American near-zoologist. She'd been a graduate student doing research on African wildlife, but what with one thing or another, such as marrying Dad, she never went back to the States to finish her degree."
Valentina frowned for a moment at some flash of memory. "It did give me dual citizenship, which proved rather handy when things went to their final hell back home. I was able to refugee to America to live with my mother's family after...well, after."
"I see. And how did you get here?"
She glanced at him, her lips pursed thoughtfully. "Doesn't that question violate mobile cipher compartmentalization or something? Like the old 'one question you cannot ask' in the Foreign Legion?"
Smith shrugged. "Damned if I know. But you're the one who said we were destined to become lovers. The question is probably going to come up again."
"Valid point," she agreed, looking back to the ice. "It's a long and rather meandering story. As I said, my father was a game control officer and the commander of our local territorial commando-a hunter, a scholar, and a soldier, who probably would have been much happier living as a contemporary of Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Selous. I was born in a war zone and raised in a household where weapons were a fact and a necessity of life. My earliest memories are of the sound of gunfire beyond our compound. I was given a rifle at an age when most little girls in America were still being given Barbie dolls, and I shot my first leopard while it was trying to climb in through my bedroom window."
She glanced wryly at Smith. "To say the least, I grew up with a somewhat different worldview than is the norm."
He tilted his head in an acknowledging nod. "I can see how that could happen."
"My father loved history and about learning how things came to be," she continued. "He'd say, 'To learn where you're going, you have to know where you've come from.' He put that love into me, and I majored in world history at college. My doctoral paper was titled The Cutting Edge: Armaments Technology as a Guiding Force in Sociopolitical Evolution. Later I expanded it into my first book."
"Sounds like an impressive topic."
"Oh, it is, and a valid one." Valentina's voice began to take on a lecturer's enthusiasm. "Consider how different Europe might be today if the English longbow had not proven decisively superior to the French arbalest at the Battle of Agincourt. Or how World War Two might have played out had the Japanese not developed the shallow-water drop shroud for their aerial torpedoes, permitting the attack on Pearl Harbor. Or how the United States might never have come to exist had the British Army put Major Ferguson's breech-loading rifle into general issue during the Revolutionary War..."
Smith laughed softly and lifted a gloved hand. "Points taken, but it's still your history I'm interested in."
"Oops, sorry, Pavlovian reflex. At any rate, after receiving my doctorate, I found I couldn't get a decent teaching position. My views were considered somewhat un-PC in certain quarters. So, to stave off starvation, I became an authenticator, appraiser, and procurer of rare and historic weapons for museums and private collectors. It turned into a rather lucrative profession, and I found myself roving all over the world, chasing down various finds for my clients. Eventually it led to my curatorship of the Sandoval Arms Collection in California."
"I've heard of it. But how did you get here?" Smith prodded gently, tapping the magazine of his leveled rifle on the cave floor.
She bit her lip lightly for a moment, the introspective look deepening in her eyes. "That's...a little more esoteric. As you should have guessed by now, I am a firm member of the 'If it's worth doing it's worth overdoing' school of thought."
"I've had my suspicions." Smith smiled.
"As my education developed I found I was not content to merely study about weapons. I wanted to learn how to use them and to see and feel how they were applied," she continued. "I studied fencing and kendo. I learned the skills of the old Western gunfighters from the champion shootists of the Single Action Shooting Society. I bribed my way into Philippine prison cells to discuss technique with butterfly-knife artists. Before his untimely death I sat at the feet of the legendary 'White Feather,' Marine master sniper Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, and learned combat marksmanship. Firearms, blades, explosives, military heavy weapons: I learned how to make them, maintain them, and employ them.