“Listen,” he said as they rolled a massive rug to the flap to block cold. She sat back on her heels. He looked alarmed. She knelt forward to him and traced signs in his palm, asking him, “No talking?”

He nodded. He went into his ruck and pulled out twine. He took her hand and tied one end of it around her wrist. He cut off another end with his knife and tied it to his own. Their heads rested at the flap, and the string went between them across it. That way, any intruder would trip. The cord would break or tug, waking them. They’d practiced this at Nellis.

It made sleep difficult. He was a thrasher and had awakened her more than once during the last training run-through. She didn’t think they needed this precaution. But he was in a mood she knew enough of not to push much. Sometimes when he saw her consistently surrendering it calmed him to relent. So she lay down.

He lay as far away as the length of twine would let him. She tried to stay still, hoping he’d drop off quickly. She wanted to see how he settled, what position he finally took. Then she could get herself into a place least susceptible to any flail.

He just lay there—none of his sleeping sounds, no jerking twists.

Her mind tried for what might have irked him. When they drove into the encampment, something got him, all of his subcranial signposts from years of this she didn’t have. She couldn’t sense any of them. She kept coming back to Baz’s face—a bad hurtle for him, this contention. She regretted her gender so often, just the thorn of it.

She looked at Will. She began to toy with her end of the string. She could fractionally move and tug. She spoofed it into moving without moving. She fell off, playing with it, finally asleep.

Baz hung back. She could see him mooching himself into the smallest size. They were pushing through the higher ridgelines. He looked seasick. That wasn’t possible. Will was irritable, as per usual, in the driver’s.

“Baz,” she whispered. She turned toward him and put herself almost in the back of the truck cab.

He looked up with his chin down. His eyes were swimming, or was it the dark?

“Baz,” she tried again. She tapped his knee, got no response, then put her hand on it more firmly, gave him a squeeze. He was so slight.

He produced a paper bag, a small one. He had rolled it up and written something on it she couldn’t quite see. They had gotten a later start than anyone had wanted. There’d been too much to go over with their Kurd hosts. A costume change too: Mary’s manteau and scarf were too citified. She now wore the loose kameez and hand-woven dupatta of Kurd nomads.