It was the sort of fuzzy case high-priced jewelry used to come in, a purple so deep it could pass for black in all but the best light.
Valentine opened the presentation case. A shiny old piece of plastic lay inside, a cheap mockery of a police badge.
BROTHEL INSPECTOR
it read.
"I found it last summer in the ruins of a dollar store," Duvalier said. "I've been carrying the stupid thing around ever since, waiting for the right opportunity."
"Hilarious," Valentine said.
"You should go over to Orfordville and break it in," Frat said. "The Wolves say there are a couple of nice houses there. The Ordnance patrols west of Louisville sometimes de-uniform and sneak over."
"They're true Kentucky as bourbon. We get regular reports about any loose tongues."
The party chuckled.
Ahn-Kha's uneven ears were up and forward. "I do not understand."
Duvalier, boosting herself up with his axe-handle shoulder like a gymnast mounting a pommel horse, whispered something in his ear.
"Humans," he muttered, shaking his head.
Banquets: Southern Command is famous for holding feasts at the drop of a hat. There are always a few volunteers ready to drop a hat themselves, if a better reason isn't on the calendar or out-box.
Word of a "feed" passes quickly, even before the barbecue smoke rises. In this case, the smoke was from one of the winter hogs raised on camp food waste and the inevitable spoiled food brought in on the irregular supply runs up the Ohio River by Southern Command's "Mosquito Fleet."
Fort Seng's were never as resourceful as Southern Command regulars at scrounging "grits, grease, and gluss"-the first two being traditional Transmississippi staples, the third liquor mashed, heated, and dripped out of any stray carbohydrates at hand. Gluss, another of the many names for army busthead, was a variant on Mosquito Fleet acronym General Liquor Unspecified, Standard Ration. Southern Command's boatmen were legendary in the aptitude for acquiring alcohol-strictly for purifying questionable river water, of course-and, to cut down on the cases of ethanol poisoning, their captains took to issuing a small daily ration unit.
The captured boats were returned briefly to the Ohio, but only to be taken up a short length of river to Evansville, where they were again hauled up out of the water and brought into riverside workshops. One boat, kept fully intact and armed in its drag across Western Kentucky, was tied up next to the old casino, to be used for training.
The battalion was in the best spirits Valentine had ever seen. Upon returning from the operation, the companies that had gone out to get the boats immediately set to laundering and cleaning and polishing their bodies, uniforms, and equipment as though they couldn't wait to be sent out again.
They'd proved themselves before, certainly, in the fight against the ravies outbreak of the winter. But that had been purely reactive. The raids on Site Green and Respite Point were their idea, successfully carried out by the battalion.
Colonel Lambert decided they needed a reward. The first of the spring vegetables were in, along with a bountiful amount of strawberries, so she decided to sacrifice a few head of cattle for a big steak fry.
They used the big open field to the south where the brigade's horses grazed. It was the largest stretch of flat, open ground in the confines of the fort. With the horses cleared away, it served as an athletic field for football, soccer, and baseball-and conditioning sprints, of course.
Glass volunteered to miss the festivities-he was no social animal, and stayed with Ford and Chevy, his heavy-weapons Grogs, and the company left on security. Especially at a celebration like this the Grogs sometimes caused trouble. They believed the greatest warrior ate first and most and had trouble with the human tendency to share out by the plateful.
Lambert skipped it as well, though she gave Ediyak the night off. Valentine filled a tray with steak and sauce, strawberries and clotted cream, and some tender spring vegetables (asparagus was early and plentiful in Kentucky, leaving the fort's latrines more pungent than usual) and brought it up to her. Even if the ascetic workaholic in her was currently reining in her appetite, he could eat both their shares. He could still smell the grill on the steaks and his mouth watered at the hot, fatty smell.
"I've been studying this map of the Eastern United States," Lambert said as he set down the tray on an empty chair. Lambert's desk was unusually cluttered with notes and colored grease pencils for writing on the plastic overlays that lay on the maps.
The bright light of her desk lamp reflecting off the map hurt Valentine's eyes and gave him the beginnings of one of his headaches.
Valentine glanced over it. Old maps were interesting but of limited use. Most of the roads were overgrown and broken up and the towns run back to kudzu and scrub oak.
"If we only had something comprehensive and up-to-date," Lambert said.
"I know, sir," Valentine said. "Someone really needs to make some new maps," Valentine said. "The Kurians have good local ones, but beyond their regions-"
"Here be dragons," Lambert said.
"Basically, sir."
"Maybe we can team up with the Kentuckians and get something accurate of at least the zones surrounding us. If the Georgia Control is going to come after us, it would help to know what roads and rail lines they still have up and running. What bits are full of bad guys and where the hostile neutrals and Grog tribes are. But the rivers are still the same."