Hanging on

the mad Pole's bed.

Kowalski was rigid, eyes wide and tongue lolling. He had a fat, pale tongue, utterly disgusting. He was sitting in a steaming puddle of his own urine, and he looked curiously as if he belonged there.

“What's he saying?” Kelly asked, wheezily.

As if on cue, Kowalski said: “Too little time… no time… less than we need… never build town… never… too little time… less than we think… ”

“He means the Panzers,” Lily said. Her face was drawn and fearful — and sexy.

“If we don't have time to build the fake town,” Tooley said, “there will be bloodshed.” Despite his muscles, Tooley sounded like a frail spinster facing a gang of undiscrim-inating rapists. “What are you going to do about it, Major?”

“He means the strike will slow us down,” Kelly said. “We already know that.”

“He's talking about something else,” Tooley said. “Something worse than the strike. Something that has not yet happened.”

“Even if he is,” Kelly said, “what can I do? He hasn't given me enough to go on. Why don't we have enough time? What terrible disaster is pending?”

Tooley looked at the zombie, patted his head. “Tell us more, Kowalski.”

Kowalski was silent.

“He's already warned us,” Lily said. “He hasn't anything more to say.”

Refuting her, Kowalski leaned toward Lily and said, “Cu… ”

“Yes?” she asked.

Everyone leaned closer, listening intently. The walls seemed to recede; the dreariness was replaced by a sense of the cosmic, a spiritual mood that was undeniable and hinted of forces beyond the ken of man. The lights were no longer dim, merely mysterious. The centipedes were forgotten. They listened to the wise man's words as if the fate of the world hinged on his pronouncements.

“Cu… cu…” Kowalski's eyes were fever-bright. His tongue moved obscenely between his cracked lips as he tried to finish what he wanted to say. “Cu…”

“He's got something big to say,” the pacifist insisted. “I know he does.”

“Cu… cu… cu…”

“He's almost got it!” Tooley fisted his hands, arms bulging as he pulled for Kowalski.

Major Kelly felt, all of a moment, in the midst of a miracle, some fundamental religious experience which he would treasure the memory of for the rest of his days. He had not been so choked up and teary since he had seen Margaret Sullavan in Back Street.

Watching Lily, Kowalski rocked back and forth. His tongue fluttered. His eyes blinked so rapidly it seemed the lashes would give him flight. “Cu… Cu…”

Lily held her hands out to him, encouraged him as one might encourage a baby who was walking toward his mother for the first time. “Don't give up, poor dear,” she cooed. “Tell us. Try, Kowalski. Tell us, poor baby.”

“Cu… cu… cunt!” Kowalski squealed, lunging for her. He ripped open her khaki shirt and pawed her bare breasts. He gibbered with delight.

Pullit screamed.

Liverwright was immobilized by the sight of Lily's jugs.

Still screaming, Pullit ran for the bunker door, red bandanna trailing behind. “Help! Help, someone!”

Going to Lily's rescue, Kelly stumbled on a cot brace, staggered, and fell heavily onto the makeshift bed. The cot collapsed.

Kowalski rolled into the major, and for an instant their faces touched nose-to-nose. Kowalski's eyes were wide and bloodshot, but possessed a certain lucidity which Kelly had not seen there for long days. “Cunt, cunt, cunt!” he screamed. Then, like a door closing, the semirationality left his eyes, and a bottomless stupidity returned. Drool ran out of the left corner of his mouth and down his chin.

Private Tooley grabbed the major by the scruff of the neck and hoisted him to his feet. “You okay, sir?”

Kelly nodded dumbly, brushing at his clothes.

“What do you think?” Tooley asked.

“About Kowalski? Shoot him. Put him out of his misery.”

Tooley was hurt. “No! I think he's getting much better.”

“Sure he is.” Kelly said. “Sure he is.”

Although he thought Kowalski should be put out of his misery, Major Kelly was worried about the zombie's prediction. They could not withstand another crisis. Even if they settled the labor strike, they had little chance of getting the village built in time. If one more problem arose…

“You don't look sleepy,” Lily said, taking his arm as he reached the bunker door. “I'm not sleepy either. Why don't we take a walk together?”

They walked to the woods, then to the knoll where Beame had expected to meet Nathalie for lunch. And then, of course, they stopped walking and undressed and made love. Even as worried as he was, Kelly was ready for Lily Kain.

When they were finished, they lay side-by-side in the grass and stared at the clouds overhead. Stars popped out between bands of mist, then disappeared once more. “You're a gem,” Kelly told her. “You're the only woman I've ever known who hasn't the slightest reservation about having it put to her.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Every girl wants to have it put to her.”

“You're wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“I can't believe that. Every woman wants to have it put to her. It's fun!”

“Well… most women probably do want to have it put to them, but they won't admit it,” Kelly said.

“Then how do they ever get it put to them?”

“Reluctantly. They protest, repeatedly refuse — give in reluctantly.”

“What a waste of time,” Lily said.

“And when they've had it put to them, when it's over, they cry and say how ashamed they are. Or pretend they didn't enjoy it.”

“I always enjoy it,” Lily said.

“I know,” Kelly said.

Before they had become lovers, when she masturbated at night, her moans and cries roused the camp. Every man in the unit was enthralled by her performance, listening intently to the symphony of garbled noises until, by her crescendo, she was leading an orchestra of self-abusers. And now, of course, there were the regular shows beneath the bridge…

Kelly put his arms around her. And though his terror did not go away, it dwindled for the next fifteen minutes and was almost forgotten as they moved together a second time.

Afterwards, he slept. And he dreamed. Usually, the dreams were about Petey Danielson: vivid, colorful replays of the man's guts falling out onto the dry earth…

When he woke, trying to scream, Lily was there beside him. She smoothed his wet brow with one hand and cooed softly to him. “It's okay. It was just a bad dream, darling.” Her warm flank was pressed against him, and the full weight of one large breast fell against his chest. She kept on smoothing his brow until his heartbeat slowed considerably and his dry mouth grew moist.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Maybe an hour,” she said.

He started to sit up, but she pressed him back down. “We ought to be getting back,” he said.

“Let's sleep out here tonight. The mosquitoes have gone. It's cool.”

When he thought about getting dressed and walking back to his tent and undressing again for the night, he said, “Okay.”

She snuggled up against him and kissed his ear. “I love you, Kelly.”

“Don't say that.”

“It's true.”

“It's crazy. Love can be deadly. When you're in love, you go around in a daze. You stop being careful. You get killed. Don't be in love with me.”

“You're in love with me, too,” she said.