“You’re here a-learn what this pipe does!” de Groot cries out, though everyone else is quiet. He clamps his teeth with a click, levels his shoulders, and thrusts out his jaw. “Trekboers protect what’s ours.” His dialect is different from Teal’s, but then, he’s trying to speak English. To my ear, he’s easier to understand.
Gamecock approaches him. “You were willing to murder us,” he says. “That could explain our general lack of courtesy, don’t you think?”
“No such!” de Groot says, but in a lower voice. “We have little to share and no kindness on principle.”
“Leave that be,” Gamecock says. “Captain Coyle tells me you have information that could go a long way to patching up our differences. If we can establish mutual trust… for now.”
De Groot sniffs. “This is our pipe,” he says. “Our station. We keep it under hold, patch and drain it, waiting, a-hope of return and mining. And living! But you can understand, we do not want its quality a-shouted any who listen. Strange ears, out on the dust!”
“We can agree on that,” Gamecock says.
The old Voor turns to Teal. His face sharpens and his lips purse as if he is about to spit. “You are the hoer,” he says. “Do you know this one?” he shouts to all of us, advancing until he sees the sisters and Gamecock have palmed their sidearms. Then he nods like a dip bird and backs off a step. “She betrayed her camp, and now she betrays all us. None should be here! This is our salvation, our hope. We follow her, a-stop her betrayal.” He flings his arms at the heavy dark space. But then his bluster fades, he seems to deflate a little, and he nods at Rafe, the big fellow, who steps forward.
“We come from bad news,” the broad-shouldered young Voor says softly. “Piet Retief Kraal and the Swellendam Pipe have been destroyed. The Far Comers have not bothered with us until now, but our legerplaatze are silent. And this woman’s camp—silent a-well. It may be all were murdered by ice, rocks.”
“The comet took out a settlement?” Gamecock asks.
“All we had, gone,” Rafe confirms, sensing, hoping for a turn of sympathies. Shaun and Andres, both young and light-haired, lean against each other. Andres is shaking.
“We think,” de Groot says, watching this emotion with gimlet eyes. “Same compass. No radio after. Shock nearly scrubbed our wagons. Our brothers wanted a-look, but I am hard man, we go on. If the leger is there, it is there. If it is gone… But the others, they disagree. They take a wagon and leave.”
“The ranch wife saved you,” Coyle says in a wondering undertone.
“Hoer has luck a-get out in just time,” de Groot counters. His voice rises for effect, and he thrusts out his bound hands. “She knew. She’s glove with the Far Comers!”
Our tall rescuer has frozen in place, face screwed up and drained of color. “T’at’s a lie,” she says very softly.
Rafe continues, “As vader says, what’s done is out. We have a-decide new all soon, friend or foe, or we’re over. We are finished, dood.”
By which he means, I assume, we are dead.
“Now all listen,” de Groot resumes, building up again, able to inflate and deflate apparently at will. He folds his twisty-tied hands in front of his crotch, lowers his head, gazes up at us under his brows. “This pipe is hope, but only if we fix and restore. And here the hoer could help, if she tells what she knows—and trims time so doing.”
Gamecock has been listening without comment until now, but he quickly arranges us to block the Voors just as they move forward, despite their plastic shackles, to begin these labors.
“You are not in command here, sir,” he reminds de Groot in a confidential voice.
“It’s our pipe, damn!” the Voor named Shaun cries, and the others bristle, but de Groot shushes them, waves them down with his hands like a conductor with an orchestra. I swear that Rafe is just waiting for a chance to make a stupid move. Tak and I instinctively take a couple of steps left and right to flank him. He’s big. They would all die, but maybe that’s good enough for their pride under the circumstances—who can say? Humans are invariably wild animals. We learn that early in boot. I doubt it’s any different on Mars.
“Do you know our history, this place?” de Groot asks. “Where we are, where we stand, where we suffered and suffer now?”
“We’ve left you alone,” Gamecock says. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“We stand in fear of soldiers taking all, and now—she brings you!” De Groot tries to jab a knobby finger at Teal, who narrows her eyes. The Voors are bound—she is not. I suppose that’s a telling point.
“Where in hell are we, Venn?” Gamecock asks me, aside. “What is this place?”
“We could tell,” de Groot says.
Gamecock looks between us, concentrates on me. “What have you learned?”
“Far from all I’d like to know, sir. This woman’s father told her this mine, Drifter, pipe—whatever—was a place where she could retreat if things got bad at her camp. Apparently, they did.”
“How?” Gamecock asks Teal.
“Long story,” she says, swallowing hard, eyes still tracking the Voors.
Gamecock looks back at me. “Venn, what the hell is all this about?”
“The settlements, towns, laagers, whatever they call them—have had it rough, Colonel. They’ve managed to explore and build camps, but I think their population hasn’t grown much.”
“Hard times!” de Groot says. “Hardest for Voors!”
“You fight for what isna yours!” Teal cries, her brittle restraint snapping. “You raid and kill and t’ieve!” Gamecock is losing control of the discourse, but at least there’s information emerging, of a kind. He looks at me to indicate he will interrupt if passions overflow, or if the talk is not useful.
I stand aside.
“We were told by her station, this hoer has left, she is angry, she is going a-our pipe,” de Groot says.
Teal looks down. “Na such,” she murmurs.
“Her vader, he was an engineer,” Rafe says. “He left the Trekboers long past. Went a-Green Camp.”
“Lost the Trekboer way,” de Groot adds firmly.
“You killed his wife!” Teal says, eyes up, accusing.
“At Green he lost his wife again!” de Groot says. “Man is good at losing wives.”
“How many camps know about this place?” Gamecock breaks in.
“Just Voors and Green Camp,” Teal says defiantly. “Te Voors killed most te Algerians.”
“Not such,” de Groot says. He’s about to add something, but, looking around at all the brown faces, his Adam’s apple bobs and he clamps his jaw.
“My fat’er told na else but me, and t’en Ally Pecqua took my intended and made him her own.” An old story. Teal is intent on saying more, letting out her frustration. “Among te Rationals, wit’out a husband, I am a burden.”
De Groot snorts. “Among Voors, women are value.”
“White women,” Teal says.
Our sisters study the Voors closely, eyes narrowed to slits. Rafe notices and nudges his father, who looks around, less smug but no less defiant.
“They were fools, but we partner,” de Groot concludes with a deep sniff up his long nose.
Gamecock listens with a serious and sympathetic expression. To Teal, he says, “Your father told you how to get around this place, where to find food and resources.”