S. M. Stirling - Dies the Fire 01 - Dies the Fire

Dies the Fire

by S. M. Stirling.

ISBN 0-451-45979-2

Set in Weiss Designed by Erin Benach.

Printed in the United States of America.

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

To Gina Taconi-Moore, and to her Andrew, currently serving the great Republic

in a far-off, sandy, unpleasant place. Long life and happiness!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Nick Pollotta, for a neat idea,- to Dana Porter of Outdoorsman,

Santa Fe, for advice on cutlery and survival,- to Stephen Stuebner (author of

Cool North Wind and many wonderful books on Idaho) for his works and advice,-

to the folks at Saluki Bows,- to Kassai Lajos, whose Horseback Archery is a

fascinating chronicle of his reconstructions of ancient and medieval horse

archery, which were invaluable,- to Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams,

Emily Mah, Yvonne Coates, Daniel Abrams, Terry England, Janet Stirling and

George RR Martin of Critical Mass for their analysis and criticism,- to

Charles de Lint for advice on music and some cracklin' good tunes,- to Parris

McBride for help with the Wiccan religion and the loan of helpful material,-

to Kiers Salmon for help with Wicca and also for going all around Oregon doing

research for me; to Robin Wood, for still more help with Wicca,- and to Alison

Brooks for inventing the phrase "Alien Space Bats," which I stole.

Special thanks to Heather Alexander, bard and balladeer, for permission to use

the lyrics from her beautiful songs "The Star of May Morning," "John

Barleycorn,"

"The Witch of the Westmoreland," "Dance in the Circle," and "Ladyes Bring Your

Flowers Fair," which can be-and should be,-ordered at www.heatherlands.com.

Run, do not walk, to do so.

Far-called our navies melt away On dune and headland sinks the fire,- Lo, all

our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

-Rudyard Kipling, "Recessional"

Boise Municipal Airport, Idaho

Tuesday, March 17th, 1998 6:15 P.M., RMT-Change minus one hour

Michael Havel pulled his battered four-by-four into the employees' parking

lot, locked up and swung his just-in-case gear out of the back, the strap of

the pack over one shoulder and the gun case on the other. It was a raw

early-spring Idaho afternoon, with the temperature in the low fifties,- the

light had a cool, bleakly clear quality, as if you could cut yourself on the

blue of the sky.

He walked quickly across to the door marked "Steelhead Air Taxi" and opened it

with three fingers and an elbow, whistling a Kevin Welch tune under his

breath.

Inside he set the gear down on a couple of chairs-the all-up weight was nearly

eighty pounds-and opened his heavy sheepskin jacket, stuffing his knit cap

into one pocket.

That left his black hair ruffled the way it always did, and he smoothed it

down with the palms of both hands. The air here smelled a bit of burned fuel

and oil, which couldn't be helped around an airport.

"You said the bossman had something for me, Mellie?" he asked the secretary as

he went to the pot on the table in the corner and poured himself a cup.

The coffee was Steelhead Air Taxi standard: oily, bitter and burnt, with

iridescent patches of God-knew-what floating on the surface. He poured

halfandhalf in with a lavish hand until it looked pale brown. This was an

informal outfit, family-run: Dan and Gerta Fogarty had flown themselves until

a few years ago,- there was Mellie Jones, who was Gerta's aunt,- and six

pilots, one Mike Havel being the youngest at twenty-eight, and the most recent

hire.

"Yup," the white-haired woman behind the desk said. "Wants you to hop some

passengers to a ranch field in the Bitterroot Valley, north of Victor. The

Larssons, they're visiting their holiday place."

Havel's eyebrows went up,- it was a damned odd time of year to be taking a

vacation there. Tail end of the season for winter sports, but still plenty

cold, and the weather would be lousy. Then he shrugged, if the client wanted

to go, it was the firm's job to take him. Steelhead Air did a little of

everything: flying tourists, fishermen and whitewater rafters into wilderness

areas in summer, taking supplies to isolated ranchers in the winter with skis

on the planes instead of wheels, whatever came to hand. There was a lot of

unroaded territory around this neck of the woods. He glanced at the wall

clock. It wasn't long to sunset,- call it six forty-five, this time of year.

Two hundred forty ground miles to the Montana border, a little more to

wherever the Larssons had their country place, call it two, three hours . . .

"They've got landing lights?" he said.

Mellie snorted. "Would Dan be sending you if they didn't?"

He looked over her shoulder at the screen as he sipped the foul sour coffee,

reading off the names: Kenneth Larsson, his wife Mary, son and daughter Eric

and Signe, both eighteen, and another named Astrid four years younger.

"Larsson . . . Larsson . . . from Portland, businessman?" he said. "Heard the

bossman mention the name once, I think."

Mellie made an affirmative sound as she worked on her PC.

"Old money, timber and wheat-then Ken Larsson tripled it in high tech. Used to

hire us regular, back before 'ninety-six, but not lately. Hasn't brought the

family before."

Havel nodded again,- he'd only been flying for Steelhead since the spring of

'97. It was nice to know that Dan trusted him,- but then, he was damned good

if he said so himself, which he didn't. Not aloud, anyway.

He went through into the office. Dan Fogarty was sitting and chatting with the

clients while Gerta worked behind piles of paper on the desk. There were

wilderness posters and models of old bush planes and books on Idaho and the

Northwest on shelves. And a faint meowing . . .

That was unusual.

The Larssons' youngest had a cat carrier on her lap,- the beast's bulging

yellow eyes shone through the bars, radiating despair and outrage. It wasn't

taking the trip well,- cats seldom did, being little furry Republicans with an

inbuilt aversion to change. Judging from an ammonia waft, it was-literally-

pissed off.

The kid was unusual as well, all huge silver-blue eyes and long white-blond

hair, dressed in some sort of medieval-looking suede leather outfit, her nose

in a book-an illustrated Tolkien with a tooled-leather cover. She had an

honesttogod bow in a case leaning against her chair, and a quiver of arrows.

She kept her face turned to the print, ignoring him. He'd been raised to

consider that sort of behavior rude, but then, she was probably used to

ignoring the chauffeur, and his family hadn't had many employees.

Havel grinned at the thought. His dad had worked the Iron Range mines from the

day he got back from Vietnam and got over a case of shrapnel acne picked up at

Khe Sanh,- his father had done the same after getting back from a tour of

Pacific beauty spots like Iwo Jima, in 1945,- his father had done the Belleau

Wood Tour de France in 1918 before settling down to feed the steel mills, and

his father had gone straight into the mines after arriving from Finland in

1895. When the mines weren't hiring, the Havel men cut timber and worked the

little farm the family had acquired around the turn of the century and did any

sort of honest labor that fell their way.

Kenneth Larsson matched the grin and stood, extending a hand. It was soft but

strong,- the man behind it was in his fifties, which made him twice Mike

Havel's age,- graying blond ponytail, shoulders still massive but the beer gut

straining at his expensive leather jacket, square ruddy face smiling.

"Ken Larsson," he said.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Larsson. Havel's the name-Mike Havel."

"Sorry to drag you out so late in the day,- Dan tells me you were on

vacation."

Havel shrugged. "It's no trouble. I wouldn't be bush-flying out of Boise for a

living if I didn't like it."

That brought a chuckle. You can see he's the type who likes to smile, Havel

thought. But he hasn't been doing a lot of it just lately, and that one's a

fake.

"Midwest?" Larsson said shrewdly. That was a lot to pick up from a few words.

"Minnesota? Got some Svenska in there? We're Swedes ourselves, on my side of

the family."

Not much of a surprise, with a moniker like that, Havel thought. Aloud he went

on: "Not too far off, both times. Michigan-Upper Peninsula, the Iron Range.

Finn, mostly, on my father's side. Lot of Swede in Mom's father's family-and

her mother was Ojibwa, so I'm one-quarter."

He ran a hand over his jet-black hair. "Purebred American mongrel!"

"Havel's an odd name for a Finn," Larsson said. "Czech, isn't it?"

"Yeah. When my great-grandfather got to the Iron Range about a hundred years

ago, the mine's Bohunk pay-clerk heard 'Myllyharju' and said right then and

there: 'From now on, your name is Havel!!"

That got a real laugh,- Signe Larsson looked charming when she smiled.

"My wife, Mary," Larsson went on, and did the introductions.

Her handshake was brief and dry. Mary Larsson was about forty, champagne-

colored hair probably still natural, so slim she was almost gaunt. She had the

same wide-eyed look as her younger daughter, except that it came across as

less like an elf and more like an overbred collie, and her voice was pure Back

Bay Boston, so achingly genteel that she didn't unclench her teeth even for

the vowels.

That accent reminds me of Captain Stoddard, Havel thought,- the New Englander

had led his Force Recon unit across the Iraqi berm back in '91. He had that

thin build, too.

The son and eldest daughter were twins,- both blue-eyed with yellow- blond

hair, tall-the boy was already his father's six-two, which put him three

inches up on Michael Havel, and built like a running back. Eighteen, the same

age as Mike had been when he'd left the Upper Peninsula for the Corps, but

looking younger, and vaguely discontented. His sister . . .

Down boy! Havel thought. Jesus, though, I envy those hip-hugger jeans.

An inch or three below his own five-eleven, short straight nose, dusting of

freckles, and . . .

Jesus what a figure. . . twenty-eight isn't that old. . . .

"Mike's one of my best," Dan said.

"Glad to hear it," Larsson senior said.

Everyone bustled around, signing forms and collecting coats. Havel helped with

the baggage-there wasn't all that much-buttoning his coat but glad to be out

in the clean chill. Then he did a walk-around of the Piper Chieftain. The

ground crew was good, but they weren't going to be taking a twin- engine

puddle jumper over the biggest wilderness in the lower forty-eight.

Larsson's eyebrows went up when Mike loaded his own baggage,- a waterproof

oblong of high-impact synthetics with straps that made it a backpack too, and

the unmistakable shape of a rifle case.

"Something I should know about?" he said.

"Nope, Mr. Larsson," Mike said. "Just routine,- I'm a cautious man."

Larsson nodded. "What's the gun?"

"Remington 700," he said. That was a civilianized version of the Marine sniper

rifle. "I used its first cousin in the Corps, and it makes a good deer rifle,

too."

Signe Larsson sniffed and turned away ostentatiously,- possibly because he was

an ex-Marine, or a hunter.

Oh, well, he thought. I'm dropping them off in a couple of hours, anyway.

Eric Larsson grinned at his sister with brotherly maliciousness. "Hey, maybe

he could shoot you a tofu-lope, sis, now you're back on the vegetarian wagon.

Nothing like a rare tofu-lope steak, charred outside and all white and

bleeding goo on the inside-"

She snorted and climbed the rear-mounted stairs into the Chieftain.

Havel admired the view that presented, waited for everyone else to get in, and

followed. He made discreetly sure that everyone was buckled up-it was amazing

how many people thought money could buy them exemption from the laws of

nature. Then he slid into his own position at the controls and put the

headphones on, while he went through the checklist and cleared things with the

tower and got his mind around the flight plan.

That had the bonus effect of keeping out the Larssons' bickering, which was

quiet but had an undertone like knives. It died away a little as the two

piston engines roared,- he taxied out and hit the throttles. There was the

usual heavy feeling at the first surge of acceleration, and the ground fell

away below.

His feet and hands moved on the pedals and yoke,- Boise spread out below him,

mostly on the north side of the river and mostly hidden in trees, except for

the dome of the state capitol and the scattering of tall buildings downtown.

Suburbs stretched northwest for a ways, and there was farmland to the west and

south, a checkerboard between irrigation canals and ditches that glinted in

quick flashes of brilliance as they threw back the setting sun.

He turned the Chieftain's nose northeast. The ground humped itself up in

billowing curves, rising a couple of thousand feet in a few minutes. Then it

was as if they were flying over a mouth-a tiger's mouth, reaching for the sky

with serrated fangs of saw-toothed granite. Steep ridges, one after another,

rising to the great white peaks of the Bitterroots on the northeastern

horizon, turned ruddy pink with sunset.

Some snow still lay on the crests below and under the shade of the dense

forest that covered the slopes-Douglas fir, hemlock, western cedar-great trees

two hundred feet tall and spiky green. Further north and they passed the

Salmon River, then the Selway, tortuous shapes far below in graven clefts that

rivaled the Grand Canyon. A thousand tributaries wound through steep gorges,

the beginnings of snowmelt sending them brawling and tossing around boulders,a

few quiet stretches were flat and glittering with ice. The updrafts kept the

air rough, and he read the turbulence through hands and feet and body as it

fed back through the controls.

Larsson stuck his head through into the pilot's area.

"Mind if I come up?"

The big man wormed his way forward and collapsed into the copilot's seat.

"Pretty country," he said, waving ahead and down.

Pretty but savage, Havel thought.

He liked that,- one of the perks of this job was that he got to go out in it

himself, hunting or fishing or just backpacking . . . and you could get some

of the hairiest hang gliding on earth here.

"None prettier," the pilot replied aloud.

Poor bastard, Havel thought to himself. Good-looking wife, three healthy kids,

big house in Portland, vineyard in the Eola Hills, ranch up in Montana-he

knows he should be happy and can't quite figure out why he isn't anymore.

He concealed any offensive stranger's sympathy, and switched the other set of

headphones to a commercial station.

"Damnedest thing!" the big man said after a while, his face animated again.

"Yes?" Havel said.

"Odd news from back East," Larsson said. "Some sort of electrical storm off

Cape Cod-not just lightning, a great big dome of lights over Nantucket, half a

dozen different colors. The weather people say they've never seen anything

like it."

Mary Larsson brightened up; she was Massachusetts-born herself.

"That is strange," she said. "We used to summer on Nantucket when I was a

girl-"

Mike Havel grinned to himself and filtered out her running reminiscences and

Larsson's occasional attempts to get a bit in edgewise,- instead he turned to

the news channel himself. The story had gotten her out of her mood, which

would make the trip a lot less tense. Behind her the three Larsson children

were rolling their eyes but keeping silent, which was a relief.

The voice of the on-the-spot reporter cruising over Nantucket Sound started to

range up from awestruck to hysterical.

They're really sounding sort of worried, there, he thought. I wonder what's

going-

White light flashed, stronger than lightning, lances of pain into his eyes,

like red-hot spikes of ice. Havel tasted acid at the back of his throat as he

jerked up his hands with a strangled shout. Vision vanished in a universe of

shattered light, then returned. Returned without even afterimages, as if

something had been switched off with a click. The pain was gone too,

instantly.

Voices screamed behind him. He could hear them well . . .

Because the engines are out, he realized. Every fucking thing is out! She's

dead. And I'm a smear on a mountain unless I get this thing flying again.

That brought complete calm.

"Shut up!" he snapped, working the yoke and pedals, seizing control from the

threatening dive and spin. "Keep quiet and let me work!"

Sound died to somebody's low whimper and the cat's muted yowls of terror. Over

that he could hear the cloven air whistling by. They had six thousand feet

above ground level, and the surface below was as unforgiving as any on earth.

He gave a quick glance to either side, but the ridgetops nearby were

impossible, far too steep and none of them bare of trees. It was a good thing

he knew where all the controls were, because the cabin lights were dead, and

the nav lights too,- not a single circuit working.

Not good, he thought. Not good. Not. . .fucking . . . good.

He ran through the starting procedure, one step and another and bit the button

. . .

Nothing, he cursed silently, as he went through the emergency restart three

times and got three identical meaningless click sounds.

The engines are fucked. What the hell could knock everything out like this?

What was that whitewash?

It could have been an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse,- that would account for

all the electrical systems being out. He sincerely hoped not, because about

the only way to produce an EMP that powerful was to set off a nuke in the

upper atmosphere.

The props were spinning as they feathered automatically. She still responded

to the yoke-Thank God!-but even the instrument panel was mostly inert,

everything electrical gone. The artificial horizon and altimeter were old-

fashioned hydraulics and still working, and that was about it. The radio was

completely dead, not even a flip of static as he worked the switches.

With a full load, the Chieftain wasn't a very good glider. They could clear

the ridge ahead comfortably, but probably not the one beyond-they got higher

as you went northeast. Better to put her down in this valley, with a little

reserve of height to play around with.

"All right," he said, loud but calm as the plane silently floated over rocks

and spots where the long straw-brown stems of last year's grass poked out

through the snow.

"Listen. The engines are out and I can't restart them. I'm taking us down. The

only flat surface down there is water. I'm going to pancake her on the creek

at the bottom of the valley. It'll be rough, so pull your straps tight and

then duck and put your heads in your arms. You, kid"-Eric Larsson was in the

last seat, near the rear exit-"when we stop, get that door open and get out.

Make for the shore,- it's a narrow stream. Everyone else follow him. Fast.

Now shut up."

He banked the plane, sideslipping to lose altitude. Christ Jesus, it's dark

down there.

There was still a little light up higher, but below the crest line he had to

strain his eyes to catch the course of the water. The looming walls on either

side were at forty-five degrees or better, it would have been like flying

inside a closet with the light out if the valley hadn't pointed east-west, and

the creek was rushing water over rocks fringed with dirty ice.

Thank God the moon's up.

He strained his eyes . . . yes, a slightly flatter, calmer section. It ended

in a boulder about the size of the mobile home he lived in, water foaming

white on both sides.

So I'll just have to stop short of that.

In. In. Sinking into night, shadow reaching up. Gliding, the valley walls

rearing higher on either hand, trees reaching out like hands out of darkness

to grasp the Piper and throw it into a burning wreck. Lightly, lightly, bleed

off speed with the flaps but don't let her stall, keep control. . .

Then he was nearly down, moving with shocking speed over the churning riffled

surface silvered by moonlight. Here goes.

"Brace for impact!" he shouted, and pulled the nose up at the last instant,

straining at the control yoke. They were past the white-water section,- it

should be deeper here.

"Come on, you bitch, do it!"

The tail struck, with a jolt that snapped his teeth together like the world's

biggest mule giving him a kick in the ass. Then the belly of the Chieftain

pancaked down on the water and they were sliding forward in a huge rooster

tail of spray, scrubbing speed off in friction. And shaking like a car with no

shocks on a real bad road as they hit lumps of floating ice. Another chorus of

screams and shouts came from the passengers, but he ignored them in the

diamond clarity of concentration.

Too fast, he thought.

The boulder at the end of the flat stretch was rearing up ahead of him like

God's flyswatter. He snarled at death as it rushed towards him and stamped on

the left rudder pedal with all his strength and twisted at the yoke-the

ailerons would be in the water and should work to turn the plane. If he could-

The plane swiveled, then struck something hard below the surface. That caught

the airframe for an instant, and inertia punched them all forward before the

aluminum skin tore free with a scream of rending metal.

Then they were pinwheeling, spinning across the water like a top in a fog of

droplets and shaved ice as they slowed. Another groan from the frame, and he

shouted as an impact wrenched at them again, brutally hard. Loose gear flew

across the cabin like fists. Things battered him, sharp and gouging, and his

body was rattled back and forth in the belt like a dried pea in a can, nothing

to see, only a sense of confused rushing speed. . . .

Then the plane was down by the nose and water was rilling in around his feet,

shocking him with the cold. They were sinking, fast, and there was almost no

light now, just a gray gloaming far above.

With a gurgling rush the ice water swept over the airplane's cockpit windows.

Hopping Toad Tavern, Corvallis, Oregon Tuesday, March 17th, 1998 6:14:30 P.M.,

Pacific Time-Change minus thirty seconds

"On a bright Beltane morning I rise from my sleep And softly go walking Where

the dark is yet deep And the tall eastern mountain With its stretch to the sky

Casts a luminous shadow Where my true love doth lie-"

_Juniper Mackenzie dropped her guitar at the intolerable white spike of pain

driving into her eyes, but she managed to get a foot underneath it before it

hit the floor. Shouts of alarm gave way to groans of disappointment from the

crowd in the Hopping Toad as the lights and amplifier stayed off.

Whoa! she thought. Goddess Mother-oj-Alh That hurt!

But it was gone quickly too, just the memory and no lingering ache. There was

a flashlight in her guitar case,- she reached in and fumbled for it, searching

by touch in complete blackness, with only a fading gray gloaming towards the

front of the cafe-the sun was just down behind the Coast Range. The batteries

were fresh, but nothing happened when she thumbed the switch except a click,

more felt through her thumb than heard.

Wait a minute. There's nothing coming in the front windows from the

streetlights! And they went on five minutes ago. It's as dark as a yard up a

hog's butt.

She could hear a tinkling crash, and shouts, faint with distance. This isn't a

blown fuse. Plus every dog in Corvallis was howling, from the sound of it.

"Well, people, it must be a power failure," she said, her trained singer's

voice carrying through the hubbub and helping quiet it. "And in a second, our

good host Dennis will-"

The flick of a lighter and then candlelight broke through the darkness,

looking almost painfully bright. The Toad was a long rectangle, with the

musicians' dais at the rear, the bar along one side and a little anteroom at

the front, where a plate-glass window gave on to Monroe Avenue. The evening

outside was overcast, damp and mildly chilly,- which in the Willamette Valley

meant it could have been October, or Christmas.

With the streetlights out, the whole town of Corvallis, Oregon, must be dark

as the proverbial porker's lower intestine. There were more crashes, a few

more shouts, and more sounds of bending metal and tinkling glass, and the

chorus of howls gave way to ragged barking,

Dennis at the bar was a friend of hers,- he got her drinks for free, not to

mention gigs like this now and then. Wearily she cursed her luck,- it was a

pretty good crowd for a weekday, too,- mostly students from OSU, with some

leftover hippies as well-most of the valley towns had some, though Corvallis

wasn't swarming with them the way Eugene was-and they'd all given a good hand

to the first two tunes.

She'd been on a roll, hitting the songs the way they were meant. And if this

power-out hadn't happened, she'd have made a decent night's take for doing the

thing she liked best in all the world. There were already a scattering of

bills in the open guitar case at her feet for gravy.

More candles came out, and people put them in the wrought-iron holders along

the scrubbed brick walls-ornamental usually, but perfectly functional,

hand-made by Dennis's elder brother John, who was a blacksmith, and even more

of a leftover hippie than Dennis was. In a few minutes, the tavern was lit

brightly enough that you could have read, if you didn't mind eyestrain.

The waxy scent of the candles cut through the usual patchouli-and- cooking

odors of the Toad,- the stoves were all gas, so food kept coming out. Juniper

shrugged and grinned to herself.

"Well, you don't have to see all that well to listen," she called out. "It's

the same with music as with drink: Seleitjheas na poite ol arts. The cure is

more of the same!"

That got a laugh,- she switched to her fiddle and gave them a Kevin Burke tune

in six-eight time, one of the ones that had enchanted her with this music back

in her early days. The jig set feet tapping and the craic flowing,- when she'd

finished she got out her seven-string and swung into her own version of "Gypsy

Rover." The audience started joining in the choruses, which was always a good

sign.

Maybe being in a mild emergency together gave them more fellow- feeling. Some

people were leaving, though . . . and then most of them came back, looking

baffled and frustrated.

"Hey, my car won't start!" one said, just as she'd finished her set. "There's

a couple of cars stopped in the road, too."

Off in the distance came an enormous wbump sound not quite like anything she'd

ever heard. Half a second later the ground shook, like a mild compressed

earthquake, or standing next to someone when they dropped an anvil. A shiver

went through her heart, like the snapping of a thread.

"What the hell was that?" someone shouted.

"Looks like a big fire just started downtown, but there aren't any sirens!"

The hubbub started again, people milling around,- then two young men in fleece

vests came in. They were helping along an older guy,- he had an arm over each

shoulder, and his face was streaming with blood.

"Whoa!" she said, jumping down from the dais. "Hey there! Let me through-I

know some first aid."

By the time she got there Dennis had the kit out and the two students had the

injured man sitting down in one of the use-polished wooden chairs. One of the

waitresses brought a bowl of water and a towel, and she used it to mop away

the blood.

It looked worse than it was,- head wounds always bled badly, and this was a

simple pressure-cut over the forehead, heading a ways back up into the scalp.

The man was awake enough to wince and try to pull away as she dabbed

disinfectant ointment on the cut and did what she could with bandages. Dennis

put a candle in her hand,- she held it in front of one of the man's eyes, and

then the other.

Maybe the left is a little less responsive than the right, she thought.

The man blinked, but he seemed to be at least minimally aware of where he was.

"Thanks," he said, his voice slurred. "I was driving fine, and then there was

this flash and my car stopped. Well, the engine did, and then I hit a

streetlamp-"

"I think this guy needs to get to a hospital," she said. "He might have a

concussion, and he probably ought to have a couple of stitches."

Dennis looked sad at the best of times,- he was a decade and change older than

her, in his late forties, and going bald on top with a ponytail behind. As if

to compensate he had a bushy soup-strainer mustache and muttonchops in

gray-streaked brown, and big, mournful, russet brown eyes.

He always reminded her of the Walrus in Alice, even more so given his

pear-shaped body, big fat-over-muscle arms and shoulders and an impressive

gut. Now he turned his great hands palm-up.

S. M. Stirling - Dies the Fire 01 - Dies the Fire

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