“Each girl gets one, and if any of you come back for a replacement, you’d better give a good reason for why. You’ll have to take care of your… female needs yourself. Don’t take too long sorting.”
Oh, no. “Sir, I don’t have much experience—”
“You can report back when you’re done.” There was a knock, and Hesovec wrenched open the door. “What?” he said to the cluster of silhouettes in the doorway.
“She says she’s here for the girls’ regiment, sir.”
Hesovec’s voice practically bled scorn. “Another one? Zolonova will show you where to go.” He jerked his head and stomped away. Two shadows detached and fled after him.
The remaining figure peered through the doorway. Linné turned back toward the crates. “Come and help. We have to haul these to the barracks, anyway.”
“What are they?” The new recruit had a soft, uncertain voice. A heavy tread, though. Linné expected a tall girl to correspond, but when she turned, she saw that the girl was shorter than her. The new recruit had a pale, heart-shaped face framed by a tangle of black hair knotted at the nape of her neck.
Linné wrestled a crate off the top of the stack and dumped it with a thud that sent up a cloud of dust. “Clothes,” she said. The girl leaned away, coughing. She didn’t smile at Linné, and Linné didn’t bother to smile at her. She didn’t need to be anyone’s mother hen. “Who are you?”
“Revna,” the girl said. “Revna Roshena.” She swallowed her last name like a curse. Linné could sympathize with that.
“Well, Revna, grab a crate. I’ll show you where you sleep.”
Linné led the way out of the warehouse, glancing back every so often to make sure Revna was keeping up. Was she limping? Linné caught the flash of strange, steel-toed shoes under her factory uniform, but when the girl caught her looking, she turned bright red and said, “Go ahead,” a challenging glint in her eye.
“The army’s no place for dawdling,” Linné said. “You’re going to have to work on that.”
Revna opened her mouth to reply. Then she seemed to change her mind. But Linné felt resentful eyes on her back all the same. It seemed she’d failed, yet again, to make friends. Why had it been easier when she’d been a boy? She missed her old regiment. She missed Tannov and Dostorov. She even missed that buffoon Koslen.
By the time they got to the barracks, most of the girls had returned from the field. Linné shouldered through the door.
“What’s that?” Pavi said. She was the smallest of them, short and slim, with dark brown skin and quick eyes and a black braid that fell between her shoulders. Her southeastern accent marked her as a girl from the edge of the Union.
“Uniforms. Organize yourselves from tallest to shortest,” Linné said.
“And who’s this?” Katya looked past Linné to the threshold, where Revna wobbled under her crate. Katya looked as if she belonged in a glossy magazine, not on the front lines. Hesovec had already told his men off for whistling after her. “Come in, come in. What’s your name?”
Revna came in. And tripped over the threshold.
The thunk of metal on wood filled the room, quickly followed by the crash as Revna dropped her crate. All eyes moved to her leg.
Linné’d thought Revna had metal-toed boots, but that wasn’t right at all. She had metal feet. Linné could see two steel toes, pointed and caked with dirt. The toes were longer and broader than flesh toes, forming a Y and attaching to a wide base that acted as the ball of the foot. It was wider than most shoes and capped with rubber. As Revna righted herself, Linné spotted a fat cylindrical heel, also capped in rubber. The steel toes dug into the ground, midjoints twitching with an odd precision. They were living metal feet, Linné realized. She had to stop herself from leaning forward for a better look.
The other girls gaped. But they weren’t here to peer and frown and poke. Linné cleared her throat. “Revna’s our newest recruit. And like the rest of you, she’s going to be fitted with a proper uniform. So line up—”
Revna’s dark eyes swam with tears. With every thunk of her feet on the floor, she seemed to go more rigid. Katya took Revna by the elbow and led her over to an empty bed. She smiled like a film star, brushing her platinum curls over one shoulder. “Welcome, Revna,” she said, and threw Linné an angry look over her shoulder. “Don’t worry about Linné. Her father’s a general, so she thinks she’s in charge. But she’s not, so you don’t have to do what she says. Where are you from?”
Revna sat down and put a hand to her calf. Then she saw the girls all staring at her and jerked it back. “Tammin Reaching,” she said.
“I’m from Tammin,” Magdalena said. She’d finished her assignment suspiciously fast, Linné thought, and she suppressed a sigh of irritation as Magdalena lifted the dropped crate. Magdalena hauled it to the middle of the room, then went over to shake Revna’s hand. The Linnés of the world got to carry their crates themselves, evidently. “Why didn’t we come down on the same palanquin?”
“Had to process some paperwork,” Revna said.
“What happened to your legs?” said another girl.
Revna stiffened. “An accident.” Her tone was light, but she drew her lips together, and her legs curled under the bed.
“We’re running late,” Linné reminded them.
Katya turned on her. “Let her settle in.”
“Welcome to the regiment,” Linné told Revna. “Consider yourself settled and take your old uniform off. The rest of you have more crates to haul.”
Katya rolled her eyes but beckoned the others. Linné heard them laughing behind her as she led them back to the warehouse. She told herself she didn’t care what they were laughing about.
The uniforms consisted of a cotton tunic and trousers with a high-collared jacket for everyday use. Another crate contained wool coats, scarves, and gloves, and yet another held socks and belts. Everything was in the same shade of olive brown, except for the tin buttons on the jacket and the patch on one sleeve, decorated with a simplified Union star to mark them as enlisted. “We’ll assign uniforms by size,” Linné said.
Katya scoffed. “I don’t need you to tell me what size I am. I can dress myself, thank you.” She pursed her lips as she pulled out a canvas belt that could wind around her waist twice.
Linné had intended to match the large to the large and the small to the small. But soon it became apparent that small was a matter of opinion. Everyone but the towering Magdalena looked ridiculous.
“I can’t use these,” laughed Galina, a stocky brown-haired navigator. She’d worn a dress on her first day, to no end of amusement from the boys. Today she’d managed to find trousers, and she even wore boots, one of which she compared with her issued boot. The issued boot was at least six centimeters longer.
“Stuff it with socks,” Linné said. They had plenty of those.
“Can’t I wear the boots I brought? They fit, and they’re nice.” Galina wiggled her ankle.