Janna turned to move toward the food line. Boris stood and touched her wrist. She turned and looked at him quizzically. With a gesture, he indicated she was to sit. Anger flashed in her eyes, but Bethany Anne shook her head minutely from behind Boris.
Janna nodded and sat down in the chair next to where Boris had been seated. Boris walked to the food line to get her a tray as piled with food as his had been. Bethany Anne looked at her and said. “Let him care for you. It will ease his guilt.” With a wry smile, she said, “If he hadn’t offered, I would have been tempted to slap him into next week.”
Janna looked at her curiously. “Are you not worried about inappropriate fraternization amongst your followers?”
Bethany Anne answered, with a stern expression on her face, “Yes, I am. There isn’t enough of it happening!” Janna’s shock showed clearly, and Bethany Anne’s expression relaxed.
“Have fun, TOM will tell me when you are finished. I’ll come back to take you to the Pod Doc. I have no possible objections to anything in that direction that could happen between you and Boris. If they seem to be heading the other way… give me some warning.” A small smile graced her face as she waved and headed out the mess door.
Dan made his excuses to Janna and left her to face Boris alone, in a room full of strangers, and with no place to hide.
Boris walked back to the table with the tray and carefully slid it in front of her. He put a cup of water next to it. Meanwhile, she was thinking about what Bethany Anne had said.
She had effectively been told that whatever happened with Boris, as long as it didn’t upset what needed to happen, was allowed. It was a paradigm shift for someone who had faced rigid military rules from the age of sixteen.
Janna had faked her age to sign up after passing the aptitude tests. She still struggled to admit that she was twenty-five, not twenty-seven at times. Even though the initial success of that deception had gained her admittance to both officer and intelligence training.
She wondered how young, how immature she must seem to Boris. Bethany Anne had only told her that he was over four hundred years old. Then she had casually, but painfully, admitted that her love had been over a thousand, while she was in her thirties.
Once Janna had taken a few bites, she paused to find Boris staring at her. “What is it?”
“Your hair, Janna. It has taken on a hint of red. I was just admiring the color,” he replied calmly. The calm was fractured by a sudden and bright blush, kicking off an eruption of embarrassed laughter from him. The sound of his amusement boomed through the mess hall causing many to turn and stare.
“You actually must be recovering. You blush easily,” he said with what she thought was a twinkle in his eye.
Janna returned that look with a challenging expression. “Since we have some luxury of time at this moment, how about we share stories of our pasts, Old Bear.”
“As you wish, Cub. What do you want to know?” She winced slightly, not wishing him to think of her as a child.
“How old are you?”she soldiered on through her concerns.
Boris stroked his beard, thoughtfully. “I honestly am not sure. The earliest date I clearly know is the year I challenged Michael. That makes me more than four hundred. Before he exiled me to Siberia, I had jobs, service in the Cossack hosts and other places, but no real interest in the year. I wanted to be doing things, active things. I didn’t even learn to read until my exile because it was so sedentary. Now, of course, I am literate in at least eight languages. My turn. What was your life like before you joined the army?”
Her eyes went hooded as if some dark memory clouded them. “I do not talk of my life with family. They abandoned me to the streets when I was eight. I saw much suffering, but was a great reader, even back then, and the librarians took care of me when they were able. I was always in the library, learning, safe and warm. I suspect that they felt pity. It was not until I applied to join the army that I sat for my first test. I have a great memory, so I found it easy. My turn. How many wars have you been in?”
It was time for Boris’s face to darken. “Too many. So many of the wars, when I was younger, had no real purpose. Sometimes to the aggrandizement of one man or another. Others were squabbles over who controlled this section or that of land. Perhaps over who’s invisible friend was real. There were few wars I fought in, looking back, that truly had a justification. The Great Patriotic War. Driving Napoleon back. Fighting the Reds and the Blacks. They were all good wars and battles. Fighting for a cause worth all the loss, even if we failed. The rest…” he just shook his head in sorrow. “How did you end up in intelligence?”
“When I enlisted I had lied about my age. I made it through all the training, wanting to serve as a soldier. It was a better life than on the streets. Then I was assigned to a unit that my uncle commanded. He was suspicious that we might be related and ordered a private DNA test, not wanting to compromise either his group or his career. This showed that we were close relatives, and he knew of only one missing female relative within five years of my claimed age. He was aware that my age was younger than I had told them.”
She shrugged, remembering the time, “He reported it, and the GRU gave me a choice. Take officer training and transfer to where I obviously had skills or be court marshaled and end up destitute. I had lived destitute before, I told them. Growing up on the streets, learning what I could from the library. That floored them. My test results were extraordinary. My uncle confirmed that I had been missing from the age of eight as did many records. At that point, they stopped using threats to make me join. I had skills that could aid the country better than as a common soldier, they said. I eventually accepted.”
“Let this be enough questions for now, Janna. Come now, you must eat.” Smiling inside, Janna dutifully obeyed. After all, she was famished.
And she had finally started to learn more about his past.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Command Container, Russia
Janna had gone from her previous condition to still slightly underweight, but far healthier in the last three days. The biggest improvement had come from her time in the pod after she had eaten three heaped trays of food. Boris had continued to regale her with stories from his past while she ate.
His stories only increased her respect for him.
After Janna’s time in the pod was done, Boris had been put in to reduce the risk to others from his blood. While he was in the medipod, John ran her through a testing regimen, to make sure that she was fit, despite TOM and ADAM’s assurances. Most of that had been simple sparring, but at the end of the session he finally convinced her to spar as hard as she was capable. John was pleased to confirm her strength was back.
Janna still wasn’t actually convinced she had been changed since there was no difference in the way she felt. Perhaps her emotions tilted towards annoyance and frustration more quickly, but that could be because she was not used to inactivity. She realized she did not feel any weaker than before the incident, but also didn’t feel like an animal or anything unusual. No longer looking like a starveling, there did not seem any reason that she should be prevented from at least participating in the ambushes with the rest of her team.
“Why can’t I come with you on this assault? TOM, ADAM, and John all declared me fit. I mean John took me out in training, but he does that to everyone except Gabrielle and Bethany Anne.” Janna was furious. It seemed that her hair color wasn’t all that had changed. Her temper had as well. Rather than the pale platinum blonde she had been born with her hair was now a deep strawberry blonde.