“I have a song for you,” the girl said, appearing in Anj’s study unannounced. The two bluetails in the cage by the window trilled a welcome.

Anj looked past the girl to the outer chamber. Where was Shen? He was supposed to keep things like this from happening.

“Your servant is striking a bargain to get your roof repaired,” the girl said, joining Anj in looking into the outer room. Then she leaned across Anj’s desk, so the two were practically nose to nose. “He’ll probably overpay,” she said. She smelled of goat. Anj leaned back slightly, but then the girl herself pulled away and stood up straight.

“Here’s my song,” she said. She clasped her hands together and began to sing, full voiced, as if she were out on a hillside, among the goats and the clouds, and not in a tiny room filled with the accoutrements of a civil servant from the Empire of Cinnabar.

Anj considered herself fluent in the language of the tribes of the Cloud Mountains, but she couldn’t understand a word the girl was singing. The tune rose and then fell, fell, fell, turned and bounced like a mountain stream, fast and fresh. Was it the melody? The girl’s face as she sang? The knuckles of girl’s hands, white from the intensity with which one hand gripped the other? Whatever it was, it made Anj’s eyes sting with the threat of tears. She quickly turned her mind to the census and the requests from the commander of the Southwestern Army.

The song was over. The girl stood silent in front of the desk, hands still clasped and eyes distant. Then those eyes met Anj’s own.

Hastily, Anj pulled a couple of coins out of her jacket pocket, but the girl frowned. She took a step toward the window and opened the door to the bluetails’ cage. For a minute Anj thought the girl intended to free the birds, but no, now she was shutting the door again. She had taken from the bottom of the cage a feather whose bright blue hue matched her headscarf. She smoothed it, made it catch the light from the window, and smiled, then turned to go.

“That was a lovely song,” Anj said.

“I wanted you to know me,” the girl said, tracing the door jamb with the feather. “Now you know who I am.” Then she was gone.

Anj heard the creak of the outer door, then laughter and men’s voices. Shen entered, followed by two of the locals, one tall and broad, with a thick beard, and the other smaller in all dimensions.

“So Tilia Songbird paid you a visit,” said the larger man. “Sang for you, didn’t she.” Before Anj could respond, he continued, “It’s good luck when she does–not as good luck as some other things she does, though, eh Cousin Ezmah? That’s the real good luck.” He barked a laugh and gave the smaller man a clap on the back that ought to have made him stagger, but Ezmah didn’t budge, just clenched his jaw.

“Spirits move through Tilia Songbird,” Ezmah said, meeting Anj’s eyes briefly and then looking at his feet.

Women didn’t hold positions of authority here among the mountain tribes, and the only way the mountain people could accept Anj was to view her as a man, a fiction that was more difficult for some than others. “It’s a blessing when the spirits walk among us,” he mumbled.

“She blesses some more generously than others, that’s all I’m saying,” said the bigger man to Ezmah, and then it was his turn to meet Anj’s eyes, and he didn’t drop his gaze. “Not that I understand her choices. Like you, Your Excellency. Why did she pick you, I wonder. You people from Cinnabar don’t even believe in the spirits.” With each sentence his voice grew louder; the last rang like an accusation.

“Worthy Kehan and Worthy Ezmah will repair the roof,” intervened Shen. “We agreed on ten coppers each.”

Whatever storm had been brewing in Kehan dissipated at those words. He cleared his throat and said in an ordinary voice, “We’ll do it for you tomorrow. Have it finished by midday.”

“Very good,” said Anj. She rose and took a small chest down from one of the shelves along the back wall. Inside the chest were copper and silver coins, but also small obsidian disks, each with the imperial star chiseled in the center. Anj took out the necessary coins and also two of the disks, which she held up.

“These are for your families. Any service rendered to a servant of Cinnabar is service rendered to the Empire of Cinnabar. These disks are tokens of imperial acknowledgement.”

The men both bowed low, wished the spirits’ blessings upon Anj and the Empire of Cinnabar, and backed out of the inner room.

“Hah! I can’t wait to see that son of a jackal Nilma’s face when I wave this in front of him,” Anj heard Kehan say, and then the outer door squeaked shut. Anj and Shen smiled at each other. Each obsidian disk represented an increase in Cinnabar’s influence here in the wilds.

Shen paused by the inner door, and when he spoke, it wasn’t to mention the census or the arrival of a homing pigeon from the Western Capital or even to comment on the roof repairs.

“What was Tilia Songbird’s song like? Did you feel anything special?” he asked.

“Her song? It was– I couldn’t understand any of the words. I wonder if she was singing in some other dialect.”

“She doesn’t sing in words. Just nonsense syllables. But the people here say–well, you heard what they say. So I was just wondering. . .”

Anj thought back. The song. That liquid stream of sound. The tears they summoned to the gates of Anj’s eyes. But then there were Worthy Kehan’s insinuations. “I heard what they said. It’s shameful. The girl must be out of balance in the mind.”

“Well, if spirits fill you, you may not behave like an ordinary person,” said Shen mildly.

“’If spirits fill you’!” Anj scoffed. “You believe in spirits, now?”

“Oh no, not me. I know the foreign service code, and I value my job. But if you think as the people here do, then–”

“I don’t want to think as the people here do; I want to think as an effective adjunct gubernatorial undersecretary of the Cinnabar Empire, so I can get promoted to someplace more civilized. So let’s put aside Tilia Songbird and spirits and turn to business. Any news this morning from the Western Capital? Anything from Commander Tak?”

Shen shook his head. “Nothing this morning, but I-“ he paused, eyes on the scene outside the window.

“What is it?” Anj asked. She glanced out the window. A stranger was talking with Ezmah.

Shen sighed. “It looks as if we can’t turn away from Tilia Songbird just yet. Do you see that young man, the one talking with Worthy Ezmah? He’s from the Thunder Tribe, arrived yesterday. The chieftain himself is hosting him, and from what I understand, his business has to do with Tilia Songbird. I gather she’s from the Thunder Tribe originally, and this man wants to take her back with him.”

Shen frowned. Voices floated in through the window. Worthy Ezmah was all evasions, head shaking, hands raised, and finally, he started moving off, leaving the stranger standing alone, glowering.

“It appears the chieftain is reluctant to turn her over,” Shen continued. “So now this man from the Thunder Tribe is coming to you. To Cinnabar, as it were.”

Anj raised her eyebrows. As far as she knew, neither of her predecessors had had any dealings with the Thunder Tribe. And now one of their people was coming to seek a favor? It was possibly the first positive development since Anj had taken up her post.

Anj turned to Shen. “All right,” she said. “You go invite him in to the outer room. Have him wait there; serve him some of the best of the local tea but also break out some of the persimmon wine. That’s something he won’t have had before. And, hmmm . . . what else . . . I know: that palm sugar confection from the Jasmine Islands. Put that out too. When he’s had some tea, call me, and I’ll come in.”

Shen hurried out. Anj gave her medallion of office a perfunctory polish with the edge of her jacket and glanced at herself in the circular mirror hanging near the shelving on the back wall.

She was wearing local clothes, presents from the chieftain, men’s garments. The silky wool of the local goats had been woven into the fine, soft cloth from which her overshirt and trousers had been sewn; the goats’ hides, stitched together, made the long jacket. Strong yarn, brightly dyed, had been used to embroider geometric designs along the edges of the jacket–as much embroidery as on the chieftain’s jacket. In keeping with local custom, she wore a dagger in the sash at her waist, but a Cinnabar blade, not a local one.

Men here wore their hair shoulder length and loose, so Anj did too, though hers fell smooth and straight, while theirs twisted and curled. Anj turned sideways. She was of a height to look most of the men in the eye, but even with the goatskin jacket, she was slight beside them. She threw back her shoulders. Never mind. She had Cinnabar’s treasury and its imperial authority behind her.

Sometime later Shen opened the door and announced,

“His Excellency Adjunct Gubernatorial Undersecretary Anj.”

Anj entered the outer room and sat down on a cushion, local style, across a low table from the visitor. His eyebrows shot up when she had seated herself, and he looked over at Shen, standing by the door. Shen remained impassive and announced, “Worthy Siiar, from the Thunder Tribe, brings a petition, Your Excellency.”

“Worthy Siiar. May your days be reigned by balance. How can this servant of Cinnabar help you?”

At the sound of Anj’s voice, Siiar started. He stared openly at Anj for a moment, caught himself, shot another furtive glance at Shen, then dropped his gaze to the untouched sweet on his plate.

The Thunder Tribe must not know that the new adjunct gubernatorial undersecretary is actually a woman, Anj thought. And no one here bothered to inform this young man. Were they hoping he’d make a fool of himself?

Maybe the thought was occurring to Siiar, too; the visitor lifted his still sparsely bearded chin and spoke resolutely. “Your Excellency. May the spirits bless your days. I come on behalf of my brother, Chieftain Zara of the Thunder Tribe. There is one of our people here who needs to be brought home.”

Anj took a tiny bite of her sweet and tried not to cough. The vagaries of a three-month journey from the coast had rendered a supposedly chewy delicacy chalklike. She took a quick sip of wine. “The one they call Tilia Songbird,” she said.

“Tilia is her name, yes.”

“And you have taken the matter up with Chieftain Rosan, have you not?”

“I did, but Chieftain Rosan and Chieftain Zara are rivals. I didn’t expect satisfaction.”

“Chieftain Rosan refuses to turn over Tilia because . . . he wishes the blessings of the spirits she hosts to remain with the Freshet Tribe?” hazarded Anj.

“Blessings? It’s not spirit blessings that Chieftain Rosan or any of the others are after. It’s nothing more than . . . than the favors of a wanton vagabond.”

“I see. So why expend effort to bring such a one back home with you?” asked Anj, lacing her fingers on the table between them.

“Her behavior is a stain on my brother’s honor and a humiliation to the Thunder Tribe– Chieftain Rosan and all the worthies of the Freshet tribe mock us through her! And so.” Siiar reached for his glass of wine and downed it in a gulp. “And so she needs to be brought home. And dealt with.” Shen silently refilled Siiar’s glass, and Siiar took another drink.

Anj inclined her head. “Worthy Siiar, what are you asking of Cinnabar, exactly? You want me to compel Chieftain Rosan to turn the girl over to you?”

“Yes. Your Excellency.”

“I sympathize with your distress. The situation you describe is unpleasant, I agree. It does not, however, merit imperial intervention. Chieftain Rosan and the Freshet Tribe are Cinnabar’s hosts in this region. I’m afraid it would take an issue of somewhat greater significance to induce me to risk damaging the warm relations Cinnabar has established with the Freshet Tribe.”

Siiar started to speak, but Anj held up a hand.

“But that’s not to say that I have nothing to offer by way of redress. I could, for example, perhaps arrange for the girl to be sent away somewhere where she would not cause any more harm to Chieftain Zara’s honor or the standing of the Thunder Tribe.”

Siiar scowled.

“No more harm? The damage is already done. She was my brother’s wife! And now, word comes back to us, how she carries on here . . . by rights I should find her and cut her down where she stands!”

Anj thought of the narrow-shouldered girl, her song, the bluetail feather glinting in the sunlight. Cut down? She felt sick.

“But if I do,” Siiar was saying, voice low, “my brother’s shame will be even more public. There won’t be a tribe in the Cloud Mountains that won’t have heard the story by winter’s end. So I have to take her out of here–which Chieftain Rosan won’t permit.” He turned the stem of his wine glass round and round between his thumb and fingers. “Cinnabar should stand for virtue, shouldn’t it? And justice?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the wine glass.

“Cinnabar does stand for virtue and justice, but also for power, Worthy Siiar, power based on judicious action. It’s by choosing the right action at the right time that Cinnabar makes itself invincible.”

“Helping me is the right action at the right time,” insisted Siiar, looking up at Anj again. “You’re mistaken to put your faith in the Freshet Tribe and its allies.”

Anj sighed inwardly. If Siiar only knew how little the Empire of Cinnabar cared about any of the tribes of the Cloud Mountains–which was why its adjunct gubernatorial undersecretary was left to while away her days in a tiny house with a leaky roof.

“These eastern tribes are all Cinnabar facing,” Siiar was saying. “If you want to advance in the Cloud Mountains, you should align with the Thunder Tribe. My brother knows all the mountain passes. He’s led raiding parties into the Gate of the Mountain itself. What if your Southwestern Army knew about those passes? Forget sea battles–Cinnabar could sweep down on the Kingdom of the Plains from the mountains.”

Anj stared at Siiar in astonishment. The sea war was beginning to seem like a stalemate–did he know that? How did he know that? But not even Commander Tak thought seriously of advancing over the mountains; no pass was large enough. But many small passes? Could it be done?

“So. Upon further consideration, is it maybe Cinnabar’s pleasure to help me?” Siiar’s tone was positively challenging. Anj bought time by taking a sip of her wine.

“Possibly.” From the corner of her eye, she could see Shen stiffen, but she ignored him. She took another sip of wine.

“I will consider the matter and return you an answer in two days. Please do not act before then.”

Siiar bowed his head. “Thank you, Your Excellency.” His voice shook slightly. Relief? Anj gave a slight nod. The audience was over.

“People here are full of boasts and big claims,” said Shen, clearing away the stale sweets and empty glasses once the two of them were alone again. “But reality is often smaller. I wouldn’t let yourself be dazzled by Worthy Siiar’s last-ditch offers. No one tribe controls all the passes, and he would have promised the moon if he thought it would incline you toward him.”

He followed Anj into the back room; she could feel him hovering as she opened the chest that had the survey maps in it and dumped them on the desk.

“Did Bis make any overtures to the tribes in the west?” she asked. “Or Hum?”

“Neither of your predecessors did. The western tribes were hostile to the survey teams,” said Shen.

Anj found the area, colored purple, indicating the wintering grounds and summer pastures of the Thunder Tribe, stretching west along the Cloud Mountains just north of the small kingdom called Gate of the Mountain. The Gate of the Mountain was the logical stepping stone to the Kingdom of the Plains; it was getting a force of any size as far as the Gate of the Mountain that posed the problem. But if the Thunder Tribe controlled even some of the passes Siiar claimed, if Chieftain Zara really had raided into the territory of the Gate of the Mountain . . .

If either of those things were true, then Anj wouldn’t need to bide her time until she could be promoted away to someplace more promising. She could make history happen here.

“You’re not really contemplating trading Tilia Songbird away for the phantom of a possibility of advancement for Cinnabar, are you?” Shen had perfected the art of remonstration: hard words, gentle tone.

Tilia, who sings mountain streams into small rooms. Anj shut the door firmly on that thought–tried to, anyway. “My duty out in this wilderness is to advance Cinnabar’s cause. Even if it involves sacrifices.”

Shen folded his arms. “Ruthless doesn’t suit you.”

“Weren’t you just saying something about thinking like the locals? You and I might think it extreme to condemn someone to death for unseemly behavior, but if. . .” It was no good. Shen was right; ruthless was a coat she couldn’t wear. Maybe cunning would fit better. “Maybe there’s a way to keep Tilia safe and still see if Worthy Siiar is more than empty talk,” she said. “He just needs to believe she’s dead; she doesn’t really have to die.”

“He’s not going to settle for your word on the matter. I’ve seen this sort of thing before–he’ll want to accomplish the deed himself. At the very least he’ll require incontrovertible proof.”

It seemed to Anj that at some point during this conversation an invisible band of metal had been fastened round her head, and now unseen torturers were slowly tightening it. She rubbed her fingers across her eyebrows, massaged her temples a little.

“I’ll figure out something. You work on the census totals for now. Commander Tak’s expecting them. I’m going to take one of the ponies and ride up the western road a bit. See what the way to Thunder Tribe territory looks like.”

It was good to be outside, to feel the breeze and watch the dancing light of the Cloud Mountains, always changing as the configuration of clouds passing over the sun changed. Yesterday’s rains had given the air a scrubbed-clean feeling, and in the ample valley that was the Freshet Tribe’s wintering ground, people were harvesting millet. Now that those who had traveled with the goats to the summer pastures were back for the winter, the village and the hillsides were more lively. Passing one homestead shortly after turning onto the western road, Anj found herself the object of interest and excitement for a knot of siblings, who ran up to the roadside.

“Look, it’s the outlander, the woman-man,” the tallest boy called over his shoulder to a brother and sister, who came running up, followed by a barefoot little one in just a shirt, who toddled after the others, hands uplifted, calling, “Me too, me! Meeram too!” They waved, then ran off shrieking and laughing when Anj waved back.

Anj smiled to herself, but the smile faded as her thoughts turned to Tilia. What to do. She tried to array the elements of this problem in her mind: Siiar, his offers, Tilia. But at Tilia her thoughts veered off. A blue feather. A song like water.

The world grew perceptibly brighter as a rack of cloud that had been covering the sun moved away, and with the sun came the liquid sound from Anj’s memory, following her up the road. Anj looked back, and there by the road, back at the homestead where the children had waved, stood Tilia herself, holding a chicken and singing. When their eyes met, Tilia smiled, singing all the while.

Anj turned the pony (named, wishfully, Fortune) around and headed back down the road. Tilia was handing the chicken to the smallest of the four children, whose siblings were nowhere in sight, but it fluttered out of the little one’s arms and back toward the house. The child’s eyes grew wide as Anj dismounted and led Fortune over to the tall poplar where Tilia was standing. He turned and ran in the same direction as the chicken, calling his siblings.

“That hen won’t lay,” Tilia said, watching as the child tripped over it in his hurry to get into the house.

“Will your singing help it?”

Tilia shrugged. “Maybe. I held it, and a song came out. Maybe the song will heal it. I don’t know.”

A breeze caught at the poplar leaves; they flashed their pale undersides like a thousand signal mirrors. Tilia’s eyes were on them. Her hands moved away from her sides, fluttered like the leaves. A response.

“Tilia!” One of the older children was trotting toward them from the house, but slowed to a walk when he saw Anj. “Mama wanted you to have these,” he said, passing three grape leaf rolls to Tilia while staring at Anj.

Tilia popped one of the rolls into her mouth right away. “Thank you! Tell her thank you,” she said between bites. The boy grinned, waited expectantly, hopefully. She rested a hand on his shoulder and bent to kiss him on his cheek, right by his ear. His grin broadened, and he put his arms round Tilia’s neck and kissed her back, then dashed back to the house.

“Are you always so generous with kisses?” Anj asked.

Tilia laughed.

“That? It’s no more than what the wind does, is it?” she asked, gulping down the next grape leaf roll. “A light, light touch.” She tipped her head back, and the breeze pulled at her headscarf. She closed her eyes, smiled, then opened them again.

“So light,” she murmured. “Would you like one?”

“I–”

Tilia’s lips brushed Anj’s cheek, barely touched it, but Anj felt the touch in the pit of her stomach, and gasped.

Tilia popped the last of the grape leaf rolls in her mouth, swallowed, and sighed.

“Those were so good. I was so hungry all yesterday and today.” She looked back down the road toward the valley, then took a couple of steps toward Anj and Fortune.

“I promised I would watch Worthy Ezmah’s goats today,” she said, stroking Fortune’s cheek and letting the pony nuzzle her neck and chin. “Maybe his wife will have something for me too. She usually does. I’m still a little hungry.”

“Have you ever given Worthy Ezmah one of your kisses?” Anj asked, thinking of the morning’s conversations.

Tilia ran a hand along the edge of her scarf, tucking in a stray strand of hair.

“I sang for him once,” she said. “It was when his wife was very ill, this past spring, after bearing a third child so late in life. She could barely take care of the baby, and their daughter had just gone as a bride to Worthy Sunan. His wife couldn’t plant the fields, so Worthy Ezmah decided not to take their goats to the summer pastures or go on any raids. When he announced his decision, the men all mocked him . . . They called him small, not much of a man. But that’s wrong. He’s small in size but big in heart. I went to see him, and a song came out from me–his heart called it, full of love for his wife and their new baby. No one calls him a small man now.”

“But no kisses?”

“Maybe one kiss. I don’t remember.”

“You may not, but other people do. Other people feel jealous.”

Tilia’s face clouded, and she hugged herself.

“I know,” she said, hunching her shoulders. “Why, though? The wind touches everyone’s cheeks, but they’re not jealous of the wind. The rain wraps people up with its wetness, but they’re not jealous of the rain. But a kiss . . . And the jealous ones don’t wait to be given one of their own; they just demand and take . . . I need to go watch the goats.” She started walking down the road toward the valley.

Anj hurried after her. “Here, you climb onto Fortune; I’ll take you to watch Worthy Ezmah’s goats,” Anj said. She got Tilia settled on the pony and walked alongside, holding the bridle. Three, four, five leisurely paces in silence. Time to broach the subject of Siiar. “Tilia,” Anj said, “did you know that a man from your tribe has come looking for you?”

Tilia regarded her soberly but didn’t reply.

“You ran away from your husband, yes? The chieftain of the Thunder Tribe? He’s unhappy with the tales that travel back to him about you. Your songs and kisses–he feels disgraced. He’s sent one of his brothers to take you back, and from the way that one talks, I think he intends to have you pay for his disgrace with your life.”

Tilia murmured something inaudible.

“What?”

“Which brother?” Tilia repeated, only slightly louder.

“Siiar. Worthy Siiar.”

Tilia nodded, startling Anj with a flash of a smile that dissolved into trembling lips and closed eyes, but no sobs, no tears. Just wet lashes when she opened her eyes again.

“Siiar is my true love, and I’m his. He wouldn’t ever hurt me.”

“What?”

“My father did give me to Chieftain Zara. He couldn’t very well refuse the chieftain’s request. It was a huge honor.” Tilia shrugged. “I don’t know why Chieftain Zara wanted to marry me. He already has a wife, a rich and beautiful one . . . But some people, you know, every small thing that takes their fancy, they want to have for their own, and they won’t be denied.

“I went to stay at his house, in the women’s quarters, before the wedding, so I could get to know Adayla, his first wife, and learn what my duties in the household would be. I didn’t like it. The servants had hard eyes and spoke coldly. I spilled tea and Adayla slapped me . . . soon there were almost no songs in me at all–just, sometimes, when I would see the homing pigeons coming back to the dovecote in the evening, I’d find a song coming. Their wings are like leaves in the sun.” Her hands moved like the poplar leaves again, and she smiled.

“The birds are Siiar’s. He trains both the hunting birds and the homing pigeons. One time when I was singing, he asked me if I wanted to help feed the pigeons, up in the dovecote. I went with him up there, and–“

“I can guess the rest of the story,” said Anj, quickly.

Tilia nodded. Her right hand drifted to her face, her fingers finding her jaw, her cheek, her lips, as if either the hand or the face were someone else’s.

“I never knew, before, what ‘Tilia’ was,” she said. “Before, there were clouds, rain, leaves, birds, wind, sun, blossoms. . . Those things, they have songs, and when I come near them, their songs come out of me, too–there’s no boundary between us. But Siiar traced the exact borders of me. When he put his hands like this, when he held me, it was Tilia, just Tilia, he was holding. He said, ‘You are so precious. I will always treasure you.’ It was to Tilia he said it. Me.”

Tears were running down Tilia’s cheeks now, but her voice remained steady.

“Chieftain Zara has a sharp nose and a sharp mind. I was sure he’d sniff my scent on Siiar or his on me. So I ran away. I came here and went back to being Tilia without any borders.” She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Siiar can’t really mean to harm me.” A trickle of uncertainty dampened Tilia’s words. “I wish I could— maybe if I see him—“

“No, you mustn’t!” By rights I should find her and cut her down. Siiar’s words still rang in Anj’s ears.

“But if-”

“No! Listen,” said Anj. “Tonight, when you’re done helping Worthy Ezmah and his family, I want you to come back to the regional outpost–the house where I stay. All right? I’d like you to stay at the outpost, just for tonight and tomorrow. The next day Worthy Siiar will come back to see me. You sit in the back room while we have our conversation in the front room. If you feel like speaking with him after that, you may. All right?”

By now they were reentering the valley, and the fresh smell of the cut millet blew past on the breeze. Tilia didn’t respond; her eyes were on the millet.

“Worthy Nilma’s fields,” she said. “He takes his time and does things properly.”

“Tilia! Will you promise not to look for Siiar? And come to the Cinnabar outpost tonight, and stay there until I’ve talked with him?”

Still Tilia didn’t answer, or even meet Anj’s eyes. The splashing of Fortune’s hooves in the puddles seemed the louder for Tilia’s silence. Anj gritted her teeth. Trying to keep hold of Tilia’s attention was like trying to keep hold of water.

“Tilia? Will you promise?”

“I won’t look for him,” Tilia said at last. “And I’ll come to your house.”

Anj let out a sigh of relief.

“Look,” said Tilia, pointing. “There’s Worthy Ezmah, in Worthy Kehan’s fields. He’s indebted to Worthy Kehan, and Worthy Kehan never lets him rest.” She made a face. “And there’s Worthy Kehan, lording it over all the laborers. He always has to be the best and have the most. See how he’s already put the millet straw in his barns? It’s because he wants to be ahead of Worthy Nilma, but it’s been rainy, and I’ll bet the straw’s not all dry. It’ll molder, and then his goats will sicken in the winter.” She waved at Ezmah, who straightened up from his work and made his way over to the road, sickle still in hand.

“Look,” said Tilia, grinning. “His Excellency has put me on a pony!”

Ezmah smiled back. “You’re quite the fine lady.”

“Shall I take the goats to the meadow beyond the mulberry stand?”

“That would be a big help, Tilia. Thank you.” His voice was warm with affection. He glanced at Anj and frowned, hesitated, then spoke.

“The chieftain’s brother from the Thunder Tribe came to see you.”

“Yes.”

“I hope- I hope . . . whatever he asked . . . you’ll do nothing that would put Tilia in harm’s way.”

“I hope to ensure that harm doesn’t come to her, Worthy Ezmah.”

The man’s face relaxed. “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

“Cousin!” called Worthy Kehan. “I didn’t sow grain in the road and don’t need you harvesting what you find there. Let’s have your sickle back where it’s of some use.” Ezmah returned to the field, but Kehan continued to stare at Anj and Tilia. Time to move along. Anj set a brisk pace, and soon they had put Kehan’s fields well behind them.

Eventually they turned onto a side path that climbed again into the hills, and arrived at Ezmah’s homestead. Tilia slid down from Fortune, waved to Ezmah’s wife, who was hoeing a patch of vegetables, her baby tied to her back, then went to collect the goats, several of whom she greeted with hugs.

Anj watched Tilia drive the goats up the slope behind Ezmah’s house, then mounted Fortune and headed back past the fields and houses of the Freshet Tribe, this time at a canter. She was nearly back to the western road when she became aware of hoofbeats behind her. She reined in, wheeled round, and was face to face with Siiar, who pulled in so close that their shoulders practically touched.

“Decided against helping me, then? Cinnabar’s ambitions can be put aside for a song? Or was it more than a song?”

“On the contrary, I’d still very much like to advance Cinnabar’s ambitions, and I’d even be willing to help you with your current predicament. Your actual predicament, that is, not the disgraceful fabrications you wove for me this morning.”

Siiar growled and lunged for Anj, who leaned into him with the aim of grabbing him by the sash and arm and unseating him–but Siiar threw his free arm around Anj’s shoulders and they fell together to the ground, where they rolled free of their startled ponies’ dancing hooves and into the roadside flowers. Siiar had the advantage of weight, but Anj moved quickly, and just as Siiar managed to fling himself across her chest, she brought her dagger up beneath his jaw, cutting, but not too deeply. Just enough to startle.

Siiar gasped and fell back. Anj slipped free, and the two of them faced each other again, crouched and panting, Siiar with a hand pressed to his neck. “You’re playing with me,” he said. “You say you would be willing to help me–then why were you escorting Tilia through the valley today?”

“Who’s playing with whom? You neglected to mention to me that you were Tilia’s first indiscretion. You came to me as an aggrieved brother when really you’re no more than a jealous lover.”

Siiar looked as if Anj had struck him. “Tilia’s behavior among the Freshet people is still wrong, still shames my brother,” he said, voice unsteady.

“More wrong than yours? You betrayed your chieftain and your brother. Whatever she’s done since coming here, Tilia may well have saved your life by leaving your brother’s house when she did. She certainly could have ended it by denouncing you. Isn’t that worth anything to you?”

Siiar pressed both his bloodied hand and his clean one to his forehead, shut his eyes.

“I loved her,” he said, his fingers closing round his hair as he spoke. “And then one day she disappeared without a word. And later, the stories that came to us from the Freshet Tribe. . . my love must have meant nothing to her. Even knowing that, sometimes I fear I might still love her–but I refuse to! I refuse to. I can atone for the wrong I did my brother, wipe out the stain on our family’s honor, and cut out the disease from my own heart, all at once.”

Spoken like a general who promises victory in the face of an overwhelming enemy, thought Anj. Then, thinking on generals, she asked, “Your offer–access to the passes–was that Chieftain Zara’s idea, or yours?”

“Mine. But my brother will honor my promises. He’ll understand what an alliance with Cinnabar means–but he’ll do it as much to spite Chieftain Rosan as for any other reason.”

“How did you know about the sea war? These mountains are months away from the sea.”

He didn’t respond.

“You would have to have seen the messages from Commander Tak. Tilia said you raise hunting birds. And homing pigeons. That’s it, isn’t it. You were intercepting our messenger birds.”

Now a corner of his mouth quirked upward, almost a half smile.

“Yes. I trained one of my falcons to catch your birds without killing them. I read the messages, then sent the birds on their way.”

Anj nodded. “Clever. So you can read the Cinnabar tongue. I guess we’ll have to start using code.” Commander Tak had been wrong to dismiss encryption as a needless precaution. Clearly not everyone in the Cloud Mountains was unlettered. Anj sheathed her dagger and sighed.

“You have the wisdom to see the importance of Cinnabar’s plans and the perseverance to make yourself part of them. I won’t give you Tilia, but you don’t need Tilia to persuade your brother that the stain on his honor has been removed. A torn and bloodied headscarf, along with your testimony and mine, will be enough. If you can put aside killing Tilia, I can help you bring your brother true fame and glory, enough to make him forget any injury he suffered because of her.”

“And you’ll hide Tilia away somewhere, as you said before.” The hint of a smile had disappeared from Siiar’s face; it was bleak now, his voice bitter. “Somewhere only you know– your own private prize.”

“That is a ridiculous idea,” said Anj, heat rising in her cheeks.

“Oh? You don’t want her? You don’t love her? Then maybe it will take another song, or maybe two–or maybe you all have wooden hearts, in Cinnabar. All the better for you if you do. Better than to love, when the love can’t be returned.” He shook his head. “You might as well love the wind, that doesn’t care where it bestows its caresses.”

“But Tilia does love you,” murmured Anj.

“Yes, like the wind. She loves everyone. Anyone.”

“She loves you differently.” Anj felt a tickle on her cheeks, went to brush it away and found her fingers wet. Tears. Siiar tilted his head, his eyes lingering on Anj’s damp cheeks.

“Truly?” So much hope and doubt in one word.

“Yes.”

Simultaneously the two of them got to their feet, brushed themselves off.

“Come to the Cinnabar outpost the day after tomorrow, as we arranged,” said Anj. “Perhaps you can see Tilia one more time, before we carry out our vanishing act.”

First the sun left the valleys, but the hills and high peaks of the Cloud Mountains still glowed rose and violet, and then the light left the mountains too, and Tilia still did not arrive at the Cinnabar outpost.

“You’re likely to wear a groove in the floor,” remarked Shen, as Anj paced the length of the outer chamber.

“Siiar was persuaded,” Anj said. “He wouldn’t suddenly have changed his mind. Would he?” She chewed a thumbnail. “Or perhaps Tilia’s wandered off somewhere? Or forgot?” Anj was at the door. “I’m going to find her. I’ll take Glory this time.”

A near-full moon gave the landscape a ghostly brilliance, and the air shimmered with the tones of a multitude of unseen insects. Tilia probably sings with them, thought Anj, and urged Glory to a trot, aiming for Worthy Ezmah’s homestead. He might know where to find the girl.

Passing Worthy Kehan’s fields, a different sound caught Anj’s ear: movement, cautious, deliberate. Anj slowed and scanned the road and the surrounding fields, but the sounds had ceased.

The hairs on the back of Anj’s neck rose to attention, pushing at her shirt collar.

And what was this? A slim shadow, moving down a hillside track up ahead, crossing the road, descending into the field, and heading for the barn.

Tilia?

“Tilia!” Anj called.

The figure hesitated. Anj dismounted and hurried to meet her.

“What are you doing out here? You were supposed to come to my house tonight.”

“I know,” said Tilia. The moonlight shone in her solemn eyes. “But I had to come here first.”

Her voice shook. “It’s Worthy Kehan. I heard him tell Worthy Ezmah that he was going lure Siiar out to the big barn. He said . . . he was going to stop Siiar from making any trouble. He’s going to hurt him, Your Excellency, maybe even . . . I have to warn him.” She pressed her hands, one clasping the other tightly, to her chest.

The notion of Tilia trying to protect the man whom everyone else was intent on protecting her from might have made Anj laugh, if just then the door to the barn hadn’t opened. Four men jumped out, two tackling Tilia and two heading for Anj. Anj threw herself to the ground, drew her dagger, and sliced the ankle tendons of one assailant, who howled a curse as he fell, then curled up, moaning. The other aimed a kick at Anj’s head that she narrowly avoided. She caught his foot under her free arm and wrenched him down, but before she could take her dagger to him, a blow from behind caught her in the small of the back, winding her, and as she lay gasping, strong arms pulled her into the barn.

A heavy, rank scent, almost alcoholic, enveloped her. Coughing, she squinted into the murky dark. The large shape over there, that must be Worthy Kehan. The shape on the floor, still whimpering, with another kneeling beside him, must be the man she had wounded. And that must be Tilia, twisting in a fourth man’s grasp, heedless of the dagger he was attempting to hold to her throat.

“She’s cut herself; she’s bleeding!” the man whispered, frantic.

“Foolish girl doesn’t understand what’s good for her. No sense! Seeking out a boy who wants to kill her.” There was anger and impatience in Kehan’s voice. “Tie her feet and put something in her mouth; that’ll shut her up. Sorry you had to wander into this, Your Excellency, but now I’m afraid you’ll have to stay too, until we’re done with that Thunder Tribe boy. Then we’ll send you back to your little house and you can just forget all this ever happened.”

“That’s a bad plan, Worthy Kehan,” Anj said, speaking in level tones, though she too had a blade pressed to her throat. “You don’t want to start a blood feud with the Thunder Tribe, do you? Let me handle Siiar.”

Slowly and deliberately, she pushed away the threatening dagger.

“You don’t want a feud with Cinnabar, either,” she added, glancing at the man who held her. Then, to Kehan,

“Untie Tilia. How can you mistreat someone you seek to protect? You should be ashamed.”

“I don’t need your scolding or your orders, Your Excellency,” Kehan sneered. “You think because you’ve gotten cozy with Tilia that you know what’s best for her? Well, you don’t. Freak.”

Anj coughed again. The alcoholic odor was becoming overwhelming, and there was something else now, a sharpness that tickled her nose. . .

Smoke? Tilia had said that Kehan put up the millet straw too early, and wet straw was known to catch fire unaccountably sometimes.

“I think we’d all better get out of here,” Anj said. “I think your straw’s about to–”

“Father, listen! It’s him,” whispered the man by Tilia, nodding toward the barn door and drawing his dagger.

Anj could hear the crunch of millet stubble beneath footfalls. Then a pause. Anj started forward, but the man holding her yanked her back and clapped a hand over her mouth. The door to the barn swung open, and for the barest fraction of a moment, Siiar was visible, silhouetted against the moonlight. Then there was a sudden whoosh, like an invisible flock of birds taking wing, as the straw in the barn burst into flame.

The man holding Anj screamed as fire seized the edge of his jacket. He released her and ran for the door, but the flames there, fed by the rich night air, were dancing the fiercest.

“The back, out through the back,” someone shouted, and another voice cried, “Uncle, Tavat, help me with Sarban!”

The fire didn’t illuminate; it blinded, and each breath Anj drew seared her lungs. She pulled her jacket over her head and crawled toward Tilia. “Let’s go–this way!” she shouted, cutting the twine around Tilia’s ankles. “Use your jacket as a shield.”

There was a noise like thunder as a portion of the roof gave way. Flames leapt up to greet the stars.

“Hurry!” said Anj. The flames hissed and snapped; somewhere up above, something groaned and creaked. Then came a loud crack, and a thick beam, flames running its length, fell to the ground, striking Tilia and pinning her. The girl screamed and struggled, but couldn’t pull free.

Wrapping her hands in her jacket, Anj tried first to lift and then to push the beam away, to no avail. She looked about in desperation, but Kehan and his sons and nephews must already have made their escape. And now Tilia was no longer struggling; no, she was lying quite still.

“Tilia . . .” But there could be no tears in that furnace. And now the flames were coming to claim Anj’s jacket.

Anj let the burning jacket fall. She covered her face with her hands and peered out through her fingers, searching for the rear door.

And there, coming through the inferno toward her, was familiar silhouette: Siiar.

“Help me free Tilia,” Anj croaked.

Together they were able to lift the beam enough to pull Tilia free. They managed to stumble several paces away from the barn before Anj collapsed, coughing. Even after the coughing ended, she didn’t move, just lay with her face pressed to the cool and dewy ground, with no thoughts beyond the miracle of breathing.

“I think . . . I think she’s gone,” she heard Siiar say.

With effort, Anj sat up. Siiar was kneeling beside Tilia, ear to her chest. He raised his head and turned to Anj. “I let myself believe in your scheme,” he said, in wretched tones. “I found reasons, excuses, for putting aside my brother’s dishonor and shrugging off my own guilt. But then, when that swaggering loudmouth approached me, saying he could arrange for Tilia to meet me this evening–as if she’s at his beck and call–all my doubts and shame returned. So I came, vowing I’d be true to my original purpose.

“And now this. She’s been snatched away even better than you could have managed. My brother’s honor is avenged, and I haven’t lifted a finger. And all I want, all I want with all my heart and all my strength and all my will, is to have it not be so.”

His last words were barely audible, lost in soundless sobs.

Something like a ripple passed through Tilia, erupting into a spasm of coughing. Siiar sprang back an arm’s length, eyes wild.

“She’s alive–she’s just swallowed too much smoke,” Anj cried.

Siiar drew near again and extended a trembling hand toward one of Tilia’s.

Tilia’s eyes opened. Another wave of coughing claimed her, but at last she caught her breath. Her gaze traveled from Anj to Siiar.

“Your Excellency . . . Si- Siiar.”

Siiar gripped her hand tightly.

“His Excellency said you wanted to kill me,” Tilia whispered.

Siiar’s face contorted, as if many different answers were battling for his voice. “I won’t ever harm you,” he said at last.

“Tilia,” said Anj, watching the flames of the engulfed barn reaching for the dome of the sky, “Do you feel well enough to get up? Do you think you can walk? No broken bones?”

Tilia pushed herself up on an elbow. “No broken bones,” she said.

Remarkable. Anj felt a pang, but said, “Good. You need to leave here right now, before anyone–”

“She can’t go anywhere yet,” Siiar protested. “She–”

Anj spoke over him. “–before anyone from the Freshet Tribe comes to investigate the fire. Then Siiar can tell your husband you died in it, and no one will know otherwise.” It had, after all, very nearly been so. “No one will come after you ever again. But you have to stay unknown and unremarked on–I want you to go into Cinnabar.”

“No!” said Siiar.

More painful was Tilia’s own refusal. “I can’t go there. I can’t ever leave these mountains and skies.”

Anj felt arguments rise to her tongue, but what good was arguing with Tilia? Anj swallowed them. “All right. Go west, then, but stay clear of Thunder territory.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Siiar. “Just for a little bit, a little way–just to see you safe, just–”

“You’ll only endanger yourself and Tilia if you do that,” said Anj. “People will be suspicious if you disappear, after being sent here on this task.”

“Even just for a day,” said Siiar. Was he insisting? Pleading?

“Feel the breeze right now!” said Tilia, head tilted back. “It’s gone all soft.”

“Tilia,” said Siiar, touching her cheek. “You’re already floating away from me on that breeze, aren’t you. Will I ever find you again?”

Tilia put her hands over his and closed her eyes. “Without you, there wouldn’t be any me. Only you know where I begin and end. Of course you’ll find me.”

Somewhat unsteadily, she got to her feet. Siiar caught her in his arms, an embrace that was one last plea. But then he let go.

“You’re wrong, Tilia,” he said, speaking slowly. “There is a you, even without me. It’s the you I fell in love with–you, without any beginning or end.”

Tilia became very still for a moment, then leaned toward Siiar and kissed him full on the lips. She turned to Anj.

No, Anj wanted to say. No kisses! But there it was, a light touch, just by the ear. Then Tilia was off, turning back once to wave before disappearing into the darkness.

____
Copyright 2012 Francesca Forrest

Francesca Forrest has lived near the coast of Dorset, England, and by a bamboo grove in Japan, but has spent the last ten years within walking distance of the Quabbin Reservoir, in Massachusetts. Her short stories and poems hide out in various corners of the Internet.

Thursday 1 January 2601 (Earth Relative Time)

Ensign Darlene Charles took a deep breath to quell her nerves. This is my last chance to make a good impression. Because a third strike would not be a good career move in the Unified Star Fleet. As she picked her way through the dimly lit mess littering the docking bay, the quantity of unwashed bottles and glasses heaped in bins testified to the magnitude of the party. A sour stench from trash containers suggested many partied too well, an unfortunate reminder of some early college mornings. Ahead, the starship Evensong’s giant hangar doors were closed, unusual in port. But a smaller man-sized hatch remained open allowing her to step through into bright lights and a fresh, cleaner smell.

“Hullo?” Her tentative voice might’ve echoed in the vast chamber, but in truth the sound was more swallowed up by the emptiness. Darlene had never seen a single cargo compartment stretch off in the distance for more than one hundred meters, and it had to be fully sixty meters wide. Thick armored doors separating the cargo bay from the hangar bay were opened all the way, as were smaller compartments aft of the hangar adding to the space. Short, blond and still a very new ensign, she felt tiny. Intimidated by a military cargo ship was not how she’d expected to start this day. She’d looked up the USFS Evensong in the Fleet registry and found she’d be one of just eight officers in a crew of twenty-two. This ship was a lot bigger than she’d thought it’d be.

All she could say was, “Wow.”

Overhead something creaked. Startled, she glanced up to stare at a sign on the hangar bay ceiling which said Flexi-Seams, with arrows running in two perpendicular directions. No doubt that was what she’d heard, expansion joints of some sort shifting as ship and station moved between dayside and nightside. When no alarms were triggered, she assumed it was safe enough.

Nearby three crewmen worked on stacking folding chairs and tables onto robocarts. One lone male worked a databoard, checking off each load. None held a rank higher than spaceman.

“Excuse me,” Darlene said in her best professional officer’s voice, with just a hint of Southern charm. “Who do I check in with?”

The spaceman with the databoard nodded into the larger cargo bay. “You’ll find Mister Grimsley at the far end, sir.”

At least he’d been polite and said sir. Darlene didn’t know what to think of the absence of anyone else around. There should’ve been an officer, or at least an NCO, at a check-in podium. But there wasn’t even a podium set up in the hangar. Of course the huge banner still hanging in the empty cargo bay – WELCOME TO THE 27TH CENTURY – might’ve been instructive, along with the debris outside on the dock. And indeed, walking to the far end of the cargo bay Darlene approached a middle-aged woman in dress uniform, sitting casually on a lone folding chair, wine glass in hand and one last bottle of red wine on the deck. She was tall and still what one would politely call handsome, but clearly much older than Darlene. Her nametag read GRIMSLEY, so Darlene felt confident she’d found the right person.

“Ensign Darlene Charles, reporting for duty, sir.”

“Are you insane?” The question seemed so unprofessional and unreasonable Darlene chose not to answer. But the look on the seated woman’s face told her she seemed to think this was a reasonable question. “For one thing I’m not a sir. If you’re real nice, you might be able to call me Marilyn. But I don’t think we’ll be on a first name speaking basis for a while, ensign. For another thing, it’s New Year’s goddamn Day – which just happens to follow New Year’s Eve and in most jurisdictions, squashed up in-between is the big ol’ zero-hundred hours midnight. We are off duty today.”

“A Unified Star Fleet ship is considered in service and ready for action at all times.” The words from the manual came without bidding and Darlene tried not to wince as she said them.

“This is a Fleet cargo ship,” Marilyn said, with less annoyance than Darlene expected. “Our next assignment is assisting a civilian colonial deployment and – trust me on this one, Mister Ensign Charles – I’m pretty sure the civilians are not working on New Year’s.”

Something about this wasn’t right. Was the woman drunk?

“I know everything about you,” Marilyn continued, “though the reverse clearly isn’t true. Because you don’t seem to have noticed the sleeves to this uniform which say I’m a master chief petty officer. Or the stripes which mean I have decades of experience over your newbie self. Or the gold keys on my lapels, which should’ve told you I am the Chief of the Boat. This is my starship you’re on, ensign, and I’d rather you didn’t forget that.”

“Master Chief…”

“I’m not done,” Marilyn said, finishing her wine with a flourish and then standing up. She was much taller than Darlene. “You’ve broken seventeen Fleet regulations so far starting with getting the dock chief to let you aboard even though the dock is closed right now, because this ship is off duty. But that’s not so surprising. You graduated from the Academy in June and you’ve been in transport for 144 days – and that’s after getting bounced from two postings already. Jesus, you got fired from a job five days after you started boosting from Mars, woman. If that’s not a record, then surely you’ve made the top five of Fleet’s hall of shame.”

Darlene swallowed hard, but managed to stare straight ahead at the master chief. Technically as an officer – even the most junior of officers – Darlene outranked Marilyn. But you took on master chiefs at your own peril. Everyone at the Academy had said so. And a chief of the boat? Marilyn Grimsley was right. This was her ship. Even a commanding officer would ask her opinion as a matter of course.

“At least,” the master chief continued in a less threatening tone, “you didn’t come a few hours ago. Assholes in charge of this station took one look at my empty cargo bay the other day and decided then and there we had to host the Party of the Century. Whoo-hoo… what a thrill.” As Marilyn feigned enthusiasm for the party, Darlene had to smile. Despite an initial minute of terror, she began to like this Master Chief Grimsley. “Now everyone else who has any sense is asleep. What bright idiot station-side sent you over now?”

“That would be the Fleet station chief,” Darlene said. “A Mister Marlowe.”

“Ah. A man of substantially finite genius, I’m afraid. What we’ll never know is whether his sending you over now was his sense of humor or his feeble attempt to help. I’m being charitable in assuming he isn’t just completely incompetent as well.” Marilyn tried looking across the cargo bay back towards the hangar. “Is all your gear with you?”

“My spacesuit is coming later.”

“Sure it is,” Marilyn sighed. “Come on. The captain will want to see you now.”

“And he is…?”

“You haven’t looked up the roster yet, have you? Must be nice to be so new and fresh and green in that uniform. Our commanding officer is Captain Angela Dessin. And she isn’t a he. Neither is Lt. Commander Nancy Kramer, our X.O.”

Was this is the way Fleet really works? You put all the women on a cargo ship? Darlene had seen only one male crewman aboard so far.

Her face betrayed her thoughts. “You think this is punishment? Segregation?” Marilyn seemed particularly angry. “I’ve put in twenty-nine years – I’ve worked my way here. This is the modern, new and improved 27th century Fleet, Mister Charles, and the crew of a cargo ship is small. You build a company of officers for a ship like this, especially this ship.”

“Why? I mean, I don’t understand – why this ship?”

Clearly Darlene had finally asked a right question. “This is a prototype of things to come, Mister Charles. See this huge open space? New design. The pride of the Sebring Ship Foundry. In fact, they oh-so-cleverly managed to get the shipbuilder’s name in the class designation – SSF-91 USFS Evensong.” She paused long enough to add some real emotion to her voice. “My father is a welder for Sebring. He helped build this ship. I came into Fleet with a welding specialty, though of course I had to add all the others to make master chief.”

“My daddy welds, too,” Darlene said.

“Really? Did he teach you?”

“Yes, ma’am. A hot torch and a good bead solves most problems, Daddy always said.”

“A wise man.”

“I always thought so.”

“Starships?”

“No, Earth-based. He has a small Electroglide dealership and does customizations.”

“A biker,” Marilyn said, laughing. “I think I already like him more than I like you. You have a tattoo?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But you’re not going to show me, are you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No, ma’am,” Darlene said with good-natured force.

“You’re not very good at this game yet, Mister Charles. I’m neither a sir or a ma’am in this Fleet.” Marilyn rolled her eyes upward. “O save me, Lord, from newbie ensigns.”

Captain Dessin couldn’t have looked more different than her tall and angular chief of the boat. Instead, Angela Dessin was short, wide, sixtyish. Her short graying hair lay flat against her scalp, cut as if almost done as an afterthought. There was the air of the no-nonsense about her. Any idea this woman had been booted to cargo ships evaporated at the brag shelf of awards, framed photographs and certificates. She looked to be a plankholder, an original crew member, of at least seven new ships – four of them as commanding officer. The Evensong was the only cargo ship of the lot – the rest were warships.

“We’re supposed to have a crew complement of twenty-two,” the captain said. “But with recent promotions and transfers, we’re down two people. A basic spaceman is supposed to report tomorrow – that means we have two rookies aboard.” She looked straight at Darlene when she said this last bit. “Unfortunately, our Quartermaster got promoted to Warrant Officer 1 so we’re only allowed seven commissioned officers now. That means you will have to be third officer – don’t let it go to your head. You’re a green ensign and you are not ready to take over this ship in an emergency except on paper.”

Darlene barely heard anything after her appointment to third officer. It seemed unbelievable to make a command position. Then she understood. “You’re completely correct, Captain. I’m not ready to lead.”

“Of course I’m right,” Angela said with some irritation. “It was never up for debate. For the moment though, take your assignments from the X.O. Dismissed.”

Darlene saluted and went looking for the executive officer. She found Lt. Commander Nancy Kramer in the hangar bay working at the recently wheeled out check-in podium and executed the best salute she could. Already the ship seemed more alive. “Third Officer Ensign Darlene Charles reporting for duty, sir.”

The prim, proper and tough looking X.O. – forty-ish to fifty-ish, to judge by her slightly salt and pepper hair – held up a datapad. “I don’t like you, ensign. According to this, you have near perfect grades in all subjects over four years at the Academy. Your training performances in maintenance, logistics, navigation – both dead reckoning and relativistic/jump – and engineering are all above satisfactory. But you’ve received decidedly insufficient performance reviews in the real world. You’ve annoyed my chief of the boat and confused my captain. In short, your record stinks and you’re a very green junior officer who knows nothing, yet Fleet has seen fit to give you authority to screw up my ship. For now you get all orders approved by me before issuing them. Understood?”

Darlene didn’t understand how every order could be handled this way, but she wasn’t in charge here. “Yes, sir.”

“Where’s your gear?”

“My space duffel is on the dock,” Darlene said.

“No it isn’t. We’ve taken care of it. Docks aren’t controlled space – a Fleet starship is. Remember that. Where’s your spacesuit?”

“It’s being shipped over,” Darlene said, pulling a plastic tab from a front pocket. “Here’s the receipt.”

“Unfortunately the Strosser has already reported they can’t find your suit. That’s usually shorthand for Gee that was an easy way to steal a suit from a green ensign. You should’ve checked it personally before you left the Strosser – now God knows where it is. Hope you didn’t have any personal gear stowed in the suit pockets. See the Cargo Officer and have him issue you a new one.”

“You’re from the South,” Lt. Jake Henning drawled as soon as Darlene introduced herself. “I’m from Mississippi myself.”

“Aiken, South Carolina, sir.”

“Well that’s just right fine,” he beamed, swiveling slightly as he leaned back in his office chair. “Now what can I do for the pretty lady from the great and humble state of South Carolina?”

“Apparently I am out one M400 spacesuit. Neither the chief of the boat or the X.O. thinks it’ll ever show up from the Strosser. As third officer – strange as that sounds – I suppose I need to be issued a white command suit if you’ve got one.”

“We all get white command suits,” he said. “M400C. But I’ll be sure to come up with those third officer badges when I have the suit pulled from stores. You can report to the suit tech tomorrow and have the fitting adjusted.”

“Tomorrow? I was told by the first officer to get a suit today.”

The lieutenant waggled a finger at Darlene. “No-ooo. I s’pect the good commander told you to see me today. Fact is, there’s hardly a soul standing on this ship after last night. Not a helluva lot of work is getting done on New Year’s Day, I can assure you.”

“What exactly did happen last night?”

“Ah,” Lt. Henning said, leaning forward again. “Now there’s a tale to tell. By virtue of that magnificent wide open and obstruction free cargo bay of mine, the station’s senior Fleet officer decreed that said cargo space was to be used for a 27th Century Party to usher in the new year, decade and century. There’s about ten Fleet ships in port right now – everyone had a very good time, I can assure you.”

“And I missed it,” Darlene said wistfully.

“Oh, I’m positive they made sure you missed it. Otherwise, they’d have no one to stand watch today,” he said with a wink. “Meanwhile, if you need a spacesuit, there’s plenty of emergency lockers everywhere you look with perfectly maintained baggie suits. Now, if you were smart, I’d suggest you find out where you’re bunking tonight, because that’s where we both hope the rest of your gear is. Before someone calls and comes up with another assignment, of course.”

“Of course, sir,” she answered.

Jake chuckled. “You may be green, Mister Charles, but my oh my, the South does teach its officers to be polite.”

She only got lost twice on the way to her compartment and had to query the corridor screens for directions. When she got there, the doorplate read THIRD OFFICER / JUNIOR ENGINEER. Darlene didn’t mind a roommate – it was expected – and perhaps it’d make adjusting to life on the Evensong a little easier. With satisfaction, she noted the keypad responded to her standard access code, but when she reached for the hatch lever it clicked before her hand was set and locked her out. Slightly chagrined, she worked faster so the second time she pushed open the hatch with her other hand while the green light still glowed on the keypad. Apparently it wasn’t the same lock module timing she was used to.

Fifteen thousand ships in Fleet, she thought, and practically all of them are different. New design, indeed.

Inside, the compartment was just as ruthlessly efficient and compact as she’d expected, so this was not really a problem. She was off in space to serve, not spend all day hanging out in a cozy compartment. But the best thing that’d happened so far this New Year’s Day 2601 was a freshly charged datapad centered on her tiny fold-down desk. It accepted her ID sliver automatically and had been configured for third officer duty.

“Yes!” she said under her breath and smiled.

“Would you watch that light?” a new voice demanded when Darlene clicked the room lights on.

“Oh sorry,” Darlene said, killing the main lights and figuring out which switch turned on the task light centered on her desk.

“You must be the new vegetable of the month,” the other person said in a voice resigned to not getting instantly back to sleep.

“New vegetable… oh, you mean I’m the new green ensign. Yessir – guilty as charged.”

A hand snaked out of the wad of bedclothes on the lower bunk. There was a distinct lumpiness to the bed, but so far Darlene hadn’t actually seen her roommate. “Lt. Kirsten Van Zoeren.” The voice spoke perfectly acceptable Interstellar English, but with a clipped, European accent Darlene didn’t know enough to place. “I’m the junior engineer on this barge. And since we’re not going anywhere at the moment, the Evil Triumvirate decided I wasn’t needed in Engineering and so was assigned a double-watch overnight on the bridge while everyone else partied.”

“Evil Triumvirate. You must be talking about our esteemed captain, first officer and chief of the boat,” Darlene said.

“Those would be the ones.”

“Ensign Darlene Charles at your service. And you do know the Evil Triumvirate, as you called them, have made me third officer?”

“Sure. That’s why you’re standing in the third officer’s stateroom. And if you were in command, on the bridge, I’d probably salute you and say yessir and aye-aye, sir. But right now I outrank you and I’m trying to get some sleep.”

“Right. Sorry. I’ve located my bunk. My space duffels have somehow magically arrived here and the seals are still valid. I can come back later and unpack.”

“That would be nice. It’s nothing personal.”

“Quite understandable under the circumstances.” Darlene removed her standard cover and found her safety hat at the top of her duffel. She should probably change, but her gray khaki skirt and jacket uniform would have to do for the moment. “I’ll just be going…”

But there was no response from the lower bunk.

Darlene’s datapad gave her directions to any place on the ship, so she found the wardroom without any difficulty. If the officers of the Evensong were expected to have a scheduled sit-down luncheon, there was no evidence of it in the wardroom. Instead a coffee urn and a large cold tray stacked with sandwiches seemed to be the offering. From the state of the tray, others had already been through here.

She’d already placed two sandwiches on a plate when an older man in a clean uniform jumpsuit stepped in. “Looks like they’re still feeding us leftovers from last night.”

“Sorry – I just got here. I wouldn’t know.”

“It wasn’t a question, ensign,” he said. “You must be the new girl.”

Trying not to bristle that at twenty-eight, some male colleague was going to call her a girl, Darlene instead introduced herself. Still, he was old enough to be her father.

“Camp. Captain Herb Camp, Chief Engineer,” he replied and offered a firm handshake.

“I think I’ve met your assistant, Lt. Van Zoeren. At least I’m assuming that was her under the covers.”

Herb laughed. “Not a morning person – no matter what part of the day serves as morning. Sometimes I think she still lives on Amsterdam time.”

“Amsterdam? She’s… Dutch?”

“Sure. This ship isn’t a territorial, so mainly we get Nordamericanos and a couple of real spacers. But there’s no reason not to have a Dutch junior engineer – so we’ve got one.”

“We have spacers? That’s rare.”

“You haven’t met the Serious Girls yet – you will. Believe me – you will.”

He grabbed a couple of sandwiches, while Darlene dithered for a moment before selecting a third for herself. Sitting down, she saw him looking at the pile of food on her plate.

“I get it from my mother,” she said.

“Get what?”

“The hollow leg.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Touché.”

They ate in silence through Darlene’s first two sandwiches. “Are you going back to Engineering after your lunch? If so, mind if I tag along?”

“New third officer volunteers to come to my bailiwick – I am not going to turn down an offer like that,” he laughed. “Sure. We’ll give you the good tour.” And he actually winked at her when he said it.

The ship’s Engine Hall was divided into halves and then halves again to house the four F-575 fusion engines. It represented a lot of power, more than she’d expected on a cargo ship.

“They’re not quite the very latest version,” the chief engineer said. “For which I am eternally grateful. There’s enough innovation on the Evensong as it is.”

“You wouldn’t want another Galen Roads on your hand.”

It was the perfect thing to say to the sixty-three-year-old engineer. “I was fifteen when the Galen Roads nova’d. Outside watching the ship on its first boost through my telescope – I saw it go up.”

“A telescope? It’s a wonder you weren’t blinded.”

Camp touched his right temple. “I was. They had to grow me a new one. I was quite the hit in high school. Nearly everyone thought it was cool. And,” he smiled slightly at the memory, “some of the girls were very sympathetic. But I worried it’d keep me out of the service.”

“My. Touched by a historical moment.”

“And one technological disaster I have no interest in repeating – on this ship or any other.”

“Hope you’re right. Uh, because you were saying this ship is very innovative,” she added hastily.

“Completely different situation. The Galen Roads was the end result of making ships bigger and more powerful without understanding how complexity scales up. They never had a chance. If the engines hadn’t gone, they still wouldn’t have finished their maiden voyage. Too many things were going wrong all over, which the brain trust on board just figured were glitches from the shipyard. Idiots to the end from the designers to the bridge.”

Towards the end of her tour, Darlene saw a tall dark blond woman officer enter and immediately take a seat at one of the consoles. “Excuse me, captain,” Darlene told the chief engineer. When she got closer and could read the lieutenant (junior grade) badges on the newcomer’s uniform, Darlene put two-and-two together.

“You must be my roommate, Lt. Van Zoeren. We shook hands earlier. I’m Darlene Charles.”

“Yes, of course. I recognize your…vivacious personality.”

“Sorry about earlier. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the other bunk at that hour.”

“Something to consider in the future – you never know what sort of schedule a new roommate might be on.”

“Right. The Academy was more regimented.”

Kirsten nodded. “Yes. That makes sense. However a starship operates around the clock. Not very like a school schedule at all.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Actually,” Kirsten said with an impish smirk, “I think you shall.”

Returning from Engineering, Darlene stopped suddenly in a long corridor when the deck plate she was crossing creaked alarmingly and she momentarily thought her feet were sliding out from under her. Once she’d regained her balance, she stepped back and forth on the offending plate. She could generate the noise several times, but not the motion. Though there was no marking on the deck, the walls were painted with gray striping and bore a declaration this was another expansion joint. To her relief, the air pressure remained steady, but she chose to close two bulkhead hatches on either side of this segment and set a pressure monitor.

Only then did she touch her comm link. “Maintenance.”

“Van Zoeren here.”

“Kirsten – this is Darlene. You do Maintenance, too?”

“Engineering is engineering. As I said, everyone does multiple duty.”

“Yes, of course.” She explained about the noisy expansion joint.

“Sounds like the joint plates need to be relubricated.”

“I’ve never heard a noise from an expansion joint before, to say nothing of nearly being knocked off my feet.”

“This ship is more flexible than you’d think. If the joint plates seized up due to lack of lubrication, they could unload with a certain amount of bound energy. Walking could trigger such a shift. However, it shouldn’t be particularly dangerous. But to be safe, I shall check out the situation shortly. You’ve closed the bulkheads – you needn’t remain in the area. Van Zoeren out.”

Darlene did not like the sound of a flexible ship. Especially one where she could shift a deck plate just by walking. But if she was told it wasn’t a problem, she’d have to go along until she found out differently.

In the corridor outside the wardroom she met a crewman dressed in white serving attire, busily moving large covered trays from a robocart to the small galley kitchen unit.

“Hey, there,” Darlene said. “What’s for dinner?”

“Veal scaloppini – and I don’t have time for chit-chat. Sir.”

“Uh, carry on then.” Slightly embarrassed, Darlene entered the wardroom. This time the table was fully set and some of her fellow officers were already taking seats.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable, Mister Charles,” Nancy said. “You’ve got Dead Man’s Watch on the bridge.”

“Junior officer always gets the short end,” Kirsten said, slipping in behind Darlene. “Thankfully, I am no long the junior officer aboard.”

“Gee, thanks,” Darlene said.

“And I checked your expansion joint on the way over. As I suspected, it’s a lubrication problem. Nothing to worry about.”

Which actually didn’t reassure Darlene very much.

The bridge of the USFS Evensong was cool, dark and quiet. Darlene had been on a bridge exactly once, for real, plus all the training at the Academy, so she didn’t exactly have a lot of examples to compare this to. She supposed in the long run, it looked like a bridge. Obviously the command staff wasn’t expecting anything to happen sitting here docked to the station. Truthfully, she acknowledged nothing should be happening.

A tall chair off to the side swiveled. The man with the sly smile had to be the second officer – Roman numeral twos gleamed at his collar. “Lt. Glenard McMurray. Don’t ask about the Glenard – if you have to call me by a first name, it’s Rich. Don’t ask about that either. And you are…?”

She managed not to jump. Of course she’d not be alone on the bridge – they wouldn’t leave the bridge empty at any time. “Third Officer Ensign Darlene Charles.”

“That would be Third Officer Ensign Darlene Charles relieving you, sir.” The sly smile remained.

Darlene repeated his words.

“Then I stand relieved,” he said, turning around long enough to grab a databoard from its storage slot and signing his name before handing it to Darlene. “You ever stood watch on a starship bridge before?”

“Uh, no sir,” she said, taking a short breath before affixing her signature to the databoard’s screen. The update informed her that responsibility for the safety and operation of the ship was hers and hers alone.

“Thought so. This has to be one of Mister Kramer’s little inside jokes. You’ll find she’s hilarious, once you get to know her deadpan style. And she probably hates your guts until you prove yourself – so don’t screw up.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“You don’t seem particularly scared by our first officer?”

“I’m already on her shit list, I’m afraid. Pretty much for breathing.”

“Okay. Relax. This is just a Dead Man’s Watch.”

“The commander said that,” Darlene said. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“Yeah, why tell the hired help anything? We’re in port and not planning on moving until the end of next week. Still, anything can happen. Warrant Officer Juliette Capri is over there on the forward mount. She’s our quartermaster – our senior navigator. If it comes to that, I guess I’m the number two navigator on this ship. The engines are cold, but the maneuvering thrusters can be up and running inside of thirteen seconds. You have to remember to authorize active maneuvering systems before they can be used. And for other crises, there’s always a fire and damage control party assigned, you can access them with those comm buttons.

“But,” he said getting ready to leave, “it’ll never come to you having to order anything. Despite the fact that you’ve just naïvely signed for and are now responsible for an entire starship, if something – anything – happens, there’s the panic button. We’ve got the Big Button preprogrammed at all times to bring in someone senior in an emergency. In this case, it calls the X.O. Do not be afraid to use it – Nancy’ll rip you up harder for not calling than if you waste her time.”

And then she was alone and in charge. Darlene looked around, taking in the low ceiling, the safety straps for use in emergency zero-gee, rows of consoles and screens, overhead racks of controls. And in the forward part of the bridge were the two maneuvering mounts – the helmsman seat on the left occupied by a tall thin graceful looking black woman.

“We meet at last, ensign,” the navigator said as Darlene threaded her way between the stations.

“Don’t get up, Quartermaster Capri.”

“Not regulation while I’m on the mount.”

“I suppose congratulations are in order – they said you’d just been promoted.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“So… tell me what I need to know about running the Evensong.”

Juliette laughed. “Despite it being a cargo ship, she’s really a dream to fly. Turns out that precision docking capability is important in a cargo ship – surprised me. A year ago I thought destroyers were pretty neat to fly. Hard to believe I’m in love with a shiny new cargo ship.”

“And the big engines?”

“Pretty much the same as a cruiser, sir. Thirty-two gee acceleration and all. Fourteen days even to jump speed. When the military wants its priority supplies, they brook no delay or expense.” Juliette paused. “Do you have a question, sir?”

“Yes. Do we get dinner sent up here during this watch?”

The next morning Darlene got up early to find an empty wardroom, but a full coffee pot, a crock of oatmeal and a smaller one of grits, a toaster and a machine which turned chilled whole eggs into whatever kind of cooked eggs she selected. The grits were a nice touch, even if she wasn’t the only Southerner in the wardroom – she was sure they weren’t for her sake.

“It’s 0603 hours,” Kirsten said with a yawn, staggering in after Darlene had begun eating. “How did you get here so early?”

Darlene shrugged. “First full day on the job. I’ve always been an early riser.”

“Looks like you’re hungry, too,” Kirsten said, sitting down with only a single mug of black coffee.

“You might have dined on veal scaloppini last night – but I was on the bridge. The galley sent us up a pepperoni pizza.”

“Vincent makes a very fine pepperoni pizza.”

“Vincent…?”

“There’s only twenty other people on this ship, Darlene. Surely you memorized the roster?”

“First thing on my to-do this morning,” Darlene said hopefully.

“Specialist 2 Vincent Mandelini, our esteemed cook.”

“Not much taller than myself, serious looking eyebrows?”

“That is our Vincent.”

“I met him in the corridor. He was carrying… your dinner.”

“You were expecting a serving staff? This is a small crew, Darlene. Everyone performs multiple duties,” Kirsten said, pausing to sip at her coffee. “Even third officers, who already are in charge of everything.”

“I suspect especially third officers,” Darlene said. “Which is why I need a good breakfast.”

Though they were expecting no one, with the great space doors now open to the dock, Darlene was ordered to stand as podium officer. The sole guard on duty in the hangar bay, dressed from helmet to boot in soft armor, shouldered his weapon and came over to talk.

“You American, ensign?” he asked.

“Uh, and you are?” Darlene glanced for a nameplate, but it was covered by a black stealth flap. Interesting, she thought. She had no idea the security setting for this operation was rated so high. Though there had been a class on Security procedures back at the Academy which talked about denying troublemakers information to maintain control, Darlene didn’t have nearly the experience to figure out if it was true.

“Vincent. Vincent Mandelini. Specialist 2 Vincent Mandelini if you want to be specific – I’m the ship’s cook and bosun’s mate. And I asked if you were an American.”

“Yes,” Darlene said. “From Aiken, South Carolina. And you?”

“Close enough,” Vincent shrugged. “I’m Canadian. You got any food allergies or religious or dietary issues I need to know about?”

“Uh, no.”

“You like Italian?”

Darlene was astute enough to understand he meant Italian food. “Yes. I like Italian very much.”

“Good. Because that’s what I cook. And I’m pretty damned good at it.”

“Glad to hear that. I enjoy eating.”

“Okay,” Vincent said. “Go ahead and ask.”

“Ask what?”

“‘How’d a Canadian get into Fleet?’”

“There are no citizenship restrictions. And not everyone in Fleet is an American – and I’m not even talking about the territorials with their all-regional crews from around the Earth.”

“But as a Canadian, I could’ve gone into the Commonwealth or Royal Space Navy.”

“You could’ve, but you didn’t.”

Vincent folded his arms, cocking his head to one side as he squinted at the ensign. “You’re not going to ask, are you?”

“Bad habit of not allowing myself to be maneuvered by others – superior offices excepted, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Gives me the illusion that I have some control in my life. Besides, I have the feeling you’re dying to tell me, Mandelini.”

“How can I resist? I had a nice place in Calgary, good steady business, but I got restless. Decided to open a restaurant on the Moon – Luna City.”

“What was it like?”

“Great food, but no atmosphere. Cutthroat competition. Lost my shirt on the deal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The thing of it was… I wasn’t ready to go back home. So I signed up.”

“And here you are.”

“And here I am.”

Darlene saw Mandelini straighten to attention, so as she turned around to see who was coming, she was already prepared to come to attention herself and salute. The captain, first and second officers were in their dress whites. Nancy paused long enough to scribble something on Darlene’s databoard at the podium.

“We shall be gone for perhaps an hour, ensign. Required social visit to the warship Guarder.”

“Very good, sir,” Darlene said, already astute enough to find the box and sign for the ship in the absence of the senior command officers.

“Carry on,” Nancy said, hurrying after the other two officers.

Not five minutes later three crewmen entered the hangar, dressed in clean black and white uniforms. They saluted the flag and moved to sign off the ship. Darlene stopped them.

“Let’s see who we have here,” she said. “Engineer’s Mate Morton, Cybernetics Specialist 1 Rooney and Spaceman Hachem.”

“Ship’s Clerk,” Edward Hachem reminded her.

“You’re still a spaceman, Hachem. And where do you think you’re going? There’s no shore leave authorized for anyone.”

“Mister Charles,” the lone woman, Tammy Rooney said, “we’re in port and it’s just to get a beer.”

“In a word… no.”

“Have a heart, sir.”

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Darlene stood firm. “You think you can play just because the cat’s away, but there’s a new mouse in charge.”

“We’re not trying to game you.”

“Stow it, Hachem. Everyone heard the announcement that the top three command officers were now leaving the ship. The only question for me, is do I summon the bosun or the master chief?”

“Sir, if you’re not comfortable using your authority, we understand…”

“Chief of the Boat it is,” Darlene said, picking up a secure handset. “Chief of the Boat to the podium.”

The three crewmen were suddenly apologetic, talking over one another as they first backed up, then turned and walked as quickly as decorum allowed back into the ship.

“Nice touch, ensign,” Mandelini said. “What you gonna tell the master chief when she gets here?”

Darlene held out the secure handset, clearly showing her thumb over the DISCONNECT button. “Who says I called her?”

“Are you going to report them?”

“Report what, Mandelini?”

The bosun’s mate and cook smiled. “Clever. I think I’m going to like serving with you, sir.”

Darlene still was feeling good about her handling of the crewmen some seventeen minutes later when a good sized young man came into the docking area. Burdened with two space duffels, a shopping bag from the space station concourse, a full M366e spacesuit with all its environmental gear slung over his back and a small case which probably held an instrument or personal item, he paused before trudging up the angled safety grip plates of the docking ramp.

Reaching the top of the ramp and the threshold bumpers between station and starship, he seemed confused as to what to do – unable to salute the flag or the officer while bearing his loads.

“You could try setting your things on the deck first,” Darlene suggested.

“Oh, yessir,” he seemed relieved. All his items slumped to the deck, but once freed the young man straightened up to attention, crisply saluted the flag, then pivoted and saluted the ensign. “Permission to come aboard, sir.”

She’d already glanced down the list of notes left for the podium officer. “You must be Basic Spaceman Brian Todd.”

“Yessir,” the polite young man said, saluting again.

“Permission granted.”

Brian crossed the painted yellow line on the hangar deck and waited patiently.

“Your paperwork?” Darlene asked.

“Oh yeah…,” Brian said, bending over and accessing a sealed pocket on one of the space duffels. “Here you go, sir.”

“Welcome to the USFS Evensong,” Darlene said. “And how did you end up in the Unified Star Fleet, Todd?”

“Grew up in scrub country. Finally tired of a job working at a meat processing plant on the edge of the Nebraska Desert.”

“That sounds fair.”

“Yessir.”

“Do you have any idea yet what sort of specialty you want to work towards? I’m not grilling you,” Darlene added hastily, seeing the stricken look on the boy’s face. “It’s just I’m sure one of the officers or chiefs is going to stick you with that question soon and I thought I’d advise you to perhaps have an answer ready.”

“Permission to speak freely, sir?”

“Absolutely, Mister Todd – this is just a casual conversation during check-in.” And if you only knew how green I am at this, Darlene mused to herself.

“I haven’t given it much thought – just so long as it doesn’t involve slaughtering chickens, pigs or cattle.”

“I think that can be arranged.” She got on the secure handset. “Chief of the Boat please… Master Chief, I have a new crewman checking in – a Basic Spaceman Brian Todd from the Nebraska Desert. I’m not sure who you were going to assign to shepherd him, but if you were to call Engineer’s Mate Morton, Cybernetics Specialist 1 Rooney and Ship’s Clerk Hachem, you might find a ready volunteer amongst those three.”

“Oh really?” Marilyn answered. “Should I ask what they’ve done or have my own fun?”

“I wouldn’t dream of denying the master chief her own entertainment.” Darlene heard a chuckle on the other end of the handset before the disconnect signal. “It’ll just be a couple of minutes, Mister Todd. If you could just wait over there, the bosun’s mate will run through a security check.”

In the cargo bay a half-dozen bots rolled slowly over the deck, cleaning the surface completely. Two spacemen – both women – took turns supervising the bots and lying on the deck doing nothing. Despite their somewhat dramatically tattooed faces, they stopped and saluted when Darlene approached.

“I see you both have the same home patch on your sleeves,” Darlene said, nodding at the odd constellation of stars against a black background. She knew the New Zealand flag had stars on it and a native population that believed in facial tattoos – but she was pretty sure this wasn’t it.

“We’re both Mongrels,” Spaceman Azi Leland explained.

“It’s like a nickname,” the second girl – Uril Mannet – said, seeing Darlene’s puzzled frown. “We’re from the same place.”

“And that is…?” Darlene asked.

The two spacemen thought it a hysterically funny question. “Oh you’re too serious, Mister Charles. But that’s our job. We’re supposed to be the Serious Girls around here.” Apparently that was very funny, too.

“So what exactly is the point of lying on the deck? Besides getting to goof off on the clock, that is.”

“Not goofing, sir.” Azi seemed insulted by the suggestion.

“Yeah,” Uril added. “We’ve got a scanner planted on the deck and then we use the smart glasses. We’re inspecting the ceiling.”

Darlene looked up. “Inspecting for what? And anyway, what’s that small pylon? There’s nothing else suspended from the ceiling anywhere else in this compartment.”

“That’s the center junction sensor, sir.”

“A tri-axial center junction sensor,” Uril corrected.

“Yes,” Azi giggled. “My mistake, sir. It’s the tri-axial center junction sensor. Part of the jump system.”

“I know what a center junction array is,” Darlene said. “What I’m wondering is what is it doing here and how do you know what it is?”

Azi shrugged. “I looked at the plaque.”

Darlene looked at Uril’s amused face, then down. The girl stood on a deck tile – TRI-AXIAL CENTER JUNCTION SENSOR DIRECTLY ABOVE / SERVICE LIFT BELOW.

“You are way too serious for us, sir.”

“And we’re supposed to be the Serious Girls.”

“So you said,” Darlene murmured, resigning herself to losing this round with a pair of spacemen. “Carry on.”

Still stung a bit by her failure to deal with the Serious Girls, Darlene almost ran into another woman who’d been lurking by the open airlock doors leading into the forward part of the ship.

“Ensign Charles – I’m Tech 5 Luanne Womat, Pharmacist’s Mate. And you were supposed to check in with me when you came aboard.”

“Um, I’m sorry, Womat.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. I think I slept for eleven hours after the last of the revelers left the 27th Century Party. But you were planning on checking in with Sick Bay, weren’t you?”

“Absolutely. As soon as I looked up the doctor.”

“No doctor, I’m afraid. I’m your complete health care provider on this ship,” Luanne almost apologized. “That and your first-aid training, plus whatever help the autobots are.”

“With thousands of colonists aboard?”

“We don’t normally do many colony runs. Anyway, they’ll all be in hybernation.”

“What if there’s a problem?”

“Hybernation is very safe, sir. I wouldn’t worry about the hybe tanks.”

“It’s my job to worry about everything and everyone,” Darlene pointed out. “And being responsible for several thousand colonists without a doctor sounds like asking for it.”

“The colonists should have their own doctor, sir,” Luanne said. “It’s all under control.”

“A new ship and a new crew for me – plus an unknown bunch of civilians who may or may not have medical supervision,” Darlene said with a sigh. “I am so relieved, Womat. Let’s go get me checked in.”

Sick Bay was barely larger than her stateroom. Three medical bunks lay stacked against the one side, each behind a glass cover. Womat explained how a bed could be swung out and down for treatment.

“What happens if you need to treat more than one?” Darlene asked.

“We can swing two trays down at a time.”

“All right – what about three?”

“If we need to treat three or more, we start folding out the gurneys in the corridor.” Womat must’ve sensed the disquiet rumbling through Darlene’s mind. “I do make house calls, sir, for a lot of the usual downtimes. We try to keep Sick Bay clear for emergencies. And anything I can’t handle, we have medical stasis tubes and let Fleet Medical deal with it some other time.”

“What’s for dinner?” Darlene asked as she took her seat at the wardroom table. This was her first real dinner aboard and she smiled at the heavy real china and silver service which lay atop the starched white tablecloths. It was elegant, professional and, at least here in the wardroom, everything the Academy had promised upon joining the corps of officers in the Unified Star Fleet.

“Vincent?” the captain asked, as the cook came in. “What’s for dinner? Our young ensign is either starving or dying to know.”

“We have Earth Alaskan salmon filets,” Vincent said, bringing in a large serving platter, “marinated in real Vermont maple syrup for two days.”

“Salmon? My goodness,” Darlene sounded pleased. “And you told me you did Italian.”

“I never said I only did Italian,” Vincent smiled. “But this is a special occasion. Captain informed me we are back up to full complement today and I’ve had these fixings rattling around the galley for a couple of months.”

“We should get a new crewman more often,” Kirsten observed. “Fish is nice.”

“Here’s to Basic Spaceman Brian Todd – the man with two first names,” Rich quipped.

“Hear-hear!” the table declared.

“Maple syrup on salmon?” Rich asked, getting back to their dinner.

“More like maple syrup in salmon,” Vincent replied.

“Candied salmon?”

“Sure,” Vincent agreed.

Rich half rose from his chair, placed one hand over his diaphragm and dramatically held out his other and sang in a deep baritone, “Salmon candied evening…”

“That, Mister McMurray,” the captain said, “is enough of that.”

“Yessir,” he said, quickly taking his seat. But Darlene noted that both were still smiling. Perhaps, despite a bit of a rough start, she was going to really like serving on this ship. After six months bouncing around the real Fleet, Darlene dared to hope she’d finally found a home.

“Don’t go just yet, ensign,” the captain said as Darlene left her napkin at her place and started to stand after her meal and two desserts. The first officer remained as well while others filed out. “You did well on the Dead Man’s Watch last evening.”

“Yessir.”

“You seem polite, willing to learn and so far have exhibited no bad habits. This doesn’t exactly match your service record.”

“No sir,” Darlene said, inwardly wincing at the forcefulness of her reply.

“Then how do you explain this?”

“My first superior officer didn’t like Southern white women. There were two of us in the group kept out of hybernation to work on the boost from Mars. Lt. Commander Oxwell managed to find cause to dismiss both of us after an unfortunately short amount of time.”

“Mister Oxwell is a Southerner. A white Southern male.”

“Yes. Strange, isn’t it?” Darlene wondered how they knew so much and what else they knew.

“What’s your evaluation of yourself? Your worst features.”

This was always a dangerous interview question, but Darlene addressed it head on. “I suppose I’m a perfectionist. My second superior officer decided I wasn’t learning fast enough. I thought I was doing everything I could to not make any mistakes.”

“That doesn’t get you fired in five days.”

“The well was poisoned, sir,” Darlene said.

“I doubt that Nancy is buying this,” the captain said, without even looking at her executive officer. “But I base my evaluation reports solely on your performance on my ship. Your geographic or planetary origins and previous postings are not my concern. You are dismissed, ensign.”

Nancy spoke for the first time. “You have the midnight bridge watch – don’t be late. You’ll be relieving me.”

“Aye-aye, sir.” After standing and saluting, Darlene hoped her ears weren’t shining too bright red.

Monday morning at 0800 hours the cargo bay began its miraculous transformation. Loader after loader began packing in space shipping containers of a dozen different sizes, stacked in the closest packed formation possible. Keeping to the safety-striped zones on the deck, Darlene watched the preprogrammed ballet. While it became clear it would take time to fill the entire compartment, she was impressed with the rapidity and ease with which the loaders performed.

“The largest containers are full of vehicles and heavy machinery,” Senior Chief Sammy Hortez explained.

“I am assuming it’s all been load balanced?” Darlene asked.

“Manifest is sliced sixteen ways to Sunday and recalculated from stem to stern,” the cargo bay chief said.

“It’s all very impressive,” Darlene admitted.

“Yeah, it sure is.”

An alarm bell rang and Darlene’s attention was drawn to the end of the safety zone. Huge panels with flashing yellow warning lights began to fold out from what she’d thought was the end wall. Now she realized the cargo bay would itself be sliced up into sections. A cargo bay whose compartments were assembled after the fact, rather than built into solid bulkheads.

Innovative design indeed – she began to see the possibilities.

Stark space black butted against the pale glow from the planet’s atmosphere below. The view through the quad-glazed plex took Darlene’s breath away. She’d merely come here to find a quiet place to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee and instead found one of the few compartments aboard with windows. Now she sat cross-legged on top of the large conference table so she could see more of the dark brown planet turning underneath.

“I’m glad you found the in-port conference room,” the first officer said conversationally from the back of the room. “It’s one of my favorite places when we’re in orbit.”

“It is beautiful,” Darlene said, willing herself not to leap up and spoil the peaceful moment. “One tends to forget about space sometimes. The stars, the planets. We get very tied up inside the ship.”

Nancy came and stopped next to her, arms crossed, gazing out the long clear windows. “Usually it takes longer for a newbie to realize how internalized our lives become on a starship.”

“I was bounced around a lot during my long lost migration.”

“Mmm. Well, finish your coffee.”

“All done, sir,” Darlene said, taking that one last slightly bitter swallow.

“We have an appointment in the starboard hangar airlock.”

Darlene expected to be given a full vacuum check-out of her new spacesuit. But she was surprised to see Nancy stepping into her own white command suit – and the chief of the boat as well.

“Anticipating your question, ensign,” Nancy said, “there’s a one-hour per month zero-gee full vacuum training requirement on this ship. That’s for everyone. Might as well escort you onto the hull and make my time as well. Once we’re underway I always seem to have too much crap on my plate to make time for my own drills.”

Sealing up and pressurizing, then cycling through the airlock, Darlene noticed Marilyn setting a safety line next to the control panel. “You’re not coming?”

“First and third officers are buddies on this run,” Marilyn said. “I’m your safety.”

“Right.” Vacuum drills while at the Academy usually involved so many personnel that the safety crews were practically ignored as everyone poured out of the locks. “Law of small numbers.”

Stepping across the zebra stripes at the hatch onto a small shelf plate outside, Darlene could feel the artificial gravity field weakening. By the time she’d joined the first officer on the sloping curve of the hull, Darlene was weightless inside her suit.

“So what have you learned recently, ensign?”

“I learned that our two spacer girls in the spaceman ranks think they’re pretty funny. I thought they were trying to tell me they were serious girls, which didn’t jibe with their cut-up attitude. Then I finally had time to read the crew’s service records. Now I know they are Sirius Girls.”

“Grew up together with their families around Sirius B.”

“The Dog Star,” Darlene said. “Constellation Canis Major. Which is why they’re Mongrels. It’s really quite clever wordplay – and I should’ve put it together earlier.”

“Catch that lock ring. Keep a safety line in place at all times,” Nancy reminded her. “Yes. It takes a while to work your way through the crew manifest, even on a small ship. And especially when we keep you jumping during your first forty-eight hours.”

“More like seventy-two… My, what a view.”

The two women, boots magnetized to the line of black metal tiles they’d been ascending. Though there was technically no up or down in space, Fleet called this the dorsal hull. Darlene’s orientation made her believe that she now stood on top of the Evensong. Whitish-gray ceramic shield and armor panels spread and curved away far to the forward. The hull appeared almost clean at this time, with nearly all the antennas and telescopes stowed neatly out of the way, unlike all the gear festooned on the space station hull ahead. Warships all had a long tapered wedge shape to lower visibility head-on. The Evensong was thicker and had a rounded nose, not a sharp point, at the bow. Four massive bells for the fusor engines lay aft.

“I’m told this isn’t a very pleasant planet,” Darlene said, looking away towards the colored disk below. “You can’t rightly tell from seven hundred kilometers.”

“See the silvery lake? That’s mercury. The planetary scientists nearly had a heart attack when they realized you could have an open pool of mercury that large on a planet. It’s a nasty industrial world and ninety percent of the workforce uses remotes from orbit.”

“People back home would have no idea why we’re here.”

“The station is a crossroads. Good a place as any to organize a colony run somewhere else.”

“Yes, but why?”

Nancy was likely smiling behind the darkened visor of her helmet. “No one jumps ship and goes planetside here.”

As the cargo bay filled and sections of it were closed off by the seemingly inexhaustible supply of moving wall panels, a new construction project caught Darlene by surprise. Huge plex sections as thick as a man’s arm and supported on wide girder feet were being bolted together to form a massive gang hybernation tank. When completed, it would measure thirty meters long, eighteen wide and eight meters high.

“I knew the colonists would travel in hybe,” Darlene said to the chief engineer. “I guess I assumed we carried hybe tanks, but… we aren’t usually in the colony moving business.”

“That’s right,” Herb said. “All told there’ll be five thousand colonists in this tank.”

“Anyone ever hear about putting all of one’s eggs in one basket?” Darlene mused. Then she caught herself, as the chief engineer glared at her.

“Ensign – I assemble what they tell me to assemble. I don’t get to choose which level of technology gets used for an application like this.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. Anyway, this is the heaviest, most overbuilt section of the cargo bay – right off the hangar. So this hybe tank is protected by the strongest part of the cargo bay’s frame.”

“And I suppose it’s easier than trying to bring aboard five thousand stasis tubes,” Darlene said. “More compact.”

“And cheaper.” He nodded to a white container being slid into the other side of the cargo bay. “That’s livestock. You’d think they were more valuable than the colonists – the cows travel in stasis chambers.”

“I’m sure they are valuable,” Darlene said. “But it’s just as likely that Fleet doesn’t want to deal with drowning live cows in hybe fluid. I imagine they’d be a little fussy about that. And it’s hard to explain things to a cow.”

The chief engineer laughed. “Mister Charles – you do have a point there.”

“I thought we didn’t have a Marine detachment aboard,” Darlene said at breakfast.

“We don’t,” Rich said.

“Then I wouldn’t go to the overlook and take a peek down into the hangar,” Darlene said to the second officer. “There’s a Marine unit with full armored space suits and all their gear.”

“We transport Marines though,” Rich said. “That’s a colonial deployment unit.”

“Oh, I see. They’ll go into the hybe tank with the colonists?”

“No – some stasis tubes are being installed in a forward section of the cargo bay.”

“In the cargo bay? Do you mean we treat them like cargo?”

“In a manner of speaking – yes. Besides, there aren’t a lot of other places to put them.”

“I suppose,” Darlene said. “And like livestock, there’s no point in feeding them on the way out.”

“Nope. Put them on ice or gray them out – hybe or stasis.”

“Hi, I’m the ship’s third officer, Ensign Darlene Charles,” she said with a welcoming hand.

“Lt. Colonel Maxwell, ensign,” the Marine officer said as they shook hands. “693rd Colonial Deployment Force, 1203rd Detachment. At your service.”

Darlene broke into a big smile. “Do I detect a proper South Carolina accent, colonel?”

“Indeed it is, ma’am,” Maxwell said, touching the brim of his cap. “So how can I help you?”

“This is my first colony run. I wanted to find out how the Marines figure into all this – understand what your capabilities are.”

“You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Yessir. Don’t be fooled by these third officer badges.”

“I wasn’t,” Maxwell smiled. “Ma’am, let me introduce you to Lt. Mays. Robbie!”

Second Lieutenant Robert Mays was tall blond and handsome, his dashing good looks somewhat distorted by wearing his oversized powered armor without a helmet. “And you’re Ensign Darlene Charles.”

“That’s right,” Darlene said, a bit confused. “How…”

“But you’ve forgotten that I know who you are.”

“You do?”

“I roomed with Marine Cadet Wilkinson at the Academy. You may recall he escorted you to the Solstice Ball.”

“I recall Mister Wilkinson and I definitely recall a memorable evening at the Ball. But I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

“Uh-huh. Blinded by Curt’s natural beauty, I’m sure.”

Darlene hoped she’d have an easy duty before dinner. But forty-five minutes later she heard a commotion and saw a Marine blocking a middle-aged stocky woman, who was not in line, from boarding.

“Step aside, young man,” the woman said, raising her voice to make sure everyone in the hangar bay heard. “I have business on this ship.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I have my orders.”

“We’ll see about that.” The woman peered around and spotted Darlene. “You there – come here!”

Darlene was already on her way, so tried not to let it rankle if this woman wanted to make it seem as though she were in charge here. “How may I assist you, ma’am?”

“I am Councilor Mary Elisabeth Wallace.”

Checking her databoard, Darlene found no mention of Councilor Wallace. “I’m very sorry, ma’am. I don’t have any orders regarding you. Do you have any paperwork?”

Councilor Wallace seemed insulted. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Yes, ma’am. You are Councilor Mary Elisabeth Wallace.”

“Are you being flippant with me, young lady?”

“No, ma’am. I know who you are and I’ve verified that you are indeed a member of the Inter Stellar Council, a fact which you failed to mention by the way. That’s all the information I have on you and I still do not have any clearance for you to board this ship.”

“Miss Charles – the Inter Stellar Council owns the Star Fleet.

“I very much doubt that, ma’am.”

“It means I own you.”

“See, that’s the thing about Fleet, ma’am, which most people don’t understand. There are multiple national and planetary interests, but not one of them is sole owner. Nobody owns it – and everyone does.”

“You aren’t really so naïve you believe such things, are you, dearie?” the woman asked.

“You aren’t likely to be so naïve to believe that you wouldn’t be here unless the Unified Star Fleet invited you aboard the Evensong. Ma’am.” Darlene forced herself to add a pleasant smile.

“Well!” the woman exclaimed. “I want to talk to your superiors.”

“That is your right, ma’am.” Darlene pulled a secure handset from the podium, touching the comm button for the bridge. “Officer of the Deck – this is Third Officer Charles at the check-in podium. I request the presence of the captain and executive officer for an Inter Stellar Council matter.”

“Acknowledged, Mister Charles.”

Darlene knew that having all three of them here on an active hangar would violate officer safekeeping rules, but expected only one of her superiors to show. Frankly, she assumed it would be Nancy who’d come – she wasn’t expecting the captain.

“Councilor Wallace, I’m Captain Angela Dessin. This is my boat you’re standing on,” the captain said smiling. “And I don’t quite appreciate it when someone of your standing comes onto my boat and starts trying to push people around. It is unbecoming and unprofessional.

“Now, we’ve both had our little bluster – and it hasn’t done either one of us any good. How about we go to my in-port office and have a cup of coffee, and in the quiet calm of reason you can tell me what you’re really here for and I’ll see if I can’t accommodate you, Councilor Wallace.”

Angela’s shift in tone was extraordinarily effective. Darlene couldn’t believe the aggressive stance at first, but now she knew how this woman had come to earn the trust of Fleet Command.

Loading the colonists took two days, even with an orderly procedure set up. Darlene had traveled in hybe several times on her journey out here, but she was military and it was expected. She had to admire the calmness amongst the civilians. It wouldn’t be easy to ride the lift to the top of a huge tank filled with trays of dead looking people. Five thousand was a lot of people to cram into one liquid filled tank, with children, too.

By the time the last sleeping colonist got wet and was submerged in the cold blue fluid, the rest of the cargo bay was finally filled. Only the Marines who’d helped out with the hybernation sequence were left to load and they had to file back to their temporary stasis compartment and one-by-one, disappear behind the gray veil of their own stasis tubes. Then panel by panel the massive armored doors sealed off the cargo bay, leaving the hangar bay just a hangar.

The captain and first officer moved quickly through the inspection hallways of the cargo bay. After the captain signed off on the work, the first officer linked to the All Hands. “Gentlemen – a fine effort securing our cargo and passengers. Departure is set for 0800 hours tomorrow. That is all.”

“Did you take care of Councilor Blowhard?” Angela asked Darlene. “I notice she’s not been darkening my world lately.”

“Yessir,” Darlene answered with as straight a face as she could muster. “Councilor Wallace observed the final operations and we reserved the last tray position for her.”

“Didn’t object too much to going in with the colonists?”

“No sir. Apparently you’d already pointed out that we were just a cargo ship and didn’t have suitable facilities for her comfort. I assured her she’d be the first to be revived and we’d make sure she was clean, dry and dressed before the colonial manager or any of his staff were awake.”

“Good thinking,” Angela said. “Though it’d be good for the old cow to have to stand cold and naked before five thousand colonists and knock a few centimeters off that chip on her shoulder. But… you didn’t hear me say that, ensign.”

“Excuse me, captain. What were you saying?”

“Good girl,” Angela smiled. “Carry on, Mister Charles.”

A conspiracy of silence between the captain and third officer – Darlene could’ve floated away even in the artificial gravity.

“Oh and your presence is required on the bridge at 0800 hours for departure. Now that we’re loaded, it’s time we went back to being a cargo ship and about time you started earning your paycheck. Bring a spacesuit – you’ll be the designated safety officer.”

“All ahead one-quarter.”

Darlene Charles felt a slight shifting in the bridge deck plates under her feet. “Did anyone just feel that?” she asked as casually as she could.

“Engines came up, ensign,” the captain said. “The keel shifted – that’s all.”

No one seemed concerned with the motion. All the lore she’d heard at the Academy on Mars said that you never felt any motion on a starship when it was underway due to the acceleration dampeners. But this ship flexed and moved. And this was still part of the innovative new design?

She had no duty at the moment other than to observe bridge procedures, so Darlene took a seat by the control mounts. Both were occupied – Quartermaster Capri on the left and Spaceman Azi Leland on the right.

Rrrrr-ik!

Darlene looked startled. “What in the Sam Hell was that?” she asked in a louder voice.

“Bridge isolation box flex joint, sir,” Juliette said. “The hull is cold soaking as we move away from the sun. You’ll get used to it.”

“I’ve never heard of that happening on a starship before.”

“There are always expansion joints on starships.”

“I know that,” Darlene said with some irritability. “What I said was that I’ve never heard of them making such a sound.”

“Thus speaks the expert on star travel,” Azi remarked.

“What was that?” Darlene demanded of the Sirius Girl.

“Nothing, sir.”

The first officer wandered over. “Mister Charles – this ship has a very thin profile and an open interior design. It’s designed to flex a lot more than most starships, especially your heavier warships. Perfectly all right.”

“If you say so,” Darlene said. But even though everyone seemed to be singing the same song, she didn’t sound convinced.

“Nancy says you’re skeptical of our little flexible starship,” Marilyn said. “So we’re going to take you ‘tween decks for a little maintenance job. Call it part of your education.”

“Yes, master chief.”

They donned clean hooded jumpsuits and disappeared through a hatch between decks.

“Where are we exactly, master chief?” Lying on her back in a narrow crawlspace, Darlene was staring at several massive sets of springs and shock absorbers.

“We’re underneath the bridge box,” Marilyn said. “And since you’ve complained about the noise, you get to relubricate the joints.”

“So all the strange noises I keep hearing are just maintenance issues. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

“You learn fast,” Marilyn said. “But you still get to do the dirty work this time.”

“Of course.”

“Mister Charles, sir, what’s going on?”

“I’m just putting together a light supper, Mandelini,” Darlene said, clean and famished after spending several hours sliding around under the bridge.

“You’re not supposed to be cooking in here.”

“Who’s cooking? There was a lovely tomato minestrone soup leftover from dinner and I’m having that with a grilled cheese sandwich. Well, actually three grilled cheese sandwiches – but who’s counting? Do you want one?”

“Sure,” Vincent said.

Darlene began to assemble a fourth sandwich on the griddle. Shaking his head, he poured two bowls of soup. When the sandwiches were done, Darlene slid one onto a plate and handed it to the Spec 2 Cook. The rest went onto her own plate.

Seated at the wardroom table, Vincent watched in fascination as the young woman ate. “Mister Charles – don’t take this the wrong way, but just how many calories do you consume a day?”

“Oh, don’t mind me. It’s my metabolism. I’m a bottomless pit.”

“It’s not a problem, except our food reserves are whatever we are carrying. I’m supposed to be feeding twenty-two aboard – if you eat like this all the time…”

“Oh yes.”

“… then I’m serving one or two extra folks I didn’t know about.”

“It’s not a problem. The supplies are fine.”

“Sir, with all due respect, our emergency reserves are carefully calculated.”

“Nonsense,” Darlene said. “If we were to have a catastrophic emergency out in deep space, we could easily lose half the crew or half the food supply. Either way, that would be a crisis. Reserves are estimates and you know that. Besides, if I were a 150-kg ex-linebacker and ate three grilled cheese sandwiches at a time, you’d think nothing of it.” She took another bite of sandwich. “And a 150-kg ex-linebacker is already figured in your food supplies and emergency reserves. So consider that ex-linebacker billet filled, Mandelini, and don’t you dare give me any more grief about it.”

Darlene didn’t bother to mention she was pretty sure Basic Spaceman Brian Todd also qualified as a 150-kg ex-linebacker, which meant there were two new big eaters in the crew.

They’d boosted to near the speed of light in two weeks and made the leap into jumpspace. On the second leg of their four-jump route to the new colony, they had to refuel. Dropping back to normal space, the maneuver involved scooping hydrogen from a star at relativistic speeds. A common procedure, it still sounded insane every time Darlene had to think about it.

“I think I should’ve practiced in this suit more,” Darlene said. “I feel very awkward.”

“You’re here as emergency backup,” the captain said. “Which means you get to seal up. Sit over there and observe the refueling operation.”

“Watch and learn. Yessir.”

Darlene sealed and locked her helmet, then the gloves. A slight hiss told her the air supply had come on and the indicators showed all was operating correctly.

It was difficult to watch either the forward screens or the trajectory charts – the Evensong would be just grazing this star, but it looked to be certain death.

“Hyper-radar scanning,” the captain ordered. “I don’t want to run into anything we weren’t planning on running into.”

Even with her suit on, Darlene could feel and hear the groan as the ship again flexed due to the stresses. Everything she’d been taught told her this wasn’t right. She swallowed hard, steeling herself to let it ride. To act normally.

“Contact in three… two… one…”

Without warning she felt herself slide forward and down. Despite running into the limits of her seat restraints, she still ran into the console in front of her, or at least the chest pack of her spacesuit did. And after tilting, the bridge fell again and abruptly stopped. Something banged into Darlene’s helmet as all the lights went out. Then more things.

“Stop it!” Darlene shouted, bringing her arms up to protect her helmet. “Stop it! End run!”

The bridge had… fallen?

In the sudden dim, mainly lit by red warning telltales, Darlene did the first thing she could think of. “Engineering – emergency transfer of control. The bridge is down!”

Emergency lighting came on, casting eerie shadows not usually seen on the bridge. An awful lot of the overhead equipment panels had come loose, scattering forward.

“Bridge – this is Engineering. Control is transferred. What’s going on up there? I’ve got numerous faults on my board for bridge systems. Bridge… acknowledge.”

“Third Officer Charles here,” Darlene said. “Did we hit something?”

“Negative. What’s your status there? We’re getting no environmental readouts.”

Darlene glanced at the wrist telltales on her spacesuit. “Negative on any atmospheric leak. Air is clean and breathable. No toxics, no particulates, no smoke. Emergency lighting just came on.”

“This is the first officer – sound off on the bridge. Captain.”

Relieved to hear from Nancy, Darlene unstrapped herself and clambered over the console. The captain’s chair was gone – ripped from its support. “Captain is down, commander. I’m making my way to the front of the compartment.”

“Third officer has reported,” Nancy went calmly on. “Quartermaster.”

“Quartermaster is very seriously injured,” Darlene said, picking her way down the steep incline. “She’s not moving. I think she may be dead.”

“Chief of the Boat.”

“Master Chief Grimsley reporting,” Marilyn said slowly from the far side of the bridge. “I’m okay – shaken – and trapped in some debris. The goddamned overhead equipment boxes all broke their restraining straps. We have fallen shit all over the place. Emergency teams requested.”

“Acknowledged. They’re on the way,” Nancy said. “Spaceman Leland.”

There was silence.

“She’s definitely dead,” Darlene said, now that she could see. “One of those loose equipment boxes… decapitation.”

“Steady now, Charles…”

“Yessir. Uh, did we get the fuel secured, sir?”

Nancy’s voice softened, almost a hint of a chuckle. “Spoken like a true spacer, ensign. Yes – the fuel load is confirmed and secured.”

Continuing her descent, Darlene made it to the front – the bottom – of the bridge. Her boot splashed into a pool of something, as she found Captain Dessin.

“How bad are we?” the captain asked, wincing as she looked up. “Did we hit something?”

“We’re flooding. There’s no evidence we ran into anything hard. Don’t move, Captain, I think your leg is broken at the very least. Engineering, I need that medical and rescue team ASAP.”

“They’ve arrived,” Nancy reported. “Ensign, can you go and open the bridge hatch for the rescue teams?”

Darlene looked up the sloping deck. Of course, the bridge hatch locks from the inside.

Before she could reply, Marilyn broke in. “I’ve got it – I’m closer.”

“Flooding?” The chief engineer, who’d been monitoring the conversation, wasn’t convinced. “All water lines in and out of the bridge are double-guillotine closure valves – you can’t be flooding.”

“It’s not water, it’s blue… somewhat viscous,” Darlene said, the horror creeping slightly into her voice. “Engineering, we’ve fallen into the hybe tank. Someone needs to get into the cargo bay right away.”

No wonder there’d been a tri-axis center junction sensor in the cargo bay and not here. The bridge, the most protected box on the ship, lay over the cargo bay, off-axis. And right over the five thousand colonists in hybernation.

“The second officer was in the hangar and cargo bays during our maneuvering,” Nancy said.

“Lt. McMurray,” Darlene said. “I need a situation report on the hybe tank.”

When she didn’t get an answer, Darlene repeated her call.

“Bosun!” Nancy called out. “Are you in contact with the second officer?”

“Negative, sir. Cannot reach the second officer,” the bosun reported.

“Where was he last?” Angela asked.

“Last report had him in the hangar bay – full suit.”

“If he was there, then he might’ve been inspecting the cargo bay, too, checking on the hybe tank. Send someone down there.”

“Vincent! Hybe tank area – be careful. A lot of the systems are not responding to the automatic net queries. Based on the bridge, there’s gotta be a lot of damage down there.”

“Acknowledged. Reporting to hybe tank.”

When Pharmacist’s Mate Womat came down into the bridge dangling from a safety line, Darlene could finally breathe.

“Thank God you’re here.”

“I’ve got it, sir. You did a great job of first aid here.”

“I need you down in the hybe tank,” Nancy said to Darlene. “You helped with the immersion of the colonists and our limited med capability is needed for the captain. I don’t want to lose any of the colonists, but they can’t run a starship.”

“Yessir,” Darlene said.

“Belay that,” Marilyn said. “Ensign, you’ve got quite a dent on your helmet. Have Womat check you out.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine when the pharmacist’s mate says you’re fine.”

Reluctantly removing her helmet, Darlene waited until Luanne came over and scanned her for signs of trauma. “You’re clear.”

Darlene took one last look at the captain getting treated and the master chief giving her a weak wave of dismissal. And then she climbed out of the tilted bridge.

Meanwhile the first officer was moving on to other issues. “We’re burning real time at a rate of 13-to-1 and I don’t know how well our space systems are performing. Chief Engineer, are we ready to jump?”

“Near as I can tell.”

“Prepare to jump.”

Darlene broke in. “Wait one! Mister Camp – do you have your own center junction sensor in Engineering?”

“Yes, but it’s only two-axis. I was going to use the remote to the three-axis.”

“The unit in the cargo bay may’ve shifted. I wouldn’t trust its alignment – and God knows it’s critical.”

“Good thinking, ensign. We’re on it.”

When Darlene finally made it down to the mess in the cargo bay, she was appalled by the carnage. Though the bulk of the walls of the mass hybe tank held, whole sections of the upper meter and a half were cracked, shattered and leaking. Ceiling panels were scattered everywhere along with thousands of liters of hybe fluid. The exposed shock mounted box which held the bridge compartment had crushed part of at least two rows of hybe trays. They wouldn’t know until they got in there. Injured and dead colonists both lay still like discarded dolls. Other than a disturbing creaking from the damaged and overloaded supports, it was eerily quiet.

Worse was the chunk of structural frame which had fallen on Lt. McMurray. The second officer was unquestionably dead – no one had yet made a move to extract his corpse. There were too many living to deal with. And some colonists, otherwise uninjured, were no longer submerged in the refrigerated blue liquid and required immediate attention.

“We’re too short of people down here,” Darlene reported. “We need to break the Marines out of stasis. They’re supposed to be trained in emergency hybe tank work.”

“How do you know that?”

“I talked with Lt. Colonel Maxwell the morning they came aboard.”

“Helluva time for the first officer to find out about that,” Nancy said. “Call out the Marines. We need them anyway.”

While the Marines were taking trays and either letting them fall to the bottom of the hybe tank, or pulling them out to have them spread on the hangar bay floor, Darlene watched a hastily assembled damage control team begin to jack the bridge up. It wasn’t going well.

“We need to relieve the strain off those hybe tank panels,” Darlene said. “But I’m not sure those remaining bridge supports will hold. That ceiling rail could collapse.”

“It’s going to take some time,” the cargo officer said.

“Why?”

“The lifts are trying to raise 22 tonnes of bridge.”

“Why are we working so hard? The bridge fell because it had full-Earth weight and wasn’t supported properly. If we’d just turn off the artificial gravity…”

“We can’t – the hybe tank is open to the air.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that.”

“However, we can ramp the gravity down.”

Nancy cut in. “Engineering, I think we need to keep the stress even. Lower the artificial gravity to twenty percent Earth-normal shipwide.”

“Aye-aye, commander. Gravity coming down – now.”

A warning klaxon sounded and the overhead speakers came on. “AG Field reduction. All-Hands, standby during gravity field reduction.”

The weight of Darlene’s M400C spacesuit suddenly dropped on her shoulder suspension pads.

“All-Hands, Low Gravity Alert. Be alert for sudden shifts. Avoid sudden moves. That is all.”

With the gravity reduced, the job suddenly became much easier. Lift pillars rose up one section at a time until the jacks made contact with the bridge isolation box. Immediately the low grade leaks from the tank stopped as the strain was taken off the hybe tank walls. As Darlene came around the corner, she found the chief of the boat giving instructions.

“We’re running new supports across those beams. I need a bead weld along those beams, ensign,” Marilyn said. The master chief was bruised but not seriously injured. Some of the blood on her uniform wasn’t hers. “I haven’t checked you out as a welder – so I hope you’re good. But you’re already been in those spaces.”

“Not in a spacesuit.”

“Ditch the suit. The hull doesn’t appear to be compromised.”

Surrounded by chaos, dangling by a safety line from a beam whose solidity Darlene wasn’t certain of, she soon began to weld. When the master chief came back, she admired Darlene’s efforts.

“Your daddy taught you good work.”

“Why thank you.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve only made and finished two welds here. I don’t need clean and polished. I need thirty linear meters of welding from you as fast as possible. Now put heat to welding rod and go to town.”

A little crestfallen, Darlene looked at her neat welds and then the length of the beams. “Yes, master chief.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Absolutely. But I was wondering what happened?”

“I don’t know, Darlene,” Marilyn said quietly. “It’s got to be a design flaw and a big one. Sonofabitch, but we can’t worry about that right now. Some of these poor people in that tank are dead and dying and they’ll never know about it.”

When Darlene came back out of the crawlspace, the marines had blocked off two areas on the hangar deck into shallow pools of blue hybe fluid to store bodies.

“Why is the fluid darker in this tank?” she asked.

Lt. Mays stood up from the deck, blue dripping from the long gloves he wore. “That wading pool is intact colonists,” he said, pointing to the other pool. “This one is the injured and the dead – we’re not quite sure which are which yet. The color is blood and guts. We can’t leave them like this for very long or they’ll all be dead.”

“Can’t they be revived?”

“You guys don’t have the medical facilities.” Mays looked around. “All this gear and we can’t really afford to bring these people out of hybe to treat their injuries. But we can’t keep them in hybe, they’ll die.”

“The cows,” Darlene suddenly said. “We’ve got to get the cows.”

“Ensign?”

“We’ve got cows in stasis – big white containers. There…,” Darlene pointed, “… in Section A13.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“We don’t have enough stasis or medical stasis for these people. At least if we put them in farm stasis they have a non-zero chance.”

“What do we do with the cows?”

“If we don’t have any place to keep them, we’ll have to kill them.”

“Does anyone aboard have any experience slaughtering cattle?”

“Yes,” Darlene said. “Basic Spaceman Todd.”

Into the unreality of the situation on the hangar deck came the protestations of cows, released in pairs from their stasis chambers, upset at the lowered gravity and the unfamiliar noises and smells. With the repeated crump! of a pulse rifle shot, though, that soon stopped.

“What are we going to do with all these cow corpses?” a Marine asked, powering down his rifle.

“Carcasses,” Basic Spaceman Todd said. “Dead cows are carcasses, not corpses.”

“We can’t stow them, we can’t space them – won’t they bloat up?”

“Don’t worry,” Todd said. “Give me two Marines from farms and I’ll take care of them.”

They held an impromptu departmental meeting in the hangar bay at 2100 hours.

“What’s the status of the colonists in the hybe tank?” Nancy asked.

Darlene didn’t even need to consult her datapad. “It’s hard to tell for sure, but we know that there are one-hundred-and-eighty-two casualties from the top tiers.”

“Dead?”

“The Marines have moved out forty-eight definites. We won’t know about the others until revival. We’re going to try to filter as much blood and waste from the hybe fluid as possible, but we can’t just put in chemicals to prevent any organism blooms. And we don’t have the facilities or resources to revive everyone and start over.”

“Damn.”

“How’s Captain Dessin?” Darlene asked.

“Fractured pelvis, collapsed lung. She’s in Sick Bay.”

Darlene and the chief engineer inspected a crawlspace atop the bridge box. Despite some buckled attachments, she couldn’t quite see what had caused the failure.

“I don’t understand,” Herb said. “The design clearly specifies there are safety straps to hold the box in place.”

“This is all torn up in here – how many safety straps are there?”

“There are supposed to be six safety straps holding the bridge in place.”

“Well you don’t have six now,” Darlene said. “I can’t see any at all on this end.”

“They snapped?”

“Yes,” she said, then slid into a smaller crevice. “No – this broken end is worn down, not frayed.”

“That’s not possible.”

“This is the Galen Roads all over again,” Darlene sighed.

Herb turned off his spotlight. “How so?”

Darlene shrugged. “Everyone said this is a new design for a cargo ship. That this will be utilized on destroyers and cruisers in the next three years. Maybe we’re just pushing the envelope too hard again.”

“This is structural failure,” he said, “due to the flexing. That big open cargo bay is nice for cargo, but it’s a problem. A warship would have closed compartments for both structural and security reasons – totally different inside.”

“But how did this happen? What broke?”

“I’m not sure anything broke,” Herb said. “My guess is that the flexing during the star diving run went too far – and the bridge isolation box pins slid off the front rails. It just fell off the track.”

“That’s crazy!”

“That’s life in the real world. Bet you a steak dinner at our next shore leave that there’ll be a simple fix for this – something the structural engineers should’ve caught in their modeling.”

“There’s no way we can make it to the deployment point,” the X.O. said to Darlene while pacing in her office, arms folded. “We need heavy maintenance and a hybe processing facility capable of saving the rest of the colonists. They won’t have that in place – they’re expecting intact colonial units needing minimal support. Suggestions?”

“Sir?” Darlene was startled. “You’re asking me?”

“Don’t look so surprised,” Nancy said, handing her two small metal badges. “Like it or not, with the death of Lt. McMurray, as second officer you have the most recent navigation experience. Nor do we have a quartermaster. You’re now also our senior navigator, Darlene.”

Quickly absorbing her sudden promotions represented by the Roman numeral II’s in her hand, Darlene glanced at the star charts displayed on the wall screens and tried to concentrate on their navigational situation. “What’s that station there?” she asked, unclipping the III’s from her lapels and changing to II’s. “Ambrose Miller Station? Isn’t that a Class Two maintenance facility? I’m sure I read that in a report somewhere…”

“Ambrose Miller Station it is,” Nancy said, holding out her hand for the Roman numeral III badges. “Let’s see if you learned anything in your Academy navigation courses. Set up a route change at GV-852 and run it by the captain, if she’s available. Then find me and I’ll check it.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” was all Darlene could think to say.

“Oh and do you know any of the Marine officers well enough to recommend a new third officer?”

“Um, you could try Robbie. That would be Lt. Mays, sir.”

“Get him here, ASAP.”

This was the first officer’s show, so Darlene stood quietly off to the side.

“2nd Lieutenant Robert Mays, USFMC, “B” Company, 1203rd Planetary Colonial Detachment. Reporting as ordered.”

“What do you know about running a starship, Mister Mays?” Nancy asked.

“I let the Navy handle that, sir.”

“Well, this Navy ship is short some officers. We need someone who can stand a watch, file paperwork and scream for help if anything untoward happens. Think you’re up for the job?”

Robbie hesitated, but only for a moment. “Sir, a Fleet Marine is ready to go in zero time, for any assignment, as needed.”

“That’s the line they always tell us. And you are needed.”

“Then I’m your man.”

“Congratulations, Lt. Mays – you are now the ship’s third officer. Don’t let it go to your head, I’m just filling in a position in the org chart. Since it was Ensign Charles who recommended you, and she’s now our second officer, I’ll put Darlene in charge of you for the moment.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Nancy smiled. “For what?”

Robbie smiled back. “Nothing, sir. Just happy to serve.”

“Uh-huh. Get out of here, lieutenant.” Nancy shook her head as she smirked at Darlene. “Marines.”

“They are paid to be very enthusiastic,” Darlene said. “And that’s what we need right now.”

When Robbie ran into Darlene later in the day still working the stacks in the hybe tank, she looked down and saw her old third officer badges on his lapel. “Congratulations, lieutenant. We may make an honest naval officer out of you yet.”

“Thank you, ensign. I still think you have a thing for Marines.”

“Well you do wear those snazzy dress uniforms well, don’t you just?” Darlene said, turning up the girlish Southern charm.

“Not right now I don’t,” he said, looking at the blue gel liquid dripping from her insulated suit.

“True. You better gear up. I need you in here to assist me.”

“I thought I was going to be assigned bridge watches.”

“You are – but after lunch. And I can’t get my lunch until I finish here.”

“And so on and so on,” Robbie nodded, looking around for a clean and dry hybe maintenance suit.

The clock display read 0206 hours ShipTime when Darlene made her way through the hangar bay one last time at the end of a very long day. The overhead lights had been dimmed and with the cargo bay doors left open, she could hear the hum of the new recirculation pump for the hybe tank.

But there was also a flickering glow from the far end, coming from behind a figure seated cross-legged on the safety decking. Two Marines on watch were ignoring this person, so it must’ve been approved by someone. Darlene had to go see.

The lone surviving Sirius Girl, Spaceman Uril Mannet, looked up at the ensign – she had six globes flickering in front of her. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” Darlene said. “Mind if I join you?”

Uril shook her head, then patted the deck next to her.

“These are beautiful,” Darlene said after a few minutes of calm silence. “Are they for Azi?”

“Yeah. They’re flameballs – some people call them space candles.”

“Are they really lit?”

Uril nodded. “Perfectly safe. They’re pressurized. If the fuel were to leak out, it’d be very hard to catch fire.”

“Why six?”

This time the girl smiled. “The stages of Life, at least according to the gurus on the Dog Station: bump, birth, child, teen, adult, corpse.”

“That seems rather brutal.”

“Life is brutal. It comes and it goes. Azi was good people.”

“That she was.”

“And I’ll miss her.”

They sat quietly while Darlene paid her respects. But with only a few hours available for sleep, she finally headed for her bunk. There’d been no time to move her things to the second officer’s cabin. So she was surprised to see the stateroom she shared with Kirsten now tagged ACTING SECOND OFFICER / JUNIOR ENGINEER. But the sign wasn’t quite slipped into its slot straight. Pulling it out to reseat the sign, Darlene turned it over and had to smile. The ACTING SECOND OFFICER had been on the flip side of the THIRD OFFICER nameplate all this time. Fleet apparently anticipated many possibilities.

“The bridge is cleared for operation,” Nancy told Darlene. “The repairs have temporarily limited the complete freedom of movement of the isolation box and many of the minor systems, especially overhead control panels, have not been reattached or replaced. But all primary control and navigation functions have been restored.”

“Then we’re back in business, I suppose,” Darlene said.

“As much as we can be,” Nancy agreed.

“Captain! You’re up!” Darlene was surprised to see Angela Dessin in the wardroom.

“Temporary repairs, I assure you,” the captain said. “Bone glue and a support cast for now. But I won’t be standing watch for a while. Womat is a very skilled medic, but we don’t have a doctor.”

“We unfortunately loaded the colony’s two doctors in the top tray of the hybe tank,” Darlene said. “Just in case they were needed. Protocol’s failed us there. Here – don’t get up. Let me serve you.”

“Thanks, Darlene. You’ve done a helluva job on this run, ensign. One helluva job.”

Darlene beamed and tried hard not to blush.

The service for Lt. Glenard “Rich” McMurray, late second officer of the Evensong, was short yet poignant. Darlene had barely known the man, so was assigned the bridge watch. But she had the service on one of the command screens and followed along. Likewise Lt. Mays was on duty and he stopped in to check up on what needed covering.

“I never did find out why Lt. McMurray was called Rich,” Darlene said sadly. “I got the impression there was a story that went with that.”

“What will happen with the other dead?” Robbie asked. “The colonists.”

“The colonial authority will have to sort out if they’re related to any of the survivors. They’ll be shipped to the colony for burial. Otherwise, they go back to the Home System.”

“There should be a ceremony for all who died before they are taken off,” Robbie said with some certainty.

“Oh, there will,” Darlene said. “I heard that from the X.O. At least, there won’t be any of the Everlasting Electric Monuments down on the colony.” They were once very popular in Charleston and Savannah – you could still see the flickering glow from many of the cemeteries at night. “But I checked their inventory.”

“You don’t like them?”

“They’re a bit gaudy, even for the South,” Darlene said. “I like the Sirius flameballs better.”

“We’re coming into port,” the exec said, poking her head into Darlene’s compartment. “Do you want to take her in?”

Darlene took a deep breath. “Sure.”

“It is Friday the Thirteenth, in case that scares you.”

“Is it? I’d forgotten,” Darlene said. “I’d better set you up on the Button.”

“No,” Nancy said with a slight smile. “I think you can handle this all right. Lt. Van Zoeren is next on the duty roster – she’ll handle the emergency response.”

“I take it,” Darlene said, “that I’m off your shit list.”

“I suppose from your point of view you might say that.”

“You make it sound like I never was on your list.”

“Whoever said I kept a list? I’m the executive officer – it’s my job to maintain discipline aboard ship. That includes putting a little fear into the new, the young and the impressionable.”

Darlene wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“You’re due on the bridge to take her in, ensign,” Nancy reminded her. “Dismissed.”

Darlene was just scraping up the last mouthful of breakfast the next time she saw Nancy Kramer.

“It’s 0552 hours, ensign,” the first officer said sternly. “Aren’t you due on the podium at 0600?”

“Yessir,” Darlene said, swallowing her coffee in two gulps.

“You need to be in a spacesuit – and you’re not moving?”

“Two minutes to the hangar bay, five minutes to get suited and I’m there,” Darlene said brightly. “And if you excuse me, sir, I need to be on my way.”

“Carry on, ensign,” Nancy said with a little amusement. But Darlene was already gone.

She was actually logging into the podium station in the open hangar before 0600 hours. At the beginning of a shift, the only people likely to come up the ramp to the Evensong were delivery people and overachievers – something Darlene wryly noted she was familiar with.

She spotted the officer at the station’s barricade even before the podium’s signal light came on. Short, plain faced, Asian eyes, straight black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Standard khaki-gray uniform skirt and jacket, sturdy dress work shoes. A French flag on the sleeve. Darlene noticed these because the woman was burdened with both a space duffel and an M400 white spacesuit sans back and chest packs slung over her back. These items were laid down on the deck at the threshold before the woman saluted the flag and then came forward with her transfer packet.

“Second Officer Lieutenant Junior Grade Nina Jardins reporting to the USFS Evensong for duty,” the woman said, with only a hint of a French accent.

Darlene’s smile didn’t waver a bit, even as reality began to sink in. She was, after all, still an ensign early in her first year in Fleet and only aboard the Evensong a matter of weeks. It would’ve been too much to think she’d get to stay second officer – correction, acting second officer. She should remain third officer by all rights. Wasn’t that enough?

“I can log you as coming aboard, Lt. Jardins,” Darlene said. “However…”

Nina’s eyes widened as she spotted the Roman numeral II’s on Darlene’s lapels – the same emblems she was wearing herself. “I’m sorry, sir…”

“Nothing to apologize for, lieutenant,” Darlene said, skipping through the records which appeared on the podium’s screen. “You have valid orders. I’m just Acting Second Officer. But I cannot log you in as Second Officer Arriving – First Officer Kramer will have to do that. I’ll have a runner escort you in a minute.”

“Thank you, ensign.”

“It’s Darlene,” she smiled. “And may I be the first to say Welcome aboard?”

“Thanks.”

“And a Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“What?” Nina looked confused.

“It’s February fourteenth, Earth Relative Time. Happy Valentine’s Day.” The sound of a cutoff wheel from the cargo bay interrupted them. Workers reinforcing the supports for the bridge were already back at work at this early hour. “Apologies for the mess. We had a structural failure on this mission.”

“I see,” Nina said. “I was trying to figure out why a cargo ship needed a structural engineer aboard. Now I understand.”

Darlene did, too.

“I hope you’re all right with this,” Nancy said as Darlene stood at ease in front of the first officer’s desk.

“Perfectly, sir. Actually I feel a lot better now that Lt. Jardins’ aboard.”

“Even if all your welds are going to be replaced?” Nancy said with a trace of a smile.

“That was an emergency repair, sir. Nothing wrong with my welds.”

“It was a difficult job and you did well.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Nina says the repairs will take six weeks. You need to make a schedule for everyone in the crew to take one week of leave – that includes yourself, it does not include the captain or second officer. I have you scheduled for a Dead Man’s Watch, which is a pretty good time to start on this project. You should start with the chief engineer – Herb doesn’t take leave much while aboard ship. Tell him that he gets first choice of dates and that you cannot proceed with the schedule until his slot is filled.”

“Yessir.”

“I don’t suppose I need to remind you that Mister Van Zoeren is not allowed to have the same week as Mister Camp.”

“Quite understandable.” The two woman shared the barest of smiles.

“By the way,” Nancy said, “I was reading the final bridge transcripts from the accident. At one point you were identified as saying,” she paused to pick up a datapad, “Stop it. Stop it. End run. Who were you talking to, ensign?”

Darlene’s cheeks colored slightly. “I’m afraid I was being battered by gear which came loose.”

“End run?”

“It’s what you tell the computers at the Academy to halt a simulation.”

“You understood you weren’t in a simulation situation?”

“I was… having a moment of panic, sir. But I quickly recovered.”

Nancy put the datapad back down. “You’re finally becoming the officer the Academy thought they were sending to the stars, Mister Charles.”

“Why thank you, sir.”

“Now don’t be a pill about it. Anything else?”

“Hmm.” Darlene thought for a moment, her curiosity finally getting the better of her. “So how did Captain Dessin know my first supervisor was himself a Southerner?”

“Because I told her.”

“Then how did you know?”

“The other ensign made a complaint to Fleet JAG – a complaint which upon investigation seemed to prove valid.”

“But I wasn’t called to testify or give a deposition.”

“We thought it best if you weren’t involved. Starting out in a military career is a delicate business – no point in adding to your difficulties.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Captain Dessin has some pull with Fleet Personnel. While they come down and yank some of our experienced people from time to time, we also get to choose the replacements.”

“You choose your replacements?”

“Funny world we live in sometimes, isn’t it?” Nancy said.

“I guess.” She could barely contain the thoughts racing through her head – or the questions which needed answering.

But Nancy had been through this before. “I think that’s more than enough truth for one day, ensign.”

Darlene started to go. “Do you think there’s time for me to get something to eat? I think so much better on a full stomach.”

“Go. You’re dismissed.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Darlene said, saluting. But just before she went through the hatch she turned back. “And thank you.”

Nancy Kramer smiled, but said nothing more.

___
Copyright 2012 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon

Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon teaches Physics at Western Michigan University by day and writes of the great wars of the 29th century and elsewhen at night. In his first half century, he’s lived in the lake effect snow pattern of four of the five Great Lakes, from growing up in Western New York to getting a B.A. in Integrated Sciences (everything) at Northwestern and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Michigan Tech. His stories have been published on three continents on this planet, including “A Man in the Moon” in the 24th Writers of the Future anthology, “The Brother on the Shelf” in Analog, “Hail to the Victors” in Abyss & Apex, two stories translated to Greek, and Down Under, “Machine” and “In The Blink Of An Eye” appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. In April of 2012 his near-term SF story “The New Tenant” will appear in the U.K. anthology Rocket Science. Dr. Phil’s website is www.dr-phil-physics.com.

The second week, Emma discovered a tattoo parlor down an alley off the main square. The young man behind the counter took one look at her and said, in careful English, “You are too young for a tattoo.”

“I don’t want a tattoo. I don’t think I do. My brother does.”

The guy (his name sounded like Raf) asked how old Theo was—seventeen—and suggested she bring him in. Raf looked only a few years older than Theo. Emma liked the little blue-black glyph inked on the concave bone of his left temple between hairline and eyebrow. She thought it was meant to evoke a bird’s wing. But then Raf turned to change the CD and the tattoos on his shoulder and back, what wasn’t covered by his wifebeater, disappointed her. Koi fish, lotus blossoms, a whiskered Asian dragon—boring. As cliché as the horned skulls and flames and roses Theo dreamed about.

But when Raf returned his attention to her Emma decided he was good looking so she asked how he’d known to speak English. “You speak it very well,” she added. She wanted a moment to contemplate the image that had just come to her of Raf kissing her big brother, caressing Theo’s shoulder and arm. Raf’s long fingers left strokes of color on Theo’s skin, fire-breathing skulls, schools of glistening koi.

“You have the American look,” Raf said.

Emma didn’t believe he meant to sound condescending.

They’d come on vacation, Emma, Theo, Mom, Dad, but it promised to be a dreary sort of vacation because Mom and Dad had responsibilities—for them it was a working vacation. Every morning they took a train to the bigger town thirty kilometers away to do research in the university library, leaving their children to entertain themselves.

Theo wasn’t much entertainment even back home. In a foreign country where he didn’t know the language, he spent hours hunched over his laptop (he had terrible posture). Complaining to friends on Facebook, playing World of Warcraft, piecing together angsty doom-metal loops on GarageBand, which he never seemed to paste together into actual songs. Now and then he took a break to reach for his sketchbook, struck by another vision for the sleeve of tattoos he intended for his left arm as soon as he turned eighteen. If he wasn’t on the internet, he was usually in the home gym at the top of the house.

They’d traded houses with a professional couple, a dentist and a professor, who were abnormally fit for men in their forties: there were photos of them without shirts on all over the house. Theo made fake gross-out noises over the photos but he attacked their exercise machines with fervor and learned the metric system right away so he could keep track. When he didn’t smell of sweat, he smelled of the rank bodyspray TV commercials back home told him would attract girls. Not if they had functioning olfactory organs, Emma often almost told him. Emma thought her older brother might be more interesting if he were gay. Emma thought she’d make a better boy than Theo.

She had the guts to go out with her phrasebook and wander the town. Village—it was barely a town, surrounded by fields and pastures. Her guidebook to the country said the village had once been known for its livestock fair, but now the market ground had become a park and the abattoir municipal offices. She didn’t carry the guidebook with her because the village rated only half a page.

Emma walked through the park, noting the public pool for a future occasion, but she saw a cluster of girls her age who she could tell thought themselves too pretty to get wet. She had exactly as much use for girls like that as they would for her.

Walking the towpath beside the canal east of town, she imagined boarding a barge that would carry her upstream to the university or downstream a hundred twenty-five kilometers to the capital and the sea. On the far side of the water, a fence prevented golden-brown cattle from blundering into the deep canal. Approaching the fourteenth-century bridge, she startled a gang of teenage boys. They scuttled down the bank into the water. She saw several white butts before brown water hid them, before she noticed heaps of clothing by the towpath. Crouching in the shallows, the boys glowered up at her, and she wondered whether she found the notion of skinnydipping with a bunch of girlfriends appealing.

Not really. She couldn’t imagine any of the girls she knew being up for it. She wasn’t certain she would be. Public nudity was different for boys, she thought, though she still couldn’t imagine any of the boys she knew, American boys, willingly hanging out bareass with other bareass boys (certainly never Theo). But the image was oddly attractive. If she’d known these boys she might have gathered up their clothes and run off with them.

She didn’t know anybody in town yet. Raf at the tattoo shop wasn’t the only person to speak to her in English but he was the only one who knew right off his native language wouldn’t serve.

Walking on, leaving the boys to their fun, she recalled the dream she used to have of waking one morning to find herself a boy. Emma had read about gender dysphoria—she knew she didn’t suffer that. She had never felt any conviction that really she was a boy trapped in the wrong body, but if she played World of Warcraft she would choose a male avatar. All the best adventure stories, the heroes were boys who got to slay dragons or be apprenticed to wizards, embark on voyages of discovery or quests to rescue magical talismans (or tiresome princesses). Girls were tiresome, generally, the ones she knew. Although it was entirely likely, if she could penetrate the secret world of boys, incognita, she’d find they were also tiresome, consumed by trivial concerns she wouldn’t even comprehend because she lacked the context.

Theo was tiresome in just about every way but she had to admit he was pretty to look at when he forgot to look sullen. It was easy to place her brother’s face on the untried heroes of fantasy adventure novels, to populate the sweet fumblings of slash fanfic with Theo’s lithe body.

It would revolt him utterly to know that about her, the uses her imagination put him to.

Besides, Raf at the tattoo parlor was prettier, really, though she didn’t usually find blonds appealing. He didn’t give her that look, that startled, hungry, boy look, as if he’d just noticed you weren’t hideous and were a girl, so she thought probably he was gay.

The second time she visited the tattoo shop, she asked Raf if he’d like a soda or coffee from the café on the square. “You didn’t bring your brother,” he said.

Emma was used to boys being disappointed. She hadn’t even told Theo about Raf and the shop. “He’s afraid—” she thought he was—“to get inked while he still lives at home. Mom and Dad might get angry.”

“It’s not their affair, surely, what he does to his own body.”

Emma saw the hole. “Then it shouldn’t be anybody’s affair if I wanted a tattoo. I’m only two years younger than Theo.”

“But you don’t want one.” Cheery, Raf grinned. “I don’t even know why you’re here.”

“To talk to somebody friendly. To fetch you a cup of coffee or a Coca-Cola from the café.”

Raf went wide eyed in a charming, fake way. He glanced around the empty shop. The stop-start buzzing of an electric needle came from somewhere in back, behind the life-sized ventral and dorsal photos of a Japanese man vividly inked over every square centimeter of skin below the neck. “As you can see,” Raf said, “I have no customers presently clamoring for my artistry. I will walk with you to the café.”

When he turned to call in his own language to the invisible co-worker, Emma saw his ventral tattoos weren’t what she remembered. Glossy black spikes and blades pierced his pale skin and showed through the thin fabric of his shirt, looking like the crazy weapons of Star Trek Klingons, clashing. Tribal, she thought the aesthetic was called, just as clichéd as the dragon and fishes she must have imagined. She was relieved, when he came around the counter, that the wing glyph at his temple hadn’t changed, and startled by how short he was. The floor behind the counter must be raised. Theo would be a full head taller.

“Shall we?” Raf asked. “We’ll bring our treats back here, if you don’t mind. Better for Hender not to be interrupted.”

He walked beside her, asking how she and her brother came to be visiting this tiny, unimportant town. He knew the professor and the dentist—the dentist was his dentist, he’d done some of the professor’s ink. Emma found herself telling him more than she meant to, if she’d meant to tell him anything, on the short walk to the square. He was easy to talk to, dropping all the right hints to lead her on. Theo interested him but that was to be expected: Theo might be persuaded to drop a couple hundred euro on ink. If Raf was gay, he might find Theo attractive. Theo was attractive. Once again, the two boys were making out in the back of Emma’s mind, beautiful, almost innocent, so she was surprised when Raf opened the café door for her. Going in, she noticed a porcelainized plaque fixed to the wall beside the door, Delft-blue letters spelling words she couldn’t read.

Inside, it was noisy and cheerful, smelled of coffee, warm milk—spices and baking bread, hot sugar, mustard, salted meats. The odors were comforting, though Emma imagined they could also be nauseating as she realized she’d forgotten lunch. “Are you hungry?” she asked Raf.

“Are you?”

“Famished. I only noticed now.”

He smiled in a way she liked for a moment, then didn’t like so much as he walked right to the counter and spoke to the man behind it too fast for Emma to have any chance of understanding. She stepped up beside him. He was barely taller than she, still smiling, but the fellow behind the counter was taller than Theo and quite nice looking. “Perhaps ten minutes,” Raf said.

“I’m paying.”

“Not this time. You may dislike what I chose for you.”

“What?”

“A traditional hot sandwich and our traditional way of serving coffee. Hot milk and a taste of bitter chocolate.”

Coffee Guy (so she christened him) blinked, encouraging.

“Yummy.” Emma held out the ten-euro note in such a way Coffee Guy would have to fold it back into her hand or take it. Raf made falsely remonstrative noises but Coffee Guy took the bill with a smile.

Moving aside, Emma asked, “What does the sign by the door say?”

“Hmm?” Raf was still pretending pique. “It notes that this is an historic building, dating to the early sixteenth century, and that it was built over the site of the witch’s house. Excuse me.” Returning to Coffee Guy, he accepted a white paper bag and a cardboard caddy carrying three tall paper cups with plastic sippy lids.

“Witch’s house?”

Raf was leading her back to the door. Outside, he indicated two words on the plaque that Emma could now interpret—the languages were not so distantly related. “Another tradition,” Raf said, “older than the coffee or the sandwich.” He seemed in a hurry, brisk and brusque.

As he strode away and Emma hesitated, puzzled, it appeared to her the inky spikes and blades and flourishes on his back were writhing, contorting, blushing with blots of clear color, but when she blinked and looked again, hurrying after him, they had resolved into intricate flowers tangled in wreaths and garlands on his shoulder and upper arm. Scarlet poppies, indigo cornflowers, peonies, Japanese chrysanthemums—she didn’t recognize half of them.

“I become anxious about Hender,” Raf said when she caught up. “I’m sorry. He is not always good with people.”

“Your tattoos—”

“Yes? I like the flowers better as well.”

From across the street, through the plate-glass window of the shop Emma saw a customer waiting, back turned, peering at the display of photocopied flash as if each sheet were a painting on a museum’s wall. “An American,” said Raf.

“How can you tell?”

“I can tell. Perhaps your brother.”

“Theo has long hair. Halfway down his back.” She didn’t have to see him close up to see the American customer had barely the shadow of stubble on his skull.

Raf leapt the step to the door, pushed it open, and said in ringing English as the bell tinkled, “I’m sorry there was no-one here to welcome you.”

“He said you’d be right back, the other—” Turning from the wall of skulls and dragons, magickal symbols and WWII pinups, Theo froze when he saw his sister behind Raf. “Emma?”

“What happened to your hair?”

Triumphant, Raf grinned.

“What are you doing here? You’re too young for ink.”

Startled into petulance, Emma blurted, “So are you!”

“My friend Emma bought me coffee,” Raf said equably, placing cup caddy and sandwich bag on the counter. “That is why I wasn’t here to greet you. Let me just give Hender his and then we can discuss your plans and wishes.”

When he took one of the paper cups behind the curtain, Emma asked Theo again, “What happened to your hair?” It had been beautiful hair, wavy and lustrous—much prettier than hers.

“His friend?” Self conscious, Theo shifted his sketchpad from one hand to the other, then back. “Since when?”

First surprise passed, Emma imagined Theo was maybe even handsomer without all that hair distracting from the fineness of his features, the shocking paleness of his eyes. A queasy-making thought to have about her brother when he stood in front of her big as life, so she turned away. Incomprehensible voices sounded behind Hender’s curtain, three of them (she hadn’t seen Hender yet), and the thrumming of his needle. “How’d you find the place?”

“Google,” Theo said, but not as if she was stupid.

Distracted by annoyance, Emma didn’t often remember how shy he was. She took her cup from the counter and sipped through the vent in the plastic lid. The coffee wasn’t very sweet, not like cocoa—she tasted milk and coffee more than chocolate. “Why?”

“You know I want them.”

“Why now?”

When she looked over her shoulder, Theo was sitting on the bench below the display of flash. Staring at his clasped hands, he looked miserable. For an instant she felt sorry for him. “Why now?” she asked again.

“Simon got one. Bragging about it on Facebook.”

Simon and Theo were barely friends, back home. Simon had a guitar and people to jam with, not just GarageBand on his laptop. They were World of Warcraft rivals, though Emma didn’t really understand how that worked.

“Your friend got one isn’t a good excuse for a tattoo,” Raf said, pushing through the curtain. He went straight for his coffee. “It’s a permanent alteration to your body—” Emma wondered about his, Raf’s, though—“you need to really want it.”

Theo raised his head. “I do!” His face was tragic.

“What did Simon get?” asked Emma, mildly curious.

“Line of kanji down his spine. Really hurt, he said.”

Emma snorted. “Bragged, you mean.”

“Close to the bone hurts more,” Raf said in the tone of a master craftsman imparting lessons to his apprentice. “I do not recommend it for your first experience. I won’t do kanji, either, by the way. It’s not my language—I don’t like to trust the published interpretations or the designs themselves. They’re often inaccurate.”

“Simon’s probably says happiness puppies,” Emma said, uncomfortably sympathetic, “instead of what he wanted.”

Theo looked down at his hands again. “Fight fierce, fight strong,” he mumbled.

“That’s possibly stupider than happiness puppies.”

“Your sandwich, Emma.” Somehow Raf had got it out of the bag and wrappings without her noticing, arranged nicely in little wedges on a pretty plate.

Emma’s hunger asserted itself. Ravenous, she stuffed a wedge into her mouth. It was still hot. Crunchy and buttery toasted bread enfolded molten cheese and shavings of something like prosciutto. Feeling guilty after bolting two, she looked up to offer a taste to Raf and Theo.

They sat side by side on the bench, knees nearly touching, Theo’s sketchbook between them. “Any of these might be executed to fine effect,” Raf said, flipping through the pages again. “But you can’t decide, am I correct?”

Emma edged closer. The uppermost page showed a disembodied arm (thicker, brawnier than Theo’s) encrusted with patterned lozenges like Turkish tiles, but Raf flipped it and the next arm was decorated with a menagerie of vivid zoo animals.

“I keep changing my mind,” Theo admitted, his voice mournful.

“Then I’m sorry to say you are not ready.”

Theo lifted his eyes, stared into Raf’s for a long moment. He looked ready to cry before he moved his gaze to Raf’s upper arm and shoulder. “Yours are…” he began.

Beautiful, Emma thought he meant to say, but beauty wasn’t a quality Theo could ascribe to another man. They were beautiful, Raf’s garlands of inked flowers. Theo raised one hand as if to caress them, another gesture halted as he abruptly rose to his feet. The sketchbook clattered to the floor. Raf looked up mildly.

“You’re right.” Theo crouched to retrieve his drawings. “I need to decide what I really want.” Without another word, he bolted out of the shop. The bell over the door tinkled gaily. Emma sat beside Raf and they shared the rest of her sandwich, except one sliver saved for Hender.

After the first bitter bite, Emma didn’t mind the needle chewing at her skin. She’d had to assume an awkward position on the settee to give Raf access to the fleshy inner surface of her upper arm, and the moment of removing her shirt had been disorienting. She’d never done it for a boy who wasn’t interested in what was inside her bra.

She had determined Raf wasn’t. He was interested in what was in her brother’s undershorts, but not in any urgent way—when Emma confessed her fantasy of Raf and Theo necking, Raf just laughed, delighted, and wondered aloud why it was so many women loved those images. When she decided, quite abruptly, she did want a tattoo, just a small one in an inconspicuous place, he wasn’t difficult to argue around after she told him what she wanted. He sketched the symbol for her, fast and decisive in colored inks, and Emma became even more determined to have it. He ushered her behind the curtain at the back of the shop. She got only a glimpse into one small room where a man in a white undershirt like Raf’s leaned over the jewelled serpent on the back of another man, before Raf waved her into the second. He gave her a moment to settle herself, ducking into the other room to give Hender his wodge of sandwich.

It didn’t actually take much time for Raf to inscribe the design on Emma’s arm three inches below where she shaved. She liked his hands on her, swabbing the skin with alcohol, then transferring the design, finally going to work, though she wished it was skin to skin uninhibited by his latex gloves. After a while, the rhythm of the stinging needle and regular pauses to wipe off blood and ink relaxed her into a kind of trance that blundered into memory.

Unfamiliar memory. Half-familiar memories. They were old, well worn, blurred around the edges as they bubbled up from among quite different memories she knew to be hers but that faded even as she reached after them. When her little brother Theo was small he couldn’t get his mouth around the four syllables of his big brother’s name. Emma, he called her, and had to be taught that Emma was a girl’s name. Theo’s brother’s name was Emmanuel, which didn’t admit of a convenient shortening like Theo for Theodore. (Theo had been Teddy until he turned ten.) What had their parents been thinking?

She remembered throwing a football for Theo, who was miserable at catching it—she remembered wrestling with him when they were nearer the same size—she remembered helping him with his algebra homework, impatient when he didn’t get it.

She remembered the first boy to kiss her (not the first she wanted to kiss), Steve, a nerdier nerd than her brother, who refused (at first) to suck her cock though he was extremely happy when she went to town on his. How old had she been? Fourteen. Almost nineteen now, lying still under Raf’s calm hands and the sting of his electric needle, she felt her dick plump up a bit in her boxers at the memory, felt her balls shift around.

She remembered the expression Theo got when she told him his big brother was gay. Liked other boys instead of girls. Liked their muscles (some of the boys she liked didn’t possess much muscle), their scratchy beards, their odor. Liked touching them, kissing them, sexing them up.

Theo didn’t so much recoil as subtly withdraw, bending his head so dark hair obscured his transparent eyes. “I’m still your brother,” Emma had said. “Nothing’s changed, except that little bit of dishonesty between us. You want me to be honest with you, right?”

Now Raf set the silent needle aside and swabbed her arm again. The evaporating film of alcohol tingled, its fumes fizzy in her nostrils. Raf stood, stretched, clenching and flexing the fingers of his right hand, and gazed down at her, his expression neutral, thoughtful. She wasn’t the type of boy he was attracted to.

Annoyed, Emma said, “Done?” The depth and richness of her voice distracted and pleased her.

“Yes. Do you wish to see?”

A big mirror hung on the wall but Raf reached for a hand mirror and held it for her. First, momentarily disconcerted, she noticed the aggressive growth of hair in her armpit that thinned only a little where it fanned out to mesh with the hair on her chest. The kind of boy she was attracted to would never shave his body hair. Raf shifted the mirror a fraction.

It was reversed in the glass, the symbol incised on the pale flesh of her inner arm, arrowheads pointing off past eleven o’clock instead of one. Inflammation blurred the outlines, seeping blood obscured careful gradation of tint and shading. It was probably stupid, overly obvious, but she liked it: paired Mars glyphs, unbroken circles interlinked, arrowheads parallel. Within indigo outlining, the rings and arrows were tinted like anodized aluminum. She liked it.

“I like it,” Emma said.

“Nice work, Raf,” said a new voice, more heavily accented speaking English than Raf’s.

Emma blinked away from the gleaming oval of the mirror as Raf said, “Hender—my new American friend Emmanuel, who bought your coffee.”

“And my tasty bit of sandwich? Thank you, Emmanuel. They were much appreciated.”

Hender appeared older than Raf, ten, fifteen years. Emmanuel didn’t find him especially handsome or his ear and facial piercings enticing, but his eyes, a brown so pale it was nearly gold, were compelling. The glyph on his left temple was larger and more complex than Raf’s, foliated, tendrils looping and extending into his hairline, onto his cheekbone, as if Raf’s were merely a preliminary sign, incomplete. Both stepped back when Emmanuel sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the settee. Hender placed a proprietary hand on Raf’s shoulder—his fingernails were unpleasantly long, lacquered black, and he wore too many gold rings—and smiled, exposing teeth that looked inhumanly sharp. Under his hand, the flowers on Raf’s shoulder appeared to catch fire.

Emmanuel blinked. Flickering flames resolved into stylized scrolls, yellow, orange, red, like the decals on an ancient muscle car’s fender, and she blinked again, disappointed.

“Show Emmanuel how to care for his new art while it heals,” Hender said, squeezed Raf’s shoulder again, and went away.

Before she allowed Raf to tend her wound, Emmanuel rose to her feet and regarded herself in the mirror, pleased by what she saw. Wide shoulders, expansive chest, trim, defined midsection, narrow hips. The logoed elastic of her boxers cut straight across her belly below the hips, cutting short the furry trail that led the gaze toward the meaty lump behind the fly of khaki shorts. It shifted, all by itself, buckling the fabric of the fly to reveal a flash of copper zipper, and Emmanuel grinned at her reflection.

Raf swabbed the tattoo with stinging alcohol again, smeared it with greasy antibiotic ointment—he gave her the tube, opened fresh, to slip in her pocket—taped over it a square of plastic film, explaining as he went along how to care for it so it would heal quickly and cleanly. Because she wanted him to, he kissed her, but it was an uninvolved, almost chilly kiss—he was more attracted to Theo—and he wouldn’t go further even after she groped his crotch and found him stiff. She didn’t have enough cash on her to pay the full price of the tattoo but he said it didn’t matter, she could cover the rest next time she dropped by.

Emmanuel liked being a boy. A man, really. Her voice was deeper and she was taller than her dad, outweighed him by twenty or thirty pounds. Nor was her hair thinning, though she kept it short and butch. Now and then she caught him staring at her, bemused by his big gorilla son or almost (she didn’t really think so) remembering his daughter.

She liked being a big brother. She half remembered watching out for Theo when he was a geeky high-school freshman with no friends and girly long hair—remembered intimidating the bullies who wanted to intimidate Theo. Those memories gradually became more vivid, washing out bleached memories of growing up a girl, Theo’s little sister. She remembered encouraging him to work out, get bigger and stronger so the bullies wouldn’t bother him. She had moved bench and free weights to the basement because she knew he was uncomfortable invading her bedroom to use them. What really made Theo uncomfortable in her room, she knew, was the home-made screensaver on her desktop monitor, endlessly cycling raw beefcake. The nerdling needed just to deal: his big brother—bigger in every way, not just a year and a half older—was gay and pretty happy about it.

Well, not so happy maybe about not having done much recently. She regretted not pushing harder with Raf. God, the blue balls when he finished with her and sent her home to the dentist’s and professor’s house. She’d had to beat off twice before she could sleep. The first experienced (she recalled earlier but it wasn’t clear they’d really happened) boy orgasm almost disappointed her. She kind of remembered girl orgasms being more profound, less localized and fleeting, if more effort to achieve. But she liked spunk. Splooge. Cum. Even the names were fun. As a girl, she’d thought it gross without much acquaintance—as a boy, she licked it off her hand, savoring the slimy texture, the salty-bitter taste, and rubbed it gummily into the hair on her belly and chest.

When she woke, early, she was delighted by the morning wood in her boxer shorts but needed to piss so she left it alone. She stumbled to the bathroom and remembered she could do it standing up, lifted the seat, fumbled her dick out. Unused to pissing while half hard (or maybe she just didn’t care), she made a mess. After brushing her teeth, washing hands and face, replacing the dressing under her arm, she went back to the bedroom and fired up the laptop. She pointed the browser to her favorite slashfic site. After only a few paragraphs she found the story insipid. The boys were insipid, dreamy and yearny, barely out of adolescence—big eyed and delicate like the figures in yaoi manga, for which she used to have more patience. When she was a girl. Without much trouble, she found a site more to her liking and, reading badly spelled, pedestrian porn, rubbed out another. She smeared the splooge over her abs, sucked the remnants off fingers and palm.

She pulled on a pair of b-ball shorts, stuffed her big feet into shoes, and climbed the stairs to the professor’s and dentist’s gym. She preferred free weights, which required more finesse and, by way of their instability, worked peripheral muscles as well as those directly involved, but the machines were all she had till they returned home.

She was benching, legs splayed wide while her arms pressed the bar up, when she heard her brother’s feet on the steps. She finished the set before looking toward the door. Theo gaped at her. “What?” Her shorts were too long for anything to be hanging out in public and perturbing his masculinity.

“What did you do to your arm?”

“Got Raf to give me a tattoo.” She sat up. “Wanna see it?”

“Raf? That’s his name? He didn’t talk you out of it?”

“It was a sudden thing but I only had one idea, one small design, not dozens.”

“Just nine.”

Emmanuel peered at her brother. He was unhappy. “I’m going back today, if you’d like to come with me. Didn’t have enough cash to pay him yesterday.”

Aimless, Theo turned away. Running his hand along the white plaster wall, he paced until the descent of the peaked attic roof prevented further progress. “There’s no point if I can’t decide what I want.”

“I should have let you get yours first.” But then she’d still be a girl, and younger than Theo. It seemed likely, anyway.

“For once,” he agreed without turning, his voice thin with unsuppressed bitterness. It was hard for Theo, being younger, smaller, less. “Is he gay, Raf? Your summer-in-Europe boyfriend? He shouldn’t ask you to pay.”

“I’m not his type, as it turns out.” You are, Emmanuel didn’t say. “You should come with me anyway. Get out of the house. Maybe we’d meet a girl for you.”

Theo still didn’t turn. “Are you done? I want to work out.”

“Fine.” Irritated, Emmanuel got to her feet. She was done. Her brother smelled worse than usual, as if the bodyspray had rotted his skin overnight. “Have at it.”

“Wait,” Theo said when she was almost out the door. “When are you leaving?”

They walked along the towpath in hot sun, brother and brother. Strangely, after his shower Theo hadn’t fragranced himself to hell and back: he smelled of boy, soon of sweat. He smelled good. Emmanuel wanted to rub his head where pale scalp gleamed through dark stubble but figured it wasn’t a liberty she ought to take. She wanted to ask again why he’d cut it. Probably some fallout from his on-line rivalry with Simon, like the disappointing first visit to Raf’s shop.

“When I came along this way yesterday,” she said, “there was a bunch of kids skinnydipping in the canal.”

“Girls and boys? Or just boys?”

“Just boys.”

“Musta been a treat for you.”

Startled, Emmanuel laughed. She liked the sound of her own laughter nearly as much as the evidence her brother had a sense of humor. “Not much to see—they were in a hurry not to be seen. You ever done that?”

“Not really my thing.”

Theo didn’t like even just taking off his shirt in public. He was shy about it even with her, though she had her suspicions about that.

“You?” Theo asked, startling her again.

“Sure,” she said, not really sure. “Not here. Yet.”

“Wouldn’t try it here,” Theo muttered. “That water looks nasty.”

“Wanna find out?”

Before he could react, Emmanuel had him in a mild chokehold, lifting him against her chest. The stubble on her cheek rasped on the stubble of his skull.

“Fuck!” Theo grunted—she hadn’t cut off his air—grabbing at her arm with both hands. Somehow he twisted and heaved in her grasp. As she went off balance, unlikely pain ripped through her shoulder and then the ground came up and knocked the breath out of her lungs. In an instant, coughing, she was tumbling down the grassy bank. The water pounded her with a crash. She went under.

She came up spitting. When water cleared her eyes, she saw her brother down the bank, teetering on the verge. “Stupid!” he hollered. “You’ve got an open wound!”

“What—” The new tattoo.

When she struggled upright, the warm silty water only came to mid-thigh, dragging at her shorts as she floundered back to the bank. Theo wasn’t going to plunge in and help but he stood waiting, looking worried. “Jesus, Emmanuel, don’t surprise me like that.”

Emmanuel couldn’t help herself: she guffawed. “How’d you do that, anyway? Been sneaking out to some dojo, little bro, learning super-secret martial arts moves?”

“You surprised me.” He shook his head, extended his hand for her. “Are you okay?”

“Sodden,” she said, letting him help her onto the embankment. “Fine. Maybe more surprised than you. Who knew that was even possible? Let me sit for a minute.”

When she sank down onto the grass and pulled off one bucket of a shoe, Theo crouched at her side. “I’m not the whiny kid who gets beaten up at school anymore, you know. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She worked the other shoe off, turned them both upside down and set them aside. She didn’t expect further explanation for Theo’s mysterious superpowers. “Yeah, sure.” Testing the rotation of her shoulder, she felt the twinge but it wasn’t bad. “Prolly some bruises and a bit of stiffening up tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Glad to know you can defend yourself. And like you said, I shouldn’t have surprised you—my own fault.”

“Pick on someone your own size next time.”

Astonished again, Emmanuel choked on a laugh. Recovering, she said, “Excuse me, Theo, when did you turn into a human being?”

Regarding her gravely, her brother said, “Occasionally one has lapses.” Then he sat down properly by her side. “At the moment I’m worried about your tattoo. You don’t know what kind of bacteria were swimming in that water.”

Reminded of it, she felt the clammy suction of the tape and plastic on her inner arm. Except for her shorts and what was in them, the rest of her, exposed to sun and air, was practically dry already. Peeling at the tape, wincing when it ripped hairs from their follicles, she said, “I doctored it up pretty thick with hi-test antibiotic stuff. It’s greasy. Probably the germs couldn’t even get through the grease.”

“Still. I would be happier if you got it properly cleaned and tended. Soon.”

Looking up, Emmanuel caught him staring at her fingers picking at the dressing, at her hairy underarm—her hairy chest. She didn’t understand his expression.

“We’re closer to your friend’s shop than the house,” Theo went on. “He’ll know what to do. As soon as you’re ready.”

Raf was calm, undismayed—pleased to see them, Emmanuel thought. Pleased to see them both. With little fuss, he cleaned Emmanuel’s tattoo—the alcohol stung, weirdly worse than the first times, fizzes and pinpricks more irritating than her memory of the needle—anointed it with a dose of antibiotic, dressed it anew. He advised her to keep a close eye on it as it healed although he had never heard that the canal bred flesh-eating microbes. Indifferent, he accepted the damp euro notes she pressed on him and rang them into the register. And then they were at a loss.

While Raf tended Emmanuel, Theo had been leafing through a thick album of photos of the shop’s work, absorbed, intent—beautiful, really, as a studious child. He had failed to remark on Raf’s transformed tattoos but now that Emmanuel noticed the cheap stylized flames were gone, the garlands of flowers returned. The same flowers? Possibly not but near enough. Had Raf changed them back on Theo’s account?

He stepped away from Emmanuel to peer over Theo’s shoulder and point something out. The smile her brother turned up at him made her heart contract and then thump uncomfortably. They were too pretty together—like manga boys, they looked too alike. Theo was quite a bit taller and their coloring was different but it was the difference between African-American Barbie and the standard model.

Her tastes had changed, it seemed, since she became a boy herself. The thought of them getting it on was still attractive (the inevitability of it, it almost looked like) but what she wanted for herself was a bigger man, a big, hairy, muscly guy. Like her.

“Anybody want coffee?” she said, loud. “I’ll go get it.”

Theo started but Raf only glanced at her, his expression mild. “That would be very pleasant, Emmanuel.”

She half turned toward the door, then turned back. “Will somebody speak English?”

“Probably, but I’ll write it down for you, shall I?” Raf did that, his printing precise and legible, and coached her through the pronunciation.

For some reason that reminded her and she asked, “What was that about the witch’s house?”

“Witch?” asked Theo.

“Town legend,” Raf said. He appeared slightly put out. “Perhaps wizard would be the better term, in English. A learned man back in the fourteen hundreds, more learned than he had need or right to be, not being in holy orders, lived in the house where the café stands now. There were suspicions about him, rumors, but they came to nothing until it was noticed there were strangers, foreigners, living in the house whom nobody recalled arriving. He called them nephews, or sometimes visitors from the Holy Land.” Reciting, Raf’s voice was thin, precise, almost pained. “The scholar was abruptly wealthier than he had been. Some claimed to have seen peculiar lights and other manifestations about the house in the depths of night. A child died raving, inexplicably. Another, older child murdered her father some days after being seen conversing with the scholar and the foreigners. A youth claimed one of the strangers had bespelled him to perform an unnatural act. Signs, portents—there were others: stillborn or deformed livestock, blights, comets. The mob chose him and his guests as their scapegoats but the guests had vanished. Under torture, he called them, the three of them, angels or sometimes devils whom Lucifer had sent to tempt and aid him. Naturally, he was killed, burned alive. His house was demolished, the soil under it sown with salt. The town’s misfortunes eased. A hundred years later a new building was raised on the spot and eventually, say ten years ago, the café opened.”

“Whoa,” said Theo, fascinated. “We don’t have history like that back home.”

Raf regarded him soberly. “So you’re privileged to think. The stories weren’t written down, the storytellers died of smallpox and their languages disappeared, somebody built a Starbucks just like every other Starbucks on the salt-sown foundations of the forgotten wizard’s house. Here we do too much remembering. You Americans are fortunate to live in the present as it happens.” Turning away, he seemed to mutter, “I too prefer the now.”

Emmanuel left them to argue that out—or not. At the café, Coffee Guy behind the counter didn’t seem to recognize her (how could he?), but was charming, friendly, flirtatious, and spoke sufficient English that she didn’t have to wrestle with Raf’s language lesson. Taking her money, he touched her hand with his own in a way he didn’t need to and looked into her eyes with great promise. When he turned to prepare her coffee, it seemed he fumbled his white shirt open two buttons more so she could be sure of the interesting knotted tattoo on his chest, just below the left clavicle, its flourishes glowing through curly brown hair. Flowers twined through the knots, poppies and cornflowers—she wondered if it was Raf’s work. Surely it was, or Hender’s. The town was too small to support more than one tattoo shop. Handing over the three tall coffees, he said, “See you around,” as if he’d memorized the phrase but in a tone that made it both a question and a promise.

Walking back, Emmanuel pondered how to encounter him again without a counter and a transaction between them—how to discover his name. He was as tall as she, as substantial. She somehow didn’t wish to ask Raf, who would probably know. Spend an afternoon at the public pool swimming and tanning—he had a nice tan, perhaps that was where he’d acquired it. Loiter around the café until he went off shift. Google for the places gay guys congregated. For a few steps they were making out in the back of her mind, Coffee Guy and Emmanuel, necking and groping—chest hair caught in her teeth when she nibbled his nipple—but then the vision became Theo and Raf again, similarly pleasing in a voyeuristic way but interestingly different.

They weren’t necking when she stepped back into the shop, not that she’d really expected them to be. The front room was public space, windowed to the street. Theo was shy…wasn’t gay.

They were, however, too preoccupied to acknowledge her entrance after making sure it was her. Raf leaned over a large sheet of paper, delicately maneuvering his pencil. Theo watched—watched Raf’s hand but glanced up often at his face. Theo’s expression was dopey with intent, and something else.

Emmanuel set a cup before each. Raf offered her a distracted nod but Theo nothing. The drawing taking shape was a spidery branch of cherry blossoms. Emmanuel could imagine it spiralling up somebody’s arm, twining over biceps and triceps to spray blooms across the upper back, then up and over to deposit more on the round ball of the shoulder and a final profusion on the gentle swell of one pec. Raf paused, sketched in a butterfly alighting.

It was subtle, pretty. She wouldn’t have expected pretty of Theo. The designs he’d drawn were aggressive, mannered. “I thought you wanted a full sleeve,” she said, too loud and abrupt.

He glanced at her but didn’t seem to see her. “So did I.” He reached for his coffee.

“It’s just an idea,” murmured Raf, concentrating.

Emmanuel no longer had to imagine the tattoo: the spindly branch climbed Raf’s arm, looped onto his shoulder and back, under the translucent white strap of his wifebeater onto his chest. Blossoms blushed rose over the paler pink of his skin. Faint blue shadows made them stand out. Unopened buds and baby leaves were tender spring green. The butterfly was black, blue, purple, with shards of clear, bright yellow. Bruise colors, except it was precise and fine within its outlines, not blurred and sore. She could never manage a seduction so well. She didn’t have his talents.

She’d finished her coffee in fifteen, twenty minutes, and Theo and Raf hadn’t become any more entertaining. “See you around,” she said, echoing the object of her interest. Raf glanced up with a faint smile, Theo nodded absently. She left.

In the square, she waited a while on a bench across from the café, hoping Coffee Guy might emerge, but that would be too easy. Other people did come out. One of them she recognized as Hender. He recognized her as well, raised his paper cup in a salute, but didn’t come over. She wondered if he was going back to the shop—if he would be annoyed or jealous at the sudden rapport between his protégé and her brother. She wondered if she’d ever see Coffee Guy again. She went into the café but he was no longer there. Disappointed, she blundered out again without buying anything.

Google directed Emmanuel to a pub that, while not strictly a gay bar, was the next closest thing in this small town. Another reference suggested a grove in the park where sordid things might occur, and another told her to try the same café after midnight, when it was the only place still open. Overall, though, she’d be better off making a trip to the university town where her parents did their research. She filed all the information away for later.

It was Theo’s night to make dinner, something he was usually pretty responsible (if resentful) about, but he didn’t get home till twenty minutes before she expected their parents. He looked a little bruised around the eyes and—was she imagining it?—chafed around the lips. He looked halfway to exaltation and moved his left arm gingerly. “Did he do the whole thing in one go?” Emmanuel asked.

Theo grinned, open, delighted. “Just the outlines. Filling in and coloring later, couple of days.” Then he winced and looked a little worried. “Don’t tell the ’rents?”

“As if I would. They’re going to wonder about long sleeves, though.”

“Let them wonder.”

“I want to see it but I won’t ask you to get all unwrapped right now.”

Theo shook his head. “After dinner, maybe. Oh, hey, help me make dinner? I’m kinda running late.”

“You’ll owe me.”

He shook his head again. “Well, you know, I already owe you so what’s a little more.”

In the kitchen he got busy fast, pointing her at things he needed cleaned or peeled or chopped. It was going to be some kind of stir-fry, apparently. Slicing beef into thin strips, Theo ignored his brother, but when he had it marinating in soy sauce and the ginger she’d chopped he took a moment and just looked at her.

“What?”

“I’m, umm, going out after dinner. You want to come with so the parents don’t freak?”

Emmanuel set her knife down. “Out? Out where? You never go out.”

Looking away, he smiled. “Raf invited me to join him for a drink. He said you’d be welcome.”

“You’re underage.”

“Not here. Civilized country. I’m not planning to get drunk or anything. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Raf? Huh.” Emmanuel snorted, keeping her delight to herself. “Am I to understand you’re not as straight as I’ve always been led to believe? Or is this not a date?”

Startled, Theo squeaked, “Date? It’s not—” He blushed, blinked a few times. “I guess maybe you could call it that. Hah. That’s a shocker.” Blush fading, he shook his head. “And I don’t quite know what I am because I still think girls are all kinds of sexy but kissing him was hella sexy too.”

“Well, good for you,” said Emmanuel in jovial, big-brother tones. “Sure, I’ll chaperone you, Teddy—” she hadn’t called her brother Teddy since he was a little kid—“if you promise not to put on any of that noxious bodyspray.”

“Lend me your big-boy cologne?” he suggested with a cock of his head both flirtatious and naïvely mocking.

After his shower, Teddy knocked on her door to show off his ink—get Emmanuel’s help doctoring it. She was less surprised by the delicate tracery of branches and shoots and bruises on his arm and shoulder than the unprecedented act of his coming to her room wearing only a towel hitched around his hips. The temptation to make it fall, discover what he had in the downstairs department to offer Raf, tested her resolve. He smelled of her cologne (he’d used too much), which she really felt smelled better on her.

With a kind of brusque tenderness, she swabbed the twigs and branches and uncolored blossoms with a pad steeped in alcohol. The softness of Teddy’s skin perturbed her. The hair on his forearms was translucent and there was none on his chest, just a faint glowy fuzz. Glancing at his legs, she noticed that shins and calves appeared only as downy as his arms. He noticed her noticing. “You got all the wild man of Borneo genes from Dad’s side. I take after Mom’s family. So I’ll never go bald.”

“Except on purpose.” Emmanuel seemed to remember her little brother being more hirsute. Not like her, maybe, but not like a girl either. Under her hand, the muscles of his arm and shoulder felt different than as recently as the morning, when he tossed her in the canal. Not flabbier, but less purposeful than simply useful. Perhaps it was just that he was at rest. She smeared on the greasy ointment. When he stood up to have her apply the dressings, he looked willowy standing before her, not lean and wiry. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She went back to work, taping squares of plastic like patchwork to his skin.

When that was finished, she told him to go get dressed if they were going out. At the door, he turned back fast and had to grab for the slipping towel. “You didn’t say what you think of your friend’s work.”

“It’s—” Emmanuel hesitated. “It’s not what I’d have expected for you. Not to say it isn’t very nicely done. When Raf completes it and it’s all healed up, it’ll be…lovely.”

Clutching the towel, Teddy frowned, but then he visibly let what he didn’t want to hear go and opened the door. Fifteen minutes later he was back, dressed, black shirt severely buttoned and tucked into black jeans, buzzed head making him look an ikon of severity. It was momentarily impossible to imagine him necking with Raf. In her mind Emmanuel stripped off the shirt, finished off the tattoos, and then all was well. She followed him downstairs happily enough, out. She had dressed equally thoughtfully if with different calculation: tight t-shirt was meant to showboat her build, low-slung shorts make it evident she’d chosen to go commando. She hoped to meet Coffee Guy, though another guy might do almost as handily.

Teddy knew the way. He had memorized Google’s map, she imagined. They walked through long summer twilight, bucolic suburb to mediaeval town alleys, not saying much until Teddy asked, “What’s it like? What guys do with guys, after the kissing?” So he had taken note of her outfit.

She peered at him. He had his head down, looking away. “It’s sex,” she said. “It’s big fun. I mean—” She turned her own head, not really embarrassed. “I mean, I’ve never done it with a girl so it’s not like I can compare and contrast.” She could, but not in a way that would be helpful.

“Me neither,” Teddy muttered, voice small but defiant.

“Really?” It was almost not a surprise.

Teddy half stumbled, recovered. “Not all the way.”

Brotherly, Emmanuel put her arm around his neck, holding him up. “It’ll be okay, Teddy. You don’t have to go through with it—you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Say no, easy as that.” Teddy was bigger than Raf.

“But I do want. I want to do everything. Will it hurt?”

Emmanuel released him, stepped away. “If you do that? For a moment or two, yeah. Not as much as tattoo needles.”

Her brother hurried to catch up, passed her, remained a few steps ahead until they reached the pub, where he held the door open for her as if she were a girl. They saw Raf right away, pale as an exotic orchid in the gloom. Strangely, he was talking with Coffee Guy, who beamed when he saw Emmanuel. His name was Thijs—he spelled it for her. He wasn’t wearing the collared white dress shirt and black slacks from the café but a dark green hoodie unzipped nearly to the waist so she could admire the furry expanse of his chest, his tattoo, the steel pin through his left nipple, and jeans worn so low she could make out his swimsuit tanline and be sure he, too, had foregone undershorts. It was all thrilling. By the time he’d bought her a beer that had so much flavor it astonished her she was entirely smitten and Raf and Teddy had vanished.

When the fact penetrated, she said, “Where’d they go? I have to look out for Teddy.”

“See over there,” said Thijs, soothing and calm. “Teddy is quite safe.”

Looking where he indicated, Emmanuel saw a line of private booths and the backs of the two heads, one buzzed to blue shadow, the other blond. “I should—”

“Teddy is quite safe,” Thijs said again. “Now and then Raf discovers an interest in women, particular women, an impulse that startles him so much he is extremely careful, gentle, easily dissuaded. Your sister will come to no harm.”

“Teddy—” But Emmanuel knew her sister would be furious, if it was something he really wanted, if Emmanuel barged in like a clumsy knight in shining armor to protect the damsel’s virtue. Still, she watched a moment longer, unsure, saw Raf’s fine long fingers caress Teddy’s skull and saw her sister turn his head for the kiss. He was beautiful, her little sister—the shorn scalp made his face at once stronger and more vulnerable. When he did it, their father, oddly pleased, said his daughter was prettier than Sinéad O’Connor and ran a Google Image search to show them how Teddy compared to the pop-star crush of his youth.

Thijs attracted her attention back to him by lifting her hand to his chest. One point of the steel pin, not quite sharp, poked her finger. Leaning to her ear, he said, “I also have a, what do you call it in English, a Prince Albert. Would you like to see?”

The sex was good. Not great. Perhaps they were nervous of each other, being so newly acquainted. Perhaps Thijs depended on the novelty of his PA in lieu of technique. She’d had a moment or two of wanting one for herself—he became inarticulate trying to express the sensations it gave him—but the desire passed. Rolling a condom over her own stiff dick, she’d felt a pang, thinking she ought to have said something to Teddy about the importance of birth control (she didn’t know if he was on the pill) but Thijs distracted her before the pang could bloom into panic, and she didn’t think of her sister again. Anyway, Thijs and Raf were housemates, it had turned out, sharing the big apartment two floors above the café on the square. Teddy was just down the hall. If he got scared, needed his big brother, he knew where she was.

But afterward, dozing on Thijs’s bed with Thijs spooned up against her back (his chest hair tickled her when he breathed, the metal in his nipple scraped), Emmanuel had what felt like a dream. She remembered growing up with, not an annoying little tomboy sister, but a nerdy, differently tiresome little brother. Theo. Not Teddy. Then her breath strangled in her throat as she recalled that Theo was Emma’s big brother and she, Emma, for almost sixteen years had been a girl.

She sat up abruptly. Thijs grumbled in his sleep. “Thirsty,” Emmanuel said, though she didn’t think he could hear her, and clambered off the bed. Still naked, she stumbled out of the room.

She thought she knew where she was going but ended up in the kitchen, where a low candle in a glass jar guttered on the breakfast table and somebody sat beyond it, face shadowed. “Thirsty,” she said again because she didn’t know who it was.

“Hard or soft?” The voice with its distinct accent was Hender’s. He leaned forward and candlelight caught his stark features, gilded the piercings at eyebrow, ear, cheek, lower lip. The baroque ink at his temple looked purple, like wine in a glass.

“Water.”

He stood. Emmanuel flinched back. “Sparkling or still?” Hender asked, stepping away from the table but not toward her. He was as nude as she. Thankfully, she couldn’t make out details in uncertain, wavery light.

Unthinking, she took another step toward the table. “Just water.”

“Sit, then. A moment.”

She was afraid he’d turn on an electric light or just open the refrigerator and she would have to look at him, but he rummaged through the cabinet for a glass without hesitation, filled it at the sink. Emmanuel sat. The polished wooden seat felt unpleasantly slick and cool under her bare flesh. Hender set the glass before her, stepped back. “Thanks,” she said. lifting it to her lips. As he turned to round the table, she caught a glint of heavy metal dangling below his crotch—another PA. Was Raf pierced down there as well?

“What did Raf do to my—to Theo?”

Hender sat down. “Raf wants an American wife.” Then Hender grinned broadly. Flickering light gleamed unhealthily on his teeth. “Well, actually, of course, he would prefer an American husband but the laws in your country mostly do not recognize that relationship and a husband could not help him emigrate. You aren’t concerned about what he did to you?”

“Why? Why not me? I was a girl…before.”

“He likes to complicate matters. You were too young. He felt you would enjoy being a boy.”

“I do!” The response came without thought but thinking only reinforced it. “I don’t want to go back. But Theo never wanted to be a girl. Or a gay boy, any man’s husband.”

“Are you certain?”

She wasn’t.

“It’s true Theo was more effort to…persuade.” Leaning forward—now the fluttering light made the design at his temple resemble blood, drawn in intricate patterns like the henna on an Indian bride’s hands—Hender shrugged. A billow in the shadow behind him made Emmanuel think of great black wings flexing with his shrug. “In any case, Raf’s altruism is erratic. He wasn’t attracted to you. To your brother, yes.”

“What are you? The two of you?”

“Three.”

“Thijs too?” she blurted, dismayed.

“We have been here so long,” murmured Hender, leaning back again. “But Thijs and I are relatively content. Of course, Thijs has no imagination. He lives in the moment—the future is an impossible destination for him. It would not have occurred to Thijs to take advantage of your possibilities before Raf manifested them. Raf—discontent defines him. It always has, longer than you can imagine. You see, we may not leave this place without a sincere invitation.”

“It wouldn’t be sincere!”

“Are you certain?” Hender asked again. “Raf has gone away before, several times. When the invitation expires, he must return. Not to America however. America interests him. He will be disappointed, of course, for all the world is an outskirt of America in this era, but one can’t reason with him. Come.”

When Hender rose to his feet the shadowy wings rose with him, pinions glittering like black knives. Emmanuel shrank back but he reached for her hand. His touch was chill, not like ice, colder, and she found herself upright, enfolded in his arms, his dank, oppressive wings that smelled like incense. “You make a handsome boy,” he murmured in her ear.

They stood in the doorway of Raf’s bedroom. Raf and Teddy lay on white sheets. Emmanuel looked away from her naked sister, looked back. Raf’s arm, crooked over Teddy’s rib cage as he spooned the young woman, lifted the breasts on Teddy’s chest, made them look larger, misshapen. Matched cherry-blossom tattoos seemed to grow together, one plant joining two bodies. Teddy began to stir and Raf, in sleep, tightened his grasp and pressed his lips to Teddy’s nape.

“It is not the time, Raf,” Hender said. The regret in his low, shuddering voice caused the world to flinch. “This is not the person.”

Shrugging off Raf’s arm with less effort than he’d taken to toss Emmanuel into the canal, Theo sat upright. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet on the carpet, set wide. Emmanuel looked away again: her little brother’s dick, at rest, was bigger than hers.

“You were right,” Theo said, his voice foggy. “It hurt. But it was interesting.”

Behind him, Raf made a noise like ice breaking. Indigo wings thick as snowdrifts clapped, disturbing the air, lifted him. For just an eyeblink, Teddy became a girl again.

“Not now,” said Hender.

“Theo?”

Ignoring or unaware of angelic perturbation, Theo scratched sleepily at the flame-eyed skull inscribed on his left biceps. “Not really interesting enough, though. No offense, Emmanuel, but I think I really am straight.” He yawned, shuddering.

“I…I don’t need the competition.”

“Hah.” Theo blinked. “Where’s my clothes? We should go home. ’Rents probably shitting themselves with worry. Grounded for life,” he grumbled, blinked again, looked up at his brother and, as if properly comprehending her nakedness, glanced his eyes away. “Where’s your clothes? Did you have fun with wotzisname?”

Raf made another noise, like air collapsing, and settled back onto the bed. Theo shifted his seat unconsciously as the mattress settled. Great blue-black wings cloaked crouching Raf, abstracting him from sight. A fierce itch flared under the skin inside Emmanuel’s arm, but then was gone.

“But I liked Emmanuel!” protested Thijs.

So did I, Emma wanted to say. Her throat was frozen with disappointment and relief. She felt uncomfortable naked in a way she hadn’t a moment before.

Thijs’s wings were dull scarlet, not as impressive as Hender’s or Raf’s. His erection had been impressive but it wilted, dragged down by the weight of its metal, as he glared fiercely at the girl who had been Emmanuel. “He was handsome. And an excellent fuck.”

Emma felt another intolerable itch, but this erupted between her legs and when she reached to scratch it, horribly, trivially embarrassed, Emmanuel discovered his own proper prick hanging where it should. He clutched it in his hand. The heavy steel Prince Albert was chill, but warmed against his fingers.

It wasn’t nearly as late as they’d thought. Light hung in the west. As they walked the towpath back to the dentist’s and professor’s house, Theo asked, his voice merely curious, “Are you going to see him again?”

“Thijs?” Emmanuel shrugged, amused. “Probably. We’re here another four weeks. Not a professional visit, though, it’s not like I want him piercing anything else.”

“Yikes.”

Theo wanted not to sound appalled by his brother’s adventure in body modification, Emmanuel thought without being fooled. He’d offered to show the pretty thing to Theo.

“What about you? Going back to Hender?”

“Of course!” Craning his neck, Theo tried to look at his own arm. His shirtsleeve hid the ink, though, and he stumbled. “It’s not done yet! But I’m not interested in fooling around with him.”

“He wouldn’t mind, probably.”

“No.” Great sincerity thrummed in Theo’s voice. “I mean, I’ve had moments of curiosity since…since you told me you were gay, but it’s just not my thing.”

Emmanuel scratched at his jaw. His stubble wasn’t novel anymore but it still felt good. “Just as well,” he said. “More boys for me.”

“Seriously?” Theo was outraged. “You seriously think any guy wants into my shorts is going to be interested in a big hairy dude like you?” He threw a punch at his brother’s arm that made basically no impression. “Manny, bro, even I know better than that.”

Manny? As they scuffled, Emmanuel decided this new nickname was acceptable. “Fine, whatever.” Grappling Theo around the neck, he knuckled his brother’s bristly scalp.

“Besides, you’ve already got a summer boyfriend. Now you need to help me find a girl. That’s what gay big brothers are for, evolutionarily speaking.”

Laughing, Manny pushed Theo away. “You’re on.” It would be a challenge. Challenges were good. He relished a challenge.

____
Copyright Alex Jeffers 2012

Alex Jeffers‘s last story appeared in Chelsea Station #1 in November; his next will be out in the YA anthology Boys of Summer in May. Those two, this one, and some others will reappear in his collection You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home, due from Lethe Press in July. You can find more information and news at his website.

But perhaps we can be forgiven for being a bit more pleased about two particular entries on the list, both nominated for best novelette–“The Migratory Pattern of Dancers” by Katherine Sparrow and “Sauerkraut Station” by Ferret Steinmetz. Obviously we’re fans of both those stories, but it pleases us tremendously that the voters liked them enough to recommend them. We’ll be watching the results of the voting with great interest, but no matter what happens, we’re extremely proud of Katie and Ferret. Congratulations, you two!

by Ken Liu

“All life is an experiment.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For an American, one’s entire life is spent as a game of chance, a time of revolution, a day of battle. “
– Alexis de Tocqueville

The Missouri Boys snuck into Idaho City around 4:30 AM, when everything was still dark and Isabelle’s Joy Club was the only house with a lit window.

Obee and Crick made straight for the Thirsty Fish. Earlier in the day, J.J. Kelly, the proprietor, had invited Obee and Crick out of his saloon with his Smith & Wesson revolver. With little effort and making no sound, Obee and Crick broke the latch on the door of the Thirsty Fish and quickly disappeared inside.

“I’ll show that little Irishman some manners,” Crick hissed. Through the alcoholic mist, his eyes could focus on only one image: the diminutive Kelly walking towards him, gun at the ready, and the jeering crowd behind him. We might just bury you under the new outhouse next time you show yourselves in Idaho City.

Though he was a little unsteady on his feet, he successfully tiptoed his way up the stairs to the family’s living quarters, an iron crowbar in hand.

Obee, less drunk, set about rectifying that situation promptly by jumping behind the bar and helping himself to the supplies. Carelessly, he took down bottles of various sizes and colors from the shelves around him, and having taken a sip from each, smashed the bottles against the counters or dashed them to the ground. Alcohol flowed freely everywhere, soaking into the floors and the furniture.

A woman’s scream tore out of the darkness upstairs. Obee jumped up and drew his revolver. Not sure whether to run upstairs to help his friend or out the door, down the street, and into the woods before he could be caught, he hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. Overhead came the sound of boots that no longer cared about silence, followed by the crash of something heavy and soft onto the floor. Obee cursed and jumped back, his big, dirty hands trying to rub out the coat of dust that just fell from the ceiling into his eyes. More muffled screams and cursing, and then, complete silence.

“Woo!” Crick appeared at the top of the stairs, the gleeful grin on his face limned by the light of the oil lamp he held aloft. “Grab some rags. Let’s burn this dump down.”

By the time the 7000 people of Idaho City had tallied up the damage of the Great Fire of May 18th, 1865, the Missouri Boys were miles away on the Wells Fargo trail, sleeping off the headache from hard drinking and fast riding. Idaho City lost a newspaper, two theaters, two photograph galleries, three express offices, four restaurants, four breweries, four drugstores, five groceries, six blacksmith shops, seven meat markets, seven bakeries, eight hotels, twelve doctor’s offices, twenty-two law offices, twenty-four saloons, and thirty-six general merchandise stores.

This was why, when the band of weary and gaunt Chinamen showed up a few weeks later with their funny bamboo carrying poles over their shoulders and their pockets heavy with cold, hard cash sewn into the lining, the people of Idaho City almost held a welcome party for them. Everyone promptly set about the task of separating the Chinamen from their money.

Elsie Seaver, Lily’s mother, complained to Lily’s father about the Chinamen almost every evening.

“Thaddeus, will you please tell the heathens to keep their noise down? I can’t hear myself think.”

“For fourteen dollars a week in rent, Elsie, I think the Chinamen are entitled to a few hours of their own music.”

The Seavers’ store had been one of those burned down a few weeks earlier. Lily’s father, Thad (though he preferred to be called Jack) Seaver, was still in the middle of rebuilding it. Elsie knew as well as her husband that they needed the Chinamen’s rent. She sighed, stuffed some cotton balls in her ears, and took her sewing into the kitchen.

Lily rather liked the music of the Chinamen. It was indeed loud. The gongs, cymbals, wooden clappers, and drums made such a racket that her heart wanted to beat in time to their rhythm. The high-pitched fiddle with only two strings wailed so high and pure that Lily thought she could float on air, just listening to it. And then in the fading light of the dusk, the big, red-faced Chinaman would pluck out a sad quiet tune on the three-stringed lute and sing his songs in the street, his companions squatting in a circle around him, quiet as they listened to him and their faces by turns smiling and grave. He was over six feet tall and had a dark, bushy beard that covered his chest. Lily thought his thin, long eyes looked like the eyes of a great eagle as he turned his head, looking at each of his companions. Once in a while they burst into loud guffaws, and they slapped the big, red-faced Chinaman on his back as he smiled and kept on singing.

“What do you think he’s singing about?” Lily asked her mother from the porch.

“No doubt some unspeakably vile vice of their barbaric homeland. Opium dens and sing song girls and such. Come back in here and close the door. Have you finished your sewing?”

Lily continued to watch them from her window, wishing she could understand what his songs were about. She was glad that the music made her mother unable to think. It meant that she couldn’t think of more chores for Lily to do.

Lily’s father was more intrigued by the Chinamen’s cooking. Even their cooking was loud, the splattering and sizzling of hot oil and the suh-suh-suh beating of cleaver against chopping board making another kind of music. The cooking also smelled loud, the smoke drifting from the open door carrying the peppery smell of unknown spices and unknown vegetables across the street and making Lily’s stomach growl.

“What in the world are they making over there? There’s no way cucumbers can smell like that.” Lily’s father asked no one in particular. Lily saw him lick his lips.

“We could ask them,” Lily suggested.

“Ha! Don’t get any ideas. I’m sure the Chinamen would love to chop up a little Christian girl like you and fry you in those big saucepans of theirs. Stay away from them, you hear?”

Lily didn’t believe that the Chinamen would eat her. They seemed friendly enough. And if they were going to supplement their diet with little girls, why would they bother spending all day working on that vegetable garden they’ve planted behind their house?

There were many mysteries about the Chinamen, not the least of which was how they managed to all fit inside those tiny houses they had rented. The band of twenty-seven Chinamen rented five saltbox houses along Placer Street, two of them owned by Jack Seaver, and bought three others from Mr. Kenan, whose bank had been burned down and who was moving his family back east. The saltbox houses were simple, one-story affairs with a living room in the front that doubled as the kitchen, and a bedroom in the back. Twelve feet deep and thirty feet across, the small houses were made of thin planks of wood and their front porches were squeezed so tightly together that they formed a covered sidewalk.

The white miners who had rented these houses from Jack Seaver in the past lived in them alone, or at most shared a house with one roommate. The Chinamen, on the other hand, lived five or six to a house. This frugality rather disappointed some of the people in Idaho City, who had been hoping the Chinamen would be more free with their money. They broke down the tables and chairs left by the previous tenants of the houses and used the lumber to build bunks along the walls of the bedrooms and laid out mattresses on the floors of the living rooms. The previous occupants also left pictures of Lincoln and Lee on the walls. These the Chinamen left alone.

“Logan said he likes the pictures,” Jack Seaver said at dinner.

“Who’s Logan?”

“The big, red-faced Chinaman. He asked me who Lee was, and I told him he was a great general who picked the losing side but was still admired for his bravery and loyalty. He was impressed by that. Oh, and he also liked Lee’s beard.”

Lily had heard the conversation between her father and the Chinaman by hiding herself behind the piano. She didn’t think the big Chinaman’s name sounded anything like “Logan.” She had listened to the other Chinamen calling out to him, and it sounded to her like they were saying “Lao Guan.”

“Such a strange people, these Celestials,” Elsie said. “That Logan scares me. The size of his hands! He has killed. I’m sure of it. I wish you could find some other tenants, Thaddeus.”

No one except Lily’s mother ever called her husband “Thaddeus.” To everyone else he was either “Mr. Seaver” or “Jack.” Lily was used to the fact that people had many names out here in the West. After all, everyone called the banker “Mr. Kenan” when they were at the bank, but when he wasn’t around they called him “Shylock.” And while Lily’s mother always addressed her as “Liliane,” Lily’s father always called her “Nugget.” And it seemed that the big Chinaman already got a new name in this house, “Logan.”

“You are my nugget of gold, sweetie,” he told her every morning, before he left for the store.

“You’re going to puff her up full of vanity,” Lily’s mother said from the kitchen.

It was the height of the mining season, and the Chinamen began to head out to look for gold the moment they were settled in. They left as soon as it was light, dressed in their loose blouses and baggy trousers, their queues snaking out from under their big straw hats. A few of the older men stayed behind to work in the vegetable garden or to do the laundry and the cooking.

Lily was largely left alone during the day. While her mother went shopping or busied herself around the house, her father was away working at the site for the new store. Jack was thinking of setting aside a section in the new store for preserved duck eggs, pickled vegetables, dried tofu, spices, soy sauce, and bitter melons imported from San Francisco to sell to the Chinese miners.

“These Chinamen are going to be carting around a lot of gold dust soon, Elsie. I’ll be ready to take it from them when they do.”

Elsie didn’t like this plan. The thought of the Chinamen’s strange food making everything smell funny in her husband’s store made her queasy. But she knew it was pointless to argue with Thad once he got a notion in his head. After all, he had packed up everything and dragged her and Lily all the way out here from Hartford, where he had been doing perfectly well as a tutor, just because he got it in his head that they’d be much happier on their own out West, where nobody knew them and they knew nobody.

Not even Elsie’s father could persuade her husband to change his mind then. He had asked Thad to come to Boston and work for him in his law office. Business was good, he said, he could use his help. Elsie beamed at the thought of all the shops and the fashion of Beacon Hill.

“I appreciate the offer,” Thad had said to her father. “But I don’t think I’m cut out to be a lawyer.”

Elsie had to placate her father for hours afterwards with tea and a fresh batch of oatmeal cookies. And even then he refused to say goodbye to Thad the next day, when he left to go back to Boston. “Damned the day that I became friends with his father,” he muttered, too loud for Elsie to pretend that she hadn’t heard him.

“I’m sick of this,” Thad said to her later. “We don’t know anybody who’s ever done anything. Everyone in Hartford just carries on what his father had started. Aren’t we supposed to be a nation where every generation picks up and goes somewhere new? I think we should go and start our own life. You can even pick a new name for yourself. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Elsie was happy with her own name. But Thad wasn’t. This was how he ended up as “Jack.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a ‘Jack,’” he told her, as if names were like shirts that you could just put on and take off. She refused to call him by his new name.

Once when Lily was alone with her mother she had told Lily that this was all because of the War.

“That Rebel bullet put him on his back in less than a day from when he got onto the field. This is what happens to a man when he has to lie on his back for eight months. He gets all sorts of strange notions into his head and not even an angelic manifestation can get those ideas out of him.”

If the Rebels were responsible for getting her family out here to Idaho, Lily wasn’t sure they were such evil people.

Lily had learned the hard way that if she stayed in the house her mother would always find something for her to do. Until school started again, the best thing for Lily was to get out of the house the first chance she had in the morning and not return until it was dinner time.

Lily liked to be in the hills outside the town. The forest of Douglas firs, mountain maples, and ponderosa pines shaded her from the noon sun. She could take some bread and cheese with her for lunch, and there were plenty of streams to drink from. She spent some time picking out leaves that had been chewed by worms into shapes that reminded her of different animals. When she was bored with that she waded in a stream to cool off. Before she went into the water, she took the back hem of her dress, pulled it forward and up from between her legs and tucked the hem into the sash at her waist. She was glad that her mother was not around to see her turning her skirt into pants. But it was much easier to wade in the mud and the water with her skirt out of the way.

Lily waded downstream along the shallow edge of the stream. The day was starting to get more hot than warm, and she splashed some water on her neck and forehead. Lily looked for bird nests in the trees and raccoon prints in the mud. She thought she could walk on like this forever, alone and not trying to get anything done in particular, her feet cool in the water, the sun warm on her back, and knowing that she had a good, filling lunch with her that she could have any time she wanted and would have an even better dinner waiting for her later.

Faint sounds of men singing came to her from around the bend in the river. Lily stopped. Maybe there was a camp of placer miners just downstream from where she was. That would be fun to watch.

She walked onto the bank of the river and into the woods. The singing became louder. Although she couldn’t make out any of the words, the melody told her it wasn’t any song that she recognized.

She carefully made her way among the trees. She was deep in the shadows now and a light breeze quickly dried the sweat and water on her face. Her heart began to beat faster. She could hear the singing voices more clearly now. A lone, deep, male voice sang in words that she could not make out, the strange shape of the melody reminding her of the way the Chinamen’s music had sounded. Then a chorus of other male voices answered, the slow, steady rhythm letting her know that it was a working men’s song, whose words and music came from the cycle of labored breath and heartbeat.

She came to the edge of the woods, and hiding herself behind the thick trunk of a maple, she peeked out at the singing men by the stream.

Except the stream was nowhere to be found.

After they found this bend to be a good placer spot, the Chinese miners had built a dam to divert the stream. Where the stream used to be, there were now five or six miners using picks and shovels to dig down to the bedrock. Others were digging out bits of gold-laden sand and gravel from between the crevices in areas where the digging had already been done. The men wore their straw hats to keep the sun off their head. The solo singer, Lily now saw, was Logan. The red-faced Chinaman had wrapped a rolled-up handkerchief around his thick beard and tucked the ends of the handkerchief into his shirt to keep it out of his way as he worked. Every time he bellowed out another verse of the song he stood still and leaned on his shovel, and his beard pouch moved with his singing like the neck of a rooster. Lily almost giggled out loud.

A loud bang cut through the noise and activity and echoed around the banks of the dry stream bed. The singing stopped and all the miners stopped where they were. The mountain air suddenly became quiet and still, and only the sound of panicked birds taking flight into the air broke the silence.

Crick, slowly waving above his head the pistol that fired the shot, swaggered out of the woods across the stream bed from where Lily was hiding. Obee came behind him, his shotgun’s barrel shifting from pointing at one miner to the next with each step he took.

“Well, well, well,” Crick said. “Lookee here. A singing circus of Chinee monkeys.”

Logan stared at him. “What do you boys want?”

“Boys?” Crick let out a holler. “Obee, listen to this. The Chinaman just called us ‘boys.’”

“He won’t be saying much after I blow his head off,” Obee said.

Logan began to walk towards them. The heavy shovel trailed from his large hand and long arm.

“Stop right where you are, you filthy yellow monkey.” Crick pointed the pistol at him.

“What do you want?”

“Why, to collect what’s ours, of course. We know you’ve been keeping our gold safe and we’ve come to ask for it back.”

“We don’t have any of your gold.”

“Jesus,” Crick said, shaking his head. “I’ve always heard that Chinamen are thieves and liars, on account of them growing up eating rats and maggots, but I’ve always kept an open mind about the Celestials. But now I’m seeing it with my own eyes.”

“Filthy liars,” Obee affirmed.

“Obee and me, we found this spot last spring and claimed it. We’ve been a little busy lately, and so we thought we’d take pity on you and let you work the deposit and pay you a fair wage for your work. We thought we were doing our Christian duty.”

“We were being nice,” Obee added.

“Very generous of us,” Crick agreed. “But look where that’s gotten us? Being kind doesn’t work with these heathens. On our way here I was still inclined to let you keep a little gold dust for your work these last few weeks, but now I think we are going to take it all.”

“Ingrates,” Obee said.

A young Chinaman, barely more than a boy really, angrily shouted something in his own language at Logan. Logan waved his hand at the youth to keep him back, his gaze never leaving Crick’s face.

“I don’t think you have your facts straight,” Logan said. Even though he didn’t shout, his voice reverberated and echoed around the valley of the river and the woods in a way that made Lily tremble with its force and strength. “We found this deposit and we put the claim on it. You can go check at the courthouse.”

“Are you deaf?” Crick asked. “What makes you think I need to check at the courthouse? I just told you the facts, and after conferring with the law” — he waved his pistol impatiently — “I’m told that the claim is indeed mine and you are the claim jumpers. By law I’m entitled to shoot you dead like so many rats right where you are. But as I am unwilling to shed blood needlessly, I’ll let you hand over the gold and spare your worthless lives. I may even let you keep on working this deposit for me if you agree not to pull a stunt like this and deny us our gold in the future.”

Without any warning that he was going to do it, Obee fired his gun. The shot shattered the rocks at the feet of the boy who had angrily shouted at Logan earlier. Obee and Crick doubled over in laughter as the boy jumped back and dropped his pickaxe, giving out a startled yelp. A piece of shattered rock had cut his hand, and he slowly sat down on the ground, staring incredulously as the blood from the wound in his palm quickly soaked the tan sleeves of his shirt. A few of the other Chinamen gathered around to tend to him. Lily barely managed to stifle her own scream. She wanted to turn around and run back into town, but her legs would not hold her up if she didn’t hug tightly the tree she was hiding behind.

Logan turned his attention back to Crick. His face had turned an even darker shade of red, so that Lily was afraid that blood would pour from his eyes.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Hand over the gold,” Crick said. “Or I’ll make him stop breathing instead of just getting him dancing.”

Logan casually threw the shovel, which had been dangling from his hand until now, behind him. “Why don’t you put down your gun and we’ll have a fair fight?”

Crick hesitated for a moment. If it came to that, he thought he could take care of himself in a fight, having survived enough brawls in New Orleans to know exactly how it felt to have your ribs stop a knife. But Logan was taller by about a foot and heavier by about fifty pounds, and though that beard made him look ancient, Crick wasn’t sure whether Logan really was old enough to have his reflexes slow down. And in any case Crick was a little scared of the red-faced Chinaman: he looked angry enough to fight like a crazy man, and Crick knew enough about fights to know that you didn’t come out of fights with crazy men without at least a few broken bones.

The plan was going all wrong! Crick and Obee knew all about Chinamen, having spent years in San Francisco. They had all been scrawny midgets, giving him and Obee barely more trouble than a bunch of women, which was not surprising considering all they did was women’s work: cooking and laundry, and not one of them had ever put up a real fight. This band of Chinamen was supposed to fall down on their knees and beg for mercy as soon as he and Obee showly walked out of the woods, and hand over all their gold to them. The red-faced giant was ruining their plan!

“I think we have a pretty fair fight right now,” Crick said. He pointed his revolver at Logan. “Almighty God created men, but Colonel Colt made them equal.”

Logan untied the handkerchief around his beard, unrolled it, and tied it around the top of his head like a bandana. He took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The leathery, brown skin covering the wiry muscles on his arms was full of scars. He took a few steps towards Crick. Though his face was redder than ever, his walk was calm, like he was taking a stroll at night, singing his songs back in front of Lily’s house back in Idaho City.

“Don’t think I won’t shoot,” Crick said. “The Missouri Boys don’t have a lot of patience.”

Logan bent down and picked up a rock the size of an egg. He wrapped his fingers around it tightly. “Get out of here. We don’t have any of your gold.” He took another few calm steps towards Crick.

And in another moment he was running, his legs closing up the distance between him and the gunmen. He cocked his right arm back as he ran, looking steadily into Crick’s face.

Obee fired. He didn’t have the time to brace himself and the force of the shot threw him on his back.

Logan’s left shoulder exploded. A bright red shower of blood sprayed behind him. In the sunlight it looked to Lily like a rose was blossoming behind him.

None of the other Chinamen said anything. They looked on, stunned.

Lily’s breath stopped. Time seemed frozen to her. The mist of blood hung in the air, refusing to fall or dissipate.

Then she sucked in a great gulp of air and screamed as loud as she could ever remember, louder even than the time she was stung on the lips by that wasp she hadn’t seen hiding in her lemonade cup. Her scream echoed around the woods, startling more birds into the air. Is that really me? Lily thought. It didn’t sound like her. It didn’t even sound human.

Crick was looking into her eyes from across the river. His face was so filled with cold rage and hatred that Lily’s heart stopped beating.

Oh God, please, please, I promise I’ll pray every night from now on. I promise I won’t disobey Mother ever again.

She tried to turn around and run, but her legs wouldn’t listen to her. She stumbled back, tripped over an exposed root, and fell heavily to the ground. The fall knocked the air out of her and finally cut off her scream. She struggled to sit up, expecting to see Crick’s gun pointed at her.

Logan was looking at her. Incredibly, he was still standing. Half of his body was soaked with blood. He was looking at her, and she thought he didn’t look like someone who had just been shot, someone who was about to die. Though blood had splattered half of his face, the other half had lost its deep, crimson color. Still, Lily thought he looked calm, like he wasn’t in any pain, though he was a little sad.

Lily felt a calmness come over her. She didn’t know why, but she knew everything was going to be all right.

Logan turned away from her. He began to walk towards Crick again. His walk was slow, deliberate. His left arm was hanging limply at his side.

Crick aimed his pistol at Logan.

Logan stumbled. Then he stopped. The blood had soaked into his beard, and as the wind lifted it, droplets of blood flew into the air. He took a step back and let fly the rock in his hand. The rock made a graceful arc in the air. Crick stood frozen where he was. The rock smashed into his face and the thud as the rock cracked open his skull was as loud as Obee’s gun shot.

His body stayed up for a few seconds before collapsing into a lifeless heap on the ground. Obee scrambled to his feet, took a look at Crick’s motionless body, and without looking back at the Chinamen began to run as fast as he could deep into the woods.

Logan fell to his knees. For a moment he swayed uncertainly in place as his left arm swung at his side, useless for stopping his fall. Then he topped overl. The other Chinamen ran to him.

It all seemed so unreal to Lily, like a play on a stage. She thought she should have been terrified. She should have been screaming, or maybe even fainted. That’s what her mother would have done, she thought. But everything had slowed down in the last few seconds, and she felt safe, calm, like nothing could hurt her.

She came out from behind her tree and walked towards the crowd of Chinamen.

Lily wasn’t sure if she would ever understand this game.

“I can’t move the seeds at all? Ever?”

They were sitting in the vegetable garden behind Logan’s house, where her mother wouldn’t be able to see her if she happened to look out the living room window as she finished her needlework. They were both sitting with their legs folded under them, and Lily liked the way the cool, moist soil felt under her legs. (“This was how the Buddha sat,” Logan had told her.) On the ground between them Logan had drawn a grid of nine horizontal lines intersected with nine vertical lines with the tip of his knife.

“No, you can’t.” Logan shifted his left arm to make it easier for Ah Yan, the young Chinaman who had been the target of Obee’s first shot, to run the wet rag in his hand over the wound in Logan’s shoulder. Lily gingerly touched the bandage on her leg. Her fall against the tree root had scraped off a large patch of skin on the back of her left calf. Ah Yan had cleaned it for her and wrapped it up in a plain cotton bandage that was coated in some black paste that smelled strongly of medicine and spices. The cool paste had stung at first against the wound, but Lily bit her lips and didn’t cry out. Ah Yan’s touch had been gentle, and Lily asked him if he was a doctor.

“No,” the young Chinaman had said. Then he had smiled at her and given her a piece of dried plum coated in sugar for her to suck on. Lily thought it was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted.

Ah Yan rinsed the rag out in the basin next to Logan. The water was again bright red and this was already the third basin of hot water.

Logan paid no attention to Ah Yan’s ministrations. “We’ll play on a smaller board than usual since you are just learning. This game is called wei qi, which means ‘the game of surrounding.’ Think of laying down each seed as driving a post into the field as you build a fence to surround the land you are claiming. The posts don’t move, do they?”

Lily was playing with lotus seeds while Logan’s pieces were watermelon seeds. The white and black pieces made a pretty pattern on the grid between them.

“So it’s kind of like the way they get land in Kansas,” Lily said.

“Yes,” Logan said. “I guess it’s a little like that, though I’ve never been to Kansas. You want to surround the largest territory possible, and defend your land well so that my posts can’t carve out another homestead in your land.”

He took a long drink from the gourd in his hand. The gourd looked a little like a snowman, a small sphere on top of a larger one, with a piece of red silk tied around the narrow waist to provide a good grip. The golden surface of the gourd was shiny from constant use in Logan’s rough, leathery palm. Logan had told her that the gourd grew on a vine. When the gourd was ripe it was cut down and the top sawn off so that the seeds inside could be taken out to make the shell into a good bottle for wine.

Logan smacked his lips and sighed. “Whiskey, it’s almost as good as sorghum mead.” He offered Lily a sip. Lily, shocked, shook her head no. No wonder her mother thought these Chinamen barbaric. To drink whiskey out of a gourd was bad enough, but to offer a drink to a young Christian girl?

“There’s no whiskey in China?”

Logan took another drink and wiped the whiskey from his beard. “When I was a boy I was taught that there were only five flavors in the world, and all the world’s joys and sorrows came from different mixtures of the five. I’ve learned since then that’s not true. Every place has a taste that’s new to it, and whiskey is the taste of America.”

“Lao Guan,” Ah Yan called out. Logan turned towards him. Ah Yan spoke to him in Chinese, gesturing at the basin. After looking at the water in the basin, Logan nodded. Ah Yan got up with the basin and poured out the water in a far corner of the field before going into the house.

“He’s gotten as much of the poisoned blood and dirt and torn rags out as possible,” Logan explained. “Time to sew me up.”

“My dad thinks your name is Logan,” Lily said. “I knew he was wrong.”

Logan laughed. His laugh was loud and careless, the same as the way he sang and told his stories. “All my friends call me Lao Guan, which just means Old Guan, Guan being my family name. I guess it sounds like Logan to your dad. I kind of like the ring of it. Maybe I’ll just use it as my American name.”

“He also picked out a new name for himself when we came here,” Lily said. “Mother doesn’t think he should do that.”

“I don’t know why she should be so against it. This is a country full of new names. Didn’t she change her name when she married your father? Everyone gets a new name when they come here.”

Lily thought about this. It was true. Her father didn’t call her “Nugget” until they lived here.

Ah Yan came back with a needle and some thread. He proceeded to stitch up the wound on Logan’s shoulder. Lily looked closely at Logan’s face to see if he would wince with the pain.

“It’s still your turn,” Logan said. “And I’m going to capture all of your seeds in that corner if you don’t do something about it.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“This?” The way he pointed at his shoulder by wagging his beard made Lily laugh. “This is nothing compared to the time I had to have my bones scraped.”

“You had to have your bones scraped?”

“Once I was shot with a poisoned arrow, and the tip of the arrow was buried into the bones in my arm. I was going to die unless I got the poison out. Hua Tuo, the most skilled doctor in the world, came to help me. He had to cut into my arm, peel back the flesh and skin, and scrape off the poisoned bits of bone with his scalpel. Let me tell you, that hurt a lot more than this. It helped that Hua Tuo had me drink the strongest rice wine he could find, and I was playing wei qi against my First Lieutenant, a very good player himself. It took my mind off the pain.”

“Where was this? Back in China?”

“Yes, a long time ago back in China.”

Ah Yan finished his sutures. Logan said something to him and Ah Yan handed a small silk bundle to him. Lily was about to ask Ah Yan about the bundle but he just smiled at her and held a finger to his lips. He pointed at Logan and mouthed “watch” at her.

Logan laid the bundle on the ground and unrolled the silk wrap. Inside was a set of long, silver needles. Logan picked up one of the needles in his right hand and before Lily could even yell “Stop,” he stuck the needle into his left shoulder, right above the wound.

“What did you do that for?” Lily squeaked. For some reason the sight of the long needle sticking out Logan’s shoulder made her more queasy than when Logan’s shoulder had exploded with Obee’s shot.

“It stops the pain,” Logan said. He took another needle and stuck it into his shoulder about an inch above the other one. He twisted the end of the needle a little to make sure it’s settled in the right spot.

“I don’t believe you.”

Logan laughed. “There are many things little American girls don’t understand, and many things old Chinamen don’t understand. I can show you how it works. Does your leg still hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Here, hold still.” Logan leaned forward and held out his left palm low to the ground. “Put your foot in my hand.”

“Hey, you can move your left arm again.”

“Oh, this is nothing. The time I had to have my bones scraped, I was back on the battlefield within two hours.”

Lily was sure that Logan was joking with her. “My father was shot in the leg and chest in the War, and it took him eight months before he could walk again. He still has a limp.” She lifted her foot, wincing at the pain. Logan cupped her ankle with his palm.

His palm felt warm, hot actually, on Lily’s ankle. Logan closed his eyes and began to breathe slowly and evenly. Lily felt the heat on her ankle increase. It felt nice, like having a very hot towel pressed around her injured calf. The pain gradually melted into the heat. Lily felt so relaxed and comfortable that she could fall asleep. She closed her eyes.

“Okay, you are all set.”

Logan released her ankle and gently deposited her foot on the ground. Lily opened her eyes and saw a great silver needle sticking out from her leg just below her kneecap.

Lily was going to cry out in pain until she realized that she didn’t feel any. There was a slight numbness around where the needle went into her skin, and heat continued to radiate from it, blocking any pain from her wound.

“That feels weird,” Lily said. She experimentally flexed her leg a few times.

“As good as new.”

“Mother is going to faint when she sees this.”

“I’ll take it out before you go home. Your skin won’t heal for a few more days, but most of the poison in your blood should be gone with the medicine Ah Yan put on the bandage and the acupuncture should have taken out the rest. Just get the bandage changed to a clean one tomorrow and you shouldn’t even have a scar when this is over.”

Lily wanted to thank him, but she suddenly felt shy. Talking with Logan was strange. He was unlike anyone she had ever met. One moment he was killing a man with his bare hands, and the next he was holding her ankle as gently as she would a kitten. One moment he was singing songs that seemed as old as the earth itself, and the next he was laughing with her over a game played with watermelon and lotus seeds. He was interesting, but also more than a little scary.

“I like playing with the black seeds,” Logan said as he placed another seed on the grid, capturing a block of Lily’s seeds. He picked them up and popped the handful of lotus seeds into his mouth. “Lotus seeds are much better to eat.”

Lily laughed. How could she be scared of an old man who talked with his mouth full?

“Logan, that story about the poisoned arrow and the doctor scraping your bones, that didn’t really happen to you, did it?”

Logan tilted his head and looked at Lily thoughtfully. Slowly, he chewed the lotus seeds in his mouth, swallowed, and grinned. “That happened to Guan Yu, the Chinese God of War.”

“I knew it! You’re just like my father’s friends, always telling me tall tales just because I’m a child.”

Logan laughed his deep, booming laugh. “Not all stories are made up.”

Lily had never heard of the Chinese God of War, and she was sure that her father hadn’t either. It was now twilight, and the sounds and the smell of the loud and oily cooking of the Chinamen filled the garden.

“I should go home,” Lily said, even though she desperately wanted to try some of the food that she was smelling and hear more about Guan Yu. “Can I come and visit you tomorrow, and you can tell me more stories about Guan Yu?”

Logan stroked his beard with his hand. His face was serious. “It would be an honor.” Then his face broke into a smile. “Even though I’ll have to eat all the seeds myself now.”

Before Guan Yu became a god, he was just a boy.

Actually, before that, he was almost just a ghost. His mother carried him in her belly for twelve months, and still he refused to be born. The midwife gave her some herbs and then told her husband to hold her down while she kicked and screamed. The baby finally came out and didn’t breathe. Its face was bright red. “Either from choking or too much barbaric blood in the father,” the midwife thought.

“It would have been a huge baby,” the midwife whispered to the father. The mother was asleep. “Too big to have a long life anyway.” She began to wrap up the body with what would have been his swaddling clothes. “Did you have a name picked out?”

“No.”

“Just as well. You don’t want to give the demons a name to hang on to on his way down below.”

The baby let out an ear-splitting cry. The midwife almost dropped him.

“He’s too big to have a long life,” the midwife insisted as she unwrapped the body, a little peeved that the baby dared to defy her authority on these matters. “And that face. So red!”

“Then I’ll call him Chang Sheng, Long Life.”

The dry summer sun and the dusty spring winds of Shanxi carved lines and sprinkled salt into the chapped, ruddy faces of the Chinese who tried to make a living here in the heart of northern China. When the barbarians climbed over the Great Wall and rode down from the north on their raids on the backs of their towering steeds, it was these men who took up their hoes and melted their plows to fight them to the death. It was these women who fought alongside the men with their kitchen knives, and when they failed, ended up as the slaves and then the wives of the barbarians, learning their language and bearing their children, until the barbarians began to think of themselves as Chinese, and they, in turn, fought against the next wave of barbarians.

While weak men and delicate women who were afraid to die fled south so that they could row around on their flower boats and sing their drunken verses, those who stayed behind, matching the music of their lives to the rhythm of the howling rage of the desert, grew tall with the barbaric blood mixed into their veins and became full of pride at their life of toil.

“This is why,” Chang Sheng’s father said to him, “the Qin and Han Emperors all came out of the Great Northwest, our land. From us come the generals and the poets, the ministers and the scholars of the Empire. We are the only ones who value pride.”

In addition to helping his father in the fields, it was Chang Sheng’s job to gather the firewood and kindling for the kitchen. Chang Sheng’s favorite time of the day was the hour or so before the sun set. That was when he took the rusty axe and the even rustier machete from behind the kitchen door and climbed the mountain behind the village.

Crack, the axe split the rotting trunk of a tree. Zang, the blade swung through the dry grass. It was hard work, but Chang Sheng pretended that he was a great hero cutting down his enemies like weeds.

Back home, dinner was stir-fried bitter melon and pickled cabbage to go with scallions dipped in soy sauce and wrapped in flat sorghum pancakes. Sometimes, when his father was in a particular good mood, Chang Sheng would even get a sip of plum wine, sweet on the tip of the tongue, burning hot down the throat. His face grew to an even darker shade of red.

“There you are, little one,” his father said, smiling as Chang Sheng’s eyes teared up from the alcohol burn while his hand reached out for another sip. “Sweet, sour, bitter, hot, and salty, all the flavors in balance.”

Chang Sheng grew up to be a tall boy. His mother was forever sewing new robes for him as he outgrew the old ones. The drought that had already lasted five years showed no signs of letting up, and even though the men labored harder than ever in the fields, the harvest seemed to grew smaller year after year. There was no money to send him to school, so his father took up the task of teaching him.

History was his favorite subject, but there was always something sad in his father’s eyes when they discussed history. Chang Sheng learned to not ask too many questions. Instead, he spent more time reading the history books. Then, when he was out gathering firewood, he acted out the great battles with his axe and machete against the endless hordes of the barbaric woods.

“You like to fight?” his father asked him one day.

He nodded.

“I’ll teach you to play wei qi then.”

“Did Chang Sheng’s father use lotus seeds and watermelon seeds too?”

“No, he used real stones.”

“I prefer your way of playing wei qi. Using seeds is more fun.”

“I think so too. And I like eating too much. Now, where was I?”

Within a day Chang Sheng was able to win one game out of three against his father. In a week he was losing only one out of five. In a month he was winning every game even when he gave his father the advantage of a five-stone handicap.

Wei qi was even better than plum wine. There was sweetness in the simplicity of the rules, bitterness in defeat, and burning hot joy in victory. The patterns made by the stones were meant to be chewed over, savored.

While out walking, he got lost staring at the patterns made by black streaks of mud thrown up by passing oxcarts against the whitewashed house walls. Instead of chopping firewood, he carved the nineteen by nineteen playing grid into the floor of the kitchen with his axe. During dinner, Chang Sheng forgot to eat while he laid out formations on the table with grains of wild rice and black watermelon seeds. His mother wanted to scold him.

“Let him alone,” his father said. “That boy has the makings of a great general.”

“Maybe he does,” his mother said. “But your family hasn’t been in the Emperor’s service for generations. What is he going to be a general of? A flock of geese?”

“He’s still the son of queens and poets, generals and ministers,” his father insisted.

“Playing a game is not going to put rice in the pot, nor wood into the stove. We are going to need to borrow money again this year.”

The neighboring villages sent their best players to challenge him. He defeated them all. Eventually, Hua Xiong, the son of the county’s wealthiest man, heard about Chang Sheng, the wei qi prodigy.

Hua Xiong’s family made its fortune by acquiring a coveted license to sell salt. There was a large lake in the county, its waters made salty by the blood of Chi Yu after he was defeated by the Yellow Emperor and his body chopped into pieces. The Han Emperors taxed the salt trade as their principal source of revenue and the imperial salt monopoly was strictly enforced. Hua Xiong’s grandfather placed some strategic bribes, and the family had been growing fat from the salt fortune ever since.

Hua Xiong was the same age as Chang Sheng. He was the sort of boy who tortured cats and delighted in galloping his horse through the fields of his father’s tenants, trampling down the sorghum and wheat so that the tracks formed his name. That was how he showed up at the door of the Guan house when he came to play a game of wei qi with Chang Sheng, high on his horse, a swath of trampled sorghum behind him.

He brought his wei qi set with him: the board made from the pine trees of Mount Tai; the black stones were green jade while the white stones were polished pieces of coral. Chang Sheng made the game last as long as he could so he could finger the cool, smooth stones a little longer.

“The game is getting boring,” Hua Xiong said. “I haven’t lost to anyone in years.”

Chang Sheng’s father smiled as he thought to himself, “Doesn’t he know that people who have to borrow money from his father would make sure he wins the game?”

Hua Xiong was actually a pretty good wei qi player, but not as good as Chang Sheng.

“Very impressive,” Hua Xiong said to Chang Sheng’s father. “Brother Chang Sheng has a gift. I am ashamed to say that I am not his match.”

Chang Sheng’s father was surprised. He was too proud to ever tell his son to deliberately throw the game to Hua Xiong. He had expected Hau Xiong to throw a tantrum. But not this.

“He’s not so bad,” he thought. “He’s graceful in defeat. That’s a quality that belongs to a phoenix among men.”

“What’s so impressive about that? I never get mad when my father beats me at checkers. I know I just have to get better.”

“Those are wise words. Not everyone sees a loss as an opportunity.”

“So is this Hua Xiong really a good man?”

“If you don’t interrupt me, you’ll soon find out.”

“I’ll have more watermelon seeds. I won’t be able to talk if my mouth is full.”

The harvests grew even worse in the next five years. Locusts hit the province. A plague sealed off the next county. There were rumors of cannibalism. The Emperor raised the taxes.

Now eighteen years of age, Hua Xiong was the head of the family after his father choked to death on the leg bone of a pheasant cooked in rice wine. He took advantage of depressed property prices to buy up as much land as possible in the county. Chang Sheng’s father went to see him on New Year’s Eve.

“Don’t worry, Master Guan,” Hua Xiong said as they both signed the deed. “I have fond memories of the games Chang Sheng and I used to play as children. I will take care of you and your family.”

In exchange for selling his land to Hua Xiong, Chang Sheng’s father got enough money to pay off the family’s mounting debt. He was then supposed to lease back the land from Hua Xiong, and pay a share of the proceeds from the harvest each year as rent.

“He gave us a good deal,” he told Chang Sheng’s mother. “I always knew he would grow up to be a good man.”

That year, they worked especially hard in the fields. The locusts came again to the county but missed their village. The sorghum stalks shot up tall and straight, bobbing in the dry winds of late summer. It was the best harvest they had had in years.

On New Year’s Eve, Hua Xiong arrived with a retinue of burly servants.

“May the new year bring you good fortune, Master Guan.” They bowed to each other at the door.

Chang Sheng’s father invited him in for some tea and plum wine. They knelt down on the clean, new straw mats, across from each other, the small table with the pot of warm wine between them.

They toasted each other’s health and had the customary three cups each. Hua Xiong gave a little awkward laugh. “Well, Master Guan, I came for the little matter of the rent.”

“Of course,” Chang Sheng’s father said. He called for Chang Sheng to bring out the five taels of silver. “Here you are, Master Hua. Five percent of my year’s proceeds.”

Hua Xiong gave a little cough. “Of course I understand how things have been rather hard on you and your family for the last few years. If you’d like some time to prepare the rest of the payment, that is perfectly acceptable.” He got up and bowed deeply.

“But I have all the money here. I can show you the books. I had a good year, and took in ninety-three taels of silver at the market. Five percent of that is four taels and eight coins. But since you were generous to me in the original sale, I thought I would pay you full five taelss to thank you.”

Hua Xiong bowed even deeper. “Surely Master Guan is having a joke at lowly Hua Xiong’s expense. Some evil persons have been saying that Master Guan is going to try to get out of paying the full amount of the rent this year, but lowly Hua Xiong did not believe them. Lowly Hua Xiong was sure that everything would be cleared up as soon as he came to see Master Guan in person.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hua Xiong looked as if a spider were crawling up his spine. He spread out his hands helplessly. “Is Master Guan asking lowly Hua Xiong to produce the deed and the lease?”

Chang Sheng’s father’s face became an iron mask. “Show me.”

Hua Xiong made a great show of searching for the documents. He patted down his sleeves and the breast pockets of his robe. He shouted at his burly servants to look in the wagon. Finally, one of them, a big man with gigantic, misshapen knuckles came up to Hua Xiong and presented the rolled-up document to him, giving Chang Sheng’s father a hard, long sneer.

“Whew,” Hua Xiong wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “I almost thought we lost it. I had not thought it would be necessary.”

They knelt down again, and Hua Xiong spread out the lease on the table between them. “The rent is to be eighty-five percent of the proceeds from the year’s sale of crops,” he read, pointing to the characters with his delicate, long fingers.

“Perhaps you could explain to me why the ‘eighty’ is written in such narrow characters as compared with the rest of the document,” Chang Sheng’s father said, after examining the lease.

“The clerk who drafted the lease was indeed a poor writer,” Hua Xiong said. He gave an ingratiating smile. “No doubt Master Guan is a much more cultivated calligrapher. But for a lease you will agree that it does not matter that his hand was poor?”

Chang Sheng’s father stood up. Chang Sheng could see that the hem of his sleeves trembled. “Do you think I would have placed my seal on a lease like that? Eighty-five percent? I might as well go join a band of bandits if I want to live on that.” He took a step towards Hua Xiong.

Hua Xiong backed up a few steps. Two of the big, burly men stepped up and formed a screen between him and the older man. “Please,” Hua Xiong said, his face twisted in a show of regret. “Don’t make me take this to the magistrate.”

Chang Sheng looked at the axe leaning behind the door. He began to walk towards it.

“Oh no. Don’t do it!”

“Go to the kitchen and see if your mother needs more wood,” his father said.

Chang Sheng hesitated.

“Go!” his father said.

Chang Sheng walked away and the burly men relaxed.

“Sorry I interrupted.”

“No, it’s fine. You were trying to save Chang Sheng, like his father.

Later, after Hua Xiong left, the family ate the New Year’s Eve dinner in silence.

“A phoenix among men indeed,” his father finally said after the meal. He laughed long and hard. Chang Sheng stayed up the whole night with him, drinking the last of their plum wine.

The father wrote a long petition to the magistrate’s court, detailing Hua Xiong’s treachery.

“It is a sad thing that the bureaucrats must be involved,” he said to Chang Sheng, “but sometimes we have no choice.”

The soldiers showed up at their house a week later. They broke down the door and hauled Chang Sheng and his mother into the yard and proceeded to overturn every piece of furniture in the house and break every plate, cup, bowl and dish.

“What is the charge against me?”

“Crafty peasant,” the captain said as his soldiers locked the cangue around the neck and arms of Chang Sheng’s father, “you are plotting to raise a band of bandits to join the Yellow Turbans. Now confess the names of your co-conspirators.”

Four soldiers had to hold Chang Sheng back, eventually wrestling him to the ground and sitting on him, as he struggled and cursed the soldiers.

“I think your son also has a rebellious spine,” the captain said. “I think we’ll bring him in too.”

“Chang Sheng, stop fighting. This is not the time. I’ll go see the magistrate. This will be cleared up.”

His father did not come back the next day, or the day after that. Runners from the town came to the village to tell the family that he had been thrown into jail by the magistrate, pending his trial for treasonous rebellion. Horrified, mother and son made the trip into town to appeal to the magistrate at the yamen.

The magistrate refused to see them, or to let them see Chang Sheng’s father.

“Crafty peasants, out, out!” the magistrate threw the scholar’s rock that he used as a paperweight at Chang Sheng, missing him by a foot. Swinging their bamboo poles, the guards drove Chang Sheng and his mother out of the halls of the yamen.

Spring came but mother and son let the fields go fallow. Hua Xiong’s henchmen came to cart away any thing of value left in the house that hadn’t been broken by the soldiers. His mother held him back as Chang Sheng clenched his teeth and ground them together until he felt the saltiness of blood on his tongue. His face grew redder and redder so that Hua Xiong’s servants were frightened and left before they could take everything.

He took his axe and machete and spent the days in the mountains. He cleared out entire hillsides with his swinging blade. Crack! Boys playing in the mountains ran back to their mothers and spoke of how they had seen a great eagle swooping among the trees, breaking down the branches with its iron beak. Zang! Girls doing the washing by the river ran back to the village and told each other how they had heard an angry tiger crashing through the woods, tearing down saplings with its great paws.

The bundles of firewood and kindling were exchanged for sorghum meal and pickled vegetables from the neighbors. The son waited while the mother swallowed the food in silence, flavoring it with her tears. He seemed to survive on sorghum mead and plum wine alone. With each drink, his face grew darker and redder. The blood hue of sorghum and plum would not fade from his face.

“Chila, chila!” Ah Yan called out, interrupting Logan’s story.

“It’s time for dinner,” Logan said to Lily. He set down his bowl of watermelon seeds. “Will you join us? Ah Yan is making Mala Wife’s Tofu and Duke of Wei’s Meat, his best dishes.”

Lily didn’t want Logan to stop. She wanted Hua Xiong to get what he deserved. She wished she could see Chang Sheng angry in the forest, flying and dancing like an eagle or a tiger. But the Chinamen were bustling about, arranging empty crates and benches around the garden in a circle, talking loudly and laughing amongst themselves. The smell emanating from the open kitchen door made Lily’s stomach growl. She had been so absorbed in Logan’s tale that she didn’t even know she was hungry.

“I promise we’ll finish the story some other time.”

The miners were in high spirits. Logan had told her that the spot that they had been working on turned out to be a rich deposit, yielding gold by the panful. Ah Yan had checked on her leg as soon as he came back with the other Chinamen and pronounced himself satisfied with her healing process so long as she kept up with plenty of good food and exercise to keep up her strength.

“I have a good story for you,” Ah Yan said.

During the day the Chinese miners were visited by the Sheriff, Davey Gaskins. The territorial legislature had passed a Foreign Miner’s Tax a few years earlier at the rate of five dollars per person per month and he was there to collect it. The tax was meant to drive out the Chinamen, who were pouring into the territory like so many locusts. But the towns had a lot of trouble collecting it. Gaskins hated the monthly rounds to the Chinese mining camps, it made him feel like he was losing his mind.

First of all, the camps were so far apart that he could never hit all of them in a single day. And somehow they always knew when he was coming to collect the tax. There he would be, standing in a middle of a camp with enough picks, pans and shovels strewn about for twenty or thirty men at least, and only five or six Chinamen would greet him, insisting that the extra tools were there because they worked so hard that the tools “wore out quickie quickie.”

And even worse, they seemed to constantly move about.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” Ah Yan greeted him that afternoon. “Good to see you again.”

“What’s your name again?” Gaskins could never tell the Chinamen apart.

“I’m Loh Yip,” Ah Yan said. “You came for our taxes on Monday, remember?”

Gaskins was sure that he had not come to this camp on Monday. He was on the other side of the town, collecting the taxes from three claims that were each supposedly just being worked on by five men.

“I was over near Pioneerville on Monday.”

“Sure, so were we. We just moved here yesterday.”

Ah Yan showed the Sheriff the tax receipts. Sure enough, there was the name “Loh Yip” and four others, followed by Gaskin’s own signature.

“Sorry I didn’t recognize you,” Gaskins said. He felt for sure that he was being tricked, but he had no proof. There were the receipts, written out in his own hand.

“No problem,” Ah Yan said, giving him a huge grin. “All Chinamen look alike. Easy mistake to make.”

Lily laughed along with the miners as Ah Yan finished his story. She couldn’t believe how silly Sheriff Gaskins was. How could he not recognize Ah Yan? It was absurd.

As they worked to set up the makeshift table and chairs in the vegetable garden, the Chinamen talked and joked with each other loudly and easily. Lily found it amusing to try to pick out the English words in their conversation. She was getting used to their accent, which she thought was like their music, brassy, percussive, and punctuated by a rhythm like the beating of a joyous heart.

“I have to tell Dad about this later,” she thought. “He always told me that the Irish accent of his uncles and aunts reminded him of his favorite drinking songs.”

Lily hadn’t been able to go out to see the miners during the day while they were working. Her mother was adamant about keeping her inside the house after her “accident” yesterday.

“I just tripped, that’s all. I promise to be more careful.”

Her mother just told her to write out more verses in her copy book.

Lily knew that her mother suspected that there was more to the accident than she was telling her. She had been dying to tell her dad about everything that happened to her yesterday, but her mother became so alarmed at the sight and smell of her bandaged leg that she insisted Lily wash off all of the “Chinamen’s poison” immediately. After that it was simply impossible to tell them the truth.

It was only after Jack Seaver got home that Lily managed to get out of the house.

“Elsie, she’s a child, not a houseplant. You can’t keep her in the house all day. She’s got to get some skin scraped off now and then. Some day maybe you can put a corset on her and wrap her up for her husband, but not for a while. For now she needs to be out in the sun, running around.”

Elsie Seaver was not happy with this, but she let Lily out. “Dinner is going to be late tonight,” she said. “Your father and I need to talk.”

Lily slipped out of the house before she could change her mind. The sun was low in the west, casting long shadows on the street, where a cool breeze carried the voices of the returning miners far among the houses of Idaho City. The two Chinamen at the door of the house across the street told her that Logan was in the vegetable garden. She had gone there directly, and, when Lily lost their wei qi game from yesterday, Logan began to tell her the story of Guan Yu, the God of War, to console her.

The results of Ah Yan’s cooking were carried out of the kitchen into the garden in large plates and set on a makeshift table made out of overturned crates in the middle of the circle. The Chinamen, each holding a large bowl of steamed white rice, milled around the table to pile food on top of the rice. Ah Yan emerged from the crowd and handed Lily a small blue porcelain bowl decorated with pink birds and flowers. The rice in the bowl was covered with small cubes of tofu and pork coated in red sauce and dark pieces of roasted meat with scallions and slices of bitter melon. The smell from the unfamiliar hot spice made Lily’s eyes and mouth water at the same time.

Ah Yan handed her a pair of chopsticks and headed back into the crowd to get his own food. He was so small and thin that he nimbly ducked under the shoulders and arms of the other men like a rabbit running under a hedgerow. Before long he ducked back out with his own large bowl of rice piled high with tofu and meat. He saw that Lily was watching him, anxious that he got his fair share. Lifting his bowl from his seat on a stool across the circle from Logan, he told Lily, “Eat, eat!”

Lily sort of got the hang of using chopsticks, after Logan showed her how. It amazed Lily to see his big clumsy hands manipulating his chopsticks so skillfully that he could pick up the delicate pieces of tofu and carry them to his mouth without crushing any of the pieces, causing them to fall, as Lily did the first few times she tried to eat the tofu.

Lily finally managed to get a piece of tofu into her mouth, and she gratefully bit down on it. Flavors until then unknown filled her mouth. Her whole tongue delighted in the richness of the taste: the saltiness, a hint of hot peppers, the almost-sweet base of the sauce, and something else that tickled her tongue. She tried to chew the tofu a little, to bring the flavor out so she could identify that new component more clearly. The taste of hot peppers became stronger, and the tickling grew into a tingling that covered her tongue from tip to base. She chewed yet a little more …

“Awww!” Lily cried out. The tingling suddenly exploded into a thousand hot little needles all over her tongue. The back of her nose felt full of water and her vision became blurring with tears. The Chinamen, stunned into silence by her yelp, burst into laughter when they saw what caused it.

“Eat some white rice,” Logan said to her. “Quick.”

Lily gulped down several mouthfuls of rice as fast as she could, letting the soft grains massage her tongue and sooth the back of her throat. Her tongue felt numb, paralyzed, and the tingling, now subdued, continued to tickle the inside of her cheeks.

“Welcome to a new taste,” Logan said to her, a mischievous joy in his eyes. “That was mala, the tingling hotness that made the Kingdom of Shu famous throughout China. You have to be careful with it, as the taste lures you in and then hits you like a mouthful of flame. But once you get used to it, it will make your tongue dance and nothing less will do.”

Following Logan’s suggestions, Lily tried a few pieces of bitter melon and scallions to rest her tongue a little between pieces of tofu. The bitterness of the melons contrasted nicely with the mala of the tofu.

“I bet you’ve never liked anything bitter before,” Logan said.

Lily nodded. She couldn’t think of a single dish her mother made that tasted bitter.

“It’s all about the balance of the flavors. The Chinese know that you cannot avoid having things be sweet, sour, bitter, hot, salty, mala, and whiskey-smooth all at the same time — well, actually the Chinese don’t know about whiskey, but you understand my point.”

“Lily, it’s time for dinner.”

Lily looked up. Her father was standing beyond the edge of the vegetable garden, beckoning for her to come over.

“Jack,” Logan called out. “Why don’t you join us for some of Ah Yan’s cooking?”

Taken aback by the suggestion, Jack Seaver nodded after a short pause. He could barely hide his grin as he strode between the rows of cucumbers and cabbages, coming up next to Logan.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to try this since the first time I smelled it back when you first moved in.” He turned to the rest of the circle. “How’s the mining been so far, boys?”

“Wonderful, Mr. Seaver.” “The gold is everywhere.” “Logan has the touch.”

“That’s just what I want to hear,” Jack said. “I’m about to put in an order to San Francisco for my store. Tell me what you want from Chinatown, and I’ll work on getting some of that gold out of your hands into mine.”

While the circle laughed and shouted out suggestions which Jack scribbled down on a piece of scrap paper, occasionally pausing so that one of the Chinamen could write down the suggestion in Chinese characters for his agent in San Francisco if the men didn’t know the English name for something, Ah Yan ran back into the kitchen to retrieve a new bowl of rice for Jack.

Jack stared at the dishes in the middle of the circle, licking his lips appreciatively. “What are we having today?”

“Mala Wife’s Tofu,” Lily told him. “You have to be careful with it. It has a new taste. And Duke Wei’s Meat.”

“What kind of meat is it?”

“Dog meat roasted with scallions and bitter melon,” Logan said.

Lily, who was about to eat a piece of the roasted meat, dropped her bowl. Rice and tofu and meat and red sauce spilled everywhere. She felt sick.

Jack picked her up and hugged her closely. “How can you do such a thing?” He demanded. “Whose dog did you kill? There’s going to be trouble from this.” His frown grew more pronounced. “Elsie is going to be hysterical if she hears about this.”

“Nobody’s. It was a wild dog running in the woods. It looked like a dog that’s been abandoned out in the woods since it was a pup. I killed it when it tried to bite me,” Ah Yan, who had come out of the kitchen holding the new bowl of rice for Jack, said.

“But don’t you have dogs as pets? Eating a dog is like … like eating a child,” Jack said.

“We also have dogs as pets. We do not eat them if they are pets. But this dog was wild, and Ah Yan had to kill it to defend himself. Why would you let a wild dog’s meat go to waste when it is delicious?” Logan said. The rest of the Chinamen had stopped eating, intent on the conversation.

“Whether it was wild or not, eating a dog is barbaric.”

“You do not eat dogs because you like them too much.” Logan thought about this. “I thought you also do not eat rats.”

“Of course not! What a disgusting thought. Rats are dirty creatures full of disease.” Jack’s stomach turned at the very idea.

“We don’t eat rats, as a rule,” said Logan. “But if we are starving and there’s no other meat, it could be cooked to be palatable.”

Was there no end to the depravity of the Chinamen? “I can’t imagine when I would willingly eat a rat.”

“I see, ” said Logan. “You only eat animals you like a little, but not too much.”

There really wasn’t anything to say in response to that. Cradling Lily, who was trying hard not to throw up, Jack Seaver walked out of the vegetable garden back to his own house. Elsie had made a chicken pot pie, but neither he nor Lily was any longer in the mood for eating.

The eastern sky was still as grey as the belly of a fish when Chang Sheng climbed over the wall. By the time he had finished, the rooster had yet to crow for the first time. The old house, its beams and walls hollowed out by termites and rats over the years, burned easily. By the time the villagers raised the alarm, he was already twenty li away.

The rising sun burned the clouds that were draped across the mountains on the eastern horizon in an unbroken chain to a hue red enough to match his face. “Blood red long clouds,” he thought. “Even the Heavens are celebrating with me.” He laughed long and loud at the joy of vengeance. His felt light as a feather, like he could run forever towards the east, until he ran into the long clouds or into the ocean.

“I will need a new name now,” thought Chang Sheng. “I shall henceforth be known as Guan Yu, the Feather, also styled Yun Chang, Long Clouds.”

A month ago, the Autumn Assizes had taken place. Because the penalty for rebellion was death, the Circuit Intendant had overseen the trial himself. The Elder Guan had been hauled into the hall of the yamen in chains and made to kneel on the hard, stone floor while Chang Sheng and his mother watched from among the crowd that had gathered for the trial.

Hua Xiong, now fatter than ever and shaking like a leaf in the wind in front of the Intendant, a young scholar judge fresh out of Luo Yang and filled with the arrogance of the Emperor’s favor, produced the lease for the Intendant’s inspection. He recounted how he had tried to help out the Guan family during their time of need and was dumbfounded when the Elder Guan insisted on setting the lease at eighty-five percent.

“I asked him, ‘How could you live on that?’ And Your Reverence, he told me, ‘Everyone is going to starve if that’ — and here he disrespected the Son of Heaven’s name — ‘is going to rule the country by the advice of his eunuchs and the flattering courtiers that pass for scholars these days. I might as well give all the harvest to you as to lose it all in taxes. It doesn’t matter. I’ll have a better chance joining the Yellow Turbans and live as a bandit.’” He bowed his head before the Intendant and continued to tremble.

The Intendant glanced at the kneeling figure of the Elder Guan below the dais of the yamen, the corners of his mouth turned down in displeasure. “Humph. ‘Flattering courtiers that pass for scholars these days.’ Indeed, peasant, is there no respect for the Emperor and the majesty of the law in your eyes? Have you lost all sense of piety? What do you have to say in answer to these accusations?”

The Elder Guan straightened his back as much as he could in his shackles. He looked up at the severe, young face of the Intendant. “It is true that I believe the Emperor has been misled by unscrupulous advisors who view the people as so much fish and meat to be squeezed for their last drop of wealth without regard for their suffering. But I have not forgotten my duty towards the Emperor or my family’s many generations of service in the Imperial Army, and I would never raise my arm in rebellion to him. My accuser has fabricated these lies in order to impoverish my family and disgrace me, simply because my son had humiliated him in a game. The Emperor has entrusted you with the power of life and death no doubt because you have wisdom despite your youth, and I have no doubt that your wisdom will reveal the truth of my innocence to you.”

Even though he was kneeling, the air that he spoke with made him seem to tower over everyone in the hall of the yamen. Even the Intendant seemed impressed.

Noting the change in the Intendant’s mien, Hua Xiong fell to his knees and kowtowed three times in rapid succession. “Your Reverence, I should never have dared to accuse Master Guan unless I had solid evidence, seeing as how his son and I have been childhood friends. I am merely a lowly merchant, while Master Guan is descended from a distinguished family of generals and scholars in the Emperor’s service. But I was motivated by love and zeal for the Emperor, so much so that I dared to accuse such a man. It was my fear that he would use his family’s glorious record as a shield to cover up all his impious vices. I pray that you would uphold justice.” He kept on kowtowing after this speech.

“Stop that,” the Intendant said impatiently. “You need not fear his family’s history of glory. The Emperor’s law is to be administered blindly and impartially. Even were he the son of a Duke or a Prince, if he plotted against the Emperor, you need not fear accusing him.” He took another look at the Elder Guan, his face hardening. “I have known many evil men like him: puffed up with the honors heaped upon their families by the Emperor for their ancestors’ loyal service, they think they are beyond the law. Well, I will be sure to punish them extra harshly. What other evidence do you have?”

Hua Xiong nodded towards three young girls cowering in the corner behind him. “These young women have seen and heard Master Guan practicing with his axe and machete in the woods. They saw him leaping about, pretending to … to … ”

“To do what?”

“To be visiting those blows upon the Son of Heaven.” Hua Xiong went back to his incessant kowtowing, drawing blood on his forehead.

“That is a lie,” Chang Sheng cried out from the crowd. He was livid at those young girls for agreeing to back up such a blatant falsehood. But then he saw that they were all from families who owed a great deal of money to Hua Xiong. He felt as if the veins in his neck would burst if he didn’t speak. “I was the one –”

“Chang Sheng, whatever happens, do not speak,” the Elder Guan shouted. “You must take care of your mother.”

“Come,” the Intendant called out to his soldiers, “drive that lawless child and his unchaste mother from the yamen. I will not have them make a spectacle of my court.”

To keep himself from striking back, Chang Sheng bit down on his tongue until he drew blood. He tried to shield his mother from the blows of the soldiers as they stumbled away from the yamen.

The Elder Guan was sentenced to death that afternoon for plotting treason, and his head soon afterwards was hung on the flag pole outside the yamen. That evening, Chang Sheng’s mother put her head in a loop of rope tied to the beam in the middle of the kitchen and kicked the stool out from under herself.

Chang Sheng had left Hua Xiong alive until the end. After he had dispatched the rest of the Hua household (some twenty people), he woke Hua Xiong from his slumber (pausing first to slit the throats of the two concubines in bed with him with quick flicks of his wrist). In the dim light of the torch that Chang Sheng was carrying with him, Hua Xiong thought he looked like a red-faced demon, a soldier from hell coming for his soul.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he blabbered and lost control of his bowels.

Chang Sheng used his knife to cut the ligaments in Hua Xiong’s shoulders and hips, completely paralyzing him. He laid down the heavy, drooping body back on the bed, cuddled between the lifeless bodies of the two concubines.

“I will not give you a clean death. You said my father was a bandit, I will now show you how a bandit deals with people like you.”

He proceeded to set fire throughout the house. Soon the smoke was so heavy that Hua Xiong could no longer scream for help. His coughing grew spasmodic and panicked; he was choking in his own spit.

Guan Yu continued to run to the east, where the blood-red long clouds beckoned to him. His heart was light as a feather, and it seemed as if love of the fight and joy in vengeance would never leave him. He felt like a god.

There was a clearing in the middle of the woods on the side of the hill opposite the river from the Chinamen’s mining camp. Now that it was late June, the syringa bushes were in full bloom in the rocky soil along the edge of the clearing, filling the air with its fresh, orange-like scent. The yellow of the blooming arrowleaf balsamroot carpeted the middle of the clearing, with a touch here and there of the purple-blue of the chicory to break the monotony.

Lily loved to sit in the shade of the trees at the edge of the clearing, and stare at the colors in front of her. If she sat still long enough, the gentle breeze and the slanting rays of the sun would conspire to blend the individual flowers into an undulating field of light. The world seemed then made afresh to her, full of tomorrows and undiscovered delights. And singing seemed the only thing worth doing.

A plume of smoke rose at the edge of the clearing, breaking her reverie.

She walked across the clearing towards the smoke. The dark figure of a man crouched by it. He was cooking something that smelled delicious to Lily. But there was also a hint of something unpleasant in that smell, like burning hair.

Lily was close enough now to see that the man was large, even larger than Logan. Just as Lily realized that the man was roasting the whole carcass of a large dog whose hide was red as blood. He turned around and grinned at Lily, revealing a mouth full of sharp, dagger-like teeth.

It was Crick.

Lily screamed.

Jack told Elsie to go back to sleep.

“It’s all right. I’ll make some tea for her.”

The sound of water boiling and the comforting warmth of her father’s arms dissipated the last traces of the nightmare from Lily’s mind. Sipping tea and whispering lest they be overheard by her mother, Lily told Jack what she had seen of the fight between Logan and Crick.

“What happened to Obee?”

“I don’t know, he ran off.”

“And what did they do with Crick’s body?”

Lily wasn’t sure about that either.

“And you definitely saw Obee shoot first? And the bullet hit Logan in the shoulder?”

Lily nodded vigorously. The image of Logan’s shoulder exploding was carved indelible into her brain. And she marveled again at how calm she felt when Logan looked at her, as if he had some power to pass his strength onto her, letting her know that she would be safe.

Jack pondered this. If Lily was right, the wound to Logan was serious, yet he had been back at work with his companions less than twelve hours later. Either the Chinaman was the toughest human being he had ever known, or Lily was exaggerating. But he knew his daughter. She was an imaginative child, but not one who lied.

Obee and Crick were notorious outlaws, and lots of people in town suspected that they were behind the fire that had ruined so many people in town and killed the Kellys. But there were no witnesses to the fire and the murders, and no charges had been brought. Now if Obee decided to accuse Logan of murder, he might indeed have a chance of getting Logan hanged since he and Lily and all the Chinamen actually saw it happen. The Chinamen weren’t well liked by the whites, on account of their taking claims away from the white miners — never mind that most of these claims had been abandoned by the whites since they didn’t have the Chinese rice farmers’ skill and patience with water management or their willingness to survive on rice and vegetables and to squeeze as many people as possible into the tiny saltbox houses in order to save money. There was no telling what a jury might do even if it sounded like Logan killed Crick to protect himself and the others.

“Dad, are you angry with me?”

Startled from his reverie, Jack collected himself. “No. Why should I be?”

“Because you said Logan looked like a killer and you told me to stay away from the Chinamen, and … and I almost ate a dog last week.”

Jack laughed. “I can’t be angry with you for that. The Chinamen’s cooking smelled so good that I was interested in the dog myself — and still am, a little. You didn’t do anything wrong. Although it was dangerous for you to get mixed up in their fight, it wasn’t by any means your fault. And I guess it turned out all right. You weren’t hurt.”

“I was, a little.”

“Luckily the Chinamen’s medicine seemed to have fixed it. That Logan is quite a character.”

“He tells good stories,” Lily said. She wanted to tell him about the battles of Guan Yu, the God of War, or the songs of Jie You, the Princess Who Became a Barbarian. She wanted to describe to him how she felt, listening to Logan recite those stories in the rhythm of his clanging, whiskey-sharpened accent so that they sounded at the same time so fantastic and so familiar while the long, gnarled fingers of his large hands made the scene come alive with comic and solemn gestures. But it was all still so new and confusing, and she didn’t think she knew the right words yet to paint a proper picture of those moments for her father.

“I’m sure he does. This is why we are out here, where the country belongs to nobody and everyone is a stranger with a tale of his own. The Celestials are filling up California and soon, Idaho Territory. Soon everyone here will know their stories.”

Lily finished her tea. She was comfortable, but the lingering excitement from the nightmare kept her from being sleepy.

“Dad, will you sing me a song? I can’t sleep now.”

“Sure thing, Nugget. But let’s go outside and take a walk, or else we’ll wake your mother.”

Lily and Jack threw jackets over their night clothes and slipped outside the house. The summer evening was warm, and the sky, cloudless and moonless, glowed with the light of a million stars.

Some of the Chinamen were still up on the porch. They played a game with dice by the weak light of an oil lamp. Jack and Lily waved at them as the two of them strode down the street.

“Guess they can’t sleep either,” Jack said. “Don’t blame them. Can’t imagine how you’d sleep with five other guys packed in like sardines with you, all of them snoring and with smelly feet.”

Before long they had left the weak light of the Chinamen’s oil lamp behind them, and then they were beyond the edge of the town. Jack sat down on a rock by the side of the road into the hills and lifted Lily to sit beside him, his arm wrapped around her.

“What song would you like to hear?”

“How about the one that Mom would never let you sing, the one about the funeral?”

“That’s a good one.”

Jack took out his pipe and lit it to keep the insects away from them, and he began to sing:

Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin’ Street,
A gentle Irishman mighty odd;
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
And to rise in the world he carried a hod.
Now Tim had a sort of a tipplin’ way,
With a love of the whiskey he was born,
And to help him on with his work each day,
He’d a drop of the craythur every morn.

Lily looked up into her father’s face. Lit by the flame from the pipe, it took on a red glow that brought a sudden rush of love and comfort to her heart. Smiling at each other, father and daughter belted out the chorus:

Whack fol the dah O, dance to your partner,
Welt the floor, your trotters shake;
Wasn’t it the truth I told you,
Lots of fun at Finnegan’s wake!

Jack continued with the rest of the song:

One mornin’ Tim was feelin’ full,
His head was heavy which made him shake;
He fell from the ladder and broke his skull,
And they carried him home his corpse to wake.
They rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
And laid him out upon the bed,
A gallon of whiskey at his feet,
And a barrel of porter at his head.

His friends assembled at the wake,
And Mrs. Finnegan called for lunch,
First they brought in tay and cake,
Then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch.
Biddy O’Brien began to bawl,
“Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see?
“O Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?”
“Arragh, hold your gob,” said Paddy McGhee!

Then Maggie O’Connor took up the job,
“O Biddy,” says she, “You’re wrong, I’m sure”,
Biddy she gave her a belt in the gob,
And left her sprawlin’ on the floor.
And then the war did soon engage,
‘Twas woman to woman and man to man,
Shillelagh law was all the rage,
And a row and a ruction soon began.

Then Mickey Maloney ducked his head,
When a noggin of whiskey flew at him,
It missed, and falling on the bed,
The liquor scattered over Tim!
The corpse revives! See how he raises!
Timothy rising from the bed,
Says,”Whirl your whiskey around like blazes,
Thanum an Dhoul! Do you think I’m dead?”

“Feeling sleepy yet?”

“No.”

“All right, we’ll sing another one.”

They stayed out under the stars for a long, long time.

It was whispered among the soldiers of all of the Three Kingdoms that Guan Yu could not be killed. The generals of the deceitful Cao Cao and the arrogant Sun Quan tried to laugh at this rumor and executed those who spread it. All the same, when it came time to face Guan Yu on the battlefield, even the invincible Lü Bu hesitated.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. How did the Han Dynasty fall? How did the Three Kingdoms rise? Who were the heroes among whom Guan Yu made his way?

The Yellow Turbans ravaged the land, their rallying rebel cry that the Emperor was a child who had never set foot outside the Palace while his eunuchs preyed upon the blood and flesh of the peasants. Taking up arms against the rebels, the dreaded warlord Cao Cao made the Emperor a hostage in his own capital and ruled in his name from the plains and deserts of the North.

In the South, the rich rice fields and winding rivers propelled Sun Quan, the Little Tyrant, to hold sway over ships, and hunger for the title of Emperor.

Everywhere there was sickness and starvation, and armies marched over fields empty of cultivation.

Liu Bei, a man so full of charm that his ear lobes reached his shoulders, was merely a peddler of straw shoes and straw mats when he met Zhang Fei, the butcher, and Guan Yu, the outlaw who was still running. Guan Yu now had the beginning of his famous beard, a bushy and vibrant beard that made him look old and young at the same time. It made a nice addition to a handsome face, whose smooth features looked like they were carved out of the red stone of the Crimson Cliffs of the Yangtze River.

“If I had men who could fight like tigers with me, I would restore the glory of the Han Dynasty,” Liu Bei said to the two strangers who shared a bowl of sorghum mead with him in the peach orchard.

“And what good is that to me?” asked Zhang Fei, whose face was black as coal and whose arms daily wrestled oxen to the ground for the slaughter.

Liu Bei shrugged. “Maybe you do not care. But if I were Emperor, the magistrates would again mete out justice, the fields would be cultivated with industry and virtue, and the teahouses would again be filled with the songs and laughter of scholars and dancing women.” His eyes lingered a moment longer on Guan Yu’s face, which was familiar to him from the many posters putting a price on his head that he had seen around the city. “There are many men who are outlaws in this day and age, but many of them are outside the law only because the laws have not been administered with virtue. Were I Emperor, I would make them the judges, not the criminals.”

“And what makes you think you will succeed?” asked Guan Yu. His face darkened to the color of blood, but he stroked his beard carelessly, like a scholar stroking his brush as he was about to pen a poem about girls collecting flowers in May.

“I don’t know I will succeed,” Liu Bei said. “All life is an experiment. But when I die I will know that I once tried to fly as high as a dragon.”

In the peach orchard then, they became sworn brothers.

“Though we were not born on the same day of the same month of the same year, we ask that Fate give us the satisfaction of dying on the same second of the same minute of the same hour.”

They headed West, and there, in the mountainous Province of Shu, where Guan Yu first tasted mala, they founded the Kingdom of Shu Han.

All-Under-Heaven was thus split into the Three Kingdoms of Cao Cao, Sun Quan, and Liu Bei. Of the three, Cao Cao had the valor and wildness of the Northern Skies while Sun Quan had the wealth and resilience of the Southern Earth, but only Liu Bei had the virtue and love of the People.

Guan Yu was his greatest warrior. He had the strength of a thousand men and the love of even more.

“He is not made of flesh and blood.” Cao Cao sighed when he heard the report of how Guan Yu slew six of his best generals and broke through five passes to rejoin Liu Bei on his Long March of a Thousand Li.

“He is a phoenix among swallows and sparrows.” Sun Quan shook his head when he heard how Guan Yu laughed and played wei qi while his bones were scraped free of poison. Guan Yu was back on his horse and swinging his sword the next day.

War raged between the Three Kingdoms for years, neither one able to subdue the other two. Guan Yu’s face never lost its blood red color, and his dark beard grew longer and longer until he wore it in a silk pouch to keep it clean and out of the way in battle.

Though Liu Bei was virtuous, the Mandate of Heaven was not with him. His armies fought and lost, lost and fought, in battle after battle. During a retreat on one of their campaigns to the North, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were separated from the main army, and their detachment of one hundred scouts became surrounded by the army of Cao Cao, numbering more than ten thousand. Cao Cao asked for parley with the two.

“Surrender and swear fealty to me, and I shall make you into Dukes who do not have to kneel even in the presence of the Son of Heaven,” Cao Cao said.

Guan Yu laughed. “You do not understand why men like me fight. There is the joy of battle, of course, but that is not all.” He opened up his old, faded battle cape to show Cao Cao the holes in the fabric, the frayed edges and patches upon more patches. “This was given to me by my sworn brother Liu Bei. Before I put on the cape, I was nobody, a murderer running from the law. But after I put on the cape, every swing of my sword was in the name of virtue. What can you offer me better than that?”

Cao Cao turned around and rode back to his camp. He ordered his army to begin attack immediately. The generals gave the orders, but the soldiers, thousands upon thousands of them lined up in rank after rank, refused to advance against Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, and their small circle of one hundred men.

Cao Cao ordered the soldiers standing in the back killed on the spot. The panicked soldiers pushed against their comrades in front. The tide of men surged slowly forward, closing in on Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.

The battle lasted from morning till night, and then throughout the night till the next morning.

“Remember the Oath of the Peach Orchard,” Guan Yu yelled to Zhang Fei. He was riding through Cao Cao’s men on his war stallion, the great Red Hare, whose skin matched the hue of Guan Yu’s face and who sweated blood as he trampled men beneath his giant hooves. “If Fate will have us succumb this day, then we will have at least fulfilled our oath.”

“But then our brother Liu Bei will be late,” replied Zhang Fei, as he impaled two men at once on his iron-shafted spear.

“We will forgive him,” Guan Yu said. The Brothers laughed and separated once again for the battle.

Wherever Guan Yu rode, swinging his moon-shaped sword, the soldiers of Cao Cao fell over each other to get away from the rider and his horse, parting before them like a flock of sheep before a tiger or a brood of chickens before an eagle. Guan Yu mowed them down mercilessly, and Red Hare frothed at the mouth, the bloodlust overcoming his exhaustion.

“When I am fighting next to you,” Zhang Fei said, wiping streams of blood from his black face, “I do not know what fear is. My mind is harder, my heart keener, my spirit the greater as our might lessens.”

The one hundred men with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei gradually became fifty men, and then fifteen, and finally, only Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were left, charging back and forth through the sea of swords and spears that was Cao Cao’s army.

It was evening again. Cao Cao called for a halt to the battle, pulling his troops back. Rivers of blood ran across the field, and hacked-off limbs and heads littered the ground like sea shells on the beach at low tide. The evening sun cast long, scarlet shadows over everything so that one could no longer be sure whether the redness was from the light or blood.

“Surrender,” Cao Cao called out to them. “You have proven your courage and loyalty to Liu Bei. No god or man would ask more of you.”

“I would,” Guan Yu said.

Though Cao Cao was a man with a cold heart and a narrow mind, he was overwhelmed with admiration for Guan Yu.

“Will you drink with me,” he said, “before you die?”

“Of course,” said Guan Yu. “I never say no to sorghum mead.”

“No sorghum mead here, I’m afraid. But I have some barrels of a new drink the barbarians of the West have given to me as tribute.”

The drink was made from grapes, a new fruit brought over the desert by the barbarian emissaries of the West.

You mean wine?

Yes, but that was the first time Guan Yu had seen it.

Guan Yu and Cao Cao drank it in jade cups, whose cold stony surface complemented the warmth of the wine excellently. It was getting dark, but the jade from which the cups were made had an inner glow to them that lit up the faces of the two men. The pretty barbarian girls who were part of the tribute to Cao Cao played a mournful tune on their strange pear-shaped lutes, which they called pi pa.

Guan Yu listened to the music, lost in his own thoughts. Suddenly he stood up, and began to sing to the tune of the barbarian lute:

Give me grape wine overflowing night-glowing cups,
I would drink it all but the pi pa calls me to my horse.
If I should fall down drunk on the battlefield, do not laugh at me,
For how many have ever returned from war, how many?

He tossed the cup away. “Lord Cao Cao, I thank you for the wine, but I think it is now time to get back to what we have to do.”

“So, that banjo-thing you were playing, that’s a pi pa, isn’t it?” The mournful song Logan had been singing was still in Lily’s head. She wanted to ask Logan to teach it to her.

“Yes, it is.” He shifted the pi pa around on his knees, cradling its pear-shaped body lovingly, like a baby. “This one is pretty old, and it sounds better with every year that passes.”

“But it’s not really Chinese, is it?”

Logan was thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess you’d say it’s really not, not if you look back thousands of years. But I don’t think that way. Lots of things start out not Chinese and end up that way.”

“That’s not what I would have expected to hear from a Celestial,” Jack said. He was still trying to get used to the taste of the sorghum liquor that Logan assured him was what every Chinese boy drank along with mother’s milk. Swallowing it was like swallowing a mouthful of razors. Lily saw his furrowed brows as he took another drink and laughed.

“Why not?”

“I thought you Celestials were supposed to be mighty jealous of your long history, Confucius being from before Christ and everything. I didn’t think I’d hear one of you admit that you learned anything from the barbarians.”

Logan laughed at this. “I myself have some blood of the northern barbarians flowing in my veins. What is Chinese? What is barbarian? These questions will not put rice into bellies or smiles onto the faces of my companions. I’d much rather sing about pretty girls with green eyes from west of the Gobi Desert and play my pi pa.”

“If I didn’t know better, Logan, I’d say you sound like a Chinese American.”

Jack and Logan laughed at this. “Gan bei, gan bei,” they said, and tossed back cups of whiskey and sorghum liquor.

“I want to learn ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ from you. Ever since I heard the two of you singing that night, I can’t get it out of my head.”

“You have to finish the story first!” Lily said.

“All right. But I have to warn you. I’ve told this story so many times, and each time I tell it, it’s different. I’m not sure I know how the story ends any more.”

How long did the battle last? Was it still against the treacherous Cao Cao or the deceitful Sun Quan? Guan Yu could not remember.

He did remember telling Zhang Fei to leave, and get back to Liu Bei.

“I am in charge of the men, and because of my carelessness, I have led them into death. I cannot show my face back in Cheng Du, where the wives and fathers of those men will ask me why I have returned when their husbands and sons have not. Fight your way out, Brother, and seek revenge for me.”

Zhang Fei halted his horse and gave a long cry. At the piercing sound of that cry, full of sorrow and regret, the ten thousand men around them shook in their boots and stumbled back three steps each.

“Goodbye, Brother.” Zhang Fei spurred his horse to the west, and the soldiers parted to make way for his spear and horse, fought with each other to get out of his path.

“On, on!” Cao Cao shouted angrily. “The man who captures Guan Yu shall be made a Duke.”

Red Hare stumbled. He had lost too much blood. Guan Yu deftly leapt off the back of the war stallion just as he fell to the ground.

“I’m sorry, old friend. I wish I could have protected you.” Blood and sweat dripped from his beard, and tears carved out clear channels through the dried blood and dirt on his face.

He threw down his sword and put his hands behind him, looking for all the world like a scholar-poet about to recite from the Book of Poetry in front of the Emperor at his court. He stared at the approaching soldiers with contempt.

“They cut off his head at the next sunrise,” Logan said.

“Oh,” said Lily. This wasn’t the ending she had wanted to hear.

The three of them were silent for a bit, while the smoke from Ah Yan’s cooking in the kitchen drifted into the clear sky. The sound of spatula on wok sounded like the din of sword on shield to Lily’s ears.

“You are not going to ask me what happened next?” Logan said.

“What do you mean?” Jack and Lily said at the same time.

“What do you mean?” Cao Cao shouted and stood up in a hurry, overturning the writing desk in the process. The ink stone and brushes flew everywhere. “What do you mean you can’t find it?”

“Lord Cao Cao, I am telling you what I saw with my own eyes. One minute his head was rolling on the ground, and the next his head and body were simply nowhere to be found. He… he disappeared into thin air.”

“What kind of fool do you take me for? Come!” Cao Cao gestured to the guards. “Tie him up and have him executed. We’ll hang his head outside my tent since he lost Guan Yu’s head.”

“Of course he’s not dead,” the grizzled veteran said to the pink-faced new recruits. “I was there the day Lord Guan Yu was captured. Among the one hundred thousand men of the Army of Wei, he fought as if they were nothing more than motes of dust. A man like that, do you think he would succumb to an executioner’s axe?”

“Of course he’s not dead,” Liu Bei said to Zhang Fei. They were both covered in the white armor of mourning, and they had raised an army of every last able-bodied men of the Kingdom of Shu for vengeance. “Our brother would not die when he still has the Oath of the Peach Orchard to fulfill.”

“Of course he’s not dead,” Sun Quan said as he lay on his death bed. “Guan Yu had no fear of death, and my only regret is that I will not have his company where I am going. I had hoped we might one day be friends.”

“Of course he’s not dead,” said Cao Cao to Liu Chan, Liu Bei’s son, as he gave the order to break the Seal of the Kingdom of Shu, now that he had finally united the Three Kingdoms. “I have never thought much of your father or you, but if Guan Yu was willing to serve your father, then he must have seen something that I couldn’t. As Lord Guan Yu may still be watching over you, I would show him that I am not without virtue. I will not harm you and you will always live in my house as an honored guest.”

“Of course he’s not dead,” said the mother to the child. “Lord Guan Yu was the greatest man the Middle Kingdom has ever produced. If you have even one hundredth of his strength and courage, I will never need to fear thieves and bandits.”

“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the scholar to his students. “He was a poet and a warrior, and he lived each day as a test of his honor.”

“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the Emperor as he dedicated the Temple to the God of War. “May he grant us victory over the barbarians.”

“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the player with the black stones. “All of us wei qi players wish we could play a game against him. If we play well today, perhaps he will deign to come and give us lessons.”

“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the merchants as they prepared to set out across the ocean for the fabled ports of Ceylon and Singapore. “He will watch over us and subdue the pirates and typhoons.”

“Let us pray to Lord Guan Yu,” said the laborers as they boarded the sailing ships headed for the Sandalwood Mountains of Hawaii and the Old Gold Mountain of California. “He will help us endure the journey, and he will break apart mountains before us. He will keep us safe until we have made our fortune, and then he will guide us home.”

By late summer, the stream that fed the Chinamen’s claim had dried to a trickle. Though Logan and his men were good at managing water, the onset of the dry season meant that it was no longer possible to mine the placer deposit effectively. They had to settle in and wait until next spring.

Though they had done well with the mining season during spring and summer, the Chinamen had by no means accumulated a large fortune. As they settled in to the life of Idaho City and waited out the rest of the year, they tried to figure out other ways to make ends meet.

Ah Yan and some of the younger men looked for work around the town and talked amongst themselves. They noticed that there were plenty of single men in town who simply refused to or couldn’t wash their own shirts, and there simply weren’t enough laundresses taking in the washing for all the men.

“But that’s women’s work! Have these men no sense of decency?” Elsie was incredulous when Jack told her the Chinamen’s plan.

“Well, what of it? Why do you seem to hate everything the Chinamen do?” Jack said, amusement and annoyance struggling in his voice.

“Thaddeus Seaver,” Elsie looked sternly at her husband. She knew better than to expect that her husband would show any proper sense of shock at the antics of these outrageous Chinamen when Thad was the one who encouraged them to become bolder and bolder everyday. But then she hit upon an argument that even Thad had to acknowledge.

“Why, think about it, Thad,” she said. “I’ve seen the way these heathen Chinamen go about their work. When they set up their laundry shops, they’ll work seven days a week, sixteen hours a day. They’ll do it since their hearts are filled with greed for gold and pumped full of sinful opium so that they never stop for a moment to think about the Glory of God, not even on Sundays. And I’ve seen the way they eat. The Chinamen are like locusts: they survive on nothing but cheap rice and vegetables when honest Christian men and women need to eat meat to keep up their strength. And they do not spend money on honest wholesome entertainment and camaraderie that keep the town’s shops and taverns afloat as our men do, but rather waste their evenings away wailing their cacophonous songs and telling their secretive stories. Finally, when night rolls around and every Christian family withdraws around the privacy of the familial hearth” — and here she paused to give Jack a meaningful stare — “the Chinamen squeeze as many bodies into as few beds as possible to save on rent.”

“Why Elsie,” Jack laughed uproariously. “I’ve heard of faint praise before, but I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever heard of faint damnation. The way you go on, I’d think you are a lover of the Chinese if I didn’t know better. You claim to be showing me their faults, but all you’ve said simply show that they are industrious, frugal, clever, happy with each other’s company, and willing to bear hardships. If this is the worst you can say about the Chinamen, then it is all but certain that the Civilization of Confucius is going to triumph over the Civilization of Christ.”

“You are not thinking,” Elsie said coldly. “What do you think the inevitable result of the cheap labor of these Chinamen will be? These Chinamen are going to undercharge Mrs. O’Scannlain and Mrs. Day and all the other widows. These women have a hard enough time as it is, working day and night, their fingers all red and raw from the constant washing, and they barely make enough to feed themselves and their children. Naturally the weak men of this town, uncertain of their Christian duty, will give their work to the Chinamen, who’ll charge them less than the honest widows who must keep God and their virtue close to their hearts. What will you have these widows do when their work has been stolen from them by the Chinamen? Will you have them throwing themselves at the mercy of Madam Isabelle and her house of sin?”

For once, Jack Seaver didn’t know what to say in reply to his wife.

“How about carpentry? Furniture finishing? I could hire you to come and work in my store as clerks,” Jack said to Ah Yan.

“You can’t afford me,” Ah Yan said. “We charge twenty-five cents a shirt, and that means almost ten dollars a day from the bachelors alone. I’m not even counting the money from the blankets and sheets from the hotels. I’ve been told that we do a better job ironing than the women used to.” Ah Yan gave a rueful smile and flexed out his wiry right arm to look at the distended thumb at the end. “Even my thumb is getting bigger from pushing that iron all day. My wife back home will be tickled pink to hear that I’m a master of the iron now.”

To hear Ah Yan talk of his family was jarring to Jack, reminding him that Ah Yan, who looked so young to Jack’s eyes, wasn’t just some clever young man who knew how to cook and wash, but rather a husband and probably a father who was forced to learn how to do these things because his wife couldn’t be with him.

Lily had told Jack a few days earlier that the Chinamen were coming up with some new ideas that they wanted to ask his advice on. Finally, this morning, he could leave the store for a few hours to come over with Lily, who ran into the backyard to be with Logan as soon as they arrived. Jack thoughtfully bit into the steamed bun that Ah Yan had given him for breakfast; the bun burst open in his mouth, filling his tongue with the juice and flavor of sweet pork and hot and salty vegetables.

“Wait.” Jack swallowed quickly, regretting that he couldn’t enjoy the taste as long as he would have liked. “I have an idea. Before tasting your cooking, I would never have believed that cabbage and beans could taste better than beef and sausage, or that bitterness that lingered could be something that you liked. But you’ve been able to prove me wrong. Why not show the other people in Idaho City? You and the others could open up a restaurant and make a lot more money.”

Ah Yan shook his head. “Won’t work, Mr. Seaver. My friends in Old Gold Mountain tried it. Most Americans aren’t like you. They can’t stand the taste of Chinese food. It makes them sick.”

“I’ve heard of Chinese restaurants in San Francisco.”

“Those aren’t Chinese restaurants. Well, they are, but not the kind you are thinking of. They are owned by Chinese people, but all they serve is Western food: roast beef, chocolate cake, French toast. I don’t know how to make any of that stuff, not even well enough to the point where I’d want to eat it myself.”

“But I’m telling you, you are good, really good.” Jack looked around and lowered his voice. “You cook a lot better than Elsie, and I know she cooks as well as most of the wives out here. If you open your restaurant and I pass the word to the men discreetly, you’ll have filled tables every night.”

“Mr. Seaver, you are too generous with your praise. I know that in the eyes of a husband, there’s no way for anyone’s cooking to best his wife’s.” He paused for a moment, as if his thoughts were momentarily somewhere far away. “Besides, we are not chefs. All the stuff I make is just home style cooking, the kind of thing the real chefs in Canton would not even feed to their dogs. There can’t be a Chinese restaurant in America until there are enough Chinese people in America and rich enough to want to eat at one.”

“That just means more Chinese will have to become Americans,” said Jack.

“Or lots more Americans will have to learn to be more Chinese,” said Ah Yan.

A few of the other Chinamen had gathered around to listen to the conversation. One of them offered a comment in Chinese at this point, and the group exploded in laughter. Tears came out of Ah Yan’s eyes.

“What did he say?” Although Jack was making an earnest effort to learn the language by singing drinking songs with Logan, he was nowhere good enough to follow a conversation yet, though Lily seemed to have picked it up much more easily and now often conversed with Logan half in Chinese and half in English.

Ah Yan wiped his eyes. “San Long said that we should name the restaurant ‘Dog Won’t Eat Here and You Won’t Eat Dog.’”

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s this really famous kind of steamed buns in China that’s called ‘Dog Won’t Eat Here,’ and you know how you Americans have this thing about eating dog meat” — Ah Yan gave up when he saw the expression on Jack’s face. “Never mind. This humor is too Chinese for you.”

San Long now picked up some twigs from the ground and mimed doing something with them and looked to Jack as if he were drunkenly throwing darts at some target a few inches in front of this face. Ah Yan and the others laughed even harder.

“He’s saying that a Chinese restaurant will never work in America since every customer will have to learn to use chopsticks,” Ah Yan explained to Jack.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny. Fine, no restaurant for you. And while we are on the subject of dogs and compliments that don’t sound like compliments, you did manage to make me curious about eating a dog for the first time in my life that evening.”

“Dad is worried about the laundresses who are now out of work,” Lily told Logan.

They were walking down the middle of Chicory Lane together, side by side. Logan had a bamboo pole over his shoulder. At each end of the pole hung giant woven baskets filled with cucumbers, green onions, carrots, squash, tomatoes, string beans, and sugar beets.

“He’s not sure what to do. He says Ah Yan and the others are charging too little for the washing and the ironing, but if they don’t charge less, the white men won’t give them any work.”

“Two dollars for a dozen cucumbers, a dollar for a dozen green onions!” Logan called out in his booming voice, which reverberated in all directions until the echoes disappeared into the alleyways between the tightly packed houses. “Fresh carrots, beans, and beets! Come and have a look for yourself. Girls, fresh vegetables make your skin soft and smooth. Boys, fresh vegetables get rid of sailor’s lips!”

He called out his prices and offerings in a steady, rolling chant, not unlike the way he led the others in their work songs.

Doors opened on all sides of them. The curious wives and bachelors came out into the street to see what Logan was singing about.

“You should bring some of this up to Owyhee Creek, where Davey’s crew is still working their claim on account of that spring the Indians helped them find,” said one of the men. “I know they haven’t had any greens for a week now, and they’d pay you five dollars for a dozen of those cucumbers.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“Where did you get the produce?” one of the wives wanted to know. “It looks a lot fresher than what you find in Seaver’s store, though I know he ships them in quick as he can.”

“It’s all grown right in our backyard, ma’am. Plucked those carrots from the ground myself this morning not even a hour ago.”

“In your backyard? How do you manage it? I can’t even get a bit of sage and rosemary to grow properly.”

“Well,” said Logan, “I started in China as a dirt-poor farmer. I guess I just have the knack for getting food to come out of dirt, one way or another.”

“Sure wish I had these fresh green onions and cucumbers to eat back in the spring instead of having to chew on potatoes soaked in vinegar every other day,” one of the older miners said, handling the giant cucumbers and tomatoes from Logan’s basket lovingly. “You are right that scurvy is a terrible thing, and fresh vegetables are the only thing for it. Too bad none of the young men believe it till it’s too late. I’ll have a dozen of these.”

“I don’t think we are going to let you leave today without emptying out your baskets,” another one of the younger wives said, to the sound of approval of the other women. “Did you save any for yourself and your friends?”

“Don’t worry about us,” Logan said. “I think we can get five or six harvests out of the garden this year. Buy as much as you want. I’ll be back again in a few weeks.”

Soon Logan sold all the vegetables he had with him. He counted out twenty dollars and handed the bills to Lily. “Give ten dollars to Mrs. O’Scannlain; I know she doesn’t have much saved up and she’s got two growing boys to feed. Ask your father who should have the rest.”

The old man and the young girl turned around and began the long, leisurely walk back to the Chinaman’s house on the other side of the town. In the empty street bathed in the bright, shimmering sunlight of high noon, the loping gait of the tall Chinaman and the baskets swinging lazily at the end of the bamboo pole over his shoulder made him look like some graceful water strider gliding across the still surface of a sunlit pond.

And in a moment, the man and the girl disappeared around the street corner and all was still again in the street.

It had been snowing nonstop for a whole week. The whole of Idaho City seemed asleep in the middle of February, resigned to wait for the spring that was still months away.

Well, almost the whole of Idaho City. The Chinamen were busy preparing for Chinese New Year.

For the whole week the Chinamen talked about nothing except the coming New Year celebration. Strings of bright red firecrackers shipped from San Francisco were unpacked and laid out on shelves so that they would be kept dry. A few of the more nimble-fingered were set to the task of folding and cutting the paper animals that would be offered along with bundles of incense to the ancestors. Everyone worked to wrap pieces of candy and dried lotus seeds in red paper to be handed out to the children as sweet beginnings to a new year. Two days before New Year’s Eve, Ah Yan directed all the men in the preparation of the thousands of dumplings that would be consumed on New Year’s Day. The living room was turned into an assembly line for a dumpling factory, with some men rolling out the dough at one end, others preparing the stuffing of diced pork and shrimp and chopped vegetables mixed with sesame oil, and the rest wrapping scoops of stuffing into dumplings shaped like closed clams. The finished dumplings were then packed into buckets covered with dried sheets of lotus leaves and left outside, frozen in the ice, until they could be cooked in boiling water on New Year’s Eve.

Lily helped out wherever she could. She sorted the strings of firecrackers by size until her fingers smelled of gunpowder. She learned to cut pieces of colorful paper into the shapes of chickens and goats and sheep so that they could be burned in the presence of the gods and the ancestors and allow them to share in the feast of the people.

“Will Lord Guan Yu be there to appreciate the paper sheep?” Lily asked Logan.

Logan looked amused for a moment before his face, made even ruddier than usual because of the cold, turned serious. “I’m sure he will be there.”

In the end, Lily proved most valuable as the final step in the dumpling assembly line. She was an expert at sculpting the edges of the dumplings with a fork to create the wavy scallop shell pattern that signified the unbroken line of prosperity.

“You are really good at that,” Logan said. “If you didn’t have red hair and green eyes, I’d think you were a Chinese girl.”

“It’s just like shaping a pie crust,” Lily said. “Mom taught me.”

“You’ll have to show me how to make a proper pie crust after New Year’s,” Ah Yan said. “I’ve always wanted to learn that American trick.”

The activity of the Chinamen stirred up all kinds of excitement in the rest of Idaho City.

“Everybody gets a red packet filled with money and sweets,” the children whispered to each other. “All you have to do is to show up at their door and wish them to come into their fortune in the new year.”

“Jack Seaver has been raving about the cooking of the Chinamen for months now,” the women said to each other in the shops and streets. “Here’s our only chance to try it out. They say the Chinamen will serve anyone who comes to their door with pork dumplings that combine all the flavors in the world.”

“Are you going to be at the Chinamen’s when they celebrate their New Year?” the men asked each other. “They say that the heathens will put on a parade to honor their ancestors, with lots of loud music and colorful costumes. At the end, they’ll even serve up a feast such as never before seen in all of Boise Basin.”

“What was Logan like back in China? Does he have a large family there?” Lily asked Ah Yan as she helped the young man carry large jars of sweet bamboo shoots into the house. She was tired from all the work she had done that day and couldn’t wait until the feast tomorrow. Truth be told, she felt a little guilty. She was never this eager when her own mother asked her to help around the house. She resolved to do better after tomorrow.

“Don’t know,” Ah Yan said. “Logan wasn’t from our village. He wasn’t even a Southerner. He just showed up on the docks on the day we were supposed to ship out for San Francisco.”

“So he was a stranger even in his own land.”

“Yup. You should ask him to tell you the story of our trip here.”

“It is hardly the happy and the powerful who go into exile.”
– Alexis de Tocqueville

On a good day the captain allowed a small number of his cargo to come up on deck from steerage for some air. The rest of the time each man made do with a six-foot bunk that was narrower than a coffin. In the complete darkness of the locked hold they tried to sleep away the hours, their dreams mixtures of unfounded hopes and cryptic dangers. Their constant companion was the smell of sixty men and their vomit and excrement and their food and unwashed bodies crammed into a space meant for bales of cotton and drums of rum. That, and the constant motion of the sailing ship, as it made the six-week journey across the Pacific Ocean.

They asked for water. Sometimes that request was even granted. Other times they waited for it to rain and listened for leaks into the hold. They learned very quickly to cut salted fish out of their diet. It made them thirsty.

To keep the darkness from making them crazy, they told each other stories that they all knew by heart.

They took turns to recite the story of Lord Guan Yu, the God of War, and how he once made it through six forts and slew five of Treacherous Cao Cao’s generals with the help of only Red Hare, his war steed, and Green Dragon Moon, his trusty sword.

“Lord Guan Yu would laugh at us as mere children if he heard us complaining about a little thirst and hunger and taking a trip in a boat,” said the Chinaman whom the others called Lao Guan. He was so tall that he had to sleep with his knees curled up to his chest to fit into his bunk. “What are we afraid of? We are not going there to fight a war but to build a railroad. America is not a land of wolves and tigers. It is a land of men. Men who must work and eat, just as we do.”

The others laughed in the darkness. They imagined the red face of Lord Guan Yu, fearless in any battle and full of witty stratagems to get himself out of any trap. What was a little hunger and thirst and darkness when Lord Guan Yu faced down dangers ten thousand times worse?

They sucked and nursed on the turnips and cabbages they had carried with them from the fields of their villages. The men held them up to their noses and inhaled deeply the smell of the soil that still clung to the roots. It would be the last time they would smell home for years.

Some of the men became sick and coughed all night, and the noise kept everyone awake for hours. Their foreheads felt like irons left for too long on the stove. The men had no medicine with them, no cubes of ice sugar or slices of goose pear. All they could do was to wait in the darkness silently.

“Let us sing the songs that our mothers sang to us as children,” said Lao Guan. He was so tall he had to stoop as he felt his way around the dark hold, clasping the hand of each comrade, sick and healthy alike. “Since our families are not with us, we should do as Lord Guan Yu did with Lord Liu Bei and Lord Zhang Fei in the Peach Orchard. We must become as brothers to each other.”

The men sang the nonsense songs of their childhood in the stifling air of the hold, and their voices washed over the bodies of the sick men like a cool breeze, lulling them to sleep.

In the morning the coughing did not resume. A few of the men were found in their coffin-wide bunks, their unmoving legs curled close to their still bodies like sleeping babies.

“Throw them overboard,” said the Captain. “The rest of you will now have to pay back the price of their tickets.”

Lao Guan’s face was redder than the fever-flushed faces of the sick. He stooped next to the bodies and cut off locks of hair from each of them, carefully sealing each lock into an envelope. “I’ll bring these back to their ancestral villages so that their spirits will not wander the oceans without being able to return home.”

Wrapped up in dirty sheets, the bodies were cast over the side of the ship.

At last they made it to San Francisco, the Old Gold Mountain. Although sixty men boarded the ship, only fifty walked down the planks onto the quays. The men squinted in the bright sun light at the rows of small houses running up and down the steep, rolling hills. The streets, they found, were not paved with gold, and some of the white men on the quays looked as hungry and dirty as they felt.

They were taken by a Chinaman who was dressed like the white men, to a dank basement in Chinatown. He didn’t have a queue, and his hair was parted and slicked down with oil whose strange smell made the other Chinamen sneeze.

“Here are your employment contracts,” the white Chinaman said. He gave them pieces of paper filled with characters smaller than flies’ heads to sign.

“According to this,” said Lao Guan, “we still owe you interest for the price of the passage from China. But the families of these men have already sold everything they could in order to raise money to buy the tickets that got us here.”

“If you don’t like it,” said the white Chinaman, picking between his teeth with the long, manicured nail of his right pinkie, “you can try to find a way to go back on your own. What can I say? Shipping Chinamen is expensive.”

“But it would take us three years of work to pay back the amount you say we owe you here, even longer since you have now made us responsible for the debts of the men who died on the sea.”

“Then you should have taken care that they didn’t get sick.” The white Chinaman checked his pocket watch. “Hurry up and sign the contracts. I don’t have all day.”

The next day they were packed into wagons and taken inland. The camp in the mountains where they were finally dropped off was a city of tents. On one side of the camp the railroad stretched into the distance as far as they could see. On the other side was a mountain over which the Chinamen with spades and pickaxes swarmed like ants.

Night fell, and the Chinamen at the camp welcomed the new arrivals with a feast by the camp fires.

“Eat, eat,” they told the new arrivals. “Eat as much as you like.” The Chinamen had trouble deciding which was sweeter: the food that went into their bellies, or the sound of those words in their ears.

They passed around bottles of a liquor that the old timers said was called “whiskey.” It was strong and there was enough for everyone to get drunk. When they ran out of drink the old timers asked the new group whether they wanted to visit the large tent at the edge of the camp with them. A red silk scarf and a pair of women’s shoes dangled from a pole outside the tent.

“You lucky bastards,” grumbled one of the older man, whose name was San Long. “I gave all my money to Annie on Monday. I’ll have to wait another week.”

“She’ll run a tab for you,” said one of the others. “Though you might have to be with Sally instead of her tonight.”

San Long cracked a huge smile and got up to join his companions.

“This must be heaven,” said Ah Yan, who was barely more than a boy. “Look how free they are with money! They must be making so much that they paid off their debt early and can save up a fortune for their families while having all this fun.”

Lao Guan shook his head and stroked his beard. He sat next to the dying embers of the fire and smoked his pipe, staring at the big tent with the silk scarf and the pair of women’s shoes. The light in that tent stayed lit until late into the night.

The work was hard. They had to carve a path through the mountain in front of them for the railroad. The mountain yielded to their pickaxes and chisels reluctantly, and only after repeated hammering that made the men’s shoulders and arms sore down to the bones. There was so much mountain to move that it was like trying to gouge through the steel doors of the Emperor’s palace with wooden spoons. All the while, the white foremen screamed at the Chinamen to move faster and set upon anyone who tried to sit down for a minute with whips and fists.

They were making so little progress day after day that the men were tired each morning before they had even begun their work. Their spirit sagged. One by one they laid down their tools. The mountain had defeated them. The white foremen jumped around, whipping at the Chinamen to get them to go back to work, but the Chinamen simply ducked away.

Lao Guan jumped onto a rock on the side of the mountain so that he was higher than everyone. “Tu-ne-mah,” he shouted, and spit at the mountain. “Tu-ne-mah!” He look at the white foremen and smiled at them.

The mountain pass was filled with the laughter of Chinamen. One by one they took up the chant. “Tu-ne-mah! Tu-ne-mah!” They smiled at the white foremen as they sang, and gestured at them. The white foremen, not sure what was wanted, joined in the chanting. This seemed to make the Chinamen even happier. They picked up their tools and went back to hacking at the mountain with a fury and vengeance directed by the rhythm of their chant. They made more progress in that afternoon than they had all week.

“Goddamn these monkeys,” said the site overseer. “But they certainly can work when they want to. What is that song they are singing?”

“Who knows?” The foremen shook their heads. “We can’t ever make heads or tails of their pidgin. It sounds like a work song.”

“Tell them that we’ll name this pass Tunemah,” said the overseer. “Maybe these monkeys will work even harder when they know that their song will be forever remembered every time a train passes this place.”

The Chinamen continued their chant even after they were done with their work for the day. “Tu-ne-mah!” They shouted at the white foremen, their smiles as wide as they’d ever smiled. “Fuck your mother!”

At the end of the week the Chinamen were paid.

“This is not what I was promised,” said Lao Guan to the clerk. “This is not even as much as half of what my wages should be.”

“You are deducted for the food you eat and for your space in the tents. I’d show you the math if you can could that high.” The clerk gestured for Lao Guan to move away from the table. “Next!”

“Have they always done this?” Lao Guan asked San Long.

“Oh yeah. It’s always been that way. The amount they charge for food and sleep have already gone up three times this year.”

“But this means you’ll never be able to pay back your debt and save up a fortune to take home with you.”

“What else can you do?” San Long shrugged. “There’s no place to buy food within fifty miles of here. We’ll never be able to pay back the debt we owe them anyway, since they just raise the interest whenever it seems like someone is about to pay it all back. All we can do is to take the money that we do get and drink and gamble and spend it all on Annie and the other girls. When you are drunk and asleep you won’t be thinking about it.”

“They are playing a trick on us then,” said Lao Guan. “This is all a trap.”

“Hey,” said San Long, “it’s too late to cry about that now. This is what you get for believing those stories told about the Old Gold Mountain. Serves us right.”

Lao Guan went around and asked men to come and join him. He had a plan. They would run away into the mountains and go into hiding, and then make their way back to San Francisco.

“We’ll need to learn English and understand the ways of this land if we want to make our fortune. Staying here will only make us into slaves with nothing to call our own excepting mounting debts in the white men’s books.” Lao Guan looked at each man in the eyes, and he was so tall and imposing that the other men avoided looking back.

“But we’ll be breaking our contract and leaving our debts unpaid,” said Ah Yan. “We will be burdening our families and ancestors with shame. It is not Chinese to break one’s word.”

“We’ve already paid back the debt we owe these people twenty times and more. Why should we be faithful when they have not been honest with us? This is a land of trickery, and we must learn to become as tricky as the Americans.”

The men were still not convinced. Lao Guan decided to tell them the story of of Jie You, the Han Princess whose name meant “Dissolver of Sorrows.”

She was given away in marriage by the Martial Emperor to a barbarian king out in the Western Steppes, a thousand li from China, so that the barbarians would sell the Chinese the strong war horses that the Chinese army needed to defend the Empire.

“I hear that you are homesick,” wrote the Martial Emperior, “my precious daughter, and that you cannot swallow the rough uncooked meat of the foreigners, nor fall asleep on their beds made from the hairy hides of yaks and bears. I hear that the sandstorms have scarred your skin that was once as flawless as silk, and the deadly chill of the winters have darkened your eyes that were once bright as the moon. I hear that you call for home, and cry yourself to sleep. If any of this is true, then write to me and I shall send the whole army to bring you home. I cannot bear to think that you are suffering, my child, for you are the light of my old age, the solace of my soul.”

“Father and Emperor,” wrote the Princess. “What you have heard is true. But I know my duty, and you know yours. The Empire needs horses for the defense of the frontier against the Xiong Nu raids. How can you let the unhappiness of your daughter cause you to risk the death and suffering of your people at the hands of the invading barbarian hordes? You have named me wisely, and I will dissolve my sorrow to learn the happiness of my new home. I will learn to mix the rough meat with milk, and I will learn to sleep with a night shirt. I will learn to cover my face with a veil, and I will learn to keep warm by riding with my husband. Since I am in a foreign land, I will learn the foreigners’ ways. By becoming one of the barbarians I will become truly Chinese. Though I will never return to China, I will bring glory to you.”

“How can we be less wise or less manly than a young girl, even if she was a daughter of the Martial Emperor?” said Lao Guan. “If you truly want to bring glory to your ancestors and your families, then you must first become Americans.”

“What will the gods think of this?” asked San Long. “We will become outlaws. Aren’t we struggling against our fate? Some of us are not meant to have great fortunes, but only to work and starve — we are lucky to have what we have even now.”

“Wasn’t Lord Guan Yu once an outlaw? Didn’t he teach us that the gods only smile upon those who take fate into their own hands? Why should we settle for having nothing for the rest of our lives when we know that we have enough strength in our arms to blast a path through mountains and enough wit in our heads to survive an ocean with only our stories and laughter?”

“But how do you know we’ll find anything better if we run away?” asked Ay Yan. “What if we are caught? What if we are set upon by bandits? What if we find only more suffering and danger in the darkness out there, beyond the firelight of this camp?”

“I don’t know what will happen to us out there,” Lao Guan said. “All life is an experiment. But at the end of our lives we’d know that no man could do with our lives as he pleased except ourselves, and our triumphs and mistakes alike were our own.”

He stretched out his arms and described the circle of the horizon around them. Long clouds piled low in the sky to the west. “Though the land here does not smell of home, the sky here is wider and higher than I have ever known. Every day I learn names for things I did not know existed and perform feats that I did not know that I could do. Why should we fear to rise as high as we can and make new names for ourselves?”

In the dim firelight Lao Guan looked to the others to be as tall as a tree, and his long, slim eyes glinted like jewels set in his flame-colored face. The hearts of the Chinamen were suddenly filled with resolve and a yearning for something that they did not yet know the name for.

“You feel it?” asked Lao Guan. “You feel that lift in your heart? That lightness in your head? That is the taste of whiskey, the essence of America. We have been wrong to be drunk and asleep. We should be drunk and fighting.”

“To exchange the pure and tranquil pleasures that the native country offers even to the poor for the sterile enjoyments that well-being provides under a foreign sky; to flee the paternal hearth and the fields where one’s ancestors rest; to abandon the living and the dead to run after fortune — there is nothing that merits more praise in their eyes.”
– Alexis de Toqueville

The Idaho City Brass Band played “Finnegan’s Wake” at the insistence of Logan.

“There’s not enough noise,” he told them. “In China we’d have all the children of the village setting off firecrackers and fireworks for the whole day to chase off the greedy evil spirits. Here we have only enough firecrackers to last a few hours. We’ll need all the help you boys can give us to scare the evil sprits off.”

The men of the brass band, their bellies now full of sweet sticky rice buns filled with bean paste and hot and spicy dumplings, set to their appointed task with gusto. They had not played with as much spirit even for Independence Day.

All the rumors about the Chinese New Year celebration were true. The children’s pockets were filled sweets and jangling coins, and the men and women were laughing as they enjoyed the feast that had been laid out before them. They had to shout to make each other heard amidst the unending explosions of the firecrackers and the music blasting from the brass band.

Jack found Elsie among the other women in the vegetable garden. An open bonfire had been lit there so that the guests would be warm as they mingled and ate.

“I’m surprised at you,” Jack said to her. “I’d swear that I saw you take three servings of the dumplings. I thought you said you’d never touch the food of the Chinamen.”

“Thaddeus Seaver,” Elsie said severely. “I don’t know where you get such strange notions. It’s positively unchristian to behave as you suggest when your neighbors have opened up their houses to you and invited you to break bread with them in their feast. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were the heathen here.”

“That’s my girl,” said Jack. “Though isn’t it time for you to start calling me Jack? Everyone else does now.”

“I’ll think about it after I’ve tried a piece of that sweet ginger,” Elsie said. She laughed, and Jack realized how much he missed hearing that sound since they moved here to Idaho City. “Did you know that the first boy I liked was named Jack?”

The other women laughed, and Jack laughed along with them.

Abruptly the brass band stopped playing. One by one the men stopped talking and turned to the door of the house. There, in the door, stood Sheriff Gaskins, who was looking apologetic and a little ashamed.

“Sorry, folks,” he said. “This isn’t my idea.”

He saw Ah Yan in the corner and waved to him. “Don’t think I won’t recognize you next time I come for your taxes.”

“Time enough for that later, Sheriff. This is a day of feasting and joy.”

“You might want to wait on that. I’m here on official business.”

Logan walked into the room, and the crowd parted before him. He was face to face with the Sheriff before another man darted into view behind the Sheriff, and just as quickly, skulked out of sight.

“Obee has accused you with murder,” said the Sheriff. “And I’m here to arrest you.”

As a child growing up in Mock Turtle, Pennsylvania, the last thing Emmett Hayworth thought he would end up doing one day was to be a judge out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

Emmett was a big man, the same as his father, a banker who had retired from Philadelphia to live quietly out in the country. Before he was twenty, Emmett’s greatest claim to fame was that he had won the all-county pie eating contest three years in a row. It was assumed that Emmett would never amount to much, since he would have enough money to not have to work very hard, and not enough money to really get into much mischief. Everyone liked him, for he was always willing to buy you a drink if you called him Sir.

And then came the War, and back then everyone still thought the Rebels would fold like a house of cards in three months. Emmett said to himself, “Why the heck not? This will probably be my only chance in life to see New Orleans.” With his father’s money he raised a regiment, and overnight he was Colonel Emmett Hayworth of the Union Army.

He took surprisingly well to being a soldier, and while his body slimmed down with riding and getting less than enough to eat, his good cheer never flagged. Somehow his regiment managed to stay out of the meat grinders that were the great battles that made newspaper headlines, and they lost fewer men than most. The men were grateful for Emmett’s luck. “Oh, if I were a woman as I am a man,” they sang, “Colonel Hayworth is the man I’d marry. His hands are steady, and his words are always merry. He’ll bring us to New Orleans.” Emmett laughed when he heard the song.

They did get to New Orleans eventually, but by then it wasn’t much of a party town any more. The War was over, and Emmett had scraped through with no bullet holes in him and no medals. “That’s not so bad,” he said to himself. “I can live with that.”

But then he got the order that President Lincoln wanted to see him, in D.C.

Emmett did not remember much about the meeting, save that Lincoln was a lot taller than he had imagined. They shook hands, and Lincoln began to explain to him about the situation in Idaho Territory.

“The Confederate Democratic refugees from Missouri are filling up the mines of Idaho. I’ll need men like you there, men who have proven their bravery, integrity, and dedication to the cause.”

The only thing Emmett could think of was that they had the wrong man.

The trouble, as it turned out, had entirely been the fault of that song his men made up as a joke. It grew to be popular with the other regiments, and spread its way wherever the Union marched. New verses were added as it passed from man to man, and the soldiers, having no idea who Emmett Hayworth was, attributed great acts of courage and sacrifice to him. Colonel Hayworth became famous, almost as famous as John Brown.

Be that as it may, Emmett Hayworth packed up everything he owned and left for Boise, and only when he arrived did he find out that the Territorial Governor had just appointed him to be a district judge for the Territory of Idaho.

Jack Seaver looked across the desk at the plump form of The Honorable Emmett Hayworth. The Judge was still working on a plate of fried chicken that served as his lunch. Life out here in the booming territory of Idaho had been good to him, and he showed it in his barrel-like chest, his sack-like belly, his glistening forehead dripping with sweat from the effort of licking strips of juicy meat from the chicken bones.

The man was supposed to be some kind of war hero. Jack Seaver knew the type: a man accustomed to living off the money of his father who probably bought himself a cushy commission managing the supply lines and then puffed up his every accomplishment in the name of Union and Glory until he weaseled his way to a sinecure here while man like Jack Seaver dodged bullets in the mud and froze their toes off in winter. Jack clenched his teeth. This was neither the time nor the place to show his contempt. He did reflect upon the irony that despite what he had told Elsie’s father back East, he now wished that he had studied to be a lawyer.

“What is this I hear about chicken blood?” Emmett asked.

“That’s outrageous,” said Obee. “I won’t do it. Why are you even letting the Chinaman talk? This is not the way it works in California.”

“You are going to have to,” Judge Hayworth said to him. He hadn’t been very enamored of the idea of the Chinamen’s ceremony at first, but that Jack Seaver had been very persuasive. If he ever decided to become a lawyer, he’d eat the other guys in town for lunch. “Maybe in California they’ll just take a white man’s word for it since the Chinamen can’t testify in court, but this isn’t California. The accused has the right to a fair trial, and since he has agreed to swear with his hand on the Bible as is our custom, it’s only fair that you agree to swear the way that his people have always sworn in witnesses.”

“It’s barbaric!”

“That may be. But if you won’t do it, I’ll have to direct the jury to acquit.”

Obee swore under his breath.

“Fine,” he said. He stared at Logan, who was across the courthouse from him. Obee’s eyes were so filled with hate that he looked even more like a rat than usual.

Ah Yan was called for, and he came up to the witness box. In his left hand was a struggling hen dangling by her legs while in his right hand was a small bowl.

He set the bowl down in front of Obee. Taking a knife from his belt, he slit the hen’s throat efficiently. The blood of the hen dripped into the bowl until the hen stopped kicking in Ah Yan’s hands.

“Dip your hand into the blood and make sure it covers your whole hand,” Ah Yan said. Obee reluctantly did as he was told. His hand shook so much that the bowl clattered against the wooden surface on which it was set.

“Now you have to clasp Logan’s hand and look into his eyes, and swear that you’ll tell the truth.”

Logan was escorted over to the witness box by Sheriff Gaskins. Since his legs and arms were shackled together, this took some time.

Logan looked down at Obee, contempt was written in every wrinkle in his blood-red face. He dipped both of his shackled hands into the bowl of chicken blood, soaking them thoroughly. Lifting his hands out of the bowl, he shook off the excess blood and stretched the open palm of his right hand towards Obee. The color of his hands now matched his face.

Obee hesitated.

“Well,” Judge Hayworth said impatiently. “Get on with it. Shake the man’s hand.”

“Your honor,” Obee turned towards him. “This is a trick. He’s going to crush my hand if I give it to him.”

Laughter shook the courtroom.

“No, he won’t,” said the Judge, trying to control his smirk. “If he does I’ll personally thrash him.”

Obee gingerly stretched his hand towards Logan’s hand. He eyes were focused on the shrinking distance between their palms as if his life depended on it. He wasn’t breathing, and his hand shook violently.

Logan stepped forward and made a grab for Obee’s hand, and he gave a low growl from his throat.

Obee screamed as if he had been stabbed with a hot poker. He stumbled back frantically, pulling his hand out of Logan’s grasp. A spreading, wet patch appeared at the crotch of his pants. A moment later the Sheriff and the Judge were hit with the unpleasant smell of excrement.

“I didn’t even get to touch him,” Logan said, holding up his hands. The pattern of chicken blood on his right palm was undisturbed with the print from Obee’s hand.

“Order, order!” Judge Hayworth banged the gavel. Then he gave up and shook his head in disbelief. “Get him out of here and cleaned up,” he said to Sheriff Gaskins, trying to keep himself from smiling. “Stop laughing. It’s, uh, unbecoming for officers of the law. And hand me that chicken, will you? No sense in letting perfectly good poultry go to waste.”

“All you have to do is to tell the truth,” Lily said to Logan, “that’s what Dad told me to do. It’s easy.”

“The law is a funny thing,” said Logan. “You’ve heard my stories.”

“It won’t be like that here. I promise.”

Earlier that day, she had told the jury what she saw on that day by the Chinamen’s camp.

Mrs. O’Scannlain, who was in the front row of the courtroom, had smiled at her as she walked up to sit in the witness box next to the judge. It had made her feel very brave.

The faces of the men in the jury box were severe and expressionless, and she had been terrified. But then she told herself that it was just like telling a story, the way Logan told her his stories. The only thing was that it was all true so she didn’t even have to make any of it up.

Afterwards, she couldn’t tell if they believed her. But Mrs. O’Scannlain and the others in the courtroom clapped after her testimony and that made her happy, even after the Judge banged his gavel several times to get the crowd to settle down.

But now was not the time to tell Logan that. “Of course they will believe you,” she said to Logan. “You have all these people who saw what happened.”

“But except for you, they are all just worthless Chinamen.”

“Why do you say that?” Lily became angry. “I’d rather be a Chinaman than someone who’d believe Obee’s lies.”

Logan laughed, but he was quickly serious again. “I’m sorry, Lily. Even men who have lived as long as I have sometimes get cynical.”

They were silent for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.

“When you are freed,” Lily broke the silence after a while. “Will you stay here instead of going back to China?”

“I’m going home.”

“Oh,” Lily said.

“Though I’d like to have my own house instead of always renting. Maybe your father will consider helping me build one?”

Lily looked at him, not understanding.

“This is home,” Logan said, smiling at her. “This is where I have finally found all the flavors of the world, all the sweetness and bitterness, all the whiskey and sorghum mead, all the excitement and agitation of a wilderness of untamed, beautiful men and women, all the peace and solitude of a barely settled land — in a word, the exhilarating lift to the spirit that is the taste of America.”

Lily wanted to shout for joy, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up, not just yet. Logan had yet to tell his story to the jury tomorrow.

But meanwhile, there was a still a night of storytelling ahead.

“Will you tell me another story?” Lily asked.

“Sure, but I think from now on I won’t tell you any more stories about my life as a Chinaman. I’ll tell you the story of how I became an American.”

When the band of weary and gaunt Chinamen showed up in Idaho City with their funny bamboo carrying poles over their shoulders…

The Chinese made up a large percentage of the population of Idaho Territory in the late 1800s.¹ They formed a vibrant community of miners, cooks, laundry operators and gardeners that integrated well with the white communities of the mining towns. Almost all of the Chinese were men seeking to make their fortune in America.²

By the time many of them decided to settle in America and become Americans, anti-Chinese sentiment had swept the western half of the United States. Beginning with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, a series of national laws, state laws, and court decisions forbade these men from bringing their wives into America from China and stemmed the flow of any more Chinese, men or women, from entering America. Intermarriage between whites and Chinese was not permitted by law. As a result, the bachelor communities of Chinese in the Idaho mining towns gradually dwindled until all the Chinese had died before the repeal of the Exclusion Acts during World War II.

To this day, some of the mining towns of Idaho still celebrate Chinese New Year in memory of the presence of the Chinese among them.

¹The Chinese were 28.5% of the population of Idaho in 1870.

²For more on the history of the Chinese in gold-rush Idaho, see Zhu, Liping. A Chinaman’s Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1997.

_________
Copyright 2012 Ken Liu

Mother doesn’t trust us anymore. She won’t let us leave the house. You just stay there where I can keep an eye on you, she says. No, you can’t go play in the yard. Don’t you move.

We’d noticed her starting to change a while ago. It worried us. When had she become different?

Bicky said she hadn’t. He said Mother had always been spiny-skinned, and the rest of us had just grown old enough to notice, was all. Besides which, she was teeter-wobble in the head. Anybody with so many kids had to be, Bicky said. It was just a fact. We thought Bicky was full of kak, and Verrie told him so to his face. Mother had always been hug-again, until recently. Verrie said he remembered tickles and kisses. He looked at us, and we nodded. And what about the squeezie-dolls, and the blankets crocheted out of for-real unraveled sweaters? Only a few of us nodded that time. Verrie still had his blanket. It was yellow partway and a bluey-gray the rest. Hill had one, too, but he had cut a hole in the middle and used it as a poncho now. It looked stupid, because it didn’t even reach down to his belly-button. Squeezie-dolls were harder to remember. Maybe Coy had had one. Maybe Nardo had broken it.

You can’t be sentimental, Bicky said. We’re doing something important. If Mother tries to stop us, we’re going to have to be hard.

Maybe if we explained it to her, Hill said.

She won’t listen, Bicky said. She’ll be scared. She’ll lock us in the house. Maybe do something worse.

We held this meeting under the sourbark trees, where Mother’s eye couldn’t reach, back when she was first starting to get suspicious. It was after the fourth or fifth time we’d met with the gray kiddies. We knew we weren’t supposed to go near them. We were supposed to run away if we saw even one. It wasn’t because they were gray, Mother explained. It wasn’t because they had six fingers, or eyes that were too big and too round. It was because they weren’t really people, and real people needed to stay away from things that looked almost like people but weren’t.

The gray kiddies didn’t talk. Not like us. They made sounds, but the sounds were only whistles and a chit-chit-chitter. And sometimes they tried to bite us. And they smelled like carrots that had gone black and oozy. And they kept running off to grub up these little plants with fat, ovalish leaves, and when they started chewing the leaves they wouldn’t listen to anything Bicky said. They can’t understand us even when they’re not chewing those leaves, Hill said, but Bicky said that wasn’t true. It was the gray kiddies who’d showed Bicky what he’d been doing wrong, when he was trying to scrape out the new light. One of them had just run out of the trees and poked a finger right into the hole and chit-chit-chittered and then run off again, but for a second the light came through really clear. Only for a second, and Bicky hadn’t been able to see what that gray kiddie had done, but after that Bicky was on fire. He was flying in the clouds. He couldn’t shut up, even after we were all supposed to be in bed and asleep. We got to get them on our side, he said. We got to train them, you know? To help us. Because I think the only way we’re going to do this is together.

The new light was a little scary. Verrie said that was only because anything new was scary. But the new light was very silver, and hot. And it was in the ground. We all knew from the stories that light was supposed to be in the sky. That was the old days, Hill said, before the clouds changed. And everything on the other side of the clouds, too, for all we knew. This is a different light, he said. Wouldn’t it be good to have a different light, a new light? There was only so much wood we could burn. There were only so many candles we could make. There were only so many batteries we could charge up with pedal power and endless cranking.

We can’t let Mother know, Bicky said. Believe me, all of you. She wouldn’t understand. Old people are like that. It’s just a fact.

So we tried to be careful, but Mother grew mistrustful anyway. We didn’t think she knew exactly what we were up to. She would’ve been a lot more spiny-skinned if that had been true. Locked us up, like Bicky said. At least yelled and switched our legs with sliver grass. Cried. It was so bad when she cried. But all she did was watch us, and watch us, and watch us. And then, today, she tells us not to leave the house.

You stay right there, she says. Don’t you move. No, you can’t go out to play. I want you where I can keep an eye on you.

And she takes off her eye, the one she wears around her neck on a yellow-metal chain, and hangs it on the big hook in the center of the wall, and goes outside. Maybe she’s going to the market, and will be gone for hours. Maybe she’s only going to pace around the yard, and slam back into the room in a few minutes.

That eye doesn’t work, Bicky says. Look at it. It’s all dull and rusty. I bet it hasn’t worked for years. I bet it never worked, and Mother just made pretend that it did.

We all look at the eye. It doesn’t wink, it doesn’t twitch, it doesn’t make any clicky sound. It just hangs there.

It used to work, Verrie says.

Bicky shakes his head.

Coy says, It does. Mother saw me take some red-dog jerky from the bin under the counter. So she made me kneel in the corner with my hands on my head for ever and ever.

She smelled the jerky on your breath, Bicky says, and you were in the corner for ten minutes, tops.

Good thing she doesn’t have an ear, too, Nardo mutters. The rest of us hold our breaths, wondering, What if she does? What if she does and she never told us? We don’t say anything, though. The older boys don’t like it if we interrupt.

Bicky stands up. He’s not allowed to do that. Mother said Don’t move. Bicky’s face is hard. Not spiny, but like the kind of glass that’s hard to break. The kind you have to hit over and over again with a rock to crack it. We found a piece of glass like that once, about as big as Nardo’s foot. Mother took it away from us before we hit it more than a couple of times.

The rest of us stay where we are, sitting on the floor of the big room. The littler ones quit shoving each other and play-wrestling.

What we’re doing is important, and, and, good, he says. We can’t let anybody stop us. The gray kiddies are going to be waiting. If we don’t show up, you think they’re going to hang around?

Nobody says anything, because we all know the gray kiddies are unpredictable. Sometimes they act like they understand everything Bicky says. Other times they throw rocks at us, or worse, and whistle really loud until we have to slap our hands over our ears. Sometimes the gray kiddies are at the place where Bicky started scratching in the dirt, and sometimes they’re not. Could be it wouldn’t matter at all if we missed today. Could be, if we missed today, the gray kiddies wouldn’t ever go back there again.

We’ve been working with the gray kiddies for weeks and weeks. We’d scraped up a lot of dirt. And now we get the new light for two or three seconds at a time, when everything comes together perfectly. It’s better when there were more of us than there are of them. Then the gray kiddies are calmer, mostly. Less biting and whistling and throwing muck.

Bicky stands up, right in front of the eye, and says, Come on. We’re going to the place.

We can’t, says Hill. Mother’ll know. We can’t march out right under her eye.

I’m going, Bicky says, and looks at us, all of us, one at a time. Quickly, though. Glance, glance, glance. He doesn’t linger on any of us, not even Verrie. Who’s coming with me? he asks.

We’re all frozen.

Can’t you see, Bicky says, and his glass-hard face takes on a glow. We’ve come so far. We’re really starting to work together. The grey kiddies are learning. And we’re learning, too. I’m learning.

He is swaying us. Even though the new light is a little bit scary, we want more of it. More than two or three seconds worth. Even Nardo, who was curious to see how hot it really was and ducked under Bicky’s arm and stuck his face right up against it, and got a blister on the tip of his nose, never said he thought we should quit.

We’re not scared of the grey kiddies anymore, despite how they like to jump on us. Grab hold of our shoulders, wrap their arms around our necks, make us give them piggy-back rides. That’s when they’re not rushing off to find the fat-leafed plant they like to chew. When the new light shines, they make a sound that’s not a whistle or a chit-chit-chitter. It’s more like a hoot. We think they like the new light. It can’t be because they like Bicky so much that they keep coming back to the place.

Gray kiddies, Mother says, and she’s standing right behind Bicky, she hasn’t come slamming it at all, but slipping in, a wind-shadow, barefooted and dark and swift, and we all know, know, know in our bones that however old and rusty and dead-looking her eye is, it for damn sure works, and she probably does have an ear, too, maybe hidden in the back part of the eye.

She’s not carrying anything, no sliver-grass switch, no axe handle, not even the Big Spoon, but she’s the farthest thing from hug-again that we have ever seen. If Bicky’s face is hard glass, then hers is stone, craggy and weathered, like the side of a mountain. I used to have daughters, she says. Before all of you. I used to have daughters, but they died. And now all I have are stupid, stupid boys.

We have heard this before, but never in the daytime. Before today, she only said it at night, when we’re all meant to be asleep. Sometimes she says lovely, lovely boys, but not often.

Bicky is still standing up. He is almost as tall as Mother.

We think the new light is important, is good, the way Bicky says, and now Mother will take that away. We can’t jump up and run out of the house. She’s standing right there. We can’t push her down. We can’t hit her. But we don’t want the new light to be lost. We don’t know what to do. Some of us start to cry.

Bicky hasn’t moved. He doesn’t want Mother to see his face. The hard glass is starting to crack. Mother, we found something, he says.

You’ve been playing with wild things, she says. Dirty things. Dangerous things. Her voice is thin and dry, as if she has not had a drink of water for a whole day.

We found something, Bicky says again. His voice is breaking, like his hard glass face. Something good. The gray kiddies are helping us learn how to make it – how to keep it – how to use it.

They’re not people, Mother says. How many times do I have to tell you? You can’t play with not-people. Not-people can’t be your friends. Even if they look like children. Even if they look like little girls.

Some of us glance at each other, surprised. We hadn’t thought the gray kiddies looked like little girls. They didn’t have penises, but that didn’t make them girls, did it? They were gray. Their skin was gray, and their hair was gray, and they had a lot of hair, on their arms and legs and backs and fronts and faces, too. And they bit. And they smelled like rotten carrots. And they whistled and chit-chit-chittered. And hooted sometimes.

We’re not playing, Bicky says. We’re working together. We’re teaching them –

You can’t teach them anything. They’re not people.

Why does that matter so much? Bicky’s shaking now. You don’t know what we’ve found.

I don’t care what you’ve found.

You don’t know what we’re doing –

What you’re doing is dangerous! Mother shouts. If you play with not-people, they will make you not-people, too!

Everybody goes very still. This is the first time we’ve heard that.

Suddenly Verrie speaks, surprising us all. Are they not-people, Mother, or new people?

Like the new light, Bicky whispers. His back is to Mother. Only we see his lips move.

Mother answers Verrie. Not people, she says, her voice gritty, stones rubbing together. People live in houses. People plant gardens. People crank batteries. People make clothes. People trade their goods. People have schools, even if some children don’t want to go. People talk.

People cut wood and build fires, Bicky says, to us. People boil fat and strain it and boil it again and strain it again to make candles. In the daytime, people walk and sit and talk and eat in a grayness twice as gray as the gray kiddies’ skins. At night there is only blackness, and little flickers of flame.

That’s the world, Mother says. If you’re going to cry about the world, you won’t stop until you’ve turned to dust. Now I’m going to send you to bed without any supper, and if there’s any backchat, there won’t be breakfast, either.

We look at each other. Bedtime isn’t for hours and hours yet. It would be awful to have to lie still and do nothing for all that time. And what if the gray kiddies are waiting for us, at the place? Maybe Bicky is right and if we let the gray kiddies down, they won’t trust us again. Maybe all the biting and the jumping and the hair-pulling and the kak-throwing is the gray kiddies’ way of being friendly. They bite and jump on each other, too. And they’re always throwing things, when they aren’t chewing those leaves. Or it could be that the biting and the jumping and all of that is the gray kiddies trying to drive us away, and if we don’t come back to the place, they’ll take the new light for themselves.

We found something, Verrie says. Can we tell you what we found?

No. I don’t care what you’ve found.

It’s something good, Verrie says.

There are no good things left. We used them all up. Now go to bed, all of you.

It’s something new.

New things are never good.

That’s when we’re sure Mother is wrong. Some of us are crying, because we love Mother, we really do. We remember tickles and kisses. We remember hot soup and long stories on cold winter nights. We remember lullabies and laughing in the garden, Mother making funnies about how the vegetables used to be big, and all different colors. We don’t all remember squeezie-toys, but there were many times she came back from the market with old, torn sweaters. It’s not her fault we wore out the blankets, or lost them. Bicky is wrong about Mother always being spiny. She’s spiny now, but that’s because she doesn’t understand.

Bicky doesn’t glance behind him. Who’s coming with me? he asks again.

Don’t you take a step, Mother says. Don’t you leave this house.

Can’t you trust us? Verrie says. Can’t you trust us a little bit?

And he stands up.

And Coy. And Nardo.

And some more, and then some more.

There are so many of us. She cannot stop us all. She can grab some. She can knock some of us down, drag us to the sleeping room, lock us in. But not all of us.

She doesn’t answer Verrie’s question.

Her stone face is cracking, like Bicky’s hard glass face cracked. Most of us have stood up, but Bicky is still trembling, though he’s trying to hide it.

He turns a little, but not so much that he can meet her eyes. We have to go, he says. We’ll be back.

Do I have to lose my boys, too, Mother says, and her voice is sand. All my lovely boys.

And we say No, no, no. Not all of us say it. Not Bicky, not Verrie. But almost everybody else. More of us are crying, and Bicky glares at the weepers.

Then Bicky says something very mean. You can have a couple more litters, can’t you, Mother? Maybe you’ll have girls again. Lovely girls.

We can see her face, though Bicky can’t. He’s looking at the door.
There is dust in her wrinkles. There is sand on her lips. The time for girls is over, she says. Can it be true? we wonder. Sometimes Mother says things just because she’s sad, or mad. Some of us have been to Underpass Settlement. There were girls there.

There must have been girls there.

Bicky walks around Mother and heads for the door. We follow him. Mother doesn’t try to snatch up any of us.

The gray kiddies are waiting at the place. They are not jumping around, or chewing leaves, or chit-chit-chittering. Some of them are sitting around in a loose circle. They whistle when they see us. A few of them are scraping away at the ground, but not where Bicky has been scratching, not where he first found the new light. The gray kiddies are scratching a short distance from there. They don’t whistle. One of them hoots, twice.

They don’t look like girls. But they don’t look like not-people, either. They used to look like not-people. The first time, when one helped Bicky, we were all scared. We knew we were supposed to run away.

Maybe they are new people, like Verrie said. Maybe they’re not not-people, and not new people either. Maybe they’re just what they are. But we’re not afraid of them anymore. We come closer, slowly. There are more of them than there are of us, this time. That’s usually trouble, but the gray kiddies seem calm. The ones sitting down whistle softly. Some of us say Hi, and wave.

What are you doing? Bicky asks the ones who are scraping and scratching in the different place. He looks at the excavation we’ve been working on for weeks. It is long, and wide, and shallow, because we have to move the dirt very carefully. The four or five gray kiddies digging a short distance away are digging faster, and deeper. They hoot. All of them this time, not just one.

Bicky takes a step toward them.

Wait, Hill says. Wait till we know what they’re up to. It could be anything. It could be a trick. A trap. He goes over to our excavation, and peers into it with a worried expression. He crouches, and puts a hand in, moves it the way we’ve seen Bicky move his, but there’s no new light, not even a teeny flash.

The gray kiddies sitting and waiting jump up. The ones digging hoot, and half of them sit down again. But the other half race to our excavation.

Don’t move, Bicky tells Hill. Don’t be scared. They’re not going to hurt you.

The gray kiddies jump on Hill, and jump over him, and pat his back, and bop-bop him on the head, and they’re chit-chit-chittering now, but not too loud, and they don’t pull his hair. One of them jumps on his back again and clings there, and three of them wrap their six-fingered hands around his left arm, and two more lower their hands into the hole we’ve been making for weeks, and they nudge Hill’s shoulder, and the new light suddenly bursts alive. Hill lets out a cry and squeezes his eyes shut. The gray kiddies whistle, very very loud, but for the first time ever, the sound doesn’t hurt. Our ears must’ve gotten used to it.

The new light is silver. That’s all right. It’s always been silver.

The new light is hot. We can feel its warmth from the little rise, where we’ve all been hanging back, all of us except Bicky and Hill. That’s all right. The new light has always been hot.

The new light doesn’t fade out in two seconds, or three seconds, or five seconds. We are counting our breaths; we are counting our heartbeats. The light glows steadily. The gray kiddies drag Hill away from the edge of the wound we have made in the ground; he has to scuttle sideways, on his knees and palms, because they won’t let him stand up.

The silver light continues to shine. We look around, at each other, at Bicky, at the world. We can see more colors than we have ever seen before.

The gray kiddies pile on Hill and hug him tight. He doesn’t protest; he doesn’t try to push them off; he doesn’t call for help. His eyes are still shut.

Hill, Bicky says. Hill. Did you see what they did? Do you understand how they made it work?

The silver light keeps on shining. The world is so full of colors. We hardly know what wonder to look at next.

The gray kiddies are still gray, though. The ones digging in the new space, the space they picked out, hoot at Bicky.

Verrie says, Mother said no new things are good. But she was wrong, wasn’t she? This is good.

Bicky’s face is not hard glass, but it is not peaceful, either. His cheek muscles twitch. He is not smiling. He is breathing hard, though all the rest of us have caught our breaths, after the long run from the house.

I think so, he says. I think this is good. Hill, are you all right?

Yes, Hill says, after a moment. Just a little…shaky.

The gray kiddies hoot at Bicky.

My turn, Bicky says quietly, and we see that he is scared. This is good, he said that it was good, but this new thing is newer than even the new light, and all of us are scared, too.

Bicky walks to the new place where the gray kiddies are scratching and scraping. They do not touch him. He kneels down among them, but does not put his hands into the hole. He stares down into it for a long time. What’s this, he says, but he isn’t talking to anyone, not the gray kiddies, not us. Maybe himself.

The gray kiddies make their six-fingered hands into fists, and thrust them down through the air. Miming hitting? Striking? One puts its hands together, as if holding something big and round. The others keep swinging their fists down through the empty air.

Hit it? Bicky says. Hit it with a rock?

They all hoot. They all hoot loud.

Me? Bicky asks. I should hit it?

They hoot louder. Two of them start jumping.

Verrie, Bicky calls. Get me a rock. A big one. A heavy one. Coy, you help him.

Bicky doesn’t tell the rest of us to do anything. Should we be standing guard? Should we find rocks of our own? Sticks? The only sort of wood we can’t burn is the wood from the sourbark trees, but we’re not allowed to play with any branches that drop off, even if they fall by themselves. But we worry that we are going to need weapons.

Because people are going to come. The silver light keeps pouring out of the hole. People are going to notice that. They are going to come to see what it is. Maybe they’ll be scared of it. Maybe they’d try to cover it up again, throw all the dirt we’d scraped out and piled up back in the hole. For sure they’ll chase the gray kiddies away.

The gray kiddies who are still sitting down slap the ground with their six-fingered hands and chit-chit-chitter like crazy. The ones all on and over Hill are hugging him like he’s the most hug-again thing ever. They’re pulling his hair, but not really pulling it. More like stroking it. They’re biting at his legs and arms and back and face, but not really biting. Play-biting.

Hill pats some of the gray kiddies on their backs. We don’t blame him for keeping his hands away from their faces. Even if the gray kiddies are only play-biting, their teeth are sharp.

The new light is so bright now we can see the dirt under our own fingernails, the petals of the little white flowers (they are white, really white) that grow close to the ground, the scars on our knees, each other’s eyelashes. We look up, and let out gasps. The new light not only spreads across the land, but rises, too. It rises so high it hits the clouds, and is reflected back down again.

The gray kiddies who are still sitting down wave at us who are standing where Bicky and Hill and Verrie and Coy left us. They have never waved before. But we waved first. Did they learn it from us? We wave back. They whistle, and point at the sky.

We don’t whistle. We nod, and point at the sky, too.

Hill is hunting around for a big rock, with Coy at his heels. Bicky hasn’t yelled at him to hurry up once. Bicky’s still staring into the hole the other gray kiddies have dug. Some of us can’t stand it any longer, and call to him. What is it? What do you see?

Something different, Bicky says. Something new.

Like the new light?

Like it, but not like it.

The gray kiddies with Bicky tug at his shoulder, point to us, then point to themselves, then the gray kiddies with Hill, then the ones sitting down. They bend over to look down into the hole, the way Bicky was doing. They look at him again. All these weeks and weeks, when we tried to talk to them, to teach them easy words like stop and get off and dirt, they made like words were no more than the sounds of water lapping against a boulder. Now they are acting like it was summer feast, the day when there was no trading or working, only dancing and singing and games, and clowns rushing around pulling faces and pretending they couldn’t speak, only pointing and gesturing and making shapes with their hands. The gray kiddies can’t have learned that from our people. They have to have thought it up all by themselves. Not-people, or new people, or whatever they are, they aren’t stupid.

We have to share, Bicky says. Us and the gray kiddies.

We understand that. It sounds fair.

There’s not going to be enough for everybody, Bicky says. We’re going to break it into little pieces, but some of us are not going to get a piece. Some of them, too.

That doesn’t sound so good. For sure the older ones are going to get all of the share that’s coming to us.

Verrie finally comes panting up, lugging a rock twice as big as his own head. Coy’s following him. We bet Coy hasn’t done anything other than tag along, but he’s going to get a piece of whatever the new new thing is, just because he’s there.

We look at the gray kiddies who are sitting down. They’re probably thinking the same thing we are.

Bicky looks at the gray kiddies with him, and says, All right? He means the rock. The gray kiddies pat it all over, and hoot softly. Then two of them take one side of it, and Bicky takes the other. Back away, Bicky tells Verrie and Coy. They’re not happy, but they do it, though they don’t come all the way to where the rest of us are.

The other gray kiddies at the new spot reach into the hole and lift out something that we can’t see. It must be small, despite the fact that it takes four of the gray kiddies to bring it out of the hole and set it on a flat bit of ground. Whatever it is, it’s heavy, but we figure that because it’s so small, when Bicky hits it with the rock, he’ll break it into two piece, or four at the most. We ready ourselves for disappointment.

Bicky and the two gray kiddies holding the other end of the rock look at each other, and they all nod at the same time, and they bring the rock down with all their might on the small thing we can’t see. Then they do it again. And again.

Meanwhile, some of us notice that there are more gray kiddies, many more, more than we’ve ever seen before, hiding in the trees at the bottom of the hill. Maybe they’ve been attracted by the new light, which is shining and shining, like it’s never going to stop. We hope it’s never going to stop. We look behind us, to see if any people are coming, too. Yes. We can’t see them yet, but we can hear a rumble, the rumble of angry olders, scared olders, excited olders.

Is Mother with them?

The light is so bright we can see the sweat on Bicky’s face. The gray kiddies don’t sweat. Or if they do, it’s hidden by all their hair.

Bicky and the two gray kiddies lift the rock and bash it down. We don’t know if they’ve noticed we’re going to have company soon.

Suddenly there’s a flash, not like when the new silver light shot out of the excavation we had scraped and scratched over for weeks, but a soft yellow flash, that doesn’t dazzle our eyes or make us flinch. Don’t be scared, Bicky says, but he doesn’t have to. We’re not scared. We haven’t been scared for a while, except maybe of what the olders are going to do when they see the new light. They’re going to be mad. Most of them think like Mother, that nothing new is good.

We want to know what this other new thing is, the small thing that Bicky and the gray kiddies have broken.

Remember we have to share, Bicky says, and everybody nods. He and the gray kiddies set the big rock aside. He’s sweating, but he’s smiling, too. If you don’t get a piece, don’t cry about it.

We are too far away to see how many pieces there are, but we can see the soft yellow light.

Are they hot? Verrie asks.

No, Bicky says. They’re not hot. Don’t be scared.

He lets the gray kiddies go first. One of them scoops up two handfuls of the pieces of not-hot yellow light, and races to the gray kiddies who are sitting down. Were sitting down. They instantly jump up and whistle and chit-chit-chitter and climb on each other and pull each other’s hair and act like they’re about to leap out of their skins.

Two handfuls, we think. That gray kiddie took two handfuls. There’ll be nothing left for us.

Then Bicky bends down and fills both his hands, too.

Then he walks over to us. He doesn’t go to Verrie, or Hill, or Coy. He comes to us, and says, Now behave like people. No jumping or shoving or punching, all right?

We stare at him. We are so surprised we don’t know what to say. He waits until we all nod, then begins giving out tiny, tiny pieces of soft yellow light. He puts one in the middle of each of our palms, until there are none left. He’s right, the pieces are not hot. They are all about the same size, like a pinky fingernail, and just as thin. Some of us don’t get one, but nobody cries.

Those who didn’t get one can’t help asking, Will there be more?

I don’t know, Bicky says.

The rest of us can’t help asking, How long will the little lights last?

I don’t know.

What about the big light?

I don’t know. But it’s good, isn’t it? And the gray kiddies aren’t scared of us anymore, and we’re not scared of them.

It’s good, we agree.

Verrie and Hill don’t look happy, and Coy kicks the ground, but they keep their lips closed.

The olders are coming, we tell Bicky.

Yes, he says. Come on.

We all go down and hide in the trees. The gray kiddies have disappeared, all of them. We never noticed them go. We can still smell them, the ones who were hiding in the trees before us, but that’s all right.

Close your hands, Bicky tells those of us who have a tiny piece of yellow light. We do, but some light leaks out. We’re in the trees, though, far at the bottom of the hill, and when the olders arrive, they all stare and point at the big silver light, and shout at each other.

They do that for a long time.

We look for Mother, but we don’t see her.

The olders argue and make loud about the new hot silver light, but we can see some of them looking around in wonder, too. At the colors, so clear and rich now. At the grains of dirt and blades of grass. At each other’s faces. At their own skins. Even far down the hill, hiding in the trees, the new silver light reaches us.

Bicky, Verrie says. Bicky.

Bicky is lying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. He looks like he’s dreaming with his eyes open.

Bicky.

What, he says.

What do we do now?

Wait here until night.

I mean after that. Bicky, I mean what are we going to do next?

Bicky doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t know. We all understand what Verrie means. The new silver light illuminates the whole hillside, but the hillside is not very close to where people live. The olders must have seen the reflection in the clouds and come to investigate, but even if they all finally decide that this new thing is a good thing, they can’t take it back with them. The little pieces of soft yellow light some of us are holding tight in our closed fists are good, too, beautiful little lights that we can carry around. Some of us whisper that we need to make little boxes to put the pieces of yellow light in, so we won’t lose them, and some think they can get hold of wire, good wire, and make frames or something like little cages, and then wear the pieces of light around their necks. But not everybody got a piece of yellow light. We want more.

We want more hot silver light, and we want more soft yellow lights. There might even be other kinds of new light that we can find. Us and the gray kiddies.

We want more.

Wait, Bicky says. Just be quiet and wait. He sounds tired.

More olders come, and some olders leave, and some more come, and some others leave, and all the time we watch for Mother, but she doesn’t come.

Night comes. The new silver light shines even more brightly in the blackness. A few of the olders have stayed. They sit together, not talking, just watching. We sneak around them, quietly, carefully. Keep your hands closed, Bicky tells those of us who have pieces of the yellow light, so we make our way home only by the glow that seeps through our fingers.

Mother hasn’t locked the door. She hasn’t put out any food for us, and we haven’t eaten since breakfast, but at least she hasn’t locked the door. She’s in her own room, with the door closed. We hear her in there, crying.

Go to bed now, Bicky says. Come on, all of you. We’ll talk to her tomorrow. And if any of you lose your pieces of light, I’m going to kick the living crap out of you.

We do what Bicky says. We all go to the sleeping room, and lie down. Some of us with pieces of yellow light open our hands. The light is beautiful, golden, wonderful.

Put those in your pockets, or your pouches, Bicky says. It’s all right to sleep in the dark. Come on, we’re all tired.

We obey. And we are all tired, and most of us fall asleep right away.

I wait until I’m sure everybody else is asleep. Absolutely, one hundred percent sure. Then I creep out of the sleeping room, slowly, slowly, carefully, carefully.

I go to Mother’s room. I open the door. She never locks her door, no matter how spiny she gets. She’s not sleeping. She’s sitting on the floor, with one candle burning beside her.

Mother, I say. Mother.

She doesn’t answer, but I come into the room anyway.

Her head is down. She doesn’t look at me.

I take her hand, and turn it, so her palm is facing up. Mother, I say, this is for you. I put my little piece of soft yellow light in her hand. I wait, while she looks at it, and looks at it. I say, It’s a new thing, and a good thing. It’s yours, Mother.

She doesn’t say anything.

I kiss her, and she raises her other hand, and touches me lightly on the cheek. But she still doesn’t say anything. I want her to say something, but she doesn’t. She keeps looking at the little piece of light.

I go out, and close the door. I hear something. I think she’s crying again.

I didn’t want to make her cry, and I almost cry, too, but then I think that maybe Mother needs to cry tonight. Some of the olders on the hillside cried, too. Tomorrow will be different, I think. Tomorrow will be new. And some new things are good.

Tomorrow will be new and good, I tell myself, and the almost-crying feeling goes away. I tip-toe back to the sleeping room.

That was nice of you, Bicky whispers.

I’m scared for a second, but only a second. Bicky’s not mad. He sounds hug-again, and Bicky never sounds like that.

She’s crying, I whisper back.

It’s all right. Go to bed now.

I go to my place, carefully, so I don’t wake anybody up, and I lie down. I wait for sleep. When I wake up, it will be tomorrow.

New.
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Copyright 2012 Patricia Russo

Patricia Russo’s first collection, Shiny Thing, is available from Papaveria Press.