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Valentine had to find a way to avoid Narcisse's eyes. "Did you see the birth, Hank?"
"No. My dad said I'd be in the way. Ahn-Kha helped me make a crutch for Styachowski."
"For who?" Valentine said. Was the general listening to the conversation ?
"Captain Wagner," Hank corrected himself.
"That's more like it, Hank."
Mrs. Smalls bit her lip as Valentine pulled the baby from her breast. Narcisse had put the newborn in a cocoon.
"I should go along," Mr. Smalls said.
"Sorry, Mr. Smalls, it's past curfew for civilians. Don't forget, your status here is sort of informal. I don't want any more questions asked than the absolute minimum."
"Keep her out of the wind. Let me wrap her some more," Narcisse said, her voice quavering.
"I'll take good care of her," Valentine said. The bland lies were coming easier now. He took the blanket from Narcisse and together they put the infant under another layer. He got up and turned for the tent flap. The sooner he was away from Narcisse's eyes the better.
"Don't you need to know her name?" Mrs. Smalls said. Doubt crept up her face and seated itself between her eyes like a biting centipede.
Valentine felt like slapping himself. "Oh, yes, I do. I don't imagine you want to call her Jane Doe for the next sixteen years." The newborn began to make mewing noises.
"We've settled on Caroline," Mr. Smalls said.
"Okay, baby Caroline it is," Valentine said. "Back as soon as I can." He fled the tent.
General Xray-Tango had to double-time to keep up with him. "You're a helluva liar, Le Sain."
"I come from a long line of liars. We've gotten good at it over the last two thousand years."
The general either didn't understand the veiled New Testament reference or chose to ignore it. "Take it easy, Le Sain. It'll all be over soon. Then we'll get busy outfitting your command. Better days are ahead."
The baby was crying now: a tiny, coughing sound. She was so light! Valentine felt like he was carrying a loaf of bread in the blankets. Chances were he'd never get to hold his own daughter-if it was a daughter-and he wondered if she'd be as active as Caroline, who at the moment seemed to be fighting some internal discomfort. An impossibly tiny hand waved at him.
"For you and me. What about Caroline here?"
"Don't think about that now. Think about that tomorrow. You're following orders, remember that."
Following orders. The old out. But did he have a choice at this moment? He didn't so much as have his sidearm; wearing weapons was discouraged in camp for everyone not on police detail. It led to questions. He had a clasp knife in his pocket; he could kill the general and get his camp up. But how far would they get, unarmed, with a Reaper expecting him back? He sensed another one somewhere near the general's headquarters, aboveground and moving. For all he knew he was being watched at this moment. Maybe a dash west to Finner's Wolves-
No. It would be death for his command, and at the moment he was too rubber-legged with the thought of it to even run. He had to weigh his men's lives against that of the featherweight newborn. It came with the responsibility he'd first shouldered in Captain Le Havre's sitting room over a cool beer. If by some magic he were able to go back in time to that moment, he'd have turned him down and shouldered a rifle as a plain Wolf with Zulu Company. No decisions to make, just orders to follow. But wasn't that the same cop-out that had begun this line of thought? All he could manage was to plod next to Xray-Tango.
As his mind came full circle, he and Xray-Tango returned to the headquarters building.
"Steady now, Colonel. I've told you it'll be all right," Xray-Tango said, as they stood at the stairs leading down to the lower level. Valentine distracted himself by looking at the pattern of the cinder blocks in the walls. This was pre-2022 construction, certainly. There were conduits and plumbing fixtures going deeper into the earth. The Quislings, while clearing rubble above, were making use of the infrastructure below that survived the nuclear blast.
The Reaper had not moved since they left. It might have been a wax figure, sitting with palms flat on the table and head tilted slightly back, were it not for the eyes that opened at their entrance.
"Give us the child, and let us fill our need," Mu-Kur-Ri's avatar said. The yellow eyes locked on Valentine. He felt a weightless, falling sensation, as though the slit-pupiled eyes were turning into canyons, the veins leading to them rivers, the yellow irises burning deserts. He was falling toward them, into them. The only thing he could put between his eyes and the Reaper's was the child. He held it out, breaking whatever hypnotic conduit drew him.
The Reaper took the baby. Gravity returned to the floor; Valentine's mind was his own again.
"There, you've got your answer, my lord-" Xray-Tango began, before choking on his words when the Reaper's hinged jaw went wide, like a snake preparing to eat an egg. It ripped away the swaddling clothes with a hand, opening the tiny girl's chest. The newborn had time for one brief cry, stifled instantly as the Reaper buried its face in the baby.
Valentine heard a soft suckling sound. He held himself up with the table.
Xray-Tango went white as a sheet. "Je-" he began, before staggering back against the wall. He slid down it as though he'd been shot.
