"He's in Boneyard, with his mother and Doc keeping an eye on him," Valentine said. "At the moment he's not symptomatic, not even trembling, so the iodine may have got it or Southern Command's last year's vaccination may work against this strain. In any case, they'll keep him sedated. As for rescues, if we lose a vehicle, we'll travel overloaded and chance the fine."
One or two got the joke and laughed.
"One more thing: Let's break out the winter camouflage. We're still soldiers, and we still have eyes in the sky watching us and enemies to fight."
The winter camouflage was mostly old bedsheets and fancy table-cloths cut into ponchos, and extra felt that could be wrapped around your shins and tied with twine to create extrawarm gaiters.
Valentine changed the route order. Bushmaster would go first in order to clear drifts. Rover would follow, and then Boneyard and Chuckwagon brought up the rear. The two Southern Command Bears would ride in the Chuckwagon, as they'd most likely be attacked from the rear by ravies running on foot-Valentine had never heard of a ravie driving.
They wouldn't use the motorcycles at all, not with the snow and this strain of ravies that could leap the way they'd seen at the mill gate. Longshot volunteered to ride in the open atop Bushmaster so she could stand up and look over drifts, but Valentine told her to keep warm out of the wind.
So they pulled out. Valentine chalked a rough mile marker of empty circles on one of the roof struts of Rover. Every ten miles, he'd mark one off.
As they pulled out of Grand Junction and made it back to the old federal highway, he filled in the first of the twelve circles.
Three circles filled.
With room in Rover thanks to Mrs. O'Coombe being in Boneyard, Brother Mark now rode shotgun and Boelnitz, desirous of keeping away from Stuck, crammed himself into the backmost seat. Valentine sat behind Habanero so he could consult his maps and speak into the driver's ear, Duvalier next to him.
The snowfall had stopped, but the wind still threw up enough snow to make visibility bad and kept the convoy to less than five miles an hour.
The heavy cloud cover made for gloomy thoughts.
"Anything from the A-o-K on the radio?" Valentine asked as Habanero worked buttons to tune it.
"No, sir. Got some CB, just some lady looking for her man. Says she's scared."
"Take her position and tell her we'll report her if we can get in touch with anyone," Valentine said.
While Habanero spoke on the radio, Duvalier nudged in closer to him.
"I wonder if this is it for Kentucky, then. How widespread is the virus, do you think? Think they hit the Republics too?" Duvalier asked.
"If it's a tough new strain, seems a waste not to do as much damage as you can. Either way, Southern Command needs to know it's here. Any luck with the radio?" Valentine asked Habanero.
"Maybe atmospherics are just bad," Habanero said.
"What do you mean, if this is it?" Brother Mark said, balling his fists on the dash. "Kentucky survived the ravies plague in 2022 when nobody knew what was happening. They'll survive this. People are more prepared for this sort of crisis now."
Valentine looked at mile markers on the truck top. "Someone told me once that the Kurians were handling both sides of this war, and if they ever became really worried about us, they'd just wipe us out."
Brother Mark sighed. "Of all people, Valentine, I'm surprised you would consider such nonsense. Why would they want the Freeholds? We run guns into the Kurian Zones, broadcast news, and give people a safe place to run to, if they get away. They can't want that."
"I don't know," Valentine said. "Having a war going on can be handy. You can blame shortages on it, deaths, tell folks that the reason the days of milk and honey are a long way off is because there's a war to be won first. And its a convenient place to send ambitious, restive men who might otherwise challenge Kur."
Brother Mark locked his knuckles against each other. "I don't think so. Unless they are keeping it even from the Church. I rose fairly high before my soul fought back against my interest, and many times I handled communications for my Archon. I saw nothing to indicate that was true."
"Maybe they wouldn't trust such an important detail to written communications."
"There are five-year plenaries attended by a majority of Archons from around the world. None but the Archons attend. They depart with masses of facts and figures-not that the thick binders of data do them much good; you cannot trust the statistics of a functionary whose life depends on pleasing the boss with the totals in a report. But when the Archons return, there are sometimes a few promotions or a new Church construction project-ordinary activities."
"I wouldn't mind dropping in on one of those and changing the agenda," Valentine said. He glanced at his map again. Two more miles and he could fill in another circle. "Where are they held?"
"The location is held secret until the last minute. Probably because of vigorous, ambitious young men such as yourself with similar ideas."
Valentine always smiled inside at Brother Mark's description of him as a wet-behind-the-ears kid.
"Let me see. . . . Since I entered the Church it has been held at Paris, Cairo, Bahrain, Rome, and Rio de Janeiro. Not that there aren't important churchmen from Indonesia or middle Africa or the subcontinent; I believe the Archons simply like to see a few sights and shop."