Firefight Y2K Read online

  Firefight Y2K

  by Dean Ing

  This is a work of fiction. Some characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2000 by Dean Ing

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Book

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  ISBN: 0-671-57848-0

  Cover art by Larry Elmore

  First printing, January 2000

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Typeset by Windhaven Press: Auburn, NH

  Printed in the United States of America

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This volume is updated and expanded from Firefight 2000, first published June 1987. The following stories and articles originally appeared and are copyright as follows: “Fleas,” Destinies, © 1979 by Dean Ing; “Mannaspill,” The Magic May Return, © 1981 by Dean Ing; “Malf,” Analog Annual, © 1976 by the Conde Nast Publications Inc.; “Comes the Revolution,” The Future of Flight, © 1985 by Leik Myrabo and Dean Ing; “Liquid Assets,” Destinies, © 1979 by Dean Ing; “Lost in Translation,” Far Frontiers, © 1985 by Dean Ing; “Evileye,” Far Frontiers, © 1985 by Dean Ing; “Vehicles for Future Wars,” Destinies, © 1979 by Dean Ing; “Vital Signs,” Destinies, © 1980 by Dean Ing; Preface © 1987 by Dean Ing; “High Tech and Self-Reliance,” © 1985 Personal Survival Center, Inc., and “The 12-Volt Solution,” © 1984 by the Omega Group Ltd., first appeared in book form in The Chernobyl Syndrome and are reprinted by permission of the author.

  PREFACE

  When historians of the 22nd century are cudgeling their brains (and each other; God, I hope I can sit in!) to characterize the 20th century, their problem won’t be lack of data. It will be the very diversity of that data. But what will they conclude from the structures of Gropius and Wright; the popularity of punk rock and Stravinsky; armies supplied with bayonets and ballistic missiles; citizens enjoying Volkswagens and Ferraris, fantasy fiction and epic nonfiction; cities drawing power from coal and nuclear plants?

  I’m betting they will note the bewildering change of pace in each arena and will then ignore it, looking for something more arcane. But it’s that change of pace, that variety of choice, that separates us most profoundly from earlier cultures! Look: people everywhere have always sought variety-not this or that, but this and that. There may be no better way to differentiate the free West from competing systems than to note the changes of pace available to the citizens of each.

  Not that everybody likes to have the pace changed: I know some folks who like only the foxtrot, white bread, and Ford V-8s. Well, those things are all reliable, and tomorrow isn’t. I understand and sympathize, but tomorrow is where we’re headed, and all indications are that it’s going to be more full of variety, changes of pace, than today.

  That goes for fiction as well as fact. Even the most hardbitten of hard-science fiction scribblers can opt for a change of pace to fantasy. It’s a different set of mental gymnastics, and it keeps our sense of wonder from getting flabby.

  On the other hand, a consultant helped me flesh out the background for one of the most far-out tales in this collection, then asked me why I considered it science fiction. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it really happened,” she said; “some marine invertebrates aren’t too shabby in the brains department.” It was her view that, if it’s likely to happen, it ain’t sci-fi. So then we got into an argument about the difference between SF and fantasy, and I cried, and she hit me. . . . Oh all right, so I added a bit of fantasy to our exchange. The point is, sometimes we reach into a sea of fiction and grasp a tentacle of what feels like fact. It can be unsettling. So why does it elate me? Maybe I like to be unsettled a bit. I suspect my readers like it too. God knows, anybody who likes being unsettled can have loads of whoopee in times like these!

  But some of it is very serious whoopee. Take the small arms piece, for instance, which reports on the findings of a recent thinktank session on future weapons. I’d be disingenuous if I denied we had fun, but the purpose of that seminar was ultimately to figure out what an infantryman will mean by “small arms” in the next century. The diversity among members of that seminar was marvelous to behold. Well, of course: the thinktank people wanted it that way, knowing that variety is the spice of life, the source of strife, and a great provocation toward new ideas. Our conclusions weren’t intended as fiction, but you never know. Tune in twenty years from now.

  For better or worse, the collection you’re holding may be a metaphor of tomorrow: terror and hope, right guesses and wrong ones, high tech and thatched cottages. Nothing wrong with a thatched cottage if you want one; the nice thing about tomorrow is, we can bring the best parts of yesterday along with us. Bearing that in mind, we can get useful tips not only from hard engineering looks at our near future, but also from playful peeks into our distant past. Just don’t start complaining when you find that each piece in this book is a change of pace from the piece ahead of it, yet you keep finding echoes of previous scenarios in the next ones. That’s the way the book works.

  That’s the way the world works. May as well enjoy it . . .

  MILLENNIAL

  POSTSCRIPT

  Anyone who risks a retrospective glance at his own science fiction has a problem. If he’s serious about guessing at our future, that look backward looks embarrassingly like a report card. I give myself only a “B-” on these guesses, but in another twenty years they might look better. The primary reason for my misses-a reason, not an excuse-is that I keep giving humans credit for improvements we refuse to make until we absolutely must!

  Take the “Y2K” problem, in which computers may treat January 2000 as January 1900. Why didn’t I, one of the activist cadre in survival studies a generation ago, realize the problem then? Because I wasn’t a programmer and didn’t realize the deliberate oversimplification built into computers. But I worked with aerospace programmers who did, and not one of them ever mentioned it. At the time it was a clever touch to assume the “19” prefix. After all, the cost of data storage was on the order of a dollar per byte. In retrospect it all seems pretty short-sighted, but no more so than, say, keeping gasoline taxes too low to fund a national grid of fast mass transit. That is a logical source of its funding, as the Brits have known for decades.

  Many of the things I got right are trivial in the grand scheme but being a bit trivial myself, I’ll mention a few of them as millennial postscripts at the ends of the individual pieces that lie ahead. On the other hand, in several novels of the early 1980s I assumed that the Soviet Union would be dissolved by 1996. Hey, I can’t be wrong all the time . . .

  FLEAS

  The quarry swam more for show than efficiency because he knew that Maels was quietly watching. Down the “Y” pool, then back, seeming to ignore the bearded older man as Maels, in turn, seemed to ignore the young swimmer.

  Maels reviewed each datum: brachycephalic; under thirty years old; body mass well over the forty kilo minimum; skin tone excellent; plenty of hair. And unless Maels was deceived-he rarely was-the quarry offered subtle homosexual nuances which might simplify his isolation.

  Maels smiled to himself and delivered an enormous body-stretching yawn that advertised his formidable biceps, triceps, laterals. The quarry approached swimming; symbolically, thought Maels, a breast stroke. Great.

  Maels made a pedal gesture. A joke, really, since the gay world had developed the language of the foot for venues more crowded than this. The quarry bared small even teeth in his innocent approval. Better.
/>   “I could watch you all evening,” Maels rumbled, and added the necessary lie: “You swim exquisitely.”

  “But I can’t go on forever,” the youth replied in tones that were, as Maels had expected, distinctly unbutchy. “I feel like relaxing.” Treading water, he smiled a plea for precise communication. Perfect.

  “You can with me,” Maels said, and swept himself up with an ageless grace. He towered, masculine and commanding, above the suppliant swimmer. A strong grin split his beard as Maels turned toward the dressing room. He left the building quickly, then waited.

  Invisible in a shop alcove, Maels enjoyed the quarry’s anxious glances from the elevated platform of the “Y” steps. Maels strolled out then into the pale light of the streetlamp and the quarry, seeing him, danced down the steps toward his small destiny.

  Later, kneeling beneath tree shadows as his fingers probed the dying throat-pulse. Maels thought: All according to formula, to the old books. Really no problem when you have the physical strength of a mature anaconda. Hell, it wasn’t even much fun for an adult predator. At this introspection Maels chuckled. Adult for several normal life spans, once he had discovered he was a feeder. With such long practice, self-assurance in the hunt took spice from the kill. Still probing the carotid artery, Maels thought: Uncertainty is the oregano of pursuit. He might work that into a scholarly paper one day.

  Then Maels fed.

  It was a simple matter for Maels to feed in a context that police could classify as psychosexual. Inaccurate, but-perhaps not wholly. Survival and sexuality: his gloved hands guiding scalpel and bone saw almost by rote, Maels composed the sort of trivia his sophomores would love.

  Research confirms the grimoires’

  Ancient sanity;

  Predation brings unending lust-

  An old causality.

  The hypothalamus, behind armoring bone, was crucial. Maels took it all. Adrenal medulla, a strip of mucous membrane, smear of marrow. Chewing reflectively, Maels thought: Eye of newt, toe of frog. A long way from the real guts of immortality.

  He had known a feeder, an academic like himself, who read so much Huxley he tried to substitute carp viscera for the only true prescription. Silly bastard had nearly died before Maels, soft-hearted Karl Maels, brought him the bloody requisites in a baggie. At some personal sacrifice, too: the girl had been Maels’ best graduate student in a century.

  Sacrifice, he reflected, was one criterion largely ignored by the Darwinists. They prattled so easily of a species as though the single individual mattered little. But if you are one of a rare subspecies, feeders whose members were few and camouflaged? A back-burner question, he decided. He could let it simmer. With admirable economy of motion Maels further vandalized the kill to disguise his motive. Minutes later he was in his rented sedan, en route back to his small college town. Maels felt virile, coruscating, efficient. The seasonal special feeding, in its way, had been a thing of beauty.

  Ninety-three days later, Maels drove his own coupe to another city and left it, before dusk, in a parking lot. He was overdue to feed but thought it prudent to avoid patterns. The city, the time of day, even the moon phase should be different. If the feeding itself no longer gave joy, at least he might savor its planning.

  He adjusted his turtleneck and inspected the result in a storefront reflection. Maybe he would shave the beard soon. It was a damned nuisance anyhow when he fed.

  Maels recalled a student’s sly criticism the day before: when was a beard a symbiote, and when parasitic? Maels had turned the question to good classroom use, sparking a lively debate on the definitions of parasite and predator. Maels cited the German Brown trout, predator on its own kind yet not a parasite. The flea was judged parasitic; for the hundredth time Maels was forced to smile through his irritation at misquotation of elegant Dean Swift:

  So, naturalists observe, a flea

  Hath smaller fleas that on him prey.

  And these have smaller fleas to bite ’em,

  And so proceed, ad infinitum.

  Which only prompted the class to define parasites in terms of size. Maels accepted their judgment; trout and feeder preyed on smaller fry, predators by spurious definition.

  Comfortably chewing on the trout analogy, Maels cruised the singles bars through their happy hour. He nurtured his image carefully, a massive gentle bear of a man with graceful hands and self-deprecating wit. At the third spa he maneuvered, on his right, a pliable file clerk with adenoids and lovely skin. She pronounced herself simply thrilled to meet a real, self-admitted traveling salesman. Maels found her rather too plump for ideal quarry, but no matter: she would do. He felt pale stirrings of excitement and honed them, titillated them. Perhaps he would grant her a sexual encounter before he fed. Perhaps.

  Then Karl Maels glanced into the mirror behind the bar, and the pliant clerk was instantly and brutally forgotten. He sipped bourbon and his mouth was drier than before as he focused on the girl who had captured the seat to his left.

  It was not merely that she was lovely. By all criteria she was also flawless quarry. Maels fought down his excitement and smiled his best smile. “I kept your place,” he said with just enough pretended gruffness.

  “Am I all that predictable?” Her voice seemed to vibrate in his belly. He estimated her age at twenty-two but, sharing her frank gaze, elevated that estimate a bit.

  Maels wisely denied her predictability, asked where she found earrings of beaten gold aspen leaves, and learned that she was from Pueblo, Colorado. To obtain a small commitment he presently said, “The body is a duty, and duty calls. Will you keep my place?”

  The long natural lashes barely flickered, the chin rose and dropped a minute fraction. Maels made his needless round-trip to the men’s room, but hesitated on his return. He saw the girl speak a bit crossly to a tall young man who would otherwise have taken Maels’ seat. Maels assessed her fine strong calves, the fashionable wedge heels cupping voluptuous high insteps. His palms were sweating.

  Maels waited until the younger man had turned away, then reclaimed his seat. After two more drinks he had her name, Barbara, and her weakness, seafood; and knew that he could claim his quarry as well.

  He did not need to feign his easy laugh in saying, “Well, now you’ve made me ravenous. I believe there’s a legendary crab cocktail at a restaurant near the wharf. Feel like exploring?”

  She did. It was only a short walk, he explained, silently adding that a taxi was risky. Barbara happily took his arm. The subtle elbow pressures, her matching of his stride, the increasing frequency of hip contact were clear messages of desire. When Maels drew her toward the fortuitous schoolyard, Barbara purred in pleasure. Moments later, their coats an improvised couch, they knelt in mutual exploration, then lay together in the silent mottled shadows.

  He entered her cautiously, then profoundly, gazing down at his quarry with commingled lust and hunger. Smiling, she undid her blouse to reveal perfect breasts. She moved against him gently and, with great deliberation, thrust his sweater up from the broad striated ribcage. Then she pressed erect nipples against his body. Maels cried out once.

  When European gentlemen still wore rapiers, Maels had taken a blade in the shoulder. The memory flickered past him as her nipples, hypodermic-sharp, incredibly elongated, pierced him on lances of agony.

  Skewered above her, Maels could not move. Indeed, he did not lose his functional virility, as the creature completed her own pleasure and then, grasping his arms, rolled him over without uncoupling. He felt tendons snap in his forearms but oddly the pain was distant. He could think clearly at first. Maels thought: How easily she rends me. She manipulated him as one might handle a brittle doll.

  Maels felt a warm softening in his guts with a growing anaesthesia. Maels thought: The creature is consuming me as I watch.

  Maels thought: A new subspecies? He wondered how often her kind must feed. A very old subspecies? He saw her smile.

  Maels thought: Is it possible that she feeds only on feeders? Does she re
ad my thoughts?

  “Of course,” she whispered, almost lovingly.

  Some yards away, a tiny animal scrabbled in the leaves.

  He thought at her: “ . . . and so on, ad infinitum. I wonder what feeds on you . . .”

  MILLENNIAL

  POSTSCRIPT

  Very special variants of the human species-immortals, telepaths, vampires-are familiar themes in fiction. With the real-world mapping of the human genome, our complete genetic blueprint, it’s becoming clear that we will eventually be able to engineer humans to order. The current debate rages as to whether we should, and to many people eugenics is a Hitlerian word. Those people may win every debate, but labwork isn’t a debated issue in every lab. Someone will try to improve our species on the DNA level. Count on it. Of course, “improve” is a word open to interpretation; someone might decide the ideal zookeeper should resemble his charges, only more so.

  Meanwhile, one of our major tools in locating specific genes is the comparison of the human genome to the genome of, for one real example, the cat. This is largely because we share roughly sixty inherited diseases with cats, and engineering a diabetes-free breed of cat is a big step toward eradicating diabetes from humans.

  In the previous story, the lovely lethal Barbara may have shared some genes with a very different critter. You’re invited to guess which one I had in mind.

  A REPORT ON

  ADVANCED SMALL ARMS CONCEPTS

  Anyone who attends a future armament brainstorming session can expect some surprises. For me, the conference held at Battelle’s Seattle center in January 1986 was no exception. One of my major surprises came when they said I could write about it. After all, an advanced concepts workshop is where you sow the seeds of preliminary designs. Odd as it may seem, these concepts aren’t yet classified. You can expect that to change when some of these wild and woolly small arms systems germinate into the development stage.