The Stone Dogs Read Online Free PDF Page B

was a long pool; water spouted from a marble dolphin, and she could feel a faint trailing of mist as she walked out into the garden beside it among the flowerbeds and benches.
    A few heads turned her way as she rummaged among the equipment on a table. Weights for the ankles, and to strap around her wrists; she bound back her hair with a sweatband, and sniffed longingly at the smells of coffee and cooking that drifted over the odor of dew-wet grass and roses. No food for an hour or two yet.
    "Ingolfsson!" It was Myfwany Venders, the redheaded one who had greeted her at the parking lot. "Come on over here, meet the crew." The girl from Sicily continued to her knot of friends: "This is Yolande Ingolfsson, down from the wilds of Tuscany." She turned to the newcomer. "This is — "
    Yolande struggled to match names with faces as the introductions were made; it was important, she was the outsider here. Most of the others were from south-central Italy, daughters of planters and overseers, civil servants and Combine execs. A few from farther away — that was government policy — from the French and Spanish and Balkan provinces, even from the older territories on the south shore of the Mediterranean. Most humiliatingly taller than her, why was she still short…
    "Look out," Myfwany muttered. "It's Bruiser and the Beak."
    Two adults were walking toward them from the
    administration block at the head of the courtyard. A woman in white cotton pants and singlet with a towel around her neck; stocky-muscular, broad in hips and shoulders, big-busted for a Draka, with a hard flat face and golden-brown hair. The man beside her was much taller and almost thin, with a close-cropped mat of black hair shot with silver and a face that would have been handsome except for the eagle swoop of his nose. He was stripped to the waist and his body looked wiry and very strong, long ropy muscles moving easily under tanned skin.
    "Teachers," Myfwany continued, sotto voce . "Married. She's Unarmed Combat and Hand Weapons, he's Firearms and Tactics."
    The students fell silent. "Keep stretching," the woman said, walking and appraising. "Some of you need it." The man dropped forward, caught himself on three fingers and a thumb and began doing one-handed pushups. His wife stopped in front of an apprehensive-looking girl and poked her below the ribs with one finger. "Too much pasta this summer, Muriel. Yo'll regret it."
    Well, she is a bit plump , Yolande thought. Not fat, but with a smoothed-at-the-edges look, serfish. Stupid to let yourself go like that over the holidays; it just made school harder… and you lost respect, too.
    Myfwany held out linked hands. "Hamstring?" she said.
    "Thanks." She swung the heel of her right leg into the other's fingers. "Higher," she said, rolling back the toes and laying the ball of her foot in line with the shin, kicking position. Myfwany bent her knees and raised it slowly until Yolande's foot was pointing at the sky. That brought their faces close together, and she whispered:
    "What're they like?"
    "Beak's not bad," the redhead whispered back. "Used to be a tank commander in the Third. His classes are pretty interesting.
    Bruiser's fair even with her own daughters, but sort of strict.
    Doesn't much care for excuses; she was in a recon cohort."
    The former scout-commando came to stand behind the new girl. "Good extension there," she said. "Try the other leg."
    Yolande switched feet. "Well, yo' limber enough. Here." Her accent was flat and a little nasal, north-Angolan or Katanga.

    Yolande shook out her legs and took the offered hand; it was like gripping a piece of carved wood. She squeezed as strongly as she could, admiring the thick wrist and smooth flat ripple of the teacher's forearm.
    "Not bad," the instructor said, releasing her. "Stronger than yo' looks; little ones fool yo', sometimes."
    The girl's ears burned. Why does everyone have to comment on my height ? she thought.
    "Right, fo' all the new ones here, I'm