Tale of the Thunderbolt (Vampire Earth #3)

Tale of the Thunderbolt (Vampire Earth #3) Page 10

The Texas Coast, October: South of Corpus Christi, the southernmost Kurian city in what had been the United States, the coastline is a collection of fishing villages hiding among ancient concrete resorts, suffering under the depredations of both the Kurian Alcaldes of Mexico and the Texas variety farther north and inland. The long stretches of the thin, sandy island running the coast of Texas provide a protected inland waterway that sees little commerce under Kur other than smuggling. Stopping this was one of the gunboat's principal duties in her cruises under Captain Saunders, when her crew spent years losing fugitives in the thornbushes and grassy hummocks of the half-mile-wide, seemingly endless coastal sandbar where once vacationing college students lost their underwear along with their virginity.

This part of Texas is typical of most of the state not under the direct eye of the Kurians: independent and isolated, asking nothing from the outside world and trusting no one.

The Thunderbolt followed her new prow into South Bay on a rainy dawn. A few open shrimp boats bobbed in the bay, and beyond them, some beach fisherman could be seen, their oversize rods hanging out over the lapping surf of the bay.

Valentine had never seen this part of Texas in his time on the Thunderbolt, though Torres had visited this coast on occasion in his days with the Corpus Christi Kur. Torres was

the sole surviving crewman who knew Brownsville, so he stood on the bridge with Carrasca and Valentine.

Valentine fingered the leaves on a quickwood sapling; Carrasca had taken a fancy to one and installed it on the bridge. A few others had been planted near Kingsport, bordering the graves of the Jamaicans and Louisiana Thunderbolt crew who had died defending the ship from the Reapers. After explaining to the commodore the importance of the quickwood saplings, Valentine had placed further seeds in the dirt covering the bodies as they lay in their graves. He hoped one day trees would sprout and be used as weapons against the slayers of the sailors.

"Why no Kurians around here, Torres?" Valentine asked.

"Can't say. Seems that they never managed to get installed here. Not really free territory, so to speak, but there's a resistance here. I've heard of a Kurian or two coming to the area, but anyone going to work for them winds up with their throats slit pretty soon. Their Reapers can't travel much either, the resistance assembles and smokes them out of anywhere they hold up. Every now and then a bunch sweep up from Mexico, or down from San Antonio or Corpus Christi, but when they're gone, the resistance pops up again."

"What did the resistance think of the Coastal Patrol?"

"We never did much inshore except try to chase down smugglers so the resistance didn't object to us, I guess. But that's just what we heard when we came into the bay. There were only one or two safe places to visit, right up against the shore where the Thunderbolt's guns could cover. The old hands told us to sleep on board if we knew what was good for us."

Valentine looked at the overgrown ruins. Palms stood up through roofs, bougainvillea sprouted everywhere, covering the ruins along the bay further.

"Looks like the work of hurricanes," Carrasca said, examining the coast through a pair of binoculars. While on Jamaica she'd dyed and recut one of Saunders's uniform coats,

adding shoulder padding so she could fill it. The middle still hung a little loose thanks to the dead man's potbelly. "What now, Captain?"

"According to plan, I'm supposed to be contacted here, and failing that I need to go inland to Harland. Southern Command has a liaison officer here. He was supposed to stay around the bay, but I'm so overdue, he might have gone back to his base. That's where I need to get to if I'm not met here."

"Anything special we're supposed to do?"

"Act as if this were an ordinary patrol," Valentine said.

"Very well," Carrasca said, turning to the old hand. "Torres, what was the procedure? Do they have pilots?"

"No."

"So how would Saunders handle it?"

"Cruise the bay. Anything that looked oceangoing, we were to sink, unless we could board it and were satisfied it belonged to the Corpus Christi Kurians. Their signet was a crane over a sunrise, I think Asian-looking, only with Mexican colors. Stood out like a sore thumb in Texas. But if there was any doubt, we'd seize it and bring it back to New Orleans, and let the Kurians haggle it out."

"Then that's what we'll do. Helm, let's take a look at that inlet to starboard. After the check?"

"If the captain felt like it, he'd let us dock. There's a concrete wharf by the old Brownsville channel, and some of the harbor joints traded with us. Good place to pick up crabs, lice, and the drip from the whores. We were always under orders to go in groups of four at least, armed with rifles and sidearms. Don't try the chow-they give coasties rat meat."

"Shall we dine on board tonight, Captain Valentine?"

Valentine found himself smiling. "I've eaten rat any number of times. I'm sure Narcisse could spice it up into a state dinner, if she had to, Captain."

'Torres, what would the Captain do if he didn't want to give the men liberty in the port?"

"We'd raid a shrimp boat for food and leave, sir."

"It would be best if the captain decides to grant liberty. It can buy us some time."

They wasted the morning cruising the bay, but saw nothing larger than open fishing boats. Valentine was relieved. He didn't want to arrive at a strange port and start burning local shipping; especially when the success of his mission could depend on the aid, or at least noninterference, of the natives. With that out of the way, the Thunderbolt tied up at the pier near the stagnant channel. A few blocks of cracked concrete buildings leered out at them, garish-and misspelled-advertisements painted over doorways in a mixture of Spanish and English.

An afternoon rain soaked the men tying her up, and the gangway guard took shelter under the stairs to the top deck.

Carrasca, her new lieutenant, Valentine, and Post decided to dine one last time in the wardroom. With their combined coaxing, they got the Chief to join them. The Chief sat uncomfortably at the cramped table, awkward in his civilian clothes.

"They're the only ones that weren't oil stained," he explained.

They heard Narcisse's voice shout orders from the galley. With the crew now mostly Jamaican, the dishes reflected that island's preference for spiced chicken and pork dishes, leavened with rice, vegetables, and fresh fruits.

"Captain," Valentine began, as the eating slowed, "you, your officers, and the men have more than carried out your part of the bargain. I'm happy to leave the Thunderbolt in the Commodore's Flotilla. I know Mr. Post and the Chief will serve you ably."

Post elbowed the Chief. The Chief had met a woman in Jamaica, a beauty who could have appeared in one of the old tourism posters in her yellow two-piece bikini, and had decided to stay with the ship.

"Happily ever afters," Post said, lifting a glass of lemonade to the Chief.

Carrasca shifted in her seat and rearranged the rice on her plate.

Valentine's stomach did flip-flops as he looked at her. "Just see me and the cargo into the hands of my contacts here. You'll take my promise to do anything I can to help you in our common Cause. I'll never forget the Thunderbolt and her captain."

The object of his thoughts and memories smiled. "You'll always have a berth on any of our ships and a bed in Jay-port."

Carrasca stared levelly into his eyes as she spoke, but he saw her jaw tighten after the last sentence. Valentine felt his throat go thick.

"Ah-thank you for the offer."

The table sensed a tension and covered it with technical talk about improvements in the ship since the overhaul. It lasted until the Chief and the two lieutenants excused themselves. Post closed the cabin door behind him.

Carrasca reached out and took Valentine's hand.

"Sorry," she said. "I've been preoccupied since we refloated. We've had no time alone."

"We're not the first couple sacrificed to the Cause."

"I'll miss the sound of your heartbeat." Her skin lost some of its usual glow.

"I wish we could say a proper good-bye."

"I know, and I agree. Discipline. It'll be lonely without you."

"You have your grandfather. The Caribbean, this ship."

"And you have your duty. We're both married, in a way, to both of them."

He lowered his voice. "It was a wonderful time, Malia."

"You'll always be a part of me, David."

Discipline or no, he kissed her, long and hard. It was agonizing to let her go, knowing that his lips might never meet hers again.

"Forgive me," he said, stepping away.

A full day passed, and no one from the shore tried to make contact with the Thunderbolt. A few idlers gathered to watch the sailors on the Thunderbolt go about their daily duties, but no one requested permission to come on board, and the men who went in groups off the ship claimed no one spoke to them but bar touts.

"I'll have to go inland after all," Valentine decided at the end of the second day. Carrasca looked at him from beneath her black brows, pulling a wet bang out of her eye to do so. They both were plastered with sweat. Even with the windows wide open, the bridge was stifling in the windless harbor. The afternoon rain had succeeded only in dampening the heat.

"Have the Chief send some people in to look for a critical part," Valentine said. "Claim we have a breakdown. Maybe that won't incite too much comment. I don't like the idea of her sitting here, tied up to a dock, with the cargo on board. The people on shore have got to be wondering why the ship looks like a topiary."

"You're not leaving tonight."

"I have to. I've got a better chance moving at night."

"Alone? Can you pass as a native? From what Torres says, they don't like strangers poking around here. You don't want to be strung up in a tree by your own allies."

"They're only allies in the 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' sense. Southern Command never had any luck getting Texas guerrillas to work with us, except right on the borderlands, where we could arm them-and shelter them if they had to run. Not that a Texan ever called it running."

She nodded. "Any orders while you're gone?"

"I hope to be back, or at least send word, in a couple days. If you don't hear from me in five, go back to Jamaica, plant the trees, and wait for the next Southern Command agent to head south."

"Somehow I don't think there are too many David Valentines to be found. Some woman needs to make more."

Valentine squeezed her arm as he passed out of the bridge and went to his cabin. He smelled the musty odor of wet

Grog and found Ahn-Kha waiting, cleaning out his pointed ears with a delicate wooden implement that was part spoon and part chopstick.

"I needed a wash," Ahn-Kha said. "I've put out your things."

Valentine looked at his bunk. His dyed-to-black fatigue pants lay spread on the bed with matching moccasin boots (he'd made them last month of Jamaican calfskin) and topped by his combat vest and pistol. A canvas knapsack was already loaded with food and water flasks. A felt-brimmed hat with a beadwork band stood atop the pile.

"I don't wear hats," Valentine said. "Unless it's winter, and even then I like the stocking kind, or a coonskin."

"Start, my David. You'll blend in better. You want your drum-gun?"

"No, I'm going to travel light and fast."

"Then I cannot accompany you?"

"Sorry, old horse. I will take one of those pike-points though. Just in case."

Valentine went down the gangway with a group of sailors going to one of the wharf-side cantinas. He wore a rain poncho to conceal his lack of uniform, a borrowed gold earring pinching his ear and the hat rolled up in a pocket.

The men, under Carrasca's lieutenant, pushed two tables together and ordered the inevitable chicken, rice, bean, and tortilla meal. The cantina provided an outhouse for the comfort of its braver-or desperate-guests, and after a light meal and a lot of boiled water, Valentine excused himself. Feeling a bit like Superman from the old comic books, he exited the outhouse wearing a light leather vest, the knapsack, his weapons belt, and the hat. The poncho was in his knapsack and the sailor's earring in his pocket.

He hiked down what used to be a main street, walking just off the nearly worn away center line of the road and trying to look like he knew where he was going. Once clear of the harborside, he turned west out of town, coming to a line

of shacks bordering the marshy flats, picturing a map of the Brownsville area in his head.

There were many palms above, some delicate limbed trees, and groves of thick kunai grasses and palmettos. His nose picked up the faint salt smell of the ocean, but the moist, just-overturned-rock smell of the marsh was far stronger. In the interest of speed, he stayed to the road, hoping that he would sense trouble before it found him. He fell into a steady jog. When his body warmed to the pace he fell into his old wolf lope, with hardly a twinge from his leg wound.

He stopped when he hit the old interstate, crawled into a thick stand of grass and napped after emptying one of his flasks and eating some dried fruit and fried bread. He took in the landscape as he rested. The sea had its beauty, but it was refreshing to be on land again with its confused breezes and variety of bird and animal life.

Valentine woke himself when the moon rose. He knew little about this area beyond the large scale map, and even Torres had been no help. According to his orders, the center of this part of Texas's guerrilla activity was supposedly near the old airport at Harlingen and somewhere called Rio Hondo.

The guerrillas saved him the trouble of finding them by finding him. As he trotted up the overgrown interstate running northwest, two men on horseback pulled up on a little rise above him. They had rifles pointed at the stars above out and on their hips, and reins in the other hand, ready to shoot him down or ride him down as circumstances warranted.

Valentine stopped and bent over, panting and rubbing his aching left leg.

"Yo down thar," a dry throat called. "You're the damnedest runner I ever saw. You'd think the devil himself was chasing you, but there's nothing behind you but empty."

"Keep your hands away from that gun, stranger," the other said. Like Valentine, he wore only a vest and had a gleaming Western tie at his throat.

Valentine was too tired for the good cop-bad cop routine. "I hope you're Texas Rangers."

"You do?" Dry Throat said. "Well, there's some that say that, and it turns out they hoped the opposite."

Valentine walked up the man-made hillside, hands above his head. "You'll find out if you give me a chance to talk. My name's Ghost, out of Southern Command in the Oua-chitas. I'm looking for a place called 'the Academy,' and your colonel. I don't know his name, but I know the man I'm looking for, a friend of his. Patrick Fields."

"Seems to me if that were the case, you'd be well north of here, heading south."

"I came by sea."

"Haw!" Western Tie said.

"Handcuff me, hog-tie me, whatever, just bring me to either Fields or your CO."

"I'm Sergeant Ranson," Dry Throat said. "This is Corporal Colorado. Colorado, climb down and take his weapons, pad him down. We're on patrol, and we can't just quit whenever we feel like it. I'll send Colorado back for a guard, and they'll take you north." Valentine warmed to Ranson as a man who made up his mind quickly and correctly.

"Should I get out the irons, Gil?" Colorado asked as the young man unbuckled Valentine's weapon harness.

"No, man seems straight enough. If his story isn't true and he is a spy, he's going about this a mite odd."

Colorado rode off north. Ranson had Valentine walk ahead of him to an old roadside stop on the southbound side of the interstate. It seemed like any other decayed husk of the Old World, save for a ladder up to an empty platform where a gasoline sign once stood. Valentine decided it must give a commanding view, day or night-if the moon was out. He smelled water.

"Colorado will be back in a couple hours. Let me go up and take a look around. Do me a favor and walk my horse, would you? A few times around the building will be fine."

Valentine complied, as Ranson made a slow climb to the perch for a long look-round. When the Ranger returned Valentine handed the reins over.

"In the mood for some coffee, Sergeant?"

Ranson's lean face lit up. "You have coffee out of Mexico?"

"Better. Jamaican."

"Holy Moses, why didn't you say so? I ain't had coffee from anywhere east of Padre Island in years. There's a mortar and pestle we use for corn inside, and a coffeepot."

In three-quarters of an hour, they were sharing the coffee, the Jamaican beans campfire-toasted and stone-ground.

"Lord, that's good," Ranson said, sipping appreciatively. He was lean as a winter wolf and sat in an old wooden chair with long legs stretched across a pile of cordwood.

"You aren't worried I drugged it?"

"Naw. I'd kill you before it got me. Besides, you drank first, and I poured. So you've been to sea."

"Yes."

"I didn't want to say anything to Colorado, but a few of us have been told to keep an eye out for a stranger calling himself Ghost. Seems to me you're mighty overdue."

"It wasn't a pleasure cruise."

"Delays beyond your control. I know what you mean. I was on a patrol once on the Rio Grande. It was supposed to last a month. They ended up chasing us west - we didn't make it back till Christmas, five months overdue. My wife was collecting death pension already."

"So the Kurians have the river?" Valentine asked.

"The whole damned valley. Mexican Kurians, they call 'em the Alcaldes, like they was old aristocracy or something. Good farm land, some of the best in the world. The folks there smuggle us out what they can. How are things up north? We don't get news unless it comes roundabout."

"Hard, but Southern Command is holding out."

"And what were you out for? Intelligence?"

"I'll be happy to tell you if your colonel or Mr. Fields okays it."

Ranson winked with one whole side of his face. " 'Loose lips,' whatever that means. My dad used to say it when he was playing his cards close to the chest. Personally, I like a set of loose lips. 'Specially if they're attached to a genuine redhead."

Two more riders arrived with Colorado at the dawn. "Sergeant Hughes says we're supposed to cut our patrol short and see this man back to the Academy."

"Kind of him," Ranson said. "Switch to the relief horse. I expect they want him there pronto. Wish we had a spare for you, young man."

"I expect he can run some more," Colorado said. "He did pretty well there at the end on the road. I'd like to see that trick again."

While the sergeant passed on his report on the patrol, Colorado readied the horses, placing the saddlebags and rifle sheaths on the patient animals. Ranson mounted, still chewing on a snatched breakfast.

They set off, Colorado in the lead and moving his horse at a brisk walk, quickly enough so Valentine had to force himself to hurry at a pace just below a jog, which he found increasingly annoying.

"I'm going to run, it's easier than walking like this," he said, breaking into a trot.

Colorado kicked his horse to a trot, and Ranson followed. The sergeant smiled at some inner joke. Valentine set his jaw, and ran faster, passing the trotting horse at a steady lope.

"What the hell?" Colorado said. He touched his heels to the horse's flanks, and it broke into a canter.

Valentine had to pour it on to keep up with the cantering horse, but he did so. His whole body seemed suffused in warmth, a warmth that slowly grew uncomfortable. Even a Wolf couldn't move at this rate for long. His legs filled with a fiery ache, and his heart beat like a duck's wings. The

sweating horse tired of the race, as well, and kept trying to break into a gallop.

"Cut it out, Colorado," Ranson yelled from the dust-trail. "You'll kill the damn horse or our friend."

Perspiration crusted with dust coated Valentine's face, but he kept pace until Colorado halted, fighting the urge to lean forward to catch his wind. He slowed back down to a walk matching the horse's, controlling his breath as best he could.

"Sheeet," Colorado said. "They shouldn'ta called you Ghost, it shoulda been Shanks. I never seen-hell, never heard of a man able to run like that."

Valentine concentrated on breathing.

"You done treating our ally like a bastard?" Ranson asked.

"Ally? We're taking him under guard, ain't we?"

"If them Reapers showed up, he'd be guarding us, not the other way around. Don't you know a Hunter when you meet one, you damned fool?"

"Ha! My pa used to say those Hunters were just good liars, is all. There's nothing to that story."

"Apple didn't fall far from the tree." Ranson said under his breath. But his eyes shared the joke with Valentine, knowing the Cat heard.

The Academy was easy to find. It bordered on a defunct airport whose runways now served as a rifle range. The airport's concourses and some of the hangars had been demolished, but the control tower still dominated the camp, reinforced with a pyramid of sandbags and timber all the way to the top. On the other side of the old military education campus there was a cemetery, graves arranged facing a giant statue that seemed familiar yet out of place to Valentine. "It's the model of the one that stood in Washington, Marines raising the flag at the top of Mount Surabachi on Iwo Jima," Ranson explained, and Valentine realized he had seen the photo it was based on. "It was a helluva fight in the

Pacific in 1945. The men who finally got up there and planted that flag were from Texas."

Valentine remembered it differently, but he was in no mood to discuss military history minutiae at the moment. Ranson brought him through the rows of barracks, one lot vacant like a missing tooth, and took him to the brick headquarters. Like the control tower, it was layered in sandbags and barbed wire, with hard-points guarding both entrances.

"Don't worry about washing up," Colorado said as Valentine retied his hair when they moved through the door past a sentry. 'The colonel likes to hear news first. Everything else waits, unless you're bleeding. Bleeding badly, that is."

Spurs clattering in the wood-floored hallway, they approached a reception desk. It was a beautifully carven piece of wood, like many of the items decorating the entrance hallway. Valentine got the impression every square foot of wall space was covered by a painted portrait or photograph. The only ones he recognized were Sam Houston and the Texas United States Presidents. The woman at the desk wore a cheerful Mexican print blouse and a ready smile, but Valentine saw a pistol lying right next to the phone.

"Courier for the colonel," Ranson said. 'Tell him it's Longbow Resolution. The Ghost is finally haunting us."

Another Ranger walked down the hall and out the door, saddlebags hung over uniformed shoulders. Valentine found the contrast between the rough, tanned, mustachioed men and the ornate furnishings interesting.

"Map room, second floor," the receptionist drawled, looking at Valentine from under curled eyelashes.

"Colorado, you can go get yourself fed," Ranson said. "I'll see things through from here."

The younger man took the dismissal well. He hesitated only a moment before saying, "I'll see if I can snag us some bottles of beer for when you're finished, Sarge."

"You do that, Colorado. Thanks."

"Good luck with the colonel, Shanks," Colorado said, offering his hand. "Hope there's no hard feelings over our little race."

Valentine shook it and thanked him. Ranson lead him to a white-painted staircase, and they ascended past photographs of cities filled with pavement, glass, and steel.

Valentine loved maps, and the map room captivated him. A four-foot globe stood by one wall-spanning bookcase, but the other walls were covered with maps. A long library table dominated the center of the room, placed on an oriental rug spread on the polished wooden floor. Tall windows lighted the room. Chairs stood beneath the mounted maps on the walls. One of the maps, showing the Rio Grande region of Texas, was festooned with pins and colored ribbons. Valentine walked up to an older, glassed-in map of the state, which looked to date from Texas's earliest days.

A handsomely dressed Latino opened the door and held it open for the colonel. The Colonel of the Texas Rangers, Officer Commanding the Academy, had undoubtedly been a tall man in the days before his confinement to a wheelchair. Valentine guessed he must have stood close to six five at one time, judging from how high he sat in the wood-and-metal contraption he wheeled himself around in. He was gray haired and clear eyed, and gave the impression of lively vitality from the waist up, like an alert prairie dog whose hind legs are hidden in his burrow. He wore a bronze star enclosed by a circle, pinned over a frilly white-and-blue ribbon.

"Col. Steven Hibbert, Texas Rangers," the colonel said, extending his hand. "Glad to meet you."

The Texans were devoted hand-shakers. "Thank you for your hospitality, Colonel Hibbert. My name's Valentine, but I'd prefer if you just referred to me as Smith, or Ghost, in your paperwork, if I end up being mentioned."

"We generally call him 'the colonel,'" Ranson said.

"Whatever you're comfortable with, young man. This is my chief of staff, Major Zacharias."

After another handshake, the colonel moved on to busi-

ness. They sat at one end of the long library table, so all eyes could be at the same level.

"Well, Ghost, your contact here went back north a month or so ago on a courier run. He didn't have much choice-he told us about you and asked for our assistance. Fields is a good man, about all he ever asked us for in the past was information about the state of things in Texas and on the Mexican border, and a couple of times he brought us warning of troop movements that saved lives. I'm willing to do whatever I can to help Southern Command. He said you'd have something needing to get north."

"Yes, sir," Valentine said, relieved at their accommodating attitude. "I'm to give you part of my cargo in exchange for your assistance. It's a weapon. Deadliest thing I've ever seen used on a Reaper." Valentine showed the colonel die quickwood pike point he'd brought, and explained the catalytic action the wood had in a Reaper's bloodstream.

The colonel and his chief of staff exchanged looks. "Well, now," Zacharias said. "That's good news. Some kind of silver bullet, huh?"

The colonel shifted his weight in his chair. "And you've seen this work with your own two eyes."

"Yes, Colonel."

"Because I've heard tales of big medicine against the Kurians before, and every one of them turned out about as effective as the bulletproof vests made out of old sticks and beads the Indians wore."

"Not just me. Others, too-you don't have to wonder if I'm crazy. I'll leave you with what I can spare, some saplings you can plant and some lumber you can turn into weapons. We've found that crossbow bolts and spear-points work best."

"Our armorer will take a look at what you've done," the colonel said.

"It's a lot easier than trying to go in and behead them, that's for sure. Time is important, Colonel. Every day the ship waits in harbor-"

"Easy, now, son. South Bay isn't really our ground-not that it's Kurian. If we ride in armed for Reapers and offload you, someone will talk. If this stuff is important as you say it is, we might want to keep it as a surprise for the bloodsuckers. Major, let's put Harbormaster into effect."

Zacharias made a note on a clipboard as the colonel spun his wheels back to Valentine. "You get back to your ship and bring it across the bay to the entrance to the old intracoastal shipping channel. There's a white lighthouse there, manned by some of the Corpus Christi crew. We've got a spy there, and this sounds important enough for him to break his cover. He'll knock out their radio and make sure our Rangers grab the place. We'll make it look like a simple hit-'n'-loot. When you see two blue lights burning, one on top of the other, bring your ship in as close as the tide'll let you, and we'll start loading up your cargo. This will happen twenty-four hours after you get safely back to your vessel. Questions?"

"Two blue lights vertically." Valentine sagged into his chair in exhausted relief. The colonel's quick mind relieved him of his last few worries about getting his prize to the Rangers safely. He shook himself back to the present.

"No questions, Colonel. Some food and a few hours' sleep, and I'll be ready to go."

"You'll get more than that. There's still some things we have to organize. You'll have until dawn tomorrow to eat and rest up. That okay by you?"

"Better than okay."

"Major Zacharias, you'll have operational command. Put Flagstaff in charge of trains and logistics, use Three-Feather's reserve riders for the main force. I want plenty of scouts, too. Send two couriers now and get Harbormaster going. Ranson, you'll take our friend back to his ship and go onboard as liaison."

"Can I bring Colorado along, Colonel? 'Bout time he started working on a longer line."

"Sure, how often does a man get a chance to go to sea nowadays-even if it is just a ride across the harbor. Mr. Valentine, we'll meet again when your cargo is here, safe and sound."

Night on the harbor. The old lighthouse near the wrecked causeway had two lights burning.

Valentine watched from his familiar bridge-perch as the ship's boats, and a commandeered shrimp boat, moved quickwood, men, and material from ship to shore. There was nothing for him to do on shore, save hear Flagstaff give gruff orders to the Rangers and contingent of laborers he commanded. Oxen stood in their traces, and smaller horse-wagons held supplies for the two hundred riders Zacharias brought to guard the precious cargo. The eight-man garrison of the lighthouse was under lock and key, though five of them expressed an interest in moving inland with the Rangers. Valentine idly listened to the sound of waves lapping against the ship as he pulled his tiny collection of books from its railed shelf, lulled by the hint of motion as the Thunderbolt rocked at anchor. He felt melancholy. The Thunderbolt had become a home.

And it was time to leave.

He would miss the sound of the sailors talking as they washed down the decks in the morning, the smell of good coffee, the wide horizons of the sea. He thought of his father, and his description of the charm of naval service: "Duty at sea, especially when you were out months at a stretch, sounds like you're away from everything, that you'd be lonely and homesick, but you aren't. To a sailor, the ship is a home he takes with him. It's like traveling with your job and all your neighbors. There's nothing like it." His father had been right.

He also liked being able to hit the Kurians where he chose, instead of spending all his time parrying blows. Moving men, their food, and equipment was simplified by the tonnage a ship could carry. A real navy, well handled, could make the Kurian seaboard spend far more of its time gar-

risoning harbors and seaside towns, out of fear that a occupying force would appear over the horizon. The Free Zones in the Appalachians, the Ozarks, and the Rockies would be given breathing room. But he was just one officer, a spy-saboteur trained to work inside the Kurian Zone. Putting together real sea power would take combinations of time and resources the Kurians took pains to prevent. The great ports of the world were solidly in Kur's grip. But with quick-wood...

"The quickwood beams are going now, Captain," Post reported. "These Texans are organized."

Valentine nodded. "They have to be. This pocket doesn't have any Lifeweavers. They're going up against the Reapers with small arms and guts, and a lot of people on farms and in towns slipping them news and supplies. They're smart, they don't fight over the Rio Valley or the coast, nothing that's important to the Kurians. Texas is a big place, they've got distance on their side as long as they stay mobile."

"I'd always heard they were just bushwackers in uniform."

Ranson, who'd approached and caught the tail end of the conversation, cut in to elaborate. He described how the Rangers would go into some one-horse village and relocate the residents. "Then a few Reapers and Quislings come riding in, lifesign reads normal, they think it's just another town. But it's a town armed to the teeth with men who know how to use their guns. We've got a heck of an intelligence network, most everyone between the Rio and San Antonio city limits knows what to do if they see a column coming into the area. We use a lot of heliographs, since the sun's almost always shining. The Kurians have been burned too many times-now they only roll through with big pacification raids. When that happens, the Rangers scatter."

"How much do you know about the quickwood?" Post asked. Farther back on the ship, proof of the efficacy of the weapon stood on the upper deck. A dead Reaper, frozen as a statue with skin hard as tree bark, stood gripping the ship's

rail and canopy-though not truly lifeless, at least in the vegetable sense. The Reaper was beginning to sprout tiny green leaves.

"Everything," Valentine said. "I'll give another briefing to their weapons people. I'm going to leave them some lumber and saplings. Want to throw in your seed-pouch?"

"They'll need it more in the Ozarks."

"I'll carry it there for you, Will."

"You've got enough equipment, what with that ugly-assed gun you tote, Val, and there's still a lot of miles ahead of us. I'll bring it myself. You'll need somebody around to carry out your godawful plans anyway, won't you?"

Valentine felt his eyes moisten. "Why the change of mind?"

"More of a change of heart. When I was watching the Chief and his girl on Jamaica, and you and-well, I got lonely for a woman. The beach beauties were willing, but I want to find my wife. Tell her I was wrong and she was right."

"About the system?" Valentine asked, remembering their conversation before the mutiny.

"When we first got married, we didn't know each other that well. I was in uniform then, but it was for the food and the security. Gail was a sharp girl, and figured out I didn't really like them, or my job. We talked about us getting a posting way out on some frontier, and running for Arkansas. We used to talk like that a lot.

"Funny thing was, after I got married to her, all of a sudden I wanted to do better, have better housing and better food for us, or her really. I went officer, mustanged up from a sergeant to a junior lieutenant. Part of the process was indoctrination, of course. Lectures at the New Universal Church building-you know the routine. Then I had to spew the same stuff to my men: all about mankind poisoning and ruining the Earth, crime and overcrowding and starvation and homelessness. Then the shit that came down in '22 and how the Kurians came to restore 'natural order,' all

that Darwin stuff they come up with about men needing control. Of course, the Kurians never admit that they probably started it all-they make it sound like they saved us from extinction. But anyway, I started to believe it. You probably can't understand-"

"But I do," Valentine said. "I've heard a few speakers for the Church. While they're talking, it seems reasonable enough. It takes the next drained body you see to set you straight again."

"Well, Gail and I grew more distant. She didn't like my talking about making captain, or joining the Coastal Marines to advance faster. I was drinking a little too much on days off with the others. But it was the baby that did it."

"Baby?" Valentine asked. "You never said anything about children."

"It would have been a baby, I guess," Post said. "Gail didn't want to have it, she 'couldn't bring a child into the world for them.' She aborted it-I hate to think how. I found out and said something stupid. I think I quoted the New Order's law on abortion like it was Scripture. She took off, I don't know where. Left me a note with her wedding ring: 'Maybe you can replace this with a brass one.' At first, I was actually glad to be rid of her. I thought her opinions might be preventing me from getting promoted." He ran his hands through his multitoned hair in frustration, gripping the locks at the back of his head as if trying to tear the memories out before continuing.

"I only realized later, after she was gone, that she was the thing that kept me going. All of a sudden I was ashamed every time I put on my uniform. I hated the job-I hated the people. Drinking helped me forget... let me go to sleep. Pretty soon it helped me make it through the day. Then wake up. Thanks to you, I got a part of my life back. I owe you mat, whatever your methods. Now I want the rest of me."

Valentine stood on shore with his volunteers: a smattering of Jamaicans, many of the Thunderbolt's remaining

marines, and a few sailors who decided to go back to the Ozarks to look for their families. The group said their farewells to their comrades from the Thunderbolt. Narcisse sat atop a wagon, distributing voudou amulets and cheek-smacking kisses.

Captain Carrasca, dressed again in the looser pirate clothes Valentine had first seen her wearing, said good-bye to each of the men as they walked down the gangway. When she got to Ahn-Kha, she hugged him, her outspread hands making it just to the other side of his armpits. When that was over, she gave him a wooden tube that Valentine thought looked like a bamboo flute. Ahn-Kha bowed.

Valentine stood at the entry port last.

"I'm glad Will is going with you," Carrasca said. "I'd give almost anything to keep Narcisse in the galley. Won't be sorry to see the Grogs go. We can do without their unique odor. But the two of you will be missed."

'Torres will make you a fine officer of Marines."

"Yes, he's already polished those railroad tracks three times, and it's only been a day.

"One more thing." Carrasca stepped forward and embraced him in turn. Post tactfully drew the men away from the gangplank, and the pair stepped behind the lifeboat davit.

"If I ask you to do something for me, will you do it?"

"You shouldn't have to ask that question, my love. You're the best thing that's happened to me in years." He kissed her, softly and lingeringly.

"When you're back safe in your mountains, write me. We used to get courier pouches every now and then from Southern Command, years ago before the Kurians set up their in-tercoastal patrol chain. Now smugglers get newspapers and pamphlets to us through your logistics men. The commodore would like to see more, and so would I. Maybe you can set up a new mail run. From your stories, it sounds like you have the experience. Anything. Just let me know that you're okay."

"It's a promise. Write me, as well."

"I will."

They stood looking at each other, neither sure of what to say. She smiled.

"Almost forgot. I made you something." She reached into the baggy pants and pulled out another leather pouch. Stitched into the leather was the legend: thunderbolt /

JAMAICA-HAITI-TEXAS 2070 / CAPT. MALIA CARRASCA.

Valentine took the pouch. It felt as though it were full of a lot of coin-sized objects, only lighter. "Your quickwood seeds?"

"Look."

He opened it and extracted a handful of mah-jongg pieces. The bamboo pieces were delicately painted.

Valentine finally said, "Your work?"

"Of course. Should be rainproof, I lacquered them enough. You and Ahn-Kha and Post and Narcisse can play."

"Thanks, but... damn. I feel like I should send you away with something," Valentine said.

"You have," she said. "More than you know." Her eyes glistened with tears.

"How's that?" •

"Hope. Someday we'll have ships going up the Mississippi to your Ozarks. I have a feeling ... things are about to get better."

Valentine felt a pleasant thrill at the latest example of their minds following similar trails. If it weren't for the quickwood...

"Hope for someday, then."

"'Someday.' That's all our generation has: hope." She raised her chin. "Texas is waiting. I don't wish the men to see me teary-eyed. Back to hard-nosed captain, Captain."

"Yes sir," Valentine said, saluting.

She returned the gesture, her emotions under control again. Valentine felt the old wall go up. It was as if they had never kissed. As if they were strangers. Inspiration came to him.

"I left that old Coastal Marine uniform coat in the closet in my room. You're welcome to that. It doesn't mean much

to me, and won't do me any good where I'm going. All I'm keeping are the boots and the pants I dyed."

The wall vanished. "I'll make earrings out of the buttons," she said with a smile.

"Better and better." He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. Carrasca... caress. He smiled to himself. "Good-bye, Malia."

"Adios, David. You can always find a home with us on Jamaica, you know that."

"I do." He hurried off the Thunderbolt. Valentine couldn't let his mind dwell on the idea.

Four days later, Valentine and Post sat in the Academy Map Room. A pair of electric fans fought a losing battle with the lingering summer heat. Ahn-Kha stood behind and in between them. His bulk wouldn't allow him to do anything but demolish the antiques in the room, and the Grog had declined the offer by one of the Rangers at the meeting to go seek out a piano bench.

"We've accomplished part one," the colonel said from the head of the library table, after hearing the reports from the various Rangers involved. "Now comes the hard part, getting those wagons up to the Ozarks. Zacharias, before my encounter with that piece of shrapnel, you used to be in charge of our northern areas. What's your suggestion?"

Zacharias's dark eyes studied the map, as if looking for something that would appear if he just stared long enough. "With the kind of men we'll need to guard the wagons, there's no question of slipping it through the San Antonio-Austin-Houston belt, though I bet we could get north of Corpus Christi. We're going to have to swing west of San Antonio. Not too far west, we can't be moving across the desert, either. The hill country could shield and water us."

"That means crossing the Ranch."

"The Ranch?" Valentine said. "What ranch?"

"You've never heard of the Ranch?"

Valentine began to shake his head, then stopped. "Wait, you mean what I think you mean? That's a legend in a lot of places. No one's ever proved it true."

"What's this?" Post asked. "I've never even heard the story."

"The Ranch," the colonel said, "is a real place. Maybe elsewhere sometimes it is and sometimes it's not, but I'll tell you it's true in Central Texas. We've seen it. The Ranch, Mr. Post, is kind of an experimental farm the Kurians run. According to our sources, they use it to come up with new life-forms. Biological servants. Even something other than humans to squeeze the juice outta. Intelligent, but easier to handle."

"There's a lot of strange sights to be seen in those hills," Zacharias said. "The Kurian settlements give it a wide berth, there's a huge stretch of empty ringing it. The Ranch gives us our best chance of getting up to the Dallas area and past it. Then it's into the pinewoods of East Texas, and you'll be home. Getting back will be easier with no cargo to guard. We can either break up and get home in small groups the direct way or trace our route back."

"It's your part of the country," Valentine said. "If that's what you want to do, I'll support it. Whatever gives us our best chance of getting through without fighting."

"Colonel, if we're going to try to get across the Ranch, I'd like to have Baltz along," Zacharias said.

"I'll send word."

"What's his specialty?" Valentine asked.

"Her specialty," Zacharias corrected. "Back in the cattle-drive days, they used to have one or two old bulls to lead all the other cattle, especially for things like river crossings. Baltz is kind of like that, except she ain't a bull. Bullheaded, oh yeah. She grew up in the Ranch, worked there. Not in the secret buildings, on the outside. She knows the land. We'll need her and her staff, sure as a hot summer sunset."