Wailing rose from the camp.
Zoe Berman, in full gear, approached Marianne and Noah. “Go inside now,” she said, eyes on the camp, “just in case. Lieutenant Brodie’s orders.”
And just who had given Brodie that field promotion? Marianne didn’t ask. The military unit, grown ever larger with Kindred recruits, was something she didn’t understand, nor want to. With a final glance at the camp, the blowing trees, the clear sky, she went inside.
It was going to be a long day, an even longer night, and no one would sleep.
Isabelle stood in the doorway of the ready room, a child in her arms. At least the kid wasn’t crying, Leo thought. And it was alive, unlike the children who had died when he fired on the ship. That had been necessary, but he knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life. Awake, asleep, in dreams. Maybe someday he could talk about it with somebody—Isabelle?—but not now. He said, “Any more deaths?”
“No. And according to the radio, the spore cloud hit days ago ago.”
Leo nodded. He hated not being out there with his peacekeeping force, but Dr. Jenner had told him that if he did any more climbing around, he would tear open his stitches and die. Leo didn’t know if this was true and he suspected she didn’t know, either, but it worked okay for him to direct the mission from the ready room. He got reports about the camp from Lu^kaj^ho’s infiltrators, about any external threats from Kandiss and Zoe, about the vaccinated kids inside the compound from Isabelle, about radio reports from Isabelle and Noah Jenner, the only two left who were fluent in both Kindred and English now that Salah Bourgiba was dead.
Did Isabelle mourn him? She looked heavy-eyed and limp, but everybody looked that way. Waiting, not war, was the real hell.
He said, “Well, that’s good, right? Maybe the virophage worked. At least in the camp.”
“Maybe.” The child whimpered and she shifted it in her arms. Isabelle looked good with the dark-haired, copper-skinned baby. If she married a Kindred, her child would look more like Lily, a mix. But Isabelle hadn’t married any of the Kindred men.
She said, in an attempt at lightheartedness, “‘Lieutenant’?”
“Lu^kaj^ho started that shit,” Leo said, with disgust. “I think because Owen was called that, he assumes it’s a title for whoever is CO. Then Zoe did it, one of her twisted jokes. Only Kandiss has the sense to ignore it.”
“It’s not a joke, Leo. Your unit wants you to be lieutenant.”
“Yeah, but the US Army back home has other ideas.”
“Are you going back home, Leo? If it becomes possible?”
So they’d arrived here. Already. It took Leo by surprise—the timing did, anyway. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t, in the long stretches of sitting here on his pallet, thought about it.
He looked her straight in the eyes. “I don’t know, Isabelle—am I? Going back to Terra?”
But whatever he’d hoped to see—some sign, some plea—wasn’t there. However, it wasn’t not there, either, a maddening state of push-pull. If Isabelle had been a different woman, he’d have thought she was jerking him around. But he knew she wasn’t.
All right, then—let’s do this. He said, “Did you love him?”
She didn’t play any games about pretending not to understand. “No.”
He digested this: the speed and firmness with which she answered. He said slowly, “A lot depends on what happens with the cloud. If the virophage doesn’t work and everybody dies, and if it’s possible to reprogram the ship, will you go back to Terra?”
“I don’t know. If the virophage does work, or partially works, and there is still a civilization here to rebuild—will you stay on Kindred and help build it?”
“I don’t know,” Leo said. “I’m in the Army, you know.”
She grimaced. They both knew that too many Army regulations had already been jettisoned. And what did he face if he went back to Terra? Court-martial?
He said, stalling, “You know these people a lot better than I do—is there going to be what Tony Schrupp says, rioting and looting and a general breakdown?”
“I don’t know,” Isabelle said, “but I don’t think so. You know what, Leo—I think we all see the world mostly like we are inside. Tony was always a suspicious grabber, and so he’s suspicious about grabbing. That’s why he built Haven. Marianne has always put her faith in science, and she still does. And you were always a leader underneath, making your own judgments, and so now you can lead the unit.”
“You don’t know me, Isabelle. I was no leader.”
“Maybe you were and didn’t know it. We might need an army, Leo. We never did before, but before there was enough to go around easily, with very old laws and customs and such. If all that goes, things might be more disrupted. Humans aren’t naturally peaceful. We’re biologically hierarchical and territorial. Only abundance, a monoculture, and intense indoctrination kept us so peaceful for so long.”
The stilted words sounded like Salah Bourgiba, the intellectual. Maybe it was all true—actually, it was what Leo himself believed, just not in such fancy words—but he still felt a flash of jealousy that she was using Bourgiba’s phrases.
Heemur^ka appeared in the doorway and spoke in rapid Kindred. Leo felt his adrenaline jump-start. But then Isabelle translated.
“He says no more deaths in the camp, no planned violence. People are waiting to see what happens with the spore cloud.”
“Which means that if more people die, there could be trouble. Here’s what I want you to tell him.” Leo laid out the operation orders in case of attack, and everything else went on the back burner.
For now.
Austin woke with a start. He had struggled to stay awake all night, to hear everything, but sleep had grabbed him without his even feeling it, and now it was morning.! Shit!
The radio in Big Lab still received broadcasts. Noah sat on a cushion near it, a cup of nakl in his hands, leaning toward the radio to shut out the noise of fussing little kids and a wailing baby.
“Noah-kal—what news?”
“One more death in the camp, and other places are reporting only a few so far. That means that either the virophage mostly worked or—”
“I know what it means,” Austin snapped. When were they going to stop treating him like a little kid? He stalked to the piss closet, then the showers. When he was clean, he listened to the radio for an hour before going outside. The sun was well over the horizon, and the wind blew.
Ranger Berman was on roof duty, with two of Leo’s peacekeepers on the ground. “I greet you, Private Heemur^ka.”
“I greet you, Austin.”
“I greet—What’s that?” He was the first to spot it, a figure trudging over the horizon toward the compound, carrying something big. A second later he heard Ranger Berman on her wrister, although he couldn’t distinguish the words.
The figure plodded closer. Another few minutes, and Austin was sure. “It’s Claire!” He took off running before anyone could stop him.
She was dirty, tired, and angry. “Austin. You. The least you can do is help me—here, carry this!” She thrust at him a big piece of equipment. He recognized it. It was heavy.
“How did you escape? And how did you get this through the crawl tunnel?”
“I didn’t and I didn’t.” Then she softened a little. “Graa^lok let me go, with this.”
“Graa^lok?”
“Tony has a radio, you know. He—”
“I know he has a radio! I’m the one who brought it there!”
“Good for you. They’ve all heard that the virophage has kept deaths from R. sporii to a very few, relatively. Graa^lok understands the science, at least after I explained it to him. He believed me, unlike that moron Tony, and Graa^lok felt bad about my abduction. As you should, too! In the middle of the night, he smuggled me out the third entrance to Haven and let me take this. That entrance is a lot bigger.”