It was his mother. He turned, looking up the path toward the cottage, then scuttled off, up over the stone wall and away, down through the long grass of the upper field toward the bay.
MEG STOOD IN THE opening at the end of the garden wall, staring at the scene in disbelief. Then, wiping her hands on her apron she walked hurriedly down the path toward them.
"Where's Tom?" she asked anxiously, looking past Scaf at the bum-ing barn. "He's not in there, is he?"
Scaf shook his head, then pointed toward the bay.
She let out her breath, relieved, then looked down at the Myghtern. He had stopped heaving now, and was sitting up. He glanced up at her, his dark eyes miserable in his smoke-blackened face.
"What happened?" she asked, as if she were speaking to two children. "What was it this time?"
The Myghtern looked away, embarrassed. "I got drunk," he said. "I found some cider in the store rooms and I drunk it all. I ... I must have kicked a lamp over or something. Scaf got me out."
She looked to Scaf, who shrugged.
"What will Ben say?" she said, shaking her head. "His barn. Look at it!"
The Myghtern glanced at it, then looked away again. Scaf stared stubbornly at the floor.
"It's a good thing Scaf was there to get you out of trouble," she said, her anger at his stupidity tempered by her realization that it could have been far worse. An old barn . . . Ben wouldn't mind losing it. His only regret would be that he hadn't been here to see it burn.
She turned, thinking of her child again, then walked across to the wall and, leaning on it, looked out across the field.
"Tom!" she called. "Tom! Where are you?"
But there was no sign of him. He was probably by the Seal. That was where she usually found him: down there where she had used to play with Ben; where they had found the diseased rabbit that time.
She turned back, surprised by the strength of the memory, then shook her head again. "Never mind. At least you're safe. Let's get you indoors and clean you up."
"But the barn?" Scaf said.
'Will burn itself out. But come now, Scaf. Give me a hand getting him up. The Master will be back in a while."
"And young Tom?"
"Tom will be in when it suits him," she said, as if giving the subject no more thought. As he always was.
SHE MET HIM at the gate to the lower garden. Beyond him the cruiser which had brought him back lifted and turned south, heading for the mouth of the estuary. He held her to him briefly, then turned and sniffed the air, looking to his right where the ruins of the barn stood out against the evening light.
"What happened to the barn?"
She laughed, making light of it. "Our friend the Myghtern got drunk and kicked a lamp over. Scaf got him out. They're both okay."
Ben nodded, then, putting his arm about her shoulder, walked on. "And Tom? How's he?"
"Our little shadow?" She met his eyes and smiled. "He's somewhere. Exploring probably."
He smiled then let his lips brush against hers.
"How was Li Yuan?"
"His usual anxious self."
She glanced at him. "And the launch?"
"It was okay," he said, with an unusual vagueness; then, sniffing the air again, he gave a grunt of approval. "Now, that smells nice. Rabbit stew, unless I'm mistaken."
"With dumplings, carrots, and potatoes," she said, squeezing his side. "I thought you deserved something special."
"It reminds me—"
"Of mother," she finished.
He stopped and turned, looking at her in the light from the open kitchen window. "And you . . . you remind me of her too."
It was some time since he had been inside the Enclave and she could see from his eyes the price he'd paid for his visit.
"Was it bad in there?"
He laughed, then assumed an actor's manner. "I had not thought death had undone so many."
She smiled, then joined in the game. "You who have sat by Thebes below the wall and walked among the lowest of the dead."
"You wonder what old T.S. would have made of it, eh?" He stroked her neck, then walked on, lacing his fingers between hers. "SimFic were pleased, anyway. It seems they've sold a record number of advance units. As for me, well, I smiled like the King of Villians himself for the cameras, and the critics lapped it all up. I'm made, they say."
"Made?" she laughed at the wealth of distaste he'd managed to pack into that single word.
"Constructed, manufactured, fashioned, like the lowest of the Clay!" He smiled wickedly. "I am their creature now. They own me."
"Or think they do."
"Which is the same thing, in their eyes."
She turned, making him stop and face her. "So why did you do it if you felt that way?"
His eyes gave her the answer. For the experience. She sighed, then, tugging at his hand, made to walk on.
"It's war, you know," he said. "Coming back the air was thick with troop ships heading east."
"I know. There was talk on the news of a State of Emergency."
He nodded. "I may have to go back. Li Yuan has formed a special council. He's asked me if I want to be a part of it."
"And do you?"
His eyes sparkled. "It might be fun. To shape men's dreams and make them real."
"I thought that's what you did already?"
He smiled, then walked on, chuckling softly to himself.
LEHMANN STOOD AMONG his generals, watching through field glasses as his troops began a fresh attack on the Odessa garrison. In the last hour it had begun to rain, the black clouds billowing across the estuary from the sea to the southeast. Under its cover his assault cruisers swept in, firing salvo after salvo into the burning fortress.
Despite the rain, the smell of burning polymers was strong in the air and an acrid smoke mingled with the cloud, sending down a residue of flaky ash.
Lehmann pulled down his mask and looked about him. To his right the Overseer's House was on fire, its three tiers blazing like a giant tree. Beyond it his men were busy mining the bridges and setting booby traps in the bunkhouses. To his left a mobile command unit had been set up and a bank of monitors showed scenes from the struggle for Odessa. Supported by two phalanxes of armored vehicles, a body of five thousand men were trying to take the gatehouse, using flame-throwers and mobile rocket-launchers to prize their way in through the front door of the great fortress.
It had gone well. His feint to the north, at Kishinev, had drawn more than two thirds of the garrison's strength, while the massive air battle farther west had deprived Odessa of the critical air cover it needed to survive. He had only now to persevere and it was his—Li Yuan's "Pearl of the Black Sea," his prestige garrison.
Overhead the air was full of his cruisers, ferrying the wounded back to the base hospital in Galati. More than eighty thousand—killed in the first few hours of the assault—would never make that journey. They would be left where they'd fallen on the battlefield, for in this overpopulated world nothing was so cheaply spent as soldiers' lives.
He smiled, pleased with how things had gone. His forces had penetrated deep into the T'ang's territory, destroying more than one hundred and twenty separate plantations in the process—almost a third of the Eastern European growing area. And though news had come in the last half hour of Karr's counterattack, that barely mattered now, for they had served their purpose. He could lose all three armies and it would mean nothing, for what his enemies had taken to be a major attempt to take the Plantations had, in essence, been purely diversionary—a mighty, destructive cast of the dice, and all to win one single prize, Odessa.
Even so, he had been surprised by the resistance the T'ang's armies had put up.
That's Karr's doing, he thought, feeling a great respect for the man. Unlike that vapid apologist Rheinhardt, Karr was a born fighter. He knew that it was never enough to contain one's enemy, one had to hurt him too. And so he had, today, no matter that it would not change the long-term progress of the war. Since Karr had been General things had changed a lot. Six months ago he might have swept the T'ang's forces back into the Baltic, but today his armies had been stalled and turned.