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* * * *
They met Supervisor Felshtinsky out front. He had a tall, muscular assistant and rode in an electric golf cart.
Valentine had never seen a golf cart fitted out with a gun rack. A beautiful over/under shotgun rested in its locks, and Felshtinsky had flying ducks painted on the back of the low-riding vehicle. Its rear was filled with plastic file folders.
"You'll excuse me not standing," Felshtinsky said as he turned in his seat to shake their hands. He looked relaxed and tan in a polo shirt. "I've been on wheels since 'fifty-eight."
He had a strong grip and heavy shoulder muscles. Valentine guessed he lifted weights; you didn't get muscles like that just dragging your body around. Valentine felt humbled and apologetic, as he always did when meeting someone who'd lost a piece of themselves.
"Hop in back there. I'll give you a tour."
As they drove around to the cart's smooth, almost silent engine whine, Felshtinsky told them about his post. He was proud of his operation. He had close to four thousand people under his charge, temporary residents acclimating to the Free Territory, or permanents who'd settled around Liberty.
"We've got as many teachers here as Little Rock or Dallas," Felshtinsky said.
"How long do they stay?" Valentine asked.
"Depends. Sometimes a young couple meets up here, decides to get married and start fresh, and leaves right away. We get some not much smarter than a well-trained horse. They count on their fingers and can recite a few Church verses about flushing only once a day. Try learning to write at forty-three."
Felshtinsky explained how all the residents earned "Liberty bucks" doing training. Liberty bucks could buy them furniture and appliances for their homes or beers at the camp's bowling alley, and most of the merchants in town let them use the scrip to buy from a limited selection of toiletries and merchandise provided by Southern Command's warehouses at a discount.
They passed the first wire Valentine had seen. It was ordinary fencing, and a military policeman with a pistol stood in a guardhouse at a gate.
The tightly packed trailers inside the fence looked too numerous for a prison compound, unless the residents of Liberty were unusually lawless.
"What's that?"
"That's for Quislings. They stay there until they're cleared by Southern Command. They're worried about another big sabotage outburst, like just before Solon showed up, so they make sure."
Valentine saw one of the residents pushing a wheelbarrow with a yellow plastic water keg in it. He wore that alternate-color scheme Valentine had seen here and there.
They drove around the hospital and the ethanol plant, the rice mill and the cane fields.
Arrowheads of ducks and geese flew overhead.
"Lots of waterfowl in this part of Arkansas," Felshtinsky said. "If you want to get up early and go for a duck, I've got the best blind in the county. Privileges of rank."
"Sergeant Major?" Valentine asked Patel.
"I would like that. If I could have the loan of a birding gun. What about you, sir?"
"I'll spend the morning going over the printouts. Assuming they showed up and we don't have to sic the Hammer on our host's staff."
* * * *
Everything about the next day, save for Patel's ducks-simmered in a homemade korma sauce all afternoon in their tiny cabin oven and served over (what else?) rice-disappointed.
Their first order of business, after dressing the morning ducks, was to check out Liberty's militia training camp. The young men and women were sad specimens, mostly undersized, undertrained, and undereducated. Valentine had never seen so many hollow chests, flat feet, bad eyes, and rickety knees.
"To think these are the ones with the ability to make it out," Patel said.
They stopped by the rifle range and saw a bored Southern Command corporal watching a couple of men in the two-tone Quisling fatigues training some kids to shoot.
"Hold it tight into your shoulder," one said, patting a recruit on the back. "It's not going to hurt you, 'less you hold it like a snake that's gonna bite."
"Kur's sake, keep your damn eyes open and on target when you pull the trigger," his companion bawled.
"Let me see that gun, um . . .," Patel said.
