patrolling. Stanley hinted with a small smile that he was capable of dealing with difficult pilots. He stood with an air of authority and left.
The minders came back in, to find that they were ignored again. Gills laid down on his cot with his back to them, and went to sleep. The minders looked at each other, raising their eyebrows playfully and rolling their eyes. The older man leaned close to the younger one, and spoke low and quietly. "Seriously, though, don't forget this. If you ever get sent up into topside service, up there they expect you to do stupid stuff like sleep with your back to danger. They're nuts, by our lights, but by theirs, it's invaluable to have individuals who've been carefully taught to think that no one will mess with them as long as they're loyal. It's a big, fat lie, but there it is. It's worked in totalitarian states beyond number for as far back as we can find out about – at least until the purges get out of hand, like they almost always do."
Morning found both Renzo and Julia going about their appointed tasks with the same fervor and attention to detail that they'd displayed their first day on the job. There were no deviations from the routines set in place by bureaucrats. That is, there were no deviations until three cows decided to calve at the same time, and one calf wasn't coming out right, and so Julia was up past her elbow trying to rearrange it in the birth canal when the wolves chose to come back.
Up on his hill, Renzo was alerted to the mayhem by stampeding cows. He tried to assume that stampeding cattle weren't his business, but couldn't shake the idea that perhaps the cattle herder would need help. That idea grew into one in which he was serving Society by helping her, which thought pleased him very much. Then he heard Julia scream, and theories were blasted out of his head by the heat of a desire to protect her.
A splinter group of cattle was between him and Julia, milling around on the trail, disagreeing about which way to go. He tried to run through them, and gathered a head butt and a couple of kicks. He finally made it past them. Infuriated that they'd delayed him, he turned back to shoot a cow. He resumed his mad dash down the hill until he caught sight of Julia, on her hands and knees, horribly bloodied, with a wolf dragging her by an ankle. She looked to be nearly out of strength. Other wolves were busy with cattle, mostly trying to get around mother cows to their tender, helpless-except-for-their-mommies, newborn calves. Others were standing still, watching, trying to decide which battle to join, or relentlessly circling, weighing where to jump in, while distracting the prey in the meantime for the benefit of other wolves.
Renzo fought off an urge to shoot at the wolf with Julia in its jaws. At the distance, he couldn't be sure of the shot, especially on a first shot. He felled one of the bystander wolves, on the theory that they were more of a threat than one actively hunting a calf or cow. For his second shot, he hit a wolf in the hindquarters. As he'd hoped, the wolf screamed and writhed and drew attention to itself, throwing confusion into the pack. He ran closer and killed two more wolves. He tried to kill three more, but missed one entirely and barely wounded the other two. Realizing that he'd let his nerves get out of hand, he gritted his teeth, walked closer, braced, and finished off the wounded wolves. The remaining wolves called retreat. One ran off with a calf in its jaws. The one with Julia tried to drag her off. Renzo by now could maneuver for a clean, safe shot. He shot it in the heart. He pulled Julia out of its jaws and away. To satisfy a primitive need for justice he went back to the wolf's corpse and shot it in the head.
Julia was alive, but weak and bewildered. She kept reaching out as if to grasp something. Renzo finally deciphered her muttering as "my bow, my bow." He correctly reasoned that her bow would do her no good since she was too injured to use it. He just as correctly reasoned that there was no need for it at present, since the wolf pack was routed, and also because he was there with his gun. He began to explain that – not that she seemed capable of understanding coherent thought – but some instinct of manly compassion closed his mouth, and sent him to fetch her bow. With it in her hand, she relaxed, nearly to the point of passing out.
Renzo was at a loss. His mind flashed Foundational Values platitudes at him, none of which seemed adequate to an emergency like this, and many of which seemed flat incompatible (which they were). He reached for his Informer to call for instructions, but froze at the thought that Julia would likely be deemed too damaged to still be classified a person, and would therefore be starved to death. A replacement herder would be sent, of course. The replacement would look like the present one, and would sound pretty much the same, and would have received the same training, so would act much the same. The government had achieved great success in its breeding and training programs, so that all operations could carry on smoothly, regardless of unfortunate failures in individual units.
Truly, as a Citizen Officer he shouldn't be feeling any special attachment to a damaged individual unit.
He shouldn't. He shouldn't.
He did, though. This individual unit had been pleasant to watch, and she had come to him for help, and she appreciated having him as a neighbor. She'd said so. Besides, he'd recently been damaged by an animal bite. There was that parallel to himself. He had healed nicely, without any bother to Society. Perhaps she would too. From there his mind leaped to the idea that she surely had superior cattle herding abilities or she never would have been trusted with a solo post (just like he'd been given a solo post for his superior shooting ability). That made her slightly more valuable than other cattle herders, which meant that he really ought to quietly provide her with the conditions to heal properly, so as not to disturb the Plan.
He gently took her bow and set it aside, to get it out of the way. She didn't seem to notice. He started to carry her to her hut. Partway there, he decided he'd be in a better position to care for her in his cabin. Fully convinced that he was doing the best possible job under the circumstances of serving the greater good of society, he headed up the hill toward his cabin.
Harvey heard knocking, groggily checked the time, and felt like an idiot for oversleeping. He roused himself and answered the door.
"Bet you don't know what day it is," Stanley Charbonneau said.
"My first full day back, unless I slept through a whole day or more, which feels possible."
"Didn't happen, old chap. Not to worry on that. May I come in, please?"
Harvey invited him in.
"Are they still trying to force people to live in 100-day units instead of weeks and months and seasons, up there?" Stanley asked.
"Yep. We're on Day 29 of the present loop, if that's of any use to you."
"Not really. It might be useful, though, if you'd start practicing 'Us versus Them' again. As in 'They are on Day 29. They are on Day 29.' It's OK for you to do this, without fear of messing you up if you go back out. I talked to the lieutenant, and he says you're not likely to be sent out undercover again. For one thing, what I understand used to be a bit of local madness in New York is spreading. To wit, weatherpeople and helicopter pilots are being depersoned like crazy in other areas, and we're afraid we're about to be caught up in it."
"I'd heard of that. Certainly my dear Gills has been trying to get it launched here, starting with me. How's he doing, by the way?"
"The usual. He's trying to pretend that people beneath him simply do not exist, and so far he's mostly believing himself. He'll get over it."
"What day is it?"
"Heh. I knew you'd catch up to me without further prompting. It's Sunday. I'm off to church in a little bit. Feel up to going?"
"I have an option?"
"Technically, yes. Realistically, no. I'm supposed to help see to it that you get re-immersed in Subterran life as quickly and smoothly as possible, and I figure banging it into your head that you can openly acknowledge the Lord God Almighty without being shot for it is a useful technique."
Harvey heard that as 'You've been among the crazies so long that we don't dare leave you alone for at least a day or two, maybe even a year or two, and I drew the short straw and have to watch you this mornin
g, and I want to go to church, so please get yourself dressed and toss some food in your mouth if you need to.'
"Give me a minute to dress and grab a bite to eat. If I have time to eat?" he said.
"Depends on how fast you walk. For that matter, if you're a slow eater, we can make up for it by jogging. We're almost three miles off from the church here, if you don't know."
"I wasn't sure. I haven't been anywhere other than Ott's office for quick briefings, before last night. If you'll excuse me, I'll be back in a minute."
Stanley smiled and nodded agreement, but visibly fought a rascally urge to check the time, to see how far off from a literal minute it would take Harvey to dress. Harvey, who'd been living amongst people with no sense of humor, enjoyed the ribbing, but was also slightly unnerved by it. He went to dress, making a point to dress and shave quickly. Even at that, Stanley was already pouring pancake batter into a skillet when he came out.
"If you want something other than pancakes and eggs, you'll have to fix it," Stanley announced.
"Coffee? It's where?"
"Don't make me cry. We're out. The whole colony is out. We're having to make do with tea. Or water, of course. The perks of living next to a largish river