[6]

It would be far worse to be without the living—to not have Verity and Gwen and Tara with me. But before long I was homesick. Not so much for the place of the convent, but for the presence of the dead. All the Sisters who had gone before us were there, in the crypt or in the Chamber of Skulls. At least, they were there if they were lucky and had died with bones that could be recovered. They were a constant reminder of the inevitability and also the impotence of death. Some of the skulls were all that remained in this physical world of girls I grew up with, loved, and outlived.

Before this, when we traveled, some few of the dead came with us: as hovering robotic servo-skulls to aid us in small ways, or in shrines to bear their silent witness to our lives and deaths. But not this time.

There had been bones with us at the Schola Progenium. Not my loved ones, then. Not my parents or childhood friends. But nonetheless others who had lived and loved and died—and who now watched from their niches and alcoves as orphan children grew to take up the burden of Mankind. And in my most distant memories, I recall firelight in the dark, the beat of a drum. I remember staring at the image of the Emperor-keeper-of-souls surrounded by a circle of real skulls. I recall being safe and warm in my mother's lap as she told me of the Emperor, a father to all the living and the dead, stronger than any danger. I remember saying, "Like daddy?" and the sharp jolt of pique I felt when she laughed and told me no. I think all little girls—all lucky little girls, like I had been—think their father is the best and strongest being in the world.

I can't fault her for laughing. And I'm glad. I think if it hadn't bothered me, I would have forgotten, and then I wouldn't have the memory.

But if someday, somehow, I become a mother, I will try not to laugh.

❖ ❖ ❖

For the next days I did all I could to stay occupied. There were exercises, prayers, tests to be done on hastily mended power-armor. I familiarized myself with the men, with the auspex sensors, with their vox communications protocol. There was a relay station in the nearest town, some hundred kilometers away, to which the observation post reported.

These were useful things, but barely necessary. The real reason was to hide from my unwelcome thoughts, which flitted in twists and turns between the Fear, our exile, my faults as a leader, the bloody horror of violent death… and more often than I would admit, for a reason I don't quite know, Gustav.

I think I was the last of us to notice how idyllic our posting really was. On patrol we were comfortable in our climate-controlled, impermeable armor while the men sweated and swatted at biting insects. The nights were warm and clear, and a tech-ward drove bugs away from our camp so that the tents were not even necessary. The Eye of Terror is clearly visible from Gaervalt's place in the galaxy, as a hideous blotch of violet and red against the sky. But the Eye was in the house of the sun this time of year, so we could lie down at night staring up into the unmarred perfection of the stars.

There was a stream within our cordon. Only thigh deep, but deliciously cold.

Verity settled the question of what to do about possible men in sight by simply flinging herself into the deepest part of the stream, fully clothed except for her boots. She came up gasping and sputtering as Gwen tiptoed out, holding up her skirt. Verity refreshed Gwen's schooling in constant vigilance with a surprise attack. Gwen had only time for half a shriek before Verity had dragged her into the icy water. After that I felt I had to go in, and Tara followed, cementing a new custom that would last for most of our posting.

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How little one knows a person. Tara, my acquaintance of a decade, my perpetual companion of two years, my twin in looks and mannerisms, took me by surprise with a perfect philosophical love of insects. In the days when her wound kept her idle in our camp, she had started collecting and studying every horrible crawling, buzzing thing that she came across, even if she had to make the painful walk to the edge of the tech-ward's covered region to find them. She could rattle off species and their habits like the names and histories of the saints—how had she ever found time to study them? And the possibility of her joy at some exotic bug kept us as watchful for odd butterflies and beetles as for Ork sign on our patrols. By the end of our time there, hundreds of their desiccated corpses would be pinned to neatly labeled shingles that she'd never be allowed to keep.

And how little one knows oneself. Sergeant Gustav and I kept our units separate, but the two of us had to meet fairly often. Planning, coordination, even the practicalities of keeping our distance, brought us together. It made me want and feel things I didn't know what to do with. What was I doing with such thoughts anyway? I am a Sister of Battle.

One clear day after a storm blew a tree down on the observation post, Gustav was part of a work detail repairing a section of the roof. And I was staring. I was not, in fact, cleaning my half-disassembled bolter. I realized it far too late when I felt my Sisters walking up behind me.

"Oh, Gustav," Gwen moaned.

"Shirtless, too. Waaahh…" said Tara, sitting down beside me with a deliberate nudge.

"Look, he just flexed up the hammer and nails like a true son of the Emperor. With a bulging bulge of his bulging shoulders!" said Verity.

A few months ago we had all read a supposedly romantic fiction that should never have found its way into print, let alone into the convent. We made fun of the writing and skipped the especially sinful parts. Mostly.

"He brooded with square-jawed authority," Gwen narrated. "Brooding over the stiff wood his strong calloused hands were gripping. Thinking sinful, sinful thoughts. About her."

"Grievously sinful," said Verity. "Very specific sins, in throbbing need of repentance."

Gwen looked at me with arch significance. "About her. The one and only woman in the whole galaxy he ever sinned about. Smelling of sacred unguents and leather as he brooded."

"Does he smell like unguents and leather, Marisa?" asked Tara, pretending not to notice my face turning red.

Verity sat down on the other side of me. "I bet he smells like unguents and leather," she said.

I flopped down on my back with a sigh and stared at the clouds. "Yes, but it's not like that."

"Wowww, so smellable." Gwen clasped her hands and made her most blissful face.

"Burnt machine oil and sweaty leather combat boots," I grumbled.

"Lickable sweaty boots?" said Gwen.

"Bleh. Yuck. Don't you have work to do?"

"Just cleaning our bolters," said Verity. "We finished already."