* * *

The door opened. Elva stood up.

At first the half-dozen men who entered seemed foreign. In a minute—she was too tired and dazed to think clearly—she understood why. They were all in blue jackets and trousers, a uniform. She had never seen two Vaynamoans dressed exactly alike. But of course they would be, she thought in a vague fashion. We had to build a navy, didn’t we?

And they remained her own people: fair skin, straight hair, high cheekbones, tilted light eyes which gleamed all the brighter through the soot of battle. And, yes, they still walked like Vaynamoans, the swinging freeman’s gait and the head held high, such as she had not seen for …for how long? So their clothes didn’t matter, nor even the guns in their hands.

Slowly, through the ringing in her ears, she realized that the combat noise had stopped.

A young man in the lead took a step in her direction, “My lady—” he began.

“Is that her for certain?” asked someone else, less gently. “Not a collaborator?”

A new man pushed his through the squad. He was grizzled, pale from lack of sun, wearing a sleazy prisoner’s coverall. But a smile touched his lips, and his bow to Elva was deep.

“This is indeed my lady of Tervola,” he said. To her: “When these men released me, up in Section Fourteen, I told them we’d probably find you here. I am so glad.”

She needed a while to recognize him. “Oh. Yes.” Her head felt heavy. It was all she could do to nod. “Captain Ivalo. I hope you’re all right.”

“I am, thanks to you, my lady. Someday we’ll know how many hundreds are alive and sane—and here!—because of you.”

The squad leader made another step forward, sheathed his machine pistol and lifted both hands toward her. He was a well-knit, good-looking man, blond of hair, a little older than she: in his mid-thirties, perhaps. He tried to speak, but no words came out, and then Ivalo drew him back.

“In a moment,” said the ex-captive. “Let’s first take care of the unpleasant business.”

The leader hesitated, then, with a grimace, agreed. Two men shoved forward Bors Golyev. The admiral dripped blood from a dozen wounds and stumbled in his weariness. But when he saw Elva, he seemed to regain himself. “You weren’t hurt,” he breathed, as if the words were holy. “I was so afraid …”

Ivalo said like steel: “I’ve explained the facts of this case to the squad officer here, as well as his immediate superior. I’m sure you’ll join us in our wish not to be inhumane, my lady. And yet a criminal trial in the regular courts would publicize matters best forgotten and could only give him a limited punishment. So we, here and now, under the conditions of war and in view of your high services—”

The squad officer interrupted. He was white about the nostrils. “Anything you order, my lady,” he said. “You pass the sentence. We’ll execute it at once.”