The Philosopher's War by Tom Miller

Author:Tom Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

17

There’s no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.

Mary Grinning Fox, “Instructions for Instructors,” 1874

KIYO FELL TO THE GROUND, blood pouring from her chest like it was being dumped from a bucket. She didn’t manage a word. She didn’t lift her head.

One of the men was shouting at the one with the gun; the other had his hands on the barrel, trying to force it down.

“C’est une fille!” cried one.

“Femmes!” shouted the other.

“American!” yelled Pitcairn. “Américain! Nous sommes américains! Ne tirez pas!”

Millen was on her knees beside Kiyo, pawing through her workbag. She grabbed a bandage and pressed it to the exit wound on Kiyo’s back. It soaked through instantly.

“Stasis!” Millen cried. “Synge! You’re a doctor!”

Punnett had her hands over her face. The old man with the gun was crying hysterically.

“I can’t,” whispered Synge.

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“It doesn’t work if she’s already dead,” I said.

The blood was soaking into the knees of Millen’s skysuit. The Frenchman with the shotgun was still covering us. He was pointing it at me.

“Ne tirez pas!” Pitcairn said. “Américain. Don’t shoot.”

“Tell him there are Germans outside,” Synge said. “Tell him we’re taking samples.”

“That’s all the French I know,” Pitcairn said.

“Anglais?” I asked. The men shook their heads.

Punnett was sobbing. Millen was trying to wipe her hands on the thighs of her skysuit, but her coveralls were so soaked that her hands came away bloodier.

“Je suis une philosophe,” I said, repeating the prayer from flight school. “Je suis une américaine. Je suis une amie.”

The men looked at one another and gestured for me to continue.

“Of course they believe a fucking man,” Pitcairn breathed beside me.

“The German smoke,” I said. “Smoke, umm, des Allemandes.”

“Fumée,” Synge suggested.

“Fumée des Allemandes. We’re going to make medicine. Medizin?”

“Médicament?” tried Pitcairn.

“Oui,” I said. “Médicament pour fumée des Allemandes.”

The Frenchmen looked baffled.

Pitcairn tried Cadwallader’s line upon the liberation of Paris forty-seven years earlier: “Vive la France! Vive la Paris! Vive la Gambetta!”

“Vive le Corps! Vive Madame Cadwallader! Vive Madame Tyndale!” the man in the center answered. He lowered his gun.

“We need the, umm, fumée dans cellar,” I tried. The men shook their heads again.

“Fumée dans basement,” Pitcairn said, pointing at Dr. Synge. “Can someone take her downstairs?”

“Aidez-la à la cave,” Millen said, still kneeling on the ground with her eyes closed. “Elle est docteur. Elle analysera l’air. Elle fera la médecine.”

At last the men understood what we wanted to do. One offered his hand to Synge and led her down the hall to the basement stairs. Punnett was sitting on the ground, sobbing, her knees pulled up to her chin. Pitcairn knelt beside her and held her, petting Punnett’s hair.

“Shh,” Pitcairn said. “Sweetie, you have to be quiet.”

“Nous pouvons cacher sa corps,” one of the men suggested to Millen, pointing to Kiyo.

Millen kept her eyes shut. She shook her head. “Non. Une couverture, s’il vous plait. We’ll wrap her up. We’ll take her body with us.”

Their conversation was cut short by the noise of another engine in the town

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