"It's desert tan, and that's what I needed to see her about".
"Burb", she said, employing the local slang for "be right back", and went off toward a long building that looked like two separate pre-'22 houses that had been enlarged toward each other until they joined.
She returned alone, as though from a trip to the bathroom. "Meet her in the tomato stands. Far end of the garden".
Valentine found her crouched in the tomato patch under an oversized umbrella. She'd brought a blanket and smelled like freshly applied scent.
"Lousy night for this, you know, it's damp. You could have given...", she said.
"Sorry, it's not that", Valentine said, squatting down beside her, hedged by ripening tomatoes. "I do mean sorry. Gide, I'm getting out of here".
"Huh?" She sat up.
"This place is poison".
"What, sodomy and the lash back in the Holes too? And you an officer and all".
"No. They're fighting... they're squeezing the Kurians in Seattle by getting rid of the population. And I mean getting rid of, not relocating".
"Cheezus. Poor bastards".
"I've done what I needed to do here, sorta, and I'm getting away".
"David, you're creeping me out here. Those sheeple are going to get it one way or another. Might as well make sure the towers don't have 'em".
"Don't tell me you knew too?"
"No, you just told me now. But - fuck! - it makes sense. We're what they need, right? Why let the bloodsuckers have what they need ?"
Valentine felt his cheeks go hot. "You used to live under them. Your whole life, pretty much".
"Yeah, and I'd rather've been shot or hung or whatever they do than let some fuckin' Hisser get his hook into me".
If she could just see it, see it as it took place ...
"I'm getting out. I'm going to report to my contact. Maybe ... maybe change something, I dunno".
"Good luck with that. Me, I'm bucking for the regulars. There's a shooting tournament soon - you can win a monthlong trip up to the wilds for some hunting and training. It's a great way to get noticed". There was an edge to her voice, but she blinked hard, several times.
"Then this is good-bye", Valentine said. He gave her his Steyr. "Maybe this'll help you win the competition".
She cradled the gun, on her knees, the oversized uniform shirt making her look like a beautiful but well-armed garden gnome. "Can't you ... can't we sleep on it? Maybe it'll look different in the morning. We can talk. You're smart enough to see reason..."
The last thing Valentine wanted to do was kiss her, but he found it happening all on its own. "They'll come looking for me, and yours is the first bed they'll check. If they ask about the gyro, play dumb. I need to steal some high-octane gas off you".
"Let me put my boots back on", she said. A lace broke as she tied it. "Fuck! I'm supposed to be tough. I've been through... but you drop your guard just a little bit and it's like you never learned in the first place". She wiped her eyes, buckled her belt. "I'll help you get the cans over the fence".
ifeweavers: Discussions of the Lifeweavers easily grow heated, especially since they rarely present themselves to conduct their defense.
The schools of thought - or bull-session opinion - on the Lifeweavers fall into four groups, often blended and shaded into one another at the edges like paints on an artist's palette.
The mystics see the Lifeweavers as divine intervention on humanity's side, or evidence that whenever evil arises, karma will marshal good to the side of the righteous so that the universe might be kept in balance. Thus the Lifeweavers should be considered reverently, and their actions as a form of religious truth. When skeptics point out that raining holy destruction down on the Kurian Towers Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style would save a good deal of effort all around, the conversation usually shifts over to pure religion.
The utilitarians aren't interested in the motivations of the Lifeweavers, only their efficacy in aid of the struggle against Kur. Their opinion of the extraterrestrials rises and falls along with humanity's fortunes in war. They'd prefer a little less anxiety over how the Lifeweavers are using the naked ape, and a little more thought put into how mankind can make better use of the Lifeweavers. Another set of utilitarians calls for some kind of planetwide exodus (along the lines of the improbable story Valentine heard while passing over Utah) where the Lifeweavers guide mankind to another world that might be made impregnable against the Kurians.
The diplomatists wish to see the Lifeweavers exert themselves less in resisting the Kurians and more in arriving at a solution that would end the fratricide among both species. Visions of some sort of worldwide strike, where mankind nonviolently refuses to aid either side until they solve their
differences or take their war elsewhere, make for an attractive flight of Pegasus-winged pigs. But even among the diplomatists, arguments break out when specifics for a peaceful solution are brought up.