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"They assured me my script was based on actual documentation. The problem was the colonel's testimony sounded quite similar to a film I'd seen three times as a Youth Vanguard.
Of course they always began and ended with a 'authenticated documentation' seal and statement. Of course, my films bore one too. I had to wonder. Since we were filming fake documentaries allegedly based on real documentation, I naturally began to have doubts about the veracity of the real documentation. Had it been based on the documentation in that film I saw sixteen years before? I wondered whether my transcribed testimony based on the real documentation might serve as further documentation for another film. Do you follow?"
"You lost me two documentations ago."
"Sorry." He took another drink.
Ediyak arrived with some flatbread sandwiches and a shredded-meat stew that didn't commend itself to close analysis.
* * * *
They camped the next night with Valentine's usual caution, flanked by the legworm clan encampments, Coonskins to the south and the rest of the Alliance to the north, in a hummock between two higher hills. The hills sloped off to the west like unevenly cooked souffles, and were situated above a good supply of firewood and water in an old crossroads town. His scavengers dug up a supply of wire in town. Old copper wire had any number of uses in a military camp, mostly in quick repairs. The only interesting feature was an almost paintless church with a steeple that served as a cramped observation post. Otherwise it was no different than any of their other half-dozen camps in the hills of central Kentucky.
Distant gunfire, a sound like sheets slowly torn under a comforter, woke him. He had his boots on by the time the camp siren went off.
The sound brought moisture to his palms and dried his mouth.
Only two events warranted that alarming wail: Reapers in the camp or a surprise attack.
The wail brought the camp together like drizzle turning into pools on a waterproof tarp.
Individual drops of soldiers sought their nearest comrades and corporals with the same molecular cohesion of water. The fire teams called to the nearest sergeant or officer as captains passed word and gave orders.
Valentine needed to travel only forty feet or so to headquarters, Bee appearing like a genie summoned by the siren. He forced himself to go at a brisk walk, buckling on his combat harness. The first flares burst to the south as he did so, turning the twigs and leaves of the young trees on the slope into a lattice.
Bloom, who slept just off the headquarters tent, barked orders to a succession of couriers and confused junior officers.
"Legworms coming through the pickets to the south. They'll be on top of us in a few minutes," she said.
"Already over the south ridge," a corporal at a radio receiver reported.
"I'll take a look," Valentine said. He spotted Tiddle, the lieutenant with the motorbike.
"Your bike gassed up?"
"Yes, sir, always."
"Get to the Alliance. Tell them the Coonskins have turned on us. They're not, repeat, not to come into the camp. They'll get shot at."
"What about some kind of marking, so we can tell the difference?" Rand asked. He'd been hovering, waiting for orders for his company.
Valentine gritted his teeth. He should have thought of that.
"Good thinking, Rand," Valentine said. "Have them drape a couple of sheets over the side of their legworms, anything we can make out in bad light," Valentine told Tiddle.
"How do you know the others haven't turned too?" a Guard lieutenant asked. He looked like he should be leading a high school football team rather than a company. "You've got a direct line to the Bulletproof?" he asked.
"He's got a line on that Alliance girl," Bloom said. "I'd reel her in, if I was you."
A few chuckles lightened the mood.
"Save it for the mess hall. There's no shooting to the north, is there?" Valentine said.
Tiddle ignored the byplay and Valentine heard the blat of the motorbike starting up.
"I'm heading for the OP," Bloom said, slipping a pack of playing cards into the webbing on her helmet. According to mess hall gossip, her father, a soldier himself, had given her the pack to aid passing the time, but she'd never broken the box's seal. Her eyes looked luminous in the shadow of the brim.
He barked at the communications team to set up a backup for communicating with the camp observation post, and then turned to Gamecock.
