armor and fatigues, it looked like business as usual around the University of Valhalla. It had the right number of warm bodies walking its yards, they just happened to be soldiers instead of students.
The Corps of Engineers was out in force erecting rocket launchers. It would take days to get them ready for combat. If we managed to keep the Avatari out of the campus during the first attack, the batteries would be ready in time for the second. I just hoped some of us would be around to arm them.
Newcastle had teams of soldiers placing machine-gun nests and barricades all over the school. Checking the skyline, I saw blinds for snipers on rooftops. I thought about the exploding bullets Freeman made for himself and wished we could all arm ourselves with bullets like that.
Using sandbags to redirect the water, the Army converted storm drains into pillboxes along the main drag. The muzzles of high-caliber machine guns peered from beneath culverts and behind drains.
We came to the administration building, a three-story brick-and-plaster affair with useless pillars and an ornamental balustrade along its flat roof. Squirrels jumped on the bare branches of the elm trees on either side of the entrance.
We parked the car, and Everley spoke for the first time since we had left the barracks. He said, “Shit,” because he locked his keys and cap in the car. He tried the handle several times, then gave up. “Shit,” he repeated.
“Lost your keys?” I asked as I came around the car.
“Forget it, Lieutenant,” he said. He walked past me and headed into the building. I followed. We headed up the stairs to the third floor. General Glade had set up shop in the dean’s office. Through the open door, I could see him sitting behind the desk, staring into space.
Everley knocked on the doorjamb, then peered in. “I’ve got him, sir.”
Glade swiveled around and said something softly that I could not hear.
“Go on in,” Everley said, stepping out of my way.
I walked in, stopped two feet from the desk, and saluted. The salute hurt; my right shoulder felt like it might never heal.
“Everley says you were too busy to talk this afternoon,” Glade said. He sounded angry.
“I was laying mines,” I explained. Now that I said it, the excuse sounded weak.
“I served under Bryce Klyber for fourteen years. Did you know that?”
Klyber was the officer who developed the Liberator cloning program. He did that as a young officer, more than fifty years ago. Until his untimely death, he watched over my career. He mentored me and protected me from Marines who would have gladly killed me simply for being a Liberator clone. Klyber was murdered by a fellow officer during the Mogat War.
“I did not know that, sir,” I said.
“Just about every senior officer in the Navy or the Marines served under Klyber at some time or another, Harris. If he liked you, you could count on a long and successful career. I was a captain when I reported for duty on the
The
“By the time they transferred me to Brocius’s command in the Central Cygnus Fleet, I was a colonel. From captain to colonel in fourteen years; you could say that’s a good rate of promotion.”
I had actually made the jump from private to colonel in under five years, but that was another story. Since that time, Admiral Brocius had demoted me to sergeant, then re-promoted me to lieutenant. At least Glade held on to his promotions.
“I hear you spent a lot of time with Klyber,” Glade said. “The way I hear it, you were something of a son to him …as close to a son as he ever got, I suppose. He did create your kind.
“Me, Harris, I have three sons of my own. I’m not looking for a surrogate. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a Marine who gets things done, and that earns you some leeway. You’re efficient, I’ll give you that, but you’re not a real officer. Only natural-borns qualify as officers in my book, Lieutenant. You may be the last of your kind, but you are still a clone …just a clone. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“When I send an officer, a natural-born officer, to call you in, you will show him proper respect. Do you understand me? You will specking well drop what you are doing, whatever you are doing, and report. Do you read me, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why did it take Everley so specking long to get you this evening?” Glade asked.
“I stopped off for a sandwich,” I said.
“Maybe I’ve been too lenient with you, Lieutenant,” Glade said.
“There’s no question about that, sir,” I said.
“What the speck is that supposed to mean?” Glade asked.
“It means, sir, that I am ready to resign my commission. More than four hundred thousand clones have died out there without even knowing what they were up against. You don’t like clones, sir; and I don’t like the kind of antisynthetic asshole natural-borns they make into officers. If you want my commission, you go right ahead and take it …sir.”
Granted, I pushed General Glade way too far, but I didn’t care. That was what Mark Philips had said when I asked if he wanted to get himself killed. He looked me in the eye, and said, “I don’t care anymore.” Maybe you could communicate suicidal tendencies like a virus.
Glade must have thought I was bluffing. He said, “If you are tired of command, I can have you busted down to private.”
“I wish you would,” I said. “You might want to stand me in front of a firing squad while you’re at it. The way things are going, General, you wouldn’t even be shaving a week from my life.”
“What’s the matter with you, Harris?” Glade asked. “Are you trying to get busted down?”
“General, every time we head into battle, I watch good men die thinking they’re in a fair fight. You might not consider clones human—”
“You’ve got me wrong—”
I interrupted the general’s interruption. “If you don’t mind, sir, I would be happier as an enlisted man. I’m sick of running errands for you and the Science Lab.”
General Glade sat staring at me. He paused for just a moment, just a fraction of a second, then said, “But we need you.”
CHAPTER FORTY
The next time the Avatari came, we knew they were coming even before the first of their troops emerged from the spheres. Freeman had rigged a rudimentary early-warning system by placing photocell-powered sensors near the spheres. When the spheres dilated, the light they gave off powered up the cells and set off the alarms.
Cameras hidden along the path showed the army of glowing specters as it trudged toward town. As always, they did not march in formation. They showed no semblance of organization other than marching in the same direction. They looked like a parade of giant ghosts all cloned from the same pattern.
By the time they reached the outer limits of Valhalla, the Avatari had begun to take on substance. Their brown-black shells were covered with cracks through which yellow light glowed. They each had two arms, two legs, and a chest and shoulders that were far too broad for any man. The features on their faces were flat and impassive. They did not search the area for traps as they walked through the ruins of the first suburb.
They passed burned-out doorways and toppled walls of what had a few weeks earlier been a fashionable neighborhood. Grenades and rockets had left the streets a patchwork of scrapes and holes. The Avatari walked past the scabby remains of once-manicured lawns. They trudged across homes that now existed only as cinder. Gaining weight as more and more tachyons adhered to their forms, the Avatari crushed glass and wood and fragments of brick under their feet.
Abandoned pets still roamed the streets. A fluffy white dog with mangy fur paused to watch them from a few
