The room settled.
 
Koldin slept for an hour, perhaps slightly more.

His eyes opened in darkness. No alarm.

His body had simply finished with sleep for the moment.

He laid still.

Defort breathed heavily two cots away. Boisrond was absent. Mehrab slept curled inward beneath a thin blanket with one ear exposed. Nesterov lay on his back, motionless enough that Koldin could not immediately tell whether he was awake.

Koldin rose.

He went quietly toward the door.

Outside, the base belonged to the graveyard shift.

The night air was cooler but only by courtesy. Moisture covered everything. Lamps made little islands along the paths. A sentry moved near the gate. Somewhere beyond the fence a night bird produced the same three-note call over and over.

Koldin went to the kitchen.

Boisrond was already there.

Of course.

He stood over a preparation table in his undershirt chopping something with a knife, cigarette balanced in the corner of his mouth.

“You sleep?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Hour.”

“Good.”

“Why are you awake?”

Boisrond gestured at a pile of vegetables.

“Breakfast.”

“It isn't breakfast.”

“It will be.”

The kitchen was hot.

Several graveyard workers sat at the far table drinking coffee. One looked up as Koldin entered.

“Help?”

Koldin shrugged.

“Sure.”

For the next forty minutes he peeled roots, carried tins from storage and helped Boisrond prepare what tomorrow would eventually regard as food. There was comfort in work too simple to retain after completion.

Cut. Pile. Carry. Wash.

No extortionists. No reports. No revolvers.

At some point Boisrond handed him half a piece of bread.

Koldin ate it.

The bread was algae. Everyone continued calling it bread.

Close enough.

When the work diminished, Koldin returned to the barracks.

He laid down again. Sleep did not come.

This also was normal.

He watched darkness. The room existed in shapes. The glint of the window. The pale square of someone's folded shirt. The narrow green indicator on Defort's radio.

He could hear insects outside and the distant generator and the occasional movement of somebody dreaming.

Koldin waited for sleep without pursuing it.

The day's events tried to reassemble themselves.

He refused most of them.

The market returned anyway. The blind yinglet saying broer. The human taking the gun. The old woman rolling cigarettes. The gray Dinnish yinglet drinking fruit spirit in one swallow. A blue bird stealing crumbs from a cup. The thief disappearing through laundry.

All of it seemed equally important now and therefore none of it did.

He turned onto one side. His foot gave a faint ache.

Mehrab had said not to kick anyone tomorrow.

Reasonable.

Koldin closed his eyes.

For a while he remained there suspended between waking and sleep, thinking of Akalos without meaning to.

Dry country. A fence line. Wind. Things that did not rot merely because they had been left outdoors.

Then even that went away.

Sleep returned when it wanted.

He slept another hour. Woke. Slept again.

The night broke itself into pieces and Koldin accepted each piece as it came.

Outside the wire Lenkerk persisted through darkness.

Water moved through ditches. Insects fed. Machines cooled. Somewhere a drunk found his way home. Somewhere somebody remained awake because fever would not permit otherwise. Somewhere a merchant counted the same money twice.

The base generator hummed. The flags hung slack above the yard.

Nothing happened. For several hours nothing needed to, and this too was part of the routine.