"Hi, Esau," she said, walking over to him.

He laid down his book and stood up. "Howdy, Jael," he answered smiling. "It's been awhile."

Her voice sounded enough like her old voice now, Esau couldn't hear the difference. Normally, when a person signed a bot agreement, there were questions, the volunteer's answers were recorded, and they were asked to read selected lines. Then if they were bottled, they were given a cube of the recording, to help them learn their old voice again. Jael had learned without a cube, fitting her new voice to her personality, and to the "voice print" in her speech center.

"How're you liking your new servo?" Esau asked. Lamely, it seemed to her, as if he had trouble finding something to say. It was the same model as her old one, which had been damaged by a heavy slammer bolt two weeks earlier, on night reconnaissance deep inside Wyz Country. It had torn up her left knee.

"It's better than the old one," she answered. "It doesn't overheat." She paused to laugh. "The techs say that's because they've got them figured out. I told them it's the weather. Have you seen any action lately?"

He shook his head. "I've heard some a time or two, off in the distance a ways. Maybe things'll heat up when we get snow." He chuckled at the incongruity of terms. "Snow can come any time now, and Captain Zenawi said the last supply run brought down skis. If it gets belly deep, like sometimes, we ought to get around on foot better than the Wyz do."

"You folks still cutting timber every third week?"

He shook his head. "Haven't for… it'll be four weeks on Sixday. Things are getting dull around here." He half grinned. "Now if they'd let me start making a farm… " It had already occurred to him he didn't want to farm anymore, but the old thought patterns were still there, semiactive.

"If things keep going like they are," she said, "us and the Wyz might get so used to each other, we'll just say to Tophet with the war. You farm east of the river and we'll farm west of it." She didn't really want to farm anymore, either. Or live on New Jerusalem, where most women of childbearing age didn't live to see their thirtieth birthday (about thirty-nine Terran years). But she'd never thought of it as a cruel world. Most folks had been happy enough. And she'd accepted it-until she'd shared reminiscences with Terran women among the bots. Heard about their seventy-year-old grandmothers, even ninety-year-old great-grandmothers!

She'd wondered how long she'd live as a bot. A long time maybe. There were two main theories in the bot camp. The first was, your CNS would finally wear out. And the second-you'd live till you died of boredom. To her, the first seemed most likely.

Esau sat without saying anything, so she asked: "What're you reading?"

He held the book up-a paper book-showing her the cover. "The Infantry Platoon Leader," he said. "This is the third time I've read it. Seems like there's stuff in it that wasn't there before. Like someone came in while I slept, and added new stuff to it. I've been reading others, too. Read three by Gopal Singh! Quite a lot different than the Testaments, but I suspect Elder Hofer wouldn't fuss too bad. Some of it-a lot of it-he'd probably like.

"What you said about us and the Wyz getting used to each other… Nearly nine hundred years ago-when folks still fought each other a lot-Gopal Singh wrote that humankind was learning little by little to live in peace. And afterward, for a long time, folks did live in peace. Wouldn't be fighting today if the Wyz hadn't come along."

Jael nodded. "To start farming here again, the womenfolk would have to come back. And might be lots of them wouldn't want to."

"Yeah."

There was silence for several long seconds before he added, "I sure do miss… some of the things you and me used to do together."

"Me too. But not as much as you do, I don't suppose. I don't have the juices I used to. I'd settle for being able to cuddle and nuzzle. But I'm afraid cuddling wouldn't do much for either of us anymore. The way I am now."

Esau rocked a little on his unmoving chair, before saying: "Sometimes I've wondered if we oughtn't have chosen a labor battalion, instead of the army. Then, when it was over, we could have been-still really married. Had those children we never got."

He looked and felt absolutely bleak now. Not healed, he thought. Not healed. Just scabbed over.

Reaching, Jael touched his arm as gently as if she were still flesh and blood. "Esau dear, don't regret. We always did the best we could, and had lots of good times. Back on the farm, and on Luneburger's World, and even here in the war.

"And there are other girls besides me. Organic girls, flesh and blood. Indi girls in tanks and floaters, Burger girls wiring and carpentering. Terran nurses at the hospital."

The door opened and two Sikhs came in. Then Jael said she needed to go. "Even bots need their sleep," she told him, and left.

Her walk back to the bot hutment was five minutes of depression. That first time Esau had come to see her, at the bot shop, he'd been so sweet, and she'd been so happy to see him. It had seemed to her they'd get used to one another again, and if they lived, make a life together.

You were dreaming, Jael, she told herself. The old Jael was killed at the Pecan Orchard. Now you've got a new life, and it's the one you've got to live, because you can't get the old one back.

On the following Sixday, at evening muster, the troops were told that General Pak would speak to them at 1900 hours. There'd been no rumor of any plans, and the army had gotten used to relative peace and quiet. Something was bound to happen sooner or later, of course. They knew that. The Wyz were still there, and had to be rooted out.

With more time to reflect on matters, the Jerrie troops had come to realize how little New Jerusalem felt like home anymore. Too changed. Nearly every one of them had wondered if he could even find where he'd lived, so thoroughly had the Wyzhnyny changed the face of the settled land. As if they'd deliberately undertaken to eradicate all signs of the humans who'd lived there before them.

Now it seemed as if they were going to be given another job to do. And at seven o'clock, they were in their mess halls, expecting to hear their general outline an offensive. The screen was rolled out; its power light glittering green. Captain Zenawi gave the order, "At ease, men," and the picture popped on, showing General Pak seated at his desk.

"Men and women of the New Jerusalem Liberation Corps, I have important news for you. And a confession. Eight days ago, I was informed that the 1st Commonwealth Fleet had destroyed the Wyzhnyny fleet in battle." He paused. There wasn't a sound in B Company's mess hall. "The Wyzhnyny warships fought till none were left." Again he paused. "My confession is that I kept the news from you until I knew what this meant to us out here.

"Their warfleet fought to the death, but that doesn't mean the Wyzhnyny here will. Because the Wyzhnyny's non-fighting ships surrendered. More than three thousand of them are parked in the fringe of the Eridani System, defenseless. Snooze ships, supply ships, factory ships-all of them. And they've signed a treaty of peace with the Commonwealth. They've turned over all their ordnance, and our fleet is in the process of sending it plunging into the sun.

"The Wyzhnyny have colonies on forty-seven Commonwealth worlds, and the peace treaty agrees that those colonies are also to surrender. The question now is, will the colonies believe and accept that? Let's hope they do. If they don't, Commodore Kereenyaga is to send down both his Dragons to wreck the Wyzhnyny caves here. Then any survivors will get another chance to surrender. If they don't, the war will not be over for us; we'll have to dig them out. But our enemy will be fewer, his firepower greatly reduced, and we'll have the support of the Marine wolfpacks. And winter will arrive any time now.