“Wait.”
He turns, eyebrow raised. The expression is so eerily like that of his sister’s that Kirsten finds herself turning to the woman beside her to make sure she’s still there and not suddenly across the room.
“Look,” Koda continues, spreading her hands out on the desk, “I appreciate wanting to find the man, but what I appreciate more is the fact that those androids out there aren’t going to wait for us to do that. We need to start planning for the war that’s just outside our doorstep, and that planning includes everyone in here.” Turning her head slowly, she eyes them all, watching as they straighten and seem to throw off the fatigue touching each and every one of them.
“I shall endeavor to track down your vermin and his master.” Harcourt’s voice is soft from the corner where he’s been quietly standing throughout the proceedings. He eases his way forward until he is standing before Maggie’s desk. He holds up a hand in the face of Dakota’s immediate objection. “We had a deal, Ms. Rivers, as you’ll recall. I enter and leave when I please, as I please. While I am far too old to be lobbing armaments at the enemy, I am quite experienced in hunting down animals who have gone to ground, as it were.” He smiles slightly, and there is something of the predator in it. “Make your plans, prime your trumpets for the walls of Jericho. I shall play my small part through to the end.” His own look, diamond hard and razor sharp, cuts off any and all objections at the knees. His smile broadens infinitesimally, showing the points of his canines. “I bid you all adieu, then, and wish you luck.” He turns to Dakota. “Should you wish to contact me again, you know where to find me.”
With a slight incline of his head, he eases forward as the bodies give way, and slips through the door, leaving everyone to stare, stunned, after him.
“Be right back,” Dakota remarks and pushes through the crowd and through the door.
*
“Fenton, wait!”
Hearing Koda coming quickly up behind him, he stops, back still turned to her, and surveys the land before him. His voice is soft and contemplative as he recites from a favored poem.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.”
With a smile set on his face and a fine walking stick in his hand, he turns to his listener, eyes seeming to glow with vitality and a surge, seldom seen, of good humor.
“I believe, for my purposes, I shall take the road less traveled. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’d rather you didn’t take any road.”
“Ah, but where would be the fun in that, Ms. Rivers?”
“This isn’t a game, Fenton.”
“True, but it is an adventure, and one which I am uniquely suited to undertake. Androids have no interest in me, an old man well past his prime, and I am more than wily enough to avoid their reach should they change their circuited minds on the matter.” In a rare show of warmth, he reaches out and lays a gnarled hand on Dakota’s wrist. “I know the import of hunting down the good general, Dakota. He may hold few secrets, but any secret is one too many if it is given unto the enemy.” He squeezes the thick wrist under his hand briefly before drawing away. “We all have our parts to play in this, Ms. Rivers. Allow me the dignity to see mine through, no matter what that end might be.”
After several moments of complete silence, Koda finally nods. “You’ll have some help, however.”
“I assure you, Ms. Rivers, I am quite capab—.”
His discourse is interrupted by a loud whistle, and a moment later fiercely beating wings herald the arrival of Wiyo, who lands easily on Dakota’s wrist. “She can see what you can’t. She can warn you if there’s danger ahead, or behind. She’s a friend. Take her with you, and I’ll feel much more comfortable about letting you go.”
The face of granite, the face that has frightened years off of criminals through the decades, dissolves like sugar in water, transforming the harsh planes of his face into soft lines of wonder and joy.
“Wiyo, hup.”
The redtail easily hops from Koda’s wrist to Fenton’s arm, then sidesteps up until she is perched quite comfortably on his shoulder.
“Now this isn’t a gift, so don’t be thinking you’re gonna be taking her home to live with you, you old codger. When you’ve done what you set out to do, set her free. I may have need of her yet.”
Harcourt chuckles, enjoying the feel of the weight on his shoulder and the odd sense of comfort it brings him. “Not to worry, Ms. Rivers. This bird knows who she belongs with.” His smile falls away, and he inclines his head respectfully. “Thank you, Dakota. You’ve given me a companion beyond price.”
Reaching out, she takes his hand and squeezes the gnarled fingers warmly. “Good luck to you, my friend.”
“And to you as well. May we meet again under better circumstances.”
With a last nod and a fleeting smile, he turns from her to begin his journey. She watches him until he rounds the curve leading to the gate, then makes her way back to Maggie’s office, and the problems within.
*
Kirsten watches as the civilian population of Ellsworth files into the Base theater. Their number has held steady over the last several weeks, since sealing the gates to all but authorized traffic. Still, they number close to three hundred. About half are women rescued from the droid breeding facilities. The remainder consist of families in various configurations; in the first row an elderly couple accompanied by two toddlers shuffles sideways past a pair of young fathers holding hands with their three pigtailed daughters between them. They take their places beside a middle-aged woman and a teenaged girl with a face that is a mirror image of her own and eyes dead and dull as granite. They greet each other with quiet nods, subdued and somber. Though information about the approaching enemy has been closely guarded, they must know that a crisis is at hand. Koda’s return with a strange warband will not have gone unremarked, nor the suddenly increased number of Tomcat flights taking off for day-long missions to unspecified destinations. The Base is a small town, with a small town’s instant transmission of gossip.
Maggie, standing beside her on the small stage, says softly, “They know.”
“They’d be fools not to,” she answers. “Nobody’s ever thought the droids would give up. Ellsworth is a prime target.”
Maggie flashes her a grin. “Our defenses are good. Better since your little excursion.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” Kirsten returns the grin, showing her teeth. “You’re still Base Commandant, General Allen.”
The promotion cannot have been unexpected, but Maggie stares at her wide-eyed for a moment, the breath gone out of her. Before she can speak, Kirsten says flatly, “It gets worse. You’re Air Force Chief of Staff, as of now. If we make it through this upcoming fight, we’re going to have to start looking for and organizing other surviving forces. Persuade them if we can, appropriate them if we have to.”
“Like Koda ‘appropriated’ the Minot militia?”
Kirsten nods. “We do what we have to. We’re not going to come out of this with the same kind of society we had going in. At least for a while, we’re going to have to be the biggest, meanest, most ruthless dog in the junkyard. Because that’s what we’re going to have to deal with—junkyard dogs.’
“Some of them rabid.”
“Some of them rabid,” she affirms. “And some of them we’ll have to deal with as we would with rabid dogs.”