They spoke inside a sentry checkpoint just outside the headquarters, a little prefabricated set of roof and three walls built like an outhouse and just as cozy. Valentine didn't want his presence known to the men, so he waited until he saw a familiar face and hailed him from cover. He in turn got LeHavre.
"He liked to tour the nurseries a lot, where the babies grabbed in the Action Group raids would be taken. Seems like a crib death or two struck now and then. Some staff got suspicious at an Ellensburg orphanage and they all were 'disappeared.' "
"He had to have some help somewhere".
"There's a Kurian Tower out by the Grand Coulee Dam that might have been visited too. He kept going out that way to survey it with an eye toward taking the power station, but conditions never seemed right for him to give the go-ahead".
"On the inside too".
"I hope most of them took it in the neck at the Outlook".
"There's a witch hunt - maybe it should be called a wizard hunt, at that - going on right now. I hope Pacific Command doesn't fall apart again. Thunderbird and his Bears are all tainted by this".
Interesting as the political fallout was, Valentine's time was limited. "Speaking of Thunderbird's Bears, if you think a successful action would help restore things here, I have an idea or two along those lines. There's a dreary party being planned in my honor and I'd like to see it crashed. But you'll have to get the Resistance Network in Seattle and the Bears to work together. That's going to take a little diplomacy. One more thing. What are the chances of you helping me write a proposal that'll get a scout/sniper named Gide temporarily seconded to the PeaBees?"
"Can do", LeHavre said, and gave one of his dashing pirate-quarterdeck salutes.
* * *
Two weeks later, with plenty of notice about the date and time, Valentine stood tall on the field of honor.
Seattle's remade downtown around him, thanks to tricks of optics played on someone standing on the plaza, seemed to be bowing to the Seattle demigod's tower. The strange, clamshell-like growth extending from the central pillars hung in the sky as though suspended by invisible wires, linked to the pillars by joins so narrow they seemed to defy principles of engineering. No cantilevering, no braces, no suspension, assisted the mollusklike housings of Seattle's Kurians.
And above all the rest, a vast jellyfish-like shape, faintly luminescent like dying phosphors, squatted the home of the demigod, challenging even Mount Rainier for dominance of the horizon.
Madness, madness, madness. But Valentine wanted the ring. By blood and thundering rapids, it was his.
Despite the rain, the watching crowds seemed larger than usual.
Silas stood at his side, his elegant camel-hair coat taking the drizzle as if confident that it would be properly dried and pressed after doing its duty.
"Good crowd today, despite the cold. The so-called Radio Free Northwest reported the death of 'one of the leading minds of the Resistance,' " Silas said. "Our broadcasts have been reading locations and numbers of people killed".
"I wonder which epitaph he'd prefer", Valentine asked.
"Every lumberjack and longshoreman's ready to celebrate, it seems. Watch the stairs - they can get icy when it rains in this kind of cold", Silas advised.
"Don't let the echo from the loudspeakers throw you off either", Miss L. said, behind the pair of them. "Just do your speech".
Valentine had rehearsed it twice with Silas the night before. Not
much longer than the Gettysburg Address, it would "get the job done", according to the mouthpiece. Valentine checked the words on the little laminated index card one more time.
I stand here, an ordinary man with extraordinary purpose. Today I've been honored with the highest award our saviors can give. But in the end, the sacrifice and struggle that went with winning this ring are meaningless compared to the service Kur has done for us. Kur bestows, with a parental hand that heals more than it hurts, a gift for those with the eyes to see, the new, universal creed that we aspire to: a united human family in harmony with itself and the planet it lives upon, stronger, healthier, happier in our new purpose. Giving up selfishness, I found plenty. Giving up knowledge, I found wisdom. Giving up independence, I found freedom. I thank Kur, not only for myself, but for all mankind.
It had helped him take his mind off the coming ceremony. If he gave the speech he wanted, he would most likely end up looking like a fool for the few brief seconds of his remaining, violently concluded life.
Gears worked and the scaffolding rose and unfolded itself into place, a steel skeleton animated by hidden cables and counterweights. A banner hung from the central walkway.
SEATTLE IS THE FUTURE
At a nudge from Silas, Valentine crossed the plaza. The two Reapers at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in long dark robes like judges and wide-brimmed Pilgrim hats to keep off the rain, parted and pointed with their hands facing the tower up the golden stairs. Valentine wondered if anyone was to be marched up the black stairs... He or she might just earn a reprieve.
If they showed.
Otherwise, he'd have to give Silas' speech. That would be quite a memento for the newsreels. David Valentine, former Resistance hero, praising the Kurians.
Valentine climbed the steps toward the multifaceted blister, saw a Reaper inside, something else, looming behind, like an octopus perched on a leather umbrella.