IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
III: Responsibility
Chapter 5 Kief in Charge
Friday, June 5, 2708 "You know the rules,
Kiril," I tell her. She hangs her head. "It's a soldier's responsibility to wash
her own hammock when she wets the bed." I nod, then ruffle her
hair. "You'll get over this bad
patch, Hon." Maybe this wouldn't
have happened if I had let her sleep with me again last night. Or maybe it would've, and I'd have even more
cause for regret. Stoically she takes down
the pungent hammock, then pauses on her way to the stream. "Promise me one thing, Deirdre." "Depends." That I won't tell the others? They already know. "That you'll never,
ever leave Lufti and me again." And
there she stands, stiff and soldier-straight, not daring to look at me. "Why, Kiril--someday
you'll want to go off by yourself, marry and have..." "At least as long as
the war lasts." Um...the one that’s been
going on for generations? "How
about as long as you need me around? I
can do that." She chews on her lip a
moment before nodding slowly, doubting my judgment on when that might be, but
accepting that she'll always have to settle for whatever she can get. Then she disappears towards the sound of
rushing water. At this belt of the
mountain microclimates, you never escape the water. I shake my head, watching
after her, and then pick up the breakfast pans.
Is that why Lufti snapped at me when I found him an interesting piece of
quartz yesterday, demanding of me, "What is this--some kind of parting
gift?" Kids! Why can't they grasp that guerillas have to
separate and regroup all the time? Kief
over there never seems to have had any trouble with the concept. The pans clean up too
quickly. I go inspect the tarp over the
foodstuff and make sure that it won't let in any rain, should such occur. And then I inspect the hammocks, to make sure
the knots hold securely. And then I
inspect the coals of last night's fire.
Again. "Quitcher
pacing," Kief scolds genially from the hammock where he lazes; I realize
that I'm doing nothing else. "Rest
while you can, if you haven't got anything productive to do." I sigh and accept it when
he sits up in his hammock and gestures for me to join him there. I swing my
feet thoughtfully, rocking us back and forth, before saying, "Guess I'm just worried about Fatima and
Kanarik. Just how long do you think
it'll take to settle Kana in?" He shrugs amiably. "Who knows? 'Tima didn't give us a location--nor should
she." I sulk as we go back and
forth between the trunks. "And
until she gets back we’ve got to stay glued to one spot." He chuckles and says,
"Not necessarily," as he lights up a cigarette for himself, then
me. "We could dart out, do a little
action, and dart right back in, and she'd never know the difference." I puff thoughtfully. "Do you think that'd be wise?" "Wise! Do you always have to do what's wise? How about what's fun?" "My idea of fun isn't
exactly..." "Oho!" He suddenly squeezes me. "I’ll bet you're more the
make-love-not-war type." He takes
the cigarette right out of my mouth, snubs it along with his own, and stashes
them in the crotch of the tree.
"Never mind those," he says.
"They'll taste much better afterwards." And then he lays back and pulls me down right
on top of him, kissing me and tangling our limbs. "Uh, no, Kief,
actually, I...uh, please..." He stiffens, frozen, though
the hammock still sways. "What's
the matter? I'm not good enough for
you?" "Oh no, Kief! If anybody..." "If anybody?" He sits up so suddenly that the hammock nearly
spills us both. "Holy Mother of
God! You're not a, a..." "Virgin," I say
in a very small voice, still draped awkwardly across his lap. "Uh huh." He spits a really foul
word, retrieves our cigarettes from the tree and practically shoves mine in my
mouth. Then he repeats the word more
softly as he lights it for me. I try to
keep from igniting the hammock—difficult, when he rests his arms thoughtfully
on my back. "It's no good," he
says at last, sighing smoke of his own.
"You can't have your first time with the officer over
you." He states this with the
finality of some kind of incest taboo.
"But hell, Deirdre--a girl ought to have made love before her first
kill. This isn't natural." I twist to the side,
smoking gloomily while a bird makes a mocking song overhead. "Tell it to Kiril and Aichi." "Aichi is
different. And Kiril ain't no
virgin." I nearly drop my
cigarette. "How can you say a thing
like that!" "She served on a ship,
didn't she? All cabin kids get
'initiated' soon as they leave harbor..." "That's just some
filthy rumor!" "...and besides, I've
caught her in the bushes playing 'married' with Lufti. She even had some scrap of pretty red silk
for a veil, a bit of gold lace on it and everything." He chuckles at that. "Kids!" Before I can register my full
shock he smacks me on the rump and says, "War it is, then!" and rolls
me over him out of the hammock.
"Since you're not up for making love. Call up the troops!" He hands me his cigarette, grabs up a pan and
starts to hammer it with a spoon.
"Everybody back to base!" he shouts while I wince at all the
noise. "We've got a raid to
plan!" "Uh, Kief, raid
what?" I ask as our soldiers trickle in. "That's what we've got
to decide," he says cheerily, taking the smoke back. "Doesn't do for rebels to sit on their
tails too long." I try not to glance
sidelong at Kiril and Lufti in their playful dishevelment; the ball that Lufti
carries might not explain everything. Kiril catches my odd look, though, and
casts her own eyes down. "Hammock's
drying," she says. And where did
Lufti find a ball, anyway? Doesn’t he,
come to think of it, have an uncanny knack for finding things? "So, my splendid
revolutionaries," Kief says with the cigarette dangling precariously from
his lip, rubbing his hands together as he paces around our circle. "What's
within raiding distance?"
Unconsciously he imitates Cyran, even to an uncharacteristic sway of the
hips. Chulan raises her
hand. "Those hooligans who've been
terrorizing Cumenci come to mind." "Good pick. What do we know about them, then?" Damien says, "Well, we
don't have any centralized location to attack, for one thing. They make the villagers lodge them in their
own homes--even Aron's folks." "How guerilla of
them," Kief says, and smiles.
"But they have to assemble regularly, or that gang that your crew
slew, Deirdre, wouldn't have had set days when they could and couldn't harass
the roadside stand." "True," I say.
"They report in every morning in the plaza before the mansion of the
Master of Cumenci Plantation--but in broad daylight. Better we should attack their equipment than
them. Most of it stays put at
night." "That's right,"
Chulan says. "The whole battalion
has jeeps--gotta be something special in the works." Or maybe they’ve got more factories than we
suspected—working overtime. Kief says, "Then the
sooner we knock some steam out of them, the better." Lucinda nods firmly beside him, though her
eyes look troubled and unfocussed. I suggest, "Let's not
do anything too obvious. Night raids, a
couple of us at a time, sabotage the jeeps one by one in a way that might
have happened anyway--a broken part, a run-down battery--just often enough to
keep 'em guessing. They won't know
whether to come after us or not, while we tie them up more and more with
repairs." "But they'll
wonder," Damien puts in.
"Could they call it bad luck--all of it? Does that make them luckless in enemy
territory? Or is it sabotage? Or divine disapproval? How can they fight if they can't make up
their minds? And where will it strike them
next?" Kief puts a hand on his
shoulder. "You have a role in this,
Bard. I want you to infiltrate Cumenci
and teach them songs to murmur, as by chance, whenever soldiers might overhear--songs
about misfortunes heralding the wrath of God." Damien starts to nod, then
stops. "But what if Fatima gets
back while I'm away?" Sternly Kief says,
"Are you a lover or a fighter, boy?" and his grip tightens. "You've got to put all your energy into
one thing." Damien hangs his head but
says no word. "Are you going to
dedicate your life to avenging what they did to Kanarik, or are you going to
bring her flowers and tell her that she lost her arm over a war that you don't
think worth fighting?" As he glares up, I notice
the first downy hint of a mustache on his lip.
"I'll do it," he says quietly |
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