March in Country (9 page)
Authors: EE Knight
And the people around headquarters indulged her sweet tooth, affecting her digestion and making her fretting worse. She’d broken some furniture on blood-sugar rampages.
He tried to ignore Bee snuffling over his dirty clothes as he reduced his facial hair to sink litter and combed out.
Clean and feeling human again, he stopped by his desk, glanced at his in-box and the lone red flag on the Alert Map and decided everything could wait. He was curious about the new arrival at the stables.
“No mail in the diaper bag this time, Major?” asked a corporal with a tray of sandwiches and coffee on his way out.
“Afraid not. Came in from a different direction. Those sandwiches look good.”
“They’re for that spy Martinez sent. That major fella.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to know about that,” Valentine said, turning down the path to the stables.
So, the new broom at Southern Command was finally doing some whisking in Kentucky, Valentine thought. Well, he’s welcome to it. He won’t be able to complain about their use of logistical supplies. Most of the arms they were issuing to recruits were captured, the uniforms and gear were made in Evansville workshops, and the good people of Kentucky were feeding them. About all the pack trains were bringing in were bullets and medical supplies.
He took a deep breath and pretended to forget about the bad blood with General Martinez. Enemies in the Kurian Zone prowling Western Kentucky were his business, not vindictive old snapping turtles two big rivers away back at headquarters.
He took a deeper breath when he saw the woman bending over a tack-cleaning table outside the stable feed-room door. Victoria Pellwell stood at least six three. She was one of the tallest women Valentine had ever seen.
She scooped grain, corn, and nuts out of assorted livestock feed sacks, filling a flour barrel. Her civilian attire was rather striking—sun-faded red denim from neck to ankle, short, lace-up riding boots, hair bound up in a yellow handkerchief.
“Victoria Pellwell of the Miskatonic, I presume,” Valentine said.
She set down her scoop. “David Valentine. As I live and breathe.”
Valentine was tall himself, but he found himself staring dead level, or perhaps a little up, into her eyes as they shook hands. Vigorously. Valentine felt as though his hand was attached to a pump head.
“I’m pleased,” he said, hoping she’d relinquish his hand before shaking it out, “but not as pleased as you are, it seems. Can’t account for it.”
She was no beauty. She had an upturned nose and her steady, rarely blinking eyes were set at an almost uncanny distance from each other, but it was an appealing face you didn’t mind looking at. Her teeth were well aligned and gloriously white; he hadn’t seen such teeth on a woman since his brief affair with the Quisling obstetrician in Xanadu.
She freed his hand. Valentine fought the impulse to massage his knuckles. “Your papers are practically an archive all by themselves, Valentine. You’ve got a good eye for detail and you’ve met a rare level of exomorphs.”
“The Miskatonic has been helpful to me on occasion too,” Valentine said. He’d learned to grow suspicious of people eager to praise him within a few seconds of meeting. They usually wanted something.
“I’m hoping we’ll be even more so,” she said, knocking over her small barrel as she turned and put her hand up to her mouth. Valentine’s arm flashed out, caught the barrel and righted it before she could whistle, or quack, or whatever the finger in her mouth was for.
Pellwell made a popping sound with her finger against tight-stretched cheek and stamped her foot.
A train of little brown creatures, nose to stumpy naked tail, trotted out of the stable. They had powerful rear legs and smaller, delicate forelimbs with widely spaced digits. The first stuck its snout in the air and sniffed the feed.
Ratbits
.
.
He’d seen them in the wild, if “wild” applied to a creature at least as bright as a human child. The muscular haunches allowed them a good running pace, bouncing along as though on springs. Their front paws were gifted with opposable fingers and thumb and tough stumpy claws to dig; in their faces were sharp teeth capable of chewing through all manner of obstacles. Big, sensitive ears shifted this way and that. Though their faces were unlike either rats or rabbits, the eyes were set forward in the face rather in the manner of a weasel or raccoon.
Valentine had last encountered them in the Texas hill country. They were an experiment by the Kurian Order in a vast establishment called “the Ranch.” The Ranch was in ruins by the time Valentine crossed it, abandoned to the ratbits, oversized rattlers the Kurians had developed to wipe out the ratbits, and other unpleasant fauna cooked up by the Kurian genetic tinkerers.
The Kurians had been looking for something that bred faster, and were hopefully more manageable, than humans. The experiment had produced the ratbits, who turned out to be so successfully enhanced in intelligence and social inclination they launched a revolt, since they were no more enamored of being bred to be eaten than humans.
When Valentine had met them, there was some misunderstanding that led to violence. Their squeaks and chirps were unintelligible to humans, and they communicated by spelling out words with Scrabble tiles, working the tiles with the quick-handed facility of a blackjack dealer.
This group looked a little better groomed than those he’d seen in Texas. They smelled faintly of pine chips. One had patchy-colored fur, and another had nearly black stripes running down its pewter-colored back. The others were in shades of brown to gray, with a mixture of lighter rings around their eyes, noses, and running up their ears.
“Are these from Texas?” Valentine asked.
“I met them there four years ago,” she said. “I was a junior member of the Miskatonic team that went into the hill country to see what might be salvaged from the experimental station.”
“The Ranch,” Valentine said.
“The Ranch is an urban legend,” she said. “Well, that there’s one, and the Kurians do all their experiments there like a big Manhattan Project. If it exists, it’s probably back on Kur, where they can all keep an eye on each other and what’s being developed. The station in the Texas Hill Country is where they were experimenting with ratbits to test them in real Earth-wild conditions.”
Valentine took a knee, and offered a finger. Each ratbit came up and first sniffed, then touched it in turn. They yeeked to each other. “What are you doing with them here?”
“I’m on Southern Command’s rolls as a civilian consultant. Former Miskatonic associate, exozoology, if you want the full résumé.”
“Exo—you mean Grogs,” Valentine said.
The word Grog applied to pretty much any animal brought over from other worlds by the Kurians, though it was more precisely applied to the apelike bipeds of Bee’s variety. Valentine didn’t mind the inexactitude. You could tell from context whether the word was being used in its general or specific sense. He was part “Indian,” to most folks, after all.
“Yes. The cognitives were my specialty. I’m more of a blackboard and bookshelf type than a bush researcher. Had my eye on a faculty chair. I was getting my field experience slot filled when I fell in love with your ratbits, Valentine.”
Valentine didn’t know much about the intellectual hierarchies of the Miskatonic, he knew interns were at the bottom and department chairs at the top, but where an associate came in between the two he couldn’t say.
“They’re hardly mine,” Valentine said.
“You had the first description of them entered into the rolls.
Translagorodent Valentine,
they’re labeled, in the latest edition of the
Guide
. Do you know scientific classification?”
Translagorodent Valentine,
they’re labeled, in the latest edition of the
Guide
. Do you know scientific classification?”
“Never figured being in a book,” Valentine said, hoping he wasn’t blushing in pleasure. His face felt warm. So, his name would be remembered for a minor contribution to science. There were worse legacies. He could have been quietly hung as a war criminal, after all.
Valentine stood again. Pellwell picked up the patchy-colored one and stood, somewhat awkwardly, with it clinging to her shoulder like a big housecat. “You discovered and described them. It’s an honor. I believe that they’d be a great help in the war.”
The ratbits left on the ground whistled for attention and made chirping noises at the one on her shoulder. It wrinkled its nose at its companions.
“So these are—allies?”
“Of course,” she said, pouring out a scoopful of her mix.
“That ratbit trail mix?”
“Some favorites. They’ll eat about anything. Don’t need much water either, they’ll dig for roots. Though I’ve noticed that if they don’t have drinking water, what little urine they do produce—pfew!”
Ratbits reminded Valentine of raccoons. They sat up to eat, using their paws to pick and discard. Pellwell clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and the ratbits all nodded an affirmative.
“You can speak to them?” Valentine asked.
“A few basic words. I think they’re exaggerating some of their sounds so I can understand them. Pidgin ratbit for humans only, if you will.”
“Why did you bring them here?” Valentine asked. “Shouldn’t they be running through mazes in a lab?”
“They’ve done all that already, both in Texas and at the lab in Pine Bluff. I want to make practical use of their abilities under real field conditions. I’ve an idea they could be of great help. Like dogs, only better.”
“Plenty of opportunities for that in South Texas, I’d think.”
She scowled. “Southern Command wouldn’t even let me through the door. Ratbits are ideal for reconnaissance, surveillance, sabotage, they’re even damn good thieves who can be trained to get electronic spares or medicines or whatnot that aren’t easily accessible. I kept quoting your report, and your suggestions that they might be useful.”
“At headquarters? I’m not a favorite of theirs.”
“So I gathered. Honestly, I was expecting you to be a gilt-edged bastard. ‘Let Valentine deal with them, he’s such a grog-lover’ they told me. And a few other things. But never mind. I found out where Fort Seng was, and decided I should look you up. Headquarters gave me transport docs to get rid of me, I think. I got myself attached to some volunteers heading out your way. I brought five I’d trained as a proof of concept.”
We’re collecting quite a menagerie in Kentucky
, Valentine thought.
, Valentine thought.
“Please tell me I haven’t wasted my time,” she said.
A visionary. Well, he’d been faulted more than once for following an ideal rather than military duty. Besides, another thinker around might give Brother Mark someone to latch on to on quiet evenings when Valentine would much rather be reading or enjoying one of Gamecock’s raucous poker games.
“You want a chance to prove your concept? Get hard operational data?” Valentine asked, already bubbling with ideas. An animal about the same size as a cat, with sentient intelligence ... It was her turn to blush. “Of course.” Oh, God, what had they said about him at headquarters.
“When you say reconnaissance, what do you mean? What do you think their capabilities are?”
She gathered her thoughts. “Well, you can’t just send them out and have them report what they see. They need specifics. They can count and identify some things.
How many trucks are in the warehouse
. That sort of thing.”
How many trucks are in the warehouse
. That sort of thing.”
“Map reading?” Valentine asked.
The teeth reduced their wattage. “Still working on that. You have to get them pretty near their objective. Surely you can see the potential.”
So young. So eager. So bright.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to bury her, the way he had Rand. His shy intelligence, those remarkable teeth. Of course, if she really were that smart she would have kept pursuing that comfy departmental chair, rather than trying to come up with a new way to beat the Kurians.
“You ever been in the KZ?”
“Kurian Zone? Not really. Only the trip to Texas. I did my first internship in Kansas and Missouri, though, with the Gray Ones.”
Valentine felt a pang. His old friend Ahn-Kha had taught him that terminology. Apparently it had made it into the scientific vocabulary.
“We’re going out on a task in a couple days,” Valentine said. “Lives will be at risk. We could certainly use you, but I want to see your team in action and interacting with our men. So let’s try a test. If they do well, we’ll bring you along for a real test under operational conditions.”
“Thank you, Major Valentine.”
“Most people call me Val when salutes aren’t being tossed back and forth. Especially friends.”
“I’d like that,” she said, extending her hand.
Valentine hoped he didn’t hesitate too much before gripping hers and submitting to another socket-rattling pumping of his arm.
“Thank you for the opportunity,” she said.
Valentine needed time to think and plan and assemble his key officers. Perhaps coming along would be the best thing to ever happen to Miss Pellwell. She’d either be shocked into returning to her Miskatonic digs with renewed hopes of that chair, or she’d blossom into yet another oddly fitting cog in the Fort Seng machine.
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