Unknown - The_Growing_589064

Koda says very carefully. “It’s not the first time such a thing has happened. It won’t be the last.”

“No, it’s not. But those other times I wasn’t responsible. This time I was.” Maggie turns to meet her eyes. “I should have left the service after that, but I didn’t. I still loved it too much—the flying, the feeling of power.”

And you’ve demanded perfection of yourself ever since. “Maggie?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve seen you in the field. I trust you, and so do the troops.”

“Thanks.” A small smile twitches at Maggie’s mouth. “You have the talent to be one of the best fighters I’ve ever met. If I’ve taught you anything, I can be proud of that.”

Koda opens the door. “Not just that. Would you like me to tell Kirsten you’d like to speak to her?”

”Please.”

Koda nods, steps into the corridor and, very softly, closes the door.

*

Koda slips quietly out of her sleeping bag, careful not to disturb Maggie or Kirsten, still stretched out on the floor of the troop carrier on either side of her. Kirsten does not wake, but murmurs in her sleep, reaching out toward the now-empty space where Koda had been a moment ago. She misses Asi. With the thought a twinge of—what? Not guilt, exactly, not quite regret either—passes through Koda. The dog had howled and flung himself against the gate of the clinic kennel when they had turned to leave him not quite day ago. Hidden behind her darkened lenses, Kirsten’s eyes had been red and swollen for the next twelve hours. “Allergies,” she had claimed, but even with a warming breeze from the south, it is still too early for the spring miseries of blowing pollen.

In the light of the small ceramic heater, Koda begins to pull on her battle dress over her thermals. Because she and Kirsten will be stationed with the com unit back in the woods that crown a rise behind the intended battle line, her Arctic white camo is streaked in the grey-brown of bare branches, the spider tracery of dead grass. She is not sure, exactly, of the time, but even here in the enclosed warmth of the truck, she can smell the changes that come with the wind that rises before dawn, bearing with it the hint of far places where the snow has loosed its grip on the land. Places, even, where ice never clamps down upon the earth at all, and winter means relief of pounding heat.

Heraklion.

The thought comes to her with the vivid urgency of a child’s wish. If I live through this—if any of us live; if there is anything human left at all—someday I want to go back to Crete and lie on the beach in Heraklion.

She can see it still, the white sand and the thousand-year-old Byzantine domes whitewashed to perfect brightness under the white glare of the sun; the white wings of gulls dipping and wheeling above the impossible deep blue of the water that stretches on and on to the horizon.

For an instant it seems to her that time slips, and she is looking out over the curling breakers at strong brown arms and legs flashing in the surf as a dolphin arcs above the water’s surface and the spray off its sleek form catches the light like a shower of falling stars. The angle of the sun shifts, and the swimmer is no longer Tali, but a fair-haired woman whose face she cannot see. The ancient monastery that broods down from the sea-cliff has acquired fluted columns and a marble altar that smokes with incense, the sharp smell of myrrh sliding along the salt air. And the sun dips again, and there is nothing but the white beach and the woman whose hair gleams like cornsilk, calling to her from the water where the dolphins leap under the endless sky.

Koda shakes her head to clear it, reaching for her sidearm and cinching down the straps that hold the shoulder holster in place against her side. The images carry the feel of truth, but she cannot spare the attention now to sort past from future, desire from fate.

Carefully she steps between the two women and lets herself out the insulated flap at the back of the truck. The plastic sheeting clacks softly behind her as she steps onto the rear bumper, then jumps lightly onto the snow beneath. The night is clear. The moon rides high above the bare limbs of beech and sycamore, its reflection on the snow casting ghost light about her feet. The light wind creaks among the branches, unfurls the frost of her breath in streamers.

In an hour or a little more, she knows, the sun will rise, and the quiet woods and fields in this lonely corner of South Dakota will explode with the noise of battle. The thought does not frighten her; she has spent the last weeks with a gun scarcely out of her hand. She has condemned men to the slow death of thirst and starvation in the Mandan jail; has blown gods know how many androids into electronic oblivion; killed a man with her own hands. There will be nothing new to her in the violence to come. The difference tomorrow will be in her assigned role as communicator to the divided wings of the troops gathered here to close, at the appointed time, on the enemy force.

And there is Kirsten, whose safety will be her primary responsibility, on whose skills their survival beyond tomorrow may well depend.

Without sound, two shadows separate themselves from the trees behind the line of trucks and move toward her. One, tall and bareheaded, is her brother; the other, shorter and stockier, is Manny. “Hau, tanski,” Tacoma greets her.

“Han, thiblo. Shick’shi.”

Tacoma draws a small leather bag out of his jacket. From it he takes a bundle of dried sweetgrass and sage tied with a red thread and half a dozen packets of folded buckskin. Carefully he lays them out on the truck’s wide bumper. “I’m glad you’re up.” A grin lights his face. “Or did you already know we were coming?”

She smiles in return. “I should have.”

“Other things on your mind?” Manny nods toward the truck.

“Han. It’s not good for so much to depend on one person.”

“No,” her brother agrees quietly. “But she’s our best bet to stop the droids. You’re our best bet to keep her alive to do it. That is not in question.”

“It ought to be.”

“No. It shouldn’t.” Manny gestures back toward the stretch of highway where a squadron of Black Hawks and Apaches are parked. “You’ve got to know that my orders are to get you two out of here safely if it all goes to hell when the sun comes up.”

“Damn it, Manny—“

“And I don’t want any argument from you or Dr. Ice Maiden if it comes to that. There won’t be time—oh, damn,” he says very softly.

Silhouetted by the faint glow of the heater, Kirsten stands holding the open flap above them. There is no chance at all that she has not heard Manny’s reference to her, and Koda can almost feel the heat of embarrassment radiating from him. But Kirsten speaks evenly, looking down at the small packets on the bumper. “I’m sorry, I’ve interrupted you. I’ll go out the other way.”

“No.” It is Tacoma, his voice firm. “Please join us.” He reaches up to hand her down, and after a moment’s hesitation, she accepts. “You’re a warrior, too.”

Kirsten stands motionless for a moment, then says softly, “Thank you. I’m honored.”

Tacoma hands Koda the sweetgrass bundle, and shielding a match with his big hands, carefully lights it. Smoke billows up from the herbs, and, closing her eyes, Koda waves it toward her, over her head and shoulders, breathing in its fragrance. Calm settles over her, a stillness that begins just under her heart and ripples outward until mind and body alike are quiet. She passes the smudge stick to Tacoma, who repeats the ritual before handing it to Kirsten. Her face pale as the snow, Kirsten follows their example, bowing her head in reverence as the peace of the ritual takes possession of her. When Manny has completed the purification, Tacoma gently opens the small leather bundles. Five packets hold finely ground colors: white an black and red; red and yellow ochre. In the sixth is a knob of rendered buffalo fat.