Handel sat in the farmer's kitchen, Hengsha at his side, awaiting the fight that Sami's message had promised would come today. Around the table, four other women pretended to be houseguests while their rifles waited in their laps, loaded and ready.
Any second, the Mauves would come pouring in from the forest, thinking they had the element of surprise. As soon as the enemy was spotted, Handel would know about it, thanks to the ear-radio he had pinched from someone who had an extra.
To Handel's pleasant surprise, nobody seemed to care that he was male. No one had tried to bully him or make passes at him, and no one had even stared at him. They had seemed to take more interest in silent Hengsha.
If only you knew, Handel thought. Hengsha's past was a dirty little secret that only he and a few others knew. And of those, only he and that primitive moron Nakasi knew that Hengsha was back on the battlefield. Zanele and Tongana would never have to know how exactly Handel was 'integrating' Hengsha into the town.
Handel saw Hengsha holding her head in both hands, ignoring the internet article he had projected in front of her.
"What's the matter?" he asked her. "Having second thoughts about fighting?"
"No." She sat upright. "No. I'm not a coward. I want to go fight." Her spine slackened again. "But shooting at Sabers seemed like more fun before. I know they're dangerous. I don't want to die in my first fight I actually want to be in."
"It's okay to be scared," said Handel. "No shame at all. Considering what the Mauves want to do to this place, you should be scared."
She shuddered.
"But they're not going to," he added. "The clans are a dying breed, and we'll beat them back now, just like we will every time until there's nothing left but civilization."
"You mean they'll die out? How?"
Handel turned to her. "Let me ask you something. What do you worship? Do you have any spirits?"
"Not really." She leaned in and whispered, "Back in the clan, we worshipped Sabertooth. We thought she'd judge us after we died, and if we did well, she'd take us to a nice place called Elysium." She looked down. "But I don't think that's true."
"Then I've got an idea you're going to like. My father once told me that when a person dies, their soul gets reborn as someone else. And sometimes we remember the things we've learned in the last life. So here's why that's good news: I read that Venus has two billion people right now, which is almost twice what it was thirty years ago. That means a lot of new souls, souls that haven't learned anything. As soon as the population growth stabilizes, we'll stop seeing new souls, and eventually, everyone will be carrying around wisdom they learned in a previous life. So every thief and rapist out there today will be smarter in her next life. Someday, they'll be smart enough that they won't do those things at all."
"When will that happen?"
"Don't know. Maybe a hundred years, maybe a thousand."
Hengsha looked morose. "I wish it was sooner."
"This is South Side, number one-oh," said a voice on the radio. "I see them. We've got Mauves in the bushes. I see fifty, at least. Could be hundreds."
Handel heard it. The others heard it too. In an instant, everyone was on their feet, guns in their hands.
"All southeastern squads," said the voice, "prepare to reinforce the south, but don't move yet. I repeat, do not move yet. We don't want the Mauves to know we're onto them."
