Planet Wrecker

-12-

Yezhov’s death leaked out, and that infuriated Hawthorne.

“It’s possible there’s a traitor among the bionic soldiers?” he told Mune, a week after the incident.

They walked in a botanical garden in New Baghdad, on the Fifth Level. The lamps overhead shined brightly and with heat. It caused Hawthorne’s shirt underneath his uniform to stick to his sweaty skin. A glance at Mune showed an undisturbed captain.

Hawthorne wondered if Mune resented what the surgeons had done to him. The captain had artificial muscles, his bones were laced with titanium reinforcements and his nerves ran through plastic tubes instead of their natural sheathes. Added glands secreted various drugs, giving him heightened reflexes, strength and the ability to heal more quickly than a normal man could. It surprised Hawthorne that he’d never questioned Mune about it. He’d taken so much for granted with the captain. Did Mune feel sympathy for the cyborgs or a connection to the Highborn? If Mune did not, might not some of the other bionic soldiers question why they continued to fight for the losing side?

“I’ve considered the possibility of traitors, sir,” Mune said.

Hawthorne frowned, noticing movement in the distance. Moving a frond, he spied a gleam of metal several hundred meters away.

Mune turned that way. “It’s a cybertank, sir.”

“I’m aware of what a cybertank looks like, Captain. Why is it here?”

“Security, sir.”

“Is this your doing?” asked Hawthorne.

Mune inclined his head. “I approved Specialist Cone’s suggestion, sir. You said she had first-rate clearance and that I had full authority concerning your security.”

“You’re correct on both counts,” Hawthorne said. “But a cybertank—this is the garden level. It’s almost seems obscene to have the cybertank’s treads clanking among the experimental plants.”

Mune glanced toward the cybertank, but kept any opinions to himself.

“Hmm,” said Hawthorne. “Cone’s right. I must maintain tighter security. I just hope all these extra guards doesn’t smack of cowardice on my part.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I wish you would show cowardice sometimes.”

“Captain?”

“It would make my task much easier, sir. You’re far too likely to enter a combat zone. Level Fifty-Three would be a good example of that, and your insertion into the assault on PHC Headquarters.”

“I must keep my hand on the pulse, and sometimes that entails risk.”

“If you say so, sir.”

Hawthorne opened the top button and pulled at his uniform, trying to let some of his body-heat escape. “Have you taken any measures among your men?”

“Loyalty tests, sir?”

“We’re not PHC,” Hawthorne said.

“I’ve made discrete inquires,” Mune said. “And I’m handpicking a group for you, sir.”

“What kind of group?”

“You need a guard team, sir.”

“I already have that.”

“When you enter a combat zone you have such a team, or usually when you enter one. My suggestion is that you maintain such a team at all times, giving them license to shot down anyone suspicious.”

“Hmm. Such a team can quickly turn into my jailors. I prefer you around me, Captain, and leave it at that.”

“I’m honored, sir. But the truth is that I might not be enough now. The ongoing campaign against PHC has turned ugly and desperate.”

Hawthorne turned away from Mune. Craning his neck, he looked up at the sunlamps. The heat felt good, even if it did cause his clothes to stick to him. He had acted too precipitously, he saw that now.

“We’re being squeezed,” Hawthorne said, as he let the sunlamp’s heat beat against his face. “Years of losing ground, as the Highborn tighten a noose around our collective throats—”

Hawthorne faced Mune. “I’m out of ideas.”

“I’m not sure I believe that, sir.”

Hawthorne looked back up at the sunlamp. “I’m not talking about tactical battlefield surprises, but original ideas that approach this from a new angle. Yezhov had ideas. He killed Highborn in a degenerate fashion, but it was new and frankly, inventive. As for me—we fought the Highborn to a standstill at Mars. It changed nothing. Earlier, we struck at the Sun-Works Factory, to little effect. My grand plans have delayed the enemy, but I’ve done nothing to reverse the direction of the war.”

“The Highborn have problems, too, sir,” Mune said. “We just don’t know what they are.”

“Don’t use my own words against me. That’s too depressing today.”

“You’ve implemented plans that have contested every inch of ground,” Mune said. “The emergency construction of more proton beams and the mass merculite missile sites were entirely your ideas, sir. Without you—”

“We must beat them back,” Hawthorne said. “I don’t know how to beat them back. Now everything threatens to unravel because I’ve started an underground war with PHC. I don’t dare let up or they’ll devour me on the rebound. The military will lose morale if I retreat. No. It’s them or me, and I intend to come out victorious.”

“I’ve thought about the attack on Yezhov, sir. Why would PHC personnel kill their chief?”

“He was going to tell me everything he knew, or the mind-scanner would have revealed it.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but you’d just countermanded the order. The doctor injected him then.”

“The doctor might have injected Yezhov during the operation to ensure his silence. Since he thought the chance had passed, the doctor attacked when he did.”

“You saw the doctor’s face, sir. In my opinion, he was no longer rational.”

Hawthorne began to unbutton his uniform before he had a heatstroke. There was rot in Social Unity and it was growing. Maybe there had always been the rot, and maybe there was in any human organization. Now the endless defeats versus the Highborn and the growing pressure made the rot more noticeable. Somehow, he had to burn out the gangrene and then find a way to stiffen North American Sector.

Don’t lie to yourself, James.

He had to drive the Highborn from Earth orbit. That was the only true way to win the war. Yet how could he achieve such a miracle? The strongest SU Battlefleet remained in Mars orbit. Yet those remaining warships dared not travel here and face the Doom Stars a second time.

What were the cyborgs doing in Neptune? Had they attacked the Saturn System as some reports indicated? The cyborgs had attacked the Jovian System, but failed to take it. That was interesting for several reasons.

The cyborgs…there were altered people on Earth—proto-cyborgs. The proto-cyborgs had similar brainwave patterns as found in the SU Battlefleet after the Highborn retreated. Who had altered these people on Earth? The evidence pointed to PHC. The evidence was also mounting that cyborgs were here, and they were always dangerous to human life.

After wiping sweat from his face, Hawthorne fanned himself. He’d struck at Political Harmony Corps and found it to be like the hydra that Hercules of the Greek myths had battled. Each time Hercules had cut off a hydra head, another two had grown in its place. If he couldn’t kill PHC, he had to call a truce with them. Which was the better decision?

“I need to call a meeting,” Hawthorne said.

“The Directors are clamoring for one.”

“I’ll talk with Danzig and Juba-Ryder, but none of the others.”

“The others will take that as a slight, sir.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to repeat my own words to me?”

“You did, sir. You also told me to always tell you the truth—that you trusted truth-tellers more than you did yes-men.”

“I wouldn’t mind a few yes-men now and again,” Hawthorne said.

“You would hate them, sir, and they would weaken your position.”

“Danzig and Juba-Ryder, call the two old Directors. I want Specialist Cone there, Crowfoot—” Hawthorne asked, “What’s the situation on Director Danzig?”

“Extremely comprising,” said Mune.

Hawthorne shook his head. “I’m getting slow and forgetful. Hmm. I’ll give you the rest of the names in an hour, and then I’ll see them tomorrow. Today….” Hawthorne stared up at a sunlamp. He needed ideas, but he was fresh out of them. Maybe the meeting tomorrow would jog something in him, but he doubted it. He dreaded the possibility that all initiative had left Social Unity for good. He dreaded the nearly certain truth that all he could look forward too was the relentless grind of defeat as he bitterly hung on for as long as he could.