wash
spreading beneath it. He kept shambling toward the forest, ignoring
the treacherous ground. When he was safe he paused to watch the
humans tumble off their boat and link up with the craft that had
landed to either side. The burning station splashed them with eerie
light.
Deeth recognized them. They were Force Recon, the cream of the
Confederation Marines, the humans’ best and meanest. Nothing
would escape their circle.
He cried for his parents, and Rhafu, then wiped the tears away
with the backs of his fists. He trudged toward the forest,
indifferent to the fact that the humans might spot him on
anti-personnel radar. Each hundred steps he paused to look
back.
Dawn was near when he passed the first trees. They rose like a
sudden palisade, crowding a straight line decreed by the
station’s planners. He felt as though he had stepped behind a
bulwark against doom.
Once his ears had recovered he had heard stealthy movements
around him. He was not alone in his flight. He avoided contact. He
was too shaken, and had too poor a command of the slave tongue, to
handle questions from animals. The wild ones used a different
language. He expected to have less trouble passing with them. If he
could find them.
One found him.
He was a quarter-mile into the forest when a raggedy, smelly old
man with a crippled leg pounced on him. The attack was so sudden
and unexpected that Deeth had no chance. His struggles earned him
nothing but a fist in the face. The blow calmed him. He bit down on
a tongue that had been damning the old man in High Sangaree.
“What are you doing, please?” he ventured in the
animal language.
The old man hit him again. Before he could do more than groan, a
sack had been flung over his head, skinned down to his ankles, and
tied shut. A moment later, head downward and miserable, he was
hoisted onto a bony shoulder.
He had become booty.
----
----
Thirteen: 3052 AD
My father had an unusual philosophy. It was oblique,
pessimistic, fatalistic. Judge its tenor by the fact that he read
Ecclesiastes every day.
He believed all existence was a rigged game. Good strove with
Evil in vain. Good could achieve occasional localized tactical
victories, but only because Evil was toying with it, certain of
final victory. Evil knew no limits. In the end, when the scores
were tallied, Evil would be the big winner. All a man could do was
face it with courage, fight though defeat was inevitable, and delay
the hour of defeat as long as possible.
He did not see Good and Evil in standard terms. The Good and
Evil most of us see he simply considered matters of viewpoint. The
“I” is always on the side of the angels. The
“They” are always wicked. He thought an absolute
Islamic-Judeo-Christian Evil a weak, irrational joke.
Entropy is an approximate cognate for what Gneaus Julius Storm
called Evil. An anthropomorphic, diabolic sort of entropy with a
malign lust for devouring love and creativity, which, I think, he
considered to be the main constituents of Good.
It was an unusual outlook, but you have to accept that it was
valid for him before you can follow him through the maze called the
Shadowline.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
----
----
Fourteen: 3031 AD
Storm, Cassius, and the dogs crowded into an elevator. It
dropped away toward the Traffic Control and Combat Information
Center at the planetoid’s heart.
Benjamin, Homer, and Lucifer whirled when their father entered
the Center. Storm surveyed their faces grimly. The glow of the
spatial display globes, overplayed by the changing light keys of
the tactical computer’s situation boards, splashed them with
ever-changing color. No one spoke.
Storm’s sons stared at their feet like shamed boys caught
playing with matches. Storm half turned to Cassius, eye on the
senior watchstander. Cassius inclined his head. The officer would
have to explain his failure to report ships in detection. He would
be reminded of his debt to Gneaus Storm. It would be a
spreading beneath it. He kept shambling toward the forest, ignoring
the treacherous ground. When he was safe he paused to watch the
humans tumble off their boat and link up with the craft that had
landed to either side. The burning station splashed them with eerie
light.
Deeth recognized them. They were Force Recon, the cream of the
Confederation Marines, the humans’ best and meanest. Nothing
would escape their circle.
He cried for his parents, and Rhafu, then wiped the tears away
with the backs of his fists. He trudged toward the forest,
indifferent to the fact that the humans might spot him on
anti-personnel radar. Each hundred steps he paused to look
back.
Dawn was near when he passed the first trees. They rose like a
sudden palisade, crowding a straight line decreed by the
station’s planners. He felt as though he had stepped behind a
bulwark against doom.
Once his ears had recovered he had heard stealthy movements
around him. He was not alone in his flight. He avoided contact. He
was too shaken, and had too poor a command of the slave tongue, to
handle questions from animals. The wild ones used a different
language. He expected to have less trouble passing with them. If he
could find them.
One found him.
He was a quarter-mile into the forest when a raggedy, smelly old
man with a crippled leg pounced on him. The attack was so sudden
and unexpected that Deeth had no chance. His struggles earned him
nothing but a fist in the face. The blow calmed him. He bit down on
a tongue that had been damning the old man in High Sangaree.
“What are you doing, please?” he ventured in the
animal language.
The old man hit him again. Before he could do more than groan, a
sack had been flung over his head, skinned down to his ankles, and
tied shut. A moment later, head downward and miserable, he was
hoisted onto a bony shoulder.
He had become booty.
----
----
Thirteen: 3052 AD
My father had an unusual philosophy. It was oblique,
pessimistic, fatalistic. Judge its tenor by the fact that he read
Ecclesiastes every day.
He believed all existence was a rigged game. Good strove with
Evil in vain. Good could achieve occasional localized tactical
victories, but only because Evil was toying with it, certain of
final victory. Evil knew no limits. In the end, when the scores
were tallied, Evil would be the big winner. All a man could do was
face it with courage, fight though defeat was inevitable, and delay
the hour of defeat as long as possible.
He did not see Good and Evil in standard terms. The Good and
Evil most of us see he simply considered matters of viewpoint. The
“I” is always on the side of the angels. The
“They” are always wicked. He thought an absolute
Islamic-Judeo-Christian Evil a weak, irrational joke.
Entropy is an approximate cognate for what Gneaus Julius Storm
called Evil. An anthropomorphic, diabolic sort of entropy with a
malign lust for devouring love and creativity, which, I think, he
considered to be the main constituents of Good.
It was an unusual outlook, but you have to accept that it was
valid for him before you can follow him through the maze called the
Shadowline.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
----
----
Fourteen: 3031 AD
Storm, Cassius, and the dogs crowded into an elevator. It
dropped away toward the Traffic Control and Combat Information
Center at the planetoid’s heart.
Benjamin, Homer, and Lucifer whirled when their father entered
the Center. Storm surveyed their faces grimly. The glow of the
spatial display globes, overplayed by the changing light keys of
the tactical computer’s situation boards, splashed them with
ever-changing color. No one spoke.
Storm’s sons stared at their feet like shamed boys caught
playing with matches. Storm half turned to Cassius, eye on the
senior watchstander. Cassius inclined his head. The officer would
have to explain his failure to report ships in detection. He would
be reminded of his debt to Gneaus Storm. It would be a
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