“I suppose I can’t fault you for that,” said Shon, and walked to his desk chair. He didn’t offer one to Samm. The old wood creaked when he sat, but it held him well enough. “Is it still good?”

“I don’t know,” said Samm. “I don’t drink. It’s unopened, though, so it’s probably fine.”

Shon examined the bottle, then unscrewed the top. The smell was exactly what he remembered, and he took a small swig straight from the bottle. “I used to drink this all the time back at Benning. Something about the South spoke to me in a way the rest of the country didn’t.” He took another drink. “Did you know that when you brought the bottle?”

“No, sir,” said Samm. “I only had time to raid one empty house before coming out here, and that’s what they happened to have.”

Shon took another small drink, savoring the burn in the back of his throat. “You know what goes well with bourbon? Fried chicken.”

“Are we going to talk about bourbon all night, sir?”

“You came to me,” said Shon. “Do you have something else you want to talk about?”

“I want you to stop this attack,” said Samm.

Shon’s surprise trickled out across the link. “As a thank-you for the drink?”

“I want you to put down your guns and free all your prisoners. And then you and I are going to go talk to the human refugees.”

“About what?”

“About a peace settlement,” said Samm.

Shon shook his head. “This is getting less and less plausible the more you talk. The humans killed our people. You killed our people, at least by association and probably, if I’m reading you right, by actually pulling triggers and killing them. That’s not the kind of people I make peace with.”

“I regret every bullet I’ve had to fire in this war.”

“That doesn’t make my soldiers any less dead.”

“Neither will killing the humans,” said Samm. He didn’t move, but his link data swelled with urgency. “Eighty percent of our people were killed in that nuclear blast, and that was a tragedy we can never make up for. But if you don’t make peace, you’re signing the death warrant of the last twenty percent. The humans aren’t your enemy here, General, expiration is, and killing those humans won’t change that. Attack and everybody dies, on both sides, whether it’s tomorrow or six months down the line. Make peace, and we can save the precious few we have left.”

“You’re saying the humans have a cure for expiration?”

“The humans are the cure for expiration,” said Samm. “Come with me to talk to them and I can prove it to you—I can show it to you, live and in person. Are you familiar with the Third Division?”