eastern part of Canada or the United States. He once served with a sergeant who spoke with the same choppy-flat speech.
The room seemed to hang there, waiting for his response. Abruptly Grisha felt nettled for being singled out.
Probably more training for the ex-officer.
“I have killed one Cossack. I was terrified at the time,” Grisha said.
“Then yer nae fool. Good.” He pronounced it “gud.”
“Is there food?” Grisha asked the group, ignoring the little man.
“Haimish McCloud,” the man said, holding a hand out to him. “Late of the great state of Vermont, U.S.A., proud ta be a Green Mountain boy.”
“You fled the United States to live in Russian Amerika?” Grisha asked. The fellow didn’t look like a boy to him, not with those raven’s tracks around his eyes.
“I’ve come ta help create the Dena Republic, the Russians jist don’t know they’re beaten yet.”
Everybody in the room laughed and the tension flowed out of Grisha. He shook the man’s hand.
“I like the way you think,” he said, smiling.
A tight, almost absent grin put even more creases in the man’s face.
“That’s good. I’m agonna be trainin’ ya.”
“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you,” Malagni said with a sniff.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Grisha said, flattening his smile.
Wing led Nik over.
“You both have done well,” she said, bending the scar on her cheek.
“Tell me, Grisha, why is this one so distant?” She nodded at Nik.
“Do you want me to tell you right here?”
She peered into his eyes, frowned the scar into an arc again.
“No, I guess not.” Her eyes moved all over his face like a blind man’s fingers before she pulled her gaze away. “C’mon, Professor, take me for a walk.” She pulled Nik toward the door.
Grisha exchanged glances with his friend as they left. Nik seemed more upset than ever. Grisha shrugged mental shoulders.
“Here’s food,” Karin said, handing him stir-fried moose and late vegetables.
“Thank you.” He watched her walk across the room. At eighteen she had attained complete physical maturity. The medical trainee, one of three being taught by Cora, easily claimed the title of prettiest woman in the village.
“I think if I were twenty years younger,” Grisha muttered to himself as he watched her, “… you could make me do foolish things.” He sat down and began to eat.
Chan sat down beside him. Haimish McCloud stood nearby, alone in the full room.
“Wing is correct. You both have done very well, all the trainees have,” Chan said. “Now your training takes on a different aspect. Now you discover what it is you are really fighting for.”
“I thought it was Denali,” Grisha said around a mouthful of food, “and to keep all that one earned. That’s what Wing told us.”
“Denali is our ikon, if you will. But the heart of our cause is much more elusive.”
“Chan, I’m just an old soldier and a new sailor. I’m here because I’m pissed off at the way things are in this country and I want to help change them. All that philosophy stuff is wasted on me.”
“It’s not philosophy, call it, ah, higher deductive reasoning.”
“I know even less about that than philosophy.”
“That’s because you’re not trained yet,” he said, beaming.
16
Bear Crepov stared at the photograph and wondered what the words at the bottom meant.
“Yeah, he was one of ’em. In fact I damn near killed him.”
“Be thankful you did not,” the Cossack colonel said. “You’d probably have lost your balls.”
“For killing a convict? That’s what you people pay me to do!”
“This one is different. They want him alive.” The colonel snatched the photograph out of Bear’s hand.
“We didn’t wait to notify St. Nicholas about the ambush before sending you out. However, they already knew about it and were adamant that we not
’unleash’ any hunters.” He absently rubbed a knuckle under his heavy mustache.
“There for a minute, I thought they were going to have my balls.”
Bear didn’t like the total bewilderment he felt. Somebody was busy pissing on his boots, but he couldn’t figure out exactly who or how. Or what to do to stop them.
“Those bastards killed my best friend as well as another
“I’m sorry about your friend. Friends are much harder to come by than
“I swore on Wolverine’s body!” Anger surged through him. He’d have to visit Katti tonight. “How long do I have to wait?”
“I don’t know. They’re sending a Cossack captain out from St. Nicholas to talk to you.”
“I don’t care if he is a captain. If they don’t let me hunt those animals down, I’ll tear off his head and piss in the hole!”
“Her head,” the colonel said dryly.
“What?”
“The captain is a woman.”
“Even better.” Bear licked his lips. “I’ll tear off her head and—”
“Get out of my office,” the colonel said icily, “now.”
“—fuck the hole!” he bellowed. He stomped from the office. As he went through the door, the noise of the combination army post and prison washed over him.
The wind blew from the latrine today, unusual for this time of year. He also smelled meat cooking and went in search of it.
17
“Don’t rub all the bluing off, just pick up the piece and snap it in with authority,” Haimish said.
Grisha stifled a curse behind his blindfold and tried to remember where the piece fit in the automatic rifle; it had been a long time since he had done this.
“It ’as its place, just like a person in any society. The weapon needs all of its parts to work. If just one piece is missing, the weapon doesn’t function.”
“And I suppose you’re going to tell me that societies won’t function if one person is missing?” Grisha felt waspish. The dimly familiar pieces under his fingers eluded him. The scent of gun oil brought back memories, and beckoned with a promise of strength and a precarious future.
“Human societies aren’t nearly as perfect as the weapon in your hands. There are pieces beyond count that are interchangeable in our societies, and each piece slightly alters the direction, affects the warp and the weave of human enterprise.”
“Y’know, Haimish,” Nik said from across the small room, “you’re the first person I’ve seen who could wear a
