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“Far as I go,” the driver yells, leaning out of his window.
The squad piles out, eyes wide, voices high, various uncreditable appetites honed to desperation.
“So what do we do now?” Rio asks Jenou. Rio is still a small-town, rural girl, intimidated by cities, especially strange cities full of people who do not look at all happy to see her.
“We look around, I suppose, see what there is to see.” Jenou has always been the worldly-wise balance to Rio’s naiveté, though in truth Jenou is a bit overwhelmed too.
“What, no whorehouse?” Cat asks, joining them. Jillion Magraff hovers at the edge of their little group.
“Where are you ladies going?” Jack asks Rio.
Rio shrugs. “I’ll follow Castain; she’s my guide to the seamy side of life. I suppose you’re off to have a different kind of fun.”
Jack grins. It is an irresistible thing, his grin, full of mischief and fun. “I’m not much for bordellos, I’m afraid; I’m saving myself for the future Mrs. Stafford. But I guess I’ll see if I can keep Suarez and Geer out of the guardhouse.”
Beebee shows every sign of wanting to go with the men but says, “Well, I suppose the ladies will need an escort. Anyway, Sergeant Cole said . . .”
“Yeah, you protect us,” Cat says, rolling her eyes, but not unkindly. Cat Preeling is approximately twice Beebee’s size, and Cat once strangled a Kraut with the strap of her M1.
The five of them, Rio, Jenou, Cat, Jillion, and Beebee, spend the next several hours wandering alien alleyways, buying snacks of unfamiliar food from women squatting beside open charcoal braziers, and picking out trinkets to send home to little brothers and sisters, moms and dads. Rio buys a small silver necklace for her mother and tucks it into her pocket.
At a stand whose rickety table looks ready to collapse under the weight of bronze cookware, brass filigreed boxes, and, incongruously, a ragged and scorched chunk of steel bearing most of a German cross, Rio spots something.
She points at it and says, “Show me that.”
The shopkeeper, a very old man with a face like leather that’s been boiled then left out in the sun to shrivel, ignores her.
“That!” Rio says, pointing insistently.
The shopkeeper shakes his head and adds a wagging finger.
“Can’t you understand plain English?” Cat demands, self-mocking. “We’ve come to save you from the Hun, you ungrateful—”
“It’s on account of you being a woman, I expect,” Beebee says. “The men, most of them, have a blade of some kind, not the women.”
Rio stares at him. Clever boy. “Okay, you ask him.”
Beebee steps past Rio and points at the object, and the shopkeeper reluctantly hands it to him. It is a dagger, a curved knife with a silver butt on the dark, hardwood hilt and a silver scabbard covered in a repeating pattern of curlicues.
Beebee hands it to Rio, who draws the blade slowly. The scabbard is curved, the blade, almost a foot of lightly corroded steel, slightly less so. Rio tests the edge.
“A little dull, but I could sharpen it up.”
“You sending it home?” Jenou asks skeptically. “For who, your dad?”
“Maybe,” Rio says with a shrug and hands it back to Beebee, much to the shopkeeper’s relief. “Tell him you’ll give him a dollar.”
Beebee and the shopkeeper haggle for ten minutes before arriving on a price of six dollars. Beebee takes the prize and hands it to Rio, who slips it into her belt.
“I think he was saying how it’s called a koummya,” Beebee offers.
“Koummya and I’ll stabbya,” Cat quips.
“My birthday present to myself,” Rio says with some satisfaction.
“Your . . . ,” Jenou says, and then stares at her, mouth hanging open. “Oh my God, honey! It’s your birthday! I cannot believe I forgot your birthday!”
“Eighteen,” Rio says, then, noticing the surprised looks from everyone but Jenou, adds, “Um . . . nineteen?”
