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"Yes, my lord?" Xray-Tango said.
"Le Sain, a woman in your camp has just given birth, the squalling morsels are most delectable when new and slippery. Go to your camp and retrieve it at once, general, go with him, and impress upon him our need."
Valentine rose from the seat on shaking legs.
"Come along, son," Xray-Tango said. "Let's not keep his lordship waiting."
They went through the headquarters, grim-faced and silent. Only when they were out in the darkness of the rubble-lined streets did they speak again.
Xray-Tango's eye twitched as quickly as an experienced operator could tap out Morse. "I didn't know that was coming, Le Sain. I figured they'd test you somehow. Had no idea that would be it."
"I've turned people in to them before, sir. But never an infant."
"Trust me, Le Sain. Don't think about it, just do it. Dealing with it beforehand just causes problems. Deal with it afterward."
"Voice of experience, sir?" Valentine asked, bitterness creeping into his voice despite himself.
"Just keep walking."
Valentine felt like sticking a knife into the general. He'd grown to respect the man; Xray-Tango was the first Quisling superior he'd ever met who inspired anything other than contempt and loathing. To see him so blase about turning a newborn over to a Reaper... Perhaps he could stick him with words. "You might like to know he probed me about replacing you."
"I know. I asked his lordship to bring the subject up. How did you respond?"
"I said I wasn't up to it. At least right now."
"Le Sain, we're just sounding you out. There's ambition, and then there's ambition. If it drives you to be your best, that's great. If it drives you to try and undermine your superiors, well, I've still got that order in my desk."
"Sign it. I'm not handing that child over to him."
"Keep walking. I told you to shut up and trust me. Look, I didn't just have him ask you about that to see if you were the kind of person to supplant me, given the opportunity.
I've got my ring now. I'm thinking about getting a piece of land and leaving all this someday. Not until we're established here, and not until I think I've got someone in place who thinks like me. Just trust me."
Valentine subsided into silence. He was sick of these conversations in the Kurian Zones, the questions and interviews with a purpose under a motive wrapped up in a trap. He missed the easier days of his service in Southern Command, surrounded by men he knew to be his friends, when every word out of his mouth didn't have to be parsed and weighed.
The Smalls had a little shell of a tent next to the hut Narcisse was turning into a larder. Mr. Smalls had been posing as a camp tinkerer, mending everything from boots to cots for the men. Valentine had thought they would escape notice, just part of the flotsam and jetsam every camp accumulated, civilians who begged a living doing odd jobs the ranks didn't wish to be troubled with. Candles burned within.
"Wait out here, please, sir," Valentine said. Xray-Tango's eye blinked, and he turned up his collar against the chill night air. Valentine turned to the tent. "It's Colonel Le Sain. May I come in?"
"We've got a healthy baby girl in here, sir," Narcisse called.
Valentine entered. "My respects, Mr. Smalls, Mrs. Smalls. Hank."
"This is the thirtieth baby I've brought into this world, Colonel. But this one's the most beautiful I've ever seen. Isn't she something?" Narcisse said. "She's just perfect."
Valentine looked at the little red thing, puffy and sqint-eyed. "Mrs. Smalls is the one deserving of the applause," he said. Mrs. Smalls, sweat-soaked and red, managed a smile.
Valentine forced the next words out. "I came myself because I was worried that if a nurse and some soldiers showed up, you'd be frightened. But every new baby needs its footprints taken, its name and place of birth recorded. It's the rules here. I thought I'd handle it myself, so I could expedite the paperwork and get your baby back to you as soon as possible."
Judas Iscariot, meet your spiritual scion, David Stuart Valentine , he thought to himself.
"That's nice of you, sir, but does it have to be tonight?" Mr. Smalls asked.
"Afraid so. It's to your advantage; as soon as the baby's recorded, you get the extra rations."
"Strikey!" Hank said. A growing teen's appetite was hard to reconcile with ration coupons.
Valentine knelt at the bedside. Though perhaps "bedside" wasn't the correct word, since little Mrs. Smalls lay on the floor, atop a mixture of old rugs and blankets, reinforced with pillows and cushions.
