"If I'd known you weren't on the pill", Valentine said. "Dumb chance to take last night".
"It's a chance, all right", she said.
"I'm used to riddles from the Lifeweavers, or in the Kurian Zone. But not from fellow Cats".
Her shoulders sagged. "Can we go somewhere and talk?"
* * *
All the music and liveliness had vanished from the bar. Its door had been torn from the hinges. One of the bartender girls scrubbed a stain on the floor, and the other's eyes were downcast and red.
They had free Lemonclear, a sour concoction posing as lemonade, thanks to the soldiers. Southern Command's forces were departing, the bikers down the road and the horsemen cross-country. Before they'd left they'd put tabs of Lemonclear in five-gallon plastic jugs of the local water. The medicine both killed bacteria and water parasites and gave it a mild flavor.
They found a quiet corner out of hearing of the bartenders. Valentine skipped the polite talk. "Get it out. You'll feel better".
Jules' hands went to her kneecaps. "It's like this. You know we can't find the Lifeweavers, right?"
"I've heard rumors", Valentine said. No reason for her to know his mission.
"I feel like a creep. We should have just told you, but Ali said you'd have more fun the other way".
She expected a "Told me what?" so Valentine offered it.
"It's my way of, hopefully, becoming a Cat. I know the Lifeweavers do something to us, change our physical makeup somehow. They trigger a switch that's already inside us. That's the way it was explained to me, anyway".
"I don't think anyone really knows", Valentine said.
"Like blood from Bears, a transfusion heals stuff, practically makes a miracle. Or the way a couple of Wolves have sex and their baby turns
out able to smell really well. Seems like if Southern Command wants more Hunters, it's up to the Hunters to make them".
Jesus, we're being bred like foxhounds, Valentine thought.
"There's also the Dulcimet effect", Jules said.
"I've never heard of that", Valentine said.
"This doc, Dulcimet, with the Miskatonic discovered it. He did this study on a Cat from the Yazoo Delta who got a couple of teenage girls pregnant. Women make better Cats, generally, just like men make better Bears. It turns out that when a woman is carrying a Hunter's baby, sometimes it has an effect on the mother, since she and the baby sort of exchange blood while she's carrying. That's the Dulcimet effect".
"So the idea is, I get you pregnant, maybe you turn Cat, and Southern Command gets another potential Hunter in nine months. What do they do with the baby?"
"Secret. They have to guard them from the Kurians".
Valentine sighed. At least he'd had a choice when he became a Wolf. Or had he?
"Anyway", she continued. "There are only a couple of male Cats. They've been looking for you for a while now, hoping that you'd get one of the volunteers pregnant".
She laid the tiniest extra stress on the word "volunteer".
"Was it real volunteering, or are you being a good soldier?" Valentine asked.
"Oh, it was real. Ali had me meet Stykes ... er, Major Styachowski. She painted quite a picture. Also, your rendezvous here was right for my cycle. They're keeping close track of that".
"I suppose they have to", Valentine said, feeling a bit like the butt of a cosmic joke.
"It's been almost a day. Maybe we should give it another go. The more sperm, the better".
They tried again. But Duvalier had been right: Knowing took a lot of the fun out of it.