I

    He splashed water onto his face, then cupped his hands and drank.  Sweat diluted and drained from his face, and the sun burned the moisture away, leaving cheeks that felt cool and stretched over the bone.  It was good to wash away the hot sweat, he thought, and to replenish one's blood.  He remembered the machine noise of Puerto Davís grating on his ears, ferociously attacking them, trying to devour his sense of hearing like animals hungry for the kill.  He remembered the grease spills, the acrid air painted with grit, the hostile traffic blocking him from the café across the street.  But all that was eastward, beyond the trees and the horizon.  He closed his eyes and listened.  It was now the chirping of birds and whispers of wind that were the reigning earls.  He would kneel to them gratefully. 

He sat down, his back against the old wishbone-shaped tree that in his childhood fantasies became a horse, crying into the air, taking him on journeys to save the Good People from slaughter.  His imagination had been fueled by pictures in a book his grandfather had brought from Mexico: the only horses he had ever seen.  But time had left only the memories.  The branches had become bony fingers devoid of leaves and bark was peeling away.  A gray skeleton baked in the sun where a horse had once stood proudly, her main blowing in the wind. 

    But new life survived.  The river cut her valley through the hills, a corn field stretched from the water's edge and from a nearby tree, a dowagerbird watched him as if curious about the stranger in the gray uniform. 

The young man had forgotten about the dowagerbirds and the horsy tree.  How much was here waiting for him to rediscover? A weakness seized his stomach.  It was as though he had run out on not only his kin when he went to war but on all the little nuances that made up his world.  How many fond experiences had he forgotten? Would a short furlough provide enough time to rediscover it all? He felt alone, lost, trapped -- like a regretful murderer unable to bring back the dead. 

He stood and resumed his journey, stepping between corn stalks that crackled while they grew.  From her roost, the dowagerbird looked to where he had sat, as if to welcome the stranger back.  But a worm had crawled from the ground; if she were quick enough, perhaps she could catch it.      

*   *   *

Grandpa Jorge lay on the same burlap cot he'd had since arriving from Earth so many decades ago.  His skin looked fragile and loose, like a gray sheet draped over the bones to keep them from drying out too fast, from blowing away before they could be buried.  The young man stood by the door, afraid of waking the old man, of preventing the healing process of sleep -- of being the first to discover him dead.  But the dirty fingers trembled, and the wrinkled face turned to look at him. 

"Chris!" The old man said. 

Christan Ramirez approached his grandfather, wondering what to say.  But words were unnecessary; it was the eyes that were important. 

II 

Beneath the starry sky, Father Carlos de Tecale sat on a stumpy log before the bonfire.  He enjoyed a good fiesta, but he shunned the song and laughter to sit next to Chris, drunk with interest in the young militiaman's experiences in space.

Though ashamed, Chris obliged; it was a chance to renew old friendships, and he did not want to waste that. 

He looked around the fireside: His mother, Gloria, was well, if older; his little sister, Laura, was now slightly older than himself, due to the time-dilation of interstellar travel; little Antonio had died of malnutrition in the relocation camp; and Chris’s father, Tomas, had escaped the authorities so he could support the resistance fighters.  No one had heard from him since.  Perhaps he was fighting a guerrilla war in some distant village.  Perhaps he was eating captured food cooked over a small fire in a forest.  Perhaps he was looking up at the stars and hoping his family was well.  Perhaps he was lying dead. 

Chris remembered the look in his father's eyes upon announcing his enlistment: too weak to argue, too angry to approve. 

He looked at Father de Tecale.  "Tell me, Padre, is it true that God forgives any sin?"

"It is very true, mi hijo." The Father looked into the flames of the bon fire.  Chris saw the reflection in the priest’s eyes.  It seemed as if his eyes had evaporated, leaving flames alone to fill the sockets. 

The priest looked at him with the fire eyes: "What was your sin?"

But Chris was blank.  He hurt inside, but what would God punish him for? He looked back into the fire. 

"Hell; I dishonored my father."  He looked into the darkness of the perimeter of the bonfire.  Shadows stood guard, with black heavy rifles and uniforms like his own.  The stood relaxed, slouching somewhat, and chatting quietly, occasionally laughing.

The padre was silent, and Chris felt suddenly embarrassed.  He wished the evening would end.  He wished his entire furlough would end.  And he wished to be again enclosed within the safe walls of the fortship Leviathan, where he could hide from the scrutinizing eyes of his kin and neighbors. 

"Oyé!" de Tecale said. "The light of Heaven is the very essence of love; if you repent, God will forgive you."

As the party continued around him, Chris watched the sparks fly toward the forgiving skies and the flickering stars. 

*   *   *

"Will the sparks fall upon the Earth, grandpa?" a very young Chris had once asked Jorge.  The old man smiled.  He had left the Mother World decades ago in search of a land of milk and honey whose fruits could feed the dying masses.  A newly discovered paradise, an Earth-type planet elsewhere in the universe, Orlon-Canda, had been discovered and held the hopes for all people.  And Jorge had been among the lucky few to embark upon the exodus. 

"Nieto," the old man replied, "the Earth's sun no is among those in the sky; necessary you be more south to see it."  

And like his lack of powers to imagine the famine, the pestilence, and the ecological death of that alien world, neither were the sparks able to reach to even the dowagerbird's perch.  But the time did come when he did not have to imagine the horrors on that strange and alien world. 

One afternoon in his sixteenth year, he arrived at Harbrace with the boat loaded with produce, only to discover a new clerk at the refinery.  The man refused to pay Chris the money his family needed to pay rent to the Geneva Republic and to buy new parts for the tractor, because Chris had written the inventories by hand. 

"I can't read this mess." The clerk ruffled through all the papers as though in a last-ditch effort to find something legible. 

"No one ever complained before," said Chris, getting angry.

"Well, I guess that's why I'm here now."

Chris tried to grab the papers, but the clerk refused to let go.  

"We have forms for this."

"Ay, no mames!" Chris blurted out.  "Listen, get Perez out here .  .  ."

"I'm the new manager."

"Get him out here!"

But the clerk sat quietly, just looking at Chris.  After a moment, Chris reached out for the papers, but the clerk pulled them away.

"How do you expect me to do my job," he asked Chris rhetorically, "when I can't even read this mess?" He waved the inventories in the air. 

Chris glanced outside at his little brother and sister, who drank pop and walked along the shoreline.  They were good kids, he thought.  But they were innocent, not understanding how difficult life really was.  They walked farther down the shoreline, beyond the warehouses, near the refinery. 

He looked back at the clerk, a man about fifteen years older than himself whom he'd never seen before.  The guy was new to this region, perhaps to this world, and seemed to think himself too good for either. 

"Perez knows me," Chris persisted; "he knows my family."

"Well, you're dealing with me, now."

"When will he be back?"

"He won't be back."

The clerk -- the manager -- took an agonized breath.  "The Ag Bureau felt he was too inefficient.  That's what they told me." When he looked into Chris's eyes, when he saw the loss of resolve, the new manager's intensity began to evaporate.  He swiveled on his chair and, from a drawer, grabbed several sheets of paper: forms, which he then handed to Chris. 

"Here," he said, "rewrite everything on these so I can read them."

Chris took the pages.  "What about my pay?"

"Until these forms are properly filled out, I won't know what to pay you."

"My family depends on .  .  ."

"Then you better get your ass in gear.  You know?"

Chris looked around at the unfinished wood walls.  The boards were rough with splinters sticking out like stiff hairs, and the knots were dark around the edges from decay, making them look like puzzle pieces stuck into fabricated holes.

"You can use my desk," the manager said. 

"Hell." Chris looked out the window.  The children were gone.  Frantically, he changed his position for a better vantage point, but         

     there            were     only    buildings,

and a few other transports docked on the Taldros River. 

He ran out, and down the shoreline.  His fist crumpled the inventory and the clean new forms.  He jumped over rusty pipes and passed some other farmers who had brought their own produce down the river and were still storing it, pushing bins along on magnetic cushions. 

"Antonio!" He yelled.  "Laura! Donde estan?"  

He stopped where he last saw them standing.  He walked to the shoreline and tried to see through the reflections on the water, but they shielded what was underneath.  He turned around and looked at the refinery.  The smell of the grains was sweet, the roaring engines silenced the birds.  But sparkling in the sun, from between green blades of grass, was a pop bottle.  He walked over and picked it up.  

"Herrera," it said, named after Jesus Herrera, Orlon-Canda's first colonial poet, who wrote, "Life is a tree, but family is the seed."  

 "Herrera" was the pop the children had been drinking earlier.  He turned around for one last look at the river, then walked up to the dirt road.  To the left was Cantina Rosa.  He aimed for it and, upon entering,

"Don't you ever do that again!"

They turned around from the counter and looked at him, their eyes big.  When Chris raised a finger, they, realizing they were not showing respect, looked down.  Then he set the pop bottle before them: "And don't litter."

"Sorry, Christan," said Antonio.

"Lo siento," said Laura.

"Qué es?" he asked, seeing the malts they had. 

"It's really my fault," said a man who sat near the children.  He was large and wore a hat with a brim that waved up on the left and down on the right.  It was off white and suede, rather than straw like most hats on Orlon-Canda. 

"Parker's the name," he said, holding out his hand, "Wally Parker.  Buy you something?"      Chris looked at the malts before the children.

"No."

Parker withdrew his unaccepted hand.  "I hadn't expected Porto Davis to be --"

"We call it Puerto Davís!" Chris snapped.  He looked at the papers the manager had given him, then pulled out a pen and began copying information from his originals.  He worked slowly, his concentration disturbed by the threat outsiders posed to his family's integrity. 

I need to speak Spanish more, he thought. 

While the children laughed and played among themselves and Chris wrote tensely, old scrawny hands set a box on the stool next to Chris. 

He looked up. 

Señora Morales smiled.  "Here's the tractor parts you need."

"Hell; I can't pay you."

"Pay later, boy." She walked out, leaving the box behind.

Chris looked down at the children.  "Take nothing unless you pay for it," he said, a slight anger creeping into his voice.  When they left, the box remained. 

CLOSED

.  .  .  and not open till morning.

     Chris swore and kicked the door of the refinery office, then led Laura and Antonio down to the docks.  Once on the pontoon boat, he started the engine, and Antonio cast off moorings.  Quietly, the boat pulled away from where the rapid waters gouged into the dirt.  Then it turned to the East and followed the current. 

He steered the transport around bends and bogs, passing forests, then croplands, and then more forests.  The carmine sun, Epsilon Indii, had long since passed below the horizon.  On the farm, they could not allow themselves the luxury of a wasted day, so they waited until the last minute before taking their harvest to town.  Now, soon, it would be dark, and Chris would return home again with an empty boat.  But the day's work was not done, because without money from the shipping manager, his family could not pay rent to Geneva, could not buy parts to repair the tractor tonight.  So tomorrow, he would have to again take the boat to Harbrace. 

The next day would be wasted.

That night, when everyone else was asleep, Christano Raul Ramirez Castillo got out of bed, crawled through the window, and ran off through the woods. 

A dowagerbird squawked at him. 

When he neared the swamps, he slowed down and stepped carefully. 

"You dressed right this time," said Jose from the darkness.  "You wore dark clothes."

The next morning, the dowagerbird sang to the rising sun, then chased an insect to the ground. 

The countryside stirred with the distant sounds of harvest: a tractor engine over the Southern hills grinded casually.  From beyond the fog blanketing the Taldros River, a clanging echoed where Acosta tried to straighten a pipe with a hammer. 

Deep red light chiseled its way across a splintered rupture on the window frame to Chris's bedroom.  A hinge squeaked, the door opened, and a tall thin man entered and looked down at the mound of dreaming, sleeping flesh on the mattress. 

"Chris! It's sunup!"

Black eyes opened.

His father smiled and walked out.  Before the door closed, Chris was out of bed and getting dressed.  The morning's first breeze carried the sweet scent of a llamando fruit, hanging like sliced water melons from nearby trees.  Chris never paused to enjoy it, perhaps never even noticed it, because he had lived with it too long.  He pulled on his pants and shirt and rushed out, embarrassed by his laziness. 

"You up late last night?" his mother asked.

"Just worried at not getting the money yesterday," he said, rushing outside with the now-completed inventory form  -- quickly, before she saw the dishonesty.  Antonio and Laura were already in the boat waiting. 

At the refinery, Chris knew what he would find.  He docked the boat and walked ashore, pretending to be confused, though the fear was authentic.  He joined crowds of towns people and farmers.  One woman kicked soot with her shoe. 

Chris froze when he saw two solders hasten towards him, their Republican Militia fatigues and black J-32 Martin rifles casting gloom as though a cloud had covered the sun.  Chris’s muscles became tense, a fist squeezed together as he became ready to fight.  But they brushed past him and continued going. 

Up by the road, past the crowd, past the firemen, was Jose, looking back, his eyes full of fear .  .  .  . 

"Listen, if we prevent them from getting their food," one sheep had said, leading the other into mischief, "the Earth Imperialists will have to give us our freedom." The other was skeptical at first, but garnished the anger, at last making it a fit and wholesome meal.  And thus Jose surrendered to Christan's wisdom, finally liking it.

And the flames had shot to the sky, lighting the river.  Beneath the surface, fish fought the current to peek into the forbidden ether, wondering what the raging light could be. 

"This terrorism must be stopped," the new manager said to a woman in a business suit.  Chris stepped up beside him.  The manager saw the papers in Chris's hand.  "You see that?" the manager shouted.  Chris looked at the ruins of the warehouses, the office and the machinery.  "I can't pay anybody.  All the records are gone."  Then he waked off, continuing to rattle off things, quickly, angrily, to the woman. 

Chris stood alone in the crowd, the papers in his hand.

*   *   *

The new manager was one of the first, but many more followed.  It began with rumors, but soon everyone knew: The Geneva Republic was shipping in new workers from Earth.  And frustrated, exploited people -- the good people -- of Orlon-Canda, who built this world, who slaved for generations to serve Geneva -- the Good People were taken away, and no one knew where. 

Gloria was often in the middle of the argument. 

While Tomas Ramirez would grumble, "Someone needs to make a stand," Gloria Castillo de Ramirez would remain silent.  Not to promote peace or to shy away from controversy, but because she wasn't sure where she stood.  She grew up understanding her father's view that Earth was more than a fist squeezing Orlon-Canda dry, but that it was an open hand, empty and needy.  But she grew up knowing only the dowagerbird, the llamando trees, the fertile topsoil, and the clear, radiation-free air. 

However, Jorge Castillo often had doubts about his support of Geneva, and this frightened him.  At times, he felt a need to return to Mexico -- not to remind himself of whom he was trying to help, but to escape the possibility that he might give in to the avarice of aspiration: the hope of freedom, self-identity, and pride.  Fighting for national sovereignty would be a selfish effort unbefitting him, and he worried much about his vulnerability to its lure. 

At dinner, Tomas said, "That's what happens when people don't make a stand; they're replaced with changelings pretending to be OUR people.  But they aren't." He forked some meat into his mouth and chewed.  "Changelings."

Chris looked across the dinner table and saw a man whose heart was torn by his need to join the fight.  How often Chris had wished he could tell his father about his own contributions to the struggle: about burning the refinery, about sabotaging barges shipping food to Puerto Davís, about planning to assassinate Wally Parker.  His father would be jealous.  But it had to remain secret; if anyone knew, it could spell death for his entire family.  So Chris continued to eat, separated from his father by his love for him. 

And again at the bonfire, in his uniform, under a starry sky, sitting next to the padre, Chris remembered his own childhood and the sparks that could not reach the dowagerbird's perch.  But one day, it had been Chris and Jorge, Tomas and Gloria, Laura and Antonio .  .  .  and no one knew where they had been taken.

*   *   *

Years had passed as civil war escalated.  Los Revolucionarios stole weapons, turned orbital shuttles into battleships, and destroyed interstellar food transports.  The financing of those transports already soaked Earth's resources, leaving no running water on Earth for all but government officials, and leaving 27-year old Liza Lagiensky of Chicago dead because her hospital couldn't afford penicillin. 

Los Revolucionarios blew up food convoys, shot down choppers, and destroy refineries -- weakening Geneva.  But they also cut supply lines meant to feed the Good People sprawled at the feet of soldiers, looking through barbed wire at mountains and fragrant trees, blue skies and glittering grass and birds.  Their muscles were weak, and their skin hung over their bones like death shrouds. 

Chris groggily watched little Antonio lying on his back, his mouth open.  He gasped for air yet did not move, and his breath made no sound.  But when the wind blew dust into his eyes and he didn't blink, and more and more dust covered his eyes, then Chris knew he was dead. 

Through the mist one day, near the far end of the camp, he saw Señora Morales, previously hidden by the scores of bodies.  At first his interest was null, depleted by wading through his own weakness and pain.  But he looked again, and kept looking as guards helped her to her feet.  The gate opened, and she was led to a military truck with the courtesy of a queen.  Later that night, boots kicked Chris until the pain -- and the world around him -- were gone.  Kicked him merely for rummaging through a torn piece of canvas that had been Morales's home.  But for his trouble, he found his destiny: a pamphlet in English of colorful art advertising the rewards of joining the Republican Militia. 

"I'm certain she didn't enlist," his mother, Gloria said.  "It was her son."

*   *   *

When Tomas realized his only living son was actually going to pick up the sword of the enemy, that it was as real as the numbness in his left hand, the look in his eyes changed from weak disappointment to the first resolve he'd probably ever had in his life. 

"This land is all I've got, and I'll defend it! I'll defend it, by God." But his voice was weak and hoarse. 

"Don't you see, Papi, it's the only way.  They'll let you all go .  .  .  you'll be home again."

"No.  No," his father moaned, almost in tears, "it's up to me now.  It's just up to me."

Chris doubted his father would join Los Revolucionarios; his father was quick to temper but slow to action; a man haunted by pipe dreams he would never realize of returning to Verrin to follow in his father's footsteps as a mechanic.  He had never wanted to be a farmer.  He would never admit it, but he was certainly a lazy man at heart.  Whenever he could steal the time, he would find his way into a cool forest, sit back against a tree with fine-textured bark, and remember things that made him angry.  But he had to be a farmer since his wife, Gloria, was unwilling to leave her father.  Perhaps Tomas Ramirez felt his back was against the wall and he had to make one final stand to prove who he was, what was important to him, and that he would not, in at least one thing in his life, back down. 

"Go then," his father said.  "Go and help the bastards who killed your little brother.  You're no son of mine." And that was the last thing Chris had ever heard him say.  When Chris later earned stripes, the military rewarded him by releasing his family and allowing them, under guard, to return to Villa Castillo.  It was then that Tomas ran off, leaving his family with nothing but memories and a half empty pop bottle that read "Herrera."

III

Hours after the fiesta had ended, when Father de Tecale and the other neighbors had gone home, when the family was at last asleep, when the fire had withered to warm orange embers, Chris lay awake in bed, listening to two guards outside his window muttering quietly.  At one point, one's voice grew louder and the other hushed him; they did not wish to wake those who slept.  Chris reassured himself at how considerate they were and wondered if they were here more to guard his family, who were still political prisoners, or to guard the crops from Los Revolucionarios saboteurs.  He remembered his father again.  He remembered all his neighbors who could not attend the fiesta because they were either in relocation camps or dead.  Chris wondered if his enlistment was really a good thing: Antonio was dead anyway, and though the rest of his family had been released back to the estate, the garrison made it seem as though it wasn't really home. 

This is what his gray uniform had done: helped Geneva to trick his mother, grandfather, and sister with a carrot on a stick; if they got too close, the carrot would be yanked toward the skies, and the faces of his family would peer upward, hopefully, their eyes full of dreams. 

*   *   *

The monster's iron face glowed in the floodlights, but the eye plates were dark, with no sings of human eyes behind them. 

"Corporal Ramirez, report to the Fire Control Center."

Christan looked at his mates on the damage control team.  Monster space helmets looked back, the stars behind them. 

"Corporal Ramirez, on my way."

He handed his tools off to Allison, then heard static growing in his earphones.  Allison dropped the tools and struggled to climb out of the access sump in the deck.  Over the edge of the black deck, Heaven looked at peace. 

Rodderick and Blaine helped Ramirez pull Allison to the deck as the static grew deafening.  In the distance, a star emerged and quickly grew to a sparkling light that pulsated and rippled, tearing and re-tearing itself apart like some evil ghost condemned to an afterlife of perpetual suicide.  And as the approaching light outshined the floods, a screeching rose from the static and began cutting through the ears of the damage control squad.  They rushed to the airlock.  Once inside, they counted seconds impatiently, waiting for the air pressure to equalize with the ship's as the pain grew inside their heads. 

At last the door swung open, they jumped out, and Blaine slammed the door just as the plasma flash made the outer hull molten.  The monster faces stared blankly at each other, shielding the looks of fear, but not their compassion. 

*   *   *

"Stand-by for free-fall in five-minutes," said the voice from the P.A.

"Ramirez .  .  .  take weapons console four."

"But Sir, don't you see? I'm not an operator, I'm .  .  ."

"Goddammit, Corporal! Obey my orders!"

Chris had strived to avoid killing the enemies of Geneva, since they were his own people.  The regulations had made it easier for him.  Since he’s a resident of enemy territory, he was assigned to the fortship Leviathan, which took him far away from Epsilon Indii and home.  Many did not trust an Orlon-Candan to kill his own people, and this relieved Chris of some hard choices. 

But now his plan was breaking down.  He could only salute and say, "Aye, aye, Sir!" because to do otherwise would break the contract; his rank allowed his family to eat and to return to Villa Castillo.  But he almost longed for the barbed wire and scurvy.  In the camp, he could sacrifice by giving his morsel of dusty bread to Antonio or Laura.  Now the gains were larger, but the sacrifice was his integrity. 

He took his seat, next to Sergeant Sylvia Devlin.  She smiled, but Chris only nodded, angrily. 

A buzzer screamed, and the P.A. voice proclaimed, " Free-fall!  Free-fall!  All hands rig for free-fall."

Devlin looked at him, seeing beads of sweat, like iron rivets, painted green by the computer display.  The Fire Control Center was dark, and she noticed how Chris looked like a green ghost, only the lighted planes of his face visible to the world of the living, the rest of him in purgatory. 

*   *   *

(Hear the music - by Bill Olson)

My children's kisses touched my face,

My wife held me in her embrace,           

The morning sun would soon arrive, 

They were relieved I was alive, 

And home again once more. 

For months I had not seen my kin,

Fighting a war in ships of tin,

Defending honor as a rule;

How could I be that big a fool

I'll never understand. 

When I was young I heard the call

To "be good soldiers one and all."

And hymns we'd sing with tired throats

Of leaving skies and crossing motes

Of space, which "is our own!"

But war in space is truly hell:

Not many people live to tell

The screams of horror, pain and fear;

The things they teach us to hold dear

Are causing us to die. 

I then awoke from wisdom's plea

And found that I could clearly see:

My family was nowhere around,

And I could hear the tiny sound

Of air leaking away. 

I floated in the cold of space,

Having survived my battle place,

And Lord, I am obliged to Thee,

Before I died that I could be

At home again once more. 

In a secluded corridor of the ship, Sergeant Sylvia "Silver" Devlin put the guitar down and leaned her head back against the gray bulkhead.  Chris shifted his weight to sit more comfortably while Blaine and Allison excused themselves, hoping to get enough sleep before their next watch. 

"You married?" Silver asked. 

"No.  But there is this 15-year-old girl on the Acosta farm. . . ."

"Kinda young.  Donchya think?"

"Well, I'm a farmer; I cultivate, then harvest."

Silver let a smile creep from her lips.  "You one of those terrorists, too?"

Chris thought for a moment, wondering how careful he needed to be with her, then simply said, "Hell; is that why you enlisted, to fight terrorism?"

"I would've been drafted anyway.  Sooner or later.  Yup, my day would've come.  Just waiting 'round, watching people starve and get sick .  .  .  damn hospitals couldn't do shit; there's just no money.  My family, my friends -- people kept expecting me to do something.  I didn't know what to do.  What could I do? I'm no doctor, no saint."

She then plucked the guitar strings, lightly and without focus.  "I couldn't do it -- live up to everybody's expectations .  .  .  .  So I left.  I could no longer watch people go hungry because Orlon-Candan terrorists wanted to destroy food."

She lay her head back against the bulkhead and closed her eyes.

*   *   *

Chris looked up from his weapons console and saw a black sphere floating in the air next to him.  When Leviathan rotated on her axis, so rotated the sphere, like a tiny world.  Chris looked back: a medic worked to cauterize a ruptured artery that sent a stream of such worlds into the Fire Control Center. 

"Unit four -- Access Pablo Sierra, four-four."

Corporal Ramirez acknowledged and accessed PS-44.  Coordinates flickered onto his screen -- a surface target. 

They had left the star -36° 15-693 (or simply 693) after setting up a military post.  He supposed that was, in reality, years ago, though only months had passed -- the miracle of relativistic physics that aided travel to other stars, but insured that each tour of duty would keep him young as his family aged toward death, threatening one day to leave him alone with his altruism. 

He entered several commands and what came back was .  .  . 

"ORLON-CANDA"

He looked at Silver, who was too busy to notice.  He looked back to find the lieutenant .  .  . 

"Unit four, lock your goddamn instruments!"

"But Sir .  .  . 

"Don't but me!"

"But it'd be .  .  .  that is to say .  .  .  I'm a maintenance technician, I .  .  ."

"I’ll have you arrested, Corporal!”  He lifted a phone and shouted into it.  “Security to Fire Control!"

"But .  .  ."

"You know how to work these controls?"

"Yes S-Sir, but .  .  ."

"Corporal, these orders come from the bridge, not your sister!"

The eyes, not much older than Chris's, carried more than anger; they carried the fear and fatigue of a man beaten by his successes -- of wearing sergeant stripes one week and lieutenant stars the next.  The lieutenant was a young man who had enjoyed the games of passing himself off as mature, accomplished and grown-up.  Now he had passed through the fog and the sentry's gate, from the fields to the dragon's nest, where fire and thunder leave a shaking body with no time for games.  The face twisted into hard, leathery wrinkles, the teeth gritted, leaving painful gums straining to hold the teeth in place -- not to appear adult, but to survive the dragon's fury. 

"Well, Corporal?"

Chris was here as the sacrificial lamb so his family could return home again.  So they could merely live, with no frills beyond that hope.  His military hitch, dissolved in the acid of dishonor, would leave his family unhitched, free to be pulled back to the death, doom, and mud. 

"Aye, Sir," a lance corporal with a Security armband said. 

The lieutenant continued looking at the now-yielding eyes of Chris. 

"Sir," the Ranger emphasized impatiently, "awaiting further orders, Sir."

"Lock your instruments, Corporal," the lieutenant ordered, his voice now soft, but stern. 

Chris turned back to his console.  "Locking my instruments, aye, Sir."

"Sir," the Ranger addressed the lieutenant, "you'll be required to file a report on your security call .  .  ."

Chris heard a ringing in his ears that grew with each button he pushed. 

Target lock.

Coordinates flashed on his monitor. 

"Follow through, Corporal.  Fire at will."

Energize. 

Power levels showed ready.

He reached a finger to the last button, then closed his eyes. 

Launch.

He opened his eyes and watched the screen where changing numbers indicated an increase of radiation in the target area.

*   *   *

Chris lay in bed, listening to waves of insect noises carried through the window on the warm air.  The insects sounded much like instruments on the ship. 

He looked across the bedroom.  It was dark, but he knew where his uniform was draped over a chair.  He wondered what the surface target had been: a relocation camp that was too much trouble to maintain? He could not know.  And now, laying in bed, he wondered if it was a guerrilla base where his father laughed around a campfire.  Perhaps he should never don his uniform again.  Perhaps his father was still to be found and would accept an apology. 

IV

Chris sat at the water's edge when Epsilon Indii rose over the distant hills.  Fog lay sleeping on the Taldros River, but it would soon awaken and depart, back to the skies.  He remembered sitting on his father's knee in the harvester, his father teaching him to drive while wiping sweat from his brow and checking his gauges.  He remembered helping grandpa Jorge install defenseros, their screams and holographic predators, meant to scare away vermin, terrifying him.  He remembered swimming in the cold waters of the Taldros River, the current pulling him toward Puerto Davís.  He remembered sitting by the bon fire, the sparks flying toward the dowagerbird's roost.  And he remembered hearing of the separatist movement, then just a vague rumor.  

The boat carrying grain slowed, and its engine shut off.  As it coasted with the current, Jose leaned on the railing and called out.  Chris waved back from the shoreline. 

"Been many years," Jose said in Spanish, his voice echoing through the hills.  "You home for good?"

"I don't know yet."

Chris felt warm energy surge through him from resuming the Mother Tongue.  He smiled and walked along the shore, following the boat. 

"Christano, join us."  Jose looked around nervously, wishing he could silence that damn echo.  Then he looked at Chris and held up his hands, clasping them together. 

"Conjuntos!" he added. 

Chris quickened his pace as the boat became farther away.

"Those monsters," Jose continued, more quietly, "are killing our people -- your people.  Remember what you’d told me: '.  .  .The Earth Imperialists will have to give us our freedom.'"

Chris remembered Jorge telling of a woman on Earth who had sat upon the hot dirt, her child nestled in her arms, dead and rotting.  The mother never spoke, never moved, except to rock her child while staring straight ahead.  Her face held no joy, no sorrow.  She had nothing left but her child and whatever dreams and memories she relived. 

One day, two police officers arrived.  They walked up to her slowly, but she remained silent, just as she had for days.  So the officers knelt down.  Disease was rampant.  La Dirección de la Salud was under pressure to bring the plagues and infections under control.  So one officer reached for the child.  The woman made a crying-type sound, very faint.  It was as though she had mustered up all her available strength to make that sound.  As she continued to grasp the blanket, and the policía looked on, her cry faded into the air.  The last thing Jorge saw, before his father led him off, was the officers staring into the dust.  They didn't steal the child or pry it from her arms, they just waited, staring into the dust. 

*   *   *

"Dígame, Abuelo, do you hate me, too?"  Chris had asked Jorge before enlisting. 

His grandfather gripped his arm firmly.  "Until recently, I begin to love this land too much; I forget that I come here for helping feed the people back home, like that woman and her child.  Your father was born here; this is his world, his home.  Of my home, I remember working side by side with my own father, traveling with the U.N. to sow the sparse farmlands that remain.  My father was very ill, yet he use his last strength to convince the government to permit me leave to Orlon-Canda, because he know I want this.  He stood at my mother's grave and apologize because we would not, the three of us, be buried together.  But then he ask her that she be proud of a noble son.  And as I leave my father laying in bed, dying, not much able to say goodbye, I know it necessary that I live up to his expectations, his sacrifice.  So even when I see what the Geneva Republic do to us, all I can say is that I see no human villains beneath the shroud of desperation."

"But we didn't do anything to deserve this treatment."

"No, we didn't.  But the only guilt lies with fate."  

*   *   *

At the river's edge, Chris looked off toward the boat.  Jose was saying something, but he was too distant, so Chris cupped his hands behind his ears.  "Don't forget your world," Jose ways calling out, "and your neighbors; Arriba los orloncandaneses!"

Chris waved as the boat continued along.  He now realized that perhaps his father had joined Los Revolucionarios as the only way he knew to help his family.  Chris could wish him well but could not go after him, because he would do so only to ease his own conscience.  It was his servitude in the Republican Militia that kept his family out of the camp.  If he went AWOL, his family would probably be sent back. 

He sat again on the shoreline and remembered his family living in a cloth tent, covered with mud and feces, too weak to cry out for food.  Hundreds of others had been nearby, all within the same fence, but Chris never thought about them, never thought about the Taldros River, about the beautiful hills.  He had never even thought about farming. 

V

In uniform, he embraced his mother, his sister, and his grandfather.  They stood together, a single unit, watched curiously by armed guards. 

"You'll remember us when you leave home again, mi hijo?" his mother asked. 

Chris wiped a tear from his eyes.  He thought one last time about the dowagerbird, about the horsy tree by the river, which he knew he might forget. 

"You'll remember us?"

Chris looked into her red, moist eyes.  Everyone looked at him, waiting for his answer, which he gave honestly and briefly as a single word. 

-- St. Paul, Minn., May 25, 1993

   (Revised Eau Claire, Wis., Sept. 2003)