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"Okay, the buildup isn't a feint so they can take over Nashville and Memphis. But why do they think they can move on us?" Lambert asked.
"The Army of Kentucky's still putting itself back together after that ravies outbreak," Captain Patel said. "The legworm ranchers are tough enough when they have to be, but they've got communities and families to think about. They can only play guerilla part of the year."
Valentine remained silent. He had an oddly defined role at the fort-on Southern Command's paperwork he was a corporal of the militia, but in practice he was the executive officer for operations. Everyone called him "Major" and kept up the appearances, despite the fact that his career had been permanently broken by a court-martial verdict years ago. He had some ideas of where Lambert and Ediyak were taking this meeting-they'd quietly consulted his opinion-but while he had an idea of the strategy, the tactics to be employed were still a mystery to him.
Still, he had a role to play. They hadn't exactly fed him his line, but it was time to put in his discussional ante.
"What keeps the Kurians from doing the same thing in Arkansas or Texas?" Valentine asked.
"Southern Command," Patel said.
"More than that," Valentine said. "The populace living there. Every village has some sort of militia. They're armed and the guards have special dedicated support units to show up with the mortars and machine guns. It keeps the Kurians from doing anything beyond small terror raids. In the Kurian Zone, the poor bastards are subject peoples, as likely to help enemies as inform on them. In the Republic, the locals will break out the machine guns and dynamite if they think there's a Reaper in the neighborhood."
Which can be bad enough. Valentine's first blood in the Free Territories had been in such an incident, in the little town of Weening.
"Why hasn't the Ordnance moved against Evansville? Because there are ten thousand adults there being organized to fight if they have to. The Ordnance lost the Moondaggers to us, some good assault troops to that ravies outbreak, and their garrisons don't dare concentrate too much or they might lose land to a rival Kurian. They can't arm their people in the same ratio that we can, or they'll risk a revolt. The Grogs are sick of dying for them, except for the ones that can be trained like dogs and a few elite units under close supervision."
"What we need is an instant population," Lambert said.
Valentine thought of an old Warner Bros. cartoon he'd seen at the theater in Pine Bluff. A little alien had run around sprinkling seeds with water, growing big bird creatures. He once thought that the Kurians probably had a similar system for growing Reapers, but he'd learned in his search for Gail Post that they used human females who possessed some kind of special genetic marker.
"Ex-soldiers from Southern Command would be my choice," Patel said, after swallowing his usual after-dinner tablets of aspirin. He had bad knees, and popped the white caplets morning, noon, and night. "Some guard vet, has his twenty years and five hundred acres-or better yet an ex-Wolf. I could put the word out."
"There aren't enough ex-Wolves in all of the Free Republics, even if they all moved," Lambert said.
"What would it take to occupy the lands between here and the Tennessee?" Ediyak asked. "Maybe Southern Command can offer some kind of bonus for settlers. I know the people in the refugee camp they put me in would jump at the chance to get their own land."
"We need something like ten thousand," Lambert said. "At best, there are a thousand Kentuckians from the Gunslinger Clan there now, and that's counting all the kids and grandparents."
Glass snorted.
"You have something to add, Sergeant Major?" Lambert asked.
"No, sir," Glass said.
"I expect he nasalized what we were all thinking," Valentine said. "Getting ten thousand people to leave the relative safety of the Free Republics and move into Kentucky."
"The papers haven't had much good to say about our performance here," Lambert said. "Kentucky-chaotic, dirty, disease-ridden, nothing but legworm meat to eat. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding back and forth across the state with some obnoxious cousins following behind."
"Maybe we should give it back," Patel said, eliciting a few chuckles.
"May I offer a suggestion?" Ahn-Kha said. They'd spent long hours the previous night, looking at each other in the blue darkness talking about his suggestion.
"Of course," Lambert said. "Err-Valentine, does he have a rank with Southern Command?"
"When I last appeared on the lists, I was a Colonel of Auxiliaries, sir," Ahn-Kha said. "So even a Southern Command corporal outranks me in combat zones. But I fear my commission is defunct since the unpleasantness following Major Valentine's legal trouble."
"You still have your old gift for understatement," Valentine said. "Just call him Uncle."
"Your suggestion, Uncle?" Lambert said.
"Two generations ago in my people's history, we were promised green lands and good stone by the Kurians, once you difficult humans were under control. The Kurians gave us a ruined city poisoned by sun weapons and dry prairie. I've seen the limestone all around here and the richness of the land speaks for itself. If you would have my people here, they would gladly come."
"The Golden Ones," Lambert said. "I don't remember how many you had in Omaha."
"It was some thousands when I left," Ahn-Kha said. "Fifteen or so."
"Moving them would be tough," Patel said. "That's six hundred miles or thereabouts, most of it covered in Grogs. We don't have any friends in Missouri or Southern Illinois."
