“Good morning, Sir,” she echoes. A burning begins, deep in her solar plexus, spreading itself along her nerves until her skin feels as though she has taken fire, incandescent in the chill of the long room. Hart has never played power politics adroitly, and this attempt at dominance is almost as crude as his revelation of the one blot he had been able to find on her record. For an instant Maggie wants nothing so much as to turn on her heel and walk out. Leave him for the jackals, damn him. But she cannot do that. Hart has talents that are in short supply.

He is a human being, she reminds herself sternly. Human beings themselves are in short supply, male human beings even shorter. None salvageable can be wasted with impunity.

“Salvageable” being the operative word. One of the matters they must discuss is the trial and subsequent punishment of the rapists from Mandan and Grand Rapids.

Hart gestures toward the comfortable armchair across the desk, then settles back into his own with an attempt at ease that only emphasizes the angularity of his movements. His skin seems faded by more than the sunless months of snow, his features not so much relaxed as given in to the pull of gravity.

Dead man walking.

He says, startling her almost as much as if he truly were dead, “What can I do for you this morning, Colonel?’

Maggie snaps open her briefcase, removes a pair of manila envelopes and lays them on the General’s desk, facing him. “Casualty report, sir.”

The General lifts one of the files, fans the pages with a thumb and then sets it down again. He does not bother to examine it or read the figures in detail. “How bad?”

“A hundred and fifty dead,” she replies, her voice tight. “Of those, approximately two thirds were military personnel, the remainder civilian volunteers. The heaviest losses occurred on the far side of the river, among the troops assigned to close on the enemy from the rear.”

“Sergeant Rivers’ contingent?” There is a hint of something in his voice that Maggie cannot quite identify; not anger, precisely, not exactly jealousy. Resentment, perhaps.

“Yes. As you’re aware from initial reports, Sir, they came under heavier fire than any of the other units.”

Hart simply nods. Whatever he feels or thinks, he is not going to share it with a subordinate who has, in his clear if unspoken view, usurped his position. “Injuries?”

Maggie points toward the other folder. “Eighty percent ambulatory. The remainder include everything from punctured lungs to third degree burns. The medics tell me we may still lose as many as a quarter of them.”

“Burial details?”

“Proceeding.”

“Very good. What else?”

With considerable distaste, Maggie hands him a third, thicker folder. “Incident report. Reports, actually.”

“I see. Under control?”

“For the time being.”

“What else? How are the prosecutions of the collaborators going?”

“Sir—”

Hart regards her without speaking, not giving her an opening. From the far side of the window come the first hesitant notes of a sparrow’s song to set up a counterpoint to the muffled clack of keys from the secretary’s desk. Perhaps she imagines it, but the grey rectangle of the window seems somehow lighter, as if the sun has emerged fully from the cloud cover that dampened the early morning. She suppresses an urge, almost overpowering, to rise and fling back the curtains, to let the day come spilling into the dingy room.

She cannot do it, though, without being rude, almost insubordinate. Hart has a certain entitlement to his gloom; by rights, his depression should be his own affair. Certainly she cannot openly notice it without embarrassing him, and probably herself. More certainly yet, it would bring his resentment firmly down on her and end any chance of cooperation. Indeed, during the course of their conversation, his face has become both more drawn and more remote. A man going through the motions, getting it over with as rapidly as he can.

Getting human beings as far away from him as he can.

“Sir, if we can get back to the incident reports for a moment—?”

“Yes?”

“Sir, if you’ll look at those reports, you’ll see that a pattern is developing. It’s one we’re not currently equipped to deal with.” Maggie replaces the folder in front of him.

After a pause, clearly reluctant, he picks it up again and begins to read, silently and without comment. Several minutes later he puts it down again. His mouth purses into a tight little moue of exasperation; it is the closest he has come to looking like himself since she entered the office. “Will you please tell me, Colonel, why there are three civilian drunks in the Base jail? Have we taken to picking up winos in alleys or good ol’ boys out on a binge? Surely we can use our resources better than that.”

“They were shooting at a wolf, General, right in front of the main gate.”

“I see,” he says in a voice that makes it clear that he does not. “The United States Air Force is now enforcing environmental regulations?”

“It seems that we may be, Sir, but that’s a side issue. The real problem is that these three idiots drew down on our own MP’s when Dr. Rivers put a stop to their fun.”

“Dr. Rivers. And of course our MP’s—they are still our MP’s, are they not Colonel?—were deployed to back her up.”

The words drop like stones into the air, and Maggie feels the heat as it spreads over her face and neck. ‘The men were drunk, disorderly and presented a direct threat to human life, General. It was a reflection, albeit a minor one, of the previous incident at the gate. That one had the potential to develop into a genuine riot. There could have been deaths—civilians and our troops, both.”

“And your solution to this problem is—?”

And there it is, right in front of her. Maggie mentally crosses her fingers and breaths a small prayer to Koda’s Ina Maka. Or anyone else out there who’s listening. She will have only one chance. Get it wrong, and there will be no way to put it right. It is only with a conscious effort that she does not draw a deeper and very obvious breath before speaking. Here goes.

“My solution, if we can call it that, has to do with reframing the problem, Sir. What we have in the gate riot, the civilians attempting to appropriate Base housing, the numbskulls taking potshots at the wildlife, is a breakdown of civil authority. Quite simply, there is none at the moment.”

All trace of animation recedes from Hart’s face. “There is Dr. King. She is, after all, the only surviving Cabinet officer that we know of, de facto President, if she wants to think of herself that way. And according to your report here, she certainly managed to restore order or help restore order in two of these incidents.”

Maggie shakes her head. “True. But the most valuable thing she can do right now is continue to search for the code that will disable the androids. Someone is needed immediately. Someone who is an experienced administrator and has the confidence of the townspeople as well as the military.”

The General rises to his feet and paces a few feet away, waving her back into her chair when she rises with him. “No, no. Sit down.” He turns to face her, hands behind his back but not at ease at all. “And where will we find such a person, Colonel Allen? Am I mistaken when I assume that you—or you and Dr. Rivers, or the two of you and Dr. King—have someone in mind?”

“I have discussed the matter with Dr. King, yes. As you say, she is the de facto President.”

“And?”

“Sir, we have problems that are not within our military mission to solve. You asked about the trials of the rapists; they’re precisely the kind of thing we don’t really have a way to deal with. For instance—” she refers to yet another folder—“I’ve drawn up suggested indictments under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But can we—legally, Constitutionally—try these men in a military court?”

“It’s the only court we have, Colonel Allen.” Hart’s tone is patient, as if he is explaining the obvious to a rather slow child.

“Which is precisely the problem, Sir. No one has declared martial law. The crimes did not occur on Federal property. They are not Federal offenses, with the exception of collaborating with the enemy and possibly the conspiracy charges. We have them in jail, we’re organizing their trials, but we have no legal jurisdiction.”

“And how will a civil, or civilian, administrator solve this difficulty?”

“Sir, there is currently no legal authority at all in Rapid City. We’ve seen the result of that in the attempt of several families to claim vacant Base housing and in a more concerted attempt to force the gates a few nights ago.” Hart’s face remains expressionless. She is not getting through. Play dirty? For an instant Maggie weighs her options, then continues. “Kimberley tells me that polygamy is taking hold in at least one apocalyptic cult in town. Some old coot who fancies himself a prophet is marrying thirteen year old girls—to himself. If that’s better than what’s happening in the jails, you tell me how.”

For an instant the frozen mask drops off Hart’s face, and fear shows through. Somewhere in upstate New York, with his estranged wife, Hart has twin girls of the same age. There is no way of knowing what has happened to them, but none of the possibilities is good, and all are the stuff of a father’s nightmare. It is their photograph that is missing from the General’s desk, perhaps too painful to look at since the insurrection. Really dirty, Allen. Really dirty. But if it gets results. . . .. With a suddenness that is almost audible, like a gate clanging shut, the rigidity is back. Hart snaps, “It’s an atrocity, of course. But at least those young women are accounted for.”

Maggie shuffles papers and changes the subject, leaving the unspoken parallel to work as it will in the General’s conscience. “Then there’s the matter of the trials, as you say. We need to put together a court that will pass muster with the Constitution—a jury of the offenders’ peers, or as near as we can get to it, and at the very least a civilian judge or two to sit with a military panel. If we can somehow locate a state district judge, all the better. Somebody has to organize that, and it has to be someone the civilians in Rapid City and the military personnel on the Base both trust to do the job honestly and efficiently. Otherwise we have no Constitution, no law at all except what comes out of the barrel of an M-16.”

“Do you have a candidate for this position, Colonel Allen? Your good friend Dr. Rivers, perhaps?”

Maggie’s face burns as if she’s been slapped. But she says, steadily. “No, Sir. I was hoping you would be willing to make use of your good relationship with the civilian leadership in Rapid City and the community’s respect for you to take on the job yourself.”

“I see. Aren’t you forgetting that I made a rather spectacular error in judgment in the bombing of Minot? One that throws your own bombing of civilians into the shade? Don’t you think that calls my authority somewhat into question?” She opens her mouth to speak, but he waves her to silence. “Not to mention being publicly backhanded by the charming Dr. King. But all of that opens the way for you, doesn’t it, Colonel? Just a matter of time until you have the name as well as the job of commander. I’m surprised Dr. King hasn’t field-brevetted you General already.”

Maggie draws in a long breath, appalled. She feels as though the earth has suddenly dropped away from under her, leaving her suspended ins pace. Stupid. Stupid. Christ, I should have seen it coming.

Very carefully, she says, “Sir, if you had been on the field at the Cheyenne, you would know who will eventually command our forces, not just the Base.” She lays the words down one by one, heavy with emphasis, willing him to believe.

“It isn’t me.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about the charge across the bridge. You’ve got your Joan of Arc, Colonel, but she has no training and no experience. She may make a charismatic figurehead, but you and I both know that at the end of the day that’s not enough.” He pauses. “But she has you and her brother to prop her up. She’ll pass well enough, no doubt.”

With an effort at least as great as the force that propelled her across the ruined bridge in Koda’s wake, Maggie manages to get a chokehold on her anger. There seems to be insufficient oxygen in the room; her throat feels so constricted that each word is a struggle. Her vision constricts to pinpoints. “Sir. With respect. You have the administrative experience that no one else surviving can offer. You are respected in the civilian community. Someone needs to hold that community together, or it will collapse into anarchy. And we will waste time and effort we need to spend fighting the droids fighting them instead. You can prevent that.”