Walker made no apology as the geologist Ruiz was dragged from the room by the heels. 'I'm impressed,' he said. 'You managed to come hundreds of miles through a wilderness without a single casualty. Unarmed.'
'Ike knows what he's doing,' said Pia.
'Crockett's here?'
'He's exploring,' Troy quickly inserted. 'He goes off days at a time. He's looking for
Cache V. For food.'
'He's wasting his time.' Walker turned his head to the black lieutenant. 'Take five men,' he said. 'Locate our friend. We don't need any more surprises.'
The soldier said, 'You don't hunt that man, sir. Our troops have had enough, the last month.'
'I will not have him roaming at large.'
'Why are you doing this?' Ali demanded. 'What's he done to you?'
'It's what I've done to him that's the problem. Crockett's not the sort to forgive and forget. He's out there watching us right now.'
'He'll run off. There's nothing here for him anymore. He said we've given up.'
'Then why the tears?'
'You don't have to do this,' Ali told him softly.
Walker grew brisk. 'No live catches, Lieutenant, do you hear me? Crockett's first commandment.'
'Yes sir,' the lieutenant breathed out. He tagged five of his men and they started into the building.
After the search team left, Walker closed his eyes. A soldier pulled a knife from his boot sheath and slit open a box of MREs and gestured at the scientists. It was up to Troy to feebly carry packets to his comrades. Twiggs kissed his, then tore it open with his teeth.
Ali's first bite of processed military spaghetti was delicious. She made her bites small. She sipped her water.
Twiggs vomited. Then started over again.
The room was beginning to fill up. More wounded were brought in. Two men mounted a machine gun at the window. All told, including herself and her comrades, Ali counted fewer than twenty-five people remaining from the original hundred and fifty who had started the journey.
Walker opened his bloodshot eyes. 'Bring everything inside,' he ordered. 'The boats, too. They're vulnerable, and they announce our presence.'
'But there's twelve of them out there.' Fifteen less than they'd started with, Ali realized. What had happened out there?
'Bring them in,' said Walker. 'We're going to fort up a few days. This is the answer to our prayers, a toehold in this evil place.'
The soldier's pig eyes disagreed. He threw his salute. Walker's hold was slipping.
'How did you find us?' Pia asked.
'We saw your light,' said Walker.
'Our light?'
Ike's oil lamps, thought Ali. It had been her secret with him. A beacon to the world.
'You found Cache V,' said Spurrier.
'Haddie got half,' said Walker.
'Call it the devil's due,' said a voice, and Montgomery Shoat entered the room.
'You? You're still alive?' said Ali. She couldn't hide her distaste. Being abandoned by the soldiers was one thing. But Shoat was a fellow civilian, and had known Walker's dirty scheme. His betrayal felt worse.
'It's been quite the excursion,' said Shoat. He had a black eye and yellow bruises along one cheek, obviously from a beating. 'Haddie's been picking us to pieces for weeks. And the boys have been working double-time to fit me in. I'm starting to think we may not complete our grand tour of the sub-Pacific.'
Walker was in no mood for a court jester. 'Is this coastline inhabited?'
'I've only seen three of them,' Ali said.
'Three villages?'
'Three hadals.'
'That's all? No villages?' Walker's black beard parted in a smile. 'Then we've lost them, thank the Lord. They'll never be able to track us across open water. We're safe. We have food for another two months. And we have Shoat's homing device.'
Shoat wagged a finger at the colonel. 'Ah-ah,' he said. 'Not yet. You agreed. Three more days to the west. Then we'll talk about retreat.'
'Where's the girl?' asked Ali. As more of the mercenaries came in, she saw the clawed hands and hadal ears and pieces of male and female genitalia dangling from their belts and rucksacks and rifles. Yeats's poem echoed in her mind: The center cannot hold;... The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned....
'I misjudged her,' Walker rasped. He needed morphine. Ali suspected what the soldiers had probably done with it.
'You killed her,' Ali said.
'I should have. She's been useless to me.' He gestured, and two soldiers dragged the feral girl in and tied her to the wall nearby.
The first thing Ali noticed was her smells. The girl had a raw odor, fecal and musky and layered with sweat. Her hair smelled like smoke and filth. Blood and snot streaked the duct tape.
'What has been done to this child?'
'She's been an ungodly temptation to my men,' Walker answered.
'You allowed your men –'
Walker peered at her. 'So righteous? You're no different, though. Everyone wants something from this creature. Go ahead, extract your glossary from her, Sister. Just don't leave this room without permission.'
Troy stood and draped his jacket on the girl's shoulders. The girl backed away from his chivalry, then opened her legs as far as the ropes would allow, and pumped her groin at him. Troy backed away.
'I wouldn't fall in love with that one, boy.' Walker laughed. 'Ferae naturae. She's wild by nature.'
Ali and Troy went to feed the girl.
'What you doing?' a soldier demanded.
'Taking off this duct tape,' Ali said. 'How else can she eat?'
The soldier gave a hard yank at the tape, and snatched his hand away. The girl all but garroted herself on the wire, lunging for him. Ali fell back. Laughter sprinkled the room. 'All yours,' he said.
The feeding needed caution. Ali spoke to her with a low voice, enunciating their names, and trying to disarm her. The food was noxious to the girl, but she took it. At one point she spit the applesauce out and made some elaborate complaint, which emerged with extraordinary softness. It wasn't just the volume that was soft, but the
formal delivery. For all her ferocity, the girl sounded almost pious. She seemed to be speaking to the food, or discoursing on it. Her temperament was sophisticated, not savage.
When she was done, the girl lay back on the rock floor and closed her eyes. There was no transition between the meal and sleeping. She took what she could get.
Two days passed. Ike still did not show himself. Ali sensed he was somewhere close, but the search teams came up empty.
The soldiers beat Shoat senseless, trying to pry loose the secret of his homing-device code. His stubbornness drove them to a fury, and they only stopped when Ali placed her body across Shoat's. 'Kill him and you'll never learn the code,' she told them. Nursing Shoat added to her duties, for she was already taking care of Walker and several other soldiers. But someone had to do it. They were still God's creatures.
Walker wavered in and out of fever. He railed in tongues in his sleep. The soldiers exchanged dark
