Statistically our losses had been light; in human terms, tragic. The only thing worse than a battle won is a battle lost. I returned to the Surveillance Center exhausted and depressed. Judith was monitoring activities throughout the Pen and issuing instructions with her usual competence. “Barbara wants to see you,” she said, without looking up from the displays.
“Everybody wants to see me!” I snarled.
“Barbara deserves to. She’s waiting for you to praise her heroics.”
“Heroics—hell! She did one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”
“Then go and tell her so! She’s brooding somewhere in that wilderness of an orchard. Go and give her a pat on the back!”
“I’ll go and give her a pat on the ass!”
Barbara too was suffering from post-combat depression, and she greeted me with a scowl when she saw me coming through the underbrush. “Well, we’ve won! So what now?”
“We’ve grabbed the Pen. I don’t know how long we’ll hold it!” I subsided onto the bench where Judith and I had once pretended love and plotted escape.
“Not long if you sit here drooping while the other oldsters argue whether to praise the Light or mount the launchers!”
“Things are under control at last! Chuck’s singing some kind of Te Deum on the roof. Enoch’s got the tunnel clear and the gates locked, Martha’s searching containers for weapons, and Judy’s issuing orders.” I turned to face her. “Barb—today you showed more guts than I’ve ever seen.”
Her scowl changed to a suspicious stare. Her stare blossomed into the smile that converts a girl to a goddess. Then she flung her arms around me.
I replied with an avuncular hug. “You saved the Pen when you saved those women.”
“I did it for you!” Her hand was stroking the back of my neck. She tipped up her face, eyes closed, mouth half open, lips moist.
I kissed her gently.
She responded by pushing her tongue into my mouth.
I tried to ease back; she pulled me forward. I had not planned on carrying congratulations this far; she wanted them to go all the way. She nibbled my ear. “Gav—I’ve waited so long for you to say something nice to me.”
“You’ve what?” I tried to sit up.
She pulled me down. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you! I told Judy so. She said you were a sweet guy. But you weren’t sweet to me. Gav—why were you so hostile?”
“Hostile? Me? Barb—I’ve always admired you.”
“Then why didn’t you show it? Why were you so fond of putting me down?”
“Me putting you down?” But this was no time to argue. “I guess I was afraid.” Afraid of what Judith might say or Enoch might do. She was a broadminded woman; he was a broadminded man. But breadth of mind and acute jealousy coexist in the best of women. And few fathers are broadminded about their daughters. “Better your dog than your daughter!” as Gramps used to say. I fell back on my old defense line. “I couldn’t trust myself!”
“You were afraid of being carried away?”
I nodded and kissed her.
She raised her head and studied my face. “Gav, why am I so worked up all of a sudden? I don’t usually get homy this easily. And why are you?”
“Post-combat heat!” I muttered, trying to cool my own. “Fear—rage—guilt—desire. Classical sequence. Kill the men and rape the women. Now women are joining the action—” “So that’s it!” She slid her hand inside my shirt. “Never felt this hot before!” She might never have felt the heat herself but she certainly knew how to raise mine.
Her hands were below my belt and mine were on her breasts when my com pinged. I cursed but continued to explore. Her fingers froze. “Gav—you’d better answer. You’re still in command of this show, and that may be important.” Reluctantly I took my right hand from her left breast and eased the com from my belt. It was Midge. “Mister Gavin— Jehu and Margaret and some of the others are going to that Coast Guard cutter. They’re ashore on the Needles and with the swell rising she’s starting to pound. She’ll have broken up by morning. We’d like to rescue the sailors and marines, if that’s okay by you?”
“It’s okay if you’re armed and they’re not when you take them aboard. And keep them standing out on the foredeck after you’ve pulled them from the drink.” 1 shivered as Barbara’s fingers started moving again.
“I can’t find Barb. So me and Sam are going to take Sea Eagle."
Her hands left me abruptly.
“Stand by, Midge!” I looked at Barbara. “What’s up?”
“Tell her you’ll find me. And tell her to wait!’ She was on her feet, tugging up her slacks. “Eagle's my boat. I’ll take her out!”
I nodded, frustration tempered with relief. “Midge—hold it! I’ll get a message to Barbara. You’d better wait for her!”
“Okay. But tell her to move it! We’ve got to reach that cutter before dark.”
“She’ll get the signal!” She had already got it And so had I. Her infatuation with her boat was a love exceeding the love of men.
She tucked in her blouse and kissed me. “We’ll have our victory orgy later!” Then she was away, jumping over the low bushes and the trailing vines, disappearing into the wilderness of the orchard.
I composed myself and my clothes and went slowly back to the Surveillance Center, distributing encouragement and advice to those Believers I met. Judith was still busy watching her displays.
“I congratulated Barbara,” I said.
“So I saw!”
“Christ! Is that camera still working? Listen Judy—”
“I listened too!” She swung round to face me. She was laughing. “Saved by the ping!” She moved toward me. “What’s this line of yours about post-combat lust? I knew I felt something; I wasn’t sure what.”
“Judy, I didn’t mean—”
She caught my arm. “Let’s use my old cell. I left it empty especially for us!”
Epilogue
Within two years the Settlement had moved back to Sutton Cove, leaving a rotating squad with launchers to protect the riches of the Pen and taking with us sufficient weaponry to hold off an armored brigade. By then the nearest thing to any kind of army in the northeast was a few companies of the National Guard, behaving more like bandits than soldiers. They left us alone, following Gramps’ old dictum that it is safer to shear sheep than spear Wolves.
Barbara and I never enjoyed our victory orgy. For the first few days we were too busy sorting out prisoners, settling in the rescued women, and preparing to defend the Pen against an attack which never came. Once all that was done we found that our mutual fascination had faded with our postcombat heat, and Barbara had developed other interests.
As soon as the Pen was secure, Chairman Yackle broadcast the news of its capture on the inter-Settlement radio network, and thereafter our boats spent more time picking up refugees from overrun Settlements and escapees from “reeducation centers” than they did in fishing. Among the reasons for our eventual return to Sutton Cove was the population explosion which resulted as more and more Believers managed to reach us.
A month after Yackle spread the news that we held the Pen, Barbara’s mysterious sister appeared literally out of the blue, flying a chopper, and whisked the kid off to some unknown but exciting future. After an evening talking with her sister, Barbara transferred her infatuation from boats to choppers, leaving Sea Eagle to Sam, much as she left me to Judith. Enoch looked sad for a while but had already resigned himself to losing his daughter, sooner or later. “She’s got too much of her grandma in her to ever settle down to a quiet life like the rest of us.”