She cut past the generator, where the Krinpit was rumbling hollowly as it scratched through the clumps of burnable vegetation for something to eat, a guard with a GORR trailing its every step, and visited the fringe of the dance area long enough to get something to eat from the buffet. (Of course, she had slept through two meals.) When men asked her to dance she smiled and thanked them as she shook her head. The rain had stopped, and sullen Kung glowed redly overhead. She took a plate of cheese and biscuits and slipped away. Not that there was far to go. No one walked in the woods anymore these days. They lived and ate and slept in a space one could run across in three minutes. But all who could be there were at the dance, and down by the beach were only the perimeter guards. She sat down with her back against one of the machine-gun turrets and finished her meal. Then she put her plate down beside her, pulled her knees up to her chin, and sat staring at the purple-red waves.
Ahmed was dead.
It was not much comfort to tell herself that her dreams had been foolish to begin with, that Ahmed had never taken her as seriously as she had taken him. Nevertheless, it was true, and Ana Dimitrova was a practical person. She had learned the trick of dissecting pain into its parts. That she would never see him again, touch his strong and supple body, lie beside him while he slept — that was purest pain, and there was no help for it. But that she would never marry him and bear his children and grow old by his side — that was only a spoiled fantasy. It had never been real. That loss could not hurt her now, because it was of something she had never owned; and so her pain was diminished by half.
(But, oh, how that half still ached!)
She wept gently and openly for a moment, then sighed and rubbed the tears away. What she had lost, she told herself, she had lost long ago. From the moment Ahmed came to Jem, he had become a different person. In any event, it was over. She had a life to make for herself, and the materials to make it from were all in this camp; there was nothing else anywhere. You should dance, she scolded herself. You should go up where they are laughing and singing and drinking.
Plainly and simply, she did not want to. It was not merely that she didn’t want to dance, not yet. It was more deep and damaging than that. Ana, translating for the Krinpit, had heard enough of what was going on in the minds of Marge Menninger and Nguyen Tree and the other hawks who directed the fate of the camp. So much madness in so few minds! They were determined to carry on a war, even here, even after Earth had blown itself into misery! And yet there they all were, smiling and bobbing around the floor. Her own brain had been divided by a surgeon’s knife. What had divided theirs, so that they could plot genocide in an afternoon and drink and cavort and play their sexual games at night? How Ahmed would scowl at them!
But Ahmed was dead.
She took a deep breath and decided not to cry again.
She stood up and stretched her cramped limbs. The Krinpit was lurching slowly down toward the water for a drink after his unappetizing meal, the soldier wandering after. She did not particularly want to be near him, but she needed to rinse her plate — either that or carry it back to the cook tent, which was too near the dance floor. She kept her distance, paralleling his scuttling path, and then she heard someone call her name.
It was the Russian pilot, Kappelyushnikov, sitting cross-legged at a gun pit and talking to Danny Dalehouse, on duty inside it. Why not? Ana changed course to approach them and wished them a good evening.
“Is truly good, Anyushka? But Danny Dalehouse has told me of death of Ahmed Dulla. I am deeply sympathetic for you.”
There it was, the first time someone had spoken of it to her. She discovered that it was not impossible for her to respond.
“Thank you, Visha,” she said steadily. “What, have you become a monk that you do not dance tonight?”
“Is no one I care to dance with,” he said gloomily. “Also have been having most interesting discussion with Danny on subject of slavery.”
“And what have you concluded, then, Danny?” she asked brightly. “Are we all slaves to your mistress, the beautiful blond colonel?”
He did not answer directly, but chose to be placating. “I know you’re upset, Ana. I’m sorry, too.”
“Upset?” She nodded judiciously, looking down into the pit at him. “Yes, perhaps. I must assume that my home has been destroyed — yours, too, I suppose. But you are braver than I. I am not brave; I become upset. It upsets me that what has happened on Earth is now to happen again, here. It upsets me that my — that my friend is dead. It upsets me that the colonel intends to kill a great many more persons. Can you imagine? She proposes to tunnel under the Fuel camp and explode a nuclear bomb, and that upsets me.”
Why are you doing this? she asked herself; but she knew that she could not accept more sympathy without crying, and she was not ready to cry before these men. At least she had diverted them. Dalehouse was frowning.
“We don’t have any nuclear weapons,” he objected.
“Softheaded person!” she scoffed. “Your mistress has what she wants to have. I should not be astonished if she had a fleet of submarines or a division of tanks. She wears weapons as she wears that cheap perfume. The smell of them is always around her.”
“No,” he said doggedly, peering up at her, “you’re wrong about the nuclear weapons. She couldn’t conceal that from us. And she’s not my mistress.”
“Do not flatter yourself that I care. She may have her sexual excesses with whomever she likes, and so may you.”
Kappelyushnikov coughed. “I think,” he said, “dance has suddenly become more attractive.”
As he stood up, Ana put her hand on his arm. “I am driving you away. Please forgive me.”
“No, no, Anyushka. Are difficult times for all, nothing to forgive.” He patted her hand, then grinned and kissed it. “As to myself,” he said, “I see beautiful blond colonel roaming about alone, and perhaps she wishes to dance or otherwise relate to some new person, such as I. Also do not care for cheap perfume worn by big cockroach. You do not yourself desire to dance? Or otherwise relate? No. Then stay with friend Danny.”
They watched him walk steadily toward Marge Menninger, strolling past her checkpoints. They heard her laugh as Gappy spoke to her; then he shrugged and moved on toward the dance floor.
The Krinpit, in his random stagger around the beach, was coming closer. It was true that the stench of his exudations was strong. So was the sighing, droning sound of his presence. Ana listened, then said gloomily, “This one is muttering about his love now,” she said. “It was killed somehow, I cannot tell how. I think Ahmed had something to do with it, and it is for that that it is determined to kill human beings. But it had become Ahmed’s ally! Dan, is not that lunacy? It is as though killing has become an end in itself. It no longer matters who is killed or for what possible gain the killing is done. Only the killing itself matters.”
Dalehouse stood up in his shallow rifle pit, looking up the hill toward the dancers. “She’s coming this way,” he said. “Listen, before she gets here. About her being my mistress—”
“Please, Danny. I spoke without thinking and because I am, yes, upset. It is not a time to worry about personal matters.”
Clearly he was not satisfied and would have pursued the subject, but Margie was now too close. She paused to light a cigarette, studying the Krinpit and its guard, now a model of military deportment, his recoilless at port arms as the colonel approached. Then she came smiling over to Danny and Nan. “Getting it on, are you?” she said amiably. “When was the last time you checked your earphones, Danny?”