“Asimov.”
The girl looks a little confused. “Asmimoff?”
“That’s pretty close,” Kirsten commends, smiling. “He likes being called Asi.”
“Asi?” The child looks up at her mother for confirmation before returning her attention to the dog. “Asi.”
Asimov gives a louder bark, which makes the girl jump. Her mother tightens her grip, fright winging its way across her haggard face.
“It’s okay,” Kirsten hastens to reassure. “He won’t hurt you. I promise.”
The girl seems convinced. She lifts a small, dirty hand, fingers splayed wide. “Pet?”
Ever the ham, Asimov lifts his left paw, giving the young girl a doggie grin and another soft chuff. Kirsten laughs. “I think he’d like that.”
Responding to the pleading look from her daughter, the woman slowly—surely ice ages have come and gone in less time—relaxes her desperate grip. The child steps forward cautiously. Asi keeps his calm, one paw still raised. The girl takes it gently in both hands, then giggles as Asi covers her face with generous swipes of his tongue. Stepping away, she wipes her face with both hands. “Funny doggie. All wet!” Pulling her hands away from her eyes, she gifts Kirsten with a bright, innocent smile. “What’s your name?”
“Kirsten,” she replies, unable to keep from returning the sweet grin. “What’s yours?”
“Lisa,” the child replies, shyly peering at Kirsten from beneath long, lush lashes. “Can Asi be my friend?”
“Oh sweetheart, of course he can! We come for walks out here almost every day. If it’s okay with your mom, you can walk with us when you see us, ok?”
Lisa’s mother’s expression is pained as her daughter looks to her for approval. “We’ll talk about it tonight, sweetie. Now, we have to go get lunch.”
After a moment, Lisa nods. “Okay,” she replies softly. Turning back, she takes a step forward and wraps small arms around Asi’s neck, squeezing with all her tiny strength. “Bye, bye, doggie,” she whispers into his warm fur. “Bye, bye.”
Tears prick at Kirsten’s eyes and another part of her soul she thought long desiccated comes back to life, and with it, a renewal of her determination to give this child, and all others like her, a better world to grow up in.
As she turns for home, her last vision is a replay of the first. Lisa is back in her mother’s arms, but this time she sees a spark of what she can only call hope shining in twin sets of eyes.
For now, it will have to be enough.
She makes it as far as the door to her temporary home when a note taped to the door brings her up short. Written in a fine hand, the words jump out at her, making her, by turns, determined, angry, then both at once.
“Not this time,” she vows, ripping the paper from the door and crumpling it in one tense fist. “Not this time. C’mon, Asi. We’ve got a party to crash.”
*
The room is grey as a November day. Grey walls, set off by a tasteful strip of white PVC running along the bottom in lieu of baseboard. Grey carpet, with tone-on-tone USAF logs imposed on diagonally offset laurel wreaths. Grey curtains, likewise. On the wall hang photographs of warplanes based at Ellsworth, the intensely turquoise skies behind and below the airborne Tomcats and SuperHornets virtually the only color in the room. On a table in one corner sits an unwatered Norfolk pine, its pot wrapped in peeling red-black foil and its wilting branches hung with miniature lights and iridescent glass globes, dull in the dim light that penetrates the heavily lined window coverings. The long conference table is grey steel. Its vinyl-upholstered chairs match. Koda has, she thinks wryly, seen cheerier coffins.
Maggie says it for her. “Somebody get me a happy pill. This place would depress goddam Shirley Temple.”
“Never mind goddam Shirley Temple. It depresses me.” Tacoma gives a half-suppressed snort, not unlike a big cat’s disdainful whuffle. “Droids get the psych-ops staff?”
Maggie shakes her head. “Hart got the decorators, years ago. Too touchy-feely.”
“It could be worse,” Koda offers. “It could be pecan laminate and stuffed deers’ heads.”
Tacoma winces visibly as he shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it across the back of a chair about halfway down the table. He has resumed his Army uniform, the brass of his greens newly shined, his campaign ribbons proud in their many colors over his left pocket. Koda knows them as well as he does: the Afghan Meritorious Service Ribbon, bright green with its silver crescent; the Kingdom of Jordan Honor Legion; the Medal for Humane Action; Combat Action Ribbon; Bronze and Silver Stars, both with oak leaf. And there is the one she hates, purple with white edges. Wounded in action, gone missing in the frozen mountains of Panjir for two weeks and more when no one, not his commander, not his family, knew whether he was alive or dead, and neither she nor her father, for all their special skills, had been able to find him in the spirit world. Her eyes meet Tacoma’s as she seats herself across from his place, numbering his honors. Their father, veteran of VietNam, calls the tunic with the array of medals her brother’s scalp shirt, boasting that it is even more lavish than his own.. “Hey,” Tacoma says softly, reaching over the space between to touch her arm, calling her back to the present.
“Hey yourself. You didn’t cut your hair.”
“Not going to.” He grins suddenly at Maggie, now seated beside him. “You able to live with that, Colonel?”
Maggie, in her own spruce blues and even more fruit salad, grins back at him. “We’ll average it. You’ve got enough for Manny, yourself and me put together. Hart’s not going to like it, though.”
“Somebody mention my name?” Manny appears in the doorway, accompanied by two other men. One is in Marine uniform, the other in flannel shirt and jeans. Manny pulls out the chair next to Koda and glances around the room. “No coffee?”
“It’s on its way,’ offers a newcomer, a blond youngster in fatigues whose sleeves carry Corporal’s stripes. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”
Manny shrugs and glances at Allen. “Colonel?”
“Something to do with recon, as I understand it.”
The Corporal is followed by another man in civilian clothes, then by two women with wind-weathered faces. Koda sweeps the company with her eyes, not recognizing individuals but acknowledging the indelible signs of a life lived between earth and open sky. She says, “Everyone here is local, right?”
Nods answer her, responding to more than the single question. Local, and familiar with the countryside.
“Scouts,” she says. “Ground reconnaissance.”
“You’ve stolen my thunder, Dr. Rivers.” Hart stands in the doorway, waving his officers back to their seats as they push their chairs back to stand and salute. “We do need people who know the area to become involved in recon. I’ll be briefing all of you, then asking for volunteers.” He moves to the head of the table, spine stiffly erect, allowing the carts bearing coffee and a projector-cum-laptop to follow him into the room. He motions toward the urn and stack of cups. “Please, help yourselves. We’ve even managed to requisition some doughnuts.”
Must be his own private stash of Krispy Kremes, Koda observes wryly to herself as she fills her cup. She catches Tacoma’s eye as he does the same and feels the thought pass easily between them. He winks at her, snagging a cinnamon cruller for himself and dropping another onto her plate. Wants us bad
When the table has settled, Hart begins. “As you know, we have been fortunate at Ellsworth in that we have been able to repel the initial attacks of the mutinous androids, both military and civilian. We have, of course, suffered extensive casualties, but many of our officer corps have survived and we are still operational. At a reduced level, of course.
“We have also had the benefit of intelligence and reinforcements from the civilian population of the surrounding area.” Hart pauses to smile at Koda and to single out the other ranchers with a nod. When he comes to Tacoma, the smile freezes for a moment, then becomes deliberately brighter. Koda feels a light tap against her boot and looks up at Tacoma’s suspiciously expressionless face. Counting coup.