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The night air felt cool and clean, but the best thing about it was the amount. Free sky stretched overhead as far as even Cat eyes could see. Valentine drank in the Arkansas night like a shot of whiskey, and even the memory of Roderick's tongue faded ... a little.
Keeping to the shadows, he walked around the edge of the building. Every now and then he stopped and pulled on a window as though checking to see if it was locked, all the while making for the pathway from the center of the asterisk to the gate in the double wire.
A few lights burned in the subsidiary buildings and the courthouse. Valentine stepped onto the path leading to the gate and strode toward the gate.
He heard high, feminine laughter from the gatehouse.
Valentine sneezed repeatedly into his handkerchief as he stepped into the flood of light around the twin vehicular gates. Valentine had seen the gatehouse in operation often enough; people were supposed to travel through the inside but guards desiring access to the area between the double row of fencing usually just had them open the gates.
Cap pulled low on his head, he looked into the window. Then stopped.
Alessa Duvalier sat on some kind of console, legs prettily crossed though she was in what Valentine thought of as her traveling clothes-a long jacket was folded carelessly next to her, her walking stick, which concealed a sword, next to it.
"... so the blonde gives birth and asks the doctor, 'How can I be sure it's mine?' " They laughed.
"Shit, how did someone as ugly as Young end up with you?"
"Kindness," Duvalier said. "He's a very kind man."
"If you ever want to trade him in on a newer model . . ." the young guard said. He sputtered with laughter as he waved casually at Valentine-not taking his eyes off Duvalier-and Duvalier said, "Oh, let me!" She thumped something without waiting for permission and the twin gates hummed as they slid sideways on greasy tracks. Valentine nipped out of sight of the gate and walked quickly down the road.
Valentine heard a thump from behind, a door open, and then quick footsteps as Duvalier caught up.
She pulled him off the road and gave him a brief embrace, nuzzling him under the chin with her nose. "I can never leave you alone, can I?"
"My luck always turns whenever you're not around," Valentine admitted.
"If they arrested everyone who ever quietly shot a Quisling ..." she said.
"Let's not mention arrests or prisons for a while, alright? As of this moment I'm a fugitive from justice subject to the Escape Law."
"It's not so bad. My whole life, I've been a fugitive from just about everything," she said.
"What's the plan?" Valentine asked.
"That's your end. But I've got a start under way. Oh, that Corporal Young's a good man. We need to burn those clothes."
"You've got replacements?"
"They're with Ahn-Kha."
She turned him into the woods and an owl objected, somewhere. Valentine heard the soft flap of bats above, hunting insects in the airspace between branches and ground.
They stopped to listen twice, then found a burned-out house. A transport truck with a camouflaged canvas-covered back sat in front of it. Valentine marveled at it. The ruins of the garage held a small charcoal fire and a very large, faun-colored Grog.
"My David," Ahn-Kha said. "We have escaped again."
"If we're still at liberty in twenty-four hours I'll call it an escape. Where'd you get the truck?"
"Styachowski requisitioned us a transport," Duvalier said.
Valentine stripped out of his uniform, and Duvalier flitted about gathering up the guard's clothing.
Ahn-Kha handed him a too-familiar dun-colored overall.
"Labor Regiment?" Valentine said.
"It goes with the truck," Duvalier said. "The big boy looks like he could do a hard day's work with a shovel."
