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But she had been tested. She'd been tested at the same location as Gail Foster. Why was she listed as Molly Carson? She'd married her Guard lieutenant . . . What was his name . . . Stockton, no, Stockard. Graf Stockard.
"Fine. You keep the big directories here, right? The Southern Command Military Census?"
"Yes, of course."
"Can I have a browse?"
"Sure. A name ring a bell?" Zhin guessed.
Not just a bell. A gong and clattering cymbals.
rk, Pine Bluff, Arkansas: Southern Command collapsed when Solon arrived, not in panic, but in a controlled implosion more reminiscent of a carefully demolished high-rise than a chaotic rout.
Stockpiles of foods, medicines, and especially weapons disappeared into predug and camouflaged caverns. Where caverns weren't available, basements sufficed. One of the most important of the Eastern Arkansas caches resided at SEARK-the Southeastern Arkansas College. Southern Command had several important facilities around Pine Bluff, including the main docks on the lower Arkansas, the old arsenal that produced munitions for the Freehold, the war college at the old University of Arkansas (an agricultural and technical university taught civilians on the same campus) and, in a nondescript building at the edge of campus, a group of scientists devoted to researching the Kurians, known by a few as "the Miskatonic." From machine tools to research archives, key resources were concealed on the overgrown campus of SEARK, or "the Ark." A whole greenhouse on the campus existed just to shelter plant growth that would be used to cover entrances to underground warehouses, and the more burned-out and disused a classroom building looked, the more likely it was that explosives could be found stored in the rusty darkness of the basement.
The Ark deception worked in Pine Bluff. Southern Command, in abandoning the arsenal, blew up piles of junk to make it look as though machinery was destroyed rather than hidden. The Miskatonic turned piles of old phone books into fine white ash in a bonfire outside the institute.
Pine Bluff, in the year after Solon's rule, is only a shadow of the lively riverfront town, with its markets and stores, blacksmiths and seamstresses. Some of the population still wears the dull yellows and oranges of Solon s Trans-Mississippi Confederation, others go about like hungry beggars as they lookfor lost friends and loved ones, searching for familiar faces from the shops and docks.
The Ark has a new lease on life thanks to its period as an archive. The Miskatonic has relocated from the burned U of A campus to McGeorge hall, three stories of red brick with freshly painted white pillars around the entrance and new-planted trees relocated from roof and doorstep. If the building's architecture reflected the facts and secrets locked within, it would be a dozen stories tall and carved out of black granite, with horns projecting from the roof and gimlet eyes peering from the gaps in the still-boarded windows. . . .
* * * *
David Valentine stepped off the train even before it came to a full stop and landed neatly on his good leg. He checked in at the Guard Station and reacquainted himself with the modest sights of the hill-circled town, enjoying the sensation of being off the rickety train.
It had been a long trip up from Texarkana, thanks to the stop-and-start nature of nonmilitary travel. He spent a night in Hope, and learned that the famous unification of Texas and Arkansas forces had actually taken place in the nearby crossroads of Fouke. Southern Command, perhaps with an eye toward history, or realism about the soldier's eagerness to say they were present at the famous Texas-Arkansas-Fouke, had broadcast the news to the world from a minor general's temporary headquarters in Hope. Valentine spent ten dollars on an afternoon outing from Hope to the spot of the linkup (sandwich lunch included!) and saw the two state flags waving on a small hill next to a creek where beer and whiskey bottles from the celebration were still in evidence.
He wandered up and down Pine Bluffs main streets. Occupation seemed to have leeched all the cheery color from the town he remembered from his early days as a Wolf, studying at the academy. Vanished flower boxes, missing chalkwork advertisements on the brickwork, empty display windows where once mannequins had stood displaying everything from rugged smocks to ruffled wedding gowns, even the tired-looking berry bushes and picked-clean fruit trees filling every vacant lot related the occupation's story.
The lots made him think of Razors for some reason. Missing faces, dead or gone. He missed Hank most of all, even more than Narcisse or Ahn-Kha. Both could take care of themselves. But Hank had gone off to school with little enthusiasm. Valentine had tried to ease the parting by giving him his snakeskin bandolier, the same one he'd worn the night of the Rising in Little Rock.
"You deserve a medal, Hank, but this is the best I can do."
Hank ran his good hand across the oversized scales. "For real? For keeps?"
"For exceptional valor," Valentine said.
Hank hooked a finger in one of the loops. "Take a while to grow more Quickwood," Hank said.
"Fill it with diplomas."
At that Hank frowned-the boy saw himself as tried and tested as any of the Razors. In the end Valentine tasked Ahn-Kha with seeing the boy safely seated-and if necessary, handcuffed-at school.
He brought himself back to the present.
Valentine read the lettering next to a white cross painted on a walkway above the street, connecting two buildings at the heart of downtown:
here they hung james ellington
for spitting under the boots of
the occupiers as they marched
they said he was to be an example
they were right
One of Valentine's happier memories was of his time spent in Pine Bluff as a student at the war college. Essays on the qualities of Integrity, Professional Competence, The Courage to Act, and Looking Forward; regulations on the care of dependants and children of his soldiers; sound management principles-Southern Command was nothing if not parsimonious-the multitude of identification badges. . .
