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"Good to get some air". Yarborough nodded in agreement.
An engine started up, and Valentine saw a flag-draped coffin inside a black horse-drawn station wagon pull out of one of the tunnels. A big plastic wreath was propped up in the empty, hoodless engine compartment, and the driver steered the horses through a missing windshield, but otherwise the wagon was black and polished right down to the tires, which gleamed and smelled like gun oil. The engine noise came from an honor guard riding behind, rows facing each other on benches in the back of an open pickup.
"One of the new Bears. Poor kid burst his heart", Yarborough said, standing up. "Doctors don't catch everything".
Valentine lined himself up next to Yarborough and followed form as he saluted as the station-wagon hearse passed. It was just about the first salute he'd seen since coming to the warren.
"They dye the horses black", Yarborough said after the escort passed, grinding along in bottom gear. "Don't see what difference the color of the horses makes, when you're standing before that Golden Throne getting judged".
"I'm worn through", Valentine said, sitting down.
"Keep drinking water. Lots of water helps", Yarborough advised. "Let's head down".
Yarborough dropped Valentine in his original room, told him that he looked healthy as a horse, then went doubtful as he remembered that the last horses they'd seen had been drawing a hearse.
"I'm going to sleep. If you're supposed to escort me to dinner, give me a break and knock softly", Valentine said.
Valentine hadn't been back since his appointment with Sir. He checked his weapons, which were all still there, along with his ammunition. Someone had picked up his rifle, and accidentally snapped shut both buckles on his pack rather than the one.
He took out his razor-edged boot knife and opened the seam on his mattress, tilted it up, and shook it. He felt around through the hole, came up with his coin belt. More to give himself something to do than out of guilt at the vandalism, he closed up the seam for the second time with needle and thread from his sewing kit. Then he turned out his lights and rested.
The soft knock woke him, but he didn't answer. Yarborough was right, though - he was thirsty. He drank, and whiled away the hours dozing on and off. In the bustle of sentry shift change at eleven p.m. he slipped out the door, gear crammed into an enormous Pacific Command duffel with his bedding peeking out at the top. He went down to the laundry, checked in with the attendant and got tokens for the machine, and put his sheets in. He wandered, grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit from an elegant porcelain bowl resting in the small library on the same floor as the laundry, and returned to put his sheets in the dryer.
Someone else would have to take them out of the dryer.
The attendant didn't notice him extract his duffel from between a couple of machines and exit again. He ducked into the library again and took off his boots.
He went to the elevator bank and was momentarily frustrated when he found it occupied by a couple of bored technicians carrying toolboxes. If they noticed his socks, they didn't say anything. He got off at his own floor and then idled, waited for another. This one was empty.
He punched the button for the second-to-the-top floor, climbed up to the rail, and hung on in the corner using his toes. He opened the service access on the roof, picking the lock with his hairpinlike jimmies, praying that the elevator wouldn't stop on its upward trip.
He tossed the duffel up through the gap and made it to the elevator roof. The rolling gears and cables pulled steadily, their companions to the counterweight on the other side vibrating.
Valentine didn't want the elevator to stop at the top floor; a bell
sounded in the corridor whenever the elevator arrived to alert the sentries that someone was coming up.
He climbed to the next level easily enough; rungs were built into the shaft for workmen, firefighting, or a loss of power. Using his gun flashlight, he examined the top-level door, found the trip for the bell. He lifted the latch on the door at the top level, and just cracked the door so he could slip through.
Valentine tucked his stiletto into his sleeve and listened, checking down the corridor toward the machine-gun-post exit. A sentry sat at a junction of rough-hewn tunnels, reading a book.
Nothing to do but bluff. Valentine strode down the corridor. The sentry lowered his book.
"B aerial crapped out", Valentine said. "I'm checking the connection before making a big issue with service". Valentine didn't know if there was such a thing as a B aerial, but it was quite possible the sentry wouldn't either.
The sentry stood, didn't reach for his rifle, but put his hand on his pistol holster. "We need a..."
Valentine jumped, and drove the outer edge of his boot into the sentry's midsection. The breath left the sentry's lungs with a whoosh and Valentine put a foot on his wrist and a knee on his neck, bearing down hard. He dropped his knife out of his sleeve and poked the sentry hard under the chin.
"Last thing I want to do is hurt you, friend", Valentine said. "You make me open up your carotids, it's going to bother me for days".
"Mrfph", the sentry agreed.
Valentine relieved him of his pistol, was happy to see a pair of handcuffs on his belt and a Taser. "Stay flat on your face, spread-eagle. I just got invoked a couple days ago, and I'm twitchy as hell. What's your name?"
"Appleton".
Valentine gave Appleton careful instructions, and in three minutes he was handcuffed and stuck in the big duffel bag, with his bootlaces tied together and threaded through the grommets.
