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Abica's eyes flamed, and Valentine stared until Abica dropped his gaze to his feet.
"We go about this right, your brother will be in your tent with you tonight."
The private and his sergeant both unclenched their legs at that. Valentine forced a friendly smile. "We'll need some playacting out of you first, Abica."
The form read:
LIMITED PARDON
This document grants provisional immunity for any and all previous offenses against the Kurian Order. By signing it the pardon applicant renounces, completely and irrevocably, its former affiliations, begs forgiveness for its crimes, and asks for the privileges and benefits of fellowship in the human community.
I,__________________, seek a place within and protection of the Trans-Mississippi Extended District. I agree to obey the orders of my lawful superiors who will take my life forfeit if I violate this oath.
Sworn this (day)______of (month)______, (year)_____.
Signed:_________________________
Witnessed:______________________
Recorded and sealed:______________
A lined-off empty space in the lower right-hand corner waited for a cheap foil seal.
Valentine sat at his field desk, a slightly warped office table resting unsteadily on the plywood floor of his tent, hating himself for what he was about to do. This bit of playacting was the only alternative, and if it went wrong-
Cross that bridge when you come to it . The form, placed with a dozen others like it on a clipboard complete with tied-on ballpoint pen, rested next to an oversized shot glass.
The POW, his eyes shaded from the single bulb by his thick brow, stood before him. Abica stood behind, his sergeant just outside the tent. Ahn-Kha rested on his knuckles, a little stooped over in the confines of the wood frame and canvas. The drizzle outside grew heavier and lighter in fits, reminding Valentine of the sound of gentle surf on the Texas coast.
"Scotch?" Valentine asked, pouring some amber fluid from an unmarked bottle. He'd been told it was his whiskey ration, the designation just sounded better. "Cold work out there."
"You signed this?" Clipton Abica asked his brother. The skin was tight against his face, and Valentine saw his brow twitch.
"Had to. It was that or the boxcars, and I wasn't getting shipped to Dallas on a last ride. This is good duty, bro. Food's better-"
Valentine tapped the clipboard. "Son, the war's over here. We're reorganizing. It's better to be reorganizing than reorganized. I'm at full complement, but your brother asked very nicely. He's a smart man, and I always have room for another smart man."
Clipton Abica shook his head, looking at his brother rather than Valentine.
"Six years in and you'll get an allotment if you want. I'm about to make your brother a corporal, and I'm sure you'd rise too. Find a nice gal, or you can have your pick out of the pens waiting to go. It's hard but it's life. Any POWs we don't assimilate-" Valentine waved his hand out at the dripping water.
Abica broke in on the rain. "Do it, bro. Don't forget about Ma and Sinse and our cousins. They're caught up in this somewhere. Us being dead won't help them."
Clipton Abica picked up the brimming shot glass and smelled the whiskey appreciatively. "Better than strained brake fluid."
"You know it," Abica said.
The parolee tipped it into his mouth, put down the glass next to the clipboard, then with a lunge spat it at his brother and Valentine. He sent the clipboard skittering across the table at Valentine, who blocked it with his palm.
"Fuck both of you! Throw me-"
Ahn-Kha grabbed the man in a bear hug and dragged him out of the tent screaming and kicking. Valentine heard a few faint obscenities as Roybesson put him in handcuffs.
Abica looked out at the sight of his brother thrust into the mud, Ahn-Kha's sheep-sized thigh pressing into the small of his brother's back.
Ahn-Kha and Roybesson dragged him off.
"Why didn't we just tell him-"
