âAnoikeâs luck.â
âAinâ it de trutâ.â Refusing Georgiaâs arm, she went over to the military vehicle, sat down on the flat ledge that ran between the wheels, resting her head against its metal side, waiting her turn for treatment.
The Mirror blinked.
Night. Fog or low-hanging clouds. Trees swam in and out of the fog as the Mirrorâs eye swept along. A creek cut through a small clearing. Condensation dripped off needles and leaves, off rocky overhangs. A man came from under the trees, another, two more, carrying a third on a stretcherâRam, the doctor walking beside him. Another two, another stretcher, Anoike on it. A man in his fifties with thick unruly gray hair. Liz. More of the raiders, the strongman, finally Georgia. A soft whistle came from somewhere among the trees; he answered it without breaking stride.
As they moved into the trees again Serroi began seeing small camouflaged gardens, the plants growing haphazard in the grass and brush, then some lean-tos and crude pole corrals with horses in them, more shelters, tents huddled close in to trees, more and more of them, heavy canvas tops with walls and floors of rock or wattle and daub. Faces looked out of some, some men and women came out and watched the raiders pass, called softly to one or the other, getting soft answers. A whole little village under the trees, hidden from above, a portable community able to pick up and move itself given a few hours warning, leaving only depressions and debris behind. Thick, netting stretched overhead, open enough to let in some moonlight and certainly any rain. The Mirrorâs eye swept up through the web and circled over it, showing her, showing them both, the hillside below them, empty except for vegetation and trees, the tent village wiped away as if it had been a dream, nothing more.
The Mirror blinked.
The sun shone with a pale watery light through a thinning layer of clouds. The Mirrorâs eye roamed about the village, showing them children playing, laughing, chasing each other among the trees and tents, others gathered around a young man, listening as he talked to them, writing in notebooks they held on their knees. Some women and men were washing clothing in the stream, others were cooking, working in the gardens, talking and laughing, some stretched out on mats, sleeping. There were sentries keeping a desultory watch on the approaches to the camp, young men and women, mostly in their teens, perched in trees or stretched out under brush. They werenât exactly alert, but there were enough of them to make it very hard for any large group of men to catch the villagers off-guard.
A whup-whupping sound. Serroi remembered it and wasnât surprised when the Mirrorâs eye swept above the camouflage netting and focused on the sky. Huge and metallic, twice the size of the searcher sheâd seen before (copter, Georgia had called it, she remembered that after a moment; copter, she said to herself as if by naming the thing she could draw some of the terror out of it), it slowed in the air, hovered over a slope some distance from the camp. Fire bloomed under it, it spat out darts so swift she guessed at them more than saw them until they hit the hillside and exploded, blew a hole in the rock with a loud crunch, a fountain of stone and shattered trees.
The copter hovered over its destruction until the reverberations of the explosion had died, then a loud voice boomed from it, a manâs voice, many times magnified. âTerrorists,â it trumpeted, metallic overtones and echoes close to defeating the effect of the volume, turning the words into barely understandable mush. âSurrender. Save your miserable necks. We coming after you, gonna burn these hills down around you. Defoliants, you scum, remember those? Napalm. Rockets. We gonna scrub these hills bare. Ever seen third-degree burns? Want your kids torched? Surrender, scum. You got no running room
âAinâ it de trutâ.â Refusing Georgiaâs arm, she went over to the military vehicle, sat down on the flat ledge that ran between the wheels, resting her head against its metal side, waiting her turn for treatment.
The Mirror blinked.
Night. Fog or low-hanging clouds. Trees swam in and out of the fog as the Mirrorâs eye swept along. A creek cut through a small clearing. Condensation dripped off needles and leaves, off rocky overhangs. A man came from under the trees, another, two more, carrying a third on a stretcherâRam, the doctor walking beside him. Another two, another stretcher, Anoike on it. A man in his fifties with thick unruly gray hair. Liz. More of the raiders, the strongman, finally Georgia. A soft whistle came from somewhere among the trees; he answered it without breaking stride.
As they moved into the trees again Serroi began seeing small camouflaged gardens, the plants growing haphazard in the grass and brush, then some lean-tos and crude pole corrals with horses in them, more shelters, tents huddled close in to trees, more and more of them, heavy canvas tops with walls and floors of rock or wattle and daub. Faces looked out of some, some men and women came out and watched the raiders pass, called softly to one or the other, getting soft answers. A whole little village under the trees, hidden from above, a portable community able to pick up and move itself given a few hours warning, leaving only depressions and debris behind. Thick, netting stretched overhead, open enough to let in some moonlight and certainly any rain. The Mirrorâs eye swept up through the web and circled over it, showing her, showing them both, the hillside below them, empty except for vegetation and trees, the tent village wiped away as if it had been a dream, nothing more.
The Mirror blinked.
The sun shone with a pale watery light through a thinning layer of clouds. The Mirrorâs eye roamed about the village, showing them children playing, laughing, chasing each other among the trees and tents, others gathered around a young man, listening as he talked to them, writing in notebooks they held on their knees. Some women and men were washing clothing in the stream, others were cooking, working in the gardens, talking and laughing, some stretched out on mats, sleeping. There were sentries keeping a desultory watch on the approaches to the camp, young men and women, mostly in their teens, perched in trees or stretched out under brush. They werenât exactly alert, but there were enough of them to make it very hard for any large group of men to catch the villagers off-guard.
A whup-whupping sound. Serroi remembered it and wasnât surprised when the Mirrorâs eye swept above the camouflage netting and focused on the sky. Huge and metallic, twice the size of the searcher sheâd seen before (copter, Georgia had called it, she remembered that after a moment; copter, she said to herself as if by naming the thing she could draw some of the terror out of it), it slowed in the air, hovered over a slope some distance from the camp. Fire bloomed under it, it spat out darts so swift she guessed at them more than saw them until they hit the hillside and exploded, blew a hole in the rock with a loud crunch, a fountain of stone and shattered trees.
The copter hovered over its destruction until the reverberations of the explosion had died, then a loud voice boomed from it, a manâs voice, many times magnified. âTerrorists,â it trumpeted, metallic overtones and echoes close to defeating the effect of the volume, turning the words into barely understandable mush. âSurrender. Save your miserable necks. We coming after you, gonna burn these hills down around you. Defoliants, you scum, remember those? Napalm. Rockets. We gonna scrub these hills bare. Ever seen third-degree burns? Want your kids torched? Surrender, scum. You got no running room
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