"This is a piece of Ehro, home planet of the Dau'ar".
Valentine felt invigorated. "I thought they came from Kur. Someone told me it was a dry, almost lifeless place".
"A castle under siege runs out of even rats eventually. But Ehro is where they evolved, I'm told. That oxygen's nice, isn't it?"
"I wish they'd go back to it".
"They can't, but then you know that, I expect. We're just a part of a bigger, older war. I worry sometimes that the Dau'weem will apply the same strategy to our planet that Adler does to the suburbs".
Something translucent buzzed by on pink wings. "They'd never do that".
"Remember what I told you the other night about nevers? I never wanted the role of interlocutor. I decided to take what they'd hand me
and go out East, build an academic ivory town and seal myself into it. But you'd be surprised, once you learn the true history of the world, just what parasites those things that laughably call themselves 'Lifeweavers' are. I've got a book or two I could loan you".
"I've seen the propaganda. Your master's the real parasite. Black bloody leeches. Worse than leeches, leeches at least leave the host alive. The Lifeweavers are interested in conserving life, not devouring it".
"Tell that to Silvers. He says a disease killed most of his people back home. They didn't want the Grogs used to conquer any more worlds".
"Not every plague has a purpose", Valentine said. "Seems just as likely your own masters would use a tactic to get them to quit their lands, force them to hitch up with Kur to find healthy land on another planet".
"Kur hates purposeless death".
"I can agree with you on that".
Silas sighed. "They've accumulated wisdom we can't even guess at in their long years. They're going to guide us up to heights we'd never reach on our own".
"I've had enough of this view. And the heights. I want to go to work".
Silas looked at his heavy gold watch. "Good. You'll start tomorrow".
Grog troops: An easy path to promotion and power for any human with a military background is to volunteer to serve as an Officer of Xeno Forces. High ran f( and its powers and privileges come quickly to volunteers for the OXFs, but at the cost of a social stigma. Mixing with nonhumans leaves OXFs in a strange netherworld, secretly despised by those they fight for and openly by those they fight against.
Though the rumors of bestial mating rituals and cannibalism are unfounded, and can usually be traced back to Freehold propaganda or melodramatic fictionalizations, there's no denying that OXF attract their share of bad apples. Men who can't win promotion or fit in elsewhere sign up for OXF training, where standards are looser and faults overlooked.
Of all the odd troops OXF have led - or tried to lead - the actions involving Big Mouths evolve the most consistently chilling accounts. Sometimes the only evidence of one of their attacks is a strong fishy odor, bloodstains, and a few bitten-off heads, hands, and feet missed after the seaside scrum and feed. Almost ungovernable, and known to turn on their OXF leaders in victory, defeat, or starvation, they are perhaps the most bloodthirsty Grogs to fight or lead.
Yet it was these dangerous oddities that David Valentine led into one of the most daring actions of his career.
* * *
Valentine stood on the steady deck of the old Japanese factory-fishing ship, renamed the Redeye Run, in its permanent Puget Sound moorings in the east passage around Vashon Island and tried not to barf.
He'd smelled rotten fish before. He'd smelled sewage before. If it was possible to mix the two and come up with a third odor worse than the two component parts, the Big Mouths had discovered it in their hovels within the hulk.
He lifted his gaze from the open cargo hatches of the ship and looked at Vashon Island with its herds of sheep. The Big Mouths, when they wanted a change from seafood and crustaceans, had the run of the flat, muddy island and its flocks, stranded there for that purpose.
"Why this heap of junk?" Valentine asked.
"Mostly because the freezers still work", Finn Troyd said. Calling him "Finnegan" was a gilt-edged invitation to a punch in the mouth, and judging from the behavior of the OXFs on the ship, that was the civilized option. "You have to hand it to the Japs - they build industrial equipment to last. We've got a big supply of frozen emergency food. The last thing you want to do is run out of rations when you're handling Big Mouths".
Valentine nodded.
"Ready to go down and meet the gang?"
"I guess I'm dressed for it". Valentine, with the titular rank of captain, didn't bother with "sir's" - no one in the OXFs did.
They both wore old woolen pants and sweaters, covered by a layer of waterproof overalls and thick green plastic boots.