"That kind of operation would take weeks, hundreds and hundreds of sorties. We'd land and get throttled by..."
"So you have thought about it", Valentine said.
Pyp drew back. "Don't think you're going to inform..."
"I'm no rat", Valentine said. "Just heard someone say something about, if given a gun, they'd be tempted to point it in the other direction".
"I've been on Internal Security work groups. Renegade pilots are rare, but it's happened. They have contingencies. I'm sure there are contingencies I don't even know about. I'll tell you this: There are tunnels
under this base, under the housing areas. Not sure what's down there. I don't want to find out".
A jet engine rattled the airfield with the noise of its passage.
"They have long memories", Pyp continued. "You do them enough damage, they'll get rid of you one way or another. Even if you flee to the rebels. Assuming you survive touchdown. They chop men like me up, one joint at a time".
Frustrated, Valentine sat back and pushed away the crumbs of the pizza. The man was just as right as he was wrong.
"Anyway", Pyp said. "Pressure's off now. I can arrange your trip north anytime".
"Speaking of valuable skills... I'd like a couple more flying lessons", Valentine said. "Equality gave me an ultralight, I think he called it". Was that just this morning? "I'd like to know more about it".
"So you did listen. Good man. I need to get out of here anyway. Think I'll take you up myself".
039;s Flying Circus, Yuma, Arizona: The old Colorado River steamboat stop grew up under three flags, Spanish, Mexican, and finally the Stars and Stripes after the territory was acquired in the Gadsden Purchase. Famous after the Civil War mostly for its territorial prison, it became an important military hub and storage center thanks to its dry climate, ideal for testing and storing hardware of various kinds, and the premier Marine Corps pilot training center.
Under the Aztlan Kur, an association of like-minded Kurians covering northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States called the "Confederation" by the locals, it's still a city that breeds pilots. The more mundane Aztlan Air Carriers shuttle Quisling dignitaries and churchmen from post to post and fly police patrols, but the much more colorful "Flying Circus" of airborne mercenaries, with their distinctive winged-rattlesnake insignia, is what people usually refer to when speaking of the fliers of the Southwest.
In typical Kurian fashion Pyp's Flying Circus is divided into three centers for better control. Most of the fliers and their families live in Yuma, in well-guarded gated communities. Their amenities are so plentiful that it's hard to recognize them as hostages to their good behavior. Airplane storage and maintenance is located at the famous aircraft graveyard at the old Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, now just called "Lucky Field" by the ground staff, thanks to the job security it affords, and "DM" by the fliers. Pyp's operational headquarters is in Tempe, where orders are received from the Kurians and planes are armed and staged for their various missions. No one group of officers, and no one Kurian, really commands the Circus, though all think of their titular figurehead commander as the unit's boss.
There's an air of ringmaster flamboyance to their beloved "Pyp". Patrick Yenez-Powell is the sort of man who stands out in a crowd, not always an advantage that leads to survival in the Kurian Order. With his round-brimmed, blacky felt Navajo hat, river-guide sandals, gold earring and necklaces, often grease-stained denim flight suit, and elaborately beaded shoulder rig for his ivory-handled peacemaker, he's easy to pick out in a crowd. Though on the ugly side of fifty, he still moves with a spring in his step, and he's hard to follow, as he changes direction the instant he spots anything from flaking paint to litter to a misplaced tool; an adjutant usually carries a bag for such trash that blows across Pyp's transom, which will then be upended on some unfortunate lieutenant's desk.
David Valentine met the mind behind the odd wardrobe and energetic body on a hot April afternoon in Yuma.
* * *
The long trip, begun in the noisy vibration of the helicopter, was briefly suspended at a refueling stop at a service strip, where they shoveled down a quick meal of eggs and sausage. After breakfast they were both dusted with some kind of disinfectant/insecticide. Then it was back in the beater until another landing at the sprawling air base in Tucson, where they switched to a tiny, cramped prop plane for the final leg, which left Valentine tired and disoriented. Other than his astonishment over the distance they'd traveled in just a few hours, he also felt nauseous with fatigue.
He wanted cool and darkness when they arrived at Yuma. The soldiers threw their dunnage in a propane-powered flatbed and whisked Hornbreed, Valentine, and the medic with a clipboard full of notes off to a white building with the traditional red cross painted on its roof and walls. Valentine surrendered his weapons again to a pair of desert-camouflaged men with sidearms and blue-banded helmets. Hornbreed whispered into one of the military policemen's ears, but said little else until they reached the triage room, where he refused any attention until the MPs showed up again and looped a laminated ID card around Valentine's neck. Then Hornbreed allowed himself
to be put in a wheelchair and taken to an operating room.
Valentine fell asleep on the paper-covered table of an examining room. A thin woman who looked like a hat tree in a lab coat, stethoscope over her shoulder, woke him and checked his eyes, lymph nodes, pulse, and temperature. She asked him how he felt and where he'd traveled in the last month and he answered honestly.
"Drink lots of water", she advised, and turned on the tap in the washbasin. "If you want to get cleaned up, you can use the showers in 'E' corridor - just follow the signs. You can read, right? Wear your ID at all times, even in the shower. There's a staff commissary in that wing too - eat a couple of bananas". She signed a piece of paper and handed it to him. "You're on unlimited rations for three days, so enjoy. Don't skimp on the veggies".
She went to an intercom by the door. "Room three is cleared", she said.
"What about Equality?" Valentine asked.
"Wing Leader Hornbreed's doing fine. He's staying here for observation overnight. Check with the base security by the admitting door and they'll find you a bunk. You'll probably be here until we release the wing leader".
Valentine cleaned himself up using the washbasin, and felt better but still bleary when he presented himself to a potbellied example of base security. They looked him over as though wanting to arrest him on general principles, but eventually informed him that his reward was being arranged.
"Old Pyp's on the way", the corporal explained. "He wants to see you and the wing leader".
Valentine wondered if there was a "Young Pyp", or if the phrase, with its poetic evocation of Tempus fugit, indicated some measure of endearment.
"Mind if I grab a meal first?"