by Susan Kelley
“No women?”
Joe dropped his gaze away from hers. “There were women paid by the military to….”
“Have sex with you?”
He looked up and encountered her glare. He nodded.
“Didn’t you speak with them or did you just use their bodies and walk away?”
“They weren’t permitted to speak with us.”
Callie’s glare melted into something softer. “Have you ever spoken with a child?”
“We saw them from a distance on Seron Six.” Not a day Joe would ever forget. They’d been ordered to kill all the civilians and refused. Their defiance had been the first link in the chain of events leading to their crash on this planet.
Callie lifted an eyebrow. “No babies either?”
“Never. They’re more complicated than their size suggests.”
She laughed a little. “I’m sorry, Joe.”
“Why?”
She put her hand on his cheek. “Because you never held a baby, never laughed with a child and never lay with a woman who loved you.”
“And that is a bad thing?”
Callie smiled, but she looked more sad than amused. “Maybe not. You can’t miss it if you’ve never had it.”
Joe could make no sense of her words, but he tried to think of a way to keep her talking. How might he convince her to touch him again? “Are all civilians like you?”
“What am I like?” She leaned closer as if eager for his answer.
Joe took his time, her proximity muddling his thoughts. “You talk a lot.”
She gave her soft laugh again. “Compared to you I suppose I do.”
“You are the leader of the women but they … argue with you.” Joe’s men would never question his decisions or commands. They offered expert opinions when he asked for it but his word was always final.
“We’re not a military organization. Don’t you fight so civilians have the right to speak our beliefs?”
“I hadn’t thought about that.” Joe had concluded months ago he and men fought for the advancement of their superior’s greed. “Our main assignments usually involved reconnoitering newly discovered planets or advance scouting for regular army units. Defending civilian rights never fell to us.”
He continued, thinking she looked interested though describing his work took careful editing. “We only had minimal contact even with other soldiers.”
“Did you do a lot of fighting?”
“Sometimes?”
“Who did you fight? Alien species? Pirates?”
“Sometimes.”
“Were you chasing pirates when you crashed here?”
“No. Our ship developed propulsion problems.” It was not for him to tell her how the ship had been damaged. She and her staff expressed a low opinion of Joe and his men already. “Do all civilians feel about us as you and your people do?”
Callie rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling again. “I don’t know. I never thought to meet you so it’s not like I discussed you with everyone I met.”
Joe wanted her to turn toward him again. A big wish for a small thing.
“Sleep well, Joe.” Callie rolled over completely and gave him her back. “By the way, what is the rest of your name?”
“Joe is my only name though I have a serial number.”
She rolled over to face him again, her eyes wide. “Serial number? The hell you say?”
Now what? Didn’t everyone have a serial number?
“Men have names not numbers.”
Cold that was not the temperature filled the small space between them. For a few moments he’d forgotten. He was a recon marine, not a man.
* * * *
Callie woke with her head on Joe’s shoulder again. She didn’t bask in the warmth of his embrace as she had the other times. Memories of their conversation had haunted her dreams all night.
She’d watched scientists at work in a murky laboratory. Their experiments revolved around large, vapor-filled tubes. After a while they’d opened each tube, allowing a thick, clear liquid to spill out along with their invention. Scores of naked men, each exactly like Joe, unfolded from the floor. Callie shuddered as she recalled the vision.
He shifted beside her. His breath hitched for a moment and then settled back into a deep rhythm. She knew if she pulled away he would wake. Her gratitude and physical response to Joe had clouded her caution just as she’d warned her staff not to do. Callie’s had forgotten Yalo’s warning on the day they’d first met the marines of how they weren’t real men.
Joe twitched again, a low moan rising from deep in his chest. His body stiffened, and his arm tightened around her shoulders. A nightmare? He groaned and flung his arm from around her. He sat up and then fell back when he bumped into the sack. His eyes opened and stared at something only he could see. Despite the cold, a thin film of sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip.
“Joe?”
His head whipped toward her, his expression stark and shadowed in the dimness. Like a veil dropped over the face of a priestess, the emotion disappeared from his face. “I apologize for waking you, Lady Callie.”
“A bad dream?” Callie wanted to touch him in comfort as she had the night before but her renewed wariness acted as a wall between them.
“A recon marine dreaming?” Joe sat up and unsealed the bed. “Only men have dreams.”
Chapter Four
The boarks squealed and protested, but they sank to their knees and then their bellies. The marines used short verbal commands to instruct the beasts and somehow arranged them in a rough square.
“Climb in,” Joe ordered.
Callie went first, sliding carefully between the hairy beasts and then hopping down into the shallow pit the men had dug. The others followed, no one saying a word. The approaching storm had leached the light from the sky and turned it a deep gray with touches of purple. Sound carried strangely as if they stood at the bottom of a cavern too deep even for an echo.
“Momma!” Glory cried.
“It’s all right.” But Grace sounded doubtful.
Joe and Vin began pulling the tent fabric over the hole. Joe hadn’t spoken to Callie all day. He’d lifted Acacia, and Riba with Sally on the back of his boark and taken the lead. He glanced at her now.
“We have to hold the boarks down or they’ll run before the storm. Their weight will help keep the tarp in place.”
“Maybe some of us should help.”
“No.” Joe signaled Vin and they finished tugging the tarp in place.
The women sat close together, keeping the children in the center. Yalo switched on the two ventilation units and the air freshened quickly.
“Why couldn’t we just get in the bed sacks?” Riba asked. “Then no one would be out in the storm.”
“Vin said the storm would bury us too deep and might block the ventilation tubes,” Yalo answered.
“What’s that?” Acacia asked.
It started as a hum and grew into a roar. The ground shook and trembled beneath them. Tiny rivulets of sand poured in at the edge of the tarp. The noise grew impossibly louder until they all put their hands over their ears. The soft illumination from the ventilation units faltered and darkness swallowed them. Sally screamed, but then the storm shrieked loud enough to cover her wails.
Time meant nothing in their haven of utter black. One hour or six could have passed. The wind gradually diminished, but the light didn’t return.
“Momma, I want Roz,” Glory sobbed.
“He’ll be here soon,” Grace assured her.
“If they somehow survived,” Acacia muttered quietly.
“We better hope at least one of them did,” Yalo hissed. “We’re buried so deep I can’t even make a dent in the tarp over our heads.
“Stop it, both of you. They know what they’re doing.” Callie hoped they did. She wondered how long they could stay buried in the darkness before they all started to scream like little girls. The wind abated and left silence broken only b
y Glory’s sniffling and the whirling of the air units.
A faint scratching grew into distinct scraping noises, muffled but constant. Relief washed over Callie. “They made it.”
Glory whimpered and was shushed by Grace. “Roz is coming for us.”
“I knew he would save us again,” Glory answered in a watery voice.
They quieted and listened to the rescue efforts above them. Callie’s relief turned to worry. What if some of the men hadn’t lived? They seemed so indestructible and capable, but could even they survive the violent storm?
Light seeped in around the edges of the tarp along with small showers of sand. Someone flipped back the edge of the tarp and Vin’s face appeared. “Give me your hand.”
Yalo went first, and then Vin helped Riba and Sally out of the hole. After Vin pulled Acacia up Roz nudged him aside. He held his hands out for Glory.
“Roz,” the little girl scolded. “What took you so long to come for me?”
He lifted her easily from the pit. She threw her arms around his thick neck. The marine grimaced as if in pain as he carefully returned the child’s hug. “Let’s get your mother.”
Grace smiled at Roz with a brightness to rival the late day sunshine making its way into the opening. He lifted her up as effortlessly as he had Glory.
“Lady Callie?” Roz offered his hand.
Callie shook aside her consternation at the behavior of her comrades. The heat beat down on the surface. She shielded her eyes and surveyed the aftermath of the storm. The desert remained a featureless sea of white sand as far as she could see. A short distance away Tar and Joe worked on securing the packs and harnesses to the boarks. All the marines had made it.
Yalo joined her, carrying one of the marine’s shovels in her hands. “Somehow they survived.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how a human could live through that, but I’m going to reserve judgment like you said.” Yalo joined Roz and Vin as they flung shovelfuls of sand off the top of the tarp. Except for the corner they’d cleared to free the women, a yard-deep layer of sand still covered the pit.
Vin gave Yalo a respectful nod. Yalo answered with a smile unlike any Callie had ever seen her give a man.
“What is happening here?” Callie’s gaze moved with a will of its own to Joe. He looked uninjured if a little dirty. White particles of sand stuck to all the marines.
Joe’s movements as he pulled one of the saddle straps tight highlighted the strength of his back and shoulders. A slight breeze still rolled across the sands and plastered his pants against the muscles in his thighs and rear. He was so beautiful. And strange.
Glory giggled at something her mother said. Roz paused in his work and looked at her. A stark longing crossed his stoic face before he returned to his chore.
Joe finished with the boarks and walked toward Callie. She went to meet him, seeing wariness in his eyes. He gestured toward the sun. “The hot time passed during the storm and now we have to move quickly. The storm cost us hours. Can you handle one of the boarks?”
The marines had led the half-tamed beasts since they’d left the waterhole and let the women and children ride. The unrelenting pace set by the soldiers had driven home how much Callie and the other women had slowed them. But there were only four boarks and four marines. “Why do I have to?”
“Roz and Tar are going to finish recovering our equipment, but we need to leave now.”
The tall animals frightened Callie but not as much as dying of thirst did. “I can do it.”
Joe and Vin helped the women and children onto the saddled boarks, leaving one of the mounts for Roz and Tar. Yalo shared a boark with Callie while Joe kicked his animal into the lead. Riba sat behind him with Sally clutching in her arms and Acacia clinging behind her. Callie’s mount fell into place behind Joe’s and Vin brought up the rear with Grace and Glory sharing his boark.
Callie had little to do. Her boark swung into a brisk, smooth trot close on the tail of Joe’s. The breeze left over from the storm quickly dissipated, and the late day sun beat on their backs. Talking would only dry their mouths so they rode in silence, giving Callie lots of time to contemplate the man riding in front of her.
She couldn’t move beyond his revelation from the last night they’d shared a sleep sack. His lack of a family name, possessing a number instead, highlighted his unnatural origins. He had no true father or mother, only the mixing of a genetic soup in a laboratory. Her people believed the Spirit Father gifted a child with a soul while it grew inside its mother, but surely such an unholy conception as Joe’s would not have been blessed by the Father.
Glory giggled and brought Callie back to the present. The laughter was a blessing of the Father, but Glory wouldn’t be alive if not for the marines. Where did that leave the soldiers in the order of the world? Were they of the Father or a lurid intrusion of man’s arrogance in the holiest of endeavors?
The boarks loped along, the sand passing beneath their wide feet like water beneath the bow of a ship. “Why didn’t the men ride so we could set this pace earlier?”
“Listen to the boarks,” Yalo answered. “They can’t keep this up for long, especially carrying everyone.”
The animal beneath them didn’t falter with its long strides, but its mouth hung open and its sides heaved. After another half hour of travel Callie noticed a thin, dark line on the horizon. She pointed it out to Yalo. “Another storm?”
The hazy line grew thicker over the next hour. The boarks ran with their heads low, panting and wheezing. Yalo and Callie passed their nearly empty water bag back and forth, sipping only enough to wet the inside of their mouths.
In front of them, Riba laid her hand on Joe’s shoulder and spoke to him. An ugly emotion tightened Callie’s throat. She didn’t want Riba talking to Joe!
“Its rocks and trees,” Yalo said, pointing toward the horizon. Callie tugged her stare away from Riba’s arm around Joe’s waist and squinted into the glare of sun on sand. The boarks snorted and trotted faster as if they too saw the haven not so far away.
They threaded their way through a field of small rocks that gradually became larger boulders and thorny bushes. Long shadows stretched out in front of them as they put the rocks behind them and rode onto a stretch of darker soil. Short tufts of grass sprouted here and there. A grove of twisted, smooth-barked trees lined the path Joe led them on at a fast clip. The air cooled quickly beneath the sparse shade as the sun dipped partway below the horizon.
Cold seeped through Callie’s thin clothes and her fingers around the reins ached. A silvery pool of water appeared in front of them, its shore lined by more trees. Joe pulled his boark to a stop and leaped to the ground. He held onto the reins of his mount and snagged the halter of Callie’s boark as it tried to speed past him.
“Climb down before it carries you into the water.” Joe dug in his heels as the animals strained toward the pool.
The long hop to the ground jarred Callie’s legs and back, stiffened by hours in the saddle. She and Yalo helped the other women dismount as quickly as they could. They waddled over to a large rock outcropping while the men worked on the boarks.
Vin worked like a dust demon, loosening the straps and untying packs one-handed from the back of his boark. As soon as he finished he took the reins of one of the other animals so Joe had a free hand. The unburdened mount plunged into the water, sending the other two into a frenzy. Somehow the marines stripped the equipment and harnesses from the dangerous animals.
Vin walked over to the women while Joe went to work gathering their gear.
“This way.” Vin led them around the side of the tall rock. He ducked into a large hole seen only as a darker splotch in the gathering night. After a moment a small glow shone from the opening. “Come in and watch your step.”
Callie went first, her feet and hands numb with the icy cold already blanketing the twilight. She had to duck for a few steps but then the tunnel opened into a cave more than twice her height and at least
ten yards wide. Vin knelt over a small fire in the sandy middle of the floor.
The others crowded in behind Callie. They spread out to surround Vin and the welcome warmth of the small fire. He added some chunks of black rock to the blaze. The stones caught quickly and doubled the size of the blaze.
Without a word, Vin rose and disappeared out through the opening. They stretched their hands toward the fire, the simple pleasure of the heat enough for the moment. Vin returned within moments, dropping the bed sacks and newly-filled water sacks before leaving again.
They spread out the sacks around the fire and passed the water around.
“This is an ancient form of fuel called coal on old Earth.” Acacia poked at a piece of the black stone and pushed it into the flames. “It burns easily and hot, but it’s too bulky to carry in quantity.”
“They’ve stored a fair amount in here.” Yalo pointed to the back area of the cave.
“I’m hungry, momma,” Glory said.
“We’ll eat soon,” Grace promised.
The certainty in Grace’s answer disturbed Callie. Each hour the marines protected and provided for them, it became more difficult to hold onto her distrust.
“How long can they stay out in the cold?” Riba wondered.
“Their clothing is insulated enough to keep them from freezing for a little while.” But Yalo looked worried.
They quieted, listening for the return of the men they’d come to depend on. Callie looked around the small shelter, wondering how the marines had discovered it.
After a half of an hour or more, the men entered including Roz and Tar. Glory sprang off her mother’s lap and ran to Roz. The little girl planted her chubby hands fists on her hips and glared at him.
“Where were you, Roz? I was really thirsty, tired and cold, and now I’m hungry. I’ve been waiting forever for you.”
Roz knelt and put himself on eye level with the child. “I’m here now and we brought some food.”
Glory smiled at him. “I knew you would.”
Joe glanced at Callie and then quickly away. He strode to the back of the cave and returned with a metal rack on long legs. He set it over the fire, and then Vin spread long, bloody strips of meat on it. Soon fat dripped into the fire, hissing and popping while a tempting aroma filled the cavern.
