Abbado handed him the bladder. “All told we got three gallons, Doc,” he said. “More than we’ll need if we’re going to march in the morning. I’d offer it around pretty generally, but that’d mean Top hears and comes down with both boots.”
The doctor drank deeply from the mouthpiece and lowered the bladder. Caldwell took it from him and drank in turn.
“Mr. Methie,” Ciler said, “the swelling hasn’t increased. I’m afraid that a pressure bandage would do more harm by cutting circulation than the support will benefit you, so I’m going to leave you as you are. I want you to come to me tomorrow after you’ve been walking on it. Do you understand?”
“Sure, Doc,” Methie said in embarrassment. “Sorry.”
“How long are we on point tomorrow, sarge?” Horgen asked. “All day?”
Abbado shook his head. “Till the major shifts us, I guess,” he said. “Anyway, we’re not really point, the bulldozer is. With luck it’ll just be a walk through the woods, not even much exercise.”
“With luck I’ll wake up and find I’m in bed with my girlfriend on Verdant,” Matushek said. “But I’m not holding my breath.”
The bladder came around to him. He finished it and added, “Time to open the next one, Foley.”
Dr. Ciler put his face in his hands. “This isn’t right,” he said hoarsely. “All these children . . . And half of you, you should be in hospital yourselves. You know that. Methie, you should have had surgery on that knee.”
“Aw, Doc, they’d have held me on Stalleybrass or some pisspot like that,” Methie muttered. “And then reassigned me God knows where. I’d never have got back to C41.”
“It’s not right,” the doctor repeated. Caldwell handed him the fresh bladder of whiskey.
“No, it’s not, Doc,” Abbado said softly. “But that doesn’t matter. It’s never right, and it never matters.”
Another log shrilled in the night. Ciler froze, then sucked in more liquor.
Preparations
Blohm watched Sergeant Gabrilovitch pause, then take a second pouch of magazines for his backup weapon, the grenade launcher. They didn’t intend to fight anybody. The plan was that the pair of scouts would slip three miles through the jungle to the site of a magnetic anomaly the major wanted checked out, report, and rejoin the column without firing a round.
The rest of the universe, the Spooks and in particular the forest itself, might have different plans. Blohm clipped another fuel-air grenade to his equipment belt. If he and Gabe stepped in shit, they were a whole lifetime away from resupply.
The encampment was waking up. There were sizzles and cooking odors from the last proper meal the column would have until a relief ship arrived with replacement ranges and prepared food. Children called in shrill voices, angry at being roused before dawn.
Blohm looked toward the sky, pale enough to hint at colors in the forest. “Ready to go, snake?” he asked.
Gabe laughed without humor. “Not as ready as you are. But yeah, let’s do it. You lead?”
C41 was marshalling near the ship. The major and Sergeant Daye made sure the strikers knew their placements in the column. Sergeant Kristal saw the scouts standing apart and walked toward them.
“Hey, you two,” she called. “You’ve still got your converters. Bring them over to the cit woman at the trailers. The president. She’ll take care of them from here out.”
“Who died and made you God, Kristal?” Blohm said. He and 2-1’s sergeant had rubbed each other wrong since she transferred to C41 from a line battalion.
“It happens that Top tasked me to help with administration since we’re short of officers,” Kristal said in a hard, pale voice. “But for a pissant like you, Blohm, all that matters is I’m a sergeant and you’re a striker.”
“Major Farrell wants us to check something magnetic out in the jungle, Sue,” Sergeant Gabrilovitch said. “We need the converters. We’re headed out right now.”
“Come on, Gabe,” Blohm said. He wasn’t going to give up his converter. Not if the major himself ordered it.
“Well, hell, nobody told me,” Kristal muttered. She knew she’d stepped on her dick by trying to pull rank. She turned to go back to the main body. Over her shoulder she added, “When you get back, then. The cits are taking care of catering.”