Fenn would smile then. Gently. Not patronizingly, but still. “It’s not like you or I will ever see that investigation, Commander.”
“You might be right.”
“You know what’s coming in?”
“I know.”
“It’s not like any of us will ever see an investigation.”
Out of some pile of himself, Ted somehow found the pieces necessary to straighten up. He stuck out his chin. For a minute, he regained the air of command that Fenn had seen broken out of him by the death of Morris Ross and that bitter instant of surprise when Ted Prinzi’s war had gone all to hell.
“You don’t know everything yet, Captain. Don’t let ten minutes of command go to your head.”
And then Ted turned smartly on his heel and stalked back out onto the field. Fenn made a bet with himself: ten dollars that he’d look back, unable to resist some last rejoinder. But he didn’t, and Fenn never bothered paying up because it was a sucker’s bet anyhow. Ted was a man who either would not, or could not, stop fighting. Missing some vital chromosome or neural connection, he didn’t know how to quit. That was what Fenn thought, anyway. And it was something he liked about Ted, but did not envy.
Fenn watched the last of the planes coming in as night fell on Iaxo. He saw Carter fall from his plane and wondered if he was wounded—feeling the electric shock in the pit of his stomach telling him to run. To go see his friend. He tamped it down, swallowed the fire, and walked. Carter was okay. He was standing by the time Fenn made it to him.
“Fenn!” he said.
“Kev. Charming dismount you made there. You’re going to start a new fashion if you’re not careful.”
“Fenn…”
Fenn laid a hand on Carter’s shoulder and shook him a little. Carter leaned his head down and touched his cold cheek to Fenn’s cold hand.
“I heard you went down,” he said.
“Did.” Fenn took his hand away. “Then I got back up again.”
“But you’re okay.”
No. No, I am not.
“I appear to be, yes. Right as rain.”
“You’re okay.”
“You appear to be as well.”
“Not everyone else.”
Fenn shook his head. “No. Not everyone else.”
“But you’re okay.” Carter reached out for him, touched him, ate at him with his eyes.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Fenn told him, more or less. He left out the more sticky personal details but transmitted the facts. Bullets, oil pressure, compression, crash. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I don’t know if I waited five minutes or an hour for Billy. I don’t even recall the actual landing.”
“Crashing.”
“Crashing, yes. I don’t remember it. All I remember is the smell.”
“Dead indig.”
“Dead everything.”
Together, they went to their tent. They had a drink. They closed the door and banked the stove and then had another drink. There were deep, bruised circles beneath Carter’s eyes. His hands shook for a long time. Neither of them would look out the window. They did not tell war stories.
“I can still smell it, you know?”
“I can smell it, too. It’s on you. In your clothes, I think.”
“There were brains on my tires, Kev. There was no ground to land on that wasn’t full of them.”
Carter was tired. He smoked an entire pack of cigarettes, one after another. Outside, they heard shouts. At least one gunshot, possibly two. Occasionally, faces appeared in the tent’s window, fingertips parting the canvas flaps. They could never agree on whose face it was because no one looked like themselves anymore and neither of them knew for sure who was dead and who was not, and neither wanted to admit to the visitation of ghosts. When their door was knocked on, neither man rose to open it.
“You should get cleaned up,” Carter said. “We both should.”
Fenn was taking off his gear, stripping down to his jumpsuit, putting his belt back on. His sidearm. He paused when Carter spoke, then started stripping out of the jumpsuit as well. His skin beneath was pasty and pale, puckered and lined with dirt like spiderwebs wherever his flesh wrinkled. His windburned cheeks, his neck, hands, were all a different shade. Beneath his armor, he was pink like a baby. Fenn stood, naked for a moment, and then went into his footlocker for a sweater. He put on his knickers and his boots. He put his gun belt back on. He kicked the jumpsuit with his toe, then kicked it again until it lay in a pile of spidersilk near the blazing stove.
“I’m not cleaning it. Burn it. Burn the whole fucking thing.”
He left the tent and made for the longhouse. On his way, he saw Vic. She asked him about Carter.