Owen. Of course Kandiss had retrieved and buried the body. Leo said, “Zoe told you what happened.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Leo told him. He couldn’t tell if Kandiss believed him, or even heard him. Kandiss never blinked; his face never twitched. When Leo finished, he repeated, “Give me my weapons.”
Then Kandiss did react. “I don’t have them.”
It took Leo a moment to absorb this. He let out a string of curses worthy of Zoe. “Find my weapons and bring them here.”
“Yes, sir,” Kandiss said.
Sir. Leo was now the ranking soldier on Kindred, the CO. Christ on a cracker. Leadership was exactly what he didn’t want, what he’d dropped out of Ranger School to avoid. Although somehow he seemed to have been exercising more of it despite himself: making decisions, recruiting locals, shooting his CO.
A sharp pain in his heart, which Leo ignored because he had no choice.
Before Kandiss could return, Salah Bourgiba came in. “How are you feeling, Brodie?”
“Just dandy. Never better. Austin and Zoe?”
“Both will recover.”
“Did Isabelle take my weapons?”
Bourgiba’s brows rose; evidently this was news to him, too. “Isabelle?”
“Send her in here. Jenner, too!” Then, remembering who he was talking to, he added a grudging, “Please.”
Bourgiba left without a word, but Leo didn’t need words. Looks were enough. Bourgiba disliked him as much as he disliked Bourgiba.
Leo tried to stand up, couldn’t, and sank back onto his pallet. He was as useless as a toddler. Kandiss returned and said, “Your weapons aren’t in the compound.”
“Where are Lamont’s?”
“I have them.”
“Bring them here, Kandiss. And—What is it? Why do you look like that?”
Kandiss looked away, looked back, bit his tongue. For Kandiss, this amounted to major drama. He said, “Sir, Lieutenant Lamont had a nonregulation weapon on his person.”
“He did? What?”
“I’ll bring it.”
He returned with Lamont’s rifle, sidearm, helmet, all of it. And something else. Leo picked it up: a metal canister about six inches long and three in diameter, marked only with the code A45D6. Plus a device about a foot long. Leo said, “What is it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Is it… this looks like a mounter that might fit onto a rifle. Is this canister some sort of explosive? Can Zoe come in here?”
“Doc says no.”
“Then I’ll go to her. Help me up.”
Torture getting to his feet, torture walking even with Kandiss’s support. Leo ignored the pain and hoped that motion wasn’t tearing apart anything important inside him. Zoe lay on a platform bed in the next room. She stared at him stonily.
He thrust the canister at her, along with the mounter. “What’s this?”
Zoe’s stoniness vanished, either in relief that Leo wasn’t going to rehash what happened on the mountain or in simple astonishment. She said, “Where’d that come from?”
“What is it, Zo?”
“Experimental. Not approved yet, nobody has them, too dangerous. I’m not even supposed to know about them, but there was this looie on Terra who—”
“I don’t care how you know. Lamont has this. Had this. What is it? An explosive?”
“Yeah. Has almost the impact of a shoulder-launched missile but is fired right from standard rifle. Only thing is, nearly half of the field trials blew up the rifle, the tripod, and a crater big as a refrigerator.”
“Huh,” Leo said. “My weapons are missing. You know who took them?”
“You lost your weapons? Again?”
“I was being operated on!”
“So was I, but I have mine.”
Leo didn’t ask how she’d done that. Maybe Kandiss had held them for her, maybe somebody else. “Take me back to my room,” he said to Kandiss. “Bring me Noah Jenner.”
Jenner looked better than when Leo had seen him last—sharper, more focused—although he still had a lump on his forehead the size of a walnut. Noah glared. Another one that doesn’t like me. Well, tough shit.
“I have your weapons,” Jenner said, “and you’re not getting them back. We do things differently here, Brodie. We’re grateful for your help in getting the call-back device, but there will be no more killing. I’ll take these things, too.”
“Try,” Leo said.
Kandiss took a step forward.
Jenner looked at the huge Ranger, pressed his lips together, and left without another word. Leo said to Kandiss, “Did Jenner leave the compound with any duffel or box that could have held my kit?”
“Supply carts have been coming and going all day, sir. They’re moving the vaccinated kids and their mothers into the compound before the cloud comes. I’m frisking everybody.”
Leo considered. His side hurt but his head felt clear. “Okay. Let them come in but check any supplies for contraband. You guard the door and periodically scan from the roof. Also, tell Isabelle Rhinehart I want her to bring me Lu^kaj^ho and his cop squad.”
Kandiss stiffened. Leo didn’t have to be told that Kandiss didn’t want armed Kindred males inside the compound. Leo said, “They’re on our side, Kandiss.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Really.” Immediately he knew he shouldn’t have said that; in Kandiss’s world, a superior officer might give information, but he never justified his orders. In some ways, the Kindred cops were actually easier to deal with than Kandiss.
What the fuck? What did he just think? How could he relate more to these alien cops than to Army?
When Lu^kaj^ho entered with his men, Leo told them all, in a halting combination of his Kindred, their English, and some pathetic pantomime, that they were now part of compound security. He wanted Lu^kaj^ho on the roof and cops on the east, south, and north doors, all of them to take orders from Kandiss. He made sure Kandiss understood this as well. The whole thing would have been easier with Isabelle or Bourgiba to translate, but Isabelle wasn’t around and Leo would not ask Bourgiba. He needed to learn to make himself understood to Lu^kaj^ho’s squad; he was now their commander.
He’d never wanted this.
After they’d all left, he closed his eyes for a few minutes. But he couldn’t sleep. Asleep, he dreamed about Owen. Awake, he also saw Owen’s face constantly, but it was easier to explain to himself yet again why he’d done what he had to.
Besides, he had to check, clean, and load all of Owen’s weapons. They were his now, and nobody was going to get them from him again.
CHAPTER 19
Austin lay on his pallet in the clinic and thought about the ways he’d fucked up.
He’d trusted Tony. He’d trusted Lieutenant Lamont. He’d taken his mother—his mother!—to a place where she was now a hostage. He’d taken Claire Patel there, too—another hostage. He’d let Lamont shoot him so that now he had a gash on his head and a shattered shoulder and might not be able to ever use his left arm again. He’d cried in front of Isabelle. He’d found and brought the call-back device, yes, but now there was another piece he hadn’t found or brought back: the instructions on how to use it. He was a total fuck-up and probably Leo hated him now. Along with everybody else.
Dr. Bourgiba came in to check his head, and Austin lay mute and stiff—he was stone! rock!—and didn’t answer any questions. He didn’t cry out when it hurt, either, which was something. But not much.
Then Isabelle came in and Austin turned his face to the wall. Why didn’t they just leave him alone? He made loud noises in his head so that he couldn’t understand what Isabelle was asking him, and when she laid a hand on his head he screamed, even though it didn’t hurt at all. “Go away! Go away!”