“Anything else?” Joe asks.
I hold back a few subliminal impressions because I’m not sure they make sense. Antag family structure? Something important is missing, but maybe about to arrive. “They’re way below strength. Maybe only thirty or forty Antags, not including the bats.”
“Got that,” Borden says.
“I saw some squids,” Joe says. “Did you see them, too?”
“Yeah,” Jacobi says. “Haven’t seen them since, and I wasn’t sure I saw them the first time.”
“What about the hunters out here in orbit?” Borden asks. “Ours and theirs—Box and the rest?”
“Doesn’t seem to be their biggest worry,” I say.
To my relief, the group breaks up to return to exercising.
Every few hours, three or four bats show up with a tank and a hose and let loose a spray of water. The spray cuts a tangent across one side of the sphere. We wash in it, drink from it, or simply avoid it.
More hours. Nature takes its course.
“Dignity in the Corps!” Joe calls out. “We get to crap behind blankets.”
Exactly right. Nobody’s much embarrassed, but we hold up the mats for individual privacy.
After a couple of hours, the bats lob fist-sized green balls through the hatch. I grab one and bite into it. It’s dry and yeasty, slightly salty, slightly sweet. The others see my tacit approval and grab their own.
The lights go down every thirty hours. That leaves those of us who are still not sleepy to cling to the mesh or bump into one another.
ROTATIONS
Jacobi specializes in light martial arts, Borden in building strength. The Russians exercise separately and keep busy trying to catch Litvinov unprepared. Our respect for the colonel grows. Polkovnik is equivalent to a colonel in the Skyrines. He must be twice the age of the others, especially Bilyk, a skinny but wiry opponent. Litvinov experiences a lot of bruising, some bleeding, but no broken bones, and sluices every time he gets a chance, urging his soldiers to do the same.
We need distraction and information, and for the time being nobody outside is talking and nobody or nothing within me or DJ is volunteering new facts, which I find both peaceful and like another little death. Can’t put up with ignorance much longer, but Joe and Borden and Litvinov and Kumar (I think) are maintaining, and so is DJ, and so will I. But we can’t maintain forever.
Still, compared to the cans, this is a real improvement.
One big question—if this isn’t an Antag ship, and not a human ship, why is there pressure, a breathable atmosphere? Who designed the lights? Who’s controlling?
And how did the Antags know to dock their vessels in empty space, find that hangar, and get us on board?
Something obvious I’m just missing, and it’s pissing me off.
DIVISION FOUR
Jacobi and Ishikawa take Ishida and Tak off to one wall of the cage, where they grip in a four-petal flower and quietly talk. Kumar watches from his curled position across the cage. He’s saying little but tracking everything, especially Litvinov’s exercises.
Then the flower breaks and Ishida crosses the perimeter of the cage. She adjusts her tack by changing her center of gravity like a circus gymnast. Impressive.
Then she spreads her arms and legs to slow her spin and glides up beside Kumar.
“Tell us about Division Four,” she says. The former Wait Staffer turns his head to stare back at her, and blinks. The gouges and scars along her formerly polished body parts, added to the pink lines of withdrawn wires and other scars on her flesh, give her a fierce, tattered look that’s more than a little scary.
And maybe a little sexy.
I hope we’re not coming apart. I have to admit that before we landed on Mars, and after, I thought she was kind of awesome, but none of that matters now. I just want all of us to be allowed to keep it together, stay sane, fight again.
Win this time.
Kumar seems to relax and relent. He waves for us to gather around. DJ wakes up, extends an arm, and marches with his hands along the mesh to join the condensing pack. Borden seems to materialize beside Joe. Litvinov and the Russians, including Ulyanova, arrive last.
Kumar’s voice is low and hoarse. For the moment, it seems we’ve got back some of our cohesion—but who knows? It all depends on how much Kumar feels the need to keep us ignorant.
“None of you, possibly excepting Master Sergeant Venn, has ever met a Guru or had much to do with Wait Staff until recently—correct?” Kumar asks.
Litvinov says, “Russians give Wait Staff tours, on Mars. Starshina was there.”
“Ah,” Kumar says. “Perhaps she will contribute?”
Ulyanova doesn’t react.
“The commander’s hung out with you guys, hasn’t she?” Jacobi asks, referring to Borden. Borden keeps her eyes on Kumar but says nothing—possibly waiting for him to reveal something she doesn’t know.
“Just me, until she met Mushran,” Kumar says. “She was not involved in political decisions on Earth or elsewhere until the last few months. What I am approaching, on a roundabout, is describing to you what it is like to deal with Gurus and their representatives, to carry out their orders without truly understanding their goals.” He sounds as if the loss of Mushran has put all this on him and he feels the weight.
“We’re listening,” Jacobi says.
“Good. Listen critically,” Kumar says. “I think it will soon become important.”
“What do Gurus look like?” Ishida asks.
Kumar affords her another blink, then a small grin. “Do you believe I have seen them? Seen them as they really are?”
Ishida nods intently.
Borden says, “I know you’ve seen them.”
“I, on the other hand, am not so sure,” Kumar says. “The Gurus who interact most with humans are about the size of a large dog. These have four walking legs and four arms, rather like canine caterpillars. Their faces are broad, with small, sensitive ears. Their eyes are large, like a lemur’s, possibly because they want us to think they’re nocturnal.
“Whatever we thought we saw, it early became apparent to the more discerning Wait Staff that the Gurus are talented at creating illusions. They have shown themselves capable of altering both physical shape and how we see them. How much of what we have witnessed is in fact real, I do not know. I doubt anyone knows.”
“Wait Staff fooled?” Ulyanova asks, looking up and shifting her look around the group as if to see how astonishing this might be. “You do not see from inside? Or see outside clear?”
“I am not sure what you mean,” Kumar says.
She smiles her strange smile and waves her hand—continue.
“Are they ugly?” Jacobi asks.
“We never saw them so. Usually, as I said, they appear cat- or doglike, with multiple limbs but pleasant faces, evoking a certain domestic familiarity, likely to make us feel a positive connection—to establish affection.”
“They look like pets,” Ishikawa says.
Kumar nods. “It is the highest privilege to be in the presence of a Guru,” he continues. “They evoke peace of mind, calmness, stability, loyalty. Neither Mushran nor I, nor our closest colleagues in Division Four, spent more than three years working with them. If you serve in the presence of Gurus for longer than three years, betrayal of any sort becomes unthinkable.”
“But for you—thinkable?” Tak asks.
Kumar gives a small shrug. “It was Lieutenant Colonel Joe Sanchez who brought back to Earth the first Martian settler exposed to the Drifter’s green dust.”