Rogue Clone: The Clone Betrayal Part 20

Thomer nodded. "Like swimming underwater and suddenly getting your first breath of air."

"Yeah, right, like getting your first breath of air," I said, impressed with Thomer's a.n.a.logy. It was too good an a.n.a.logy. I would not have expected it from a Fallzoud jockey.

"Colonel Doctorow, what did you mean by the bard of Norristown?" Thomer asked.

"In a figurative sense, I am in charge because I am a singer of epic verses," Doctorow said.

"Is that what you do?" asked Thomer. He felt comfortable around Doctorow. Clearly they had bonded during their mission to the mines.

"You seem to be the man in charge," I said.

Doctorow told me the history that I had missed. He talked about the fall of Norristown and the deaths of over a million soldiers. After the aliens spread their ion curtain around the planet, the Army had managed to hold out for a month. During that entire time, Doctorow remained on active duty, delivering sermons to men who he believed had no souls and blessing the ma.s.s graves of men who he believed had no hope.

"It came to nothing," Doctorow said. "Prayers, works, faith . . . nothing."

"Sounds like you lost your faith," I said. I did not tell him about my misplaced faith. I did not think it mattered.

"Lost my faith?" Doctorow echoed. He shook his head. "I still believe there is a G.o.d, if that is what you mean by faith. But if He is anything like I picture him, He's not much of a shepherd."

"If not a shepherd, then what?" I asked.

"Just a voyeur. Just a cosmic witness. A bystander who probably thinks it's strange that we still call to Him for help when He hasn't done anything to help any of us for thousands of years. He probably hears us calling and laughs."

" 'For with the old G.o.ds things came to an end long ago,' " I said, still spouting Nietzsche. " 'One day they laughed themselves to death.' "

"What was that?" Doctorow asked.

"It's something an old philosopher said," I said. "He said the G.o.ds laughed themselves to death."

"Well, now there's some blasphemous bulls.h.i.+t," Doctorow said.

"There's no need for vulgarity, Colonel," I said, purposely trying to make my voice like Doctorow's when he had corrected me. We all laughed.

" 'G.o.ds laughed themselves to death . . .' You have to admit, it does sound pretty stupid," Thomer said.

I did not say anything. Until that moment, I had always thought it sounded mystical and wise.

Doctorow changed the subject. "Thomer says you're a Liberator clone. Is that right? He says you know you're a clone."

"That's right," I said.

"He says he knows he's a clone, too," Doctorow added.

"We do live in an age of miracles," I said. "So, you were explaining to us how you became the poet of Norristown?"

"Not so much a poet, maybe a historian," Doctorow said. "I recorded the defense of Norristown, one funeral at a time. I was like a New-Age version of Homer recalling the siege of Troy. Now you've come along and changed the ending of the story." He paused, pulled out his fourth beer, and chugged it.

"How did you end up in charge?" Thomer asked.

"Most of the line officers died. Some took their own lives. That left me the highest-ranking man on base.

"When the fighting died down, the people came to Fort Sebastian looking for protection; and I . . . I gave them the best advice of all. I told them not to fight. At the time, I told them to trust in G.o.d because G.o.d would protect them.

"As it turned out, we didn't need G.o.d to protect us. Once we stopped taking up arms, the aliens went away."

"Maybe that was how G.o.d protected them," Thomer said. We both stared at him. This was his night for deep thoughts.

"You're defending G.o.d?" I asked.

"It just seems like that's how G.o.d works," Thomer said, sounding defensive.

"That was how I rose from a chaplain to leader. Funny, it happened so gradually that I never stopped to think about it."

"So are you governor of Norristown or the whole planet?" I asked.

"I don't know," Doctorow said, thinking the question over. "I've never been outside of Norristown. We lost contact with the rest of the planet."

"Why did you put all those girls in that building?" Thomer asked.

"They're orphans," Doctorow said. "We put them there so we could keep them safe."

"Safe from whom?" I asked.

"Just safe," Doctorow said.

"The building I was in, was that a dorm for orphan boys? Were they just trying to keep themselves safe when they rigged the walls with explosives?" I asked. "They almost killed me."

"They weren't trying to hurt you, Captain Harris. They barricaded the door with a propane canister from their kitchen. It was the heaviest thing they could find. Fortunately for all of us, they were already running for the fire escape when you tossed your grenade at the door." He chuckled. "That kind of behavior is another reason why we would prefer for you to build your base away from Norristown."

PART III.

THE RISE OF THE SCUTUM-CRUX FLEET.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

Usually I rode in the c.o.c.kpit, but on the ride back from Terraneau, I chose to ride in the kettle with what was left of my men. We had two transports and eighty-three men-counting pilots. The whole lot of us would have fit comfortably on one transport; divided between two birds, the gaps were conspicuous.

I sat near the rear in an especially dark corner of the cabin, sneaking glances around the kettle and browbeating myself for our losses.

"Captain Harris, do think you can find your way to the enlisted man's bar?" Private Roark asked me. I'd noticed Roark on the way down to Terraneau, he was one of those life-of-the-party types.

I heard what he said, but it sounded like he had spoken in a foreign language. Go have a drink with the men, always a good move for morale . . . a.s.suming they want to have a drink with you. Why would they want to drink with me? I was the man who sent them out to die.

Just a day earlier, I'd told Hollingsworth I would smuggle these men into the officers' club. Now I wondered if he took that as a reward or a punishment.

I looked up at the kid but did not speak. This shook his confidence. He waited several seconds, then added, "We're going to celebrate, sir."

The Kamehameha's two thousand enlisted Marines shared a single bar, a drinking hole I knew well. These men had fought hard, now it was my turn to make a show of strength. "Are we talking a one-shot deal, or are you boys planning to pull an all-nighter?"

"I can't speak for anybody else, but I'm staying till I'm too drunk to find my rack," Roark said.

"I may be late," I said. Now that I thought about it, I liked the idea of downing a few beers with the boys, but the drinks would have to wait. My priorities might have been all wrong, but they were all mine.

Roark nodded and went back to join his friends.

I heard the sigh of the boosters and knew that we had entered the docking bay. My heart thumped in my chest. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. So did testosterone, I suppose; but the reflex I was experiencing had nothing to do with combat. The landing gear clanked and groaned as we landed, and I sprang to my feet.

"Thomer, see that the gear is unloaded," I said, as we taxied through the locks.

"Yes, sir."

"If anybody asks for me, tell them I will handle debriefings tomorrow."

"Aye, aye."

The miserable doors of the kettle ground open so slowly. I did not wait until they slid all the way apart. As soon as I could squeeze through the gap, I trotted down the ramp and out the docking bay. My men probably thought I needed to get to a bathroom.

And, in a way, I did.

Men saluted me as I rushed down the hall. I returned their salutes and hurried on. I was a Marine on a mission. I reached my quarters and opened the door to find an empty room with a neatly made bed. The door closed behind me.

"Ava," I called in a soft voice.

Nothing.

For a moment, and just a moment, I worried that something had gone wrong. That thought pa.s.sed quickly. I opened the bathroom door and switched on the light. Hearing a faint gasp, a sound so soft I could easily have missed it, I turned toward the shower.

The bedroom appeared clean and completely untouched, but the bathroom looked lived in. A bouquet of empty MRE pouches filled the wastebasket, a set of utensils lay in the sink, and a shadow moved behind the gla.s.s of my shower stall door.

"If you don't come out of there, I'm going to have to come in," I said.

I heard a soft giggle, and the water in the shower began to run.

"So that's how it's going to be," I said. I pulled the shower door open, and there she was, dressed in a tank top and panties, allowing the warm water to splash her hair and back. She looked at my combat armor, and said, "Honey, I was hoping you would be hard, but this is ridiculous."

We showered together, and we made love. Afterward, we lay in bed. I stroked her wet hair and kissed her. Dreading her reaction, I told her I needed to go to the bar for drinks with my men, but she just c.o.c.ked an eyebrow and smiled.

"You're not upset?" I asked.

"I will be if you come back empty-handed."

I drank with my boys and grabbed a few beers before leaving the bar. On my way back, I stopped by the mess hall and picked up food for two. By the time I made it back to my quarters, I had a small salad, sandwiches, fruit c.o.c.ktails, cheese-cake, and four beers.

Always cautious, Ava remained hidden in the bathroom when I entered. Instead of calling out to her, I spread our meal across my desk.

I called out, "I hope you're hungry," and out she came.

She looked at the food, then looked at me with her "this is better than s.e.x" smile, and I knew that I had graduated from benefactor/lover to friend.

Ava and I ate together and talked. She wanted to know everything that happened on Terraneau. I told her about Herrington first, then about the rest of my men. She squeezed my hand and stopped eating, but said nothing.

I thought that was the perfect response. If she had tried to empathize with me, she would have driven me away. I had been through something she could not possibly comprehend.

When I asked what it was like hiding out in my quarters, she said, "I talked to myself. I hid in the bathroom talking to myself, and I never ran out of things to say. It beat living with Teddy. At least I had somebody to talk to."

"What did you talk about?"

"With Teddy?"

"When I was gone," I said.

"I talked about you," she said. "I talked to myself about every man I have ever been with, and I compared them to you."

By this time we were in bed, both of us naked. I had my arms around her. She felt warm. "How did I do?"

"Uhm?" she purred.

"How did I do?" I asked.

"Now, what kind of question is that?" she asked.

"An honest one," I said.

"Harris, I never thought of you as the insecure type."

"I have my moments," I said. I pulled her in even tighter than before, so that everything from our shoulders to our thighs pressed together.

"Ouch," she cooed.

"Are you going to answer me?" I asked.

"I don't know why I would," she said. "If I say you are better than any of them, you won't believe me. If I say some of them were better than you, you'll get jealous. I think I'll just plead the First."

"The right to free speech?" I asked.

"The right to tell you to shut the speck up, Harris."

"Oh," I said. We lay there in each other's arms. I wondered how I matched up with Ted Mooreland. When I began to feel insecure, I thought about how I compared to General Smith. As my thoughts drifted, I started to fall asleep.

"I wasn't telling you to let me go," Ava complained. I had not actually let her go, but I had loosened my grip around her. "What is it like down there?"

I told Ava about the building with the orphan girls. I told her how my men found it and how Doctorow had tried to protect it. When I finished, she laughed, and said, "It sounds terrible, like a monastery."