by E. E. Knight
A few men raised their glasses. A couple applauded.
"I'm here for the night air, not a speech. Enjoy." He lifted his finger and the cigar rolled off the balcony rail. A muttonchopped officer in a black dress uniform grabbed it as it fell.
By the time Muttonchops was showing his trophy to his escort, a blonde who had the body of a seventeen-year-old and the eyes of thirty-five, Adler had vanished indoors.
"He's shy," the artist said. "I like that."
Valentine looked out into the clear night, wondering what the shy military genius had been looking for to the west. Sulfur-colored light painted the distant clouds above Seattle.
* * * *
"I thought you were going to buy boots," Valentine said as they returned to their room. The bed had been turned down, and the room carried a floral, elegant fragrance.
"I did," she said, pointing to a box. "Socks too, lots of them. Great quality. I picked up a few pairs for Julia. She loaned me this dress I'm not really fitting."
"Who's Julia?" Valentine asked.
"My roomie. She takes a little getting used to—she was born a slave to some Grogs in Oregon. They caught her poking around in a larder and chopped off her nose with a set of tin snips. Though she's always joking about it... really a lolly person once you get to know her. When she goes out, she wears this silk veil and calls herself 'the Phantom.' The guy gave me a great deal on the shoes, because they were used. You can hardly tell."
Valentine looked at the label in the bottom, something in Italian, as he took off his tunic. It added to the air of fantasy in the lodge.
"Mmmmm, they spritzed the sheets with lavender water," Gide said.
"It's supposed to relax you," Valentine said.
"They had tabs of Horny in the gift shop, can you fuckin' believe it? KZ aphrodisiacs? Here?" She let her two-tone hair fall, though the roots were now coming in an even walnut brown, and flopped back on the bed, her hair spread out like a fan.
Valentine adored her for a moment. Her hard-bitten, tattooed beauty, her profanity, and the military acronym somehow complemented one another. But a moment was all he allowed himself. Much more and his self-control would go.
"I think I might take a walk before I shower," Valentine said.
"Going to buy some Horny?"
"You wish," Valentine said, and winked.
Her upper lip twitched rightward. "I'm not so sure anymore."
The cool, clear air took the lavender out of his nose and replaced it with the mountain smell of pine and cedar. Valentine walked out in front of the resort, where a winding road ended in a dark oil slick of the parking lot. In the distance the green light of the military checkpoint glowed. At one end of the lot by a couple of bright outdoor lights—insects flashed like shooting stars as they whizzed by—a drunken game of pickup basketball proceeded noisily. Valentine watched the players try to dribble with one hand and hold a beer with the other, then turned toward the river.
He caught a little music from the small dance club at one end of the Outlook, but even that was soon drowned out by the quick-flowing river, rushing out of the mountains in a white froth. Some kind of cable contraption hung over the waterfall downstream, a gondola basket providing both a crossing for the river and a unique way to view the spectacular falls. Valentine saw motion across the river, just a sentry out to have a look at him.
He returned to the patio.
Most of the parties had broken up. A few people still smoked, or chatted over hot drinks in the chilly air; Valentine had to remind himself it was June, as in the mountains it felt more like an Arkansas March.
Valentine couldn't shake the feeling that something bad loomed out there, watching the hotel. He turned over in his mind ways he might try to assault the place. There were sentries at the door, and Valentine suspected some kind of security reserve lurked in the basement, as he'd seen uniformed soldiers disappear into the doors marked service use only leading down.
Or was he just talking himself into a breakdown? Not enough stress in this getaway, so you have to bring some along?
Or are you scared of what's in that king-sized bed?
* * * *
He undressed and got into bed quietly, the vast bed giving him a margin of error.
She rolled, faced him. "This is different," Gide murmured. "I'm glad you brought me."
"Nice to have a familiar face around," Valentine said.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes. "Good to be just in bed with a man. Lavender and guy. Someone needs to bottle that."
"What did you mean when you said that you weren't so sure anymore?" Valentine asked, curiosity getting the better of him. Or maybe it was a game he was playing with himself, with her as the prize. Or the other way round.
She thought for a moment. "I used to just be able to... turn everything off and enjoy fucking. But I'm starting to know you better. There's a lot of stuff in there I think I like. That weird little smile you wear."
She touched the corner of his mouth.
What the hell.
He reached up, took her wrist, kissed her gently on the back of her hand, then turned it over and kissed the palm. He released it and she reached up to play with his hair.
"Shit, now I've done it," she said. She lunged across the bed as quickly as one of the snakes tattooed on her arms, kissed him.
The rest came in a frenzy of pent-up desire, effervescent as champagne and just as intoxicating.
* * * *
Valentine woke with a start in the predawn. Reapers! He found he was sitting up listening in anxious silence. No ... the strange cold place on his consciousness wasn't there, wasn't real; it was echoes of memory and nightmare.
"You okay?" Gide murmured.
"Cramp," Valentine lied.
"You're sweating."
"Yeah. I'll be right back."
He washed his face in the bathroom, still listening. Then he went out to the balcony, looked around at the darker-than-ever world under a pinkening sky. He heard someone sweeping on the balcony below, smelled fresh bread, the feminine musk of Gide on him.
He returned to bed and slept hard.
* * * *
They spent the rest of the weekend mostly in the bedroom, trying something Valentine had never experienced before: room service.
Saturday passed in brilliant sun and wandering clouds, and they restored themselves from bouts of lovemaking with coffees and teas on the balcony, sitting on an old bench with one of the bed pillows cushioning their backs. Gide, like her father in his better days, was also a big reader and they poked through worn, yellow-paged books collected from the hotel's small library together. They dressed for dinner and later discovered a second night together more delectable than the first.
They hitched back west on Sunday, riding in the bed of a king-cab pickup carrying a trio of captains who reminded Valentine of one of the poker hands that brought him up.
Saying good-bye to Gide was hard. But like all such days pried from the routines of war, the brevity made the memories that much sweeter.
* * * *
Four days later he saw his first action. "Courier duty," they called it. Valentine buzzed out over Seattle's waters in the dead night, low and slow as he dared. Any watching Reaper might mistake him at a distance for a fast-moving patrol boat.
They'd modified the exhaust of the PAAT to lower the noise and make its voice resemble the oversized motorcycle it was. Valentine sensed a slight loss of horsepower but it just meant he couldn't do much in the way of fancy climbing turns.
The entrance to Seattle's harbor now had two tall lights marking it, constructed from old radio masts. The north rose up from an island and the other was on the coast. Allegedly some poor bastards made the long climb to the top of each four times a day, keeping watch on the water approaches to the city.
He wondered if they'd mark him as a potential smuggler.
He kept well clear of the southern tower but used it as a waypoint. He picked up a little altitude ove
r the southwestern peninsula, saw the three lights, one blue and two red, laid out in an equilateral triangle.
Two of the lights went out as he passed overhead, leaving only the blue. He banked the autogyro and made his approach.
Heart pounding, he set the craft down on the little field by the signal. He was on a grassy flat next to some manner of drainage canal. Foundations of cleared houses lay under a carpet of weeds, and young pines shielded him from a road. A man left two companions, one with a rifle, the other with a big sporting bow, and ran up to the craft.
Valentine popped the canopy.
"Stop," the man called, crouching.
"Light," Valentine responded.
The stranger hurried up, face concealed behind a scarf and a hat pulled down to his ears. Valentine reached around and took out the duffel bag. Whatever was inside didn't weigh much more than plastic. It rattled vaguely as he handed the sealed case over.
"There you go."
"Tell 'em not to worry, plenty of heroes on this side of the sound." He offered his hand.
They exchanged grips. "I'm sure there are."
He handed over a heavier case that probably contained radio equipment or explosives and the man hurried off.
Valentine checked his map again. His next waypoint was the old Sea-Tac Airport, but he was to keep well south of it; they had searchlights that could blind him and guns that could bring him down.
He shut the canopy and gunned the engine. As he bounced away across the field, the men were already picking up bicycles and hurrying to meet over the bag. He marked a little flag and some piled-up dirt at one end of the field, and rose in the air. A target on a post flapped in the sea breeze.
They'd met him on a rifle range.
* * * *
The flashes of gunfire looked like sparks from the air. They left little ghosts on his retinas for a split second.
Valentine had never seen a battle from the air. The sporadic gunfire seemed to be coming from spots along a long, ragged line stretching over perhaps a mile and a half of ground. They were fighting in what looked like a residential zone, long lines of what he guessed to be post-'22 housing—from what he'd heard, a good deal of the southern areas of the city had suffered badly from earthquake and volcano damage.
He passed over a street filled with bodies, tightly packed, around a pair of buses. The Bears must have caught reinforcements arriving in a deadly ambush to have the corpses laid in windrows like that....
No wonder the Seattle Guard didn't care to take on an Action Group.
Valentine's orders were to check in at the Action Group's field headquarters for the operation. He could evacuate up to two wounded on the stretcher fittings added onto either side of the PAAT. It would be a hard load to fly, because carrying one meant carrying two, or the unbalanced autogyro would crash on takeoff. He hoped that if he had to carry two, they'd be of similar weight, preferably both light.
The Action Group lit the road he was to land on with headlights from the reserve Armed Truck force. Two smaller dune-buggy-like craft, one with a recoilless rifle and the other a heavy machine gun, crouched at the intersection with the command Hummer pulled into a half-collapsed brick storefront. An observer and a temporary aerial had a precarious perch at the steeple.
Remember to refuel if you've got wounded. Remember to refuel if you've got wounded.
Of course the high-octane gasoline they were supposed to be carrying with the medical inflammables was probably misplaced.
He puttered the autogyro up to the command vehicle. At the other side of the half-collapsed building, the white medical bus idled, the men sheltering in a doorway.
Valentine popped the canopy and got out, the sweat on the back of his uniform turning cold in the night.
He did see a wounded man, his arm dressed and in a sling, waiting by the command vehicle. Valentine wondered if they'd demand that he be flown out, just to test the system. From the other direction soldiers herded a group of civilians into a dark recreation center, judging from the basketball courts and running track outside. They kept them jogging, despite the age of some of the men, several of whom were gasping for air and supporting themselves on the runner in front.
A sudden burst of gunfire sounded in the distance.
Valentine extracted his carbine and approached the command vehicle. He was waved in by the man with the long, night-sighted sniper rifle keeping watch on the road. He found Thunderbird there with some of his subofficers, talking intently to Rafferty with a noncom behind carrying two rifles. Rafferty had his helmet off, showing his ringlets bound up like a hairy handle sticking out of the back of his head.
Behind Thunderbird they'd set up an easel with a carefully drawn map. The radio reports were translated into visual form by putting red slashes over depictions of buildings. Some of the slashes had been turned into an X.
Two corporals relayed information over radio to the officers.
"Bravo block cleared, eighty-one."
"Bravo, eighty-one," a lieutenant said in a bit of a singsong, finishing an X on the easel.
The ruined building had once been a hair salon. The man with his arm in a sling tried leaning back and resting his head in a debris-filled washbasin.
"Scouts are reporting traffic on Five-One-Five southbound," one of the radiomen said in a loud but calm voice.
"Rafferty, we'll pick this up tomorrow," Thunderbird said. "You dumb bastard. I told you I'd court-martial you." He turned to the men at the radios, clicking his tongue in thought. "Sound recall to all teams. Delay red column if possible."
"Recall, repeat, recall," the men at the radios echoed.
"Tell the scouts to mine the roads and haul ass," Thunderbird added.
Valentine saw a camouflage-painted pickup truck roar up the road. Two soldiers in back sat in a sea of children. Baby carriers with squalling infants stood in a crash cage.
The sergeant marched Rafferty out. "Rape," the sergeant muttered to Valentine under his breath as he passed.
"Anything for me?" Valentine asked.
Thunderbird looked startled for a second. "Valentine. How was the drop?"
"Completed."
"No, we're good. You can get out of here."
A long rattle of gunfire from across the street dropped Valentine behind cover, but no bullets zipped the headquarters. Valentine saw the athletic building the civilians had been run into alight with the reflection of gun flashes.
The hell? Were they ambushed?
The men at the vehicles guarding the headquarters didn't so much as change the covered arc of their weapons.
"Gamma-Gamma, forty-four," one of the men at the radios said.
"Gamma-Gamma, forty-four," the singsong lieutenant repeated, drawing a big X on the map. Valentine blinked.
He'd just put an X through the athletic building. Yes, three concrete apartments around it in a U. Jesus Christ!
"What kind of op is this?" Valentine asked, knowing, not wanting to know.
"We're clearing this housing complex," Thunderbird said. "Dee Oh Ee Ar."
Valentine heard isolated shots as the executioners in the athletic building finished off the wounded.
"Team Kostwald is loaded and leaving," one of the radiomen said, and an officer made a note on a clipboard.
"Of what?" Valentine asked.
"Destruction of enemy resources," Thunderbird said. "Can't stand to actually see a DOER?"
Enemy resources. "Enemy resour—you mean the population?"
"Without a population to feed on, the Kurians pull out," one of the lieutenants said.
Valentine looked at the Xs on the map.
"No objections, I hope," Thunderbird said. His subordinate officers tensed, and Valentine saw the man with the busted arm shift his rifle around.
"Objections? Hell yes! For starters—"
Tokt tok tok. "Hop off that high horse, Valentine. Clearing operations work. Your old man invented 'em, after all."
Chapter Nine
The Lifeweavers: Discussions of the Lifeweavers easily grow heated, especially since they rarely present themselves to conduct their defense.
The schools of thought—or bull-session opinion—on the Lifeweavers fall into four groups, often blended and shaded into one another at the edges like paints on an artist's palette.
The mystics see the Lifeweavers as divine intervention on humanity's side, or evidence that whenever evil arises, karma will marshal good to the side of the righteous so that the universe might be kept in balance. Thus the Lifeweavers should be considered reverently, and their actions as a form of religious truth. When skeptics point out that raining holy destruction down on the Kurian Towers Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style would save a good deal of effort all around, the conversation usually shifts over to pure religion.
The utilitarians aren't interested in the motivations of the Lifeweavers, only their efficacy in aid of the struggle against Kur. Their opinion of the extraterrestrials rises and falls along with humanity's fortunes in war. They'd prefer a little less anxiety over how the Lifeweavers are using the naked ape, and a little more thought put into how mankind can make better use of the Lifeweavers. Another set of utilitarians calls for some kind of planetwide exodus (along the lines of the improbable story Valentine heard while passing over Utah) where the Lifeweavers guide mankind to another world that might be made impregnable against the Kurians.
The diplomatists wish to see the Lifeweavers exert themselves less in resisting the Kurians and more in arriving at a solution that would end the fratricide among both species. Visions of some sort of worldwide strike, where mankind nonviolently refuses to aid either side until they solve their differences or take their war elsewhere, make for an attractive flight of Pegasus-winged pigs. But even among the diplomatists, arguments break out when specifics for a peaceful solution are brought up.
The conspiracists come in almost as many flavors as the mystics. Many maintain that the Kurians and Lifeweavers, being of the same species, are simply playing an elaborate game of good cop/bad cop with humanity, to better control them for their own nefarious ends. Others see the Lifeweavers as basically good, but using humans as cannon fodder to fight an ancient war that spilled over onto Earth, to mankind's misfortune.
