Veteran by Gavin Smith

Author:Gavin Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780575094109
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2010-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

I found Rannu standing away from one of the fires. Casually concealed.

‘Where is she?’ I asked. He nodded at the fire. Morag was standing by the fire but away from the rest of the people warming themselves. I walked towards her.

‘Jakob?’ Rannu said. I turned on him, assuming he was about to say something about Morag.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I spat. He was mostly getting my spite from the previous conversation with everyone. Rannu remained as impassive as ever.

‘I was going to say ... the sickness,’ he said.

‘What about it?’ I asked.

‘It’s no way for a warrior to die.’ I wasn’t sure: maybe he looked sad or maybe it was the flickering shadows thrown by the fire.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘And call me a warrior again and I’ll shoot you in the back just to prove a point.’ Rannu smiled. ‘Can you leave us?’ I asked him. He seemed to ponder my request and maybe he was considering me and the kind of person I was. Whatever he was thinking, it seemed like a long time before he nodded and walked back towards Gibby’s car.

‘Hey,’ I said as I approached the fire. Morag looked up; she’d obviously been crying.

‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Come to spend some time with the hybrid whore? Give me five hundred euros and I’ll suck your cock.’ She turned back to the fire blinking away tears. With impact-resistant plastic instead of eyes, I wasn’t able to cry; hearing that I wished I could. I sat down cross-legged next to her and drew a burning stick from the fire, using it to light a cigarette. I thought about what had happened. She was eighteen years old, and a group of men with a combined age of over one hundred and fifty had effectively ganged up on her to give her a hard time. That wasn’t what it had seemed like at the time, but in retrospect that was what had happened. Why would they, why would we, do that?

‘They’re frightened,’ I said, looking up at her. She glanced down at me but went back to staring in the fire. ‘We’re frightened,’ I corrected myself. ‘Well maybe not Buck and Gibby; they’re just arseholes.’

‘Mudge is as well.’

‘Yes, but he’ll die for you,’ I said with certainty.

‘Huh?’

‘He’s just like that with his friends. I suspect he tries to keep their numbers low by behaving like a prick, and he’s also frightened.’ She turned and looked at me.

‘Do you think I’m a hybrid?’ she asked.

‘You’re prettier than Them,’ I said, and straight away knew I’d said the wrong thing. How was it she was eighteen and smarter than me?

‘And that’s it, isn’t it? I shouldn’t fucking bother trying to make things better for myself or anyone else. I should just lie on my back and be happy with the ... the ... fucking commodity that I’ve got, yeah?’ she spat.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Tell me something, Jakob. Do you miss me being afraid? Do you miss the frightened little made-up girl-whore you found

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.