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"That's up to you and the Indiana boys."
Albano purpled but instead of turning on Valentine, he elbowed Vole. "I say we hang him, just like they did with Sewbish. No more flags of truce-just delays the inevitable."
Vole ignored him. "Understand, Valenwhatever, we've got nothing to lose and orders to kill any rebel we can get our hands on."
"A hard rain's going to fall here, just a couple more days," Albano added. "A HARD RAIN."
"I'm sick of that weather report, Albano," Bell said. "Where's that relief column out of Indy? Tommorow, tomorrow, always tomorrow."
"Shut up, you two," Vole said.
Bell ignored him. "Lindgren said the Moondaggers asked for it to cross the river into Kentucky to secure their lines for the retreat out of Kentucky. We're bloodpiped. Let's refugee north to Indy. Even if a new guide comes, he'll have his own people. Better to start at the bottom rung somewhere else than get caught up in a reorg here."
"You willing to let us just walk out of here?" Vole asked Valentine.
"I'm sure that could be arranged," Valentine said. "If you turn over your weapons and gear intact. I'll try to make the local resistance see the advantage of getting their hands on your guns. But are you sure of the reception you'll get in Indianapolis or wherever you end up? You might be surplus to requirements. Someone's got to take a fall for a debacle in a city the size of Evansville. Might just be you all."
He let that sink in.
"Seems to me you men have two alternatives. Stay here and fight it out, waiting for help that's not coming, or surrender yourselves to your fellow Hoosiers."
"Six of one . . .," Albano said.
Valentine coughed up a little more blood. "Fight or die, they told you. Take 'em up on it.
Fight them for a change."
They blinked at him like sunstruck owls.
"Rengade and get picked off on some Reaper's manhunt?" Vole said. "Or get a stake pounded up my ass by a vengeance team? Painful way to go."
"I'm wearing what's left of one of those Reapers you're so scared of," Valentine said. He might be called a liar. Valentine looked at it as shaving the truth. "Join the fight against the Kurians. I lead a bunch of fighting men that's nothing but former Order. I can always use more men. You might get killed, but if you fall, you'll fall on the right side and you won't get recycled into pig feed. Once you've proven in combat, you're a new man, so to speak. We'll give you a new identity if you like."
Valentine was exceeding his orders and knew it. But if it would spare a mutual slaughter-
Valentine noticed that both sides had advanced on the bus, scraps of white tied to tips of rifles or held aloft at the end of bits of pipe fashioned into spiked clubs, trying to hear what was transpiring inside.
The resistance was more numerous, the Kurian Order forces bet-ter armed, facing each other across abandoned vehicles and curlicue tangles of razor wire.. ..
The Quislings looked a rough lot. Of course there would be the bullies, the cowards, and the lickspittles-the Kurian Order attracted such-but he had a tough, experienced bunch of officers now. They'd keep them in line.
The battered, big-nosed leader looked at Valentine with suspicious eyes.
"Trust comes hard, I know. I spent time under the Kurians myself. Don't they always garland their deals with a bunch of roses? What did they tell you before you joined Enforcement? Quick path to a cushy office and a luxury card? Any of that come true? I'm telling you you'll have it hard, but you'll be able to look yourselves in the mirror. No more bundling neighbors off into collection vans."
Valentine had no more words in him. He caught his breath, waited. The three exchanged looks.
"I want all this written up on paper with some signatures," Vole said. "And I want us to keep all our light weapons and sidearms. It's got to say that too. Every man gets a choice: join you, surrender, or walk out."
"Save us the effort of finding guns for you," Valentine said.
* * * *
Valentine left a platoon of his company under Ediyak and Patel to organize the surrendered Quislings and returned across the river in a small boat, heartened. A barge would follow, laden with food, mostly preserved legworm meat rations marked "WHAM!-hi protein" in cheery yellow lettering. The barge would bring the wounded back, where the Evansville hospital could give them a bed and rest at last.
"That Last Chance feller payed us another call while you were across the river," Tiddle told him outside the headquarters tent as Valentine scraped riverbank mud from his boots.
"Said he was giving us one more chance to give up before turning us into charcoal briquettes."
