They send the group's anthropologist down to the village to tell the Potamians that they've sent for relief supplies and no one is going to starve to death.
Apparently that's not enough.
"They're still rioting," the man tells Ezrikos when he returns to the camp. "That leader of theirs has got them convinced that we're here to destroy them."
Major Sheppard, who happens to be hanging around, as he always is, sighs. "We'll have to go talk to him, I guess."
Ezrikos nods distractedly, and says, "Inciting to riot is an serious offence on an Imperial Colony." Her voice is husky and soft, musing.
Sheppard shoots her a very surprised, slightly worried look, and she smiles at him, and brushes the incident away.
One of the village women comes up to the camp a few hours later. She's worried that the leader – Bohkus Dhy is his name – is leading the people astray. Her son is one of his enforcers.
"He's a good man, I'm sure," she says wistfully to Ezrikos, "but he speaks of ruling us after the Empire is gone, and of tithing." She turns pleading eyes to Major Sheppard, who she has correctly guessed is the "good cop" in this little interview. "He's always looking after my neighbor's girls; I worry for our future if the Empire leaves."
Ezrikos' beautiful face twists into a sneer of disgust. "We'll take care of it," she says, "but I wouldn't worry: the Empire never leaves anybody alone."
When the woman has gone, Sheppard says, "Let me talk to him."
The remark surprises her. "This is not your problem, Major."
"I know, but I'm here, and I'll bet I'm a whole lot better at talking people out of things than you are."
She pretends to be far more insulted by that than she actually is. "You underestimate me, Major. I'm very good at convincing people not to do things."
"Yes, but I mean without threats."
"Where's the fun in that?"
At any rate, nothing comes of it. Dhy gives him nothing but the party line of "We will throw off these outworlder oppressors and rule self-determined, knowing full well what is best for our own people…blah, blah, blah…"
Sheppard comes back to the camp, and finds Ezrikos sitting in the sun with her back against a building.
He walks up and looks down at her. "No dice," he says. "Your move."
"I'm sorry? Sometimes, Major, I find your methods of expression a little difficult to follow."
He sighs, and sits down on the grass next to her, his knee against hers.
"Dhy won't give an inch; we'll have to try something else."
She smiles up at the sky. "I could have saved you the trip."
"You are such a fucking pessimist." She grins. "What are you doing out here?"
"Shooting squalls," she says, and he sees that she has the Ancient rifle on her lap.
"What are squalls?"
On cue, a hideous thing that looks like an unhappy marriage between a buzzard and a Gila monster, comes shrieking out of the forest. Really, really fast.
Ezrikos puts the rifle to her shoulder, and follows it for a moment before blowing it into little pieces.
"Pretty powerful rounds," he says when he's recovered his voice.
"Very," she agrees. "Come on."
She gets up and he follows, asking, "Where are we going?"
"To solve your problem," she calls, waving to Desperaux that they'll be back.
He doesn't like the sound of that.
He's right. They've been lying on a grassy knoll for ten minutes, Ezrikos stubbornly refusing to tell him what's going on, when Dhy strolls into view, arguing with a man Sheppard recognizes as the mayor of one of the nearby villages.
"Probably brought him out here to quietly dump his body," Ezrikos breathes into his ear. And the heat of her body pressed against him is distraction enough that he doesn't get it until she rises to her knees with the rifle.
And blows Bohkus Dhy's head all over the forest floor.
He gapes at her, completely ignoring the shrieking mayor.
She smiles unpleasantly. "Inciting to riot on an Imperial Colony in the initial stage of conquest is an executable offense. Three of my uncles were killed for it."
Ezrikos looks back down at the body.
"It can't be that easy," she says softly.
And it isn't.
It's the rain that's the main problem. They took care of the food shortage with several loads of supplies, but the water is still rising, and many villages are built close to water.
They're trying to evacuate a town of Potamians. The Potato-heads, as Ford has taken to calling them.
Their town is on the banks of a huge river. Swollen with the unprecedented rainfall, the river has flooded its banks, and the town will be washed away in a few hours.
Major Sheppard is sixty or seventy feet away when the boy falls into the river. He turns at the yelp in time to see the eight or nine year old lose balance, but far too far away to do anything about it.
But he isn't the closest military officer.
Ezrikos drops her rifle and hits the water with a spilt second reaction time. Sheppard and several of the town adults run to the banks and watch worriedly as her head comes up slightly downstream of them. She has the boy under one arm.
"You'll have to swim for it, Captain," he shouts to her. "We can't get anything across."
She looks over at him, and although she's a couple dozen yards away, fetched up against a convenient rock, he could swear she looks scared. She nods at him after a moment.
It's a complicated process of kicking off and gliding with the current, made more difficult by the child, but she manages somehow, and Sheppard grabs her hand as one of the town adults takes the child, and hauls her up the steep bank.
She's shivering, and he realizes that the water must be below 30 degrees. He had noticed it was cold, but he hasn't been swimming in it.
"Better get back to the camp and get dry, Captain. Wouldn't want you to get sick."
He knows something's wrong when she doesn't argue, doesn't even look at him, just nods, and turns to walk back; deaf to the gratitude of the child's relieved parents.
So he makes up some excuse to accompany her.
When she hasn't said anything by the time they've almost reached the base, he knows he'll have to do this the hard way.
"Captain, what is it?"
She looks surprised. Too surprised. Her eyebrows have practically reached her hairline.
"What is what, Major?"
He just looks at her, walking side by side now. She looks away.
After a moment she says, "I was raised on Casca. I know you've never been there, but…"she pauses. "It's a warm world."
She takes a deep breath, still not looking at him, her arms wrapped around herself.
"My father's people are desert nomads, Major. I was raised among them." She licks her lips nervously, and then says very softly, "I'm afraid of water."
When he says nothing she swallows again. "I had to learn to swim as part of the Strike Force training, but I hate it."
They're nearing the sentry line, and she still hasn't looked at him. There's more to it. He knows she's hiding something, but the part of him that has any experience at all with this kind of thing is telling him not to push it.
So he doesn't.
He reaches out and grabs her arm gently.
"Captain."
She turns, and looks at him for the first time since he pulled her out of the river. She looks terrified. She's shaking constantly, and he doesn't think it's because she's cold.
He reminds himself that this is the woman he saw assassinate a man in the forest just yesterday without even a blink. Trying to reconcile this new information with that premise is a little difficult, but after a moment he's able to see her as she is, not as she would like to appear to be.
He considers her, wondering if he's about to get twisted and broken into a human pretzel for doing this, and then does it anyway.
He very gently pulls her to him. She hesitates at first, but then, seeking the warmth of his body, she slides her arms around him underneath his jacket. His arms tighten, and he just stands there, holding her as she cries silently against his shoulder.
He likes the feel of her in his arms, and he tries not to think about how completely out-of-character this is for her, and how crazy it is for both of them.
Because honestly? He can use the comfort too.
