Tropic of Creation Read Online Free

rules.…
    Noting his gaze, Sascha asked, “What about the underground cave, Captain?” He was marshaling his arguments.
If there are ahtra down there, it will take an officer to handle the encounter; its a political matter, not a firefight…
but the justification could come later.
The longer you think, the worse your decision
, went the army adage.
    The chance of a lifetime rang in his ears. After a beat, Eli answered, making up his mind. “I’ll be going down.”
    “Can I come with you?”
    “No place for a lady,” he said, straight-faced.
    She regarded him with an icy stare. “Will you bring Captain Marzano with you?”
    “I expect not.”
    That seemed to mollify Sascha, who monitored the doling out of adventures with great acuity.
    Eli picked Sascha’s hat off the rock where she’d discarded it and handed it to her. “Mrs. Olander will be happier with me if you wear this. Help me win some points?”
    Sascha sighed and donned the hat, a world-weary expression flitting across her face.
    Geoff Olander nodded in the direction of the next wadi. “Think there’s something down there, then?”
    I hope so
, sprang to Eli’s mind. It was a Dammond brother’s response. Always a nose for trouble, drawn to the action. Sometimes the action was more than they bargained for. Now three of his four brothers were dead, killed in the war—the real war, Eli’s father said, not the elite officer’s war, cushioned by command, out of the fray.
    Once, coming back from officer candidate school, Eli and his father had duked it out over whether Eli thought he was too good for enlisted rank. Neither could rememberwho swung first, but they both landed some hard blows. Later, spent and gasping, they washed up together and sat down to dinner at the big family table. Nobody said a word about their bruises, swelling like bread dough.
    Geoff was still waiting for his answer.
    “Only one way to find out,” Eli finally said.
    From the distance came the grinding shudder of the hexadron, having another go at the hard pan floor of the wadi.

3

    S ascha Olander and her parents had a deluxe tent, officer-quality issue straight off the newly arrived
Lucia
. Nearby, Captain Marzano’s tent sagged from three years of peeling-hot sun. Geoff Olander had offered their tent to Marzano. But she had declined, as she should.
    In the middle of that spacious tent, Sascha sat on a chair as her mother rewove her braid in front of the silver-edged mirror that she’d hung from the tent pole.
    Sascha pursued her point, though her mother was weary of the topic: “Why do you hate him so?”
    “I don’t hate him.” Cristin pulled the braid so tight Sascha’s temples ached.
    “Despise him, then.”
    “I neither despise nor hate him, dear. I seldom regard him at all.” She secured the braid with a band, frowning at the wisps that sprang loose.
    “That’s so … dismissive,” Sascha returned with some heat. “You’re just like all the rest.”
    Her father looked up from his worktable, catching Sascha’s eye, conveying his rebuke.
    For his sake, Sascha toned it down a notch. “We’re friends, Mother. I just want to watch him go into the mine. Or whatever it is.”
    “It’s a military matter. You’ll just be in the way.” Cristin checked her own hair in the mirror, the short-cropped, stylish cut of a woman graduated from girlish braids.
    Sascha needed a deep, cooling breath, but when she inhaled, all she got was a chest full of Null’s hot, yeasty air.
    From the shadows in back her father’s voice came. “It may not hurt, Cristin. I’ll go with her.”
    Cristin turned on her husband with ferocity. “You always give in. Each little thing just encourages her. You don’t remember what it’s like, the obligations she’ll have. She’s nearly grown, Geoff.”
    “Then, for God’s sake, let her have a few more days of childhood.”
    Sascha could see the fire stoked in her mother’s eyes. “You think that’s going to make it easier on