"Did you ever hurt her?"
"I... I can't remember exactly. Just kid stuff. She'd start swinging... but since she was littler I had to take it. Mom was always separating us. She'd sing to calm us down". Memories returned vague yet powerful blasts, Mother's leonine bronze face as she held him down, blood on her upper arm... "She'd sing to calm me down".
"Whoa there, Valentine, you're spiking again. And... it's gone. Remarkable. A ramp like that should lead to a redline, and you pull yourself back each time. Your father was... and there's another spike. Perhaps I should leave off your family for a bit".
"What about the... the touchstone?"
Wholmes tapped his thigh with a scar-covered hand. "We don't know".
"Does Sir?"
"Depends on the state of his mind when you speak to him. I understand at one time he was one of the Lifeweavers' leading lights on the study of humanity, followed our civilizations very closely. But he's old now, very old, and he's slipping".
"How did he end up here?"
"In the mess of 2022 he and a few other Lifeweavers revealed themselves to the government. They went to a 'secure area' at Mount Omega, but weren't of much practical help - meaning they couldn't deliver on the magic bullet everyone keeps thinking will get rid of the Kurians".
"There's stuff that helps. Like Quickwood".
"Somebody showed up with a couple seeds of that stuff. I've no idea where it's growing, big secret".
"So did the other Lifeweavers leave?"
"Seems like. I'm told they kept trying to pick up stakes and go elsewhere. They ended up breaking out somehow, oh, about the time I was born. All but Sir, and no one really knows what happened next. The other Lifeweavers had vanished. But I wonder. About the time they disappeared was when we first started hearing about this uber-Kurian in Seattle. Some people say they defected".
"Defected?"
"I think it's bunk myself. Adler says he thinks they were captured, and the old King of the Tower used them to increase his power".
Valentine felt exhausted, but he forced a few more words out. "How does he do that?"
"We're still working on figuring out how Bears can grow a new lung back, but not a hand.
Ever seen a grown-back Bear limb? Looks kinda like a flipper. Some of the guys have doctors tie the nub off so nothing weird grows back".
Valentine sagged back into his pillow.
"You need some food. I can tell. I'll get someone to bring you a tray".
* * *
He saw the dentist, a chattering type who covered all the discomfort with a steady stream of talk. He offered to cap his teeth with ground-down Reaper fangs, a popular option for Delta Group's Bears. One soldier, who had lost his upper lip and a good chunk of gum line, replaced all his uppers with Reaper fangs. Valentine declined.
Nights passed in weirdly vivid dreams, swirling mists that formed into wells and towers only to dissolve a moment later like a sand castle falling to a tide.
"Think I might get a little fresh air today?" he asked Wholmes, who was now dividing his time between Valentine and two fresh Bears in a cell next door. Valentine heard a good deal of screamed profanity, not quite as eloquent as that of the engineering crew on the old Thunderbolt, who had practically cursed in iambic pentameter as they overhauled an engine, but a good deal louder.
"It would do you good. Colonel Thunderbird will probably send a couple of men to keep an eye on you".
Valentine was interested to hear a rank used. In Delta Group ranks were for outsiders, rear-zone lurkers, or Pacific Command apparatchiks. Perhaps Wholmes didn't like Thunderbird.
When he went next door Valentine hopped out of bed, tried a few stretches and push-ups. His old leg wound gave him hardly a twinge, though usually a long spell in bed left it more sore than ever when he used it again.
But even that small amount of exercise left him ravenously hungry. He called for food and a nurse gave him a heaping plate of brown rice and dark beer, pushing it through a notch under the door.
He scraped his plate down to the last rice husk, listening to Wholmes encouraging the Bears to calm themselves by mantra. In this case, the old "Itsy-bitsy Spider" song every child picks up somehow or other. Hearing snarly voices talking about spiders traveling up and down waterspouts got him thinking...
* * *