arm. 'Nothing that we do within this circle will result in any net change. We're still prisoners, whatever we do. They can cut off the food, or the damn air, or squeeze us to mush. And time's on their side. If we spill our guts restoring order—if that's what you're trying to work up to—all they have to do is wait for it to break down again. We're beaten. We're taken. There's nobody left out there. We're here forever. And you'd better start getting used to the idea.'

'I've heard that song before,' said Miles. 'Use your head. If they meant to keep you forever, they could have incinerated you at the start, and saved the considerable expense of operating this camp. No. It's your minds they want. You are all here because you were Marilac's best and brightest, the hardest fighters, the strongest, baddest, most dangerous. The ones any potential resisters to the occupation would look to for leadership. It's the Cetagandans' plan to break you, and then return you to your world like little innoculated infections, counseling surrender to your people.

'When this is killed,' he touched her forehead, oh so lightly, 'then the Cetagandans have nothing more to fear from this,' one finger on her bicep, 'and you will all go free. To a world whose horizon will encircle you just like this dome, and just as inescapably. The war's not over. You are here because the Cetagandans are still waiting for the surrender of Fallow Core.'

He thought for a moment she might murder him, strangle him on the spot. She must certainly prefer ripping him apart to letting him see her weep.

She regained her protective bitter tension with a toss of her head, a gulp of air. 'If that's true, then following you puts us farther from freedom, not closer.'

Damn, a logician to boot. She didn't have to pound him, she could parse him to death if he didn't scramble. He scrambled. 'There is a subtle difference between being a prisoner and being a slave. I don't mistake either for being free. Neither do you.'

She fell silent, staring at him through slitted eyes, pulling unconsciously on her lower lip. 'You're an odd one,' she said at last. 'Why do you say 'you' and not 'we'?'

Miles shrugged casually. Blast—he rapidly reviewed his pitch—she was right, he had. A little too close to the edge, there. He might yet make an opportunity of the mistake, though. 'Do I look like the flower of Marilac's military might? I'm an outsider, trapped in a world I never made. A traveller—a pilgrim—just passing through. Ask Suegar.'

She snorted. 'That loonie.'

She'd missed the catch. Rats, as Elli would say. He missed Elli. Try again later. 'Don't discount Suegar. He has a message for you. I found it fascinating.'

'I've heard it. I find it irritating. … So, what do you want out of this? And don't tell me 'nothing,' 'cause I won't believe you. Frankly, I think you're after command of the camp yourself, and I'm not volunteering to be your stepping stone in some empire-building scheme.'

She was thinking at speed now, and constructively, actually following out trains of thought besides that of having him removed to her border in bits. He was getting warmer…

'I only wish to be your spiritual advisor. I do not want—indeed, can't use—command. Just an advisor.'

It must have been something about the term 'advisor' that clicked, some old association of hers. Her eyes flicked fully open suddenly. He was close enough to see her pupils dilate. She leaned forward, and her index finger traced the faint indentations on his face beside his nose caused by certain control leads in a space armor helmet. She straightened again, and her first two fingers in a V caressed the deeper marks permanently flanking her own nose. 'What did you say you were, before?'

'A clerk. Recruiting office,' Miles replied sturdily.

'I … see.'

And if what she saw was the absurdity of someone claiming to be a rear-echelon clerk having worn combat armor often and long enough to have picked up its stigmata, he was in. Maybe.

She coiled herself back on her sleeping mat, and gestured toward its other end. 'Sit down, chaplain. And keep talking.'

Suegar was genuinely asleep when Miles found him again, sitting up cross-legged and snoring. Miles tapped him on the shoulder.

'Wake up, Suegar, we're home.'

He snorted to consciousness. 'God, I miss coffee. Huh?' He blinked at Miles. 'You're still in one piece?'

'It was a near thing. Look, this garments-in-the-river bit—now that we've found each other, do we have to go on being naked? Or is the prophecy sufficiently fulfilled?'

'Huh?'

'Can we get dressed now?' Miles repeated patiently.

'Why—I don't know. I suppose, if we were meant to have clothes, they'd be given to us—'

Miles prodded and pointed. 'There. They're given to us.'

Beatrice stood a few meters away in a hip-shot pose of bored exasperation, a bundle of grey cloth under her arm. 'You two loonies want this stuff or not? I'm going back.'

'You got them to give you clothes?' Suegar whispered in amazement.

'Us, Suegar, us.' Miles motioned to Beatrice. 'I think it's all right.'

She fired the bundle at him, sniffed, and stalked away.

'Thanks,' Miles called. He shook out the fabric. Two sets of grey pajamas, one small, one large. Miles had only to turn up the bottoms of the pants legs one fold to keep them from catching under his heels. They were stained and stiff with old sweat and dirt, and had probably been peeled off a corpse, Miles reflected. Suegar crawled into his and stood fingering the grey fabric in wonder.

'They gave us clothes. Gave us,' he muttered. 'How'd you do that?'

'They gave us everything, Suegar. Come on, I've got to talk to Oliver again.' Miles dragged Suegar off determinedly. 'I wonder how much time we've actually got before the next chow call? Two in each twenty-four-hour cycle, to be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's irregular, to increase your temporal disorientation—after all, it's the only clock in here …'

Movement caught Miles's eye, a man running. It wasn't the occasional flurry of someone outrunning a hostile group; this one just ran, head down, flat out, bare feet thumping the dirt in frantic rhythm. He followed the perimeter generally, except for a detour around the border of the women's group. As he ran, he wept.

'What's this?' Miles asked Suegar, with a nod at the approaching figure.

Suegar shrugged. 'It takes you like that sometimes. When you can't stand sitting in here any more. I saw a guy run till he died, once. Around and around and around . . .'

'Well,' Miles decided, 'this one's running to us.'

'He's gonna be running away from us in a second . . .'

'Then help me catch him.'

Miles hit him low and Suegar high. Suegar sat on his chest. Miles sat on his right arm, halving his effective resistance. He must have been a very young soldier when he was captured—maybe he had lied about his age at induction—for even now he had a boy's face, ravaged by tears and his personal eternity inside this hollow pearl. He inhaled in sobbing gasps and exhaled in garbled obscenities. After a time he quieted.

Miles leaned into his face and grinned wolfishly. 'You a party animal, boy?'

'Yeah . . .' his white-rimmed eyes rolled, right and left, but no rescue approached.

'How 'bout your friends? They party animals too?'

'The best,' the boy asserted, perhaps secretly shaken by the suspicion that he'd fallen into the hands of someone even crazier than himself. 'You better clear off me, mutant, or they'll take you apart.'

'I want to invite you and your friends to a major party,' Miles chanted. 'We gonna have a party tonight that's an his-tor-i-cal event. You know where to find Sergeant Oliver, late of the 14th Commandos?'

'Yeah . . .' the boy admitted cautiously.

'Well, you go get your friends and report to him. You better reserve your seat aboard his ve-hic-le now, 'cause if you're not on it, you gonna be under it. The Reformation Army is moving out. You copy?'

Вы читаете Borders of Infinity
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