Jem

Colonel Tree said, “One does not refuse an ally, Marge. But the Greasies would eat these jokers up.”

“So what is he saying exactly, Dimitrova? That he’ll tell all his Crawly friends to attack the Greasy camp if we want them to?”

“Something like that, yes. What he says,” she added, “is not always easy to understand, Colonel Me

Me

“Must one be well for that?” Ana flared. “I am sick in my heart from talk of killing, and from killing itself! It is a wicked insanity to kill when so few persons are still alive.”

“As to that,” said Margie mildly, raising her hand to stop Guy Tree from exploding, “we’ll talk another time. You look like shit, Dimitrova. Go get some sleep.”

“Thank you, Colonel Me

Ana stalked off to her tent. It was raining hard again, and lightning lashed over the water. She hardly felt it. At every step the throbbing in her head punished her, and she knew that behind the headache a greater pain was scratching to come out. Pity was the solvent that would melt the dam and let it through, and she wanted to be by herself when that happened. She stooped into the tent without a word to the woman who shared it with her, removed only her shoes and slacks, and buried herself under the covers.

Almost at once she began to weep.

Ana made no sound, did not shake, did not thrash about. It was only the ragged uneve

She woke to the loud, incongrous sound of dance music.

The storm of silent weeping had cleared her mind, and the deep and dreamless sleep that followed had begun the healing. Ana was quite composed as she bathed sparingly in the shower at the end of the tent line, brushed her hair dry, and dressed. The music was, of course, that other of Marge Me

She cut past the generator, where the Krinpit was rumbling hollowly as it scratched through the clumps of burnable vegetation for something to eat, a guard with a GORR trailing its every step, and visited the fringe of the dance area long enough to get something to eat from the buffet. (Of course, she had slept through two meals.) When men asked her to dance she smiled and thanked them as she shook her head. The rain had stopped, and sullen Kung glowed redly overhead. She took a plate of cheese and biscuits and slipped away. Not that there was far to go. No one walked in the woods anymore these days. They lived and ate and slept in a space one could run across in three minutes. But all who could be there were at the dance, and down by the beach were only the perimeter guards. She sat down with her back against one of the machine-gun turrets and finished her meal. Then she put her plate down beside her, pulled her knees up to her chin, and sat staring at the purple-red waves.

Ahmed was dead.

It was not much comfort to tell herself that her dreams had been foolish to begin with, that Ahmed had never taken her as seriously as she had taken him. Nevertheless, it was true, and Ana Dimitrova was a practical person. She had learned the trick of dissecting pain into its parts. That she would never see him again, touch his strong and supple body, lie beside him while he slept — that was purest pain, and there was no help for it. But that she would never marry him and bear his children and grow old by his side — that was only a spoiled fantasy. It had never been real. That loss could not hurt her now, because it was of something she had never owned; and so her pain was diminished by half.

(But, oh, how that half still ached!)

She wept gently and openly for a moment, then sighed and rubbed the tears away. What she had lost, she told herself, she had lost long ago. From the moment Ahmed came to Jem, he had become a different person. In any event, it was over. She had a life to make for herself, and the materials to make it from were all in this camp; there was nothing else anywhere. You should dance, she scolded herself. You should go up where they are laughing and singing and drinking.

Plainly and simply, she did not want to. It was not merely that she didn’t want to dance, not yet. It was more deep and damaging than that. Ana, translating for the Krinpit, had heard enough of what was going on in the minds of Marge Me

But Ahmed was dead.

She took a deep breath and decided not to cry again.

She stood up and stretched her cramped limbs. The Krinpit was lurching slowly down toward the water for a drink after his unappetizing meal, the soldier wandering after. She did not particularly want to be near him, but she needed to rinse her plate — either that or carry it back to the cook tent, which was too near the dance floor. She kept her distance, paralleling his scuttling path, and then she heard someone call her name.

It was the Russian pilot, Kappelyushnikov, sitting cross-legged at a gun pit and talking to Da

“Is truly good, Anyushka? But Da

There it was, the first time someone had spoken of it to her. She discovered that it was not impossible for her to respond.

“Thank you, Visha,” she said steadily. “What, have you become a monk that you do not dance tonight?”

“Is no one I care to dance with,” he said gloomily. “Also have been having most interesting discussion with Da

“And what have you concluded, then, Da

He did not answer directly, but chose to be placating. “I know you’re upset, Ana. I’m sorry, too.”

“Upset?” She nodded judiciously, looking down into the pit at him. “Yes, perhaps. I must assume that my home has been destroyed — yours, too, I suppose. But you are braver than I. I am not brave; I become upset. It upsets me that what has happened on Earth is now to happen again, here. It upsets me that my — that my friend is dead. It upsets me that the colonel intends to kill a great many more persons. Can you imagine? She proposes to tu