asked him if he could provide a couple of gentle ones. The uncle, being told of Carrera's interest in Mendoza and eager to stay on Carrera's and the legion's good side, had agreed immediately.
So Marqueli asked the doctor in charge of Jorge's recovery if a car and driver could be provided, telling him why they needed them. 'Piece-o-cake,' the doctor had answered, snapping his fingers.
A few days later Mendoza and Marqueli found themselves staying in separate rooms on her uncle's ranch. Every day began with a ride. Marqueli took along a picnic lunch. As she and Jorge rode she described the scenes they passed and warned him of any undulations in the ground that would affect his horse. Sometimes they just rode in silence.
He's remarkable, thought Marqueli. He never complains, he never whines. How many men would take such a beating from life and still be trying?
She asked, 'Jorge, what are you going to do now?'
Mendoza didn't answer immediately. When he did, his answer came slowly, as if he were still thinking. 'There's the beca the legion is offering to badly wounded troops. It's generous, much more so than the one being offered to regularly discharged legionaires. I've been thinking along the lines of taking them up on that offer… going back to school, to the university.'
The girl clapped her hands together, startling the horses slightly. 'That's wonderful. To study what, do you think?'
'History, maybe. The legate and Dux have said they'd need teachers at the schools they're starting. It would carry a warrant- officership when I finish. I'll keep drawing my regular pay until then. Only problem is… how do I write a paper when I can't see the typewriter?'
'Oh, Jorge don't be silly. I'll type your papers for you, once we're married.' The girl said it so matter of factly that Mendoza didn't at first realize what she had said. He answered 'Well, of course you could… did you say married?' He reined his horse in tightly.
'Yes, silly. Do you think I spend all my available time with you because I hate you? 'Married.' Why not?'
'Pity?' Mendoza asked.
'When you start feeling sorry for yourself, maybe I'll feel sorry for you, too. In the interim, since I do plan on children, and since I plan on them being yours, and especially since my family would disown me if they were illegitimate, then 'married.' To you. Or don't you want me?' She leaned over Mendoza's horse and kissed his cheek.
Speechless for the moment, Jorge just inclined his head at an odd angle. 'Married. Senora Marqueli Mendoza. Children. Oh, wow… I love you 'Queli.'
'I know. I've known for months. Though why you never said so… well! '
'Married.' He whooped and gave a nudge to his horse's midriff. The horse picked up to a trot, heading down the road.
Marqueli followed, reaching to grab Jorge's horse's leads. 'You damned fool. A broken neck might be a little bit too much, don't you think?'
Marqueli, being not much past sixteen, needed her family's permission to marry. This was forthcoming once Jorge explained to her uncle that, despite his injuries, he would be able to maintain a wife and family. Following that step, the next had been to introduce Marqueli and his mother.
His mother had wept, of course, at first. She'd wept, too, when she'd first heard the news of his loss and then again when she'd seen him at the hospital. The image of her fine strong son, bedridden and crippled, had been just too much. However, where before she had wept in despair, now it was with relief and even happiness. And married? To such a fine girl?
While the driver had taken Marqueli to her family's house, not too far away, Jorge and his mother were left alone to talk.
'Oh, she's a wonderful girl,' Mama Mendoza said. 'A beautiful little thing. How in the world did you ever find her?'
'She found me… sort of, Madre. It seems she's the cousin of the… to be honest, the mistress of Legate Carrera.'
'Really? Well… she's not only beautiful but she has a very nice singing voice,' the mother said innocently.
' What?'
'You're the girl?' Jorge asked, as his horse sauntered besides 'Queli's mare.
'The girl?'
'You sang in the choir, didn't you? You wore a white hat and a yellow print dress.'
'Sometimes. How did you know?'
'I didn't, I had no idea until my mother mentioned it. I always stayed in the back and I used to watch you, you were so beautiful.'
Marqueli's heart leapt. He remembered.
Interlude
Earth Date 16 May, 2104 (Terra Novan year 45 AC), Continent of Southern Columbia, Balboa Colony, Isthmian Region, Terra Nova
The raiders had come before, though not to Belisario Carrera's newly founded settlement of Cochea. Still, even with word of mouth and jungle telegraph, he was not surprised when one of the village boys ran to the center of the spread out, ramshackle town to breathlessly report that a helicopter was disgorging armed men.
Taxes? Belisario wondered. No, not that. We have nothing much to take. These are looking for something else.
At that moment Belisario's beautiful wife-she would one day have a multi-great-granddaughter named Linda who would be her very image-emerged from their hut. He knew then what the armed men were coming for.
'What is it, husband?' she asked.
'Trouble,' he answered. 'Raiders. Gather up all the women and children, except for the boys over twelve. Take them to the caves downstream from here to the east. Send the men and the older boys to me. Tell them to bring their guns and bows.'
Trade is all well and good, Kotek thought, but why trade for what you can take?
The base was already well established. Command of the Amistad took little of his time; after all, he had 'people' to do that sort of thing for him. So Kotek spent much of his time hunting. He'd already bagged half a dozen saber-tooths, well over a score of impressively tusked mammoth, and sundry other bits of wildlife useful for their pelts and feathers (the antifur fetish on Earth-as with all such fadshaving long since passed into mere quaintness).
Indeed, he'd grown rather tired of the game. There really wasn't much challenge in shooting stupid animals and the rewards, while reasonable, were far off in time. What Kotek wanted was more immediate satisfaction.
Besides, while he had purchased a couple of female slaves from a reputable Yithrabi dealer, they were poor, drab and miserable things. Anything beyond bending over or kneeling down and quietly accepting was beyond them. No, Kotek wanted some females with a bit of life in them. And for those, he had to go hunting himself, as his ancestors in distant Ghana had hunted to feed the slave markets of Virginia, Panama, Cuba and Brazil.
Then, too, it was reputed that there was a great deal of gold found in these parts and that would be even more negotiable upon his return to Earth than matched pairs of mastodon or mammoth tusks.
The helicopter had landed Kotek and two squads of UN Marines, nineteen men in total, not far from a small village set in this mountain-fringed part of Balboa colony. One squad of Marines Kotek sent sweeping south of the village to set up a cordon while he and the other prepared to drive the inhabitants out of their village and into the net. The Marines were armored and armed with both lethal and nonlethal weapons, the better to take worthwhile females and young boys alive.
I might get a decent price on some of the boys, too, Kotek thought, or at least be able to trade them to the Yithrabi for a better class of female.
Kotek Annan stood up when he and the Marines had reached a line within two hundred meters of the village. They began firing immediately, but only over the heads of the villagers. They assumed the sound would panic the people into running into the cordon. It was a great surprise for Kotek when, instead of panicking, the people disappeared and began returning fire with their primitive rifled muskets. His accompanying Marines looked, if anything, more surprised. But the next surprise, a few minutes later, was better, as two dozen or more clouds of
