One brown finger tapped an eye. "He gets a head-wound in th' war; lose an eye, headaches real bad sometimes; gets pretty testy when one comin' on, yo' sees it, stay outta his way. Other times, doan' talk to y'much." She giggled. "Not so bad in bed, either, iff'n y'likes it, not rough, anyhow. 'Cept sometimes he finish too quick, but yo' be findin' out that fo' youselfs." An ironic eye at their flinch. "Call it work, call it play, doan' make no nevah-mind to them, dearies. Honest, the things yo' new-caught get upsets about, it beyond me."
Chantal cleared her throat, spoke in genuine wonderment: "Are… you content with your life, then?"
There was silence for a moment, a thrumming as the car swung onto the bridge over the Rhone. Light flickered by as they passed through the shadow of the girders, winked back from the surface of the river below; Yasmin wound down a window, and the stream of wet silt-smelling air poured in, ruffling the black curls around her face. She brushed them back with one hand, craning her neck to see a train of coal-barges passing below.
"Pretty river," she said quietly, turning back to them. "Yo' thinks there's somethin' wrong with lookin' at it?" She paused, pursed her lips in thought. "My life? It the only life I's got, or is goin' get; iff'n I ain't content with it, then I ain't goin' get much contentment, eh?"
A spread of the hands. "Ain't sayin' as everything the way I'd put it, were I God, but that-there position's filled, last time I looks. Plenty good things in my life; pretty things"—she touched the buttons of her jacket— " joyable things, like m'work, which I's good at an' getting better, my music,"—she touched the case of her mandolin—" 'n my fam'ly an' friends. Someday I's have children of my own, maybe-so a steady man. Iff'n I doan' take no pleasure from all that-there, who it hurt? Me, that who. Somebody else hurt yo', that fate; hurt yo'self, that plain ignorant; troubles enough in anyone's life, withouten yo' go courtin' 'em. I ain't hongry, ain't sickenin' to die, never been whupped; plenty folks worse off than me, I saves my pity fo' them, doan' waste it on myself.
"Look," she continued gently, "I knows y'all not born an' raised to this." She touched her identity tattoo. "But this-here the only life yo' has to live, likewise same's me. I's not sayin' nothin' bad doan' happen, but"—she gestured helplessly, as if trying to pluck words out of the air—"not everythin' is bad, unless yo' makes it so. The Draka?" She shrugged. "They's like the weather, they's jus' there. I's known folks, rather cut off they foot than 'commodate to the mastahs; they-all end up churnin' they guts with hatin'. Hate enough, it make yo' hateful; it jus' ain't worth the trouble, to my way a' thinkin'."
Earnestly: "Yo" sees, the Draka can make yo' obey, but they can't make yo' miserable. Well," she amended "not unless they sets out to, which the ones which owns us doan', speakin' general-like." A tap on the head. "They orders, but we can say what goes on in here, eh? I's do my work, takes the days one at a time, doan' hurt nobody, helps those I can; when I's got to do somethin' I doan' like, I does it an' puts it outa my mind, soon's I can."
She smiled, trailing a hand out into the airstream. "Yo's looks like sensible, wenches, y'all will learn."
For a moment Marya's gaze touched Chantal's, and they knew a rare moment of perfect agreement; an understanding so complete it was almost telepathy.
Never.
"Beads of sweat glisten—
Ai!
In the undergroun' lights—
Wo-hum
Where a million lifetimes go—
Wo-hum
All our lives gone,
Wo-hum
Lost down the mineshafts…
The car lurched and slowed, and Marya jolted out of a dreamy semi-sleep; the day had turned warm, and she and the Lefarge sisters had dozed, lulled by the comfort and food and even a single glass of wine, after so long without. And the music, strange quiet folksongs in Yasmin's fine husky contralto, rhythmic minor-key laments. Odd how sad music can make you happy, she thought, stretching and rubbing at her eyes. She looked up, her ears ringing as the rush of air gave way to a pinging silence.
Wind blew through the opened windows, and the sound of earth-moving equipment, clanks and the sharp chuff of steam pistons, a turbine hum and the burbling growl of a heavy internal-combustion engine. The cars had halted before a roadblock, a swinging-pole barrier set across the two-lane road; a pair of armored cars flanked it, light four-wheeled models with twin machine-guns in hexagonal turrets. There was a fence along their left, running down the eastern flank of the road, steel mesh on thick reinforced concrete posts three meters high; razor wire on top, and thin bare copper threads held away from it by insulated supports. Electrified, then.
And signs wired onto the mesh: PROHIBITED AREA. ENTRY FORBIDDEN ON PAIN OF DEATH.
Marya glanced the other way, south and east to the direction they had come. That was where the activity was, broad weed-grown felds littered with wrecked and rusted war-machines; German models, Panzergrenodier half-tracks and Leopard tanks with their long 88mm guns swiveled every direction in silent futility. Broken, peeled open like fruit by the explosions that had wrecked them, still blackened by the dark oily soot of burnt motor-fuel; armor crinkled around the narrow entry-holes of the penetrator-rods, lighter vehicles like soup-cans stamped on by cleated boots.
Workers were swarming over them, cutting-torches laying bright trails of sparks; others were winching the carcasses onto flatbed trucks. A recovery-vehicle was dragging the most difficult cases out, the ones whose weight had half-buried them in the light volcanic soil. The turretless tank bellowed, its broad tracks raking stones and dry-smelling dust into the air, the hook dangling from the jib of the crane on its deck shaking; black fumes quivered from the slotted exhaust louvres, and she could see the bare head of the driver twisting in the hatchway as he rocked the treads. Elsewhere gangs ripped out vegetation, leveled and pounded earth, spread crushed rock.
The nun lifted her eyes. They were in a high plain bordered by hills, shaggy fields and copses of trees bright-green with the late spring, the Auvergne mountains beyond blue and hazy in the distance. A glint of metal over them, approaching. It swelled into a circle, then a shape; long slender squared-off wings, a bulbous nose-compartment that was all curved transparent panels save for the metal supports of the pilot's seat and the console, a pusher-prop engine in a tubular cowl slung between the twin booms of the tail. It passed overhead, ghost-silent, wheeled and returned: observation plane, muffled engine. Slots and flaps opened on the wings as the undercarriage came down. The little aircraft slid down at an angle, as if hitched to an invisible rope, bounced lightly and rolled to a stop ten meters from contact on a finished section of the landing platform.
Marya dragged her attention back to the road outside; her owner was there, stretching and rubbing her back and talking to an officer as they strolled back from the lead car.
"… better than 'copters for scouting," the man was saying. Mottled camouflage uniform, black-edged rank-badges, paratrooper wings. Citizen Force, of course, the elite military, and the airmobile arm were picked volunteers within the Citizen Force. Marya looked west, toward the area behind the fence. That would be the town of Le Puy, and there were rumors of what had been done there, during the war and since. Atomics. She shivered, and listened.
"Doan" have anywhere near enough landing-grounds," he continued. "Everythin" short, as usual; just got things under control out east and they move us back." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, towards the fence and the minefields behind it. "We're refitting after China, overseein' thisshere construction work fo' our permanent base, and doin' antipartisan work in the hills, and watchin' that."
Tanya nodded thoughtfully, looked at the wrecked war-machines. "The Guard went down from Paris to Tours, but some of my friends were through here; the Fritz held hard." She shrugged. "Well, not exactly the Fritz; by '45 it was all odds and sods. Spaniards, these were, iff'n I remember. Chewed up two Janissary units, and held the VI Cartago fo' three days; tryin' to keep us off until got their atomics goin'." A shudder. "Wouldn't th
at have been jus' lovely."
The airborne officer nodded, watching the observation plane. The transparent egg around the pilot had folded open, and a fuel cart had pulled up beside the three-wheeled runabout that was unloading the cameras.
"Natural place fo' it," he agreed. "Hydro power, lots of water, remote, not too fer from their uranium mines; that's why Tech Section took it over: even damaged, the equipment was useful." He grimaced. "Wotan's spear, I's glad they didn't blow the reactor."
"Sho'ly am myself," Tanya said. "Praise be to Hitler's ghost; even after the little bastard died—when was that?"
"December of'42; I's in hospital then."
Tanya nodded. "Poland, myself… anyways, his memory kept the other Europeans from unitin' against us until it was too late. Even as it was, we used too many of the atomics breakin' through into Spain. I considered settlin' in Rousillon, down near the Pyrenees, but on second thoughts, no. Not that I doubt Tech See's infallible judgment 'bout it bein' safe, but I wanted to stay as far up-wind of that hell-garbage as possible."
The officer spread his hands. "It was a long war, we-all was tired, everybody wanted to get it over an' go home." He looked into the rear car; Marya averted her eyes, but the man's gaze was on Tom's rifle. "By Frey's cock, a T-5! Couldn't yo' get him a Holbars?" He slapped the T-6 assault rifle slung across his chest.
"I prefers whut I's trained on, mastah," Tom rumbled respectfully.
Tanya snuffled laughter. "Tom's bein' polite;'s'far as he's concerned, a T-6 is a 'girl-gun.' He's damned good with that old big-bore monster, though. Hell, we conquered half of Asia with them; a weapon's never obsolete iff'n it'll kill someone." She extended a hand. "Glad to have yore assurance the route's safe," she concluded.
He gripped hers. "Pretty well," he answered. "There may be a few bushmen left, but we've been huntin' hard." A sigh. "Most of this mountain country was swept clear by Security—plan is to put it all back into forest—but I wish they'd get the cultivated portions settled an' modernized; hard to keep these little peasant farms from slippin' supplies an' information to the holdouts."
Tanya shrugged. "There's only so many of us, Cohortarch, an' we can't all be Landholders." She patted her stomach. "Take a generation or three to get it all covered."
"Oh, sweet Mother of God, let it be food," the guerrilla whispered, flexing his fingers on the grip of the machine-gun. The muzzle trembled, shaking the screen of leaves and blurring the view of the winding road in the gorge below; the soft whisper of wheels and engines echoed, but the vehicles were still hidden by the hill-shoulder to the left.
"Shut up," his partner hissed savagely, but his mouth filled at the thought. He adjusted the ammunition belt with trembling hands. German ammunition, 7.92mm; there was little of it left. Little of anything; he could smell the new-bread scent of starvation on both of them, under the rankness of unwashed bodies and the sap-green of crushed leaves.
"Shut up," he said again, wiping his hand across his mouth, and wincing as it jarred one of his few remaining teeth. The belt was lying smooth, ready to feed; his rifle was by his hand, and the single precious stick-grenade.
"Shut up," he repeated. The enemy had stopped convoying all vehicles through the Massif Central a month ago, while the maquis were hiding in their winter caves; there were only a dozen men left in their unit, but that should be enough. One of the surviors from Denard's group had told of the single truck they took two months ago. Cans of food, ammunition, medicines. "Of course they will have food." If nothing else, meat.
The gorge was drowsy with the afternoon heat as the convoy dropped through, down from the plateau and into the winding valley the Loire had carved through basalt and limestone. The road was rough, only sketchily repaired; the underbrush had been cut and burned back twenty meters upslope and down, but the angles above the way were steep enough that greenery overhung them as often as not. Young and turbulent with spring, the river bawled and tumbled below them to the left. At two hundred meters Marya could still hear the deep-toned rumble as the water poured oil-smooth over curves and then leapt in manes of white froth from the sharp rocks. It send drafts of coolness buffeting up from the river surface, the smell of wet rock and silt.
Ahead of her Issac's head was bent over a portable chess-set, carved wood with peg-holes for the pieces. He moved, slipped the knight he had taken into the inside of the box, snapped it closed and turned to hand it to Tom. He was stretched over the back of his seat when she heard the sound.
Crack. Familiar: rifle bullet. A starred hole in the window ahead. The Jew pitched forward as if slammed by an invisible giant's hand, the thin face liquid with shock and only inches from hers, the chess-set dropping from fingers that spasmed open in reflex. He bounced back, and she could see the dark welling crater of the exit-wound in his shoulder. Then he slumped between the twin seats, left hand pawing feebly at the wound. Blood welled between his fingers, bright primary red in the dusty sunlight. Marya felt herself darting forward, braced her hands under the Jew's armpits, heaved to haul him back into the body of the car. The smell of blood was in her nose and mouth, raw salt and iodine, like the scent of the sea.
He stuck briefly as the shotgun caught in the seat, the lip of the window,then slid free.The nuns hands were moving automaticly, ripping the wounded mans clothes for pads to block the holes, her head craning to scan up the cliff-face above them. Therese on the floor, crying again. Crouched over her protectively was Yasmin, cradling the French girl's head. Tom also at a window, the rifle held easily in one hand below the metal body of the car, binoculars to his eyes. They moved in tiny, precise movements along the slope outside, rock and scrub oak. A ripple of automatic-weapons fire, machine-gun; she recognized a German MG38, an experienced gunner tapping off short bursts. Then Draka assault-rifles, and the savage hammer of the 15mm twin-barrel on the lead car, echoing around the curve of road that hid it.
A click. She turned her head, looked toward the driver's seat. The driver, Jacques; he had not spoken half a dozen words that whole day. Now he lay twisted across the seat, one arm through the wheel to give the other room; the chain stretched taut between his wrists, and she could see blood beneath the cuffs. His right had reached the shotgun and held it between the bucket seats, pointing back into the cab. Marya's vision was suddenly very clear, the blued steel muzzle of the gun wavering uncertainly, fear-sweat and desperate tension on Jacques's face as it craned over his shoulder in the unnatural posture his bonds and position forced.
"Out of the way, Sister," he hissed. "Let me get a shot at the Janissary, that is the maquis out there, the Resistance, move, please."
The moment stretched as she felt the slowing ooze of blood past her fingers, as her mind sketched the narrow space behind her. If she flung herself forward and down she might be out of the cone of fire; the muzzle of the shotgun was only a hand's-breadth from her face. Then the wounded boy would die, of course. The shotgun would empty its six-round magazine as quickly as Jacques could squeeze the trigger, and recoil would slam the barrel back and forth in his awkward grip, would fill the rear of the cab with the heavy mankiller double-buckshot rounds. Therese huddled wide-eyed on the floor, Yasmin stroking her hair with her body between the French girl and unknown gunmen, Chantal.
And if Marya did not move, and Jacques fired, the first round would tear off her face.
The nun kept her eyes on the driver's as she straightened and leaned forward, as far forward as she could without relaxing her hands on Issac. The cold metal of the gun-muzzle brushed millimeters from her throat, and she could feel the skin crinkled into gooseflesh at the wind of its passing.
"Do what you must, my son," she said. Her mouth was very dry, her tongue felt coarse, like soft sandpaper. She began to shape the prayers.
"Please—" Jacques screamed.
A blur past her eyes and a clang of metal on metal; the buttplate of Tom's rifle, lashing down on the barrel of the shotgun. Jacques screamed again, in pain this time as the triggerguard dislocated his finger
. The shotgun fired once, into a wicker crate full of some dense-packed cloth that absorbed sound and shot both. Marya looked back; saw Tom raise the rifle again, held like a spear at the balance-point above the magazine, and all his teeth were showing in a grin that had nothing to do with laughter. Chantal was reaching for him, until Yasmin snatched the chain between the Frenchwoman's wrists and braced a foot against the seat.
"Yo" stop that, now," she snapped. The other woman reared back, struggling and shouting; Yasmin straightened her leg and pulled with all her strength, and Chantal went to the floor with a squawk and a flurry of limbs. "Damn yo' hide, wench, I's saving your worthless life." The serf buried both hands in the other woman's hair, gripped tight and bounced her head on the floor with a hollow booming sound. And turned to her father:
"Doan kill him. Poppa!"
The rifle stayed poised, but something flickered out in the black eyes. A flat hardness, a total intensity of focus; his attention switched to the nun for an instant.
"Please," she said.
He nodded at her, a brief jerk of the head. "Owes yaz one," he said. "Now duck." The rifle flashed past her ear, to where Jacques lay cradling his wounded hand and moaning, between the front seats. The butt cracked down on the back of his skull and he slumped into boneless silence.
"He woan' die," Tom said grimly. "May wish to, 'fore I's through with him." His eyes were back on the road outside; one hand stroked Yasmin's hair. "Yo's too softhearted for y'own good, girl. I's promised yo' momma to look after you." For a moment his voice softened, speaking to a memory: "I is very sorry, Fatima…