Joe Haldeman - Forever Peace

• Название: Forever Peace
• Автор: Joe Haldeman
• Жанр: Научная Фантастика

Copyright © Joe Haldeman 1997

Version 1.0

1998 Hugo Award Winner

1999 Nebula Award Winner

This novel is for two editors: John W. Campbell, who rejected a story because he thought it was absurd to write about American women who fight and die in combat, and Ben Bova, who didn't.

Caveat lector: This book is not a continuation of my 1975 novel The Forever War. From the author's point of view it is a kind of sequel, though, examining some of that novel's problems from an angle that didn't exist twenty years ago.

---

She turned the corner and said a quiet prayer. A child was playing alone on the sidewalk. A gift from the Lord.

WE WERE LYING IN bed talking when the console chimed its phone signal. It was Marty.

He was weary but smiling. "They called me out of surgery," he said. "Good news, for a change, from Washington. They did a segment on your theory on the Harold Burley Hour tonight."

"Supporting it?" Amelia said.

"Evidently. I just saw a minute of it; back to work. It should be linked to your data queue by now. Take a look." He punched off and we found the program immediately.

It started out with an optical of a galaxy exploding dramatically, sound effects and all. Then the profile of Burley, serious as usual, faded in, looking down on the cataclysm.

"Could this be us, only a month from now? Controversy rages in the highest scientific circles. And not only scientists have questions. The police do, too."

A still picture of Peter, bedraggled and forlorn, naked from the waist up, holding up a number for the police camera. "This is Peter Blankenship, who for two decades has been one of the most highly regarded cosmologists in the world.

"Today he doesn't even know the right number of planets in the Solar System. He thinks he's living in the year 2004-and is confused to be a twenty-year-old man in a sixty-four-year-old body.

"Someone jacked him and extracted all his past, back to that year. Why? What did he know? Here is Simone Mallot, head of the FBI's Forensic Neuropathology Unit." A woman in a white coat, with a jumble of gleaming equipment behind her. "Dr. Mallot, what can you tell us about the level of surgical technique used on this man?"

"The person who did this belongs in jail," she said. "Subtle equipment was used, or misused; microscopic AI-directed investigation shows that they initially tried to erase specific, fairly recent, memories. But they failed repeatedly, and finally erased one huge block with a surge of power. It was the murder of a personality and, we know now, the destruction of a great mind."

Beside me, Amelia sighed, almost a sob, but leaned forward, studying the console intently.

Burley peered directly out of the screen. "Peter Blankenship did know something-or at least believed something, that profoundly affects you and me. He believed that unless we take action to stop it, the world will come to an end on September fourteenth."

There was a picture of the Multiple Mirror Array on the far side of the Moon, irrelevant to anything, tracking ponderously. Then a time-lapse shot of Jupiter rotating. "The Jupiter Project, the largest, most complex scientific experiment ever conducted. Peter Blankenship had calculations that showed it had to be stopped. But then he disappeared, and came back in no shape to testify about anything scientific.

"But his assistant, Professor Blaze Harding" – an inset of Amelia lecturing – "suspected foul play and herself disappeared. From a hiding place in Mexico she sent dozens of copies of Blankenship's theory, and the high hard mathematics behind it, to scientists all over the world. Opinions are divided."

Back in his studio, Burley faced two men, one of them familiar.

"God, not Macro!" Amelia said.

"I have with me tonight Professors Lloyd Doherty and Mac Roman. Dr. Doherty's a longtime associate of Peter Blankenship. Dr. Roman is the dean of sciences at the University of Texas, where Professor Harding works and teaches."

"Teaching isn't work?" I said, and she shushed me.

Macro settled back with a familiar self-satisfied expression. "Professor Harding has been under a great deal of strain recently, including a love affair with one of her students as well as one with Peter Blankenship."

"Stick to the science, Macro," Doherty said. "You've read the paper. What do you think of it?"

"Why, it's ... it's utterly fantastic. Ridiculous."

"Tell me why."

"Lloyd, the audience could never understand the mathematics involved. But the idea is absurd on the face of it. That the physical conditions that obtain inside something smaller than a BB could bring about the end of the universe."

"People once said it was absurd to think that a tiny germ could bring about the death of a human being."

"That's a false analogy." His ruddy face got darker.

"No, it's precise. But I agree with you about it not destroying the universe."

Macro gestured at Burley and the camera. "Well, then."

Doherty continued. "It would only destroy the Solar System, perhaps the Galaxy. A relatively small corner of the universe."

"But it would destroy the Earth," Burley said.

"In less than an hour, yes." The camera came in close on him. "There's no doubt about that."

"But there is!" Macro said, off camera.

Doherty gave him a weary look. "Even if the doubt were reasonable, and it is not, what sort of odds would be acceptable? A fifty-fifty chance? Ten percent? One chance in a hundred that everyone would die?"

"Science doesn't work like that. Things aren't ten percent true."

"And people aren't ten percent dead, either." Doherty turned to Burley. "The problem I found isn't with the first few minutes or even millenniums of the prediction. I just think they've made an error extrapolating into intergalactic space."

"Do tell," Burley said.

"Ultimately, the result would just be twice as much matter; twice as many galaxies. There's room for them."

"If one part of the theory is wrong – " Macro began.

"Furthermore," Doherty confined, "it looks as if this has happened before, in other galaxies. It actually clears up some anomalies here and there."

"Getting back to Earth," Burley said, "or at least to this solar system. How big a job would it be to stop the Jupiter Project? The largest experiment ever set up?"

"Nothing to it, in terms of science. Just one radio signal from JPL. Getting people to send a signal that will end their careers in science, that would normally be hard. But everybody's career ends September fourteenth, if they don't."

"It's still irresponsible nonsense," Macro said. "Bad science, sensationalism."

"You have about ten days to prove that, Mac. A long line is forming behind that button."

Close-up on Burley, shaking his head. "They can't turn it off too soon for me." The console went dead.

We laughed and hugged and split a ginger ale in celebration. But then the screen chimed and turned itself on without my hitting the answer button.

It was the face of Eileen Zakim, my new platoon leader. "Julian, we have a real situation. Are you armed?"

"No-well, yes. There's a pistol here." But it had been left behind, like the ginger ale; I hadn't checked to see if it was loaded. "What's up?"

"That crazy bitch Gavrila is here. Maybe inside. She killed a little girl out front in order to distract the shoe guard at the gate."

"Good grief! We don't have a soldierboy out front?"

"We do, but she patrols. Gavrila waited until the soldierboy was on the opposite side of the compound. The way we've reconstructed it, she slashed up the child and threw her, dying, up against the sentry box door. When the shoe opened the door, she cut his throat and then dragged him across the box and used his handprint to open the inner door."

I had the pistol out and threw the dead bolt on the door. "Reconstructed? You don't know for sure?"

"No way to tell; the inner door isn't monitored. But she did drag him back into the box, and if she's military, she knows how the handprint locks work."

I checked the pistol's magazine. Eight packs of tumblers. Each pack held 144 razor-sharp tumblers-each actually a folded, scored piece of metal that shatters into 144 pieces when you pull the trigger. They come out in a hail of fury that can chew off an arm or a leg.

"Now that she's in the compound – "

"We don't know that for sure."

"If she is, though, are there any more handprint locks? Any monitored entrances?"

"The main entrance is monitored. No handprints; just mechanical locks. My people are checking every door."

I winced a little at "my" people. "Okay. We're secure here. Keep us posted."

"Will do." The console went dark.

We both looked at the door. "Maybe she doesn't have anything that can get through that," Amelia said. "She used a knife on the child and guard."

I shook my head. "I think she did that for her own amusement."

GAVRILA HUDDLED IN A cabinet under a laundry sink, waiting, the M-31 cradled, ready to fire, and the guard's assault rifle digging into her ribs. She had come in through a service door that was open to the night air, and locked it behind her.

While she watched through a crack, her patience and foresight were rewarded. A soldierboy slipped silently up to the door, checked the lock, and moved on.

After one minute, she got out and stretched. She had to either find out where the woman was staying or find some way to destroy the whole building. But fast. She was ridiculously outnumbered, and in gaining the advantage of terror she had sacrificed the possibility of surprise.

There was a beat-up keyboard and console, gray plastic turning white with some kind of soap film, built into the wall. She went over to it and pushed a random letter, and it turned itself on. She typed in "directory" and was rewarded with a list of personnel. Blaze Harding wasn't there, but Julian Class was, at 8-1841. That looked like a phone number, rather than a room number.

Guessing, she rolled a pointer over to his name and clicked on it. That gave her 241, more useful. It was a two-story building.

A sudden loud rattling startled her. She spun around, pointing both weapons, but it was just an unattended washing machine that had been dormant while she was hidden.

She ignored the freight elevator and shouldered though a heavy FIRE EXIT door that opened on a dusty staircase. There didn't seem to be any security cameras. She climbed quickly and quietly up to the second floor.

She thought for a moment and left one of the weapons by the door on the landing. She only needed one for the kill. Besides, she'd be retreating fast, and might want an element of surprise. They would know she had the guard's assault rifle, but probably didn't know about the M-31 yet.

Opening the door a crack, she could see that the odd-numbered rooms were across from her, numbers increasing to the right. She closed her eyes for a deep breath and a silent prayer, and then burst through the door in a dead run, assuming there were cameras and soldier-boys in her near future.

There were neither. She stopped at 241, took a fraction of a second to note the class nameplate, leveled the assault rifle, and fired a silenced burst at the lock.

The door didn't open. She aimed six inches higher and this time blew out the dead bolt. The door opened a couple of inches and she kicked it the rest of the way.

Julian was standing there, in the shadow, holding the pistol straight out with both hands. She spun away instinctively as he fired, and the burst of razors that would have beheaded her instead just tore out a piece of her left shoulder. She fired two random blasts into the darkness-trusting God to guide them not to him, but to the white scientist she was there to punish-and leaped back out of the way of his second shot. Then she sprinted back to the stairwell and just got through the door as his third shot redecorated the hall.

There was a soldierboy waiting there, hulking huge at the top of the stairs. She knew from picking Jefferson's mind that the mechanic controlling it probably had been brainwashed so it couldn't kill her. She emptied the rest of the magazine into the thing's eyes.

The black man was shouting for her to throw out her weapon and come out with her hands up. All right. He was probably the only thing between her and the scientist.

She toed the door open, ignoring the soldierboy groping blindly behind her, and threw out the useless assault rifle. "Now come out slowly," the man said.

She took one moment to visualize her move while she eased back the arming lever of the M-31. Shoulder-roll across the corridor and then a continuous sweeping burst in his direction. She leaped.

It was all wrong. He got her before she hit the ground,. an ungodly pain in her belly. She saw her own death happening, a thick spray of blood and entrails as her shoulder hit the floor and she tried to complete the roll but just slid. She managed to get up on her knees and elbows, and something slimy fell out of her body. She fell over facing him, and through a darkening haze raised the weapon toward him. He said something and the world ended.

I SHOUTED "DROP IT" but she ignored me, and the second shot disintegrated her head and shoulders. I fired again, reflexively, blowing apart the M-31 and the hand that was aiming it, and turning her chest into a bright red cavity. Behind me, Amelia made a choking sound and ran to the bathroom to vomit.

I had to stare. She didn't even look human, from the waist up; just a messy montage of butchered meat and rags. The rest of her was unaffected. For some reason I held up my hand to block out the gore and was a little horrified to see that her lower body was in a relaxed, casually seductive pose.

A soldierboy slowly pushed the door open. The sensory apparatuses were a chewed-up mess. "Julian?" it said in Candi's voice. "I can't see. Are you all right?"

"I'm okay, Candi. I think it's over. Backup coming?"

"Claude. He's downstairs."

"I'll be in the room." I walked back through the door on automatic pilot. I'd almost meant it when I said I was okay. I just turned a human being into a pile of steaming meat, hey, all in a day's work.

Amelia had left the water running after washing her face. She hadn't quite made it to the toilet, and was trying to clean up the mess with a towel. I set down the pistol and helped her to her feet. "You lie down, honey. I'll take care of this."

She was weeping. She nodded into my shoulder and let me guide her to the bed.

After I cleaned it up and threw the towels into the recycler, I sat on the end of the bed and tried to think. But I couldn't get past the horrible sight of the woman bursting open three times, each time I pulled the trigger.

When she silently threw the rifle out, for some reason I knew she would come through the door shooting. I had a sight picture and the trigger halfway pulled when she leaped out into the corridor.

I'd heard a pattering sound, which must have been her silenced weapon blinding Candi. And then when she threw it out without hesitation, I guess I assumed it was empty and she had another weapon.

But the way I felt as I eased down on the trigger and waited for her to show herself... I had never felt that way in the soldierboy. Ready.

I really wanted her to come out and die. I really wanted to kill her.

Had I changed that much in a few weeks? Or was it actually change? The boy was a different case, an "industrial accident" that I didn't completely cause, and if I could bring him back, I would.

I wouldn't bring Gavrila back except to kill her again.

For some reason I remembered my mother, and her rage when President Brenner was assassinated. I was four. She hadn't liked Brenner at all, I learned later, and that made it worse, as if she had some complicity in the crime. As if the murder were some kind of wish fulfillment.

But that wasn't close to the personal hate I felt for Gavrila-besides, she was almost not human. It was like disposing of a vampire. A vampire who was single-mindedly stalking the woman you loved.