Valor's Trial

by Tanya Huff

  Werst snorted.

  Torin raised her head just far enough to glare at him. “Do not do that again.”

  “Sorry, Gunnery Sergeant.” He sounded like he meant it. “You should’ve killed them all when you had the chance.”

  It would have simplified things. But she’d never admit that out loud.

  Among the supplies, Harnett had managed to put together a fairly extensive first aid kit. He’d probably convinced the prisoners to hand over the few things that had come through with them for the good of the group—where convinced meant took it regardless and the good of the group referred to him and his goons. Even if every Marine in the node had only come through with one or two bits of kit, it added up.

  Torin had her filters and . . .

  She pulled the supplements from inside her vest. Human supplements were pale blue, di’Taykan pale pink, Krai pale yellow. She ripped off a small square of the pale blue paper, about the size of the tab she carried and let it dissolve on her tongue.

  “Uh, Gunny, isn’t unsupervised tasting dangerous for you lot? I mean, Humans?”

  “It’s supplements.”

  “What is?”

  She flapped the paper in his general direction. “This is. That’s why everyone’s in such bad shape. There isn’t quite enough food, but there’s more than physiological deterioration seems to indicate. The Krai are in the best shape on the same amount of food, but your gut’s the most adaptable.”

  “Harnett was hoarding.”

  “Yes, but the numbers don’t add up. He wasn’t keeping everyone weak through lack of food but through the absence of trace nutrients the food didn’t have. He was denying everyone but his supporters the supplements. Add some of this to everyone’s food and, provided the Others keep supplying it, they’ll be back up on their feet in no time.”

  Werst looked around at the surrounding gray on gray of Marines on pallets and snorted. “Yay.”

  FIVE

  THE SOUND FILLED THE NODE. It wasn’t loud or unpleasant, it was just . . . omnipresent. For the approximately twenty seconds it sounded, it was impossible to think about anything but the sound.

  “It’s the warning for the evening meal,” Staff Sergeant Pole told her in the sudden, welcome silence. Torin hadn’t heard him approach. “Same sound as the morning meal. You’ll get used to it after a while.”

  “If you say so,” she muttered, resisting the urge to rub at her temples. Behind him, the sergeants had pulled two Marines from each squad and sent them to line up at the pipe. Two lines: one with two jugs to a Marine for water, one with a single jug for kibble.

  It hadn’t taken much to reinstate the structure of the Corps. Torin would have been happier about that if the structure hadn’t crumbled so completely in the first place.

  A closer look and she could see that each of the three newly formed platoons had sent one of Harnett’s survivors toward the pipe.

  “They’re the only ones who know what to do,” Pole said when she pointed it out. “Harnett’s people brought the jugs out to the edge of the DMZ. No one ever went into his tent.” His gaze flicked over to one of the young Marines who Harnett had been using as a plaything. “Not voluntarily anyway.”

  Torin fought to keep any accusation from her voice. “How are they doing?”

  “Physically, superficial injuries. Nothing that won’t heal, especially as they’re a little better fed than the rest of us. Mentally . . .” He shrugged. “Hell, I’m not sure how the rest of us are doing mentally— in all the sitting around and waiting to starve to death, we forgot they were in there. I could remember every festival meal my mother had ever cooked, in detail, and I could lovingly linger over the memory of barbecued ribs and baked yams with syrup, but I forgot about those kids the moment the tent closed up behind them.” His mouth twisted up into something that in no way resembled a smile. “You got an answer for that, Gunny?”

  “Time.”

  “Yeah. Heals all, they say.”

  “Mostly they’re full of shit, but about the starving to death . . .” Toirn held up the pastel pages of felted supplements. “These need to be divided into the bowls.”

  “What . . . ?”

  “Blue to the Humans, pink to the di’Taykan . . .”

  “Yellow to the Krai,” he finished, reaching for them. “Supplements?”

  “It looks like you’ve been getting enough calories . . . almost enough,” she amended remembering how Harnett had been skimming the kibble. “But not enough nutrients.”

  The pages bent in Pole’s grip. “Marines have died without these. Starved to death with enough food in their bellies. And the living lost their grip on what it meant to be Marines. On what it meant to be alive. Harnett . . .” He took a deep breath and growled, “You should have killed him slowly.”

  “Trust me, if I had it to do over, I would. At the moment, I’m wishing I’d put the boots to his body a few times before we dumped it.” When Pole’s brows rose, she grinned. “I know, would have meant nothing to him, but it would have made me feel better.”

  “You got to kill him,” the staff sergeant reminded her pointedly. “I’ll distribute these.”

  As he left, Kyster limped up carrying all three of the jugs they’d used for the extra feeding. “I have your bowl, Gunny,” the young Krai told her, moving in close. “Major says we eat with him.”

  She glanced over at where the major sat in a cluster of officers. The NCOs had their platoons, but the officers had gathered around Major Kenoton and Lieutenant Myshai. The second lieutenants, at least, needed to be assigned. If the major didn’t get to it soon, she’d see that Pole suggested it. Meanwhile, she was left wondering why the major didn’t want her eating with the NCOs, and the best reason she could come up with was that he wanted Kyster and Werst to go for the officers’ food and the two Krai were considered hers. There were worse reasons, including a couple that slid right past paranoid to highly paranoid, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Werst.”

  “I’m on it, Gunny.” He took one of the jugs and shoved Kyster toward the pipe with his free hand. “Move it, kid.”

  Time to check out the pipe.

  The sound returned for a three-second count just as she reached the front of the line. Three seconds after that, a stream of kibble clattered down one of the chutes and into the first jug. Phillips went to pull it away with one portion still to be filled, but Torin closed her hand on his shoulder.

  “Not anymore,” she said, pitching her voice to carry along the line. “All the way to the top.”

  His shoulder tensed in her grip and the Marine behind him made a noise she probably wasn’t even aware of making.

  At the next chute, another Marine pressed the edge of his first jug to what looked like a contact point, and it filled with water. The water stopped when the jug was taken away. Although the kibble poured constantly, there were never more than one or two pieces lost in the changeover, and they were quickly claimed.

  It seemed to help that she was standing there—maybe because the prisoners had been conditioned to connect food to power, maybe because they were standing in what had been Harnett’s inner sanctum—so she stayed. Werst and Kyster filled their jugs last. After she checked that was, indeed, the end of the kibble, she followed them back to the major, scanning ceiling and walls of the node.

  Water. Kibble with water. It tasted exactly the same as it had earlier.

  “Would it have killed them to flavor the supplements?” Lieutenant Myshai wondered as she watched a pink piece of felted paper the size of her thumbnail dissolve into the mush. “I am so bored with this.”

  Chewing hid Torin’s smile. If the lieutenant could complain about the food, things were definitely looking up.

  “So have you decided who to send to the barricade, Gunnery Sergeant? ” Major Kenoton asked as he slowly and methodically emptied his bowl.

  “I’m still working on it, sir.” Finished eating—she was less methodical and therefo
re faster—Torin set her bowl to one side. “Our jailers, whoever they are, are watching us.”

  Fingers paused, then began to rise and fall again a heartbeat later. Food continued to trump all else.

  “How do you figure, Gunny?” one of the captains asked at last.

  “There was exactly enough kibble dispensed—one serving per Marine present.”

  “Convenient,” the captain allowed. Heads nodded.

  Torin frowned. Convenient? Well, yes, as far as the food went, but if the Others were watching . . .

  “Nothing we can do about it, Gunny,” Myshai pointed out.

  Granted, but . . .

  She scanned the roof and walls one more time. “I haven’t been able to work out how they’re watching.”

  “No one’s expecting you to,” a second captain snorted.

  Except they should have been. Still frowning, she stood and held Kyster at Werst’s side with a gesture. He scowled, but he stayed. “I’d like to check out the pipe, sir.”

  The major looked up, his hair moving slightly but his eyes still the same mid-blue. “I’ll want your suggestions before dark.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take Staff Sergeant Pole with you to the pipe,” he added. “Harnett kept everyone away, but he’ll know more than you do.”

  “Sir, the staff sergeant . . .”

  “Not an option, Gunnery Sergeant Kerr.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a closer look,” Pole agreed when Torin passed on the major’s orders. He started to stand, swayed, and collapsed back onto his pallet. “I’m good,” he muttered, eyes closed and one hand raised to hold Torin in place. “Busy day.”

  Torin snorted. “Tell me about it. We can check out the pipe tomorrow. It’s not like any of us are going anywhere.”

  He peered up at her from under dark blond brows. “I thought you had to send a party out to the barrier?”

  “Fine, no one’s going anywhere except for three Marines to be named later.”

  “It has to be three of Harnett’s.” Pole pulled the material of his combats out from what was left of his thighs. “No one else could walk that far.”

  “Divint and Sergei?”

  “Not that far.”

  “I could.”

  “You’re needed here.”

  “Werst or Kyster . . .”

  “No way Kyster’d leave you, and Werst, well, you don’t want your only backup out in the tunnels. And,” he added while Torin considered that, “you’d still have to send two of Harnett’s people with him, putting him in an unenviable position if they turn on him when they reach the barrier of five against one.”

  “He’s Recon.”

  “So four to one would be no problem for him. But five?”

  Werst was a tough s.o.b., but the three at the barrier would be armed.

  “I’ll send three of Harnett’s di’Taykan. I have it on good authority that they think the sun shines out of my ass.”

  Pole leaned forward just enough to bring the major into his line of sight. “All of them?”

  “Some of them are officers and thus blinded by the sun shining out of their own asses.”

  “Did you just say that?”

  “Yeah.” She offered him her hand. “Get over it.”

  His palm was cold and dry in hers, and he weighed so little she had to be careful not to haul him up onto his feet too quickly.

  “You okay?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can fake it.”

  Torin let him set the pace between his pallet and the pipe, not entirely happy that Major Kenoton had insisted the staff sergeant go with her.Harnett hadn’t let anyone near the pipe, so Pole wouldn’t know much about the particulars. If she wanted a native guide, she’d do better with one of the surviving goons, and Jiyuu would certainly spill fast and furious, progenitor hero worship adding to his natural inclination to suck up. Not to mention, she could perform an inspection a lot faster on her own.

  So why had the major wanted her to take the staff sergeant along?

  It was possible, given what he’d been through, he was afraid of her gaining enough information to take Harnett’s place, particularly with the lower ranks of di’Taykan thinking she could do no wrong. She’d have been insulted by his concern except that had their positions been reversed, had she experienced the privation he had, she’d have been worried about the exact same thing.

  She also noticed she seemed to be analyzing every order the major gave. Picking it apart to find out how it pertained to her. Personally. That wasn’t good.

  Will alone seemed to be keeping Pole on his feet by the time they reached the pipe. He didn’t look any worse, but then, he’d started out looking like crap. His hands had curled into fists, and his breathing came short and shallow through clenched teeth. Harnett had used extra pallets folded in thirds as chairs and Torin dragged one behind the staff sergeant’s knees as he began to crumble.

  From a distance, it must have looked as if he’d sat down when the option had been offered. Torin kept him from toppling backward with a hand on his shoulder, removing it when he gave her a quick nod.

  “So for breakfast and supper, kibble comes from here,” she said, closing the two meters between Pole and the pipe. The chute was about four centimeters in diameter, centered in the middle of an indent in the pipe clearly designed to take the jugs. It had no charge screening it, but since there were a limited number of things availableto stuff up a four-centimeter-wide hole, that wasn’t too surprising. “You notice we got exactly enough kibble?”

  “I did.”

  “You know that means we’re being watched.”

  He shrugged, a minimal movement that barely raised the sharp peaks of his shoulders inside of his combats. “Nothing we can do about it, Gunny.”

  “That’s exactly what Lieutenant Myshai said.”

  “Doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “True.” Didn’t make her any happier about hearing it again, though. Still, they’d only just started getting the supplements. “So the kibble comes out here, what about the biscuits at lunch?”

  “No idea. Harnett’s goons brought jugs of them out to the DMZ.” Head cocked, Pole leaned forward and squinted into the indent, then made a circle with the forefinger and thumb on his left hand, a circle about four centimeters across, and put the first two fingers of his right hand up through it.

  Torin raised a brow.

  “Biscuits fit in the chute,” he explained, repeating the motion.

  “I can never keep up with the new slang,” Torin snorted and moved on to examine the water delivery as he snickered.

  This second indent looked essentially the same as the first except there was a pressure point on the back curve. Frowning slightly, Torin set her thumb against the pad. Cold water poured over her wrist.

  “Did Harnett tell you that this was only active while the food was being dispensed?” she asked, watching the water drain away through pinprick holes.

  “He didn’t tell us anything, but that’s the only time we got water.”

  Torin pushed the pad again. The same thing happened. “There’s water available whenever we want it.”

  Pole shook his head. “Just because it’s on now . . .”

  “No, it was on while we ate the first of the stored food.” She flicked drops off her hand, noted the darker gray-on-gray pattern the splatter made on the floor of the node. “You’re all conditioned to water with food, so you didn’t make the connection.”

  “So we can drink whenever we’re thirsty?”

  The staff sergeant sounded so amazed Torin spent a moment imagining killing Harnett slowly before answering. “Yeah, looks like.”

  About a meter farther around the pipe was a larger indentation, essentially an alcove—two and a half meters high, two thirds of a meter deep. There was a raised ring the same color as the pipe in the top of the alcove, and along the front of the bottom was a ridge about five centimeters high. It looked
like . . .

  “Staff, how was personal hygiene handled?”

  Pole snorted. “Handled? Harnett’s lot would come out with jugs of hot water, pick a few prisoners, strip ’em and sluice ’em down. But then, you don’t get real dirty when you’re sitting around starving to death.”

  “I think this is a shower.”

  “You think?”

  Gunnery Sergeants didn’t think; they knew. “Only one way to find out.”

  Pole hauled himself up onto his feet. “You calling for volunteers, Gunny?”

  “Since I trust the Others about as far as I can spit a rat, no.” She dragged over a rolled pallet, rolled it tighter, and set it in the alcove. The floor gave under the weight, exposing a drain along the back edge, while the ring pushed farther out of the ceiling and began to spray water.“Smell’s off,” Pole noted as Torin caught some of the water in her palm.

  She touched her tongue to it. “There’s disinfectant in this.”

  Approximately a minute of disinfectant, a minute of rinse. Then it shut off. The pallet had absorbed none of the water, drops beading up off the surface when Torin tossed it out onto the floor and let it unroll.

  “Two-minute showers. Every platoon could go under say, once every three afternoons. Officers and NCOs in the mornings. We could set a piece of that smart fabric up like a screen . . .”

  Torin could see Pole drawing up schedules in his head, and she smiled as she moved around the pipe. As the prisoners regained their strength, both physical and mental, they’d need things to do, and lining up for showers was a long-standing tradition of the Corps. Bitching about lining up for showers had been going on for almost as long.

  The next alcove was about the same size but had no pressure plate and no showerhead. She could almost get her fingernail into a crack around the outside of the alcove ceiling so assumed this was the place where pallets, the smart fabric, and the other odds and ends Harnett hoarded had dropped from.

  The remaining arc of the pipe was smooth, unmarked metal. Torin ran her fingernails over it just to be sure. Metal. Not plastic. Past experience had taught her not to trust that particular shade of gray. Remembering that the hatches leading out of Big Yellow’s replica of the dirtside warehouse had looked and felt like metal didn’t help.