Alien Landscapes 2 by Kevin J. Anderson Page A

comfortable with a vengeance.
    The gentle sound of running water trickled from speakers embedded in the wall. The white-noise had a soothing effect, the opposite of the perpetual, pressuring commands that had droned into his ears from helmet speakers. Now, the image of a soporific, bubbling brook made him want to lie motionless in a stupor.
    He no longer even seemed alive.
    This room was smaller, the walls painted pastel colors instead of clean white. The illumination was muted and warm, like sunlight through amber. It made his head fuzzy.
    Stiffly, Barto rolled over and found that Arviq wasn’t with him this time. His comrade had been taken elsewhere. Was this some sort of insidious Enemy plan? Divide and conquer, separate the squad members.
    Had he fallen into some new kind of warfare that went beyond violence and destruction to this personality-destroying brainwashing technique? Barto snarled and tried to find a way to escape—a captured soldier’s duty was to escape at all costs.
    He didn’t hear a door open, felt no movement of the air—but suddenly the beautiful woman stood there with him, setting a platter down on a ledge formed out of the substance of the wall. She leaned over his bed, her entire body smelling of gentle flowers and perfumes. She smiled down at him, parting soft lips to reveal even white teeth. Barto started, ready to fight with hand-to-hand techniques even without his armor or his weapons—but she made no threatening move.
    “My name is Juliette,” she said, then waited as if he was supposed to recognize some significance to the name.
    He answered as he had been drilled. “Barto. Corporal. E21TFDN.” He rolled off the serial number in a singsong chant, “Eetoowun teeyeff deeyenn.” He had spoken it more than any other word in his lifetime. Then he formed his mouth into a grim line. That was all he had been trained to say. The Enemy rarely, if ever, took prisoners. Everyone died on the battlefield.
    “I brought food for you . . . Barto.” Juliette picked up a steaming, spicy-smelling bowl from the tray on the ledge. It contained some kind of broth laced with vegetables, even a little meat.
    Though he could withstand long periods of fasting, Barto realized how hungry he was. He’d been trained to shut off the hunger pangs and nerve twinges in his digestive system. But he also knew to take nourishment whenever possible, to maintain his strength.
    She extended a spoon, and Barto raised his head to accept a mouthful. The spoon was metal with rounded edges. Even such a crude and innocuous weapon could be used in many different ways as a killing instrument. He could have snatched it from her—but he did not, taking the mouthful instead.
    The flavors exploded around his tongue, and Barto nearly choked. It was too intense, too spiced, too fresh—experiences his mouth had never had. Back in the barracks all soldiers ate a common meal, a protein-rich gruel that served as sustenance and nothing else. He’d never before dined on a preparation in which someone had cared about its flavors. He didn’t find it at all pleasant.
    Juliette gave him another mouthful, and he forced himself to eat it. But he did not let down his guard for an instant.
    “The stun-field should have no residual effect on you, Barto,” she said. “You’ll regain your strength in no time.” Her voice sounded odd in his ears, pitched with a higher timbre, musical rather than the implacable instructions that had poured into his ears from the helmet’s speakers.
    “I’m strong enough,” Barto said. “Where is my comrade?”
    “He’s safe and being tended—but we thought it best to separate you.” She took the bowl away, then stood back to appraise him. “I’m curious about you, Barto, Corporal, E21TFDN. I want to be your friend—so let’s just use our first names, all right?” She brushed her hand along his arm, and he recoiled at her touch; it felt like warm feathers tickling across the skin. “Can you stand