At the back of the auditorium, Andrews pulls the double doors closed and turns to wave at the stage. All in.
“You sure you don’t want to do this?” Maggie asks Kirsten.
“Positive. It’s your Base. I’m just the civilian authority.”
“Okay, then.” Maggie steps forward to the podium, flanked on one side by the Stars and Stripes, on the other by the blue Air Force banner. She taps the mike softly and says, “Is this thing working? Can you hear me?”
A murmur of assent comes in answer, and Kirsten notes the rise in her shoulders as she takes a deep breath. She has just made Maggie the supreme uniformed authority in what remains of the United States. Which is only fair, she thinks, if I have to be President. Serves her right.
But that is not the only change that needs to be made. It is becoming increasingly clear that Koda’s position with the troops will have to be formalized, some title found that she will accept. “First Lady” sure as hell isn’t going to do it. Suppressing a smile, she turns her attention back to Maggie.
“. . .some cause for concern,” the new General says quietly. “General Hart has gone missing, and our efforts to find him have so far been unsuccessful. We do not know whether he left of his own free will, nor do we know whether he is safe, or even alive. I urge anyone who may have any information about the General to share it with the MP’s and help us to find him.
“Now. The real reason we asked you to come here. As most of you know already, the droids have regrouped since their last attack on Ellsworth. They are currently gathering troops and materiel at locations to the south and west of us. We have every reason to believe that they will attack Ellsworth again.”
A murmur runs through the crowd, quickly stilled. Maggie continues, “So we’ve asked you here, President King and I, to offer you a choice. Anyone who wishes to leave the Base should be packed and ready and at the gate tomorrow morning at eight. A bus will be made available to take you into Rapid City. Unfortunately, we cannot spare either the personnel or the vehicle to take you further. If you wish to leave the area entirely, we suggest that you go into North Dakota, then east. You will have a better chance of avoiding the enemy if you move in that direction. Lieutenant Andrews—he’s the redhead over there—will have a list for you to sign as you leave here tonight, so the bus driver will know who and how many to expect.
“On the other hand, you are welcome to stay on Base if you prefer. The only condition is that able-bodied adults must serve in support capacities to free up as many troops as possible for fighting. We will need you as cooks, messengers, orderlies, clerks. Someone will have to set up a child-care center. Lieutenant Rivers has the list where you can sign up for the job you prefer. We’ll give you your first choice if we can, but there are no guarantees.” She pauses a moment. “Are there any questions?”
The grandfather in the first row stands. “Will you be able to defend Rapid City?”
“We will have a fighter designated to attack troops that may approach you from the west. But that protection will be minimal. We are not prepared for urban ground fighting. We don’t have the numbers for it.”
A ripple of sound runs through the audience again. Here and there faces go grey; not all had realized the gravity of their situation. A woman in the last row speaks for all of them. “Is there anyplace that’s safe? Or safer?”
“No, ma’am. There isn’t.”
A silence falls, then. Maggie waits at the podium, but no one has anymore questions. After a moment, people begin to move out. Most, Kirsten notes with satisfaction, pause to sign Manny’s list; perhaps a dozen opt to evacuate.
She moves to stand beside Maggie. “That was a dose of reality.”
“Oh, yeah. They knew there was a problem. This was just the first time somebody official said it.”
“How long do we have?”
“Maybe a week. They’re not moving yet, but the recon flyer that came back about an hour ago says their numbers have doubled in just a couple days. Not good.”
Not good at all. Kirsten says, “I’m going back to the house. See if I can turn up anything else on the code.”
It is an unlikely hope, and they both know it. When Kirsten leaves the auditorium, Maggie is poring over the lists with Manny and Andrews. Past the veterinary clinic, past the stand of woods to the west of the street that leads to the residential section, strings of code run through her head. All futile; she’s been there before and come away empty. At the curve of the road, a rustle in the tree above her catches her eye, startling her out of the endless loops of binary. Sitting in the fork of the trunk, regarding her with eyes like onyx, is a large raccoon. “Yo, Madam President,” he says. “How’s it hanging?”
Kirsten stares for a moment at the masked face a foot above hers, the snap of mockery plain in the dark, bright eyes. Tega’s long fingers lie interlaced against his chest; replete and self-satisfied, he grins down at her. After a moment she says, “I don’t talk to hallucinations. Go away.”
“Hallucinate this,” he says amiably, and drops a small bird’s egg to splatter against her boots.
The yellow stain on the sidewalk looks very real. So does the sticky mess running down the laces of her Timberlands. She looks from her fouled hikers to the raccoon and back. “Damn,” she says. “You didn’t have to do that. That was going to be a bird.”
“No, it wasn’t. Those eggs were orphans.” Tega’s tongue runs the circuit of his muzzle.
“You mean you—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“As Madam President wishes.” Delicately, Tega picks a small brown and grey feather from his ruff and looses it to fall floating down to join the broken egg. “I do pride myself on my table manners.”
Kirsten looks furtively around her. The street and sidewalk are both deserted at this hour, the folk who will stay sitting down to their suppers, those who will leave in the morning no doubt packing. It will not do to be seen talking to a raccoon in a tree. “You’re going to get me locked up if anybody sees us. Wearing one of those jackets with the extra long sleeves.”
“You wouldn’t be the first Great White Father—or Mother—to be a few kilowatts shy of a glimmer. Now among the Real People, that’d make you a holy woman. I don’t suppose you feel particularly holy?”
‘Holy—? Look, dammit. I’m a scientist. I believe in what I can see or calculate. I don’t believe in—” Kirsten makes a dismissive, circular gesture with one hand—“all this—this mumbo-jumbo. I don’t believe in you. You’re something I ate.”
Tega bares his teeth again, white and sharp as lancets. “Don’t even think it, schweetheart.”
“Don’t be absurd!” she snaps back. “You’re not edible.”
“Ah, dere ve haff it.” Tega leans back against the tree trunk with his hands once again folded over his midsection. He sounds, to Kirsten’s ears, like a Viennese psychiatrist in a bad TV drama. “Kultural differencesss.” Absurdly, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses has appeared perched just behind the black button of his nose.
“Cultural—” she repeats blankly. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Kirsten King, P. H. of D., President of the U. S. of A., wearing buckskin and feathers and opening the Sun Dance. How does that grab you?”
A flash of memory, involuntary and unconcealable: the slanting scars on Tacoma Rivers’ chest, the same scars on his father’s and cousin’s, and her own distaste. She had not been quick enough to keep Tacoma from reading her face; she is not quick enough to evade Tega’s eyes now. “It— All right. It makes me uncomfortable. Not the buckskin and feathers; I’d be honored to wear Dakota’s traditional dress. It’s—it’s just—”
“The blood, the mutilation, the primitiveness of it all?”
Her own blood rises hot in Kirsten’s face; she feels the blush spread from her neck up to her forehead. “It’s— Yes. It’s not—” The word she needs will not come. Perhaps it does not exist. She says, “It’s not quantifiable. Not—containable. It could get out of hand.”