Now it was speckled with crumbs of bread and beads of honey.
“He said he would try to link up with Kobol,”
Peters explained, between bites.
“How did he know Kobol had landed?”
“Russo told us. Jameson let us make up our own minds about what we wanted to do. That’s when Zim and I… well, we decided we’d done enough soldiering. We helped the people here take in their harvest and they invited us to stay. They’ve been very kind and understanding.”
Alec thought, And they probably think everybody on the Moon is homosexual. Aloud, he asked, “How many of the men went with Jameson?”
“Four, I think. No, it was five.”
Alec sank back in his chair. There’s no one left to join you, he told himself. You’re completely on your own.
After a week the elders of the village came to Alec. They were polite, even deferential. But they were also firm. They had no desire to be caught in whatever high politics was taking place between The Douglas and his son. And they had only so much food, which had to last the winter. So would Alec please leave as soon as he was strong enough?
They would give him food and ammunition and even a good horse. But he must leave the village, and tomorrow would be an excellent day for his departure.
Alec smiled and agreed with them. The next morning they solemnly led a big, gentle-looking chestnut mare from their communal barn and loaded it with a bedroll, packs of food, and boxes of ammunition. Peters gave Alec an ancient singleshot rifle, good for hunting small game. Zimmerman gave him his own pistol, holster, and cartridge belt.
The elders watched without a word as Alec said goodbye to his two former comrades and swung up into the saddle. With a nod to the older men he kicked the horse into motion and trotted through the gate and out of the village.
To where? he wondered. South to join Kobol?
Instinctively he shook his head, vetoing the idea.
He puzzled over his situation for the whole day, and when the Sun dipped low on the brow of the western hills he found a cave in a little snowcovered ridge and decided to spend the night there.
Kobol will come here in the spring, he thought as he unsaddled the horse. Let him come to me.
But another part of his mind answered ironically, You have to get through the winter, first.
He pulled enough deadwood from the bare trees outside the cave to make a small fire. He tethered the horse near the cave’s entrance. The smoke from the fire wasn’t bad, once he got used to the stinging of his eyes. It was better than the horse’s smell. Briefly he debated trying Peters’ rifle on some small game, but it was already getting too dark. He ate from the stores the villagers had given him: a bit of salted meat and some dried grains.
The horse was standing as still as a rock. The fire had burned down to a few barely glowing ashes. Alec was stretched out in the bedroll, trying to sleep, trying not to think of Angela. But there was nothing else to fill his thoughts. The night outside the cave was dark and silent, with only an occasional sigh of wind breaking the frigid hush.
Would she have come with me? he asked himself.
Good thing she didn’t; I damned near killed myself. Wouldn’t want her to…
A crunching sound. Alec’s eyes snapped open but there was nothing to see in the darkness. The cave was black, its entrance only slightly lighter.
The sound had been faint, but—he heard it again.
Footsteps squeaking on the packed snow.
Alec slid his hand down to the pistol inside his bedroll. The automatic rifle was within arm’s reach. He silently rolled over onto his stomach and turned enough to face the entrance to the cave, thinking, It must be the villagers coming to take their gifts back. If The Douglas’ son just happens to die in some cave, it’s not their fault.
And why should they lose a valuable horse?
Listening carefully, Alec thought he heard two horses slowly advancing toward the cave.
“Mr. Morgan?” a young voice called out.
He did not answer.
“Mr. Morgan.” A silhouette appeared at the cave’s mouth. Then another. “We’d like to join with you, if you’ll have us.”
They were young, barely into their teens. Bored with life in the village. They saw in Alec a chance to find adventure, an opportunity to see the great wondrous world. Alec tried to dissuade them, told them all he had to offer was danger and an early grave. They grinned and insisted that they weren’t afraid and they would follow wherever he led.
So he led them.
First into the nearly abandoned cities, where there were still supplies to be had. Alec avoided the feral gangs that huddled in the burned-out city buildings, and fought only when he was forced to.
The two youngsters got sick over the first killings, but soon hardened themselves. Alec traded some ammunition and Peters’ rifle for fresh food and an extra horse in a village on the eastern edge of Douglas’s territory. They left the village with another recruit, an older man who had lost his wife and child to sickness and wanted no more memories of them.
As they rode from that village, Alec’s plan took shape. Let Kobol work his way up here by spring.
By then I’ll have defenses completely mapped out.
I’ll be waiting for Kobol, and I’ll take command of the force that he brings here.
But he needed a radio. And he knew where to get one.
Alec waited. With new found patience he bided his time, waited out the blizzards in caves and forest shelters, recruited more men—youngsters, mostly—from the village elders would be wise to treat him fairly because the days of The Douglas’ reign were numbered.
He learned the territory, mapped its folds and hills, its forests and streams, the roads, the abandoned cities, the villages. And Douglas’s defenses.
A new perimeter of wire fencing was going up, he saw; teams of men digging through the snow and frozen ground on the outermost edges of his territory.
They also erected wooden watchtowers every kilometer or so, despite the bitter weather.
Douglas was not waiting for spring.
Alec located the firebases on hilltops inside the new perimeter fence. He saw scouting parties and larger armed patrols riding across the snowy countryside, but he kept a few jumps away from them. He wanted no serious fighting. Not yet.
Once he thought he recognized Will Russo at the head of a column of men on snowshoes. Alec stayed especially far from them.
The days were becoming noticeably longer when he attacked the firebase. He had to lead his men around the long way through a gap in the still-uncompleted fence and watchtower ring. It was still bitterly cold, and the sky seemed to be a constant blank of gray as Alec marched his two dozen men toward the firebase. But toward evening the Sun broke through the western clouds and Alec noticed a tiny blue flower poking its head out of the snow along a hillside brook.
He smiled to himself. Not at the flower’s beauty or the promise of the sunset, but at the correctness of his timing for the attack.
They waited until well after midnight and climbed the hill to the firebase stealthily. It was laid out almost exactly like the base Alec had been in. The men clambered over the snow-packed earthen ramparts and used knives and crossbows on the defenders. Alec got to the radio before the base commander could switch it on. He shot the man twice through the chest as he clawed wildly at the console controls. Only when the commander lay twitching and bleeding to death on the floor of the radio room did Alec notice that the man was still gripping his unbelted trousers with one hand and his feet were bare.
They took no prisoners. They carefully disassembled the radio and its generator and packed them onto the firebase’s own truck. They used the explosives they found there to blow up the underground dugouts and artillery pieces, leaving no evidence that they had stolen the radio.