The Man-Kzin Wars 07

CHAPTER TWELVE

Carol Faulk stood near the force-window, beside the puppeteer, and tasted ashes in her mouth.

She watched Bruno Takagama walk toward the opening in the force-shields. Vanish from sight, into the long shape of the converted puppeteer spacecraft. She burned to run after him, to somehow stop him. Instead, the force-shield stopped her.

"Carol," he had told her as she raged and cursed, "there is a chance that you might survive. If you go with me, you will die with us.". Bruno had looked at the alien sky, and then back at her. "I want you to live. It is my choice.”

Soldier, shut up and soldier, echoed her own voice, used during the Third Wave the kzin had sent against Earth so long ago. It is every soldier's right to choose life for a friend or lover. And Bruno, small and weak as he was, turned out to be a soldier indeed.

She couldn't even hate the puppeteer. It was Bruno's Finagle-damned choice to go on this suicide mission with a puppeteer warrior and a kzin.

Carol hated to admit the truth: If the tables had been turned, she would have done the same thing to earn Bruno a chance to live.

She didn't have to like it.

"Is it time?" Carol asked Diplomat. The three-legged alien looked at Carol for a long time before replying. "Yes," it finally sang. "It is." "You have everything under control," she said bitterly. "Can I wish them luck, or is that under your control, too?”

The alien stared at her again, from two angles. "No, Captain Faulk, I will join you in wishing them luck. Random chance is one thing even we cannot control, though we have tried." Carol puzzled over that statement as the force-shield around the converted puppeteer spacecraft's airlock shimmered and vanished. Bruno was gone, her heart knew as well as her head.