Robert Reed -The Hoplite.pdf

The Hoplite

by Robert Reed

This could be Persia.

These wide river valleys are fertile and irrigated, home to groves of fruit trees and date trees standing

between broad flat fields of golden grain. The sky is a fierce blue, while distant mountains stand tall

enough to hold their snows into the fire of summer. Every wind feels obliged to lift the dust high, and

when the wind stops, the taste of the land falls into my happy mouth. There is majesty to this country — a

sense of ancient epics refusing to end. Even the natives remind me of those long-vanished Persians —

darker people than I am, with peculiar clothes and indecipherable customs, wielding a language that still

baffles me, even after a year of fighting among them.

My orders bring me to a modest home surrounded by wheat.

A gun emerges from the shuttered window, and a single shot welcomes me. But the bullet is short on

mass and velocity. My shield extends, laying out sheet upon sheet of plasmatic barriers that melt and then

shatter the fleck of angry lead. No harm is done. In these circumstances, I'm free to react however I

wish. I wish to do nothing, to wait and watch, curious what happens next.

Next comes a string of wild shouts, and the shutters fly open. The rifle is flung into the yard, followed by

a withering onslaught of curses. A man in his early forties screams at someone I cannot see. Then he lifts

a small boy off the floor and shoves him through the open window. It is a passionate, unthinking act. But

that's how these people can be. The boy is his son: Local records are at my disposal, including their

security photographs and respective biographies. The boy just turned ten. He doesn't act particularly

scared. But he is offended and perhaps embarrassed by his father's rage. Why shouldn't he defend their

household? I can read his attitude in the face, in the proud posture. Straight-backed, he sits on the bare,

sun-broiled ground, frowning at his present misfortune. Then he decides that enough is enough, standing

and picking up his rifle again; but only as an afterthought does he look my way, considering the merits of

a second shot.

His father rushes from the front door, gesturing wildly while asking his son a stream of questions.

I watch the two of them. That's all I want to do.

The boy is stubborn in ways that only look like bravery. Young and ignorant, he throws out his chest

while boasting about his plans. He plans to shoot me again, from closer range. The gun waves in my

direction. I recognize the words for "honor" and "fight". But really, I'm only a secondary concern for the

child: What's important is to chastise his very cowardly father, stabbing gestures and dismissive

expressions defining his scorn.

At last, the man absorbs too much abuse. He snatches the rifle from his boy's hands, then kneels and

points it at the sky. This is a child's weapon, powerful enough to murder rats and rabbits. With his head

bowing but eyes still fixed upon me, the desperate father tells me what he believes I want to hear.

Fumbling with my language, he says, "I am sorry." He explains, "My son is young and foolish." Then he

dips his head farther, promising, "My family...we are good..."

The boy stands tall, pounding on his chest, sneering at both of us while barking out a few easy curses.

Then his father touches the tip of the barrel against the boy's chin and shoots, and even before the body

has finished its collapse, the man leaps up again, beating the offending weapon against the house, anguish

and rage giving him the strength to leave it in pieces.

* * *

I am a fortunate soul. In my first life, I often saw Alexander, the young king. In vivid detail, I can

remember his face — a beautiful kingly profile — and how he would sit astride his great black horse,

Bucephalus. When he spoke to his soldiers, it was the voice of a god — a glorious god spending his

earthly days among blessed young men — and I clearly remember how distraught I felt when our

man/king/god who had ruled much of the world suddenly and inexplicably died.

In dim ways, I remember being a peasant boy of ten playing with toy spears and swords, protected by a

small shield made of woven grass and rawhide.

More clearly, I remember training as a warrior in the service of my king.

Little moments and great days return to me. Dreaming or awake, I sometimes see myself marching with

my fellow soldiers, pushing into Asia and then off to Egypt before returning to Asia again. I smell those

long-dead friends and hear their Greek voices, and in my best dreams I understand the old tongue. But

never while awake. Which is common enough. The technology isn't perfect. Our squad leader was once

a Knight Templar — a great soldier who died during the Third Crusade — and he openly confesses that

he can't remember two words of his particular French. "These magician-scientists can bring back your

soul and your flesh," he will promise. "But only so much of each can return. The rest of you, your

essence, belongs to this day and our great time."

My squad leader and I have compared stories. Fourteen centuries separate our deaths; yet our bones

were recovered from graves barely twenty kilometers apart.

"These are the greatest times," our squad is often told.

I know my Greek name, plus a modern name given by the grim-faced nurses who cared for me while I

was a baby. But among my fellow soldiers, who have very little use for the ordinary, I am known as the

Hoplite.

Our leader is the Knight.

We have two Romans in our unit — the Legionnaire and the Gladiator. There is also the Celt and the SS

man, the Janissary and the Mongol. (Mongols have a fierce reputation, but ours is a quiet little fellow,

almost impossible to anger.) Our most brutal soldier is the Aztec. With little provocation, he will produce

masterful acts of violence that even sicken me. But knowing the story of his first life, I can appreciate why

slicing the skin from a living person is perfectly reasonable behavior, and wearing that dead man's flesh as

your own is a genuine show of deep respect.

My closest friend in the squad is the Glacier Man.

His mummified body was discovered in the melting ice on the now green Alps. Six thousand years after

his death, his bones were harvested for their genetic material, and a new body was grown inside an

artificial womb. Then the long-dead soul was retrieved by a machine called the quantum-dilutor and

implanted into the unborn child, supplying him with the memories and attitudes of his first self.

Unlike everyone else in our squad, the Glacier Man has died twice.

"I was one of the first brought back," he likes to tell us. "An experimental subject in a program that didn't

officially exist. I grew up in the lab and trained to fight by the best, and my first work was pacifying an

African hellhole."

He has more stories about Africa than Bronze-Age Europe. Which only makes sense, since that second

life is closer, and much more immediate.

"That second life ended with a traffic accident," the Glacier Man admits. "Nobody's fault, except mine."

He is an honorable fellow always bearing what blame is his.

"But somebody thought I was a good soldier. Because when they enlarged the program, they brought me

back for a second rebirth."

In our unit, the Glacier Man enjoys a reputation for measured courage and reasonable fear — two

blessings among professional soldiers.

"Live this life right," he has told us. Told me. "Do everything about your job right, and they will keep

bringing you and your soul back from the oblivion."

I always try to do right.

How could I not? What reasonable soul wouldn't want to live forever?

* * *

The dead boy's father makes a show of bowing to me again. When I was a new soldier, I took quite a bit

of pleasure from moments like this. These people consider me worthy of their fear and respect — the

two faces of the same golden coin. One young woman was so nervous in my presence that she soiled

herself; that moment kept me smiling for weeks. But that's the remote past, or so it feels. This man's

terror is huge, yet I can't let myself be too impressed. What if his terror is calculated? Has the man lain

awake at night, planning what he would do in a moment like this? Was he prepared to sacrifice his most

difficult child to save his family? Doing the chore himself impresses me. I can't help but marvel. And to

win more of my good nature, he grovels and digs at the earth, again and again saying, "My apologies,"

while his sobs pierce the hot midday air.

I could be wrong, but this fellow seems to be trying too hard.

I approach and kneel, the clean, armor-clad fingers of my left hand forcing his face to rise, meeting my

gaze.

In my right hand is a scroll-screen. Images of a known criminal are shown slowly, allowing him to study

my enemy from different vantage points and wearing several possible disguises.

"No," he says, in his language and then mine. "No, no."

I normally avoid using my translator. Too often, it becomes a crutch and another reason to stop noticing a

world rich in telling details. But this occasion demands precision. I ask, "Do you know this man?" and my

machinery repeats the question with my voice.

Again, with feeling, he says, "No."

"No," my machinery assures.

"Have you seen him? Anywhere? Ever?"

"Never, no."

I shake my head, my disappointment obvious. "Yet he was born and raised within three kilometers from

your front door. You have to know his family."

He ponders that rich question.

I offer the family's name.

If he lies now, I will find him out. In my files are countless points in time and space where this farmer's

little world crossed with the criminal's. No, he realizes, he has no choice here. It is smarter to tell the

truth, but only to a careful point.

"I know the family, yes."

I nod, pretending to be grateful.

"They are very bad people," he adds.

"But I only want this one man," I assure him. "He's a known leader and killer, and I want to gut him with

my own sword."

The imagery has its impact. Both of us understand that I have no use for ancient weapons. In its power

and capacity to intimidate, my railgun is infinitely superior. But the face resting in my left hand grimaces,

and finally, with a quavering tone, he confesses, "I am scared."

"Yes?"

"Two men terrify me."

"The man I'm chasing isn't half as dangerous as the man before you now."

My captive nods, eager to accept my argument. Then very quietly, he says, "You have to kill him. Today,

please. If I tell you where he is—"

"You will," I interrupt. "And I will kill him. It is a promise."

"He has a hiding place."

Every reasonable soul has two or three hiding places.

"Inside that far hill there," he says, fighting not to turn his head. What if his evil neighbor is watching us?

"Where in the hill?" I ask.

"The flat brown rock twenty meters above the plain," he offers. "It hides a doorway that leads into a

camouflaged bunker."

I show my most approving smile.

And he replies in kind, but with tears streaking his dirty, miserable face.

"Don't let him escape," my informant begs. "He has a tunnel that comes out on the back—"

"Where?"

"I don't know."

I would be suspicious if he did know such a secret. But everything he has shown me seems both valid

and minimally useful.

I let go of his face.

"What do I do now, sir?"

The scroll-screen is put away. Rising, I fix a plain gray box against the wall of his house. "Send one word

to anyone," I warn, "and this machine will know it. And if anyone tries to leave this yard, they'll be

noticed. And a munitions platform twenty kilometers over your bare head will spit out a rocket that will

obliterate your little house."

"Yes, sir."

I turn off my translator.

The man rises weakly to his feet, asking a final question. His hands and the tone of his sorry voice convey

the meaning. "What do I do with myself now?"

I point to his bloody, dead son.

Then I make the universal motion of shoveling, recommending an afternoon digging a worthy grave.

* * *

The Glacier Man likes to talk about measured pain and calculated misery. Standing watch with me, he

will point out that wars are usually won when one side is exhausted, and if you defeat your enemies

utterly, it will be ages before the same people find the courage and simple power to rise up again. But

that doesn't help soldiers who exist only when there is a war worth fighting. That's why it is best, essential

and wise, to show moments of measured patience, and even the illusion of kindness. In that fashion, the

people you fight can entertain the idea that we aren't invulnerable butchers. We are humans like them,

and with better planning and a little luck, their descendants might someday defeat our horrible kind.

The Mongol is familiar with our conversations. "Your friend made that same pitch to me, back when I

first joined the unit."

The Mongol is a likeable man.

"Little gestures of decency...yes, I suppose they would mean something. Someday. If those who saw our

kindness managed to notice, and those same eyes managed to survive until the treaty was signed..."

He is likeable, yet rather odd.

"We shouldn't temper our violence?" I asked.

"What I believe..." His voice fell away into black silence. Then he quietly told me, "We mean nothing. As

soldiers, and as a squad. At least when it comes to the prosecution of any single war."

"Nothing?"

"As good as nothing, I think."

My training says otherwise. Every other voice in my squad promises that we matter. And the actions of

both our enemies and the terrified natives make it easy to believe that we are fierce deities holding sway

over thousands of lives.

"Imagine a sword," he said. "Two edges sharp as razors and the hilt suited for the strong determined

hand."

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