Southern Washington, May: Most people thinly of the Pacific Northwest as a cloudy, rainy woodland, fragrant with the moldy, rotting-pine smell of a temperate rainforest. But beyond the rain-catching Cascades, the eastern plains of Washington have more in common with the high plains of the Midwest than the foggy harbors of salmon fleet and crab boat.

Wolves trot through the open country in the summer, pursuing the prolific western antelope, retreating to the river-hugging woods when winter comes.

The former ranching and orchard country of the dry half of Washington is sparsely inhabited but frequently patrolled for reasons unique to this part of the country. A few Kurian outposts, fed by rail lines running up from Utah and Oregon or in from Idaho, circle their lands with towers like teeth, easily visible from the air thanks to the irrigation technology still in use. But these are the terminal ends, for nothing but one Grog-guarded set of rail and highway line runs up the Pacific coast, thanks to the highly effective, organized guerrilla army under their "Mr. Adler".

* * *

The Osprey-style jump jet touched down on an empty stretch of highway, cutting over a high, dry plateau. The Cascades ran in a blue line in the distance, darkening as the sun descended to meet them. Valentine, ears popping in the change of pressure, drank a final pint of milk in memorial to Hornbreed.

It felt like a long flight, and ended with several low passes to find a suitable stretch of road for landing. Valentine had grown used to

short training hops in his time with the autogyro, gliders, and small training craft. The jet, a courier craft for high-level Quislings, was plushly appointed beyond anything Valentine had ever experienced and had ample space in the cargo bay for the autogyro, with its rotators folded away. He rode in the cockpit for an hour or two, listening to Starguide's stories of Utah and Nevada.

"That's right, a big chunk of the Salt Lake City folks just disappeared, almost overnight. Some say they all marched up a mountain and killed themselves. Others say they went to another world. I think it's kinda both - Mormons always were weird", he said as they viewed the Great Salt Lake from fifteen thousand feet.

After a refueling stop at a combination armory and coal-processing plant, featuring the first Grogs Valentine had seen since coming West, they took the rest of the hop up to Washington. The jet had enough in its tanks to make it back to Utah.

"I don't believe it. We're out", Gide said. She'd regained the color she'd lost when they hit turbulence leaving Utah.

Much of the past few weeks had been occupied with Gide's "Exit Authority", a polite term for a sheaf of papers representing a series of undercover transactions that allowed her to leave the Confederation. It wasn't difficult for Valentine to convince Pyp that he'd fallen hard for the girl and wanted her up on the family land in Washington. An allied Kurian enclave in northern Utah agreed to buy her, in exchange for three children - one partially deaf and another in a foot brace - who were to be apprenticed to the New Universal Church in Tempe. The Circus arranged for her Utah paperwork to be "misfiled" using some of Valentine's reward.

She stood well clear of the plane now, lost in a heavy military jacket and knee boots, her dark-and-light-pleated hair bound up atop her head like a swirl ice-cream cone.

His pilot instructor, Starguide, helped Valentine take the ultralight from the cargo hold and give it a final flight check.

"What do your people raise, anyway?" Starguide asked, helping Valentine roll out the autogyro from the cargo bay doors.

"Pigs", Valentine said. "There's a catfish hatchery too. That's where spare feed and pig shit goes".

"You must really love him", Starguide hollered over to Gide.

With that, he closed the cargo hatch with a hydraulic whine. "Well, Argent, I still say you might make a good pilot someday. Come back if you get tired of slopping the hogs".

"I just want to be far away from everything", Valentine said.

"The sky doesn't qualify?"

Valentine shrugged, already composing the part of his report about the Flying Circus. Like the sailors on the Thunderbolt, at least part of the Circus took to the sky to be free of the Kurians, if only temporarily.

He and Gide stood well clear of the jet as it turned around, plugging their ears against the thunder of its exhaust. Starguide used a more fuel-efficient, traditional takeoff. When the Osprey took its running start back into the brassy late-spring sky, they were alone with the wind.

"We're out", Gide repeated. She hugged him. "Fuckin'-A".

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Valentine asked.

"I'll say. Let's take our clothes off. Like little kids in the sun. I'm so in the mood for a frolic 'n' fuck".

"I think we should get going. That jet might have drawn attention".

She broke contact. "You're a torqued kite, Max".

Valentine considered telling her his real name now, and his destination - though not his purpose. Travel was a lot safer with a companion in case of illness or injury, he rationalized. "How's that?" he asked instead.

"Never taking a run at me. Queer?"

"No".

"Balls blown off?"

"No".

"What, then?"

"Don't have much luck with women", he finally said.

"Just sex, you know. It's healthy. Might get that stick out of your ass.

Valentine opened the autogyro's canopy, revealing the twin seats, the passenger above and behind the pilot. He grabbed the steering-wheel-style stick and turned it so the little ship was pointed down the road, and opened the tool pouch. His nose detected something rotten in the right cargo compartment. Sure enough, Jimmy had left him a dead rat as a going-away present. Valentine extracted it and flung it into the dry, weed-pocked soil beside the road. "Wouldn't work that way with you", Valentine said.

"How's that?"

"I like you".

She stared at him for a moment, her upper lip working back and forth, then tousled his hair. "I know you do. Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten me out".

"I'd like to think I'd still have tried even if I didn't".

"You hide behind a lot of ifs, Max. I know you're a pretty good card player. That's about it".

"Let's change the subject. What's next for you?"

She squatted beside him and lowered her voice, even though there was no one to overhear them but the grasshoppers. "I'm joining up".

"Joining what?"

Her eyes brightened. "The resistance. There's a big army up here, out in the mountains to the west. The flyboys tell me they're tearing assholes out of the KO. I'm gonna join them. I didn't tell you before because ... because I didn't want you to be an accessory. Just in case they picked me up or something".

"Or in case I was some kind of informer".

She shrugged. "I suppose anything's possible".

"How do you know they'll take you?"

"Can I fire off a couple from your gun?"

"Help me get this thing ready first. I want to be able to take off quickly if we need to".

She helped him stow their gear intelligently enough. "You keeping this thing, or you going to trade it?"

Valentine sat down and tested the simple cable controls. "I'm wondering how easy it'll be to find fuel. I'm more of a horse-and-pack-mule person, most of the time".

"Thought you were a biker, with those leathers".

Load balanced in the little cargo spaces to either side of the chutelike cabin, they were ready to go. "I think it's time to come clean with you, Gide. I'm aiming on the resistance up here too. I just had a few hundred more miles to come".

"Fuckin'-A!"

"If you like, I'll give you a lift to the mountains. Safer for two to travel together".

"You're this gal's knight in shining armor, Max".

"With a motorcycle engine attached to an oversized food processor as a mount".

"So how were you going to get all the way up here without the flyboys?" she asked.

"I've had some experience with ships and boats. Thought I'd get to LA by hiring on with a convoy, then work north up the coast. But an opportunity presented itself, and I always wanted to know more about the Circus".

"Seen them buzzing around?"

"Something like that".

"I'd still like to try that gun. I've only ever shot over open sights since I was little".

Valentine showed her the points of the rifle. "You cock the first with the bolt. Crosshairs are zeroed for one hundred yards".

"Regular 7.62?"

Valentine nodded. She sighted on an old wooden post perhaps seventy yards away, peeping like an owl from a patch of brush next to the road, and fired. They walked over and inspected her shot. She'd almost centered the post.

"Again?"

Valentine decided that ammunition used in practice wasn't really wasted, and he wanted to test the stuff he'd picked up in Yuma anyway.

He fashioned targets by inking a couple of pieces of toilet tissue and fixed them to a tree trunk back toward the autogyro. She was an even better shot than he was at two hundred yards, using the stabilizing built-in bipod.

The only thing they disturbed with the gunfire was the birds.

"I'm convinced", he said.

"The old man sent me to bed hungry if I missed with my bullet", she said. "One shot, meat and all that".

Valentine examined the road. It had been used recently, light trucks by the look of the tread. Someone was taking care of the primary roads out here. He unrolled and studied his map of Washington State.

This could be one of the highways that communicated between the forces in the Cascades and Mount Omega - which wasn't really a mountain, of course. Strange that over all these years the Kurians had never located it. His contact with Southern Command was there. He hoped he'd have reason to visit.

Valentine cleaned and stowed the gun and they climbed into the autogyro. Valentine had flown it tandem before while learning, but never with his food, weapons and accoutrements, blankets and bamboo sleeping mat, and spare clothes aboard.

He worked the throttle and opened the engine all the way up. The autogyro ate highway as it sped up, and finally jumped into the air. Gide let out a gasp.

Valentine brought it up to about a thousand feet.

Flying in an autogyro is noisy and busy. The lift from the rotors makes it sway and bob like a cork in a choppy water.

"Oh shit. Land again. Land again", Gide gasped.

"Are you..".

A loud retching sound from above and behind answered his question. The smell filled the cabin, half-digested bologna-and-cheese sandwiches giving off a beery odor. Valentine fought his own gorge, rising in sympathy.

Gide cracked a little panel window, letting in even more of the engine's roar. "You can set it down, Max. I think I'd rather walk".

"Give it an hour", Valentine said, watching the falling sun and wondering if he could stand an hour with the vomit smell. "Fix your eyes on the mountains. That's where we're heading".

Twenty minutes of groaning later Valentine spotted a strange bare patch of earth below, a short hike away from a treelined pond. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. He passed low over the cleared oval of ground and sent small, chickenlike birds on short hop-flights.

He landed with a bad bounce.

"Thank Christ", Gide said as they halted.

"Let's clean out the ship", Valentine said. He extracted a collapsed plastic jug and passed it to Gide. "Your spew. You can carry the water".

She looked at the cleared ground, frowning. "What did this? Helicopters?"

"Don't think so. With luck, you'll see tomorrow morning".

* * *

Woodpeckers, always up and hard at work even before the roosters cry or the larks rise, woke them. As the sun came up Gide got to see a prairie chicken dance.

The birds, mating in the late northern spring, gathered together at the tramped-down earth and began to jump up and down in front of one another, in wild displays of feathery athleticism.

"Looks like the dance floor at the old Mezcal on a Saturday night", Gide said. "Except no music".

"They're resourceful little birds", Valentine said. "When the snow comes they dive right into a drift and wiggle down deep, making a little igloo. Coyotes and foxes can't smell them under the snow".

"What's an igloo?" Gide asked.

Valentine explained the principle.

"I wonder what the winters are like up here", Valentine said.

"We've got some time to get acclimated. But you don't talk like an Aztlan. Or a Texican, or a Cali, or a Yute. You're hard to place".

"I was born in Minnesota. At least I think I was. I spent my childhood there, anyway".

"That's like Canada, right?"

"Next to it".

Valentine carefully took out his surgical-tube sling, fixed it to his wrist, and put a rounded stone in the leather cup. He sighted on a male at the edge of the fracas, making halfhearted little hops.

"Oh, no, don't spoil their fun", Gide said.

"I don't like to dip into my preserved food unless I have to", Valentine said. "Hickory-and-sage-smoked prairie chicken's good eating".

Valentine knocked the oldster off his feet, scattered dancing chickens as he got up and ran to finish the job with a quick twist. He bled the bird into a cup and dressed it quickly.

"There goes your invitation to the next church cotillion", Gide said as Valentine dropped it in hot water to soften the feathers for plucking. He lifted the cup. "You're not really going to drink warm blood, are you?"

"Can't afford to waste anything. It's like a multivitamin", Valentine said.

"Give me a sip. Might as well start the mountain-man stuff now". He passed her the cup and she made a face as she sipped. "Fuck, that's rude! Like having a bloody nose".

"Your dad never had you drink blood?"

"We liked our food cooked. Haven't you ever heard of salmonella, Mr. Igloo?"

"Who did the cooking? Your mom?"

Gide worked her upper lip again, this time tightening it against her teeth. "She died having me. There wasn't a midwife or anything, just my dad".

"I'm sorry", Valentine said.

"Kids always get along better with the opposite-sex parent, ever notice that?" she asked.

Valentine accepted the change of subject. "I guess you're right". He'd not had the time to experience it with Amalee. Circumstances had changed.

"I'd better see about that bird. Thought I smelled some wild onions down by the pond. We can have a nice fry-up, then wash while it digests".

* * *

Gide kept her food down on the next hop. Valentine argued with himself over what to do with the autogyro. Aircraft of any kind were valuable enough that the guerrillas would probably seize it outright. But on the other hand, it might allow him to make more of an impressive entrance.

He opted for showmanship.

What he guessed to be Mount Rainier loomed in the distance. He passed over valleys under thickening clouds, watching his fuel gauge sink toward e.

Apart from herds of goats, sheep, and cattle, and the attendant fires in the shepherds' bunkhouses, he saw little sign of habitation. But then a good guerrilla army wouldn't advertise its presence.

Then he passed over another town, built around a bridge and its patched-over road in a boomerang-shaped valley, and saw what he suspected was mortar pits in the hill above, looking out over the reduced hills to the east. Camouflage-painted four-wheelers were parked in a line like suckling piglets in front of a redbrick building in town, and there were well-used paddocks behind the line of buildings and what looked like houses converted to stables. He marked freshly sheared sheep.

Best of all, a limp American flag hung from a flagpole in front of what looked like the town post office. No Quisling force Valentine had ever heard of flew the despised Stars and Stripes, a symbol of racism and greed according to the histories of the New Order.

Valentine swooped around again, enjoying the feel of the tight turn. Men in civilian clothes and uniform were coming out onto the street now to watch the acrobatics.

"Gide", Valentine said, almost shouted. "This looks like the guerrillas. One thing you should know".

"Yeah?" she said, eyes closed, sounding like she was fighting with her stomach again.

"My name's not Max Argent. It's Valentine, David Valentine. I travel under a false name".

"Okay", she burped. "Land, all right?"

Valentine set the gyro down on the other side of the bridge from the town, where the road widened outside the bridge. He engaged the wheel drive and motored toward town. The road was badly pocked, and they bounced a good deal.

Some armed men in timberland camouflage were walking up the road.

"Ma... David, whatever. Open up!" Gide said.

Valentine popped the hatch as he applied the brakes. Gide jumped out and fell to her knees, bringing up a mostly liquid mess.

Valentine jumped out to aid her, but his bad left leg betrayed him and he stumbled. As he caught himself, his foot slipped in a pothole and he felt something in his ankle give. He sprawled.

Gide turned her head, wiped saliva from her mouth.

Valentine rolled over and probed his ankle. Great, a sprain. So much for showmanship.

"Here they come", Gide said.

A brown-haired man under a wide-brimmed black hat with yellow cording halted the others about ten yards away. He had a long, thick mustache that covered his upper lip.

"I hope you two have good reason to buzz us like that", he said. "Otherwise, your welcome to Brantley's Bridge will end with you hanging from it".

Valentine sat up. "We're not spies. We're here to join up. Can you put me in touch with a recruiting officer?"

He tried to rise, but the ankle hurt too much. He ended up balancing unsteadily on his bad leg.

Gide got to her feet, parked herself under his armpit. "That's right".

"Shit", one of the men behind, a shotgun held professionally but pointed down, commented. "We should just make heroes out of them now. Save a lot of trouble".

"Recruiting officer, huh?" the man with the mustache said. "I don't know that we have any of those. Least not at this depot".

"What do you suggest for recruits, then?"

"You want to die under ol' Adler, we can assist". It began to drizzle. The officer lifted his face to the rain, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead before returning his cover to its place. "First we have to detick you. Then you get questioned. You out of Sea-Tac?"

"No. Opposite direction. We came across the Rockies. The last KZ I was in was the Aztlan Confederation".

"Long trip in that little eggbeater".

"You'll hear the whole story, if you want", Valentine said.

"Tell you what, Mister, we support some garrison militia right here in town. I'm going to hold you here for now, warm and cozy, but we have to keep you to visitors' quarters. We'll turn you over to them and they'll feed you until someone from Pacific Command can get down here. Hope that goes well for you - the alternative isn't pleasant".

* * *

After a warm disinfectant shower and a quick physical, the captain put them in a rather moldy house. They had running water, though it was cold. Tallow dips offered smelly light at night, and there were some old books to read.

The windows and door were barred from the outside. Valentine watched off-duty men inspect the autogyro, everything from the still-smelly cockpit to the tail rotor. Valentine's weapons and gear were all locked up in the "armory", what had formerly been the modest post office in the middle of town.

Gide silently fretted. Being locked up, in her experience in the Kurian Zone, meant doom.

"They're just being careful", Valentine said.

Finally a tired-looking young lieutenant driven by a heavyset sergeant with a maimed right hand pulled up in a two-horse carriage and visited the redbrick headquarters building.

In a few moments they emerged, accompanied by the mustachioed Captain Clarke and the militia staff sergeant, who inspected their lodgings daily for signs of damage or mischief.

Clarke knocked and entered without waiting for a response: "You two got a visitor. He'll figure out what the hell to make outta you".

The captain and the militia sergeant waited outside the locked door while the newly arrived lieutenant sat down and opened a folding notebook. He had ink stains on his fingers thanks to a problematic pen, and the frames of his thick glasses looked like they'd originally been intended for a woman.

"My name is Lieutenant Walker. This is Sergeant Coombs. You are ... ahh, David Valentine, I take it?" he asked, looking through the bottle-bottom lenses.

"Yes", Valentine said.

"So you're Gide. No other name?"

"I've been called lots of names", she said. "But I wouldn't want them written down".

The sergeant assisting licked his lips as he looked at her. She'd found a thick flannel shirt in one of the closets, and pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, but she still exuded her aggressive sensuality.

"Have you been treated well since you arrived? You can be honest - I report to a whole separate chain of command. Plenty of food? Wash water? Medical care?"

Valentine plucked at the elastic bandage on his ankle. It had healed with its usual alacrity. "They've been generous with everything", Valentine said.

"Good. Place of birth?"

"Boundary Waters, Minnesota", Valentine said.

"Choa Flats, Arizona", Gide supplied.

"Freeborn?"

"Meaning?" Valentine asked.

"Not born into slavery, on an estate or whatever".

"No", Valentine said. " 'Freeborn.' "

"I was born in the Confederation, obviously", Gide said.

"Military experience? Someone must have taught you to fly, David. Should we start with that?"

Valentine put his hands on his knees. "Have to go back a few more years. I first joined Southern Command in May of 2061, when a Wolf patrol came through our area...".

The rest took about twenty minutes. Valentine just skimmed his wanderings after his adoption of Blake.

Lieutenant Walker's pen ran out when Valentine described the bounty he'd claimed. "Damn", he muttered. "Look, ummm, Major Valentine, this is a bit more than I expected. If I can ask you, though, sir, what did you come here to do?"

"I want our side to win", Valentine said. "Your general's fame has crossed the mountains".

"He doesn't claim any rank, actually", Walker said. "Technically, he's still a civilian. But he's kind of like the president to us. Sometimes he's called the Old Man".

"Just say ol' Adler and everyone knows who you're talking about", Sergeant Coombs added.

Walker fiddled with his pen and inkwell. "I'm going to have to refer your case to higher command. Do you want to stay here, or come back with me to my station?"

"If that would save travel time", Valentine said.

"We'll try to accommodate you", Walker said, looking over his shoulder at the sergeant, who straightened up a little in his lean against the wall.

Walker turned up a new page. "Now, Gide, are you going to tell me you sank the Eisenhower Floating Fortress?"

She was looking fixedly at Valentine, as if trying to decide what the symptoms of delusions of grandeur looked like.

"No. I can ride. I can shoot. I'm healthy", she said.

" 'Can shoot' doesn't do it justice", Valentine said.

Walker spent some time questioning Gide, but Valentine could see he was preoccupied. He was a good interrogator, and for all Valentine knew, the thick glasses and cranky pen were props to put people off their guard. He was good at an interrogator's first job, which was just to get people talking by asking questions that were pleasant to answer.

What assistance Sergeant Coombs offered wasn't clear to Valentine. Maybe he just had a good eye for liars.

They broke for lunch, a mutton stew and applesauce. Then the militiamen packed up a box of wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches and thermoses.

"We'll be there by midnight or so if we get moving", Walker said. He wrote out an order sheet for the gyrocopter to be moved, and handed it to the captain.

"You travel at night?" Valentine asked.

"We don't go fast enough so it's dangerous", Walker said.

"I take it the Reapers don't get this far into the mountains, then?"

"No. We give them too much to worry about in the basin. The tower's men are the ones who fear the night. Not us".

Valentine couldn't tell if this was just rear-area bravado, propaganda, or confidence born of experience.

"I don't suppose I can have my carbine back".

"Sergeant Coombs, what do you think?"

"If he's who he says he is, he doesn't need a gun to kill us".

Walker giggled. "The sergeant has a dark streak like the Columbia River. But let me keep the hardware for now. It'll save questions at the stops, as you don't have so much as a militia cap".

Their gear stowed beneath the seats, Valentine helped Gide up into the open carriage, then climbed up himself. It had iron-rimmed wheels and a camouflage-netting top.

"Sorry for the rickety transport", Walker said. "As a lowly lieutenant, I don't rate a gasoline ration for my duties. Our supply line for fossils stretches way up into Canada, and it's not altogether reliable". He took off his glasses and nodded to the sergeant, who set off.

They stopped three times on the journey, twice at checkpoints outside of settlements and once for an exchange of horses. Passwords were swapped and orders and identification examined. The fresh horses made a difference, and they creaked and rattled on the iron rims into an electrically lit military camp a good half hour before the lieutenant's prediction.

Gide sneezed a few times on the ride.

The sign read camp dew, and the town looked to be built around an old high school. There was a hospital just down the highway, and many of the houses had electrical lights.

"Back to civilization", Walker said. "We'll put you in the Lodge-pole Motel for now. I'm afraid you'll have to stay under guard".

"For the gal's cold", Sergeant Coombs said, slipping a flattened bottle into Valentine's pocket as he waved over help with the horses and luggage.

Valentine surreptitiously examined the quarter-full bottle. It was hard to tell the color of the liquid in the dark, but Valentine smelled whiskey.

"Nice of you, Sergeant, but I'm trying temperance until I find my feet here".

"I'm not", Gide said, and Coombs passed her the bottle.

As they got settled in, Walker showed up with a camera and took their pictures, both from the front and in profile. Two more days passed while various orders wandered up and down the chains of command. Gide's face turned red from her cold, or maybe the back-mountain whiskey, and they got sick of washing their clothes and darning socks.

The motel had a water heater that they kept fired up from six until nine in the morning, so Valentine enjoyed hot showers every day. They "exercised" for two hours in the afternoon on a chain-link-fenced basketball court that had replaced the motel's pool, bringing back

uncomfortable memories of his time in the Nut. The rest of the time they filled in companionable silence. Though Gide relished stories of his travels and descriptions of the effect Quickwood had on Reapers, Valentine had turned moody and taciturn when not even Walker visited on the second day; he wondered if he'd be sentenced in Washington for crimes committed in Arkansas.

"It's not fun, you know", Valentine said when she asked about the Wolves, and how many women made it into the ranks. "You'll be tired and bored most of the time. Then there's a lot of noise, and you'll look around with your ears ringing and realize half the people you know are dead".

"I don't expect this to be fun", she said. "I just want a chance at them. I'm sick of standing around watching it happen. I can hack it".

"A couple of tattoos don't make you hard", Valentine said, and instantly regretted it.

She crossed her arms and turned away, looked out at a patch of blue sky through the barred window from the front chairs.

"I'm sorry, Gide".

She studied the street. "Whatever".

"Being cooped up with nothing to do gets on my nerves".

"I've killed a man, you know. Two men", she said.

"Sorry to hear that", Valentine said.

"My dad was drinking a lot as he got older. He got scared of going into towns to get work. Thought they'd pick him up, you know? Finally ... I'd just turned fifteen. He tried to sell me. For sex, you know, I was a virgin and all. Some rich guy from Tempe and his manservant came for me. The servant washed me up and combed out my hair and told me how I shouldn't be afraid.

"He got sick of me after about a week or so and sent me back to Pa. But I learned the ins and outs of his house, and knew when the servant door in the wall was unlocked. I got me a couple of mean rattlesnakes and chopped off their rattlers. He had this little toilet room with a phone in it. Always went in there first thing in the morning. I cut the wires, broke the bulb, and put them in there.

"The snakes got him, sure enough, and he started hollering. The servant came and put down this big cut-down shotgun to drag him away from the snakes, I suppose so he could shoot them without blowing his master's leg off. I snuck up and got the gun, shot them both in the face. One barrel each.

"Funny thing is, the guy was nice enough. Really loving and gentle with me, and he gave me some kind of pill when it was over that flushed me out, made sure I got my period. The one I wanted to shoot was my father. Maybe not in the face, in the foot or knee or something. I heard later they hauled off the servants, the ones who worked there during the day, and that seemed the most unfair thing of all. A cook, a gardener, and a housekeeper, who all lived miles away and had to take a broken-down old bus even to get there. Up until then everything about the Order was scary, but in this theoretical sense. When I saw it in practice, it changed me more than getting poked by that old guy.

"I ran for Yuma, wanting to get across to Cali, and made it. But I met a nice kid in Yuma, working part-time at the store while he apprenticed at the airfield in electronics. He got purified, though, my first year there".

Valentine waited until he was sure she'd stopped talking. "What happened to your dad?"

"Dunno. I should have gotten a job in town, kept him somewhere out of the way. He wasn't on any sets of official books, I don't think - no one would have looked for him. Stupid old drunk".

"You are tough", Valentine said.

"Only on the outside. Like a bug".

Valentine nodded. "I know what you mean".

* * *

A thunderstorm rumbled outside when higher authority called for them. Valentine put on a pair of moleskin trousers they'd given him and his only shirt with a collar, a field turtleneck.

They took them down the road to the echoing halls of the high school, where maybe thirty or forty people worked in classrooms in a school built to hold a thousand.

Patched cracks from earthquake damage ran across the floors and up the walls.

It had been a long parade of death since the "turnover" of 2022, when mankind relinquished its throne at the top of the food chain...

Valentine guessed the room they brought them to had been devoted to science. A yellowing periodic table hung on the wall, and all the tables had a thick, black, chemically resistant covering. Cabinets on the wall held binders rather than test tubes and Bunsen burners. A preserved Reaper head sat in a jar on the counter, next to glass-covered trays holding molds of Grog tracks and recovered teeth.

A rather sad-looking elderly man, lost in his green uniform collar, sat on a stool, resting his back against a whiteboard. Another man, bald with a lightning-bolt-like zigzag tattooed on each temple, wore a smart steely gray uniform. Blued-steel collar tabs and matching arrowheads on his epaulets gleamed like a polished piano top as he stood talking to Walker.

The guard halted Gide outside, offered her a chair.

"She's my aspirant, Walker", Valentine protested as the other guard led him into the office/classroom.

The older man pulled at his ear. "Hmm... can't say. Can't really say, maybe around the eyes".

"Major Valentine", the bald man said. "My name's Thunderbird. You know Walker, of course, and this is Colonel Kubishev. Colonel Kubishev is semiretired. He came down as a favor to me".

"Sorry, I'm afraid I bunged things up and delayed you a day", Colonel Kubishev said. He had a faint accent. "They asked me to take a look at you. I worked with your father, briefly, in Montana. Calgary Alliance. They asked me about the name and I wanted to see for myself".

None of that meant much. Valentine vaguely remembered the Calgary Alliance being mentioned in War College; it was a short-lived Freehold that collapsed under the Black Summer Famines of the forties.

"I'm honored, sir", Valentine said.

"How is he?"

"He's dead", Valentine said.

"Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry. My wife and I will remember him".

"Thank you, sir".

"You wouldn't know whatever happened to Helen St. Croix, I don't suppose", Kubishev asked.

"He married her", Valentine said. "She's my mother. She died at the same time".

"That's it! He has her hair, exactly", Kubishev said, as though the observation relieved him of a burden. "That is good. That is very good. Died at the same time?" Yes.

"I'm glad you were spared".

"I was eleven. Some distance away at the time".

"Major Valentine, I'm sorry to hear that", Thunderbird said. "Were you aware that your Q-file with Southern Command lists your father as J. D. Valentine and your mother as H. Argent?"

"Argent?"

"Yes, the same as that excellent set of fake Oklahoma papers you had".

Valentine stared. "I couldn't say why that's the case. When I filled out my enlistment paperwork I put down the correct names".

"I don't have that - this is just a short version - but it does list parentage and place of birth. Oh, your birthplace is listed as Rapid City, South Dakota. Strangely coincidental error, still".

"Maximilian Argent was a family friend", Valentine said.

"We don't doubt that the man in this file is you", Thunderbird said.

"I'm glad to hear it, ummm ..".

"Colonel. The insignia for Delta Group is somewhat esoteric. I mean for you to learn it, though. I'd like to have you under my command".

"Delta Group?"

"Lifeweaver Enhanced. Delta is a symbol of change. We're mostly all Bears up here. I'm not sure if it's a regional affinity, or just that we know right where the Fangs are and we don't need Wolves and Cats and whatnot to locate them".

"I've worked with Bears", Valentine said. "If you want me to become one..."

Thunderbird clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, thinking. "I don't think I have a slot for you at your former rank. But we might find a job for you and that gizmo you flew in on".

"As you wish", Valentine said. "It'll be good to be back on a team again".

"Then you can satisfy my curiosity, Valentine. Why did you come all the way here? You could have made yourself useful in Denver, Wyoming, even the Caribbean, and saved yourself a lot of mileage. Why us?"

"You're winning", Valentine said.

"Damn right we are", Walker put in. "And we'll keep winning, as long as the Lord sees fit".

The old man bowed his head, and Valentine saw his lips moving silently.

"We'll give you an orientation later. I want a detailed debriefing first".

They sat down and Walker brought in coffee. For forty-five minutes or so they talked, much more conversational than interrogatory. They were especially interested in his trips to the Caribbean and the exact circumstances of his court-martial and conviction under the Fugitive Law. "Typical", Thunderbird said. "They want victory. Just don't like the color of the coin that'll pay for it". Afterward they took a short break, and Valentine saw Thunderbird pick up the phone.

Later they talked to Gide, and Valentine idled in the hall. Her interview was much shorter.

"Term in the militia", she said. "I guess it's a start for us".

Valentine went back into the classroom, where Thunderbird was on the phone again. "Yeah, that's right.

I want everything north of Woodinville Road cleared. They think Redmond's next, but we'll pull back and slide the Action Group north". He looked at Valentine. "Yes?"

"My friend Gide. I was hoping we'd be able to stay together".

"We'll pick this up in ten", Thunderbird said into the phone. He hung it up. "She's a natural. And a woman besides. No room for her with the Bears of Delta Group".

"She and I..."

Tok tok, his tongue sounded. "Something warm to come home to?"

"More like mutual affinity".

"Better check the true-love meter again. She sounds eager to serve, with or without you. If you want a slice of something juicy, Delta Group gets their pick, believe me. Tell you what, I'll get her posted near our operations HQ. She'd just be a short walk away. Fair enough?"

"More than", Valentine said, wondering why his stomach was going sour.

He picked up the phone. "See you on the other side of the mountains, Valentine".

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