by E. E. Knight
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 aro
und 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.