Choice of the Cat

Omaha, September: The Old World transportation hub set in the wide, wooded valley of the Missouri is a sad shadow if its former self. The skeleton of the Woodman building looks out over smashed walls and collapsed roofs, where people and commerce once thrived. Like its sister St. Louis, farther down the wide Missouri, Omaha proper is now the breeding ground for assorted Grogs and human scoundrels. The city and its surrounding lands were deeded to the Grog tribes in exchange for their help during the Overthrow, and the Grogs have shaped it to their taste. Control over the vital communications lines passed to the Quislings in Council Bluffs, who oversee the railroad bridges and the river traffic. On the western shores, the nineteenth-century brick buildings of the Old Market are now home to an assortment of human smugglers, traders, and plug-uglies plying perhaps the second-oldest profession-that of getting goods into the hands of those with the ability to pay. But even that nest of vipers just south of what's left of Heartland Park now thinks about relocating to a new city; there have been stories of fighting throughout the city between the Grogs and tall, well-armed men. The city is being cleared of its Grogs.



Which would be fine with the smugglers. But the recent destruction of a barge full of contraband and the death of its entire crew have the Old Market gangs worried. The Quislings always winked at the trade that supplies them with a few luxuries from other parts of the country, the Grogs in the ruins depend on them for weapons, and since the Freeholders are too far away to go to such lengths just to burn a few barrels of rum and brandy, they are forced to wonder if they have also been selected for destruction.



Someone with a plan is making a power play for the city, and playing for keeps.



He was on the northwest side of the city, near one of those multilevel, indoor shopping centers of the Old World. Now the cement structure was black and green and hollow as a diseased tooth. It reeked of Harpies from a half mile off, so he avoided it.



Valentine wanted to make time, so he walked well out in the open, intimidating-looking gun over his shoulder, sweating freely under the heat of the September sun. He pushed through the green chaos of what had been either a golf course or a park and moved out onto a series of parking lots in the midst of being reclaimed by forest, with the overgrowth-dripped roof of the mall in the western distance.



He came upon an east-west road, no more or no less clear than any of the others he had crossed, littered with the rusting ruins of weather-beaten cars, many with small ter-rariums growing in the sheltered detritus within, like a series of rust-colored planters. But he picked up a battlefield odor-flesh rotting in the sun.



He followed the smell and saw stains, recent but faded to brown, splashed on a car, and his nose located the fresh, overripe smell of bodies in the afternoon heat. A little farther down, Harpies, the snaggletoothed, ugly, bowlegged, and bat-armed Grogs that Valentine despised from his earliest days in the Free Territory, lay dead on the road and tossed atop cars.



Among their broken forms he found a huge fallen backpack-far too large to be carried by a Harpy, even on its feet, in the road. It was fashioned out of wood and skins, grafted on a core of what looked like a tube-steel frame of a kitchen chair, clearly homemade but showing a great deal of delicate craftsmanship in the numerous leather laces and braces. Obviously some Harpies had survived the encounter with the backpack-wearer, for it was empty.



Curious for some reason, Valentine tried to read the story of the battle from the placement of the bodies. The Harpies first attacked their victim in the middle of the road, judging from the two that lay dead to the east with bullet holes. His resdess mind welcomed the challenge; he got on his hands and knees to find discarded shell casings. Their victim tried to make it to the trees Valentine had just emerged from, killing one on the way by tearing a leathery wing, breaking its neck, and throwing it into a car. He was strong, whoever he was. And tall-the Harpy had been thrown through the sedan's sunroof. Around the fallen pack, there was more dried blood, an increasingly heavy trail that became a torrent as it reached the broken windows of an old McDonald's. Valentine saw a final dead flier, but nothing else, in the stripped-out lobby of the restaurant.



McDonald's built its restaurants to last; mis one's roof was still more or less sound after nearly fifty years of Nebraska's seasons. Stepping softly, Valentine followed the blood trail into the back of the building, through the debris and growth springing up wherever swirls of dirt accumulated. The trail ended in the dark, cavelike metal walk-in that had once been a refrigerator, or perhaps a freezer.



Valentine smelled more blood and heard slow, labored, breaming. He opened the door to the freezer a little farther, and looked inside.



A Grog lay curled up on the floor. An enormous one. It looked to be a type he had glimpsed among the Twisted Cross trains, taller and not quite so broadly built as the fierce gray apes he was familiar with. This one's exposed skin, rather than resembling the thick slabs of armor plating like that of a rhino that the Grogs on Little Timber bore, was rougher and deeply wrinkled, pebbled like an elephant's. It was also wearing fitted clothing. He had never seen Grogs in anything more than simple loincloths or vests. It was dusted with soft, fawn-colored fur, in patches on its chest and somewhat heavier on its back and shoulders. Blood matted the sparse fur. An ugly brown streak ran from the Grog to a drain in the center of the floor.



It was unconscious, obviously dying. Valentine almost shut the door, to leave it to expire in peace, when he heard the slightest whimpering sound from the Grog, lost in some pain-diffusing dream. Whatever else, it had killed six Harpies, four with its bare hands. It deserved some thanks as far as Valentine was concerned. He began to rummage around for something that could be used as bandages.



The store was empty, but while exploring the basement, he found a few rags and old towels. The uniform closets and employee lockers had been stripped long ago, but he found a large red flag, well trodden on and obviously once used as a carpet on the cold floor by some unknown resident, long gone. He found an old box with packets of mix labeled sanitizer, read the label, opened one up and experimentally added it to some water poured from his canteen into one of the buckets scattered around the basement.



Absently he stuck the empty packet in a pocket. Going over the Spanish instructions and comparing them to the English half would give his mind something to do later on.



Working with speed now, he went back outside and found rainwater in a crumbled sewer. He filled two buckets with water, and then rinsed out the rags and the dirty flag as best he could in the standing water. After that he filled two buckets and poured some packets of sanitizer into one, starting the material in on a cleansing soak. Returning with the water, he gathered deadfall branches under his arm and came back to the restaurant. Using a match for expediency instead of his usual small magnifying glass, he built a fire in one of the old fry-vats with the branches and set a metal bucket of water on a rusty grill over the fire to boil.



Valentine wondered how long the material should soak in the sanitizer. He made more trips for water, until he had every portable vessel he could find full up, then began to turn the cloth into bandages. He stripped and tied the cloth with almost hysterical speed, and forced himself to calm down. After a few deep breaths, he brought the boiled water and the strips of chlorine-scented cloth into the metal-walled room and began to wash and dress the limp creature's wounds. It was wearing a sleeveless, short robe that tied behind it in the small of its back, now badly torn and bloodstained. Valentine removed it and tossed it in the sani-tizer bucket, where it joined the bloodstained rags that he used to dress the wounds.



Its cuts and gouges and bites bled again, but slightly. Whatever else might be said about Grogs, they died hard. With more time now, Valentine took the bloody rags to the fire and threw them in another bucket of bubbling water to boil clean.



He had a little brown sugar and a jar of honey, a gift from one of the farms in Northeastern Nebraska. The bee enthusiast had also given him pieces of dried honeycomb along with the syrup. In Valentine's next boil, he dissolved some sugar, honey, and honeycomb, and brought it in to the Grog. Using a washcloth-size piece of material, he poured the warm sugar-water into the cloth and then placed it in the creature's mouth, cradling its bearlike head in his lap. It began to instinctively suckle at the liquid.



Twenty-four hours later, having given it six more feedings and another change of bandages, Valentine prepared to leave the Grog. He arranged the honeycomb, a large supply of water, and some dried beef within reach, along with a bag of all the edible fungi he could scour from the nearby woods.



He hurried to pack up, for the Grog showed signs of returning to consciousness. Its breathing was slow and regular, and it no longer alternately groaned and whimpered. The Grog's remarkable body, perhaps more than Valentine's fit of tenderness, had pulled it through its numerous injuries.



Valentine took a last look at his patient. He had made a bed for it out of some of the scraps downstairs and padded it with moldy-smelling paper, but at least it was a cushion of sorts. Oddly enough, he felt the time spent treating the Grog was not wasted. He'd needed a day or two's rest anyway, and the empty restaurant was as good a place as any. He wished to be off well before nightfall, however, since the Harpies evidently hunted the region.



Valentine turned to leave and began to walk out of the kitchen area, when his sharp ears picked up a hoarse croak. "Wait... man."



Valentine had never heard English out of a Grog before. Intrigued, he returned to the freezer.



"Was .. . this ... you?" it asked, pointing to the dressings around its head and chest. It had a voice like a rock slide, a low, clattering rumble.



Valentine nodded. "Yes."



"Food . . . drink ... also?" It tried to sit up, failed, but managed to raise its ursine head. Its pointed ears extended, sticking up on either side of its head like a bat's when unfolded. The ear tips tilted toward Valentine. "Why?"



He shrugged, before it occurred to him that the Grog might not know the meaning of the gesture. "You fought outside very . . . bravely. Call it a tribute. Do you understand?"



It closed its eyes for one long second. "No."



"It means I think you're strong, a warrior. Give help then."



The Grog chuckled, a low sound like subterranean grinding. "No ... man. Your ... words ... I... understood. You ... purpose ... I... not... understood."



"That makes two of us. I will leave you now. I think you'll be all right."



"Thank ... you ... but... gratitude ... is ... owed."



"No."



The creature rolled onto its stomach. It lifted its chest off the floor with two muscle-wrapped arms. First one leg, then the other was drawn up under pectorals the size of manhole covers. Somehow it got to its feet, leaning as raised itself with an arm like a child's slide. It stumbled toward the door, and Valentine moved forward to catch it, forgetting that the Grog's full weight would probably knock him flat at the very least. But the Grog extended one of its five-foot arms, bracing itself against the wall.



"No!" it said between gasps. "A ... gratitude ... is ... owed. Please ... wait... one ... day."



Curiouser and curiouser, Valentine thought. "Very well. One day."



"As . . . Men ... do ... I .. . am . . . Ahnkha . . . Krolph ... Mergrumneornemn," Valentine thought it said. He got the first part, partially understood the second, but the final word in what sounded like its name was a set of trailing consonants as unintelligible as his old pickup's transmission.



"My name is David Valentine, errr .. . Ahn-Kha." He pronounced it best he could, as if saying, "Ah-ha!"



"Valentine is your clan name?" the Grog asked, catching its breath.



"You could say that. But it is a small clan. As far as I know, I'm it."



"David is your close name?"



"We say first name."



"My David, I am grateful to you," Ahn-Kha announced, crossing its left arm across its chest, palm outward, and bowing with ears folded flat.



"Ahn-Kha, I am pleased to meet you," Valentine responded. His knowledge of Grog habits was limited to what part of the human anatomy they liked to eat first. He extended his hand. The Grog either recognized the gesture or had some knowledge of human customs; he solemnly engulfed Valentine's hand with his own leathery palm and shook. "We didn't just get married or anything, did we?"



The Grog's features split into a wide smile. It threw back its head and opened its satchel-mouth, like a baby bird looking for a feeding, and laughed. The sound reminded Valentine of a certain braying mule of recent acquaintance.



"I hope that was a no."



Valentine gave Ahn-Kha one more day than he asked for.



Ahn-Kha's strength returned exponentially. Valentine admired the powerful construction of the Grog. Although he stood like a man and had longer legs than his "Gray One" relatives, when Ahn-Kha wished to move quickly, he made use of three or four limbs. Valentine eventually learned he could outrun him on the flat, but if it came to moving up or down a slope, especially one cluttered with trees or rocks, the Grog could vault and pull himself up using his enormous arms with an agility Valentine could match only with Cat jumps.



Fully erect, Ahn-Kha stood seven feet tall. His arms formed an inverted U, with an arc of muscle at the shoulders that bulged and writhed like separate creatures riding his back. He had three fingers and a thumb, the index and middle finger a good deal longer than the digit on the end, which was nearly as opposable as the true thumb opposite. His feet mirrored his hands, but he kept the former covered with something like a thick mitten shod with leather that allowed him to better use his toes climbing.



The two males of their respective species agreed that each was the ugliest thing they had ever met in Creation. Ahn-Kha thought Valentine looked like a flat-faced birth defect, and found the contrast between hair and skin revolting in contrast to the Grog's own all-over tan-blond body hair. For his part, Valentine kept thinking of the Grog as some kind of weird miscegenation between a shorthaired bear and an ape. He had something of the calm wisdom of a bear in his expression, with deep-set black-flecked eyes of the richest brown. The fanged mouth below marred die effect, making him look like a predatory beast of ravenous hunger. Ahn-Kha's snout was wider than a bear's. He bore a set of long white catfish whiskers that hung out and down from the sides of his mouth, though they looked more decorative than functional.



Ahn-Kha ate constantly, giving Valentine endless opportunities to examine the Grog's mouth. He watched Ahn-Kha eat with the same fascination that he once had when he studied a rattlesnake as it ate a rat. Hinged far back, Ahn-Kha could drop open his mouth like a steam shovel, wide enough to take a grapefruit down his gullet as easily as Valentine could swallow an aspirin. His front teeth, including the overlarge incisors that projected up and down, just visible behind his rubbery lips, projected forward like a horse's, but his back teeth resembled Valentine's own, proving him omnivorous. The Grog sucked rather than lapped water. For the size of his mouth, he had a small tongue, preferring to use his lips to move food around in his mouth. When Valentine, while discussing eating habits over dinner, extended his tongue out of his mouth to touch the bottom of his own nose, the Grog choked back vomit and turned his back on Valentine for the remainder of the meal.



Valentine learned to watch his companion's ears. The pointed shells telegraphed his mood. When interested in something, they projected slightly up and forward and narrowed into points at the top, giving him a devilish appearance. When asking for a favor, even someming as simple as passing a knife during a meal, the Grog flattened his ears against the sides of his head. When he was tired, they drooped; when something pained him, they went almost horizontal. When he and Valentine were moving over unknown ground, as they did when the Grog first got up and about and started to exercise, they twisted this way and that like radar dishes, fanlike flaps of skin spread wide.



One mannerism that took a good deal of getting used to was Ahn-Kha's habit of closing his eyes to mean no. Until Valentine got used to it, he kept asking questions twice, a practice that annoyed both of them no end.



They relocated a mile south as soon as Ahn-Kha felt well enough to travel. Neither said a word about accompanying the other as they set out, but the Grog's presence felt natural to Valentine. They explored and finally settled in to a ranch-style house by the wooded shores of a lake. The others in the neighborhood were burnt ruins, but this one had solid brick walls and a slate roof. The fresh air and movement had seemed to do the Grog good at first, but he fatigued quickly. The lake turned out to be rich in walleye, and Valentine decided they could feed themselves without going out of hearing distance from the house for the remainder of Ahn-Kha's recovery.



"How did you know about the mushrooms, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked the day they found the ranch, sharing a bowl of fungi-based soup with Valentine. "You say you have never lived among us, traded among us, yet you know our tastes?"



Valentine could take or leave mushrooms. They provided easily gathered protein, and in some cases fats, but given his choice, he would prefer to set rabbit snares or trap snakes rather than eat the chewy, tasteless growths.



"I've tracked a lot of your kind and watched them from a distance. What did you call them again, the gray ones with the thick hides?"



Ahn-Kha made a noise that sounded like he was getting ready to spit.



"That's not a word, that's a bodily function," Valentine demurred. 'The Hur-rack? Is that close enough?"



The Grog nodded-a born diplomat, he adapted to David's gestures more easily than the other way around, as Valentine's ears were as fixed as his teeth-and concentrated on his meal. Cooking for Ahn-Kha was like trying to feed a lodge of lumberjacks.



"We've had some dealings with them down south. I knew a captive one once, he lived with some researchers. Loved root beer."



"Root beer? I know beer. I know root."



"It's a sweet drink-you wouldn't believe how good it tastes after a hot day's running."



"The mushrooms?"



"I've seen the Hur-rack stop and break off mushrooms from fallen trees and eat them on the march, even fight over them. I figured you found them tasty."



"Yours are adequate, no more. You have never tasted a heartroot, my David, which surpasses even your bread."



"How did you learn to speak so well?"



"We have a tradition, my David. When one asks a question needing a story to answer, the asker must then be prepared to tell a story in turn. Fair?"



Valentine nodded. "Fair."



"I was born here, my David, one of the first of my clan to be brought into this world once our people had settled. I am forty-one years old, and call this land home. The 'Gray Ones' you fight come from my parent's world, too; they are jungle dwellers-they do not write or shape metal and stone. We are the Golden Ones of hill and valley, builders of dams and bridges and makers of roads. Kur lured many of our clans and the Gray Ones' tribes to this world with promises of land and space, ours for the taking from a filthy and weak race. They gave us guns and trinkets, training and promises; we did the dying and helped win their victory. My parents despised your parents, many of whom sold their species for power and small wealth. In their opinion, you got what you deserved.



"We Golden Ones are happier as builders and planters than destroyers, and we claimed our land from Kur as soon as we could. Our clan settled around a fine stone building, once a library in this place you call Oma-Ha. My father was an overseer of our human laborers, and I heard your tongue. In my youth, I learned the English-speech and the English-script. I read many, many of your books, played your music on the electric toys, and grew in knowledge of your kind. I began to disagree with my parents, in simple rebellion at their narrow view at first, and later through conviction. A clan seer said my destiny would be with men, and so I chose as a profession trading. I was often in the house of the Big Man in Omaha, drinking his tea. I met smugglers who drove gasoline-powered off-roads. After being cheated more than once, I learned a valuable lesson: Know the man before sitting down to bargain; examine the product before making the trade. I learned that some men I could trust with my life-others were lower than dogs.



"By my thirtieth year, I sat at our Principal Elder's side during any meetings with your race, to help translate and advise. Men sometimes give themselves away when they lie. By my thirty-fifth year, I was an Elder, ten years before custom usually grants such an honor, and I looked forward to one day surpassing the achievements of my father.



"Our people had fine gardens of heartroot in the old brother buildings. Heartroot thrives on moisture and waste and little else. It is our staple. We learned to care for your animals, finding chickens tasty and easy to keep. We had a good land and busied ourselves tearing down the old and planting or putting up the new in our deep, rich soil.



"Then came the Twisted Cross, the emblem of our doom. I was optimistic when they first came; they showed us every respect. Their human 'ambassador' called for warriors to serve the new lord called the General south of the city, promising in exchange the General's protection for our lands.



"The ambassador, who had spoke fair words at first, turned foul when he learned we would not immediately give him all he demanded.



" 'We always protected our own before this day,' said the Elder. 'I suspect what you really offer is protection from the General himself. Look for your tribute of clan-flesh elsewhere.' "



Valentine tried to picture the scene, on the steps of the Grog-restored library, the Golden Ones talking amongst themselves, facing a uniformed contingent under the black-and-white swastika flag. Ahn-Kha, as he warmed to his tale, switched to the cadence of his native tongue, speaking slowly, his tone rising and falling like a ship in a heavy swell.



"After many words, sometimes hard, sometimes soft, the Principal Elder decreed that any free spirits who wished could go along.



"The General's man promised rich rewards of land after 'actions to destroy certain bands of rebels and terrorists' were completed. We Golden Ones had heard such before in the times of our parents and grandparents, and after much death and suffering were granted ruined lands near poisoned ground. Nevertheless, a number still returned south with the ambassador.



"He came again in the fall, again asking for a quota of able bodies. With fewer words and more anger, the Principal Elder turned him away, and only one or two malcontents went with him this time, rather than the dozens he had swayed before.



"Then came the third and final visit in the spring, now over three years ago. One of the malcontents who went with the ambassador on the second trip returned with him. The news they bore caused such shock that were it not for the many guns in the hands of the ambassador's men, there may have been bloodshed. Kur had named this malcontent,



Khay-Hefle (may he forever wander from hell to hell), to be our new ruler. Not Principal Elder, but ruler. Of course, this Khay-Hefle did not voice himself with brazen demand, knowing the gods would not allow his treasonous tongue to speak such words. All were shocked into silence at the ambassador's announcement, even the Principal Elder.



"A great anger came upon me, and I stepped forward and said: 'Go, all of you, or you will be killed where you stand.'



"The ambassador ignored me and spoke to the Principal Elder. The Elder quoted the agreement that deeded us this land, ruined and poisoned as it was, to us to be used and governed as we saw fit.



" 'Ah,' said the ambassador. 'It does say that, but as a Golden One would still govern, the agreement is still valid and Kur is still keeping its promise.' And many more words of deception like it.



"The Principal Elder grew angry, and his hair bristled. 'This is the second time in my life I have heard plain words twisted to mean the opposite of what they say, and both times your Masters are involved. Go back to your kennels, dogs, and never come again. Khay-Hefle and all who follow him no longer belong to our clan unless they return in seven days.' At this there was sorrow from the families of those who left in the two times before.



" 'You may try to enforce your demands and place this usurper over us, but do not think this task will be an easy matter,' said the Elder. 'You will go back with none of our warriors and less of your own.'



"I supported his brave words, and all the Elders stood silent and grim until the ambassador and his dog Khay-Hefle left. Then there was much argument, some saying that it would be better to preserve what we had built than suffer in a war that we would lose. Others said we must leave: go north at once beyond the reach of this General or Kur.



"In the end, the Elders sent away One of Ten, to travel north and then west to a range of mountains we knew of in the place you called Canada, beyond the reach of the Kur who care not for such cold. I was selected to lead the flight because of my skill in speaking to humans, but refused. I still felt the heat of my words before the Clan Hall and wished for nothing more than to see Khay-Hefle come with his new masters and try to enforce their wicked will."



Ahn-Kha paused for a moment and stared into the glowing coals of the fire kindled in the stone fireplace of the house. After their morning meal, it was still far too hot during the day to keep the fire going, so they let it die.



"For the rest, I shall be brief. We turned our gardens into trenches, or homes into forts, our halls into castles. Everyone carried a weapon at all times, and we gathered the children in the basements. I thought we stood a good chance, or at least would make such a struggle that in our destruction they would be destroyed, too, and our children would grow free of them.



"They came, and we had never encountered such soldiers. Our bullets knocked them down, but did not kill them. Even arm against arm, their strength matched ours by some demonic power, and we killed only one for each ten of us who died. They were as the Hooded Ones but they fought with the weapons and skill of men. They came with explosives, guns gushing streams of fire, and cannon mounted on tracked vehicles. The fire-guns were the worst. My people fear fire the way some of yours fear snakes or spiders, or great heights. Our end was bitter. Some comrades, and my father, as well as myself were holding a building in the garden before the Hall. They came with boxes of explosives, and when I saw this, I called for all to follow me out the secret tunnel going back to the old library. When the explosion came, it buried all behind me in the blast and rubble. I went to the Hall. A bomb or shell had gone off in the basement with the children, killing all there. I took another tunnel to the post where the Principal Elder commanded, but found nothing but bloodstains on the floor.



"I determined to avenge the Clan on Khay-Hefle, and lurked outside the ruins of our lands, waiting for a chance to kill him. But he set about ordering the lives of the survivors, surrounded by humans and a bodyguard of the Gray Ones. Imagine that illiterate rabble chewing on gum-root and watching Golden Ones toil as they scratch themselves.



"Strangely, I was shunned by the few other survivors who lurked in the city. Perhaps they had their minds poisoned by Khay-Hefle, who told them that I brought this on our Clan with my proud words, and the death and destruction of our Clan came about because a few mad ones controlled the mind of our Principal Elder.



"My people live now as many of yours, my David, little more than slaves who live under the lies of a Golden One who speaks the words he is told to speak. I have had to move to the outskirts of the city and live alone. I still hope for my chance, but sometimes I think of going north and seeing if the One in Ten ever made it to the mountains of Canada."



Valentine reached into his map case. "I have some maps here, if you think they would help."



"I recovered with some from the old human library. But I will not go north before I pay off my gratitude to you."



Valentine shook his head. "Do we have to talk about this again? You owe me nothing. I had to see what could have killed those Harpies barehanded, and then I felt sympathy for you. It was a tribute, not a favor."



"We shall see, my David. You agreed to tell a story in return for mine. To know yours would make me happy. I have not really talked to anyone in a very long time. We are brothers under the skin, I feel, for you also carry many sorrows that trouble you."



"I could use a drink," Valentine said.



"You mean wine, or liquor?" Ahn-Kha asked. "My people made a wonderful wine from a fruit we call ethrodzh, but I have none with me. I had none even before the fliers attacked."



"I'd like to try it sometime," Valentine said, looking around the cracked and peeled walls of the ranch, the stained ceiling and the musty furnishings.



"You told me about your people; I'm not sure what to say about mine. We used to classify ourselves by color and language, where we lived and what we did. Not anymore, though. To me there are only three groups left: the ones who help the Kurians, the ones who endure the Kurians, and the ones who resist. The ones who help them, I have no sympathy for, and I've found that there's very little I can do for the ones enduring. If I think about it too much, I despair. I'm in the group that fights the Kur.



"So was my father. I'm not certain about his reasons for quitting the Cause, but now that I've done it for a couple years, I can guess. I don't know if he met my mother before or after he stopped fighting. I think it was after. But he left. He tried to live quietly about three hundred miles north of here, like your One out of Ten who looked for a place where the winters were too long and harsh for the Kurians to live. My parents raised a family-I was the first, and I had a younger brother and sister. In northern Minnesota every summer the people retreat deep into the woods and return in the fall. During the summer, the Quislings-you know what a Quisling is, right? Anyway, we hid out in the summer from them, as well as from the Reapers. In the winter, we were cooped up in our houses. Getting firewood and ice fishing were probably the only times we went outside.



"I guess my father didn't go deep enough into the woods. A Quisling patrol came by-I was away gathering corn. They killed them all, more for fun than anything. Another man, an old priest who was a friend of my father's, brought me up and educated me.



"When I was seventeen going on eighteen, some soldiers came by, from the Ozark Free Territory."



"I have heard of this place," Ahn-Kha said. "You cause a great deal of problem to the Kur."



"Problems," Valentine corrected absently. "But you would probably want to say, 'You cause a great deal of trouble for the Kur.'"



"Not troubles?" Ahn-Kha asked.



"No," Valentine said, causing Ahn-Kha to shake his head in disgust.



Perhaps we are some kind of kindred spirits, Valentine thought. Who else, with death all around, would worry about grammar?



"Go on with your tale," Ahn-Kha prompted.



"I went south with some other young people from Minnesota. I was curious about these men who fought alongside my father. I wanted to do something, avenge them in a way, or replace him. It was my way of learning who I was, by following in his footsteps. Or that's what I told myself then.



"I also wanted blood. Show the force behind all this that you might be able to kill the father and mother but the sons and daughters will take their place. A schoolmate of mine, a girl named Gabriella, came south with the group. I had ... feelings for her."



"I see, my David. When do you humans mate, at that age?"



"The question is, 'When don't humans mate?' I think."



Ahn-Kha put his hands on his stomach-Valentine knew enough of him by now to know that the gesture showed quiet amusement.



Valentine continued: "The first year, they just worked us half to death in construction and farm labor. I think they were winnowing out the shirkers. We were toughened, learned to work together, and all the sweat helped me Free Territory. But that year Gabriella died-it had to do with those damned Harpies and a Reaper. We did manage to get the ones responsible. They made me a soldier after that, and I've been one ever since. But it didn't bring Gabby back."



"A strange soldier, who fights alone," Ahn-Kha observed.



Valentine did not want to say too much. "It's a long story. I guess you could say I'm a scout that went out a little too far."



"Now you go home?"



Valentine nodded. "Now I go home."



"I think we were meant to know each other, my David. We both have lost our clan. We both wander alone. You are half my years, but your feet have stepped where I have only ventured in thought. I read your eyes when I spoke of the



General's men, the Twisted Cross. Would you change your mind about going home if I were to tell you exactly where they could be found?"



As they talked, Valentine idly wondered if this all was not some kind of elaborate trap. He discarded the notion; the Grog probably could have killed him in his sleep last night. Unless Ahn-Kha fabricated his story out of the still night air, he had more reason to hate the Twisted Cross than Valentine.



Valentine wanted a chance to examine the Twisted Cross base, but Ahn-Kha insisted that they first come up with more supplies, as they could not afford to wander and hunt near the Twisted Cross headquarters. And Ahn-Kha wanted weapons to replace the ones he lost to the Harpies. They were still debating the issue on the eve of their departure, as they packed to move on that night.



"My David, I feel naked without a gun."



"I offered you my pistol."



"Ha! I should have said I feel naked without a real gun."



"Ahn-Kha, I'm already overdue to meet my comrade. Your idea to go into the part of the city where the Golden Ones live seems a little risky. Why not try at this human settlement on the river?"



"There are Quislings there. We would certainly be noticed. My face might be remembered there. Besides, we have nothing to trade for a gun save another gun. Although we could get two good rifles for your automatic weapon."



"It still doesn't get me to the Platte, and there we can-"



Valentine was never able to finish the sentence. His nose alerted him to a strange scent, coming at them from the lakeshore.



"Danger," he whispered.



The Grog had reflexes. Ahn-Kha went down on all fours by the window before Valentine chambered the first round in his PPD.



"From where?" the Grog asked.



"The lakeside, to the north. Let's check the front." Valentine crawled for the front window. He stayed out of the light and examined the new stand of woods and brush between the house and what was left of the suburban road. Yes, there were Grogs out there. One of Ahn-Kha's Gray Ones had his long rifle in the crotch of a tree, sighted on the front of the house.



He returned to the common room. Ahn-Kha threw wet sand from their toilet bucket into the fireplace, killing the light.



"It is the Wrist-Ring clan, perhaps," Ahn-Kha said. "One of their scouts may have seen us in the house or read our tracks. There are six approaching from the lake. They have ropes. Perhaps they mean to take me back and place a harness on my back. If so, they'll find this old horse can still kick."



"Did they see you?"



"No, I believe not, they would have charged-or taken cover."



Valentine checked to make sure he had put his map case away in his pack along with the rest of his possessions.



"The way I see it," he said, "we have three options. Fight it out from in here-"



The Grog shut and opened his eyes. "They will burn the house around us, my David."



"The second option is to try to talk or bargain our way out of here-"



This time Ahn-Kha remembered to shake his head side-to-side. "The Wrist-Ring would make the best deal they could, so we do not waste our bullets fighting them, and then kill us afterwards."



"Or we could just run like hell."



"Often the wisest choice," Ahn-Kha agreed. "But they will shoot us as we run."



"Follow me," Valentine said. He picked up his pack and led the Grog into the garage. Light glimmered down from a hole under the peak of the roof, where the broken edges of a porthole window stood festooned with bracken. The wooden door still stood in its rusted tracks.



"They'll probably rush the house," Valentine said. "They'll come noisy, with grenades if they have them."



"No, my David. Grenades are too valuable to waste on drifters. There is always the chance that we have powerful friends, too. Perhaps you are a wandering Twisted Cross official. They would come in and shoot anyone not in a uniform they recognize. Why do we speak in this place? It has no exit, and it will take time to climb out of that hole."



"We're not climbing out the roof. You're making a new door."



Ahn-Kha gripped the submachine gun, cradling it tight to his body in his massive arms. When Valentine heard an unintelligible cry, and the breaking sounds of the Grogs crashing through doors and windows, he counted silently to five, and then nodded at Ahn-Kha.



The Golden One lowered one of his saddle-size shoulders and charged the closed garage door. He struck it with the force of a demolition charge going off, splintering the ancient wood.



Ahn-Kha spotted the sniper at the crotch-tree, just where Valentine described a moment ago, but now Ahn-Kha had a much better angle than he would have had shooting from the house. He loosed a burst that peppered tree and Grog alike, sending it reeling backwards. Ahn-Kha twisted to his right and fired another burst into the Grog covering the living room from outside as its clan-mates went in. The wounded Grog dropped the rifle it had just begun to aim in their direction.



As planned, his living battering ram turned and tossed the PPD to Valentine, who lay down with the gun pointed at the front door. Ahn-Kha loped out into the front yard, to the tree where the late sniper positioned himself. The fawn-colored Grog picked up where his distant relative left off, sighting on the doorway.



Valentine backed down the driveway, now pointing the gun at the corner leading to the backyard on the garage side. He heard something coming around that side. Half a face appeared, peeking around the corner. "Your eye ain't much good if it doesn't bring your gun along," a gruff old Wolf had told him once, and Valentine taught the Grog the same lesson by aiming a burst at the half-face. He missed, splintering the corner of the garage, and the face withdrew.



He turned to run, and heard Ahn-Kha fire the booming fifty-caliber at something in the doorway.



"Cover me!" Ahn-Kha urged, and Valentine slid to the ground again, this time with the gun pointed at the midpoint of the house. Valentine marveled at how he worked with this remarkable creature-a being that was technically an enemy he might have killed on sight until a few days ago. Ahn-Kha stripped the sniper Grog of a bandolier glinting with shells and reloaded the cumbersome-to a human-weapon. Valentine saw motion in the front window and gave the trigger a twitch. The bullets went in the window; whether they struck anything was a matter of luck. Hips never leaving the ground, he wiggled next to his companion and lay down behind the fallen Grog.



The dead Grog had a homemade "potato masher" grenade jutting out of its bag. He held the grenade up to Ahn-Kha. "Can you throw this over the house?"



"I can throw it over the lake."



Valentine pulled the fuse and handed it handle-first to the long-armed warrior. Ahn-Kha drew back an arm, putting the other forward in the classic javelin-throw pose, and sent the grenade spinning over the deadfall-covered roof.



They ran, Valentine in the lead, cutting away from the house at an angle in order to force their attackers to get them with a crossing shot. They went over a fallen log in the middle of the road, Valentine hurdling it and Ahn-Kha vaulting over it sideways, using his long left arm as a brace.



The grenade Ahn-Kha threw never went off; perhaps the fuse went out, the bomb malfunctioned, or some desperate Grog behind the house extinguished it in time. The pair sprinted southward. Shots thwacked into trees around them as they ran.



Six Grogs followed, loping into the young forest of the ruined suburban tracts. It became five when Ahn-Kha halted behind a tree while Valentine kept running and brought down the lead pursuer. After that, the chase proceeded with less speed and more caution, and when Valentine killed another from a rooftop Ahn-Kha had stirrup-lifted him onto, the pursuit broke off.



"We got away from them," Ahn-Kha said, breathing heavily and resting on all fours.



"You bet, old horse." Valentine marked the setting sun. "But they won't get away from us."



Ahn-Kha got his pick of weapons that night.



They swung around in a crescent, and Valentine left the exhausted Grog with his pack and gun well clear of the house while he went back to the brick ranch, approaching from the opposite direction from which they had fled. He took with him two grenades scavenged off the dead Gray Ones.



He crawled around the perimeter of the house in his black overcoat, listening to the grunts and barks within. The Grogs had gathered around their wounded, resting in the back room by the fireplace. He armed and activated the grenade as quietly as he could.



Gray Ones have good noses and better ears; one of them heard or smelled the fuse. It barked a warning, and Valentine let the fuse burn down two anxious seconds' worth before tossing the grenade through the window. While it was still in the air, he stuck his fingers in his ears.



At the explosion, he drew his sword and came in through the back door. It was a matter of killing everything that moved in the smoke-filled room that was not a part of him. The stunned and stricken Grogs might as well have played blindman's buff with a buzz saw-only one had the sense to run. It left a blood trail across the floor as it hurried to leap out of the gap where the front picture window had once been.



It didn't make the window. Valentine was after it like an arrow, opening it with a slash across the back.



Ahn-Kha returned to the house and ignored the carnage. He examined the various rifles and eventually selected one with a black-stained handle. The Grogs liked the butts of their weapons to be gnarled and burled and this one was no exception. "I must shape this before it truly suits me, but it is a good gun." He also pored over the finger-size bullets, sliding the formidable-looking rounds he selected into his bandolier.



Valentine lined up the Grog bodies according to Ahn-Kha's instructions, placing them on their backs with the left palm over the heart, the right palm across the nose and mouth, weapons laid to either side. Another patrol from the Wrist-Ring Clan, upon finding the bodies, might pause for the proper ceremonies. They would seed the bodies with the correct decomposing fungi, and perhaps be too busy mourning their dead to pursue.



"You men anger the Gray Ones when you just burn their corpses. They think you kill them not only in this world, but deny them the passage to the Hero's Woods their bravery merits. Better to leave them to lie on the battlefield untouched."



"Ever heard the expression 'When in Rome'? They wouldn't have their rites ignored if they weren't here in the first place."



"That's the fault of another generation."



Valentine thought of the wilds of western Missouri. Wolf teams could reach Omaha, find paths that more powerful forces could follow. "By working together, some of that generation's legacy might be wiped away."



"The Golden Ones have tasted the fruits of their alliance with Kur. We found them rotten. Then came the Twisted Cross. Many would be ready to join your fight."



"I wish we could find explosives more powerful than these grenades," Valentine said, rooting through the Gray Ones' equipment. "We could hit the Twisted Cross in their own backyard."



"I can help you in that," Ahn-Kha said. "There are men in the Old Market who can obtain anything you need."



To Valentine, anything pre-2022 was "old." But this part of the city, set against the river, was aged even by Old World standards as he understood them.



The closely packed, square brick buildings had new windows where they weren't simply closed by masonry. The west and south faces of many still showed burnt-black smudges, lingering evidence of the airbursts that had destroyed the city and the old air force base to the south.



They came to the district walking along the Missouri. The river rolled south past the city, redolent of silt and algae, with only a hint of the sewage that Valentine smelled from many of the old storm drains. In the distance, a rust-colored dredger worked between the pillars of the rail bridge, bringing up masses of mud. Just upriver from the dredger, a few barges rested against a wharf. There were overturned canoes and even a few small sailboats sharing the riverside with the trim barges, baby versions of the huge transports Valentine had seen from a distance on the Mississippi.



Ahn-Kha told him a little about the settlement. Though all of Omaha and its surroundings had been given to the Grogs, the Golden Ones and Gray Ones still needed to trade-especially for tools and weapons. They invited a few humans to set up house, giving them protection for activities that were outlawed elsewhere in the Kurian Zone, and a little patch of land next to the riverside fields and C-shaped lake. The black marketeers flourished, and as the Quisling society in Iowa and parts of Kansas grew, they became semilegitimate even in the eyes of the Kurians.



Old Omaha had no walls. Once past the reeking piles of trash and the masses of feral cats sleeping in the sunny blown-out doorways and windows north of the wharf, Ahn-Kha led him to clean cobblestone streets. Every windowsill and rooftop supported a garden. Goats and calves grazed in open lots. The animals were marked with splashes of dye.



"The traders here run 'houses.'" Ahn-Kha explained. "When I came here, there were three. I am told it has been that way for years. The three tolerate each other, but no more. They share the common land but mark their animals. The gardens on the land of the house are their own. They tell me there are groves across the river for apples and cherries and chestnuts, but I have not been there to see how they divide it."



Men, most of them armed with gun belts, lounged here and there on the corners. Some rose from benches and made a show of standing in the sidewalk so Ahn-Kha had to step into the street to pass.



"You just take that crap?" Valentine asked.



"It is easier to receive an insult than a bullet."



Valentine saw the wisdom in that, but it still irked.him.



"Which house do you wish to try?"



"House Holt. For the most part, they were good friends with the Golden Ones. It is run by the Big Man."



"What's he like?" Valentine wondered what to expect. He hoped it wasn't an Omaha version of the Duke in Chicago, alternately bluff and frightening.



"He was always evenhanded to me, though not friendly. He looked always to the future; I admired him for thinking, and speaking, in terms of decades rather than days."



"Not many can afford to do that."



"Here is his insignia. It hangs outside his house, and his men carry it as his token."



Valentine looked at the sign. He'd seen broken versions of it here and there; it was circular, green and white and black, featuring a serene long-haired woman surrounded by stars. Above the projecting sign on the second story, fans set in the window turned behind inch-thick iron bars.



"Electricity here?" Valentine asked.



"Yes. The three houses share the maintenance of a coal generator. Long ago I tried to get them to put one in for the Golden Ones. I failed."



As they approached the door under the sign, a man next to the door rose from his seat on a wooden locker and put his hand on his pistol. He had long hair and a longer stare.



"What's your business?"



"A meeting with your Executive," Ahn-Kha said.



"You let your Grog do your talking for you, kid?" the door warden asked Valentine. "Usually with you Black Flag types, the man's the mouth and the Grog's the muscle."



"I'm the bodyguard," Valentine said.



"That so. Put your weapons in this box, and I'll let you in. Whether you see the Big Man or not will be up to him."



Ahn-Kha gave Valentine a nod. The warden opened the box. Ahn-Kha leaned his captured rifle against the door-jamb; the gun was too long to fit inside. Valentine placed pistol, parang, sword, and claws within, and covered it with his bedroll and submachine gun.



The warden shook his head. "More iron doesn't make you more tough, kid. I've got to check your pockets and pat you down. Anything sticks me, we'll float you back to your General on crutches. Anything else?"



Valentine removed a short clasp knife and tossed it in with the rest. It wasn't much of a weapon anyway. "Clean now. Enjoy."



The warden searched both of them from head to foot. "Strangers call," he shouted into the door.



"Opening for strangers," came the response after a moment. An older man, white at the temples, wraparound sunglasses worn against the glare outside, lowered a shotgun when he saw Ahn-Kha.



"Ankle! It's been years."



Valentine was glad he looked genuinely pleased.



The man nodded to Valentine, then shook Ahn-Kha's hand. "Thought you bought it in the Big Burn."



"I've been in hiding, my Ian. Please to meet my new brother, David."



Ian shut the door and sent a thick bolt home.



"You no longer run your route?" Ahn-Kha asked.



'The routes are drying up. Even north. Those of us who still want to draw food work carrying guns now. The General's giving us the squeeze."



"Then perhaps we can do business. We wish to see the Big Man about the General."



"Lost cause. That rat's got muscle from here to KC. Keeps trying to get us to come on base, wear his damned cross. Doesn't sit right with me-lots of us-going down there just to salute and put new heels on Reaper boots. This is House talk only, but immyho, the Big Man says that's the only alternative to just pulling up and leaving for God knows where. He's down to trying to get us a good deal and keep us off base."



* * *



Within fifteen minutes, they were speaking to the Executive of House Holt.



The Big Man wasn't big, or even of average size. Valentine guessed him to be about four feet nine inches, and a bantamweight to boot. He had lush black hair falling back from the crown of his head to his thick beard. An open-necked shirt, silver-buckled belt, and cuffed pants over pointed-toe boots. He was bowlegged, pigeon-chested.



Valentine guessed his age to be mid-forties. When Valentine was training to be a Wolf, he heard a senior Wolf talk about a generation the veteran called the "children of chaos." In the years of what the Free Territory called the Overthrow, many babies were born underweight and malnourished as a rule, and in the tumultuous years that followed, they never had a chance to catch up. Valentine had known only a few from those hard years, compact-framed like the man before him, but generous spirits. Extreme hardship, it seemed to Valentine, had polarized that generation to extremes of magnanimity or selfishness.



Valentine hoped for magnanimity.



Their host stood at a window on the third floor, surveying Old Omaha from a floor-to-ceiling window, the layered panes somewhat distorting the view. He stood resting against a chair; the chair and its mate sat to either side of a wooden chess table with gold and silver pieces arranged on the board and beside it. The office was opulently furnished around an immense wooden desk and bookcase, but it seemed crammed-with everything from statues to rugs to paintings to vases and urns-rather than arranged, especially when compared with Roland Victor's in Kansas.



The corner nearest them, separated from the Big Man by a folding screen, was occupied by a squint-eyed assistant. She wrote in a ledger resting upon a drafting table. The Big Man's burled desk had nothing on the top except a lamp and a leather blotter.



"Ahn-Kha." The Big Man had a flat voice, a trifle reedy. "What brings you and your 'bodyguard' to my house?"



"My compliment on your promotion," Ahn-Kha said. "What became of the Big Man?"



"Ravies. Some rats they'd released, I suppose on the Ozarks to the south, made it into one of our barges. Bad luck; he was checking incoming cargoes and stuck his hand into a bag of rice without wearing gloves."



"You took the name along with the Executive title?"



"Sort of a joke. I don't mind."



The Big Man walked around to his desk and sat down. He moved stiff-leggedly, with the aid of a pair of canes. The canes disappeared as soon as he sat.



"Shall we leave right now?" Ahn-Kha asked.



"Without introducing your friend?" the Big Man asked.



"His name is David."



He swiveled his gaze to Valentine. "I should explain. Ahn-Kha and I have had our differences in the past. I didn't care for our house trading weapons with his kind." He returned to Ahn-Kha. "I accused you of eating human babies, as I recall. Ten years ago I... anger tended to get the better of me. Anger that had nothing to do with the Golden Ones."



"For my part, I challenged him to combat," Ahn-Kha added. "Aggravating insult with greater insult."



"Was there a duel?" Valentine said when neither offered an end to the story.



"No," the Big Man said. "Calmer heads interceded. Unless you wish to take up the challenge?"



Ahn-Kha closed his eyes, opened them. "No."



Valentine felt some of the tension seep away. "We need your help. House Holt's help."



"What do you offer? We're traders. Smugglers, to some. Quislings to others. I saw you take off a Wolf parang."



"My company was destroyed this spring," Valentine said. The truth, even shaded, was preferable to a plausible lie. "Our request is unusual."



"January, please get our guests some sandwiches and lemonade." The woman behind the screen slipped out.



"Lemonade?" Valentine asked, going over to the chess set.



"Thanks to the Kurians, they grow fine in some of the more sheltered parts of the Missouri Valley."



Valentine stared down at the pieces. The gold king was in trouble-nothing but a castle and a pawn protected him from a knight, two pawns, a bishop, and the silver king.



"Do you play?" the Big Man asked, turning his chair.



"A little. My dad taught me. I used to play it with my adopted father-neither of us were very good."



"Do you see a way out for the black king? I'm trying for a draw."



"Black meaning the gold one?"



"Yes. Sorry. Convention requires black and white no matter what the color of the pieces are."



Valentine looked, thought. "No. I think mate in three moves."



The Big Man sighed. "Two. The king can attack."



"How about a game? While we have the sandwiches."



Their host looked eager again and rocked his way back to the table. "You're the guest. White or black."



"Silver."



Valentine moved a pawn.



Eight moves later, behind leaping knights, the black queen came forth. "Checkmate," the Big Man said in his in-flectionless voice.



Valentine shook his hand. "What's the General to you, Executive? An enemy bishop, or your king?"



The Big Man rested his chin on his cane. "An opposing king. I give him tribute, barges of food. He'd rather I were one of his pieces. My position isn't that different from the way the pieces were before our game. Though I don't have a castle. Just three floors of odds and ends."



The sandwiches arrived, pulling Ahn-Kha from an examination of oil paintings in dusty frames.



"January, I won't need you for a bit. You can go home for the afternoon if you wish," the Big Man said.



Valentine saw a look pass between them. "It's all right- I'm perfectly safe. They're not Twisted Cross." He began to put the pieces back in their starting positions. "Care to switch chairs for the next?"



This time the Big Man's silver bishops eviscerated him like a pair of dueling swords. Checkmate in eleven moves.



"What did you come here for?"



"Guns for the Golden Ones. Explosives," Ahn-Kha said, as Valentine and the Big Man switched chairs again. "My people would use them against the Twisted Cross."



"I'm only crippled physically, Ahn-Kha."



Valentine moved his queen, taking a knight. "Southern Command would help, too. Perhaps in a few months, we could have Bear teams up here. You know what they are, don't you?"



"A kiss and a promise. I'll believe it when I see the teams. Besides, I don't have that much time. The General has given me an ultimatum. Join, leave, or... be burnt. Your move."



Valentine saw it coming this time-the Big Man had sacrificed a knight to draw out his queen. He lost a bishop, and then it was, "Checkmate."



"Let's play again. No switching chairs, I like silver."



"Very well."



This time they were silent. Valentine lost a knight, and when the bishops came forward again, his pawns occupied them until his queen had space. She took a castle, a pawn, and a bishop before falling. Then his castles came forward. The Big Man let out a small noise, wrinkled his brows, moved a knight back. Valentine sent a bishop forward, took a pawn, lost his bishop, and brought out his last knight.



Valentine checked.



The Big Man moved his king, a smile on his face.



"Checkmate," Valentine said.



The Big Man offered his hand. "My compliments. I saw it two moves ago, but went through the motions. You deserved the gratification."



Valentine arranged the pieces the way they'd been when he first approached the table. "Sir, in your quest for a stalemate ... suppose you could have gotten that pawn to the white side and converted it."



"Unlikely."



"Suppose the unlikely happened."



"Reliance on the improbable is a bad strategy."



"Even so," Valentine said.



Ahn-Kha's ears pointed forward, listening.



"The whole balance would change. I could get the draw. Depending on the white bishop, I might be able to squeeze a victory."



"If you got enough arms to the Golden Ones, in the ghetto, on the base, that lonely pawn could become a terrible weapon."



"No. I won't put my house's future in jeopardy."



Ahn-Kha's ears drooped as he stood. "Thank you for the sandwiches. I am glad we have put the past behind."



The Big Man nodded. "Good luck with your own future."



"What there is of it," Valentine said. "Thank you for your time."



"Thank you for the game. I haven't been beaten in years."



Valentine and Ahn-Kha went to the door. As they opened it, the Big Man spoke again. "David, a bit of advice: Practice the tried and true. You'll win more often. The intuitive player can be brilliant. Once in a while even beat the best. But most of the time, you'll lose."



The Cat nodded. The Big Man returned to his board. Valentine left a crack in the door and looked back through it. The Big Man wrinkled his brow in thought, then pushed his golden pawn forward.



"So much for explosives," Valentine said when they were in the street again.



Ahn-Kha looked at the sky. "There's one other place we could try. It's only a few blocks away."



"A different trading house?"



"None of the others deal in anything but hunting rifles."



"Then what?"



"The General's building where Khay-Hefle now rules. It lies behind the walls that imprison my people."



From what might have been a corner office within the skeleton of a high-rise, Valentine looked across central Omaha at the ghetto of the Golden Ones.



Flat on his stomach, he leisurely surveyed the quarter of the city's ruins allocated to them. Behind the old library, now the residence of their usurping chief and his Twisted Cross shield, were the twin buildings Valentine knew to be home to the dank farms of heartroot of which Ahn-Kha rhapsodized and home to Omaha's captive Golden Ones. Ahn-Kha said the lower floors and stairways of the buildings were sound, though the walls and windows had been blasted out by the overpressure of nuclear explosions. Many Golden Ones lived on the structurally intact floors in a warren of partitions and rebuilt rooms, complete with a gravity plumbing system that Ahn-Kha claimed to be the wonder of Omaha.



The Twisted Cross added on some changes. Piles of rubble topped with cemented-in broken glass formed walls all around the Golden Ones' quarter. Their new Principal Elder insisted on this measure for the safety of his people. Ahn-Kha maintained that the wall did a better job of keeping Golden Ones in than their enemies out, a belief supported by the slapped-together wooden guard towers that stood both inside and outside the wall.



Valentine guessed the whole area to be well over a square mile, in what was once downtown Omaha. As Ahn-Kha described, there had been a thriving population of Grogs controlling the heart of the city, but even in their reduced space behind the walls, the ghetto appeared far from crowded.



"I don't see many of your people. A few working in the gardens, some more clearing that field of rubble to the northwest."



"Every day a train comes through the rail-gate in the south. My clan is great builders; your Twisted Cross need them in the old base south of the city. Those who wish to eat adequately get on the train. They serve soup and bread for those who work. They even keep some of my people in pens on his base."



"Hostage taking. The General likes the tried-and-true as much as the Big Man."



"Once the Golden One who traded profitably, or spun the best poem-chant, or threw the sook most accurately at sport was considered a Great One. Now it is the back that moves the most dirt."



"Have you been back inside since all this happened?"



"Yes, brief trips. It is dangerous. But I have met many times with those who sneak out for trade and to hunt. My people are good engineers; they open a new hole as soon as another is blocked. It is a dangerous business, especially at night. The Hooded Ones of the Twisted Cross see through walls, sometimes under the ground."



"Seeing isn't the right word. An energy that a sentient being creates, called an aura, is something they sense."



The Grog nodded. "I heard of this, but I thought it was a tale to frighten us. The General's men roam outside the walls at night. During the day, my people are under the eyes of the guards in the towers. Some are men, some are Gray Ones, some are Khay-Hefle's lickspittles."



Valentine, his eyes still to the binoculars, broke into a smile. "You are well read, Ahn-Kha. I don't think I've ever heard the word lickspittle spoken in my life."



"I grew to love your language, my David. It has little logic or music to it, but there are some fine phrases."



"Agreed. My engineer-sergeant, when I served in the labor regiment, he had some fine phrases. No logic or music in them, either, but he got his point across."



Ahn-Kha laughed. "Foremen are the same everywhere."



"You said you had a plan for getting us inside. What do you have in mind?"



"We cannot go over the wall. There are many obstacles, traps, and noisemakers. During the day we would be seen; at night, the Hooded Ones could sense us. That leaves only two other ways in. The first seems less risky on the face of it, but involves a good deal of luck. I know of two tunnels in, but my information is months old. As I said, they do find die tunnels. We may get below ground only to learn it is bricked up. Or it may appear clear, but have explosives placed all around to kill us and close the tunnel at the same time.



"The second way requires more daring. Both the rail gate and the city gate are guarded by humans, diose in the lowest ranks of the Twisted Cross. To them, every Golden One looks alike. There is only rarely a Golden One on sentry duty; more often it is Gray Ones. I could march in as one of Khay-Hefle's lickspittles-as you like this word so much- with you under guard. We might get as far as the Clan Hall. There, however, Khay-Hefle's bodyguards do stand sentry duty, and they would recognize me."



"How big is his bodyguard?" Valentine asked.



"There are twelve or fifteen. Three always attend to him, standing outside his door day and night. Another stands at the Hall Doors, and those off-duty gather inside the Hall or near it. They are well armed, for they fear my people whom they have betrayed."



"The Great Hall has the weapons of the Twisted Cross?"



"Yes, the armory is there, under the supervision of this General's men. I understand they also have a small post on the other side of the river. They have done much work on the old base south of town. This General recruits artisans and technicians from many places. He covets more than just Omaha."



Valentine nodded. "That's what I'm afraid of. From what you said, he means to destroy the lands I come from. He could succeed, given what I've seen. Southern Command is only just hanging on as is."



You 're just one man, he told himself. Get back to the Ozarks with what you have.



One man can't wreck the factory, but he can drop a wrench in the works, another, more confidant part of him answered. Southern Command wouldn't get an expedition organized until next spring, if at all, and by then it could be too late.



Valentine had done some brazen things in his life, but walking up to a guard post with a well-spoken blood enemy holding a gun to his spine was the crowning act of audacity in his career. He dragged his feet down the cleared road through the rubble of what was once a wide thoroughfare with his hands over his head.



At first he asked Ahn-Kha to move him along with the submachine gun. "No, my David," the Golden One disagreed, "it would be noticed. The lowliest gate warden holds himself superior to my people, and would take your weapon without thinking twice."



So they hid the PPD and Valentine's pack in the rubble of the building they used to observe the Golden One zone. Ahn-Kha carried Valentine's sword, parang, and pistol in what had been Valentine's pack. The would-be prisoner's only weapons were his fighting claws.



Evening shadows began to settle across the city while a Twisted Cross noncom watched them approach with an interested air. He carried himself with the impatience of one who expects to be promoted to better duty. Valentine's ears picked up their conversation. "One of our valiant allies caught himself a real prize," the corporal with the silvered swastikas on the sleeves of his gray overalls commented.



"Wish they'd bring in a woman for a change, Corp," the private in an urban camouflage version of the same overall commented.



"Wish for a promotion, then. The officers get the mistresses, the sergeants get the whores, and the rest get the shaft."



"Ain't it the truth, Corp."



As the pair drew up to the zigzag of barbed-wire fencing blocking the gate in the daytime, the corporal stepped into the sun. "That's far enough," he said, assault rifle cradled in his elbow. One of his eyes was set higher in his face than the other. As if to balance it, he kept the opposite corner of his mouth turned down. "What's this, soldier?"



"Da-Khest, Railroad Security, sir!" Ahn-Kha barked. "I caught this man just this side of the old interstate, on the south line. He was armed, sir!"



The corporal turned back to the sentry. "Railroad Security," he said, sotto voce. "Three meals a day to sleep under a bridge." He turned back to the Grog. "Good work, Detest. We like to see results for a change. Usually we get stories from your people about bandits dragging their dead away. Let's see that gun."



Ahn-Kha pulled out Valentine's revolver and handed it over. "It was empty, sir."



The corporal examined the weapon. He spun the cylinder. "I'm not surprised. Private Wilde, you have any use for a .357?"



"No, sir. I know Ackermann is looking for a spare nine-millimeter."



"Who wants a wheelgun anyway?" another sentry put in.



Wilde nodded. "Those Troopers are the only ones who carry that hardware. Dumb goat ropers."



"It's too scratched up," the corporal commented, spinning the cylinder and working the double action. "Be worth something if it were chrome, or at least stainless. This blued steel looks like hell after a few years."



Valentine spoke up. "There's been a mistake, sir. I'm just a courier, but I have friends on both sides of the river. Both sides, sir. It would be worth something to the Big Man in the Old Market if I got back to him."



The low eye squinted on the corporal. "Listen, mook: I'm not some hungry Trooper or a Marshal on the take. I'm chiseled out of stainless steel. Bullshit slides off me."



You're also so busy being superior, you're not asking the right questions, Valentine thought.



"This isn't worth the sweat I'm working up in this heat," the corporal decided. "De-test, this man's in pretty good shape. Running packs of contraband builds the muscles. He'll find them useful at the Cave. Throw him in the hold for now; he'll go out on tomorrow's train."



The corporal returned to the little shed and made a note on a clipboard. The sentry moved aside half the wire barricade, and Valentine led Ahn-Kha home.



"Think about it, sir," Valentine called over his shoulder. "Get in touch with the Big Man. Tell him Blackie's in the cuffs, he'll be grateful. And generous."



"He'll do what he always does," the corporal laughed. "He'll claim he's an honest businessman and say he's never heard of you."



Exactly what I'm counting on, Valentine thought.



Ahn-Kha marched Valentine into the Golden Ones' ghetto and turned up a little lane that led up the hill to the library.



"About one more hour until the work train returns," Ahn-Kha whispered. "It will be dark then, and the Hooded Ones will be out to watch it unload. They always watch whenever great numbers of my people are together. We hide until then, my David."



They passed a row of houses built out of old cinder blocks and scrap metal. But these were no makeshift hovels-the Golden Ones worked with rubble like some artists did with broken glass, creating mosaics and patterns out of broken paving bricks and twisted structural steel.



Older Grogs-their fur had turned to gray white- lounged in front on wooden chaises, chatting in their rumbling tongue.



"In this door, quick!" Ahn-Kha said, and Valentine complied. He pulled the curtain aside, and they entered the rude home.



A white-haired Grog looked up from his evening meal. He blinked his eyes twice, and suddenly his ears shot up.



They spoke for several minutes in their native tongue, and the older one finally limped outside. Valentine watched out of the corner of the window, observing ghetto life from inside.



"He is an old friend of my parents," Ahn-Kha explained. "He goes now to tell the others to pretend they saw nothing; then he shall pay a call on another friend at the Clan Hall. Ahh, here, my David, taste this."



Ahn-Kha broke a tubular growth in half. It had a hole running down the center, as if it had grown around a spit. Valentine tasted it and found it pleasant, a little like pumpkin with the texture of half-cooked pasta. "We used to dip it in honey, but there's no honey to be had these days." Ahn-Kha opened up a locker and began searching through folded clothes, and he found a simple blue version of the robe-kimonos the Golden Ones preferred to wear.



"Not bad," Valentine said, taking another bite. "Tastes kind of like spoon bread. I'd like to try it with molasses. What is it?"



"Did I not tell you? This is heartroot, the staple of my people. From nothing but dead growth, night soil, mud, and time we get this. It grows year-round as long as the water does not freeze, although much more slowly in winter." He changed his torn and dirty old robe for the blue one he selected. They passed the time talking about the former library and the probable location of the armory within.



They waited until darkness and left at the banshee wail of the train whistle pulling into the ghetto. Valentine carried his revolver and sword, the former now loaded and in a holster at his hip, the latter strapped across his back under the black trench coat, with the hilt projecting out the loose collar behind his head. Ahn-Kha still bore the fifty caliber, the gun carried midbarrel in his right hand. The Grog had Valentine's parang tucked inside the fresh robe.



They traversed the common ground in the center of the ghetto, part cultivated garden and part parkland. Some sheep lay in the shade by a lily pad-filled pond.



Ahn-Kha stood very erect. "This way, my David."



The Grog took him to a little clearing bordered by another Grog shantytown. Valentine saw, and smelled, a latrine in the center of the field. Ahn-Kha halted and, using his rifle as a staff, gazed out onto the meadow.



"This is where they buried my people," Ahn-Kha said, slowly and quietly. "When Khay-Hefle took over, they dumped the bodies in a pit here. My parents were among the dead, along with the Principal Elder, and many of my people who fought back. Along with those who just got caught in the battle."



Ahn-Kha took off his mitten slippers and dug his long toes into the earth.



"My wife and sons are buried here. I wished them to go with the One in Ten to Canada, but she refused to leave her family. Two thousand of my people rest beneath this soil. They say if you are very silent, you can hear weeping.



"At first, after the custom of you humans, my people planted flowers here, I am told. Then one day, after the walls had risen, this General who accepts only submission or death came on an inspection. He saw the many beautiful flowers and ordered them pulled up. In their place he dug pit-toilets, and ordered all to use them. The first, of course, was Khay-Hefle, who always seems to find new insults to put upon those who had been his people. At one time they would march the workers all the way from the train station to here at the end of the day. Golden One workers are not considered fit to use human toilets at the Cave this General is building. They must go to the river bushes or wait until they return here."



"I'm ... sorry," Valentine said, choking on the second word. It was inadequate. "Never said you were married."



"I play tricks on myself. When I do not speak of it or think of it, the pain lessens for a time. She was very beautiful, both in the looking and in the knowing. You own my apologies, I am speaking in English but my private voice speaks in the Golden Tongue. Let me try again. She was very beautiful to look at and to know."



"I'm sure she was," Valentine said, and meant it, although he did not have the first clue as to how a Grog measured physical beauty.



"My David, I am glad we could come here. I have only seen this place from afar. But we must hurry-we have business on the hill."



They moved among the wooded parkland up the hill to the old library. From below, it loomed like a temple built to the specifications of a fortress. Valentine sensed a Reaper somewhere within. A coyote or feral dog crossed their path ahead, head and tail both held close to the ground. A few Golden One couples could be seen here and there among the trees, the smaller females walking just behind the males, touching the backs of their partners.



"Let's wait a moment, please," he asked Ahn-Kha. The Grog knelt and followed Valentine's gaze to the building.



Valentine quieted his mind. He felt his body relax. The Reaper came into focus. It was below ground.



"Are you all right, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked.



"Yes, now I am. One of your Hooded Ones is in there."



"You smell it?"



Valentine didn't have time to explain. "Something like that.



"You said you had a plan for getting in," Valentine reminded him, looking at the stoutly barred and shuttered windows around the first floor of the building.



"My father's old friend knows one of my people on Khay-Hefle's staff. She hates the new Principal and gives news to my people when she can. She has arranged to unlock the shutters on one of the windows on the second floor after the guard checks it. It is very dangerous for her; it means she must remain in the building all night. The windows on the second floor are not barred, for the climb is thought impossible."



"Then how are we going to get up there?"



The Grog pointed at a flagpole in front of a long low building, just to the right of the Great Hall.



"We shall use that."



Valentine looked up at the flag of the Twisted Cross hanging limp in the night sky.



"Don't tell me that's the barrack for the Twisted Cross soldiers."



"Yes, it is."



"That's quite a risk." Valentine checked the view of the guard at the Great Hall. Khay-Helfle's soldier wore padded leather at his shoulders, shins, and forearms, and a helmet cut to accommodate the flexible pointed ears. He could not see the barrack.



"There is no sentry in front of the barrack."



"No, the Twisted Cross close up tight in the evening."



They avoided the Golden One sentry standing outside the main doors of the ex-library, now the Golden One Great Hall, and moved around the side of the building. Valentine took a long look and listen. Satisfied, he slapped Ahn-Kha on the arm, and they dashed across the cracked cement sidewalk. The Grog made so much noise running, Valentine found himself wishing in vain for the absent Duvalier. Was she on her way back to the Free Territory? Waiting at the rendezvous, cursing him every hour on the hour?



"How many of these Hooded Ones are there in the ghetto?" Valentine asked.



"No one knows. The number seems to vary. On some days I've been told as many as thirty will be here. They use our lands for a base to operate elsewhere in the city, perhaps training, perhaps subjugating another clan."



The Reaper hadn't moved. Valentine hoped that whatever was occupying it would keep its attention for another few minutes. "Here goes." They jogged up to the flagpole.



"Putr up by humans, not by the Golden Ones," Ahn-Kha said. He placed both hands around the pole. "Now to pretend this is the neck of Khay-Hefle." His muscles bulged and tightened as he first pushed the flagpole then pulled it. Valentine kept watch for a moment and then decided it was pointless. They were so in the open-if they were seen, it would be all over anyway, so a few seconds' warning would make little difference. He got on the opposite side of the flagpole and began working with Ahn-Kha, though he couldn't bring half the strength of the Grog's arms. When Ahn-Kha pushed, he pulled, and then they switched. Soon the pole was rocking in its dirt. Ahn-Kha wrapped his thick arms around the pole, hugging it as tightly as a constrictor taking a wild deer. With a mighty pull, he uprooted its concrete base.



The Grog took the heavy end, and Valentine the flag tip, and they managed to get it to the side of the building.



"It's a good thing the Twisted Cross don't garrison your people properly," Valentine observed, legs burning in protest of the load. "A few patrols in this area, and we could kiss this project good-bye."



"My people live in abject fear of the Hooded Ones and a return of the flamethrowers, my David. They are worked half to death for their daily soup. They need little policing." Ahn-Kha wasn't even breathing hard, though burdened by the heavy end. If anything, he looked energized.



They reached the base of the window, though not a crack of light showed from the supposedly unlocked shutters. The team managed a two-person raising of the Iwo Jima flag and carefully set the pole against the side of the building. Valentine winced at the thunk.



"Wait here," Valentine muttered, and began to shinny up the flagpole, wishing it were made of wood so he could use his claws.



The shutter pulled open silently. He hopped down the ledge into a dark office, smelling Golden Ones. Its shelves were lined with paint and cleaning supplies, and Valentine could understand why a roaming guard might check its window only once as the sun went down. Hardly worth stealing. Duvalier might want the turpentine to make-



-burn the place down!



It was a tempting thought, but he turned back to the window. "Get rid of the pole," he called down, sounding like a laryngitis patient in an effort to be heard without speaking loudly.



Ahn-Kha complied while Valentine wound and knotted a pair of canvas drop cloths. He soaked the canvas in a wash-tub-wet fabric would hold better at the knots and stren-then it. He wrapped the improvised line around his back, got a good grip, and sent his dripping line out the window for Ahn-Kha. The Grog grabbed it and began to climb. Valentine had all he could do, legs braced and quivering against the wall under the window, to hold up his end of the job by not letting go as what seemed like half a ton of Grog swarmed up the line.



The Grog made it through the window, his awkward rifle left outside. They opened the bag with Valentine's weapons. Valentine offered the Grog his choice of pistol or parang.



"It'll be knife-work if we have to fight in here," Ahn-Kha said, drawing the parang and passing it, blade out, between his lips. The Golden One's eyes blazed.



Valentine heard a step in the hallway on the other side of the door.



He put his fingers to his lips and pointed out the door. Ahn-Kha's ears went up and forward, listening for the tread.



"A Golden One," Ahn-Kha whispered.



There was a knock. Ahn-Kha gave Valentine a reassuring nod and opened the door to reveal a more petite version of himself, without the pronounced canines but with longer and more expressive ears. They gargled to each other. Valentine doubted he would even be able to generate the necessary sounds should Ahn-Kha decide to teach him the Golden One's language some day.



She passed two keys on a little metal ring to Ahn-Kha and left as quietly as she had come.



"She was hiding, waiting for us in the next room. Vihy has no business staying here after hours; she would be killed if caught. She asked for us to be sure to lock me shutters behind, just in case."



He showed Valentine the ring. "The keys are to an iron gate at the basement stairs. For our cleaning people to get in the basement, a Twisted Cross officer on duty must open it. She stole it from his office as he slept on duty. Not all are 'men of stainless steel,' it seems."



The bravery of some of the people who lived under the Kurians never failed to humble Valentine. Kur ruled through fear, intimidating their subjects into submission. But for some, after a certain point, even the threats of torture and death no longer work. These helpless people chose death, even welcomed it when it came, as long as they were able to strike some kind of blow against their oppressors. Not for the first time, he wondered if he had that kind of courage.



But such thoughts did not help mask his aura. Valentine brought his focus back within himself, until his worries were a hard little crystal locked in his brain.



"Ahn-Kha, there's still a Rea-a Hooded One to deal with. I think it's somewhere in the basement. I'm afraid it will sense or hear you coming. Would you be good enough to wait here while I deal with it, please?"



"Yes, my David. Whatever you ask of me. I would prefer if it were someming other than waiting."



"You could get a bunch of rags together here, and open a can of turpentine. We may have to start a fire as a diversion."



Ahn-Kha nodded and began to pile some dirty towels in a janitor's bucket. "May your blade find your enemy's heart."



Valentine handed over his revolver. He half drew his sword, tested the edge with his thumb. "A Reaper has two hearts, one on each side of his body. I go for the neck; they have only one of those."



Ahn-Kha extended his fist, his long thumb up. Valentine smiled in recognition; the proportions were all wrong, but the thumbs-up nevertheless heartened him. He threw the sword's harness over his shoulder, tightened the straps.



He crept out of the storage room. A hall led down to a shadowed open area. Valentine could see a decorative rail looking out on the central atrium his companion described. Low-wattage electric lights cast patterns across the Golden Ones' renovated stone and woodwork overlaid on the older human design.



Keeping on his belly, Valentine crawled down the hall toward the atrium. He paused now and then to listen, but while there were sounds of activity on the floor above, he could hear nothing near him. He crawled out to the atrium and slithered to the staircase. Look. Listen. Smell. And then down.



On the first floor, he waited two full minutes in an alcove, feeling the rhythms of the sleeping building. The only sounds came from the guardroom just inside the main door, where the off-duty Golden One guards were eating and talking. He smelled heartroot, a rich smell like carrots pulled fresh from the earth. Following Ahn-Kha's instructions, he made it to the staircase down without encountering anything other than vague noises from somewhere below. As he moved down the stairs, listening and using his nose, he identified the sound and smell of machinery. A generator whined somewhere in the bowels of the building, and he picked up a faint medicinal odor, like disinfectant.



The Reaper definitely moved near him now. Life or death depended on the Cat continuing to sense it, and the Reaper being unable to read Valentine's lifesign until he was too close for it to matter. A silent contest, like the Old



World books of submarines hunting each other in cold darkness. He waited until the Reaper was somewhere far from the gate door at the base of the stairs before employing the keys.



Valentine noticed an alarm bell mounted on the wall just down the hall, next to a door with light and the sound of voices coming from it. A switch with a conduit pipe running up to the bell probably activated it. The door was wired, a detail perhaps none of the Grogs knew. He thought for a long minute, but could not come up with a decent plan. That Reaper would not stay in the opposite corner of the building forever.



It had to be done, and if it had to be done, it had best be done boldly. He unlocked both locks, his sword hidden against his leg.



"Yo!" he called. "I'm at the door. Wanna get the alarm for me?"



"Coming," a tired voice said after the echo faded. A human in a white lab coat appeared at the door and absently turned the switch. Valentine threw open the door and covered the ten feet of hallway in a single leap.



"Hey," the man in the lab coat said. Too late. He reached up to hit the red alarm push button, but Valentine's sword intercepted his arm, removing it from the elbow down. Mouth gaping, the man looked at the interesting phenomenon of his amputation as Valentine's sword point came up under his chin. Valentine withdrew the blade as He rushed around the corner and into the well-lit room. A woman, also in a white lab coat, had time to scream before he cut her down. When it was over, the only movement in the room was the slow spread of blood across the tiled floor. The remains of a meal sat on a table under dazzling spotlights. Stainless-steel counters and white cabinets marked the room as a dispensary or examination room. There were medical supplies, bandages and iodine-colored bottles and instrument trays available. Valentine saw machinery in the room beyond, but had no time to investigate.



The scream was nearly as effective as the alarm. The Reaper was coming. Valentine hurried to the gate and locked it again, then stepped back into the dispensary, dragging the dead man behind. He readied his blade, holding in his favorite stance, like a batter at the plate, just inside the door. He heard the Reaper's step in the hallway and listened to it pause as it saw the slain man's blood and the severed arm Valentine forgot to retrieve. Then it did something Valentine would not have believed of a Reaper. It turned and ran.



Valentine pursued. Cloak flying, the Reaper turned a corner, and Valentine had to slow in case it was waiting just around the corner. It wasn't-it was in a room off the hall. He heard the Reaper's odd, faint voice speaking urgently. case red! post twelve calling a case red! it breathed, pressing the transmit button on the microphone of the table-top radio. While the voice was that of a Reaper, something was wrong about the cadence, the urgency in the voice.



It sensed Valentine. Turned-slit pupils wide as screaming mouths reflected Valentine's blade flashing for its neck. It ducked, slowly for a Reaper-meaning it took a full blink of an eye to crouch instead of half of one.



Which was half a blink too slow. The Reaper's body crouched without its head-now spinning in the air sprinkling black blood on the painted cement walls.



A man in the urban camouflage of the Twisted Cross stood next to an overturned chair, frozen in shock at the site of the Reaper's death. The communications center man reached for his pistol, and Valentine opened his stomach with a right-to-left slash, then stood on the man's wrist and pulled the gun and pocketed it. The man lay on the floor, gasping out his pain and trying to hold his intestines in.



Valentine tore the microphone off the radio, ignoring the Twisted Cross man, who coughed out his final breath. He unplugged the radio and cut the power cord.



The swinging cord end reminded him of something. That something was connected with the woman in the lab coat he had killed. An item that she was holding. An IV bag. An IV bag just like the ones hanging above the machinery in the room behind the dispensary. Why did a machine need an IV bag? It all came together in a rush.



Valentine flew back to the dispensary and into the room beyond.



Twelve oversize metal coffins were lined up on either side of the room, quietly humming with electric power. A thirteenth stood in the aisle between the two rows. They were wider and deeper than coffins, however. More than anything they reminded Valentine of defunct tanning beds he had once found while sheltering in an Old World strip mall. They had mysterious, unlabeled knobs next to telltale lights flickering on the side.



He closed the metal door behind him and barred it, using a pivoting arm that swung into a receiver on the frame.



From the lights and noise, Valentine determined that seven of the oversize coffins were on and functioning; each also had an IV bag hanging from a T-shaped rack above the machinery. Valentine went to the humming, blinking center machine and circled it. His ears picked up the sound of water being cycled through some kind of plumbing. A cabinet-door-size hatch was fixed to the top at one end.



Not knowing what to expect, Valentine opened the hatch. Inside, floating in the water like a piece of wood, was a very pale, thin man with a bristling growth of beard. Wires were attached with little flesh-colored cups all over his body, concentrated on his shaven skull. A smell, both salty and rank, wafted out of the miniature pool.



The man's green eyes opened in surprise, and Valentine looked into the confused gaze of the man who until a moment ago was animating a Reaper. How many years' service did he have in? How many people had his avatar killed while under his control? Did he climb out of the tank desiring to tear the throats out of victims, like the Twisted Cross man he'd met in Chicago who'd been "in the tank" for weeks at a time?



This was the reason the Reapers spoke to each other, as Duvalier had observed. And killed with guns, wasting vital aura. The Twisted Cross were a weapon, combining the minds of human soldiers with the death-dealing bodies of Reapers.



Valentine grabbed the man's neck and shoved him under- water to the bottom of the tank. The Twisted Cross Master struggled against Valentine's grip, muscles that hadn't been used in days creaking, while a sensor of some sort on his water-filled coffin beeped. The man clawed against Valentine's face with long fingernails, and the Cat turned his head away. Bubbles. The thrashing finally ceased, and the sensor added an outraged, high-pitched whine to the beeping. Valentine looked back down at the dead figure. His electrodes had come loose during the struggle, and under each one was a tiny tattoo of a swastika.



Valentine turned off the annoying monitor-machine. In the fresh silence, the crash that always came after a fight hit like a delayed-fuse bomb, and it hit hard. Vomit made up of his heartroot dinner poured into the salty water of the tank. But there was more to do. He rinsed his mouth with a handful of the salty water from an unused tank and spat it back.



Finish this.



Minutes later, six more dead bodies lay in their individual tanks of now-bloody saline solution. Somewhere, seven Reapers were wandering in confusion, bereft of the controlling intelligence of their masters. Valentine cleaned his sword with a spare lab coat and checked each of the other capsules to make sure they did not contain further Twisted Cross. He wanted to scream, to howl, to lose himself in a burst of activity, anything to push the last few minutes out of his mind.



Forget it. What you killed were not men. Not anymore, the old voice inside him said. Valentine wondered in a half-amused fashion if he were going mad. Had id and superego decided to launch a psychic putsch? He did not really care-perhaps another symptom of insanity.



The alarm, a mind-numbing Klaxon, screamed.



He cocked the pistol and carefully opened the door. The basement was still empty as the tomb it had become. Valentine checked the main hall and saw Ahn-Kha tearing at the cage door. He turned off the alarm. It refused to die, so he did the next-best thing and shot out the speaker. Elsewhere in the building, it still brayed.



"Easy on the metal," Valentine said. "Twist it enough, and it won't open. I don't want to be stuck in here."



"I am thankful that you are well, my David. Did you find the armory?"



"The armory?" Valentine said, with the tone of someone who had forgotten to pick up a pound of sugar at the store. He went to the door and opened it, legs rubbery, trying not to stagger.



"Are you wounded, my friend?" Ahn-Kha said, ears pointed at him the like the horns of a charging bull. The Grog sniffed the nail-marks on his face.



"No. C'mon, let's find it-it has to be one of these doors."



They discovered the armory behind a steel door that was not even locked. The arsenal was not as well stocked as they had hoped: automatic rifles and pistols, a few shotguns, some boxes of grenades and mines, and two flamethrowers. Valentine found a case of satchel charges, and there was ample small-arms ammunition in cabinets and cases on the wall. Valentine looked in vain for bullets for his PPD and ended up arming himself with one of the Twisted Cross assault rifles. He filled his pockets with magazines.



Ahn-Kha selected a shotgun and a machine gun with a bipod at the front. He draped ammunition belts for it around his neck like a priest's vestments.



The pair moved out of the armory and to the basement gate. Valentine placed part of his load at the base of the stairs and crept up them with Kalashnikov at the ready. Ahn-Kha followed-only the slight klink-klank of the ammunition belts giving the Golden One away as he followed.



He could hear voices of Grogs at the balcony and stairs to the upper floors in the Great Hall.



"You cover the upstairs. I'm going try for the door," Valentine said.



The chattering sound of Ahn-Kha's machine gun behind him spurred him on as he made it to the entry vestibule. The Golden Ones who had been on guard had fled.



He slid open a wooden panel. In front of the hall, a group of Golden Ones crouched on the hill just beyond the concrete sidewalk. They wore the simple smocks of common laborers. Two more sheltered behind a defunct and overgrown fountain, wearing stained overalls. They had improvised weapons: iron bars, sledgehammers, and lengths of chain.



Valentine lifted the heavy bar fitted to the double doors and unfastened the locks. He stepped out, tried to signal the Golden Ones to approach. They crouched and looked at him as if they expected him to open fire on them. A zing-pow of a bullet chipping the doorpost got him out of the entrance.



After waiting for another long burst from his partner's machine gun to stop, Valentine called over his shoulder "Ahn-Kha, there are some of your people out front. I think they're ready for action, but don't know what to do. Let's switch. Talk to them."



Valentine ran to the base of the stairs and sighted his gun upward. "There's just one. You can't see him from the bottom of the stairs, but go halfway up and he shoots," Ahn-Kha warned.



The Grog went to the door and threw both the portals open wide. He began bellowing into the night, waving the gun above his head.



Golden Ones rushed in, brandishing picks and mallets. It appeared as though, without willing it, he and Ahn-Kha had started a revolt.



"My David, show my people the armory, I beg of you. I have business elsewhere," Ahn-Kha said, leaping up the stairs three at a time. The example inspired some of his fellows to follow despite their lack of weapons. A shot splintered the banister, and the giant sprayed bullets up to the third floor.



"Can you all understand me?" Valentine asked.



"Yes, sir," the growing mob said in various accents.



He led them down to the little room, wishing it had three times as many guns. He handed over the automatic he had taken off the dead radio operator. The Golden Ones just took the guns and grenades and left the explosives, Valentine was happy to see. Nothing saps the will to revolt like accidentally blowing up a dozen of your vanguard.



More and more Grogs gathered as the word spread. One of them, an oldster missing a hand, an eye, and with a pronounced limp, joined Valentine in handing out guns and the proper ammunition.



"My friend, was no-right at rail-gate," the elderly Golden One said in his halting, glottal English. "Own-eyes watched Hood-man drop dead. No-gun, no-hurt. Guard-mans watch their-eyes same-same, ranned away. Now my people done Hood-mans?"



"I hope so. I don't know," Valentine said.



The last guns left in the hands of their new owners. Valentine followed the flood of straw-tinted muscle to the door. He could hear shooting outside. The old Grog grabbed him by the arm as he went out the door.



"Careful-careful, sir!" he implored, and yelled something up the steps. "Or shoot you, maybe-maybe." The Grog led Valentine to the door.



In front of the old library, a bonfire had been constructed out of any wood the Grogs could lay their hands on, mostly in the form of railroad ties. Even now, pairs of what he recognized as females were carrying up more ties, adding to the blaze. Valentine heard shooting from the direction of the Twisted Cross Barrack, and saw further flames lighting the sky there. Guard towers on the other side of the wall were firing into the ghetto, but they were too far away for Valentine to tell whether they were achieving anything other than alerting every Grog in Omaha that something was seriously wrong in the Golden One quarter. Valentine, feeling that events were now well out of his control, just lugged his booty from the armory to outside the library and sat on the steps to watch. The old Grog barked orders this way and that to hurrying youngsters, but if they paid attention to his words, Valentine could not say. He could see the ears on the Grogs, twitching this way and that in excited confusion.



"My people were like that bonfire, my David," Ahn-Kha said, unexpectedly joining him. His machine gun was down to its last belt, and the Grog reeked like a sulfur pit as he kicked another of his kind, longer haired and fleshier, before him. "Sit, dog!" he told the prisoner. Then to Valentine: 'The fuel was there. They just needed air and a spark. You provided both-"



"We provided both," Valentine corrected.



"You provided both," the Grog insisted, "when you destroyed the Hooded Ones. That was the air, allowing them to breathe. From what I am told, the Hooded Ones all dropped over unconscious at the same time. The spark came in this building."



"Interesting. When a Reaper's tie is severed with its Master, it acts on instinct. Dangerous, but not smart."



"Ah, but that is when the Master is still alive, is it not?"



"I don't know. Is this the esteemed Khay-Hefle?"



The wretch plucked at Valentine's pant cuff. "Sir, take me to-"



Ahn-Kha wrapped his long foot around the prisoner's neck. "Silence! Yes, my David. Though my dream of revenge is not to be. It is-well, it was-a law of the clan that none of my people may kill except in battle or duel of honor, and he was unarmed. With this pretender brought low, I believe the old laws will be restored. His fate will be for the new Elders to decide. Besides, he screamed for mercy. There is no triumph in killing such a One on his knees."



"That's so." Valentine doubted he would have been as charitable if his family had been buried under a latrine.



Other Grogs came and strung Khay-Hefle from the iron bars of his own palace, giving the General's surrogate a good view of events. He hung from his wrists, crying as Grogs came to shout what had to be abuse.



"He's right side up. Mussolini wasn't so lucky," Valentine said to Ahn-Kha. The mob surprised him with its restraint: it restricted itself to words, sometimes pointing and laughing. Humans probably would have set fire to him; he'd heard ugly stories from veteran Wolves about what happened when towns changed hands.



"This Mussolini, he once ruled your Free Territory?"



"Never mind."



Two more Grogs ran up to the bonfire, each with a huge kettledrum on its back. They were beautifully fashioned, carved so the different woods and metals looked as though they'd grown together. A third Grog with a pair of club-size drumsticks began to beat out a rapid-fire tattoo.



The pounding rhythm gave Valentine a welcome primal thrill, heating the cold sour ache in his belly. The drumming intensified until he felt the earth shake with the Golden Ones' stamps. Even the muzzle flashes from the distant watchtowers paused while the drums boomed. Then it slowed to a steady, ominous beat.



The sound galvanized the Grogs. Without a word, they knelt and rapped their weapons against the pavement, ears pointed up and out like the horns on a Viking's helmet. The drumbeat intensified, and its tempo increased as did the clatter of rifle butts hitting concrete. As a people, they tilted their heads back and began to bellow and howl to the stars.



Valentine took in the crescendo and he trembled for their enemies.