Valentine got up and gave her his plastic tumbler full.
"Val, we didn't. . ."
"Didn't what?"
"You know."
"You yodel during sex. I never would have guessed that."
"Dream on, Valentine." She rolled over on her stomach. "God, gotta pee."
She got up and dragged herself into the bathroom.
"This would have been a bad time of the month for us to do that," she said from within.
"Do I need to get you anything from supply?"
"No, I mean-fertility and all that."
Valentine wondered for one awful second what his daughter looked like. She'd probably have dark eyes and hair; both he and Malita Carrasca were dark.
"I got basic hygiene first week of Labor Regiment," Valentine said. "Good soldiers don't shoot unless they've taken precautions not to hurt the innocent."
She laughed and then cut it off. "Ow. My head."
Someone pounded on the door hard enough that the hinges moved.
"Come in," Valentine called.
Ahn-Kha stood, blocking ninety-five percent of the light coming through the open door.
"Final review at noon, Major. Colonel's orders. Three generals will be in attendance."
"Thank you. Eat up-" Valentine said, indicating the tray. Narcisse always issued him three times the breakfast he could consume and there was a pile of sliced ham on the tray the height of a New Universal Church Archon's bible.
Ahn-Kha wedged himself between chair and desk.
"Generals, eh?" Duvalier said. "I'm going to make myself scarce. Striped trousers are for clowns."
Valentine looked at his row of battle dress and wondered which one could be pressed sufficiently for the occasion.
None of them, really. Whatever the Razors were all about, whatever was dying that afternoon, wasn't about creased trousers.
* * * *
"I'm sorry, Valentine," Meadows said out of the side of his mouth as they approached the four generals on the bandstand that last night had barely contained Black Lightning. "He tagged along at the last minute."
Post and some of the other nonambulatory wounded sat behind them on the stand so they could see. The remaining Razors were drawn up in a great U of six attenuated companies in the open parking-lot space in front of the bandstand. Ahn-Kha stood with the senior NCOs, Hank with a group of Aspirants, and Narcisse watched from high on the shoulder of one of his soldier's husbands. In the center, a color guard of Bears took down the Razors' boar-silhouette flag. They did it badly, and the men coming together as they folded it looked like a mistimed football hike. The Bears did everything badly.
Except fight.
They presented the triangular folded flag to Meadows, who accepted it as he would a baby.
Valentine looked at the rows of men for what was probably the last time. They looked hard in their battle dress, hard in the relaxed way that only men who'd seen bloodshed could manage. But Valentine didn't see them as iron-thewed heroes. They were more like blown-glass sculptures, beautiful in their irregularity, their variety of colors, heights, and shapes. And just like the glass vessels, tiny shards of fast-flying shrapnel could convert them into a shattered ruin of gristle, blood, and half-digested food in an eyeblink. He'd seen it more than once, and once was enough for any sane man.
Their delicacy made them all the more precious.
Then he and Meadows turned and walked to the generals. Valentine knew each, one by name, but only one from experience.