"Having only air for food, They gave us poison to breathe Even those who had never harmed them Even those who would have helped them Even those who were only children Even those who were very like them.
"Holding a piece of their own world, I survived Breathing through their own soil, I lived I could not save anybody, not even all of myself. They did not help anybody, not even themselves. They died, as those around me died, and the Food, and the medicine were taken back. In the station, people choked and died On the planet, people starved and died When captured, the killers bled and died I was sent here to die, too, here where the snows live, The waters live, the animals and the trees live, And you."
Chapter 7
Bunny knocked on Yana's door early the next morning. "I'm heading out to SpaceBase. Can you come now?" Yana had had very little sleep, between the ride out to the hot springs and back, and staying up late to record the poem. That had stimulated her far beyond her expectations; she had been unable to rest, kicking herself for not confronting Sean Shongili last night when it would have made sense. Now, except for a lingering twitchy nervousness, the encounter seemed hard to believe. She was both glad and sorry that he lived so far away: glad because she would not have to face him; sorry because there would be no chance meetings, no possibility of seeing him unless one of them deliberately sought the other one out.
What the hell! She had better things to do. She hauled herself out of her bunk and pulled on a uniform blouse that still bore insignia. She hadn't removed her rank from her fatigue jacket yet either, and she slipped it on under her parka.
"Are you feeling better this morning?" Bunny asked owlishly as they set out down the river.
"As opposed to what?" Yana snapped.
Bunny didn't seem offended; she just smiled and said, "Well, you were so upset over that Giancarlo making you burn the fish and then…"
"When you left me, I was doing fine, wasn't 1? Was that supposed to change?"
Bunny glanced away from the river road and over at her, then back again. She looked disappointed.
Yana heaved a sigh and leaned back in the seat. She would have preferred to sleep until they reached SpaceBase. "I'd like to know who it is who's keeping a log of my activities and guests- then I could set the record straight when necessary. I'd hate for the whole village to be wrong about something. And that cough medicine of Clodagh's should be a controlled substance, by the way."
"He really likes you, Yana," Bunny said.
"Buneka, I'm not going to discuss this with you," Yana said firmly, settling herself and closing her eyes. After a few moments of not sleeping, she asked, "He hasn't always been by himself, has he?"
"Sean? Oh no, he used to have lots of girlfriends when he was traveling around the world. He almost married Charlie Demintieff's sister Ruby once, but she changed her mind at the last minute and married a guy from Baffin Point instead. How about you? Lots of old boyfriends?"
"Bunny!"
"Well, but have you had? We know all that stuff about each other."
"I've had a few boyfriends, I guess you could call them, yes."
"Anybody serious?"
"My husband," Yana said shortly, not wanting to dig into her memories of Bry so soon after talking about Bremport. Couldn't these damn people leave anything alone? And why did she feel like she had to answer anyway? "He died," she said shortly.
"At Bremport?" Bunny asked almost reverently.
"No. Not at Bremport. Ten years ago. During a shuttle malfunction. Bunny, 1 really don't want to talk about it. Now then, what was the name of Diego's friend again?"
As Yana suspected, entering the base from the outside was different from being inprocessed through the cattle chutes. In places like this, with little of intrinsic value on the premises-by Intergal standards anyway-personnel were bored and security was lax.
"Whew, this is a hard, ugly-looking place," Yana said to Bunny as they pulled up to the gate.
Bunny's mitten described an arc around the perimeter. "There used to be lots of little businesses around here: bars, pleasure places, shops for the soldiers. Sometimes they'd bring in extra equipment that wasn't actually needed and trade it for something to send to families on other colonies or stations. But about a year ago, that all stopped and the company had the whole corridor bulldozed and you had to be a soldier or have a pass to come onto the base. We found out later about Bremport." She shrugged. "The elders were glad when the base closed. They said the soldiers were corrupting us, but heck, half of them were from here anyway, and related to us, so when their families were allowed out here, lots of us could go into the shops and buy cloth and other stuff that never makes it out to our store."
Yana's parka was uniform issue, and she opened it to let her rank show as they passed the gate guard, who nodded at Bunny's ID and saluted Yana. The guard hut was a small "instant" building of composite material in a pale pastel. In the lights of the base- and the entire base was so strongly lit that Yana wondered that they couldn't see the lights clear from Kilcoole-she noticed that the buildings all had some sort of a pastel tint: anemic pink, bilious green, jaundiced yellow. All of the colors were watered down with the familiar omnipresent gray, so that the squat, rectangular buildings merely stood out in ugly relief from the snowy surroundings but achieved nothing so frivolous as beauty or gaiety. The buildings were set in precise rows, down which the arctic wind roared. Beyond the hunkering buildings, abandoned launch gantries towered awkwardly, swaying in the wind like the writhing legs of dying insects.
Bunny pulled up to a building much like the others except that it bore a letter and a number-C-1000. "There's my fare," she said between closed teeth, then jumped out, ran around to hold the door open for Yana, and said with a large obsequious smile, "I thank you for your patronage, dama. Please remember to ask that Rourke be sent for when you wish to return to our village again."
"Don't overdo it," Yana growled between her teeth and in a louder voice said, "Could you direct me, Rourke, to the infirmary and the communications depot?"
Bunny's fare, in the usual anonymous company parka and muffler up to the eyes, walked around the front of the snocle and squinted at Yana.
"Major Maddock? Yanaba Maddock?" he asked.
Startled to be recognized so soon after arriving on the base, she counted to three and turned slowly to face the man, raising a rapidly icing eyebrow. "Yes?"
The man pressed his padding against her padding and gave her a stiff hug. "With all due respect, Major, I thought I'd never see you again. When I heard you were on Bremport…" He was struggling to unwrap his scarf and hood from his face.
"Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated, as the man said," she told him. By then, he had pulled the hood back to reveal the longer-than-regulation bronze hair and smiling brown eyes she recognized from her days with the survey teams. "Torkel!" she said.
"Small universe, eh?" It was a very tired but often true spacer's joke.
"What are you doing on Petaybee?" she asked.
"I was wondering that myself until I met you. Can I buy you a cup of something hot?"
"Sir…" Bunny began.
"I'll make it worth your while to-uh, cool your heels, Rourke. Shouldn't be too hard around here."
"Yes, Captain," Bunny said. Then she spoke more boldly, surprising Yana. "Sir, would it be possible for me to go see Diego? I mean, I just thought-"
"Good idea," Torkel said. "A pretty girl his own age ought to cheer him up some. Building ten-oh-six. If anybody questions you, tell them I authorized it."