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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] "Not now. Not ever." He could see the glistening sheen building in her eyes, refused to let himself be moved, refused to let the ice that surrounded him crack, and stood, hands holding hers. "Not ever?" She tilted her head fractionally to the side and back, moistened her lips. Gerswin resisted the urge to brush her lips with his, instead leaned forward and let them brush her forehead. He stepped back, but did not release her hands. Kiedra blinked twice, though no tears fell from the comers of her eyes, and swallowed. "Still not easy," her voice husked, almost dry. The major shook his head gently, squinting once as if the soft light in the small office were more like the glare above the clouds or on the peaks represented behind him on the wall. "No. It's not." "Can you tell me why?" "Not now. When I can, you won't need me to." "Should I understand?" Gerswin shrugged. "Depends on what you remember. Depends on what you value, and on what I value. Right now, we have to value different things." He released her hands. His own tingled from the contact with the strong coolness of her fingers. "Greg ..." She did not finish the statement she began, but looked down, to the console, to the floor, then back to the yellow hardness of piercing hawk-eyes. Finally, she began again. "Can't be Greg, can it? Has to be Captain. Or Major. Or Commander. file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%2...01%20-%20Dawn%20For%20A%20Dist ant%20Earth.txt (91 of 144) [5/22/03 12:14:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%20L%20E%20-%20Forever%20Hero%2001% 20-%20Dawn%20For%20A%20Distant%20Earth.txt You have too much to do, too much to let yourself go right now." He did not answer, but met her eyes. Again, she looked away. "So strong . . . and so hurt ..." She lifted her head, her chin, and gave a little shake. "So few will look past the hawk." His lips quirked once more. "Hawk? I think not." "Hawk," she affirmed. "A hawk with a heart too big for hunting, and a purpose too vast not to." He shrugged. "Hawk or not, poetic words or not, some have stood by you . . . and will when I Page 119 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html cannot. Will be for you alone, when I cannot." "There is that." "Then do not disregard it." "I do as I please." "Do as you please, Kiedra. Do as you please." "Do I sound that awful?" Gerswin had to grin at the mock-plaintive note in her, question. "Not quite." The lieutenant studied his grin and the forced twinkle in his eyes. After a moment, she returned his expression with a smile. "Should I laugh or cry?" "Should I?" "Both!" The lieutenant followed her exclamation by throwing both arms around the major, kissed him hard upon the lips, and dropped away as quickly as she had struck. "That's for what you've missed, and for treating me fairly. Not sure I wanted to be treated fairly, and I reserve the right to reopen the question." With that, she turned. The major did not move as he watched her cross the last few meters and leave the office, an office that felt barer than before. He swallowed, then took a deep breath. His chest felt strangely tight, and he inhaled deeply again, shaking his shoulders and trying to relax. His eyes felt hot, not quite burning, but he blinked back the feeling, finally looking down at Program Key Locks. "Hope Lerwin appreciates her . . ." His words sounded empty in the office, echoed coldly against the flat walls. He sat and stared for a long time at the console screen. Long after the echoes had died, long after the lieutenant had vanished, long after, the index finger of his left hand touched the console keyboard. He sighed once more, then resumed the work he had started what seemed ages ago, before an early spring had come and gone in the space of a few afternoon moments. The red-headed lieutenant waved; "Come on. Captain." Gerswin smiled. The devilkids, as they trickled back to Old Earth, uniformly referred to him as "Captain," for all that he wore the single gold triangle of an I.S.S. major on his tunic collars or his flight suits. The lieutenant waved again from the open hatchway of the dozer's armored cockpit. "Come on." Gerswin broke into a quickstep for the remaining fifty meters across the tarmac. "Getting slower there. Captain." Gerswin shook his head to dispute the fact, but grinned and said nothing as he swung into the cockpit and closed the hatch behind him. Lieutenant Glynnis MacCorson closed her own hatch and strapped in. "Damned cargo run," she grumped. "You still like it." "You're'right. Since they didn't want any more flitter pilots, had to find something else to run. Didn't matter if it was big and ugly." She turned to the controls before her, controls more like a spacecraft than a flitter. "Everyone's aboard. Lieutenant." The tech peered into the cockpit through the hatchway from the small passenger/cargo/ living section of the arcdozer. "Stet, Nylan. Commencing power-up." Gerswin watched, unspeaking, as she ran through the checklist which centered on the fusactor powering the behemoth that could have swallowed an I.S.S. corvette for breakfast and converted it into constituent elements. "GroundOps, Dragon Two, departing for town. Estimate time en route one point Page 120 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html one." file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%2...01%20-%20Dawn%20For%20A%20Dist ant%20Earth.txt (92 of 144) [5/22/03 12:14:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%20L%20E%20-%20Forever%20Hero%2001% 20-%20Dawn%20For%20A%20Distant%20Earth.txt "Understand time en route one point one. Geared for departure." "Stet, Dragon Two on the run." Gerswin shook his head. Speed the dozers weren't made for. The new town, as yet unnamed by the transplanted sham-bletowners, the few retired teens, the married Service techs, and the handful of immigrants, was less than ten kays away, down a wide and hard-packed causeway with no turns. What would have taken a minute or three by flitter was a major undertaking by dozer. But then, dozers weren't normally used for transport, except on their way to and from major refits at the base. Before too long, Gerswin reflected, it might be worth the expense to set up a forward maintenance facility, particularly as the dozer operations moved eastward. Dragon Two was carrying the back-up fusactor for the town. While it could have been airiifted in sections by flitter, assembly was easier at the base, and the arcdozer's slow and even speed made the transport practical. Once the power source was deposited on its foundation, me structure and distribution system would be completed around it. Glynnis smiled happily as she checked the monitors, and as the dozer tracs rumbled across the hard packed clay, compacting it still further. Gerswin shifted his weight in the seat normally used by the senior tech and let his eyes slide over the blanked out bank of controls that would normally monitor intake, processing, and treatment of the tons of dirt, clay, and organic matter that a dozer processed hour by hour, day after day. A movement caught his eye, and he glanced up. At the top of a low embankment ahead of the dozer and to the right of the causeway stood a group of shambletowners, old shambletowners dressed in tattered coyote leathers. They stood, blank- faced, and watched as the dozer rumbled toward them. Their eyes were slits, their faces hard in the bright light of a morning that was only partly cloudy, with a few traces of a cold blue sky above the mottled white and gray clouds. "Not exactly friendly," observed Glynnis. "No. We've changed a few things." "And they don't care for the changes. Can't say I have much sympathy. Did so well under the old way, didn't we?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |