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“Have you produced your own cream?”
“Was that a dirty joke? You are full of surprises, friend.”
His use of the word “friend” both pleased and frustrated me. I was pleased that he considered me such, but frustrated at the deception. I prefer to be open and honest with both friends and enemies.
“I meant the next generation. You’re old enough to have started a family.”
“Physically, yes. But I’d like to be a little more established. Sure, the Church can always hook me up with some homemaker, but it would mean different work and I want to make my mark. Not that I don’t enjoy a night’s churning.”
I wondered, but I was no judge of human desirability any more than this fellow would know that most of the males of my kind looked for long, delicate fingers, silky arm hair, and eye size as measures of classical attraction. In the more earthy terms of a pure rut, a nice wishbone shape to the small of the back and legs will catch my eye, and that in turn brings up memories of my mate and family, so I will return to my camp-side meal with Longliner.
“Did you get the usual set of enhancements?” I asked. It was a shot in the dark, but I’d often heard that the Kurians change their agents just as the Lifeweavers helping the resistance “tune up” their Wolves, Cats, and Bears.
“I’ve only had the first course. There were six of us, lined up in long white shirts, with the Archon himself giving us a sermon and then performing the ritual. He gave me something that looked like a marble. Rougher surface on the tongue. He said it would taste like candy, but it reminded me of pine-tar soap.
“I swallowed it. It gave me a headache. A headache I couldn’t have thought possible. If I’d had a gun, I might have shot myself.”
I wondered if he’d just received a sugar pill. When I was on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana in the sixties, the Gray One details I’d led had sometimes gone turtle hunting for our human officers’ soup pot. I’d watched a few hatchings of sea turtles and seen the mad scramble of the little green turtles for the safety of the surf, harried the whole way by birds, crabs, and even dogs. The Kurian Order sometimes reminded me of that process—they released masses of fresh-faced recruits into the wild, and then sifted the best of what survived for advancement.
“So what’s next?” Longliner asked.
“I need a better weapon,” I said. “I’ve an idea of where to get one.”
GETTING MY GUN
The church at the Youth Vanguard academy was much as I remembered it, save that it was dark, with a ceiling that vanished in shadow, taking much of the hanging banners with it.
Longliner and I crept in through the open front door. A pile of blankets, each with some kind of alarm tag on it that would sound if one tried to remove it from the church, lay neatly folded in a basket, and there were a few travellers slumbering in the pews.
The rifle was still in its locked glass case, roughly at the height of a coffin on display. I should have just smashed the glass, grabbed it, and run. But the glass of the case was so perfect, not a sign of a ripple or a bubble, glass the quality of which you rarely see in anything post-2022 . . . I couldn’t bring myself to destroy such perfection. Besides, I did not want to awaken those slumbering in the pews.
So I settled down on my back and worked the underside of the case with the heaviest screwdriver I had.
Creeeek! and a lance of light divided the church. “Who’s there?”
The old drill sergeant followed the muzzle of his pistol through the door leading to the church school with a quick step so as not to frame himself in the light of the hallway.
Ahh, the old fellow would be prowling the halls.
I attracted Longliner’s attention and pointed him toward the old fellow. “Pull rank if you must,” I muttered. “Just don’t make any threats we can’t carry out.”
Longliner approached him with hands up and they were soon engaged in an animated conversation. The young man had talent. I could see why the Church chose him.
Now that I held it in my hands, I could truly appreciate the care that had gone into its creation. At the core of the rifle was an old .50 caliber sniper weapon. A small amount of metal had been filed away and a substantial amount of wood added, along with an elaborately braided leather sling. I could still see a few hairs knotted into the sling—whoever had used this in action had collected human scalps.
Wood had been added to the stock to make it better fit a Grog-sized frame. The sling had the short strap/long strap arrangement with an extra ring in the middle so it could be used as an aiming aid as well as a carry.
The original optics had been removed and replaced by a forward-mounted “scout sight.” It was about the size of a pocket monocular. It allowed you to scan with your eyes, or use the rifle’s iron sights for quick firing. If you chose to use the 4x magnification, you simply looked down the side of the barrel. The lens was big enough that you didn’t have to press your eye to it.
Next, I had to acquire some .50 shells. I had a fairly good idea of where to do that.
It was a cool summer night, cloudy, and I suspected it would rain lightly. The air had that wet smell.
The fire station was about three-quarters garage. The rest was a two-story building with a little observation and training tower supporting the radio mast.
The fire stations buttoned up tight at night, especially this one. I had heard someone had thrown a bunch of dynamite through an open second-story window—one of the firemen had been able to pop the detonating caps off the fuse before it exploded.
For my weapons I chose my old short-handled shovel. I tied a backup knife around my neck with a leather thong.
