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instead of years. Dr.
Gettmann was helpless. The pharmaceuticals she could have saved his life with
were lost with Kattinger and the two others when their longboat was destroyed.
"Heidi," Sanchez spoke softly to the daughter of Johanna and Hans
Kattinger as he lay, barely breathing. Heidi had her mother's red hair and
her father's gentle blue eyes.
"Heidi, my time is over. On the shelf there is a wooden box. Please take it."
The young girl did as he said and began to open it.
"No, not yet," said Sanchez. "Wait until you go to sleep tonight, please.
There are two things - " he paused, trying to catch his shallow breath.
"Inside. One is for you. The other is for your children to give -
" another breath - "to Haven."
"Which one - "
"Shh." He lifted a finger to Heidi's lips, softly. "You will know."
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"Thank you, Uncle Easy."
Sanchez smiled weakly. Heidi was the only child who could call him that pet
name.
"Now go, child. I wish to say goodbye to your mother."
Heidi reached over Sanchez to hug him. "Vaya con Dios, Señor," she said
through tears.
"Gracias, mi paloma blanca.Gracias."
Heidi picked up the box and slowly walked from the room as her mother entered.
She had almost reached the top of the stairs when her heart gave in and she
sat down to cry.
It had been difficult, waiting so long to open the box, but Heidi waited out
of respect for her dying teacher.
"Don't be up late, now," said Johanna, seeing her daughter to bed, then
returned down the stairs.
Heidi lit the small reading lamp on the table near her bed. Then, with eager
curiosity, she reached under her pillow and lifted the box. Carefully, she
opened it.
Inside was a book. She read the title, "The Rise and Fall of theRoman Empire."
Opening the book she found an inscription on the inside cover:
To Captain Ezio Sanchez, A good book, like a good friend, is a terrible thing
to lose.
Hans Kattinger
Heidi cried again for several minutes. She had lost her teacher and the only
father she'd known.
And the closest friend she ever had.
Gently, she closed the book and put it on the bed beside her. Inside the box
was one more item, a small plastic tube with a rolled, printed paper inside.
She carefully removed the paper and placed the tube in the box.
Slowly, the paper unrolled until it was flat. Heidi's eyes were drawn to some
bold print near the top.
She read aloud to herself, her voice echoing softly down the stairs. "We hold
these truths to be self evident ..."
In rare disobedience to her mother's orders, Heidi's little reading lamp
burned long into the night.
From "The Frontal Assault and Other Tactical Pathologies," in The Way of the
Soldier (traditionally attributed to First Lady/Second Soldier Althene
Diettinger)
The hardest thing to fight is a Tradition. And every valley, every town and
village, and sometimes every farm or even farmer on Haven has at least one
Tradition that folk will die for. Never mind that the
Folk are cattle - cattle willing to die can always kill more Saurons than we
can afford to lose.
So remember that not all of Haven's defenses are visible to the senses, even
the enhanced senses of
Saurons. Some of our new home's defense in depth exists only in the minds of
its folk - but as tenaciously rooted there as the mountains are in the crust
of the planet.
NO SUCH THING AS A NON-LETHAL WEAPON -
JAMES A. LANDAU
I was eating a sandwich when the professional killer walked up to me.
"You're Mr. Herrero, foreman of the Millvale lumberyard?" he asked.
"Thomas Herrero, at your service," I said, as sarcastically as I could.
"Acting foreman."
He offered his hand. "Major Andreadis, of the Gumming Brigade."
Rather than shake hands with him, I took a bite of my sandwich. He didn't
seem annoyed at my rudeness, so I said, "Your kind doesn't deserve good
manners."
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He replied in a friendly tone, "As one soldier to another, there are certain
courtesies. But you don't have to salute me."
"Since I'm not going to stand up for you, either, have a seat," I said,
pointing to a nearby pile of trash.
Anyway, who could look military rising from a rolled-up tarpaulin? "Or get
lost. But don't call me a soldier."
He knelt to face me, not on the trashpile but in front of it. "You went into
battle with Cross's militia,"
he said.
Cross was the real foreman as well as part-owner, on office duty now with a
broken leg. He also commanded the town militia, two dozen friends of mine with
romantic illusions and a liking to hear guns go bang. "Fine," I said. "So I'm
a soldier. That doesn't mean I have to be polite to you just because you have
pine cones on your shoulders."
"Oak leaves," he said, smiling, "and yes, they mean I'm a career
soldier. Or a mercenary, same difference. You might be polite to me since
we are allies. I'm liaison to Cross's militia today."
"Then go talk to Captain Cross."
"I did. He said to talk to you."
"And I say go talk to yourself. What do you want?"
"There's a band of nomads headed this way to attack Millvale. The Cummings
Brigade sent me to help the militia stop them."
"You shoot them, I'll bandage them. But I don't see what else I can do. Or the
militia either, except pray the nomads go somewhere else."
"I'm told you're a pacifist."
"I am."
"Yet you rode into battle with the town militia." "They needed a medic, and I
know first aid." "That makes you part of a combat unit." "You want me to let
my friends die because I wasn't there? War, unfortunately, is a human [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]