"Hey Doc," Abbado said. "Come sit down. What do you need with the Methman?"
"Aw, I was supposed to come by so he could look at my leg," Methie said. "I'm okay, Doc. Really."
"If you are," the doctor said, "then ligaments have miraculously healed themselves in the past twenty-four hours."
"I just need to watch how quick I turn, is all," Methie muttered, but he pulled up his left trouser leg. The strikers still wore their boots, but they'd released the closure clamps for comfort.
Ciler squatted down on the sheet. Thirty feet away a gas pocket in a burning log ruptured. It shot blue flame with a banshee shriek for several seconds. The doctor tensed, then steadied. "Might I turn on a light, please?" he asked.
"Oh, sure," Abbado said. "We didn't want to get too much attention, you know. There's some cargo we thought we'd use up since it don't look like we'll be back here any time soon."
Ciler switched on the minilight clipped to his collar. He bent so that it bore on Methie's knee as he probed with the blunt fingers of both hands. "You think anything we abandon will be lost forever, then?" he said while keeping his eyes on his work.
"Usually it's just REMFs in base camps who steal your shit," Horgen said. "The way this jungle grows, there'll be a big green hill in no time. And I'm thirsty now."
"Ah, would you like a drink, Doc?" the sergeant offered. "It's whiskey from Earth, not something run through a heat exchanger while the tractor was shut down."
"We wouldn't be drinking it right now," Matushek said, "except it's that or leave it behind, you know?"
Ciler turned off the light. "I'd like a drink, yes," he said. "Though I think you men and women need it worse than I do."
Abbado handed him the bladder. "All told we got three gallons, Doc," he said. "More than we'll need if we're going to march in the morning. I'd offer it around pretty generally, but that'd mean Top hears and comes down with both boots."
The doctor drank deeply from the mouthpiece and lowered the bladder. Caldwell took it from him and drank in turn.
"Mr. Methie," Ciler said, "the swelling hasn't increased. I'm afraid that a pressure bandage would do more harm by cutting circulation than the support will benefit you, so I'm going to leave you as you are. I want you to come to me tomorrow after you've been walking on it. Do you understand?"
"Sure, Doc," Methie said in embarrassment. "Sorry."
"How long are we on point tomorrow, sarge?" Horgen asked. "All day?"
Abbado shook his head. "Till the major shifts us, I guess," he said. "Anyway, we're not really point, the bulldozer is. With luck it'll just be a walk through the woods, not even much exercise."
"With luck I'll wake up and find I'm in bed with my girlfriend on Verdant," Matushek said. "But I'm not holding my breath."
The bladder came around to him. He finished it and added, "Time to open the next one, Foley."
Dr. Ciler put his face in his hands. "This isn't right," he said hoarsely. "All these children . . . And half of you, you should be in hospital yourselves. You know that. Methie, you should have had surgery on that knee."
"Aw, Doc, they'd have held me on Stalleybrass or some pisspot like that," Methie muttered. "And then reassigned me God knows where. I'd never have got back to C41."
"It's not right," the doctor repeated. Caldwell handed him the fresh bladder of whiskey.
"No, it's not, Doc," Abbado said softly. "But that doesn't matter. It's never right, and it never matters."
Another log shrilled in the night. Ciler froze, then sucked in more liquor.
Preparations
Blohm watched Sergeant Gabrilovitch pause, then take a second pouch of magazines for his backup weapon, the grenade launcher. They didn't intend to fight anybody. The plan was that the pair of scouts would slip three miles through the jungle to the site of a magnetic anomaly the major wanted checked out, report, and rejoin the column without firing a round.
The rest of the universe, the Spooks and in particular the forest itself, might have different plans. Blohm clipped another fuel-air grenade to his equipment belt. If he and Gabe stepped in shit, they were a whole lifetime away from resupply.
The encampment was waking up. There were sizzles and cooking odors from the last proper meal the column would have until a relief ship arrived with replacement ranges and prepared food. Children called in shrill voices, angry at being roused before dawn.
Blohm looked toward the sky, pale enough to hint at colors in the forest. "Ready to go, snake?" he asked.