“In a minute. I’m fine.”
His voice was stronger now, but he winced when he tried to turn his body. Jane said sharply, “Lie quiet!”
“Yes, ma’am.” A tiny smile. “Jane, we’ll build again. Will my brother let us return to the Settlement? The crops must still be in the fields, they couldn’t have destroyed everything.”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you find him and send him to me?”
As if Jane could send Colonel Jenner anywhere! How did it happen that she knew more about life with this Army than Colin did?
He said, “Okay, you can’t do that. Sorry. But we need to leave here. Leave this sterile and ugly environment. Get the children out of here and living free on Terra again. Anyway, Jason will need the crops.”
She said, before she knew she was going to say anything, “I wish I can come with you!”
His gaze sharpened, that upsetting gaze that seemed to see right into her brain. “You miss your planet.”
“Yes.”
His hand moved across the blanket and she took it, accepting the offered sympathy. Another electric jolt ran through her at the touch of his fingers. He said, “I understand about homesickness. You Worlders—you believe the same things we do. We Settlers, I mean.”
“Some of the same things. Maybe not all.”
“I want to know about World. I want to know about you. I wish you could come with us, too. But you’re not immune to RSA, are you?”
“No.”
Alarm crossed his face. Jane said, “You were decontaminated. All your people, when you were brought inside Lab Dome. Colonel Jenner was careful.”
“He always is. Jason is a good man, just badly misguided.”
“Yes.” And then, “Colin, do you have a mate?”
He seemed startled; maybe that wasn’t a proper thing to ask on Terra. He said, “No.” And then, “Do you?”
“No, I was meant to sign a mating contract, but I didn’t.”
“A contract? Is that what you call it? Tell me about World. How do you keep an entire planetful of people from ruining the environment? I—”
“Colin!” Claire Patel pushed into the tiny space, her little medical box already in her hand. Jane turned to ease out and give Claire room to approach Colin’s bed. Glamet^vor¡ stood in the doorway.
How long had he been there? What had he heard, and did he have enough English to understand any of it? Had he seen her holding Colin’s hand?
Claire said, “Okay, everybody out, I need to examine my patient.”
Jane and Glamet^vor¡ faced each other in the corridor. At the other end, a group of Settler children hunched over some game involving colored stones.
“I greet you, Jeg^faan.” His voice was tight, his face stony. It occurred to Jane that in this mood, he looked more Terran than World. She must not say that.
“I greet you, Glamet^vor¡.”
“Will Colin-mak recover from his injuries?”
“The doctors say yes.”
“And will you copulate with him when he does?”
Definitely Terran. The demands, the anger, the lack of bu^ka^tel. Mating contracts were public, but copulations were private matters. Maybe people had to come to a new environment to reveal their true natures.
“I’m sorry, Glamet^vor¡, but that is not your concern.”
“You have no lahk Mother here to approve a mating contract.”
“There is no contract. Please let me pass.”
He didn’t move, blocking the corridor. Beyond, the children shrieked in delight over their game. “These Terrans are rotten.” He used the word for decaying unburned flesh, a word that not only conveyed putrid odor and texture but was also a filthy oath.
“They are not.”
“Why can’t you see? You won’t see! Terrans nearly destroyed their planet, the planet that was our original home as well, and were stopped from doing so only because instead they destroyed each other. They continue to fight. The Gaiists were right—Terra should be cleansed of the disease that is Terrans! Then she can recover, and someday World can come back to colonize her as it should be done, with respect and care for Mother Earth. You believe that, too, Jeg^faan. You must believe it!”
“I do not. Not all Terrans are a disease on the planet. The Settlers—”
“Cannot survive. New America is wiping them out. You saw that. And then, if right prevails, New America and the United States Army”—he all but spat the words—“will destroy each other.”
Jane stared at him, appalled at his anger, his contempt, his lack of manners toward their hosts. She said, “You are wrong. Even if New America and the Army did destroy each other, four percent of Terrans survived RSA. Do you think this little corner of the United States is all that exists? I thought better of your mind, Glamet^vor¡. There are almost three hundred million people left on Earth and—”
“There are not. Many of those will have died of war or hunger or disease.”
“—and they will start over—are starting over. This time, they will do better.”
“No. They will not. Do the math, Jeg^faan. If only four percent of each new generation survives, how long will it take for Terrans to become powerless? They have already lost their industries, their planet-wide communications, their technology. Probably all over Terra they are merely surviving. They were ahead of us, once, in science and technology, but they abused both. Terrans are finished. And yet they treat us with contempt!”
“They are not, and they do not.”
“Yes? I was attacked yesterday by two soldiers.” He pulled up his sleeve—Jane had wondered why he wore a Terran shirt over his wrap—and she saw ugly bruises and cuts on his arm. “They said that we are taking their food, bringing to them our diseases, polluting their bloodlines. They said we should go back where we came from. And they were right.”
Jane was shaken. “Did you… did you report this to Colonel Jenner?”
Glamet^vor¡ laughed. “Do you think he has control of his people? Like a lahk Mother would? There is no bu^ka^tel here, no respect, no solidarity. They are rotten animals.”
Claire emerged from Colin’s room. “He has remarkable recuperative powers, I’ll say that for him. You can go back in, Jane, if you like, but don’t stay too long. He needs to sleep.”
Jane turned her back on Glamet^vor¡ and squeezed herself into Colin’s room. She didn’t look back as she firmly closed the door behind her.
A half-moon shone as Jason climbed from a quadcopter in front of the signal station. Flying the copter at night was risky, but if Jason wanted to talk directly to HQ, it had to be from here. Specialist Kowalski was a good pilot even on visual only and by moonlight, and two heavily armed J Squad soldiers rode with them. Any snipers that New America had in the woods had either been asleep or inept. They’d flown under ground radar. Jason was here.
He glanced at the sky. Vega, Deneb, Altair: the Summer Triangle. He’d spent his thirteenth summer stargazing, making star charts, researching arcane celestial data on the Internet. He had hoped to be an astronomer, before he decided on West Point instead. Another, unlived life that probably would have ended abruptly at the Collapse.
The hillside tunnel opened and they entered the airlock. On the other side of decon, Jason shed his esuit. Neither Li nor DeFord saluted; things tended to be less formal at the station. Elizabeth Duncan would not have approved.
“Nothing to report, sir,” Li said. “No new intel to us, and New America’s comsat still offline.”
“Good. Get me HQ. And a cup of coffee, please.” The station had the last real coffee from base stores. They deserved it. “Do we have visual with HQ?” This report should already have been made, but before Jason had been able to get to the signal station, the visiting brass from HQ had shown up. Darnley and Mott had made the long, dangerous journey by quadcopter, and Jason still didn’t know why. That disturbed him. It didn’t seem like Colleen Hahn to not brief him that her representatives were in the Pacific Northwest.