“I was attempting sarcasm, Private,” Wilson said.

“I know that, sir,” Jefferson said. “But I’m being serious. Space is fantastic. All of this. It is awesome.”

“Well, except for the cold and vacuum and the unbearable silent death of it,” Wilson said.

“Death?” Jefferson said, and smiled. “Begging the lieutenant’s pardon, but death was back home on Earth. Do you know what I was doing three months ago, sir?”

“I’m guessing being old,” Wilson said.

“I was hooked up to a dialysis machine, praying I would make it to my seventy-fifth birthday,” Jefferson said. “I’d already gotten one transplant, and they didn’t want to give me another because they knew I was going to leave anyway. Cheaper to hook me up. I barely made it. But I got to seventy-five, signed up and a week later, boom. New body, new life, new career. Space is awesome.”

The shuttle hit an air pocket of some sort, tumbling the transport before the pilot could right the ship again. “There’s the minor problem that you might have to kill things,” Wilson said, to Jefferson. “Or get killed. Or fall out of the sky. You’re a soldier now. These are the occupational hazards.”

“Fair trade,” Jefferson said.

“Is it,” Wilson said. “First mission?”

“Yes, sir,” Jefferson said.

“I’ll be interested to know if your answer to that is the same a year from now,” Wilson said.

Jefferson grinned. “You strike me as a ‘glass half-empty’ kind of guy, sir,” he said.

“I’m a ‘the glass is half-empty and filled with poison’ kind of guy, actually,” Wilson said.

“Yes, sir,” Jefferson said.

Lee nodded suddenly, not at Wilson or Jefferson, but at the message she was getting from her BrainPal. “Drop-off in two,” she said. “Fire teams.” The soldiers formed up into groups of four. “Wilson. You’re with me.” Wilson nodded.

“You know, I was one of the last people off, sir,” Jefferson said to Wilson a minute later, as the shuttle zeroed in on its landing site.

“Off of what?” Wilson said. He was distracted; he was going over the mission specs on his BrainPal.

“Off of Earth,” Jefferson said. “The day I went up the Nairobi beanstalk, that guy brought that alien fleet into Earth orbit. Scared the hell out of all of us. We thought we were under attack. Then the fleet started transmitting all sorts of things about the Colonial Union.”

“You mean, like the fact it had been socially engineering the Earth for centuries to keep it a farm for colonists and soldiers,” Wilson said.

Jefferson snorted quietly. “That’s a little paranoid, don’t you think, sir? I think this fellow—”

“John Perry,” Wilson said.

“—has some explaining to do about how he managed to head up an alien fleet in the first place. Anyway, my transport ship was one of the last out of Earth dock. There were one or two more, but after that I’m told the Earth stopped sending us soldiers and colonists. They want to renegotiate their relationship to the Colonial Union, is how I’ve heard it.”

“Doesn’t seem unreasonable, all things considered,” said Wilson.

The shuttle landed with a muted thump and settled into the earth.

“All I know, sir, is I’m glad this Perry guy waited until I was gone,” Jefferson said. “Otherwise I’d still be old and missing my kidneys and probably near death. Whatever’s out here is better than what I had there.”

The shuttle door cracked open and the outside air rushed in, hot and sticky and rich with the scent of death and decomposition. From the platoon came a few audible groans and the sound of at least one person gagging. Then the platoon began its disembarkment by fire teams.

Wilson looked over at Jefferson, whose face had registered the full effect of the smell coming off the planet. “I hope you’re right,” Wilson said. “But from the smell of it, we’re probably near death here, too.”

They stepped out of the shuttle and onto a new world.

*   *   *

The Bula sub-ambassador looked not unlike a lemur, as all Bula did, and carried the jeweled amulet that signified her station in the diplomatic corps. She had an unpronounceable name, which all things considered was not unusual, but insisted that Abumwe and her staff call her “Sub-Ambassador Ting.” “It is close enough for government work,” she said, through a translator device on her lanyard as she shook Abumwe’s hand.

“Then welcome, Sub-Ambassador Ting,” Abumwe said.

“Thank you, Ambassador Abumwe,” Ting said, and motioned for her, Drolet and Schmidt to sit across from her and her two staff at the conference room table. “We are delighted that someone such as yourself was available for these negotiations on such short notice. It is a shame about Katerina Zala. Please send her my regards.”

“I shall,” Abumwe said. She sat.

“What is this ‘appendix’ she ruptured?” Ting asked, sitting herself.

“It’s a vestigial organ attached to the larger digestive system,” Abumwe said. “Sometimes it gets inflamed. A rupture can cause sepsis and death if not treated.”

“It sounds horrible,” Ting said.

“It was caught early enough that Deputy Ambassador Zala was in no real danger,” Abumwe said. “She will be fine in a few days.”

“That’s good to hear,” Ting said. “Interesting how such a small part can threaten the health of an entire system.”

“I suppose it is,” Abumwe said.

Ting sat there for a moment, companionably silent, and then with a start grabbed the PDA her assistant had laid before her. “Well, let us begin, shall we. We don’t want our diplomatic system grinding to a halt because of us.”

*   *   *

The hand-tooled sign at the edge of the colony read, “New Seattle.” As far as Wilson could see, it was the only thing in the colony that hadn’t burned.

“Teams, report in,” Lee said. There were no teams other than her own near her; her voice was being carried by BrainPal. Wilson opened up the general channel in his own head.

“Team one here,” said Blaine Givens, the team leader. “I’ve got nothing but burned huts and dead bodies.”

“Team two here,” said Muhamad Ahmed. “I’ve got the same.”

“Team three,” said Janet Mulray. “More of the same. Whatever happened here isn’t happening now.” The three other teams reported the same.

“Anybody finding survivors?” Lee asked. Responses came in: None so far. “Keep looking,” she said.

“I need to get to the colony HQ,” Wilson said. “That’s why I’m here.”

Lee nodded and moved her team forward.

“I thought we weren’t colonizing anymore,” Jefferson said to Wilson as they moved into the colony. “The aliens told us they’d vaporize any planet we colonized.”

“Not ‘the aliens,’” Wilson said. “The Conclave. There’s a difference.”

“What’s the difference?” Jefferson asked.

“There are about six hundred different alien races we deal with,” Wilson said. “Maybe two-thirds of them are in the Conclave. The rest of them are like us, unaffiliated.” He routed around a dead colonist who lay, charred, in the path.

“And what does that mean, sir?” Jefferson asked, routing around the same body but letting his eyes linger on it.

“It means they’re like us,” Wilson said. “If they colonize, the Conclave will blast the crap out of them, too.”

“But this is a colony,” Jefferson said, turning his eyes back to Wilson. “Our colony.”

“It’s a wildcat colony,” Wilson said. “It’s not sanctioned by the Colonial Union. And this is someone else’s planet anyway.”

“The Conclave’s?” Jefferson asked.

Wilson shook his head. “No, the Bula. Another group of aliens entirely.” He motioned at the burned-out huts and sheds around them. “When these guys headed here, they were on their own. No support from the CU. And no defense, either.”

“So not our colony,” Jefferson said.

“No,” Wilson said.

“Will the aliens see it that way, sir?” Jefferson asked. “Either group, I mean.”

“Since we’d be screwed either way if they didn’t, let’s hope so,” Wilson said. He looked up and saw that he and Jefferson had gotten off the pace of Lee. “Come on, Jefferson.” He jogged to catch up with the platoon leader.