Leclerc cut him off. "All right. So he's a natural warrior and a promising leader. Hussain's another natural warrior, and a trained and proven leader. Where's Wesley's advantage?"
"You already identified it, sir." Zenawi showed no sign of backing off. "You wanted to keep units intact so far as possible; `for morale and unity,' you said. Wesley's been 2nd Platoon from the beginning, and he's a legend in B Company. In Airborne A Temp for that matter. He's got a reputation: they believe he can do anything, even salvage bad situations. He's smart, tough, fearless… and lucky! The men talk about it. The men of B Company, especially 2nd Platoon, would feel slighted, insulted, if he got passed over now."
Zenawi's expression was intense, his white eyes hard in his black face. "Hussain is a good man and he is a proven officer. In time, 2nd Platoon would forget their resentment, and like him. But it wouldn't be the same, and it would take awhile." He paused, and put his hand on his chest. "Speaking respectfully, sir, their company commander wants Esau Wesley, and so does his company!"
Leclerc pursed his lips, then grunted. "All right, you've made your case, Kemau. I'll post Wesley as commander of 2nd Platoon, B Company. But I want you to work with him. Help him with whatever he's short on. Give him some reading: The Infantry Platoon Leader; Working with Men; The Challenge of Command… And if he's willing, Gopal Singh's The Wise Leader. Then quiz him."
Zenawi relaxed. "Thank you, sir, I will. And sir, if you were the CO of B Company, I believe you'd have made the same request I did."
Leclerc stifled a smile. You got the old man to back down, didn't you, he thought. And now you're rubbing a little oil on. Well, it's healthy to back down now and then, when the case is good enough. But pick your spots carefully, Kemau.
That had been high summer. Now they were at winter's doorstep. Esau was rereading The Infantry Platoon Leader when Jael came in. For months they'd been in different units, quartered in different hutments, living different lives. He hadn't seen her for weeks; didn't often think about her anymore. So far as he knew, they were still married, but it felt remote.
"Hi, Esau," she said, walking over to him.
He laid down his book and stood up. "Howdy, Jael," he answered smiling. "It's been awhile."
Her voice sounded enough like her old voice now, Esau couldn't hear the difference. Normally, when a person signed a bot agreement, there were questions, the volunteer's answers were recorded, and they were asked to read selected lines. Then if they were bottled, they were given a cube of the recording, to help them learn their old voice again. Jael had learned without a cube, fitting her new voice to her personality, and to the "voice print" in her speech center.
"How're you liking your new servo?" Esau asked. Lamely, it seemed to her, as if he had trouble finding something to say. It was the same model as her old one, which had been damaged by a heavy slammer bolt two weeks earlier, on night reconnaissance deep inside Wyz Country. It had torn up her left knee.
"It's better than the old one," she answered. "It doesn't overheat." She paused to laugh. "The techs say that's because they've got them figured out. I told them it's the weather. Have you seen any action lately?"
He shook his head. "I've heard some a time or two, off in the distance a ways. Maybe things'll heat up when we get snow." He chuckled at the incongruity of terms. "Snow can come any time now, and Captain Zenawi said the last supply run brought down skis. If it gets belly deep, like sometimes, we ought to get around on foot better than the Wyz do."
"You folks still cutting timber every third week?"
He shook his head. "Haven't for… it'll be four weeks on Sixday. Things are getting dull around here." He half grinned. "Now if they'd let me start making a farm… " It had already occurred to him he didn't want to farm anymore, but the old thought patterns were still there, semiactive.
"If things keep going like they are," she said, "us and the Wyz might get so used to each other, we'll just say to Tophet with the war. You farm east of the river and we'll farm west of it." She didn't really want to farm anymore, either. Or live on New Jerusalem, where most women of childbearing age didn't live to see their thirtieth birthday (about thirty-nine Terran years). But she'd never thought of it as a cruel world. Most folks had been happy enough. And she'd accepted it-until she'd shared reminiscences with Terran women among the bots. Heard about their seventy-year-old grandmothers, even ninety-year-old great-grandmothers!
She'd wondered how long she'd live as a bot. A long time maybe. There were two main theories in the bot camp. The first was, your CNS would finally wear out. And the second-you'd live till you died of boredom. To her, the first seemed most likely.
Esau sat without saying anything, so she asked: "What're you reading?"
He held the book up-a paper book-showing her the cover. "The Infantry Platoon Leader," he said. "This is the third time I've read it. Seems like there's stuff in it that wasn't there before. Like someone came in while I slept, and added new stuff to it. I've been reading others, too. Read three by Gopal Singh! Quite a lot different than the Testaments, but I suspect Elder Hofer wouldn't fuss too bad. Some of it-a lot of it-he'd probably like.
"What you said about us and the Wyz getting used to each other… Nearly nine hundred years ago-when folks still fought each other a lot-Gopal Singh wrote that humankind was learning little by little to live in peace. And afterward, for a long time, folks did live in peace. Wouldn't be fighting today if the Wyz hadn't come along."
Jael nodded. "To start farming here again, the womenfolk would have to come back. And might be lots of them wouldn't want to."
"Yeah."
There was silence for several long seconds before he added, "I sure do miss… some of the things you and me used to do together."
"Me too. But not as much as you do, I don't suppose. I don't have the juices I used to. I'd settle for being able to cuddle and nuzzle. But I'm afraid cuddling wouldn't do much for either of us anymore. The way I am now."
Esau rocked a little on his unmoving chair, before saying: "Sometimes I've wondered if we oughtn't have chosen a labor battalion, instead of the army. Then, when it was over, we could have been-still really married. Had those children we never got."
He looked and felt absolutely bleak now. Not healed, he thought. Not healed. Just scabbed over.
Reaching, Jael touched his arm as gently as if she were still flesh and blood. "Esau dear, don't regret. We always did the best we could, and had lots of good times. Back on the farm, and on Luneburger's World, and even here in the war.
"And there are other girls besides me. Organic girls, flesh and blood. Indi girls in tanks and floaters, Burger girls wiring and carpentering. Terran nurses at the hospital."
The door opened and two Sikhs came in. Then Jael said she needed to go. "Even bots need their sleep," she told him, and left.
Her walk back to the bot hutment was five minutes of depression. That first time Esau had come to see her, at the bot shop, he'd been so sweet, and she'd been so happy to see him. It had seemed to her they'd get used to one another again, and if they lived, make a life together.