Eliot Pattison - Water Touching Stone

After a moment the animal leaned back and sat up on its rear haunches. As the moon appeared from behind a cloud Shan gave a half-choked cry. The animal was Marco Myagov.

He stood in silence for a long time before venturing a step forward. Marco tensed and seemed about to pounce on him, then eased back as he recognized Shan. Shan spoke no word of greeting but instead began to range among the graves himself, surveying the mounds, trying to remember how they had looked on his first visit. After a few minutes he stopped at a group of three fresh graves. "Here," he said. "This is where he would be."

Marco seemed to require great effort to rise. He wiped his hands, caked with soot and the dirt of the cemetery, and joined Shan.

"He is-" Shan struggled to find words. "He is with many good men." Despite their miserable deaths in a forgotten wasteland, many of those laid to rest before them were men who defied the dictators, who had been true to their beliefs.

Marco gave no sign he had heard Shan's words.

"I thought you were-" Shan offered tentatively. "I saw the flames, I thought you had died." What if this was not Marco, he thought with alarm, what if it was some frail shadow of Marco, some wraith left after he had lost his soul that night?

But then the man spoke, and Shan sighed with relief. "She burned," Marco said in a hoarse voice. "God's breath, how she burned."

"But why are you-"

"I have had talking to do with my Nikki."

"Then what?" Shan asked after a moment.

"I told you before. I get bastards. It's what I do."

The words somehow made Shan sad. "They need you. The Americans still have to get out. They're in great danger."

Marco looked at Shan, with an expression of confusion, as if he had not thought of it before.

"They'll kill you here. There're soldiers. You won't have a chance."

Marco did not reply. He selected the middle of the two graves and sat on the earth by it, then patted the soil beside him as though gesturing for Shan to join him. Shan knelt by the end of the mound.

"I would not fear to stay here with Nikki," the Eluosi said, almost brightly. "I have nothing left. I have no country. I have no family. I have no home."

"But what would Sophie do without you?"

Marco's eyes rested on a patch in the darkness, in the shadows of the knoll by the camp. He sighed heavily and pulled something out of his pocket. In the moonlight Shan recognized it. The Russian medal he had seen in Nikki's room. The medal from the Czar.

Marco scooped loose soil from the head of the grave and buried the medal, then spoke in Russian for a long time, looking first at the grave, then at the sky.

When he finished Marco shifted his gaze toward the compound. His eyes had a new, sharp glint, a warrior's eyes. Suddenly he rose and began jogging toward the boilerhouse.

By the time Shan caught up, he was at the open boiler, rapidly shoveling in coal. He motioned toward the loaded barrow at the front of the shed, and Shan pushed it toward him. Soon the boiler was packed with fuel, almost overflowing with coal. The heat was nearly unbearable before Marco closed the door. The Eluosi darted to the tool bench and returned with a long spike and a pair of pliers. He jammed the spike through the holes designed to hold a padlock on the door when not in use, and bent both ends so the door could not be opened. He quickly studied the simple controls above the door, then shut off the relief valve, opened the air intake to maximum, and smashed the temperature warning gauge. He turned away, then paused and turned back, pulling something out of his pocket and placing it on the top of the door. Shan recognized it. The plain steel ring that Nikki had worn.

There was no point in protesting, no way to stop what Marco had set into motion, no possibility of asking the Maos to stay and find the waterkeeper in the chaos that was to follow. If any of them were found near the camp they would probably be held, even summarily shot, for committing sabotage.

The Maos were waiting at the truck. Shan stared into the inner wire once more, and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Johnny, Marco said. It's what I do. Now go. Go quickly."

The Maos were ready when he returned. He said nothing about the boiler until several minutes after they had left the gate. Fat Mao listened, then rapped on the window and Ox Mao slowed the truck. Just as he rolled down his window to speak, an explosion shook the valley. The truck rocked. A boulder on the slope above dislodged and rolled past them. Ox Mao accelerated up the hill at the end of the valley and stopped the truck. They could see the camp clearly, no more than three miles away. Huge flames reached into the night sky. The boilerhouse and warehouse were engulfed in flames. Burning debris could be seen blowing across the compound. Moments later the administration building began to burn.

Thirty minutes later the Maos were pacing anxiously around their cellar, arguing among themselves, offering plans and rejecting them, suggesting what the knobs and Brigade might do next, seeming to make themselves more nervous with each suggestion. Fat Mao kept reminding them that the Red Stone clan was being processed for dispersion within hours and now their plan was impossible. Ox Mao said they should be celebrating. Swallow Mao sat at the table, staring at the blank computer screen.

Shan watched for a quarter hour from his seat on the stairs, then took a stool at the table. "Your plan. If it is impossible now, then you can tell me what it was. I know it had to do with trucks, like the one Red Stone tried to steal."

Fat Mao frowned but shrugged and explained. The herds were being shipped to the north, in four big livestock trucks. All of the personnel assignments were finalized- the Kazakhs were to go to towns, to Brigade factories, mostly. Swallow had obtained all the details from the Brigade computers. Mao drivers had been arranged for the four trucks. "But the trick was this," the Uighur said. "Truckloads of livestock are sold by the Brigade to Kazakhstan all the time. A dozen trucks are booked to go across the Kazakh border this week, west on the highway to Alma Ata. Swallow got the shipment numbers, the travel permit numbers, which have all been approved and processed. The border guards have the numbers, for verification. Jowa helped us plan everything. Tonight Swallow put in a new disc, for when the office opens tomorrow. Swallow's name will not be attached to any file. Some other clerk will get the file and transmit the travel confirmations to the Brigade headquarters. The four Red Stone trucks will be cleared by the computers to go to Kazakhstan. Those four will arrive at the depot that is receiving the Red Stone sheep, because Mao drivers will take them."

"And when the trucks leave with the sheep, the clan will be with them."

Fat Mao shrugged. "It's a small clan. There's land in Kazakhstan for those displaced from China. They will get new pastures, with other Kazakhs."

"But trucks get inspected. First the papers are checked, then the cargo is checked."

"Which is why timing was so important. Border guards get bribed all the time. At a certain time two days from now a certain guard sergeant was going to be in charge of inspecting four trucks. He would handle the clearances himself. The papers would be fine, he just won't look at the cargo. He's used to black market goods. Marco recommended him."

"Except now the data won't get sent because the disc burned in the fire," Shan said.

"All they can do now is take their factory jobs and hope we can find some other way later."

Shan studied the faces of the Maos. The excitement that had been there when they first saw the flames of Glory Camp had been replaced with expressions of defeat.

"The copies of records from Glory Camp," Shan said to Swallow Mao. "Do you have the cemetery records?"