That evening, as we head back to our mountain, the truce still holding, I sit by Abi’s body in the cargo bay and think about when Abi said that it would probably get me killed. "Now I have gotten you killed."
"There will be more." I look up and Will Davidge is leaning against the hatchway. His head is bandaged and Kita is by his side.
"Are we wrong?" I ask.
Davidge lifts a hand and lets it fall to his side. "If I knew the answer to that, Ro, the universe would be a much different place." He nods toward the comm center. "It’s not over yet." Kita and he turn and return to the center. I say good-bye to Abi and follow them.
FORTY-ONE
The body count. Zenak Abi, Jacob Drews, and eleven members of a Green Fire missile battery. Nightwing and the other agent at the missile site were cut up a bit from flying debris, but nothing serious. The truce still holds.
We are gathered in the large chamber of the copper mine. Davidge is on his back on the dirt floor. Kita sits on the ground next to Davidge. "Neither the Front nor the Mavedah have issued statements and all of the splinters are waiting to find out what the main groups will say so they can oppose it, I imagine."
"We have heard from Green Fire," I add. "According to them The Peace is a Mavedah diversion allowing the Dracs to talk peace and keep killing."
"Anybody buying it?"
Kita nods. "Some are."
Davidge closes his eyes and leans his head back on the folded coat Kita has stuffed behind his head. "What about it, Ro?"
"Everyone we killed today was human."
He looks off into the shadows, takes a deep breath, and lets it escape slowly. "All the ones doing the killing were human, too."
"Were they!" I ask, already knowing the answer. I sit on the edge of one of Abi’s homemade chairs, lean forward, and clasp my hands together. "We need someone to replace Abi. You, too, if you are not on your feet soon. I cannot do it alone."
He looks at me for a long time. When he speaks he almost seems to be another person. "I want you to know that I am very proud of you, Yazi Ro, When you first showed up on Friendship, I thought you were going to be a real pain in the ass. Now that I’ve gotten to know you, if I could have my greatest wish it would be to have had a chance to watch you grow to adulthood. I don’t know if growing up with me would have been an improvement. You did an excellent job all by yourself. It would have been happier for you, though, I think."
He does not wait for a response, as if I was capable of one. Instead he looks at Kita. He places his hand on top of hers and squeezes it. "For reasons I’m not sure I understand, here you are."
She smiles and looks into his eyes as she brushes his face with her other hand. "I never could turn down a ski date."
"Kita, how would you like a really crappy job?"
Her smile fades as she cocks her head to one side. "Are you sure?"
"I’m, sure."
"If I disagree with you on a hit, I’ll follow my conscience."
Davidge pats her hand and nods, stopping the nod short as his face registers pain. "I expect nothing less." He looks at me. "What do you think about Kita taking Abi’s place?"
"She is an excellent choice. Her training, her judgment―" The image of Jacob Drews hangs in front of my every waking moment. I feel unshed tears choking me. "Drews was a human and I can hardly bear knowing the pain that drove him."
Davidge faces me. "I would be very concerned if his death didn’t trouble you."
"What if the next one is a Drac? What if I see myself taking my pain out on some Amadeen Front monsters? What will I do?"
Kita turns and looks at me. "You will do the right thing, Yazi Ro. So much depends on it."
"If it destroys me?" I look at Davidge. "What then?"
His voice is quiet, but firm. "If you do not reach for the strength you need, then you will be destroyed. Remember Aydan’s warmasters in the Koda Itheda. When a warmaster took up Aydan’s blade, it didn’t join itself to a lonely cause. With the blade came its sibling warmasters and the soldiers of its denve; a family united by the goal of peace. Together they became invincible. In other words, Ro, you don’t have to fight the monster all by yourself."
Outside, the envelope of night hiding me from everything but my thoughts, I look down from the mountain into the shadows where the night mist again fills the valley with ghosts. I hear Eli, Yora, Ghazi, and a few of Abi’s people working on the Aeolus, attempting to repair the screen and hull damage sustained by the ship when the Green Fire missile detonated. Elsewhere, a newly graduated group of agents bids good-bye to their friends and families as they use the cover of dark to hide their departures to their respective posts. The power platforms that will deliver them are being checked by their pilots. Reaper, Janice, and the others are in the ship standing watch on the information center, taking reports, plotting movements, updating the data banks. I hear some of our people as they huddle in the chill of the dark, putting off sleep by retelling the story of Drews and the Green Fire attack. Before they get to my part in the saga, I move away, seeking a quieter place in the darkness.
I hear crying; a person alone, letting its feelings out. For a moment I hesitate, not knowing whether I will be more comfort or annoyance. I move closer and see that it is Kita. "May I help?" I ask.
Before I can take a breath she throws her arms around my waist, buries her face in my chest, and cries. As I put my arms around her and hold her I see the wisdom of Aydan’s admonishment to its warmasters against warring with grief by oneself. "You are but one," said the ancient warrior Jetah who raised an army to end The War of Ages. "Pain, grief, sorrow, hate, and revenge are armies without number."
"Ro," she cries. "I love him so and I am so frightened."
As my own tears begin, I place my head alongside hers and whisper in her ear. "Remember the student in the Sitarmeda? The one who was frightened and who was going to lay open its own throat rather than face its fear? Namvaac found the student and asked what was troubling it?"
I feel her head nod as she sniffs back her tears and quotes from the Koda Sitarmeda, "Jetah, the darkness covers all the universe. It is such an all-powerful evil, I feel so small and helpless within it. Next to this darkness, the black of death seems so bright."
I answer her back, "Where you are now, child, Tochalla has been before you. It too was in darkness. It, too, had a knife. But Tochalla also had a friend."
She laughs and looks up at me. "I remember the passage a little differently, Ro. It was ‘Tochalla also had talma,’ wasn’t it?"
"I like how I remember it better, Kita. Besides, wasn’t having a friend part of Tochalla’s talma?"
"Thank you, Ro." She pulls herself up, kisses my cheek, and says again, "Thank you."
As I watch her walk to the ship, I think of the Drac with the two children on Mt. Atahd who said I have the eyes of a killer. "I am all of that," I whisper to its memory as I turn and look down at the ghosts in the fog. "I am all of that, but I am more. I am more."
FORTY-TWO
In the morning, the Aeolus in position over the Shorda Sea between the Shorda and Dorado continents, Davidge with us at the table in the comm room. We listen to the broadcasts from the Mavedah and the Front stations. Both stations give a reasonably accurate account of what happened and why, which means they have yet to decide what to do about us. All of the stations use the graphics supplied by the Navi Di. After the shocking image of Jacob Drews exploding, there are shots of the crater in the plaza, the number twenty-nine found chalked next to the hole, as well as on the rooftop where Peaches had squeezed off the fatal shot. The stations also show the graphics we supplied of the Green Fire missile incident, the number twenty-nine prominently displayed on the side of a burned-out van.