“The berm isn’t really protection,” Tamara Lundie said. Her voice had a distant quality that made Farrell look harder at her. Her face was drawn and her arms trembled even though she clasped them firmly to her abdomen.
“It won’t keep the jungle out, that’s true,” Farrell said. “It’s useful as a boundary for the civilians, though. Especially kids.”
“We’ve learned fast,” Lundie said. “Even the children. All of us who survived know about dangers we’d never before appreciated.”
“Are you all right?” Farrell said abruptly. “Do you have a fever?”
Lundie squatted down, hugging herself harder. She closed, then reopened her eyes but they weren’t focusing on her present surroundings. “The poison’s affecting me,” she said. “I’ll be all right in a few minutes. I won’t have to be carried if I can wait—”
She wobbled. She would have fallen over except that Farrell dropped into a squat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. The sheeting was rolled in the first trailer; the bulldozed ground, though bare, wasn’t safe to sit on.
“Six?” said Kristal’s voice. “We’re ready. Over.”
“Four, start the march any time God gives the word,” Farrell ordered. “Out.”
He continued to support Tamara Lundie. Her whole body shuddered as if she was in the last stages of a deadly virus.
Nobody gave them more than a glance. Hundreds of civilians were half crippled or wearied to the edge of collapse even now at the start of the day’s march. The strikers focused on the things that were likely to cause them problems: the jungle, the health of the colonists in the section they were responsible for today; injuries and sores where load-bearing equipment had worn through their skin in the humid warmth. Two more huddled figures, whatever their rank, were less important than personal survival.
“You were redlined, you know,” Lundie said with her face buried against Farrell’s shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his stocky torso, holding on like a sailor to a stanchion as a wave surge drags his body toward the great gray ocean. “The whole of Strike Company C41 was redlined.”
“I know that,” Farrell said. He’d known it even as the boat lifted the screaming, weeping survivors from Active Cloak. Until he got the new orders, he’d hoped the authorities wouldn’t look too closely. “They put us on colony security as a stand-down. They didn’t know how dangerous Bezant was.”
“No,” Lundie said. “He chose BZ 459 because it was dangerous. It was his plan to reintegrate you into society by showing civilians what soldiers did for them. Making them understand how helpless they were except for your lives pledged for them. They would see, and you would know they saw.”
“C41,” Kristal’s voice ordered. “We have clearance from the manager. Lead elements proceed. Remaining personnel follow and keep your sections closed up. Out.”
“Regiment planned this?” Farrell said. The poison was making Lundie hallucinate. 701st Regimental Command was a number of things including uncaring, ponderous and inefficient, but it wasn’t crazy; and its power was limited to the Strike Force. This involved civilians. “Can you stand up, Tamara? I see Dr. Ciler over there.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said with a sharpness that meant at least some of her conscious mind was processing data normally. “Just hold me for a minute longer. It wasn’t the military that gave the orders, it was us—the Chief Administrator of the Unity and his aide, God and his blonde aide . . . We made a terrible mistake. We didn’t know about the Kalendru and we didn’t expect the ship to land in the crater. I didn’t assemble the necessary information for my chief.”
Lundie’s body began to shake again. She was crying. “It all went wrong because I didn’t do my job.”
“You did your job,” Farrell said. He patted her shoulder. He felt awkward because his stinger’s muzzle prodded Lundie when he leaned. “There’s always shit that nobody knew about, always. You did your job just fine.”
“I can stand up now,” Lundie said in a small voice. She sniffled.
“That’s good,” Farrell said, rising and helping her up with him. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”