“What’s wrong, Well?” Deere asked.
“Apricots! Goddamn apricots!”
Garroway exchanged a long, quizzical look with Kat. Apricots?
Dunne pulled the foil cover back from one corner of his ration container. The refrigerated portion contained some pale white-orange slices of soft substance and dubious origin. He flung the tray aside. “Bastards should know better’n that!”
“Settle down, Sarge,” Valdez told him. “We’re not riding armored vehicles.”
“Yeah?” Dunne said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the lander. “What the hell is that? Or, Jesus, the Derna, for that matter?”
“What’s his problem?” Garroway asked.
Deere, seated at Garroway’s right, chuckled. “An old, old Marine Corps tradition,” he said. “Nineteenth century, at least. It’s bad luck to eat apricots. Your APC is bound to break down if you do.”
“They didn’t have armored personnel carriers in the nineteenth century,” Womicki pointed out. “Horses, yes. APCs, no.”
“Okay, okay, twentieth century,” Deere said.
“Everything’s cool, Sarge,” Garvey said. “The LMs got us down in one piece, right?”
“Yeah. And how the shit are we gonna get over to New Sumer?” Dunne asked. “Or back up to the Derna? Walk?”
At first Garroway had thought it was a joke, but Dunne was genuinely angry and upset. Over a silly superstition involving…apricots?
He looked down at the ration pack in his lap. He’d already peeled back the foil from the refrigerated part and eaten half of what was there. Funny. He’d not been very hungry before. He was less so now. He set the pack aside.
“It’s just superstition, man,” Womicki said. “Don’t sweat it.”
“Yeah, well,” Valdez said, “that’s just for track drivers, not spacecraft.”
“Still ain’t right to take chances,” Dunne said. “Not this far from home….”
Relative quiet descended over the circle then, though Garroway noticed that the other Marines either weren’t eating or weren’t eating all of their rations. Marines, he decided, were superstitious critters.
“So, how come you’re in the Marines?” he asked Kat quietly.
The other Marine stood up abruptly and rushed off. He’d seen tears in her eyes.
“What…?”
“Let her go, Garroway,” Valdez said.
“Is she okay?”
“She joined the Corps because her partner joined the Corps. Goddamned stupid reason to sign up. And a damned stupid stunt, lying about it to Personnel.”
“Her…partner?”
“Her lover. Tom Pressley.”
The name hit Garroway square in the gut. “Oh.”
“She’s riding some NNTs that should cut the grief, but her emotions are going to be swinging pretty wildly for a while. She needs time, is all.” Valdez shook her head. “Damn idiots! If I’d just known!”
“What…could you have done?” He tried to imagine what it would have been like if that had been Lynnley who’d been blown apart out there; tried, and failed.
“The Corps tries to avoid Sullivans.”
A quick check of the net acronym and mil-term listing jogged his memory. He’d heard about Sullivans before, back when he and Lynnley had talked about joining up together, being shipped out together. The Sullivans were five brothers in the U.S. Navy, back in one of the wars of the twentieth century. All had been assigned to the same ship, and all were killed when their ship was sunk in battle. Nowadays the name referred to close relatives or partners serving on the same ship or in the same combat theater.
“If I’d known,” Valdez continued, “one or the other of them would’ve damn well stayed on Earth. I could have at least had them assigned to different companies in the MIEU. Now we have two casualties instead of just the one.”
“Two casualties?”
“Even with the NNTs, it’s going to catch up with Vinita sooner or later. We’ll need to evac her out of the combat zone and back up to the Derna as soon as we can arrange it.” Valdez turned away. “Finish your chow, Marine, and then sack out. I’m putting you on the 0200 perimeter watch, and I want you rested.”
“Aye aye, Gunny.”
He watched Valdez walk away, a tired, lonely figure. Garroway was beginning to appreciate that she carried the burdens of all of the squad as well as her own.
Goddess. When they shipped Kat back up to orbit, the squad would be down to six. Fifty percent casualties.
And the exchange had left him shaken. Shit, he and Lynnley had done the same as Vinita and Pressley—joining the Marines with the idea of staying together.