A Grey Moon Over China Read Free Page A

with Polaski on the slope of an island to the east of the company camp, watching the glare of the sun from under my eyelids. It reflected off the straits between the island where we sat and a deserted peak rising from the ocean two miles away. I was trying to keep fromslipping down the stony hillside while I pressed my hands over my ears to keep out the roaring behind me. Two days had passed since Polaski’s arrival.
    The sound changed pitch again, then surged from the roar into a howl, setting my teeth on edge and sending new pain into my temples. It warbled lower for a moment only to seize on a new frequency and lash out again, tearing the air apart with its shriek and bringing a sweat to my forehead.
    On the island across the straits, angry jets of smoke tinged with purple shot into the air each time the digger found a frequency that worked, leaving behind a smoldering socket where tons of earth had been disintegrated. Now and then Polaski let the digger dip its massive barrel too far, and its beam swept across the ocean to send a wall of steam curling into the sky. It settled across us later in a cloud of humid air that mingled with our sweat and stung our eyes.
    Squatting on its thick legs behind us, like a tank without treads, the digger probed with its beam higher up the far island until it found a new weakness in the rock, then leapt into its screaming again. The clanging of its cooling pump was like the metallic thumping of a cat’s tail as it hurled itself into its kill.
    “God
damn
it, Polaski, turn that thing off!” Having Polaski take potshots for fun was more than I could stand. The noise was like an alien presence inside me that stole my concentration and dragged me closer to a pit I needed all of my wits to stay out of. A pit I’d slipped into that morning and stayed in until Elliot had finally kicked me awake.
    “Jesus
Christ
, boy!” he’d shouted. “Wake
up!
”
    Foam in the dog’s mouth, the wagon collapsing with the dog’s head still caught in the spokes . . .
    “Torres!”
    Polaski hit the switch in his lap. The digger choked in mid-wail and spun down, muttering and spitting and grumbling in its disappointment. The armor on its haunches clattered, then with a hiss and a
crump
as the armature locked up, the machine was quiet and Polaski and I were left alone with the flies and the sun.
    On the blackened ruin of the island across the straits, gullies glowed red and ragged pits steamed along the waterline. I struggled to my feet and climbed the hillside to sit next to Polaski.
    “So aside from target practice, Polaski, how come you dragged me out here?”
    He squinted at the pitted island with one eye closed, judging his work.
    “We have to take test shots once the surface warms up.” He squinted with the other eye.
    “It’s warm,” I said. Polaski had asked Bolton to have me assigned to him, but I didn’t want to be there.
    “Another two hours,” he said.
    “Christ.” I lay back and watched the clouds piling up to the north, wondering what possible use the military could have for such a little island. Polaski lay back, too, then began lobbing rocks up over his head. He was trying for the clang when they hit the digger, but most of them thumped into the hillside and came skittering back down past us. I couldn’t see them after they left his hand, so after waiting for the clang I had to wait again to see if one would smack into me on the way down. Each time one found its target I thought he was going to stop, and when he didn’t I wanted to snatch the rocks up and throw them back at him . . .
    Don’t.
I sat up and looked at the ocean. There was another scene from Piedras Negras that came back sometimes, more often than I liked. Running from the stinging sand that blew across the desert, into the heat of our tiny house with its iron roof. Running toward my father where he sat at the table with his hand gripped around his glass, staring at the tabletop and not moving. My mother at