There wasn’t a police officer or soldier in sight, naturally.
She staggered forward, tearing at the catches on her backpack so she wouldn’t have to carry its weight any farther, and reached the corner where her street bisected the larger boulevard. Kafari was about to sling the backpack away when an aircar emerged from her street, skimming low. It halted literally right in front of her. The hatch popped open. Simon Khrustinov leaned across, holding out one hand. Kafari sobbed out something incoherent as she scrambled up, catching hold of a hand that lifted her with astonishing ease. She collapsed onto the passenger’s seat. He yanked her across, feet sliding in through the open door, then shot the aircar skyward in a move that shoved her down against his knees.
The mob surged around the spot where she’d just been standing, snarling curses at them. Simon punched controls that slammed the hatch closed, then spoke tersely into the radio. “Major Khrustinov here. There’s an unholy riot in progress at Meridian and Twelfth. You’d better get an armed riot control unit out here, stat. They’re starting to loot stores,” he added in a grim voice.
Kafari started to shake as reaction set in.
A warm hand came to rest on her hair. “Do you need a doctor?”
She shook her head, gulping down lungfuls of air.
“Thank God.” Quiet, full of emotion she hadn’t expected to hear.
He was helping her sit up, disentangling her fingers from their death grip on his shirt and the straps to her backpack, which lay awkwardly between his feet. “Easy,” he murmured, turning her to sit in the passenger’s seat. She was shaking so violently she couldn’t even manage the safety straps. He fastened them gently around her, then produced a box of tissues from a console and pushed a wad of them into her hands. She tried to blot the tears dry, but couldn’t seem to turn the faucet off.
“Th-they wanted to h-hurt me,” she gulped.
“Why?”
“D-don’t know. Called me a filthy j-jomo…”
He frowned. “A what?”
She tried to explain, got herself tangled up in the differences between Granger and Townie societies, finally managed to make him understand that the term was a crude insult derived from an African word for farmers. Anger turned his face to cut marble. “I see,” he said quietly, voice dangerous. “Could you identify any of them?”
She shuddered. Face those animals again? Kafari was no coward, but the thought of a police station, formal charges, a trial with the press crawling all over her left her trembling violently again. “I’d rather not try.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. But all he said was, “All right. I’m going to take you someplace quiet and safe for a while.”
He touched controls and the aircar moved sedately westward above the rooftops. Madison was beautiful at night, Kafari realized as her pulse slowed and the jagged breaths tearing through her calmed down to mere gulps. She blotted her eyes again, blew her nose inelegantly, managed to regain control of her fractured emotions.
“Where were you, just now?” she finally asked.
A tiny smile flickered into existence. “Parked outside your apartment.”
She blinked in surprise, finally managed to ask, “Why?”
His glance flicked across to meet hers, even as a wry smile touched his mobile mouth, softening the anger. “Actually, I was planning on asking you a fairly important question.”
Her eyes widened. “You were?” Then, apprehensively, “What?”
“Miss Camar, would you do me the honor of dining with me this evening?”
She surprised herself by smiling. “I’d love to.” Then she realized with dismay what she must look like, covered with fear sweat, eyes red and streaming. She cleared her throat. “I’m not really dressed for it.”
“Somehow, I don’t think the chef will mind.”
“The chef?” That sounded expensive.
“Well, the cook, anyway.”
They were still heading west, leaving the outskirts of Madison behind.
“Uh, where’s the restaurant?” she asked, craning around to peer back at the receding lights.
His lips tightened. “Actually, it’s in the middle of that nastiness back there. I don’t have any intention of keeping the reservation. I hope you don’t mind a couple of steaks on the grill? I installed it yesterday, when they finished putting in the patio behind my quarters.”
Kafari blurted out the first, idiotic thing that came to mind. “You can cook?”
Grimness vanished, dispelled by a boyish grin. “Well, yes. It was learn to cook or resign myself to years of eating prepackaged glop. Have you ever eaten what the Concordiat fondly refers to as field rations?”
She shook her head.
“Consider yourself fortunate.” His eyes had begun to twinkle, seriously interfering with Kafari’s ability to breathe. Simon Khrustinov had remarkable eyes, full of shadows and mysteries, yet clear as a summer sky and just as vividly blue. They caught the glow from the control panel lights like radiant stars. The darkness surrounding the aircar wrapped around them like velvet, a private and wonderfully safe darkness that carried her away from danger and fear and the uncertainty that had lain like shadows across her soul since the day of her return home from Vishnu. Somehow, it seemed very natural to find herself alone with this man, heading toward his kitchen for a meal he intended to prepare with his own hands.
And wonderful hands they were, too, she realized, gulping a little unsteadily as she studied them. They rested on the aircar’s controls with quiet ease. Strong hands, large and manly, with a sprinkling of dark hair across them. Crisp shirt cuffs hid his wrists from view. His uniform was missing, tonight, replaced by civilian shirt and slacks of a subdued, conservative cut. His clothes were sturdy, made of high-quality fabric that had been loomed somewhere very far from Jefferson. Unless she were much mistaken, the shirt was real Terran silk, worth almost as much as her parents’ entire farm. Before the Deng razed it.
It shook her, that he’d put on such clothes to ask her to dinner.
The lights of Nineveh Base appeared across the Adero floodplain. Kafari had never been onto the base, although her uncle Jasper had been stationed there for a while. Her throat tightened. She blinked burning saltwater, then leaned forward with a soft gasp as the aircar swung toward one edge of the base.
A huge, black shadow loomed against the lights. The Bolo. Parked quietly at the end of what looked like a very new street, next to a low building that had obviously been finished in just the last few days. There wasn’t any landscaping at all, just a broad stretch of mud bisected by a concrete walkway that led from a wide landing pad to the front door. A much larger adjacent building, clearly designed to house the immense machine, stood open to the sky, only partially complete.
The aircar settled to the landing pad and rolled neatly to a halt beside the Bolo’s treads, which dwarfed their transport so completely, Kafari felt like a midget. She couldn’t even see the whole Bolo from this angle. Simon switched off controls, then popped the hatches, jogging around to assist her with antique, off-world courtesy that surprised her. The touch of his hand on hers sent a tingle straight up her arm. A tremor hit her knees. The smile that blazed in his eyes was incendiary. What it wrought on Kafari’s jangled insides was probably illegal on some worlds.
He offered his arm in a gallant gesture she’d seen only in movies. She laid an unsteady hand on the crook of his arm, smiling at her escort as he led the way past the Bolo’s silent guns. She craned her neck to peer up at the turrets and weapons ports high above. It was hard to realize that she’d actually been inside it. Her memory went blurry, right about the time she’d sagged into that couch, with medication pumping into her system from the auto-doc. She had no memory at all of arriving at the hospital in Madison. She’d returned to consciousness to find her family surrounding her bed, waiting for her to open her eyes.