They found some congealed pizza and warmed it in the oven.
"Want a milk?" Pyp asked. "I'm having one".
"Sure."
They sat. Pyp lifted his carton, held it up until Valentine did likewise. "A good man".
"A good man", Valentine repeated.
The milk didn't do much for the greasy pizza. Both men ate mechanically. Another pilot came in and turned up the volume on Passions.
"Crap, a repeat", he said to the reading man, but sat down to watch it anyway.
With some noise cover Valentine finally spoke.
"What the hell was that?"
"Fair question, son", Pyp said, taking some napkins from a metal dispenser and wiping his hands. "It's just how they keep us on our toes. I spent some time researching it, if you want to hear. Pretty clever. You interested in mass psychology?"
"I'll take the short version".
"I think it started in the early years of the Redemption", Pyp said, setting his elbows on the table and leaning close. "In the Southeastern United States the Kurians started using pretty, teenage girls as spokespeople every time they opened a new medical center or fair-housing block.
"They find some young folks useful. They're good at picking out an elite, grooming them. Pretty soon the young and the beautiful were acting as spokespeople, passing news, bad usually. Up in the Northeast they were using kids as informers. If they turned in a ring of renegades, saboteurs, terrorists, whatever, the kids got rewarded pretty handsomely, positions in the church and whatnot.
"Practice spread. Down South, where they were having a lot of trouble with the old faiths, they started having the kids of a 'purer generation' rooting out those who didn't have their minds right. Our leaders adopted it. Having a couple kids go around picking out the wild hairs focused the resentment somewheres besides up".
"How do they get the kids to do it?" Valentine asked. "Turning in your own brother, even if he hasn't committed a real crime".
"The real crimes take place up here", Pyp said, tapping his temple. "The kids are actually pretty good at picking out those who have some kind of resentment. Good antennae for picking out those who don't fit in".
"Or maybe less empathy", Valentine said.
"You have kids?"
Valentine shrugged. Depends on the definition.
"Me neither", Pyp said. "Not that there haven't been women who've tempted me to settle. No. Some little shit telling his teacher who visits me in my own home at night".
"Why the interest in the purification, then?"
Pyp looked around without moving his head - a skill most older people in the Kurian Zone possessed. He used the shiny side of the napkin dispenser like a rearview mirror. "I was one. One of them. Raised in a church orphanage. I led up the first purification in Aztlan.
Mind spotless as an Archon's bedsheets. Zealotry comes easy at that age. They used fine words on us, oh, yes. We were a new generation who'd tear down all the old injustices, the old prejudices, the corruption. But twenty years, passed and then it was our turn to be judged corrupt".
Valentine decided to probe: "Ever think about putting your planes in the air and blowing up some of those towers?"
"You're kidding, right? I thought you were a traveling man. You know the teams, I'm sure. We got it better here than ninety percent of the world".
"You're on tight rations".
"Ahh, that'll pass. Same thing happened back during the Lincoln-Grande War. They'll swap a couple hundred square miles and it'll be put right".
"They're having a tough time containing Texas, now that they're linked up with the Ozarks. Suppose Denver throws in with them, or with that fellow up in the far Northwest, what's-his..."
"They'll just drop some new virus on 'em and that'll be the end of it. Now, Argent, listen. You seem bright enough. I know the towers give you the twitch. They do everyone. But that doesn't mean you can't do well in the shade of 'em. Learn a vital skill. Purifications don't come about closer together than six or eight years, and I've got a good chance of getting Hornbreed sprung".
"Seems to me no purifications would be better".