"I see."
"Do you? That unpleasantness with the baby the other night-yes, I heard about it. It upset you. If you want to be part of my bright future, you'll have to become used to that. Wheat and chaff, Le Sain. Wheat and chaff."
"You're a man of vision, sir. But sometimes the 'unfit' have hidden talents. Wasn't there a brilliant physicist named Hawking who only had use of his mouth? Van Gogh was crazy, Einstein's teachers thought he was retarded."
"You're well read for a bayou woodsman."
"I grew up in an old library, sir. Sort of a private collection. It started out with picture books and took off from there."
"You haven't been listening, Colonel. I've got the answers, so quit worrying about the questions. You see, we'll have courts, appeals. We'll control the flow. The Kurians won't care how the plumbing works as long as the water keeps flowing. In the end, we'll have the real power."
* * * *
Valentine left the Consul's office, hazy and flattened beneath a steamroller of a headache. He felt pressed flat by fatigue, as though the fading sun could pass through him as if he were a blood-smeared microscope slide. Consul Solon was persuasive. Valentine had to allow him that. He was also quite possibly a megalomaniac. It was a formidable psychological combination. No wonder Solon had come so far, so fast, in his quest for a federated empire of Kurian "states."
But like many ambitious conquerors, Solon had a problem. Would-be empire builders historically had two moments when even the smallest successful show of resistance might bring collapse. One was at the empire's birth, and the other was when it quit growing. Valentine doubted he'd live long enough to see the expansion stop.
That left turning Solon's Trans-Mississippi into a stillbirth.
New Columbia, March of the forty-eighth year of the Kurian Order: The Quislings and the Rats. Perhaps history has been overly unkind to Major Vidkun A. L. Quisling. He certainly loved his native Norway, but not so much that he let it get in the way of his ambition for political power through selling his good name and country to the Nazis. In that, at least, he is as dishonorable as his conscienceless namesakes. In the vocabulary of opprobrium against the Kurians, "Quisling" is considered perhaps the most obscene, for they thrive in the service of humanity's conquerors.
For those who spend time in the Kurian Zone, it is hard to be as bitter about the lower ranks. Armed service under the Kurians ensures life for the Quisling soldier and his family. It is hard to begrudge parents decent food to feed their children, a warm house and a few diversions. But some acquire a taste for the luxuries power brings and seek higher rank. They amass property, or gather art, or indulge their physical desires. Some become killers or sadists, exploring the freedom to taste that which is forbidden to others.
To the aid of the great ones with the power and money, there are always those willing to acquire their desires, legally or no. In New Columbia, those fulfilling, and profiting in, that service are the Rats. Not quite Quislings, but somewhere above the unfortunates living under the shadow of Kur, they live on the fringes of the law, their river boats giving them a freedom of movement and privacy that allows them to engage in lucrative smuggling. They have a strip on the north side of the Arkansas avoided by all save the river thugs, or those with the money to pay for a night in the dubious haunts of the riverfront. Most of them are clapped-together wooden establishments, already redolent of the unsavory activities taking place within. But there are a few substantial, finished buildings, complete with a touch of landscaping or a colorful coat of paint and expensive ironwork. Of all these, the most notorious -and expensive- is the Blue Dome.
* * * *
As daylight faded Valentine hitched a ride into town with a pickup full of workmen, ignoring a pair of lieutenants who were waiting for more suitable transport. As the truck shuddered into second gear, one pulled a leather flask from within his shirt, passed it to a buddy, and with a practiced squirt shot a stream of the concoction within into his mouth before handing it back to the owner. He held it out to Valentine.
The Cat was tempted. After several sleepless nights, he'd spent the day keying himself up to kill a hatful of high-ranking Quislings, and then perhaps himself, only to find the moment, or his nerve, failing to live up to his destructive plan.
"What is it?"
"Joy-juice," the bearded laborer who'd produced the sack said.-"Little wine, little homemade brandy, some fruit squeezings. Go on, Colonel, it's good stuff. Ain't blinded us yet."
Valentine shot some of the mixture into his throat, but didn't have the knack for stopping the stream yet. It splashed across his dress uniform shirt. He gulped it down. He'd had worse.
By the time the truck passed the markers at the bottom of the estate hill, they'd all had a round.
"How do you like working on the Residence?" Valentine asked.
"Good work," the man said, a few stray gray hairs on his head standing out against the black of his face and beard. "Ration book, and cash besides. No way I'm going back across the Missisisippi. There'll be good work for years. I can do electricity, plumbing, carpentry ..."
Valentine felt for Xray-Tango across the river, trying to build New Columbia using captured Free Territory men, while the skilled workers, imported at God-knows-what expense, went to Solon's Residence.
"You don't live on the site?"
"Naw. Town's more fun. We all got a real house, even a couple of Tex-Mex women in residence for the chores and such. It's a sweet setup, Colonel. There's a diner in town, bars. They're talking about getting a movie-house going."
"I'm due at a party tonight. What's good to eat at the Blue Dome?"
The laborer smiled at Valentine with tobacco-stained teeth. "Shit, Colonel, what do you take me for? Only time I seen the inside of that place was getting the toilets running. Most of us do odd jobs at night, and old Dom, he pays well. But if I tried to walk in as a customer ..."
"Exclusive?"
"Strictly for you officer-types and the rat-boat captains. What passes for society in these parts. But don't you worry; they'll treat you right, and the food'll stay down."
Valentine thought regretfully of the cigar box full of "Solon Scrip" back at his tent. He hadn't expected the day to end with dinner and drinks, so he'd left that morning with only a dollar or two tip money in his identification pouch.