J.B. was furious and saddened in equal measure, a mix of emotions he couldn’t come to terms with. His voice was barely audible, even in the quiet night. “You’re not sure? You think I could…” His voice trailed off as he shrugged his shoulders.
Mildred couldn’t look the Armorer in the eye, turning away as she answered. “Why are you here? You were going back to the others when I left you.”
“I had to think about…what we talked about,” he said cautiously. He couldn’t reveal the secret entailed to Mildred, yet his necessary reticence made Markos all the more suspicious.
“How very convenient,” the sec boss murmured.
J.B. glared at him. “So what was Millie doing here?”
“Yeah, okay…I had to think about what we’d talked about, too,” she said. It was an admission that cast a different light on J.B.’s seemingly feeble excuse.
“So you cannot prove it was this man who attacked you?” Markos asked bluntly. “You will not say that it is?”
“I can’t.”
“But can you say it was not he?”
Mildred paused. Could she? It was a pause that brought anguish to the Armorer’s face. Finally she said, shaking her head sadly, “No, I can’t.”
Markos looked at J.B. with barely concealed contempt. “You may go…for now. But I shall detail men to watch you and your friends. Where there is doubt, I must make sure.”
J.B. left the alley without looking back at Mildred. She said nothing as Markos also dismissed the giant sec man. She said nothing when Markos told her to go and rest. She didn’t respond when he held out a hand to her as she passed him. She didn’t even notice his puzzled and hurt expression as he stood at the head of the alley, watching her go:
She had too many other things on her mind.
MILDRED TOLD Sineta only the barest details of what had occurred, and only to explain the condition in which she arrived back at the baron’s daughter’s quarters. She was quiet, and Sineta didn’t push her.
The women retired for the evening and Mildred figured that she would sleep from sheer exhaustion. But that was denied her. She couldn’t settle, her mind endlessly chasing arguments around in circles until she could find some kind of resolution that ceaselessly evaded her.
For so long she had denied a part of herself. She had been Mildred Wyeth, one of a team, despite the fact that she had a fundamental difference. She was black. In the days before the nukecaust, that had made a difference. Maybe it still did, but in a subtly changed way. Black was like mutie, despised by some and tolerated by others, but mostly ignored in the struggle to survive. Being in this community had put her back in touch with that lost part of herself, and that was good. But was it that great when it came to making her doubt J.B.? Leaving aside the relationship they had built between them, and her feelings for Markos, there were more pressing issues. J.B., Ryan, Krysty, Jak, Dean…even disagreeable, argumentative Doc—they had been through so much together, made bonds of loyalty forged in fire. The fire of battle and the promise of buying the farm. Things that went deeper than age, race and sex—the knowledge that they would pull together without it even being spoken of or thought about.
And she was doubting that, denying it?
The time to strike out for the mainland was near. Within the ville there were the same divisions as when she first arrived. Those who wished separatism wouldn’t move on or accept cold reality. Was she over compensating for all those years and edging toward them? Why else did she think J.B. had been behind the attack, if not because he was a different color?
There was a rift between her and the companions. But perhaps this was a good thing. It made her examine herself, her priorities and loyalties. Without the rift, she couldn’t have realized how much both her own color and also the loyalty of her companions meant to her.
In the end, the ideals of the island were pitched against pragmatism and experience of reality in the world outside.