John Dalmas - The Bavarian Gate

"And long enough afterward that you can make love to me again. I know it's selfish of me, but I'm going to miss you terribly, especially lying here alone when you're far away."

He kissed her again, then they both lay staring at the ceiling, each with their own thoughts. The last time he'd seen Axel Severtson, the logger had reminisced on their first meeting, then added, "You know, you ain't changed any at all. Vhen you first come here, you looked like a big kid, a big strong kid vhat had got his nose broke somevhere, and vhen I stop to really look, you look yust as young now." He'd laughed. "Maybe you been drinking from that fountain of youth. Vhat vill you charge to get me a bottle?"

And at work, Lute Halvoy had commented, "Macurdy, you better start showing your age, or people will think you're a draft dodger."

How long, he wondered, did they have, he and Mary, before they had to go somewhere else? Before people really began to wonder? Mary understood, of course. Sometimes when she looked thoughtfully and a bit wistfully at him, it seemed to him she was thinking about a future when she was old and he was "still young." Eight years ago it hadn't seemed fully real. Now it had begun to.

Sometimes he wondered if he'd done her wrong by marrying her. Once he'd even wondered out loud. "If you'll remember," she'd answered, "I was the one who proposed. And if you're still young when I'm old and dried up, it's you who's likely to regret." She'd paused. "I read that in China, a wife who's gotten old will sometimes select a ripe young girl and bring her home, to help around the house and keep her husband company in bed. I might not want one in the house with me, but if you were seeing a girlfriend now and then, I'd understand. When I'm old."

He'd closed her lips with a kiss. "Don't say such things," he'd whispered.

The love behind her saying it should have touched him, warmed him. Instead, her words had been like a large stone on his chest, and when he remembered them, they still were.

Three days later, Mary miscarried.

Dr. Wesley didn't show the seven-month fetus to the parents, though he would have if they'd insisted. He told Curtis it would never have been remotely normal; that they, and it, were lucky it was stillborn. "I'm surprised she hadn't miscarried a lot earlier," he said. "I suspect it lived as long as it did because your wife was so determined to have a child."

She'd probably have three or four of them by now, Macurdy thought, if she had a normal husband.

That night, for the first time since he'd returned home to Farside, to the United States of America, he dreamed of Melody. The details were as clear and normal as in his recurring dreams with Varia, but the setting was different. Instead of a gazebo beside a sea, they met in something that reminded him of pictures he'd seen of the Jefferson Monument, though much smaller, and she wore a flowing robe of what seemed to be silk.

Afterward he didn't remember much she'd said in the dream, but he remembered her last words the rest of his life. "Curtis, your Mary loves you deeply and selflessly. Accept her love as offered, and don't ever imagine you're not deserving. She's much happier for having married you."

He wished afterward that he'd made love with Melody before he awoke, as he did in his dreams with Varia. Probably, he decided, the souls in heaven didn't have sex, even in dreams.

In mid-February, Macurdy enlisted. He told himself it wasn't a matter of wanting to, but of patriotism. But in fact, once he'd signed up, he felt a focus he hadn't felt since the end of his war with the Ylver.

Three weeks later he was on a train, enroute to infantry training at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas.

He knew this would change his life, but he hadn't a notion how greatly, how powerfully. Or how well he'd prepared for it.

Airborne!

Infantry Training

The Camp Robinson military reservation seemed big as a county. Its red-clay hills were covered mostly with scrub oak. The more moderate terrain had mixed woods of larger trees, laced with creeks and interspersed with abandoned fields. Part of the camp itself had new, cream-colored frame buildings, but most of the trainees lived in squad tents boasting wooden floors and a small round sheet metal stove. It was the second week in March, and winter had launched a counteroffensive against encroaching spring. The tent sides were tightly secured to keep out the wind, rain, sleet and snow.

At the end of each row of tents was a coal bin from which they took their fuel. The real problem was lighting it. Even with the draft and damper closed, fire in the little knee-high stove burned out in a few hours and had to be restarted, which was hard to do without wood for kindling. And usually there was no wood. The men did the best they could, using cookie cartons, newspapers, and lighter fluid. A few of the more adventurous foraged in the night, hunting for kindling in the bins of other companies. On the third night, four men from Company B were caught stealing wood from the fuel bin at D Company's messhall, and the resulting fight sent three of them to the dispensary with minor injuries, notably split lips.

In the nine years since returning from Yuulith, Macurdy had mostly avoided showing his powers. Except for that night in the jungle outside Miles City, he'd let no one but Mary see him use magic to light a fire. On Macurdy's fourth morning in 2nd Squad, 2nd Platoon of Company B, and with the grass crisp and white with frost, the stove was out as usual. While several other trainees looked on, he knelt before it. Poking a finger through the opened draft, he drew on the Web of the World and directed a thin stream of white hot plasma into the coal. None of them could see what he did, but within seconds they could hear the fire, and stood variously gawping or frowning. Then one asked, "How the hell did you do that?"

Macurdy had learned in Yuulith that a poor explanation often works better than a good one. "It's something my Aunt Varia taught me years ago," he said.

Actually it was Arbel, not Varia, who'd taught him to start fires, but "Aunt Varia" sounded more innocuous and required no elaboration. Besides, Arbel had done it differently; Arbel's technique, though fine for wood, seemed to Macurdy not intense enough to ignite coal. Later, also in Yuulith, Macurdy had learned by sheer chance to create and cast small balls of plasma, but he'd wanted to provide more intense and prolonged heat. So improvising, he'd created a plasma jet.

Of course it got talked about, and that evening, Men from other squads were asking him, hopefully but skeptically, to show them how to start fires. His solution was to start a small coal fire on the ground behind the company shower room, from which they could take coals with a shovel; the latrine orderly could keep it burning. The company officers were soon aware of the fire and= idea it had been, but assumed he'd started it from the firebox in the big water heater. They credited him with resourcefulness, rather than magic, a resourcefulness that went into his personnel record.

The became aware of Macurdy in other respects, as well, for in his new circumstances, he showed leadership qualities he'd mostly subdued after leaving Yuulith. After the first week, he was made trainee leader of 2nd Platoon. He excelled at everything-the obstacle course, the rifle range, boxing matches… even foot races! The company clerk noticed his birth date, and certain it was a typo, called him in. "Macurdy," he said, "your birth date is listed as 1904, but you're obviously not 38 years old. Assuming that only one digit was typed in wrong, it's got to be 1914, right?"

Here, it seemed to Macurdy, was a chance to bring his official age more in line with his appearance. "Right," he answered, "1914."