Нэнси Кресс - If Tomorrow Comes

What had grasped the Kindred, changing their Terran heredity into something else, something that all humans already were, or could be? Just culture, nurture, a kinder set of laws?

Yet tomorrow, there was a good chance some of these same Kindred would murder anyone who stood between them and a vaccine.

Noah reached the litter and laid Ree^ka’s body onto it. The circle of Mothers gently but unmistakably closed around the litter, edging him out. Noah walked back across the open perimeter. A second German writer came to Salah, harsher than Rilke: “All things are subject to interpretation, and whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

“One down, a hundred thousand to go,” Zoe said over their private frequency. Leo didn’t think it was funny. For one thing, the old lady had maybe helped keep the insurgents in check. Sometimes Zoe didn’t think far enough ahead. She was a terrific Ranger but not much of a strategist.

Leo had duty at the south door of the compound, facing the hill up to Isabelle’s lahk. He had watched the funeral procession climb the hill, after which there hadn’t been anything else to see. In a few minutes Owen would relieve Leo and Leo would get three hours’ sleep, except that he was going to claim the fifteen minutes that Isabelle had promised him. No way he preferred sleep to that.

Zoe said, “Christ, I’m tired. Hey, Leo—all those waving flashlights at the funeral—what do you suppose they use for batteries if they don’t have factories and shit?”

“They have factories. Just not near here. And the flashlights use biofluorescence.”

“What the fuck is that?”

Leo knew the answer because he’d asked Austin, who’d asked Graa^lok and told Leo. “Bacteria in the flashlights that glows if you mix them with other bacteria.”

“Really getting to know this place, aren’t you?”

“Well, we’re stuck here.”

“Leo, you ever wonder if the Russian ship might return to finish the job?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“No good—right? Can’t reach it in orbit. We might rush their forces if it lands and they come out, especially if they think we’re all dead. But their crew would just take off again and start shooting. We don’t have anything that could take her down.”

“We’d have to wait,” Leo said; he’d given this a lot of thought. “Hide, wait until they’re all outside the ship and feeling in control. Get the help of the local cops and train them. Force multiplication.”

Zoe said forcefully, “Rangers don’t do that kind of counterinsurgency shit. Lamont would never agree.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re not Green Berets. But—”

“We don’t do that.”

“We’re doing a lot of things Rangers don’t do. And Zo—if it helps us get home?”

“Well… fuck, it would be nice to go home. See my sister. Have a Big Mac. Get drunk at this great bar near the base.”

Leo, moved by the unaccustomed wistfulness in her voice, didn’t point out that if they got home, her sister would be twenty-eight years older than when Zoe left, her bar might no longer exist, and who knew if McDonald’s would still be in business?

But then Zoe’s voice changed. “Want to tell you something, Leo.”

“Okay.”

“I’m… shit, I’m a little nervous to go home. If we ever do. Twenty-eight years. Nothing’ll be the same. I don’t know about… you know. Adjusting and shit.”

“I’m not sure we’ll be going home, Zo.” No matter what Owen said.

“Yeah. But what I’m thinking is—what if going is worse than staying here?”

“Well, the—”

“Twenty-eight fucking years! That’s more years than I am already!”

Owen emerged from the compound. Leo said, “Gotta go, Zoe.” Owen relieved him, and Leo hurried to the ready room, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and went to wait for Isabelle in the tiny kitchen where their simple meals were either prepared by Kindred cooks or brought in by Noah Jenner. God, he was sick of vegetables. A Big Mac would be wonderful. Damn Zoe for putting it in his mind.

The kitchen had no chairs, so Leo leaned against the wall. He’d had only four hours of sleep in the last twenty-four, but he was too excited to feel drowsy, straightening when she came in.

“I greet you, Isabelle.” She’d been crying; there were salt-tear trails on her cheeks. Leo wanted to lick them away.

“I greet you, Leo.”

“How was the funeral?” Then, because that sounded stupid, he added, “Did everything go all right?”

“Yes. Ree^ka is ¡mundik¡.”

“What does that mean?” He hadn’t heard before a word that both began and ended with that tongue click.

“It means… it’s complicated. Returned to the planet after an honorable life, with sort of overtones of joining the soil, almost like a wedding.”

Weird—marrying a planet.

Isabelle said, “Say it. ‘¡Mundik¡.’”

He did, three times, until she was satisfied and smiled. “You really do want to learn. But let’s start with something simpler, like basic conversation.”

“In a minute. First I want to ask about tomorrow. I’ll be on the roof with Berman, covering you when you take vaccines into the camp. But I want to know if there’s anything the Kindred might do that would look suspicious to Zoe and me but isn’t really because it’s, you know, just customs we don’t understand.”

Isabelle’s eyes sharpened. Leo felt that, maybe for the first time, she really saw him. She said, “Your lieutenant didn’t ask that.”

Leo was silent; he wasn’t going to diss Owen, not even for her.

“It’s a good question,” Isabelle said. “I don’t think there’s anything weird, not for this.”

“Lieutenant Lamont told you to not go into any tents, right? Make the kids be brought out to you, and stay within ten feet of the perimeter where we can cover you.”

“He told us all that, yes.”

Leo repeated it anyway. “If there’s a rush on the compound, if people run past you toward the compound, hit the dirt and crawl away from the compound and the attackers. Try to reach a tree or other—”

“Lamont told us all that, Leo.”

“Here’s something he didn’t tell you. Do you know a guy called Lu^kaj^ho?”

“No.”

“He’s a Kindred cop. He tipped me off to one weapons cache in the camp, and he and three of his buddies will be working the inside, on my signals. I can’t describe him because they all sort of look alike to me—no, I know I’m not supposed to say that but it’s true and I’ll learn eventually—but if you get in real trouble, he or one of his guys will get you to safety if they can. You’ll know it’s him and not some kidnapper because he’ll say a code word to you that I taught him. It’s ‘GI Joe.’”

Isabelle didn’t smile. “Help just me, or help Salah and Noah, too?”

Leo met her gaze levelly. “Just you.” And then, because he was learning to read her face, he said, “I wouldn’t do that, Isabelle.”

Slowly she nodded. “I know you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Leo. I know you wouldn’t.” She put her hand on his arm.

His anger, immediate and hot, dissipated. She was learning him, too. He was not—quite apart from his Army vows—not the kind of man who would shoot a rival. Or let him get shot, not if Leo could stop it. Which meant—didn’t it?—that he and Salah were rivals, that maybe he had a chance with her.