Half a minute sufficed him; then they separated. He discovered he didn't have a handkerchief, so he pulled out a shirttail, mopped his cheeks, then blew his juicy nose with his fingers, and wiped them on his pants, behind the thighs.
"There," he said, and surprised her with a shaky laugh. "I believe that's it. Sorry I was so messy. I still forget to carry a handkerchief sometimes." He smiled ruefully. "What d'you want to do?"
"We need to get an annulment. Not a divorce, an annulment. They're different. I talked to Sergeant Major Rinaldi and she checked with the chaplain." Jael paused. "But, honey, I want you to dance with those girls that came with me. I know them both. They're really nice. And if either of them makes a play for you-I'd feel so… " For a moment it seemed she might break again, but she rallied. "I'd feel so pleased if you'd go along with it."
Esau met her gaze. It was… metallic. There was a soul there, and goodness, and love, but the eyes weren't really eyes. He nodded. "I'll dance with them if you'll dance with Isaiah. He just now went in. I think it was him."
Now it was her turn to stand silent a moment. "All right," she said, "I will. But I need to tell you, dancing won't be the same wearing-this." She gestured at her body. "Not even with someone else my size. Now let's go back."
Esau danced with both women, several times during the next hour, but it was Ensign Aribau who made a pass at him. Ensign Gaughan, Esau's hutmate, saw them leave the mess hall, and told himself to stay away from the hut till the party was over.
Meanwhile, dancing with Isaiah was more enjoyable than Jael had expected. Moving her body-gracefully!-in time with the quick and lively music, was enjoyable by itself. Enough that she didn't notice Esau leave with Bjorg. When she realized they were gone, she felt warmly fond of them both. It was a milestone for her.
Epilog
Soldiers has been the story of a war, and with the Treaty of Eridani Prime, the war and the story were over-officially, and pretty much in fact. But whether human or Wyzhnyny, those who'd survived had futures, reset by the war itself, and by the treaty.
The war had never been named, officially or otherwise. It was just "the war." There was no other. There hadn't been since that earlier turning point, that long-ago fraternal conflict known as the Troubles. In his speech announcing the peace agreement, President Chang asked that it not be referred to as the Wyzhnyny War. The surviving Wyzhnyny would become part of the Commonwealth, and their integration would not be eased by naming the war after them. Describe it as it was, he said, but call it simply "the Invasion."
A millennium earlier he'd never have gotten away with a suggestion like that. But now, near the end of the third millennium, his request was very largely complied with. Gradually over the centuries, humankind had become increasingly civilized, with a civility beyond political correctness. A consensus civility. Without it, civilization and quite possibly humankind would not have survived in the Sol System long enough to meet the Wyzhnyny. There was still significant and occasionally noisy social discord, but all in all, people were remarkably and comfortably civil.
Even on the hundreds of colony worlds settled by reclusive ethnic groups, and religious, political, and philosophical sects, civility tended to be the rule-at least as long as they were left alone, to live as they pleased.
Among the people of the forty-four human worlds conquered and depopulated by the Wyzhnyny, cultural disruption had been extreme. But the people lacked the passion, the zeal of their expatriate forebears. Many of the evacuees harbored bitterness or grief, but few felt gnawed upon for revenge.
And most did go home, arriving to find it unrecognizable. With Core World help they rebuilt farms, villages, and towns, but it would never be the same. The genie didn't fit in the bottle anymore. Their cultural realities had been irreparably changed by the war and their brief exiles.
On Terra, a number of antiwar activists had already been tried for terrorism. A remarkable phenomenon: antiwar terrorists! And among the Terran public, zeal had become even more distasteful than before.
The Justice Ministry had aimed at penalties befitting the crimes. Thus Gunther Genovesi and Kuei-Fei Wu, who'd conceived and planned the Night of Blood and Fire, were sentenced to visit every Wyzhnyny-conquered world, and listen to the tales of nonevacuees who'd survived in hiding. Both were reprieved before completing the tour. President Chavez (Chang Lung-Chi had retired) felt that five years had been enough. The two spent the rest of their lives in tolerably comfortable exile, under house arrest on a colony world outside the invasion corridor.
Paddy Davies, Jaromir Horvath, and several other Peace Front kingpins had been sentenced to accompany the Terran 6th Infantry Division to New Miocene. It proved to be a Wyzhnyny holdout world. Thus they experienced battle, loading wounded and dead onto grav sleds. Davies himself was mortally wounded, trying to help a wounded Wyzhnyny. Always an idealist, he'd signed the agreement, and awoke as a medic bot. Back on Terra, Horvath became a sort of hermit, more misanthropic than ever.
Fritjof Ignatiev's role, on the other hand, had been little more than inspirational orator. And after the Night of Blood and Fire, he'd voluntarily come forward to work with the government in its terrorist roundup. Thus his sentence had been only thirty days on a work gang. But in his youth he'd been an emergency medical technician, and prevailed on the judge to send him to New Miocene with the others, as a battlefield medic. There he was wounded, and cited for bravery.
After his return, Ignatiev dictated his memoir of the Peace Front and his service on New Miocene. He'd always had an excellent memory, and his recounting fitted the known facts. It would become a useful source for historians of the war.
The New Jerusalem Liberation Corps saw no further combat. Commodore Kereenyaga's flagship had parked three hundred miles above New Jerusalem, and broadcast the peace treaty through Gosthodar Jilchuk's command channel. It was received in every Wyzhnyny unit headquarters on the planet. The cube had been recorded by a savant bot-Melody Boo'tsa, whom Admiral Apraxin had left with the commodore when she'd departed for Dinebikeyah. Thus Qonits's cultivated Wyzhnynyc was well reproduced and easily understood.
But still detectably foreign, so Jilchuk rejected it. Two days later, a Dragon parked above the limestone ridge in whose extensive caverns Jilchuk's headquarters was hidden. Along with what remained of his elite force, and other important units of his army, notably his two remaining tank companies. The earlier surveillance buoys had located the entrances and exits, and the Dragon thoroughly smashed them. It also pounded the ridge in general, and parts of the caverns collapsed. Elsewhere the Dragons hit the caverns sheltering most of the rest of the army. Little remained on the surface but patrols.
In the caverns, casualties had been moderate, and their geogravitic power converters continued to provide light, heat, and interior air circulation. But the air intake and waste air expulsion systems had been destroyed. Jilchuk reconsidered his refusal, and sent engineers to work their way through a collapse hole, to radio his acceptance to both the humans and his command.
This presented the Burger engineers with a new highly urgent project: to hastily set up secure, reasonably liveable POW stockades-tent camps. One for the Wyzhnyny officers, another for the elite companies, and several others for everyone else. Meanwhile, many kilotons of key Wyzhnyny military material were collected, and lightered into near-space. There they were magnetically bundled, and the bundles sent on trajectories that would plunge them into New Jerusalem's sun.