Ellen Ferguson sat with her elbows on her knees and her head drooping, saying, "I can't believe it's all over, after I worked so hard, I gave so much. . . ."
Sally said, "It isn't over. Remember what you said, as long as there are women, there will be a fight."
"But we've lost our leaders."
"You could ';.."'
"No, I couldn't."
"Don't worry, there are plenty of others."
As Sally spoke, the door opened and Glenda stepped in to take Sheena's place.
When the melee in the clearing was over, Dr. Ora Fessenden and Rap had escaped with their followers. They knew the lay of the land and so they were able to elude the troop concentration, which surrounded the camp, and began to lay plans to regroup and fight another day.
A number of women, disgusted by the orgy of violence, chose to pack their things and go. The Mothers' Escadrilie deserted en masse, taking their children and a few children who didn't even belong to them.
Ellen said, "You're going to have to go down there and parley. I'm not used to talking to men."
And so Sally found herself going down to the gate to conduct negotiations.
She said, "The two you wanted got away. The rest of them—I mean us—are acting in good faith." She lifted her chin. "If you want to go ahead and bomb anyway, you'll have to go ahead and bomb!"
The captain lifted her and set her on the hood of the jeep. He was grinning. "Shit, little lady, we just wanted to throw a scare into you."
"You don't understand." She wanted to get down off the hood but he had propped his arms on either side of her. She knew she ought to be furious, but instead she kept thinking how much she missed Zack. Speaking with as much dignity as she could under the circumstances, she outlined the women's complaints; she already knew it was hopeless to list them as demands.
"Don't you worry about a thing, honey." He lifted her down and gave her a slap on the rump to speed her on her way. "Everything is going to be real different from now on."
"I bet."
Coming back up the hill to camp, she saw how sad everything looked, and she could not for the life of her decide whether it was because the women who had been gathered here had been inadequate to the cause or whether it was, rather, that the cause itself had been insufficiently identified; she suspected that they had come up against the human condition, failed to recognize it and so tried to attack a single part, which seemed to involve attacking the only allies they would ever have. As for the specific campaign, as far as she could tell, it was possible to change some of the surface or superficial details but once that was done things were still going to be more or less the way they were, and all the best will in the world would not make any real difference.
In the clearing, Lory stood at Glenda's elbow. "Of course you're going to need a lieutenant."
Glenda said, "I guess so."
Ellen Ferguson was brooding over a row of birches that had been trashed during the struggle. If she could stake them back up in time, they might reroot.
June said, "Okay, I'm going to be mess sergeant." Margy said, "The hell you will," and pushed her in the face.
Glenda said, thoughtfully, "Maybe we could mount a Lysistrata campaign."
Lory snorted. "If their wives won't do it, there are plenty of girls who will."
Zack sent a message:
WE HAVE TO HELP EACH OTHER.
Sally sent back:
I KNOW.
Before she went home, Sally had to say goodbye to Ellen Ferguson.
Ellen's huge, homely face sagged. "Not you too."
Sally looked at the desultory groups policing the wreckage, at the separate councils convening in every corner. "I don't know why I came. I guess I thought we could really do something."
Ellen made a half-turn, taking in the command shack, the compound, the women who remained. "Isn't this enough?"
"I have to get on with my life."
Ellen said, "This is mine."
"Oh, Vic, I've been so stupid." June was sobbing in Vic's arms. She was also lying in her teeth but she didn't care, she was sick of the revolution and she was going to have to go through this formula before Vic would allow her to resume her place at his kitchen sink. The work was still boring and stupid but at least there was less of it than there had been at camp; her bed was softer, and since it was coming on winter, she was grateful for the storm sashes, which Vic put up every November, and the warmth of the oil burner, which he took apart and cleaned with his own hands every fall.
Sally found her house in good order, thanks to Zack, but there was several weeks' work piled up in her studio, and she had lost a couple of commissions. She opened her drawer to discover, with a smile, that Zack had washed at least one load of underwear with something red.
"I think we do better together," Zack said.
Sally said, "We always have."
In the wake of fraternization with the military guard detail, Marva discovered she was pregnant. She knew what Dr. Ora Fessenden said she was supposed to do, but she didn't think she wanted to.
As weeks passed, the women continued to drift away. "It's nice here and all," Betts said apologetically, "but there's a certain je ne sais quoi missing; I don't know what it is, but I'm going back in there and see if I can find it."
Glenda said, "Yeah, well. So long as there is a yang, I guess there is going to have to be a yin."
"Don't you mean, so long as there is a yin, there is going to have to be a yang?"
Glenda looked in the general direction of town, knowing there was nothing there for her to go back to. "I don't know what I mean anymore."
Activity and numbers at the camp had decreased to the point where federal troops could be withdrawn. They were needed, as it turned out, to deal with wildcat raids in another part of the state. Those who had been on the scene came back with reports of incredible viciousness.
Standing at their windows in the town, the women could look up to the hills and see the camp fire still burning, but as the months wore on, fewer and fewer of them looked and the column of smoke diminished in size because the remaining women were running out of volunteers whose turn it was to feed the fire.
Now that it was over, things went on more or less as they had before.
GERARD E. GIANNATTASIO
Protective Temporal Strike
Perhaps the author's tour of duty as an air force officer taught him to push on to victory despite all odds. The odds on finding a new twist to add to the literature of all the time travel twists that have come before are overwhelming. But he has done it.
Sylvie heard the door open: it wasn't locked. Out here in the country they never bothered. "Patti," she called, half laughing and wanting to share, "Patti, this recipe is outrageous!" She had white flour to her elbows and a smudge where she'd wiped her forehead.
"Patti?" She turned. "Oh! Hello."
The figure standing in the doorway of the kitchen wore gray leather: belts and bulges, boots tight to the calves, and a conical, visored helmet with featureless dark faceplate. The unfamiliar three-barreled gun pointed at her midriff surprised Sylvie less than the four-foot height of the bearer.
"Move away from the table." The voice was masculine, shocking in its depth.
Sylvie moved. "Okay," she said raising her hands aloft. "Can I get you something?"
"Do you always greet armed strangers with a civil tongue?"
"Well, you're my first."
"He could be your last." A second figure had entered. Feminine, slightly taller, wearing low slippers and a dark blue jump suit, she said, "Stitch her up, armed stranger."
The dwarfish figure brought his gun up slightly. Sylvie felt a prickling line run from below her rib cage to her left breast. She swayed. The feminine figure went out.