The Hero Strikes Back by Moira J. Moore Page B

calm, resonating voice. All he needed was a mountaintop.
    â€œYou keep saying that and it keeps getting worse.” I knew I sounded like a nag, but it was true. We had just descended into all new levels of cold, hadn’t we?
    â€œIt will pass. All things do.”
    Lord. “What if the regulars acquire better aim before that happens?”
    La Monte set his jaw. “They won’t. They wouldn’t dare.”
    I would wager that had someone asked him, a week earlier, if a regular would ever throw a brick in his general direction, he would have said they wouldn’t dare.
    â€œNow, Dunleavy, I know you’re anxious to contribute and prove your worth,” Wilberforce interjected in a voice I assumed was supposed to sound soothing and patient. “But wisdom as profound as Chris’s can come only with time and experience. Believe me, you will get there, some day.”
    Blank face, blank face, blank face, and above all ignore the giggling—yes, the giggling—coming from Karish’s chest and throat. “One can only hope.”
    La Monte, being more perceptive than Wilberforce, shot me a hard look.
    All right, here goes. “Perhaps we should try actually doing something. Now that we’ve actually told them we are.”
    Karish’s posture shifted beside me. An ice-cold hand wrapped around mine and squeezed. I glanced up at him. I wasn’t going to give away his secret. He would, though, if he didn’t stop being so paranoid.
    Hammad started snickering. “I was never that young.”
    â€œHaven’t we already been through this?” Garrighan drawled.
    â€œWhat’s the harm in trying?”
    â€œIt’s not what we do,” said Hammad.
    â€œBut we’re telling the regulars that it is.” Didn’t they see the long-term repercussions of telling them that? Could they really be that blind? It was so obvious.
    â€œIt’s a necessary fiction.”
    â€œAlso known as a bald-faced lie.”
    â€œDunleavy, we are not having this discussion again,” La Monte snapped. “You have made your feelings quite clear. And apparently the injury I’ve suffered hasn’t changed them.”
    Ah, guilt. I recognized the emotion. I knew what it was. I’d even experienced it from time to time. But had La Monte managed to inspire it within me with his heavy-handed attempt at emotional manipulation? Not at all.
    â€œIf you feel compelled to disturb everyone with your speculations about what might be happening,” La Monte continued, “and rile people up with pretensions of an ability to solve every problem, then by all means be my guest. But we,” and he glanced about at all the others, none of whom appeared prepared to contradict him, “know what we’re going to be doing.”
    He did everything but cross his arms and nod and say “So there.” What a bastard. Speculations. Pretensions. Like he knew what the hell he was talking about. Getting a brick thrown at him didn’t make him right.
    But there was no point in saying any of that, because everyone else agreed with him, or at least planned to follow his lead, and the horse was most sincerely dead.
    So I tilted my head in acknowledgement. “So sorry to have bored you all,” I said coolly. I didn’t understand it, though. Why didn’t any of them even want to try?
    â€œYa done it now,” Karish said, but I didn’t know to whom, nor in reference to what.
    â€œI’ve got somewhere to be,” Rayne announced. “I’m not on duty, there’s no reason for me to be out here risking black fingers.”
    â€œHear hear,” said Stone, pulling her cloak about her more tightly and shifting her feet, ready to go outside.
    I didn’t sigh. I didn’t clench my teeth. It was to be expected. There was no reason for any of them to listen to me. I was the youngest, the least experienced. And it wasn’t as though I