The Bear's Tears

Terror.

He turned his back on it, and began running again, weaving as quickly and agilely as he could through the littered rocks and boulders. His legs were leaden; the noise seemed to drain them of strength. Then he heard the launch of one, two missiles from the pods beneath the MiL's stubby wings. He dived for the nearest rock, almost somersaulting over it, crouching behind it immediately. The flare from the rockets dazzled his eyes, he could feel the heat of the exhausts. The two rockets exploded twenty yards ahead of him, throwing up earth and rock and snow in front of the red sun, obscuring it. The valley appeared dark. Hyde stood up and ran into the churning cloud of debris, and through it into the glare of the sun. They'd been playing with him. He wasn't meant to die at once, not just yet.

The MiL slipped over the haze of settling earth and dust, following him, moving barely faster than he was himself. He jumped a low rock, almost twisted his ankle as he landed on a loose boulder, hopped until his balance was righted, and went on, dodging and weaving in his sprint, changing direction every few paces. Meaninglessly, he realised he must already have crossed the border. The MiL's long, fat shadow slid over him like night, and the machine was a little ahead of him. A grinning face swung the mounted machine-gun in his direction, a flutter of iron butterflies emerged, fell from the belly of the MiL, bouncing and skittering ahead of him like tacks spread to ambush an approaching cyclist. Anti-personnel bombs, the toylike things that had deprived children of arms and eyes and faces in a dozen corners of the world. Play with the nice iron toy, painted dark-green, and numbered. Bang—

Hyde jumped onto a rock as one of the stub-winged bombs rolled towards his feet. He tiptoed like an unpractised tightrope artiste along the rock, arms akimbo for balance, then jumped to another rock, jumped again, ran and skipped three paces, jumped to a larger rock—

One lay in the fold of the rock, his toe reached at it, he overbalanced, tumbling onto the snow-covered ground where the tips and wingtips of the iron butterflies thrust out of the thin snow carpet, growing like strange plants. He rolled, groaning, and stopped his momentum by digging in his heels. His head swung round and he was staring at the white numbers on the squat little body of one of the bombs.

Fused, or contact?

He could not tell whether they would detonate on contact or after the lapse of a precise number of seconds.

Then one exploded behind him, shattering a loaf-sized lump from its parent rock. He got to his knees, he stood and hopped. A deadly game of hopscotch, one foot, side, forward, side, side, up onto a rock — the MiL was still ahead of him, the machine-gunner grinning, waiting for him to catch up with the game — along the rock, one foot, space there, bomb there, quick, quick, bomb! — clear ground, hole-in-the-snow, avoid! — clear, clear, bomb, clear…

He was out of the little cabbage-patch they had sown for him, and the ground was clear. Small detonations, throwing up snow and brown earth, began almost at once. He ran, keeping close to the scatter of rocks and boulders, his breath and limbs labouring now that the going was instinctive. He must be no more than half a mile from the end of the valley. He was across the border; closer to death.

'Finesse, finesse, finesse,' he kept repeating through the thick saliva in his mouth, through clenched teeth. 'Finesse, finesse…'

The rocks were charred, even the snow looked black beneath its light, latest covering. Something had burned…?

Fifty Pathans — metal balls, the strange eggs that had burst open on impact — the silver, gleaming mist…

It was here. The MiL was above him. He could almost see the eggs dropping, bursting open, smell the napalm mist—

Egg, egg, three, four, six, ten — fifteen…

He could see them—.

Half-eggs, rolling, their contents spilled already. A string of eggs laid by the MiL. They were going to burn him —

He felt the mist cold on his face. It refracted and distorted the sunlight, enlarged the huge red disc ahead of him. It was cold, chilling, terrifying. It clung. It was higher than he was, he was in it—

A tunnel of silver mist, just like before, gleaming even in the daylight. It outlined his arm as the limb bobbed in front of his eyes like St Elmo's fire. It clung to his hands, to the skin of his hands, to his Pathan clothing, to every part of him. To his face and beard and eyelids—

He wanted to scream, to stop and do no more than scream, as the MiL banked sharply and returned towards him. What was it, was it—?

The match, the firefly glow he had seen drop from Petrunin's blood-red helicopter…

A tunnel, a box of mist that would become a box of fire, consuming him—

He rubbed his clothing, the mist moved about him, closed in again — the helicopter slowly settled above him, the machine-gunner grinning, signaling farewell in an exaggerated, final salute — he rubbed at the mist again where he felt it on his skin, waved his arms, shook and danced his body but the mist only stirred sluggishly then closed in, as heavy and unmoving as long curtains in a slight breeze. It surrounded him. He was trapped, already dead. The mist had formed a cell, with a roof, walls, floor. And it would consume everything within it—

Within it?

Spark?

He could see the spark, in the dark belly of the MiL — the means of ignition was about to be released.

Within it—

He ran. The mist moved, closed behind him, gleamed and shimmered, dulled the light. He ran. He ran. The mist gave but did not end. Its spread was controlled by its chemical composition. How wide, how deep, how long—? He did not look up. He ran.

Light, air, less coldness on his face and the backs of his hands. He ran.

Mist folding behind, rock ahead. He ran.

He was still covered with it —.

He dived for the shelter of the rock, hearing the roar of the mist as it became flame. He rolled in the snow, hiding his face and hands, folding them into the bulk of his body. He rolled. Smoke near him, searing pain in his hands, on his face. He plunged them into snow, burning on his legs, he rolled and rolled in the snow, driving his body into a drift against the rocks which half-buried him, filling his nostrils and mouth and eyes and driving out all sensory impressions of the burning mist. Gobbets of fire must have flown in the MiL's downdraught, some of them reaching him. He did not want to know about his burns.

He did not want to know anything. He was finished. The snow cooled him, froze him. He couldn't move — there was nothing left. The snow numbed his face and hands. He turned his mouth, spat out snow, breathed. It was enough. The air, even if it tasted of napalm, revived him.

But nothing more—

He would wait.

He kept his eyes closed. They were heavy with snow. He heard the helicopter, his body tensed. He waited.

The noise — he could feel the downdraught of the rotors — clattered off the side of the valley, enlarging and expanding into two, three sets of rotors. Perhaps others had come…? He did not care. He could no longer even be terrified. Soon, soon now…

He was numb and clean. The smell of the napalm was dying down, the heat dissipating. He opened his eyes slowly. Half-melted snow watered in them. The helicopter hovered above him blackly, haloed with sunlight. There was another helicopter thirty yards away. And he heard the retreating noise of rotors. Retreating…

Roundels, green and white. Hyde was disorientated, waiting to die. The crescent moon and one star of Islam at the tail of the helicopter.

Green and white, no red star on the belly.

Roundels…?

He could not explain what had happened, not even as the Pakistan Army Sikorsky S-61R gunship helicopter dropped gently and benignly towards the charred floor of the narrow valley, blowing snow over his body from its