Free Twilight by Brendan DuBois

to unzip his sleeping bag. I stayed motionless, not wanting him to know that I wasn’t asleep. With the sleeping bag undone, he loosened the tent flap and a blast of cold air blew in as he went outside. I stayed there, curled up, wondering if he was finding a tree to water or going to get something to drink. But why move so quietly? To be considerate of his tent-mate? Not likely.
    Then, from the tent nearby, came the low sound of laughter, followed by a giggle. Oh. But why not? Even in the midst of death and destruction, life—such as it was—went on. I rolled over and got a small battery-powered lantern, which I switched on. It emitted a small beam of light, just enough to read by, and I felt around in my rucksack for one of my two books. Not being in the mood to read Orwell’s essays about the foibles of mankind, I decided to read instead about humanity’s adventurous spirit and found myself flipping through the pages of The Green Hills of Earth .
    Just after I’d finished a short story about a couple from Luna City who decided to return to Earth to live—with disastrous results as they reacquainted themselves with smog, overcrowding and poor plumbing—the tent flap suddenly opened and a woman’s voice said, “Samuel? Still awake?”
    I dropped the book, moved the lantern about. There was Miriam, her hair hanging loose, wearing a blue down vest and red flannel nightgown, on her hands and knees.
    â€œSure,” I said, sitting up. “What’s going on?”
    â€œCan I come in?”
    â€œOf course.”
    She said something in Dutch and came in on all fours. I glanced sheepishly away from her suddenly exposed cleavage, and then she rolled over and laid down. “There. Sorry, Samuel, I am a grumpy woman tonight, that’s what’s going on.”
    â€œWhat’s … oh, I’m sorry.”
    Miriam rested the back of her head on her hands and looked up at the ceiling of the tent. “Working with such a small team, when you’re one of just two women, you try to look out for each other. Men have different ways of working, different ways of looking at things. So if you’re one of a pair of women, you help each other out and do little favors for each other. Do you understand?”
    â€œYeah, I do,” I said. “Like asking you to be out of your tent for a while, so that … well, so that someone can come by for a visit.”
    Miriam laughed. “That’s a polite way of saying it. A Canadian way, perhaps. Coming by for a visit. No mind, for what you said is true. Earlier Karen had asked if I would leave the tent at a certain time, for bathroom
functions perhaps, so that she could entertain a guest. But now he has been there for over an hour, and I’m cold and tired and I think they’ve fallen asleep in there, and I’ll be damned if I’ll go knock on that tent to ask permission to go back in to my own bed.”
    â€œThen why don’t you stay here and take his bed?” I said.
    She rolled over. “Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.”
    So Miriam threw open Sanjay’s sleeping bag and rolled herself in, and when I was sure she was settled I put my book away and switched off the lantern. I lay still there in the darkness, listening to her breathing, so close to me. I wondered what her hair would feel like in my fingers, what her flesh would taste like against my mouth. Miriam stirred and said, “It was a long day today, wasn’t it?”
    â€œThat it was,” I said.
    She sighed. “You think we’d be happy, finding three dead cows in a field and not a mother and a father and their children. But no, we’re not happy. A hell of a thing, isn’t it, to hope to find dead human bodies in the mud? But that’s what we do. Even here, in this place. This is what we do.”
    â€œSo far, it doesn’t seem like we’re doing much.”
    â€œTrue. But we do what