The low eye squinted on the corporal. "Listen, mook: I'm not some hungry Trooper or a Marshal on the take. I'm chiseled out of stainless steel. Bullshit slides off me."
You're also so busy being superior, you're not asking the right questions, Valentine thought.
"This isn't worth the sweat I'm working up in this heat," the corporal decided. "De-test, this man's in pretty good shape. Running packs of contraband builds the muscles. He'll find them useful at the Cave. Throw him in the hold for now; he'll go out on tomorrow's train."
The corporal returned to the little shed and made a note on a clipboard. The sentry moved aside half the wire barricade, and Valentine led Ahn-Kha home.
"Think about it, sir," Valentine called over his shoulder. "Get in touch with the Big Man. Tell him Blackie's in the cuffs, he'll be grateful. And generous."
"He'll do what he always does," the corporal laughed. "He'll claim he's an honest businessman and say he's never heard of you."
Exactly what I'm counting on, Valentine thought.
Ahn-Kha marched Valentine into the Golden Ones' ghetto and turned up a little lane that led up the hill to the library.
"About one more hour until the work train returns," Ahn-Kha whispered. "It will be dark then, and the Hooded Ones will be out to watch it unload. They always watch whenever great numbers of my people are together. We hide until then, my David."
They passed a row of houses built out of old cinder blocks and scrap metal. But these were no makeshift hovels-the Golden Ones worked with rubble like some artists did with broken glass, creating mosaics and patterns out of broken paving bricks and twisted structural steel.
Older Grogs-their fur had turned to gray white- lounged in front on wooden chaises, chatting in their rumbling tongue.
"In this door, quick!" Ahn-Kha said, and Valentine complied. He pulled the curtain aside, and they entered the rude home.
A white-haired Grog looked up from his evening meal. He blinked his eyes twice, and suddenly his ears shot up.
They spoke for several minutes in their native tongue, and the older one finally limped outside. Valentine watched out of the corner of the window, observing ghetto life from inside.
"He is an old friend of my parents," Ahn-Kha explained. "He goes now to tell the others to pretend they saw nothing; then he shall pay a call on another friend at the Clan Hall. Ahh, here, my David, taste this."
Ahn-Kha broke a tubular growth in half. It had a hole running down the center, as if it had grown around a spit. Valentine tasted it and found it pleasant, a little like pumpkin with the texture of half-cooked pasta. "We used to dip it in honey, but there's no honey to be had these days." Ahn-Kha opened up a locker and began searching through folded clothes, and he found a simple blue version of the robe-kimonos the Golden Ones preferred to wear.
"Not bad," Valentine said, taking another bite. "Tastes kind of like spoon bread. I'd like to try it with molasses. What is it?"
"Did I not tell you? This is heartroot, the staple of my people. From nothing but dead growth, night soil, mud, and time we get this. It grows year-round as long as the water does not freeze, although much more slowly in winter." He changed his torn and dirty old robe for the blue one he selected. They passed the time talking about the former library and the probable location of the armory within.
They waited until darkness and left at the banshee wail of the train whistle pulling into the ghetto. Valentine carried his revolver and sword, the former now loaded and in a holster at his hip, the latter strapped across his back under the black trench coat, with the hilt projecting out the loose collar behind his head. Ahn-Kha still bore the fifty caliber, the gun carried midbarrel in his right hand. The Grog had Valentine's parang tucked inside the fresh robe.
They traversed the common ground in the center of the ghetto, part cultivated garden and part parkland. Some sheep lay in the shade by a lily pad-filled pond.
Ahn-Kha stood very erect. "This way, my David."
The Grog took him to a little clearing bordered by another Grog shantytown. Valentine saw, and smelled, a latrine in the center of the field. Ahn-Kha halted and, using his rifle as a staff, gazed out onto the meadow.
"This is where they buried my people," Ahn-Kha said, slowly and quietly. "When Khay-Hefle took over, they dumped the bodies in a pit here. My parents were among the dead, along with the Principal Elder, and many of my people who fought back. Along with those who just got caught in the battle."
Ahn-Kha took off his mitten slippers and dug his long toes into the earth.
"My wife and sons are buried here. I wished them to go with the One in Ten to Canada, but she refused to leave her family. Two thousand of my people rest beneath this soil. They say if you are very silent, you can hear weeping.
"At first, after the custom of you humans, my people planted flowers here, I am told. Then one day, after the walls had risen, this General who accepts only submission or death came on an inspection. He saw the many beautiful flowers and ordered them pulled up. In their place he dug pit-toilets, and ordered all to use them. The first, of course, was Khay-Hefle, who always seems to find new insults to put upon those who had been his people. At one time they would march the workers all the way from the train station to here at the end of the day. Golden One workers are not considered fit to use human toilets at the Cave this General is building. They must go to the river bushes or wait until they return here."
"I'm ... sorry," Valentine said, choking on the second word. It was inadequate. "Never said you were married."
"I play tricks on myself. When I do not speak of it or think of it, the pain lessens for a time. She was very beautiful, both in the looking and in the knowing. You own my apologies, I am speaking in English but my private voice speaks in the Golden Tongue. Let me try again. She was very beautiful to look at and to know."
"I'm sure she was," Valentine said, and meant it, although he did not have the first clue as to how a Grog measured physical beauty.
"My David, I am glad we could come here. I have only seen this place from afar. But we must hurry-we have business on the hill."