“Fires?” Genie swallowed. “Can I have some water?”
The soldier shook her head. “Not until we make sure you're all shipshape inside, I think. Okay?”
“Okay.” Genie tried to raise her hand to cover her cough. It wasn't pink or foamy, and she saw the soldier's look of relief. “It's okay. I have CF.”
“Are you cold, sweetie?” A quick tilt of the woman's head as she shrugged out of her coat and laid it over Genie. “What's CF?”
“Cystic fibrosis. It's icky. Makes me cough a lot. Have you seen my Aunt Jenny's cat?”
“The orange tabby? He's hiding under the pilot's seat. I think he's okay. Maybe a little dented. You want me to go get him out for you?”
“Wear gloves,” Genie said, and laid her head back on the soldier's coat. “Where are we going?”
But the soldier had already left.
Blood slicked Elspeth's hands, bubbled between her fingers as she groped the injured pilot's thigh and pressed down hard, feeling for the artery, feeling for the source of the ragged flood. “Dammit,” she muttered. “I can't find this. I can't see a damned thing.”
The big soldier — the one who'd picked Genie up — kept ripping down the seam of the pilot's flight suit with a jagged-edged knife, laying his hairy pale leg bare to the dust-dimmed light. Elspeth sucked in between her teeth. The pilot whimpered as her fingers pressed the inside of his thigh, not far from his groin. “Doc?”
“You got a bit of a puncture there,” she said, her voice stunningly level. Med school was a long time ago, Ellie.
What do I do? Cold, fingers shaking, pale under all that blood. Her saliva went bitter; she would have turned her head and spat, if she hadn't been elbow-deep in gore. What do I do?
And then a voice that was her voice, and not quite. The voice of a different Elspeth. Younger and more certain of the workings of the world. Tourniquet, Direct pressure. Pray he's not bleeding inside.
He could lose the leg.
He will lose more than a leg if you don't stop fucking around, El.
Dammit, I'm not a real doctor.
Ellie. And it was a calm voice. Not her own panicked whine. She leaned down on the wound and opened her mouth, and the calm voice came out. “Soldier—”
“Marquet.”
“Marquet. I need a belt. Webbing. Anything like that. About three feet of it. And a straight stick or anything to twist—”
“On it,” he said, and lurched to his feet.
The pilot winced, looked down, and glanced up at the barren trees, swallowing hard. His blood froze to the edges of the leaves. “Doc, am I gonna lose that leg?”
More blood filled her mouth, and it wasn't his. “Not if I can help it,” she said, and pressed down harder.
“Thanks,” he said, eyes bright, and then he drifted away.
The chopper came fifteen minutes later. Elspeth climbed into it beside Genie's stretcher, which Marquet and the redheaded soldier lifted. A medic had run an IV into Genie's vein, and as her pain slid back under the pressure of the drugs Genie mumbled something and turned her cheek into Elspeth's hand. The gesture went in like a knife through her breast.
Boris lay curled against the girl's side and wouldn't be moved, and Elspeth decided it was just as well.
There was blood under the fingernails of the hand Genie leaned against, and the sheet on the second stretcher was drawn taut from top to bottom.
It hadn't been enough.
You tried, the calm voice said. Elspeth shook her head, stopped herself just before she pressed the bloody heel of her hand to her eye. “Shit,” she whispered, and looked back at Genie, drifting. “Shit.”
“Hey.” It was the big soldier, Marquet. He laid a hand on her arm in an awkward caress. “Doc.”
“I'm sorry,” she answered, looking down, leaning back against the chopper's cabin wall as the rest of the survivors trailed in. “I'm sorry I couldn't do more.”
Marquet shrugged, squeezed, dropped his hand back to his side. “He could have died scared,” he said. “He didn't die scared, Doc. You did everything you could.” He turned away, leaving Elspeth blinking after him. She dropped into a jumpseat as the chopper rose into a toiling sky.
0600 Hours
Friday 22 December, 2062
HMCSS Montreal
Earth orbit
Gabe paces me, a shadow over my shoulder as I come along the long, curving corridor toward the Montreal's bridge. My feet fall by their own volition. Richard and his Chinese pilot friend have hatched a plan that's only a little less sane than my last one, and it tumbles over and over in my head, spinning with the velocity of the damned asteroid we almost caught.
Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Jenny.
And H-bombs, I hear a long-forgotten drill instructor say.
I let my mouth run along with my feet, trying to keep Gabe with me, keep him focused. “Richard says Leah is safe on Calgary.” He grunts, so I keep talking. “Wainwright is EVA with a repair crew, patching the solar sail. I broke the vane. Richard says if we can patch it the right way, nanosurgeons will do the rest.”
“That was pretty nice flying, Jen.”
I check my stride to force him to catch me, slide my steel arm around his waist. “Elles pourraient être vivantes.”
He just looks at me, lips thin, that bruised look still splotching his face. “Ne pas me mentir, Geni.”
“Jamais. Shhh. No, Gabriel—” I dig in my heels.
He keeps walking, not speeding up but not stopping either.
“Gabriel!”
“Quoi?” He stops. He turns, filling the narrow corridor.
“Gabe, if you left people for dead just because it looked bad for them, I wouldn't be here having this argument with you.”
“Oh.” He looks down at his hands. I cover the few meters between us and take those hands in my own, running my steel thumb over the discolorations on his skin. Bad burns, bone-deep. There were some on his arms and chest, too, but not like those. Those were as bad as mine, though not as extensive. There aren't many people in this world who will crawl through fire for somebody.
His eyes are just as blue as they ever were when I look back up. “I want it over with, Jenny. I don't want to sit and wait for the pain, and know what the answer will be before I ask the question.”
“They're dead or they're not dead,” I answer, looking hard for the words before I say them. “Nothing we can do will change that. But we have things we have to do right now, and I need you with me.”
“What did you just say?”
“I said I need you with me—”
“Jenny.” He's big and warm and he pulls me close for a second, and then sets me at arm's length. “You never needed anybody in your life.”
I look up at him, and shake my head. How can anybody as smart as he is be so goddamned wrong? “Just keep thinking that, Castaign,” I mutter, and elbow him in the ribs as I go by. At least he's laughing. It sounds like he might strangle on it, but he's laughing. So help me God.
I pause by the locked bridge hatchway and rap on it with my metal hand, hard. Richard, tell Patty it's us, please.
A few moments pass, the AI's voice tickling my inner ear. “We've found the problem with Min-xue's idea.”
What's that?
“I think we can get the Huang Di down with its core elements intact. The Benefactors managed it on Mars, and there's more atmosphere to work with in Earth.”