The Mere Tide P40

Disassembly-Muldoon’s opinion-Supper-The pilot’s entreaty

Midday next the company imbursed divided into its constituent parts, the aboriginals hazed off like wolves and the cultists pulling their gutcart chanting their crackbrained homilies. The pilot called a transport and saw Blake Muldoon out while she waited for it to arrive.

At the edge of town he spat and observed dryly: Shes not worth it. The pilot didnt demur and they parted ways, him south to another contract, her to invert her journey to the basilica. The transport arrived just as the bell in the governor’s hall tolled three o’clock and her retinue boarded and flew off and then she and the child rode out of town. Riding past the burnt and smoking lurry of man and hoof and saddlegear all in carbonized emaciation still with a few green flames licking out of the leather and them shutting up the households with their passing, the hauteur pilot like an aristocratic avatar of dread, the child slouched so low it looked as though the breath of life had vacated her, and the doors did not open again until the two were distant of the town, out from under the coal black umbego into the sight of a frigid sun.

They stopped at a ford overgrown with cottonwoods the wind was in. Hotels for gabbing dotterel, their wing flashing out to allow the pick of beaks between the feathers. In the east night was drawing down and the horizon was a vibrancy of death pastels.

Such were the thorns of fever in the child’s heart that the pilot had pitched half the camp before she even knew they had stopped. She studied the camp. It was blurry. The fur leanto and the quilts laid out under it and the pilot dredging cottonwood out of the river. She wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms and when she looked again the pilot was at her side and she was being lifted out of the saddle. Dachni fought and the pilot bit her in the nape and she froze like a kitten and the pilot carried her to a quilt laid out before the fire and sat her there. She got her rucksack and untied two blankets from its sides and flapped them out over the fire until they were hot and then she draped them over the child’s shoulders.

Dachni cowered under the good cashmere. She had her fetish back and she clutched the silver chain.

Its alright, said Anaya. Youre alright.

She sat down beside her and got a skillet from the ruck and slapped two venison steaks in it and seasoned them and put the skillet in the fire. Gol’joq, she said. Thats what we call it. Theres a new cuisine arising out of the mixture of American fauna and our seasonings. Theres a chitinous thing lives on Garshii and it purifies its bladder with a secretion thats best kinned to butter. Youll like it. Its very popular.

But when it was done Dachni wouldnt touch it. The dark green plastic plate balanced on the snow. White commas snapped in arcs out of the fire and the sap whistled in the hollows. The last light exhaled out of the east and then they were in darkness.

The pilot smiled and pulled the quilt a little higher up on her shoulders. I meant to ask how you are but then I look at you.

Dachni drew up her legs and hugged them and stared into the fire.

I want to talk to you and I want you to talk to me. Were not strangers. You can trust Ill go my way but Id want to know your way too, to know if they are concomitant. Where wouldst thou go?

Dachni shook her head. She picked at the scab under the bandages and a yellow serum leaked out. Jess go.

It was barely a whisper. The pilot’s ears quivered to catch it.

She began to cry.

Anaya enveloped the child in her arms. Listen. Come home with me. I wont bother you and you can come and go as you like. You can even pay if you want. I dont see why you I dont care for you. You have to believe at least that.

Tuddint. Not leaveabell.

You think every I say is a lie.

Mostlese.

But those men are dead. That is not a lie.

Dachni looked out over the arms that held her at the shivering cottonwoods. Their fats roots shining blackly. She shaved the tears from her face and wiped them on her pants.

Come on. Lets go to sleep.

They lay under the leanto in their heated quilts and Dachni trying to stay awake slept and woke still in the darkness. The pilot was breathing evenly. She rose and put her purse by the fire and collected her rifle and went on.