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Two generations of bitter feelings between the sides, and the Kurian habit of sending their own armed prisoners straight to the Reapers, had hardened both sides.
"The court finds cause for a trial." Valentine remembered that phrase. The judge declared that Valentine should be kept within Fort Alnutt until the date of his trial, set for the end of the month: May twenty-third, to be precise.
This rapidity struck Valentine as strange; his knowledge of Southern Command jurisprudence was based on one bad hearing after the destruction of Foxtrot Company at Little Timber Hill and the occasional Southern Command Bulletin article, and it was rare to be tried within six months of one's arrest.
And with those words he went dumbly through the sanitary procedures at the jail entrance, climbed into shapeless baby-blue scrubs with large yellow Xs sewn onto the back, each leg, and the chest pocket, and went to his cell.
His cell he remembered. As a major he got his own room in what his guard escort told him was the nicer wing of the Nut. There was a door with a small glass window rather than bars, and windows that would open to admit a breeze, though the sturdy metal frame was designed so that he couldn't crawl out.
The room had five one-foot-square green linoleum floor tiles across, and nine deep. The bolted-down bed bore a single plastic-wrapped mattress and a depressed-looking pillow in a cotton case that smelled like bleach, as did his combination sink and toilet. His ceiling had a brown-painted light fixture but no bulb: "They don't waste fluorescent tubes on cons, so the sun decides 'lights out,' " the guard said. "Hot chow in the cafeteria twice a day, and we bring out a soup and bread cart to the exercise yard for lunch. Questions?"
"How do I get a shave?" Valentine asked, rubbing his three-day beard.
The guard, whose name tag read Young, but looked as though his first name should be "Gus" or "Mick" or something else hearty and friendly, stuck his thumb in a belt loop. "There's two razors in the showers. You have to use them under supervision. Be sure to put it back in the blue cleanser-"
"I'm not a suicide."
"Didn't say you were. We keep an eye on sharp edges here. Lots of the guys just grow beards until trial."
Valentine looked at what appeared to be a hundred keys at the guard's waist. "Is there a library?"
"Mostly paperbacks held together with rubber bands, and porn. There's a bookcase or two for the highbrows. We've got a store with the Provisional Journal and Serial Digest for sale; you can earn money in the fields or with janitorial work. Kitchen's full up now."
"Thank you." The formal politeness came out despite the circumstances.
"No problem, Major Valentine. Good luck with the trial. There's a packet of rules and instructions under your pillow. We do an hourly pass through if you need anything."
"A lawyer would be nice."
"You'll have a meeting tomorrow or the next day."
His uniform "scrubs" were poorly finished on the inside. Loose threads tickled whenever he walked. By the time he finished biting off the stray threads with his teeth it was time for dinner.
Officers awaiting trial had a small cafeteria to themselves. Valentine ended up being at the end of the blue-and-yellow file escorted by Young and another guard to the central cafeteria.
Dinner, plopped onto a tray and eaten with a bent-tined fork and a spoon that looked as though it dated from the War of 1812, consisted of an unappetizing vegetable goulash with ground meat.
Two clusters of officers ate together at opposite sides of the cafeteria. A narrow man with long, thinning, butterscotch hair in the smaller of the two cliques looked up at Valentine and made a motion to the seat next to him, but Valentine just dropped into the seat nearest the end of the food service line-and immediately regretted it. He felt alone and friendless, as though already dead, forgotten and entombed in this prison. After dinner some of the men smoked, and Valentine went to the slitlike barred windows and enjoyed the breeze created by the kitchen extractor fans. The Ozarks were black in the distance, the sun masked by haze.
"Shooter or looter?" a reedy voice said.
Didn't even hear him come. Valentine felt thick and tired, brain too apathetic to even function-if he didn't know better he'd suspect one of the mild Kurian sedatives had been put in the food.
He looked at the man, short and close to bald, with an ivory mustache and growing beard, smoking a cigarette from a whittled holder. The eyes were crinkled and friendly.
"Pardon?"
"Shooter or looter, boy? You're the new squirrel in the nut. What they got you in for?"
Valentine tried to make sense of the metaphor and gave up. "Murder. Quislings."
"Then you're a shooter. That's those three over there." He turned his chin in the direction of the group with the long-haired man. "I'm Berlinelli. Malfeasance in the performance of my duties."
"Meaning?"
"Looter. I was doing what a lot of other guys were doing, on a larger scale. Siphoning gasoline and diesel out of captured trucks and selling it."
"I thought everyone in prison was innocent," Valentine said, a bit startled at the man's frankness.
