He was gone a long time, and the girl took the boy outside, and when she returned he had still not come out. Then as she knelt on the ground, playing some game with the child, a man emerged from the back and she nearly collapsed from fear. She ran to the wall, seized the rifle and would have shot. But a familiar voice stayed her. "Put down the rifle, Elonna, or one of these times you really will shoot." The voice, she thought, came from the stranger, a square, Russian-looking man with dark eyes and a shaved head. He was clad in the blue and black of a Cantonese army officer, the emblem of the clenched white fist sewn to his breast, a small black cross in its center. His face wore the sharp look of command but his eyes, in that moment, seemed to contradict it. "Who are you?" she demanded. "And what have you done with Lawrence?" "I'm right here, Elonna." The officer opened his jacket and unfastened the garment beneath, pulling it open at the neck to reveal a dark collar and chest, with tight curls of hair like thorny bushes covering his breast. "Lawrence!" One of her hands lost its grip on the rifle. "You scared me half to death." "I'm sorry for that. I thought you had gone out." At that moment she realized two things: that he was going into great danger, and that she cared for him very much. "When must you go?" "Very soon." He resealed the uniform. "Be careful, will you?" "Yes." He pulled a different weapon from among the equipment against the wall, examined it carefully. "I have to go." He started for the door. She stopped him halfway and embraced him, her eyes gleaming at the corners. "Be careful." "I will." He pulled away and stood in the entrance. He looked back at her strangely, hesitated as if wanting to say more, then turned and was gone. He did not return that night. * The next day the woman was genuinely concerned. She had just begun to lose hope, when the smoky film of the entrance dissolved and opened out onto the cleft. A man stepped through, but it was not Lawrence. "Morgan? What's wrong, where's Lawrence?" "He's dead." Such an empty shock. "What? What happened?" He was trying to sabotage a missile base, with several others. His papers were challenged and he was shot. I'm sorry." "Dead," she stammered. "Dead. Will they kill us all, one by one?" She began to weep. "Unless we stop them." "How, damn it! How?" "A piece at a time." "But you said you had a plan. For ME." "I do." "Well what is it? Stop treating me like a child!" "Not now. I'll come back tomorrow after dark." "All right. God." She could not believe it. He turned to go. Without turning. "You'd best harden your heart, Elonna, or it will freeze inside you. I'm sorry about Lawrence. He was gone. * The next day seemed endless, but at last he came. He looked over the equipment leaned against the wall, then came and sat across from her. He was at once both kinder and colder.