Нэнси Кресс - If Tomorrow Comes

People screamed, running blindly in the dark. Leo could see them all, along with everything that was there and—more important—everything that wasn’t. The IED had blown up without scattering shrapnel, without breaching the building, without touching Zoe, Owen, or Kandiss. It was the sorriest bomb he’d ever seen. Isabelle was all right. Even that stupid ass Bourgiba hadn’t been injured. But the Kindred that Leo had shot lay dead just inside the open zone.

Fuck.

Salah blamed himself for the death.

If he hadn’t stupidly, without thinking it through, run toward Isabelle… But he’d seen the pipe guns the men from the camp carried, he’d known how heavily armed the Rangers were, he’d seen Isabelle vulnerable and exposed to both sides and some atavistic masculine instinct had strangled all thought except to protect her. Protect! How? She was better equipped to deal with unrest in the camp than he could ever be, and the Rangers were trained to accomplish their objectives as efficiently as possible. Which that prick Lamont had done: only one man had died.

Salah’s fault.

He stood in the bathroom of the compound, needing to calm himself before he returned to the meeting going on in Marianne’s room. Illathil had abruptly ended. Ree^ka-mak had been told everything that happened. In the camp, the Kindred mourned their dead. The Rangers were on high alert, or code red, or whatever they called it, against further violence. Branch remained on duty in the locked lab with the leelees, living and dead, and the safe holding vaccines and spore packets. And here Salah was, stupidly standing in a bathroom, his back against the door, trying to gain control of himself.

Salah’s father had been Muslim but his maternal grandmother had been French, a Catholic. Words from the Mass, which he had not thought about since his grandmother died thirty-five years ago, hammered at his mind in three languages:

Ma faute, ma faute, ma très grande faute.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

A soft knock on the door. “Salah?”

“Coming, Claire.” He ran the water briefly and came out.

She said, “It wasn’t your fault.”

He looked at her: tiny, sweet-natured, smart as hell; in some ways, Claire Patel was the heart of the Terran expedition. Younger than Marianne, more mature than Branch, more driven than Salah. But, this time: wrong.

Then she said the only thing that could help him: “Isabelle doesn’t blame you.”

He touched her shoulder briefly and they went back to the meeting. Ree^ka-mak sat upright in Marianne’s bed, her face a fantastic topographic mask of sorrow. Her half-blind eyes, however, were steady. She said, “The people who attacked this place of healing must be named and”—Salah did not know the Kindese word—“and that will be done. Salah-Bourgiba-mak, I have decided that you will carry me to the camp to talk to the Mothers gathered there.”

A shrewd move. She was the only one who could calm the camp, and if he carried her, no one would attack him. They would see that she did not hold him—or any of the Terrans—responsible.

But Isabelle, who had been translating the Mother of Mothers’ words for Claire and Marianne, said in Kindese, “That may not be possible, Ree^ka-mak.”

“Why not?”

“The Rangers have forbidden any Terrans to leave the compound—anyone, I mean, of the new expedition, who is involved in creating the vaccine.”

“I will talk with Lamont-mak. Also with the Terran who killed Bel¡lak^ha.”

“That will not be possible, either.”

“Why not?”

“The soldier’s superior is responsible for his… his group’s actions, and Lieutenant Lamont will not explain them to you.”

“They do not recognize my authority?”

“Over our people, yes. Over Terrans, no.”

“Then do they recognize Marianne-mak’s authority over the Terran lahk?”

“No,” Isabelle said.

Salah realized that Ree^ka-mak knew all this already; she was making a point.

“Then,” the Mother of Mothers said, “Lamont-mak recognizes no authority but his own?”

Yes. And history had shown, over and over, that military authority unrestrained by civilian control was the harbinger of disaster. However, Salah knew he was biased; he didn’t like or understand the Rangers, not any of them. Isabelle did.

Isabelle said, “The ambassador that Lieutenant Lamont recognized as authority died in the Russian attack. I think the Rangers are trying to carry out her orders, which were to protect Terrans on World. Mother of Mothers, the man who killed Bel¡lak^ha was doing that. The Rangers could have killed many more of the men who attacked from the camp. They did not. Neither Lieutenant Lamont nor Corporal Brodie is at fault here.”

“I do not blame them.”

“Nor is Salah-kal to blame for rushing to me.”

“I do not blame him. The people to blame are in the camp, those who made weapons and used them to try to obtain vaccines before others. Salah-mak will take me to the camp, and one soldier will go with me so that all can see that I know where fault lies. Now that Marianne-mak has created more vaccine, we must create a plan for giving it. This will not be easy. It is also not a Terran concern. This is my order: Give the fifty existing vaccines to everyone in the compound, immediately.”

“There are fifty-two, Ree^ka-mak.”

“There are fifty to decide. Two have been reserved for Noah Jenner’s wife and child. No one knows if the child will inherit her father’s immunity.”

How had she known all that? Conversations must go on among the Kindred scientists from which Terrans were excluded.

Ree^ka-mak said, “The two vaccines for Llaa^moh¡ and her child are approved. She has worked here on the vaccine. After you vaccinate the rest of our people within these walls, you will have twenty-six vaccines left. How fast can more be prepared?”

Marianne said, “I don’t know. We will start right now and work day and night.”

“Noah Jenner will give the twenty-six vaccines to people he trusts, to take to the lahks of the scientists here, divided equally. The Mothers of those lahks will decide what to do with their doses. Whoever receives them must travel here because when the spore cloud comes, death will be everywhere but here. Marianne-mak, would bringing more scientists here help create more vaccines faster?”

Isabelle translated. “No,” Marianne said. “Tell her it’s not a question of personnel but of time to grow the cultures.”

“I understand. Then you must work. As soon as Noah-mak arrives, send him to me. Now we will talk about who gets the new vaccines you will create.”

“One thing more,” Marianne said, in English. “Does she understand that the synthesized vaccine proved effective in leelees, but that it has not been tested in humans? That we don’t actually know how or even if it will work? There are strains of flu that mutate so fast we can’t—”

Isabelle put her hand on Marianne’s arm. “She knows, Marianne. Believe me, she knows. She—”

Branch burst in without knocking. Salah’s heart began a slow, painful thud in his chest. The young assistant trembled and his eyes practically rolled in his head. “I only left for a minute! When Claire—Dr. Patel”—he blushed a deep, mottled crimson—“wanted to go outside to see what happened, I didn’t want her to go, after the bomb I mean because it seemed too dangerous even though a lot of people ran out and then Rangers came through the compound to check it out, so I thought it was all safe, and everything was so confused—I ran after Dr. Patel and I must have left the door unlocked—”