Zone Zero by John Robb

on atomic power. He inhaled air into his considerable lungs and screamed a single word. “ Silence !” It was like a steam whistle tearing asunder the tortured air. It produced an absolute, a cloistered quiet. And it was then that a key turned in the door. Gallast stood in the threshold, two others immediately behind him. Despite his bulk, Gallast could suggest the attribute of cultivated courtesy. He was suggesting it now. He gazed around him with a hurt and bemused expression. “Did I hear signs of panic?” he enquired of no one in particular. There was no answer. He continued: “I don’t want to make your period of waiting more unpleasant than it need be, for above all else I am a soldier and I want to observe the civilised rules of war... so far as that is possible.” D’Aran twisted himself into a sitting posture against the wall. “ Sacre bleu ! Is this part of the civilised rules of war! Is it civilised for soldiers to pose as civilians and seize an army post which was offering them hospitality? Is it civilised to plan for human beings such a fate as you have waiting for us! You do not know what the word means…you are a barbarian and you belong to a creed which embraces barbarism!” Gallast was watching D’Aran calmly. Ostensibly, he seemed unmoved. But a faint twitch of pain momentarily etched into his face, and it may not have been caused by the injured finger which he was stroking. “You speak wildly, lieutenant,” he said. “But you are very young and it is understandable. You t