oncoming tank and had a glare that would have wilted anyone but a reporter. Flynn moved surreptitiously to stand behind Toby, just in case, and Toby tried his ingratiating smile again.
'Hi there. We've come to see Mother Superior Beatrice. I'm Tobias Shreck, and this is my cameraman. We're expected.'
The Sister stepped forward, pulled open his furs, and frisked him with brisk efficiency. She did the same with Flynn, while Toby silently prayed his cameraman wouldn't giggle. Assured they weren't carrying any weapons, the Sister stepped back and studied them both, her face set and unforgiving. 'She said you two were to be admitted, but you're not to tire her. This should be her rest period. She works all the hours God sends, and then makes time to deal with the likes of you. I don't want her tired. Is that understood?'
'Of course, Sister,' said Toby. 'We'll be in and out before you know it.'
The Sister sniffed dubiously, and then turned and led them down the single narrow aisle in the middle of the long ward that made up most of the tent's interior. Toby and Flynn followed behind at a respectful distance. There were beds on either side of them, crammed together with no space for luxuries like visitors' chairs. They weren't the standard hospital beds of civilized worlds, either, with built-in sensors and diagnostic equipment. These were flat cots with rough blankets and sometimes a pillow. The smell of blood and other, more disturbing smells pushed their way past the thick, masking disinfectant. The patients were mostly quiet, drugged, Toby hoped, but some groaned or moaned or stirred restlessly on the narrow cots. One man with no legs was crying quietly, hopelessly. Flynn's camera covered everything. Many of the patients were missing limbs or half a face. Toby was sickened. You didn't expect to see injuries like these anymore, except on the more primitive worlds. He made himself look away. He was here to cover this. All of it.
'Don't the Wolfes supply you with better equipment than this?' he said finally, trying to keep the anger out of his voice so as not to upset the patients.
The Sister sniffed, without looking back or slowing her pace. 'We're on our own here. Officially, the Wolfes are winning this nasty little war, so they can't be seen supplying Technos III with major hospital facilities and supplies. Word might start getting out of the real scale of casualties and how badly the war is going. So they only supply us with the minimum necessary to cope with the low levels of wounded they're reporting. It's important to the Wolfes to give the impression that everything's fine here, and they're fully in charge of the situation. Bastards. I'd drown the lot of them if I had my way. And you can put that in your report, if you wish.'
'I'm interested in everyone's views,' Toby said diplomatically. 'I want to tell people the truth of what's happening here.'
'If you are, you're the first. Not that it'll make any difference. The Wolfes will censor anything embarrassing out of your reports before you're allowed to broadcast them.'
Toby remained even more diplomatically silent. He expected to be censored; that went with the job and the territory. The trick was in what you managed to sneak past them. Halfway down the long tent, a small area was separated off by tall standing screens. Toby thought at first it was a toilet and was somewhat surprised by the Sister's clear respect and reverence as she tapped on one of the screens.
'It's the press people,' said the Sister diffidently. 'Do you still want to speak to them, or shall I kick them out?' There was a low murmured answer from within, and the Sister scowled as she turned back to Toby and Flynn. 'Thirty minutes, and not a second more. And if you tire her, I'll have your balls.'
She pulled back one screen to make a doorway, and Toby and Flynn nodded respectfully to her and eased past her much as one might a growling watchdog. They filed through the doorway, and the Sister pulled the screen back into place behind them. The screened-off area turned out to be just big enough to hold a cot, a washbasin on a stand, and a small writing desk. Sitting before the desk was Mother Superior Beatrice, wrapped in a long silk housecoat with frayed hems and elbows worn dull. She looked pale and drawn, and her bright red hair had been cropped brutally short, but her eyes were warm and her welcoming smile seemed genuine enough. Behind her, her black robes and starched wimple hung from a hat stand, looking almost like there was another person in the small space with them. Beatrice didn't get up, but offered Toby her hand. Her handshake was firm but brief. She turned to Flynn, who leaned over her hand and kissed it. Beatrice's smile widened.
'If you knew what I'd been doing with that hand just half an hour ago, you'd rush out of here to gargle with sulfuric acid.' She turned her smile back to Toby. 'I'm glad to see you both. I wasn't sure you'd come. Everyone else I've asked didn't want to risk rocking the boat.'
'I'm not sure I do, either,' said Toby. 'It depends on what you have to tell me. Is it okay if my cameraman records this conversation?'
'Of course. That's why I insisted on you both coming here. Sit on the bed. We don't have any more chairs to spare, and you fill too much space standing up.'
She settled back in her chair by the desk, and Toby lowered himself cautiously into the cot. He wasn't sure it would bear his weight. It felt hard and unforgiving. Flynn stayed on his feet, moving quietly back and forth to sort out good angles for his camera. Toby ignored him. Flynn would take care of the technicalities; his province as reporter was the interview and what truth he could squeeze out of it. Mother Beatrice had a reputation for being outspoken, but that had always been in the pampered and protected Court, far away from the blood and dying of the frontline. She was supposed to have changed greatly after her experiences in a field hospital, but most of those stories were at least secondhand.
And Toby wasn't sure he believed in saints anyway. He decided to start with something simple and clear- cut.
'You seem very crowded here, Mother Beatrice. Surely, this structure wasn't meant to accommodate so many people at one time?'
'Hell no. It was meant to serve a third as many patients, but that was worked out by civilized people in civilized places. And call me Bea, since I'm officially off duty. We're packed to the walls here because things have been going particularly badly for the Wolfes in the last few campaigns. The lines move back and forth on the map, but they're drawn in other people's blood. Some of our patients are rebels, of course. The Sisters of Mercy serve all sides impartially. Whatever the pressures.'
Toby raised an eyebrow. 'Do the Wolfes know you're treating rebel wounded?'
'I haven't told them. Not after the way they reacted the first time I raised the matter. I keep meaning to bring them up-to-date, but somehow I never get around to it. I don't see that it's any of their business. They only supply me with the bare necessities, even for their own people. We're a long way out from civilization, and transport costs are obscenely high. So I just do my job as I see best. We do what we can here. Patch people up and send them off. It's not unusual to see the same faces come back two or three times, bleeding from a different place each time. Rarely more than three times. Many can't take the shock of so much surgery. Others… just give up. It's a hard war and a harsh world. We don't see many flesh wounds here.
'Supplies are running low. Blood plasma, anesthetics, most drugs. The Sisterhood sends what it can, but there's a lot of fighting going on across the Empire these days, and the Sisters' resources are spread very thin. Some days this isn't a hospital. Just a butcher's shop.'
'How long has the armed struggle been going on here, Bea?' asked Toby, keeping his voice low and confidential, as though it was just the two of them having a quiet talk.
'Generations,' said Bea grimly. 'People have been born, lived their lives and died here, knowing nothing but the war. Of course, it's escalated since the Wolfes took over the factory. The upcoming ceremony has raised the stakes for both sides. Still, it was only the rising publicity that alerted us to what was happening here and persuaded the Sisterhood to send in a mission. If they knew what was really going on here, they'd send more help. I know they would. But the Wolfes control all contact with the outside.'
'What kind of war are we talking about here, Bea?' said Toby, easing her back onto the main subject.
'Pretty basic. The struggle here's settled down into trench warfare. Been stuck in the same pattern for decades. Both sides dig tunnels, but the planet's remaining wildlife lives down below, and it doesn't like competition. Fighting above-ground is almost impossible for any length of time, due to the weather. It changes so unpredictably that shelling is impractical. Same for air cover. And when the wind blows, there's so much dirt and metal floating in the air that it disperses energy beams to nothing over anything other than point-blank range. So most of the fighting is hand to hand, steel against steel, boiling up out of their trenches to fight in the no-man's-land between Wolfe and rebel positions. The frontline surges back and forth all the time, but nothing really changes. The two sides are too equally balanced. Though the arrival of the Church troops should make a difference.'
'Jesuit commandos leading elite troops have cleared out resistance on many planets,' said Toby.
