“Why are you laughing?” Juni finally asked.
That just made them laugh again, loud and long, even Burgos gasping a few bitter snorts, Johansen himself feeling the darkness inside, the certainty of doom which only dark, irrational humor could keep at bay. He noticed that Singh had stopped laughing, though, and was gazing thoughtfully out the window. “What’s up?”
“They’re listening,” Singh commented as the last chuckles died away. “You could tell they were listening to us laugh, and watching us. Do the Izkop understand human laughter?” he asked Ariana.
“Yes,” she said, hurrying to look out the window beside the sergeant. “They have a capacity for mirth that seems similar to our own, though I don’t understand any of their jokes. I can’t tell from here how they’re reacting to your laughter. Their facial muscles don’t show emotions in the same ways ours do, so it wouldn’t be easy even if we were closer.” Ariana sat back, her eyes now on the soldiers. “That display. It’s meant to impress. To frighten enemies. But you all laughed.”
“Is that going to make them mad?” Adowa asked sarcastically.
“There’s an Izkop phrase that I think translates as ‘greeting death with smiles.’ They use it in their legends, to describe heroes.” Ariana took another cautious look outside. “See those Izkop gathered together, the ones with the tattoos and decorations? Those are leaders. They’re talking, and I’m sure it’s about you laughing when they expected you to be overawed.”
“Let’s give them something else to talk about,” Nassar suggested, hefting the buzz-saw. “Hey!” he called. “Whenever you’re ready! Come and get it!”
“Quiet,” Singh ordered. “Ma’am, do you know them well enough to see if they’ll talk to you? Maybe arrange a truce or something?”
Ariana hesitated. “I don’t know if they’ll—what did they do at Amity? To… everyone else? Did they just kill them or… ?”
Singh pressed his lips together before answering. “The dead we saw were lying face up, cut open from chest to groin, their guts spread out around them. We saw the Izkop doing the same thing to dead soldiers on other parts of the field while we were shooting our way out.”
Ariana looked ill, her body shaking. “Why… ? Sergeant, I… I…”
“That’s okay. If you can’t stand dealing with them now—”
She held up one hand, palm out, her voice steadying even though she seemed to be fighting off nausea. “I have to. For everyone’s sake. If they’ll listen. But I don’t know why they—I’ll call to them from here.” Ariana visibly braced herself, then stood up, looking out the window, and called out some words in another language, her voice straining over glottal stops and other sounds.
The Izkop leaders ignored her, continuing their conference, then abruptly gesturing and calling out commands. With eerie synchronization the entire force of Izkop began stepping back, slowly retreating with their faces to the humans. They kept going until at least a kilometer distant, then the formations broke and the Izkop seemed to melt into the landscape.
“What the hell happened?” Goldera asked. “Not that I’m complaining, but why didn’t they kill us just then?”
Singh rubbed his chin, then looked at Ariana. “Because we laughed at them?”
“Yes, but they stayed in threat posture,” she responded. “And they ignored my attempts to talk to them. I’m not… oh… the ‘peace of the warrior before death.’ That’s what it means.”
“So they’ll hit us later?”
“Yes.” Ariana sagged, her face in her hands. “It’s a mark of respect, not a reprieve. There’s no set period for the peace that I could determine.”
The sergeant nodded calmly. “At least it’s obvious they know we’re here. Two on watch at all times,” he ordered the soldiers, “the rest get to work fortifying and blockading all the windows and doors as best we can. Don’t worry any more about keeping the barricading concealed from the outside. If the Izkop haven’t hit us by the time we’re done with that, those off-watch will rest so we’ll be ready to keep two sentries on at a time all night.”
“What about us?” Ariana asked.
“Look after those kids and keep them quiet, ma’am. It’d be a big help if you all also took care of meals for everyone.”
The peace before death had lasted all day. Now, long after sunset, Johansen sat near one window, searching the outside for any signs of Izkop. On the other side of the room, Stein stood sentry at another window. No lights showed inside or out, and the stars and three small moons of this world provided very little illumination.
Johansen had learned that you found out a lot when sitting silently on sentry duty at night. No human noises around, just you and the quiet broken only by the night sounds of whatever place you were in. Listening and watching, you could hear and feel the rhythm of the creatures and the land. And once you knew that rhythm, you could tell when something was disturbing it.
Of course, without the colors and noises and activity of the day to act as distractions, ghosts came at night, too. Johansen tried to ignore the phantoms brought to life by his memories, but still the ghosts sometimes appeared in the stillness of the night.
Ariana came out of the back, hesitated, then came to sit on the floor near Johansen, her back to the wall, hugging herself.
Johansen watched her for a moment before speaking. “You okay?”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “You mean for someone expecting to die very soon?”
“Yeah.” Their voices were barely murmurs, just loud enough for the other to hear.
“No. I’m not okay.” Ariana clenched her eyes shut in anger. “Why? I know what’s happened, but I don’t know why. It’s my job to try to understand the way others think. Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to understand why my husband died and why I’m going to die and why those children have to die?”
Johansen ran one hand down his weapon, concentrating on the curves and edges of it under his palm. “People always die sooner or later. Why do any of us have to die?”
“I’m not talking about philosophy.”
“Neither am I.” Johansen gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve seen a lot of people die. Most of the time, I couldn’t tell you why they died. Especially I couldn’t tell you why they died and not me.”
She returned a curious look. “Most of the time? Meaning sometimes you could tell why they died?”
“Sure. Sometimes they died because I shot them.”
After a long moment, Ariana spoke slowly. “That was a joke?”
“Yeah,” Johansen said. “Soldier humor. Some of it’s pretty dark, but you either joke about it or let it give you nightmares. Sometimes both.”
“Greeting death with a smile?”
“Yeah. It’s nuts, but it keeps us going.”
She studied him, shaking her head. “You see, I never understood that greeting death with a smile phrase. What did it mean? None of the other humans here I talked to could understand it, either. They blew it off as some kind of symbolism. I thought it must be an Izkop way of thinking, embracing death under certain circumstances. But you showed it. You and the others, and none of you want to die. Now, I think maybe I understand a little. It’s not about welcoming death, it’s more about laughing at death to push fear aside.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right. No soldiers here, huh?”
“No. We’re all researchers.” Ariana looked down. “What Scorse said, about soldiers being…”
“Low-class creatures with limited intellect?” Johansen asked, grinning at her reaction. “That’s something Sergeant Singh calls us sometimes. But only when he’s unhappy with us. One of the things you learn as a soldier, though, is that everybody’s got some experience, some way of thinking that might be useful. Most people, anyway. I’ve met a few who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, but only a few. You need all kinds. I’ve been around enough to know that everything can’t be solved with firepower. Right now, I guess that’s all we’ve got, but I wouldn’t mind some other options. At least there’s something we can do. I don’t know what it’s like for you and the other civilians.”