Shades of Grey Series - Chapter 1 - Black Feather on White Wings

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»Da sitz' ich nun in einem kleinen Flugzeug,

und fliege zusammen mit meinem Sohn Michael allein

von Frankfurt bis tief hinab nach Afrika.

Das sind zehntausend Kilometer,

ein Weg beinah doppelt so weit wie von Frankfurt

bis nach New York.

In so einer winzigen Maschine schwebt man

nicht tausende von Metern hoch über den Wolken,

wie in einem Verkehrsflugzeug,

sondern man sieht etwas von unserer Erde.

Genau wie ein Zugvogel.«

Bernhard Grzimek - Serengeti darf nicht sterben - 1959

Black Feather on White Wings

another shade of grey by Jürgen Anders

»Come on! It's not my funeral, I'm not .. going .. to die, I'll still be around. I'll stay with the air force reserve, and I solemny swear to take every chance they offer to fly fighters. As long as they give me a medical. I love 'em too much to really quit for good.« Except for moments like these she never used the emerald green of her eyes and a winning smile on one of her superiors. It was a winning smile because she would usually win, in the end. Most of the times, at least. The approach this time was daring, but she had convinced herself that, finally, it was worth it. The risk. Of leaving the military behind, at least full-time, for good.

»I can't believe it. ... Alright,...« he flicked through her papers, and the fact that about the only thing he didn't like in what he saw there was her request, did show, in that something beneath his uniform's sleeves moved as if that one particular sheet of paper was one of the weights he was usually pushing when he didn't have to command an air force unit, »...you sure can leave now if you wish to do so, your minimum term is well over, you did three tours in a row over there, ... and a few more short adventures, certainly ... but... to leave to fly .. Herkies .. ?! For heaven's sake!!« he squeezed the latter part out in a high pitched voice, in not quite mocked disgust. The wing captain surely thought he was hallucinating, or having a day-nightmare. Usually he was more of a likeable fellow, behind his back dubbed the first boyscout for the idealistic, calm and peaceful trait that seemed to be a little out of place in an outfit thought to be fighting day in, day out, at least by public perception. He even allowed for his own light brown hair to grow to a little more than the usual military crew cut, to give the public a little less to percieve. That attitude helped him to survive the less exciting reality of day in, day out office work at an airbase that was at best hardly at all to moderately busy.

»L-one hundred, actually, Sir! ... New ones almost like our Juliett variant, or Juliett-thirty.« she added a trace of precision that she hoped would help. At least, she wasn't reverting to aviation's stone age, it was meant to show, with the evocative help of images of a two-man glass cockpit. One woman and somebody else cockpit, that is, as far as her hopes dared to venture.

»A .. civilian .. Hercules! The goddamn thing has a .. yoke! Did they tell you that?! Lockheed builds fighters, too, y'know,« then he mumbled on, »not just stretch'd trash haulers, damn' ...« He paused for a second to raise his voice back to normal again, as if to try and pretend he hadn't heard anything of it all, yet, »You sure?«

»Yes, Sir. ... The yoke... Uhm, I've seen it. And used it, too... Feels almost as good as the Wasp's sidestick. And... it's really what's in there behind the cockpit. Loads of good deeds,« she replied with a wide smile.

»Ooh, gosh... behind the cockpit, there's something... like... like a sluggish four-engined heavy World War Two bomber, and propellers, you know, these... flapping... paddling... spinning... ventilators sort o' things, and thin floppy wings like,... ahm... .. sailplanes! ... Urgh!«, he got up to gesticulate more effectively. He liked to do it, especially when he was about to dissuade somebody from what he thought of as a bad idea, or tried to advertise a chanceless one of his own »Long wings, slow rolling and handles like a wet sponge on a bad day.« but then was retained after all by his own reluctance to play to his point all too assertively. He would rather try a sensible argument, on other causes than this lost one.

»Well... it's not that bad really,... more like a Battle of Britain Spitfire, and that's a fighter, for sure, huh? If the Brits had had Herkies then, with their range they'd have chased the Messerschmitts right back to Berlin's backyards, and could have dropped a load of paras in behind 'em for an encore. Sixty-four, each. ... That's not bad, methinks.« she alluded to the plane's usual role in drab.

».. Me .. thinks you like CARE packets a little too much. Cardboard boxes, cans and cookies ... well, nice idea, ... but... ...« his resistance crumbled, slowly. There just was nothing sensible to say as an argument against this. He thus sat down again behind his office desk on a chair that sure made everyone long for the comfort of an ejection seat inside the narrow cockpit of a fighter plane. A place where he was far too rarely for his own taste, while he was trudging through a world of dusty files and folders seemingly unarmed, save for the unchanging uniform, to ward off the bureaucrat of the week in a witty and not all too gory way.

»Hey, I've just heard of 'em as a kid. My grandma used to send them to the broken-down axis powers after the war, she told me. I still keep a photo of her in my locker, packing some with gran'pa... and one of him sitting on his Lightning's inboard wing,... somewhere out on a desert island, with a book and a smile. Cans and cookies, chocolate and little toy cars or dolls, and a letter ... from family to family. ... Yes, nice, true ...but I can't really remember anything that's .. but .. in those parcels' job description, ... Sir.« , she added with a slightly wistful look drifting into her eyes, not really intentionally. Memories of her grandparents did that to her, from time to time.

»Always the incurable romantic, huh?... But... c'mon, get real, you're a fighter jock, not a truck driver. What's so great in flying small brown boxes to the back of beyond? ... Besides of Lockheeds running in the family, apparently...«

»I like what they do. They're great fighters, we may win wars, but they win .. over .. people. ... Without a shot being fired, without a drop of blood being wasted;... we pale beside them.« She paused for a second, for she knew the effect that last line would have on her boss, and just as his blue eyes twitched upwards in quite some irritation, she continued with a wide perky grin, wondering why they never achieved that steeliness all the past aviation writers would have wanted to see in them, »And we're the best there is, ain't we, Sir?«

Score one.

The best there is, Rapid Reaction Force Composite Wing. Those guys who volunteer to be sure they're the ones sent in harms way first. And a few gals, too. An air force within the air force, though both of this world's smaller ones, but nevertheless complete with their own fighters, fighter-bombers, tankers, reconnaissance birds, airliftable ground equipment, associated army paras and their airlift assets, and a unique cross-training programme. It gave pilots the chance to gain at least a basic rating on several different aircraft types over time, and since most tankers and transports were more or less converted airliners, a chance to get a civilian rating through the back door. A door that led to another ten to thirty years behind the stick, with sidesticks now coming increasingly into fashion in advanced commercial airliners' cockpits, too. The easy way to a better income later on, including pension plans far surpassing those in government sponsorship. But to take every day of leave for almost two years and use it to fly the paras' hunky multi-engined turbo-props was quite a deviation from the norm, even as the old tankers, those which were most like the airliners they once had been developed in parallel with, were phased out.

»It's none of my business,« he changed the topic of the conversation, leaned back with it in a more relaxed poise as far as not breaking the cheap plastic backrest allowed for, realising he was on a losing streak, »but I think you read quite a lot lately ... don't get me wrong, I appreciate that, but after you've bailed out over there,... something .. has .. changed, hasn't it...?«

»Yea, sure...« she scratched the back of her neck, »I mean those were my ten minutes of real war. And, well, I think anyone who'd have seen the people out there in the woods... would have changed, somehow... one way or another. ... You know, the world whispers in pain, and she raises her voice slowly, ever louder until we start to listen.«

»You've got a thing with words, huh? ...« he hesitated for a second and then out of a sudden apprehension asked, »You're not turning pacifist on me, are ya?«

»No,« she had to laugh a little, »I've tried that in highschool already, but in the end, if found out it's not my kind of brew. I had my longer haired phase there...«

»Well, who hadn't...?« he muttered quietly to himself with a little laugh, and then seemed to reach for the words with all their spontaneous honesty to get back into his mouth.

She then continued to answer firmly, »But yes, I've been reading a lot more since then, the world's an interesting place, and life's just too short to miss a thing.« She preferred to keep quiet about her writing. She had started the day after the search-and-rescue chopper had exfiltrated her, tore her out of that clearing over the hills and far away, with a sprained ankle and a sense of belonging she had never felt before. Since then, a small dictaphone, a rugged black booklet with a bright red back and triangular patches on its edges, and three or four ball pens, for fail-safe redundancy, were her constant companions. She had got used to that concept of safety long before as a pilot. Long enough to act soon enough, to cast the first idea or memory into words to keep it from fading away before she had found time to set it down. And it hadn't taken a kingdom to become a writer, just a short conversation in the base store. A friendly hello, twenty-four eighty-seven, please, here's your receipt, thank you, goodbye, who's next, please? A heart flooded by emotions had helped a little. And that one marvellous black feather, heavenly portent that it was.

»Don't sound like you're settling down right now, ... like... semidetached house, a .. handsome young .. husband .. and a few lovely kids...? ... Sure you don't...« he wasn't so sure at all.

»Nooo... aww... not yet, anyway.« she cringed not all too mockingly at the suggestion, »But the Herky birds all got a staircase in the cockpit door, in case I grow old before I die. ... So there's my front porch and the rocking chair, already, ...at least.« She knew perfectly well how fighter pilots commented on her new plane of choice.

»Well, you're still young...«

»I joined on the birthday, Sir.«

»But don't wait too long... just between you and me, guys are like a good beer... if they're at the counter too long, they're getting stale, even the best brands. ... I have to admit, speaking from my side I can tell; ... with hindsight, it almost looks like I've married the Wing back then, on the birthday.« he added with a twinkle, playing over a memory he would rather keep to himself, and handed back her papers, »Sleep over it, I'll decide tomorrow. ... Dismissed.«

»Thank you, Sir!« she saluted, turned around in a formal way and left, closing the door behind her.

»They just tolerate this farce as they please... There's nothing we could do about it, as soon as they no longer think that this monopoly of peace is profitable. ... I mean, what'd you do if they block the runway again, like last year? ... Then, that's it. Hasta la vista, .. baybeee! Back to base for us... back to square one for the poor folks down there, ...skip to last square on the ration card... do not pass over food storage facility... resign fate to your diplomats. ... Unless they themselves resign.« the best part about co-pilots, in the eyes of fighter pilots accustomed to a single seat, was that they kept you good company. He was the talkative edition of that, that much had been impossible to miss in the first weeks on her new job, but not an unpleasant one at all. What he lacked in height, he well made up in being smart in business on the sidelines, a little in circumference, too, and what was missing in terms of hair above his usually smiling face was more than compensated for in the rich beard that framed it with a few early and elegantly groomed touches of grey.

»Like then?« she turned to look at him briefly, with a little frown, to get the right idea, »... I mean, exactly like that, after the first flights had come in and they didn't manage to loot all the cargo right away 'cause the guys were flying it in too fast?«

»Yea... well, for example.« he looked at the aerodrome, out of the right hand side windows as she turned the white Hercules into right base, and then returned to monitoring the instruments as required by the landing checklists.

»I'd just land.« she chuckled, »Scare 'em shitless and kick somebody's butt loud and clear as soon as I get a good enough grip on the ground.«

»Land?!! Are you .. crazy?! They put .. tanks .. smack in the middle of the runway! Five of them!« He was so shocked by her answer, and by her nonchalant way of answering, that he almost forgot the position report. He hastily pushed the push-to-talk button, to do just that, »UNEAFOR approach, X-Ray Golf right base t(h)ree one ... field in sight.«

»X-Ray Golf... Wind variable, five knots... cleared to land on t(h)ree one,« the disembodied voice of the air traffic controller replied with his singing south Asian accent which made it sound even more like cleared to land on tree one.

Although English was the language of the air, and the airwaves concerned, the regulators didn't like it's characteristical »th« at all, for it could be mistaken for interference due to the minor sound quality of AM radio traffic as well as older microphones, and messages quite simply had to be clear and precisely understood without ambiguities in this realm. Except for very long range short wave radio traffic, which used the more advanced and slightly more reliable SSB mode, compatibility and conservatism dictated the use of this very first way to modulate sound waves onto radio waves, to give electrons in the void a human touch. At least, as a bonus it allowed for thirty-six times the number of channels to be carried in the same bandwith as occupied by FM broadcast radio stations. The simplicity and clarity of the pre-defined set of phrases made it a lot easier to learn the Alpha-Bravo-Charlie of this language than the ABC of any other. But being conservative, it took the powers that be decades to note and remove the one notorious ambiguity of niner and fiver.

»Right... uhm... Smack in the middle you said?« she asked, just to be sure of her idea.

»Exactly at the half markers. Like a parade between the yellow plates, there.« he pointed at the large signs that indicated half the length of the runway on either of its sides.

She keyed the mike, »UNEAFOR approach, X-Ray Golf, request low approach, straight-in, for spot landing.«

»X-Ray Golf, low approach cleared. ... You're the only one in town. Enjoy the ride... Ma'am.« The controller was audibly less bored than before. Maybe it was just the surprise caused by the unexpectedly female voice.

He was part of the tiny U.N. contingent, tiny in comparison to what was at the warlords' disposal. This small hodgepodge detachment of multi-national troops operated the aerodrome, which had been a regional airport, built for tourism before the war, or rather before one of them. At least officially. More inofficially, quite likely in preparation for it, or several of them.

The contingent and the various mostly non-governmental aid agencies were more or less at the mercy of the local warlords who had settled into an uneasy ceasefire after most of their objectives had been achieved by brute force locally, or had been accepted world wide and courteously by the understanding and considerate U.N. diplomats, well removed from anything connected with the realities of brute force.

Now, soldiers from several South-Asian, African, American, Pacific, and a few lesser European nations had been sent in to monitor the activities of the warlords, which they continued to pursue largely unhindered and mostly unseen, under the watchful eyes of the world community, as the latter saw it, or with all but open support of the world community, as they themselves perceived it.

The soldiers on the ground had next to no legal, or in fact real power to influence, let alone change whatever they monitored, of course, but they were allowed to defend themselves under several conditions. The power had to rest firmly with those who move paper, painstakingly as far removed as possible from the proverbial muzzle of the gun, and they took great care to keep it that way. At all costs, lest the shooting war arise anew at a dumb and avoidable mistake of the trigger-happy hands on the ground, both sides of it. So the warlords had finally kindly complied, and had donned the respectable suit of politics and diplomacy for the time being. But the hidden suitcases with the generals' and marshals' drab kit, just as finely tailor-made for sure, were always close at hand.

»X-Ray Golf.« she replied, glad to be no longer part of that aspect of the game, and cut the four engines down to idle. What was in the cargo bay would feed more people than a piece of paper ever could on its own, which was where those concerned usually stood.

The huge Herky bird dropped its nose as it started to accelerate as well as to descend, the latter more quickly than her co-pilot was used to. Zalman was a stubby guy who had long ago left the simmering crisis brew of the Middle East for a flying job that would not lead him straight into the next shooting war, and had then worked his way up from scrappy Cessnas to this big bird, mostly by flying for aid agencies or missionaries in sub-saharan Africa and the poorer parts of Asia. His upbringing, and the experiences in those parts of the world had made him careful, sometimes bordering on the timid. But as soon as he saw a chance for a quick deal, one would notice that the Middle East hadn't really left him, as far as the lively customs of the bazaars were concerned.

For now, he turned to look at her in some disbelief as she yanked this white elephant of a plane into a steep right turn. She levelled off as soon as the plane was heading straight for the threshold of the runway. But now it was approaching it at a considerable angle to it, far from being well aligned with it, and a lot lower than usual.

»Don't you think it would be nice to land along the runway instead of across?«

»Oh... nice idea. I'll try next time.« she replied in mock surprise as she extended the flaps all the way down. They were about half the way down the final as they passed one of the high-rises on their left-hand side.

Those had once been built near the centre of the valley to provide adequate housing for everyone of the then growing population of a then thriving city. Apparently, the government-run housing development authority did not have much time to coordinate with the government-run tourism and infrastructure development authority, and so they ended up smack bang in the middle of the approach corridor on this side of the airport which had been expanded at the same time. Now, they were just hollow structures that had been shelled to oblivion.

Usually they would have passed high above its roof.

As she had descended to about one hundred feet above the highest tree tops, she pushed the throttles all the way in and the engines roared to life within seconds. The propeller slipstream immediately increased the lift across the wing's centre part and thus stopped the descent almost on its own, with just a little pulling by her on the elevator to help. As soon as the plane stopped descending, she pulled back the throttles a little to hold a constant altitude, and to have sufficient go-around reserve in case the tower waved her off for a reason that wasn't there, yet, or an engine failure. They soon flew level across a corridor of park land that had largely been left undeveloped to keep at least the airport's immediate approach clear of obstacles. Now, there were two makeshift soccer fields and some market stands in between the trees. Some time ago, there had been unexploded shells, landmines, and sniper positions, too. But times had started to change, reluctantly, but for the better.

The soccer game was well underway. The two teams were mixed from all the seven ethnicities that made up the local population. The whole of, what was called in a contradiction of terms, the former nation had at least seventeen ethnic groups, depending on how one tended to count and whether religion or denomination was deemed worthy as a distinctive factor, too. The game was part of a football tournament sponsored by the international troop contingent to get the children to play and grow up together again, like they did before the war. They had collected goods and money for such extravagant prizes as cooking oil, chocolates, cookies, movie tickets for the weekly sixteen-millimetre mono cinema event in the officer's mess hall, and the like. There were six leagues. For girls and boys respectively, up to nine years, ten to thirteen years, and fourteen to seventeen years old. The referees were picked from the contending teams by lottery before each match. And all teams were eager to win. To assure fair play, a soldier would act as referee supervisor and settle disputes, once they occurred.

Soccer had some tradition here, and the soldiers starting the initiative had agreed on it although the base commander would have favoured cricket, when he learned of it a little later.

The establishment of a girls' league was met with some resistance from the locals, until a sergeant of the logistics batallion mentioned casually that in her country, more girls than boys played soccer. That shook their pride, and from then on, the locals wanted to show that they could do even better. Because of the high unemployment, most players were accompanied by their brothers, fathers, or grandfathers who had told their sisters, mothers, and grandmothers to stay at home and feed the family. The eagerness to compete in equal rights didn't extend much beyond the opportunity of prizes offered by the game, combined with the firm intention and tradition to demonstrate superiority to outsiders in these parts.

One bait for the parents was the player's personal supply of one can of corned beef a day, handed out to the players in person, in the mess hall by the base's cooks after the common dinner for all the players and referees, their personal trainers attending the tournament, and the soldiers running the project, who mingled with the young crowd to offer them perspectives from outside the valley. Unfortunately, the personal trainer daddies still chose to stay in seperate ethnically divided groups, and certainly separate from the foreigners, while their offspring joined and worked together beautifully in the individual teams. These were changed weekly, to make sure all the kids met one another at least twice, and the draw absolutely accidentally resulted in profoundly mixed teams, ethnically speaking. The very same sergeant took great care of this absolutely accidental part.

Today's game was the pink team vs the light, washed out, that is, blue team. The colours black, brown, red, white, blue, green, orange, and yellow, especially in almost all possible combinations of two or three were of course off limits for obvious reasons, and anything else had to be handpicked or re-dyed from the sparse generous donations by sports clubs abroad. The goalkeeper of the presently winning pink team, a fourteen year old boy, suddely saw a huge white something materialising itself in front of the dark forests of the quite massive mountains which made up the eastern rim of the valley. It appeared right next to one of the bombed-out highrises, and it was falling down straight towards him, at least it appeared that way to him as he realized it was a plane, and he yelled something along the lines of, oh my god, my god, it's going to crash, frozen in terror as he held his forehead with his large black and white goalie gloves. One of the members of the opposing light blue team who could not see the plane approaching him, too, for the lack of eyes on his back, took the chance of the moment to equalize to one all.

The referee supervisor, a soldier who hailed from central Asia, was too startled to notice what was probably almost an offside situation, by the sudden and noisy appearance of two huge medium blue pairs of letters that read U.N. on dirtyish white in the light grey sky right above him. He therefore correctly went with the decision of the young referees he had to supervise. Parts of the audience were not so sure. But the combination of colours in the sky did not offend anyone in particular, at least.

The four propellers that accompanied the aluminium overcast had just spun up to full power, and a good part of their blast and the downwash of the wings kicked up some dust on the football pitch a few seconds after it had passed by overhead.

»Shit!« was the only thing to say that had entered his mind, as the plane disappeared behind the trees towards the airport.

One of the fathers clenched his fists in anger. First, because his son had not held the ball, then because the scorer was not one of his kinfolk, next, because the foreign referee was partial, as were all foreigners in his view, and finally because he hated all foreign pilots, for he had lost his brother to one, not long ago. Here, history mattered, and almost two and a half years were as good as yesterday, or rather, this morning, just after breakfast.

»Landing gear down and locked.« Zalman reported. He preferred to look at the instruments rather than to look at the ground, to which he was pretty sure he would lose his life in a head-on collision only seconds away.

»Hey, stop sweating and enjoy the ride,« she replied without looking as they passed over the last row of trees. The airport's perimeter fence was about two hundred yards ahead, and at the same distance beyond, the runway's concrete started. The plane flew in a distinct nose-down attitude, and as she crossed the fence she kicked it into a side-slipping turn to align it with the runway. This way, the wings stayed almost perfectly level, although a few additional feet in altitude were lost, though not unintentionally. To lose more, she pushed the yoke forward immediately after the turn and the heavy transport dived towards a point far ahead of the runway. Zalman's eyes widened in horror. A few feet above the grass in front of the runway, she pulled to bring the nose up to the highest permitted angle at touchdown, which was little more than horizontal. The plane levelled off nicely and moments later, the four balloon tyres of the main landing gear touched down about fifteen feet into the concrete strip, releasing the customary little blue clouds of vapourized rubber as they were spun up. As soon as she noticed wheel contact, which was a single rattling bump just distinct enough to be impossible to miss, she pushed the twin nose wheels down hard and pulled the throttles back into full reverse thrust. The nose gear stayed on the concrete, but the main gear rebounded once, since the engines and propellers needed some time to respond to the sudden command. As soon as they did, the lift collapsed across most of the wing as the propellers now slowed down the airflow, and the landing gear settled permanently and surprisingly softly.

Two of the soldiers stood in front of one of the hangars now used for storage, and watched the day's Herky touch down. One wore a carefully groomed colourful South Asian uniform, the other a hardly acceptable camouflage suit sort of thing with the proudly patched-on flag of his Central African country on it, combined with a beret that looked a hell of a lot as if he was smuggling pizzas underneath it.

»Whooo! What a show... I bet, that's that girl again!«, the African enthused, »Yea baby, she's got it. Thaaat's what .. I .. call rhythm.« he moved swingingly as if he was slowly getting in tune to a tribal dance, just as the rubber clouds started to roll themselves into two little swirling loops behind the plane.

»Well, Sir, I doubt that, and I would be pleased to hold that bet,« the other answered in his own accent, but in a way far more British than any of the Englishmen around could muster, »I'm sure this is certainly one of the most excellent military pilots I've ever had the honour to see in action, here, or in fact anywhere else. ... Would a Chinese dinner from the take-away on the main square be acceptable to you?«

»Sure, deal.« They shook hands.

Inside the compound, nations united while outside even the tribes themselves stayed divided. Although they sometimes had to re-negotiate deals on the inside, it usually turned out to be a win-win situation in the end.

Now she hit the brakes hard and they were both catapulted forward into the seat belts by the combined braking forces. Shortly before the plane stopped, she released the brakes again to avoid lock-up, since this was nothing but a little piece of training, and not the emergency situation Zal had thrown at her for a real-life simulator ride. The reverse thrust now finished the job of stopping the airplane and its cargo. As the plane ceased to roll, she cut the power on the engines. This time, the delay caused the plane to roll backwards a couple of feet until the propellers had cycled back to forward thrust.

Slightly surprised, »Oops!« she hit the brakes again, and this time, the nose wheel lifted off by a few inches, »Perfect! ... well, almost. One sixth of the runway... what a .. waste .. of concrete!« she rejoiced with a smile stretching from ear to ear.

Zalman was speechless and pale. Each on its own an occurrence rare enough to be marked in the calendar.

»X-Ray Golf, that'll be taxiway Alpha, if you don't mind to use a little more of our splendid runway which is mostly situated ahead of you.« the approach controller's voice informed her in his characteristcally singing subcontinental accent.

»Thanks, UNEAFOR ground. Would be a waste of concrete if I didn't, huh?«

»X-Ray Golf, the pioneer batallion will surely appreciate, for it was a great effort to make it fit for use again ... taxi to parking-area Foxtrott via taxiway Alpha, report engine stop.«

»X-Ray Golf, wilco.« she pushed the outboard throttles forward and started to taxi towards the stand closest to the row of trucks that would recieve most of the cargo.

»Pooh! ... My oh my... how long you said since you left the air force?«

»Hah! ... three weeks, after more than twelve years there, Zal.« she answered, laughing. »But I've only been flying Herkies for ...almost two years, now, ... on and off in my spare time.« she turned right into taxiway Alpha, which departed from the runway at a forty-five degree angle.

»What'd you fly before? Parachutes? Pianos?« he retorted agitatedly.

»Hmm... parachute... just once when my Wasp ate a flock of birds around here. Otherwise, Wasps for all my active time, first dash-Alpha, and later dash-Charlie.«

The lamenting which was an occasional part of his being good company started, »I knew it! The boss wants to kill me. Why else would he stick me in a cockpit with a mad fighter pilot? I shouldn't have asked for a rise... it's all my fault.«

»Come on! That one was still going easy on the airframe.« she felt a tiny little bit guilty, and reminded herself that more communication was not just a good, but a necessary part of a wider cockpit with more than one seat.

»Easy?! What's hard then!?« his lamenting shifted gears, »Nineteen tons of wheat gate-crashing our little roller-coaster party for an unguided tour of the cockpit? What makes you so sure the palettes are properly strapped down?«

»I checked. That's part of the job in case anybody told you... Come on, y'know that.« she couldn't help a little laugh.

»Aaah..aah!« he continued to lament, »I'm going to die in here! Why me! Did you ever see those bumbling hippies load a plane?«

»Stop sobbing... I saw them bumbling... right, but just once.« she started to chuckle, »After that experience I got them to stand in attention,... which they surprisingly did almost as good as the honour guard... and they've got a lot better since... hehe...« she turned the plane around to the right.

Area Foxtrott had the unique advantage of being easily accessible for trucks that entered and left through the southern gate towards the city, and to enable the plane to taxi right back via taxiway Alpha for a take off on three one. The airport originally wasn't designed for large airplanes, and after landings in this or before take-offs in the opposite direction of the runway, one four for a heading of one hundred and forty degrees, the heavily loaded airplanes had to taxi over grass when they passed by several ground installations north of the hangars, or had to continue almost to the runway's end and then turn backwards tightly on taxiways Bravo, or again Alpha.

»You!? .. You did .. that!? In attention!?! How'd you get these pot-heads to listen at all in the first place?!« now there was a surprising deviation from the lamenting that merited the occasion.

»Simple. I asked them politely to do an old lady a favour... haha, just kidding. .. Yelling. First thing I got commended for, sort of, in basic training. Wake-up call, y'know. ... The blokes in the next block woke up, too. One hour early, for them. Had to apologise for that. ... Oh, and I dropped a bag of cement from the roof of the tower into their favourite ashtray...« she paused for more effect, »...while they stuck their heads close together right above it to catch all of the stinking grass. That did it, and a little .. advice. .. Someone just had to play drill sarge for 'em, I guess.« She turned to him with a frown of disgust, »Y'know, I remember one of mine pretty well, and I thought, just .. be .. her, and that did it. So I convinced them beyond any reasonable doubt, that if I found just one loose grain of whatever cargo in my aircraft I'd take them at gunpoint for a free ride behind the cockpit door to try and catch the full load in a dive.«

»Don't tell me you trust them now?« he asked, as impressed as warily.

»No. Not really. Not as far as I could throw them.«

He gasped, »That's too far.«

»You know what I don't like about you?« the aid agency's distribution manager hissed, aggressively belying his swords to ploughshares and doves of peace buttons as well as his hippie-turned-yuppie style pigtail, »You don't care about rules...«

»You're talking about .. rules .. to an air force reserve pilot?« she replied calmly, raising only her eyebrows with a frown, certainly not her voice.

»So .. that's .. where you lost your mind and left it! ... And worse, you break 'em just for the .. perverse .. fun of it! To show off! Reckless macho displays! For these backward, useless ignorants in drab! You abuse precious food which is dearly in need, and irreplacible equipment! And...«

»Listen, you own the plane?« she left him no time to say no, though she wasn't perfectly sure that he remembered, »You pay my bread? ... You know the least thing about flying? ... So? ...« she continued to talk to him like to a nasty kid in the street, a kid who was a head taller, »Don't stop me from keeping my company's part of the deal, or this ignorant in drab will show you what she can break a hell of a lot better than rules, understood? And if you want your stuff to land here safely instead of in the fog on any of these mountains' sides, you don't even think about discouraging the folks who get it in and out of here from honing their skills. On the road or in the sky.«

»I'm .. not .. having my ... this aid campaign hijacked by .. disgusting .. militarist .. ego trips and space cadet circus stunt performances of would-be warriors!! This country has ... has ... has had enough of the war-mongering and tolerating... and even encouraging lawlessness of those of .. your .. kind, and... and... and we're better than that! We stand above that! Are beyond that! ... This is what saves people, .. not .. them!« he pointed first to one of his buttons proclaiming peace and love, then to the army barracks, ».. They .. just waste tax payers' money that could easily pay for all this food! And people like you are not going to waste my mo...organisation's money, which is by the way donated from whatever little is left after .. they ..« he pointed again to the barracks area, »ripped off the hard working man in the street. I can and I .. will .. take care of that! And if you think I'll be silenced by your invoking the gender issue, don't count on it, you self-indulgent ... you ... you...« , he gesticulated agitatedly, desperately trying to avoid exactly that issue, as he blew his top in front of his crew unloading the airplane. Their attention was increasingly diverted from their work.

She crossed her arms and turned around to walk away, laughing aloud »Chick? Broad? Witch? Bitch? Amazon? Lost for words?... Thanks for the reckless macho display line, by the way. Remind me to quote you on that, on my next ego trip. ... Have a nice day on the moral high-ground,« she turned back for a moment to smile sweetly into his face, »oh, sorry... forgive the militarist wording...« and then walked away, waving her butt at him while one of her hands moved as if it was swaying the long brown countryside skirt she had once worn as a young woman with it, »...bye-bye...« , which seduced some of the loaders to whistle more or less inappropriately. She knew how to turn a little everyday sexism around in her favour, and blew them a kiss from her fingertips as she walked away, which got her some more cheers from the hard working men in the taxi-way while at the same time, it totally defeated their manager. She left the venue with a touch of a frown that said men are simple. Not even easy.

Zalman loyally walked past the manager, following some way behind her. All at the same time, he was muttering a long untranslatable curse in his native language, gesticulated at the man, and shook his head in turning away, as if he had seen a scene of utter impoliteness. As soon as he had turned away from him to follow her on the way towards the impending paperwork, he took a deep breath. Just glad to be alive.

»Come in!« he called from behind his cheap chipboard desk, responding to the knocking on the door which was just as cheaply built. As was just about everything in the provisional container village turned permanent barracks. Provided by the lowest bidder of them all. He put down the file he had been studying next to one of the small stacks of thin cardboard folders.

She entered, »'Xcuse me, Sir. ... I've got a question about the procedures to register for a day trip around the country.«

»Can't you salu... ... Oh, sorry, take a seat. ... Uhm,...« a sheepish grin was creeping around the corner of his mouth, »I was just going to hand out a rebuff for not saluting properly, ... sorry. Must have been the colour of your overall. Took a sec until I noticed the badges of rank were missing.«

»Flight suit, never mind, I've just had a hard time to get off that hand-twitching habit myself for three weeks, now. ... And I really got used to the colour; 'n' I don't really want to change all the good ol' things at once.« she laughed, »Besides, I've not got used yet to choosing from .. different .. kinds of clothes each morning. That's one tough challenge, I can tell ya.«

He just had to laugh, the idea that this could one day hold him up in the morning hadn't crossed his mind yet, »Now, how can I help you?« he rose and they shook hands across the table, »The name is John.« then both sat down.

»Fr... Joan Fredrickx, pleased to meet you. ... I'd... like to visit some friends in a village, about... some thirty to forty miles from here, on the road, I guess.« she settled into the chair a little uneasily, being more accustomed to utter requests standing, »And the guard post told me one has to register first, here.«

»Uhm, yea... that's correct... in principle.«

She raised an eyebrow, »And in practice?«

»I'm very sorry, but I can't spare a patrol to accompany you. That's...«

»Accompany me? ... Whoo! That's a new idea...« one that she hadn't expected at all, and was as amused as surprised to hear about, »No, seriously, I'm not asking for a patrol, I just want to pay a visit there myself. Nothing big or official at all. ... So, thank you very much for the kind offer, but I can take care of myself. ... I'm just going to visit some friends there, and make sure they actually recieve some of the food aid packets, 'cause I heard they sometimes get lost on the way, ...and I'll be back before dusk 'cause I have to fly the big bird out. That's all. No big affair, really.«

»Well, I regret I have to say this, but we have severe restrictions imposed on us by the sponsoring governments. And... you know, they don't want to take a risk. Mostly because of the conservative element in society... or voters, just as you like to put it,...« he did show that it did not please him to be second-guessed in his function as chief base security officer, »... in short, they are afraid of any incident that might endanger their commitment to this mission, or change public opinion. There have been rape incidents in the past here, during the civil war, and...«

»I know, been there... seen the victims,... I guess. Just want to say hi to 'em again after two years. ... But this doesn't apply to civilians, does it?« Joan hoped for a crack in the door's lock.

»Technically... not. But we are ... how shall I put it, .. very much .. encouraged to apply the same rules to all foreigners in town, and the .. very .. same rules to all female foreigners, just to make sure they're treated especially equal. ... The city would be alright, in a group of three at least, with male company, in daylight hours, but...« he cringed at the thought of even interpreting the rules as they were written down, fearing further micromanagement and political interference beyond even his superiors' control, »...beyond that it's a risk no-one's very much inclined to take.«

»So technically I could just walk out of the gates, after signing out here with my name and flight plan, if you like ... destination, I mean, and estimated time of arrival back at base, after the trip? In different colours if you'd like that better.« she gestured at her flight suit.

»Believe me, it's not about what .. I .. like. I don't like at all to apply different rules to my people just based on some desk driver's public relations issues or gender concerns, in the first place. ... Where'd you want to go, anyway?«

She got up to look at the huge map on the wall, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, and for the same distance in width, in the only space of that size clear of filing cabinets, »I'm not really sure about the exact village... don't even know the name of the place. It's so small that no-one bothers to print it in the maps I could get hold of...«

He turned and got up to join her in front of the map, in some consternation, »Strange friends, if you don't know where they live...«

»Or if, Sir... But I know the coordinates... It's... here ... one of those three... this village. That's it. That's the one.«

»Ahum... oh, that's not exactly friendly territory... wait, that one?« he skipped a comment on formalities, and pointed at a small village with a lot of pinholes right next to it and the nearest forests and quarries.

»Yup.«

He started to smile, »Aaah... Now .. I remember... yea, ... got the whole thing rolling...«

»Yea... literally uncovered the truth, in a very ugly way...«

»Oh, yea. Crashed your fighter jet, was it? ... Yea,... I saw you on TV, stepping off the plane at home, after they picked you up... that was one excuse as good as any to end this bloody massacre and to threaten to kick some butt for good 'round here... and one lucky dumb git of a warlord bastard who did it; bet he's still trying to bite his own ass off even now... So, you're the gal who got shot down there...«

»Actually bird-striked down, and something like half a dozen or more unlucky cranes did it.« Joan filled in the details that must have got lost on the way, »... Y'know, Wasps usually don't eat birds, so mine got a little sick trying and burst its belly in the process.«

»Oh, they didn't exactly advertise that... didn't know that. ... But, hell, what do I know about Wasps, I'm in artillery.« he shrugged still looking at the lie of the land in thinly printed lines with light green blobs for a touch of woodland colour.

She just had to grin, »Anything, just play it loud, huh?«

He chuckled, »Goooood morning,... Ma'am.« returning to her habit still clinging on. Then he checked the roads towards the village on the map again, many of which had little orange landmine warning pins at either end. »Well, that means two things, one, I'll go out of my way to let you have your little walk down memory lane, two, if anyone even so much as spits at you and the media find out about it, I'll have to leave the army dishonourably faster than any shell I've ever fired. ... Perhaps I can try to arrange for an armoured patrol down that road some time next month. But I'll have to talk to some people... well, essentially try to get them to volunteer. That's still mostly bandit country over there, even by day.«

»Sounds not like you're in .. peace..keeping right now, does it?« Joan managed to pry her eyes from the all too familiar looking part of the map.

»No. ... You catch up fast... well, I guess you're used to going supersonic ... Well, that's about it. ... Peacekeeping... Or so the Germ... politicians would have us believe.«

»Nnnice.« she hissed, »I mean, if this doesn't work out, I sprained my ankle and narly caught a bullet for nothing. And worse, some of your guys died for... .. it, .. as I get it...« she had almost said nothing, again, and bit her lip in the last second, »Nice accomplishment of the chandeliers department, then.«

He sighed, »Yea... well... some mean ol' men get a peace prize from the king of somewhere for signing a piece of paper, some parents get a piece of paper signed by the SecDef's seventh deputy in line for their kid. ... That's life. But we all volunteered, didn't we?«

»Right. Who else would've been mad enough to do this...« she continued the depressing thought that was hovering continuously in the shadows of the minds of true warriors of the modern age.

»Can I get back to you tomorrow? I'll have to do some talking, first...«

»Thanks,... the day after tomorrow... I'm out of town tonight.«

»How's that?! Friends in the city, too?«

»No, I fly these white elephants in and out on a daily rotation. Tomorrow, it's the other crew's turn, because of the long ride. ... And I don't really want a patrol. I'd rather go like, .. it's all my fault, .. and just sign out without you noticing, and then rent a car...«

He burst into laughter, »It would be far cheaper to have one stolen, if these courteous local racketeers could actually find one without being shot by the owner in the first place,... or be quick enough to shoot him first. ... You and I, we couldn't afford to buy a car here for sure,... that's the only way to rent, basically... not even with our salary in hard currency, not 'round here. ... But... well, you could try and ask the logistics branch. They run the central base equipment maintenance facility, or for short, ill-equipped garage by the junkyard. They've had the glorious chance to cannibalize the wrecks one of the warlords had to leave behind here, when peace suddenly was decreed. ... Well, he took everything that still limped or was good enough to fire a single round with him and left the remains for us to dispose of. The press picked it up as a grand gesture for peace. ... But I hear, they have a capable bunch of mechanics there. It's in the last hangar down the apron, the dark green slightly detatched wooden one. ... But pick the largest car they can spare, because I'm not letting you go unprotected. That's almost an order, if I may say so, to a civilian.«

They shook hands. She smiled »Thank you very much indeed,« when she suddenly held fast onto his, rushed along beneath his arm while twisting it hard, brought him carefully »Down! Now!« on the floor and then folded him into a neat package after asking him very politely to lift his »Left arm up!« emphasizing the request with another twist on his right hand, »... That's almost a thank you, but no, thank you... And you guys are a little off guard sometimes, if I may say so, as a civilian,« she chuckled, leaning on his back with all her weight.

Just as she was about to get at least one of his struggling legs under control with hers to make the exercise perfect with a cheeky grin, someone with a funny little moustache entered without knocking first, peeked around the edge of the door at the mess on the floor behind it, and left hurriedly, »I'll be back in a minute, John.«

»It's alright, An... just a security check!!« John yelled in his uncomfortable position, which didn't look like he really was a foot taller and almost twice her weight.

»Oops... sorry,« she got up, released him and stretched out her hand to help him to get up, with a slightly embarrassed grin.

»Gosh! I didn't know the air force was doing combat at that short a range.« he slowly moved his arm to loosen up.

»Ah, y'know... ten years or so of hanging out at airfields in the middle of nowhere with annual heavy cut-backs in flying hours... you just have to pick up some hobbies unless you want to be bored to death... or to vent surplus energies when you can't do it any longer on the bombing range... What about the army?«

»Ouch... I guess we just take a tank and roll over things... that's potentially less painful, I guess,« he rubbed his neck, »Would you excuse me now, I've got a scheduled meeting with the man who's just popped in.«

»Ah.. okay, I'll see you the day after tomorrow... the dark green hangar?«

»Yea... see ya. See what I can do.«

»Bye, Sir.« she left through the door that had swung open, increasingly enjoying the thought that she no longer had to salute, or follow all those parts of the orders she thought of as a little overdone.

»John...« he rubbed his neck.

The hangar was fairly remote, indeed. It was hidden within a stand of several large trees, and only a rotten taxiway with its centre line branching off the other's gave it away to the uninitiated observer. It must have been one of the oldest buildings on site, constructed entirely of wood in a nineteen-twentyish style, and with several old-fashioned wooden frame windows above the doors and on its sides. It looked a lot like a slightly more sophisticated barn. The doors and windows were wide open, presumably to help daylight overcome the dear shortage of artificial light inside, and to starve the rot, mosses, and algae, of the condensation they must have had enjoyed and thrived on in the past decade. There were only ten large flouorescent tubes suspended under the ceiling, but the chlorophyllic green at least had been thoroughly removed on the inside where at all accessible.

Another lamp was moving erratically about, underneath a tiny old eastern bloc style army jeep which had surely seen its own share of rot. A mechanic popped up through the top hatch of one of the three armoured personnel carriers in the background and pointed towards the two army boots that stuck out between the left-hand side wheels of the jeep when he noticed the obvious question on her face.

The small vehicle was parked on two narrow ramps of bricks that had partially been removed again for better access to its bottom. The heavy steel-tipped safety boots and the olive overall associated with them moved back and forth underneath the car as some hammering noises shook the whole arrangement. Huge flakes of rust dropped down with a sound like crust of a dried out bread being squeezed.

»'Xcuse me, Sir...« this, she thought, had been a good start before, in the CSO's office.

Two yellowish brown gloves firmly gripped what was left of the lower frame of the car and the drab olive overall above the pair of boots whizzed out from underneath the car on two skateboards. »Sir??! .. Ma'am?« a friendly face with a little too much glaring red lipstick, make-up and oil stains on it laughed aloud and shook rust flakes out of her blackish brown perm. Some of the dirt always got stuck in there, in spite of the large winter service cap she had just taken off and rolled it into handy shape, ready to disappear in one of the longer pockets intended for tools on the overall's legs.

»Oh... wasn't exactly written on your soles...« Joan scratched her head in surprise.

»That's number four today, Sarge!« the guy in the tank yelled, laughing with guilty pleasure, »One more and you owe me a quarter... again!«

»Shut up!« she took off her gloves. They had well protected the carefully applied nail varnish which was in tone with her lipstick. She stuffed them a little carelessly into one of the many pockets of her overall and got up from the skateboards which rolled away into different directions on the concrete floor. One disappeared underneath the car. »Oh my... See?! That's what I have to put up with. Toys, and they don't even brake when you get off 'em. One day I'm gonna break my back. ...«

»Don't have to bother 'bout that... I'll even do 't all without shoddy stuff... just by working for ya, Sarge!« the mechanic sniggered from deep inside the tank, sounding like a frog joking inside a watering-can in the back of a dungeon.

»..B..oys! ... And they don't even shut up when you hit 'em. ... The only thing you can do for me is rub your face in the dirt!« she yelled towards the guy in the tank and mockingly swung a large wrench into the pesky mechanic's direction, which prompted him to break out in a dinner-jazzy rendition of the ages old civil defense education song Duck and Cover.

»There .. was a turtle by the name of Burt...« the frog in the watering-can got into the groove right away, and with a much softer voice.

»... Oh... you're civilian?« the one he had called Sarge noticed surprisedly.

The concerto grosso continued, »...when danger threat'n'd... he'd never got hurt... yea!...«

»Yea, so wha..?« she returned, and was about to say that she hadn't felt the need to go shopping for more colourful clothes, yet.

The mechanic popped up through the hatch, »...for he knew... just what... to .. do! ...«

»Angus, she don't count!! Civilian... gotcha... haha! ... That's .. my .. quarter!« she yelled towards the tank and then turned back to her visitor, »Have to put up with them as well. ...«

He ducked and let the hatch slam down as noisily as possible, »Duck... and cov..vaah!«

»... Why...?« she rolled her eyes to the rhetorical question, pushed her fists on her hips, thereby revealing a shapeliness well hidden by the overall which would have made her a favourite pin-up girl in another time, on photographs inside the doors of lockers, and painted on airplanes' noses of the 1940s, and answered it herself with an overly desperate sigh, »'Cause I have to. It's the army.«

»You're the boss here, master sergeant?«

»Duck... and cov..vaah!« Burt the mechanic turtle echoed from inside his hollow shell of steel, well muffled, »Duck... and cov..vaah!«

»Yep, I am. ... Welcome to Alice's Wonderworkshop.« she stretched out her hand with a wide smile.

»Joan Fredrickx. ...« they shook hands, »The CSO told me, you might have a jeep left which I could borrow for a day.«

»Huh... Depends on when you need it. I've got... ahm... four... six... seven dozen... or so. Right there in the bushes by the long taxiway. ...« Alice pointed into that vague direction encompassing a very wide field, »... And I just turned five of 'em into this one. Took all of last week, on and off. Still needs some serious welding, though. They're actually reserved for the local police, if they ever can agree to create one, that is, some time within the next centuries, perhaps. ... Say,... where've I seen you before...?«

»Uhm... Bird strike, Wasp crashed, bailed out, mass grave uncovered, chopper exfiltration, big welcome home,... hmmm...« Joan mimmicked grave pondering, followed by a sudden quiz show eureka, »...on TV??!«

»Naaaah, ...« Alice laughed, »... on the big base, up west. I've been stationed there when you caused all the fuzz... saw you hobbling away from the chopper. What d'ya need a car for, still hobbling?«

»I'd like to visit some old friends 'round here. Deliver a pallet or so of aid ... packets.«

»Uhm, into the city it's actually easier to... ...« Alice frowned for the second it took her to catch up with the locally very novel concept of just doing things, »To .. that .. village? That's all bandit country. Great! They don't get much of anything. When d'you need it?«

»Uhm, ... I'm over here every other day. I fly one of the Herky Birds on rotation, the white one there, X-Ray Golf.« Joan turned around a little bit towards the tell-tale tail peeping out next to the hangars, above one of the lower buildings in the distance, »... Whenever it's ready.«

»The day after tomorrow. Guaranteed. Just moved up to highest priority. ... I'll have to try to get a reinforced suspension set so you can stack it up right to the tarpaulin. ... The road's bad up there, even some of the APCs got stuck somewhere 'round there last winter, but at least it's demined properly, already, ... mostly, with a few short detours. ... Hey, that's a nice touch, to continue to fly for the folks 'round here. ... Wait, I just have to get rid of the oil in my face. ... That's a trick you might be interested in. It's a lot easier to remove with de-makeup pads if you put on make-up first. ... And you just .. can't .. imagine the bargain prices the local .. guys .. suddenly offer for spare parts.« she chuckled, »Men are easy, everywhere. ... D'you like soccer?«

»Zal?!« she yelled, looking for her co-pilot.

»Yup, what's up kamikazeena?« he answered from the briefing room, busily studying weather maps.

»Oh, here you are... ahm, I've already done the payload and fuel computations. We can take one and... almost... a half small pallets extra. ...One and a half, if you'd lose two stones by tomorrow. I think you'll do.« she gave him a friendly nudge on the rounded point.

»I'll try my very best,... Miss Sophie... What's up for dinner... for one, then?« he wasn't talking or thinking of the weather, he was just looking at it to file it away at the back of his mind.

»Fuel's no problem, we've still got two hours reserve, if we just fill 'er up to maximum landing weight. So it won't depend on wind unless there's a headwind hurricane both ways.« Joan reduced the talk of the weather to its essentials.

Zal looked up with a sudden frown, »Why'd you want to take more than they pay... ask for?«

»'Cause I bought them from the luxurious benefits of my runway concrete savings plan... No, to tell you the truth, and nothing but, ...that's actually me sneaking into the aid business through the back door, huh?« she twinkled.

»More like the loading ramp, huh? ... It's been said that if you want to become a millionaire in the airline business you should start out as a billionaire,« he returned the twinkle, »Weather is fine today, and for the foreseeable future.«

»Great! What'd you say if we'd fly first plane out, last plane in for tomorrow?«

»You nuts?! What for?« that went beyond twinkles.

»Carpe diem, Zal. ... Oh, there's vegetarian pizza, chicken, trout or deer goulash on the menu for dinner... what'd you take?«

»Carpe menu,« he grinned, »Same procedure as every day.«

The Hercules' engines had hardly stopped turning when she told the unloading crew to deposit her extra pallets near one of the hangars, and left Zal to finish the daily chores. She was on her way to Alice's nuts and bolts empire.

»It's called Trabant... Made in Germany... East, that is.. or was. Trabant is German for Sputnik.« Alice pronounced the last word with quite a lot of p, t, and k, »... So that's your two-stroke satellite. Hope you like the colour, any other would be fine with me as long as it's olive green; there's no other available, or you'd have to wait for ten years or so... that's just for domestic customers, export's a little faster, they used to whisper in Germany.«

»Cute.« she smiled and walked around the small car, »I've never had a convertible.«

The standard olive colour was refined by a glossy finish which made it look a little more greenish and much darker, and Russian-style white lines and dots on some of the edges, the rims and wheel nuts. The tarpaulin was left in its natural bleached brown colour.

»Well, good that you like it. It's the only car that was more expensive used than fresh from the factory. Time is money also applies to socialist waiting communities, also known as .. queues, .. according to imperialist propaganda. ... It's mostly plastic, the body,... well, sounds like; I reinforced the frame in some places, ... because I had only thick sheet metal left, anyway... but I couldn't get reinforced suspensions, yet. So don't stack 'em up all too high. It's a tough little car, but the roads are real' bad beyond the city limits. ... I couldn't resist to fake a licence plate with your call sign,« she chuckled. »That's one thing you don't need around here. Nobody's ever heard of licences in this country. ... And if they ask, they'd like to have an iron handshake.«

»What's that?« Joan had obviously never heard of it.

Alice looked at her in a friendly way of not believing it, »Used to be coins... but hard paper's more welcome than soft metal, of recently.«

»Great, ... anything to watch out for? Special procedures?«

»No, not really. You can't get a simpler car than this, I guess. Only thing's the fuel, it's strictly two-stroke. So you have to add oil to it when it's not. They made engines with oil ratios of one over twenty-five, thirty-three, and fifty. I couldn't figure out yet, which one it is, or rather, which .. ones .. this particular engine was ... composed of, over time. So take one over twenty-five until I do. ... It's filled up to the rim, and the two spare cannisters, too.« Alice pointed at them.

»It's that thirsty?«

»No, not at all, but fuel is always as good as a hard currency around here, especially ours, 'cause it's not stretched. So the oil goes separately in the small cannister there, because there are mostly four-stroke cars in use around here. ... Means more potential customers. ... Not that the cars here were always properly purchased,... more likely, s.i.m. at home, know what I mean. Stole it myself... ... Just pour the necessary amount of oil into the tank first, the fuel will mix it by itself, then. The oil cannister holds a little more than you'd need for the big spare cannisters. A little too much doesn't do any damage... except to the environment... you'd just leave a blue contrail from here to eternity, and the car behind you won't rust for a very long time indeed, even if its driver suffocates prematurely.«

»I think I can handle that. ... I've flown single engines for most of my career.« she reassured Alice with a childishly serious look.

Alice had a guilty pleasure explaining the finer details of her work as they went on. One speciality was what she called, »...a foolproof..ed starter switch. It's quite easy to use. You have to hold down two hidden buttons first. One is hardly hidden... hahah... here, right below the steering column,... a shining bright new chrome switch, to be easily found by the aspiring thief. ... The second one's right here,« she was pushing down a part of the floormat on the driver's side, »below the corner of the floormat, beneath the seat, much harder to find. ... Then you've to pull these three levers on the dashboard in the correct sequence,...« she showed the sequence to her, but the levers were labeled fuel pump, choke, and mixture; nonsense in a wrong sequence, of course, »...and simply turn the key. Not that you'd really need a key, a screwdriver would work just as well. That's an any-key lock... because they took all the keys with 'em I had to break the locks first, anyway, and keys are far too easy to forget;... I always do that.«

»And when it doesn't start, you simply short it and drive away?« Joan's wits went through the sound barrier once again.

»Hahah... you just wait... If you failed to do it correctly, the car mimmicks an almost dead battery,... only the ignition is totally disabled, so you can't simply go downhill, second gear, and pop the clutch. ... That's less treacherous than a completely cut off starter, which leads every experienced car thief... oh, what'd you say you did before you joined, sweety? ...to the assumption that there was some sort of safety mechanism installed. ... So?!«

»You got me. Let's try it out, huh?«

»Can't wait!« Alice jumped into the passenger's seat.

Most of the route that was not a detour due to landmine-riddled stretches, was marked out in bold double lines filled in with bright yellow, as a second class road on the old maps. But the combined action of a decade of war, and more of neglect, plus mine laying, the occasional landmine detonating, and, finally, meticulous and painstaking clearing of those that had not, had left nothing at all that could be classified as a road in any conceivable civilized way. There was a river and a mountain to be crossed on the way, on detours to avoid as yet uncleared stretches on which there were a few deadly seductive pristine patches of asphalt left, well in the motorists' sight beyond the fortified and brightly orange painted road block barriers and their in no ways uncertain, and extremely graphic warning signs.

At one point, Joan had to cross a wooden bridge, of which she wasn't sure at all whether it would hold her car, but the traces of horseshoes and a much wider mud trail of a truck on its planks finally convinced her, although she felt like sweet-talking to the bridge all the way over to convince it to stay in one piece until she had hurried across. At its far end were the remains of a guard post blown to bits, some of which were still around, such as torn and twisted fragments of corrugated metal, and the steel girder framework that had once held them. Now it looked like a giant's rusty birdcage.

The little car which had been risen from the dead by Alice's magic wrench performed beautifully, jolting and bounding across the potholes that not long ago had held indiscriminate but not always immediate death at your toetips. Not just for humans, for every living being heavier than a few stones. After all, landmines were also sold to places where they had to defend those who had laid them against child soldiers. The crows feasting on the remains of a wild boar about a hundred yards beyond one of the orange barriers were a reminder as good as any, if one was needed, that all was not well in these parts.

It was, after a carefree look around at the scenery. The beautiful valleys were sometimes so deep and steeply incised, that even at this time of day, the sunshine in the highest mountains was sometimes lost around the south sides of the slopes between them, still in the shadows, as if the night had only just left. She shivered at the thought that the people she was going to meet had had to spend even colder nights outside in the past, and remembered hunting trips in the winter when she had accompanied her father as a child, when the mornings had been so cold that she cried, waking up long before her father, asking herself, were we ever colder after nights of any kind. But in the beauty that surrounded her as she drove on through it, the memories of the past in her childhood wonderings were just a small distraction from the things she had seen more recently, on that day, a million miles away it seemed from eternity.

The last few miles to the village actually were the best preserved part of the whole route, a solid single track field-path which apparently hadn't changed much since it had been drawn into the maps as one of the thinnest dashed lines. It gave a welcome respite from the continuous shake, rattle, and roll of the almost two hour long journey, although the ride had been dampened considerably by the pallet-ful of modern-day descendants of her grandparents' packed C.A.R.E., stacked up high behind the driver's seat, and next to it. They gave the car a uniquely compliant handling. It was almost as if it was sticking to the road in turns and bends, despite all the loose gravel.

On the last few hundred yards, when she saw the village for the first time from the ground, her heart started to beat faster, to the strange mixture of fear and expectation that was creeping up her spine, and sliding slowly into the pit of her stomach to firmly settle down there like a leaden ingot. The beat changed into a thumping, when the first burned-out ruins drifted by. The landscape had been eye-wettingly beautiful sometimes on her journey, and the villages must have been alike, in a long forgotten time. One could still recognize how the newer houses once had been loosely set each within their own gardens and orchards around the old heart of the village by the church.

She stopped near a house which was surrounded by a lot of people busily rebuilding it and got out of the car, hoping to find somebody who at least understood a few words of English. In a corner of the garden, half a dozen elderly women cleaned and sorted used bricks, apparently taken from this and from another destroyed buiding, while two young men, hardly more than boys grown up too early for their age, were preparing cement in an old bathtub. Girls pushed a heavily loaded wheel-barrow to and fro across narrow planks, and others threw tiles one by one up to the roof in a kind of bucket brigade, to supply the women working there. The roof's wooden frame was already about half laid out with a colourful mix of used tiles deemed more or less fit for re-use, although a few of them still cracked on the way through the many helping hands. Those weren't dropped, they were put on the ground with care, and later sorted to be used at the edges, or in place of smaller bricks. Some of the beams must have been charred by fire and then more recently been scraped clean before the roof had been raised. The same seemed to have happened to the whole structure of a framework house nearby. The architecture of rebuilding was dictated by the availability of materials.

A headscarf popped out of an unlaid part of the roof, wielding a hammer, pointing at something on the other side and yelled a few instructions in the local language, and then withdrew.

She stopped dead in her tracks, thunderstruck.

So did the headscarf. It turned around to reveal a face, and the jaws that had long ago hesitatingly and apprehensively uttered the one-and-only-word-she-knew-question, friend, dropped as if in slow motion, and three long nails fell clattering to the attic's wooden floor as they lost contact with the corner of her mouth. She slowly rose as if in trance, as if her bright blue eyes had just seen a ghost. It appeared that she wanted to say something, as her mouth moved slightly, but no words ventured to come out. For a moment she trembled very slightly, just a shiver, barely enough to be visible, and in the same way her face seemed to pale as the sunlight was reflected by a trace of sweat.

They stood and stared at one another for what seemed to them like a heavenly eternity. Nobody around seemed to take notice within that short second and a half.

So she was alive.

So she had remembered them.

A tile that came in too low startled the one on the roof, and as she caught it, at the same time, she ducked a split second before it would have hit her forehead. Her hand only stayed where her eyes had been. They seemingly wanted to see, past that tile. She jumped out of the framework and ran down on the crossbeams and down the ladder and across the muddy garden up to the fence where the other stood, in seven-league leaps that almost seemed to send her worn and old-fashioned leather boots flying, hammer in one hand, the tile in the other. The pale bluish dress with its coarse pattern of white flowers seemed to fly along in her wake, and the headscarf slipped back as her long dark hair caught the air.

They embraced for a long time, if one had asked them. After a while, first the hammer and then the tile slid to the ground. Work slowly came to a standstill within those few more seconds, as it was the turn of the others to one by one stand and stare. This time, the two of them didn't notice. They were in a very small and wonderful world of their own, of great relief. They had met again, and now they knew where, and when. And it even was a sunny day.

»It's so wonderful to see you again,... ... I ... ... I don't even know your name...« she looked at the smaller pilot for a moment, as if within seconds, tears of relief, and of joy would start to roll down the cheeks, but instead, the blue eyes like clear ponds at the sources of streams were shining brighter than ever.

»I... Joan... Joan Fredrickx...« for once, the gabby little pilot was speechless.

»I'm Zaria Czerni.« the other added quickly.

The green eyes held their focus for a moment of realization, and then turned into a beaming display of joyous surprise as Joan asked, »You... speak English?!«

»Yyyy..es ... if this is English, what I'm speaking...?« Zaria answered hesitatingly, not sure what to make of her question, »...I guess so.«

»But you... hardly understood a word.... then... how...?« Joan was amazed at her excellent pronounciation.

Zaria pondered almost a little shyly for a moment, and then fully regained her cool composure with which she had intercepted the flying tile, »Well... er... I thought maybe I was going to look for you some day when ...as soon as I could save the money for a ticket and they give us visa again... to say thank you. ... And then I should better know what to say, I thought. And ... we still had an old radio that wasn't broken, and the books from the school library weren't all burned... that badly... some of them. ... So every day at dusk, when all the work was done, I would sit down in bed to keep myself warm without working, and read... and listen to the radio... Radio Free Europe... Voice Of America... BBC World Service... you know? ...I hope I don't make too many mistakes, I only had a few of the soldiers on the disarmament patrol to chat with ...for a few minutes, months ago. They were very kind, but they had to leave very quickly. They only had a couple of minutes to check a village.«

Joan still couldn't belive her ears, »No, no... it's wonderful... Great! ... That's... that's amazing... it's been only two years, and...«

»Two years, three months and twenty-seven days,... but,...I never thought it was so soon...« the tall woman shrugged with a laugh.

»Yes...«

»...but I knew what for I was learning. ... Think that's always good. ... For whom... I think it is...«

Joan was flattered and smiled, »It took me so long to return... I never knew whether you were still alive. And I couldn't wait to know... and I feared to know at the same time.«

»Well, now you do... and almost nobody was killed here, after you fell from the sky. You saved us all.« Zaria spoke calmly, as if it had been the most natural thing in the world, to be alive.

Joan admired her for her warmth, her defiance and her perseverance. She in one way or another admired them all, for she had seen the carnage on the not so sheltered game passes in the bushes and beneath the trees, in those few confused hours she had been stranded in the clearing in the woods. It had been heartbreak.

»I'm glad I could help in my humble ways...« Joan beamed, »...and I brought some stuff I thought you might need.« she pointed to the car.

Zaria spotted the packets in the car, an easy thing to do since it was stuffed up to the roof. »It's very, very nice of them to send you with the first ones, really. ... I wondered whether... I dreamed... maybe... you'd come by helicopter... just as they took you away, you know. But you don't fly helicopters, do you?«

Joan was surprised, »No... never did. ... I don't fly full time for the air force any more... I changed to reserve, and I now fly this stuff in, for aid agencies, you know.« she realized she'd been so nervous the whole day long that she had completely forgotten to change into real civilian clothes. Then she realized something else that was a lot less believable, »... You... you said you didn't get any of these yet?!«

»No, nothing at all... I thought this was available for the... partizan... uhm, warlords' people, only.« Zaria explained.

»Not at all... I mean, just the other way around... You... everybody here is supposed get these regularly if and when you need them. They're mostly sent by families abroad, or bought from their donations... it's not at all for them. It's for distribution to the needy .. here.«

»Hmmm... they'll take 'em anyway, even if we get them first. This is not the big city, you know.«

They arrived at the back of the car.

Zaria lifted the covers. Her eyes widened, »Whow! ... For how many villages is this?«

»Villages? ... I thought, well... just for you guys here, and all your friends. ... Listen, I can bring a load like this every other day. Take what you need right now, and pass the rest on to anyone in need you come across.«

»So many...« Zaria gasped, and Joan thought for a second she might faint, but she just turned around to give her another big hug, »Thank you... thank you so much.«

»It's nothing, really... I'm glad I can help.«

Zaria was seemingly close to tears again, but in a different way, »Families send them? ... But... how come, they don't .. know .. anyone here...«

»Yes, families... and... well, just ordinary people who care. ... Well, if they don't know another family or anybody here, there are lists available at the aid agencies, and you can just as well send them anonymously, or just pay for some to be sent by an agency. ... Either you buy readymade ones like these, and put a letter into them, or a few small gifts, if you like, or you buy the stuff all by yourself, and pack them according to recommendations and send them individually. ... My gran'parents used to do that after the Second World War,« she pulled out the two black-and-white photographs, »There were lists of families in need, too.«

One showed the two of them between rows of canned food, and many cardboard boxes, one of which they were busily packing. She was placing the items into a box, and he was ticking them off on a checklist while passing them on to her. Everything looked pretty much nineteen-fortyish, except for the boxes. Their design was timeless; rugged brown cardboard with a few, sometimes hastily printed letters for weight and handling information, and occasionally even logos.

»So it's pretty much running in the family...« she switched the photographs. The other one showed the same young man as in the first picture, smiling proudly a few years earlier, sitting on the port inner wing of a polished twin-engine aluminium beauty of equally timeless design from the same period. He was dressed in a flight suit, a leather jacket lined with sheepskin, Mae Wests, army boots and a service cap. A propeller loomed large in the foreground on the right side, hiding the book in his hands, right behind him there was the open canopy, and in the background was the wide and open sky with patchy clouds and towering palm trees, »... like flying. The airplane I'm flying now was built by the same company,... although it doesn't look that sleek, like grandpa's.«

Zaria admired the old and crinkled prints for a few more moments, until it dawned on her, »You bought .. all .. these?«

»Uhum...« Joan smiled.

»For us?!«

»Uhum...« her hair was rocking in the wind, as she nodded firmly.

They looked at one another, »But... how can you afford all that?«

»Work sometimes pays off.« Joan's eyes said, tell 'em.

Zaria did. She turned around and yelled something at all the others. They were still standing there as if they had taken root at the place where they'd stood when she had arrived.

Joan flapped the back cover onto the car's roof tarpaulin and started to hand out the first two or three packets one by one.

One of the young men passed his along like he had done earlier with the roof tiles.

Joan made sure he caught the next one by eye contact, and played up to the game. It was a magic moment to her. Even more so as everyone joined in, led by Zaria, at first hesitatingly and in some disbelief, but very soon in a more and more cheerful mood, as realisation set in. Whatever holidays there were around here, they had come early, and all at once. Joan expected everybody to pinch themselves at any time to check they were not dreaming. The boot was soon emptied, and she opened the backseat's safety rope. When everyone had received one, there were still a few in the backseat's foot room left.

»Zaria, I guess you'll find someone for the rest of 'em.« Joan grabbed them, and put them on the ground next to the car, »...and those in the front seat are especially for children. ... There's a little extra in each one of them,« she smiled as a rattling engine noise started to cough along behind the corner.

»I think you can hand them out yourself very soon.«

An ancient one-cylinder single-axis tractor turned around the corner, and Joan instantly recognized the man on the trailer's wooden bench behind the handlebar. It was the one who had pointed a shaking pistol at her back then on the clearing, when it was still on safe. He looked a lot more relaxed now, and cheerful, as he turned into the yard. There was a fresh load of used bricks on the trailer, and another one on an oxcart with huge wooden wheels in tow behind the odd vehicle. On top of it all, there were about a dozen children enjoying the noisy ride.

»I think he's going to be our mayor, as soon as they let the little ones vote when they grow up. I can't wait to, really, but I don't think it will happen in time for me. ... If the children could vote, he'd already be in office,« Zaria explained, »He's a good guy, and around here, it's sometimes better to have a good man around the house... the town hall.«

The man looked at Joan as he switched off the noisy engine, recognized her as instantly as she had him, put off his yellow construction helmet and left it on the driver's seat as he set off to welcome her.

Joan tossed him a packet, »Hep!«

He caught it only just, and slipped on a little spot of mud left over from a puddle, to his dismay, and the benevolent entertainment of the youth. Somewhat embarrased by sending their would-be mayor to the floor, Joan hurried to help him up, but he had got up all by himself already, and held out his hand.

»Welcome, ...pleased to meet you. ... I'm Sergei Kleinman. How are you?«

»Fine... thanks. Pleased to meet you, too. Joan Fredrickx 's the name.«

»I... don't know if you remember me... but I'm sorry for pointing a gun at you. It was... well,... very bad times then,« he tried to explain shyly.

»Never mind... 't was on safe, at least.« Joan tried to console him with a smile.

»Yea... I know...« he blushed and smiled, too, »to tell you the truth, in the end I'm quite happy about that. ... Although Zaria reminds me of it every other day.«

Zaria couldn't avoid to giggle, very briefly, standing behind Joan with her arms crossed.

He patted on the packet underneath his arm, »Thank you very much... It's ... very kind of you.«

The children had jumped off the vehicle to admire the fancy car Joan had been riding. Zaria translated some of their conversation, »They're sure you must be a millionaire, they say. ... To have such a great car all of your own. ... One wondered if they make them in the land where they make milk and honey. ... I think it's... children's hour, huh, Joan?«

»Yup!« she opened the rope to the passenger's seat while Zaria spoke to the kids. They listened intently, and then started to line up patiently.

Just as she took the first packet, Zaria stopped her, »Wait a second... Melinda!« she waved for the little girl to come, »give the first one to her. She's the youngest, and she's lost both her parents in the air raid you've stopped. Mom and I have adopted her, sorts of. ... Without paperwork, 'cause it was all burned up anyway...« then she continued to almost whisper calmly, »...We... had... a bed to spare suddenly... my son died the night after you've left.«

Joan felt a surge of tears rising, as she saw the happy little girl smiling at her like she would have smiled at Santa Claus, had she ever known him, and then turned to look into her newfound friend's face which bittered for a passing second. They both fought to hide the emotions from the cheerful bunch of children, »I... I've had no idea...« Joan stammered.

»Neither had I, then... I'm sorry I had to be selfish on this one packet...«

Joan remembered all the medical attention she had received seconds after the SAR chopper had lifted off on that fateful day, »No... I... if I only had known... the paramedic... and...«

»The old doctor said it was too late... blood poisoning... already beyond hope. ... He tried something from the kit you kicked overboard, off the helicopter. He himself died a week later of the same fever. ... He had used all the medicine that was in it and left none for himself... But he was almost eighty, not barely ten. ... And somebody else's son. ... Sorry, I... didn't mean that... it... it's just...«

»Forgive me...«

»There's no reason to. Wasn't your fault. Listen, we didn't start the fire, not you... not me... but you've helped a lot more to put it out than I've ever tried to even think of. ... I sometimes thought of fanning it, until... ... And you've returned... not for the past, but... for the future.« she gave Joan a hug from the side, and with a wistful smile motioned again for Melinda to come, »...Give them hope, Joan.«

Melinda found the courage to approach the blonde stranger once she knelt down for the little girl, smiling invitingly with a packet in her hands, and in the whisper of Zaria's mother encouraging her to take one small step, and then another, and then proudly stride ahead.

Joan knew instantly it had to be her friend's mother, for she saw the same kind of warmth and strength in her eyes, the same can do in her hands, and the same confidence in her posture, although she was much shorter than her tall daughter.

Melinda ran across the garden towards Joan, and she even tried to lift the packet all by herself, which was much too heavy for her. She was maybe four years old, at most.

»Hey Chiquitita... there's a big one for you.« Joan smiled like a pumpkin, nodding encouragingly with huge eyes.

Zaria's mother followed closely behind her little darling to help with the packet, »Hello... I'm Karina... Zaria is my daughter. ... I only speak little English and understand ... little more. Thank you. Thank you very much. You are hero.« she smiled and gave her a hug with tears in her eyes.

»No, you are, Karina. You are. I'm just trying to help a little.«

»I will learn with Zaria. ... English will be better soon.« she smiled confidently and vigourously. As she picked up the packet with little Melinda's cheerful help »Please don't forget us.« she smiled, pushing back the tears.

»I never will. Promise.« Joan tried to be as strong as she was, but nearly failed.

The other children were still waiting patiently in line, and now it was their turn. First in line were three, two boys and a girl standing closely next to one another. The older boy quietly took one packet and they turned away before Joan could hand out two more. The girl who must have been about ten years old at most, with an older and a younger brother, took care of the little one and led him along to follow. He stared at Joan for a while, completely amazed.

She turned to Zaria, whispering »There's one for each one of them.«

»It's alright... first give some to the others, their mother's already got one.«

»And their dad?«

»Missing in action, presumed dead.«

Joan gulped and carried on, and soon had picked up her first word in the local language: Thank you. She thought that was as good for a start as it gets. The boys sometimes shook her hand, when they were able to squeeze the big packets under one arm for a moment, and some of the girls curtsied. She was surprised by the earnesty of their expressions and their excellent manners. Life had forced them to grow up fast. And maybe she was the first friendly one in drab they'd seen, except for an overstretched bunch of soldiers on a hurried patrol.

Just as she handed out packets to the last of the children, Zaria made her look at the youngest of the first three who had just said something in total amazement, apparently trying in vain to pick his jaws up. He very carefully held a bar of durable chocolate, about the size of any other bar of chocolate in the shelves of any supermarket, just a little thicker and made a lot harder for storability, like it is found in military ration packs, too. It was one of the standard items in the readymade boxes, and he turned it 'round and 'round again and again in his seven-year-old's hands, and eyed it in total awe. Joan noticed that he had already repeated the same line twice muttering to himself, and then again speaking to his sister, with a kind of deeply impressed grave seriousness only children can muster.

Zaria translated, »He just said, .. one whole bar of chocolate, just for the three of us. That'll last us at least a year.«

Joan quickly turned into the car, not just to get the last remaining exactly two boxes she had prepared for children, but also to hide her tears as the floodgates opened when she understood.

The soldiers at the airport were strictly forbidden to interfere in the locals' affairs. The definition of interference included among a whole host of other things, handing out food or gifts to locals, explicitly including children. It was feared that one of the ethnicities could accidentally recieve a disproportionate amount of chewing gum or candy, or whatever they deemed unnecessary in their ration packs at the moment. Maybe, some joked, the governments feared that some of the stuff might already be hopelessly beyond the best before date, for, as they usually would reason on off duty, the governments tended to supply the oldest stocks to get rid of them in time ecologically by means of individual digestion, the results of which, given the disputable quality of the supplies, might be mistaken for biological or chemical warfare, if disposed of on the wrong side of the fence, and hence violate important international treaties. Others found that even the contents of rationpacks made the day before yesterday didn't taste any better, and that it was simply a case of the worse the food the better the army. The latter theory was at least supported by the fact that one did not fall ill seriously enough to get sent home after eating the older stuff. Yet others inquired where one would get rationpacks that actually were made the day before yesterday, for things like that were as unheard of as unseen.

One of the ingenious ways to avoid these issues altogether was the soccer tournament which was organized to be proportionate. Another way, and one even more popular, was that quite simply no-one cared as soon as the superiors in charge could with any reasonable excuse pretend to not have seen a thing. There was hardly anybody who didn't have friends of some sort in town who would regularly recieve some foodstuff, newspapers, or cigarettes, the latter mostly not for a freebie smoke, but almost exclusively for use as hard currency on the black market.

»Would you mind if we keep this kind of schedule?« Joan asked carefully as they flew back across the borders.

Zal did his best to surprise her, »Ah... oh... not at all, not at all. Have you been to that village all day, or did I miss you on the markets. They're great aren't they?«

»Sure they ar... oh, no, haven't been there. Maybe on a later day. I just... well, sorted bricks, looked at them, if they had blast damage or other cracks, you know...?«

His frown said a lot more than it all.

She didn't really pick it up, »I think I just give it a try, and drive there every time we fly this route...«

»Which is the scheduled boredom of the foreseeable future, in case they didn't tell you. ...« he didn't really grumble, »You haven't been to the markets? Did I get that right?«

»Not bad for a first wall...« Zaria pushed a trowel-wielding fist into the hips, and eyed it expertly and with respect, although she understated the first and exaggerated the latter to the point of comedy, »So everybody can become a bricklayer within a less than month.«

Up to now, Joan had only helped to carry stuff back and forth on the construction sites, had mixed mortar, cleaned bricks and helped with the unwieldy parts of roof structures being put up, »Well, I've... seen my daddy do it a couple of times, back on our farm when I was a kid... I think...« she suddenly had a very strange look in her eyes as she looked at the first part of what would become a room, again, over the next few days.

»And just in time for...« Zaria startled her out of her thoughts.

»Oh my... yes!... I have to leave right now. Say good-bye and good night to all the others, would you? Until the day after tomorrow.« she smiled quickly, hugged Zaria and ran off towards her little car.

Zaria wondered for a second why she couldn't stay that one minute longer for a cup of her own tea, but then thought there might have been some change in her flying schedule for today, as the car disappeared quickly trailing its usual bluish cloud of smoke, with Joan waving a last time before she disappeared behind the bend in the field-path.

There was no change in schedules. There hadn't been and there wouldn't be even a single one for many more weeks and months to come; leave in time to arrive at sunrise minus thirty, arrive in time to leave at sunset plus thirty.

It was just that Joan had realized that for the first time in her life, she had been part of construction, not destruction, that for the first time in her life, she had built something to last with her own hands, and nothing but. It took her almost until she had reached the city, to calm her racing thoughts and emotions sufficiently to be ready to fly, and to dry the tears. Something important had happened today.

Liberation.

As soon as Joan's little independent aid distribution operation became more widely known, which was basically within hours after she had first left through the gates with her packed little car, people started to support her in any conceivable way. Alice parked the car ready to go near the Herkies' usual parking area, and topped it off, including the spare cannisters which more often than not seemed to drain away en route to the village. The controllers in approach suddenly filled the necessary forms in by themselves, ready for her signature, and the unloaders saw to it that all the small packets found their way into the car before Joan had even had the time to return from those shorter stays at the control tower. Soon, many people deposited surplus stuff there or in Alice's workshop for her to spread among the needy, or kindly asked her to visit friends of their own in town, on her tour from time to time, which she always did. Zal did his best to support every helping hand with special discounts in his little independent bazaar operation which he had been running for a far longer time, already.

All in all, after a few tours, Joan had a few more hours at a time to spend in the village, with the additional help of spring, and longer days arriving with it, and she took every tour she could possibly fly without violating the rules for resting time. Life suddenly made sense.

»That's ...what? The eleventh house we've all done all together? ... I still can't believe it, that I've been a tiny part of building something that beautiful.« Joan said, looking at the small framework house on which the others had completed the outside finish, nothing glamourous, just the most essential parts of weather-proofing, on the day before, when she hadn't been flying. She had just arrived, and they had unloaded the packets she had brought, like on all the many every-other-days before.

»It'll rain... I'm sure. ...« Zaria said, »... Are you sure you don't want to return right away? ... I mean, the streets will become very muddy, when it's raining, and sometimes landmines get washed down from the roadside.«

»All the meteorologists say otherwise. ... Latest thing I know is that the high pressure ridge of the last fortnight will stabilize and an area of thin high cirrus clouds will pass through around mid-day, but...« Joan started to explain.

»Mom?! What's the weather be like?« Zaria interrupted her, by calling out to Karina.

Karina stopped her heavily laden wheel-barrow, which took a strong pull to slow it down, took a moment out to wipe the sweat from her forehead, as the sun was burning down on all of them from a speckless blue sky, and then answered, »I think it's going to rain. ... Teres has ... pain ... that pain in her back again for two days, and that says a lot rain is coming soon.«

»See?!« Zaria exclaimed proudly.

»Yes... .. we'll .. see.« Joan replied, raising an eyebrow, »... I know clouds when I see them. I'll stay as long as they decide to look fine. ... When... .. if .. they appear.« Joan beamed, as she changed into her brandnew working clothes behind the car, »How'd you like it? ... I got them on the market in town.«

Nothing had hidden her from view as far as the far side of the field path was concerned, but in a land riddled with minefields and unexploded munitions, the Peeping Toms would have led a short life behind the bushes, and she was pleased by the idea that they very probably all had gone extinct by now. In any case, after more than a decade in the still very much male-dominated military, she couldn't have cared less.

»Oooh, they're not green... you're still Joan Fredrickx, are you?« Zaria giggled.

Joan had to laugh, »It's actually difficult to choose when you've only had stuff that looks all the same for over a decade, and every single thing there looked .. differently. ... But the flight suit was just getting too hot these last days. ... In the end, I took what Zal recommended... that is the cheapest stuff I could possibly find.« She pirouetted like a model as she walked around the car. To her, it was a ridiculous thing to do, and even in clothes by Dior would have been, and she just couldn't hide it. But it was fun anyway.

Her new bluejeans were well bleached by use and already torn a tiny little bit around one of the knees, and the pure cotton t-shirt must once have been cross-striped in a brillant deep red and white. It fit a little bit too snugly, but this was just as good, as it therefore was a little less likely to get in the way on the construction site. Probably they had been part of a donation that had been diverted for more profitable use.

Zaria looked at her for a short while, and commented expertly, »I .. must .. admit, I first thought that this Zal was Lagerfeld's younger brother, but then... I remembered that it's you ...and you'd still look great in a jute sack. ...« The thought revolved in her head once more, »That'd be even cheaper.«

They had been laying bricks for about three hours, like on the previous days she had spent there. Karina had borrowed a headscarf to Joan to avoid a sunburnt face back then on the very first day of this kind of weather, which had prompted her to treat everybody to a round of sweat-resistant sunblock, now a staple part of her supplies. It seemed that the new summer had pulled out all the stops and tried hard for the first time to let a long heat wave slosh across the country. The house next to the one they had first met at this morning was coming along nicely, as was the other, and it was well time for a short lunch break.

Everyone assembled in front of the first house and let the hot wind dry the sweat away while they were enjoying home-made bread, cheese, and confiture, and some of the treats from the packets, like cookies, two each for the grown-ups, three for the children, and a bowl of chocolate pudding, and even one slice of sausage per person. The women took turns in preparing the food, and the last summer and autumn had been gracious to everyone by providing lots of fruit and berries to collect and turn into conserves for the winter, and there was even something worthy to be called a harvest again, of grains to make flour, and some potatoes, too. At least the times of hunger were over.

Joan was particularly fond of their energy drink. It was one half fresh and cool water straight from the hand pump, one half apple juice, well shaken to stir up all the fruit in it, with one full large spoon each of salt and sugar added per bottle, and laced with a drop of lemon juice from the packets she had brought. It tasted wonderfully, and it worked just fine. The sun was still shining brightly from a perfect blue sky, and Joan had only spotted three tiny clouds over one of the mountaintops in the distance, so far. They had soon after disappeared again.

»Maybe the weather report was right, after all,« Zaria remarked casually.

»Don't praise the day before nightfall, ... even when you change your mind.« Joan giggled, taking a big gulp from the bottle.

»Pooh... there's a proverb here... When the rooster crows on top of the dung-hill, the weather may stay as it is, or change at will. ... No wonder you have that much energy when you drink that much.«

Joan laughed, »That's some real piece of wisdom...« and passed the bottle along, and Zaria took her share. »You do have enough of it, haven't you? ... I mean, I could bring stuff like that, too.« Joan asked after a moment of consideration, carefully, not to be a burden to the villagers.

»No, thank you. ... There've been more apples than I've ever seen last year. We've been lucky to get them all picked in time. ... We've been very lucky that we have had such a good year, this time. ... C'mon, take another.« Zaria returned the bottle to her, and encouraged her, »I don't want you to faint in the cockpit tonight. I need you back safely here for the sake of all the bricks,...« she smiled with a twinkle, »...we'd be sad and lonely without you.« She picked one up, held it close to her own ear and repeated the line in a smurfy voice, »We'd be sad and lonely without you... and we'd have to spend the winter out in the damp and cold. ...« she changed back to normal, »...Well, not me at least!«

Joan laughed aloud and took another sip from the bottle. Suddenly she stopped and frowned, »Oops... ...? ...Did you see that?!«

»Huh?« Zaria hadn't noticed a thing.

»Funny. I thought for a second, there had been a light in the bushes. ... Probably the sun's been too bright. I should have brought my sungla...«

»I see it, too. ...« Zaria spotted it at the same time, moving again slowly through the bushes across the meadow on the other side of the field-path, close to the forest.

»Flickers like a glow-worm. ... What .. is .. this?«

»No idea. Wait, don't move.« Zaria very quietly started to alert the others, as if she hadn't really seen it. She soon returned with a broom in her hand.

Everyone started to put their food down and grabbed something they deemed to be useful in the situation, as suddenly a woman calmly walked out of the bushes, and on, slowly and on a winding path, towards them. She had tightly curly hair, somewhere between dark blonde and light brown, was a tiny little bit shorter than Joan, and carried a small shining lightbulb in her right hand and held it stretched out ahead of herself, much like a divining-rod. It was fixed onto an old-fashioned ornamently turned wooden candlestick. The other hand held a big ring of anthracite coloured thin cable behind her back and slowly released one coil after another as she paced on, like a fairy spirit floating across a mythical pond.

She floated towards Joan and Zaria, smiling as brightly as the light in her hand was shining. Joan had never seen her before, and she in turn was looking intently at Joan all the time. She didn't take an eye off her for a moment, even as she started to walk around her in a circle very closely, and very slowly. She turned to keep the light in front of Joan's face constantly as she walked on. Joan followed her look in an amazed and friendly way, and continued as the woman slowly turned away from her to look at Zaria right next to her with the same strange intensity, walking around both of them in a figure of eight. Then she drifted on towards the other groups on the yard, circling each quietly with her light while looking at them just as intently and focused, with her wide and very confident smile.

Joan looked down and recognized the cable she had left trailing in her wake. It was military-style black telephone cable, extremely rugged but thin, and made of tough steel-reinforced leads. She looked at the figure of eight it had traced around Zaria's and her own feet, and then at her tall friend in total and silent amazement.

Finally, she brought herself to whisper into the silence, »That was surreal... but beautiful. Very beautiful.«

The woman continued to walk on slowly towards the centre of the yard. She put the cable down next to a stack of bricks, and only kept a few coils in her hand as she set out to climb that heap of as yet unsorted bricks. Climbing on top of them, she put on a crown of flowers she had kept well hidden between her back and the cable ring, and suddenly lifted the light skyward. It shone like a beacon, even in the broad daylight, as everyone erupted into wild cheers and applause.

As the roar of enthusiasm subsided, everyone including Joan who at least understood the international foreign words, if only a few of the locals', suddenly heard Sergei say something along Lenin's famous line, stating that, electrification plus soviet power ... equals communism, into the unexpected silence, which prompted slightly acrimonious but after all very relieved laughter from the crowd, and a well overdone and theatrical deep bow towards him by the woman on top.

»What was the third thing he said? ... Pro...?« Joan asked Zaria.

»Minus produce.«

Joan almost went rolling on the floor laughing, just as the others were slowly stopping to catch a breath, and many joined in again with her as they got she had finally got the translation.

The woman on the bricks motioned at the crowd to be quiet for a moment, and as the noise faded away, she started a speech with something along the lines of, my dear estimable fellows, my lords and ladies, or friends, Romans, citizens, in a very grave and serious way. Everybody went silent at once. The following speech was very short and easy to understand, though.

Even Joan didn't require a translation of the invitation, »Paaaarty tonight!!!« she yelled, rising the light again, and jumped off the bricks to collect the cable in the ensueing cheers. She did so very speedily and energetically, sometimes even jerking the cable hectically when somebody was too slow to get off it, and curiously this seemed to fit her all the better, Joan thought to herself.

»Who is she...? I've never seen her before.« Joan asked, as she approached them almost running along the trail she had laid, and holding the candlestick with her teeth while she rolled up the cable again.

»Joan Fredrickx... ... Maia... Pszczolka Maia.« Zaria introduced them.

»Nghi...« she mumbled around the candlestick, while she »Hmph!... Mph!!« motioned for the two of them to get out of the figure of eight, and after she'd picked up that stretch of the line, she took the light out of her mouth, and again said, »Hi... I'm the miller maid here. ...« her grin widened a lot suddenly, »...and as of now, power station manager, I think... and engineer... I hereby solemnly proclaim myself one... yesss!« she gave it an elbow curl for emphasis, »... And electrician... and... hehe... a lot more. ... Discotheque owner! ... right! ... Wow!« she smiled even more widely, and almost jumped for joy at the sudden realization, »Tonight again. ... haven't DJed since they kicked me out of university for being born here! ...« she waved the light, »...and this shines even without their diploma... harhar! Gotcha! ... What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours... ... ... Uhm, you're the pilot?«

»Yup.« Joan was clearly out-worded. She slowly realized that the spooky display of the past minutes was only the marvellous foreplay to a galactic outburst of pride and joy, one that must have been nourished by a long time of disappointment and hardships as well as dilligence and hard work. And one that could only be held under control for the last few moments, when she was approaching them, by the smooth movements and the expectant silence.

»Thanks for .. C.A.R.E..ing!« she twinkled, and gave Joan a hug.

»Maia's your name? ... Sorry, I didn't get the first part that quickly...« Joan half turned towards Zaria.

»Pszczolka? ... Oh, that's only her nickname...« Zaria grinned, earning herself an irritated look by the nicknamed one.

»Yeayeayea... get it over with, Zaria...« Maia rolled her eyes.

»'T means .. little bee, .. ...that's because she's always buzzing around so assiduously... or hectically... well just the way like she does.« Zaria explained.

»Hah..hah... Thanks a lot... I'm just too fast for you, an' you forgot... the sting!« she pushed the lightbulb skyward again, aiming at Zaria's nose, »Bzzzz!....ouch!«

Zaria had stopped the candlestick in mid-air with a smile and firm grip on Maia's hand, »True.« It hadn't even come half way towards its target, »So power comes out of the wall socket, not the muzzle of a gun?? My, my... ... Well, learn a new thing every day...« she shrugged, and after a second, »...Oh...« let go of Maia's wrist.

»Well... hm.« Maia gave in, shaking the sudden grip if not the pain of Zaria's attack out of her hand, and turned towards Joan, who was all of a sudden fairly surprised by her tall friends quick reflexes, »Want to carry the light? Please, I'd feel really honoured.« she smiled a little more seriously, and still didn't really wait for an answer.

Joan had hardly a choice but to take it, and she did.

Maia called everyone to follow her for a guided tour of the brandnew power station, and as she set about again to collect the cable, Joan was pulled along in tow by the cable attached to the lamp, with Zaria walking by her side.

Joan felt a little funny, carrying the light, which was a bulb from a car's headlight. The dipped beam's filament was burned out, but the full beam's was still fine.

The cheerful procession had arrived at the mill, and Maia told Joan to wait by the door, light in hand, while all the others streamed into the fairly dark and noisy room. Joan and Zaria had thus some time to admire the new mill wheel. The carpenter's tools were still spread out on the outside from the last fixes on it.

The mill was situated at the foot of the woods on one of the ridges along which Joan had chased the mass murderer's plane over two years ago. A canal was tapped off the small river a mile or so upstream, and led along the mountain flank towards a basin above the wheel, which by itself stood almost twenty feet high, next to the workshop. Between this and the house further uphill, there was a large barn with a threshing floor. Maia had told her on the way, that the mill wheel had been destroyed during the war, and the canal's banks had been blown up, too, but further upstream.

After the last ones had entered, she led Joan and Zaria inside, too. The single bulb gave just about enough light for everyone to guess what they thought they maybe were seeing. Maia entered last and closed the door behind her. After a short pause to let the darkness sink in, she flicked a switch, and the room was all of a sudden lit brightly by some thirty more bulbs of different sizes. Then she opened the blinds of the windows.

Joan would have believed immediately, that McGyver and Indiana Jones had just recently spent their holidays here.

Next to the old millstone was a new wooden shaft, propped up by still freshly coloured wooden framework. It received its power via switchable leather belt drives from the mill wheel's main gear right next to the wall, behind which the water could be heard gushing down. There was an old and worn millstone whirring around on the new shaft in the middle, and placed around it on a circular frame were about a dozen car alternators, front side down to stop dirt from the stone from falling into them. They could be individually swivelled around their now vertical support axes, just as one would do in a car to change the belt or adjust its tension. The alternators' adjustment clamps were each weighted by a large stone on a pulley to press them against the circumference of the millstone. This part of it had never been worn down like its working surface which had far too many grooves to be useful. Instead of individual belts and the special discs they needed, there were small homemade wheels much like those of modern prams mounted on each alternator's axis, and these happily raced along on the infinite reddish sandstone track, rocking very slightly in the rhythm of the stone's slight imbalance as the pulleys kept them firmly in touch with it. Two strong electrical leads emanated from each of the alternators' rectifier plates and were collected in a switchbox, while two smaller ones led to the plugs where the regulators once had been inserted.

Maia went to great lengths to explain the workings of the machinery to everyone. Three of the alternators could be switched to jumper cables to power an electricity take-away, a charge and carry for car batteries, each one equipped with their very own electronic regulator. The fourth one controlled all the other ones to drive her telephone cable power grid yet to be laid out. She had over time managed to collect two huge rolls from the abandonned mortar positons in the woods. Most of the other parts were scavenged from wrecked cars, and smashed radios or TV sets found by the roadsides and in ravaged settlements. She didn't have much cable for the higher mains voltage that comes from a wall socket in more peaceful and better organized times and places, and the lower voltage of car batteries was not dangerous to be handled in such a makeshift way. At least from now on, there would be enough electricity for reading lights, radios, and other small appliances.

Power electronics were in short supply; at one point she offered a kingdom or at least a peck of flour for a »two-N-thirty-fifty-five,« whatever that was, so she apologized for all the clicking relays and switches that were to follow. At least, most of the audience could follow her again from this point on.

She insisted that she hadn't spent ten years as a student of electrical engineering in the big town to see something electrical move, since moving parts were firmly believed to be the domain of mechanical engineers, but caught in the current situation one could not avoid interdisciplinary work at all costs. Because she had successfully, if not at all quickly, passed all the exams in the end, shortly before the smoldering civil war had caught fire, the only excuse left to deny her the well-earned diploma was the fact that she had been born into the wrong family in the wrong place, that is, this very house. She said, she now as a kind of compensation felt to have the right to choose which kind of engineer she would become once she grew up, if ever.

And then added by the way, that tonight's party would be not just the opening of the power station, but also her twenty-seventh to thirty-first bithday parties which she had all missed while she was in jail on and off, for distributing underground leaflets and all the other dumb excuses. But since surely just about everybody else must have enjoyed themselves at them, she'd now expect a re-run of all the presents, like in the olden days on television.

»I'm so sorry to miss the party... all the parties,« Joan sighed, »I wish I had known... I should have brought another crew in for a familiarization flight, so they could have taken the plane back. And littleme a few days off...«

»Ah, Joan... my oh my...« Zaria patted her on her back, »You're overworked... you'll need holidays soon... how about a brick-laying trip to the countryside, huh?«

Joan waved the suggestion off, laughing at it.

»I'll save a bottle of wine for you. ... Red and dry?«

»Perfect...«

»Great. It's the only stuff that grows here. ... If you want it sweet, add grape-juice.«

»...but I don't drink when I know I'm flying the next day or the day after next. ... Stick and grog just don't fit together. ... Yoke and grog... my ol' boss would probably say a yoke only fits with a lot of grog.« Joan just had to laugh a little, wondering what he would say about that steering yoke if he knew it was hands-sharing with all the many bricks of the locals.

»Augh... poor baby. ...« Zaria spun it in a way that really made one believe she felt sorry for that toddler of the air, »It's been a great year for wine, too, the last one. It's a shame we've hardly made any.«

The next big thing to demonstrate was a by comparison tiny piece of machinery. Almost everyone had overlooked the small generator at the end of the main wooden gear shaft that traversed the room with all its discs for the various leather belts and transmissions. It looked just too ordinary, being only about the size and shape of an engine like those found in a home improvement enthusiast's circular saw. It was attatched to the shaft through a real gearbox, not a wooden one, but one taken from an old motorcycle. When switched into gear, and carefully clutched, it could produce the immense power of almost five and a half kilowatts, divided into three phases with full mains voltage. It powered a kitchen in the upper floor with a fridge, a freezer, and an electrical cooking-stove with four cooking plates and an oven, and they all worked.

The kitchen and its equipment had been purchased by one of the villagers who had worked for many decades as a cook and restaurant manager in Germany after helping to rebuild it as a coal miner in the 1950s and -60s. He had returned to his home village after retiring, and had over time built a large extension to his parents' house, for his children and the many grandchildren he hoped to enjoy there. Every Pfennig he could spare from his savings had ended up in it, so they could all stay there during the holidays or whenever they liked to, and taste the old country. It was something which he couldn't possibly have afforded there, and the call of home still had been loud to him.

The fact that one of his grandsons was a student of civil engineering had saved the kitchen. The ceiling's reinforced concrete stayed mostly in one piece and was supported by the chimney's bricks on one side when it caved in like all the other houses, after the well timed gas explosion had pushed the walls outward. They both had been buried underneath the finer rubble of the house's older parts, hanging head down from the ceiling, tied to chairs, blindfolded, gagged and smelling the rising level of gas for the last few hours of their lives, knowing that there was a sacrificial candle burning next to them. They had sneaked back into the village the night before it had been demolished to try to save a few irreplacible belongings, family photographs, deeds, and the like.

Maia's achievements in automation were most impressive. One of the buggy wheels on the old mill stone drove a mechanical regulator like those on an old steam engine. Once the centrifugal force increased too much with the revolutions of the shaft, the rotating weights were lifted higher, a lever was pulled, and a reversible friction gear turned a threaded shaft to slowly close the gate above the mill wheel, reducing the flow of water. When the spinning balls fell too far down for lack of revs, another lever came into action, reversed the gear and opened the gate further. And as long as they floated happily between the limits, the gear held itself in its idle position, nothing happened and the gate stayed where it was. This, and the slow drive, Maia explained, stopped the mechanism from getting the jitters. Otherwise, the idea was just nicked from the tape spool drive of a video recorder, she said.

For a sudden peak demand, it had a lot of power reserve anyway in the increasing of the amount of water in the mill wheel's chambers when it was slowed down, in the weight and rotation of the millstone, and in a large truck starter battery which was needed for the regulator to work properly, anyway.

»And now, after ending the endless quest for candles and firewood for cooking,...« Zaria translated on, as Maia climbed onto a stool, as »...?« Zaria waited for whatever was to come. She had to wait a little longer and shrugged helplessly.

Maia just stood there for a moment, grinned proudly and enjoyed the undivided attention. Then she stretched out her hand to ring twice a loud bell hidden behind one of the beams of all those constructions.

As if by magic, a long and somewhat rusty iron lever started to move, and put another wide leather belt on to the discs of the main drive shaft. It slipped for a second and then pulled on tightly. Some very heavy machinery started to move.

An infernal hammering noise suddenly tried everything to blast their eardrums. It was coming from high on the balcony on the far side of the barn-like workshop. The threaded shaft soon after whirred into action to open the gate, inaudibly over the noise.

After a minute, a tall muscular woman, as tanned as dirty, and clad in nothing but an oily light brown leather apron, continuing up to an otherwise skimpy top of the same material, rugged working gloves, plastic eye protection glasses, and bright yellow Mickey Mouse earflaps stepped out of the darkness to the balcony's handrail.

She had brought a proud and confident smile, a well warmed-up body, a very long wrought iron rod, about one third of an inch across, and a heavy hammer with her. Behind the fence-like handrail support, there apparently was an anvil, and she immediately started to sweat it out on the rod with fast and vicious blows of the hammer, turning the rod around its axis, back and forth at right angles between each blow. After half a minute or so, she quickly looked at the tip of the rod and watched intently with her brown and focused eyes, as a couple of drops of sweat that had fallen out of her slightly curly blonde hair evaporated on it into a little white cloud. She decided to give it a few more hard strikes, and then immediately after the last blow stretched it out across the crowd very quickly with a smile, pointing it at somebody in particular.

The crowd parted, and old Teres in the middle carefully held the iron rod at some distance from its slightly glowing tip, to steady it, with a rag to protect her fingertips, and just as carefully lit a cigar on it. It seemed to taste just fine. She passed it on after a while, first to Sergei, who just took one puff to cough slightly, and then to everyone else who liked to try.

Maia pulled the belt to the balcony off its disc, and the noise stopped immediately. After a few seconds, the gear at the gate started to change again, adjusting the flow of water.

»So the hammers are working, too, already...« Zaria seemed to be pleased about it.

Joan laughed, »I got that without the translation... the earthquake was clear enough,« and rubbed her ears which she had been shielding with her hands while they had been working.

»...then the only thing left Tatiana still needs, is fire...« Zaria said confidently.

»Tatiana...? ... ...the blacksmith?! ... Oh, I think she's got quite a lot, already.« Joan raised her eyebrows in respect.

»A .. forge, .. I wanted to say.« Zaria replied overly matter of factly.

»Wow!« Joan interrupted Zaria as they were stepping out of the woods, orchards, and bushes that had so far obscured the view.

»What?« she asked, squinting her bright blue eyes in the even brighter daylight.

»Look at .. that .. cloud! ... That's one hell of a beautiful thunderstorm! ... W..ow!«

It was shining in all shades of yellow, orange, and bluish grey in the distance of an otherwise perfectly blue sky, lit brightly by the early afternoon sun. Near the village itself, there was still no trace of a cloud to be seen. The giant cloud was hoovering in all the rising thermals of the surrounding area, to merge them into its own maelstrom of an updraught, one strong enough to be noticed by the unaided eye. The edges of the thunderhead were moving visibly, and were still bulging vigorously outwards, far from fading into the opaque hazy anvil these storm clouds usually develop as they age during the day. It seemed to be supported by turbulently rising column-like mountains of cauliflower which rotated and convulsed within themselves, mushrooming, trying to out-rise the ones next to them. The whole spectacle of Himalayan proportions was surrounded by foothills, majestically formed by an obedient army of cumulus clouds, growing like fluffy chimneys, the higher the closer they were to it. They appeared to be sucked into darkness the more the closer they approached the storm's epicentre, and some were even clearly tilted towards it. Sometimes, hazy veils appeared in the still air between the rising columns of water vapour and ice crystals, only to be punched through, torn, twisted, and finally devoured by the growing clouds of turbulence become visible.

Joan stood in amazement. She had always been fascinated by the endless variations created by the power of nothing but sunshine out of thin air, and outlined by the water vapour it carried along.

Zaria almost had to snap her fingers to wake her up, »Joan, there's something talking in your car.«

»Huh? ... Wha... shit! ...oh... the ICOM... thanks!« she was stirred up by the simultaneous realization about the thunderstorm's position, and jumped to run towards the car. She grabbed the air band portable radio, which had been clipped to the dashboard. It was one of the concessions she had made to the base security officer, mainly because she thought it was a good idea to carry it to listen in to the air traffic at the airport, just in case, and an old short wave radio for emergencies was built into the car as part of the standard kit, anyway, and Alice had left it where it was as it had turned out to be a working one.

As she approached the car hurriedly, she heard her own plane's call sign, and replied immediately, »Two Romeo Juliett Sierra X-Ray Golf...« she thought as she spoke and then added for clarification, »...pilot off aerodrome,« after half a second.

»Glad to catch you, Joan.« a familliar voice answered. It was one of the pilots she had more regularly met at the airport. He and his colleague flew a shiny new and sleek, small twin-engine commuter plane based there for VIP transfers on a very irregular and chaotic schedule. Basically whenever a diplomat or a warlord wanted to go, they had to jump, or fly their bored to death wives or girlfriends out on a shopping trip to the most expensive European highstreets within range.

»Quebec Zulu, ... Andy, what's up?« she asked.

»X-Ray Golf, ... airfield's flooded. Completely. ... I took off 'bout one an' a half hours ago on a small airstrip up north with disarmament inspectors and watched the whole thing build up ... zap like that from a few small cumulus over the ridges that poked through the inversion layer. ... UNEAFOR says your plane is alright, most of the really heavy hail missed the airfield... so far. ... And wind's not that threatening, although it brought down a couple of trees, ... uphill on both sides of the city. ... Thought you might've liked to know.« the voice crackled through the airwaves. On trips like these, with real people, that is, he had started to follow her example and filled his plane up to the limit with aid parcels for the locals. On the others' flights, the room would be needed on the way back for the Gucci's and Harrod's extravaganzas.

»Thanks a lot... I'm glad to hear that. Hope everyone's fine.« Joan was relieved.

Zaria and Maia stood right next to her, looking concerned.

»Uhm...« the voice returned, »I guess you can take your time... the hangar area, parking ramp, and the barracks are only a couple of inches under water... but the runway's up to five feet deep in. They said the higher parts will fall dry tonight if the rain stops soon... but closer to the river, might take a couple of days... drains slowly along the runway... too level, they said, and the water from the hills and further upstream isn't even there, yet. We've to turn back north... there are more cumulonimbus forming further south, but very far away. Guess it's the dragging front that was to pass harmlessly by there... kicked up a lot of dirt, that...« The voice stopped for a moment, and there was a noisy crackle in the meantime. Just as Joan wanted to ask something, it returned, »...whew! ... That was one spectacular series of lightning, I can tell ya! ... I'm circling it so the guys in the back seats can at least enjoy the show... man, they're all on one side... my plane's already listing...« he kidded her and laughed, »Anything you want to tell the guys back home?«

»Ahm... I think I'll be back for...« she thought for a second, then smiled at the other two as she answered, »How about... if they call me over VHF when the first plane goes out again? I'd be back two... three hours or so after that...«

»Wait, I'll pass that on...« he returned after a minute, »They want to know how long your battery lasts and discuss a radio schedule.«

»Tell 'em my battery lasts as long as water flows downhill, and I'll keep listening all day as long as they're open, usually. Just tell the first pilots outbound again to call me a couple of times.«

»Alright, just a sec, X-Ray Golf...« He was on the other frequency again for some time, »They say that's not funny. ... I repeated the water line just as you said it...« he chuckled, and the three around the radio had to grin a little, too, as they looked each other in the eye, »...and they agree. Expect three days at least... they'll have to bulldoze the mud, tree trunks, and all the other debris off the runway first, even if the water subsides quickly. ... Doesn't look like that to me, though... the storm's still building, growing fast. Looks more like Herky's stuck in Augias' mess for the time being. ... You got it parked on Foxtrott as always?«

»Same procedure as every other day, Quebec Zulu.« she replied lightheartedly.

»Ah... lucky you... that's about the highest spot within the perimeter fence... guess that's safe. Where are you now?«

»Right in the village, thirty miles south or so of the airport... Where are you, Quebec Zulu?« she pointed at the airplane she had spotted as its wings were glinting in the sun for a second. It was just a tiny spot, high and far in the distance, but Zaria spotted it immediately. Maia had to try hard for a while until she got it.

»Ahm... ten miles east of town or so... going VFR at the moment.«

Joan first pointed at her own eyes like giving a Victory salute at the same time, and then at the plane, and waited for a second until the other two got the idea before she keyed the mike again, »Booooooy!! From here 't looks like it's going .. right at ya behind you, like hell!!«

The wings in the distance suddenly glinted again twice.

»Whe..« he had released the push to talk button too fast.

»I knew I could rock your wings a little...« Joan giggled into the microphone, »with regards from the whole crew.«

»Man, you scared me! ...See ya, then. Enjoy yourself!«

»Something tells me I will... there's a whole truckload of bricks... but we've to polish 'em off first.«

»Cheers!« he laughed in reply.

»All the best to Alice, and tell Zal to keep his feet dry and be nice to our bird. ... X-Ray Golf holding position indefinitely.«

»Wilco. Good luck!«

Joan thought it a miracule that any glasses at all had survived the demolition of the village. But then she remembered the harrowing accounts from Coventry and Dresden her grandfather had once read when she had sneaked up to snuggle up by his side as a child, and her eyes just gradually had all by their own started to follow the same lines his were following. Porcelain cups once inherited from long passed away great-grandparents, that miraculously had survived direct hits on Victorian six-storey buildings that had killed every single one in the cellar's bomb shelter. Falling with the debris from the upper floors, just to be found in the burning and panic-filled streets by the returning lone survivour who had been away on fire patrol duty because of a hasty last-minute switch in shifts. There were many stories like this, because there had been so many more houses like those. War, it has been said, is a curse that once it has fallen and taken hold of anyone, it runs down to the seventh and yet seventh again generation.

Strange thoughts to have, it crossed her mind, while refilling the colourful collection of glasses held by those around her, with delicious red wine. Glasses, and Maia's one and only porcelain cup. It looked fragile at first with its cracked handle, but like the one who held it in both hands, it must have been so much more sturdier than looks suggested.

»So how did you get to join the air force... was it a propaganda programme to... well, like to show, ...wahey, we've got equal rights everywhere?« Maia continued the conversation.

»No...« Joan had to chuckle, »...not at all... I was about to turn seventeen, and I was done with highschool and... hm... and having read all of gran'pa's books on flying and adventures... several times over, and... hmmmm... ... being seventeen and sorts of an incurable romantic... You know, I had read all these nineteen-fifties old black-and-white illustrated books of flying... all this magic stuff about these daring jet-age white knights on their supersonic silver horses... and it just captured me completely, from the tips of my hair... which was a lot longer then... to my toes... it's just that. I can't explain it at all. ... And most girls I guess run away somehow at some point to find their very own white knight... while... I ran away... in a very polite way, I'm glad to say... but still, I ran away, too, ... ... but to .. be .. one myself. I guess I didn't have a clue then, and knew very little of the world. ... Well, a couple of farms and a village, I figure...«

»And how .. politely .. exactly did you run away?« Maia was chuckling at the wording.

»Well... I... took all the tests... Oh, so I was in town, once, too. ...I guess the dream to fly carried me over the physical tests...« she smiled with hindsight, »...and didn't tell anybody. And when I got word that I had passed them all, and the only thing I had left to do was to join up, I told my family that I would go.«

»Gosh, what'd your parents say?«

»Well, mom had to sit down,... dad blew his top,... don't you dare... he suddenly even liked my then boyfriend,... and so on, ...and grandpa's eyes got a little moist and he disappeared for a few moments, and then returned to watch in silence how I battled it all out... my sister said I was nuts, but then, just about everybody I knew then had said that even before, and grandma enacted a heart attack, sorts of, until she had sorted it all out for herself. Then she thought for a moment and started to weigh the pros and cons with the others, and juggled the different opinions. ... In the end, the meeting was adjourned, and they wanted to talk about it tomorrow and decide later, but I knew, and had told them... which was the polite part,... I had to be at the office within forty-eight hours. ... In the end, they just weren't going to talk about that one issue, as if it would all go away by itself, and I left on foot at the latest possible moment in the dead of night to catch the train at the station down in the valley, twelve miles away, after leaving my ... most of my worldly belongings, sort of, to my little sister. ... At least she has a room of her own now.« Joan smiled deeply sunk into fond memories for a moment, »But gran'pa knew it right from the start, that I would go anyway. He knew better than to hold me back. No has always meant yes to me, sorts of, but between the two of us, he's always got me to do the right thing somehow, in the end. ... ... And before he first returned to the room, right at the beginning, grandpa did something that has turned out to be almost... well, by now, prophetic... he quietly got the two photographs which I've always had with me ever since and put them on my bedside table.«

»Wow! ... a real white knight in our midst, ...thought they came much taller.« Zaria joked, sitting next to her, like all of them with their backs against the bare framework and clay wall in the small living room of the mill.

Joan threw her a mock punch in reply, »Hey! ... Okay, my sister said I'd be some kind of a warrior; even she could beat me up, but then, she's always been strong for her age. But I've got eighteen thousand and three hundred sixty-four horses, and four Rolls-Royces, and they're all painted white! ... a little dirty and dowsed maybe now...«

»Ouch... and... did they still talk to you afterwards?« Zaria wondered.

»Well... not at all for some time... but grandpa and I wrote miles and miles and miles of letters between the two of us. That was wonderful... I'm glad I did that... it wasn't always easy to find the time. It's almost like a diary now. And later, after basic training, he'd often come to visit for a couple of days. ... I think to smell kerosene again, too, after all these years. Although he always insisted that AVGAS smelled a lot better, the stuff for piston engines, especially that one hundred fifty-six octane stuff he still remembered. ... And, you know, the way pilots all share a common ground,... or the temporary lack of it,... he soon found a couple of friends here and there who'd open doors for him in exchange for a few good stories of his experience during the war in the Pacific. ... He's had a couple of private air shows whenever I was out on the bombing range. He always had somebody at hand to tell him when and where to park the pick-up truck, put up his deck chair and picknick basket to get the best view... he even bought new binoculars. ... And there he died one day, peacefully like he was napping on his chair while I was in mock dogfights overhead... under an infinite blue northern desert sky with curled white contrails. ... ... Such a wonderful time and place and way to die. ... ... It was all impromptu,... but when they found him,... they carried him back like the honour guard, and the last flight that came back in from the range that day, they got the word, did a touch and go, and flew a missing man formation right on the spot... and taxied to park behind his truck with the stretcher. They'd all fallen in love with him. ... I mean, there've been Generals who've had less salutes after they fell in action. ... I was... I was so proud of him. ... ... And at home... the others... at the funeral...« she chuckled again deep in thoughts, »...they didn't know .. a .. thing! They all thought he was on business trips or visiting friends en route. They had .. no .. idea .. at all,... and so I had to at least try to share it all with them, somehow... and that was when we started to talk again. A bit. A tiny bit. ... A tiny little bit, like, so he's been there, too, ahum... so..so... ... ... I think, they still don't like it at all,... but in his wise ways he has brought them to... maybe accept it at least,... sort of,... somehow. Well, brought them to realize it's something that tends to exist, is maybe a better way to put it.« she turned to Zaria after she had spoken, and both looked into the other's eyes for a hesitant moment. There was a diffuse trace of a question evaporating in the air, a shared experience, maybe.

Maia pressed on, »Was there no other way to learn to fly? I mean like ... civilian aero clubs or flying schools... or...«

»Well, I did. I've been flying since I was fourteen. ... I still renew the rating, although...«

Maia didn't exactly let her finish, »And that's not paramilitary training?«

»Not at all.« Joan shook her head vigorously, »It's more like... either join a club of like-minded people, and that's really like flying's absolutely the only thing they've got in common, or just be a customer and charter per hour or per day...«

»You just can walk in like that to an airfield?« that seemed to be hard to believe, not just for Maia, »No guards, no security checks, no background checks, no proof of political reliability, class background of the family, no proving yourself in the Young Harvesters Pioneer brigades... or something... being sent into the rice paddies, blabla? ... And just drop a coin and jump into the seat?«

»Yes, pretty much. ... If you got a licence, and they'll want to do a check flight first, certainly. Otherwise as a learner, you just pay extra for an instructor... or ask one of your friends at the club to do it. ... It's not that quickly done there, but a lot more fun, and much cheaper in exchange for some work of your own. And I sure think it's the better way for learning to fly.«

»Wow,... there has to be something more than cookies to freedom after all;... here, they didn't even let you drive a car, after all these checks, until you turned twenty-one,... and there they fly big planes...« Maia was visibly impressed, scratched her head, and then let her hand fly while immitating a take-off engine noise, »Wrooom!«

»Sailplanes!« Joan laughed brightly, »No wroom!... just whoosh! ...you can start at fourteen, and gain a licence at seventeen, sixteen sometimes. I did. With an engine from then on, if you still really want one, that is. ... But the last two years I've been flying bigger stuff mostly, in my spare time... compensating for the lack in numbers and size of engines, I guess. ... But flying sailplanes, it's really the best training there is... you learn how to fly cleanly, effectively, and with constant concentration. And you get to know all the practical physics first hand, just while you're on the way. Gave me lots of leeway later.«

»Without an engine?! You really .. are .. nuts!« Maia snorted.

»You know from the start there is none. Cuts out a lot of uncertainties...«

»You better believe!« Maia laughed, »... How long's it take? Minutes? .. Seconds?«

»How's up to eleven hours seventeen minutes at a time grab you? ... I mean, just for me, not for the world record.«

Apart from her talent to pick the right music for the mood of the moment out of the best of the seventies, eighties, nineties, and today's hits, Maia's disco had been the icing on the cake of her creativity, set in the huge three-storey barn that was in the centre of the mill, just upstream from the workshop, and below the miller's house even further up, by the upper canal's bank. Although all three looked like seperately built framework houses, they were connected by staircases and corridors, and the whole village seemed to be there. An old battery-powered record player, a double tape deck with only one playing drive, the other one at least still good enough to rewind cassettes, a lots o' knobs sports car's radio with its hefty amplifier and loudspeakers from about a dozen car wrecks fitted into chipboard boxes made of the remains of demolished doors. Everything adapted to use run of the mill electricity, and connected through an audio mixer of her own design fitted into a wooden cigar box. And it worked the whole night long, no messed up or dropped playlists, no chirping noises, no re-boot of the control computer, no head crash of the hard drive, or any of the other failures professional DJs spend tens of thousands of dollars for to have.

The whole village had about forty unscratched records, half of them Maia's, and some more that had been cracked on the outer edge only, leaving the inner tracks playable. Maia's cassette collection of hitparades, bizzarres, and antiques taped from the radio in her teenage years had somehow survived the wars, and now the tapes could prove themselves worthy of the years-long effort to compile them.

From time to time, she put on one of the tapes with a continuous run of a couple of fitting songs in a row, and then mingled with the crowd on the threshing-floor turned dance floor or joined one of the groups around a few of the wine and grape juice bottles for a little conversation and a refill. Then she hurriedly returned to prepare for the next few tracks, shuttling to and fro between the equipment and the stacks of tapes and discs she had already pre-arranged. It made it a lot easier to fit in requests right away, and she almost always did. It was the secret of her talent to pick the right stuff: always listen to the folks on the dance floor. And if a request didn't fit into her sequence, she bent it in order to make it fit within the next few songs ahead.

»Boy... why doesn't she take the whole bottle right away?« Joan asked, emptying her glass just after Maia had hurried back to the turntable again.

»Ah, she's just got to run about, I guess. ... Seen her on the dance floor? Unbreakable!« Zaria returned, rocking to the beat.

»It's the way she started her career...« Tatiana pitched in, returning from an hour-long rave on the dance floor, still in her working gear like pretty much everybody else, minus the protective glasses, gloves, and Mickey Mouse, but still with the short brownish bare leather steel-tipped boots. Oily as the leather was, the tips didn't rust at all, and the tiny car lamps placed all over the room reflected in them, turning them into miniature mirror balls as she rocked along.

»As a dancer?!« Joan was surprised.

»No, when we had a party as kids,...« Tatiana laughed, »...she'd be the only one who'd still get the needle into the groove without breaking the record player after a great many few glasses to many. ... And as soon as they knew she could use hi-fi sets properly, everybody thought she could just as well fix them...« she looked around searchingly for a moment, »By the way, glasses...« soon found hers and poured herself a mix of a little wine and a lot of juice, up to the rim, and downed it in one quick go. Several drops of the delicious mixed liquids ran down her chin and joined others on the way, saltier ones, to form a thin stream that oozed away somewhere underneath the centre of her practical chamois leather bikini-apron sort of top.

»Want some seawater, too?« Joan asked with a cheeky grin, thinking about how the juicy wine would help to extinguish the small burn holes on the outer layers of this makeshift dress once she had her forge back.

»Huh?« Tatiana wiped her lips dry with the back of her hand while she wondered whether the little pilot had already had a few to many.

»Oh, just squeeze out your top in case you do,« Joan's grin turned into an even cheekier chuckle.

Tatiana raised her eyebrows, so everybody who knew her longer than Joan did, knew that the answer wouldn't wait long before it reached its target, the one she had set her brown eyes on already. She calmly passed her hands through her curly blonde hair. Her biceps were moving about beneath the skin in a telltale way, when she suddenly stopped and jumped at Joan, throwing her hair forward and shaking the sweat out of it, »I'm gonna give you .. seawater! .. It's all hard and honest work on the dance floor!«

The not so innocent victim was squeaking, as she skipped backwards to escape the sudden shower of spray, »Eeex! ... Yuck!«

Zaria, Karina, and a few of the others burst out in laughter, and as they both returned from the short chase across the dance floor that ensued, Zaria topped it all by purring lasciviously, half into Joan's ear, »Y'know, I .. love .. the smell of blacksmith's sweat in the evening. ... Smells like ... mmmmh...uh! ... Victory!«

As the older ones one by one retreated to their homes, or the remaining parts thereof, those parts which still offered enough shelter for their bedsteads, not necessarily under their own roofs, Maia turned towards a more and more danceable selection of tracks, including some melodic techno as well as nineteen-seventyish disco style.

Joan was surprised by the way some ABBA songs went well together with the rhythmic sythesizer sounds of far later decades. One surprising benefit of makeshift make-do.

She was just as surprised to find old Teres still there and engaged in a lively conversation with other women of all ages, and a few of the young boys. They had occupied a small round table and a lot of stools, boxes and wood chopping-blocks in the corner away from the band, as someone had put it. Teres lit the celebratory cigar from time to time on the single candle on the table to enjoy a few puffs of smoke while she was listening to the others intently. She passed it on as well, but never to the young boys or their girlfriends.

When she saw the candle, Joan realized suddenly how romantic and fitting bright electrical light could be for a party. Teres was visibly enjoying the light as well as the attention. She looked a little like a pirate with her firmly tied headscarf and its slip-knot and loose ends wobbling over the nape of her neck.

Most of the elderly men had gone home early after the dinner of solyanka-like, but thicker hot-pot, and stew made from poached wild boar, and a few more glasses of wine quietly consumed on a bench some way down from the mill where the setting sun had warmed their ageing bones. Between them and the boys, two, sometimes three generations were missing.

»Ain't they lovely couples, ... to the right of Teres?« Joan peeked over to the table as she noticed the four of them bidding good night to everyone around the table. Two of the teenagers were just getting up from the table, and the other pair had left the dance floor a few moments ago. Joan had enjoyed and admired their skillful way to do all those kinds of proper dance styles she would never even dream of trying out in public. And while dancing, they even managed to avoid collisions with the less sophisticated rest of the rave nation set free on the dance floor. Their tango interpretation on the disco beat had been a piece of pure eye candy. A kingdom for a rose, she had thought to herself.

»One could almost become jealous... well, just a little...« Zaria twinkled.

Maia had joined them again for the time of a few tracks, »Oh boy! ... yea... sad, sad us... left to dry on the hook...«

Zaria gave it a c'est la vie shrug, and took another sip from her glass.

»At least they have a chance of a better life, and they know what that's really worth, I think. ... You know, so many kids in my place, they're just bored to death and so... superficial in everything. ... They've got everything they could possibly .. really .. want, and yet they don't know a thing about how hard it was to achieve all this over time. No idea about the true value of the simplest things. Not money, y'know... more like blood, sweat, and tears. ... They've never known what it's like when things are finally getting better after such a hard time. And they've never had the chance to feel the satisfaction of being able to improve their own lives in a real and substantial way by the work of their own hands. ... I mean, in a way I had to get here first to...«

»I can't get no ... satisfaction... I can't get no...« Maia started chuckle out of tune with the music playing, »Hard times for the boys, most of all...«

»What? Are they getting too tired from chasing too many skirts?« Zaria snorted.

»No... they're completely outnumbered.« Maia explained, »The girls can afford to be very choosy indeed, and .. veeery .. fastidious... pretentious, too, y'know?«

»That's one way of looking at it...« Joan said dead pan.

»Well...? What's the other?« Tatiana wanted to know, surprised that there was more than one at all.

»The conventional way of looking at it when you're outnumbered is to say you don't stand a chance. The fighter pilot's way is to see it as a target-rich environment.« Joan explained with a convincing smile, scanning the surroundings of the dance floor.

»That's kinda cool...« Maia chuckled, »...where'd they make you believe that?«

»Tactics... and air warfare history. It's how to win the Falklands back... send some twenty Harriers in, and people with the right kind of mindset, to prowl among two hundred and fifty-odd Mirages, Skyhawks, Super-Etendards, and Pucarás.«

»Harriers, hawks, and mirages... picture this!« Zaria imagined, and raised her eyebrows, »...Woof, woof, flap, flap, swish..gone. ...What a mêlée!« she drank to it.

Maia's eyes widened, »Gosh! How many survived even their first try?«

»Well, it has been famously said, they counted them all out, and they counted them all back in. ... On the first raid, but they lost several in action and in accidents in bad... hmph, .. evil! .. weather, later.« Joan completed the darker and brighter shades of the picture.

Meanwhile, Teres saw the teenies off into the night at the barn door with a lot of friendly words, good night hugs, and a few pats on their backs.

»Oh my... still leaves us all counted out... on the benches 'round the dance floor,« Tatiana sighed.

Joan wondered at why Teres' hands slipped a little lower when the kids finally left and passed by her through the door.

Teres turned around, and after waving a just a minute gesture to the others waiting for her at the table, she hurried straight towards Zaria and the others around her in her swinging stride. She loudly whispered something into her ears, to be understood over the music, and Zaria's eyes widened for a second as she bent down to listen. Teres smiled at Joan for a moment, and then her elegant figure speedily moved back towards the table, and right across the dance floor.

»What's it?« Joan asked.

Maia suddenly bolted away from the group with the words, »And in answer to everybody's questions,... Ooops, end of the track...« being in too much of a hurry to finish the sentence.

While the others as suddenly exchanged juicy looks, Zaria put on a slightly embarassed smile for a moment, and then simply stated, »She's almost out of condoms, and therefore would like to ask whether you could maybe get some for her to replenish her supplies. She wants to... you know...«

Joan realized what the last pats on the boys lower backs really had been, a padding of the back pockets.

Maia meanwhile busily started the next record, arriving behind the turntable just in time to avoid an embarassing silence. As Joan turned around towards her at the sound of the lead-in's crackle, she saw her put the LP's cover in front of the box of records. The album's title read Big Generator, and she soon recognized the ingenious string and guitar intro of the B-side's first track: Yes - Love Will Find A Way.

»...she thinks they all should have enough time to finish their education before they... maybe have to settle down, and... maybe, if possible, even travel abroad first and see a bit more of the world before they start a family. ...« Zaria continued to wind her way around the issue, to get to the point as soon as possible, »I think she's right.«

»Me too,« Joan smiled and turned to give Teres a thumbs up.

Teres twinkled with a widening smile, and then lit the cigar again, now to recline more and to listen only, for a while after trying not to preach too obviously, and too much, for the last few hours.

Joan looked at her and the others around the table for a moment, admiring her imaginative and tactful ways. A pity that they didn't speak the same language, she thought, and then in her mind added with newfound resolve, yet.

»She's great,...« Tatiana said after a while, »...she gives the girls a lot of support as well as leeway, and she never preaches water when she's drinking wine...«

»Cheers!« Joan rose her glass, and they clinked all theirs as one in the void between them, and drank to it.

»...and she's understanding when the boys are... well what boys being what they are, are...« Tatiana finished her line with another sigh into the same metaphorical direction. Then she turned towards the emptying dance floor, feeling again the urge to turn some more grape juice into sweat, »Well, what're we goin' to do now with the rest of the lonely night...?«

Maia started the tape, cross-faded on the mixer, and leant back on her shaky DJ's chair with a cheap and cheerful grin, knowing that she had in a way already made her point at the push of a button a few seconds earlier.

Zaria started to rock to the first beats of the fresh tune.

Joan jumped to grab her by the wrist and dragged her to the dance floor, and Zaria's first reluctance soon crumbled as they warmed up to the encouraging Eurhythmics of Sisters Are Doin' It.

Maia saw Tatiana standing there, accompanied only by her glass, and adding more wine to the grape juice. She pointedly pondered Owner Of A Lonely Heart and Whiskey In The Jar as tracks to follow for a moment, but then decided to end the chill-out phase for good, say no, thank you to Yes and skip the former, when she discovered that Thin Lizzy's original version of the latter folk traditional on one of her many tapes was directly followed by Tatiana's favourite work-out accompaniment from better days in several non-stop remixes, Darude's Sandstorm. She knew her blacksmith chum's reaction to this springy piece of synthesizer-softened techno. It was as reliable as that guy Pavlov's quick reflexes.

As the last riffs of the early seventies classic rang out, Maia got up again, slowly walked towards Tatiana who at the time just as slowly worked her way through the contents of her glass. As soon as she had caught her tall friend's bored brown eyes, she looked around the room searchingly for a few moments, turned to her with a feigned beaming smile of recognition, and just as the intro started with its single sub-woofing drum beat, asked her politely for the dance with a bow, just like it was done in dancing-school.

As she and Zaria got in tune with the faster beat, Joan watched Maia's little performance, and then fascinatedly how the beat wound its way through Tatiana's ears into her muscles.

It took about three seconds for the delayed fuse to burn its way through her body. Then all of her shapely muscles seemed to explode and contract as one, at full flank ahead. The two of them charged onto the dance floor and their feet sandblasted it with a fast raving disco-foxy storm of their own.

Later, in the sheet lightning lit sultry heat of the night, Maia slowly made the transition towards a little cooler chill-out phase the Swedish way. She had taken the opportunity to rest a little behind the turntable from time to time, to switch between records and tapes while unstoppable Tatiana whirled on across the dance floor mostly on her own. Now after she had hammered it in her crafty ways, finally advancing from a sandstormy Dancing Queen to hurricane status in tune with that giant dynamo of seductive northern Summer Night City whispers by Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid 'Frida' Lyngstad, they all slowed down to their epic and winding dream of an Eagle.

Joan got herself a well-earned refill, this time following the blacksmith's example, and making the transition to almost pure grape juice with just a freshening drop of the dry red. As she turned around, she noticed that she had lost most of the others. They had left the barn, and one side of its door wide open.

She found them literally cooling off their heels in the mill's canal above the wheel. The night was still sultry, and the thunderstorms around produced distant lightning galore, sometimes even bolts outside the clouds, but mostly sheet lighnting illuminating their still growing strong shapes.

Maia had soon followed behind her to join them all again, after starting a tape that only she knew would give them a replay of both ABBA's Eagle and Summer Night City. She had turned up the volume and opened the barn doors and windows in a way to reflect the sound up to the banks of the canal, and before that, had rewound the tape to a couple of tracks before those songs, which gave her some time to try to get the water to boiling point with her ankles' heat, and all the others'. She splashed her legs down into it up to her knees, sitting down right next to Joan who so far had kept her boots on dry land.

Zaria and Tatiana went into a bare-footed contest to find out who could get more water to rain down on the far side of the canal.

As Eagle took off softly, both Joan and Maia found themselves lying on their backs in the grass with eyes half closed, mouthing the lyrics to the taped playback.

...They came flyin' from far away. Now I'm under their spell. I love hearing the stories that they tell...

It took only one glance.

...They've seen places beyond my land, and they found new hori..zons. They speak strangely but I understand. ...

They both got up to treat the others to a seventies revival stage performance on the embankment, with carefully choreographed and polished synchronous dance, disco jive, imaginary microphones, long virtual high heels boots, as glittery as nonexistent long smooth hairdo and gloss make-up, pure fantasies of silver lace and synthetic costumes in tight technicolor, and everything else that really wasn't there at all on that hot night in the boondocks. But behind their oblivious backs, graceful mother nature spun up her giant disco ball for them, at least, to light their performance in all her colours but white; the violets and blues of open lightning, all the yellows, oranges and even pinkish reds of that sparking inside the clouds, and the green galore surrounding them all.

... And I dream of an eagle, and I dream I can spread my wings. Flying high, high, I'm a bird in the sky, I'm an eagle that rides on the breeze, high, high, what a feeling to fly over mountains and forests and seas. And to go anywhere that I please... I saw good friends, we'd talk all night, and we fly wing to wing...

It got them frantic applause from the gathering audience captivated so much by their performance that one might have been forgiven for believing that even fox and hare in the bushes had felt closely the heart, beat, and soul of the song for these few last minutes of a silken promise of a new peace. And as the two jump started with .. the .. bang into Summer Night City, the crowd went completely bonkers.

...It's a dream, it's out of reach. Scattered driftwood on the beach...

The profound lack of grape juice in Maia's many glasses of wine finally took its toll, and she announced last calls, as far as the music was concerned. They had returned to the dance floor quite a long while ago, since it had started to drizzle on the outside. The thunderstorms north and south had spread out, merged their leftovers, and had reached the village, dropping their feeble remains on it in the form of a summerly warm drizzle. Only very occasionally, faint and distant lightning reminded them of its origins.

»Okay, That's it... one more record or... oops, tape, and I'll pull the plug!« Maia announced with a swaying swagger. »...Any requests...? ... Uh, Joan, pick one...!«

Joan was getting tired already, and flipped through the records anyway. She picked a colourful one, »How's that for...?«

Maia grabbed it faster than she could finish the sentence, and surprisingly flicked it into the hay that was spread out in the corners behind the DJ's table. »Good choice, but... Not good .. at .. all! Try again.«

Joan flipped on through the discs, most of which were entirely without covers, though some at least had retained their thin white sleeves, with a transparent patch in the centre, to show either side's contents, »And ... this?«

Zaria looked at the small round label in the centre of Genesis' Live - The Way We Walk, through the plastic window, »Land Of Confusion... No Son Of Mine... Jesus He Knows Me... Throwing It All Away... ... That's too much real life for me,« she giggled, »and I .. can .. dance, actually!«

»Third time... charm...?« Maia pressed on, finding it hard to keep her eyes open.

Joan picked a tape at random. It had no inscriptions on the cover sheet, except for 70/80 mix.

»Much better!« Maia enthused, and put it on when the record that was playing at the moment faded out. She then thought for a moment, and finally announced, »Gals, you're all grown up people, I'll leave you to it... you can pull the plug by yourselves. ... This one. ... Good night everybody.« She waved her good nights into the room, and left for her bedroom upstairs in the mill.

When Joan looked up again from the box of cassettes, she saw Tatiana snoring on the shallow haystack in the other corner of the room. She must have fallen asleep before she had hit the ground, which was no miracle at all.

The tape started with The Who's epic Love Reign O'er Me. Tatiana rolled up into a tight embryonic curl, as the voice of Roger Daltrey, just like the forces of nature outside, played with the words reign and rain. The second song turned out to be a fitting Last Dance With Mary-Jane, and Joan jokingly asked Zaria for it. It felt kind of weird to do a few turns in a barn while trying not to step on the others sleeping there, and so they left it at that.

She woke up early in the morning to an etheral snoring that wasn't her own, finding Zaria using her abs as a pillow. The only thing Joan remembered about the night after was that she was actually never annoyed, not even for a single second, when one of the others switched the light on every time they left to take a leak behind the bushes that graced the embankment. She carefully pulled the hay-stuffed sack, that Zaria seemed to have lost, closer to her hands with one of her feet. Then she carefully bedded her head onto it, as she retreated sideways for her own short walk into the greenery.

It was already too late to her to lie down for another hour, but still too early for breakfast or any other useful occupation. The daylight dimmed by the thick, low and uniform clouds that filled the valleys like a plaster cast, and the drizzle turned rain long ago didn't help to motivate her. It had always been like that during her life by the airstrips' sides. Rainy days are resting days. She went in search of a bottle of grape juice, fresh water from the pump and a spoon each of salt and sugar.

As soon as a tasty mixture of these ingredients, a little patience, and a splash of cold water into her face had chased the surprisingly almost nonexistent hangover away for good, she started to warm up and stretch for the morning's regular dose of exercise. Soon she was facing the floor, and giving herself seventy-five for starters.

»And I thought I was the only junkie 'round here...« Tatiana's voice chuckled around the frame of the door as Joan was about half way through her daily routine, »Can I still join in?«

»Sure... got your hammer with you?« Joan turned, to greet her with a smile, around on her back, and towards crunches.

»No... on the contrary, I need to compensate for it,« Tatiana explained while she was getting down for press-ups without warming up first, and started with a very relaxed clock-like beat, deepening them instead as she went on until she reached the full amplitude, once warmed up by the real thing itself, »...that's about the easiest way to ruin your back with honest work, being tall and a blacksmith. Only gets to your arms, muscle-wise, easily overstretches almost every tendon, ruins your hip and knee joints almost as fast as being a shop assistant, and add shock strain to that... unless, that is, all the other parts are as strong as the biceps and forearms will get anyway. Then there's the smoke, and all the working around corners with too few hands... you know, I'd love to have a third or fourth hand sometimes... when you have to pull and bend things into the right shape, and fix them properly at the same time... you get forced into all kinds of bad and crooked moves and positions that way... you'll end up as a wreck within months, unless you build up everywhere else, too. ... ... What kinda programme do you do?«

Joan had kept her own count of crunches by the rhytmical contraction of her abs, immitating a butterfly with her arms and a Swiss knife with her legs and body, but by the time she had done her first one hundred and twenty, and changed to leg raises, Tatiana must have had pushed through at least two hundred press-ups in a row without getting even a tiny little bit short of breath.

Joan was almost too impressed to remember to answer, »Fighting Fit... by Adrian Weale... 22's basic 22...«

»Never heard of that...« Tatiana was pressing on towards two-fifty.

»...came across it when I was in basic training and had a hard time doing PT... and stuck to it. ... Got any dumb-bells by chance?«

»No... something far better than that,« Tatiana got up at around three hundred, loosened up a bit, and pulled four large porcelain insulators with a metal base out of her bag, carrying two with each hand by their connectors, »Maia's scavenged them somewhere from a destroyed transformer station, or something. Came in handy after I had to melt the lead filling out of mine to fix the roof. A little over twelve pounds each, and you'll never get callouses on your hands again from these.« she passed two of them to Joan.

»Oh, .. great... just .. perfect.« she did a few concentration curls, soon found the right balance and made up for the exercises she had previously skipped because she hadn't found two bricks of the same size that weren't dangerously cracked or broken.

»The rings give you a good grip despite of the smooth glaze, don't they? ... And with the greater diameter, it's much easier on the wrist tendons, too.«

Tatiana turned on her back, too, and they both got into their bench presses, lateral raises, and pullovers. In the end, most programmes went through a lot of the same kind of exercises, whether created by analysis, experience, intuition, or just while going along. They kept their eyes closed most of the time, to listen to the finer signals of their bodies. It was a way of mental exercise, too, as well as of physical exercise. Clearing the mind for meditation on the chores of the day ahead.

»Uhm... Joan? There are thousands of bricks waiting for you in case none of 'em said good morning to you...« Zaria had watched them for a while and grinned compassionately through the door, ».. Good .. morning... even if I get another headache just from watching the two of you.« she greeted them rather unenthusiastically, »Squeezed my ear somewhere... must've slept on the cobblestones of the floor for some time... before I found my pillow again... 't was in a strange place when I woke up.«

Joan snorted, and kept pushing the weights.

Tatiana stopped for a moment before Joan could say anything, »Told you a thousand times, Zaria. You'll ruin your back for life with all that unprepared brick-laying and roof-tiling!«

»Bah!« Zaria waved her off, »I need all my brawn for the bricks...«

»She's right, actually,... Zaria.« Joan changed positions to massage another row of cobblestones with cross-over crunches, and with a friendly and inviting smile towards her tall friend leaning at the door frame.

»Sure? ... She's kind of... can't get enough, y'know...« Zaria pointed in a very openly stealthy way at Tatiana.

»So what?! ... She's right about your back and the bricks, at least.« Joan's answer came in the rythm of this morning.

Zaria's frown stayed pointedly out of that tune, »You think so...?«

»Yes. ... Get yourself another bottle of salty juice, give it some time to sink in, and I'll show you the ropes. ... Come on, give yourself a push. After six weeks, it's just like brushing your teeth each morning. ... There's this funny taste in your mouth when you don't.« Joan tried her irresistible winning smile, and won.

Zaria tried that funny taste first, and left for a while to wash it down.

Karina opened the barn door and helped to carry Teres' bags of flour, glasses of cherries, a milk can, and other stuff in a basket inside, before she turned around and saw her daughter doing her very first hyperextensions, lying flat on her belly. Joan went through the small programme with her again, while Tatiana carried on with hers.

»Is it contageous, Tatiana?« she asked, a heavy basket in both of her hands.

»No, I caught it from Joan,« her tall daughter cringed out of her unaccustomed to, if not uncomfortable position.

»Ah, ja... we're going to make a big cake in the new kitchen. ... You can go there, too, later after ...this. ... It is too much rain to work by the house.« Karina smiled and they both turned to walk up the narrow staircase.

Joan noticed that even a little more practice improved everything a lot faster, including Karina's English, and was about to turn back to Zaria, just as Teres gave her a thumbs up, with a wide grin that exposed her gleaming set of golden false teeth. She returned the gesture, as the older woman followed Karina.

»Okay, you just do these. Not too many at a time, but three or four times a day instead. Do as many as you can do comfortably, and then a third of that again,« she explained to Zaria,

»That's all?!« who was very surprised.

»No, not really...« Tatiana giggled without stopping her moves.

»Just for a start. These excercise your back first of all before you do anything with weights or where you have to bend over. ... Or worse, if something goes wrong, pull anything in your back or slip a disc. The muscles have to be there first to support your spine... here, the tasty lil' fillet pieces.« she massaged hers for demonstration, watching Tatiana's flex under strain at the same time.

»So I do what we just did...? And how many?« Zaria asked.

Tatiana turned around in a quick roll and immediately was off to do another thousand sit-ups, as she called them. Since she didn't hook up her feet underneath anything to make it easier, they were really crunches, and far more effective.

Joan thought she had just had the impression of hearing six cans of beer being popped simultaneously, despite its utter lack of physical reality a sound hallucination nevertheless, and one that was looped again and again.

She turned back towards Zaria after a second, »If you feel you can do more at a time, just do it. But at the beginning, it's better to do a few a couple of times a day to get the back in line quickly. And if you're aching in one exercise the next day, slow down a little or take a break from that one exercise for two or three days or so, if it's really bad. ...«

»No rules or schedules, like that...?«

»No, not really, apart from a balanced mix of exercises... every human being is different, and you've just got to get the feel of it and learn how to interpret what your body's saying to you. ... It's basically just hyperextensions, different kinds of crunches, leg raises, and seated leg pushes. And you can try press-ups, forward and backward, too, if you like. If you find them too hard at first, don't go on your toes or heels right away and force it, but take the knees or your bum instead, and do a few more the easy way. ... And after a month, six weeks, or so, then you can try the full monty. Ask Maia for two of these dumb-bells.... whatever they are. They're great! ...When that works smoothly, and it takes you a lot less than an hour every day for the full programme, keep the time it takes to do all the exercises around one hour by multiplying the counts equally for all of the individual exercises. ... Well, give or take fifteen minutes depending on daily form. ... Take a break every few days. I do five days in a row, and then skip it over the weekend.«

»At least you don't have to be a rocket scientist to remember this.« Zaria sat there, trying to catch up in her mind.

»Oh, yes, there's one other thing. Always know where your towel is.« Joan added.

»What? ... Do you expect to hitch a ride on an UFO any time soon?« Tatiana giggled, still turning juice into sweat, popping sixpacks by the gallon.

»No,... the right answer is .. beneath you.«

»Why's that?« Zaria asked, not sure what to make of that line.

»Well, I'm not the one with the fungus among us...« Joan sniggered happily.

»Barf! ... Yuck!« Tatiana rolled over on her back, and then sat up again for good, drying her sweat.

»Oh, and do me a favour, Zaria...« Joan smiled insidiously.

»Sure... what?« Zaria answered warily, resting on her elbows.

»Look at Tatiana. ... Spot the difference.«

Tatiana just sat there, beaming happily at everybody in the morning's rush of endorphins with all the innocence her brown eyes could muster, while she was rubbing her back dry with a large yellowish towel, and shrugged, because she found nothing special enough to mention about herself.

»...huh...??!« Zaria was dumbfounded.

Joan mimmicked the difference in their posture in an extremely exaggerated way by turning herself into a caricature kind of an hunchbacked figure, bending over forwards with her arms pressed towards one another in front of her body, while sucking her cheeks in. »Don't .. sit .. on .. ya .. lungs! .. All the time! For .. heaven's sake!« she mumbled, hobbling across the room like a famous character whose last known residence was Notre Dame, Paris, France.

Tatiana had a laughing fit, that ended in stitches in her sides, »...Ouch!...«, she gasped and held them with her hands, »...Air... oxygen!«

»That's just as dumb as starving yourself voluntarily on a diet! I don't get it why all the tall women .. always .. do this! Both of it!« she pointedly returned to normal, stretching herself joyfully as far backwards as possible with arms spread out widely, pushing her chest forward, rotating her shoulders and twisting her abs, »... Present company 'xcepted.« She looked towards Tatiana with a gleeful smile.

Tatiana got up as if out of a roll and they high-fived, while Zaria smiled sheepishly, and tried the stretching out for herself while she sat there on the floor in her blue skirt with white flowers, and her oldfashioned blackish long leather boots, reasonably tired, and »Guilty.«

They sat around the kitchen table for breakfast while Teres and Karina busily started to work their way through the recipe. Maia had already recovered from the previous night and had turned on the kitchen's very own big generator, showing Karina how to do it right away. She was yawning excessively, and praised each and everyone along the long and winding roads that had brought real coffee back to the village, most of all Joan.

The kitchen was one that had once been built to offer generous space for a whole domaine's staff, from master to milkmaid, and for equally generous hearty dinners after long working days. Now, on the tightly packed benches, about half the village found a narrow seat in it at a time. The meals cooked for all by Karina and whoever offered some help at one time or other, were now usually taken in shifts, three or four, twice a day.

Joan had got up to free a seat for the others who one by one appeared to have a snack of the leftovers and a chat on this lazy morning, and she mostly stood by the door, leaning on its frame with a mug of thin coffee in her hand. The spacious kitchen slowly filled itself with the previous night's guests. Most of the younger village people, that is. The children picked up a few slices of bread and went upstairs to play in one of the disused rooms next to Maia's.

The kitchen's working furniture and appliances were laid out practically. Going clockwise from the door, there first was a fridge, and then a few yards of cabinets, all of them covered by a durable knife-proof working surface on a two inches thick huge sheet of compressed chipboard. It must have been quite an act to get it here in one piece. Everything else looked like it could be dis- and then reassembled the Swedish way. In the corner of the room, there was a carousel store for pots and pans, and next to it another cabinet between the former and the oven. Going on, there was a dish washer not yet in working order, and a triple wash-basin with ample space to leave things to drip dry, that so far relied on water carried there from the pump in the yard, downstairs. Beneath it were several dustbins, originally intended for separated recycling. They had been converted for different use, as any kind of waste was recycled by thoroughly continued use here almost immediately. On the far end, next to the door to the storage room, which was opposite to the entrance, there was a big freezer with a top hatch at the same height and covered by the same coating as the working surface. All above the L-shaped installation covering most of two sides of the room, there were more of the same type of cabinets as below, suspended on the walls, just high enough to leave some headroom over the working surface. On the side opposite the wall in which the entrance door, by which Joan was standing, was set, there was a wide framework window, all with square-foot sized single pane glass of certainly less than optical quality, but any kind of glass in the windows was rare enough in these parts. Maia had moved all that was available within these three houses into this window, except for a few smaller or broken panes. Still going on clockwise, there was an open doorframe that lead to a small former study, or office. It was crammed in beneath the staircase that led to the second floor, starting just to the right behind Joan's back.

To her left, and directly behind her back was the steep and narrow staircase that came up from the barn, and then continued into the workshop and the adjoining storage cellar, in front of which the three had exercised earlier on. Behind the entrance to that staircase was the short hallway leading in parallel to it to the upper entrance door of the miller's house by the canal's embankment. It had other doors that lead to three more rooms on the far side behind Joan's back, which were in the process of repair, and in different stages thereof, but were being used at the same time to offer shelter to those without a rebuilt home to stay at.

The seventyish design of the kitchen with its yellowish orange plastic coated surface on the doors, the placed back anthracite painted footroom, the wide continuous bands of countersinked brushed aluminium profiles for door handles running across all parts of the kitchen at constant heights, and the brownish black mottled working surface had survived remarkably well. There were only a few cracks where the underlying chipboard had yielded under the weight of the bricks that had collapsed onto it with the ceiling. There must have been a few more cabinets, because the two long chipboard plates had been altered in a few places. Otherwise, it had survived the past three or more decades, including one of several wars, more or less in one piece as it had been designed and bought.

The wind outside, combined with the heat from the oven, caused a little draught through the door, cooling her neck uncomfortably. She put on the headscarf Karina had given to her some time ago, to everyone's delight, and by this way blended in even more with the crowd. Sergei jokingly gave it a macho whistle.

»Ahm, Joan?« Maia asked from across the table.

»Huh?« she answered from behind her mug, enjoying the aroma of the thin brew.

»Just while you're standing...« Maia twinkled, »...could you please lock the barn door downstairs? I don't want to have two stereo sets next time when I get there...«

Joan got the idea, and turned to do as she had been asked, leaving her mug on the fridge next to the door.

When she arrived downstairs, she found the barn door still invitingly cracked open, pulled on the handlebar to close it, swiveled the bars into their holders, locked them with pins, and checked on the inset door. It was still unlocked, too. As she closed it again, and locked it with the key that hung on a nail in the wall next to the staircase, through the small window in it, she suddenly saw four men coming up the path towards the mill in a loose formation. They constantly turned left and right, apparently to check the surroundings, and just as she was about to turn away, she saw five boys of maybe thirteen to fifteen years follow them in a tight group along the path. They must have seen at least the closing of the door, as they accelerated their step straight towards it, and had probably seen her, too, through the small window that was in the top centre of that smaller door.

They reached the door as she had just turned to hurry upstairs to alert the others. They didn't look at all like welcome visitors. Something in the way they walked rang a jarring alarm bell in the back of her head like hell. They spotted her through the open part of the staircase as she jumped upstairs, and she almost felt their stare on her back, on her calves, on her heels, as they started to rattle the door violently.

She jumped hastily into the kitchen, »There are four men at the door downstairs, and a couple of boys,« she gasped, »I just had it locked, but they saw me closing it, and maybe going upstairs, ...I'm sure!«

»What'd they look like?« Zaria and Maia asked in unison.

»The first like... young Breshnev, sort of,... next one heavy set, wrinkly like a retired boxer... the others tough guys, too, lumberjacks... look all like they can take a lot of booze,... well fed, all of them, fortyish, maybe fifty-odd. The boys... yea, well fed to fat, too, mid teenage bullies, bland sort of. Advancing directly towards us, like they teach you in basic training, systematically. Sure they get to the upper entrance any second. No sticks, clubs, firearms visible from up front... « Joan explained hurriedly, slipping into the old, learned once and only believed to be forgotten routine of giving a tactical report.

»They keep the big guns in their back pockets or stuffed under the belt in the small of the back, close to the houses. ... The kids gang, that's bad. Got clubs most o' the time.« Zaria answered, while Maia hurriedly translated what Joan had previously said.

A subtle panicky commotion went through the room, and then turned itself into tense silence. The very few seconds to the commanding knocks on the door by the embankment stretched like chewing gum gone bad.

»Okay,« Zaria hissed, »Sergei, open, quick! ... Maia, stay in your corner... Joan, .. don't ..« she raised her index finger and looked into the pilot's green eyes with a very focused and sudden stare of her own no longer at all baby-like blues, ».. say .. a .. word, keep your head down, stay right where you are, let .. us .. handle this, and...« she snapped her fingers in search of a word, »...and .. sit tight .. on your lung! I'll try to get the children to safety.« Then she added a few orders to the others and ran like hell to get upstairs in time, trying to make it sound like she was coming down, or rather Sergei, who waited instinctively for her to arrive up there.

Maia sat down in the far corner of the room, next to the door leading towards the small study beneath the staircase to the second floor.

The men entered, ignoring Joan by the door as if she was part of the furniture. The Breshnev type seemed to be their leader. With his elbows behind his back, he propped himself up on the working plate between Joan and those standing close to the oven. The first thing he did was to pull, tear out, and break the drawer with all the cook's knifes, out of its cabinet, sending it crashing onto the floor in front of the feet of the boxer. He didn't even twitch from his poker face.

The boxer bent down, moving his knees to the sides a little to make room for his belly, and picked the very largest of the meat carving knives out of the splintered plastic-coated chipboard mess the drawer had turned into. He shook his head slowly like a teacher handing out a reprimand to a pupil for reading comics under his desk, as he looked slowly around the room and stared into everyone's eyes.

Then he turned around, the foot-long knife firmly in his right, and a couple of smaller ones in the other hand, in search of a seat. He first kicked a stool out of underneath one of the women of Karina's age, sending her crashing hard on her coccyx to the floor. She dared not move, much less to turn around and look, like all the others.

Joan could see her trying desperatly not to cry or even cringe at the enormous pain. She herself stood calmly by the door, and only moved her eyes, but very, very slowly and extremely carefully.

He decided that he did not like the stool, and threw it out through the closed windows, smashing not just almost all of the glass, but parts of the frame as well. Instead, he grabbed the wooden bench by the first kitchen table behind him, lifted it up by one end, turned it over forward, pushing all those who still sat on it forward to the floor, and beneath the table. Then, with one foot in putting it back down, he pushed it into their backs as if they were a heap of dirt to be pushed from a log. Next he rammed it into their backs with an encore kick, pushing their chins to the table's coarse edge, and gravitately sat down, claiming it whole as his own. He started to pick his fingernails with the big knife, never taking his eyes off the people standing around his boss. He had taken his .50AE Magnum out of his back pocket in sitting down and kept it on his lap, ready to go along with some of the smaller knives. The rest of the latter were still in front of his feet on the linoleum. Two fully loaded ammo clips had been pushed out slightly from each of his front pockets by his expanding belly.

The Breshnev did the same constant scanning into the other direction, leaving no-one in the room a chance to move an inch without being noticed. His .50AE stayed in the belt at the small of his back. Joan could see the handle turned to his right, ready to be grabbed by his right, and his front pockets bulging with spare ammo, too.

He sent one of the remaining two off with a tiny gesture, each. One to guard the house's upper entrance, and the other one to check upstairs. The schoolyard - if they had ever seen one in all their lives, that is - bullies fanned out to search the whole house on a third of his moves. One started with the kitchen, and then proceeded towards the storage room. He was fat, strong, at least as ruthless as the grown-ups, certainly less honed in his moves, went almost mechanically through the motions with brute force, and had speckles. The others were easily heard in the opposite rooms smashing the whole place to tiny bits. A second one pushed himself through the crowd that parted in front of him like the water in front of Moses, into the small office. There he started his very own demolition business.

The Breshnev started to talk as if he was talking to an empty room. He looked at nobody, despite the constant scanning. He just expected his words to be heard without any trace of oppositon. He suddenly pointed towards Joan by turning his thumb.

She tried very hard not to twitch as the boxer eyed her closely, and silently cursed her tightly fitting cheap T-shirt. Tatiana sat next to Maia in a thick and slacky woolen pullover.

One of the elderly men sitting right next to Tatiana and Maia made a gruffy remark, illustrated by just enough gesturing so that she could guess the meaning.

Apparently he said that he had sent her down to close the door, and she bloody well did because she was bloody told to, what bloody else. It's a woman, you know.

The Breshnev only moved his index finger side to side at him slowly in a censuring gesture without looking directly at him, and the old man sank back into himself, frowning worriedly beneath his plaid brownish grey beret, and continued to stare at the wooden table in front of himself.

The boxer and his boss at least seemed to be satisfied for the moment.

The Breshnev started a long monologue, of which Joan only got a few isolated words at a time. He was talking about how the village had suddenly become very rich and ungrateful, about food, drinking water, chocolate, cakes, meat, and electricity not intended for unworthy simple people like them all, and even less for their women, of course, about the aesthetics of burning houses, that they could just as well be less politely, and probably all the other less subtly blunt threats people like him all over the world always talked about.

Joan noticed that they never left a gap in their watching of the individuals longer than three or four seconds for anyone of them in the room, at most. They used their peripheral vision to alert themselves to even the slightest kind of motion. She thought they were probably ex-secret service or political police thugs freelancing very successfully with a monstrous head start in the newly arrived crooks' capitalism. She had to wait for a mistake, and very probably there wouldn't be the slightest one. The cats may have grown fat on what they squeezed out of the starving bones of the people around, but they still knew perfectly well how to watch over all of their own mice at once, for every second of their feeble rodent lives.

He took a glass without looking, after smelling it carefully drank the juice out of it without taking his gaze off the room for a blink of an eye and crumbled it to tiny bits in his bare hands. He then looked at the cake to his left. Teres and Karina had just finished the icing and cream puffs on top of the thick layered chocolate-fruit cake when Joan had been downstairs to close the door, and had left it there next to the cooking plates to cool off. Now they were standing like statues in front of the cooking stove, their backs turned to the room and their heads lowered like everybody else's.

He eyed it for a very short moment and then spread the pieces of broken glass carefully and evenly across it while his eyes returned to the room. He said something like for the conditors who sadly will have to eat it all alone very soon, since they forgot to invite the guests. Then, after a snorting giggle from the boxer, he lapsed back into his monologue, recounting everything they had done for the poor people by their god-like grace. He explicitly used the word god, and underlined it by throwing the heavy bottom of the glass with its sharp edges forcefully at the back of the head of one of the women who had previously sat on the bench, and now found herself on the floor. She fainted without knowing what had hit her, and blood started to ooze out of the wound drop by drop. The rest eluded Joan's abilities to understand the locals. She just was glad he hadn't hit a major artery. This gave her more time.

After five more minutes, or so, of monologues tiresome enough already on their own, without the way in which they were presented, Joan noticed how Karina had almost succeeded in moving the cake onto the cooking plates on top of the oven, by pulling it off the cooling grid along with its baking paper, twelfth by twelfth of an inch. The Breshnev stopped in the middle of a word, and the boxer flicked one of the smaller knives he was playing with right into the edge of the thick chipboard plate by her side. It pierced the hardened plastic coating half an inch below Karina's left wrist, about an inch deep. She had hardly moved at all, and in her gasping fit of terror, she pushed the cake fully onto the plates by pulling it completely off the cooling grate. Now she froze completely while the cake collapsed partly.

The Breshnev repeated his monologue, or at least parts of it, without even giving the slightest appearance of being critical of his companion for not watching the women properly. He knew that most of the motion had been well hidden by Karina's and Teres' bodies.

The boxer got up after a while to trace the line of Karina's spine with the tip of the big knife touching, several times up and down while listening to his master's voice. He had stuffed the gun into the belt in the small of his back as he got up, to where it had been earlier, and left the other knives next to his place by the wall on the bench, behind the backs of those locked under the table.

Joan was chilled to death as she watched the droplets of cold sweat form on Karina's forehead. She realized that these men wouldn't make prisoners, simply for the perverse fun of killing slowly. She, they all, had a lot to lose, and everything to win, and all at the same time. She didn't like either of the thoughts, but she felt how her mental safety pin silently removed itself when she realized what they probably would want to have for dessert.

Without leaving his place, the Breshnev had started to question the few old men and Sergei for the hiding places of what he actually called C.A.R.E. packets, and other supplies and foodstuffs for some time, as Joan suddenly noticed the flirring heat rising over the crumbling cake behind the two women. It was as yet out of sight from the boxer, who had sat down again as before, and the other was slightly more concentrated on the information provided by the men of the village.

Now she knew it wouldn't last much longer. Karina or Teres, one of them had turned on the heat on all plates, and to full power. This or the glass in the cake, it would be their death sentence for sure, and in the second before the execution, it would just maybe give her the one faint chance that a rare mistake of the men might perhaps offer.

The sudden delirium of being unwillingly thrust into action turned itself into a strange and eerie feeling of total clarity.

The cake caught fire an eternal minute later, and started to burn from the inside out, oozing out a thin veil of black smoke that drifted away through the ventilation grid above it at first.

The boxer got up, and the way he held the big knife could only mean one thing. He now would slice a spine, or stab through a ribcage en route for a heart. He fingered for his gun, too.

Joan exploded. She grabbed the Breshnev's right arm and wrestled him to the ground, levering hard on his arm and pushing him forward by throwing her full weight at him diagonally from behind, with the one-time advantage of surprise. They landed crashing right behind the women's feet by the oven, and right in front of the boxer's, who was still approaching Karina while she levered the arm in hand until it was cracking out of its socket with the sound of a fried chicken leg being torn off. She only just managed to grab the Breshnev's huge gun with her left to throw it aimlessly under the table while she turned around on her back, rolling onto his. Only now he screamed of pain.

The boxer had already gathered momentum for a viciously redirected stab towards her chest, as she managed to grab his right hand with the knife to control it, and push it away from herself. Anywhere, just as far away as possible. Don't get bitten in the first place. She pulled it down with all her weight, and simultaneously pushed him up as far as both her legs could carry the weight for a fraction of a second by kicking the balls of her feet hard into his groin, and the lower folds of the bulging belly above. Her bum was supported handily by the Breshnev's arse, fixing it in turn, and as the boxer pivoted around her feet, she only half intentionally used his weight, thrusting down with his arm and through her legs, to push herself, or be pushed by it, off the other one's back, and out of the firing, or rather, falling line.

His momentum did most of the work, she but helped it a little by pulling the knife hard and straight down, and setting the pivot axis at his centre of gravity by kicking him upwards right there, thereby denying his feet the contact with the ground for a blink of an eye. He came crashing down and, unintentionally for all the three of them, pushed the big knife all the way through his boss with his own full weight.

She had pushed the first brick out of their wall. What Joan couldn't have known was the fact that the wide blade of the knife hit the fibres of the centuries old oaken beams of the floor beneath the linoleum almost at right angles, and therefore hardly pierced them after it had pushed cleanly all the way through the lower one's ribcage, front and back, and not, as she thought, scratched the ribs near his armpit. The wood of the knife's two handle plates, riveted firmly onto the single piece blade and handlebar, in turn was rather light and dried out to brittleness by the far too many times its previous owner had put it into the luxurious dish-washer instead of cleaning it by hand.

As the boxer fell onto the blunt end of the metal centrepiece, the laws of gravity and inertia, combining his weight and his momentum, caused it to slip through between, first his fingers, and then two of his ribs while they, being more resilient, stripped off the wooden plates, which cleanly split in half, each, along the rivet holes. Two of the four thereby sharpened larger splinters went though the adjourning gaps between his ribs, the other two and the rivets widened and tore the edges of the original hole. Massive bleeding and death by internal suffocation came some time after she knocked the boxer out cold with a blow by her elbow into the soft nape of his neck. The Breshnev was sufficiently under control by the soon dead weight on his back, and the knife that nailed him to the floor.

He tried for a few moments to grab the gun from his companion's back. Joan managed just in time to kick it away, too, and he soon stopped trying anyway, for he went out of breath, and out of blood a little later.

But by then, most of the following events had already played themselves out to the bitter end.

The two bullies both raced into the room, alerted by the sudden roar of battle, and started to blare out the details of whatever they saw as loud as they possibly could, much like trained parrots, obviously to tip off the others.

»Shut 'em up!! Knock'em out!! Gag 'em!! Just shut 'em up!! They're gonna get us all killed!« Joan yelled at the terrified others.

Teres suddenly jumped up onto the working surface's edge, pushed herself off to jump onto the first and nearest table, and there grabbed a broom that was standing behind it at the wall. She kicked off the brushwood, and with two wild swings back and forth across the heads of all the others first hit the fat belly of the boy from the storage room to make him bend over forward in pain, and then struck the back of his head on the return ticket. He collapsed to the floor, out cold less than four seconds after Joan had finished off the old ones.

Joan was dumbfounded for half a second, and the encore was yet to come.

Teres turned around in a jump from the table, almost yelling at her in the Queen's perfect English, »I already thought you might never dare to start the move in the end, my young lady! ... Well done, though. Very well done, indeed.«

Tatiana and Maia had meanwhile managed to get hold of the other boy in the study, and Tatiana marched him out in headlock, while Maia struggled to keep his arms and legs from hurting her tall friend too much. He passed out after half a minute or so, and his eyes rolled over as Tatiana's flexing muscles denied him the airflow through his throat, and stifled the flow of blood to his brain.

They all heard the rattling clicks of a loaded sub-machinegun's first round being thrust into the breech, and of the safety catch being released, approaching around the corner.

Teres was already taking up Joan's previous position by the door frame by herself, before Joan even pointed her towards it.

She meanwhile grabbed one of the knives from the floor and got as much blood from the growing pool as possible within one second smeared onto her hands and body, dove for the floor, and then put her feet down on the ground in front of the two bodies, kept her knees bent and laid on the floor to the left, and ready to spring. She held the knife with her hands as if she had died when it was thrust into her belly.

Teres stood passively by the door as the third thug entered. He took two seconds to assess the situation and calmly got ready to fire a few safety shots into Joan's chest, switching the selector from single fire to burst.

Her eyes were staring wide open, and her breath was still. As he turned to point the gun at her, he collected a vicious blow on the head courtesy of Teres, and as he turned backwards instinctively, she tripped his right leg with her foot, throwing herself at his left in a turn, while Joan jump-slid in closer to him across the floor, pushing herself off with the feet from the two stacked bodies, and grabbed his right hand with the gun to keep him from turning it on the old woman or anybody else in the room, as he fell.

It fired a burst of several rounds going down diagonally along the cabinets, at about the place where the Breshnev had been standing, while he stumbled and turned in mid air to fall hard onto his back due to Teres' tripping of one leg only, and Joan's pull on the gun hand, and soon on his shoulder, too, to keep the arm firmly under control.

Joan turned her legs around, pushed the right one underneath his neck with a hitting kick past it, and slammed the other one down on his throat, and beneath his chin. Then she locked her calves and feet, and turned around viciously, rolling in line to his shoulders, still trying frantically to keep control of the sub-machinegun firing past in front of her face. It lost a few more shots into the furniture until he released the trigger before it ran out of its nine millimetre rounds, and she thought of biting off the trigger finger in front of her nose.

She tried not to, at first, and for some short time, but then had to break his neck before he let go of it.

He started to twitch as Teres got ready with her broom-stick above him to add her force to Joan's.

Suddenly an incredibly loud boom of a shot rang out above them.

Joan never remembered touching the stairs, nor anything the rest of her body did. She felt like she had flown upstairs at supersonic speeds, eyes only. Shock-stopped, she found herself facing Zaria, sprinkled all over with blood, standing straddle-legged in the centre of the room above the kitchen, pointing a smoking .50AE that wasn't hers as far as Joan could tell, at the limp body of the fourth thug, finger on the trigger. He had fallen flat on his face with his head right towards the door, two yards away from it. His feet were closely ahead of Zaria's.

»You alright?« Zaria asked calmly without turning the gun or her eyes away from its aiming point in the centre of his back, and added a little more concerned, »Gosh! You're full of blood!«

»Not mine...« Joan reassured her, gasping, »you, too, ...ev'rything okay with you?« and approached the doorway.

»Sure. ... Oh,... not mine, too. ... Stop!«

»What's it?!« Joan gasped breathlessly and froze.

»Keep to the left, ... unless you want his brain on top of yours, that is.« Zaria said dead-pan and looked up at the wall above the door for half a second.

Joan noticed the thick drops of blood accumulating on the door-frame's top edge, and squeezed by on the left side. She felt the breakfast rising a little.

The wall above the door to Maia's room was splashed by something remotely akin to the traces left by a colour-bag often thrown by violent protesters, but a lot thicker and certainly much less pantone.

In passing over the body, Joan noticed the comparatively small entry hole in the back of the head's centre, and the blast traces around it from the muzzle fired almost in contact with the skin. She moved back towards his head. »I think it's safe to leave him,« she said slowly as she noticed her lips going numb, and the gaping hole where the forehead had been, »gosh, ... Zaria...! How'd...« the rising breakfast interrupted her stammering, as she fought to hold on to it.

»He turned around when he heard the shots, I was quick, and he was dead. That's about it. ...« Zaria explained matter of factly.

»Couldn't you just strike him down with it?« Joan asked shakily, as yet unaware of the big knife's very own story waiting to be told downstairs.

»No. Would be impolite. ... It's really only based on reciprocity. ... He would have done the same for me, I know. ... ... Uhm, not exactly, that is. He'd have raped me first in front of all the children. This time I couldn't run away like hell. If I had jumped out of the window,... okay, ... maybe... well he'd just have done it anyway, right where I would have broken my legs down there.«

The breakfast would have left Joan for good just at about this moment, if Zaria had not raised the gun slowly and taken aim past her. Joan turned around and away from the line of fire very slowly and saw one of the bullies pushing his butterfly knife to the throat of one of the young girls he held in headlock. She was maybe twelve years old, and much shorter and slimmer than he was.

»You know what you're doing, Zaria?« she half whispered slurrily, her lips losing track as if her mouth had been sedated.

Zaria just said three words very calmly, clearly and slowly, aiming right at him with both arms stretched out to hold the gun steadily, just as she had done before.

He went pale, dropped the knife and raised his hands very slowly.

The girl passed out and fell to the wooden floor.

Zaria directed him with subtle moves of her head. They were clear enough. He moved very slowly away from the girl while staying whole in her field of view.

Somebody had obviously told him, that if you can look straight down the barrel of a gun, it is aimed squarely at the spot right between your eyes.

»Knock him out cold and bind him.« Zaria commanded.

»But he's just a k...«

»A kid! The hell, yes! Like Billy the Kid! Do it or I'll have to kill him. You can't afford to blink with these people. Washing line's right behind you, ... and pull it fast, .. really .. hard!« she ordered, her as far unblinking eyes firmly fixed on the boy. One could almost see the synchronized cross-hairs in front of her corneas.

Joan did it. It sickened her, but in a different way, as she returned to Zaria, »What did you say to him?«

»Never .. say .. die.« Zaria safed the gun, and returned into the room. She opened a cupboard and lifted little Melinda on her arm. She was too terrified to cry and clinged fast to her foster-mother's neck.

Joan meanwhile tried to wake the girl in the hall.

Suddenly there was the loud rumbling noise of an all-out brawl downstairs.

Joan left the firmly bound junior thug lying on his belly, and grabbed the girl to carry her downstairs to presumed relative safety while she was coming to, not sure if there was anybody else of the unwelcome guests up here. She shook badly in her arms, and Joan noticed the throttle marks on her neck.

Zaria hurried ahead, holding Melinda with her left, and arming the gun again in her right. She only kept her finger straight next to the trigger, as a last safety stop.

When they arrived downstairs, everything was over. The crowd had overwhelmed the remaining two boys. They were spread-eagled, belly down on the floor, with several of the women on each of their backs and limbs. They were badly beaten up, and each had a .50AE's muzzle hovering closely over their necks.

Joan at first was glad they had not been killed. Then she noticed Sergei sitting next to Teres in despair. She was already pale and lying in a growing pool of blood that oozed out from underneath her dark blue skirt. He was stammering in despair, »One of... the boys... as if they surrendered ... but then... suddenly stabbed her in the belly.«

Joan pushed him away, and tore her way through her clothes. She quickly found the wound, »It's only in her leg...« she said, and then yelled, »He's hit a vein! Get me something to truncate the leg! Quick! Your belt!« She already tore it out of his trousers faster than she was talking.

The bleeding stopped, and as Joan searched for other wounds, Teres stammered semi-consciously, »Joan... wish I had talked to you earlier... but ... have to be careful... I'm the... keeper of... I see you know... you have to... ... take... ... and... where... ... ...my broom... where ... ... and... ...gettin' dar...«

»Bullshit! You stand by your broom-stick and shut up! That's an order!« she turned to Sergei, who had meanwhile turned about as pale as Teres, »Hold this. Tight enough to stop the bleeding. But don't kill the leg by keeping it to tight! I get a doctor! Be here in fifteen minutes!« she bolted out of the room, and towards the door.

»There is none within thirty miles...« Sergei yelled after her, in vain and in cold sweat.

Zaria shielded her little foster-daughter's eyes and carried her and the third .50AE as far away from the mess as possible, closing one of the doors behind her, and calmly whispering, »Come away, Melinda...«

Joan raced to her car. She had parked it close to the upper entrance last afternoon just because there was an empty space big enough and close to the party. They had tried to start it, she saw, probably the thug with the sub-machinegun, but he hadn't found out about the full trick to it in time. So Alice's idea had been safe enough. The ICOM was lying in a puddle by the mill's canal. It still seemed to work as she switched it on and hit the emergency hot-key.

»Mayday, mayday, mayday! ... Two Romeo Juliett Sierra X-Ray Golf pilot on ground. ...«

She tried several times but couldn't get an answer. She gave her approximate coordinates, hoping for the AWACS' tape recorder, but it seemed to be out of reach or obscured by the mountains. She left it standing on the hood at full volume and minimum squelch, in case the answer came late. Then she remembered the old short-wave radio built into the car. She clicked the switches to get the battery to work properly. It did.

Next, she raced around the car to release the whip antenna, and tried again, »Mayday, mayday, mayday! ... Two Romeo Juliett Sierra X-Ray Golf pilot on ground. ...« She could hear a crackle of static, but no real answer.

Maia raced towards her, coming out of the door, trailing a bare fence wire, »I heard you. Try this!« She wrapped one end several times around the tin pipe of the eaves next to the door, as high as she could reach, and then jumped past Joan to catch the whip antenna. She bent it down and firmly tied the other end to its end with quick hands. Then she let it snap back up, »Try again! Go!«

»Mayday, mayday, mayday! ... Two Romeo Juliett Sierra X-Ray Golf pilot on ground. ...«

It did the trick. »X-Ray Golf 's on parking here... Joan?!... Is that you!?« She got the control tower back at the airfield as clearly as if it was standing next door, and quietly praised the masters of the ionosphere for reflecting about short waves.

»Yes. Mayday, mayday, mayday!...to make it official, UNEAFOR approach.«

»You alright?«

»Yes... but I'm in big trouble.«

»Sounds like you.«

»Stop joking! I'm serious. Get the cavalry here like hell. Choppers! Paramedics! APCs! Got serious casualties here! Several!«

»'Kay...« a crackle followed, and Joan heard the alarm siren speeding up through the still open mike, »...the ball's rolling. The helos, they come in from up north... takes a couple o' minutes more than from here, 'cause there's still debris around the hangars blockin' the gates of the hangars here.«

»Hold the line. I've got the ICOM on, but 't's not sure if it works. ... Maybe bandits around. Got two... maybe four of them dead... pretty much... I guess.« she realized the most immediate danger, and ducked by the car's side closest to the house and motioned for Maia to do the same, and get back in. The last thing she needed right now was to be picked off by a sniper left behind in the woods. She hurriedly changed into her flight suit which she had left behind in her car, to get rid of the blood. It might get the gunners in the choppers trigger-happy, she feared, and maybe they'd shoot the wrong people accidentally. Locals. Friends. The constant nightmare. Friendly fire. Not just for fighter pilots.

They returned into the house, and Joan went straight back to Teres to keep her awake, but she had passed out almost completely, already. Only her eyelids were moving slowly, and her breathing got ever shallower, »The doc's coming. Will be here in fifteen minutes at most!« she yelled at her, and shook her to keep her conscious.

Maia had turned to help the others bind the remaining four boys. The two from the kitchen were slowly coming to, as they all were already lying next to one another in a neat little row on their fat bellies, facing the remains of three of their leaders, misleaders, maybe. The women had tied them up very firmly with the steel-reinforced washing line and the black telephone cable, and their feet and hands were tied together behind their backs so tightly that every serious move would have dislocated at least one of their arms. The washing line was cutting painfully deep into their soft flesh.

»We have to kill them at once.« Zaria stepped back into the room, and released the safety catch on her gun. Two of the other women did the same.

»No!!!« Joan yelled and jumped in her way.

»They know our faces, they know Teres, they know everyone else whose name's being called in the mêlée, they know you, and they know their friends. And .. they .. will .. kill .. us .. all, .. and they'll be not as polite as the four tax collectors. ... And they'll soon find out about your friends, too, your family, your boss, his family, and so on. Do you need more detail?«

»Tax .. collectors?« Joan asked, half disbelievingly, half playing on time.

»How'd you think the warlords pay for their holidays, their guns, their people, and your diplomats? ... By what you said, they took everything intended for us, if it ever got as far as out here, except for what you brought yourself, and we're lucky they only took two thirds... three quarters... four fifths of that at a time, so they believed you keep on coming and bring more.«

»You gave 'em...«

»Was there a choice?« Zaria shrugged aggressively, and they all got their fingers off the rings and on the triggers.

»The choppers will be here any second... if they find out, we're all end up in front of the war crimes tribunal and go in for life.« Joan screamed.

Zaria was calm and matter-of-factly in an unnerving way, even to some of the others, »Right. Life. That's the healthier option, actually. ... But their people didn't even show up there so far, and we won't, too, 'cause they'll just grab you and get the hell out of Dodge City.«

»They .. won't!!« Joan yelled straight into her face.

Zaria didn't even bother to stare her down. Her eyes were just very neutral as she spoke, neutral like a piece of cloth from her skirt of vaguely similar, but duller colour, »We'll be very humane. Let us just nip off quietly and all on our own and shoot 'em, if you can't stand it. I don't blame you, you don't have to .. live .. here all day and all your life. They'll die before they hear the bang. This is a clean shot.«

»That's madness!!« Joan insisted, still face to face, and then turned at the others, to see whether there was any reaction at all, if not in Zaria's face, then elsewhere.

»No. Life insurance. As soon as we put them up at each road to the village, their heads on a pole. And maybe then we can keep most of your parcels. Maybe even all of them.« the three took up position behind the first three of the boys, who just stared on blankly, and aimed for their necks at point-blank range. Zaria stood in the middle, and looked at the other two by her sides, as if she was going to count to three.

»I already .. told .. them how many dead, injured, prisoners there are!« Joan lied in despair.

Maia twitched behind Zaria, but didn't say a word as she closed her eyes in angry disappointment.

Zaria jumped over the boy ahead of her, and hissed into Joan's face, »Thank .. you .. very .. much .. indeed! You'll regret this, because you've just killed us all in the name of a funny piece of paper!«

Joan wasn't quite sure whether she had just heard piece or peace. It didn't really matter, the realization suddenly hit her with a hard blow. It was all the same.

The sound of rotors started to fill the valley.

They put the guns away, and most of them all killed Joan with looks that could instead. Looks she had never seen in the months before.

The first of the green and grey mottled Lynx helicopters landed on the meadow between the mill's orchards and the village, and two more soon followed to hover closely by, while six smaller Hughes circled overhead like a swarm of angry bees, toting their tank-busting twenty millimetre stings and wire-guided anti-tank missiles, of which the Lynxes carried launchers for eight, each, too, half of them loaded. The flirring heat behind the boxy infrared suppressors at the exhausts of their engines showed that they kept themselves ready to leave on zero notice at any time. Merely twenty minutes had passed since the first of her call had been received.

Joan ran towards the pilot of the first one, ducking below the rotor and blinking her eyes in the downdraught.

She was greeted by an order from the back door, »Jump in an' get the .. hell .. outta here!«

Joan waved her hand, »No thanks!! Not again!!« she yelled, and as the co-pilot opened his door irritatedly, she turned towards him, »Listen, we've got several injured here, one severly, one life threatening. How many can you med-evac?«

»None, for chrissake!! I've got orders to grab all the foreigners here and get back to base ASAP! And not to interfere most of all!!« the pilot yelled back over the aircraft's noise.

»I'm the only foreigner here, and I couldn't feel more at home! And I'm not leaving 'til they're safe!!« Joan retorted angrily.

»Why... wha... The hell, what's your unit?!« the pilot was irritatedly searching for insignia on her flight suit.

»Civillian, air force reserve. I fly one of the white Herkies. The one stranded back at base! In the city!«

»Stranded... That's... Wait. ..You .. called via UNEAFOR approach?!«

»Yes!«

»Who took out the warlord's henchmen then?«

»I did two... mostly. They helped themselves a lot! My friend Teres who's .. dying! .. there helped a lot more with the third, and my friend Zaria there got the fourth one all by her own... and we've got five juvenile delinquents... taken prisoner. We're talking manslaughter, kidnapping, and more! For the kids, only, for starters! ... Listen, if you're the leader, I wouldn't wait here for .. their .. friends to return with snipers to pick off the officers by the rank!« Joan knew it was far fetched, but it was as good as anything, and it worked.

The co-pilot was left speechless for a noisy second of thinking, looking at his epaulets with their brightly shining bars and chevrons, »Alright... So... What do we do now?«

»How many can you take?!«

»Two on each one. Got no doc, no stretchers!« he had to admit, and admit defeat.

»That's not enough... I've got four seats in my car left. Leave four men here, one or two for each chopper, armed! I'll take 'em back to base ASAP. Anyone paramedic?« Joan improvised, outspeeding the turning rotor tips.

»No...« he turned to his pilot briefly, but came up with the answer faster by himself, »...Johnson in eight four two had some good training recently, I think.«

»Okay, the worst cases go with him then. Take your two next, or call the next one in. And call in the cavalry as soon as you can make contact, they'll need at least two hours to get here with the APCs! ... Bring the coroner's forensic team!«

»You mean trouble...«

»Just tell 'em I yelled at you loud enough, and you thought I was in command. ... Maybe someone thought there was unfriendly fire from the hill. ... They know my yelling!« for half a second, she almost managed to smile winningly, and won her case.

He lifted off again as Joan raced towards the others standing well hidden below the trees, Lynx 842 came down next, and took off seconds later with unconscious Teres, the woman with the bad head wound, and the injured girl on board, racing off straight for the airport's field hospital at emergency power. Fifteen minutes later, Teres was wheeled into the operating theatre, and the other one got her stitches in the ante-room while a nurse checked the girls throat thoroughly for internal injuries.

The two soldiers armed with assault rifles, that 842 had left behind helped the women to carry the neatly bundled bullies to the next chopper, and were joined by one of their comrades at it. The leader returned to pick up his share and drop the fourth man, took off for a second time, and left his hovering position last to follow the second one back to base. The noise waned with the downdraught.

The Hughes flew several close inspection runs just above the treetops of the mountains, and finding nothing dangerous in the vicinity, turned one by one to return back to base, too.

Silence returned to the valley under a slowly brightening grey sky.

The APCs arrived shortly before nightfall at the construction site of the day before. Nothing had happened so far, and the four soldiers had little to do except for some conversation after they had offered to help to clean up the mess, but Joan had suggested that the coroner's team should see and document everything unchanged. They took an extended walk around the village to check the tactical situation as long as there was daylight and as long as it was unlikely that the nine tax collectors were missed by their treasurer, and before the reinforcements arrived.

A certainly overweight sixtyish man stepped out of the rear hatch of the first of the small tanks. He wore a light coloured trenchcoat, a suit of similar colours, and a light straw hat for the summer. He looked around, and immediately approached Joan, and introduced himself to her, and Tatiana, Zaria, Maia, and Karina who were standing next to her, »Hello... I'm Frederick Wilbury from the forensics office. ... Fred. I'm the coroner's deputy for field research.«

»I'm Joan Fredrickx, welcome. ... Fine, then... Uhm, the bodies are in the main building of the mill. I'm sure you and your people want to have a look as soon as possible.«

»My people, that's me, myself, and I, madam. ..., Wilbury explained with little enthusiasm, »When did you unearth them?«

Joan blinked, »Unearth...? They died this afternoon, Sir. Didn't they tell you?«

»No. ... I don't do fresh ones. They just insisted that I should go, it was in my turf, they said.« Wilbury was fairly dumbfounded at first, but then resigned himself to that kind of fatalism that living in a bureaucracy breeds.

»And what would yours be?« Joan frowned.

He sighed, »Ahm... Well, digging up shallow graves. ... I'm really an archaeologist by training. I work here because one has to earn a living, and there's not much to do in real archaeology, because nobody cares to spend money on real science. And I'm tired of racing with open-cast miners for emergency digs. I teach at university, ... part-time. ... Makes me kind of cheap to hold on both jobs, the combination. ... Y'know, madam, there's no smell of profit on ancient bits of obscure pottery. So investors would rather not touch it, and real-estate developers even less. And it's dirty, too. Not appealing to salesmen. ... But now that I'm here, I might as well take a look. I've done a bit of medicine before I changed to the remains of older cultures. ... Well, older,... I doubt there is anything worthy of the word culture around in the world today. ... At least that diversification helped me to get the job, no small thing with my age. ... Well, where is it?«

Joan pointed at the path, »It's half a mile uphill from here.«

Wilbury looked at it, then at the tank, and then back uphill again, »Do you mind if we take a walk? These tank rides are going to give me a heart attack one day...«

Joan turned to the four soldiers, »You okay with this?«

»You're at home here, Ma'am.« their leader answered, and the others seemed to agree.

»Ms Fredrickx...?« someone called from a tank's hatch.

»Yea?!« she answered.

»The airport has just radioed, they've cleared half the runway. You can take the Herc home, they say.« the head belonging to the previously hidden voice said, showing itself.

»'Kay... thank you...« Joan thought for a brief moment, »...ahm, it's already too late for today. It's tight for me to get there before sunset plus thirty, anyway, and I think my co, too, would prefer a thorough check in daylight. And we wouldn't be back abroad in time for the noise closedown during the night, unless we redline it all the way. I'll be back tomorrow morning. Would you tell 'em to pass it on to my co?«

After a moment, the radio operator came back up through the hatch, »Okay, done. They say they keep on working 'round the clock, so loaded planes can come in again from the day after tomorrow.«

»Great! Thank you!« Joan smiled, and turned around to follow the others.

»I really wonder...« Wilbury muttered, as he started to huff and puff uphill next to the others, »...why they .. always .. mess these assignments up. It's sometimes like they don't really want to find out at all, y'know... But tell me your story. I'm not at all familiar with this crime scene stuff, but I'm sure I'll have to report it somehow.«

»My golly! That's about as close to the tale of seven by one blow as I've ever seen!« Wilbury muttered to himself while he took his second set of photographs in the kitchen. He was not in a hurry at all, because his customers never ever had tried to run away from his investigations. »So... so... The way to a man's heart leads through his ribcage... q.e.d. ...« he continued to comment in passing as he examined the first intriguing details of the scene.

They had lifted the boxer's body from his boss's on his orders, Tatiana almost singlehandedly at the shoulders, Zaria and Joan taking a leg each with both hands. Now the whole story of the knife came to light, the camera's flashlight, actually. He took blood samples and confiscated some pieces of evidence, most notably the big knife with its splintered handle, and put them carefully into plastic bags without touching them. Instead, he used the bags like gloves, first turning them inside out without touching the inside, and then rolled them back over the pieces he wanted to preserve. He had photographed just about everything that had been connected with the chain of events, and sometimes got up from the kitchen table to do a few more photographs to clarify details as he painstakingly wrote down the accounts of everybody who wished to make a testimony. Zaria translated, where necessary. He had never used a dictaphone, since ancient bones rarely talked a lot, and therefore borrowed Joan's to record at least the most important statements.

When he was satisfied with his documentation, the newly arrived soldiers brought in body bags, they always carried a few just in case, and finally all of them could help to clean up the mess. They packed all the wipe cloths into another body bag for eventual use of the dirt as evidence.

By midnight, the mill was cleared for business as usual, and they sat down in the kitchen, right where it all had taken place for want of other venues, for a very late night dinner. No trace remained there, except for a few bullet holes, and two slits cut into the plastic coating by the oven, and the linoleum of the floor in front of it.

The tank crews appeared on rotation to eat their rations and become acquainted with the people they were supposed to protect, after they had positioned their three vehicles around the village's perimeter within sight of each other, and set up a watch schedule. The scouting done by Joan and the four soldiers from the helicopters earlier had been excellent.

»So you're actually not a medical doctor?« one of the tank commanders asked, busily munching her ration of spaghetti, illegally enriched by some of the previous night's stew. She had had the tact not to refuse the generous offer by the locals and Joan, despite the strict orders to neither give nor accept goods of any kind, including food.

»No, I'm an archaeologist, actually. ... D'you mind if I have a glass of wine? I understand that you're not allowed to. ... But I'm not quite used yet to having my bodies warm.«

The young tank commander smiled, »Not at all... It's nothing I would ever want to get used to either, really.« She was about as tall as Maia, and just as slim, which gave her a lot of room beneath her hatch, and her curly blackish brown hair was tied into a knot in the nape of the neck that would usually peek out right below her dark green beret and lift it up a little too high there.

»So what do you normally do?« Karina wanted to know.

»Ahm... I don't want to mess up everyone's dinner...« Wilbury explained, shying back a little.

»Don't worry, food is still scarce enough here to take great care not to lose it,« Zaria stated dead pan.

Joan couldn't disagree less, after the morning's intestinal events.

He looked around to reassure himself that no-one objected, whether he continued.

The young lieutenant sucked in a wayward noodle and nodded encouragingly, looking at him understandingly with her friendly, but intensely determined blue eyes. Her men didn't bother to object.

»I recover bodies from mass graves, bit by bit. ... You know, there have been some incidents of genocide here in the past, and... well, I help to try to identify the victims. ... Which we mostly fail to do,... well, any time soon, at least, until someone foots a couple of thousand dollars per find for DNA analysis, because the dental records, you can forget about them once they have taken the gold. But with all due respect for the need of the relatives to know, I think that can wait; there are more pressing things to be paid for. ... You can hardly find personal belongings, false teeth, and all that, which would be much easier to identify. ... It's mostly looted before they're buried. And bet on it, their papers were burned on the next campfire. ... I'd rather not go into details right now, 'cause I don't want to spoil my own dinner, I'm afraid.« he hurriedly filled himself another glass of wine.

»Interesting that you say this...« Karina continued, »...because nobody has ever looked at ours here.«

»I beg your pardon?« Wilbury turned for a surprised double take.

»The mass graves in the quarry... and the old well on the main square... counts as one, probably, too.« Zaria pitched in, slowly eating her dessert of peaches in syrup. They had shared a few cans from Joan's packets, to have one at all today, and quickly, before today became tomorrow. Usually, the cans would be saved for the winter along with their own conserves while fresh fruit were on the trees.

Somehow, tonight, this dessert did horrendous things to everyone's heartbeat.

Wilbury took his A4-sized notebook out of his bag. Joan noticed, it was a larger version of hers, robust and cheap, the same black covers with red corners.

He opened it, turned up a new page, and wrote [#623] on the upper left corner and drew a little box around it. Then he added the name and district of the village, and time and date.

»Oh my! ...« the tank commander gasped next to him, »That's how many you've had to investigate?«

»No, I just keep a numbered file of all my digs. ... But, yes, there were quite a few dozen I'd rather not have had the dubious honour to document around here. And it's not like... that anybody of my superiors pushed me to find out about any of them in the first place. It's all chance finds of my own, like this one, too, apparently. ...« he looked at Karina and Zaria, and adjusted his glasses, »...Now, my good ladies, could you please tell me more about this...«

»Well, thank you very much, Ms Fredrickx, and...«

»Joan,« she smiled from the driver's seat, and the little car was crammed with four grown-up soldiers and their kit.

»...have a safe jouney. My regards to John... the safety officer. ... I've always wondered what these empty pinholes on his map really meant, 'cause he didn't know either, and I'm as determined as he is to find out. Tell him, I'm going to stay as long as I need to. And if the bureaucrats at the coroner's don't like it, tell 'em to... well...« he hesitated for a moment.

»Carry on, I can take frank and open statements...« Joan giggled, prompting more of the same reaction from the men crammed in around her.

Wilbury chuckled, »Well, then I guess you know better than I do what to tell them .. exactly. Probably that's been my problem. I've been too polite all my life, probably. ... See you the day after tomorrow?«

»Sure.« Joan smiled, and waved good-bye at the man who looked more like an old English gentleman en route to a holiday trip to visit the monuments of ancient Greece and Rome before returning to the colonies of the 1920s, than an investigator in the ultimate horrors.

Joan started to get the car moving as Zaria ran towards it, and stopped it again, smiling, »What is it?«

»I'm... I'm sorry. I was wrong yesterday. ... Please don't forget us. We'll survive, somehow we'll make it. If we only had you here to help us out.« Zaria gave her a deep hug over the car's door-rope.

»Oh Zaria, ... How could I ever forget you, ... you all? ... Hey, I'll be back the day after tomorrow, as always.« Joan promised.

They hugged again, and Zaria stayed behind to wave after the car and its little blue puffs of smoke until it disappeared behind the bends of the fieldpath into the early dawn.

One of the soldiers on the backseat commented, »Boy... when my girlfriend gives me a good-bye like this even once for these business trips, you can write on my tombstone,... Oh what a lucky man he was!«

The others had a good laugh and a round of pity for the first one, »Awwwwgh...«

Joan joined in after a second, chuckling with them.

They had a lot to talk about all along the way, exchanging the different perspectives of army and air force, and the journey passed in no time.

Wilbury turned to the young lieutenant, who was yawning out of her very own commander's hatch on top of the tank, »I know I don't have the authority to ask for anything... but...«

»It's okay. We keep two each in here, and work in shifts. I expect a shovel, too, but don't tell anyone. ... The name's Harriet.«

Wilbury couldn't have been more relieved. He hated to be alone among the recently deceased.

»Excuse me, madam...« a voice came from the other side of the Hercules' bow.

Joan walked towards it, checklist in hand. She found a man with a briefcase looking up the staircase into the cockpit door. He wore a well groomed suit that seemed to be a little stiffer than he himself appeared to be at first, »Yes, please?«

»Hello... I am Orm Rømer. I would like to ask whether you had a seat to spare. I need to go to abroad for the disarmament negotiations committee, and the dispatch officer said you would fly out soon, to the depot base.«

»Oh... I do have a couple of folding seats in the back, not the full sixty-four, but... but this must be a misunderstanding. Qvalue Air does the VIP logistics. Their plane should be back later today. They had to stay away for a couple of days because they were out north when the storm came an' hit,... with some of your people, as far as I know, actually.«

Bulldozers were still busily pushing mud and tree stumps off the end of the runway, but most of it, and taxiway Alpha had already been cleared. The empty Hercules could operate from very short fields, and the cleared stretch of the runway had been long enough even for an aborted take-off run since late last evening. The sleeker commuter planes needed still a little more clean concrete ahead of the bow.

»Yes that's true... I was with them. I'm a little ashamed to say that some of my colleagues ordered a helicopter to get us out of there a little earlier last night. ... And I don't think that I really need Andreas', that's his name, right? ...twelve-seater to bring... just me and my suitcase, basically, to my destination or a place where commercial flights are available.«

»That's fair enough. ... We have to do a thorough check, because the water went up to here, about five inches high, and there was some hail, but not as bad as in the southern part of the city. I think if everything's all right, we'll go in about an hour and a half, the earliest. ... Just be here in time, and don't forget your passport. I can't turn back on the way.«

»Thank you very much, madam. I will be here, thank you.« he bowed a little, and returned to the main building next to the tower. It was funny how he walked like a stork across the half an inch of mud on the parking area.

»Wonder what he's here for, Zal.« Joan muttered as she returned to the other side of the plane, »Don't like these kinda suits 'round here.«

»Who was that?« Zal asked, ticking off all the carefully inspected items on a checklist in his hand.

»Ole... Orm Romer, or something.«

»That's the silent Scandinavian?! ... Orm Rømer, I think.«

»You know him?«

»No, but Andy's talked about him. Didn't look as stiff as Andy said. Seems to be kinda okay. He runs the offices here, as second or third deputy for someone more important who is abroad most of the times; so he does the work basically on his own. ... You know, Andy said that when these warlords' whores, he called them, go out on a shopping spree, kerosene footed by the taxpayer, he's sometimes hitching a ride on the back seat. ... You know, his bird has one next to the toilet. Just sits there with his briefcase while the Prada chicks party. Sometimes accepts a glass of champagne, or two, but Andy says, he's sure he keeps a diary to make sure he accepts the same amount from every faction.«

»Can't possibly be true...« Joan chuckled, as she crept into the front gear's well with a flashlight.

»If Andy says it...« Zal insisted.

»Andy talks a lot when the day is long...« she replied out of the dark.

»He says the guy is good company on the third seat. He sometimes takes refuge in the cockpit, when the bad guys are in the cabin and he doesn't want to be seen with someone for... something to do with the negotiations stuff.«

Rømer had sat down in the back of the cargo hold, and already fastened his seatbelt.

Joan went through the cabin for last checks, »You can take the loadmaster's seat in the cockpit. It's a lot more comfortable than the para's hammocks here, a little quieter, and the heating works better there, too. It's a long, long ride to the air force base...« she shouted down the staircase to the cargo hold.

Rømer unbuckled his belt and walked up the stairs, »Oh, thank you very much indeed. ... But I really wouldn't want to disturb you.«

»Ah, no problem... y'know, Mr Rømer, conversations with nineteen tons of wheat get a little dull over time.« she chuckled, »Jump on board, take a ride,... and fasten your seatbelts there.«

They taxied out to the runway through the mess the flood had left behind, now heaped up left and right of the cleaned strips of concrete and propeller clearance. Joan took it slowly, and with the outer engines on idle, so the propellers couldn't suck in loose parts of the debris.

»Boy what a mess!« Zal commented, »Trees, bushes, trash,... everything!«

Rømer stretched a bit to see more of it, »That was the last thing the people here needed... oh my!«

Joan snorted, »Well, I'd know a few more things they don't need at all, if I was in your place.«

»True... but, you know, in the end, everything... every problem that's man-made can be resolved by people peacefully. But if nature kicks in like this, like here, that's something we can't stop, can we?«

»Hm, there are problems you can't really discuss away, I can tell you....« Joan turned the plane into the holding position in front of the runway.

»X-Ray Golf ready for take-off.« Zal radioed.

»X-Ray Golf cleared for take-off. Wind twelve knots, two eight zero degrees. Expect some turbulence over the valley.«

»X-Ray Golf.«

She turned the plane into the runway, aligned it with the centre line, and pushed all the throttles all the way forward. Soon, they were airborne. The crosswind caused some turbulence between the massifs on each side of the northern part of the city as it increased in speed with altitude.

Joan looked down on the northern suburbs as they climbed on into the drizzly clouds, »Oh boy! The hail has smashed the roof tiles even here... and they're so terribly hard to get in these parts...«

»Yea, you should have seen it... suddenly the sky went black... within fifteen minutes, or so... and then, it was like a lightning-lit greenish white wall of ...it looked like smashed glass, somehow, that drifted past the runway on either end. ... And then the deluge came. We were glad it didn't kill the planes. The largest hail there at Foxtrott was about half an inch to just under an inch. Here, it was more like tennis balls.« Zal relived the dark and thundery day.

Rømer stretched out to look down through the large cockpit windows past Joan's shoulder.

She banked the plane a little to make it easier for him to see, »Can you see the black holes in the red of the roofs?«

»Yes, yes... how do you know, that they are so hard to fix?«

»It's not hard to fix at all, it's just that you can't get any tiles here. ... I've been doing a lot of brick-laying and roof-tiling recently in my spare time. We had to clean each and every bit of material, 'cause it was second hand from demolished houses. ... Gas bombs, y'know.«

»You should see her construction worker's tan, man!« Zal joked.

She gave him a punch on the shoulder, »'T was your fashion advice, Zal! It's all your fault!«

»Ouch! Always, I know,« he turned around to the third man in the cockpit, »I'm the co-pilot, you know?«

Joan had to laugh. It was so good to be back behind the yoke after days like the last ones, »You know, I'm not really used to choosing from different clothes every morning, yet. ... That's the air force... all the same colours everyday. Nice and simple and all carefree handling.«

»So what do you like to wear, then?« Rømer asked cautiously.

»This,« she pointed at her flight suit, »and three or four others that look exactly like this. ... Well, one is a little worn on the knees and elbows from survival training, I've been wearing that one here, mostly. ... And all my lots of other clothes...«

»That's one shabby t-shirt, one pair of well worn bluejeans to you...« Zal explained.

»Thank you, Zal, you picked 'em...«

»I just said, these are the cheapest your size, if you want to work in them.« he protested.

»...anyway ...they all got confiscated as evidence yesterday. ... Bloody evidence! Can't believe it! Just had them for a couple of days! Two days!« she lamented, »My first clothes that were not green! In a decade!«

The plane disappeared into the grey cloud cover the storms had left behind. Joan from now on kept her eyes firmly locked on the instruments.

»Well, that's really not like the fashion problems I hear about otherwise...« Rømer's conversation and posture started to thaw, »...by the way, the name's Orm.«

»Hi. I'm Zal.«

»Joan. ... I can imagine that... to tell you the truth, Zal has actually bought Andy's dossier on you for a couple of pints, recently.« she chuckled, »So what's life like among the high and mighty? ... Beneath the chandeliers of nicer places? ... What are the warlords like in private?«

»Well,...if you want to know the truth...« Orm started to explain in his ponderous northern accent, bending forward to between the pilots' seats so that Joan could understand him more easily over the noise of the engines, and the air rushing by. He took a deep breath, »My first impulse would be to... just kill them with my bare hands. I am not good at sports at all and never was, and I have never exercised, really. But I think I could still do it. At some point, it is the will that suffices. ... Never ever quote me on that. It would be the... my end. ... ... But then I think,... and I find that I want them to live. To stand in front of a panel of judges, or a jury, from all civilized nations of this tiny globe. And then in a fair trial be determined to be what they are beyond any reasonable doubt. ... And I would like to be able to take my children to the zoo one day, where people and animals roam around freely, just a little separated for both their safety and well-being, and point at one of the nineteenth century cages that once held big cats, animals of prey, or so, in an undignified confinement not fitting for their species. And I would point at them, and explain to my children, look, those roaming about are all animals, and we humans are an unseparable part of the animal kingdom, too, I think. But these here in the cages, these are beasts. And our planet is just too small to share it with them. But we let them live out their lives in their own little worlds centred on themselves, and we feed them, and we bed them, and we do them no harm. Because we are not like them.«

Behind her pilot's sunglasses, Joan gulped, and had to admit to herself, that there were indeed diplomats who did not confirm her prejudices about them, and that these maybe were just that: Prejudices. But then, maybe Orm Rømer was just the exception that confirmed the rule.

»You got children, Orm?« she asked after a while.

»No, I don't. ... Not yet, maybe.« he answered a little shyly.

She decided to tell him a true story.

»This is interesting...« Wilbury muttered, »could you all come over here, please, for a minute?«

Harriet with her shovel, and seven more of her men arrived. Wilbury had insisted that no-one of the villagers touched or even visited the site itself in the quarry until they were finished, to avoid allegations of manipulation. The villagers instead supported the foreigners as look-outs by the tanks, and with food they brought regularly during the day. The soldiers were actually glad to be able to contribute to something they thought of as worthwhile, although the sight was gruesome at times, and it was going on for weeks by now, without an end in sight. Bits and pieces of bodies were sorted onto plastic bags everywhere on the floor of the abandonned hall of the quarry works. Its roof was reasonably tight, though its walls were partly missing between the concrete structure, for whatever reason that came before scavenging for bricks.

»What's that, Fred?« one of the men asked.

There was a tiny piece of pink plastic peeking out of the ground next to a skeletal hand.

»Combined evidence. If somebody identifies this... watch, I believe it is, we can test the bones' DNA and compare it with relatives, if there are any still alive today. ... I hate to ask this... are you from different crews?«

»Yessir.«

»Okay... You have to be one-oh-one percent sure for these lawyers kind of people, I'm sorry. I need you all as witnesses, please. Watch carefully.«

He set about to uncover it with a small putty knife. Archaeologists rarely used brushes, and when they did, only on dry ground. This was wet soil.

He had been right. It was a small quartz wristwatch, a very cheap model made somewhere in the Far East, and it was still around the wrist of the skeleton. Nobody had bothered to steal it before or after its owner had been killed. Its plasic strap was sewn together where it had been torn apart accidentally. Now he hoped somebody would remember it in the village.

He put the lower arm into one of his plasic sample bags the usual way, but without removing the soil between the watch and the bone, where once living flesh had been, to preserve the context, and sealed it carefully. They prepared a makeshift bedding of styrofoam flakes for it in a small wooden box.

A relic, at last.

»I can't get a word, Pentti. It's their local dialect, plus a lot of trigger-happy slang. And the boy's had badly beaten-up lips. ... It's something about a short blonde foreigner... and... aid parcels denied... and... murder... and... forget it, I don't get a word, really. All confused guesswork. ...sorry, man.«

».. Man, .. how's it that you don't understand it? You were born here and lived all your life 'round here.« Pentti Salolainen asked disbelievingly.

»Yea... Here. Should try to get someone from 't least twenty miles south of here, but no more than forty-odd,... fifty. ... They'll be able to translate it.« the young local interpreter shrugged, and took off his glasses with thick black frames that made him look even more nerdish than his baseball cap with a local product logo of the long gone peaceful past, that was appearing again on several advert pins on its sides. He rubbed his beard and shrugged again.

»Twenty miles... twenty miles south of my place, there's not even the next sauna, and here it is a damned whole different country. Every twenty miles! Oh boy, all over the world they're tearing down frontiers...« Pentti was not amused, »...and here they can't talk across the neighbour's garden fence.« He was not all too tall, and when he was out of sight of those he called customers, he had the prankstering air of a mischievous boy just accidentally grown a little older, an impression helped a lot by his slightly reddish brown and curly hair. But that grin that looked as if he was just coming up with the next hilarious practical joke for the non-boyscout manual could instantly change to an almost grim determination once it came to hunting down his customers. In this case, warlords, and their accessories. Then, like right now, he appeared more like a boxer who had a lot of experience in living with hard blows, focused on the opponent who dealt them, and the mantra-like words not dead yet. His ring was that of international criminal law since he had fought his way out of an investigator's cubicle in the prosecutor's den.

»What are we going to do?« the interpreter played with his baseball cap, and put it on backwards, looking at Pentti.

»Wait for Orm, and try to get one who understands it, and who is without personal involvement, to listen to the tape.«

»That was a good one, Pentti. ... Are you guys from the ice always that cool?«

»Yes, especially when we make one long hot shishkebap out of you guys cross three spicy borders at a time. ... Ah, even a short one would do .. that...«

Karina swayed for a moment, then sat down, and nodded quietly. She had been led into the room like everybody else before her. They all had entered through one door, and left through the next, witnessed by the eight soldiers who had continuously accompanied the evidence from its grave to the small table. Outside the room, those who had already seen it, stayed separated from those who had not.

»So you recognized it, madam. Would you kindly identify the person, please?«

Karina brought herself only to whisper at the sight of the bones, »Iskandra... Melinda's grandmother... her mother's mother.«

»Thank you. ... I'm very sorry you all had to go through this.« he accompanied her to the exit, and told the guards outside, that the separation was lifted. Then he asked Zaria and Karina to come in again, and apologized again to the villagers. He spoke a little of the local language, and about a dozen or two others, on the same basic scale. At last, he returned to his seat behind the table.

He sat down, turning to the soldiers behind him, »That's as hard evidence as it gets. Please guard this like your eyeballs.«

Zaria and Karina entered. They had Melinda with them, and sat down.

»I know this is very difficult for you. ... To identify her for the court, I have to have a small blood sample from a relative, and Melinda is the only one alive.«

Karina looked very concerned.

»I will show you what I will do...« he continued to explain, and pulled a sampling kit out of his box. It contained tiny sterilized razor blades, and several sets of specially coated paper with an attached pocket-like envelope, each. He took two blades, and three papers.

»Watch... I need to give a sample as well, since I may have accidentally touched the evidence, or the sample bag's inside while excavating it...« he picked at his fingertip with one of the blades, carefully, to keep it sterile, and pressed a droplet of blood out of the tiny wound, »...and this, goes here, here, and here. ....« He rubbed a little droplet off into the appropriate sector on each of the papers. It oozed in immediately, like ink on blotting-paper.

Melinda watched curiously, and a little in awe.

»You want to try this Melinda?« he asked, trying to look a little like Santa Claus over his semi-circular glasses.

Zaria translated, Karina encouraged her, and finally Melinda nodded, still looking at the friendly old man.

»Okay... gimme your hand...« he asked, »it won't hurt at all.«

Melinda did it, and he carefully executed the same procedure as before and showed her where to make the funny dots. She looked a little concernedly at the bright red droplet at her fingertip at first as he pressed it out very gently, but as it disappeared into the paper, and nothing more came out of the tiny wound after it, she seemed to be very pleased with herself.

»I'm sorry... I hate this business...« he said a little sheepishly.

»No... don't be, please... you...« Karina looked at her daughter.

Zaria smiled, as she held Melinda on her lap, »You've just given her a place where to remember her real family in peace, when she grows up, and is old enough to understand.«

»'Kay... Thank you very much. That's all. I'll tell you the results as soon as I get them...« he muttered hastily.

Zaria and her mother got up again, and Melinda waved goodbye at the funny old man and his strange games.

Wilbury started to cry a little, as they had closed the door, and had to blow his nose several times, »I'm sorry. ... I'm just... an old senile bloke trying to stay sane...«

Harriet patted him on the back, »We all are... you've been wonderful, really.« She had to bite her own lips fighting back the tears, not to cry in front of her men.

»There's one thing left to witness, and then that's it for today. ... There'd be another hour of daylight, but... I think we've earned our rations for today, really.« he regained his composure, and then got a small core drill out to remove three samples from the bones. He packed them into the envelopes under sixteen watchful eyes, sealed everything, and had them sign a lot of forms. Usually, there was space for three to five names and signatures, but they all fit in somewhere.

»Fine. Thank you very much indeed. ... There is one final thing I would like to ask of you for today, and that would be to forget the third sample.«

The soldiers looked at one another surprisedly as he put one of the envelopes into an already addressed and stamped larger envelope.

»I have long had the suspicion that the evidence has sometimes been tampered with. I will send it to a friend of mine in Britain by the name of Francis Ladbroke on a completely seperate route. He runs a little chemical and biomedical laboratory on a shoestring and a half, and does DNA tests, carbon dating, and the like. We sometimes help each other out. ... I will give the envelope to Ms Fredrickx to post it abroad and outside the air force base there, with all those important people around. You just keep it under your watchful witness's eyes as long as possible.«

»Sure. Understood, Sir.« Harriet accepted, as did her men.

»I don't want you to lie about it, because that would technically be committing perjury. Please, please don't! ... Just don't mention it, unless you are specifically asked about it. When somebody else than the people here knows about it, it is likely that I told them first. Otherwise, don't tell 'em what they don't know yet, as long as it doesn't cause you a problem.«

»Count on us, Sir.« one of the men answered for them all.

»What do you plan to do, if you can prove there have been improper actions taken?« The tank commander asked.

»I'm going to bloody kill that bloody traitor bloody slowly and leave 'im to bloody rot with his boody confession next to him that I'm gonna make him write first on his bloody mahoganny desk.« Wilbury almost hissed to himself.

The others were as surprised by the form as impressed by the determination.

»Ah, wait, I'll get her. ...« the nurse said, knowing instantly whom Joan was asking about, »We can't keep her here any longer. She just wants to go back ASAP.«

»She's alright then, is she?«

»Yes,... mostly. ... She's been very lucky. The knife just scratched the vein, and it was a fairly clean cut, so we had it clipped endoscopically. ... Just give her a smoke, take her home, and .. Heavens! .. ...keep her away from brooms! When she came to after the narcosis, she almost whacked one of the cleaners off his feet, in the first dizzy confusion. Want to know the meaning of the word reflexes... look it up right next to her name in the dictionary. Y'should have seen her,« the certainly very much impressed nurse nevertheless related the necessary details matter-of-factly, »at least she apologized very kindly as soon as she realized she was in safety. And she returned the broom voluntarily.«

Joan sniggered happily, »Yea, she must be fine then, I s'ppose.«

The woman who had suffered the head wound, and the girl were already sitting in the back of the car, and Joan helped Teres to settle into the front passenger seat.

»Oh, thank you very much... it'll be just fine, Joan.« she pulled her walking cane into the car and let it peek out through the nonexistent windows, »That's wonderful aluminium piping... Maia and Tatiana will surely fight for it.« she chuckled.

»No way! I promised to return it as soon as you are perfectly fine again.«

They drove through the airport's gate with quite a few packets less than usual. The guard bothered therefore to take a look, but quickly opened the turnpike, as soon as he recognized Joan behind the wheel. They drove into the city centre to get to the road that crossed the southern massif, as always. Teres and the others did a lot of sightseeing, and Joan took her time.

Near the main square with its already almost western style, and definitively more than western priced shops and restaurants, she stopped to let a few people cross the street safely. A man almost dragging a boy in a football jersey over the zebra crossing suddenly stopped in the middle of the road as the rest of the group moved on. He stared at the car for a second or two.

Joan smiled at him, waiting while the others chatted about something by the roadside.

He nodded, walked on, more pulled by the boy than on his own. In the rearview mirror, Joan saw him turn around again before reaching the other side of the road. The boy asked him something.

He stood by the side of the football pitch, waiting mostly for a free dinner and to cash in on the corned beef after it. He also wanted to make sure, his son felt enough pressure not to fail again that shamefully.

Alice cheered at and went with each good action by either team.

He approached her, as he had seen her hand out the cans on some earlier days, after dinner, »You know which team you for?«

»Hey, it's the game that matters, not the winning. ... A good move is a good move. And look how they just .. love .. it. Playing together as a team. Ain't that great?« she enthused, cheering another twist in the game, »Whooo! Go on! ... Hardly a foul ever. Always on the move. ... The major league guys should take 'em as an example.«

»A rose is a rose is a rose. ... It is waste when she is dirty in place where stinging nettles fare better.« he turned away, shaking his head at the culturelessness, the softness, the lack of fighting spirit, and determination to win, first of all, and the perversion of family values and virtues of all those foreigners who sent even their women here, in uniform.

Alice wondered what the apparently local proverb could possibly mean to her.

He turned around, because he would have liked her looks in an apron. A huge white rudder of a transport plane peeked out above the trees and bushes behind her. Then he realized where he had seen the odd car licence plate before. He asked one of his kinfolk to grab the can for him and send it home with his boy after telling him in no uncertain terms how miserably he had played this time, to make him harder, and try harder, and left for a very profitable business transaction.

»You sure you want these? ... They are,... ahm, quite dim, to be honest.« the shop assistant at the electronics D.I.Y. store down the main road, a two miles walk from the depot base, warily bent over the counter a little, to whisper the truth, lest her shift manager caught wind of it, »If I were you, I'd take the eleven watts instead of five, at least. These fluorescent lamps come on a bit slowly on top of it, despite the electronic adaptor. And we have 'em for mains voltage, too.«

»No, five Watts are perfectly alright, and there's only twelve volts DC...« Joan checked the shopping list Maia had given to her, »...well, fourteen point four, to be precise.«

»Doesn't matter. These are six to twenty-four volts input, and the lamps, you can change them, all U-shaped or folded tubes with five to twenty-six Watts that come with this standard socket for four pin, or two pin, both work. The two pin ones come with a built-in starter, though, which is useless in electronic adaptors, anyway, and only makes them flicker, on top of the start-up delay, and the time it takes them to warm up. ... But I'd .. still .. take a nice fifty or one hundred Watts halogen lamp. They're full on as soon as you throw the switch, and even come as a complete unit, with reflectors, and don't need an adaptor at all to work on twelve volts, just a socket, smaller than that. For mains, they just need these transformers. ... These flourescent tubes all take a minute to warm up, even up to three in the winter if you use 'em outdoors, until they give you the full light output. ... Ah, do you need them in a camper or a cabin?«

»At home... sorts of. ...« Joan explained, and then wondered, looking at one of the very much recommended small lightbulbs in its transparent packaging, »...A fifty Watts halogen lamp, on a car, that's like...?«

»A car's headlight. One, only, that is...« she checked a box with one inside that was on special offer at the counter, »...almost, fifty, .. fifty-five. You'd use that as a reading lamp, I think, and twice that for a room. ...« the shop assistant frowned for a second, »...You're playing with solar at home?!«

»No. ...« Joan laughed, »...there's only water available.«

»Well,... you have to know. ... So this is what you really want?«

»Yep.«

»I hope so. ...« she looked at Joan as if she wasn't so sure at all, »A plastic bag?«

»Ahm... if it's big enough for fifty-seven sets of those...«

»'Xcuse me?! ... .. Fifty-..seven?!«

Joan checked with her shopping list, »Exactly.« and replied with a confident smile.

The shop assistant turned to her computer, »Just a moment, please... seven, maybe, but...« she typed in the product number, »...oh. This one, and three more for the adaptors. ... Ahm, I'm afraid, they're warming the shelves for three years now. Looks like it's been the promotion start-up kit, or something. So there might be a warranty problem, just in case; think you should know that. You sure you want them?«

Joan just nodded yet again.

»Thought so by now. ... ...I can order more, if you want them. They still .. seem .. to be available. ... Takes ten days, a fortnight, maybe. ... A big castle's expensive to run, hah? ...« she asked with a twinkle while trying to find out more through the computer, »... Never thought the decline of the aristocracy had hit rock bottom that hard.«

»Ah... well, you know, I quit the knights, left the castles to my sister, so it's just one small village I have to take care of now...« Joan said as if she was talking about the rabbit breeders' club and a pot of flowers.

They both laughed out loud.

»Mmh... one night shift to remember... I'd very much recommend you take one or two bigger ones, just to try them out. I've got more of the ... ahm, seven, nine, eleven,... ten, thirteen, eighteen, and twenty-six watt types with that socket. ... Okay, I've got four adaptors, then, and two five watt lamps to go with them. I can get the small ones within a few days, so you maybe take two or three larger ones as well, to try them out, and then decide which size to order.«

Joan went with it, »Sounds like a plan to me.«

»After a hard day's work, freedom equals books plus efficient lamps, Sergei.« Maia made the last connections in Karina's room.

»Wait, I'll close the windows.« Joan closed the blinds, reaching out from the inside. There were no glass panes in the way, not even frames, yet. Those had been destroyed, too. The larger bits had found other use in the construction sites, while the splinters had served as kindling. The blinds were to keep the wind out at night.

In the dark, only lit by a few beams of hazy daylight leaking in through the gaps between the boards of the blinds, Maia stretched to her toetips to reach for the switch on the adaptor's side.

»Wait...« Sergei stopped her, »...hey... Melinda?« he bent down to the little girl and picked her up to sit on his arm.

The old man standing next to them pointed her at the switch, and then rubbed his big white pointed moustache in expectation.

With a little hesitation, and after looking to Zaria and Karina first, she pushed it over to the other side.

They all held their breath. A greyish glow filled the tube immediately, and after half a second, just when a faint reddish-orange glow appeared near its socket, it lit up. They could see how it continued to brighten up by a third, maybe, over the next couple of seconds.

Melinda laughed and poked her nose with the finger that had just let it be light.

The old man tapped gently at the tube, and it swayed in front of the little girl's face and his own. Then he just looked at it with the same smile of a mesmerized child.

»It's beautiful.« Karina said, »It's like a candle. You light it up, and it slowly fills the whole room with light. ... Not like a light bulb that blinds you at first. And you can look into it.«

Zaria quite obviously agreed, »That's sure bright enough for all of us to read at the same time, if we suspend it there over the beds. ... Don't know what you worried about, Joan. And remember, our eyes are still adapted to daylight now...«

»And the colour is very pleasant, not like those tubes in the Konsum store used to be.« Karina was still surprised, looking into the new light, »I've never seen a lamp like this, do they now have these instead of light bulbs?«

»No...« Joan laughed a little, »The shop assistant actually asked... I don't know .. how .. many times, whether I really wanted them. The stuff's been gathering dust in their storage room for three years or so.«

»Oh, that's why the tube came on so slowly...« Maia realized.

Joan was really surpised, »Slowly? I thought that was fast. Like ten seconds. The gal in the shop sounded like it would take .. hours .. until it got to full power. She said I should take halogen lamps for twelve volts instead. Like a car's headlight, for a reading lamp, and several for a room.«

Maia switched it off, and after five seconds, back on again. It came on almost immediately, and on full power, after less than half a second, and without the glow at the base. She turned back to Joan, »There's a trace of mercury vapour in there that converts electricity to light, and that sometimes is adsorbed over time near the filaments, that you've seen glowing orange if you looked quickly enough the first time. Once that's warmed up and evaporates, they're on full power. Takes a little longer at twenty below zero, but otherwise... Let's try the brighter ones!«

Sergei told Melinda to switch it off again, and she did.

Then Maia pulled the small tube out of its socket, and looked at it, feeling the temperature of the leads, »Cool... okay, this one is going easy on the small wattages. Some cheap ones kill the filaments by overheating them on the small ones. ... Ah, it actually makes use of the coded sockets... great!«

Zaria inserted the nine watts tube, and before anyone had to encourage her, Melinda switched the light on again, which came on as quickly as on the second try of the smaller tube.

»That's been the heat of your hands quickstart,...« Maia smiled, »...remember that for the next winter.«

»Geez, that's bright!« Sergei was surprised, and squinted.

»That's a different colour or something?« Joan wondered, »Looks much... colder...« checking the box, »Thought it's the same thing...«

»You can set the colour with the fluorescent powder coating on the inside. Any colour you like. The mercury produces ultraviolet light, only,...« Maia explained, »...That stuff that makes some clothes shine in a discotheque, but is otherwise invisible. Sometimes it's called black light. The coating converts it to visible light, like some dyes in the clothes or brighteners in washing powder. The grey shimmer at the start, that's probably been some argon in the gas mixture to get it started easier. This is... oh, standard white, cheap variant. I was wondering why it's not that bright. The good stuff is about twenty percent more effective. ... The five watts, that's ... internal white, and the good stuff. That's exactly what we want. Tell 'em that clearly. You can see it by this number, the coating type. ... This one, nine watts, should be a little brighter than the .. fifty-five .. watts light bulb they suggested to you. You do the maths, how many more I can power this way,...« she took the big one out of its dusty box, touching only the tip of the glass tube with two fingers, and a grin, »...and that's without the increased loss in the grid, the drop in voltage that it causes, the dimming of the filament caused again by that, and the even worse spectral adaption to the eye all this causes in the end, of all the incandescant bulbs fashion trend. ... ... If I could sell my electricity by a meter's counter to anyone with money, I should be very happy about that trend back to Edison's roots, though.«

Well practised by now, Melinda switched it off, Zaria took the nine watts out of the socket, and Maia hurried to get the new one into its socket before anyone taller could help, then put her hands back into the pockets of her jeans, and nodded at Melinda, who had been looking at her intently.

Melinda switched it on again, but only the greyish glow came on to a rising orange at two of the four ends of the glass that disappeared into the lamp's plug socket.

»Watch this!« Maia just barely touched the glass tube at its tip, and there was light.

Even Joan, much more accustomed to a lot of artificial light, shied back a little, »Ooh! Couldn't you wake it up more carefully? After all the time it had to collect all that dust?«

Everybody squinted, and Maia laughed, »... Daylight in your eyes... ... all praise Nicola Tesla! Thanks to alternating current and the skin effect. This is in a way the brightest white colour, too, because your eyes can make the best use of the light that it puts on offer. It's all just in how the coating is tuned, and this way, by paying respect to mother nature's design, which happens to be adapted to natural daylight, very much unlike Mr Edison's stuff, it's just more effective again by some thirty... up to fifty percent, compared to a warmer tone.«

Sergei frowned in utter disbelief, which on its own made Melinda laugh, »Wa..wa.wait a minute! This means... with that kind of... powder stuff in the small ones... you can do .. ten .. for one of the reading lights they wanted to sell to Joan?!«

»Yup! You're a rocket scientist, Sergei! ...« Maia gave him a friendly nudge, »...Assuming that the extra grid loss, their way, and what the adaptor takes in electricity for itself to run, our way, come out at the same percentage. ... Should be; it's not warming up as far as I can feel.« she touched the white plastic cylinder.

It was later than on the other days, after they had finished work in the light of the new lamps, with the four brightest tubes. They had kept one of five watts, too, and after work had been finished, Zaria had borrowed one of the adaptors, and had screwed three old rusty hooks no longer to be trusted with anything of weight into the beams of the ceiling. One over the table, one above Karina's desk, and one over their bed. A loose slipknot in the telephone cable now held the lamp. Melinda sat on Zaria's lap, and snuggled up between her and Karina under their bed cover. The nights were still cold in the mountains, at the end of spring, but at least they were not as windy as in the winter. Zaria and Karina had a sack of hay and a thick cushion behind their backs, to keep the cold of the wall from soaking in. She took the old and torn, but colourful book from the stool next to their bed, »Okay. ... Read. ... Vanquish ignorance! ... A good night story...?«

Karina gave her a nudge, and Melinda looked at her at the same time.

»Ooopsie...« she then continued with a fairy tale in their own language, read under a bright foreign light for the very first time.

»I thought you'd bring them back...« the shop assistant greeted Joan as she returned. They seemed to share the same night shifts on either side of the counter.

»Yea... I'm glad I didn't order right away...« Joan put the lamps on the table and fingered in one of the many pockets of her flight suit for something.

»I hate to say, but,... told you so...«

»...'cause I need... well, first all of those I got already,... of course,... and... ...here...« Joan added the new shopping list, »...seventy-three adaptors, actually. More, later, when more houses are in the dry. ... And the lamps, ... ahm,... that's the sizes, and the colours they want. The big ones are for working at night.«

»Colours?« the shop assistant blinked twice across her counter, with a frown of disbelief deeper than the village's valley.

»Yea, the different tones of white. You can see it by this code number... like here...« Joan pointed at the plug socket of one of the lamps she had taken with her as samples, as Maia had told her to.

»I already wondered what that was for... the boss always orders the cheapest ones for a wattage...« the shop assistant frowned a bit, looking at the differing numbers she had at least noticed, unknown variables to her boss.

»Okay, I want .. exactly .. these.« Joan insisted.

She took a look at the list, »Oh my... don't you think you're making it a bit complicated with these lamps... does it really make that much of a difference? I mean, like normal light bulbs, it's all the same light, isn't it.«

»Ah... Okay, one difference is, that to get this much light with your normal light bulbs, my friend would have to double the size of her power station, and this way, she can disconnect all but three of her generators at night, even when everybody in the village leaves every single light .. on .. at night. And the third is really only for fail-safe redundancy, y'know.« Joan grew a little impatient.

»What's that for a rotten kind of generators?!« she didn't raise her head, just the eyes with the frown, to look at the pilot customer.

»Scavenged, well used, car generators. ... Refurbished, run on a water mill that already happens to be there, for the flour. ... Big wooden wheel...« Joan waited smugly for the next reaction, while painting a turning wheel into the semi-lit air of the store.

»They don't come with much more than four hundred watts... three for a village, you say? That's not even a kilowatt and a half...«

»Two... generators are more than enough. One would be a bit overstretched with all the lights on,... seventy-three times seven, five for the lamp and two for the adaptor, each, she says. ... You got the calculator there.«

She entered the numbers, »Hm... yea... maybe... but...« and it didn't take a scientific calculator to find out what really payed off.

»The other reason is, seeing is believing.«

»Believe me, if I'd tell the guys of the green party which kind of green the one ordering .. this .. was wearing, they'd be losing their religion. ... Well, .. I .. dont.« she plugged in one of the two-pin lamps into the cheap reading light her employer had put on the desk, »No test, no trust.« It restarted with a typical starter flicker, »Barf...« and the characteristical neon flicker, after it began to shine continuously, never really went away, like on the original tube. »Hm.« She changed it against the only other one with two pins which Joan had brought back, »Okay,... the colour .. is .. different.« Otherwise, both tubes looked exactly the same, apart from that two-digit difference in the type code number.

»My friend said, they flicker if the lamp uses an old-fashioned thing called a choke instead of electronics, except if there are two that are made to flicker one against the other, sort of. It's supposed to be heavy, and wastes up to half the electricity on small lamps. ... That is, takes more out of the grid accordingly, to leave the same wattage to the lamp, she said.«

The shop assistant pulled the blocky plug of her lamp, »Hm...« and tossed it across the counter, »This qualifies as heavy?«

Joan caught and took it. It's molded plastic case was fairly warm, and it weighed about a pound, »Think so... But I'm not an expert.«

»Still not convinced. ... I still got those you bought, but for mains voltage.« the shop assistant took one off the shelves at the back of the room behind the counter, and out of its embarrasingly dusty cardboard box. It looked like the thread of a light bulb at one end, with the same socket for fluorescent tubes as on Joan's stuff on the other, and a white round plastic casing to bridge the divide. She inserted one of the other tubes with four pins, and pushed it into the light bulb tester at the other end of the counter, »Could you hold it down for a moment?«

Joan did.

Fifteen minutes, a blacked-out store, and all available fluorescent lamps with that kind of socket later, Joan's patient hand was rewarded by her, »Okay,... you've... won a convert, I guess.«

»I hate to say, but,... told you so...« with a smirk, Joan exercised her hand, after taking the electronic adaptor out of the tester for good.

»Well, I'll order it like this, then...« the shop assistant switched the store's lights back on.

»Oh, I've got another list that she gave to me...« Joan took it out of another pocket, and handed it across the counter, »Can you get that kind of stuff? I've got no idea what all that is.«

»Mu A Seven-oh-nine C,... BC one-oh-eight-A,... one-seventy-eight,... BD one-oh-nine,... two-N-thirty-fifty-five,... BA one-oh-three, ...one-two-seven D,... BY one hundred,... TAA-eight-six-one... ...sure. Tons of everything here in all the little plastic boxes behind me. What's that with the two numbers behind it?«

»Oh, she said, if the stuff was very expensive, one's the absolute minimum, and the other is what she'd need really urgently.« Joan remembered an important detail that the time of night had almost swept away, out of her mind.

»You're .. kiddin' .. me?!« the shop assistant laughed out loud, and started to pick the parts out of their respective tiny perspex drawers, »Where's the candid camera? I mean, that's... I throw .. all .. that in as a starter for the discount, even without asking the boss!«

»Well, all the better. She can't get it over there, apparently,...« Joan was pleased, »...or the stuff didn't come in the smashed car radios she takes apart to get the rest of what she needs.«

In the midst of fetching a tiny part out of the dustier drawers with several type numbers on them, she stopped and turned around, »Over there? ... You're working at UNEAFOR?«

»Well, not exactly. I fly aid cargo to their base camp.« Joan explained.

»All this is technically embargoed for the natives over there... including the lamps, by the way, because they use advanced power- or micro-electronics, like everything else you can buy today, but...« the shop assistant looked at the list again, »... ...hell, the last time .. this .. was up to date was about thirty-five years ago. In fact, I don't have some parts anymore, 'cause they're out of production for like fifteen years. They sent people to the Moon in tin cans with that kinda junk wired in. I get you better replacement types instead, and the datasheets. ... Guess they don't have internet, then?«

This time it was Joan's turn to laugh, »Unless that works with short wave radio by now...«

»That's some country, hah? Tell you something... The multimedia megastore across the road,...« she pointed at her employer's competition, the car park the size of several football fields, and the similarly sized boxy buildings beyond, and then turned towards the many little drawers that held the electronic parts to get what was on the list, or their nearest equivalents, »...they've shipped a whole truckload of TVs, DVD players, high-powered gaming computers, DSL modems, CB radios, scanners, and, and, and... ...and .. tons .. of stuff, to go over there, this week alone. ...«

»Well, their shop assistants didn't even know what I was talking about...« Joan shrugged with a growl, »They only had lamps like yours here on the counter.« looking at the interiors of a shop one hundreth the size of one of the departments in the store across the road.

»So, this is my piece of that kinda pie then.« the shop assistant returned from her hunter-gatherer tour behind the counter, and put a small mat of soft rubbery black plastic foam on its glass top, maybe five inches square in size, and one quarter in thickness, into which she had carefully pushed all the parts with their leads, lest they got bent, »Watch out, this is a forbidden fruit gag.« she added with a laugh.

Some looked like little square black beetles with eight silver legs, some like tiny cans standing on three wires, there were plastic and glass beads on a wire, others were like a thick coin welded onto a piping flange, or a black plastic sugar cube to which the same had happened while a voodoo master had melted three pins into it, and all had lots of numbers on them. So many, that there was hardly any room left for brand logos, to Joan's surprise. She only dared to look at them, not touch.

»They don't bite, it's the other way 'round. Leave 'em on that, it's against static discharges which could damage the chips. ... Although nothing of that is particularly sensitive,...« she put the black mat and its residents into a silvery plastic bag, »...and this... are some of our old data dictionary and replacement components comparison tables. ...« she got three thick dusty soft-cover books out of one of the lowest drawers on her side of the counter, and slapped them onto it, surprising herself with a puff of dust, »That'll tell your friend what has happened in the first thirty of the past thirty-five years. ... Three or four years old, but we buy 'em twice a year or so, anyway, just to keep up with all the new ICs in consumer appliances. No-one can be bothered to take the trash out, until the shelves down here are absolutely .. stuffed .. when the new ones arrive...«

»Believe it or not, I got that up front as a discount for the lamps!« Joan yelled up the stairs as they carried the first delivery into the mill a few days later, »And she said, it's not all the discount.«

»You just don't want to tell me the price!« Maia shouted down from the attic where she stored the stuff.

»Their price list is in one of the boxes... with the parts and the books...« Joan heaved one onto the floor next to her, standing on the ladder in the trap door.

»Just found it. ... That's about one to three percent of what I'd pay here for these parts. ... And you say most of that's obsolete there?«

»That's how I understood it...«

Maia shrugged, »Hm. ... Well, power to the people, then. Good enough for us, for sure, and I took big safety margins in the design already, even with the old stuff. ... And I was worried about doing it entirely without germanium types, because of the heat in the workshop, now that there's a forge in that half of it...«

»...Tomorrow, the registration period for the upcoming local elections will end, and still people are arriving at the offices. Some are queueing for days, even have been for weeks in some places, just to register, many of them refugees who returned just for the elections. Many of those are even camping outside the offices, near the U.N. vehicles, trucks and busses and tractors, that brought them in, or their own donkey carts; where they feel reasonably safe. It has been decided to keep the offices open through the last nights already yesterday, so that everyone will have the opportunity to register. This at first resulted in protests from some factions' leaders, who claimed that they were understaffed to deal with their own supervisory functions under the preliminary agreements. These difficulties soon disappeared after other factions offered them some of their own people to staff the extra shifts, as no-one is willing to give up their very own right of inspection of the registrees' identity and documents. The proceedings the provisional international electoral commission and the representatives of the various factions have finally managed to agree on are extremely difficult to carry through, and among other things require the voters to return to their home towns, often to face the very neighbours who were responsible for the atrocities that turned them into refugees in the first place. But despite the hardships of travelling through a more than physically destroyed country, progress has been surprisingly smooth so far. Accusations of vote rigging are constantly in the air, but there have only been a few documented attempts to scare would-be voters away from the registration offices during most of last week. Apparently, the warring factions have stopped that for the time being, at least in areas where foreign representatives or the media are in the vicinity. But the atmosphere is still very tense - no wonder when one remembers the years of civil war, and what is at stake for the peace process. In any case, these local elections are a test for the regional and general elections tentatively scheduled for some time later this year, or next. ... Catherine Wyler for cable news agency.«

»This report from our correspondent. ... And now before I leave you, a short recap of the news headlines. ... The opposition leader has emphasized the need to re-evaluate the importance of the defence and customs budget again, in comparison to other urgent needs of society. This comes after another round of sweeping cut-backs already decided on by the government. He recognized the need to curb the influx of refugees, illegal immigration, and the increasing presence of organized foreign criminals, but most of all, he stated, unemployment, economic growth, social security, free trade, food safety, and the environment, were the problems foremost in peoples' minds today, and these would have to be addressed first, as soon as possible in the interest of the citizens. He urged the government to set aside party politics, and cooperate on...«

Joan got up as somebody switched off the TV set, being with the last men sitting, watching in the officers' mess. The bar was open to all in permanent residence at the huge base complex.

»They'd get rid of half their problems if they'd just give people the chance to build a decent place wherever they live right now.« Zalman muttered to himself, »Guess they've never seen .. real .. problems.«

Joan yawned, and stretched her back, »No-one at home has, if you ask me,... I'm not even sure I have. ... Did you see how all the voters held their registration papers, up into the camera? There they queue for a week just to get in, and at home... two thirds don't even bother to get registered, and even more don't vote at all, anyway.«

»Yea... scary. But they there,... they didn't look like they were really happy about it. Standing there like frozen to the ground... as if their faces had petrified after seeing a ghost. ... Well, no wonder, if you have to ask for clearance stamps from people behind the desks who until last year tried very hard to shoot you, or if that wasn't possible, at least drive you off your land and then steal it, with all that was left on it.«

»Almost as if 't was their last will and testament they were holding on to, that paperwork.« Joan agreed.

Their colleague approached them, »Sorry to ask you, but could you two do the tour tomorrow? ... My co has caught the flu or something worse. He's been praying at the porcelain altar all afternoon.«

»Oh my... Of course, no problem, Hans.«

»I know it's a little outside regulations, but...«

»Oh, we've been fifteen minutes faster today... tail-wind both ways.« Joan twinkled, »And I guess, that'll shorten tomorrow's flight dramatically, too.«

The day's flight time was just barely beyond the maximum permissible time for daily flights by one crew. That's why they flew on rotation. As long as nobody checked all too closely, there would be no problem, and the flights weren't really stressful like in high traffic areas where the same rules applied, and made a lot of sense.

»Hope he gets well, soon. Uhm, could you...?«

»I've already told the loaders and the crew chief. It'll be ready first one in the morning, as usual for your flights. They're already at work.«

»Great. ... Zal, at the next stand-down, we have to throw a party for them all.«

»Sure... well, time to listen to the pillow for me... G'night.« Zal yawned.

»'Night, Zal... see you in the morning, Hans. Hope Peter gets well soon.« Joan left last, switching the lights off.

»Yea, me too. ... Can't wait to fly, the weather's getting VFR again. ... Good night, then.« they headed off into different directions, towards their small rooms in this harbour.

»X-Ray Golf, we have a problem.« the controller radioed with a tense voice.

»UNEAFOR approach say again.« Zalman replied with some disbelief.

»X-Ray Golf, we have a problem. ... Ahm. ... We've had an urgent need for repairs on the runway and the local authorities kindly provided us with the construction equipment necessary to carry them out today. We're therefore closed until further notice.«

She turned to look at her co-pilot, »Did I get that right? ... There are no local authorities yet, are there?«

»Hey, what do you make of that? I mean, they could have told us an hour or two earlier and we'd have stayed on the ground, and wait for Peter to get fit again. Don't they have telephones down there?« , Zal asked her.

»The aid agencies all have sat-phones... and the media. ... I don't get it. I bet you, our cute li'l dis manager on the ground has missed his cue, again.« She looked down at the villages below through one of the larger holes in the almost continuous cloud cover to her left, »And I promised another Trabant-ful of packets for today... I'll kill that guy... one day, I will.«

»What'll we do now?« Zal wanted to know.

»We stick to our flight plan and take a look from above. It's only thirty miles to go, anyway. ... Lets do a go-around to show 'em we've been there. I don't want him to be able to cover his ass again.«

Zal complied immediately, »UNEAFOR approach, X-Ray Golf request a go-around... The boss wants to have a look.«

»X-Ray Golf. Go-around clea..« the transmission suddenly stopped, then the mike on the other side was keyed open, again, and the airwaves filled with a lot of diffuse shouting, after which the voice of the controller came back tensely, and with audible haste, »...Go-around negative, X-Ray Golf. Repeat go-around negative, X-Ray Golf. Do you read.«

»Sounds .. like .. trouble, .. Zal. Just the call sign, please. I'd like to keep our options open.« she murmured, and reflected about the situation for a second while he fed the controller matter of factly.

»X-Ray Golf.«

»You got a camera with you, by accident?«

Zalman's face lit up, »Sure! They had a buy one, get one free offer at the supermarket down the road from the depot. I've got a bag full of these in the back.« He pulled out four extra cheap expendable cameras from the canvas pocket at the back of his seat, »Twenty-four pictures, each.«

»Ah, you're a sweety, Zal. ... Did you see the transponder register since we're in range?« she asked, for four eyes saw more than two.

»Ahm... no... wait... no, nothing. Should blip every twenty seconds... The radar is off line! That's the only one around, and... «

»And that's why they've got a .. full .. backup, ready .. all .. the time, tons o' spare parts, and lots of bored technicians waiting for any excuse to fix anything useful that's no longer a working system.« quite a few pieces of the puzzle fell into place for Joan, at least, »... Now we definitely take a look. Do you think the white paint makes for a good camouflage around the cloud base?«

»I don't like it when you talk like that, boss.« Zal answered warily.

»Let's go below the deck.« she cut the power, »No need to tell anyone; they could have left their radar on, like us and anybody else flying round here.« and the plane soon was slightly below the six eighths of altocumulus clouds, whizzing through the lowest condensations from time to time. The airport came within sight after another minute. She had turned slightly to keep it on her left side. They were flying along high above and a little behind the western massif that fell steeply down towards the flat valley floor and the airport in the middle of it. The shelled highrises and the airport's concrete runway and network of taxiways were clearly visible. The runway ran along the centre of the valley north of the city. To the west and east of it was a single long taxi-way, each, in parallel with it. Six diagonal ones criss-crossed from the western one towards the apron and the tower on the eastern side, and several other taxi-ways there that linked the parking area with the individual hangars. Everything looked pretty much as usual, until...

»There are dark spots at each of the crossings... and... gimme the binoculars... quick, and take over. Keep us as close to the clouds as possible.«

Zal did as she had ordered, and they whizzed through the clouds about half of the time, almost always covered to some extent by the thinner haze just below the cloud base.

»The radar on the eastern massif's not turning ... Tanks! They put trucks and tanks on the runway, and at each of the taxi-way crossings. ... Just where you'd punch holes with laser guided bombs to close an airfield down for good. ... And on the threshold. ... Two, each. Where the hell did they hide so many tanks!? The barrels point ... towards the barracks! ... to the tower, too, some. ... Six ...seven tanks, ... T-thirty-fours... T-fifty-fives! ...and ... a dozen or so trucks... more... large ones... all with tarpaulin up. That's a damn'd blockade! ... There's a big crowd at the gates. ... Soldiers around the tower... COM two on emergency one up... one two one .. fiver zero eight... quick, Zal!«

As soon as he had dialed the frequency, a familiar voice came up. »..olf ... do you read? Over.«

She keyed the mike, still looking at the airport through the binoculars, »Alice, 's that you?«

»Am I glad to hear you, sweety. ... I was listening in to control with your ICOM, when I heard you. I thought you might get the idea sooner or later.« that act in itself was illegal, and her talking even more so, since she definitely had no air band radio operator certificate.

»You okay? What's up there?« Joan couldn't care less about communication commissioners' problems, callsigns, and phrases.

»Yea, I'm in the roof above my workshop. No-one within hearing distance. ... Looks like they cancelled that peace thing.« Alice sounded a bit scared.

Joan was getting the idea, and another, »We've got a camera... can you get to the loaders? ... What about the crowd?«

»Camera, great! ... Loaders, don't know. The people outside the gates... they're hungry and angry, mostly, I guess. The warlord in charge here intercepted all the food of yesterday's delivery, and some as far back as of the days before the storm.« Alice explained the situation in brief.

Joan thought for a moment, »Zal, we'll turn and make a high speed flyby on this side. Get some pictures for the boys back home.« then she keyed the mike again, »Alice, any triple-A with them?«

Alice apparently looked around again before her voice returned, »Ahm... some fifty calibre on the tanks, I guess. Not on the two I can see from here, though. Don't know 'bout the others, can't see 'em. ... But the bad guys are in the depot right now. The trucks out there, they just parked 'em there... and they were empty all the time. Everybody's where the presents are... Happy looting.«

»Okay, we'll be coming in low and fast on the deck to the west, Zal's gonna make some picture postcards for the boys back home along t(h)ree one.« Joan spilled the beans, hoping it was not to all too many plates with receptive ears.

»Sounds great. I just get your car ready to get to the loaders and cause some chaos if need be. I'll keep listening.« a shimmer of hope, and even more confidence returned to that distant voice.

»Take care, Alice.«

She replied with a double click. Yes. The airport disappeared behind them in the distance.

»Okay, Zal... I take over, get your cameras ready. ... Gimme the terminal approach chart... and the aerodrome map.«

»Here...« he started to prepare four of the small boxy cameras in his lap while she looked at the maps. One showed all the obstacles in the vicinity of the airfield, the other one the detailled arrangement of the taxi-ways and airport installations. She clipped them onto the board on the yoke; at least one thing it was good for.

»I'll stay close to the mountains here, this side, and as low as possible. Try to get some shots on the way in, and then a side-looking pan along the whole runway. I'd like to be able to prove that we couldn't possibly land, just in case the dis gets his fits, again. And try to get more on the way out, too. I'll turn to the right and climb away after the first pass. ... Save a camera, in case there's a surprise that's worth another go-around.«

He put all the four cameras in a row on his lap as she turned first to the right, about forty-five degrees, to cross the mountains, and then into a left U-turn to come back in in parallel with the valley's western side, and close to the mountains. Then she pushed all the throttles forward, followed by the yoke and dove for the valley floor in a red-line descent far south of the city to avoid being spotted against the dark forest of the mountains. The shorter they were exposed that way, the better.

She levelled off a few hundred feet above the red tiles on the rooftops and let the speed drop in idle for some time before she pushed them in again. Most of the buildings in the city's outskirts were plain two to three storey houses, rising to five to seven storeys in the fin de siècle quarters near the airport, »Here we go... recce run number one...«

As soon as the airport became visible across the city, Zal began to take pictures with the first camera, slowly at first, then faster as they closed in. He bent forward and loosened his seatbelts to get closer to the windows because the cameras had a fairly wide angle lens. They were flying below the highrises' roofs, again, but on the other side this time. »You know, what bothers me is that a lot of these birds got shot down trying the same tricks on the Soviet borders.« The highrises blocked the view to the airport somewhat.

»C'mon Zal, the cold war is well and truly over...« she smiled reassuringly without turning her eyes away from the terrain, »And this one, too. ... And we're well within the borders, and no MiGs at six with a red star so far...«

»Didn't they forget the rearview mirror on this one...? Ah.. could you slow down a bit, please? They're tricky to wind up...« Zal commented, and she cut the throttles back. He snapped two more pictures as the plane decelerated at constant altitude until more of the airport came into view.

Suddenly tracers opened up from the tops of the highrises still ahead and to the right and streaked into the mountainside above them, »Wha' the... Zal, fasten your seatbelts!!«

»Wha...?! .. Oh, .. shit!!«

»Keep photographing, and think of where to hide the films!« Joan yelled.

»They're shooting up and down! They don't see us...?« he wondered for the first, and last fearless second.

She quickly turned her head to find out from where they were drawing fire. Some of the bullets ricocheted off the edges of the roofs. »They can't aim lower, we're below their horizon... but we're dead mutton as soon as we have to climb or get further away an' into their line of sight!« she tore the aerodrome maps off the clipboard on the yoke and took a close and quick look, »That'll do...« then she threw them away and and keyed the mike, »Alice!! Chaos!!«

An olive Trabant convertible raced out of the workshop hangar, the accelerator kicked down by the sound of Joan's words before their meaning was understood, leaving a bluish cloud behind to ooze out of the workshop, just as that part of the airport came into view from behind the highrises. She banked hard to the right, and they were pushed into their seats by the g-forces, until they were headed straight for the control tower. Then she lowered flaps and landing gear as soon as she had almost levelled off. They extended seemingly in slow motion as the plane descended fast towards the runway.

»Gear d... what'ya gonna do!?«

»Land! Photograph!«

»I'm dead.« even while gasping that, he clicked and wound up as fast as he could.

»Not dead yet!!« she yelled, went into a steep sideslip to trash more altitude and some speed as they flew past the highrises, and aimed right for the spot in front of one of the tanks in her way. It was parked on the crossing of the first taxiway Alpha, the one nearest to the highrises that led from the runway towards the southern edge of the apron and the parking area in front of the tower, with the parallel taxiway on that side. The gates towards the city were on the same side of the tower but further away to the right, partially hidden behind a group of trees and bushes. The taxi-way stretched out ahead of them in all its shortness. She switched one down on COM two, to the emergency frequency which is tape-recorded at every air traffic control station, and on AWACS airplanes. »Lets make this mess official,« and keyed the mike, »Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Two Romeo Juliett Sierra X-Ray Golf under fire two engines failing right side can't turn coming in cross field.« the push-to-talk button popped up as her thumb released it, »Hope they don't find the tape recorder first, or the blackbox!«

»The engines are gone? Both?« Zal would have almost panicked, if he hadn't been too scared.

»Oh, sorry. ... Instrumentation error. Too late.« she grinned tensely, knowing the blackbox's cockpit voice recorders got every word of the last fifteen minutes before a crash.

They crossed the airport perimeter over its south-western corner only a few tens of feet above the grass, and barreled down towards that one tank. The gunner stuck his head out of the top hatch, oblivious of the approaching white giant behind his neck. The tracers, which he was looking at as they flew high above him into the city, continued to overtake them from above, and she could see the orange flashing impacts of the tracers and the brighter ones of the armour piercing incendiary bullets that went with them six for one all across the former residential district on the foothills of the eastern massif. Zal caught it on camera. This time, she cut the power a couple of yards ahead of and very few feet above the T-55. The gunner barely had enough time to duck and cover, as darkness fell surprisingly early that day. The whip antenna of his short wave radio was hit heavily by the Herky's aft fuselage and lashed around wildly while the hatch, just left teetering in vertical balance, was tripped by the antenna's lashing and the plane's downwash, fell on his head, and knocked him out cold.

The plane came down hard just behind the tank, after she had pulled back the throttles into full reverse at eight feet above the tarmac. She pushed the nose down and hit the brakes hard on touchdown, and the plane slid and shuddered to a halt while they were catapulted into their seatbelts, for real this time, and no releasing of the brakes. The left wingtip stopped just about fifty feet ahead of the tower's second floor.

They both looked up, realizing survival, and she turned to him, grinning a little sheepishly, »Sh..it. ... .. That .. was hard... felt like we blew a tyre on the left side...«

»Idle 'em! The crowd gets blown away!«

»Oops,« they both pushed the throttles back to the idle position from full reverse thrust. Then Joan released the brakes.

Suddenly, Alice drove like mad along the line of the warlord's guards who were struggling to recover from the reverse thrust mud-and-sandstorm, and pushed them to the ground or tripped them again with a bunch of traditional large local-style birch-brooms she had fixed on the front and rear bumpers. The brushwood extended to about three feet to either side of the car, which was fair enough. Then she stopped in a slide, and reversed hastily into the gate to crack it open. No sooner than she drove away, the crowd bursted in and streamed around the airplane to its aft end.

»Open the ramp, Quick! I'll release the pallets. ... Hide the cameras, in case we're searched! And follow me!« she yelled as she unbuckled to run towards the lowering ramp, after setting the parking brake.

Already down in the cargo hold, she released the clamps and straps on the pallets on the way and started to cut the straps that held the pallets' plywood covers in place, with the small knife she kept hidden in one of her boot's sides, tore one open, hit the stop button, as the ramp was horizontal, and started to throw out packets into the crowd.

Zal raced to the back of the plane and she handed the knife to him, while he shot a picture of the crowd from the hip, »Open more! Hurry up!« Then she spotted Alice again, parking in the distance next to a niche behind the tower. A cameraman and a reporter were broadcasting live via an umbrella-like satellite dish from the back seat of the car. »Zal?«

»Huh?«

»I guess they'll shell us any second, at least we'll die live and in stereo. ... Look.«

»Oh, and it's only my first appearance!« he complained whiningly.

»Play tourist and start throwing, I'll take care of the rest. Been there, done that,« she continued to throw out aid by the pounds while she carefully scanned the visible tanks for activity. Careful not to cause a panic, which might get people trampled to death or pushed too close to the idling propellers.

Woomp! A shell exploded about half way down the taxi-way, a few yards to its southern side and sent a big tree's trunk deposited there by the flood flying, together with a truckload of mud that had hardly dried on the level terrain in all those past weeks since the flood, save for a few inches of compacted dust that had been blown into every nook and cranny of the airfield by now, as soon as it had become dry enough to go with the wind.

Seconds after everyone pancaked themselves flat on the concrete, another one followed, landing closer, about half way towards the plane from the first. Again, the bulldozed heaps of muddy debris caught most of the shrapnells.

The next one would be a direct hit. That's the way artillery works, by successive approximation.

Joan found herself hugging the aluminium tracks of the ramp, and looking towards the turning propellers on either side, still afraid they could take peoples' lives faster than the shells. She had a flashback to flying school and the big red signs suspended by a chain on older aircrafts' piston engine propellers in the hangars that read, Hands off! - Props kill! Then she realized that she herself was right in the crosshairs, and decided that she could just as well die standing proud, and walking tall. Well, she thought, at least as much as her height allowed her to. Then she heard a thump behind her.

Zal had passed out. She quickly checked for injuries, found none, turned around and tried to cover her shaking by continuing to throw packets off the ramp into emptier spaces in the crowd.

Another thump.

This time it was not so much a vibration below her feet as in her stomach. She thought dud. Or just time-delay fuse. Then she spotted a glowing dot racing towards the dark forests of the southern massif, chased by a faint and thin hazy trail of turbulent air. It disappeared between the treetops two thirds up the slope, and a fraction of a second later a bright orange flash blasted roots and branches into the air in an explosion of dust and debris the size of two or three of the trees there.

The echo died away for seconds as the smoke cleared in slow motion.

There were no more shells.

Suddenly, a few seconds later, another explosion on the top edge of the highrise. Joan saw the guidance wire glint in the sun as it wafted down and curled slightly when it lost its tension. Rarely was the very line of fire such a peaceful sight as it traced itself from somewhere out of sight near the far end of the hangars towards the top of the tall building while the sun broke through the clouds.

The sound of helicopters approaching fast on full throttle filled the valley, and suddenly, several of the tanks fired up their engines, leaving black clouds of soot as they raced the hell out of Dodge City towards the residential districts of the city on the far side of the runway. There, trees in the old parks and alleys offered at least a little shelter for them. The danger to civilians posed by collateral damage offered a lot more. They flattened the perimeter fence in places as they quit the scene like panicking chickens, and water sprayed high as they splashed through some of the still swollen drainage canals on the western side of the still mostly mud-covered airfield.

She was hard to understand over the noise of the helicopters still searching the surroundings, and the military vehicles busily driving to and fro in the background, »...and questions are to be raised on how this seemingly well timed and coordinated attack could have happened, but the militia men leading the attack are thought to have fled, hiding in the crowd, melting into it, and their background so far remains unknown. We saw some push their way into the masses in a haste, with their assault rifles held high, but they soon disappeared in there like fish in the water. Though water can not be intimidated like that, that easily. ... Today's events show how precarious the poltical situation on the ground still is, despite all the continuing efforts to negotiate a lasting peace settlement for this war-torn country. ... Catherine Wyler for WYA news.« She waited for a moment with a locked smile, while the cameraman kept the tape rolling, and then added a few more »Catherine Wyler for ...« lines for other customers.

He took the camera off his athletic shoulders, »'Kay... that's it. ... Guess we've earned another day without bancruptcy.« Despite the lack of heat, he was sweating in his handsome African complexion.

»Ooooh boy! ... Yea. ... You wanna report something exciting... but not .. that .. exciting!« she handed him the microphone and turned towards their driver, standing next to the camera, »Thanks for pickin' up hitch-hikers, Miss... Ma'am...«

»Alice.« she smiled, and stretched out her hand.

Joan raced towards them, as did John, the base CSO, from the other side. They arrived at the same time, while still recovering Zal stopped the Herky's engines.

»Alice, you okay? ... Hi John... what the hell's going on?!« Joan was quite obviously very concerned.

»Good question... glad to see you alive, by the way. The .. helicopters .. arrived just about on time, with .. their .. missiles.« he pointed stealthily at the reporter from behind her back.

Joan frowned for a second, »...? ...Sure. ... Who are you?«

»Catherine Wyler, WYA news.« Alice grinned, being quicker to introduce them than the blonde reporter herself, »and the unknown stuntman, I guess.« she then pointed to the cameraman.

»Thanks, but no thanks... not stunts, just cameras,... please. Omar Yates. Pleased to meet you.«

»That's the W and the Y, filming other people's blues for the late night news, we get around. ... And in case anyone wants to know, the A is at home, having twins due in a fortnight, and another date with the bailiff due any minute if we don't get this sold right now. ... Please talk slowly, I'm blonde. Thank you, see you.« she turned back and forth between them four times with the last of her sound bites, grabbed her cameraman, and hurried off towards the silvery satellite dish almost as quickly as she had been talking.

John turned around as she left with the cameraman in tow, and his eyes seemed to have lost something in the hollows of her knees. He scratched his head while shaking it, as he turned back towards the others, muttering, »Guess they'd be better off selling it to Foxy Fantasies as well, every time she forgets to close that button on her shirt...«

Alice gave this particular statement a rolling eyes no-comment-and-definitively-not-amused look towards the heavens.

Joan giggled, »And I thought I was the only one who noticed... speaking of which... the choppers came in only after the missiles, John. ... Unless I'm blonde, too, that is.«

Alice checked the colour of Joan's hair, and almost left in despair, »Argh! ... 'Xcuse me... has .. anyone .. ever heard about women's liberation?!« rising her hands towards the heavens as well as rolling her eyes again.

»Ahm... no. Guess I was creeping all across the nation at the time and probably missed it all. ... Finest choice of selected muds from all the training ranges, y'know...« Joan admitted, feigning that it was done sheepishly, while rubbing her fingertips as if she was expertly testing the quality of the mud.

»Better to keep quiet about that in front of the media...« John started again, quietly, still looking around warily, too.

»About what?!« Joan and Alice asked as one.

»...ahm, sorry. The returned fire, I mean.« John turned a little red, »I don't want to end up stripping the rank off whoever did it. ... 'Cause we weren't under attack.«

»I beg your pardon...?!« Joan hissed after a did I get this right second.

»I'm sorry, really, ... but that's what the orders are. We as a monitoring and peacekeeping contingent are only allowed to return fire, when we are under attack, and we can deduce beyond any reasonable doubt that it was an intentional attack .. on .. us. ... And the shells were closing in to ... well... locals, and foreign civilians, and their property, only.« he cringed, illustrating the different position overly clearly by pointing with both his hands, at Joan, Zal, the Hercules behind them, and the crowd around it draining away, »But with the choppers, I could argue for the media, that they felt attacked by the triple-A up there, which makes at least a bit of sense, and that the mortar position seemed to walk the shelling into their landing area,... and they have infrared sensors, so I wouldn't have to get into shaky details, like leaves flapping with the blast of the mortar rounds' propellant charges, you see... ...?«

This time it was Joan's turn to roll her eyes, »Could you .. please .. point my civilian boots to the civilian butt who came up with this?!« she gasped angrily.

»Anyway...« Alice looked angrily at the officer, but them reminded herself that it wasn't his fault, »...whoever did it, return the fire, they don't have to buy their beers in my presence for a very long time, I guarantee ya!«

»With you on that!« Joan affirmed.

»If only everyone was as kind as you gals. ... Strange... I just have to think of my simulator training on the artillery range back then... I've always wondered whether the real missiles really fly as good as the virtual birds, those moving dots straight out of Pong. By the weight we had to carry to and fro on our backs they'd better be good. Y'know, we've never had the bucks to get a real live shot. Well, somebody's got his today, I guess...«

»Yea,« Alice giggled, »one time they made us shout .. boom! .. when we had used up the year's supply of practice rounds. Like kids... it was .. sooo .. ridiculous. At least .. boom! .. and ratatatatt doesn't jam ya gun as often as the plastic cartridge cases.«

»Oh, absolutely. ... They're awful.« Joan agreed.

»I just hope the guy who did it remembers the line they'd always give you in missile training... Y'know...« he changed his posture to mimmick a grumpy drill sargeant and his drawn out chewing-gummy accent, »Keep ya damn' fat butt outta the damn' fat blast unless you wanta damn' fat surgeon performa real' damn' fat diet on it!« he giggled, and returned back to his normal voice, »I got promoted to broad butt of the training course... Ah... those were the days, my friends... Sorry, I've got to go... there's a lot of work already waiting for me in my office... or soon will be. Let's all be heroes, sit down quietly and file reports thick enough so no-one will ever read them, except for investigative journalists. ... See ya.«

As he turned around, Joan's eyes suddenly found themselves glued to his behind.

»Oh my... there are .. really .. poor .. guys around... never get a chance at a real shot behind their desk, huh?« Alice sighed in overplayed mock compassion. She then, for the lack of reaction, looked at her friend, »Hey!« and waved a hand in front of her eyes, »Does his bum look big in this? Is there something in the air today? Don't you dare say a..nother .. word .. about Fox...«

»Alice, that's a lot more than fantasy, I guess...« she scratched her head, as Alice already in turning around noticed the wide brownish streak of charred cloth, running down along the whole length of the right leg's outer side of the officer's olive battle dress. The back pocket on this side had been ripped off along it and was flapping in the wind on a loose thread, the side pocket just above the knee was blown open on the back, and the boot's heel below it had caught a few hefty scratches and blast marks coming from above, too.

»Well, ladies and gentlemen,...« Orm stated in the mess hall, speaking from an impromptu desk without a microphone, shuffling through his notes, »...that's about it. ... The situation so far, we're effectively under siege. What they want... I don't know, since they're not talking to us, they're only talking to the important people. ... The most important colleagues of mine, who are all out of town, ... accidentally, as always,... have sent a lot of orders to stay calm, don't provoke anybody, and so on, keeping the phones busy until somebody shut them off. ...« some people were clearly amused by this line, »... Please suppress your giggles for a moment. ... We could continue to operate the aerodrome since all the vehicles that were left behind have been removed... thanks to the marvellous mechanics from the garage who've set every schedule aside...« there was a little applause which Alice, Angus, and the others noticed with a gleeful smile, »...and no-one has told us explicitly to stop flying so far, ...but the stores are more than full,... accidentally,... so there is no point in resuming cargo flights until we can get it out to where it's needed most. ... Yes, Joan...?«

»And my bird has blown a tyre... not that it would keep me from getting out lightly loaded, or .. I don't care whatsoever .. loaded in an emergency, but I'd rather keep them guessing about exactly that option,... unless there are any objections.« she was leaning back, deeply reclined into her cheap chair in the second row, right behind John's cheap chair, and stretched out her boots under his seat, »My boss has said nothing on that so far, either way...«

»...right, 'cause the phone lines are gone for an... two hours now, and the sat phones are gone with the wind since about noon,... by the way. I think that would be a good idea... any objections? ... No. ... Can we have a few very worried technicians looking at Joan's landing gear well after daybreak to help them guess right, please?«

The crew chief nodded gravely.

»Thanks a lot. ...«

Joan tried hard not to grin and pulled her boots up to the back rest of the chair in front of her until her knees poked out above her head.

»Landing gear up and locked!« Zal sitting next to her exclaimed loud enough for everyone to get it.

The laughter that followed eased the tension quite a bit, underneath the cold buzzing light of the luminescent tubes on the ceiling.

»Ahm... okay ... I got that. Ahm... so better check Hercules'... the .. large .. four-engined .. airplane's landing gear tomorrow, Carl.«

»Aye, sir! The latter option sounds a lot less dangerous to me...« the crew chief chuckled.

Orm chuckled again for a moment, and then continued with his checklist, »Okay... we've got the VIP twin still here,... Andy...?«

»Fuelled to the rim, inertial nav calibrated, and ready to go any minute... it's a pleasure to fly for you, for a change, Orm.« Andy replied, and his co nodded affirmatively.

»Thanks... I appreciate that... but don't praise a politicians' day before nightfall...«

»Ah! ... Don't worry. It's five to midnight, Orm!« someone yelled from the back seats.

»Ahm,... you just wait... Well, I hate to say this, but it looks like I'm in charge technically, but please don't treat me that way, ladies and gentlemen. ... I promise I will still listen although I .. could .. pull rank at least as long until they pull it on me again. ... And I bet they've ordered their secretaries to stay on overnight and hit the redial buttons. ... What got through so far, we have to avoid everything that could be interpreted as a threat, and...«

Acrimonious laughter filled the room, and somebody hissed, »For chrissake,« before yelling his anger into the room, »...for all we know we're staring into the biz end of tank gun barrels and missile launchers like rabbits at a party of snakes, and they tell us don't twitch, then the snakes won't bite. ... .. Oh .. boy!«

»Well, let's see what we've got...« Orm picked up on this, »...that's at least good enough to hop a bit out of the fangs' range... I'd like to refer on that to the military people... You know more than I do about the details. For example, I'd suggest we get the helicopters that are inside the hangars right now armed and ready, in case they are making seriously threatening moves... The ones outside,... just regular maintenance and everyday stuff, I'd suggest. ... I think that's what we should think of as least provoking, business as usual, not sitting tight on our hands. ... I mean, they cut us out of the lines of communication, so how are we supposed to know, huh?« he finished with a grin, »Let's just carry on...«

An orderly passed him a note. He looked at the small crumpled piece of paper, and read it out loud, »Oh... ahm... yes... it says, .. Milans are an endangered species. ... Anyone wanta comment on that? ... Yes, John?«

The base CSO got up and went to the podium, »Yea... there used to be three in my place at home, but now there's only one left, and it's not been breeding .. so .. far. ... Beautiful birds with a glowing red tail, though;... I hear they're feeding on carrion. ... Ahm, yes, we're a bit short of everything, I s'ppose. ... Well, for starters, let's place hidden watch posts out there... I've already done that, and we need shifts. There are three night vision goggles, so we need six people a shift, unless the helicopter pilots can contribute more equipment, which I would appreciate very much. ...« he nodded towards the squadron leader, »Ah, thank you. Could you arrange the schedule as well? Great. ... Then there is the communication issue... I've seen a satellite dish this afternoon with... you! Don't look away, mylady, I'll find it anyway. I'm sorry I have to requisition it, and an operator probably;... gonna find that out when I see how it's worked.«

»John, you can't do that to me!« Catherine whined, »Have you ever heard about free press? The world's got a right to know!« she cast her eyes down a bit, for more effect with the nearly sobbing howl that followed, »And... How'm I supposed to earn my living?«

»Please, please... I'm not trying to shut you off. Not at all. ... You'll have free access whenever there is no urgent need for communication on our part. It's just that we have priority until other options are available. Promise. Everyone's heard it, and I'll go out of my way to keep you in business. I actually want .. you .. to tell the world what's really happening, your way, 'cause I know they won't believe a word if I do it, even if I'd read it off a script you wrote. But we've first got to do all the operational comms we could have done when the phones were still working if they had not been occupied by people second-guessing us all from behind their desks. Takes some time, though. But has to be done first.«

»Oh John, pleeeeze! You can't do it to .. him!« she tried to look even sexier than usual, really succeeded even though the wayward button was firmly closed this time, and then pointed at her cameraman sitting next to her, for some sweetly innocent talk, »If you can do it to me, take a sec and at least look at our sweet Adonis here,« she patted him on the back, »Omar, who is almost married with almost two kids who almost call him daddy, already...« but to no avail. She tried a little more hysterical gesturing, »That's unfair... That's cruel! ... I mean... Argh! John!!«

He did not waver, »I'm sorry, we're all into this. Everybody's got to do their part.«

She let go a shriek of anger, »You owe me big time for this!«

»Hmm... well...« John continued unshaken, »now for a few other essentials...«

Orm got up again after John had finished his lengthy discourses, and approached Joan, »Can I talk to you for a moment?«

»Sure... what's up?«

»I've got a tape here from one guy at the international investigators' office. They have tried to have it translated by one of their local employees, but the locals .. here ..« he pointed at the ground, »can't understand much of what the locals .. here .. say.« he pointed at the small cassette, »... Believe it or not...«

»Well, I get about a dozen and a half words of what they say .. there .. on the far side of the hill,« she pointed with her thumb over her shoulder, and chuckled, »...thirsty, hungry, yes, no, please, thank you, gimme that brick, the wine tastes fine, two mugs of wine, please... there are ways to get up to speed to learn a language, and I'm trying them all. But I'm not a genius. Especially when there's already a big difference between...« she repeated his gestures, ».. here .. and .. here, .. that I've missed completely until just right now.«

Orm gave her the tape, »But you could kindly ask one of your friends there who's not involved with I don't know what's said on it, to listen to it and give us a translation of the evidence?«

Joan couldn't get around a polite grin, and then turned a bit more serious, »Oh boy, try to find somebody who's not involved with every little bit of this whole mess here, there, everywhere... including us. ... Orm, you're daydreaming!«

»Not really, it's half past one... a.m.« he checked the time.

Catherine Wyler was sneaking up to them with a very much intentionally ostensively curious look, following John, »My, my... what's on that tape... huh?«

Orm felt a little being caught in the act, »We're in the process of trying to find that out.«

»Don't let the press catch you spreading evidence in public... maybe even break the chain of evidence...?« the intrepid reporter tried her luck.

Orm's face wasn't really good at lying, »It's a copy, ma'am. And we don't know what's on it.«

»When do you need it back?« Joan asked.

»Not really soon... next time you drive there would be fine.«

»That's in one or two hours...« she smiled.

»But the whole area here is closed and...« John pitched in.

»Ah, John... there's always a hole in .. whole, .. and they're not stopping me from keeping my promises. I can fly in rough weather.« Joan was more tired and annoyed by the events than really afraid of the warlords.

»Thank you, I've seen that!« John was not really amused, »Don't really need yet another demonstration.«

»The whole city just goes on as usual... just take a look around.« Catherine remarked.

»Yea, and they've even added a lot more going on... like a dozen tanks and truckloads of the warlord's people in civilian camouflage going the heavens know where, all around us.« John reminded them, »For the hole in whole...«

»We've just got to sneak across their lines quietly, and then we're off... not much of a problem, really.« Catherine said as if she was talking about the washing lines on her neighbour's lawn, and did so with a fittingly innocent smile.

»We?!« Orm, John, and Joan asked as one.

»Well,...« the reporter turned to Joan, »I'd like to ask whether you could take Omar and myself for a little sightseeing tour around the country, since we're temporarily out of work. ... One does not really get to do these things between news update uplink times these days. The village you're going to... I think this would make a nice little ten minute part in an half-hour special on the whole situation,... a little more like .. from our correspondent .. sort of style, for a change...? And those ten minutes would save his kids' rent for the next month if I'd manage to sell them...«

»Ahm...« after thinking about a fairly outspoken comment on a village's worth being that of ten minutes of air time, one that already began to show on her face, Joan was thinking »...why not?«

Orm and John were bursting out simultaneously, »Far too dangerous... can't risk... could be misunderstood...« and stopped simultaneously to let the other talk first, just to start at the same time again, »I can't possibly agree with... Ah!«

»John...« Catherine intervened cutely while they waited for their cues, again, »...you owe me a favour... better take this before I have time to think about more...« she smiled sweetly into his face.

»No way... I need you here for the sat link equipment.« John insisted.

»Ahm...« she rolled her eyes innocently, »y'know, actually Omar has such a .. bad .. memory of all those passwords you need to enter the system... it's such a pity...« she shook her head, »...and the notebook is still at the Maiestik. The manual, too.«

Omar was about to sink into the ground. At least he was wishing he was. He didn't like it when she played hard, with him as the bargaining chip.

»Okay... okay...« John gave in, »You can go... Only if Joan agrees, of course.« to his dismay, Joan nodded agreement, »...just two conditions. One, Omar stays as operator...«

Omar rolled his eyes and in turning away mouthed »Fantastic!«

»And two...?«

»Everyone leaves their last will and testament, and address of next akin. Period. I'm not gonna make that up for you, and I won't list you under foreign casualties. ... Joan spends more time here than abroad, so I can't justify that.« he grumbled, »And you, too.«

»Oh, thank you.« Catherine was delighted, and showed it for all to enjoy. She would have hugged him if he hadn't made for some distance between himself and the seemingly mad reporter.

»Orm...?« John went on, »Since we don't really need you here when the sat link comes up... since they'll decide over your head and against your recommendations, anyway... I suggest you better be there when your stuff is translated, 'cause it may be a little difficult to check back in case of ambiguities. And you want to keep the chain of evidence intact, do you?«

»Thanks John... I really appreciate that...« Orm stated flatly, being not at all enthusiastic about being pushed on an all-inclusive trip into bandit country.

»Hi!« Alice greeted them enthusiastically as usual, if a little tired, »Why're you all looking that gloomy?«

Joan grinned, »Alice, got a hole big enough for a car up your sleeves, by accident?«

John checked his own lower back, »I've got half a hole in my pocket...«

Alice looked around for a second, reassuring herself of everyone's sanity.

Traffic on the road by the eastern perimeter fence was normal for just after three a.m. on an ordinary weekday. That is, all the people who wouldn't want to be seen with their goods in broad daylight were busily shuttling to and fro in preparation for another busy day on the black market. Most of the area between the fence and the taxiways' cleared sides was covered in bushy wilderness and car wrecks, Alice's inexhaustible supply left behind when the warlords had started to bargain for peace. She had her tow truck people make a lot of noise and as much light as possible around one of the APCs near the workshop while she guided Joan and her car through the maze on foot, towards a torn and rusty patch in the fence. She cut it open, staying carefully out of the light of passing cars.

Joan let it roll back into the bushes without shifting into reverse gear, and waited for a signal to move, leaving the car idling between the wrecks. She gave three taps with the ICOM to tell the noisemakers they were ready.

Alice checked for any guards and other activities on the outside, as the watch on the tower had done for the past hours with their night vision goggles. They had been pretty sure that no suspicious activities were going on on the far side of the road for a couple of hundreds of yards left and right. She gave the signal when no car was approaching, the noise background was increasing, and there was complete darkness apart from starshine.

Joan accelerated, declutched, and then switched the engine off as she rolled through the gap in the fence. The car rolled silently into the dark blind alley ahead. She let it roll as far as it would go, and then stopped by the roadside in front of one of the houses there with the handbreak only, careful not to switch on the break lights by pressing the pedal. They waited for fifteen minutes while Alice closed the gate, hooking up the wires she had previously cut, and returned to the tow truck.

When the noise stopped, and the lights went off, Joan waited for another five minutes and then started the car. They drove away, headlights on, as everyone would do at this time of night.

They had stopped by the roadside at daybreak, not very far away from the village. Orm and Catherine had crawled out of their hiding place in between the packets. They, too, used the opportunity to stretch the weariness of the sleepless night out of their bones, following Joan's example after a short while.

Catherine lifted the camera case out of the car. It had served as a barrier for the boxes, lest they would collapse onto them in a tight turn on the bumpy roads in town. »Okay, listen Mr diplomat man... I need a few cute shots of Joan and myself driving into the sunrise. You always do that to have some room for background stories dubbed in later from the off, right? ... And it keeps the people waiting for the late-night re-run of the travel programme watching ... sometimes ... maybe ...at least I darn well hope so.«

»Okay.« Orm said in his calm and slightly slow way, somewhat more slowed down than usual by the long night's events.

»I'll set it up for you, and you maybe give it a try to pan along, when we do the second drive-by,« she continued to direct while she was walking around a little, looking at the scenery and counting off the items on her fingers, »Just leave it at wide angle for the first try, and don't pan. And... just keep it pointed on that mountain over there... or this one... so we get a big sky shot. Or...« she checked a shot seen through the frame of index fingers and thumbs, but wasn't yet totally pleased with it.

While she was speaking, Orm had already opened the case, set up the tripod with a few quick moves, mounted the camera, switched it on, and trained it on her back, »Do you have a sheet of paper for white balance or do you trust the automatic?«

»Huh?!« Catherine turned around.

Orm played with the zoom control and followed her expertly, »Check that button. It's going to pop as soon as you sit down. ... Not that I would mind. ...« he chuckled, zooming in.

She was a little annoyed, and fixed the problem on her favourite plaid flannel shirt.

Orm continued unshaken, »You know, when I was in university, I got a little bored with all the discussions of what already had been discussed... but that's poli-sci like it is... well. And I thought to myself, I could just as well learn about a few other things. There is so much offered there when you like to take the time and don't mind a little extra effort. ... Don't ask me how long I took to finish. It was .. fairly long. ...And I expected to be unemployed in politics afterwards, really. Because I tend to have one opinion for everybody, only. So better take something to help me earn a living. And one of the workshops and initiatives I joined was the student cinema. We even made our own films... You know, like Scandinavian movies are... we tried crisp short films, plagiarising stuff like Störtknutte, do you know it? Wish I'd been that good. ... Wish we'd even had a single idea like that! ... Or long midsummernight love stories... and the drama when the days are getting shorter, and they part at the end... really melancholic stories to explore the depth of the human condition... and...«

»And a lot of skinny-dipping in shallow water. Yes, I know them,« Catherine retorted, »would you please rewind the tape?! There aren't that many left.« Every tiniest gap in the camera case was stuffed with empty ones, still in their plastic wrapping.

Joan chuckled to herself, »Orm Bergman... who would have thought?«

They shot four drive-bys, a simple one, one big sky as Catherine had suggested, a bumpy ride zoomed tele pan, and something best described as an Orm special, mostly focused on Catherine, and then finally continued their journey.

So Orm convincingly posed as cameraman. He had said that it was the safest place for him to be since at least the would-be statesmen warlords he knew always looked into the camera, not behind it. It was risky, because some of them just had to know him from somewhere, and should their henchmen turn up, some of them might know his face, too, from their files, or by bodyguard experience.

Joan parked the car next to the mill's upper entrance after one of the few old men in the mostly empty village had sent them uphill. It was still very early in the morning, and she expected them to be perhaps at a common breakfast. She clipped the tip of short wave radio's antenna to the eaves right away. The fence wire was still there, and the communications arrangement was still the same.

They entered the house, as the door was not locked. Orm shouldered the camera and kept rolling.

»Hello..oo ...?« Joan walked around the corner towards the kitchen.

»Hi Joan,« Harriet answered, much to Joan's surprise. She and several of her men were hurrying through their breakfast in the kitchen, which was otherwise as empty as the village and all its construction sites had been, to allow the others to follow as soon as possible, »Thought you guys were .. quarantined .. for your own good,... ahm, safety, I think it was...« she wiped a crumb out of the corner of her mouth after she put quotation marks into the air with both hands.

»That's what they call it? Kind of creative, these bastards. ... Didn't know I was contageous...« Orm giggled behind the camera.

»They've been quick with the press releases... but I guess they cut you two out to be safe. Came over short wave news... World Service...« she confirmed, then she chuckled, »...must be freedomitis... or influence-ah democratica... or something else .. very .. dangerous...«

One of the tank drivers turned around, »Oh, hi Mr Rømer... you got a real job now? Got fired? You must'a been too good for da dirty biz.« he grinned.

»Mr Rømer?! ... Didn't recognize you behind the camera... sorry! ... Catherine, please don't use this for TV...« Harriet whispered, »We're not allowed to... give or accept anything, y'know.« she pointed at the food which Karina was preparing. Karina just smiled friendly at the new guests as she returned to the kitchen from the storage room with more bread.

Orm turned the camera down, »Yea, I know... not my fault. I don't mind. In fact, I don't like to force people to come across as impolite. ... But I'm just the unknown cameraman... okay?«

»'Kay.« they munched on and nodded agreement. A deal 's a deal, and don't ask 's don't tell.

»Where is everybody? Haven't seen .. anyone .. in the village so far!« there was one pressing question Joan just had to know the answer for, for the last mile of their journey, »Sun's up, and nobody's at the houses.«

»Only later today, not at all tomorrow again. Tomorrow is another day of... ... ??!! ... ... You don' know??!« Harriet was outrageously surprised by the look in Joan's eyes, »...Downstairs, like always before breakfast, of course. Even Zaria. She's been catching up fast, they tell me, and that .. that's .. all your fault, Karina said so. ... Joan, I figure you .. are .. contageous. ... Jus' go down an' have a look!« she grinned, pushing herself to and fro with both hands on the kitchen table's edge in front of her plate, trying hard not to laugh out loud.

»Whoa... let's go and see 'em,« Joan was surprised, »Enjoy your breakfast, guys.«

»Thanks... sure!«

They went downstairs to where the disco party had been.

Joan was stopped dead in her tracks by a sudden battlecry, a yell short and hard of dozens of women, and the tip of a broomstick, stopping two inches in front of her nose as she turned around the last corner of the stairs. She stared at the tip with eyes wide open and was quite glad she found, in retrospect, her reflexes to be just barely good enough to get a hand in, in a last-ditch protective move between the tough piece of wood polished by wear, and the pain receptors of her face. Then Catherine bumped into her back, and Orm into hers, thereby pushing them all on for the remaining inches.

The woman at the broom's other end turned around and looked a little sheepishly at her with soft dark brown eyes, »O' .. Sorry...« she muttered, blushing a little, as far as her well developed tan let it show.

Joan pushed the tip aside, and smiled »It's okay... did miss. ... Not okay for you, that is,... Zagorelia.« she twinkled with a grin.

»Oh! ... Joan, how wonderful indeed to see you so soon... We were a little concerned listening to the latest news.« Teres rejoiced, »I didn't think you were coming today...« She was standing at the far end of the room, facing the other women who all held broomsticks like battle staffs, firmly in their hands. They stood there in rows, almost like in a military training session.

»What's going on here?!« Joan asked disbelievingly, »Oh, by the way...« she turned around to her company.

»Catherine Wyler, WYA news.« she introduced herself.

»I'm the cameraman.« They introduced themselves. »Do you min...« Orm started to ask.

Catherine cut him off, turning quickly towards him, whispering, »Keep rolling, nobody bothers a working cameraman. Thought you knew that.«

»Oh. Yes. True. Now that you say it, I never realized it standing on the other side...« he whispered back, and returned to work.

Teres said something along the lines, now give me a really good one for the media, and then there'll be breakfast.

Zaria at the far end of the back row quickly looked at Joan with a smile and gave her a thumbs up with the hands still on her stick, followed by a quick wary look at the reporters, but not a cowed one, and then turned back in full concentration to wait for Teres' command.

The whole group moved forward as one through a very impressive sequence of battle staff moves, each of the strikes accompanied by a deafening short battle cry. Teres was obviously pleased.

Finally, they all held their broomsticks high into the air, and let go a terrifying long battlecry, of which Joan thought it served its purpose a lot better than the old style male En gaaaarde!! used during bayonet drills. She wouldn't want to hear this coming at her out of nowhere all of a sudden in the dark of night. It was a true girl thing, and purely so.

»Ayiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyi!!!!«

After this impressive end, they all put the brushwood back onto the sticks and took their brooms with them as they went upstairs.

»Wow!« Catherine was speechless.

»Lets go and have breakfast first, Joan. Ms Wyler, you and your cameraman are invited, of course.« Teres said in her perfect English.

Joan was still as surprised about it as Catherine was now, and she waited for Zaria to join them while all the others walked past the visitors.

Maia walked past them, and gave the camera a boo! gesture with her broom. Orm twitched back a little, and then kept the camera glued to her curly hair as she walked upstairs. He followed after Teres and Catherine, as Zaria closed the door behind Joan and herself.

Zaria gauged the two foreigners from the distance, »Who are these people, Joan?«

»Ahm... Catherine Wyler...«

Zaria pressed on hard with tight lips and a low, almost whispering voice, »I heard that. What's she doing? Spy, agitprop, or both?«

Joan blinked with consternation, »I... she's a reporter, for TV. An... independent reporter.«

»Ahum. ... That's what they call them. Think I heard her name, though... And that man?«

»He's...« Joan tried to take a deep breath as inconspiciously as possible, after Zaria's previous reaction, »...a spare time cameraman, working full-time for the...«

»Wait here.« Zaria twitched as she noticed something, and homed in on it in a way that reminded Joan of a mountain lioness just before the leap at her prey, as she stalked in on the two filming.

Joan closed her eyes briefly, nevertheless quickly finishing her sentence, but in a breathless voice, »...U.N. in... when he's not caught up in a blockade, that is, ...in their city offices. A desk job. Met him once or twice.«

»Hi.« Zaria greeted them in a matter-of-factly cold way, with her arms crossed, never stopping to eyeball them in a very obviously not friendly way, »Miss Wyler, you said?«

»Yes. ... Ahm, pleased to meet you...« Catherine's words seemed to lose their impetus to venture out into the world, as long as the woman they had to face was a part of it.

»Were you on short wave radio some time recently?« Zaria's eyes calmly drilled icy holes into the reporter's nasal bone, »Working for that station? Didn't know they've TV... at all...«

»Yes,...n... sometimes, I...'m freelancing, with two friends. Quite a few stations buy our stuff,... though sure not as many as I'd like...« she tried to explain with a little laugh, not sure whether the other was listening at all, as her words withered away, »Thanks for listening... in...«

At least Zaria's expression did not change one iota for the even more dangerous, »And you are supposed to be the cameraman? Filming...? ...« she turned to Orm, whose nearly innocent and concentratedly occupied expression changed for the composed, but very worried, as she moved in, and flipped back the lapel on his khaki vest, exposing the pastel shade blue U.N. button the size of a large coin, with its two big white letters and the logo of the local operation, where she had previously only seen the clip of the safety pin holding it blinking, on the other side of the lapel that it pierced, »...or just generously helping the warlords to get yet another easy kill in getting us dead or not alive,... as always, when people like you pop out of their ink black paper holes?«

Catherine and Orm exchanged wary looks, which turned to the guiltier on his part, and to the angrier on hers.

»Whether you're part of that enemy or not, Mister,...« Zaria stared boredly into his eyes, and talked to him in a tensely calm way, as if she was a teacher, bored to death by reprimanding a misbehaving student in the last row yet all over again, talking to the blackboard without even bothering to turn, and left them not a split second, nor a single molecule of air in their held breath to answer, »...do not expect us to provide any convenient excuse to people like .. you, .. to have us handed over to them, disarmed, disabled, gagged, bound and ready to be executed, in the usual fashion... as you like it. ... Excuses such as... restricting the press, obstructing diplomats, or assaulting foreigners.«

The two she was talking to noticed that everybody else around them was listening intently, every single one of them.

Orm was shocked, but not entirely shaken, »Sorry, if you don't like it, I can take it off.«

»Leave it on, so people know who you really are, though they won't treat you like it deserves to be treated, not around here.« Zaria turned away, »It's not the button, but what's clipped to it. ... And we are not stupid, not around here.«

»Well, it is an old art only passed down from generation to generation... among women, only. ... I believe it is the first time it was ever photographed,« Teres started to explain to Catherine.

Joan sat beside them, and the others filled the kitchen after the delicious breakfast Karina had prepared.

»Could it be the source of these medieval stories about witches riding their brooms?« Catherine asked curiously.

»Maybe...« Teres chuckled, »but I think these were more related to substance abuse... as one would call it today. Certain poisonous mushrooms, you know. ... The only way I think it has in common with this is that the .. real .. witches are said to have ridden the broom with the brushwood pointing ahead.«

»Oh really?«

»Well, at least that's what the fairy tales my grandmother read to me when I was a little girl were saying.« Teres laughed, and then continued more seriously, »But there is a less romantic reasoning behind this way of self-defence. ... You know,... how shall I put it... men in these parts have a hearing deficiency. They very often do not understand the word .. no, .. I think it's fair to say it this way. And by tradition women, especially married women and not yet married daughters are supposed to walk at least seven yards behind their husbands or fathers, respectively. Unless they sweep the ways they walk for them with a broom. Then they may walk ahead, to allow the dust to settle until the man is walking along. That's why every girl and every young woman is given a broom on their seventh and fourteenth birthdays. And again when they marry, of course. ... But if a woman comes into a situation in which she'd rather not be, to put it in very general terms, and where no other man is present to defend her dignity, learning this Way of the Broom, as we call it, gives her a slightly better chance to preserve her dignity. ... She can sweep .. his .. ways then, so to speak. ... The man could not go for revenge immediately, of course, because he then would have to admit, that this one particular woman had defended herself in front of him without another man's help, which is very dishonourable for both. And of course he would then have to kill her, or one of her next akin. So she and her family have a few days, usualy seven and one night, to leave the village with everything they want to take with them, and to sell whatever they can't take along, without being attacked by the man's family, and that's a way to preserve both their honour and dignity, although everybody usually realizes what has happened. ... Well, that's what tradition says. At least, fewer people get killed this way.«

»And why is the side with the brushwood pointing ahead?«

»Oh,...« Teres was very amused by the reporter's innocent question, »that's how it has to be to sweep the street, of course. Otherwise you would sweep the ceiling behind your back, my young lady, without actually being able to see what you're doing. And it has a practical effect for the way of the broom, as well, but I can't tell you unless the men leave the premises, and you are properly initiated, which would take a few weeks, at least.« she pointed very politely at the few soldiers present, and at the man behind the camera.

»Oh, I see... It would be less effective if the men watching this programme would know exactly how it works. Ahm...«

»Oh, not really,...« Teres frowned and disagreed, »...the defender would just have to use a few more moves, and maybe hit a little harder to compensate for the loss of surprise, and the probably not so large manly loss of morale at the surprise of losing his honour and dignity in a few seconds to a member of the weaker sex. And we don't really want this if we can avoid it, do we?«

Catherine was impressed, it took another second until she continued her question, »And may I ask how and where you learned it?«

»Oh, yes, certainly... I was a junior lady's maid at the last Queen's court, ...when I was much younger,...« she smiled, »and the male members of the Royal Family were even a little harder of hearing than ordinary men of the common people. So the Queen had us all taught the art secretly by the then Keeper of the Art, one of the oldest and most experienced lady's maids. This was new to tradition. It used to be a very secretive art, mostly kept within the nobility, although some lesser ladies taught it to the closest of their own common friends, too. But only... mostly on the countryside, only. The last Queen was very modern in her views and the way she treated other people almost without regard to their social status, one would call it today. As a young princess, she had stayed in boarding schools abroad for several years. We all recieved a good education, as well. Most of her mother's lady's maids couldn't even read and write properly, you have to understand. ... Sadly, the King was a little ...well, really a .. lot .. more conservative. And that was one reason for the mess we find ourselves in nowadays. ... But that's a different story.«

»That was... when the invasion came in the forties...?«

»No, actually a little earlier. Good Mr Wilbury may have one thing or other to report on his scientific findings regarding this matter. My view may be just a little too coloured by personal perception, because I've been there at the time... But anyway, the invasion came just about perfectly in time for the invaders to take all the blame after they'd lost. Also for what they did not do... But we also lost the nobility later, after we found ourselves on the winning side, then. The king had died in the coup d'état that opened the gates to the invaders. And then, under foreign pressure after the invasion, the Queen was supposed to succeed him, not one of the lesser princes, as by tradition. Just when she finally had the chance... well, you know.« she sighed deeply, »Sad, sad times... like ours today, really. So many good women perished. And in the end, the title of Keeper of the Art fell on my humble self.«

They walked around Wilbury's dig. The soldiers had put up makeshift tents, fashioned from spindly young trees taken from a stand within the derelict quarry by the forest's side nearby, and white plastic sheets. The sides were rolled up to have more light, and most importantly, more fresh air available near the stench of the excavated remains. Orm was glad for once to be able to concentrate on working the camera. Catherine had done the intros, and now it was on Wilbury to show the viewer around, although the pictures spoke for themselves. Later, the TV stations' announcers would remark for all those sensitive concerned people who thought violence and its results were something mostly made up as unnecessary advertising features in Hollywood by greedy media tycoons to sell movies to the undisturbed and innocent minds of the youth, that this programme contained pictures which some of the viewers might find disturbing.

It was a gross understatement for the feelings of those who were there with them on that day.

Especially for the villagers who still had to wait outside the area to avoid allegations of manipulation. A perimeter strip had been cleared of all plants and raked cleanly like a Japanese garden around the site, and it was checked after each night for footprints. Wilbury thought it demeaning to be forced to keep out the villagers whose relatives rested here in an uneasy peace, and to do so in a way that to him almost resembled the Berlin Wall. But then, he wanted to get this thing watertight. In his mind, he hoped for an end with horror that maybe would prevent horror without end. Whenever they found flowers at the entrance in the morning, they took them inside to the tent where the as yet unidentified remains were collected, in the hope that at least the last wishes would find the soul they were longing for, while the bodies remained unidentified.

Finally, they set up the camera just outside the entrance commonly used, through which Wilbury and the soldiers raked themselves into a corner of desolation every morning, and out of it after dark.

Catherine continued the interview, »So what are the results of this dig, as far as you can tell by now?«

»Well, we are pretty certain about the dating of two of the individual sites, and a third, we are trying to ascertain this at the moment. But all of them, they still have to be confirmed indepentently by other scientific methods.«

»You have .. three .. sites here alone?«

»Yes, that's very common around here, from my experience. Actually below average here, I'd say. Some places just lend themselves to mass graves, easy digging, sandy soil, you know? So they are used rather frequently. It's like strategic fortresses on some hills, you can trace them back to prehistoric use very often. ...Well,... there's the most recent one, very shallow and hastily prepared I should rather think, which was actually uncovered literally by a crashing fighter plane on patrol in the area about two years ago. Then there's another deeper one which we can date by circumstantial evidence at around the very start of the current series of civil wars here, and site six-twenty-six up there, we're not sure if it's early last century, perhaps up to the thirties, or earlier, or maybe even nineteenth century. Could even be older, in fact we're tentatively dividing it into several parts, a, b, c and so on, layer upon layer, like sediments washed down and deposited by a river. We've touched only the edge of it, and leave it at that because it's definitely not connected with recent events, and we simply can't spare the time. Many layers there, would be historically very interesting... Of which one is almost certainly last century, and the other, for lack of evidence, may even be medieval. ... It sounds strange, I know, but that's hard to tell in these parts, because... essentially since the Great Migrations, so little has changed for a long time... As far as mass graves are concerned, one could even say nothing but the time, and people didn't even change their mind on how to do it. Quick and dirty, and take everything of value. If they'd left a handful of bits of smashed pottery at least it would be a little easier to us nowadays, but they've not been that kind. One clearly very old part of six twenty-six that we've only just scratched even has the bones of horses all mingled with human remains... very strange, indeed. Maybe a whole cavalry unit has been sacrificed in ancient times. Like they were grown to their saddles even in death... who knows? We haven't found a single horse's skull, though, and no legbones of humans,... essentially, nothing from the pelvis down. That's why it might be a sacrifice rather than a mass grave...«

»That's horrible. ... How could it stay under the rug for so long?«

»Well, if you call this horrible,...« Wilbury stared at his own shoetips for a deep breath, decided that his job was for the taking, anyway, and then looked intently and disillusioned at Catherine, »...you better get around here a little more. This is barely average. ... How could it be not noticed? Well, for a start, that's one reclusive area here. The topography never lent itself to any kind of communications with the outside world, and both did not care about the other very much. Not even in our age of globalisation and global media. ... Through all times, everything was fine just as long as the little lords of these tiny valleys payed their tributes on time to the kings and emperors of better places, and as long as they didn't bother them in any other way. Best way to do this, encourage them to fight their tiny little wars between themselves whenever they got especially nasty, and if necessary, when they weren't doing it all by themselves already, find them a reason to. Divide et impera. Mostly, they divided and ruled themselves. Experts, sort of, to keep their people on a losing streak that's been going on for thousands of years, and never really succeeding themselves... except as war criminals. Some of them exported themselves as mercenary leaders to the big players in the great wars of their times, up well into the last century. No-one in the outside world thought it worth losing an army here for what little was to be gained in tax or profit by ruling directly. And the place has gobbled up traditional infantry armies galore. This is ambush country. With a big yellow police fence around it and a sign that says, don't invade unless you need a bloody nose. And in return, whoever ruled the valleys, they could get away with anything as long as it did not touch the outside world. ... The first time this has changed in written history was of recently, when the people chose to .. run .. to the neighbouring countries and .. bother them .. with their humble presence .. there .. in the thousands instead of just convieniently to everyone concerned .. die .. here .. in the thousands. Why? For they had seen other places on television first time in their culture's lifetime. Not a stranger traveller's hearsay to be easily discredited, but with their own eyes through a camera like yours,... like this...« he pointed into the camera without unprofessionally looking into it at the same time, »...however distorting this still may be. That's just to give .. one .. of the uncounted positives of globalisation. And another of these came up very recently when people like yourself decided to come out of the city to take a closer look. Nothing changed and it always ended like here, until we started to do what we could have done for millennia. Get in and get them. Tackle the warlords. Get them from the air, get them from the ground, just .. get them!«

Catherine, to say the least, was fairly shocked, but composed. She took a second to regain focus, and asked on, »But when the warlords came under pressure by the international community and in turn increased the pressure on the population, the refugee crisis has turned form bad to worse to horrible, and the only way it has alerted the outside world to the problem was because nobody wanted to see this happening ever again after what has happened after the World War in...«

»No, my young lady.« Wilbury cut her off abruptly, ».. Everybody .. who is right in their minds will do .. everything .. in their powers to see it again and again and again, and not just here, I could name a dozen other places where I'd like to see one again instantly. It has been one of the greatest victories in human history.«

»But how can the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands be...?«

»Look, everybody who got to the bursting refugee camps just across the borders, everybody who's just barely made it there alive, .. is .. not .. here.« he pointed vigorously at the overlapping mass graves, »Right there. Behind me. Dead and decomposing. ... If .. you .. were a warlord and wanted this land no matter what for whatever reason and you didn't care a bit on how to get it, what would be more pleasant to you? Hundreds of thousands of living refugees keen on returning to their homes as soon as possible, maybe boiling for revenge, maybe just sick and tired of war and therefore open to a truly negotiated and lasting peace, but at least alive and reasonably well and kicking just beyond the borders where you can no longer manipulate the media in your favour? ... Or hundreds of thousands dead and buried who at best can get into the witness stand on judgement day if you happen to believe there will be one? ... To give up that kind of advantage hurts a lot, especially if there never really is something in your whole life that's threatening or painful to you, since you're the lord of the hills, and you quite simply won't have that if you don't like it. Now and then, somebody from another place comes along, kowtows properly and raises the issue of human rights. Oh yea, human rights, you mutter, bored by his single line or hour-long discourses, okay, let's move on to business. These guys don't hurt. That's it. Only way to get the lord of the hills and his folks to even listen and maybe act is to hurt him more when he doesn't than it hurts him when he does. Good when they fully believe you that you will indeed hurt them and they prefer to act accordingly on their own devices. Bad when they know you'll only send some guy doing kowtows again to negotiate again after you said you've negotiated with 'em for the very last time. Then you have to hurt them to even convince them that you're serious at all, not to mention to get them to change their wicked ways. ... And to achieve this then with a handful of guided bombs, or missiles or something... to chase the warlords out of their palaces, to smash their favourite toys and to cut them off of their supplies of money and arms. Without the terrifying collateral damage of the wars of the last century. Without generations of young men running in frontal attack out of the trenches just to be mown down by machine gun fire. Without flattening whole cities to get a single government building or factory or railway station or bridge. Without losing thousands of bomber crews in the desperate attempts to do so. And in a few weeks instead of many years. ... That's a tremendous victory. ... Yes, it's still war. Yes, it's called surgical warfare, and yes, that's a true metaphor. Why? Because surgery is a damn' bloody mess, one that you'll avoid at all costs unless somebody's life is in considerable danger beyond any reasonable doubt, and, yes, many people still die on the operating table, despite the operating team's best and honest efforts. But less and less die, and more and more get well, if you just keep practising. ... That's why I call it a truly great victory. It's not a perfect one, and I'm not saying that I expect those to come about any time soon. Never did. But I know the difference in military accomplishment between incompetent and well done, and I know the difference in outcome between bad and worse and horrible, as you kindly pointed out earlier.«

»But ... how come then... Why didn't they kill them all, all over the place when they had the chance to do so years ago when nobody was paying attention and the world was focused on the biggest of conflicts, only?«

»Because they .. always .. want to have the cake and eat it. And if in any way possible, have us invite them to the party, all expenses payed. That's because so far, they could bet on it that we were dumb enough to actually do them that favour. ... The simplest way to put it is,... there's a proverb around here. It says, a village a day keeps westerners away. ... A single village, today here, next week perhaps a hundred miles to the north, let's face it, that's not worth reporting as long as there are no uninvolved and therefore credible witnesses and whoever survived is too scared to talk in front of a camera or even a dictaphone. Rape victims usually are. ... The innocent victim stays the unknown victim forever. But forcing them to go for the option that's only second or third best to them, to just drive the people from their land in a forced hurry instead of burying them six feet below, more or less patiently depending on external or internal pressures, and thereby show in one go to the world the scale of the killing that would have taken decades, maybe, to happen quietly otherwise, that's a victory. But only when somebody takes notice of the fate of refugees, like you thankfully did. ... As I get by your questions.« Wilbury had a way to get Catherine to not shove her microphone right up his throat by turning his answers around just a little bit in her favour at the last moment. But slowly she realized that he had a point there, looking from his experience onto the millennia of human history.

»What do you think is your perspective from here on?«

»For this poor and war-ridden country or for myself who can bale out at any time as a foreign national?« he smiled in a very friendly way.

»Maybe both...?« she returned his smile.

»Well, for the people here... I hope for everything that's better than worse, to stay in the given frame of options. In the end, it's up to them. They've got to live with one another .. and .. the outside world. We can't do it for them forever. We can only help to prepare the slate on which they write their future history. I'm very careful not to say we wipe the slate clean for them, because that's the way it always was in the past. We're just here to kindly suggest, well, how about trying forgive not forget? ... And for myself, I look forward to my holiday trip this year... yes, even government employees on the ever privatizing taxpayers' payroll have some time off now and then... and since I am an oldfashioned archaeologist by training I'll be helping a couple of friends to take a look into several promising tombs some way down south.«

»So you're staying with this gruesome subject even in your spare time?«

»No, no... not really... these are much older, and the people in the necropolis there have probably died of natural causes. ... Hopefully, because that means lots of broken bits of ceramics, and maybe even one or two bronze coins or pins. And if not so, the wars they may have seen in their lifetimes are at least no longer important to us, except as a scientific point of interest. ... That's what real science is like. Unexpected, unsystematically, unsuspecting, unspectacularly, tiresome, unfunded, mostly unsuccessful, and truly exciting. ... The tombs are bronze age to pre-mycenean... maybe even early classical period, we guess. That's two to three thousand years to you,« he chuckled to himself for a second and then went on to explain, »we don't know yet, of course. You never know what you will find. You think you understand, based on your experience and make your educated guesses, but you'll always be surprised. It's never what you expect. And that teaches you humility. ... It's something that's happened in a time of ancient gods, ... well, a few things never change, I suppose, warlords and kings plagued the people even then. They'd just invented themselves a little earlier. And the country has cried out for heroes ever since. ... If you didn't have proper history, ancient Greek or Latin in school, you probably only know about it from Italian sandal and toga B-movies of the sixties. Those you've quickly zapped away from, I hope, because they're sheer and utter nonsense.« he chuckled.

»Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.« Catherine was pleased with the interview, controversial as it might have been.

»Thanks for having me.« Wilbury was as pleased. He hoped for early unemployment.

Zaria listened to the tape during the customary mid-morning second breakfast break. They had just recently re-introduced it, thanks to the food provided during this year's summer by nature's grace, Joan's packets, and, of lately, the enforced absence of the tax collectors. They all gathered to enjoy the old tradition after they had returned from the dig and the construction sites to the mill for a quick snack. Now they appreciated it even more than before the recent wars.

She listened fully immersed in concentration, and without any trace of a significant expression in her face, sitting at the kitchen table. The others slowly gathered standing around her, returning to the table after picking a sandwich or a piece of cake from the tray Karina had prepared for them all, or after they had poured themselves another cup of coffee or tea from one of the big kettles.

The recording was of bad quality sometimes, and quite obviously obtained with a hidden microphone. From time to time she made notes on a small yellowish notepad borrowed from the soldiers, capturing entire slower parts of the conversation, and at least the essence of the rest.

Joan, standing behind those sitting opposite her, noticed that everyone around her became ever quieter and tenser as the few minutes of tape came to the end.

Zaria made some final notes after stopping the tape, »Okay, Orm, do you need a transcript and translation? That'll take a little longer.«

»No, thank you very much. We can't use it in court anyway. It has not been obtained with their permission. We would have had to ask them in advance for it to be recorded as evidence. It's just to give us a cue, any cue where to start an investigation. It's almost impossible to break into their circles otherwise. But at least sometimes we get the first three steps to point us into the right direction this way, and then we know roughly where to head to, during the whole marathon of investigation,« he explained with a trace of frustration.

»You can only use evidence that's been cleared by the accused?« Joan asked in disbelief.

»Yes, that's what the rules are. If we come up with something like this, their lawyers will say, well, you could have asked my client first for a statement on this particular issue... which we wouldn't have known about at all until after we had him taped and the tape translated anyway,... it was done without his consent, and he hasn't said this anyway; it's all a fake, modern technology, you know, and these mischievous imperialist spies have fabricated it, and so on. And then the judges or the juries have to throw it out of the case, and everything else based on it, too. The only other ways are either to hope they talk themselves into a corner during questioning based on what we gather from this... I'd rather call it interviews than questioning, 'cause it's almost like election campaign stuff, they're always as pure as angels, and they have to be fairly overconfident to make enough mistakes to nail 'em,... or to persuade other people to apply to the courts as witnesses all by themselves, to tell the truth, only the truth and nothing but... and hope they don't tell them that we've asked them to apply and offer their own evidence. Because it's already enough to throw it out when we've just talked to them. They say we might have exercised influence on the witnesses or even might have prepped them. Of course, they usually persuade more people to tell .. everything but .. the truth there. You've got to admire the judges sometimes to even dare to jail 'em against all the smoke screens they lay in front of their faces.«

»That's nuts!« Joan complained, shaking her head in disbelief, »Would be great for speeding tickets, though. If it worked there as well. ... You could have asked me first before clocking my speed, and I haven't been driving anyway. And here's my uncle who wasn't even on the back seat at the time at all but who'll tell you the same, incidentally. ... Heavens!«

Sergei pitched in with a tense giggle, »There's no radioactivity at all in the SSSR, and its levels are declining steadily. Please leave your shoes on the gangway before returning to the plane. Welcome to Chernobyl, comerades.«

»Well, what does it say, and who are they?« Catherine got them back to the ground again.

Zaria took a deep breath while the other villagers exchanged tense looks of foreboding, as well as a few lighter ones of curiosity on how the foreigners would react. She played up to this a little, »Well, really just the usual stuff. The older one promised the boy that the night after the armed foreigners and their tanks have sneaked home to mummy like the cowards they really are, daring to face their poor people only from behind heavy armour, they'll...« she took the pencil, and another deep breath, and then went down the list in her notes point by point matter of factly, like going through a shopping list the third time over to check it for completeness, »...teach us a lesson we won't forget in a thousand lives, kill us all, rape us 'til we bleed, make the old men watch 'til their eyes bleed, nail us spread-eagled head down to the barn doors, make the old men do it for them, burn our houses, have us dig our own graves, drink all our wine and eat all our livestock in a great victory feast, dance on our graves, shoot us in the neck, shell our graves to bits and sow grass there for an eighteen-hole golf course, chop us to pieces and feed us to the wild boars to make 'em taste better, put our heads up on poles as guideposts to our village,... noses pointing in the right direction, o' course,... uhm, crucify us... on three different types of crosses, by the way, break our legs, make us run for our lives, shoot us in the face...« she skipped a few points, »...blah blah .. blah blah blah,... and so on. I think they haven't really made up their mind about the order in which they'll do it all, yet. Or, well, maybe even all at once. Who knows... He's promised the kid the first choice of one of us as a reward for his excellent work as a true fighter here and his loyalty as a real man of honour, .. hah .. hah.«

»They're talking about .. us .. right here?!« Joan asked in disbelief.

»Yes. They talk about you a lot in the beginning, actually. Your plane, your car, the routes you usually take, the people you sometimes visit in the city, us, the other pilots, the packets,... your car's licence plate... there are really licence plates again? Funny way of first things first. ... Well, if they can raise taxes on 'em, no surprise at all...«

Joan just held her forehead in despair, silently cursing herself.

She continued calmly, »It's one of the boys we got ... and we did not kill right away for whatever reason because we live in such peaceful and happy times now. I recognized the voice. At least I'm pretty sure about that.« Zaria sighed, without looking at Joan for even a second. She only looked at Orm intently instead. Her eyes slowly drilled two clean, deburred, polished, honed, and most of all, very deep holes into him, »Like ninety nine point a lot of nines percent sure. ... Apart from that it was not intended for the public,« she took the tape out of the dictaphone and waved it at him, »...this is something like when your secretary of defence visits a brave soldier in hospital after a battle to hand out a medal and pats him on the shoulder for the cameras. ... Only I guess he wouldn't do it for war crimes, would he?«

Orm just wiped the cold sweat out of his face with both hands, while Joan grew pale as a sheet of fresh paper and just desired for nothing more to happen than the ground to open up right underneath her feet and swallow her for good to roast in hell forever. Guilty of being thick as a brick was only the first and least thing she felt unbearable guilt about.

Zaria turned around to her friend all of a sudden, »Did you have something like that when you returned home back then after the crash? ... Not get promised a guy of your choice, I mean. Got a medal... a promotion?« she asked Joan with a friendly smile of truly innocent curiosity. It just had never occurred to her to ask earlier.

»For crashing the Wasp? No, gosh, absolutely not!« she at first laughed, being torn out of her desperate thoughts by the sudden and unexpectedly hilarious idea of being commended for simply getting out alive while losing everything up to the last bit of all the valuable equipment she had been sent into the game with. Then she suddenly got very quiet as the realisation of a difference she had never even thought of that it existed at all, hit her like a sledge hammer blow in the stomach, »... ... I... ... They almost court-martialed me and stripped me of my rank for kicking out the medical supply packs to you, out of the chopper when it lifted me out of the clearing, remember? ... Because it was .. illegal external interference to the advantage of one .. ethnically based paramilitary guerrilla faction, .. which would be all the people who live here, basically, against the then still recognized government. There are supply numbers, made-ins, and stuff printed on everything, you know. Could look like we supported you secretly, or something. They were scared shitless about that. Or the department of foreign affairs was, at least. Anyway. ... Felt like being kicked in the face for trying to help. Was the last thing I thought of at the time. My, I would never have had that kind of idea on my own in my whole life, and really not there at that point in time in that kind of situation. ... I just saw and thought you really need it in a hurry and there was plenty of 'em. And the crew of the chopper helped me actually, but were at least clever enough to blame it all on me later when they got in trouble for it first. Turned out to be the best thing they could possibly have done. ...« Joan answered as if in trance, »...But in the end they withdrew the charges because my boss got quite angry and banged a couple of heads together, some way up the chain of command, and in the military investigations committee, because it all started to etch away at his folks' morale. You know, it's confidential in theory, but stuff like that just gets whispered around; you don't get shot for that, and the chopper crew had been there, after all, and had already talked to others when it wasn't a case file, yet. ... I thought I had been really lucky to get away with nothing but a few stern words,... and just filed it away under life experience, really, until... ... ...just now. ... ... Accidentally it was just about when the media started to make a hubbub of my rescue... They quietly settled the matter on counts of .. injury-induced extreme psychological disorientation at the time of events, .. they called it. ... ...« she thought on for a second, and then realized, looking at Zaria, and then at the little tape, she had to explain it for an entirely different culture, »... Not because of... to sweep the way they themselves had handled it under the rug just before the media could pick it up and give them a hard time on treating the chopper crew, or me, like they did, you know, but quite on the contrary, because they knew perfectly well that the media would pick it up exactly the same way like they themselves had done at first, as illegal support given to a warring faction, and rake me and them and my boss over the coals for it. And possibly after that, the same again in a parliamentary commission of inquiry's sessions, if it had hit enough headlines or a few pollsters' question sheets. ... ... Everybody got around all that basically just thanks to my commander who didn't really like the idea of one of his people being kicked out of his unit after ten years in service, just for committing a petty offence in the wrong place at the wrong time. ... He got me out of a speeding ticket I caught at oh-three-thirty on an empty highway in the high desert on the way back to base for a strategic alert pretty much the same way. Talk to the police, explain it in calm and reasonable way, and hope for them to agree in the end;... twenty-two miles over the limit, plus tolerances, could have sent me walking for four months.«

»You've ever been that far away from base at night and not airborne,... sweet innocence in drab...?« Catherine chuckled not quite innocently.