“Aren’t you?” A flash of anger, born of disappointment in her reaction. Almost immediately Branch said, “I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay. Let’s both go now.” In the doorway behind Branch, Noah loomed. His dark gaze in the artificially coppery skin, those eyes surgically widened to look as much like a Kindred’s as possible, had gone immediately to Lily.
“No fever,” Marianne said, and let her son take Lily from her while Branch held out his hand to help her up so they could both go back to work.
Austin sat in the dark, in a former blanket closet, and scowled to keep back shameful tears. They would be sorry. In a day or two, they would all be sorry!
The blanket closet was empty of blankets, the entire stock depleted for people to sleep on wherever they could. Austin had yanked out the two bottom shelves so he could sit upright on the closet’s floor. There wasn’t room to lie down, but he was too mad to go to sleep anyway. Isabelle and Noah had yelled at him, threatened him, and accused him of what he hadn’t done. He hadn’t stolen the fucking vaccines! He wouldn’t do that! Did they think he wanted Lily to die, or the scientists who were going to vaccinate all those kids tomorrow? Was that what they thought of him?
It served them right, what he was going to steal when he got the chance! If they thought he was a thief, then he would be one! That would show them!
Although that wasn’t why he was going to kidnap Dr. Patel. It was to protect his mother, the only true member of Austin’s lahk, the only blood member (forget Isabelle—she had betrayed him). “First, always, the lahk”—wasn’t that what he’d been taught his whole life? It was! Bu^ka^tel! But now, when all he was doing was acting on that—
Noah had guessed where Kayla was. “You took her to Tony and Nathan, in the mountains, didn’t you? Let her stay there for now. We have more important things to do here.” And Noah had turned away from Austin, in disgust.
Isabelle hadn’t been any kinder. “Just when we need you to act like a grown-up—you’re thirteen, for God’s sake!”
Austin was grown up! That’s why he was doing this! And there were no gods on World, only lahks. Which he was acting to serve his lahk the best way possible, even if they couldn’t see it. But they would be sorry when civilization collapsed all around them and they died in riots or starved like rats—Tony had been graphic about what those were—while he and his mother and, yes, Claire Patel, were safe in Haven. Dr. Patel would thank him one day for saving her life, just like Kayla would.
But first Austin had to get her there. He had a plan. Scrunched against the back wall of the closet, he went over and over the plan in his mind, until the thought popped into his mind to wonder what Leo would think of it.
No, Leo had nothing to do with this. Still, it would be nice if the Rangers survived the collapse of civilization, or at least if Leo did. They could help Tony rebuild. Then Leo, too, would be grateful that Austin had saved a doctor.
In the dark, he fingered the knife he’d stolen from the kitchen when Isabelle, still furious, had left him there to “at least eat something, for fuck’s sake!”
Austin hoped no one would miss the knife before he needed it. He also hoped he wouldn’t need it—but he was prepared to do whatever he had to. That’s what courage was. Leo had once told him so.
Salah and Isabelle stood beside the doorway that connected Big Lab to the Rangers’ ready room, that secretive hideaway. Lamont had just emerged, dressed in what looked to Salah like enough gear to take on the Russian army.
Watch your own prejudices, Doctor.
“They want a funeral?” Lamont said. “Here? Now?”
“We are going to have one,” Isabelle said. “At my lahk house. I’m telling you so you know what to expect, Lieutenant.”
“And what is that?”
Salah watched Isabelle choose her words carefully. Lamont looked like hell. He hadn’t slept in days. The Rangers did sleep, of course, but not much, and apparently Lamont least of all. Salah noted the dark, puffy circles around Lamont’s eyes, the jumpy irritability, the inhibition of the acoustic startle response. He couldn’t see the mental signs, which was what Salah was afraid of. Nobody might notice those until Lamont showed impaired judgment, or hallucinated, or went bat-shit psychotic. Claire had tried to reason with Lamont about the need for the Rangers to sleep more, but she’d gotten nowhere.
And the worse Lamont looked, the worse the looks he leveled at Salah. No direct sneers or racist remarks; that was not his style. Just a lowering of inhibitions, gnawing away at the iron Ranger discipline, letting the underlying prejudices show. Salah, who knew everyone’s medical history, knew what Lamont had been through when he’d been captured by people who looked like Salah.
Isabelle said, “The mourning ceremony doesn’t last long. Ree^ka’s body will be carried from the compound on the—”
“No,” Owen said. “No one enters the compound.”
“Noah will carry her body to the camp and it can be placed there onto the litter she came in on. Then all the mothers, including me, will accompany it up the hill to my lahk. What happens there need not concern you. The body will be returned to the soil that nurtured it.”
“Buried? Burned?”
“Neither, and not your business.”
Not buried or burned? What would they do with it, then? And it wasn’t like Isabelle to be curt with the Rangers, whom she inexplicably admired. Involuntarily, Salah glanced up at the ceiling, where Leo Brodie wasn’t even on duty; Kandiss was.
Lamont didn’t react to Isabelle’s rudeness; maybe he’d expected it. His gaze turned inward, maybe mentally measuring the distance between compound and lahk house, which was about half a kilometer. Not, Salah guessed, within firing distance of pipe guns or throwing distance of bombs or anything else the Kindred could devise, or Lamont probably would have burned the house down by now. Lamont regarded the Kindred with scorn for their military inexperience. Salah honored them for it.
Lamont said, “Permission granted, so long as none of my protectees leaves the compound,” and Salah felt his gorge rise. Isabelle hadn’t been asking permission. But she merely nodded, with neither subservience nor defiance.
When Lamont had left, Salah said to her, “Should Noah carry out the body now?”
“No, not yet. Tell all the second-expedition Terrans to go into the clinic. We Kindred need Big Lab for our farewell to her.”
We. Our. There it was again, the line she drew between herself and him. At least Brodie, too, was on the other side of the line. Salah said, “Afterward, when the ceremony is over, will you come to my room?”
“Not tonight. I need to sleep before we start vaccinating tomorrow morning.”
“I understand. But I meant to sleep.”
“Not tonight. After the ceremony I want to stay and translate if the scientists need me, and then I promised Leo fifteen minutes of Kindred instruction. He’ll be awake and off duty, briefly, and since the Rangers are going to be here with us even after the cloud hits, it’s important they learn what they’re going to have to deal with. Leo is the only one so far who will listen to me. The soldiers don’t sleep much, have you noticed?”
“Yes,” Salah said. “I have.”
From just inside the east door, which Zoe Berman had permitted to remain open so Salah could see this, Noah carried the Mother of Mothers across the open zone. Her body, wrapped in a light blanket but with her face uncovered, looked like it weighed nothing in Noah’s arms. Salah, who had officially pronounced her dead, knew that ancient face had smoothed into lines of peace, almost of joy.