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"A lively night," Valentine agreed. "Where do you want me today ?"
"You can have the afternoon off. Be back for evening milking. Let the machines do the titty-pulling for a change."
"I give him a month," one of the other hands said to his lunch mates.
"He's colored," a big piledriver of a man named Ski said as Valentine left. He didn't bother to lower his voice; Valentine hardly had to harden his ears at all to pick up the commentary. "And a Grogfucker to boot. She'll keep him around to show off to the other doctors at the holiday parties. He'll get his dismissal papers right before New Year's."
Valentine seethed. He took a walk to let the anger bleed off. Watching cows had a magical soothing quality to it, something about the tail swishing and contemplative chewing always put him in a better mood.
The cows of Xanadu were rather scrawny specimens. Compared to the fat milkers in Wisconsin or the small mountains of beef he'd seen in Nebraska they looked fleshless and apathetic-despite the good grass and plentiful water.
Of course, with characters like Ski taking care of them, anything was possible. He probably left nails or bits of wire lying around. Cows aren't overly bright in their grazing, and they're never right again once a wire is lodged in one of their stomachs.
Valentine found Ahn-Kha scooping grain. The Golden One was alone, and the cascade of grain going onto the conveyor as it went up to the silo gave a lot of covering noise. He hopped up onto the side of the truck.
"I met a doctor last night and got inside the towers. I saw Gail."
To his credit, Ahn-Kha didn't miss a stroke with the shovel. "I knew this would be the end of the trail. I am surprised she is still alive."
"Give me that. You shouldn't be pushing."
Ahn-Kha passed him the shovel. It felt good to move the mix of corn and feed grain. "This is some kind of baby factory. I've heard stories of women otherwise unemployable just being warehoused while they gestate. Once they recover they go through it all over again."
"Then why all the security?"
"Remember the Ranch? The Kurians might be tinkering with the fetuses. I've wondered why they don't make their own versions of Bears."
"Too hard to control, perhaps. My David, where were you born?"
"The lakes in the North woods. You know that."
"But do you? You've told me before it was a strange childhood. Never seriously ill. Never a broken bone. Healing from cuts overnight."
Valentine shoveled harder. "Bear blood, passed down. Like Styachowski. If someone was breeding a more pliable human, it didn't take."
* * * *
Fran Paoli continued to see him on her strange schedule as the weather turned sharply colder.
Valentine loved autumn up north, the bannerlike colors of the trees, the wet, earthy smell of leaves falling and rotting. He found excuses to work near the wire where he could see the trees, smell the woods.
They saw each other strictly on her terms. Her duties sometimes left her with as much as a whole day free, and she would tear up the roads in her big Lincoln to get them to a show in Cleveland and then back down again. Once she brought him to the south Grand and they made love in an empty conference room on the top floor where a few spare mattresses were stored, for medical staff working long shifts to take breaks.
Valentine never asked her about putting him to work in the towers. He never asked her for so much as a ham sandwich. She bought him two sets of clothes, a fine-material suit with a double-breasted jacket-he feigned ignorance with the necktie knot, since the only one he really knew how to make was the tight Southern Command military style-and some casual, slate-colored pants with a taupe turtleneck made of an incredibly soft and lightweight material she called cashmere.
"You need more than cash to get that these days," she said, observing the results when he put it on and stood in front of the framed floor-length mirror in the corner of her bedroom. "You need connections."
"My whole life I've never had a connection."
"Which is why you're milking cows. I'm not even that great of a doctor, but I'm running a whole department here thanks to connections I've made. Why haven't you asked me for a better job? Every guy I've dated wants me to set him up in an office."
Preguilt flooded Valentine before he even said the words. "You're not like any woman I've ever known, Fran. I didn't want you to think I was... what did Oriana call it... 'after your status.' "
"You're so young."
Valentine let that rest.
"A brass ring won't just fall into your lap, you know. You're smart. Haven't you figured out that you need to be angling for job security?"
