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"I didn't know Hunter Staff Cats--Cats with the rank of major, anyway-did their own legwork," Arnham said.
"I'm not staff yet," Valentine said.
The Miskatonic researchers looked at each other and shrugged. He knew as little about their world as they did his.
"Everyone just sit," Zhin suggested. "This isn't a formal briefing, nothing like it."
They did so.
"Val, you're free to ask Peter here whatever you like. We don't know much about this; we're holding nothing back."
Valentine sensed an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before.
"You think I'm on an assignment?" Valentine asked.
"We know you work with cover stories and so on."
Valentine leaned forward. "No. It's really what I told you. I'm inquiring for a friend, a fellow officer, William Post. This isn't prep for an operation, not by a long shot."
"It's just that the mule list is a bit of a mystery to us too," Zhin said. "We thought maybe someone was finally looking into it."
"Mule list?"
"Just a shorthand we use," Zhin said. "Solon's departure left behind a real treasure trove of documentation-we've never gotten this complete a picture of human resource processing in the Kurian Zone before. We've had to add and train dozens of people just to sift through it all."
Arnham added: " 'Mule list' is a term we use because all these women appear to carry something the Kurians are interested in. We know it's not blood type or anything obvious, like Down's. About all we know is that only women are tested, and that if they come up positive for it they're immediately packed up and shipped off."
"How do you know it's a positive? List I saw just had an X under 'Result.' "
"Intellectual shorthand," Zhin said. "We just call it a positive. That's the kind of optimists we got here." Zhin and Arnham both chuckled.
"Why the 'she's gone for good' note?"
"I thought he deserved to know." Arnham stared levelly at Zhin. "I don't think that sort of thing should be kept a secret. Like I said, all the security shit is hurting us more-"
"Let's keep this on point, Peter," Zhin said.
Zhin turned in her chair to Valentine. "This Gail, your officer's wife, is most likely dead. Everything we know about the mule list says that they're put on priority trains with extra security and shipped out. Handling is similar to what happens when your Wolves or Bears are captured. We know Hunters are interrogated and killed at a special medical facility; that's been established. Doctors working for the Kurians do a lot of pathology on the bodies."
Valentine had heard rumors along those lines before.
"Have you looked into the family background of your mule list? Do they come from Hunter parents?"
"A few," Arnham said. "Not enough for a real correlation."
"What is the test?"
"Don't know. They take a small amount of blood. Like an iron check when you donate."
Valentine had given enough blood in Southern Command's medical units to know what that meant. A drop or two squeezed from a finger cut. "And then?"
"They drop it in a test tube. We know the negatives stay clear."
"How many show up as positives?"
"Less than one percent," Arnham answered.
"About one out of a hundred and fifty or so, looks like," Zhin said, checking another paper.
