SBLM

The landing field is empty, no defenses, no notice we’re even here. Lieutenant Farago lands us with expert grace, cracks the hatch seals, and tells us he has no idea why, but there’s nobody here to receive us.

“Sorry!” he says. “Those wars were so long ago, right?”

Then a truck pulls up and two Marines get out. Land-based, sea-based, not space. They look young and serious. Here it is, I think—we weren’t expected and this is the first reaction.

But then the Marines solemnly tell us they’re here to receive war casualties, and Tak, Borden, Ishikawa, Ishida, and I go to the hold with Farago and bring the bags forward. A couple of casualty gurneys are rolled up the Hawksbill ramp. The Marines carefully lay the bodies on the gurneys and drape them with flags—one Russian Federation, the other U.S. of A.

Ishida asks how they heard about us and what we were carrying. Farago says he didn’t communicate.

“Radio transmission from orbit,” the senior Marine, a sergeant, tells us. “Some Russian, we were told. Are there more Russians up there?”

We all acknowledge that.

“Anyway, we’re also told you have a special artifact here, and that a deal has been made for it to be well cared for at a top science facility. We’ve asked for some people to meet us. Should be here shortly.”

The two Marines look at each other, and then a large isolation vehicle, like those used to transport spent matter, rides up the runway and meets us at the ramp.

“Any idea what this is?” a female technician asks, tapping the box.

“A brave soldier gave it to us to take care of,” I say. “We’ll want to see the facility. We want maximum assurance it’ll be well tended to.”

Borden steps forward and says, “We’re taking charge.” She looks at Ishikawa, who moves up beside her. I knew nothing about this. Why should I?

“Absolutely, Commander,” the sergeant says. “Uh … mind if we make sure you still hold that rank?”

“I’ll wait.”

We wait. Borden’s rank and active-duty status are confirmed, her connections are confirmed—and she assures us Bird Girl’s offspring will be their highest duty, their highest priority, from this point on. Neither Borden nor Ishikawa have ever given me real reason to doubt them.

And it could be a good career move, a good way to stay important and rise in the ranks. They might make admiral yet.

Other ambulances arrive and technicians supply us with civilian clothing—all in the proper sizes. And regulation underwear for males and females. Skivvies, modesty panties, sports bras. The pajamas made by the searchers are shed and collected by the technicians. We suit up, no modesty whatsoever, and then stand for a while in the shadow of the transport, not sure what to say. We’ve been through a lot and spent a lot of time together.

Farago finds a task he has to do back in the cabin. The technicians look embarrassed. They have no idea who we are or what we’re going to do next.

It’s awkward.

“It’s like we’ve known each other our entire lives,” Ishikawa says.

“I don’t know what to do next,” Tak says, with a long look at me. “Might go join Joe and DJ, if they let me. What about you?”

“I’m going to Seattle,” I say. “If anyone will have me.”

Farago is back in earshot, up in the hold.

“They still allow hitchhiking?” I ask him, leaning around the outer bulkhead.

“Sure!” he says. “If you don’t like the ambulances, I could probably get you any kind of vehicle you want. Might take an hour. Base is on half-duty status, mostly empty now.”

Borden shakes her head and crinkles the bridge of her nose, looking across the tarmac. We all know what she’s feeling. We’re done. We survived, but everybody on Earth has moved on and we’re left out.

I nod and say that an ambulance is fine, to start.

Tak says he wants, needs, to go back to Japan. Ishida says she’s going to stay stateside for the time being, feels more comfortable here. Borden and Ishikawa are going with the truck that will carry the egg.

And then, we just climb into our conveyances and spread out. We don’t say good-bye, just let the truck and ambulances take us every which direction.

I’m intent on getting my Earth legs back as fast as I can, and that means walking, running, with as little help as possible. I tell the two technicians to drop me off at the demob.

The technicians, both young, both female, both Marines, look at each other before the senior in rank, a corporal, answers. “It isn’t open anymore. Everybody’s back who’s coming back.” They want to ask me, “Who the fuck are you, anyway?” But they don’t.

“How long?” I ask.

“Seventeen years since they stopped shipping us up and out,” the corporal says. “We think we should take you to Madigan and get you checked out.”

“No thank you,” I say. “I’d like to walk. Just let me out right over there. Okay?”

Another look. With no contradictory orders, they comply.

Pretty soon I realize that nobody down here cares one way or another. Earth, or at least Lewis-McCord, is no longer on alert. I walk. Grass grows in patches through cracks in the airstrip concrete and sidewalks. I don’t run into anybody. There are people driving and walking, way far away, but the base is almost deserted.

I’m alone. For once, I’m alone and it feels good. No voices in my head.

I pass through the open gates, guard shack empty, and walk across an overpass to the businesses on the other side of the freeway. Not many people present there, either. It’s early in the morning, traffic on the freeway is light, sun is just breaking through the clouds of the far eastern horizon. I can barely make out Rainier. It has its own spreading white mushroom cap, but that’s breaking up and showing the snowy slopes of the very real and terrestrial volcano—still there.

Still here.

I walk along the marginal road. I can still walk. I can still take a breath. The air is unbelievably sweet and everything is so amazingly wide open. I want to cry, really want to cry, but the tears aren’t there.

Not yet.

My head is … okay, for now. I’m as home as I’m ever going to be, and I’m going to have to figure out if that makes me happy, might ever make me whole again.

I wonder what Borden’s going to arrange for the egg. I vow I’ll check up on that as soon as I get my act together, my civilian act.

But I doubt she’ll tell me.

Joe or Jacobi, or both, will get things done on Mars—maybe help them dispose of the spent-matter surplus out on some plain somewhere. But Joe won’t stay there forever.

I should look up the others, too, wherever they’ve hauled off to. We’ll probably run into each other in the next few months, one way or another. I need friends. I know that, but for the moment the luxury of being lonely, of walking with my own trembling legs along the asphalt and over the gravel, then breaking from the road and entering the unguarded scrub woods …

I wonder if I can find the Muskies.

More important for the moment, I wonder if somebody will give me a ride into downtown. Wonder if the apartment is still there, still ours, and will recognize me. Wonder if Pike Place Market is still open, still active. I’d love to grab a fresh bunch of celery and chow down. But I don’t have any money. No ID. I don’t want to ask for help, but the technicians gave me a list of numbers to call, and some advice on how to pick up my last paycheck, if there are still accounts for former Skyrines.

If some cop stops me, I might spend the night in jail, as a vagrant.

I keep getting this falling sensation in my head, but I’m not falling. I’m walking and looking and breathing and everything’s all right, nothing external is challenging me. Pretty soon I’m going to get hungry, and then I’ll have to figure things out.

The marginal road goes on and on, past boarded-up businesses—fast food, payday loans, car dealerships—all closed. Effectively, no more SBLM.

The Hawksbill we rode back on has taken off from the cracked, overgrown runway, flown over me on the marginal road, leaving a smelly rainbow trail, flying off to I do not have the slightest idea where.

My God. I’ve seen it all, almost from the start and now past the finish. We’ve shed the Gurus, and while there’s still a military—where are they stationed?

A small pink car whizzes by, like a grapefruit on wheels. I stick out my thumb. My beard is thick; I could be any sort of psycho. The grapefruit doesn’t even slow.

But another car, an older green hybrid, slows, stops, backs up, and the passenger-side window rolls down.

“Where you heading?” a young woman asks, checking me over, not unkindly, as if I might have lice.

“Well, I’d like to get to Disneyland, eventually.”

She looks at me with a squint. “Can’t take you that far,” she says. “How long you been hitching?”

“Long time,” I say.

She unlocks the door and I climb into the kind woman’s car. “You look like a soldier,” she says.

“Am I that far gone?”

She smiles. “My father used to fly out of here.” Then she looks at me more closely, with a frown. “There was that one ship this morning … But that can’t be you. Can it? They were coming back from Mars or someplace. It was on the Net.”

I shake my head. “What year is it?”

That same expression, but she tells me. I thought I heard seventeen years, but that didn’t account for how long we’d been gone, overall, before the war was declared over and the Wait Staff and Gurus were cleared up, cleared out, handed over to the starshina’s ship.

Time has really been messed up for those who went to the limit and returned. It’s been thirty years since we flew out to Mars.

There are still cars, but they don’t fly—so I suppose we’re on our own again, moving at our own human pace.

I GET OUT in downtown Seattle and say thanks and good-bye. I decide against Pike Place Market, since I don’t have money, and walk across the city, my legs barely able to move as I approach the tower where our apartment was. The tower is still there. It looks older, not so well taken care of.

At the front glass entrance, I poke in the old security code.

Wonder of wonders, the door opens.

I take the shuddering elevator up to the right floor, and as the door opens to let me out, I see an elderly woman with white-flecked black hair, quite plump, wearing a nicely tailored pantsuit, waiting for me.

“Welcome back, Skyrine!” she says.

At my look, she puts her hands on her ample hips and gives me a glare.

“It’s Alice, First Lieutenant Alice Harper—fuckhead!” she says. “I heard you might be coming back. Joe sent me a call from Mars. He says you should look me up, and here you are! Anybody else with you?”

I tell her not yet.

The apartment’s very different, but there’s a spare bedroom, I meet Alice’s husband, a nice enough guy, a former Air Force flight surgeon, but not a prick about it—they’ve been married twenty years and living here, taking care of the place—

But first, Alice goes to the refrigerator and brings me a head of celery, green and freshly washed, dripping. “I remember, Vinnie,” she says. “Welcome home.”

I take the celery and hold it in my hands, not quite sure what to do with something so utterly precious.

“What about Teal?” I ask.

Alice takes a deep breath. “She’s in Africa, I think,” she says. “She’s widowed again, and Division Four buddies tell me she’s been asking if she can return to Mars. Martians always want to go home, isn’t that right, Stu?” she asks her husband.

He smiles. “That’s what we hear. But she’s pretty old now.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Alice asks. Stu demurs.

They hand me a glass of apple juice that gives me a solid sugar high, and Stu loans me a pair of pajamas—real pajamas, flannel, corded—and then they take me to the guest room and insist I sleep and after that, join them for breakfast.