“Lights, please.”
When the room is dark, the general switches on the projector and fiddles briefly with the focus. The images that gradually form against the wall are night-sight green, but fairly clear for all that:
Troop transport trucks, moving along narrow roads, no more than three or four in a convoy.
Columns of the inhuman soldier-androids, churning along cleared highway surfaces on their caterpillar tracks, slowly but inexorably, never breaking rank, never tiring.
Armored vehicles, their guns at ready, crunching through the snow.
Small groups of men, platoon-size, no more than a dozen at a time, slipping along back roads and game trails, fully outfitted in helmet, backpack and weapons. Shepherded, invariably, by one or two of the military droids ahead, another pair behind.
Koda hears a small hiss of indrawn breath at the last sequence. Across the table from her, Maggie’s face is drawn into a tight mask of anger and disgust. Closer to, Manny’s fists clench against the table. The civilian woman two places down, her skin reddened from years of High Plains wind, her face hard as the bones of the land itself, looks nauseated in the flickering green light. Koda’s own stomach turns over.
“Indeed,” says General Hart as he switches off the projector, and the room lights come back up. “We have not only droids on the move, but we have human collaborators as well. This is something Colonel Allen and Dr. Rivers have encountered, but not quite in this capacity or in these numbers.” He flicks another switch and a map of South Dakota , with Wyoming and Colorado to the south, appears on the wall. “These videos were taken by Colonel Allen and her squadron over the last several days. They show a disturbingly large number of small companies moving toward our position. They seem to come from Warren Space Wing in Wyoming and Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. Presumably they will rendezvous at some point and position themselves for a second assault on the Base. This is not a favorable development.”
“General.”
Tacoma waits for recognition, and when Hart nods, continues. “We are assuming from these movements that there is no longer any resistance at Warren or Peterson?”
“Or in between?” Koda adds.
“Sergeant, Doctor—I have no reason to believe that is not correct.” For a moment, Hart’s normally ruddy face is as grey as the light filtering in through the windows. “We have no hope of reinforcement from either of those installations. Nor, I think, of further influx of civilians from the surrounding area. What we have now, is, barring the unexpected, what we will have to face the enemy.”
“We’re outnumbered,” Manny observes.
“And except for air cover, probably outgunned” adds Maggie.
“Correct.”
“But not,” Tacoma answers, grinning, “outthought.”
“Also correct, Sergeant.” Hart’s smile is a bit less stiff this time. “Every one of you in this room has immediate and intimate knowledge of the area surrounding Ellsworth. Some of you, like Mr. Marshak”—he indicates the gentleman in the flannel shirt—“or Mmes. Tilbury-Laduque”—the women ranchers—“have lived and worked in the region for decades. Some, like Marine Ensign Guell and Corporal Mainz, are local residents who have experience camping or hunting in the vicinity. We need you all, assuming you are willing, to act as scouts—to move out into the countryside and track these units, discover as much about their movements, and, if possible, their plans, as you can.”
“So why don’t you just bomb the hell out of them?” asks one Ms. Tilbury-Laduque. Her thin face is stark with determination under her graying red hair; the question clearly does not come from cowardice. “It seems to me that human resources are what’s scarcest here.”
“If I may—?” Maggie glances at Hart.
At the general’s nod, she proceeds. “We still have both adequate jet fuel and sufficient munitions to bomb these bastards back to atoms, Ma’am. And we’ll do that if we have to. But it’s the best judgment of this base’s senior officers that for the time being we would do best to conserve those resources for civilian defense. There are a surprising number of survivor enclaves still out there in the countryside who are not equipped to repel, say, an attack by the military-model androids. We need to hold the airborne defenses in reserve for them as long as we can.”
There is a pause, then the rancher nods. “I see. Okay, I’m with you.”
“Me, too,” adds the other Ms. Tilbury-Laduque. Koda feels a tug of memory, brief and poignant, as the woman’s work-roughened hand closes over her partner’s fingers. It is not so sharp as it would once have been, though, and she lowers her eyes to her own hands where a barely perceptible band of lighter skin remains on the third finger of her left hand.
It has become almost a phantom pain, like nerves still wired to the ghost of a missing limb. She has seen it in one or two of Tacoma’s friends who did not come home from battle with all they had left home with and who could or would not be fitted with cyberlimbs or old-fashioned prostheses. She has seen it, too, in her own surgical patients, cows whose hip muscles twitch, attempting to move a leg no longer there, a fox biting at a gangrenous tail she has been forced to amputate. She glances up at Maggie, intent now on the speaker across the table from her, her handsome features animated by an underlying lust for life so strong that Koda cannot begin imagine her dampened by injury or illness. And that, she tells herself, is a dangerous thing not to be able to imagine about a battle-companion, much less a battle-companion who is also a friend.
“I’ll do it,” says Manny, glancing up at Maggie.
“So will I,” adds the Colonel. “I’d like to have some of the same troops that have been with me from the mutiny, General. They may not be strictly local, but they’ve had experience in skirmish encounters and in liberating civilians. We may run into caches of prisoners along the way, too.”
“Anything you need, Colonel.” Under his standard-issue smile, Hart looks relieved. “This operation is in your hands. What about the rest of you? Are you with Colonel Allen, Sergeant Rivers?”
“Of course.” Tacoma grins. “Anyone who can handle Flyboy here”—he gestures toward his cousin—“has my utmost respect.”
”Doctor?”
Koda nods her assent and watches as the rest repeat the gesture. There is a strange sense of slippage in her mind, as if time has somehow faulted and folded back upon itself. Scouts for the U. S. Army—“friendlies” cooperating in their own ultimate destruction as the Plains grew barren not only of the buffalo but of the human nations who lived with them and by them.
She feels her hands clench like Manny’s. Never again. It will be different this time. With the thought comes the recognition—the unshakable certainty that she has come to recognize as the mark of spiritual knowledge—that the world has changed irrevocably. Whatever she, and Manny with her, and Tacoma, help to bring to birth out of the wreckage of the old order will resemble nothing that has gone before.
Lakota oyate.
A Lakota nation, but not only a nation of Lakota. It is the time of the White Buffalo, the return seen, if seen unclearly, by the Paiute holy man Wovoka, the fulfillment of prophecy.
She blinks to clear the thought, and finds Manny looking at her oddly. The General has resumed his briefing, something about forming small parties and communications problems. “Koda?” Her cousin’s voice is very soft. “You with us?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.”
His face is a question. Tacoma, across the table, is watching her intently. “I’m fine,” she repeats. “Later.”