“Yeah.” Sergeant Singh gazed up at the sun. “I figure we’ve maybe two hours of sunlight left.”
“The night vision gear was all built into the armor.”
“Yeah,” Singh repeated. “We don’t want to be stumbling around in the dark. Let’s get moving, people. We need a place to fort up by nightfall.”
As they moved back into the tree line, Goldera paused to look around.
“You see anything?” Johansen asked him.
“Nah. Haven’t seen anything but what passes for birds and squirrels here.” Goldera hesitated, scanning the horizon. “Still feels like they’re out there, though.”
“Keep an eye out,” Johansen said, then moved alongside Singh long enough to pass on what Goldera had said. Singh only grunted in reply, and Johansen fell back again as the tiny column reached the trees and then turned to move upstream.
They found it when the sun was only a short ways above the horizon. The bluffs on either side of the river’s lowland had risen enough to form a rift between them. The woods dwindled near the edge of the rift, leaving an area almost open along the sides before the land fell away abruptly into bottomland with the river snaking along roughly through the center. Singh and the others wormed forward on their bellies toward one edge of the rift until Singh could raise his field glasses to examine the small cluster of buildings constructed to human standards, while they all lay as concealed as possible by the sparse vegetation.
After a moment, the sergeant cursed softly and lowered the glasses. “Power focus. Great stuff until the power dies. Anybody got charged batteries?”
Without rising, Archer held out one hand toward Burgos, who took what she held and passed it to Stein, who handed the batteries to Johansen who gave them to Singh. After the sergeant replaced the batteries in his field glasses, he passed the worn out batteries from them back along the chain until Archer got them and slid them into charging slots on her comm unit.
Focusing again, Singh stayed motionless for a long time, then finally passed the glasses to Johansen. “What do you think?”
Johansen focused, trying not to expose himself too much to any watchers. “It looks intact.” The compound was dominated by a low-slung one-story structure that apparently combined living quarters and offices. From here that main building looked substantial, with thick walls of compressed dirt and a heavy roof of reinforced metal with built-in solar cells. The rest of the buildings, including a small livestock shed, were of much simpler construction, just stamped metal set on concrete pads.
“See any sign of Izkop?”
“No. No sign now, and no sign they’ve been there. Maybe once the civs left the Izkop didn’t bother with it.” One of the doors to the main building swung idly in the wind. “It looks abandoned…or someone wants it to look abandoned.”
Something moved among the buildings and Johansen stiffened as he watched, the others falling into tense silence. As the thing moved fully into sight, Johansen almost laughed with relief. “A cow. There’s still a cow alive down there.”
“A cow.” Singh made it a statement, gesturing for the return of the field glasses, then studied the animal. “A cow,” he confirmed, lowering the glasses. “Not one of the local herd beasts. A milk cow, Earth-livestock.”
“Milk?” Adowa did laugh very softly, her face lowered into the dirt to muffle the sound. “Too bad I’m lactose intolerant.”
Singh didn’t smile in return. “A milk cow. Abandoned here. It wouldn’t have been milked for some time. But it seems content.”
“You know cows, Sarge?” Goldera asked.
“My family’s neighbors had some.” Singh looked at Johansen. “After only a few days, an unmilked cow would be very uncomfortable.”
“Somebody’s been milking it?”
“Yes. Would an Izkop do that? Could an Izkop do that without the cow panicking? Stein, didn’t your family have a ranch?”
“Yeah, Sarge.” Stein’s large face creased slowly in thought. “No. If what the briefers told us is right, cows wouldn’t like the Izkop, and cows can be damned skittish even with people.”
“Could there still be people down there?” Archer asked.
“Either there are, or it’s another Izkop trap,” Johansen said. “You’ve still got nothing on the comm unit?”
“No. If any civs survived, they’re staying silent.”
Singh looked back at them all. “We go down there, or we go on.”
“Go on? Where?” Nassar wondered.
“Nothing any better than this, and nothing we can reach with less than another full days walk, if we could find it.”
Johansen sighed and checked his weapon. “I’m getting tired of walking, and it’ll be dark soon. We might as well see what’s here.”
Burgos licked her lips, her eyes fever bright. “If there’s Izkop, maybe it’s just a small force. We can wipe them out.”
Singh pointed one finger at her. “Or there’s ten thousand of them within sound of a shot. Nobody fires without my orders.”
“Yeah, Sarge,” Burgos muttered, her expression sullen.
“You go spindizzy on me and I’ll shoot you myself, got it?” Singh kept his eyes on her, hard and demanding.
Burgos flushed. “I said yes, sergeant.”
Fortunately, the compound was on this side of the river so they didn’t have to splash through the water and mud. Tired as they were, the soldiers still moved carefully toward the buildings, only two moving at a time while the others covered them. Once inside the bluffs the flatland around the river was covered with short, round bushes with sparse leaves that caused Stein to mutter “tumbleweeds,” but the area inside the human-built compound had only short grass growing.
Johansen came up against the main building, his rifle at ready, his back to the wall right next to the open doorway where the door still swung lazily in occasional gusts of wind. Adowa crouched on the other side of the door, raising her weapon questioningly. Johansen shook his head, then looked back to where Singh and the others were lying in the grass, their weapons aimed at the windows and doors of the building. He pulled out his combat knife, took a deep breath to fight down a wave of fear, then spun around the corner and inside, once again planting his back against the wall with the knife at the ready before him.
A figure moved, jerking to one side with a gasp of fright. Johansen swung the knife’s point that way even as his mind shouted human. “Who are you?” Johansen demanded.
Instead of replying to his question, the figure rose, resolving into a woman who stared at him in disbelief. “Are you a soldier?”
“Yes, ma’am. Any Izkop here?”
“No.” She looked anguished for a moment, then swallowed and steadied. “We haven’t seen any here since the recall. We’ve been unable to contact Amity since then.“ Her expression changed. “We heard what sounded like explosions in the distance this morning. In the direction of Amity.”
Johansen just nodded. “We? You’re not alone here?”
“No. There’s two other adults and ten children. The others are in the back rooms.”
Finally relaxing, Johansen leaned out the door to wave an all clear and beckon to the others.
The other soldiers came on carefully, still dodging forward until each darted inside the doorway. As he waited for them and watched for trouble, Johansen saw that the building’s interior consisted of a big main room which stretched all the way across its width and perhaps a third of the way back, where an inside wall showed hallways and doors leading to what must be living quarters and offices. A series of big windows ran along the front and partway down the sides, but only two doors were visible, the main entry and a side door. The tables and chairs inside had been pushed around, and the big flat display on the back wall sat dark and silent. Singh entered last, studying the room somberly.
The woman had gone to the back and came out again with two other civilians, both men, one young and the other well past middle-age. “I’m Ariana Tisrok,” she said. “This is Juni
Garios and Scorse Kalinga.”
“Sergeant Singh,” he introduced himself. “Suppose you tell us what happened here?”
Ariana slumped into a chair. “We don’t know much.”
The younger man named Juni nodded. “We received the recall. Everybody was to report back to Amity on an emergency basis. But the truck we have here was out on a research run.” He hesitated, his eyes going to Ariana, then Scorse. “It had, um, four people with it.”
“Including my husband,” Ariana said in a low voice. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “We tried calling our truck. Nothing. We tried getting a fix on its position, but the transponder was out. It should have been back before sundown that day but it never showed. We called Amity, to tell them we needed a ride and asking for more details. We never heard any reply. My – the people with the truck would have been able to walk back here within a day if it had broken down.”
“Our truck might’ve made it to Amity,” Scorse said stubbornly. “My wife –“ He stopped talking for a moment. “They might have made it to Amity,” he repeated, the simple statement sounding like a prayer.
“What reason did Amity give for the recall?” Singh asked.
The researchers exchanged glances. “Something about crowds of Izkop. Large numbers of them,” Juni finally offered. “’Tribal situation uncertain.’ That was the last thing I heard.”
“What were you supposed to do if the Izkop turned hostile?”
“Hostile?”
“Yes,” Singh said patiently. “If the Izkop attacked, what were you supposed to do?”
“The Izkop attacked?” Ariana asked.
Johansen didn’t quite suppress an inarticulate grunt of disbelief at the question. Rather than answer Ariana directly, Singh pointed upward. “The regional base at Mandalay, about ten light years from here, got an emergency pulse from the human base on this planet through the quantum entanglement comms. Those can’t provide details, but it was the most urgent emergency pulse that could be sent, the one that calls for military assistance as quickly as possible. We’re from the on-call battalion at Mandalay. They loaded us on the Saratoga and we jumped here. Once inside the star system we started picking up messages your people had begun sending over a week before, talking about danger from the Izkop and requesting emergency protection.”
The three civilians looked at each other in amazement, then Juni faced Singh again. “We never heard those messages. Not long after the recalls, the satellite relays went down, and without those we haven’t been able to pick up anything.”
“You don’t have an emergency transmitter/receiver?” Archer asked.
“Yes, but –“ Juni gave the other civilians an embarrassed look. “It was stored in one of the sheds. Everything in that shed got ransacked and smashed the night after we heard the recall, before we knew the relays were down.”
“So the Izkop know you’re here?” Johansen asked.
“We don’t know that the Izkop were responsible for that.”
“Who else could have done it?” Ariana asked. “The Izkop knew we were here then. In the days since we’ve tried to make it look like we left, because…there wasn’t much else we could do.”
“And because you insisted on it,” Juni grumbled.
“If we’d been alone,” Scorse said, “we’d have set out for Amity on foot, but not with ten children to worry about.”
“Ten children?” Singh asked. “Are they all yours?”
“None of them are ours. It was a field trip,” Ariana explained. “Normally we wouldn’t have children here. They were staying for a few nights.”
“No other adults or transport with them?”
“The two adults escorting the children were also out with our truck. An all-terrain bus brought the children in and was supposed to pick them up three days later. It’s not that long a drive from Amity.”
Adowa, who had been leaning against one wall peering suspiciously out a window, now looked at Ariana. “It’s a long walk. How many kids were still in Amity?”
“None. A few teens. All of the preteens are here.”
“The Izkop hit the valley while all the kids were here?”
“I suppose - Hit?” Ariana stared at Adowa, then at Singh. “The Izkop attacked Amity?”
All of the other soldiers looked at Sergeant Singh, who exhaled heavily before replying. “Yes.”
“Did they kill anyone?”
Burgos made a choking sound.
Singh nodded twice. “There’s nothing left living at Amity except Izkop. Lots of Izkop. They blew up the buildings there, they self-destructed the equipment, and they seem to have burnt out everything in orbit.”
None of the civilians spoke for a long moment. Ariana recovered first. “They’re…all…dead?”
“Yes, ma’am. As far as we know, the only humans left alive on this planet are in this building.”
“I…I don’t…” Juni made a baffled gesture. “If the Izkop are that dangerous, why did your commander only send eight of you here? And on foot?”
The sergeant spoke carefully. “I said every human still alive is here. We’re all that’s left of our unit. The Izkop were waiting for us. They turned your systems on us and took down the big ship that brought us, as well as about half the dropships carrying us to the surface. Half the battalion died that way. The Izkop swarmed the other dropships and anyone who got out onto the surface. Nobody had time to form up before they got overrun, so our individual firepower advantage wasn’t enough.”
The civs fell silent again. Juni just sat as if unable to absorb the news. Ariana kept blinking back tears. Scorse put his face in his hands, shuddering with what seemed like anger rather than grief, then shot to his feet, his eyes blazing. “You got away!” Scorse accused. “How the hell did you get away? You just ran, didn’t you? You left everyone else to die and –“
He stopped talking as the barrel of Burgos’ rifle came to rest a millimeter from his nose. “Shut up,” she breathed.
“Private Burgos.” Singh’s voice was calm and authoritative. “Stand down.”
She held the weapon in the man’s face a moment longer, then stepped back, lowering it. “If you say that again, I’ll kill you,” she told Scorse in a cold voice. “We fought.”
“Stand down,” Singh repeated. “Sir, I would strongly advise you not to question the courage of my soldiers. We left most of our platoon dead and barely shot our own way out of there. There was nothing else we could have done but die on the spot. Now, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hold out here until another ship gets in. When the Saratoga doesn’t send a routine status pulse back to Mandalay they should send another ship to check on things. If we’re lucky, someone could be here in a week.”
“And if we’re not lucky?” Juni asked.
“Then we’re all dead,” Adowa said. Singh glared at her but she just bared her teeth in a fierce, humorless smile. “They ought to know, Sarge.”
Ariana shook her head, her expression torn between grief and denial. “How could it have happened? If the Izkop pressed us, we were to withdraw. Pull back from contact until the misunderstanding or whatever was resolved. They knew we weren’t here to stay, to colonize or conquer.”
“Maybe some of the Izkop didn’t get the word on that,” Nassar commented from his watch post near another window.
Singh gave him a flat look which shut up Nassar, then turned back to the civilians. “How many Izkop have you seen around here?”
“The first day after the recall, we observed a few,” Juni offered in the voice of a man coming out a daze. “Out in the hills, while we were looking to see if the truck was coming in. Before that, there’d been a lot of Izkop movement. The satellites tracked many Izkop moving toward Amity.”
“Didn’t that worry anybody?”
“There were varying interpretations about the meaning of the Izkop movements. I…don’t know what they did at Amity,” Juni mumbled.
Singh leveled a finger at Goldera. “It’s almost sunset.
Get out there and do a scout while we’ve still got some light. Nassar, watch his back. I want to know what you see around this place, especially whether there’s signs that the Izkop are watching it.”
“Okay, Sarge.” Goldera slipped out the door, followed a moment later by Nassar.
Singh sat down, gesturing this time to Johansen and Adowa. “Keep an eye on the outside. Burgos, you and Stein check out this compound. Carefully and quietly. I want to know how it looks from a defensive standpoint. No firing at anything. Archer, run a full diagnostic on that comm unit. That’s our only lifeline for calling the relief ship when it gets here. Nothing better happen to it. Now, I understand you civilians have been in for an awful shock, but I’d like a better idea of what happened. Are you sure you don’t have any idea why the Izkop went spindizzy?”
“No,” Juni said, hunched over as he sat staring at his hands. “What you describe is uncharacteristic. The Izkop have ceremonies which to outside observers can replicate aggression, but they haven’t shown any radical deviations from standard behavioral modes.”
“Ceremonies. They haven’t been acting aggressive?”
“No. Not that I’ve heard or observed. The Izkop are well integrated into their environment and have no need to manifest authentic belligerent group behaviors.”
Ariana shook her head. “I believe the Izkop are an actively aggressive culture, but they haven’t acted aggressively toward us. There’s been some pushing of our limits, but nothing serious.”
Singh raised one eyebrow. “Pushing your limits?”
“In terms of our equipment, asking more about it. At first they wouldn’t ask at all, then gradually they got more interested and wanted to know more. Over time we’d show them a little more, to build bonds of trust and ensure they knew these were simply technological devices.”
“They haven’t pushed,” Juni objected. “They just ask. They’re manifesting natural curiosity about new factors in their environment.”
“What about when you said no?” Singh asked. “How did the Izkop react to that?”
Ariana spread her hands helplessly. “I doubt anyone ever simply said no. We’re researchers. We’ve been trained in nonviolent conflict resolution. When the Izkop press us on something we divert them or find a way to address their concerns or whatever is necessary to keep the situation from escalating.”