a pleasant day, with more bird activity than deep winter had offered, he set up, on the spot, for a Supplemental Study, which was a fancy way of saying that he recorded the time, his location, and the weather, and then his observations of birds. Unlike in a regular count, he could linger on any birds he saw, for as long as he wanted, just as long as he made some notes. Between bird observations, of course it wouldn't hurt anything to unofficially glance down the hill to see if his neighbor was in view.
Soon, it was time for his neighbor's supplies to show up. He shifted to where he could study the area around her hut. She still wasn't anywhere to be seen. He imagined her slipping into the river and drowning, or breaking a leg in a gopher hole, or being hauled off by wolves. Just about the time he was ready to burst into action just for the sake of bursting, the helicopter showed up. He hid where he could watch proceedings without being seen. Not only did the herder not show up – it was unheard of, to not meet your suppliers – but, even more impossible, men attacked the helicopter, killing one pilot, and forcing the other to fly to behind the haystacks. They even taunted the surviving pilot, with their leader sticking his hands in the air in mock surrender, before forcing the pilot to do their bidding. The barbarians!
Renzo started to report it, but hesitated as he waited to see what would happen next. The hesitation proved disastrous, letting doubts creep in. He became afraid to get mixed up in it; afraid, too, that if he reported it, they'd find out that he'd been indulging the temptation to sneak out and spend time watching his neighbor, just to watch her. There was no explaining that away, as far as he knew. He was pretty sure it was a serious offense, too. Why would men and women be kept separate, if there wasn't a good reason for it?
His hidden photographs and note sprang to mind; another good, very good, reason to not bring attention to himself, those were. Besides, perhaps he had it all wrong? Perhaps the assault team had been government agents? That seemed more likely than barbarians being on the loose in this day and age. It would never do to report government agents who were simply doing their duty.
He waited for the helicopter to rise into the air again, but waiting became insufferable. He snuck out of eyeshot, bolted for his cabin, and closed the door a little too strenuously behind him. He erased the records from his aborted Supplemental Study, since they showed that he'd been outside at just the wrong time. He closed the curtains, to give himself a further excuse for not having seen anything going on outside. He collapsed on the bed, flattened with indecision. Should he report what he'd seen? What would he say? How would he say it? It was impossible. Perhaps he'd not seen what he'd thought he'd seen? It was, after all, impossible. If he reported it, how would he explain his failure to report it immediately? His head spun. His stomach churned.
The contraband hidden behind the portrait of Greenley the Third ate away at him with fresh vigor. He wanted to destroy the photos and note now more than ever, but now, more than ever, he didn't dare, for fear that the herder would show up while he was doing it, or that someone would show up to investigate the incident of the helicopter hijacking, and catch him.
After a period of torment, Renzo belatedly remembered what he had been taught since childhood. If something didn't line up with official policy, he was supposed to adjust his memory, trusting that reality was better understood by officials. This wasn't a textbook case of when a person should adjust his memory, but it was close enough to suit Renzo, given his present mood and circumstances. Soon, he had his stories, and thus his thoughts, into better order. The impossible theft of government property hadn't happened, much less in front of his own eyes. The herder, who presumably always was there to receive her supplies, was presumably there today. There was no need to fret about the hidden photographs, because of course it should never have occurred to him to look behind a portrait, much less a sacred one, so he was innocent of that offense. He was a good Citizen Officer. He was a good Citizen Officer, indeed. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and for however long he lived, he could aim to be the best Citizen Officer who had ever been assigned to this cabin. He fell asleep resolved to achieve that aim.
Warren Ott stayed up long enough to get reports from all his scattered and regathered troops.
There had been difficulties. The cattle herder, knocked out by fumes sent into her hidey hole in the haystack, had overslept and then panicked. Stanley (subbing for Leo, who usually did the fake orders when fake orders were needed in this part of the world) hadn't quite got the topsider lingo down in his text messages to the lady, leaving open a door to unnecessary suspicion down the line, if the lady stopped to think about it. With most topsiders, this wasn't much of a concern, but Julia, bless her wary exile's heart, had shown a tendency to actually think about things. Still, that part of the operations had met the main objectives. The woman had been kept out of commission during the hijacking and dismantling of the copter, and she'd been briefed to say nothing to suggest that anything had been amiss. This made it far more likely that Topside would assume that the copter had suffered electrical malfunction after it had left her location, and had crashed into the river a few miles downstream.
Leo had returned safely, tired but happy, from providing the evidence of both electrical malfunction and a crash. Tossing sabotaged enemy equipment into a watery grave was apparently a dream come true for the man.
Adrian's squad had successfully avoided an encounter with the birdwatcher, but that's all they felt they'd accomplished. Ott, on the other hand, counted himself lucky that they'd all come back alive. Lately, the birdwatcher had been wildly unpredictable and, unlike the cattle herder, he didn't seem to be the sort of person willing to question the supposed wisdom of the state. He was an excellent shot, and if he was as good a puppet as he was thought to be, he'd no more hesitate to shoot an 'unauthorized' human being than a sparrow. It was unknown how much, if anything, he'd seen or suspected. Adrian and crew had been needed to help rescue Harvey and dismantle the helicopter, before they could be sent up the hill to see if there was any trouble from that quarter.
Ott almost indulged a feeling of frustration at being at a moderately smallish outpost in the middle of nowhere. He shook it off. If hot war broke out, there was a good chance that scattered outposts such as this, full of men used to wearing many different hats, were going to make the difference. Besides, it was where he'd been planted. There was no sense grousing about it. He tidied his desk and headed off to bed. Considering how much he and his men had done to upset Topside, he bunked in his on-duty quarters, instead of making the trek three and a half miles uptunnel to Ontario Hollows, the underground community he called home with his wife and four children.
Before heading to bed, Stanley Charbonneau went to visit the new prisoner. Gills was sitting in a corner, pretending not to hear or see anyone in the room. His minders seemed to be torn between anger, pity, and laughing at the man. Stanley asked them to step outside, but to stay close in case hand-to-hand combat broke out. Smiling, perhaps hoping for a fight, they left.
"Look, it's late and I'm tired and you're probably tired, and we've got days and weeks and months, Lord willing, to get everything straight, but let's get some preliminaries done, shall we?" Stanley said, with no open response, but plenty of small clues that Gills was listening, and was alarmed and confused. "My name is Stanley Charbonneau. You'll find most men around here call me Stanley, but to you I'm Captain Charbonneau, at least for now. At present you are our prisoner, but just so you know, we have a policy of adopting prisoners if they'll let us." The prisoner's face flickered. His backbone stiffened. Stanley guessed that the man had decided he was being tested by a government psychiatrist, and was now determined to prove himself just the best little loyalist ever to be found in the ranks of helicopter pilots. This was a fairly common problem with fresh captives. "My info says that your name is Gills, that you were born 34 years ago, during the nature-naming madness, and that you envy men named Fang, Eyeball, Badger, Eel, Avian and Conifer, but feel superior to men named Snout, Owl, and Trout. Am
I close?" he asked.
"It is a matter of alphabetical precedence. We were, quite wisely, named according to our natural attributes and overall quality. I am proud of being a G, but, quite correctly, wish I had merited an A, B, C, D, E, or F. I hope that my attempts at self-improvement, devotion to duty, and willingness to learn have made me an exemplary G."
"Quite possibly," Stanley said. "I'll need to read further reports before I can say. I should warn you, though, that in this community, we grade by different standards than the one in which you've been serving. You will be properly instructed on how to achieve high standing, but we'll take the process step by step, over time."
"It is only proper to be orderly," Gills pronounced.
"Speaking of which, it's sleeping time. You'll be watched, as per policy for newcomers, but I expect you to get a solid night's sleep. I'll be back. Good night."
Gills nodded a nod that managed to be both deferential and dismissive, as was only to be expected from an elite helicopter pilot, even in a remote area considered barely worth