Vee-Def comes close to me, grinning at whatever he is about to blurt. He bumps helms. “Vast!” he intones. “Fremen warriors! Vast!” At my recoil and grimace, he shouts, “Duncan Idaho, right?”
Neemie and Michelin ignore him. I doubt Vee-Def reads much, he’s probably quoting one of the many movie versions. Never a drop of rain on Mars. Snow, yes, but never rain.
The fabric around my wrist finally dimples. The airlock is pressurizing. Our ears feel it next. Teal opens the opposite hatch. A tiny, dim light flicks on out there somewhere. It looks far away.
“Batteries on. Might still be good. If I don’t pass out, join me?” She pops her faceplate. She doesn’t pass out.
The dimple around my wrist gets deeper—we’re surrounded by maybe two-thirds of a bar. Then she cracks open the hatch we just passed through and air rushes by, filling the garage.
“Go ahead,” she says, once the wind subsides, and peels out of her own suit. In a few minutes, we’re all naked. The relief is amazing. I do not want to ever put on a skintight again. Slumped and rumpled on the deck, our suits stink, but the air seems good, even fresh—not a bit stale.
Not that I’m paying much attention to the air. The ranch wife wears only squared-off panties. I cannot help myself. My God, she is amazing. I never knew a woman could be that tall, that slender, that spidery, and still be so beautiful. Even the general ogles her with a pained grin and asks us to remove his helm.
She doesn’t seem to notice; possibly doesn’t care. We’re not part of her tribe. We’re not Muskies.
Why bring us here? What use could we be?
And what the fuck is this place?
WHAT THE LOCALS RECOMMEND
We have ready access to the garage, and as little star lights flick on in the high ceiling we start to inventory supplies on the bus—Teal’s buggy—and on the older vehicles, which it turns out are already pretty stripped down.
Then Teal wanders off, leaving us in the dim glow. She returns a few minutes later wearing dark green overalls—ill-fitting, made for a shorter individual, worn through at knees and elbows, but more decorous than near nudity. Draped over her forearm is a stack of similar clothing. She tosses it to the floor. As I pick one out of the pile and give it a shake, my fingers rub away green dust. I bend over and swipe the compacted floor with my palm, bringing away the same dust, along with a few grains of grit.
“Algae?” I ask nobody in particular. DJ and Vee-Def are scratching and trying to make their overalls fit.
Teal kneels beside the general and gives him more water. “Can you talk?” she asks him gently.
For the moment, his delirium has passed and his English has returned. “Must tell them soon,” he murmurs. “Looking for this. Looking for just this.” The general settles back, closes his eyes. Teal scowls in concern. She glances my way, aware I’ve caught her lapse. Her face goes bland.
Tak and Kazak squat behind the general, taking it all in. Gamecock is probably waiting for the right moment to suggest to our hostess that careful, thorough recon might be a fine idea. He does not like the shadows. Nor do any of us.
The ranch wife seems to be deciding who our leader might be. She focuses on Tak—of course. I’m used to that. He and I have been on liberty together from Tacoma to Tenerife. Women always look his way first.
Tak, with a dignified nod, directs her to Gamecock.
“My name is Teal,” she says to the colonel. “Nick for Tealullah Mackenzie Green.”
Gamecock introduces himself as Lieutenant Colonel Harold Roost. After him, we all divulge our proper names and ranks—all but the general, who has drifted off again. Tak gives him another dose of morphine. Teal warns him, that’s it, no more. Although I’m wondering if she prefers that the general would simply fade away…
“T’ere a much trouble here,” Teal says as we rearrange, like kids around a campfire. She becomes the center of our attention, but we might be a pack of dogs, she might be talking to us just to relieve boredom, for all the emotion we seem to arouse. “We stay away a trouble, but now it comes a-doorstep, right a T’ird Town, my Green Camp.”
“There’s more than one town nearby?” Gamecock asks.
She doesn’t answer this, but keeps talking, eyes over our heads, searching the darkness and stone. “I come here until te bad time passes.”
“Bad time,” the general says. Perversely, the morphine seems to perk him up. Maybe he drifts off to escape the pain.
“ST’ere a battle coming?” Teal asks Gamecock.
“We’re stragglers from a bad drop,” he says. “Waiting to regroup.”
“So t’ere wor more…” She nods slowly. “Many?”
Gamecock lifts his lips, adds nothing.
“I figured,” Teal says. “From te buggy, while heading sout’east… Kep rolling by broken ships, buggies, abodes—tents—bodies across te flat. Hundreds.”
“Human?” Gamecock asks.
“Hard a know.” She throws out her hands. “Couldna stop. I had a make speed a get here.”
The general struggles to sit up. His eyes are bright, feverish. “Knew about this. Looking! Long time past,” he says, “big strike. Big as a moon. Ice and stone metal core. Heat of impact tremendous, but shove ice deep, superheat steam, blow out… Biggest basin! Chunks not mix.”
Teal watches him with a veiled glare, as if he is a snake trying to bite. She gently pushes him back down, then changes the subject. “Tell what you can, what a-happening a t’ere,” she says to Gamecock.
“Major effort,” Gamecock says. “Troops and supplies, survey parties.”
“Robots?” she asks.
He shakes his head.
“Why na robots? Why people? Far Ot’ers supposed a be smart, from anot’er star, right?”
We’ve asked ourselves that same question. Same reason, I suppose, that robot football never caught on. Real bones, real snaps.
“Robots can’t replace a Skyrine,” Gamecock says.
Teal sniffs disdain. “Figure t’at out, save yourselves.”
“Where’s the fun?” Michelin says. “Life is being there.”
“Deat’ S’a never going home,” Teal responds. Death’s never going home. Right. She crouches again by the general, checks his neck pulse; her knees show through holes in the jumpsuit. Fascinating knees. “We stay ouT way. We’d like a know how long ’twill last.”
The general’s eyes flutter. “Hard battle coming.”
Gamecock’s face is stony, but I suspect he’s still trying to figure out what he can say in front of this noncombatant, whether we need to commandeer her supplies, her vehicle… everything in these caverns.
It’s Tak who speaks next, maybe out of turn, but what the hell. We owe our lives to her. “We dropped without tactical,” he says. Gamecock swivels on his ankles to face him, brow wrinkled. “No complete update. We’re pretty ignorant.”
“I know,” the general says, voice weak. “I tell more. But she must not listen,” he says, staring at Teal.
Without a word, Teal rises and walks toward the darkness where she retrieved the jumpsuits. “Let me know when you’re done,” she calls.