The leaves fell steadily from the trees, the grass turned brown and brittle. The wind came always from the north or west, cold and sharp enough to cut through the heaviest of coats. The sky turned gray as the days shortened. The Sun did not climb far above the horizon and the Moon seemed to have disappeared from the cloudy night skies. One titanic rainstorm stripped away the last of the leaves, blew off roofs and tore limbs from the bare trees. Alec’s quarters stayed dry, although the heat and electricity went out for several days. Angela’s house was flooded to a depth of ten centimeters in the cellar.

Then the weather turned fine and dry. Days were cold, invigorating. Nights were arctic. More and more, Alec slept with Angela. If Douglas knew about it, he said nothing, even though they dined together frequently in his house with Will Russo and others of Douglas’s aides.

It was an easy time. The summer’s fighting was over and everyone was preparing for the long winter. Trucks and wagons came in every day from the outlying villages, heaped with produce from the harvest. They went out with tools, guns, and ammunition that had been manufactured in the base’s shops.

Troops of warriors came in from the hinterlands, reunited with families and friends that they had not seen all summer. There were parties, celebrations, even dramatic offerings by self-styled actors and singers in the base’s mammoth, bare auditorium.

Alec found their efforts amateurish, but he attended every performance, sitting with Angela next to him. Douglas always sat front row center and it always appeared to Alec as if the performers were playing especially to him. He appeared to enjoy himself hugely, guffawing at the jokes and applauding every effort lustily.

Will had brought in a cache of whisky, “liberated” from a long-deserted city that his troop had detoured through. He rationed the stuff carefully, except for one long night when he gave a party and they all—even Alec—sang drunkenly until the Sun rose.

All except Douglas, who left early in the evening after a few drinks. And by the time they started singing “The Frigging Bird” for the fourth time, Angela slipped quietly away, too.

“I wanted to check on Douglas,” she explained the next morning. “He didn’t look too well when he left.”

Through his thundering hangover, Alec said, “So you had to nursemaid him.”

“You seemed to be having fun,” she answered, smiling.

But I don’t want you with him, Alec said to himself. I want you with me. And suddenly he realized that he loved her.

A few nights later they were walking arm in arm from the mess hall to her house, heavily bundled in thick coats and wool hats and gloves. The water in the nearby lake had a thin layer of ice over it, and the only birds still remaining around the base were hardy brown sparrows who puffed up their feathers and hopped over the dead grass looking for seeds or crumbs.

For the first time in weeks, Alec noticed the Moon. It was only a sliver sailing eerily among the clouds scuttling by.

“I wonder how my men are doing?” he mused aloud.

“Have you asked...”

“I’ve tried to get to them, but Will said it’s better if I don’t. He told me they’re all okay, but I shouldn’t ask anything more about them.”

“Will wouldn’t lie to you,” she said.

Gazing at the thin slice of a Moon, he wondered, “Do you think Kobol’s still in Florida? Or has he returned to the settlement? What’s he up to? What’s his game?”

Angela said nothing.

“He’ll be back in the spring,” Alec went on. “I’ll bet he heads this way, next spring.”

“Then there’ll be fighting,” she said.

“Plenty of it.”

They had reached Angela’s house. “And when the fighting begins, which side will you be on, Alec?”

 He thought about it. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I just don’t know.”

The first snowfall came early and caught everyone by surprise, Alec most of all.

He walked out into the howling wind, turning dizzily round and round to watch the strange white flakes bury the world in their clean coldness. They spattered against his face and hands as drifts built up against the buildings. He trudged to Angela’s and dragged her out into the snow. She taught him how to make a snowball and they pelted each other until they laughed themselves into wet exhaustion.

Then they spent the rest of the day by her fireplace, not thinking of food or anything else except each other.

 It was Will Russo who pulled Alec away for a few days.

After more than a week of steadily heavier hints, Will finally asked Alec if he would go with him into the woods on a hunting trip. Something in the way he asked implied that he had more on his mind than simply hunting. Alec agreed.

They set off across the solidly frozen lake early one morning, as the Sun was just starting to brighten the eastern sky. Alec felt plainly nervous about walking on ice, even though the snow atop it made the going easy. All that water below, he kept thinking. But Will chattered happily, even hummed to himself occasionally, perfectly at ease. So Alec shifted the heavy pack on his shoulder harness and tried to forget what would happen to them if the ice broke.

They spent the whole day up in the hills, moving straight ahead, following some inner sense of direction or purpose known only to Will. The snow was thinner up under the fir trees, barely a dusting on the ground.

“Will,” Alec asked, pulling up alongside his long-striding companion, “what are we hunting for?”

“Three men,” he replied, trying to replace his happy grin with a serious look. He was only partly successful.

“What? Men? With these?” Alec hefted the long-barrelled rifle Will had given him. It fired only one shot at a time.

“Well, maybe we won’t have to use the guns. They might come peacefully.”

“I thought we were going for meat... to eat.”

With a swipe at his nose, Will answered, “Nope. Trappers bring in plenty game for the table. Oh, we might bag a deer or something on our way back. But only after we deal with the thieves.”

“Thieves?”

Still striding along fast enough to force Alec to trot every few moments to catch up, Will answered, “They joined one of our scout parties late summer. I thought all they wanted was a safe, warm place to spend the cold months. But a couple weeks ago they took off with a wagonload of food, guns, and ammo.”

“A couple of weeks ago? They could be in Asia by now!”

“Nope, they’re not. They had to shoot their way past the gate guards, and one of ‘em was wounded. Killed two of our guards, by the way. Other guards followed them for a while, and we’ve had relays of scouts trailing them—at a distance. Don’t want anybody hurt unnecessarily.”

That made sense to Alec. But now, “We’re going to take them in?”

“Right. They’re holed up in a cave, out of food. One of them’s still in bad shape from his wounds, I imagine. The other two might listen to reason.”

“And if they don’t?”

Will hiked his eyebrows. “That’s why we’re carrying the rifles.”

They camped in the woods overnight and ate from the food they had carried with them. Only a small fire. They slept in sleeping bags. Alec was shivering when he woke up next dawn.

By midmorning they were halfway up a barren hill. Underneath its coating of snow, where the wind had blown bare patches, it looked as if the ground had been scorched black. No trees grew on the hillside, and only a few stunted, gnarled bushes stuck their tortured bare limbs out of the snow.