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"None of my business. I wonder if Jenny's got a little Bear in her-or a lot. Some of the Bears get very randy after a fight."
"I've heard that," Lambert said.
"Whatever Moira had in her blood might have been passed to her daughter."
Lambert opened a little gear bag and began to clean the submachine gun. Valentine did the same with his rifle.
"But Bear parents don't always pass on their tendencies, I'm told," Lambert said. "Sometimes the kid's just a little feistier than most or heals bumps and bruises faster. Also, she's a girl. Don't female Bear fetuses miscarry?"
"I was told that it's adult women who tend to have heart attacks or strokes when the Lifeweavers try to turn them Bear," Valentine said. "I don't know about the children."
"Southern Command is still doing that breeding program. Because there are so few Lifeweavers."
Valentine nodded. He'd been part of that breeding program. Strange stuff. "I haven't spoken to one in ages."
"Knowingly, anyway. They're operating in secret these days, with so many Kurian agents around."
Boat trips leave you a lot of time to think. As Valentine played with his new rifle's butt and balance, trying to decide if he should add another inch to the butt, he thought about his friend.
Old Will. Well, not that old; he had a decade on Valentine at most, whatever his personnel file said. In the Kurian Zone you always falsified your birth date whenever you had the chance. Valentine pictured Styachowski running her quick fingers through Post's salt-and-pepper hair. So there was some hot blood beneath that cool countenance.
"Patrol boat signaling to board," the ship's speaker announced, breaking in on his thoughts.
Mantilla had warned all of them to expect this. The Southern Command soldiers were to go down and wait in the engine room.
Valentine filed down behind the rest of the hatchet men, new rifle and an ammunition vest ready-just in case.
Lambert hurried to catch up to him. "Mantilla wants us ready to go up top. He says he doesn't know this patrol boat. There may be a problem."
Valentine wished there was time to go forward into the cargo barge and get some of the explosives. No time.
He warned the young doctor and the old nurse to be ready, just in case, and had the hatchet men arm themselves and wait in the engine room. Orders given, he went up to the cabin deck just under the bridge. The portholes were a good size for shooting.
Valentine took a look at the patrol boat. Valentine didn't see the usual blue-white streamer of the Mississippi's river patrol, so he suspected it was from one of the Kurian towns. Maybe they were in search of bribes. But the craft had official-looking lights. It was a low, boxy craft and looked like it had a crew of three-sort of a brown-water tow truck.
He had a height advantage from the cabin deck.
The patrol craft suddenly sprouted a machine gun from its roof. The barrel turned to cover the bridge.
Valentine tipped a bunk and shoved it against the porthole wall. He didn't do anything as stupid as shoving the barrel out the window; he just kept watch.
The boat pulled up and lines were passed.
Valentine, flattening himself against the wall beside the porthole, watched two men and a dog come on board. The senior officer, judging from the stars on his shoulders, kept his hand on his pistol as he came aboard. He had a squinty, suspicious look about him, like an old storekeeper watching kids pick over candy tubs.
Captain Mantilla came down to greet them. The older of the two men looked shocked, perhaps at the captain's slovenly appearance. Suddenly, the officer threw out his arms and embraced Mantilla like a long-lost brother.
Valentine couldn't understand it, but it seemed like the crisis had passed. He watched the search team go forward.
He wrapped the gun in a blanket and stowed it and the ammunition vest in a locker. He didn't need to change clothes; like the rest of the passengers, he'd been wearing crew overalls so he could move around on deck freely without drawing attention from the riverbank.
Curious, he went out to the rail on the port side and watched Mantilla with the search team. They were doing a good deal of animated talking and very little searching. Even the dog looked bored and relaxed, sitting and gazing up at the humans, panting.
The patrolmen debarked. Valentine waited for the inevitable bribe to pass down to the senior officer, but a square bottle full of amber-colored liquor passed up to Mantilla instead.
The patrol craft untied and proceeded downriver. Mantilla's tug gunned into life.
As it turned out, they were boarded from the other side of the river an hour's slow progress from where they had met the patrol boat.
