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"I think the version I heard had Br'er Rabbit getting stuck. Br'er Fox wins one for a change," Valentine said.
"Well, either way the analogy is sound. Every time the Kurians try to attack Kentucky, they only get themselves stuck in worse trouble. They sent the Moondaggers in after us, and they perpetrated outrages against a people that tend to pick up their guns and let the lead fly until the point of honor is settled. Just when matters were beginning to calm down, they tried their gambit at the power plant. Now all of Kentucky is talking about that over their back fences and cracker barrels."
"I've yet to see a cracker barrel my whole time in Kentucky," Valentine said. Brother Mark had a city man's habit of cornpone cliches to make his points about the rural folks.
"Yes, yes, well, you know what I mean. But they're stuck in worse now. The bombing of Elizabethtown is another example. It united the delegates just as it chased them out of the city. Half were ready to break off and go home until the bombs started falling."
"And delivered them right into our lap," Valentine said.
"You're a victim of your own success, my daring Valentine," Brother Mark said. "All Elizabethtown spoke of the way you handled the power plant difficulty, and that smothered the idea of moving to Bowling Green or Danville. When planes hit the conference center unexpectedly again in a night raid, they decided to relocate in secret to Owensboro. We picked up two more legworm clans and several of the towns in the south. The only major hold-outs are the towns in the Cincinnati-Louisville-Lexington triangle, but you can hardly blame them, practically in the shadow of all those Kurian towers."
There was still a pretense of an assembly going on in Elizabethtown, complete with press notices. A radio broadcaster calling himself Dr. Samuel Johnson-Valentine had no idea if that was his real name or not, but he felt as though he should know the name-continued to report jumbled details and play recorded interviews allegedly obtained in Elizabethtown over what was probably Free Kentucky's only computer-telephone line hookup. Of course Kurian agents were hunting all around Elizabethtown for the site of the assembly, probably so it could be targeted for bombing again, but for now the decampment to Owensboro and the new swearing in of delegates at the high school basketball court had remained a secret.
They kept an "underground special" radio in Valentine's city headquarters for listening to Dr. Johnson's daily report. Valentine, who was right in Owensboro with the Assembly meeting only around the corner from him, knew more about how the debate was progressing from a transmitter in Elizabethtown than he did from local reports.
Odd world. But he'd noted that before.
There didn't seem to be much for his security team to do. In the end, his one great contribution was to take Pencil Boelnitz off the hands of the Assembly security team. He snuck into the Assembly once, was warned off, and was escorted out. When he got in again the very same day, the Assembly sergeant at arms demanded that he never see Boelnitz's classic profile again.
Valentine had the journalist put under guard and walked back to Fort Seng.
Even Brother Mark wouldn't update Valentine on the real progress of the debate. Valentine plied him with food and had Ediyak cut and style his hair-strange duty for someone with captain's bars, but she was as curious as Valentine about the progress of the debate and was willing to play sort of a Mata Hari with comb and straight razor.
"Sworn to secrecy, I'm afraid," Brother Mark said, wincing at the amount of gray exposed at his temples. "Everyone's afraid of an opinion getting back to the Kurians. There's a rule, until the actual Assembly vote, that none of the voting on motions and so on is to be recorded or reported."
"But Dr. Johnson's sources keep giving him a 'sense of the Assembly, ' " Ediyak said, applying a little Macassar oil (Owensboro style-probably cooking oil with a little dye).
"Dr. Johnson is not necessarily accurate in his reports," Brother Mark said. "Remember, he's also reporting that they're meeting in an 'undisclosed location outside Elizabethtown.' "
"Well, that's true after a fashion," Valentine said. "About eighty miles outside Elizabethtown."
"Why didn't they do this last summer?" Ediyak asked.
"Karas was operating on his own hook with his own allied clans," Brother Mark said. "But some of Kentucky supported him and started putting together a democratic assembly, on paper at least. The Assembly is almost feudal, going back to the traditions of the Magna Carta. This is a collection of powerful and influential men and women. Kentucky's nobility, you might say."
"You wouldn't know it by how they're spending in town," Ediyak said.
"They're afraid to show their faces. If you see a man hurrying down the street with his collar turned up and his hat pulled down, I guarantee that's an Assembly member."
Brother Mark was willing to brief them on general parameters of the debate. There were three broad factions in the Assembly, the Old Deal Caucus, the Militant Independents, and the All-Ins. According to Brother Mark, the future of Kentucky would be determined by which way the Militant Independents voted.
"Hard to say what'll tip the balance," Brother Mark said. "The Kurians seem to have finally figured out that threatening Kentucky is causing more problems than it's solved."
The debate was raging among the people as well. Dr. Johnson, when he had no news to report, read letters and notes from a few phone calls and even news reports from overseas. Of course there was no knowing just how much the good doctor was editorializ ing, but the vast majority of the messages he read were in favor of Kentucky declaring itself against the Kurians, though there were mixed feelings about whether they should join the United Free Republics or no.
The United Free Republics, as it turned out, suddenly developed a diplomatic interest in the situation in Kentucky.
A civilian of Valentine's acquaintance named Sime arrived with more than a dozen security men and aides dressed in the ordinary buttoned, collarless shirts and denims, corduroys, and mole-skins of the Kentuckians.
Valentine could only gape at the motorcade. He hadn't seen vehicles like this since driving Fran Paoli's big Lincoln out of the Ordnance on Halloween night. The one at the front was marred by a big brush cutter. The passenger van at the rear bore a medical red cross. All were excessively dirty, however.
Sime checked in at Valentine's security office on a blustery afternoon. At the moment, Valentine didn't have anything but oatmeal and hot apple cider to serve his elegant visitor.
Valentine wasn't sure how he felt about Sime. In some ways they were similar: in age, melting-pot heritage-Sime a dark chocolate and Valentine a native bronze-and general height and build. There were contrasts: Sime was smooth-skinned, Valentine scarred; Sime bald, Valentine long-haired. Valentine found Sime's usual scent of sandalwood and gentleman's talc appealing.
More important, every time Valentine became involved with Sime, Valentine seemed to end up in deeper difficulty. Now Sime was giving him the additional headache of keeping tabs on one of Southern Command's bigger political bugs.
Sime idled in the lobby, after requesting the Kentuckians for an opportunity to speak on behalf of Southern Command. Perhaps for power-play reasons of their own, the Assembly put him off for a day.
