Leo waited. None of the enemy had crossed onto the perimeter. Isabelle stood in front of them, waving her arms and talking. It seemed to Leo that the men were listening, but he couldn’t be sure. He lined up a shot at the guy holding the cookie jar, a shot that wouldn’t hit Isabelle. Stupid fucking civilian…
Christ, she was brave.
Whatever she was saying, it seemed to be working. The pipe guns were lowered. Eight of the dozen men seemed to be arguing with four others. They were all young, all jacked up. Leo felt the familiar strain: adrenaline with no place to go, a kind of mental blue balls. He didn’t want to kill anybody unnecessarily, but—
Eight of the four turned back. Isabelle argued with the others. Leo couldn’t tell who was winning. Then the south door opened, and Salah Bourgiba ran around the building toward Isabelle.
Fuck fuck fuck—
Before Owen could even get out his order to go back inside, the man with the cookie jar swung his head to see a Terran male running toward him. He hurled the cookie jar at the compound, screaming, “Vaccine! Vaccine!”
The cookie jar landed halfway across the perimeter and exploded.
Leo fired.
The man went down. The other three ran, weapons lowered. Owen yelled, “Hold your fire!”
People screamed, running blindly in the dark. Leo could see them all, along with everything that was there and—more important—everything that wasn’t. The IED had blown up without scattering shrapnel, without breaching the building, without touching Zoe, Owen, or Kandiss. It was the sorriest bomb he’d ever seen. Isabelle was all right. Even that stupid ass Bourgiba hadn’t been injured. But the Kindred that Leo had shot lay dead just inside the open zone.
Fuck.
Salah blamed himself for the death.
If he hadn’t stupidly, without thinking it through, run toward Isabelle… But he’d seen the pipe guns the men from the camp carried, he’d known how heavily armed the Rangers were, he’d seen Isabelle vulnerable and exposed to both sides and some atavistic masculine instinct had strangled all thought except to protect her. Protect! How? She was better equipped to deal with unrest in the camp than he could ever be, and the Rangers were trained to accomplish their objectives as efficiently as possible. Which that prick Lamont had done: only one man had died.
Salah’s fault.
He stood in the bathroom of the compound, needing to calm himself before he returned to the meeting going on in Marianne’s room. Illathil had abruptly ended. Ree^ka-mak had been told everything that happened. In the camp, the Kindred mourned their dead. The Rangers were on high alert, or code red, or whatever they called it, against further violence. Branch remained on duty in the locked lab with the leelees, living and dead, and the safe holding vaccines and spore packets. And here Salah was, stupidly standing in a bathroom, his back against the door, trying to gain control of himself.
Salah’s father had been Muslim but his maternal grandmother had been French, a Catholic. Words from the Mass, which he had not thought about since his grandmother died thirty-five years ago, hammered at his mind in three languages:
Ma faute, ma faute, ma très grande faute.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.
A soft knock on the door. “Salah?”
“Coming, Claire.” He ran the water briefly and came out.
She said, “It wasn’t your fault.”
He looked at her: tiny, sweet-natured, smart as hell; in some ways, Claire Patel was the heart of the Terran expedition. Younger than Marianne, more mature than Branch, more driven than Salah. But, this time: wrong.
Then she said the only thing that could help him: “Isabelle doesn’t blame you.”
He touched her shoulder briefly and they went back to the meeting. Ree^ka-mak sat upright in Marianne’s bed, her face a fantastic topographic mask of sorrow. Her half-blind eyes, however, were steady. She said, “The people who attacked this place of healing must be named and”—Salah did not know the Kindese word—“and that will be done. Salah-Bourgiba-mak, I have decided that you will carry me to the camp to talk to the Mothers gathered there.”
A shrewd move. She was the only one who could calm the camp, and if he carried her, no one would attack him. They would see that she did not hold him—or any of the Terrans—responsible.
But Isabelle, who had been translating the Mother of Mothers’ words for Claire and Marianne, said in Kindese, “That may not be possible, Ree^ka-mak.”
“Why not?”
“The Rangers have forbidden any Terrans to leave the compound—anyone, I mean, of the new expedition, who is involved in creating the vaccine.”
“I will talk with Lamont-mak. Also with the Terran who killed Bel¡lak^ha.”
“That will not be possible, either.”
“Why not?”
“The soldier’s superior is responsible for his… his group’s actions, and Lieutenant Lamont will not explain them to you.”
“They do not recognize my authority?”
“Over our people, yes. Over Terrans, no.”
“Then do they recognize Marianne-mak’s authority over the Terran lahk?”
“No,” Isabelle said.
Salah realized that Ree^ka-mak knew all this already; she was making a point.
“Then,” the Mother of Mothers said, “Lamont-mak recognizes no authority but his own?”
Yes. And history had shown, over and over, that military authority unrestrained by civilian control was the harbinger of disaster. However, Salah knew he was biased; he didn’t like or understand the Rangers, not any of them. Isabelle did.
Isabelle said, “The ambassador that Lieutenant Lamont recognized as authority died in the Russian attack. I think the Rangers are trying to carry out her orders, which were to protect Terrans on World. Mother of Mothers, the man who killed Bel¡lak^ha was doing that. The Rangers could have killed many more of the men who attacked from the camp. They did not. Neither Lieutenant Lamont nor Corporal Brodie is at fault here.”
“I do not blame them.”
“Nor is Salah-kal to blame for rushing to me.”
“I do not blame him. The people to blame are in the camp, those who made weapons and used them to try to obtain vaccines before others. Salah-mak will take me to the camp, and one soldier will go with me so that all can see that I know where fault lies. Now that Marianne-mak has created more vaccine, we must create a plan for giving it. This will not be easy. It is also not a Terran concern. This is my order: Give the fifty existing vaccines to everyone in the compound, immediately.”
“There are fifty-two, Ree^ka-mak.”
“There are fifty to decide. Two have been reserved for Noah Jenner’s wife and child. No one knows if the child will inherit her father’s immunity.”
How had she known all that? Conversations must go on among the Kindred scientists from which Terrans were excluded.
Ree^ka-mak said, “The two vaccines for Llaa^moh¡ and her child are approved. She has worked here on the vaccine. After you vaccinate the rest of our people within these walls, you will have twenty-six vaccines left. How fast can more be prepared?”
Marianne said, “I don’t know. We will start right now and work day and night.”
“Noah Jenner will give the twenty-six vaccines to people he trusts, to take to the lahks of the scientists here, divided equally. The Mothers of those lahks will decide what to do with their doses. Whoever receives them must travel here because when the spore cloud comes, death will be everywhere but here. Marianne-mak, would bringing more scientists here help create more vaccines faster?”