Valentine of the models in the old magazines, big eyed, delicate, and thin. He knew the delicacy was only skin-deep. She was as strong as any woman at Fort Seng, just small boned from a youth on short rations. Her family had been nobodies in the Kurian Deep South, so as a little girl she probably hadn’t seen a ham from one Thanksgiving to the next.
“Need, not want?” Valentine poured himself a glass of water from her office carafe—a nice piece of silver, the old mansion was full of flashy gewgaws its former Quisling owner had collected—and sat down. Ediyak knew him well enough to know that when he was off his feet protocols were relaxed and she could speak freely.
“Depends. We’ve had a couple more Bears come in. That makes five this month, I believe. These last two were busted out of their outfit for talking monkey about Martinez and his new ‘defensive stance.’ Or maybe they want to be where there’s still fighting. One of them said something about your old unit, the Razorbacks.”
Talking monkey was Southern Command slang for throwing feces, to put it politely. The Razorbacks were an ad hoc unit formed on the march into Texas, and had been disbanded a few years back after nearly being destroyed in the siege of Dallas.
“I never say no to Bears. Gamecock is good with discipline problems. We could use them. There’s a Kurian tower being built about sixty miles southeast of here, more or less.”
“The colonel will need to hear about that.”
Valentine nodded.
“There’s also someone the Miskatonic sent. Between us, I think Southern Command didn’t know what to do with her, so she got shipped out here. She claims you’re the only one that can appreciate her ideas.”
Valentine noticed the major in the next room had been looking at the same page for the last minute without moving his eyes.
If headquarters wanted to spy, let them. Their officer would return and report that yes, Fort Seng is woefully short of Southern Command’s Interior Utility Gray paint and individual field toilet paper packs.
“A nut?”
Ediyak crinkled her nose and mouth into an expression half pucker, half smile. “More like a zookeeper—well, you’ll just have to meet her. She’s set up above the stables, so she can be near her little menagerie. I’d introduce you, but I’ve got the desk.”
“I’ll try and find her on my own.”
“Ask for Victoria Pellwell. Tall. Hard to miss.”
“Pellwell?”
“Victoria Pellwell.”
“Sounds like a heroine in a Gothic romance,” Valentine said. “Ailing father.”
“Lots of windswept moors and a cozy hayloft.”
He felt a gentle pang. He’d touched his first woman in a hayloft. Molly Carlson, who’d grown up in an agricultural Kurian Zone in Wisconsin.
“Don’t forget the tin bathtub that the maid has to fill with a kettle.” Valentine had baths on the mind. He disliked being dirty; personally, and professionally he didn’t like wandering headquarters looking like roadkill, so he made his excuses to Ediyak and headed off to the big basement bathroom and sauna next to what had presumably once been an exercise room. There he used one of the luxurious, multihead showers to soap his collection of Tennessee and Kentucky dirt off and changed into clean fatigues. He handed his newly acquired boots to Bee for polishing.
Bee was a “gray” Grog, a member of a muscular, thick-skinned fighting race of near-human intelligence. Or maybe they were as smart as humans, with a different way of presenting and learning. Grogs possessed good instincts for machinery and weapons, tools and plants and animals, but they fell apart when put in front of a sketch board where two-dimensional icons represented the solid objects they understood. He’d known her previous companion, a stinky bounty hunter named Price, and had rescued her from a circus menagerie years later. She’d gained a few scars and lost vision in one eye serving him. Bee fretted when he was gone too long.
And
“Need, not want?” Valentine poured himself a glass of water from her office carafe—a nice piece of silver, the old mansion was full of flashy gewgaws its former Quisling owner had collected—and sat down. Ediyak knew him well enough to know that when he was off his feet protocols were relaxed and she could speak freely.
“Depends. We’ve had a couple more Bears come in. That makes five this month, I believe. These last two were busted out of their outfit for talking monkey about Martinez and his new ‘defensive stance.’ Or maybe they want to be where there’s still fighting. One of them said something about your old unit, the Razorbacks.”
Talking monkey was Southern Command slang for throwing feces, to put it politely. The Razorbacks were an ad hoc unit formed on the march into Texas, and had been disbanded a few years back after nearly being destroyed in the siege of Dallas.
“I never say no to Bears. Gamecock is good with discipline problems. We could use them. There’s a Kurian tower being built about sixty miles southeast of here, more or less.”
“The colonel will need to hear about that.”
Valentine nodded.
“There’s also someone the Miskatonic sent. Between us, I think Southern Command didn’t know what to do with her, so she got shipped out here. She claims you’re the only one that can appreciate her ideas.”
Valentine noticed the major in the next room had been looking at the same page for the last minute without moving his eyes.
If headquarters wanted to spy, let them. Their officer would return and report that yes, Fort Seng is woefully short of Southern Command’s Interior Utility Gray paint and individual field toilet paper packs.
“A nut?”
Ediyak crinkled her nose and mouth into an expression half pucker, half smile. “More like a zookeeper—well, you’ll just have to meet her. She’s set up above the stables, so she can be near her little menagerie. I’d introduce you, but I’ve got the desk.”
“I’ll try and find her on my own.”
“Ask for Victoria Pellwell. Tall. Hard to miss.”
“Pellwell?”
“Victoria Pellwell.”
“Sounds like a heroine in a Gothic romance,” Valentine said. “Ailing father.”
“Lots of windswept moors and a cozy hayloft.”
He felt a gentle pang. He’d touched his first woman in a hayloft. Molly Carlson, who’d grown up in an agricultural Kurian Zone in Wisconsin.
“Don’t forget the tin bathtub that the maid has to fill with a kettle.” Valentine had baths on the mind. He disliked being dirty; personally, and professionally he didn’t like wandering headquarters looking like roadkill, so he made his excuses to Ediyak and headed off to the big basement bathroom and sauna next to what had presumably once been an exercise room. There he used one of the luxurious, multihead showers to soap his collection of Tennessee and Kentucky dirt off and changed into clean fatigues. He handed his newly acquired boots to Bee for polishing.
Bee was a “gray” Grog, a member of a muscular, thick-skinned fighting race of near-human intelligence. Or maybe they were as smart as humans, with a different way of presenting and learning. Grogs possessed good instincts for machinery and weapons, tools and plants and animals, but they fell apart when put in front of a sketch board where two-dimensional icons represented the solid objects they understood. He’d known her previous companion, a stinky bounty hunter named Price, and had rescued her from a circus menagerie years later. She’d gained a few scars and lost vision in one eye serving him. Bee fretted when he was gone too long.
And
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