“We’d given you up,” Koyne told Davis, clapping him on the back. “What happened to the truck? They’ve been trying to raise you on radio.”
Hudro clasped both Nyarl’s hands and said something in Hyadean that sounded very emotional and happy. Cade took the camera and shoulder bag of ancillary equipment, which Nyarl still had with him.
“A stick of bombs went through us while we were taking cover,” Davis said. “The truck was totaled, and some of the guys didn’t make it. We thought we might end up walking all the way, but that transporter picked us up.”
The news was not all happy, however. Powell was among those who hadn’t made it. Something like that had been expected eventually, of course. Nevertheless, it dulled what spirit they had been managing to summon back together that morning.
Shortly afterward, Gerofsky revealed what perhaps was the reason for the absence of hostile activity all morning. The Hyadean conveyor had unrolled around and behind them. Denver to the north and Albuquerque to the south were already occupied. A blocking force had landed in the pass this side of Grand Junction. There was no way open to the west.
Presumably, the lull was an invitation to give it up in the face of a hopeless situation. But no surrender appeared to be forthcoming. Jeye—assuming orders were still coming from Sacramento—was sticking to his word. The brigade that the regiment belonged to received orders to move on deeper into the mountains to a position in what was evidently being prepared as a last stronghold for the Federation forces fleeing westward along the central front. Cade and the others stayed with them. What else was there to do?
* * *
That night, they found themselves preparing to bed down with one of the sections dug in on a forward slope ahead of brigade headquarters. The air was calm, bringing the creaking of tanks moving among the light of arc lamps in the darkness below. Still, the respite was continuing. It was generally interpreted as a last lull before the storm that would unleash with the morning: a final chance to reconsider. Apparently, there had been heavy air attacks in California, but once again, it proved impossible to get a communications link to the group in Los Angeles to find out more.
It was going to be a chilly night, spent in holes scraped in the ground, huddling in blankets or whatever else could be improvised. Cade and Marie sat sharing a mess tin of soup in the pit that they occupied with Nyarl, separated by a parapet from Hudro, Koyne, and Davis. Gerofsky was away, conferring with the brigade staff in the tents and trailers farther back below the ridge line. Soldiers were talking, brewing coffee, and sharing cigarettes in sandbagged positions dimly visible on the far side.
“I don’t like it,” Marie said, dunking a piece of biscuit and nibbling on it. “It feels too much like where we were in Oklahoma—before the big attack came in. Everything’s going to hit in the morning. I can feel it.”
Cade stared at the rocky hillside, formless in the starlight, while he searched for an encouraging response. There wasn’t one. “Well, if you’re right, at least we go out together,” he offered finally. “We made it in time to do that.”
Nyarl shook his head. “Fighting to the end when there is no hope. Again this is part of the Terran mystery. Hyadeans would never understand it.”
“So how would it affect them on Chryse . . . if they knew?” Marie asked.
“It’s part of the mystery,” Nyarl said again. “Or is it mystique? They wouldn’t let you do it.”
“Then maybe Jeye’s doing the right thing without realizing it,” Marie said. She turned her head toward Cade. “I thought I was a born fighter. You know—one of those deluded self-images that you carry around in your head. And in the games I got mixed up in these last five years. Because that’s what they were, games. . . . But all this in the last few days—the real thing. I never knew the insanity of it. Whatever problem this is supposed to solve, it could have been solved for a fraction of what it all costs. And it doesn’t even solve anything. It only makes it worse for next time.”