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civilians.”
    “We’re not used to any of this,” Ariana said. “The danger. Taking care of the children. Scorse isn’t helping at all with that, and even though Juni’s okay with children I can tell he resents acting as a baby-sitter.”
    “Well, yeah, big shot research guy, huh? I mean, he seems okay, but that’s the sort of job he figures he’s supposed to pay other people to do. You said none of the kids here are yours?”
    Ariana shuddered again. “No.”
    “That’s one good thing, then.”
    “Yes.” She stared at Johansen. “Having children at Amity was a demonstration that we were here in peace. We kept the numbers limited so it didn’t appear we were settling here. It was all supposed to show that this was peaceful and not aggressive.”
    Johansen made a noncommittal gesture. “I guess the Izkop didn’t see it that way.”
    “Or it somehow didn’t matter to them even if they did see what we intended.” Ariana clenched her fists and her jaw, the muscles standing out clearly even in the darkness. “We all thought that we understood them well enough to know if anything was wrong, and I still have no idea why they massacred everyone at Amity. Or what the mutilation after death means. One thing I do know is that the Izkop consider children to be purer of spirit than adults. It may not be a coincidence that the Izkop moved against Amity when the children left to come here for a few days, but why that would matter if they intend killing us here as well is one more thing I don’t understand.”
    After a long silence, Johansen cleared his throat softly. “I dated a woman for quite a while once. Moved in with each other and all that. I thought everything was fine, that we understood each other, and then one day she left. Said she’d been telling me what was bothering her, and when I didn’t respond it just made her more upset.”
    Ariana met his eyes. “But you hadn’t noticed anything?”
    “Nope.” Johansen looked out at the darkness, not wanting to see the fear and sorrow in her. Instead his mind conjured up a vision of Maria standing at the door to their place, her face twisted with anger, yelling at him. How could you not know? I kept telling you! A door slammed and Johansen started with pulse pounding and weapon coming up before he realized that sound had only echoed in his memory. “We think we can understand aliens when we can’t even communicate with other humans half the time.”
    “I suppose that’s true.” Ariana bit her lip. “It’s our job to understand, though, just as it’s your job to fight. How could the Izkop have killed so many soldiers? Your sergeant explained, but none of us really understood.”
    He didn’t want to recall that, but the question deserved an answer. “Um, well, when you fight, you need someone watching your sides and your back, right? Usually, that someone can be a good distance off, but against a whole mob you need them right there, otherwise while you’re shooting forward some others can get behind you and grab your arms and stuff.” Johansen shrugged, hoping the hammering of his heart at the memories of the massacre wasn’t too obvious to her. “Like Sergeant Singh said, the battalion was scattered all over the valley.”
    “But why were you scattered? Didn’t your leaders, your commanders, know that you needed to watch each other’s backs?”
    “Well…there was talk the captain, our company commander, that is, was unhappy with the plan, but the colonel, he was in charge of the whole operation, was set on dropping in a wide formation,” Johansen explained. “Because it was a rescue op. We could see Izkop on the hills around the valley, in lots and lots of small groups. The colonel wanted us to cover lots of territory so we’d be wherever the civilians were in the valley. If we just dropped in a tight group then some or even all the civs might be outside the group and then the Izkop could rush in and massacre them.” It seemed funny