"Excuse me, sir," Glass said. "I was involved in the offensive that was supposed to relieve them Groggies. Never got off the ground what with the setbacks in Kansas. They said there were upwards of twenty thousand in the city alone, something like another two thousand outside it."
"I've been told the Iowans finally took Omaha back," Valentine said.
"I'll look into it," Lambert said. "They're an awful long way from here, and there's no direct route across friendly country."
"What about the Kentuckians?" Patel asked. "How would they feel about nonhuman neighbors setting up? Nothing against you personally, of course, you're a rare Grog. Most of 'em are unneighborly. Having a colony just around the bend of the river could cause bad blood, between the head-hunting and cattle raids."
Ahn-Kha's ears flattened. "Golden Ones don't rise by being thieves or trophyteers, Mr. Patel. I would not judge you by the behavior of a silverback gorilla."
"Brother Mark and Major Valentine have the best connections with the Army of Kentucky," Lambert said, smothering the incipient argument. "What's your assessment?"
All eyes turned to Valentine. "Hard to say," he finally said. "I think they'd welcome any allies. They're a flexible bunch. I think they'd adapt. Out of all of North America, as far as I know, they're the only ones who made use of legworms. Built a whole culture around them over the years. The Golden Ones are smart, tough, and reasonable-sorry to distill your people into a few words, old horse, but there it is-I think the Kantuck would want 'em."
"I doubt the Missouri Grogs or the Iowans would appreciate us marching a host of Uncle's relations through their lands," Glass said.
"If you could hurry me back to my people, I could sound them out on the matter," Ahn-Kha said. "I would be eager to be among my own kind again. It's been many years, and if they are in distress, I should be with them."
"Let's at least explore the idea. Major Valentine, you and Ahn-Kha and Ediyak come up with a plan, based on moving twenty thousand civilians. Make it twenty-five-Grogs eat a lot."
"That's a college stadium," Patel said. "Lots of food and water. We're talking divisional support."
"We're wasting our time talking about it, sir," Glass said to Lambert, though whether he objected to exploring the idea or further chatter was hard to say. Glass was notoriously asocial for such a popular NCO. "Not a whole population. No way we can take that many cross country without killing half of them."
"I agree. There's simply no way to move that many civilians," Patel said. "Not through hostile country."
"Be easy to do on the river, if we controlled those waters," Valentine said. "The river takes care of water and sanitation. You could fit a lot of Golden Ones in a barge, for a few days anyway."
"You might as well have suggested an airlift, sir," Patel said. "We don't own any part of the Mississippi, at least not on a permanent basis. The skeeter fleet is strictly hit-and-run. That's why our supplies and mail, what little we get of it, has to come overland."
"We need a brown-water navy," Lambert said.
"Then the question for us is-lease or buy?" Valentine said.
utthroat's Room, Fort Seng: It would appear that once Valentine's bedroom suite in the old mansion house belonged to someone named Cuthbert. THE CUTHBERT ROOM is carved in elegant letters on the door lintel.
Southern Command's soldiers, being who they are, defaced the beautiful woodwork in such a way that it now reads THE CUTTHROAT ROOM.
Many of Fort Seng's soldiers are better at fighting than spelling, it seems.
His quarters are sparse but not quite Spartan. Military billets were the only home he'd known since leaving the Northwoods at seventeen. He's done what he can to make this unusually lavish room his own.
Apart from the gun rack with his ready weapons, that mean-looking type three Atlanta Gunworks battle rifle and an unusually elegant 1911 Model .45, plus his blade and pick, legworm leathers, issue helmet, and combat harness.
A neat little .22 isn't visible, just as it is when he wears it. But it's in easy reach between the mattress and box spring.
Sketchwork covers the walls, picturesque ruins of old public buildings and burned brick structures around Evansville and Owensboro with new growth in the windows and feral cats lounging. They're not his art, they're the work of his Bear chief, the Carolinian named Gamecock.
There are also photos. A surprising number decorate the room on a byway of a big bulletin board salvaged from some office. To those who do not know him well, the little collection of pictures hung in protective plastic baggies-the experienced might recognize the plastic polymer as Ordnance ID sleeves-might seem bewildering. It's hard to gauge who those depicted are and how old Valentine was when he met them because he's featured in so few of the shots.
You can hardly see a young, sunburned, shorn young Valentine standing, holding a shovel comically at "present arms" with a group dressed in Labor Battalion overalls outside of a fortified enclave gate reading Weening. A young Asian girl standing beside him makes a classic two-finger addition to his hairline. There's a shot of a group of soldiers in Wolf leathers showing a mixed group of men and Grogs how to use a Southern Command machine gun, and a picture of a smiling family cutting the ribbon on a prefabricated pole-barn gate, two pretty blond daughters each holding half the shears. A gangly black youth holds two cows ready for entry into their new home.
There's a shot of Ahn-Kha digging up a massive heartroot-a Golden One staple-for a group of interested farmers and uniformed people. There's also a picture of a ship with a big gun on the bow and armoring around the bridge and weapon points tied up at a coastal wharf. A photo of a lithe little girl, black hair flying as she chases some seagulls on a sunny beach, shows signs of having been trimmed with a scissors. A newspaper clipping of someone named "Hank Smalls" smiling and holding a game ball after pitching a no-hitter in game one of the Transmississippi All-School pennant occupies a prominent place.
There's a picture of a salt-and-pepper-haired man in a wheelchair flying down a hill as a woman on his lap hangs on for dear life. Another one shows Valentine at the very back of a serious-looking crowd of bearded men who might be Mennonites standing in front of a massive rock etched with letters.
A photo stamped SOUTHERN COMMAND VERIFIED RELEASE depicts a group of soldiers climbing off a riverbank boat, all wearing shiny, tinfoil skullcaps. A brand-new shot of a commanding-looking woman standing in front of some off-road vehicles with an assortment of hirelings soldiers is a new addition, as the shot is a professionally printed eight-by-ten and Valentine is clearly having trouble finding a protective frame. Her agedbut-still-handsome features and almost prim appearance contrast nicely with the armed men behind. Only Bears wear their atavistic garb of bones and teeth dangling off or pinning together captured Reaper robes with such lethal aplomb.
There's one newspaper clipping of himself, a shot that made it into Southern Command's war museum, in fact, of David Valentine sitting mud-splattered in a command car next to the big golden Grog who now slumbers on the floor of his room.