The days that had been empty and dry had passed her behind; 
life, in its myriad ways, had infused her life with sensation again. 
Though, admittedly, not completely with purpose. There were 
still the mornings when she had sent her daugher out to play 
group...sat at the kitchen table to have a cup of coffee...then 
morning had passed without her noticing the time go by. But 
there were cues that she her heart was finding a balance again. 
She accepted invitations, she took a vague, shapeless interest in 
the troubles of others again. Her clothes, though all still black, 
were now more carefully chosen.

The signal, so subtle that she had missed it at first, was that she 
was experiencing a new wave of depression. If one was coming, 
well, how could the other not have been aleviated? It was so, 
nonetheless. She was sad that winter was coming. She wanted to 
be outside, working in a flower bed, feeling the sensual earth 
beneath her fingers. It could not be. She had to make do with 
some borrowed plots in one of the Factory greenhouses. It was 
just in time for the supply lines to be cut by another Barjack 
forray, which made it imparative that she grow something 
useful: either edible or for cash.

Those awful, awful Barjack men. They were the ones who had 
taken him from her! No more nights with someone, even poor 
old Yolg, to turn to. No father for Britta. Not even a patch of 
irises, just when she would have most like to see their pretty 
petals growing at her touch. Bringing life from the dark black 
soil.
--
Gina was running the hose over her breadfruit plants when she 
heard the prolonged squeak of the greenhouse door. Out of habit 
she glanced up, but went back to her work when it proved to be 
nobody she knew. She had begun to water the plants twice a 
week, afraid that the greenhouse was simply too warm for them 
and they were losing their moisture, but the leaves still seemed 
less than verdant. If it was the soil, that would require still more 
fertilizer--

"Excuse me? Ma'am?"

Gina set down her hose and looked at the speaker, the woman 
who had entered the greenhouse moments before. She was 
dressed in a travelling cloak over a maroon body suit. She had 
shoulder-length black hair, parted over one honey brown eye. 
There were two marks below the eyes, in chromium, that looked 
like the heads of birds. Her lips were drawn into a squid-like 
pucker.

"Are you Gina? Uh, A22-600 something? Yolg's widow?"

"Yes...I am. How can I help you, miss?"

The woman, at a loss for what exactly to do, extended a hand. 
"My name's Alita. I'm with the Factory. I came to offer my 
heartfelt apologies, for this tragedy."

"Oh." Gina was stunned. She had received only the most curt 
notification of her husband's demise; and furthermore, she had 
certainly never heard of anything like this happening. She 
meekly shook the strange woman's hand. "Then, thank you very 
much. This comes as quite as a surprise, I'd only been told what 
happened in brief."

"Yes, well," Alita lowered her eyes, "I was with him when he 
died...I felt like I should come and tell you."

She tried to let her hand drop, but Gina seized it. "You--you were 
with him? What happened?"

Alita glanced around, and her eyes alighted on two large plastic 
pails that were lying on the ground nearby. "Th-this is kind of 
hard for me to explain, let's sit down." She led Gina over to 
them, struggling to lead the way. The two upset the buckets and 
sat down upon them, close enough one to another to permit easy 
conversation.

She began her story. "We were still a couple of hundered 
kilometers from the Farm when we got attacked. It was an 
ambush, y'see, we had barely any warning that they were gonna 
be there. The alarm came on, and Figure--he was a friend of ours-
-he and me and Yolg all got out our guns. I didn't see if he hit 
anyone, I was too busy...then the train got derailed. Well, Figure 
went to go get one the bad guy and Yolg, even though he had a 
broken leg AND a broken arm, was covering him..."

"Really?" said Gina, astounded; then, realizing that she even 
sounded shocked, she quickly continued, "I mean, really?"

"Yeah! So Figure got him pretty good, but Yolg...um...Yolg was in 
deep trouble. There was no way we could save him. He told us he 
was going to stay behind and see if he could get the computer to 
stop the meltdown, but I guess he didn't.

"The last thing he said before he went back into the cab was for us 
to tell you what happened, and that's what I'm here for." Gina's 
face was laden with credulity, so Alita continued. "You know, 
Yolg wasn't the bravest guy I've met, but if you led the way, he'd 
follow you through thick an thin. It's a real tragedy that he died."

Gina nodded silently and she seized upon her chance to depart. 
"I--guess I can't stay much longer, but this is for you." Alita held 
out a sack to Gina, who took it and peeped inside. A second later 
she dropped it in shock. Still standing resolutely, Alita quickly 
explained, "As his next of kin, you're entitled to the uncollected 
wages he's made, plus there's veteran's and long service benefits 
in there too. I need to--"

Gina, in tears, threw her arms around the young woman's 
midsection, slumping limply against her chest. "Oh, thank you, 
thank you so much, Miss Alice. He was barely a husband at all, 
and I feel so bad for what happened, oh my goodness, why did he 
have to spend so much time away from us, why couldn't he just 
get a normal job at home, he had no idea how to raise a family..."

She continued in the vein for a long time, and Alita made no 
effort to stop her. The pathos that she herself felt, she mused, was 
not so long gone, and might very come again upon her. When 
would she next feel needed? Would she someday be praying for a 
messanger to give good news out of nowhere? The bond, in a day 
or in a year, might wither and die; yet she seized the moment 
and let amity flow through her, for a woman she pitied enough 
to deliver a few lies to.