Briefly the troopers continued northwestward till they hit Road 45, which they followed north till after dark, taking advantage of its freedom from obstacles. Then Romlar had them dig into the snow again and pitch their shelter tents, after posting pickets of course. He'd let them sleep till daylight, assuming that nothing happened, and it seemed to him that nothing would. It was his intuition that the T'swa no longer followed him, and this was supported by several facts or apparent facts: The T'swa must have traveled much of the night before; they'd snowshoed very hard for several hours during the day, in pursuit; and to catch up again, they'd have to snowshoe much of the night without sleep, for their snowshoes were slower than skis.
No, it seemed highly unlikely that the T'swa still followed.
He had every reason to be pleased with 1st Battalion, his leadership, and the performance of the Smoleni rangers. But he found no joy in it, which was irrational. With today's casualties, notably the two machine gun platoons, he'd lost 189 troopers on this operation alone. And his White T'swa now numbered fewer than nine hundred.
Call it wastage or something else, his regiment was shrinking, and rational or not, that troubled him. It didn't keep him awake though; not this night. He was too thoroughly tired. He ate a high-fat ration, stretched out in his sleeping bag, and fell asleep at once.
To dream. He was in a spaceship, not as a passenger, but as commander. Colonel Voker was with him, looking as he had at graduation, old and wiry and tough. And Varlik Lormagen, as young as he'd been in the old cubeage from the Kettle War. And Dao, his platoon sergeant from basic training, big and hard and black. They all looked serious except Dao, whose mouth and wise T'swa eyes smiled slightly.
We all have the T'sel now, Romlar thought, but Dao more than the rest of us. Maybe it's something in the T'swa genotype.
"We are different," Dao answered. "We are the T'swa, the true T'swa. We differ genetically, and especially culturally. But you are as deep in the T'sel as I." He eyed Romlar knowingly, and chuckled. "Though yours has slipped a little lately. That sometimes happens."
It seemed to Romlar that the others hadn't heard any of this conversation. Voker said, "Artus, the Imperials are out there. You hear them, don't you?"
He did. They were knocking on the door. He looked out the window, and the front porch was full of imperial marines.
"I want you to take your regiment and drive them away," Voker ordered.
"I'm sorry, Colonel, but my regiment is all dead."
"All dead! What did you do to them?"
"I got them all killed on Maragor, Colonel."
The knocking had loudened to booming. In a moment, Romlar thought, the door will burst open, the air will rush out, and we'll all have to recycle as new-born slaves. Not just Voker and Lormagen and I, but everyone in the Confederation.
There was a gunshot in the dream then, and Romlar jerked awake. To realize immediately what had happened: a tree had split from the intense cold. He'd heard them do that before, here and once at Blue Forest, and in training in the Terfreyan austral taiga after the war.
He'd been dreaming something unpleasant, and the dregs remained in his subconscious. Something about—Voker. And Dao. He lay silently trying to pull those slight threads and bring the rest to view, but fell asleep again before he'd made any progress.
The sun went down. Dusk faded to twilight, and twilight to dark, and still Kelmer hadn't caught up with the troopers. He was bushed by then, but had only a single shelter panel, not enough for a tent. And as cold as it was . . .
He pushed on. He'd never felt so alone, so abandoned. After a bit he was wobbling, knees weak, and finally he fell. It seemed to him he could go no farther—that he would die there of the cold. He thought of Weldi. Tears filled his eyes, and he was gripped by a sudden fear that they'd freeze there, perhaps blinding him, so he covered them for a minute with his mittens, blinking furiously.
Then he forced himself to his feet and pushed onward. The battalion might be camped just ahead; a hundred yards on, he might be challenged by a sentry. He wasn't. At Blue Forest, he reminded himself, they'd spent a night in the snow without any panels at all. They'd dug depressions and lay down in them in their sleeping bags, covering each other with snow. But the last men down were covered by sentries, who were covered in turn by their relief. Here he didn't even have someone to bury him. And that night at Blue Forest hadn't been this cold; not nearly.
He'd skied only half an hour more when he collapsed again. After lying in the snow for a minute, he unsnapped his pack, and with one of the snowshoes strapped to it, dug himself a narrow hole in the snow, deep into the old base. He lay the panel in it then and sat down on it, wondering what the temperature was. He'd eaten both the T'swa rations already, and it seemed too much work to open one of his own. Instead he took out his sleeping bag and crawled in, leaving one arm free to pull snow over himself. When he was covered, he pulled his arm in and lay there, afraid to go to sleep.
Nonetheless, within two minutes he slept.
He awoke having to urinate. Faint daylight penetrated the snow. He undertook to sit up, and found himself held. Warmth from his breath had melted a small space around his head, and the cold penetrating from outside had frozen the moisture into a shell of ice. For a moment, fear swelled in his heart, then subsided. He moved his legs; they were free. So was his torso below the chest. He worked his bag open, got his arms out, and with mittened hands broke the ice around his head, then sat up.
It was another bitter arctic morning, colder, he thought, than the morning before. He broke off a piece of his ice mask and put it in his mouth to melt, surprised that he was no colder than he was. Actually, he thought, I've slept colder when the temperature wasn't nearly this low. Then he dug a ration from his pack, and sitting up in his bag, ate it. Exposed to the air, he was quickly colder than he'd been in the night. He put the rest of his rations inside his coat, crawled out of his bag, put his boots on, and relieved himself against a tree, watching the urine form a mound of amber ice on the bark.
Finally, working clumsily in mittens, he donned pack, skis, and helmet, then continued on the trail of the battalion. With a remarkably light heart. Not only had he not frozen to death. He'd discovered that the danger was not so great as he'd thought. Half an hour later, he found where the battalion had camped. And decided it was just as well he'd stopped when he had. Otherwise he wouldn't have learned what he had, wouldn't have discovered that he could survive alone.