“You’d be killing yourself! You can’t! There’ll be nothing after this!”
“That’s the difference between you and me, Rada,” says Mulaghesh. She wedges the grenade between her left arm and her body and puts her finger in the ring. “You think what you’re doing is a victory over death, in its own way. But I know there’s no beating it. So I’m not afraid.”
She closes her eyes.
***
Corporal Udit Raghavan grips his rifling as the auto bounces down the path to the polis governor’s house. He listens carefully as General Biswal speaks in the backseat, his voice calm, controlled. Raghavan has been close to Biswal all throughout the excursion into the highlands, and has seen an extraordinary amount of fighting in the past week; but one thing that both calms him and excites him is Biswal’s seemingly impenetrable serenity, which appears to stem from an unshakable belief that what they’re doing is absolutely, unimpeachably right.
Doubt is not a thing that exists for General Lalith Biswal. And this unspoken belief spreads to his soldiers.
And Raghavan, like many of his comrades, has desperately needed this in the past few days. In the mire of the highland settlements, when civilians were almost indistinguishable from insurgents, when a child of fourteen could somehow produce a pistol from within its rags and point it at your friends and comrades and fire away…Raghavan badly needed the shelter of Biswal’s confidence not only to pull the trigger when he needed to, but also to forget the bodies left behind: some of which were quite young, or quite old, and, occasionally, unarmed.
The fog of war is an inevitability, he remembers Biswal saying. We must accept it and move on.
He listens to Biswal now as the polis governor’s house comes into view: “…must make sure to take all necessary precautions. General Mulaghesh might be one-handed, but despite this she is one of the most accomplished soldiers I have ever commanded, and it appears she has lost none of her talent. Remain aware of that—but do not shoot unless the situation is critical.”
“Do we know anything about General Mulaghesh’s motives, sir?” asks a lieutenant.
“We do not,” says Biswal. “But her collusion with the Dreylings is extraordinarily troubling. She knew of threats to our national security, and she chose not to reveal them to us.”
“Are…Are you saying she’s a traitor, sir?” asks the lieutenant.
Biswal is silent for a very long while. “I find that difficult to believe, even now. But she has lied to us since she first came here. And her lies have endangered the souls of everyone in this city, and in Fort Thinadeshi.”
One of the soldiers curses under his breath.
“I am concerned,” says Biswal. “I will say that. I am very concerned.”
The auto comes to a stop before the polis governor’s house. Biswal steps out and discusses the situation with the sergeant who was first on site. Then he says, “I’m going in to talk to her. For now, we need to establish a perimeter. We’re extremely close to the harbor, and the Dreylings are well-armed and highly disciplined. Be on alert.”
Raghavan watches as Biswal and his lieutenant enter the home. Then he takes a forward post, overlooking the cliff that leads down to the harbor.
It’s difficult for Raghavan to come to terms with his disgust, his outrage. He looks back up at the polis governor’s house. It’s traitorous to think so, but he half hopes Biswal will shoot her. It’d be a terrible incident, but then the press might get involved, and they’d see how suspicious her conduct has been, and then perhaps they’d turn their gaze toward Ghaladesh, and the prime minister, and what she’s asking of her soldiers.
Then he frowns. Something’s wrong.
He can see Private Mahajan standing in the trees just before the house; but then Mahajan jumps as if startled, and starts to turn, but he hasn’t lifted his gun.
Raghavan’s mouth falls open as a figure rises out of the bracken. Someone tall with a sheen of gold on their head…Blond hair? A Dreyling?
And is that a rifling she has in her hand, using it as a support?
She lifts the rifling up…
Raghavan hears himself saying stop. He feels himself moving. It’s as if he’s out of his body, reacting completely by instinct, the stock of the rifling hitting his shoulder, the sights swinging to rest on the figure….
And suddenly all the experiences he’s just had out in the highlands come rushing back to him. The children with bolt-shots shooting at them from ditches; the old woman he tried to help stand up trying to cut him with a tiny knife; returning from a patrol to find Private Mishra facedown in the road, a screaming teenage shtani girl stabbing him over and over again, and Raghavan pulled out his pistol and he…
Pop.
The rifling leaps in his hands.
The figure falls to the ground among the bracken.
Raghavan blinks as he looks down the sights.
Did I do that?
Even from here he can see Private Mahajan’s eyes widen in shock. Mahajan shouts, “No! No! Who fired? Who fired!”
Raghavan doesn’t answer. He lowers his rifling and sprints up the hill to Mahajan. Other soldiers are streaming over as well.
Mahajan is stooped in the bracken, screaming, “Who fired? Who the fuck was it who fired? We need a medic over here! We need a fucking medic over here!”
“What happened?” says Raghavan as he nears. “Who was that?”
“She was surrendering!” shouts Mahajan. “I was talking to her! She was surrendering! Who the fuck was it who fired, damn you!”
Raghavan’s stomach goes cold. “They…They had a gun….”
Mahajan looks at him. “Was it you? Was it you, Corporal? She was surrendering, damn it. She was giving me the gun, Corporal! Do you have any idea who you’ve shot? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Raghavan looks over Mahajan’s shoulder at the body on the ground.
His hand flies to his mouth.
“Oh, no,” he whispers. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”
***
Mulaghesh can hear boards splintering above her. Her knuckle around the pin on the grenade is white. Her heart is beating so fast her blood is a roar in her ears.
Just do it, she thinks. Just pull already! What are you waiting for? Don’t think; just do it!
But her hand doesn’t move.
“You don’t have the courage for it, do you,” says Rada.
“Like hells I don’t,” says Mulaghesh, sweating.
“Well, if you do…I always thought a Saypuri would kill me,” says Rada. “It only gives me a slight pleasure to know that you’ll die with me.”
The faint voices of the sentinels are still echoing in her head:
“…brought the blade down and I grinned and laughed to feel the blood upon my face…”
“…charged forward and our feet ate up the earth and we howled to the sun above us and made it know fear…”
“…abandoned the children to run from us, but it did not matter, young or old they were our foes…”
“Damn you for making me choose to do this, Rada,” she says. “And damn my own soldiers for saving you in Bulikov, for doing their job.”