not

leading the doctors,” Ben countered.

“I just work here, General,” Beth said. “Argue with Doctor Chase.”

“Put down Doctor Ling to lead the team. I’ll deal with Lamar.”“

“Better you than me,” Beth muttered.

“Umm?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Ike is seeing to the vehicles, so if any of them breaks down, we can blame it on him.”

“Yes, sir. We can cuss him a thousand miles from nowhere, sitting on the side of the highway holding a busted U-joint. Right, sir.”

“Make a note to recheck the transportation before we pull out,” Ben said with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“What am I forgetting, Beth?”

“About ten thousand things, sir. I have a list.” She held out her hand and Cooper gave her a notebook about die size of the Bible.

Ben glanced at it. “Good God!”

“Yes, sir. Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. Where do we start?”

He had discovered that Beth was very thorough.

“Five thousand pairs of socks.”

“Can we start with the bras and panties?”

“We’ll get to that later,” Corrie said, smiling at him.

Ben arched an eyebrow. Might be a more interesting trip than he first thought.

Emil had settled back into his role as spiritual leader of his little group. The battle dress was gone and the robes had returned.

Emil had contacted the Great God Blomm, and Blomm,

so the little con artist informed his following, had “instructed him to keep his ass close to home from now on.

But Emil was forced to admit, not aloud, that he did miss

the excitement.

No more had been heard from Sister Voleta or Ashley.

Thermopolis and his group were settling in up in Arkansas. Ben had instructed the platoon of Rebels to stay with them for as long as they were needed.

At least that kept Ben away from Jerre.

And vice versa.

And Ben was stalling in pulling out, and he knew it.

He had made up a dozen excuses for his delaying the trip west, some of them proving valid, most just no more than excuses and nothing else.

West knocked on his office door and Ben waved him in and to a seat. “What’s up?”

“Ben, I lost two men last week.”

“Lost two men? How? Desertion?”

“No. I’ve never lost a man to that. My people are professionals. B…” He spread his hands.

“Ithoughtat first that, well, hell, there is a first time for everything, so maybe they did desert.

Now I find that two more

are missing. Sometime last night.”

Ben kept his face expressionless; but his first thought was of the kids of the Night P. “And your thoughts on the matter?”

“The same as yours, Ben,” the mercenary said grimly.

“All the creepie kids accounted for?”

“Yes. But that doesn’t mean a damn thing. The sneaky little bastards can almost slip out and away while you’re looking at them.”

“You think … ?” Ben let that hang.

“Yeah, Ben. I think.”

“If they did the unthinkable and unspeakable, West, they didn’t go far to do it. Come on.”

The creepie kids would have few places to feast on human flesh, for there were no slums and no shacks in any town or outpost occupied by the Rebels. If there were unoccupied buildings or sheds on any land claimed by a Rebel, the buildings were repainted and kept up by the new owner, or they were torn down.

Since building materials and nails and paint were free for the taking, the standing orders were: Just do it.

Period.

When Ben said that Rebel communities were going to be models that would stand the test of time for future generations to build by, he meant it.

Morriston was rapidly becoming a small town that would have been the envy of anyone even when the nation was whole. There was no litter. If one littered and was caught, and the offender almost always was, the culprit spent a week, seven days, eight hours a day, doing community service work, usually cleaning out septic tanks, digging ditches, or some other unenviable type of work. There was no appeal. There just wasn’t any litter.

But it was not an inflexible society. Ben knew that kids are kids and kids are going to break the rules from time to time. Loud mufflers and loud music of any type-rock to classical-was tolerated, to a point. Probably the most important thing was that the kids understood the rights of others. They were taught values not only in the churches and at home, but in the schools.

Members of the ACLU were probably spinning in their graves, and Ben hoped they kept on spinning, right out into another galaxy.

“Corrie,” Ben told her, “have Doctor Chase get the lab ready to test for human blood on hands and lips and clothing. Tell Ike to take a team and go over their quarters like a Marine Corps inspection team landing on a recruits” barracks.

They left something behind, bet on it.”

“Yes, sir.” They walked on toward the kids’

quarters as Corrie completed her transmissions.

She said, “General? Doctor Chase says that his goddamned, blankety-blank,

I-refuse-to-say-that-word lab is always that-word-either blankety-blank ready.”

“Thank you, Corrie. You have to remember that Chase was in the Navy. He was an officer, but he was a mustang. You’ll get used to Lamar …

eventually.”

“If you say so, sir.” But she looked very dubious about it.

“What are we looking for, Ben?” West asked.

“The last place those men were seen.”

“They were pulling guard duty around our compound. The dog watch.”

“We’ll start there.”

It took them several walk-arounds of the area, but West was the one who found the small splotches of blood. “Got it,” he called.

Ben waved a lab technician over, and the woman lifted the blood onto slides.

“Now we have something to work on,” Ben said. “Let’s see if we can pick up a trail.”

A dozen yards on and they found a thin blood trail leading toward a stand of timber across the old Interstate. In the timber, in an old shotgun house, they found the men, hanging up like sides of beef. What was left of them, that is. They were naked and had been carved on with very sharp knives.

“What’s the drill now, Ben?” West asked, anger very plain in his tone.

“We either prove or disprove it was them. I have never believed in pampering kids. If a teenager commits an adult

crime, they should be punished like an adult.” “And the punishment for a crime like this?” “Death.”

“What’d you have, Lamar?” Ben asked.

“Dried blood under their fingernails and on their skin and clothing. It’s being matched up now. Did you find all the bodies, Ben?”

“All four of them. The kids ate their fill.”

“If it was the kids,” Doctor Holly Allardt said.

These were the first words she had spoken to Ben since his return to the base camp at Morriston.

“Right, Holly. If.”

The doctor turned her back to him and walked away, to stand in her office doorway, glaring at him.

“Hell has no fury, and all that,” Chase muttered, looking at Ben.

“I didn’t scorn her, Lamar.”

“You think.”

A lab technician walked up to the group, which had now grown to include Cecil and Ike and Buddy and Tina and Dan. “It’s a match. All the kids were involved. They all feasted. If that’s the right word.”

Ben nodded. “Dan, take their statements. I don’t think they’ll deny it. They’re proud of what they ate.”

“Yes, sir. And then … ?”

“Hang them.”

“They’re just kids! “Holly yelled at him. “The youngest is no more than fifteen. This is barbaric behavior.”

“This is a hospital, Doctor,” Chase warned her. “We have some seriously ill patients. So please lower your voice.”

Holly walked up to Ben. “If you hang those kids, I’ll resign.”

“Turn your resignation in to Doctor

Chase, then. And I’ll be sorry to lose you.

You’re a fine doctor.” Ben walked away.

The older cannibalistic offspring of the Night People were hanged, and Holly did not resign. But in the time Ben had left at Base Camp One, she avoided him whenever possible, and then spoke only when spoken to.

The younger kids were spared; they had taken no part in the killing and eating of West’s men, having been housed in separate quarters. Most of Ben’s medical personnel thought the younger kids had a chance to shake their earlier teachings. Only time would prove or disprove that theory.

On a cool early spring morning, Ben rose before dawn and stepped out of his house, a mug of coffee in his hand. He sat down on the porch and looked out at the quiet before dawn.

His dogs came to him and he petted them all.

“Gonna miss you guys and gals,” he spoke softly to them. He knew they would be well taken care of by the Rebels who stayed in his house whenever he was gorie. “But the old man’s got to go. I wish I could take you all with me, but that’s not possible. I’ll be back, and that’s a promise, gang.”

The dogs took turns licking the back of his hand.

Then they all ran out into the fenced yard to play.

Ben finished his coffee and went back into the house, to pack up a few last-minute things. He looked at the only picture of Jerre he had and picked it up; then he gently placed the framed picture into a drawer of the nightstand and closed it.

“You will never know how much I love you, Jerre.”

Ben buckled his flight bag and walked out into the predawn darkness.

Ben walked up and down and through the lines of vehicles in the staging area, noting that a great many of the Rebels who had volunteered to travel west had been part of the forces who had fought in New York City. But still there were many new faces among the eight hundred Rebels.

Ben stopped and stared at a man from Missouri who had been with him since the beginning.

“Dammit, Jimmy,” Ben said to the sergeant major. “When are you going to admit thatyou’re just too damned old for the field?”

“The same day you do, General,” was his reply.

Ben laughed and walked on, Beth, Corrie, Jersey, and Cooper walking with him.

He stopped at a truck and looked up

at the line of Rebels seated on the bench.

“Chuck, how are you feeling?”

“Good as new, General,” Chuck said with a grin.

“Good to have you back with us.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Ben completed his inspection and looked at his watch.

Ten o’clock. He walked back to his new Blazer, bulletproofed and armor-plated. Cecil and Ike and Chase were standing beside the vehicle.

Ben shook hands with all of them.

Nobody said anything. There was nothing left to say.

The three men backed into the throng of silent and watching Rebels who were staying behind.

Ben climbed into the Blazer and rolled down his window. “Corrie, tell the Scouts to move out and maintain a ten-mile lead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Order the convoy out onto the Interstate.”

The orders were given and the long column began rumbling and snorting and clanking out onto Interstate 20.

“Cooper!” Jersey spoke from the backseat. “Will you quit tailgating that damn tank. I swear to God, I only know one other person who’s a worse driver than you!”

Ben laughed as everybody in the Blazer started singing “On the Road Again.”