by Nancy Kress
“But what is it?” Marianne had asked. All the Kindred scientists had disappeared into their bunk rooms and reappeared wearing red wraps, as startling a change from their usual vegetable-dyed duns and pastels as if a zebra had suddenly sported turquoise stripes.
Isabelle smiled, half-upturned lips on her weary face. All of their faces looked weary: with work, with worry, with uncertainty. “Salah asked the same thing. And Leo Brodie. It’s not easy to explain. It’s part religious ceremony, part party, part dance. Once illathil was more religious and probably very solemn, but now it’s about family, mostly. Like Christmas on Terra for people who don’t even believe in God. It’s about family bonds and—really important—the redistribution of wealth to keep things more equal. It doesn’t matter where you are on World, you go to your lahk for illathil.” She paused. “Only not this group, this year.”
“Like Christmas? They give gifts?”
“Oh, much more than that. We—the music is starting! I have to go. I’ll explain more later. Now I’ll just say that after the dancing, everybody gives away one-fifth of everything they earned or made since the last illathil. It’s called a ‘thumb.’ Bank accounts, stock holdings, real estate—whatever.”
“One-fifth?” Marianne said, incredulous, but Isabelle was already gone. She had rushed into a corner, stepped into a bucket, and joined one of the circles forming to the weird, atonal music. Her feet were covered with red dye of some sort.
Each circle held ten people. They weaved in and out, making precise figures on the floor with the red dye on their soles. To Marianne’s surprise, the Mother of Mothers was part of one circle, sitting propped up on pillows while the other nine Kindred danced around her. She thrust out one red-dyed foot, left a mark on Ka^graa’s ankle, and laughed. Austin and Graa^lok were there, too, Austin looking as bored as Marianne’s sons had looked at family parties when they were thirteen. Bored, but there. “We teach our children very intensively to follow our ways,” Noah had told her.
Noah danced in a different circle from Llaa^moh¡. Well, Marianne supposed, it wouldn’t do to give away one-fifth of your holdings to your own wife. One-fifth! Even Mormons tithed only a tenth. No wonder no one was poor and homeless on World.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Salah said. He dropped to the floor beside her. Across the room, Claire stood clapping to the music. They were the only three not dancing. We haven’t got anything to give away, Marianne thought. Except, of course, a possible vaccine to save the lives of the dancers. Maybe. With luck.
“Salah, will you help me with the leelees? I want to administer the next trial now.”
“Yes.” He rose and held out a hand to help her up, but Marianne noted how his eyes never left Isabelle, whirling and stamping in the closest circle. Oh—so that’s how it was. Marianne waved at Claire, who followed them.
In the deserted clinic, Branch slept in the locked room with the leelees and the live spores in their secure cabinet. An excellent guard, he woke the instant that Claire’s key turned in the lock. Rising from his pallet, his hair falling into his eyes, he looked even younger than he was. “Marianne?”
“We’re going to do the next vaccine trial. No reason not to—we four aren’t illathil-ing.”
“I’ll take notes,” Salah said.
“Okay,” Marianne said. “Branch, is the next neg-pressure cage ready? Then get three more leelees.”
* * *
On roof duty, Leo radioed Zoe on patrol. “What’s all that going on in the camp? Here the whole damn building is shaking.”
“The fuck if I know,” Zoe said. “They’ve all gone crazy. But it don’t look like dangerous crazy.”
He spotted her, green in his night-vision goggles, at five o’clock and coming toward him from the east edge of the camp. She maintained an easy jog, weapon at the ready but, as far as he could tell, the Kindred paid her no attention at all. They had bonfires going high and they were dancing around in circles.
“Who’s playing the music?” Leo asked. He couldn’t see any musicians.
“It’s not live. It’s on, like, some weird old-time machines. Not even electronic.”
“Like a gramophone?”
“How should I know? Leo—all their feet are red.”
Adrenaline surged. “Blood?”
“No, some kind of dye. Do you think it’s, like, a preattack thing? I heard that some enemy in Brazil did that.”
“They did, yeah.” He’d seen it, and afterward looked it up on the Internet. The article had explained about Japanese kamikaze preattack rituals, too—surprisingly interesting. Sharing sake, wearing their swords and elaborate belts embroidered by their mothers, composing death poems or songs. The rituals in Brazil had been starker but, like the Kindred now, had involved body paint.
But in Brazil, Leo’s unit had received briefings whenever there was any kind of local festival, so they’d know what to expect. Had Owen received a briefing on this? Although—who would Owen receive a briefing from? It wasn’t like they had a PR liaison attached to the squad. And given Owen’s feelings about World, plus how busy all the native scientists were, maybe nobody had thought to tell Owen anything about this festival. If it was a festival.
Leo considered. Owen was inside the compound, doing the hourly check of every room. He’d be outside in a few minutes and would see the dancing for himself. But if the same thing was going on inside, it probably wasn’t a preattack ritual, not unless all the scientists were in on an assault, which didn’t seem likely. Let Owen make the call.
Evidently Owen decided that dancing didn’t lead to attacking, because the squad’s orders didn’t change. Yet.
* * *
One of the World scientists should be in the leelee lab, Marianne thought, in case the synthesized vaccine actually worked this time. Or else she should wait until illathil was over. Isabelle had said it would only last a few hours and, contrary to custom, that nobody inside the compound would drink anything alcoholic. But Marianne didn’t want to wait. They had only a little over a month until the spore cloud hit. Pretty soon Salah would need to administer the fifty-two doses of original vaccine to whoever was going to get them.
Branch carried three of the foul-smelling leelees by their three-inch tails. Two days ago they had been vaccinated with the latest attempt at synth-vac. The animals chittered and squirmed, looking like animated purple ping-pong balls. He dropped them into the cage. He released the spores. The negative-pressure machine hummed softly.
Ten minutes until the spores released. Then a few hours until the leelees died. She wasn’t holding out much hope—they’d had so many trials already.
“Branch, do you want to go watch the dancing?” He’d been in this room day and night for a week.
“No, thanks.” His eyes never left the cage. Well, if he’d preferred dances to science, he wouldn’t be here in the first place. Not for the first time, Marianne wondered what would become of Branch after much of Kindred was dead. He was only twenty-four. Would he marry a Kindred woman (if any survived) as Noah had, help rebuild Kindred society, try to preserve as much Terran science as he could? What would the next generation on Kindred look like, born of sixteen Terrans and whoever among the Kindred either received those fifty-two vaccinations or else happened to have natural immunity?
One hundred twenty-six minutes to go.
* * *
At 2100 hours, Zoe went off patrol to sleep and Kandiss came on. “What is all that?” Kandiss said, and Leo explained the whole thing over again. If he listened hard, he could hear strains of the strange music coming through the roof. So it was going on inside, too.
Was Isabelle Rhinehart dancing? She was Terran, not Kindred, but she dressed like them, felt like them.
From the far side of the camp, Kandiss radioed the squad. “Sir, Kandiss reporting. The Kinnies are drinking. I think alcoholic. Some staggering, one young male vomiting in the bushes.”
Leo hadn’t seen that; for the first time, he wished he’d had a spotter wit
h him, the way snipers always did on Earth. He swept his gaze over the camp. Owen said, “Brodie?”
“Confirmed, sir. Signs of drunkenness.”
“Okay. I’m getting Berman back on duty, opposite side of building to me. Don’t let anyone cross the open zone from the camp. One warning, and if it’s not obeyed, fire. Roger?”
“Roger that.”
“Roger that.”
Leo knew just how dumb drunken men could be—occasionally, he’d been one of those drunken men, although never on duty. But these Kindred had no tradition of military discipline. That made the Rangers despise them, but Leo felt differently. They just hadn’t had the training, was all. He still thought the squad should identify trustworthy Kindred—Isabelle and Noah would know who—and train them to help with surveillance and infiltration. Arm them lightly, maybe. Even unarmed, assets in the camp would help with intel.
The dancing got wilder. Then it stopped and people disappeared into tents. Leo crouched, ready for action, hoping there wouldn’t be any—another way, he knew, that he differed from the three Rangers. How many people have you killed? Austin had asked Leo, half fascinated the way boys always were by snipers, half repelled. “Eleven,” Leo had said. And if he had the choice, he would make each of those kills again; he’d been protecting Marines on the ground. But that didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
Especially not here, against men armed with homemade pipe guns.
A group moved inside the perimeter on the south side of the compound, facing the hill leading to Jenner’s lahk.
Zoe yelled something in bad Kindese: Go back now! All of them had learned that sentence, practicing until Owen was sure they had it right. On the roof, Leo tensed.
The group staggered back into the camp.
Okay, not that time.
He scanned ceaselessly, the tip of his rifle moving back and forth: a full slow 180-degree scan of the camp, quicker on the 180 to the north and west, then another slow scan. His SCAR was fitted with its telescopic sight, infrared laser, and tactical light. Mounted under the barrel was the grenade launcher, the 40mm grenades to act as force multipliers during a firefight. His ammo belt bore the maximum number of cartridges. He didn’t want to use any of it.
* * *
Ten more minutes. Marianne, who’d dozed off while sitting in a chair and so nearly fallen off it, woke up. Spores, invisible and deadly, had permeated the recycling air of the cage for two hours.
The leelees scampered. Chittered. Sniffed the glass.
Breathed.
Eight minutes.
* * *
Kandiss said on the squad frequency, “Activity, east side of camp. Men, no women or kids, entering a single big tent. Not looking drunk.”
“Hold position and observe,” Owen said. “Do you have cover?”
“Affirmative. Large tree, but there are buildings behind me.”
“Brodie, do you have him?”
“No, sir.” The far eastern edge of camp was where somebody’s lahk started: gardens, orchards, outbuildings, and a big house. Christ, anybody could be in those houses, with any accumulation of weapons. Owen had wanted to clear out all the buildings, but what good would it have done? The squad didn’t have the troops to hold the objectives after clearance, and it just would have pissed everybody off.
Leo couldn’t see Kandiss; he must be somewhere in one of those groves of trees. Leo would know exactly where when Kandiss fired. Meanwhile, all the tents he could see, even though his scope, looked alike. Which one did Owen mean?
He knew a few moments later. A group of men emerged. Leo focused on them, following their progress through the camp. Everybody else was drinking or talking or … the couple having sex in the shadows didn’t realize Leo could see them. Get a tent, he thought, too tense/ready to be envious.
Leo said, “I got them, sir. Walking toward the compound, all carrying bags.”
Owen said, “Everybody’s carrying bags. They’re giving gifts to each other. It’s fucking Christmas.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Kandiss, circle counterclockwise back to the compound and take the north doorway. Berman, keep the south. Brodie, anybody sets one step into the open zone and you fire. No more warnings.”
“Yes, sir.”
Below him, the north door opened. Leo called down in English, “Whoever opened that door, get the fuck back inside and lock the door!”
The door closed.
* * *
Two minutes past the time the leelees should have started writhing and gasping for breath. Instead, one of the animals tumbled another one to the ground and climbed on top of her.
“Yes!” Branch said.
“Give it more time,” Marianne said, but she felt hope blow through her like fresh salt air. Sex, not death—maybe they had the vaccine this time.…
* * *
They were clear in his scope now, a dozen men, approaching the edge of the perimeter. They must be clear to everybody in the camp, too, because all the music and dancing and talking was stopping. Silence spread out in waves around the group of men, followed by frenzy. People pulled their children into tents. Some fled to the far edge of the camp and then out of it, prudently scattering. A few darted toward the group and jabbered, waving their arms. The advancing enemy unit—because that’s what they were now—ignored their fellows, moving purposefully toward the perimeter, facing the Big Lab door where Owen waited. Zoe, in response to Owen’s order, rounded the building to join him. Kandiss circled the camp toward the compound at a full run, but was still a quarter klick away.
In the enemy unit, hands reached into the bags they carried.
Leo tightened his grip on his rifle, sighted, and waited for the men to set foot onto the perimeter.
Below him, the east door opened behind Zoe and Kandiss, a faint click that registered on Leo’s above-average hearing only because he was hyperalert.
* * *
Ten more minutes passed. Claire, who’d come in with Salah from the illathil, said in her calm, pretty voice, “I think we did it,” and then let out an un-Claire-like whoop. Marianne felt her vision blur.
She had not teared up at any of the research advances on Terra that had led to this moment. So many steps to a vaccine, so much strife, so many deaths. But here, on a planet not her own, she was on the verge of crying: from release of tension, from relief, from momentary joy before she let herself remember that they still had to synthesize a planetful of vaccines, using outdated or jerry-rigged or completely missing machinery, on alien cultures in makeshift petri dishes, to protect immune systems that had evolved different defensive pathways.
Salah laughed, a deep masculine guffaw. He seized Claire and they danced a jogging step. Branch grinned like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern, wide enough to split his face. The leelees made high sexual squeaks as they mated.
Claire said, “I’m going to fetch Llaa^moh¡ and—”
The leelee lab door flung open and Austin Rhinehart stood there, his eyes almost as huge as a Kindred’s, vegetable dye crusting the teenage feet that had grown faster than his body.
“There’s an attack coming!” he cried. “And Isabelle went outside to try to stop it!”
Salah seized him by the shoulders. “Isabelle? What happened?”
“Lemme go!” Austin tore free and glared at Salah. “I opened the door to go outside because illathil is so boring! And Leo Brodie on the roof told me to go back inside so I did. But I told Isabelle because I thought somebody should know and she said to stay inside but she was going toward the door without telling anybody else so I came to tell you!” Austin looked triumphant, frightened, excited.
Thirteen, Marianne thought numbly. He was thirteen, so of course he looked excited. Was it really an attack? To get the vaccine they already had?
“Salah,” she said, turning toward him, but he was already gone.
* * *
Zoe slipped behind the barricade Owen had had built there, primarily from an old refrigerator. If the native
s had had any military sense, they would have taken her out before she got that far. They didn’t have any military sense. Leo knelt, sighted, braced himself.
The men at the rear of the little group pulled from their bags pipe guns and—yes—an object the size of a cookie jar.
“Possible explosive device,” Leo said. “Composition and strength unknown. Enemy has halted just short of perimeter.”
Kandiss ran around the side of the building’s north door. Again, no Kindred fired. But all four soldiers’ attention was focused on the men with the weapons—were they a diversion for an attack from somewhere else?
When the east door again opened behind Zoe and Owen, Leo’s first thought was, We’re fucked. Someone inside could hurl an explosive and take out Zoe and Owen from behind, then let the enemy rush in without even having to breach … Then he heard the door click again, locking.
Owen yelled to whoever had come out, “Get the fuck back inside!”
Until the infiltrator moved away from the walls, Leo couldn’t see who it was. Then she moved, heading diagonally across the perimeter toward the enemy. Isabelle.
She carried nothing and wore only a short red dress, her light brown hair greenish in his night scope. So many complicated emotions tsunamied through Leo that for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Only a moment, though—he steadied himself.
Someone in the enemy group yelled something; a second later, Leo realized what the word was. “Vaccine!”
Owen said, “Brodie, warning shot.”
He fired high above the camp. Women screamed. The group huddled closer together—the reverse of what they should do. Owen shouted to Isabelle, “Go back inside! Now!”
She ignored him, turning instead to look up at the roof. “Leo, don’t shoot! All of you, don’t shoot! Let me talk to them—please!”
Owen had two choices, Leo realized: Let her join the enemy group or shoot her, because she wasn’t going back inside. Isabelle turned and ran toward the camp. Now if Owen, Zoe, or Leo fired, they risked hitting Isabelle. She could be taken hostage. She could be killed with a pipe gun or IED or even a fucking machete, right in front of Leo. If that happened …