we could convince enough of Vince’s Marines that they were clones, maybe we could start a mass death reflex. If one clone believed, maybe they all would. The glands in their brains would secrete their deadly hormone, and the whole crew might die. Maybe we did have a weapon, if enough of them were watching.
One minute later, a silver-gray speck appeared in the blue, cloudless sky. For a moment it looked like an apparition, perhaps the sun reflecting off of a cloud. The transport continued to drop. When we first saw it, the ship may have been twenty miles up and far off in the icy blue horizon. It dropped out of the sky and flew over the forest, and then seemed to float over the camp. All work stopped. The men and women dropped what they were doing and gathered in a group.
I ran down the hatch and gathered Marianne and Caleb. “Wait on the ship,” I said. “You’ll be safer there.”
Marianne nodded. She looked more unhappy than scared. Her forehead was creased with lines, her lips were tight, and her eyes had pleading intensity. Without saying a word, she nodded and turned to the Starliner. Her hands remained on Caleb’s shoulders. She kept her hands on him as they ran to the ship.
I rushed through the crowd and found Archie and his wife standing near the fire pit. “You’d better come with me,” I said. He followed without a word.
Transports were large, clumsy birds, with bloated bellies designed for carrying soldiers. They had powerful shields, thick armor, and nearly indestructible engines, but no guns.
The transport landed in a field in which some women had been planting seeds. First the thruster engines fired to soften the landing. They emitted fiery-hot plumes that baked the soil as the transport rotated in midair so that its ass end pointed toward the camp.
The plumes from the engines dusted over two hoes that were left in the field, lighting their handles on fire. Then the ship settled on its heavy iron skids, packing dirt beneath it. The ship must have weighed thirty tons. Seeing her work ruined, one woman buried her face in her husband’s shoulder and cried.
By the time the ship landed, I had returned to the Starliner. I sent Archie and his wife, Marianne, and Caleb into the very back of the passenger cabin. Turning the other way, I joined Ray in the cockpit to watch.
The rear hatch of the transport opened with a mechanical yawn that reminded me of my past. Out came eight Marines in blood-red combat armor. Government-issue combat armor came in one color: camouflage green. The red armor made no sense. They must have painted it red, but why? Then I remembered the Mogats during the battle for Little Man. They had worn red armor. Lee was emulating the superior forces.
Someone had stenciled THE KING OF CLONES in gold letters above the ramp that led out of the kettle.
I watched this from inside the cockpit with Ray Freeman. “Guess he figured out he’s a clone,” I said.
“You ever get tired of being wrong?” Freeman asked.
The eight men in the red combat gear formed lines on either side of the ramp, their M27s held tight across their chests. Next came the entourage, twenty men in officer uniforms who formed a line at the base of the ramp. As far as I knew, only seven clones had ever been bootstrapped to officer status, and only one of them served in the Scutum-Crux Fleet. But here they were, twenty men with the exact same face, skin, and hair, standing in a perfect row, all dressed as officers.
This ceremonial offloading had a familiar ring. I thought about it for a moment and remembered the way Klyber and his entourage disembarked the time that Lee and I accompanied them as their honor guard.
Last came Vince Lee, dressed in a general’s uniform. He could not have been a general, of course. He stood at the top of the ramp, his bottom lip pursed, his eyes squinting, and surveyed the lines of men before him. Then, walking in a slow, magisterial gait, Lee proceeded down the ramp. It had to be a joke, but I was too afraid to laugh.
The men and women around the camp looked too stunned to speak. One man fell to his knees as if praying, but his eyes were wide open. His wife stood beside him, trying to pull him to his feet. The man ignored her.
One of the men in Lee’s honor guard climbed into the Starliner and shouted, “General on deck!”
Freeman shot him. His body slid down the ramp and landed just about where the other three bodies had landed. Lee looked down at the dead man with a bemused expression.
“I don’t remember inviting anyone to come aboard,” I yelled.
Lee smiled, nodded to his guard, and started up the ramp. “Permission to come aboard?” he yelled. He had a sardonic tone.
“You know what, Lee,” I answered, “I think I’ll meet you down there. I could use a little fresh air.”
Ray, pulling the pin from a grenade, sat down in the copilot’s seat. I walked across the cabin and said, “Archie, do you want to come with me?”
He nodded and we headed down the ramp.
The Vince Lee I knew would never have let his hair grow beyond regulation. He was the ideal image of a Marine with his powerful physique. The man was fanatical about bodybuilding, and not just bodybuilding, but old- style weightlifting.
As Archie and I came down the ramp, I saw the new Vince Lee. This man had hair over the tops of his ears. He had the same glassy-eyed look as the Marine who led the raid. He also had the same recently-starved look about his face. His skin was sallow. He had large dark pockets under the eyes. He also had a few days’ stubble on his cheeks.
“Hello, Wayson,” he said with no enthusiasm as I approached. Then his sneer broke and he smiled. “You’re looking good for a dead guy.” He did not reach to shake hands or salute.
“General Lee?” I asked.
“Let’s see. Two years back I heard you died. A couple of weeks ago somebody told me that you made colonel. I also heard you went AWOL. And here you are alive and well, and trespassing on Unified Authority territory out of uniform. Good men died defending this planet.” His eyes narrowed into slits, then he smiled and his face relaxed. “Give me your ship and we’ll forget you were here.”
“You’ll just fly off and pretend you never saw me?” I asked.
“Something like that,” Lee said.
Behind him, Lee’s entourage stood in a single row. They did not stand at attention, and they whispered among themselves. They all had Vince Lee’s face, though none of them had his muscular physique.
A moment passed, both silent and heavy. “What does ‘king of clones’ mean?” Archie asked.
Vince laughed. “You noticed that, did you? I’m glad.” He turned to me. “I wanted to make sure that you saw it, too. Let’s go for a walk, Wayson. How does that sound?”
“You mind if Archie comes along?” I asked. Vince should have known Archie from the first time the
“Just you and me,” Lee said.
“Isn’t that how they used to kill political prisoners? They’d take them out in the woods and shoot them. You still have a transport filled with Marines out there, don’t you?”
“I guess I do,” said Lee.
I turned to look at Archie. “It might be safer if you wait in the ship.”
He nodded.
“Lock it up until I come back,” I said.
“Glad to see that we trust each other, old friend,” Lee said.
“Semper Fi Marine.” I answered.
Lee laughed. At least his guards did not follow us as we went into the woods.
We crossed into the woods. These were not the same woods we had marched through before the great battle, but they had the same tall trees. Scattered rays of light penetrated the canopy of leaves and needles forty feet above us. The woods were dark and shadowy, and the light formed distinct shafts that slanted here and there.
During our march to the valley that Archie Freeman called “Armageddon,” snipers picked off our scouts and officers. I did not forget this as we walked through a dim glade.
“What happened?” Lee asked. “One moment I heard there was a big naval battle near Earth. I heard they sent their entire fleet, but I figured the
“That just about describes the whole fight,” I said. “The
