“Don’t keep your fingers on the release button.” Drake’s voice penetrated her moment of inattention.
Poor fellow, Sallah thought. He was trying to teach all the eager youngsters how to fight Thread. If half of what Tarvi had told her about the deadly menace was true, it was devilish to combat.
“Always sweep from bow to stern. Thread falls in a sou’westerly direction, so if you come in under the leading edge, you char a larger portion.” Drake was running out of space on the operational board, which he had covered with his diagrams and flight patterns. Sallah had yet to fight the stuff, so she had paid attention—until the moment when she had thought she recognized Avril.
The day had had the quality of a reunion for the shuttle pilots. All the old crowd, with the exception of Nabhi Nabol and Kenjo, had answered the summons. Sallah knew where Kenjo was; she was a trifle envious of him, and was glad of Nabol’s absence. He would certainly have sneered to be in the company of all the young ones who had earned their flying tickets since Landing. Why, she had known some of them as adolescents.
Settling in at Karachi had eaten more time than she realized. And it had brought so many changes, such as the dragonets perched on young shoulders or curled up on hide-trousered legs. Her own three—a gold and two bronzes—had, just like her older children, picked up some basic manners. They were perched on the top shelves of the big ready room. Two were mentas, and she wondered if they understood what was going on before their watchful rainbow eyes.
Drake’s imperative warning interrupted her musing. “Don’t deviate from your assigned altitude. We’re trying to rig cruising devices that will warn you hair-trigger pilots when you’re out of line. We’ve got to maintain flight levels to avoid collisions. We’ve got more people to fly than sleds to fly in. You,” he said, jabbing his finger at his audience, “can be replaced. The sled cannot, and we’re going to need every one we can keep in the air.
“Now, a sweep from bow to stern in a one-second blast chars as much Thread for the range of these throwers. Catch the end of the stuff and fire runs back up most of it. Don’t waste the HNO3.” His rapid-fire use of the chemical designation made it sound more like “agenothree,” Sallah thought, losing concentration once again. Damn, she must pay attention, but she was so used to listening for sounds, not words. And silences. The silence all children made when they were being naughty or trying out forbidden things. And hers were inventive. She felt her lips widen in a proudly maternal smile, then disciplined her expression as Drake’s eyes fastened on her face.
She already missed her three older children dreadfully. Ram Da, Sallah’s sturdy, reliable seven-year-old son, had promised to look out for Dena and Ben. Sallah had brought three-month-old Cara with her—the baby was safely installed with Mairi Hanrahan’s lot—so she was not totally deprived. But Tarvi was back at Karachi, extruding metal sheets on a round-the-clock basis, slaving as hard as the people he drove to their limits.
“ . . . and make each cylinder last as long as possible,” Drake was saying. “Conserve agenothree and power, and you’ll last longer in the flight line. Which is where you’re needed. Now, most of you have had experience with turbulence. Don’t shuck your safety harness until you’re on the ground. The lighter sleds can be flipped on landing if the wind suddenly gusts, because they’re nose-heavy with the flamethrower mounts.”
With Tarvi on such a schedule, it was just as well that she had work of her own to do, Sallah thought. He had little enough time for her, and she would not even have the comfort of sleeping beside him—or be able to rouse him to a dawn lusting when he was too drowsy to resist her caresses.
What was wrong with her? she wondered for the millionth time. She had not trapped Tarvi. The mutual need and passion that day in the cave could not have been faked. When the chance union had resulted in pregnancy, he had immediately offered to make a formal arrangement. She had not insisted, but she had been much relieved that the initiative had been his. He had been considerate, tender, and solicitous throughout the gestation, and sincerely overjoyed when his firstborn was a strong, healthy boy. He adored all his children, rejoicing at their birth and in their development. It was his wife he avoided, dismissed, ignored.
Sallah sighed, and her old friend Barr shot her a quizzical glance. Sallah smiled and gave a shrug, intimating that Drake had caused her reaction. What would her life have been like with Drake Bonneau, happily ensconced on his lake? Svenda looked complacent, boasting about limiting her childbearing to two. Drake might act the confident flyboy in public, but the previous night he had been noticeably dancing attendance on his imperious wife. Sallah had always thought that Drake was more “show” than “do.” Yet for all Tarvi’s eccentricities, Sallah preferred the geologist and treasured those ever more rare occasions when she could rouse him to passion. Perhaps that was the problem: Tarvi should be allowed the initiative. No, she had tried that tack, and had gone through a miserable year before she thought of her “dawn attacks.”
She had learned some Pushtu phrases from Jivan and artlessly she had inquired about feminine names. Whomever Tarvi called for at the height of passion, it was not another woman. Or another man, from all she could discover.
“So,” Drake said, “here is the roster for the next Fall Remember, it’s a double hit, at Jordan and at Dorado. We’re going to send you Dorado squadrons on ahead so you can be well rested by the time you have to fight.” Again Drake’s eagle gaze swept his adoring students. “Now, back to your sleds to lend the technicians what assistance you can. House light’ll go out at midnight. We all need our rest,” he concluded cheerfully as he waved their dismissal.
Svenda quickly moved to his side, her scowl a deterrent to those who approached Drake with private questions.
“When did you get in, Sallah?” Barr asked, turning with her usual friendly grin. “I only arrived in from our stake around noon. No one of the old group knew when you’d make it. I didn’t realize this thing was so serious until I saw what it had done on my way up.”
Sallah laughed. Barr’s bubbling personality had not changed a micro, though her figure had rounded. “How many kids do you have now, Barr?” Sallah asked. “We’ve sort of lost track of each other with you on the other side of the continent.”
“Five!” Barr managed a girlish giggle, glancing slyly at Sallah. “The last was a set of twins, which I’d never have expected. Then Jess told me that he was a twin, and twin births were common in his family. I could have strangled him.”
“You didn’t, though.”
“Naw! He’s a good man, a loving father, and a hard worker.” Barr gave a sharp nod of her head at each virtue, grinning at Sallah again. Then her mobile face changed to one of concern. “Are you all right, Sallah?”
“Me, certainly. I’ve four kids. Brought Cara with me. She’s only three months old.”
“Is she at Mairi’s or Chris MacArdle-Cooney’s?”
“At Mairi’s. We’d better check that roster and see when we’re on duty. Where’s Sorka these days?” Sallah had also lost track of the redheaded Hanrahan girl. “I saw all the others.”