I have summoned her here. Watch, and see.

With an almost human nod, Koda turns and trots into the woods, silent as a shadow. Once sufficiently hidden, she turns and watches.

She notices first the face and form of the young woman, surely too young and too frail to bear the heavy weight thrust upon her. Hearing gentle laughter in her mind, she chides herself for too-quick assumptions.

The sigils on the woman’s face and hands glow with the touch of the Mother. Koda is intrigued. And when the young woman falls to her knees with a cry of anguish so heart rending that the very forest seems to pause in tribute, Koda is drawn forward as if an unseen tie binds her to the woman whose grief seems to fill the world to the sky and beyond.

Their eyes meet and lock and hold. Neither notices when Mahka Ina fades from view. The woman’s gaze holds a look that Koda knows well, having seen it in the mirror every morning since the androids seized power.

Hollow. Frightened. Suddenly old beyond telling, as if she stares into eternity. There is a naked vulnerability there, which Koda can’t help but respond to. And yet, if she looks deep enough, she can see a core of steel, a tensile strength not noticed on first glance. Will it be enough? Will it allow her to continue her journey alone until Koda can join her?

I will find you.

Have those eyes, green as the new leaves of spring, brightened just a bit? Has she heard the vow?

As she breaks eye contact and trots back into the forest, Dakota can only hope she has.

I will find you.

I will protect you.

You are not alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I hear that voice again. It sings me to sleep. A journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.”

1

KODA COMES TO full wakefulness quickly and silently. Her dream remains with her even as her body and mind awaken to reality. She smiles as she feels the compact body in her arms, melded against and atop her like a second skin. Reaching up, she strokes the thick, soft black hair, chuckling inwardly as the woman in her arms purrs very much like a cat while trying to burrow further into her embrace, still fast asleep.

After another moment, Dakota slips out from beneath the Air Force colonel and makes her way, still unclothed, to the small, polarized window. The night beyond is crisp, clear, and unremittingly cold. As she peers off to the north, now knowing her destination, she thinks back on the past two days.

As the remains of the military caravan limped toward the base like an injured snake, it was held up by a long line of soldiers armed to the teeth. Koda could hear, via the open mic, the orders of those soldiers, demanding that everyone step out of their vehicles to verify that they were human.

Up to her elbows in a downed airman’s chest cavity, Dakota, of course, refused. When the gun’s muzzle came into view, it was only Manny’s fast reflexes, which had been courted by colleges across the country, and a few Major League teams as well, that saved her from being splattered like an ink blot all over the truck’s interior.

Four heads poked immediately through the truck’s doors, military faces cut from the same cookie cutter mold, down to the deep cleft in their chins. Fortunately for everyone, they immediately relaxed when they realized that Allen was, in fact, telling the truth. Three of the men hopped aboard and began helping the beleaguered vet while the fourth ran back to his mates and ordered the gates opened so the caravan could proceed with all due haste.

Dakota saw very little of the compound itself, though she could smell the thick, acrid smoke that hung in the air like a pall. The base had, thankfully, a fairly modern hospital and several surviving doctors and medics to tend to the men in her care.

The electricity was running, thanks to a small hydroelectric plant on the grounds, and Koda spent the next thirty six hours helping the harried staff tend to the wounds of the injured soldiers.

When she was finally approached by a very insistent Allen, she didn’t fight the firm hand encircling her wrist, or the tug that forced her legs to move away from the patients she was watching over.

She stopped and stared, though, when her first sight of the compound settled over her. It looked like it had been deluged by bombs. Many of the buildings were nothing but still-smoking rubble, and almost all of the uniformed men and women who scuttled about like ants bore some mark of its passing, whether a bandaged appendage, or a shell-shocked expression and deep, hollow eyes.

Mounds of fresh snow covered the bodies of those who would never rise again. Twenty across and at least that many deep, the bodies were watched over by a full military color-guard, honored in the only way they knew.

“C’mon,” Maggie had said, gently tugging Dakota’s arm. “Let’s get you somewhere warm where you can get some food in your belly before you pass out.”

“I’m fine.” Koda’s voice was a distracted mumble as she eyed the hillocks of snow covering the bodies of the fallen.

“You’re as pale as the snow out here, Koda, and your pulse is racing to beat the band. I’ll make it an order if I have to.”

Allen bravely withstood the colorless eyes that came to rest on hers.

“Yeah, I know, you’re a civvie’, but I can be mighty persuasive when I want to be.”

That earned her a smile that, while small, cheered her considerably.

The mess was pretty much what Dakota expected a military mess to be, and she ate her food without really tasting it, just glad to have something warm and substantial in her belly after more than a day of existing on black coffee and nothing else.

The housing was, however, somewhat of a surprise, and when Maggie led her into the small, private cottage, she looked around approvingly, giving the arrangements her first real smile of the day.

A shower had been the first thing on her agenda, though it took almost an hour of scrubbing to get all of the encrusted blood and body fluids removed from her skin and hair.

Clad in a fresh T-shirt and soft sweatpants, she tumbled into the king-sized bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

Maggie had returned late that evening, and when Koda awoke, they fell into an embrace and a loving that was more needing than tender. Primal and passionate, it was the connection of two bodies trying to reaffirm life after having seen so much death.

They had fallen asleep soon after, completely drained of the last of their energy.

2

There is a body in the road. Young, female, bleeding. Unfortunately, despite the presence of half a dozen expectant ravens, it is also still alive. Even with snow falling, Kirsten can see the faint, warding flutter of a hand when one of the birds ventures too close.

Damn. Goddam. I. So. Do. Not. Need. This.

Risky. Way too risky.

Yet even as she begins to steer in an arc that will carry her past on the other side, Kirsten’s foot settles on the brake. Asimov, on the seat beside her, stands to attention, ears pricked forward, tail stiff at half-mast. He whines, low in his throat, and gives a short, sharp bark of alarm.

“Yeah, boy,” she mutters. “I see her.”

For several minutes, Kirsten does just that, examining the scene before her. The woman—no, a girl, slender and still almost flat-chested under the bulk of her jacket, with generic Midwestern features and light-brown hair spilling out from beneath the brim of a knitted cap—lies some ten feet from the verge of the road, in the westbound lane of the Interstate. A wavering line of footprints, now rapidly filling with the new snow, dots the empty field to the north of the road.

Halfway across there are slip marks and a hollow where someone has fallen, presumably the annoyance in front of her. Even at a distance, she can make out a pink tinge to patches of the snow. Closer too, crimson spatters the fresh cover, with a long streak where the girl has skidded and fallen again.

There are half a dozen ways it could be a trap. The girl could be microchipped or wearing a transponder. She might have a weapon under her jacket. There could be droids waiting behind a line of trees that runs along a ridge to the other side of the road. Almost as bad, there might be human predators who have left their latest victim as bait for the next.

As the possibilities sort through her mind, one of the ravens stalks up to the girl on the road, waddling a little on the still-soft surface. Cocking its head, it seems to study her face for a moment, then grasps a strand of her long hair in its bill and tugs. And tugs again, backing up in the snow. The girl thrashes and cries out weakly. “No! Oh, no! Jesus, help me!”

Kirsten has never placed much credence in the idea of a fate worse than death, but being eaten alive qualifies. In spades. She pauses only to check the magazine of her pistol, slides out of the seat and slogs toward the young woman who has suddenly become her unwelcome charge. Less inhibited, Asimov streaks past her and bounds over the girl’s body in a flying arc, landing splay-legged in the middle of the ravens and snapping at the air. The birds, not much impressed, step away from the dog with a haughty stare and ruffle of wing feathers. The girl, though, cries out in terror. “A wolf! Oh my God, noooooo!”

“No he isn’t. He just think he’s one,” Kirsten snaps. She whistles sharply, “Come, Asi!”

The girl turns to look at Kirsten, floundering in the snow. Closer to, Kirsten can see that the right leg of her jeans is ripped and soaked with red, fresh blood pooling and melting the snow where she lies. Her eyes are all pupil, so wide with pain and terror that Kirsten cannot tell what color they are. Scratches streak her face, though they seem superficial, perhaps the result of fleeing through the underbrush of the woods along the ridge. Her left arm lies at a strange angle, either broken or dislocated.

Oh, wonderful, Kirsten thinks. Multiple choice: (a)put her out of her misery; (b), take her with me; or (c) leave her for the ravens.

Leaving her for the birds is not an option. If it were, Kirsten would already be five miles further down the road, five supremely important miles further toward the end of her own journey. Euthanasia by 9mm round? She cannot quite bring herself to do it, at least not without knowing for certain that the life seeping out onto the road at her feet is unsalvageable. All right, then. That leaves (b).

With a sigh, she thumbs on her gun’s safety catch and tucks the weapon into her belt. No good deed ever goes unpunished, she reminds herself, wryly, and this one will probably have an exorbitant cost. Saving this girl’s life, if she can, will make her that much later getting to the manufacturing facility at Minot. And that will almost certainly be paid for in other lives, elsewhere. She has already killed innocent people to get as far as she has. She is not willing to do it again except under circumstances more extreme than this.

She kneels in the snow beside the wounded girl, whose huge black eyes have never left her own. Forcing her voice to the gentleness that always marked her mother’s, Kirsten takes the girl’s hand, lifting it from where it still scrabbles at the snow, fighting for purchase. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”

The girl’s only answer is a whimper, deep in her throat. She shrinks away, trying to make herself small, when Kirsten reaches for the zip of her jacket.

“All right,” she says. “My name’s—my name’s Annie. I’m going to look at your leg, if you’ll let me. I’ll try really hard not to hurt you.”

Damn. It’s like talking to a half-feral dog.

You would do this for a dog. Pretend she is one if that’s what it takes. Patience.

“Easy,” she whispers. “Easy, now.”

Without waiting for a response, Kirsten folds the torn denim back from the girl’s thigh. There is a puncture wound, probably a from a large-caliber bullet. The good news, insofar as there is any, is that the blood slowly seeping from its depths is dark, almost black. Venous blood, which means it’s just possible that her new responsibility is not going to bleed to death on her. If the femoral artery had been hit, she would be dead by now. And we would not be having this charming conversation. Unfortunately, she cannot see the exit wound and has no idea how much of the flesh has been torn away in the projectile’s passage. There is no way at all she can deal with the arm until she gets the jacket off, and she cannot do that with her patient lying in the snow.

“Listen to me,” she says gently. “I can’t tend to you like this. I’m going to bring the van over here and lift you into it. I’ve got some medicines and other supplies that will help you. Do you understand?”

Silence. The eyes fixed on her remain huge and black. Kirsten begins to wonder if there’s a concussion along with the other injuries, or if the girl is deaf. But she can speak; that is certain. Damn. “Okay, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. Can you raise your raise your hand if you understand me?”

Nothing. Then, very slowly, two fingers rise up out of the snow.

Kirsten lets out a long breath. “Good. I’ll only be gone a minute. This is Asimov.” She points to the dog, where he sits on the girl’s other side, tongue lolling and a happy-idiot expression on his face as he watches the ravens. “He’ll keep the birds away from you. He is not a wolf.” No matter what he might think.

It takes Kirsten more time than she would like to maneuver the truck to within a couple feet of her patient. Once alongside, she slides open the side door and clears out a spot on the floor. Her task is easier than it would have been a few days ago, and she frowns. Her supplies are getting low. She has enough gas in the jerry cans to get her across the rest of Minnesota and half of North Dakota, with maybe a tank and a half to spare. She cannot take this waif with her; neither can she spend much of her precious fuel looking for a safe haven.

In this sparsely populated country, there would have been fewer droids than in the cities. Somewhere she had read—National Geographic? Scientific American? —that there were still bands of Mennonites here on the northern plains who had refused to come out of the nineteenth century even so far as to use electricity, much less modern farm machinery. In the last hundred miles, Kirsten had seen the occasional tracks of a wheeled vehicle, even more occasionally a thin column of smoke from a chimney. Almost any group of survivors ought to be glad of another pair of hands, even if they come accompanied by a young and healthy appetite.

They ought to be willing to take a good, well-trained dog, too.

The idea comes unbidden. It is something she has been trying very hard not to think about, though she has known from the beginning that she cannot take Asimov where she is going. Simply abandoning him is unthinkable, just as leaving him behind had been. Far in the back of her mind is the even harder choice she had known she might face. With a bit of luck, now, it will not come to that.

The thought is almost enough to make her feel kindly toward the Nameless One as she spreads out a sleeping bag, then tops it with a blanket-covered tarp as a makeshift treatment table. Kirsten also lays out a box of bandages; an ampoule of Penicillin, still a staple drug after three-quarters of a century; a 5 cc syringe and a precious vial of Demerol. Perhaps, she thinks, she can leave the drugs, too, with anyone willing to give Asimov a home. Even an aspirin should be worth its weight in diamonds, now.

Worth more. Worth lives to those fortunate enough to have it.

The world has changed irrevocably, and she knows it. Even if she succeeds in stopping the droids, even if there are enough surviving chemists, physicists, microbiologists, AI wonks like herself to rebuild the technology, the life she has known is gone. The social order likely to emerge from the ruins will be radically different, with few men and almost no elders. Nations are destroyed. What will rise in their stead she fears even to imagine. City-states? Tribes? The Empire of Miami?

She gives her head a shake to force herself back to the present. Whatever comes, she probably will not live to see it.

Carefully she lets herself down into the snow next to the Nameless One. “Listen to me,” she says softly. “I’m going to lift you up and back and into the truck. I need you to help me if you can. Do you understand?”

This time there is a nod. Progress.

Kirsten straddles the girl’s body, getting a firm grip under her arms. “Okay, on the count of three.”

Another nod.

At “Three!” Kirsten straightens and heaves, stepping forward in the same motion to sit the girl in the open door of the van. It is easier than she expected, with the Nameless One able to take some of her own weight on her good leg and support herself with her uninjured arm.

After that it is Emergency First Aid 101.

Kirsten cuts away the right half of the girl’s jeans and applies pressure compresses until the wound stops bleeding. The exit hole is larger than the entry, but not measurably worse; not a military round then, or a dum-dum. She pours it full of antiseptic and winds bandages around the leg. The arm is more difficult. An enormous purple bruise and swelling above the elbow indicate a fracture. Kirsten does not have the skill to set the bone, so she splints it with triple thicknesses of cardboard cut from a carton of dog food and straps it to the girl’s side to immobilize it. She replaces the stained blanket under her patient with a fresh one. Finally she pumps 500 units of Penicillin into her. The repairs have taken the better part of two hours. The light is fading as Kirsten reaches for the Demerol.

The girl has borne the pain in silence, all the while watching her with those great dark eyes. Kirsten uncaps another syringe with her teeth and inserts it into the ampoule of painkiller. “I’ll give you something that will make you sleep, now. I can’t promise you’ll feel better when you wake up, but at least you’ll have a fighting chance. We need to find someone I can leave you with, though.” Gently she slides the needle home. “I can’t take you where I’m going.”

“Where’s that?”

The girl’s voice is hardly more than a breath, but it startles Kirsten so that she straightens suddenly. “Well,” she says, after a moment. “So you are going to talk to me.”

“Sorry. I was scared.”

“Of course you were.” Kirsten gives the girl’s unbroken arm an awkward pat. “Can you tell me what happened to you? And what do I call you?”

“Lizzie. Lizzie Granger. My folks call me Elizabeth, but, . . ..” Lizzie chokes suddenly, turning her face away. “Oh God, they’re all dead. My mom, my dad, my baby brother. The Beast’s locusts killed them.”

“Beast? Locusts?”

“The Beast. You know, the Beast. 666.”

“You mean the one from the Bible? The Anti-Christ?” .

“No, no. The one that comes before the Anti-Christ. You’re not a Christian, are you?”

“I was raised Methodist. Does that count?”

“Christian. Gotta be a real Christian.” The girl’s voice is slurring with the action of the Percodan. “Not like me. Not good enough. The locusts came, the ones with faces like men but with lions’ teeth. Breastplates of iron. Stings. Killed them all.”

This is, Kirsten decides, the most bizarre conversation she has had in decades. Not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses who came to the door when her dad was stationed in Corpus Christi, the ones who thought the United Nations was the Devil’s own bureaucracy and the flag was an idol, were quite this weird. Droids running out of control and the girl is worried about grasshoppers. Grasshoppers with human faces and metal bodies and . . . oh bloody hell, of course. “Droids,” she says. “You mean droids?”

“Droids,” Lizzie murmurs. “Good droids. Took my cousin and her kids. There was this. Bright, bright light. And the angels. Took them up. To meet. Jesus. In the. Air.” Her voice is fading. “Ran. Scared. Got left. Behind. Left. . . .”

Lizzie’s eyes slide closed and her breathing deepens. It is still faster than it should be, and shallower, but she is in no immediate danger. That will come later.

For all of them.

Kirsten drapes a blanket over the girl’s unconscious form and climbs back into the front seat. She whistles Asimov up beside her, puts the truck in gear and heads again into the west, into the settling darkness.

3

“Go back to sleep. It’s still the middle of the night.”

The soft, deep voice startles Maggie from her rapt, if a bit sleepy, moonlit contemplation of surely the most perfect body that God, in His infinite Wisdom, had ever created. Feeling warmth steal over her face, she’s glad of the darkness. “How did you--?”

“Know you were awake? I have my ways.”

“Mm,” Maggie all-but-purrs. “I’ll testify to that.”

When the expected chuckle doesn’t follow, the Colonel scoots up in the bed until her back is resting against the headboard and the blanket is comfortably wrapped around her chest. There she returns to her inspection, though this time with a more professional eye. She notices the new lines of tension stretched across the broad shoulders and along the column of Koda’s elegant spine. “Is something wrong?” she hazards, knowing it’s a crap shoot as to whether or not she’ll get an answer.

After a long moment of silence, Dakota releases a small sigh, fogging slightly the polarized window. “What are your plans?”

The question pulls the Colonel up short. There are several shades of meaning behind the all too forthright words. “You mean…with my troops?”

Koda nods, still looking out the window. “Yes.”