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"Different, isn't it? My mother was a POW when she had me. I got put in an orphanage in Amarillo. There were a fair amount of us. The orphanage was run military-style, it even had a military name. "Youth Recovery Center Four' was where I spent my salad days. They used the initials of our mothers. So I was always Xray-Tango. I never found out if I had been given a first name."
"The 'S'?"
The general's eyebrow trembled, but only for a second. "My wife used to call me 'Scotty." She said I looked like one. The dog, I mean."
"Used to, sir? I apologize, sir. That's personal."
"It was quick. Heart attack. That's why I transferred to Solon's command. Couldn't take the flats out there anymore." Blink-blink- bliiink. "Too much empty."
An adjutant entered with a clipboard full of flimsies of radio communiques. Valentine resisted the urge to glance at the top one as the soldier passed.
"That'll be all, Le Sain." General Xray-Tango lifted an order off his desk and dashed off a signature, then stamped it. "Corporal, give this to Lieutenant Greer.
"Oh, Le Sain. Good thing you were honest with me and I liked the shape of your shadow. I had two orders on how to deal with you sitting on my desk. The one going to Lieutenant Greer says he's to feed and uniform you and your command. The other said to shoot you and your officers. It's staying in my desk, just in case."
* * * *
Lieutenant Greer was a sandy-haired monosyllabalist with the intent features of an owl. Though a young man, he was hard of hearing.
"Still lots of junk near the river at your camp, sir," Greer said. He spoke accentless English as though it were a foreign tongue. He walked beside Valentine, leading the column through the Ruins. Structural steel beams and plumbing fixtures poked out from the debris like leaning crucifixes in an old frontier cemetery. "Not all bad. Flat ground, good drainage. Old sewers, too."
They passed what must have once been multistory office buildings at the heart of the old downtown. One remaining spindle of girders had been left, and most of a tower clung around its central support. The spiral minaret reminded Valentine of the long, pointy shells of turret snails he'd seen on the beaches of the Caribbean. Laborers walked up the endless stairs winding around the structure, bearing bricks to the top.
"What's that suppose to be?" Valentine asked.
"The Residence," Greer said. "Eleven floors."
"Of"-Valentine paused and glanced around-"the governor?"
Greer averted his eyes and hunched his shoulders as they passed wide of the building. Valentine saw armored cars parked before it, covering the cleared streets outside the beginnings of a wall. A Kurian Tower, sticking there like a knife in the heart of the Free Territory. Valentine's throat went dry.
Greer murmered something so quietly Valentine thought he was talking to himself. "Two in the city. Brothers, or maybe cousins. Don't know names. Eight and five." Valentine guessed this last to be the number of Reapers each controlled, respectively. Reapers that needed feeding.
"Thirteen. Unlucky," Valentine commented.
"Don't worry now. Still plenty of prisoners. Much work to do. For now, they take only hurt and bad sick. This big state. I come from Indianapolis. Six years ago, bad drought, many farms die. Other Bloodmen from hills in south came, stole people. Then they fed on us in army."
"That's a hard piece of luck. This is a sweeter situation. That's why I came."
"Yes, sir. Duty with a future, here."
They continued north, almost to a little finger of a hill separating river from city, and reached their camp. It was a former city block now called "Dunkin Do," according to the old sign propped up among the rubble. The street had not even been cleared yet, and among the bulldozer tracks there were little piles of debris in hummocks, but it was still preferable to the mountains of shattered concrete elsewhere in the city. The block was circled by nine-foot posts, and rolls of barbed wire had been left out to rust in the rain.
"Was to be prison camp, sir," Greer said. "For after last push this year. But you can use."
Valentine wondered if this wasn't another warning from Xray-Tango that any nonsense would convert him and his men from allies to inmates in short order. He and Post trailed Greer around as he pointed out the water taps, already flowing, and the sewer outlets.
"Provisions tonight, sir, uniforms tomorrow, maybe stoves and fuel day after," Greer said. "Here's paperwork, sir. I fill some, you do rest, please, sir. Mostly just signatures. Officers can billet in garage, or stay in tents with men, up to you."
"Garage?" Post asked.
"You see soon. Underground parking. Like bunker, you know? Meet others. Good food, good times."
"We'll drop by," Valentine said. "Let us know when happy hour starts."
Greer's owlish eyes rolled skyward. "Happy hour, sir?"
"Never mind. I'll be here tonight, getting the men settled in."
