She looked surprised to see us lying in there. I had my face against the floor so the mask wouldn’t show, and I was wedged among the cadets’ bodies. I did-not-cover myself with glory.”
She didn’t realize until he pulled a rag out of his pocket and wiped her face that she had been weeping. She took the rag from him and scrubbed at her face vigorously, not wanting undeserved sympathy.
He withdrew gently, asking, “How did you get out?”
“The station computer alerted the ship’s computer, and they sent medical teams and oxygen. It can’t have taken very long, any of it, but I was unconscious by then. I woke up at Andromeda Station, unable to move. I was on an automatic respirator. Four or five of us survived, I understand, but we weren’t allowed to meet. Once we were well enough to talk, we were questioned for weeks about how we managed to survive the others. At first I think they thought I was in league with the terrorists. But then some of the administrators on Bremer got scared and turned over the terrorists. We were exonerated, they were executed …” She shrugged, at a loss for any more to say. “Some song, huh?”
This time he rose from the bed and put his arms around her. She tried not to cry, not to play for sympathy. She had no need of it. But she developed a very sudden and crucial need for being held against Sean Shongili-since he had volunteered.
“I-urn, I can’t tell you anything specific about the kids from Petaybee,” she said into his shoulder.
He hugged her more tightly and she relaxed into him, closing her eyes, relieved to have talked about it. Relieved that so far he hadn’t told her what she should have done instead of what she had done to save the kids who were in her charge.
He surprised her then by saying, “Get dressed.”
“What?”
“You’re not tired, are you?”
“I wouldn’t want to try to go to sleep now, no,” she said, wiping her face with the heels of her hands so she could look him in the eye.
“I want to take you somewhere.”
“Where?”
“A place we use for cleansing. Come on.”
She pulled on her quilted pants and parka, her mittens, hat, and muffler, and stuck the cough medicine back in her pocket.
“Let’s take this, too,” Scan said, sticking the recorder into his own pocket.
“You don’t still think I could sing …”
“We’ll see what you think,” he said, prodding her toward the door with a hand that lingered between the bottom of her cap and her folded-down hood, at the base of her hairline. A rush of longing for him made her feel weak-kneed and ashamed at the same time, as if she were exploiting the tragedy to hold his attention.
She sat with him in the cab of his snocle, the motor obscenely loud in the silent village. In a moment they were through it, past Bunny’s sleeping dogs and Clodagh’s house, past the company station and out onto the snowy plain.
The machine slid over the snow and parted drifts, spraying white glitter in its wake, the engine’s hum the only sound, as if they were riding the wind. After a few moments Sean leaned forward and pointed up, and she looked above her to see a long weaving band of rainbow-striped feathers undulating across the sky like the warbonnet of an old-time cinematic warrior.
They watched and rode in silence. A big cat sprang away from them; then the lights of their snocle snared a wolf and they had to tack around him to keep from injuring him. They didn’t really need the lights, it seemed to Yana. The snow reflected back the light from the moons and stars and the aurora, casting deep shadows against which prominent objects were etched in a sharp relief. For the first time, she saw that the settlement was within sight of hills and mountains, off to the east and southeast. They passed between the first pair of hills and cut behind them, following a winding pass that didn’t assail the mountains directly, but nudged gently into them. Within this shelter was more of the vegetation she had seen along the river, tall conifers and a great deal of brush.