fix another allocation without check

Signed-off-by: Michael Leibowitz <michael.leibowitz@intel.com>
Fix a potential unitialized variable issue

The issue flagged by static analysis is likley imposisble, but it
grinds my gears that 0 is valid.  So, I created a MIN to go with the
MAX, and asserted that we were within the correct range.

Signed-off-by: Michael Leibowitz <michael.leibowitz@intel.com>