So she’s here. Because here is where Haze is.
‘You’re here,’ I say, ‘because you’re in the Aux.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she says. ‘That too.’
As she turns, I see the dagger sheath between her shoulders and realize why she never takes it off. Unbuckling it probably makes her vomit. Knives keep Franc happy and make her secure. It’s called imprinting, and hers is an extreme version of what we do to new recruits.
Sounds like she has had it for ever.
Reaching for her singlet, Franc hesitates. Probably nothing, I tell myself. But I catch her sideways glance. Her blood’s on my hands and my shirt is in the dirt, because it’s filthy enough as it is. And she’s already naked . . .
Meet a woman you like, make conversation.
Can’t remember who told me that. Either my old lieutenant or a whore. Make conversation. It convinces women you’re not only interested in one thing, even if you are.
‘You know something?’
‘No, sir,’ says Franc. She waits, singlet in her hand.
‘Can’t remember my first fuck,’ I tell her. ‘Can’t remember my first kiss or my first drink. But I sure as hell remember my first knife.’
Franc smiles, and for a second looks like someone else. ‘Really, you can’t remember your first . . . ?’
‘Happened the same night as my first drink.’
She laughs.
‘You make that blade?’ I ask.
Sliding the dagger from its sheath between her shoulders, Franc finds its balance without even looking. ‘Stole it,’ she says.
It’s my turn to smile.
‘Sir,’ says Franc. ‘Permission to speak freely?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘You think our time’s come?’
Standing up, I walk her to the edge of a drop. It falls for a hundred paces onto jagged rock. If I said jump, she would jump. No doubt about it. ‘When I was a child,’ I say, ‘an officer put a pistol to my head. It misfired, so he kept me as his orderly.’
‘That was your time?’
‘Everything since is extra.’
‘Those scars,’ says Franc. ‘They were my time.’ She hesitates, and then shrugs, mostly to herself. ‘Killed my uncle, my three brothers and a cousin. They thought I’d just let them do what they wanted.’
‘They tried to rape you?’
‘Tried to stab Haze.’
My surprise must be obvious.
‘If he dies I go free,’ she explains. ‘They thought they were helping. Not a single one of them believed I’d protect Haze against my family if that was what it took.’
She weighs next to nothing. Our kiss only ends when I bite her lip hard enough to draw blood. She bites back, and then she’s tugging at the buckle on my belt and fumbling the fastening on my trousers.
‘Oh my God,’ she says. So I put the rest in.
This time when she bites, she means it. A second later, she’s spitting and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Could have warned me.’
Bad blood. What, she couldn’t work that out for herself?
Wrapping my prosthetic fingers into the webbing across her back, I grab her buttocks with my other hand and yank her against me, feeling her legs twist behind mine to bring her closer. We are standing naked on the edge of a drop, with a rising wind buffeting us. A dirt path to one side and certain death to the other. I’m not going to move unless she asks me, and she is not going to ask me.
Licking my fingers, I reach under her.
Franc yelps.
When I persist, she sinks her teeth into my chest.
This time round she wipes her mouth against the unbroken skin of my shoulder. Then she decides to live with what my hand is doing and locks her legs tighter. A second later, they’re locked tighter still and she’s raking bloody lines down my back.
I’ve met better-behaved wildcats . . .
‘Don’t laugh,’ says Franc eventually. That’s when she can say anything at all. ‘Take next watch,’ I say, lifting her off me.
She nods gratefully. Replacing Shil on guard is going to be easier than returning to the fire and the knowing glances of the others. They’ll have heard us. It would be impossible for them not to . . .
‘And you, sir?’
‘I’m staying up here for a while.’
Chapter 22
Somewhere in the darkness is what we are here for . . . Unless the U/Free have it wrong? I consider that for a moment then reject it. If the U/Free say their observer is here, then he’s here. But if he is here why can’t I find him?
Sucking my teeth, I dig into my pockets for a smoke.
Cigars are illegal in Letogratz. You can change sex, kill yourself repeatedly, have four tits, knock a hundred years off your age and become someone else, but you can’t light up . . .
Weird people the U/Free.
I fold my fingers round my lighter to hide its flame. Sucking deep, I release smoke into the coldness of the night. The wind’s switched directions, the stars are high and the temperature up here is still dropping.
It’s the silence I like.
The silence and the night noises. I knew them all in the desert. The scuttle of lizards and the rattle of snakes. The high call of raptors, the almost hidden padding of wildcats as they creep towards sand hoppers.
When a twig breaks on a path, I free the catch on my holster.
I know where Franc is. She’s a hundred paces below, to the right of my rocky outcrop. The others are sleeping in a hut so close I could walk three paces and drop spit on its roof. A ruined vegetable garden slopes up to the hut. A wall encloses the garden and Franc stands watch by its gate.
Neen chose the position earlier. It’s his job to do stuff like that.
‘Show yourself . . .’ When no one answers, I say it again, louder.
A few seconds later Colonel Vijay stumbles out of the darkness. And stands blinking in the moonlight. Sleepy, I think, until I realize he’s embarrassed. Seems he heard Franc yowling. Although he is far too polite to mention it.
‘Sven . . .’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I wanted . . .’ He stops, gazes at my cigar.
‘You like one, sir?’
Colonel Vijay takes my last cigar, folds his fingers round the flame of my lighter. A second later, he’s coughing his guts out. ‘Sorry,’ he says, although I’m not sure why he’s apologizing. ‘They’re . . .’
‘Cheap, sir.’
‘I was going to say, stronger than I’m used to.’
‘Also cheap.’
His smile is uncertain. ‘Thought I might stand watch in your place,’ he says. ‘If you think that’s a good idea.’
It’s a bloody stupid idea. Colonel Vijay standing watch means we’ll need two guards, Vijay himself, and someone to watch over him.
‘That’s a kind offer, sir.’
‘But a useless one?’
‘Not exactly. More . . .’
He sighs.
We walk downhill together.
My temper holds as long as it takes us to reach the gate.
Franc’s there all right, a knife in the dirt at her feet for easy reach, her rifle ported across her chest. She’s crouched low and watching the treeline intently. Hearing steps, she spins round to see me. It’s not Colonel Vijay’s presence that knocks the grin from her face. My scowl is enough.
‘What’s that?’
I know what it is. It’s a fucking Kemzin 19 pulse rifle leaning against a wall.
A pair of boots sits below it. They are rotten with sweat and bloody round the ankle. But all our boots are rotten with sweat and bloody round the ankle. What gives these ones away is the fact they’re clean. Only Shil washes her boots each evening.
‘Tell me she didn’t . . .’
‘Sir,’ says Franc. I take that to mean she did.
‘How long ago?’ asks Colonel Vijay.
Don’t know why he’s asking. Each watch lasts two hours. If we’re here and her rifle’s there, then it’s two hours exactly. Unless she hung around first talking to Franc. And there are reasons why that is unlikely.