by John Ringo
Her mother only smiled in that mysterious and maddening way she had and refused to say anything further about it. Not that Kafari minded in the slightest. She was so grateful to still have her mother alive, tears threatened again. Kafari blinked and gently pushed those feelings aside, paying attention, instead, to the path she followed across campus.
Riverside University was a beautiful school, nearly a century and a quarter old. Native sandstone caught the late, westering sun in a glow like a faded echo of the sunsets that blazed across Klameth Canyon’s high cliffs. The campus stretched two full kilometers along the south bank of the Adero River, with promenades and pathways and shade trees interspersed between lecture halls, research labs, sports facilities, and dormitories. Riverside’s geographical setting provided beautiful views across the river and plenty of inviting, picturesque places to gather with friends or indulge a spot of romantic trysting.
Not that Kafari’d had much time for the latter. There were plenty of boys who’d shown interest, but Kafari wasn’t particularly interested in them. Somehow, she just couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for some barely post-pubescent kid whose sole interests were scoring on a sports field or in some girl’s bed. She had more in common with the professors than with students her own age and sometimes felt that even the professors didn’t really understand her. It was proving far harder than she’d thought, fitting back into an ordinary world, again.
Mostly, Kafari was determined to finish her degree in the shortest amount of time possible. She wanted to start earning money to support her family, rather than costing them money to support her. Thanks to the scholarship from Vishnu and the assistance she’d received as part of the new Educational Surety Loans — which helped students whose families and livelihoods had been adversely affected by the war — Kafari’s only real expenses were room and board. She’d done a lot of searching, to find the cheapest possible place in which to live, no easy feat in war-scarred Madison, where the cost of housing had nearly quadrupled. Food prices had soared six to ten times their prewar averages, which made her job at a dorm kitchen esstential, since the dorm fed her twice a day in lieu of cash wages.
As she walked, listening to the river and the wind in the trees and the snarl of traffic beyond the edge of campus, a nameless, uneasy feeling she had experienced all too often, of late, crept across her, like shadows of the advancing evening. She couldn’t identify any particular threat, but the carrying sound of voices from little gatherings scattered here and there set her teeth on edge, somehow.
As she passed knots of students, she fell into a habit she had cultivated, recently, of studying everything and everyone around her with piercing intensity. It was more than the heightened awareness she’d brought out of combat. It was a search for something in the faces of the other students, something that would explain to her why her skin occasionally crawled when she found herself in close proximity to people she didn’t know.
She was nearing the edge of campus when the voices difting on the wind rose into a sound more strident than mere conversation. Her path had taken Kafari fairly close to a large gathering that was composed, if she were reading the shadowed figures accurately, of considerably more than just students. It was nearly dark, but street lights illuminated the area fairly well. She could see kids close to her own age, but there were older people in the crowd, as well, which had swelled to something between two and three hundred by the time Kafari arrived.
Some of the shadowy figures drifting through the group were common criminals, of a type that had always found a living at Madison’s spaceport, where traffic was down to such a tiny trickle, there was virtually nobody to steal from, these days. Others in the crowd looked like seedy laborers thrown out of work, with too much time on their hands and not enough ambition to try something really back-breaking, like farming. Or terraforming land so it could be farmed. Or working long, bitterly hard shifts on the factory trawlers out harvesting the oceans for critically needed food and pharmaceuticals. As Kafari passed the outer fringes of the crowd, she caught snatches of what was being said.
“—raised our taxes and our tuition! And why? To subsidize a bunch of pig farmers who think we owe them a free ride! Just because they lost a couple of barns and a few scrawny goats!”
The venom in that voice shocked Kafari. Almost as much as the words, themselves. Nobody’s asking for a free ride, she thought, flushing with sudden, hot anger. Doesn’t this guy understand how the loans work? The money Granger families were using to rebuild, to buy new equipment, to put crops into the ground again hadn’t come from subsidies or gifts. The Joint Assembly had authorized emergency loans and the money had to be repaid, with some fairly strict forfeiture clauses if loan recipients defaulted. There was no guarantee that out-of-work Townies would even be able to buy produce and meat, come harvest time. If the government had to introduce subsistence payments on a wide scale, there was almost an ironclad guarantee they would also set price caps on produce, driving prices down and potentially bankrupting producers.
Yet here was a man, obviously a Townie, ranting about free handouts that didn’t exist. He was standing on top of something, a park bench, maybe, from which he held forth on a subject that made no sense at all to Kafari. “The government is falling all over itself, trying to rebuild a bunch of smelly farms, but nobody gives a damn about us. It isn’t fair! Our homes were burned down, our shops and factories were blown up, but is anybody scrambling to help us rebuild?”
An angry rumble from the crowd drew a deepening frown from Kafari. Didn’t that guy pay any attention to the news? Didn’t anybody else in that crowd? President Lendan had already asked the Senate and House of Law for a massive urban aid package, with at least twice the monetary value of the farm-aid legislation already passed. Klameth Canyon had been hit hard, but even Kafari understood that the damage had been piecemeal, compared with the ruthless, systematic destruction Deng Yavacs had waged through the western side of Madison. Hundreds of homes and businesses had been destroyed. Most of the civilians had survived, huddled in deep shelters below the city, the kind of shelters unavailable to farm folk, but the economy would feel the impact of lost factories and retail shops for years to come.
The urban poor, swelled by newly unemployed laborers and their families, needed help desperately. But nobody was living in the sewers and nobody was starving. Not yet, anyway. That was why the rural bill had been pushed through first. It had been utterly critical to get a new crop in the ground and a farmer couldn’t do that without money for seed and equipment. Didn’t any of these people understand what it took to fill market baskets with produce and cuts of meat?
Kafari edged her way around the crowd, tired and hungry and abruptly chilled. Full darkness had descended and a heavy mist had begun to form along the river, where snowmelt from the high Damisi ranges tore past Madison’s broad stretches of concrete and stone, warmed throughout the day by the sun. Radiant heat met cold water in a rapidly thickening fog that reminded Kafari of history lessons about old Terra, where places with exotic names like London and San Francisco were perpetually shrouded in thick blankets of mist penetrated only by something eerie and ominous-sounding called “gaslight” that never seemed effective at dispelling the darkness.
Kafari shivered as wet tendrils of grey reached out with cold, trailing fingertips and brushed her skin like something dead. She wanted, quite abruptly, to be somewhere warm and bright and cheerful, where she knew every face she was likely to meet and where she wouldn’t hear ugly voices calling her pig-farmer and questioning her right to be here. She was tired and hungry and still had a wicked, long way to walk to reach her cubicle—
“Hey!” a rough voice said behind her. “You! Ain’t I seen you someplace?”
Kafari glanced around, muscles tightening down in anticipation of trouble.
A big, hulking guy with a scraggly blond beard and fists like meathooks was glaring at her. Whoever he was, he was no student. He looked about forty years old and his clothes were
sturdy, industrial-style garments like the ones factory workers generally wore. The men with him looked like more of the same. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her belly, Kafari tensed to fight or run.
“That’s the jomo bitch from the news,” one of the rough men growled, using a filthy pejorative Townies favored when referring to rural folk.
Blood stung Kafari’s face, even as her belly turned to ice.
“Hey, jomo, you gonna save me?” one of the men smirked, rubbing his crotch vulgarly.
At one time, just a few weeks previously, Kafari would have counted on the sheer number of witnesses to deter something this ugly. But the people on the edges of this particular crowd, most of them middle-aged men whose faces blurred into a pale wall of hatred, looked more inclined to help.
Kafari threw pride to the wind and ran.
Her action caught them by surprise. A low roar of anger surged behind her. She was tired, murderously so, but she had long legs and a head start. The mob surged into motion behind her, individual voices snarling at her to stop.
Stop, hell. Do they think I’m stupid?
As she neared the edge of campus, the roar of traffic ahead blended with the roar of pursuit behind. Kafari dodged out into the street, playing tag with fast-moving groundcars. The scream of brakes and curses rose behind her as the mob surged into the street. She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going. Her cubicle certainly wouldn’t offer any real protection. Neither would any of the brightly lit restaurants that hugged the edge of campus, dependent on student money for their survival. A handful of waitresses and short-order cooks would be of no help whatsoever against a blood-crazed mob of unemployed factory workers. Kafari’s strength was beginning to flag as physical exertion and the beginnings of hopelessness drained her burst of energy.
There wasn’t a police officer or soldier in sight, naturally.
She staggered forward, tearing at the catches on her backpack so she wouldn’t have to carry its weight any farther, and reached the corner where her street bisected the larger boulevard. Kafari was about to sling the backpack away when an aircar emerged from her street, skimming low. It halted literally right in front of her. The hatch popped open. Simon Khrustinov leaned across, holding out one hand. Kafari sobbed out something incoherent as she scrambled up, catching hold of a hand that lifted her with astonishing ease. She collapsed onto the passenger’s seat. He yanked her across, feet sliding in through the open door, then shot the aircar skyward in a move that shoved her down against his knees.
The mob surged around the spot where she’d just been standing, snarling curses at them. Simon punched controls that slammed the hatch closed, then spoke tersely into the radio. “Major Khrustinov here. There’s an unholy riot in progress at Meridian and Twelfth. You’d better get an armed riot control unit out here, stat. They’re starting to loot stores,” he added in a grim voice.
Kafari started to shake as reaction set in.
A warm hand came to rest on her hair. “Do you need a doctor?”
She shook her head, gulping down lungfuls of air.
“Thank God.” Quiet, full of emotion she hadn’t expected to hear.
He was helping her sit up, disentangling her fingers from their death grip on his shirt and the straps to her backpack, which lay awkwardly between his feet. “Easy,” he murmured, turning her to sit in the passenger’s seat. She was shaking so violently she couldn’t even manage the safety straps. He fastened them gently around her, then produced a box of tissues from a console and pushed a wad of them into her hands. She tried to blot the tears dry, but couldn’t seem to turn the faucet off.
“Th-they wanted to h-hurt me,” she gulped.
“Why?”
“D-don’t know. Called me a filthy j-jomo…”
He frowned. “A what?”
She tried to explain, got herself tangled up in the differences between Granger and Townie societies, finally managed to make him understand that the term was a crude insult derived from an African word for farmers. Anger turned his face to cut marble. “I see,” he said quietly, voice dangerous. “Could you identify any of them?”
She shuddered. Face those animals again? Kafari was no coward, but the thought of a police station, formal charges, a trial with the press crawling all over her left her trembling violently again. “I’d rather not try.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. But all he said was, “All right. I’m going to take you someplace quiet and safe for a while.”
He touched controls and the aircar moved sedately westward above the rooftops. Madison was beautiful at night, Kafari realized as her pulse slowed and the jagged breaths tearing through her calmed down to mere gulps. She blotted her eyes again, blew her nose inelegantly, managed to regain control of her fractured emotions.
“Where were you, just now?” she finally asked.
A tiny smile flickered into existence. “Parked outside your apartment.”
She blinked in surprise, finally managed to ask, “Why?”
His glance flicked across to meet hers, even as a wry smile touched his mobile mouth, softening the anger. “Actually, I was planning on asking you a fairly important question.”
Her eyes widened. “You were?” Then, apprehensively, “What?”
“Miss Camar, would you do me the honor of dining with me this evening?”
She surprised herself by smiling. “I’d love to.” Then she realized with dismay what she must look like, covered with fear sweat, eyes red and streaming. She cleared her throat. “I’m not really dressed for it.”
“Somehow, I don’t think the chef will mind.”
“The chef?” That sounded expensive.
“Well, the cook, anyway.”
They were still heading west, leaving the outskirts of Madison behind.
“Uh, where’s the restaurant?” she asked, craning around to peer back at the receding lights.
His lips tightened. “Actually, it’s in the middle of that nastiness back there. I don’t have any intention of keeping the reservation. I hope you don’t mind a couple of steaks on the grill? I installed it yesterday, when they finished putting in the patio behind my quarters.”
Kafari blurted out the first, idiotic thing that came to mind. “You can cook?”
Grimness vanished, dispelled by a boyish grin. “Well, yes. It was learn to cook or resign myself to years of eating prepackaged glop. Have you ever eaten what the Concordiat fondly refers to as field rations?”
She shook her head.
“Consider yourself fortunate.” His eyes had begun to twinkle, seriously interfering with Kafari’s ability to breathe. Simon Khrustinov had remarkable eyes, full of shadows and mysteries, yet clear as a summer sky and just as vividly blue. They caught the glow from the control panel lights like radiant stars. The darkness surrounding the aircar wrapped around them like velvet, a private and wonderfully safe darkness that carried her away from danger and fear and the uncertainty that had lain like shadows across her soul since the day of her return home from Vishnu. Somehow, it seemed very natural to find herself alone with this man, heading toward his kitchen for a meal he intended to prepare with his own hands.
And wonderful hands they were, too, she realized, gulping a little unsteadily as she studied them. They rested on the aircar’s controls with quiet ease. Strong hands, large and manly, with a sprinkling of dark hair across them. Crisp shirt cuffs hid his wrists from view. His uniform was missing, tonight, replaced by civilian shirt and slacks of a subdued, conservative cut. His clothes were sturdy, made of high-quality fabric that had been loomed somewhere very far from Jefferson. Unless she were much mistaken, the shirt was real Terran silk, worth almost as much as her parents’ entire farm. Before the Deng razed it.
It shook her, that he’d put on such clothes to ask her to dinner.
The lights of Nineveh Base appeared across the Adero floodplain. Kafari had never been onto the base, although her uncle Jasper had been stationed there for a while. Her throat tightened. She b
linked burning saltwater, then leaned forward with a soft gasp as the aircar swung toward one edge of the base.
A huge, black shadow loomed against the lights. The Bolo. Parked quietly at the end of what looked like a very new street, next to a low building that had obviously been finished in just the last few days. There wasn’t any landscaping at all, just a broad stretch of mud bisected by a concrete walkway that led from a wide landing pad to the front door. A much larger adjacent building, clearly designed to house the immense machine, stood open to the sky, only partially complete.
The aircar settled to the landing pad and rolled neatly to a halt beside the Bolo’s treads, which dwarfed their transport so completely, Kafari felt like a midget. She couldn’t even see the whole Bolo from this angle. Simon switched off controls, then popped the hatches, jogging around to assist her with antique, off-world courtesy that surprised her. The touch of his hand on hers sent a tingle straight up her arm. A tremor hit her knees. The smile that blazed in his eyes was incendiary. What it wrought on Kafari’s jangled insides was probably illegal on some worlds.
He offered his arm in a gallant gesture she’d seen only in movies. She laid an unsteady hand on the crook of his arm, smiling at her escort as he led the way past the Bolo’s silent guns. She craned her neck to peer up at the turrets and weapons ports high above. It was hard to realize that she’d actually been inside it. Her memory went blurry, right about the time she’d sagged into that couch, with medication pumping into her system from the auto-doc. She had no memory at all of arriving at the hospital in Madison. She’d returned to consciousness to find her family surrounding her bed, waiting for her to open her eyes.