by E. E. Knight
“Zulu Company has four platoons of about thirty men each, as of this month. Fifteen support personnel, mostly older Wolves who aren’t up to running fifty miles a day anymore, seven wives and two husbands who can keep up with the camp, and four transport teams of four men, making me responsible for a little over one hundred fifty lives. I have twelve senior NCOs, but I’m short a lieutenant out of the three I should have. You want the job?”
Valentine swallowed his mouthful of beer, which had turned into a grapefruit descending his throat. “Me, an officer? Sir, I’m not even twenty yet.”
“Napoleon was a lieutenant of artillery at sixteen, David.”
“And Alexander the Great was a king breaking up rebellions at twenty, sir,” Valentine interjected. “But I’m not either. I’ve never read a book about tactics.”
The captain set down his beer and crossed the room to the desk. “Valentine, I’ve got a folder here. In it is what we call your ‘Q file.” Don’t ask me what the q means, because I don’t know. It’s got your reports, about what happened on that barge, and it’s going to contain your report on the Mississippi crossing, once the copy works its way here. There are some words from Wolves like Pankow and Paul Samuels. I also knew your father, slightly. I was younger than you are now in those days, and I’d give my right nut to be half the man he was. I heard he was murdered when you were still a boy.“
LeHavre returned to the chair. “David, I know from people I trust that you’ve got brains and guts. You also take responsibility; most people try to hide from it. You’ve shown some initiative in going after the enemy, and Eveready told me that you’re smart about avoiding a fight, too. Which takes a certain kind of courage.”
Valentine listened to LeHavre’s summation of his record as a Wolf. But LeHavre didn’t know about the fear and horror inside the Harpy barge that had unmanned him into lighting his bomb without thinking it through. Or the stupid theatrics with a gun (a valuable pistol now submerged in the muddy river bottom thanks to his forgetting to hang on to it in the water) to get a cramped recruit on her feet. Or the luck of a clear sunrise that saved them on the shores of the Mississippi.
“And one more thing, David. Our very own Wizard, Amu, recommended you to me. That counts for something; he reads people like a book. Don’t misunderstand me, please. Being an officer is a tough tackle. You drink last, eat last, sleep last, and usually die first. No one notices your good decisions, and you have to bury your bad ones and then write home to somebody’s parents that their son stopped a bullet carrying out your orders. Getting them to fight is the least of your worries; the Wolves know their business. But getting them ready for a fight, choosing where and when, and then getting them back safely takes a special kind of person.”
“Why did you become one, sir? An officer, I mean.”
LeHavre sighed and pulled down the last of his beer. “Long story, David. I wasn’t even a sergeant, just a vet in charge of four kids younger than you. Our platoon went into the wrong town. Quislings had a hell of a fine ambush set up. They’d killed just about everyone in what had been a friendly stop and filled it up with their people. Somehow they scared a family we knew into greeting us and making everything seem normal. Everyone was tired and hungry, so we dispersed for dinner and sleep. That’s when they hit us. The lieutenant and sergeants got it first—it seemed like the lead was flying from every direction but up. I made it out and got some other survivors together, dogs at our heels and Reapers screaming from the hills. I’ve never been so scared before or since— been pretty damn close a few times, though—but we made it back. I carried a wounded Wolf the whole way, but she didn’t weigh much over one-fifteen. So they made me an officer. Funny thing to do for a guy who spent three solid days running from the enemy.
“But that was a good number of years back. The Free Territory’s changed from a backwater cluster of hard-luck farms to a real patch of civilization. The Kurians haven’t had any luck stomping us. We’re not as big as some of the groups out east, even. I understand there’s a band of Hunters ranging the Green Mountains of New England up to Canada and down through the Smokies about twice the size of us, and the freehold in the Pacific Northwest has more square miles. But out east, they’re more of a wandering guerrilla army; they don’t have a spot to really call home. And in the west, well, it’s only a rough confederation out there. A couple of the strongmen paying lip service to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. A few even think the Hunters and the Lifeweavers are part of the same disease as the Kurians. You’d think the days of men fighting anything but the Kurians and their Quislings are over, but I’m sad to say it just isn’t so.”
The captain shook his head, eyes downcast. “Curse of Babel, I guess. We just won’t work on the same team sometimes. But back to the here and now. Can I count on you, Valentine?”
Has anyone ever counted on me? Valentine wondered. He thought of the gangly little girl, Jill, and her unknown mother. Can they count on me? Will I be able to prevent some black-fanged monster from making lifeless husks of them? He remembered the little Poole girl’s response to LeHavre’s request. Maybe LeHavre liked to be answered that way.
“Can do, sir,” Valentine said, hoping the enthusiasm did not sound too forced.
The captain walked him out into the pleasant afternoon. The worst of the summer’s heat had faded, and the clouds were piling on and thickening overhead. Five-pole tepees filled what was probably once a lawn and putting green.
“Zulu Company is spending time in reserve, Valentine,” LeHavre repeated. “Your last winter you stayed in true winter camp. Four companies get to do that, another four are in reserve, leaving just two companies to stay in the Outlands.
They’ll be spread thin, patrolling and relying on the Cats for notice of anything major outside the borders. If something happens, or a good opportunity to hurt the Hoods comes along, we go out of reserve. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be sitting on our rears. As of today, you’re Acting-Lieutenant Valentine on my authority. The colonel will confirm after your course work gets done. We’re not the Guards, the civilian government doesn’t have to give its rubber stamp. I’m not giving you a platoon yet, though you’ll get your bars right away. But back to your duties. You’re going to be in charge of the support staff, transport teams, and the Aspirants. When you aren’t doing that, you’ll be running back and forth from the Officer’s Training College, which holds classes at the old UA Pine Bluff Campus on the west side of the lake. If you want my advice, you’ll memorize Sun-tzu and study the nineteenth-century campaigns of the Apaches and Comanches, and some Civil War histories of Bedford Forrest and Stonewall Jackson. Just read enough about the rest to pass your tests. You’ll learn a lot about how to fight when you’re outnumbered and outgunned. When you’re reading about the Chiricahua, try not to remember that they were on the losing side. It’ll be a hell of a schedule for you, but be grateful for it. We’ve got officers all over the place who are just jumped-up sergeants, and thought they’re hell on wheels with the men, but sometimes the lack of formal training leads to problems.“
“When’s this going to start, sir?”
“It started the minute you accepted your commission, Lieutenant. The War College is always more or less in session. One more thing: Eveready said you got some kind of premonition that there were Reapers around. Answer me straight, was it a lucky guess, or did you really catch wind of something?”
Valentine thought for a moment before answering. “I can’t account for it, sir. It wasn’t based on anything I actually sensed, more of a ‘by the pricking of my thumbs—’”
“ ‘Something wicked this way comes’?” finished LeHavre. “That’s interesting. Reapers make horses and dogs nuts, too. Well, the nearest thing we have to a center for study of the Kurians, by us humans anyway, is at the college here in Pine Bluff. They’ll be interested in your story. There’s a half-dozen people researching the New Order; they like to come out and talk to us after we’ve seen them up close. They always want to kn
ow which Kurian sent which Reapers—as if we can tell. Let’s get you quartered, and you can go meet them tomorrow when you enroll yourself at the OTC.”
The following day, after a delicious cool night in a cot in the warmth of the junior officers’ tepee, which he had to himself because his tentmate was on a training patrol, Valentine rode through the bustling little town to the college campus. It was an uninspiring collection of solid little 1950s buildings dominated by a curious stunted tower: a clock that some tinkerer had restored to its function decorated it. Uniformed Guards sitting outside one brick building revealed the location of the War College. As he had business there, Valentine decided to make the OTC his first destination. Exchanging friendly nods with the lounging Guards outside, he followed an old black-and-white plastic sign with a red arrow. A chalkboard outside the open office door read:
this week: maj. jonas brattleboro—medicine in the field
(tues, wed, pm 114)
lt. p. haynes—black powder to the steel-jacketed bullet (fri, am 106 /pm rifle range)
Valentine entered the office. A breeze came through the open windows, but it was still uncomfortably hot, and the room had the sour smell of old paper. A young female Guard in a white cotton uniform Valentine identified as a cadet’s, her face as fresh as this morning’s flowers, rose and smiled.
“You must be the new Wolf from Zulu Company, sir. Nice to meet you, Acting-Lieutenant Valentine,” she said. “My name is Cadet Lambert, but the guys here call me Dots. Because I’m kind of a born picture-straightener. I dot all the i’s and cross all the t‘s.”
“You’re well informed, Lambert. I didn’t know you Guards paid that much attention to the Wolves.”
“There’s one other Wolf studying here right now, sir. She’s from Tango Company over at Fort Smith. She stays at the Poole Boardinghouse; she’s a little older than you. Her name is Carol Pollisner. Usually the Wolves mustang up and don’t have to do much formal classwork. Speaking of which, I have your packet all ready.”
“Thank you, Lambert. How the hell old are you, if you don’t mind me asking? You look about twelve.” He took a heavy pack of paper wrapped up in a tied linen folder from her hand.
“I’m fifteen. But I passed the Guard physical, and I ran the table on the written test. I’m the Colonel Commanding’s staff assistant until I turn eighteen. I actually prefer Dots, sir.”
Valentine whistled, knowing the number of push-ups required to pass a Guard Cadet physical. He opened the linen folio.
“The OTC is mostly self-taught,” Dots explained. “There’s a reading list, and written test on each book. You have to do six months’ worth of lectures unless you can pass out of the subject by taking an oral exam. The classwork is easier unless you’re some kind of genius. Each week’s lecture schedule is on the blackboard outside. Once you do that, and have your Certificates of Diligence, Responsibility, and Sobriety, you take the final oral exam. They hold those whenever there’s three captains or above around. In fact, your Captain LeHavre is going to be serving on one a little later this month. I hear he’s merciless on Grog Recognition. If you don’t know where to shoot a Harpy to bring it down with one bullet, you’re recycled.”
“What’s this thesis?” Valentine asked, looking at the graduation requirements.
“That’s one of Colonel Jimenez’s pet projects. Hope you can write. He wants a fifty-page paper on any subject, strictly nonmilitary. History’s okay, as long as you keep off the wars and battles covered in the reading list. A week after you turn it in, you get questioned about it, so you better know whatever it is you’re writing about. I did mine on the great mariners, Columbus and Cook and so on. A week later he was grilling me about how Columbus enticed his men to make the voyages, and how Captain Magellan might have avoided getting killed. I think Jimenez just does it to keep himself sharp.”
“Thanks, Dots. I’ll read this over. I’ll start on the lectures this week, if LeHavre will spare me.“
“The library’s on the top floor. You can check out books if we have two or more copies available, but that covers almost everything on the reading list,” she said, already making notes in her desk book.
“Which building is the student union, Dots?”
She looked up with a raised eyebrow. “Going to visit the Creeps, huh? There’s a campus map in your packet, but it’s just across the quad. It’s a good place to learn about the Grogs, but I wouldn’t let them talk you into trying for any bounty money.”
“Bounty money?”
“For all sorts of stuff. Reaper clothes or artifacts. Written records stolen from the Kurian Zone. They offer big money for live prisoners, but if it’s Quislings, they have to be officers. Their dream catch is a whole, live Reaper. They had one once, but it got out. LeHavre will look the other way if you grab a clipboard now and then, but don’t ever try to throw a rope around a Reaper or he’ll probably shoot you himself.”
“Thanks for the tip, Dots. I have a feeling I’ll be saluting you someday.”
She looked pleased at the compliment. “If you need any help, I’m here every day. I live in the old dormitory.”
Valentine exited past three Guards, who had quit skylarking and were talking over a broken-backed copy of War and Society. There were fewer than when he had entered; it seemed a couple of the number had duties elsewhere.
The stone on the student union read L. A. Davis Student Union and 1952, but someone had hung a carved wooden sign that read Miskatonic University over the door. Valentine entered the unlit building, which smelled of bad plumbing. A stairway leading up had a sign reading appointments only, and a second notice board, which at one time had been behind glass, read bounty inquiries, please ring over a small hand bell. Valentine climbed the stairway.
The second floor was a warren of rooms, some with doors completely missing and others with darkened windows. A faint, Poe-esque tap-tap-tapping sounded from an inner chamber. Valentine hunted the source of the sound, which he eventually realized was a typewriter. It came from a central office with three overburdened desks, festooned with pin-filled maps and drawings of Grogs.
Under a bright electric desk lamp, a rotund and hairy man typed with two fingers and an occasional thumb. The mountain-man mass of hair on his head and face made his age hard to guess, but Valentine put the man in his late thirties, as his temples and chin were just beginning to be flecked with gray. He wore large, octagonal tortoiseshell glasses that had probably been originally worn by a woman. A bare chest that would have done a grizzly proud, fur-wise, bulged out of a sleeveless jeans jacket.
Valentine knocked on the doorjamb and broke the typist’s concentration.
“Hi, can I help you?” the man asked in a friendly tone.
“I think I’m supposed to help you,” Valentine said. “Are you one of the people who researches the Kurians?”
“Yeah. I sometimes think research isn’t the right word, though. We’re more like witch doctors trying to explain why a volcano erupts and throwing in the odd virgin to see if that helps. I think we used to put ‘New Order Studies Institute’ on our documents, mostly because it acronymed out as nosi. But whoever we are, we’re them.”
Valentine entered the office, making his way around the desks and floor-filling mounds of binders to reach the scientist. As the latter stood up to shake hands, Valentine noticed that his pants were around his ankles.
“Oh, sorry,” the man said. It was difficult to tell if he was blushing behind the beard. “Warm up here, you know. I swear that lightbulb puts out more calories than candlepower.” He brought his trousers up to their conventional position.
“David Valentine, Wolf. Originally out of Minnesota. Pleased to meet you,” Valentine said, taking the hairy-knuckled paw.
“David Walker O’Connor. From Indianapolis, myself. Ran away at the tender age of thirteen. I was brought here just because I knew about current conditions in Indiana, more or less, and stayed on. I read you took a Reaper outside of Weening about a year ago. What hav
e you got for us now?”
“Do I talk to you? It’s about a feeling I got when a Reaper was around. A couple weeks ago. A Cat named Eveready thought it was important enough that I should tell you.“
O’Connor scratched himself under his shovel beard. “Let’s go into the cellar. I need a break and a drink. You like root beer?”
“Yes, thank you. In fact, it’ll be a treat. I’ve only had it once or twice.”
The researcher grabbed a notebook and led the way out of the tangle of airless offices. The two descended into the cellar. At the base of the landing, a classic pawnshop barred door and window prevented further penetration. O’Connor pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and selected one. The door opened with a squeal from the hinges.
With the flick of a switch, O’Connor turned on a single bulb. Its pathetic forty watts did little to help the darkness and nothing at all to alleviate the musty smell coming from piles of clothing, trunks, and assorted boxes and crates heaped with artifacts.
“A lot of it is junk, but it all helps put together a story,” his guide explained.
Something shuffled out of the shadows: slab skinned, inhuman, peering at them with a gargoyle face. Valentine startled, reaching for his absent weapons.
O’Connor put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Valentine. This is Grishnak. As you can tell, he’s a Grog. A couple of the Team found him after a battle, badly wounded. We patched him up, fed him. He’s something of a mascot. He puts up with all our little experiments, don’t you, Grish?” He thumped it affectionately on the arm.
