Winter Duty

Fort Seng, February, the fifty-sixth year of the Kurian Order. The snow has melted and the winter has returned to normal. Old-timers are predicting an early spring, perhaps to balance the fierce January weather.



The losses of Kentucky are great and still being counted. But the damages from the ravies virus could have been much worse. As it turned out, the snow that the Kurians hoped would freeze Kentucky's population in place while their disease swept across the wooded hills worked against its spread rather than for it-the towns hardest hit by the virus were contained by the weather, rather than the reverse.



It was a meager, hard winter, but it is ending. The shortages and bitter cold are fading as new winds blow and new supply lines are created. Old, tattered uniforms are traded in for the new pattern, and equipment and weapons improve as equipment is gleaned and reconditioned from the fight near the Owensboro west bridge.



Also, there is the knowledge that they won a victory against the best that the Northwest Ordnance could muster, even if the ravies victims paid the tab on that victorious banquet.



Valentine never suffered even a quiver from the ravies bites.



Had the iodine and antibiotics worked? He didn't know. It hadn't done Keve Rockaway any good. When last Valentine heard, Rockaway was an invalid on the huge ranch straddling the Texas- Oklahoma border country. His mother had retired from public life to nurse him, and the real leader of the ranch was the new ex-Bear named Chieftain. Mrs. O'Coombe had arranged for three hundred head of first-class beef cattle to be brought to Kentucky in exchange for a few legworms and men with the experience to breed them. According to her, the ranch encompassed a good deal of wasteland that might support legworms.



She even spoke of establishing a horse farm or two nearby. Southern Command always needed fresh horseflesh.



But that was trivia. Valentine wondered how Southern Command had managed to have an effective vaccine to a strain of ravies that had never been deployed. Or perhaps it was just a very, very happy accident that Southern Command's latest vaccine was also proof against the Kurians' newest weapon.



So many questions that needed answering.



"I do have one piece of good news," Lambert said one morning at a meeting with Valentine. "We're in radio contact with the Bulletproof through the Army of Kentucky. They said a certain oversized yellow Grog of old acquaintance staggered into their camp pulling a cart full of kids. He had pink ribbons tied to his ears and a teddy bear riding between his ears."



It was the best news Valentine had heard since Narcisse's reply to the letter he'd had Mantilla deliver. She and Blake would await his instructions about joining him in Kentucky, once he arranged with a river rat for properly discreet transport. "Ahn-Kha is alive?"



"A little chewed up, they said. Their chief promised to send him here just as soon as a worm can be saddled this spring."



Valentine wondered if he was dreaming. If he did see Ahn-Kha again, he'd send him right back to his people. The Golden Ones had been driven out of Omaha and needed a leader of Ahn-Kha's caliber.



Lambert decided to celebrate the victory with a grand review of her battalion. It couldn't be said that they'd fought a battle, but they'd performed effectively in the field, keeping the ravies off while they protected Owensboro's civilian population.



Valentine recovered fast, as he always did, and managed to stand through the whole review.



They formed the men up, four companies strong plus an almost equal number of auxiliaries in an oversized "support pool."



The Southern Command "remainders" stood in a quiet group off to one side, watching the ex-Quislings in their polished boots and fresh uniforms.



"Our new regimental flag, my friends," Valentine said, pointing to a banner flying overhead. Even though they were a smallish regiment.



The flag couldn't be said to be fancy. Valentine had worked out the design with Ediyak, now in charge of the headquarters platoon.



He'd loosely based it on an old Free French flag. It was red and blue, with a big white five-pointed star dividing it at the center and large enough to touch the edges of the banner with its top point and bottom two feet. A little black pyramid with a Roman numeral I in silver filled the bottom-center between the two legs of the star.



With the flag flying, Lambert began the speech Valentine had written, largely cribbed from a military history book he'd swiped from Southern Command's service libraries.



"Legion soldier, you are a volunteer, serving the Cause of freedom with honor and teamwork.



"Each legion soldier is your brother in arms, whatever his origin, his past, or his creed. You show to him the same respect that binds the members of the same family bloodline.



"You respect the traditions of these United States. Discipline and training are your strengths. Courage and truth are the virtues that will one day make you admired among your peers and in the history books.



"You are proud of your place in the legion. You are always orderly, clean, and ready. Your behavior will never give anyone reason to reproach you. Your person, your quarters, and your base are always clean and ready for any inspection or visitor.



"You are an elite soldier. You consider your weapon as your most precious possession. You constantly maintain your physical fitness, level of training, and readiness for action.



"Your mission is sacred. It is carried out until the end, in respect of the Constitution, the customs of war, and law of civil organization, if need be, at the risk of your own life in defense of these ideals.



"In combat you act without passion or hatred. You respect surrendered enemies. You never surrender your dead, your wounded, or your weapons.



"You consider all of the above your oath and will carry it out until released by your superiors or through death."



Ediyak modeled the new uniform. The cut was similar to his old shit detail company's utility-worker uniforms, right down to the tool vest, the padded knees and elbows (a simple fold of the fleece made for light and comfortable cushioning), and the pen holders on the shoulder. The outer shell was a thick nylon-blend canvas of Evansville tenting, the inner the soft fleece so generously supplied by Southern Command. The color was a rather uninspiring, but usefully muted, rifle green. She'd daubed hers with gray and brown and black into a camouflage pattern.



Valentine tried to read their faces. Were the men standing a little taller? He could tell Lambert's speech, the new flag, and the new uniform had their interest and attention.



He spent two frantic days trying to make contact with the Bulletproof. He wouldn't believe the news about Ahn-Kha until he heard his old friend's voice.



In between haunting the communications center and helping Patel and Ediyak evaluate the new NCOs, he was asked to visit Doc. Doc had stayed behind to research the new strain of ravies the Kurian Order had deployed that winter. Despite the gray hair and the bent frame, he'd been putting in long hours seven days a week. He'd spent an inordinate amount of time on the radio, mostly advising communities how to prevent cholera and deal with an isolated ravie found here and there, half-starved and confused. The challenge had reawakened the committed researcher who'd lost himself on the Hooked O-C ranch.



Valentine walked over to the hospital-formerly the servants' quarters for the estate. The patients had small, comfortable, climate-controlled rooms. They'd turned a former garage into an operating room, and the old office into an examining room and dispensary. Doc had taken one of the little patient rooms for his research. What little equipment he had, he'd brought with him to begin with.



"Major Valentine, a moment of your attention, please," Doc said. He stood in his office, rocking from the waist. Doc kept eyeing Valentine's sidearm.



Valentine was expecting another request for nonexistent microscopes or a culture incubator. "Sure, Doc. My time is yours."



"May we speak privately? I have some analysis to show you. I would not want my . . . theory-theory, mind you-to become a subject of common discussion."



"I'd like nothing better," Valentine said, and shut the office door.



Doc went to his closet and opened the door. On the inside he'd pinned up a map of Kentucky. He flipped on a bright track light that placed a spot of light on the map when the door was all the way open. The glare made Valentine's head hurt and he felt a little nauseous as Doc invited him over to look at Kentucky, covered in incredibly tiny notations.



"Doc, I've been meaning to ask: Wherever did you learn to write that small?"



"My father was a hog man, Major. He didn't like to waste good feed money on paper. So I learned to take notes in the margins of my classmates' discards. By the time I was studying biology at Jasper Poly-"



"Never mind. I didn't know you'd been tracking our trip to get the O'Coombe boy so closely," Valentine said, looking at the map.



"But I haven't," Doc said, shoving his hands in his pockets, where they went to work like two furiously digging rodents as he rocked. "This is an epidemiological study. With ravies, geography is a strong predictor. Ravies sufferers naturally seek water, whether for sustenance or its cooling effect. Given no higher attraction, such as noise or a food source, they will find water and then follow small tributary to larger river, rather in the manner one is taught to find civilization if lost in the outdoors.



"Of course, my information is sketchy and mostly based on radio reports. But the dates and places of outbreaks show a curious track, don't you think?"



Valentine did think. It followed the arc of their path through north-central Kentucky.



"Always forty-eight to seventy-two hours behind us. Grand Junction. Elizabethtown. Danville. It always started in places we'd visited. We've been a four-wheel Typhoid Mary through Kentucky, Major Valentine."



"Someone's infected but not showing symptoms? They shook hands with a Kentuckian and spread the virus without knowing what they were doing? I thought ravies didn't pass through casual contact; you had to break the skin or eat contaminated food or some such."



Doc shook his head. "Even if it had been via casual contact, it spread too fast. No, the contact network for any one of us is not wide enough, not for this kind of effect in only forty-eight hours. There were multiple infections. It had to be placed in a food source or water supply."



Valentine startled at the implication. "You're saying someone in our column spread it intentionally."



"I'm saying that is what my analysis indicates. My sourcing may be faulty. There might be a statistical anomaly, as our communications with Fort Seng relied on relays with stops behind us, so the data points are naturally skewed to cover our trail. But there were no alarms from outside, say, Bowling Green or Frankfort, as you would expect from a population center that wide."



"Why would the Kurians use us? You'd think trained harpies or-"



"I'm no strategist, Major."



The Kurians would want to use the forces of Southern Command to make sure Kentucky would know who to blame for losses. Give every family a grievance.



Suddenly Valentine knew who'd spread the virus, and where he'd got it from. The sudden realization made him so sick he staggered to Doc's sink and vomited.



Valentine wiped his mouth. Double cross, triple cross, cross back . . . Kurian treachery was like a hall of mirrors. Somewhere a vulnerable back was showing to plunge the knife in. No doubt there were Kurian agents dropping a few broad hints, revealing a few interesting details, in minds willing to believe the worst about outsiders. Bears weren't well understood even in the UFR. Many a regular citizen heard only of howling teams of battle-maddened men killing anything that moved. He could see an average Kentuckian believing Southern Command had brought a contagion into their land, probably by accident. But the dead were still the dead.



The winter wind blew dead leaves and freezing rain in confused swirls. Valentine didn't like freezing rain. It magically found crevices-the collar, the small of the back, the tops of your shoes-hitting and melting and leaving you wet and cold.



He'd summoned Lambert, Duvalier, Ediyak, Gamecock, and Nilay Patel to the old basement of the estate house. They'd cleaned it out and were in the process of turning it into a sort of theater that could show either movies or live plays.



It could also serve as a courtroom, if need be.



Frat stood before him, his bright new bars shining.



"Why'd you do it, Captain?" Valentine asked.



"Do what, sir?"



"Betray us," Valentine said.



Frat's eyes went wide and white. "Wha-I don't understand."



"I had that big satchel you carried, the one like mine, tested. There was some spilled preservative in there and a hell of a lot of ravies virus in the preservative fluid. What did you do? Put it in the water supply of the towns we visited?"



"We're going to have to handle this ourselves," Lambert said. "If it gets out in Kentucky that we were the vector that spread the disease . . ."



"I'll do it," Valentine said, speaking quickly as his voice fought not to break, go hoarse, choke off the words. "I brought him into Southern Command. I'll take him out."



He shoved Frat to his knees and pulled the old .45 out of its holster. A gift from another man he'd brought over from the Quislings.



Or did he hate Frat for playing the same trick he'd so often played: infiltrating, striking from within? Being better at the deadly game?



What kind of hold did Kur have on Frat's mind? They found a bright young boy, trained him, and then sent him out among decent people like the Carlsons-probably to learn more about the underground in the Kurian Zone, the mysterious lodges Valentine had heard mentioned now and again. Surely Frat was bright enough to see that life in the Freehold was better than that in the Kurian Zone. What did they promise, life eternal? Did fourteen-year-old boys even consider questions of mortality?



"It's an ugly truth, Frat. Shit rolls downhill. It's hard to stand in front of a superior and say, We threw the dice on this one-and lost. Someone must be to blame. You made the blame list."



Did Frat, miserable and shaking, know how like brothers they were? An accident of birth put Valentine in the woods of the Boundary Waters, Frat in some Chicago brownfield. If Valentine had been raised up in the Kurian Zone, would he have answered the bugle call of the Youth Vanguard, done his damnedest on the physical and mental tests?



Valentine stepped behind him. His .45 had never felt so heavy.



"I want my second chance," Frat said.



"What?" Lambert said. Valentine froze.



"You heard me," Frat said. "I'll put up my right hand and take the oath. Put in my years, just like the rest. Wash all this shit away."



"He's helped kill thousands in the clans," Duvalier said. "Whole families wiped out. You can't just let him walk away from that like a wet Baptist."



Valentine wondered. A highly trained ex-Kurian agent could be a valuable asset. Had Southern Command ever taken one alive? If they had, he wouldn't know about it.



But the virus Frat spread had killed thousands. Even though it had backfired on the Kurians, there were men, women, and children all over Kentucky who'd died in the madness, from the disease itself or the stress brought on by the change, or in the fighting.



"Let him live and you'll lose half of Kentucky."



Frat raised his right hand. "I freely and of my own resolve . . ."



Valentine had to make a decision. Is an ideal-a collection of words that makes everyone feel cleaner, purer-worth anything if you can just discard it at will? He'd promised every Quisling who came over a new future if they sweated and suffered and risked for the Cause.



Suppose Frat meant it and was ready to put his obvious talents to work for the new Freehold coalescing in Kentucky?



Valentine had squeezed his conscience through the keyhole of a technicality before. He pressed the pistol to the back of Frat's head, but the man who'd helped him rescue Molly Carlson went on speaking with only the briefest of pauses.



He couldn't do it. Cowardice or compassion?



He pulled back the gun.



"If you're going to take that oath, take it on your feet, Frat."



"Don't be a fool, Valentine," Lambert said.



"You want to shoot him?" Valentine asked. "Go ahead. It's not so easy to do."



"She's right, Val," Duvalier said. "Quisling snot'll turn on us first chance he gets. You can't change him no more than you can train a scorpion to quit killing beetles."



"Maybe," Valentine said. "But I'm also an officer. That little hearing we had may have returned a verdict, but it wasn't sent to headquarters for confirmation. I'm ready to suspend the execution on that technicality, barring an emergency that requires me to carry out the sentence.



"We're both hung men, Frat. We'd have nooses around our necks in civilized lands. But we're still kicking."



Frat looked off at the eastern horizon. "I'm not afraid of that gun. It's those motherfuckers who need to be afraid. They said they'd protect me."



"The piece of shit doesn't give a damn about the damage he's done," Patel said. "I'll stagger all the way to Little Rock if I have to, to get that sentence confirmed."



"I was following orders," Frat said. "Same as you all when you burned out Louisville. Or when the resistance killed every trustee on my block. Even my grandmother and my little sister. We all got sins worth a stone or two."



"He's joined up. He'll follow a better set of orders from now on," Valentine said.



Valentine needed air and light. He walked across the grounds of Fort Seng, Duvalier trailing carefully in his footsteps like Piglet tracking a Heffalump.



They paused on the little hill sheltering the guns and looked at the old manor house. Some soldiers were putting in new military-strength block-glass windows, yet another in the hundreds of odd jobs needed to turn an old park and former estate home into a proper military base worthy of a new Freehold.



A warm wind took over from the confused air, a fresh new gust from the southwest. The sleet fled, turning into tiny, blowing drops of rain.



"I'm ready for this winter to be over," Duvalier said, turning her face toward the wind to take in the warmth on her freckled cheek.



"Not yet," Valentine said. "There's a lot to do before spring."