Shiva Option

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: "We're going home."

Most humans would probably have seen something funny about a room full of koala bears in military uniforms rising to attention.

Captain Mario Kincaid, TFMC, didn't. Like everyone else in Survey Flotilla 19, he'd come to know the Telikans.

Admittedly, they did look rather like gray-furred koalas, albeit large and long-armed ones. And while their clothing belonged to no human sartorial tradition, it was obviously a uniform. The multi-species Star Union allowed a variety of tailoring that accommodated its full bewildering range of bodily forms. But rank insignia and color schemes were universal, and the officers who stood respectfully as Pinionmaster Haradda Brokken entered wore the black with green trim of the Ground Wing.

And they were all Telikans. The race accounted for a disproportionate percentage of the Ground Wing-the Star Union's planetary-assault arm, for which the Crucians themselves were physically unsuited. But they made up all of the force that was to commence the liberation of Telik. Nobody in the entire Star Union had disputed the rightness of that.

As for Kincaid, he contented himself with a certain satisfaction that they were coming to attention for Brokken with a snap that would almost-not quite, of course-have won the approval of his OCS drill instructor. The Telikans derived no such tradition, nor any military fetishes of any sort, from their own planet-bound history of matriarchal herbivorousness. Encountering the Bugs had done wonders for their pacifism, however, and now that they had a role model in the Terran Federation Marine Corps, the only equivalent of the Union Ground Wing they'd ever known, they'd taken to its customs and usages with the enthusiasm of neophytes. Indeed, Marine officers as high-ranking as these wouldn't have been coming to attention like recruits, even for a lieutenant general, which was approximately what "pinionmaster" meant. (SF 19's linguists had had to reach a bit for Standard English equivalents of some of the Crucian rank titles.)

Brokken, though, was too old a dog to learn the new Terran tricks. She merely waved her officers back to their seats, without saying "as you were" or some such. Then she drew herself up to her full one hundred and seventy-five centimeters-tall for a Telikan, even a female-and gripped the sides of the lectern.

"This is our final conference. Wingmaster Harkka has declared the Telik System secured. Our Terran allies have taken over the responsibility for maintaining fighter cover and hunting down any surviving Demon craft that may still be lurking in the outer system. So, with uncontested control of orbital space now firmly established, we have the go-ahead to commence planetary assault operations."

There was no sound. An emotion for which "anticipation" was too drab a word communicated itself throughout the large chamber without the need for vocalization. Even Kincaid felt the tingle. He wondered what the Telikans felt.

They were aboard one of the transports which had joined Harkka's battered fleet in orbit after the Bug space station had finally died under long-range bombardment. An interorbital shuttle had brought Kincaid here from the flagship. He'd been en route, with the big blue marble of Telik below, before guiltily realizing that in his excitement he'd barely noticed Fujiko Murakuma's uncharacteristically gentle farewell.

I suppose I must've said something back, he told himself. But I can't for the life of me remember what.

Once he'd arrived aboard the transport, he hadn't been surprised to find Brokken already there. The transport had no command-and-control facilities, but none were needed. The pinionmaster wasn't going to direct this assault from orbit. As talnikah, or field CO, she was going down-age, rank, and all-with her troops. That was how the Union Ground Wing's combat mamas-it had been a long time since any Terran Marine had used the officially approved translation "battle mothers"-did things. And even if it hadn't been, Kincaid very much doubted that even a direct order could have kept Brokken in orbit, gazing down at the world of her ancestors while others fought for it.

Now she activated a holo display of that world, and they all studied the symbology that adorned it. Black crosses marked the sites of the Bugs' former planetary defense centers with grim finality. But the room's attention was focused on certain green circles scattered about the planet's fertile areas.

"As you all know," Brokken resumed, "the objective of our initial landing is to secure the Telikan population centers." Naturally, she didn't use any such term as ranches. "We believe our ten divisions, spearheaded by the Special Landing Force, will suffice for this purpose, given the Star Wing's success at mapping the locations of these . . . concentrations from orbit." She met Kincaid's eyes-the only non-Telikan eyes in the room. "And, of course, given the tools with which our Terran allies have supplied us."

Kincaid replied to her look with a smile and an inclination of his head which he hoped conveyed his appreciation. At the same time, he found himself wishing Fujiko were present. She would have produced something elegantly diplomatic like . . .

"BuResearch merely acted on the Union Ground Wing's creative suggestion, Pinionmaster," he said.

Not bad, if I do say so myself, he thought as Brokken inclined her own head in acknowledgment. I even remembered to use her rank title. I haven't earned the right-yet-to address her as talnikah.

Still, a stubborn honesty made him admit that he'd merely said what he knew Fujiko would have said. And besides, it was no more than the truth.

The Ground Wing had been deeply impressed by the TFMC's hypervelocity missiles-as Kincaid knew, having been one of those who'd introduced them to the concept. Essentially, the HVM was simply a tiny, man-portable drive coil that could accelerate to a perceptible fraction of light-speed in effectively zero time. In pre-drive-field days, when six or seven thousand meters per second had been recognized as the maximum velocity any material projectile could attain in Old Terra's atmosphere before burning up from fiction, the notion would been self-evidently preposterous. But the HVM could sustain a drive field for the infinitesimal fraction of a second in which its flight time was measured. On impact, with its inconceivable kinetic energy concentrated by the field even as it yielded it up, it needed no warhead.

It wasn't new technology. In fact, it had been around for the better part of a century and a half. But, the Union Ground Wing had innocuously asked, was there any reason why a larger, more powerful version of the same system couldn't be built . . . and used from orbit?

A lot of people in the Federation were still kicking themselves as they wondered why nobody had ever thought of that before.

Maybe Fujiko's right, Kincaid reflected. She'd spoken, in one of their rare unguarded moments, of the way a society suddenly introduced to a more advanced technology could sometimes produce fresh insights on that technology's potential applications. She'd cited her father's ancestral nation on Old Terra, but Kincaid could never remember its name.

Be that as it might, BuResearch had responded with a will, developing the prototype of the kinetic interdiction strike system, or KISS, and putting it into production in time for this offensive by adapting existing small-craft drive coils. True to the "if it works, it's obsolete" philosophy Terran engineers had espoused for the last four centuries, they were already promising a more capable and flexible version. But the Star Union hadn't been disposed to wait.

Brokken punched in a new command, and large-scale maps of the target areas appeared on the room's flat screen.

"You already have the coordinates of your assigned landing zones." Another command, and cross-hatchings marked the LZs. "Talonmaster Voroddon, I assume that your Special Landing Force is ready."

Nanzhwahl Voroddon came to attention, which only brought his head up to a hundred and twenty centimeters. Gender equality was one of the social changes that had overtaken the Telikan diaspora, for the race's once submissive males had demanded-and gotten-the right to join in what Captain Hafezi had once called the jihad against the Demons. It was still unheard of, however, to find one holding a rank equivalent to major general and commanding what amounted to a special forces division-Fujiko had once said something about a "glass ceiling," which Kincaid hadn't understood, history not being exactly his subject. He decided it was safe to assume that Voroddon was one very tough and capable Telikan male.

The Union Ground Wing's divisional organization was much like the TFMC's, and had been even before they'd encountered SF 19. In Terran terminology, each division had three regiments, each consisting of three battalions: one powered combat armor, one light infantry, and one a mix of special weapons and vehicles, most notably armored skimmers. By detaching one powered armor battalion from each of her ten divisions, Brokken had created the equivalent of an overstrength division that was all powered armor, and put Voroddon in charge of forging it into the Special Landing Force that would hit the ground first.

"Yes, Talnikah," the talonmaster replied to her question.

"Excellent." Brokken was a female of the old school, and there was something in her voice and body language that was . . . not "patronizing" or "protective," exactly. Just not quite what it would have been if Voroddon had been female. "After you've secured the landing zones, the subsequent waves will commence their descent, under heavy fighter cover. I will accompany them-as will our liaison officer."

Kincaid ordered himself not to pout. They'd been over this before, and he couldn't really dispute the decision's logic. Still . . .

"I would welcome the opportunity to participate in the initial descent on the surface, Wingmaster."

"I have no doubt of that, Captain Kincaid, and I mean no reflection on your courage. Rather, I speak of political reality. It's out of the question to risk the Terran Federation's observer in the first wave."

"Of course, Wingmaster." Besides, Kincaid admitted to himself, reluctantly and just a little bitterly, I'm not really a Raider. Voroddon doesn't need somebody to nursemaid.

"Very well, then. You all have the detailed operational timetable in your own data files."

Brokken paused. She'd never been given to drama. But, just for a moment, she stepped out of character long enough to lean forward, hold all the other large dark Telikan eyes with her own, and speak the simple sentence they and their exiled ancestors had been waiting a Terran century to hear:

"We're going home."

It was the stench that hit Kincaid first.

Over the centuries, space travelers had become blase about the variety of planetary environments the warp points had made accessible. Of course, it helped that most people-even most military people-normally experienced none but Earth-like worlds. The necessary parameters of a life-bearing planet allowed for only a limited range of variation. Within that range, no one but the rawest of newbies even commented on gravity, sunlight quality, atmospheric pressure, color of vegetation, nearness of horizon . . . or odors.

Kincaid had expected it to be the same here. Telik was a perfectly Earth-like world: a little closer to a somewhat less luminous sun, its moon a little smaller and further out, but nothing really noticeable. He was telling himself that as the assault shuttle grounded and its hatch sighed open to admit rather hot, humid air-they were in the subtropics, and it was this hemisphere's summer. He hitched up his battle dress and began to follow Brokken and her staffers outside. There was the inevitable adjustment to a somewhat different air pressure, and he drew a breath before opening his mouth to pop his ears. . . .

Sheer, desperate determination not to lose face before the Telikans prevented him from throwing up.

What godawful chemical have they got in this atmosphere, anyway? he wondered from the depths of his nausea. His head spun, and he nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself against the short solid bulk of a Telikan in the crowded aisle-he hadn't noticed before just how crowded it was-and mumbled an apology through teeth that were tightly clenched to hold the rising tide of vomit behind them in check. And why the hell didn't they warn me?

But then he noticed that the Telikan to whom he'd apologized didn't look all that well herself.

And he finally recalled where he'd smelled such a fetor before.

Once, as a young second lieutenant, he'd pulled some groundside time on the noted beef-producing planet of Cimmaron. On a certain hot day, he'd chanced to come near what the locals called the stockyards.

This wasn't really the same, of course. Telikan shit didn't smell precisely like the bovine variety. But there was the same effect of too much of it, produced by thousands and thousands and thousands of herd animals packed into too small a space, listlessly defecating whenever and wherever the need took them and uncaringly leaving it for the heat to work on.

Emerging from the hatch into the open air should have been a relief from the shuttle's stuffiness. But the odor was even worse. And there was the sound. . . .

Looking around, Kincaid located its source. To the west, the land rose toward a mountain range. There, through the swathes high-tech firepower had torn in the subtropical vegetation, he could glimpse in the middle distance a kind of smudge against the foothills: a series of vast enclosures and low buildings. Something else he remembered from Cimmaron came from that direction: the collective sound of multitudes of dumb, doomed animals. But this wasn't really that kind of mindless lowing. The thousands of throats that produced it were Telikan ones, possessing the same kind of vocal apparatus as his comrades-in-arms because they belonged to the same species. And it held a subtle, indescribable, and deeply disturbing undercurrent of sentience, of something that cattle would mercifully never know.

The staffers around him looked even sicker than Kincaid felt. He reminded himself of the human colonies the Bugs still held after a mere few years . . . and his gorge rose again. He looked frantically around for something-anything-to concentrate on instead.

The sky was clear, and combat skimmers crisscrossed in their patrol patterns. At higher altitudes, armed assault shuttles did the same. Still more shuttles were descending in a steady procession, pouring the follow-up waves into the secured landing zones as rapidly as possible. On the ground, the entire perimeter was a hive of activity as Brokken's forces dug in. Nearby, although the Telikans didn't go in for formal honor guards, a number of Voroddon's troopers were in evidence.

The concept of powered combat armor wasn't new to the Union Ground Wing. SF 19 had found them using versions reminiscent of Theban War-era models in their clunky massiveness. Now they wore sleeker, more nearly form-fitting ones-Telikan-tailored equivalents of the TFMC's "combat zoots," as they'd been dubbed long ago by some aficionado of twentieth century popular culture. Now Voroddon, in battle dress himself, at the moment, advanced through a loose formation of zooted troops, clearly for security rather than for show. He gave Brokken the fist-to-chest salute of a race whose arms were so long they'd have done too much damage with their elbows if they'd tried the Terran kind.

"Welcome, Talnikah. I apologize for . . ." Voroddon gave a vague, all-encompassing gesture. "I would have preferred to direct your shuttle to a landing site further away from-"

"Don't worry, Talonmaster. Safety considerations were naturally paramount. Besides, we'd all have had to experience it sooner or later anyway." Brokken glanced westward at the obscene blot on the landscape, and hastily looked away again. "Are matters progressing satisfactorily . . . over there?"

"Well enough. We've gotten an organization in place. Unfortunately, I've had to detail more of my troops than I'd planned to for guard duty there, simply to prevent stampedes. You see, they're very . . . confused. The idea of beings shaped like themselves with the kind of powers that, by definition, only the Demons possessed is simply outside their frame of reference. We've had to deal with some actual . . . well, not resistance; they were too frightened for that. More a matter of terrified reluctance to leave their pens. And we haven't wanted to hurt them by forcing them."

Kincaid thought back to half-forgotten military history classes and recalled what the terrorism-ridden late twentieth century had called the "Stockholm Syndrome." This was worse. Much worse.

"Well," Brokken assured Voroddon, "now you'll be able to turn that sort of duty over to the regular infantry, and the specialists."

"Thank you, Talnikah! In addition to the diversion of power-armored resources, it's been hard on my personnel's morale. There are so many. . . ." Voroddon's expression wavered, and he tried again. "So many little ones."

Of course, Kincaid thought. Among the Telikans, it's always been the males who've brooded the eggs the females laid . . . and raised the young.

He watched as Brokken, in a spontaneous gesture, reached down and gave Voroddon's shoulder a hard, steadying squeeze.

The moment passed.

"Well," Brokken said, "let's proceed with the briefing I'm sure your staff has prepared for me."

"Of course, Talnikah. My headquarters bunker is this way."

As they walked across the newly cleared area, Kincaid hastened ahead of the gaggle of staffers-no great feat for a human, since Telikans' legs were short even in proportion to their stature-and drew abreast of the two flag officers.

"I presume there are no new reports from other landing zones?" he overheard Brokken ask.

"No. The situation's essentially unchanged since you departed from orbit. As you know, our initial landings enjoyed complete tactical surprise. That, and our fighter cover, enabled us to secure all our initial objectives."

"Yes, you did well. But what about the Demons?"

"We've been able to interdict everything they've thrown at us from long range. As of now, their behavior is as expected from the records we've all seen of the Terrans' experience in the Justin System. They're moving toward all the landing zones in massive columns, concentrating for what we anticipate will be coordinated planetwide counterattacks."

Kincaid spoke up, his privileged status as liaison officer empowering his natural chutzpah.

"One thing I don't understand, Talonmaster. Knowing those columns' location from orbital surveillance, why haven't you called in KISS strikes on them?"

He gestured upward toward low orbit, where a dozen Buurtahn-class ships-minelayers built on battlecruiser hulls-traced a pattern calculated to maintain coverage of the landing zones. One of the KISS system's virtues was that, like mines, the projectiles could be deployed from simple cargo holds, each of which could accommodate five thousand of them. And each Buurtahn had fifteen such holds.

"If we strike them too soon," Voroddon explained, "they'll disperse so as to present less tempting targets. No, we want them to complete the concentration of their forces." An odd, dreamy look came over the talonmaster. "Oh, yes, indeed we do."

They were in the command bunker when the attack rolled in-and the prepared fire zone beyond the perimeter quite simply exploded.

The outside view polarized automatically before Kincaid's eyes could be more than temporarily dazzled, as opposed to permanently blinded. At perceptibly the same instant, the concussion almost threw him and the bunker's other occupants off their feet. Steadying himself, he turned to peer through the dust that suddenly hovered in two bands-one just beneath the bunker's ceiling, the other at floor level-at one of the visual displays that showed what was happening at another of the LZs, on Telikan's nightside, as viewed from low orbit.

Ever since the hypervelocity missile had first been introduced, people had been remarking that it looked the way pre-space Terrans had assumed a "death ray" would look. Actual lasers didn't; they left a crackling trail of ionized air that was visible, at least at night, but the effect was pretty unspectacular-those old science-fiction fans would have been sadly disappointed. An HVM, though, tearing through atmosphere at c-fractional velocity, was to all appearances a solid (if momentary) bar of lightning, dazzling in the dark.

As Kincaid watched, the trail of KISS projectiles a Buurtahn had left as it orbited were activated, going instantly to just under ten percent of light-speed. Such velocity was, of course, not perceptible as motion. Instead, as the hundreds of drive coils entered atmosphere, a dazzling curtain of fire seemed to appear. Where that curtain's hem touched the nighted planetary surface, that surface erupted in a line of terrible white light, far too intense to be called mere "flame."

Kincaid turned back to the outside view, where the aftereffects of the same kind of bombardment were dying down sufficiently to permit damage assessment. Each KISS strike released the kinetic energy of a tactical nuke-but precisely targeted, and without the radioactive contamination that made wholesale use of nuclear and antimatter weapons out of the question on worlds like Telik. The areas around the Ground Wing's lodgements had been seared as clean of the local ecology as they had been of Bug attackers-but that ecology would grow back, unmutated.

The Bugs wouldn't.

Brokken looked out at the swirling tonnes of dust that hid the devastation beyond the perimeter. The abruptly released thermal pulse had birthed almost cyclonic winds, which continued to howl outside the bunker, drowning out the terrified wailing of the thousands of rescued Telikans in the shelters into which they'd been herded.

"Talonmaster Voroddon," she said in a voice of flint, "as soon as outside conditions permit, we will advance as planned. Please ask your communications officer to put me in contact with Wingmaster Harkka."

Brokken's entire ten divisions were now dirtside, and without waiting for the reinforcements beginning to arrive in the system-a multiracial ground force that would eventually number over a million-she went on the offensive behind a rolling barrage of KISS strikes that obliterated the Bug population centers and smashed any troop concentration that stood in the way.

Still the Bugs came on in their silently suicidal way, which not even years of familiarity could fully rob of its power to horrify. The warriors came intermingled with millions of workers, a mass of mute, uncaring flesh in which much of the Ground Wing's firepower was uselessly absorbed. They poured in nuclear warheads in attempts to swamp the defensive energy-weapon fire by sheer numbers, for even one nuke could do horrible damage if it got through. And any time their ground forces managed to come to grips with the Telikans, the latter had to fight them in the old-fashioned way, for under such circumstances not even KISS could be targeted precisely enough. The Ground Wing was prepared to accept a certain number of casualties from friendly fire, but however determined they might be to achieve victory at any cost, they weren't Arachnids.

So Brokken's forces advanced in open order to avoid offering tightly bunched targets for nukes, under air cover from combat skimmers and assault shuttles with HVM pods. The powered-armor troops led the advance, backed by armored fighting vehicles. The light infantry, in regular battle dress and unpowered body armor, followed; they had no business in the front lines against massed Bugs, as the TFMC had learned at Justin.

Brokken herself rode in Voroddon's divisional command vehicle, comparable to the TFMC's Cobra. Kincaid was there, too, studying a planetary holo display in which the green of the secured areas was steadily expanding as the offensive rolled on, and would keep expanding until Telik was a globe of emerald. But the expansion was uneven, for fighting was still heavy.

All at once, that heavy fighting left the realm of the abstract as the forward units reported contact with a fresh Bug force, better concealed than most. KISS support was called for, and blast shields clanked into place around the viewports barely in time to shut out of the glare as the Bugs' rear elements died. But the leading waves came on, already far too close to be targeted with something as . . . energetic as KISS, and a phalanx of the heavily armed and armored helicopters the Bugs favored rose from camouflaged sites in the subtropical forest to support them.

Orders went out as the command vehicle ground to a halt behind the ground fighting that erupted ahead. Assault shuttles screamed in, cutting swathes through the helicopters with HVMs. But that kept them from the work of lacerating the oncoming waves of Bugs on the ground with anti-personnel cluster-bombs. Likewise, the special-weapons units were kept busy interdicting the tactical missiles that sleeted overhead with their cargoes of nuclear death. It was left to the Telikan grunts to bear the brunt of the ground assault, and a tidal wave of Bugs crashed into them.

No, Kincaid corrected his thought, not Bugs. Demons. That's how they see them.

And who's to say they're not right?

His mental paralysis shattered into a million shards of panic as the cry came: "Incoming!"

One of the Bug helicopters had gotten through, only to take a glancing hit from one of the nearby fire support teams. Now it was visible above the trees, trailing smoke and losing altitude . . . and getting larger, for it was headed straight for the command vehicle.

"Get out!" someone shouted.

Kincaid scrambled to obey, but staggered back as he banged his helmet on the overhead-always easy to do in this Telikan-designed jalopy. He shook his head to clear it, and flung himself through the hatch. He emerged into the hellish noise and rotor-wash of the descending chopper, which smashed into the command vehicle just as he hit the ground a mere few meters away. He landed with a numbing force but managed a clumsy, sliding roll and staggered shakenly to his feet.

Bugs poured forth from the broken chopper as though in some obscene childbirth.

Aliens were nothing new to Kincaid, and he'd spent the last few years getting acquainted with whole new species he'd never imagined. But now, seeing the Bugs firsthand, he felt something even the optopoid Zarkolyans had never aroused in him: a dizzying, gut-wrenching sense of wrongness, as though he were looking at something that had no business existing in any sane universe.

Bugs and Telikans ripped each other apart at point-blank range, where the latter's zoot availed little against armor-piercing rounds, and he fumbled for his side arm. But his desperately grasping hand found only empty air where the holstered pistol should have been. He must have lost it when he hit the ground, and he watched in horror as a Bug bore down on a crumpled figure on the ground he recognized as Bokken. Someone else put a shot into the Bug, but it didn't even seem to notice as it continued to advance on its six flashing legs, charging towards the helpless pinionmaster, and there was nothing Kincaid could do.

But Voroddon was there, too. The range was too short for weapon fire. Instead, the zooted talonmaster flung himself bodily on the Demon, and, grasping two of the appendages, heaved in opposite directions.

Any other time or place, Kincaid would have been sick as the Bug's carapace parted, torn open by the myoelectric strength of the zoot's "muscles," and a gush of fluids and internal organs washed over Voroddon.

But then a second Bug was there, bringing a weapon into line. As Kincaid staggered forward in what seemed slow motion, a burst of fire ripped through Voroddon and his victim alike.

Without thinking, Kincaid reached for his boot and unsheathed his combat knife. He flung himself across the last few meters, driving the knife into what he remembered from long-ago briefings was a vulnerable point of the body-pod. The Bug writhed, and one of its hard, segmented legs lacerated his left thigh. He gasped in pain, but drove the knife deeper and yanked viciously upward. The nauseating fluids that had drenched Voroddon spurted before he could finish his gasp, and he choked on them. For a time, he could do nothing but be sick, again and again. Luckily, he landed on top of the dying Bug, rather than vice versa.

By the time he got shakily up, it was over. Zooted Telikans stood among a scattering of dead Bugs, and Brokken was limping over to that which had been Voroddon. She knelt over the crumpled talonmaster, lying half under a Bug carcass that would have crushed him but for his armor. She waved a medical orderly away and sank awkwardly to the ground, where she gazed for a long, silent moment through the male Telikan's blood-spattered faceplate. Very gently, she touched the side of the helmet. Then she finally accepted help in rising to her feet and turned to face Kincaid.

"I regret placing you in danger, Captain. But I can't be sorry you were present, for I owe you my life."

"Think nothing of it . . . Talnikah."

Neither Brokken nor any of the other Telikans made any objection.

A Terran month passed before the surface of Telik was deemed sufficiently secured for Wingmaster Haradda to land there. Not every Bug on the planet was dead-it would probably take a long time indeed to hunt them all down, through every nook and cranny of a planet of the size of Old Terra, and they would live on far longer in the monster stories this world's infants would be told, but the warrior caste's resistance had been broken.

The shuttle landed on the outskirts of what had once been Telik's planetary capital. Not that there was anything to see-the vegetation had had a century to take over the ruins a nuclear strike had left of the city, and only historical records had enabled them to locate the site from orbit. But the symbolism was there.

As Harkka descended the ramp, Brokken stepped forward with only the slight stiffness that still remained in her walk. She saluted with great formality, but her words went far beyond any military punctilio in their very simplicity.

"Welcome home, Wingmaster."

Afterwards, Harkka's staff followed the wingmaster out of the shuttle. Fujiko Murakuma was with them.

She spotted Mario Kincaid among Brokken's staffers, and hurried over. What she saw as she neared the Marine took her aback. He seemed far more than a month older.

"Well," she cracked, "you got your wish. Even picked up a wound!"

"So I did," he said shortly, and she cocked her head.

"What's with you? No adolescent attempt at a pass? I should probably feel insulted! Besides, I should think you'd be jumping for joy under the circumstances."

A wraith of Kincaid's old impudent grin awakened.

"Yeah, I suppose I should. In fact, I definitely should be happy for the Telikans, and I am. It's just . . . well, we took casualties. A lot of casualties."

"Yes, I know." Fujiko bit her lip, and her brow furrowed. "I know, and I shouldn't have been flippant. But . . ." All at once, she could no longer contain her excitement. "Mario, don't you understand the implications of what's happened here?"

"Uh . . . you mean the way the Bugs became less combat effective toward the end? Yeah, that's news the Alliance is going to want to hear," he agreed.

It turned out that the Shiva Option effect didn't actually require the instantaneous annihilation of massive Bug populations. The effect appeared to be cumulative, and began to snowball once a certain threshold was reached, although there was still some question about how many millions of deaths that threshold required.

"Oh, yes," Fujiko replied. "That's certainly new data. But don't you see? The important thing is that KISS performed as advertised! The Crucians and Telikans have found the answer to the moral quandary we've been in ever since Admiral Antonov discovered Harnah!"

Enlightenment came, and Kincaid's private darkness began to lift.

"You mean the question of what to do about Bug planets with surviving indigenous sentients?"

"Yes! We no longer have to choose between nuking a planet till it glows or suffering unacceptable losses on the ground. The Bugs can't hide behind populations of hostages any longer!" Fujiko could no longer contain herself. Face shining with a fierce joy, she grasped him by the shoulders and spoke with an intensity that-he forced himself to remember-was a product of her need to share what she'd just realized with someone of her own species. "Oh, Mario, for the first time I know-not just hope or even believe, but really know-that we're going to win this war, and win it without having to damage our souls!"

"Our souls," the Marine said slowly, the clouds closing over his sunny smile once again, "may already be more damaged than we know."

She looked at him sharply. This wasn't like him. Not at all, but she forbore from trying to jolly him. What do I know about it? How can I know the things he's seen down here?

She gazed at him a moment longer, and then-somehow-the right words were given to her, and she flung out an arm and swept it around a half-circle that took in all of Telik.

"It's over here, Mario," she told him softly. "That's the point. Soon, it's going to be over everywhere. This war is finally coming to an end. The Telikans, and their children-and all our children-are going to live in a universe cleansed of the Bugs!"

Kincaid's private clouds parted again. This time they stayed parted.