Texarkana, April: The border town has turned into a staging area. Operations in the Texas-Ozark United Free Region move forward as the political leadership convenes in search of a way to govern the aggregation, already being called the TWO-FUR by the willfully dyslexic soldiery.
A new name for the region is in the works.
The city has become one of those chaotic staging areas familiar to those of long service. Units coming off frontline service bump elbows with freshly organized troops. Equipment and personnel swap by means official and unofficial, and creative middlemen set up shop to service needs ranging from new boots to old wine, aging guns to young women.
An old indoor tennis court serves as the local headquarters for the separate commands of the Texas and Ozark forces. There are warehouses and self-storage units nearby to hold gear scraped up by the Logistics Commandos or brought out of the Dallas-Fort Worth corridor. Most importantly of all, a hospital has been upgraded from a bare-bones Kurian health center to a four-hundred-bed unit that can provide care equal to any existing facility outside those patronized by the elite of the Kurian Zone.
Churches and temporary schools operate at the edge of "Texarkana Dumps", the current name for the collection of military facilities. Outside the perimeter of the Southern Command's patrols, a tar-paper and aluminum-siding shantytown has sprung up, accommodating refugees from the Kurian Zone as well as the illicit needs of bored soldiers waiting for orders.
Even the local wildlife seems to be in a state of leisurely flux. Crows and dogs and a few far-ranging seagulls trot or fly from refuse heap to sewage pit, with the local feral cats sunning themselves on wall top and windowsill after a night hunting the thriving rats and mice.
The soldiers fresh from the Dallas battlefield feel the same way. Fresh food, sunshine, and sleep are all that are required for blissful, if not purring, contentment.
* * * *
The attenuated Razors' brief period of excited anticipation, carried since getting off the Dallas train and hearing about their billet, ended as soon as they saw the "hotel."
Even in its heyday no one would have called the roadside Accolade Inn worthy of a special trip. The subsequent years had not been kind to the blue-and-white block, four stories of stucco-sided accommodations thick with kudzu and bird droppings. Someone had put in screens and plywood doors, and each room's toilet worked, though the sink fixtures were still in the process of retrofit, having been stripped and not replaced. Neat cots, six to a room, sat against water-stained walls.
"Not bad," a goateed Razor said when Valentine heard him test the John's flush after washing his hands in the toilet tank. "Better than the sisters have at home."
Sadly, the attenuated regiment fit in the hotel with beds to spare. A third of their number were dead or in either a Fort Worth or Texarkana hospital.
The latter was Valentine's first stop after getting the men to the hotel. A First Response Charity tambourine-and-saxophone duo just outside the hospital door accepted a few crumpled pieces of Southern Command scrip with the usual "God Blesses you."
"Continually," Valentine agreed, though over the past year it had been a decidedly mixed blessing. The pair stood a little straighter in their orange-and-white uniforms and reached for pamphlets, but Valentine passed on and into the green-peppermint tiles of the hospital.
He made it a point to visit every man of his command; the routine and their requests were so grimly regular that he began entering with a tumbler of ice-he made a mental note to steal and fill a trashcan with ice before heading back to the Accolade- to spare himself the inevitable back-and-forth trip. But his mind wasn't at ease until he visited the last name on his list, Captain William Post.
Visiting hours were over by the time he made it to the breezy top floor, where Post shared a room with a blinded artillery officer.
"Well, just remember to be quiet," the head nurse said when Valentine showed his ID and signed in on the surgery-recovery floor. Dark crests like bruises hung beneath her eyes.
"Tell it to the FIRCs downstairs," Valentine said, as they started up again with the umpteenth rendition of "Onward Christian Soldiers," one of their supply of three hymns.
Post looked horrible. His cheeks had shrunken in, and the nurse had done a poor job shaving him. A little tent stood over the stump of his left leg and a tube ran from the region of his appendix to a red-filled bottle on the floor. A bottle on a hook attached to the bed dripped clear liquid into a tube in his arm, as though to balance output with input. Post's eyes were bright and alert, though.
His friend even managed a wink when Valentine rattled the plastic, metered hospital tumbler full of ice.
"How's it going?" Valentine asked in a small voice, as if to emphasize the words' inadequacy.
"They got the shrapnel out. Some small intestine came with it. So they say." Post took his time speaking. "No infection." He took a breath. "No infection. That was the real worry."
"God blesses you," the FIRCs chorused downstairs. Valentine agreed again, this time with more enthusiasm.
"You know what? They pulled maggots out of my eyes," Post's roommate said, as though it were the funniest thing to ever happen to anyone. "Got to hand it to flies-they go to work right away. I wasn't laying in the pit but three hours before the medics found me. Flies beat 'em."
"He'll be out tomorrow," Post said quietly, as though he had to apologize for the interruption.
"How much leg is left?" Valentine asked.
"Midthigh," Post said. "At first I thought it was a raw deal. Then I decided the shrapnel could have gone six inches higher and to the right. It's all perspective."
"We'll make a good pair, limping up and down the tent lines," Valentine said.
"You got to admire maggots," the man in the next bed said. "They know they only got one thing to do and they do it."
"I think I'll be spending the rest of the war in the first-class cabin," Post said, using old Coastal Marine slang for a retirement on a wound pension. "I've got to be careful about my diet now. So they say. There's a leaflet around here somewhere."
"Anything I can do for you?"
Later on Valentine spent hours that accumulated into days and weeks thinking back on his offer, and the strange turns his life took from the moment he said the phrase. He made the offer in earnest. If Post had asked him to go back to Louisiana and get a case of Hickory Pit barbecue sauce, he would have done his best to bring back the distinctive blend.
"Get my green duffel from under the bed," Post said.
There were only two items under the wheeled cot, a scuffed service pack and the oversized green duffel. Each had at least three kinds of tagging on it.
Valentine pulled up the bag, wondering.
"There's a leather case inside, little gold fittings."
It was easy to find; everything else in the duffel was clothing. The case felt as though it was full of sand. Valentine lifted it with an effort.
"Open it," Post said.
Valentine saw reams of paper inside. It was like a miniature file cabinet. Three manila folders filled it, marked (in order of thickness, most to least) "Queries/Replies," "Descriptions," and "Evidence." Valentine caught an inky whiff of photocopier chemicals.
Valentine had a good guess about the contents of the briefcase. Post had been looking for his ex-wife almost from the moment they stepped into the Ozarks. Valentine knew the details; Post had talked about her now and then when the mood hit, since the time Valentine met him while posing as a Quisling officer on the old Thunderbolt. William Post and Gail Foster had grown up in the Kurian Zone and married young. He joined the Quisling Coastal Marines, became an officer, fought and worked for the Kurians, in an effort to give them a better life. But the man she thought she'd married was no collaborator. As Post's career flourished their marriage dissolved. Gail Post became convinced he'd gone over to the enemy, and left. They'd always talked of trying to make it to the Ozark Free Territory, so Post assumed she'd come here.
Valentine opened the folio marked "Descriptions" with his forefinger. Mimeographed sheets headed MISSING-REWARD had a two-tone picture of a fair young woman with wide-set eyes, photographed full-face and profile. Perhaps her lips were a little too thin for her to be considered a great beauty, but then Kurian Zone identification photographs rarely flattered.
Post was a dedicated correspondent. Valentine guessed there had to be two hundred letters and responses paper-clipped together.
"There's three sheets on top of the Evidence folder. Take them out, will you Dave?" Post said. His head sank back on the pillow as though the effort of speaking had emptied him.
Valentine knew wounds and pain. He took out the pages-bad photocopies, stamped with multiple release signatures-and waited.
"I found her name. She was here."
"That's a damn miracle," Valentine said.
Post nodded. "I had help. Several new organizations were set up after you guys got the Ozarks back to reunite families. Then there was still the Lueber Alliance."
Valentine had learned about LA his first year in the Ozarks. Better than forty years old, it collected information on people lost in the Kurian Zone. Rumor had it the names numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
"Lueber found that first list for me," Post continued.
The page had a list of names, a shipping manifest with train car allocations-thirty to a car, relatively comfortable transport by Kurian standards.
Valentine didn't see a destination for the list. He flipped to the next page.
"That's just an old census. Showed she lived near Pine Bluff before Solon's takeover. Also Leuber."
Valentine had gone to a war college in Pine Bluff when the commander of Zulu Company offered him a position as lieutenant. He looked at the picture again, trying to associate it with a memory from the town. Nothing.
The third page was the strangest of all. It was a photocopy of a list, and the names were handwritten. Fifty names, numbered 401 to 450. TESTING STATION 9-P was the legend up at the top. Gail's name was in the middle, along with her age. His eyes found it quickly thanks to an X in the column marked "result." All the other names had blanks in the "result" column. Someone had handwritten "She's gone for good" at the top corner, though whether this was a note to Post or not none could say.
"What's this?"
"That's the oddball. Got it about a month ago. It came in an envelope with just my address on it."
Valentine looked at the attached envelope. Post must have received it just before they moved into the Love Field positions. Valentine could remember a change in Post, a resignation, but had attributed it to the strain of the siege.
He examined the document's envelope. Typewritten, obviously with a manual typewriter. Valentine deciphered the stamp-Pine Bluff again. But the post number wasn't the one for the war college. The Miskatonic? The researchers there studied the Kurian Order, probing unpleasant shadows and gruesome corners.
"No cover letter?"
"Nothing."
"How can I help?"
Post took a moment, either to gather thoughts or breathe. "You know people. The"-he lowered his voice, as though fearing comment from the blind man in the next bed-"Lifeweavers. Those researchers. Intelligence. I'd like to know what happened to her after she was taken. No matter how bad the news."
People herded onto trains seldom came to a happy end. Valentine had been in Solon's meetings, heard about "payments" in the form of captives going to the neighboring KZs. "You sure? Maybe you don't."
"She's still alive in my head," Post said.
"Exactly."
Post's lined eyes regained some of their old liveliness. "No, not that way. I always knew she was alive, even when I thought you were just another CM. Can't say how I know. A feeling. I still feel it. You know about feelings like that."
He did. Some inner warning system sometimes let him know when there was a Reaper around-the "Valentingle," his comrades in the Wolves used to call it. First as a joke. Then they learned to trust it.
"I can ask around." Post was right; he had a couple of tenuous contacts at the Miskatonic-the main scholarly center for research into the Kurian Order-and with Southern Command's intelligence. But that was pre-Solon. For all he knew they were dead or lost in the chaos civilians were already calling "the bad spell."
"Let me know the truth, whatever it is, Val."
"Can I have these?"
"Sure. I copied down everything in my journal."
Valentine rested his hand on Post's forearm. "Listen to the doctors and get better. The Razors need you back, even if you're stumping around on a piece of East Texas pine."
"I heard they were breaking up the Razors," Post said.
"From who?"
Post shrugged, and the effort left him red-faced. "Some doctor. Asked me what outfit I was with."
"Probably a rumor. Lots of stuff floating around military hospitals."
"Yeah, like turds in a bedpan," Post's neighbor said.
"A regular Lieutenant Suzy Sunshine, that guy," Post said. Lieutenant Suzy Sunshine was a PoUyannaish cartoon character in one of the army papers-Freedom's Voice-who turned any misfortune into a cheerful quip.
"I'll be back tomorrow," Valentine said.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Valentine left, upset enough to forget the ice.
* * * *
The sun had vanished by the time Valentine returned to the Accolade. The Razors had set up some old car upholstery in the overgrown parking lot, and had gathered to drink and watch the sun go down.
"Bump, Major?" Ruvayed, the communications officer from the control tower, hollered as he passed. She looked off-kilter, like a dog back from the vet-part of her skull was shaved and a dressing blossomed in the bare spot like a white flower. She held out a tall glass.
"I need a major bump," another man added, flat on his back with a tepee of gnawed roasting ears, holding a lit cigar clear of the grass.
"Just have to check in," Valentine said as he passed, regretting the forgotten ice.
Meadows and Nail, the Bear leader, were going over personnel sheets, trying to work out store consumption and medical requirements for the men stabled at the Accolade.
"Wish staff hadn't snatched Styachowski back," Nail said, looking at the broken end of his pencil. "She went through paperwork like quicklime. Hey, Val."
"Maybe we need a piece of that blue blob they pried off the Kurian capsule," Valentine said. "I heard they're keeping it at Brigade. It eats paper."
The "dingleberry" was the only survivor of the Kurian capsule's trip through the defeated Dallas forces. The last Valentine had heard the Dallas Quislings were almost to Houston, being shepherded on blistered feet by mounted Rangers.
"Nail, can I have a moment with the colonel?" Valentine asked.
"Gladly. I'll grab a piece of twilight while I can." Nail drew a utility knife and went to work on his pencil point as he walked out the door.
"How's Will?" Meadows asked.
"Came through fine. I spoke to one doctor and two nurses. He's feeling a little low, but physically he's doing well."
"Send Narcisse over to have a chat with him. She's got a way of putting things in perspective."
"He said there's a rumor floating around that the Razors are through," Valentine said. His voice broke a little as he spoke. The Razors were a cross to bear, but also a matter of some personal pride.
Meadows sighed and sat down. "I wonder who blabbed. Smoke? I swear her ears detach and walk around on their own."
"No, she's not even in Texarkana. She heard about a Lifeweaver, supposed to be up in Hot Springs, and hopped a train to find him."
"I saw a Lifeweaver once. Or what a Wolf told me was one."
"So the rumor's true?" Valentine asked, wanting to change the subject. Wherever the Lifeweavers helping Southern Command had fled to when the Free Territory fell last year, they were taking their sweet time in getting back, and speculation didn't hurry them along.
"Sorry, Val. Look, the Razors only half existed as far as Southern Command was concerned anyway. They never liked experienced Wolves and a Bear team tied down to a regiment of Guard infantry anyway. That, and the men have specializations that are needed elsewhere."
The truth of his words made it hurt a little less. "When's it going to be announced?"
"Another day or three. We'll have a big good-bye blowout the day after the news; I've arranged for that."
Colonel Meadows understood the men and their needs better than Valentine. In his more introspective moments Valentine admitted to himself that he threw himself so much into the job at hand that he forgot about the stress it put on the tool.
"You can help, Val. In the morning there'll be decorations, then the barbecue starts. I've arranged for Black Lightning to play- according to the Texans they're the best Relief band in Southern Command. Stripper tent, tattoo artists, a back-pay distribution so you'll get the flea marketers in to provide some competition for the Southern Command PX-wagons."
"What do you need from me?" Valentine asked. If he couldn't do anything about the Razors dying, he could at least see to the burial.
"We need a bunch of transfer orders written. I've got a skills priority list; match it up with the men. Wish we had Will. For the party, I mean."
"Seems wrong to have it without him. I just told him the Razors were waiting for his return."
"Sorry about that. I didn't want to tell you until you had a night or two to rest up here."
"I'll sleep tonight. I intend to have a couple of sips of whatever Ruvayed is passing out."
"Consider yourself off duty for the next twenty-four."
Valentine had a thought. "Could you take care of one thing, sir? Pass something up? The general's signature would be helpful."
"What is it?"
"I'd like Post to be able to say farewell to the Razors too."
* * * *
Roast pig is a mouthwatering smell, and it penetrated even the back of the ambulance. The vehicle halted.
"What's up your sleeve, Val?" Post asked. No fewer than four nurses and one muscular medical orderly sat shoulder to shoulder with Val, crowded around Post's bed on wheels.
"You'll see."
The doors opened, giving those inside a good view of the Accolade's renovated parking lot. The brush had been chopped away, tents constructed, and paper lanterns in a dozen colors strung between the tent poles and trees. Some nimble electronics tech had rigged a thirty-foot antenna and hung the Razor's porcine silhouette banner-DON'T FEED ON ME read the legend-to top it off.
Bunting hung from the Accolade's windows, along with another canopy of lanterns. Music from fiddles, guitars, and drums competed from different parts of the party. A mass of soldiers-probably a good third of them not even Razors, but men who knew how to sniff out a good party and gain admittance by performing some minor support function-wandered in and out of the various tents and trader stalls.
"Jesus, Val," Post said as Valentine and the orderly took him out of the ambulance. He looked twice as strong as he had on Valentine's visit the previous day-Post made a habit of coming back strong from injury.
"Hey, it's Captain Post!" a Razor shouted.
"Some secret debriefing," one of the nurses said.
"As far as the hospital's concerned none of you will be back for a day," Valentine said. "The only thing I ask is that someone attend Will at all times."
"SOP, Val. I can just holler if I need some water. John, set this thing so I'm sitting up, alright?"
The attendant and a nurse arranged his bed.
"If I'd known this soiree was going full blast," a nurse said, rearranging the cap on her brunette hair, "I would have brought my makeup."
Valentine pulled some bills out of his pocket and passed them to the head nurse. "For additional medical supplies. You can probably find what you need at the PX-wagons. If not, it looked like the strippers had plenty to spare."
"Ewwww," another nurse said.
"Oh, lighten up, Nicks," the head nurse said. "You're on first watch, then. I'll bring you a plate."
The men were already clustering around Post. "Great, great," Valentine heard Post saying. "Food's good. Only problem is, I was wounded in my right leg. They took the healthy one off."
"Just like 'em," one of the more gullible Razors said, before he saw what the others were laughing at.
The male attendant kept various proffered bottles and cups away from Post's mouth. "I want to hear some music," Post said. "Let's get Narcisse's wheelie-stool out and we'll dance."
"Razors!" the men shouted as they lifted the gurney and bore it toward the bandstand.
"That's a nice thing you're doing for your captain, Major," the nurse they called Nicks said. "He's lucky to have you."
"I'm the lucky one," Valentine said.
* * * *
Black Lightning lived up to their reputation. Valentine wasn't sophisticated enough with music to say whether they were "country" or "rock and roll" or "fwap" to use early-twenty-first century categories. They were energetic-and loud. So much so that he kept to the back and observed. The crowd listened or danced as the mood struck them, all facing the stage, which was just as well because the men outnumbered the women by six to one or so.
The nurses kept close to Post, who had a steady stream of well-wishers, but seemed to make themselves agreeable to the boys.
Boys. Valentine startled at the appellation. At twenty-seven he could hardly be labeled old, but he sometimes felt it when he passed a file of new recruits. Southern Command had filled out the Razors with kids in need of a little experience-the regiment had never been meant to be a frontline unit in the Dallas siege-and they'd gotten it at terrible cost.
Or maybe it was just that the younger folks had the energy to enjoy the band. Most of the older men sat as they ate or smoked or drank, enjoying the night air and the companionship of familiar faces. A photographer took an occasional picture of those who'd been decorated that morning. Everyone had taken the news of the Razors' breakup well-
"What a surprise. Major Valentine alone with his thoughts," a female voice said in his ear.
Valentine jumped. Duvalier stood just behind him as though she'd been beamed there from the Star Trek books of his youth. She wore a pair of green, oversized sunglasses, some cheap kid's gewgaw from the trade wagons, and when the photographer pointed the camera at them, she had a sudden coughing fit as the flash fired.
"Didn't know you were back."
"After all this time, you still haven't figured it out, have you? I don't like my comings and goings to be noticed." Valentine noticed her slurring her words a little. He'd never known Duvalier to have more than a single glass of anything out of politeness-and even that was usually left unfinished.
"I thought you hated parties," Valentine said.
"I do, but I like to go anyway, and hate them with someone."
"You dressed up."
Duvalier wore tight shorts, a sleeveless shirt, and what looked to be thigh-high stockings in a decorative brocade. Her battered hiking boots just made the rest of her look better. "Wishing I hadn't. Some of your horntoads thought I was here professionally."
"Serves you right for getting cleaned up. Any bloodshed?"
"All the ears and noses in your command are accounted for, Major. Colonel Meadows asked me to find you."
"Speaking of finding people, I've yet to find anyone who saw you during our fight at the airfield."
She wrinkled her freckled nose. "I should hope not. Everyone but me was busy being a hero. As soon as the bombs started dropping I hid deep and dark next to a storm sewer leading off-field. You can't outsmart a rocket."
"If they gave out medals for survival you'd have a chestful. Speaking of which, is that the legendary red bra I see peeping out?" He reached for her cutoff shirt-
"Dream on, Valentine." She grabbed his hand and gave his wrist a painful twist, then pulled him toward the barbecue pit, her hand warm in his.
Colonel Meadows was carving pork, heaping it onto plates, and handing them out, at which point Narcisse would slather the meat with barbecue sauce and hand the plates out to the lined-up soldiers. Judging by their sticky lips, most were back for seconds.
"Daveed!" Narcisse said, spinning on her stool. "This recipe I learned on Jamaica-they call it 'jerked.' Have some!"
"In a second, Sissy," Meadows said. "We're getting a drink first. Spell me, Cossack."
A soldier prodding the coals stood up and took the carving knife out of Meadows' hand. Meadows tossed him the apron.
They filled pewter mugs from a barrel at the beer tent-it was poor stuff, as Southern Command had better things to do with its soil than grow hops-and found a quiet spot away from the band. Duvalier followed with a plate at a respectful distance. She had good hearing, if not quite Valentine's Wolf ears, and positioned herself downwind, back to the men but undoubtedly able to hear every word said.
Some fool fired off a blue signal flare to add to the festive atmosphere. It turned the beer black inside the mugs and added deep shadows to Meadows' eyesockets.
"Great party, sir," Valentine said, and meant it.
"We deserve it." Meadows was a we kind of officer. He held out his mug and Valentine touched his to it, the faint klink sounding a slightly sour note thanks to the pewter.
"An interesting letter in the courier pouch hit my desk the other day. This is as good a moment as any to tell you: They're offering you a Hunter Staff position."
Valentine felt his knees give out for a moment, and he covered with a swig of beer. "Staff?"
"Easy now, Val. It's a helluva honor."
Duvalier brushed past him on the way to the beer tent, and gave his hip a gentle nudge with hers.
"Not that you'll have a lot of time to show off your swagger stick. I hear they work you to death."
Valentine understood that well enough. Southern Command operated on a general staff system that selected and then trained a small group of officers in all the subsidiary branches of service: artillery, logistics, intelligence, and so on. The highly trained cadre then served as staff inspectors or temporary replacements or taught until promoted to higher command or, in the event of a crisis, they took command of reserve units.
The Hunters-the Wolves, Cats, and Bears of Southern Command that operated as special forces outside the borders of the Free Territory-had their own identical staff system that trained with the others and then performed similar functions with the smaller Hunter units. A couple of hitches in Wolf and Bear formations was enough for most; the veteran soldiers usually transferred to support units-or the Logistics Commandos if they still had a taste for operating in the Kurian Zone. But most still served Southern Command by belonging to ghost regiments that might be called up.
Captain Moira Styachowski, one of the most capable officers he'd ever met, had been on the Hunter Staff.
Valentine might end up in command of one of those formations. The role was wryly appropriate; he'd been nicknamed "the Ghost" when serving in the Zulus, his first Wolf company.
Meadows broke in on his thoughts. "Valentine, it's official enough so I thought I'd tell you. You're better than two years overdue for a leave. It'll take them a while to get your training schedule worked out. When we're done here you'll be cleared to take a three-months' leave. I'll miss you. It's been a pleasure."
And Valentine would miss the Razors. They seemed "his" in a way none of the other organizations he'd served with or commanded ever had. Seeing them broken up was like losing a child. "Thank you, sir."
He didn't feel like thanking anyone, but it had to be said.
He wandered back among the Razors, accepted a few congratulations with a smile, but all he wanted was quiet and a chance to think. Meadows had tried to add a sparkle to a bittersweet party, but all he'd done was ruin Valentine's enjoyment of the festivities.
Stow that, you dumb son of a grog. You're ruining your enjoyment, not Meadows.
Back in his days visiting the opulent old theater in Pine Bluff, they'd show movies now and then. He remembered sitting through part of one when arriving early for the evening's movie; the smell of popcorn and sweat on the seats all around him, unable to shut out even the blood from a tiny shaving cut on the man next to him with his inexperienced Wolfs nose.
The early show for the families was a kids' cartoon, full of bright primary colors even on the shabby little projector rigged to an electronic video-memory device. He recalled a bunch of kids' toys in a machine, and a mechanical claw that came down and selected one of the dozens of identical toys now and then. The toys responded to the mystical selection of the claw as though at a religious ceremony.
Life in the creaky, stop-and-start mechanism of Southern Command had never been so elegantly summed up for him. "The claw chooses!" Orders came down and snatched you away from one world and put you in another.
Duvalier proffered a fresh, cool mug filled with colder beer. "Guess that's it for Cat duty, far as you're concerned," she said. Her eyes weren't as bright and lively as usual; either her digestive troubles were back or she'd continued drinking. Valentine sniffed her breath and decided the latter.
The swirl of congratulatory faces wandered off after he took the mug, offered a small celebratory lift of the brew to the north, south, east, and west, and took a sip.
"Did you run down that Lifeweaver?" On second taste, the beer wasn't quite so sharp.
"No. There was a rumor one'd been killed by some kind of agent the Kurians planted last year. Guess Kurs' got their versions of Cats too."
Valentine had heard all sorts of rumors about specially trained humans in Kurian employ. That they could read minds, or turn water into wine, or redirect a thunderstorm's lightning. Everything from mud slides to misaddressed mail was blamed on Kurian agents.
Valentine shrugged.
"They'll get word to us. They always do, one way or another. Right?" Duvalier asked.
The last sounded a bit too much like a plea. Duvalier thought of the Lifeweavers as something akin to God's angels on Earth; the way the Kurians' estranged cousins presented themselves added to the effect. This cool and deadly woman had the eyes of a child left waiting on a street corner for a vanished parent.
"Mystery's their business," Valentine said.
She emptied her mug. "Want to blow this bash?"
The beer worked fast. Valentine already felt like listening to music and discussing the nurses' legs with Post. But he couldn't leave Duvalier tipsy and doubtful.
"Yes," he lied.
Her shoulders went a little further back, and more of the red bra appeared beneath her vest. "Lead on, McGruff," she said.
Valentine was pretty sure it was MacDuff-Father Max made his classes perform two Shakespeare plays a year-but couldn't prick her newly improved mood with something as trivial as, well, trivia.
The men were setting up some sort of chariot race involving wheelchairs, Narcisse, and a Razor with his leg in a cast from ankle to midthigh. By the looks of the clothesline traces and wobbly wheels on the chairs, the soldier's other leg would be in a cast by morning, but Valentine and Duvalier hollered out their hurrahs and stayed to watch. Narcisse's wheelchair overturned at the third turn-she didn't have enough weight to throw leftward to keep both wheels of the chair down in the turn-but she gamely hung on and was dragged through the freshly trimmed parking lot meadow to victory, garlanded by a dandelion leaf in her rag turban.
Duvalier pressed herself up against him as they jumped and cheered her on. As they wandered away from the race, she was on his arm.
"Seems like a staff appointment deserves a special celebration," she slurred as they left the crowd and passed under the Accolade's bunting.
"Careful, now," Valentine said as they made a right turn toward his quarters. "You're evil, teasing me like that."
She looked around and saw that the hall was empty. Then she kissed him, with the same fierce intensity that he remembered from the bloody murder in the Nebraska caboose.
"Let's. Now. Right now." She extracted a half-empty flask from within her vest and took a swig.
Valentine had desired her for years, and they'd come close to making love out of sheer boredom once or twice while serving together in the KZ. But the half joking, half flirting they'd done in the past had always been passed back and forth around a shield of professionalism, like two prisoners swapping notes around a cell wall.
"I wanna see what that little Husker cowgirl thought was so special," she said with a facial spasm that might have been a flirtatious eyebrow lift that suddenly decided to become a wink.
Dumb shit, why did you ever tell her that?
He pulled her into his room and shut the door behind them.
"Not drunk and not with us about to-" he began, fighting off her fingers as they sought his belt.
"Now who's the tease, huh?" she asked, falling back onto the bed as though he'd kicked her there. "You're a lot of talk and fancy words. Ahn-Kha's got bigger balls than you-"
That struck Valentine as a curious-and stipulatable-argument. They'd both seen Ahn-Kha any number of times, and the Golden One had a testicular sack the size of a ripe cantaloupe.
"Ali, I-"
"It's always I with you, Val. Ever notice that? I don't even want us to be a we, I just want one fuck, one goddamn, sweaty fuck with a guy I halfway care about. I spent eight months on my back for those grunting Quislings. Wasn't like blowing some eighteen-year-old sentry to get through a checkpoint 'cause I had a story about how I gotta get medicine to my sick aunt-I had to eat breakfast with those greasy shits and talk about how great they were and just once I'd like-"
And with that it was like all the air had left her lungs. She leaned over with her mouth open for a moment, a surprised look on her face-then she fled to the bathroom.
Valentine pulled his lengthening hair back from his eyes, listened to the mixture of sobs and retching sounds echoing off the tiles in the washroom, and let out a long breath. At the moment he couldn't be sure that he wouldn't rather face another air pirate raid than go into that room.
But he did so.
The mess was about what he expected. A horrible beery-liquor smell wove itself above and around the sharper odor of her bile, and she was crying into the crook of a vomit-smeared arm at the edge of the toilet.
He picked her up. After a quick struggle he set her in bed and took off her shoes and socks, and gave each rough foot one gentle squeeze.
"No, not now," she said. I wasn't.
"I got puke on my good bra."
"I'll rinse it out and hang it up."
"Thanks."
Her freckles looked like wildflowers in a field of golden wheat.
By the time he'd used a washcloth on her face and arm, rinsed out her clothes-and her socks for good measure-she was murmuring at some level of sleep. He put a thin blanket over her and cleaned up the toilet area, using a bowl as a wash bucket.
When that was done she was truly asleep, rolled into the blanket like a softly snoring sausage.
* * * *
That night Valentine sat in his musty room with its vomit-disinfectant-and-tobacco smell and quieted his mind by laying out the three pieces of paper bearing Gail Foster's name. Black Lightning was still pounding away, the amplified music much reduced by the bulk of the intervening hotel.
He took a yellowed blank sheet of paper from his order book and drew a cross in the center, dividing the paper into four squares. He labeled the top left "Goal" and the top right "Known Known." The bottom left became "Known Unknown." Another scrape or two from his pencil and the bottom right box had the label "Unknown Unknown."
While it seemed like gibberish, the formula had been taught to him in his youth by the old Jesuit, Father Max, the teacher who'd raised him after the murder of his family. Father Max had told him (a couple of times-when Father Max was in his cups he sometimes forgot what he said) that the analytic tool came from a woman who used to work at the old United States Department of Defense intelligence agency.
It divided one's knowledge of a subject into facts you knew, facts you knew you didn't know, and the possibility of important pieces of knowledge out there that you weren't aware of until they rose up and bit you. But by diligent pursuit of the questions in the other two squares you slowly accomplished the goal, and sometimes found out about the third in time to act.
And when an Unknown Unknown showed up you had to be mentally prepared to erase even your Known Knowns.
Valentine had lived in the Kurian Zone, had even spoken to one directly, and all his experiences had left him with was the unsettling conviction that humanity's place in the universe wasn't much different than that of a Canis familiaris-the common dog. There were wild dogs and savage dogs and tamed dogs and trained dogs, and dogs knew all about other dogs, or could learn soon enough, but their guesses about the wider world (cars and phones and other phenomena) and a dog's place in it was limited by the dog's tendency to put everything in dog terms.
If he tried to put himself in the place of the practically immortal Kurians, an endless series of doubts and fears popped up. The Kurians had laid waste to Earth once with a series of natural catastrophes and disease, so what was to stop them from unleashing an apocalyptic horseman or two if mankind became too troublesome? He'd seen on the Ranch in Texas that the Kurians were toying with different forms of life in an effort to find a more pliable source of vital aura than man, in the form of the ratbits. How much time did man have before the Kurians decided to clear off the ranchland that was Earth and raise a different kind of stock? Wouldn't a goatherd who got sick of bites from the billys switch to sheep?
Depressing speculation didn't help find Post's wife. He remembered his promise and picked up the pencil again. Under "Goal" he wrote: "Learn what happened to Gail Foster." He did some mental math as he transcribed Kurian dates (the years started in 2022, and after a brief attempt at calendar reform had reverted back to old-style months and days).
Known Knowns
Gail Foster lived in the Free Territory (Pine Bluff?).
- Was tested at station 9-P
- No other woman on the list had an X under "result."
- Was shipped somewhere by the Kurians five days later.
Known Unknowns
- Shipped to where?
- Did test indicate a negative or a positive?
- Purpose of test?
He checked the list of names on the Miskatonic paper again and wrote:
Why only females tested? (Fertility? Privacy? Expediency?) The last was guesswork, for all he knew they tested all women, whether of childbearing age or not. There was the chance that they gave men the same test too, and for reasons of their own performed the tests separately-though the Kurians were not known for breaking up families and couples, it made groups of humans easier to handle.
Statistically, being one out of fifty in the Kurian Zone meant bad news for Gail Foster-formerly Gail Post. In his time undercover in the Kurian Zone Valentine had seen dozens-strike that, hundreds-of instances where the Kurians had culled humans into a large group and a small group.
The small groups never lasted long.
Were they checking for a disease or infirmity that meant she only had a short time to live? The Kurians used humans the way banks exchanged currency; perhaps a human only counted as a human if it could be expected to survive more than one year.
Valentine looked at himself in the shard of mirror on the wall. The single bare bulb in the wall cut shadows under his eyes and jawline. You're a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy, Valentine.
Maybe she scored supergenius on a test and was being shipped off to learn some kind of Kurian technology. Maybe she had a special skill that would keep her comfortably employed in the Kurian Order to a ripe old age.
Or maybe she showed up on some list as a refugee, and was shipped back to her original owners faster than you could say Dred Scott.
The other thing he'd learned from Father Max was that the first step in discovering a few Unknown Unknowns was to answer the Known Unknowns.
So much to do. He'd have Ahn-Kha take Hank to a boarding school. He didn't want the boy to become just another camp extra until he enlisted at fifteen. He'd have to arrange for transport for both of them, and for himself to Pine Bluff and the Miskatonic.
He had one promise to keep before starting this new page. Even if it was a page he didn't know that he was up to turning. Just as well Post had given him this. At least he had something to do with his leave other than fret.
* * * *
Hank brought in breakfast. The boy looked as gray and bleary as a Minnesota October, and Valentine smelled more beer and vomit on him.
"How about a little yogurt, Hank?" Val said, holding up what passed for yogurt in Texarkana to the boy. He lifted a spoonful and let it drop with a plop.
"No, sir, I'm-already ate," the boy said, putting his burn-scarred hand under his nose. He fled, and Valentine chuckled into his bran mash.
"Are you up early or late?" Duvalier groaned. She rolled over and looked at the window. "Early."
"No, late. It's almost nine. I think everyone slept in."
She reached down into her covers. "Water?"
Valentine got up and gave her his plastic tumbler full.
"Val, we didn't. . ."
"Didn't what?"
"You know."
"You yodel during sex. I never would have guessed that."
"Dream on, Valentine." She rolled over on her stomach. "God, gotta pee."
She got up and dragged herself into the bathroom.
"This would have been a bad time of the month for us to do that," she said from within.
"Do I need to get you anything from supply?"
"No, I mean-fertility and all that."
Valentine wondered for one awful second what his daughter looked like. She'd probably have dark eyes and hair; both he and Malita Carrasca were dark.
"I got basic hygiene first week of Labor Regiment," Valentine said. "Good soldiers don't shoot unless they've taken precautions not to hurt the innocent."
She laughed and then cut it off. "Ow. My head."
Someone pounded on the door hard enough that the hinges moved.
"Come in," Valentine called.
Ahn-Kha stood, blocking ninety-five percent of the light coming through the open door.
"Final review at noon, Major. Colonel's orders. Three generals will be in attendance."
"Thank you. Eat up-" Valentine said, indicating the tray. Narcisse always issued him three times the breakfast he could consume and there was a pile of sliced ham on the tray the height of a New Universal Church Archon's bible.
Ahn-Kha wedged himself between chair and desk.
"Generals, eh?" Duvalier said. "I'm going to make myself scarce. Striped trousers are for clowns."
Valentine looked at his row of battle dress and wondered which one could be pressed sufficiently for the occasion.
None of them, really. Whatever the Razors were all about, whatever was dying that afternoon, wasn't about creased trousers.
* * * *
"I'm sorry, Valentine," Meadows said out of the side of his mouth as they approached the four generals on the bandstand that last night had barely contained Black Lightning. "He tagged along at the last minute."
Post and some of the other nonambulatory wounded sat behind them on the stand so they could see. The remaining Razors were drawn up in a great U of six attenuated companies in the open parking-lot space in front of the bandstand. Ahn-Kha stood with the senior NCOs, Hank with a group of Aspirants, and Narcisse watched from high on the shoulder of one of his soldier's husbands. In the center, a color guard of Bears took down the Razors' boar-silhouette flag. They did it badly, and the men coming together as they folded it looked like a mistimed football hike. The Bears did everything badly.
Except fight.
They presented the triangular folded flag to Meadows, who accepted it as he would a baby.
Valentine looked at the rows of men for what was probably the last time. They looked hard in their battle dress, hard in the relaxed way that only men who'd seen bloodshed could manage. But Valentine didn't see them as iron-thewed heroes. They were more like blown-glass sculptures, beautiful in their irregularity, their variety of colors, heights, and shapes. And just like the glass vessels, tiny shards of fast-flying shrapnel could convert them into a shattered ruin of gristle, blood, and half-digested food in an eyeblink. He'd seen it more than once, and once was enough for any sane man.
Their delicacy made them all the more precious.
Then he and Meadows turned and walked to the generals. Valentine knew each, one by name, but only one from experience.
General Martinez.
The man who'd executed two of his Grogs, and would have killed Ahn-Kha right before Valentine's eyes, was the second-highest-ranking officer gathered at the ceremony, subordinate only to MacCallister, who'd supervised the drive on Dallas-Fort Worth. Valentine knew that he held some rear-area post as a reward for his resistance-such as it was-during Solon's brief reign over the Ozarks.
Old and very bad blood linked Valentine and Martinez. In the crowning irony, Valentine's whole rising in Little Rock and his defense of Big Rock Mountain had taken place under Martinez's command. But only technically; Martinez hadn't moved a man to his assistance when he was most needed.
There were salutes, and when the salutes were done, handshakes.
"Congratulations on your staff appointment, Major Valentine," MacCallister said from beneath a white mustache that mostly hid a missing incisor when he spoke.
"Richly deserved," Meadows put in.
They sidestepped.
Valentine gave Martinez a formal salute, returned equally formally.
"General," Valentine said.
"Major," General Martinez returned. He still looked like a turtle, even in his green-and-brown dress uniform. He didn't offer his hand.
Meadows led Valentine to a chair behind and to the right of the generals. He passed Valentine the Razors' flag.
"You deserve this more than anyone," Meadows said quietly. "They always were yours."
"Co-"
"Shut up, Major. That's an order."
MacCallister said a few words thanking the men for their bravery, devotion, and sacrifice. He read out the Razors' list of regimental achievements and citations, and explained that skilled men were desperately needed elsewhere, and it was his sad duty to order the dissolution of the battered regiment.
"A grateful Free Republic thanks you," General MacCallister said as he dismissed the men. Evidently progress had been made in the governance of the bits of four states that comprised the Freehold.
The soldiers had heard it all before. All of them knew about the Claw, and that the Claw couldn't be questioned. Even if they didn't call it that.
When it was done Valentine was expected at a late lunch with the generals. But there was something he had to do first. He went over to the line of wounded and spoke to each one. He ended at Post's elevated bed. Post looked better by exponents.
"Which nurse did you end up with?" Valentine asked.
"Which didn't he?" one of the men snickered.
"Sort of all of them and none of them, if you follow me, Dave," Post said.
Valentine handed him the folded flag. "I want you to hang onto this until you're better and we link up again."
"Hear you're going to be kind of busy on staff training. Maybe the higher-ups aren't nuts after all." As executive officer for the Razors, Post had spent endless hours in the Byzantine bowels of Southern Command procedures, trying to keep the Razors better supplied and better equipped than a half-forgotten rear-area reserve. "But why me? It's Meadows' flag."
"It's our flag," he said, and hoped Duvalier was lurking somewhere near-perhaps beneath the bandstand. "You're keeping it until I come back from leave. There's a few questions to be asked and a promise to keep."
Post's smile matched the Texas sun in brightness, and exceeded it in size.
"Thank you, sir."