by E. E. Knight
“that remains to be decided. do you know to whom you are speaking?” The Reaper’s face had all the expression of an Easter Island monolith.
“I haven’t had the privilege of your lordship’s acquaintance.”
“I can handle introductions,” Xray-Tango broke in. “Le Sain, you’re in the presence of the governor of New Columbia, Lord Mu-Kur-Ri. You understand how this”—blink-blink-bliiink—“errr, works?”
“I know I’m speaking to his lordship’s vehicle for interacting with us. At least that’s how it was explained to me.”
“you’re nervous, le sain.” The Reaper used a quiet monotone, so Valentine wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.
“Put yourself in my shoes. Wouldn’t you be?”
“we are beyond emotion. you need not be frightened. we simply wish to thank you for your service in our recent flooding. had the warehouses and their stores been lost, our preparations would have been delayed. it is time for this territory to be pacified, once and for all. it has already taken far too long. one concern remains.”
Sometimes the Kurians liked to toy with their food. Valentine wondered if the ax was just slow to fall in this case, or if the creature was speaking the truth.
“What concern?” Valentine asked. He tried to lower his lifesign, worried that the Kurians could use it as a lie detector of some sort. He imagined jamming all his fear into a blue bag he could reduce to the size of a marble that he could carry about in his pocket.
“the origins of your ghost commission. our cousins in louisiana do not care to cooperate with us in tracing you. certain inconsistencies need to be explained.”
Valentine tried not to react at the word “ghost,” his code name. “Guilty. I’m not a colonel. I was a captain once, but I got busted back to the ranks. Got involved with the wrong man’s daughter. I heard you needed men fast. Figured it would be a chance at a new start, fresh ground.”
“Sort of a Foreign Legion, Le Sain?” Xray-Tango said. “Not a bad idea. They’ve got one of those on the Mexican border with California. From what I hear it’s a success.”
“the aztlan rangers do not concern us in the trans-mississippi, general. tell me, le sain, how are you at following orders? do you put your ambition ahead of your lord’s trust?”
“My main ambition was to get out of the swamp. Then find a position where there was a chance of promotion. Done and done. You’ve already shown yourself hell-and-gone better than their lordships in Louisiana and Natchez. Food and uniforms are both an improvement up here. You said something about a reward?”
“we shall get to that. but where are my manners, colonel? general, have some food brought in.”
Xray-Tango left. “he is an efficient officer,” Mu-Kur-Ri’s caped mouthpiece said. “he carries out orders intelligently. you would do wise to learn from him, in all things save one. he is a blade lacking an edge.”
“Meaning?”
“he is shy of the hard decisions that come with a man of his position and responsibilities. at times, to keep a machine running smoothly, worn-out parts must be replaced. do you think you could do better?”
Valentine shook his head. “No. I’ve shot a few men in the back, but I’m not much at stabbing them there. Running a command of this size isn’t in the cards; I don’t have the know-how.” Valentine smiled. “At least, not now.”
“then you have the spine to do what is necessary in our service?”
“Try me,” Valentine said.
A soldier knocked and entered, bearing a tray of sandwiches and milk, carefully averting his eyes. Xray-Tango followed him in, carrying a coffeepot and a bottle filled with amber fluid.
“Sandwiches are all we keep handy here, Le Sain. I thought a toast might be in order, to welcome him to our command.”
“we too wish to join your repast.”
The soldier set down the tray, almost bowling Xray-Tango out of the way in his hurry to make it out the door. He mumbled an apology under his breath and a promise to look for dessert.
“Yes, my lord?” Xray-Tango said.
“le sain, a woman in your camp has just given birth. the squalling morsels are most delectable when new and slippery. go to your camp and retrieve it at once. general, go with him, and impress upon him our need.”
Valentine rose from the seat on shaking legs.
“Come along, son,” Xray-Tango said. “Let’s not keep his lordship waiting.”
They went through the headquarters, grim-faced and silent. Only when they were out in the darkness of the rubble-lined streets did they speak again.
Xray-Tango’s eye twitched as quickly as an experienced operator could tap out Morse. “I didn’t know that was coming, Le Sain. I figured they’d test you somehow. Had no idea that would be it.”
“I’ve turned people in to them before, sir. But never an infant.”
“Trust me, Le Sain. Don’t think about it, just do it. Dealing with it beforehand just causes problems. Deal with it afterward.”
“Voice of experience, sir?” Valentine asked, bitterness creeping into his voice despite himself.
“Just keep walking.”
Valentine felt like sticking a knife into the general. He’d grown to respect the man; Xray-Tango was the first Quisling superior he’d ever met who inspired anything other than contempt and loathing. To see him so blasé about turning a newborn over to a Reaper . . . Perhaps he could stick him with words. “You might like to know he probed me about replacing you.”
“I know. I asked his lordship to bring the subject up. How did you respond?”
“I said I wasn’t up to it. At least right now.”
“Le Sain, we’re just sounding you out. There’s ambition, and then there’s ambition. If it drives you to be your best, that’s great. If it drives you to try and undermine your superiors, well, I’ve still got that order in my desk.”
“Sign it. I’m not handing that child over to him.”
“Keep walking. I told you to shut up and trust me. Look, I didn’t just have him ask you about that to see if you were the kind of person to supplant me, given the opportunity. I’e got my ring now. I’m thinking about getting a piece of land and leaving all this someday. Not until we’re established here, and not until I think I’ve got someone in place who thinks like me. Just trust me.”
Valentine subsided into silence. He was sick of these conversations in the Kurian Zones, the questions and interviews with a purpose under a motive wrapped up in a trap. He missed the easier days of his service in Southern Command, surrounded by men he knew to be his friends, when every word out of his mouth didn’t have to be parsed and weighed.
The Smalls had a little shell of a tent next to the hut Narcisse was turning into a larder. Mr. Smalls had been posing as a camp tinkerer, mending everything from boots to cots for the men. Valentine had thought they would escape notice, just part of the flotsam and jetsam every camp accumulated, civilians who begged a living doing odd jobs the ranks didn’t wish to be troubled with. Candles burned within.
“Wait out here, please, sir,” Valentine said. Xray-Tango’s eye blinked, and he turned up his collar against the chill night air. Valentine turned to the tent. “It’s Colonel Le Sain. May I come in?”
“We’ve got a healthy baby girl in here, sir,” Narcisse called.
Valentine entered. “My respects, Mr. Smalls, Mrs. Smalls. Hank.”
“This is the thirtieth baby I’ve brought into this world, Colonel. But this one’s the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Isn’t she something?” Narcisse said. “She’s just perfect.”
Valentine looked at the little red thing, puffy and sqinteyed. “Mrs. Smalls is the one deserving of the applause,” he said. Mrs. Smalls, sweat-soaked and red, managed a smile.
Valentine forced the next words out. “I came myself because I was worried that if a nurse and some soldiers showed up, you’d be frightened. But every new baby needs its footprints taken, its name and place of birth recorded. It’s the rules here
. I thought I’d handle it myself, so I could expedite the paperwork and get your baby back to you as soon as possible.”
Judas Iscariot, meet your spiritual scion, David Stuart Valentine, he thought to himself.
“That’s nice of you, sir, but does it have to be tonight?” Mr. Smalls asked.
“Afraid so. It’s to your advantage; as soon as the baby’s recorded, you get the extra rations.”
“Strikey!” Hank said. A growing teen’s appetite was hard to reconcile with ration coupons.
Valentine knelt at the bedside. Though perhaps “bedside” wasn’t the correct word, since little Mrs. Smalls lay on the floor, atop a mixture of old rugs and blankets, reinforced with pillows and cushions.
Valentine had to find a way to avoid Narcisse’s eyes. “Did you see the birth, Hank?”
“No. My dad said I’d be in the way. Ahn-Kha helped me make a crutch for Styachowski.”
“For who?” Valentine said. Was the general listening to the conversation?
“Captain Wagner,” Hank corrected himself.
“That’s more like it, Hank.”
Mrs. Smalls bit her lip as Valentine pulled the baby from her breast. Narcisse had put the newborn in a cocoon.
“I should go along,” Mr. Smalls said.
“Sorry, Mr. Smalls, it’s past curfew for civilians. Don’t forget, your status here is sort of informal. I don’t want any more questions asked than the absolute minimum.”
“Keep her out of the wind. Let me wrap her some more,” Narcisse said, her voice quavering.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Valentine said. The bland lies were coming easier now. He took the blanket from Narcisse and together they put the infant under another layer. He got up and turned for the tent flap. The sooner he was away from Narcisse’s eyes the better.
“Don’t you need to know her name?” Mrs. Smalls said. Doubt crept up her face and seated itself between her eyes like a biting centipede.
Valentine felt like slapping himself. “Oh, yes, I do. I don’t imagine you want to call her Jane Doe for the next sixteen years.” The newborn began to make mewing noises.
“We’ve settled on Caroline,” Mr. Smalls said.
“Okay, baby Caroline it is,” Valentine said. “Back as soon as I can.” He fled the tent.
General Xray-Tango had to double-time to keep up with him. “You’re a helluva liar, Le Sain.”
“I come from a long line of liars. We’ve gotten good at it over the last two thousand years.”
The general either didn’t understand the veiled New Testament reference or chose to ignore it. “Take it easy, Le Sain. It’ll all be over soon. Then we’ll get busy outfitting your command. Better days are ahead.”
The baby was crying now: a tiny, coughing sound. She was so light! Valentine felt like he was carrying a loaf of bread in the blankets. Chances were he’d never get to hold his own daughter—if it was a daughter—and he wondered if she’d be as active as Caroline, who at the moment seemed to be fighting some internal discomfort. An impossibly tiny hand waved at him.
“For you and me. What about Caroline here?”
“Don’t think about that now. Think about that tomorrow. You’re following orders, remember that.”
Following orders. The old out. But did he have a choice at this moment? He didn’t so much as have his sidearm; wearing weapons was discouraged in camp for everyone not on police detail. It led to questions. He had a clasp knife in his pocket; he could kill the general and get his camp up. But how far would they get, unarmed, with a Reaper expecting him back? He sensed another one somewhere near the general’s headquarters, aboveground and moving. For all he knew he was being watched at this moment. Maybe a dash west to Finner’s Wolves—
No. It would be death for his command, and at the moment he was too rubber-legged with the thought of it to even run. He had to weigh his men’s lives against that of the featherweight newborn. It came with the responsibility he’d first shouldered in Captain Le Havre’s sitting room over a cool beer. If by some magic he were able to go back in time to that moment, he’d have turned him down and shouldered a rifle as a plain Wolf with Zulu Company. No decisions to make, just orders to follow. But wasn’t that the same cop-out that had begun this line of thought? All he could manage was to plod next to Xray-Tango.
As his mind came full circle, he and Xray-Tango returned to the headquarters building.
“Steady now, Colonel. I’ve told you it’ll be all right,” Xray-Tango said, as they stood at the stairs leading down to the lower level. Valentine distracted himself by looking at the pattern of the cinder blocks in the walls. This was pre-2022 construction, certainly. There were conduits and plumbing fixtures going deeper into the earth. The Quislings, while clearing rubble above, were making use of the infrastructure below that survived the nuclear blast.
The Reaper had not moved since they left. It might have been a wax figure, sitting with palms flat on the table and head tilted slightly back, were it not for the eyes that opened at their entrance.
“give us the child, and let us fill our need,” Mu-Kur-Ri’s avatar said. The yellow eyes locked on Valentine. He felt a weightless, falling sensation, as though the slit-pupiled eyes were turning into canyons, the veins leading to them rivers, the yellow irises burning deserts. He was falling toward them, into them. The only thing he could put between his eyes and the Reaper’s was the child. He held it out, breaking whatever hypnotic conduit drew him.
The Reaper took the baby. Gravity returned to the floor; Valentine’s mind was his own again.
“There, you’ve got your answer, my lord—” Xray-Tango began, before choking on his words when the Reaper’s hinged jaw went wide, like a snake preparing to eat an egg. It ripped away the swaddling clothes with a hand, opening the tiny girl’s chest. The newborn had time for one brief cry, stifled instantly as the Reaper buried its face in the baby.
Valentine heard a soft suckling sound. He held himself up with the table.
Xray-Tango went white as a sheet. “Je—” he began, before staggering back against the wall. He slid down it as though he’d been shot.
The feeding didn’t take long. Valentine counted vein pulses in the Reaper’s pallid hand, held against the dead baby’s bottom. After seven it lowered the child and closed its blood-smeared mouth. The yellow eyes were no longer dangerous, just drunken.
“most exquisite. when fresh there is a blend, a residual of the mother’s full, mature body overlain with the delicate new energy. it sparkles, it sparkles. . . .” The Kurian lord favored Valentine with a grin.
Death discussed as one would a wine tasting left Valentine cold and nauseated. “If your lordship has no—” Valentine began.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” Xray-Tango said, trying to stand on his feet but failing. He sat with his back to the wall, arm around a wastebasket.
“general, the idea of you setting conditions on my actions . . . it’s just impossible. i hope you do not need a further lesson.”
“But you agreed, this was just a test, the baby wasn’t to be hurt.”
“it didn’t suffer,” the thing said, approaching Xray-Tango. It dropped the drained newborn into the wastebasket with a empty, wet thunk. “if, after all this time, you haven’t learned that we take what we want, when we want it, perhaps—”
The Reaper grabbed Xray-Tango by the scruff of the neck and lifted him like a kitten.
“No, I’ve got my ring, you can’t!”
“i wasn’t going to,” it hissed. “stop the games, general. this shell game you play with the pows, it stops from this moment. be grateful for them, otherwise we’d be more rigorous in looking for sustenance elsewhere.”
“It’s for your lordship to say, of course. But in Texas and Oklahoma, you took so few. I thought that’s all you required.”
“we limited ourselves out of necessity. better times are here; we will enjoy the fat years as we made do during the lean ones. more prisoners, general. if you w
ant to keep us happy, and keep your ring, you’ll gather more prisoners. the lives are up in the mountains. go up and bring us them to fill our need.”
“I’ve made everything ready here. Logistics aren’t holding us up anymore; it’s the wet.”
The Reaper turned to Valentine. “le sain, we are told you hunger for combat command. distinguish yourself, bring the remainder out of the mountains, and you’ll have a ring too.”
At last, a chance at honesty. “I’m ready to fight,” Valentine said. Some of the warmth returned to his stomach. “Give us the guns. We’ll show you what we can do.”
“Consul Solon will deliver the Trans-Mississippi as promised, my lord. This isn’t a riot, or a collective farm that’s grabbed a truckload of rifles. Those are trained soldiers in those mountains, and damn tough ones, man-for-man. If you want those troops alive and functional at the end of this, we have to go about it properly.”
“we are weary of reasons not to fight. general, it is our will that the colonel be transferred to a combat corps, as soon as his men can be readied. you will turn your fat clerks into riflemen, your construction engineers into artillerists. consul solon allows too much haft and not enough point on this spear he has forged; the terrorists should have been subdued long before now. there is disorder in texas. our cousins in illinois look across the great river with hungry eyes. new orleans hopes for us to hollow ourselves so they may fill the void should we collapse. the campaign must be brought to a conclusion, or even those with rings will be held accountable. now go and consider how you will do this.”
Valentine wanted nothing more than to return to his cot and sleep. Sleep would bring oblivion. No more memories of the wriggling infant in his arms, or the blood being flicked from the tongue of the Reaper as it returned to its mouth.
Xray-Tango wouldn’t let him out of the office. The general stood, holding himself up on his trophy sideboard, fish-mouthing as though he were about to vomit on his awards.
“I swear to you, Knox, on my mother’s grave, I didn’t know he was going to do that to the baby. We thought it up as just a test. See if you’d do it. If I’d known he really wanted it, I would have taken it myself. I can’t let someone else do something like that. God, I’ve served them for twenty-three years. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”