Chapter 5 Cora
The team had a shape by day four.
I had noticed it without naming it. Sylvia had noticed it before I had.
She had said something at the Holbrook fuel stop, low and to Brecca's medical pack, that I had not been meant to overhear: we're a unit now.
She had said it the way Brecca said things she did not want to say out loud.
To the pack. As if the pack were the only thing in the convoy that could be trusted to keep a secret.
I had not contradicted her.
We were a unit.
I had taken five-person teams on supply runs before.
Once to the Bakersfield depot, twice to the Pasadena salvage corridor, once to the Reseda warehouse where Tomas had grown up, and none of those teams had become this.
This team had Cruz on the heavy line and Renn on the warrior line and Sylvia on the medical and Drew on the night and me on the wheel and the count, and after four days the lines had stopped being assignments and become postures.
The way Renn held a coffee cup. The way Cruz set his rifle down and never set it down where a rifle should not be set down.
The way Sylvia carried the kit on her back at all times even at camp, because Brecca had taught her to carry the kit on her back at all times even at camp, and the lesson had stuck so deep that Sylvia did not consider it a habit any more. She considered it her posture.
Drew rode in the lead truck with me during the day.
Drew slept in the second truck with Renn at night when Sylvia ordered him to sleep, which was not every night, because Sylvia had agreed, after a small negotiation that she had won, to let Drew take the perimeter watch every third night for four hours instead of the standard six.
The negotiation had taken twenty minutes.
Drew had argued first, then capitulated, then re-opened the negotiation on a different axis.
Sylvia had let him. They had ended up at four hours every third night.
The whole exchange had been the most extended conversation I had ever heard Drew have with another person other than me.
Sylvia was building something with him that I had not built.
I had noticed.
I had not minded.
* * *
We hit the New Mexico–Texas border on the morning of day four.
The road was a flat brown line through scrub that had not seen rain in five weeks.
The wind came down from the north in slow bands.
The convoy held the diamond. Renn was on the radio with Cruz, talking through the next two hundred miles of route.
There was a town outside Amarillo, Vega, that Cruz had passed through three years ago on a different run, and Cruz wanted to know whether Vega's water tower was still up because the tower had been a landmark.
The tower was up.
We passed Vega at noon. The tower cast a long thin shadow across the road and Cruz keyed the radio and said, "Tower," and Renn keyed back, "Tower," and Drew, beside me, said quietly, "They have done that for thirty miles."
"Have they."
"They check landmarks. Every thirty miles. One word each. They have been doing it since Gallup."
"That's Marine. That's a way to confirm you are still on the same map."
"It is also a way to confirm they are still both alive. It is a body-count check. Once an hour."
I looked at him.
"You've been counting."
"I have been listening. The first time you have been listening to them you start the count by accident. After that you do not stop."
"Are you going to tell them you've been counting."
"No."
"Why not."
"Because they don't need to know. They are already counting. The count is not for me. I am just hearing it because the radio is open."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Renn taught you the senior-junior nod two days ago. Cruz and Sylvia are going to teach you something else by the time we get to Urbana. I don't know what. But they are going to teach you something."
"Sylvia is already teaching me. She is teaching me to take orders from a medic and not argue."
"She is not. She is teaching you that the team has a redundancy and the redundancy is hers. She is teaching you that the redundancy gets to call the shots on questions inside its scope. That is not the same as not arguing."
He thought about it.
"You're right."
"Yes."
"I am going to have to apologize to her at some point."
"For what."
"For thinking she was teaching me to take orders."
"Sylvia does not need an apology."
"Sylvia does not. I do."
I drove. The carving was on the dashboard. The 7 was facing up. The sun was at one o'clock to the windshield.
After a while Drew said:
"Cora."
"Yes."
"Did Renn say anything to you about what he told me about Brecca and the bandage."
"He did not."
"He told me Brecca had told Rael, and Rael had told someone, and the someone had told Renn. He did not tell me who the someone was. I have been thinking about who the someone was."
"Who do you think it was."
"Tess."
"Tess."
"Yes. Tess sees Rael every other week when he comes back from the southern integration tour.
Tess is the one Rael talks to about the people Brecca cannot.
Tess hears everything from Rael that Brecca does not want me to know I have done.
Tess told Renn because Tess wanted Renn to know I had handed Brecca the bandage before Renn agreed to be on the team with me. "
"Tess vetted you."
"Yes."
"That is a Tess thing to do."
"It is."
"How do you feel about it."
He thought about it for a long time. The road rolled. The convoy moved at forty-eight, which was the speed that had emerged as the team's natural pace. Fast enough to make ground, slow enough to keep the suspension intact on the broken sections.
"I am grateful," he said.
"Grateful is a giving word, Drew."
"I know."
"You used it without flinching."
"I noticed."
"Are you going to take it back."
"No."
I did not say anything. I let the word stay between us.
The carving was on the dashboard. The 7 was facing up.
* * *
The thing that happened in the Texas panhandle was small and I did not notice it for ten minutes.
We had pulled over outside what had been a town called Conway, which was no longer a town in the sense that it had buildings or people, but which was a town in the sense that there was a sign that said CONWAY.
The convoy stopped at the sign to refuel the lead and second trucks from the can-rack.
Cruz had the can in his hand. Sylvia had her field kit open and was checking Renn's left arm.
Renn had pulled something during the morning's perimeter sweep, a small muscle behind the shoulder, and Sylvia had decided to look at it before it became a serious thing.
Drew was at the back of the lead truck with me. We were rolling the tarp off the spare tire to inspect the seal. The spare tire had been wrapped in tarp for three days and the tarp had developed a small bubble of condensation that I wanted to vent before the seal corroded.
He said, quietly, the half-Vampyren scent-pitch:
"Vampyren."
"How far."
"Three miles north. Two of them. Riding."
"Anti-Council?"
"I cannot tell. The scent is not Council-loyal but it is also not Hess-cell. It is something else. They are not in pursuit. They are paralleling."
"How long."
"Forty minutes. Maybe longer. I picked them up at oh-eleven-thirty. I was not certain they were theirs and not ground-clutter until ten minutes ago."
"You were not certain so you did not tell me."
"I was eighty percent certain at oh-eleven-thirty. I am ninety-eight percent now. I did not tell you at eighty because eighty is the number at which Renn taught me to escalate. Renn taught me yesterday."
"Renn."
"Yes."
"Renn has been teaching you escalation thresholds."
"Yes. He has been doing it since Holbrook.
He has not told me he is doing it. I have been picking it up from the way he keys the radio when he is more or less certain of a sighting.
There is a small pause-difference between his certain-keys and his uncertain-keys.
The pause is about a third of a second. I noticed it on day two and I have been calibrating to it since. "
I looked at him.
He was looking at the tarp.
"Drew."
"Yes."
"You have been learning the unit by watching it."
"Yes."
"Without anyone teaching you."
"Renn has been teaching me. He just has not been using words."
"That's a Vampyren-unit thing."
"It is."
"Drew. You are going to be Renn's protégé by Urbana."
He stopped rolling the tarp. He looked at me. The half-clinical sweep dropped.
"Cora."
"Yes."
"I have wanted to be in a Vampyren unit for nine months and I have not known how to ask. Renn has been showing me how the unit works without me having to ask. If I am his protégé by Urbana I will not call it that. I will call it something else."
"What."
"I will call it that he taught me."
"That is a giving word too."
"I know."
I keyed the radio.
"Renn."
"Cora."
"Drew has two on the scent. Three miles north. Paralleling for forty minutes. Not Council-loyal, not Hess-cell. Something else."
"Copy. I will pick them up at the next overlook. Five miles. Hold the convoy at the overlook."
"Copy."
I closed the radio.
Drew said:
"I should have told you at oh-eleven-thirty."
"You should not have. You should have told me at ninety-eight percent. You followed the threshold. You did the work."
"I should have told you, Cora."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Not every uncertainty needs to become a problem the moment it begins. Some uncertainties need to develop before they earn the radio."
He was quiet.
"That is a Cora thing to say."
"It is."
"Mira would not say that."
"Mira is five."
"Mira would tell you the moment she saw something."
"Mira is five. Mira does not yet know the difference between the part of the count that is information and the part of the count that is fear. You and I do. That is the difference."
He nodded.
We rolled the tarp back over the spare. The seal was fine. The condensation had vented. We climbed back into the cab and drove the next five miles to the overlook and waited.