Apprehensions and Other Delusions (27 page)

“No one’s moving yet,” she says when she is satisfied with the silence around them.

Up through the brush at the side of the road, then a dash for the shrine.

There is a luminous globe in front of a statue of what might be an enormous child with a scythe in his hand. The place is neglected, the blade of the scythe broken and jagged. The features of the figure are all but obliterated with frost.

No time now. Off down the road by the wall and around the end of it. Safe so far.

Stop.

There is a sentry patrolling up and down and up and down in front of the wreckage of the inn. Unconsciously you lock the hilt of the beamer against your shoulder, in case.

She pulls you into the shadows and gestures. You are both to go through the farmhouse.

“But—” you protest, aware of how risky that can be. The place may be booby-trapped, or so unsafe that it will collapse if you try to get into it.

She puts her hand to your mouth, shaking her head. She mouths some words: you recognize “careful,” “cover,” and “hide,” but the rest is lost to you. She points to a few of the braces that have been shifted recently.

So you angle your shoulder against the wall and slide the covering slats aside. When the opening is large enough, she slips past you, into the farmhouse. You wait until she touches your arm, and then you follow her into the gloom, taking care to close the slats behind you as best you can.

The room is wrecked, the articles in the old chest have been used for target practice, by the look of them. The furniture is broken up, possibly used for firewood. Part of the roof has fallen in. Your footsteps, no matter how cautiously you walk, seem absurdly loud and you feel the fear on your neck that suggests that there are listening devices in the room.

She beckons and you follow.

The kitchen is worse than the rest you have seen. The storage racks are gone, the furnace and oven both pulled apart, disemboweled machinery.

Out the back door—there is only a scrap of lumber now, but there was a door once—and into the shadow of the ruined inn. You crouch lower, to keep in the shadow of the place. You watch here as she moves from darkness to darkness, and you take care to do the same.

It is becoming day. Shapes are becoming objects in the advancing light. You have passed the two houses and you can see the tower of the central hall ahead. The graveyard is between you and it.

She flattens and inches forward on her stomach, snaking through the monuments for cover. You follow her, hoping that you do not leave too much of a swath through the graveyard that They can find. You are inured to the cold, or so you tell yourself, no matter how much you fear you will tremble if you stop moving.

Another one of Their soldiers comes from the far end of the town. He talks to the sentry on duty. They are too far away for you to hear Them.

You pull yourself even with her behind a carved boulder and whisper: “What now?”

She holds up her hand for silence.

“What?” you ask with your mouth but not with your voice.

“I’m listening.” She keeps her hand raised while They speak, her face blank with concentration. Then the second one turns and walks away toward the river, leaving the sentry to resume his patrol.

“They’re going back to the shed,” she says, so quietly that the sound of the slow wind is louder. Her face is very close to yours. “They want to bring in that soldier. They’re shifting Their lines. They’re going to mine the bridge and fall back so that the A. F. forces will get themselves blown to dust.”

“How long?” you ask, as softly as she.

“Long time. Not until afternoon.”

“Then we still have time to get into the spire. We can see what They’re doing.”

She nods, but glances once in the direction of the sentry.

“No problem,” you say—and hope that it isn’t.

Her face shows more doubt than suspicion.

“I’ll go first. I can cover you once I make it to the door. You come after me.”

“But—” She cocks her head toward the sentry again.

“Watch him.”

The sentry starts his walk away from you. Watch him, so you can make a dash for the wall of the central hall while he has his back to you. As he comes forward, watch him. Count.

Turn. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Turn.

Twenty-five steps. Twenty-four.

Watch him mark off the same pattern again, and trust that it is a pattern. And then, as he turns away, run.

You race around the corner of the central hall (Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.) into the cellar door and against the wall (Six. Five. Four. Three.)

Safe—two. One.

Count the twenty-five again, and backwards.

“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen,” you say to yourself, barely moving your lips. There is a noise just beyond your hiding place. Not the sentry, you say to yourself, It’s her, not the sentry. “Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three—”

“Two, one.” She is beside you. Presses into the shadows. Presses close to you. You put your arm around her and try to make both of you blend with the wall. You see that her hair is short and shaggy and the color of dark ale. You feel it on your face, cold in a way the air is not cold.

“The door?”

“Just behind us,” she tells you.

“Can we open it without making too much noise?”

“We’re making too much noise now,” she says. “It’s supposed to open silently. I’m not the only pioneer who uses it.”

You hesitate. What if there are others? What if her forces are waiting inside? Or what if They have found out about it, and are ready to take you prisoner? What if you have to fulfill your promise to her in the next few minutes? “Try it,” you say before there are too many questions in your mind.

Keeping low, you work your way over to the door. Holding your breath, the beamer raised, you watch as she presses the hidden latches.

The door swings open with nothing more than a hiss.

She goes inside, and you follow.

There are papers strewn over the floor of the cellar, most of them old, by the look of them, crumbling to dust. Your feet leave indecipherable tracks as you cross them, going toward the stairs. It is a hard job to climb them, for they are metal, clanging from time to time without warning, and so steep and narrow that you have to go up with your feet turned; your ankle weakens quickly.

At the top of the stairs there is a door, and she has sagged against it.

“Locked?” you ask, afraid of being trapped here in the walls of the central hall.

“No.”

“Then what?” You have your beamer ready.

“Can you lift it? It’s heavy; I didn’t realize I was so tired.” She turns her wan face to you. “I don’t want it to scrape. Too much noise.”

“I’II give it a try.” It is against your training to put the beamer aside, but she’s right—the door is heavy and you need both arms to lift it. You struggle with it, and then there is space enough for you to squeeze through.

There are bits of weather-monitoring equipment still in the tower, most of it useless due to age and neglect. The slitted windows have glass in them still so the tower isn’t too cold. With care, you can watch Them and the road to the river and not be seen yourselves.

That bothers you: if you are seen, it’s all over. All They need to do is swing Their artillery around and that’s the end of you. You have no place to hide other than this one hiding place, and once it is discovered, there is nothing to fall back on. You frown at the thought, and hope that you are lucky enough to last a little longer.

“They don’t check this place often,” she says, knowing what troubles you. “Why should They? It’s secure, isn’t it?” She sets her shotgun and light aside, then opens up a cabinet. There are blankets in the cabinet, and a large-scale torn map.

“How did they get here?” you ask her, suspicions flaring again.

“Pioneers, of course.” She keeps her voice low. “We must talk softly. Sound carries too well. We can take turns watching so that we can both get some sleep.”

“I slept in the night,” you say, regarding her closely.

“That ankle needs rest even if you don’t,” she says.

“I’II keep it propped up,” you decide. “That’ll rest it until I can get it repaired.”

“You mean set,” she corrects you.

“Repaired,” you insist.

She shrugs and sets about unfolding two of the blankets. They are quite large and heavy, having a strange, mushroomy smell that disturbs you. “If anything happens while I’m asleep—and I need to sleep—wake me. I know the area and ...”

“And what?” you want to know when she does not finish.

“And I know where the pioneers are,” she tells you defiantly. “My forces.”

“They’re near?” you ask, not knowing what to make of it if they are.

“I don’t think I’ll
tell you that,” she says after a short silence. “There’s no reason for you to know the answer.”

“But they’ve been here,” you say, indicating the blankets.

“Not recently. It is getting too dangerous and there are better things to do than hide in towers.”

“You’ve been here before,” you say, certain that she has.

“I lived in this little room for forty-two days once. I know it well.” She sits on one of the opened blankets, the dawn making a riot of color around her through the slits of the windows. “I came after I ...” Again, she does not finish.

“Get some sleep,” you say, seeing her face. “I’II take the first watch. You’ve got until mid-day.”

“Thank you,” she says, sounding more weary than you would have thought possible. She lies back, pulling the heavy, scented blanket around her like a cocoon.

You nod once, though she cannot see you nod. You look out the narrow windows and see Them below, moving like insects, busy being soldiers, busy waking up. A skimmer pulls up, leaving a slick like the wake of a slug. Four of Them get into it; they roar off in the direction you came an hour ago. You wish now you had taken the time to bury the dead boy back there. But in such hard ground, in the pernicious cold, it was out of the question.

You turn to tell her, but she is lying wrapped, her eyes closed, her hands limp. She is pale and her eyes are framed in darkness.

So you watch Them and long for warmth and listen to the voices of Their men beneath your hiding place rise on the morning air, pure and distant as the cries of children at play. You watch and rest and you think about the campaign, about the war. This is your fifth campaign, a remarkable accomplishment for an A.F. model-4 cyborg group 722. Few of you have lasted more than two campaigns. But the wars have taken their toll: once you could remember the number of Them you’d killed. Now, you can’t remember the number of A.F. model-4 cyborg group 722s They’ve killed. And you wish it would end. It has ended for so many others; you wish it would end for you.

But you don’t want to be killed. It is not part of your programming to be killed, only part of the reality of what you are. You are supposed to fight until you die. There is nothing else for A.F. model-4s.

You move your foot when your ankle starts to disturb you again. Maybe it has been irritated all the time, but you notice it now, and hate the weakness it reveals.

The sun is a shiny spot in the heavy sky, sliding over the horizon into morning. You watch the shadows move slowly along the ground, sorry now that you were not issued a timer for this campaign. Everything would be easier with a timer.

She has moved in her sleep, making a low sound at the back of her throat; in her sleep she is pushing away some horror, writhing at the dream, struggling with a phantom.

Then you throw yourself at her, reaching for her, your hand pressed over her open mouth to stop the scream.

She strains against you, eyes suddenly wide, thrashing desperately, pinned by your body to the floor, her back arched, her arms seeking purchase on your gear.

“It’s me,” you say as you fight to hold her, hoping to wake her before she breaks free. “It’s me. We’re in the tower. Remember? It’s me.”

She sheds the last vestige of sleep and her tension eases. You feel her resistance fade. “I’m going to take my hand away: Will you scream?”

She shakes her head no twice, emphatically.

“Are you okay now?”

She nods yes.

Slowly you take your hand from her mouth, rolling onto your side as you do. Then you turn her to you and wrap your arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” you say, knowing it for a lie. You feel her arms go around your waist, her head pushed into your shoulder. “It’s okay. Whatever it was, it’s over. I’m here now. It’s over. No matter what They did, it’s over, it’s over. You’re safe. I won’t let Them hurt you again.”

And under your arms her whole body shakes; no tears, no sobs, no sound, just that awful trembling. You want her to speak so that you will know how risky it is, but she remains locked in her suffering. Finally she whispers. “When They had me ...” It takes her a little time to go on. “They wanted to wipe out the pioneers. But They wanted information, so it wasn’t going to be just an execution. They knew I was a spy, after a while. They do things to spies, to get information. They did things to me.”

You say nothing. All you’ve heard have been rumors, and you know how rumors are. But those rumors are enough to make you stop before you ask, before your curiosity wins. You know what happens to Their spies when your forces interrogate Them. Any of that happening to her sickens you.

“I got away,” she says a bit later. “It was a freak chance, an accident. I escaped during on one of the A.F. raids. I hardly knew what I was doing, only that I had to get away. They were holding me at Their field headquarters. The A.F. came in with a two-prong attack—”

“That would be A.F. model-11 cavalry,” you tell her, recalling the lectures you were given before arriving here.

“I ran,” she goes on, paying no attention to what you’ve said. “Everyone was running, no one paid any attention to me. I finally found my way out of the place. I stole a skimmer I guess a day or so later. I don’t know. Between the drugs and other things, I couldn’t tell. But the fires were dying, so it had to be at least a day. I got away. I went back to the pioneers, but most of them were dead. The survivors found me. I was going to quit, but ...”