to him and whispered.

  She stepped back into my room.

  I asked, “Did he tell you to re-break my legs?”

  “No. He told me to tell you something he forgot to mention.”

  I frowned.

  “He said to tell you, ‘Tensing, wife, and baby are fine.’ Good news?” She smiled.

  “Excellent.” I smiled at her. She was very pretty. “You should take special care of me. I’m really a pretty good guy.”

  “Actually, the General said all that, too.”

  Over the next two months, I worked up a monster crush on my therapist. The morning Bethesda discharged me, I asked her to dinner. She shook her head, patted my cheek, and said she thought of me more as a brother.

  The last pretty girl who had told me that was the first person I spoke to when Ord and I got to our new duty station.

  Four

  Three days after my therapist harpooned me, I stared at the Himalayas again. From twenty-three thousand miles up, through four inches of quartz porthole, Earth’s mightiest mountains were just brown-and-white wrinkles, with the blue Bay of Bengal shining to the south.

  I flexed fingers that had death-gripped my armrest since takeoff. I liked spacecraft. I just hated space. I suppose that was because the last few times I traded a perfectly good planet for space, some disaster had shot me out into cold vacuum. Once explosively decompressed, twice shy.

  Ord, in the seat beside me, tapped the rigid shoulder beneath my civvies. He pointed forward. “Almost there, Sir.”

  I looked up, then sucked in gardenia-scented cabin air. Holo shows couldn’t do justice to New Moon. It revolved against black space, enormous, carrying the weight of its five thousand inhabitants, but as delicate as three side-by-side bicycle tires. And so white that I blinked. Cocooned in the tires’ center turned their common axle, the elongate, blue-black spider that was the Firewitch.

  The attendant floated down the cabin aisle, dealing red silk arrival kits left and right. As she floated, she repeated, alternating Chinese and English, “Thank you for choosing New Moon Clipper.”

  I smiled. Some choice. I felt fine. But New Bethesda wouldn’t guarantee my regrown lung against military-launch G-forces, yet. Therefore, the taxpayers had flown Ord and me up commercial, like the plush vacationers with whom we shared the Clipper’s eight seats.

  Across the aisle sat a tycoon and his wife. He had spent the flight puffing the attendant how he owned all the Empress Motor dealerships in Western Pennsylvania, while she smiled and nodded.

  The tycoon shook his head at his wife, as the Clipper drifted toward its mooring. “Look at that! Our room’s subsidizing half that boondoggle.”

  Ord raised his eyebrows to me.

  One of New Moon’s three rings wa
s the Great Happiness-Hyatt New Moon. Its small rooms were strictly tycoon posh. But even the overall naming rights, for which Sino-American Lodging had paid The Brick, didn’t cover New Moon’s light bill.

  Neither did the revenue generated by bike tire number two, the Multi-Use Ring. Multi-Use housed Holo Bouncers, overhead imaging, electronic snoops, vacuum-optimized manufacturing, medical research and rehabilitation, and a protruding observatory called the Hubble Bubble, named after a pioneer-days telescope.

  No, mankind’s first permanent outpost in intralunar space existed strictly because of the alien war prize that formed New Moon’s core. That captured Pseudocephalopod Fighter-Escort, UN phonetic designator “Firewitch,” would teach mankind to fly to the stars.

  Or so the Intel Spooks persuaded Congress. America, in turn, funded New Moon under the table, via the United Nations Space Force.

  U.S. tax dollars subsidized New Moon’s commercial window dressing, not the other way around. The deadbeat Chinese handled Firewitch research participation just like they handled technology development of everything from last-century submarine propellers to Drive-by-Wire Hover Nano’Puters. They let America finance the discovering, then tried to steal the results.

  Therefore, New Moon crawled with more MSS agents than the Chinese Spook academy. This meant that the Firewitch, and bike tire number three, a.k.a. the Spook Ring, to which the Firewitch was joined, were off-limits to Happiness-Hyatt’s guests. As if they cared.

  The tycoon’s wife shuddered. “I hate seeing that Slug thing.”

  “You won’t. I sprung for outboard views. But we should visit the Memorial.” The tycoon shrugged. “History and all.”

  His wife shuddered again. “I hope it’s just history.”

  He patted her hand. “It’s been sixteen years. Even that kid general must be over thirty. Wonder where he wound up.”

  The wife rummaged through her silk arrival kit, and fished out a real-glass lotion bottle. “Look, dear! Lily de Chine!” She cocked her head. “I’m sure he found a nice girl and they had a family.”

  We passengers nodded forward as the Clipper bumped New Moon’s mooring collar. The nicest girl I ever knew was also the best pilot anybody ever knew. She would have flown the Clipper in without a nudge. But she died. No family.