Ryan touched the wires together

The jolt of electricity made him gasp, and he was thrown backward with a blinding flash of light. The door squealed as the twisted metal tried to move in the straight grooves of the frame.

“Fireblast! I didn’t expect it to hurt like that,” Ryan groaned as he scrambled to his feet. Then he followed Jak’s gaze.

A thin trickle of water was visible, running faster and then furiously down the crack between the two doors.

Without warning, a high-pressure stream of water shot through the gap and caught Ryan in the ribs. The force threw him against the wall of the corridor, and for a moment light exploded around his head.

Then it went black.

Lost Gates

Death Lands®

James Axler

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: I can! and I will!

—Author Unknown

THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s heart despite its ruination.

Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville’s own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan’s close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn’t have imagined.

Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

Dean Cawdor: Ryan’s young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

In a world where all was lost, they are humanity’s last hope….

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

Ryan Cawdor groaned as he opened his eye. It was gummed, heavy and felt as though a branding iron was being thrust repeatedly into it. Other than that, he was glad to be alive. As always, if he felt this bad, chances were that his opponent had to have come off worse. If he could remember who his opponent was….

At least lacking one eye spared him the pain of double vision. It was a grimly humorous thought that would, under any other circumstances, have made him grin. Not now, though. That would have been a signal to any potential enemy that he had regained consciousness. Besides which, it would have hurt too much. His face felt as though it had been trampled on by a herd of mutie cattle. The type that had razor-sharp hooves.

As the focus of his eye gradually came into some semblance of clear vision, Ryan could see that he and his companions were in a darkened wag. The jolting of the chassis as it bumped over either a rough road surface or a cross-country route jarred his vision, making it hard to pick out detail in the gloom. It also made his body ache. Every muscle and tendon felt rubbery and sensitive to the slightest impact. It felt as though each muscle and tendon had been taken out, rubbed in grit and then carefully replaced. He would have winced, if it wouldn’t have alerted his captors to his conscious state.

Trying to keep as stable as possible, to improve his vision and stop the aches that ran up and down his frame, Ryan cast his eye over the dimmed interior of the wag. It was a basic wag, which looked as if it had been stripped at some point. There were no seats other than the two occupied by the driver and shotgun guard. He could make out three men, all armed with what looked like remade Armalite longblasters, who were hunkered down, backs resting against the shell of the wag. Between them were his companions. Jak, an albino, stood out because of his long white hair. Likewise Doc, whose head was down, his long silver mane shaggy as it banged against the floor of the wag.

With their darker hair and clothing, Krysty, Mildred and J.B. were harder to pick out.

The wag was a closed-in, metallic-bodied vehicle. It had no windows other than the windshield and the two on each door. There had to be rear doors, but these were solid. The pool of light from the front of the wag ended long before it reached the guards and the unconscious cargo in the rear. They were either not supposed to know where they were being taken—assuming the journey was long enough for all of them to regain consciousness—or no one was supposed to see in. Or maybe both. It kind of didn’t matter right now.

But how did they get here? And why?

Ryan was mentally in a fog, and it was hard to remember anything from before the black curtain had fallen. Had there been a fight? Were they ambushed? Or was it…

Fireblast! It returned to him in pieces, and he wondered how they had been slipped the jolt derivative that had got them into this state.

And just what was Baron Valiant getting out of the deal?

SEVEN DAYS. Not a long time in the great scheme of things, but an eternity when you were stuck in a pesthole ville in the middle of nowhere. Hopping from convoy to convoy, running sec, the companions had made some distance from the last slice of trouble on the way overland to the next redoubt.

Hawknose was a strange ville, with an odd name and a baron, Valiant, with an odd name. The ville was no bigger than a few dozen huts and shacks, with a few buildings that were older scattered around. Mildred could see that it had once been a truck stop on a long-since-disappeared freeway. There was a diner, some old storage buildings that had been converted, and a gas station with the pumps still intact. The reservoirs underneath the pumps were still sealed, as they would find out. This was how Valiant kept his ville above the starvation line. It was a way station for passing convoys and travelers who knew the region. He could supply them with enough gas to get them from here to wherever. In return, traders would supply him at a discount.

It was just as well. The ville had nothing else going for it. The surrounding land was overworked and barren. When the rains came, they soaked in and stayed. Even when the surface was dry and cracked, just beneath was sodden. They would never get thirsty, but they couldn’t grow any crops that wouldn’t rot before they reached maturity. So any jack Valiant made on the gas was eaten up by the need to buy food. Usually from the very same traders.

But the baron was ambitious. And a baron with ambition but no jack and no manpower was a very dangerous thing.

RYAN WAS SLOWLY starting to feel like himself. The aches were still there, but through sheer force of will he cast the pain to the back of his mind. He concentrated on flexing every muscle in his arms and legs. His feet and hands were numb from the ropes that had been tied when he was unconscious—he assumed that the same was true of the others—but there was enough give in the ropes for them to burn on wrists and ankles as he flexed. Moments later tingling ached and burned in his fingers and toes as circulation began to return feeling to those extremities.

Still, there was a void where memory should be. He was aware that they were being taken somewhere for a purpose, but that purpose still escaped him. It lurked on the fringes of his consciousness, but was tantalizingly out of reach.

It looked, in the saturnine light, as though he was the only one to be awake. Maybe not. If any of the others had awakened, then they would be doing their best to disguise it, as he was, until they had worked out the how and why of being here.

Hawknose. Stupe name, he thought. Why was it called that?

Then it began to return. Slowly.

‘SEEMS A WEIRD name, don’t it?” Travis chuckled, and it wheezed its way from laughter into a cough. He hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spit it out the door. “Mebbe it is, unless you know why.”

“And you’re going to tell us?” Mildred asked in a wry tone. It had been obvious that the grizzled man had been lacking in company, and was glad of the chance to talk.

“Since you ask so nicely, I will, little lady.” Travis’s eyes twinkled. He would, in all likelihood, have chuckled again if it hadn’t run him the risk of another coughing fit. “See, if we hadn’t had to move back in the early days, it would have been obvious. Originally, in the days before skydark, we came from a little place that was under the shadow of a bluff that was shaped like a hawk’s beak. Least, that’s what they say. I wouldn’t know. I might look old, but I ain’t really all that. It’s just this fancy living that’s made me so soft.” He chuckled again.

“Not much story,” Jak commented. He was tired, and hadn’t taken to the old man who was providing them with accommodation. The sooner he shut up and let them sleep, Jak thought, the better. It would be an early start. The albino youth didn’t mind hard work, but when it was monotonous it was that much harder to take the shit that went with it.

Travis shook his head. His graying hair hung in matted dreads that brushed his shoulders, putting his lean jaw into shadow.

“If that was all there was to it, then I’d agree with you. But it ain’t. See, we’d been there for hundreds of years, they say. Since the white folks first come to the old lands, there’d been a Hawknose. Almost as long as the Indians—and look what happened to them. We were survivors. And so it was with skydark. There were caves, they say, under the bluff that went right into the earth. Our people took all they could carry, and they stayed there until it was okay to come out. Some tried too early, just to see, and that was the end of them. But they did it for all of us, and we remember them for that.

“See, that’s what we do here. We look out for each other. Hell, most of us are related. It was such a small place. We get people stop by, drop kids or father them, then…well, some stay and some fuck off. Don’t make no matter to those of us who have blood going right back. But I guess it stops us being all born with four heads and no legs, or some such shit.”

That made sense. Since they had arrived, Mildred had noticed that most of the people looked like they came from a small gene pool. The men and women looked alike, and there was little to tell between one person and the next. And yet they hadn’t shown the signs of mutie inbreeding that she had seen elsewhere on their travels.

So yeah, that made sense, Mildred thought. Unlike his story. Where the hell was that going?

Travis had to have seen the look on her face.

“The name. Why’d we keep it? That must be what you’re wondering. Well, it’s like this. After they came out of the caves, they saw that the old ville had been flattened by the hawk’s nose. The fucker had blown off some time during the years they were hiding, and it had wiped out the whole ville. Too much shit there to clear and build. “Sides which, it was a sign. Leastways, that’s how they took it. Time to move on. So they hit the road—what was left of it—and ended up here. Good place to be.”

“You tried to dig that land?” J.B. murmured, his muscles aching in memory of his day’s work.

“Listen, son, you say that, but look at it this way—would you rather try and dig wet earth or live on rocks that can’t grow shit at all? And ain’t got no water?”

J.B. shrugged. He guessed the old guy had a point. “So why is this called after the old ville?” he asked, wanting to hurry Travis along for the same reasons as Jak.

The old man sniffed. “Should have thought you could see where I was going with that. We’re a loyal people. We stick together. We look after each other. And we remember the sacrifices of those before us. This was called Hawknose for where we come from, and in memory of the others. And one day, that name will be pretty damn big. Valiant believes in that. We all do.”

There was something about the way that he said it—an almost messianic zeal—that would brook no argument. Not even daring to exchange glances, the companions let the comment slide. But when the old man had finished wandering the rooms of the shack they now shared with him, and had left to go to the communal bar that lay in the old gas station, Krysty let out a long sigh.

“This is going to be a long wait until the next convoy rolls into the ville,” she said softly.

“That, I fear, is possibly the sanest and truest thing that we have heard all evening, my dear,” Doc muttered. “It is one thing for the baron of a ville to be so deluded and yet so firm in a conviction. But for this to infect his whole people?” He shook his head sadly.

“They don’t seem to be a threat,” Ryan said. “Unless you mean to themselves,” he added with a grin. “We’re just going to have to tough it out, people.”

They had been in the ville a short while. Long enough, however, to know that it was a typical struggling settlement, going nowhere and fighting, like everywhere else, for survival. There wasn’t enough jack to go around, and the land they lived on made raising crops and livestock an uphill struggle. The only thing they had going for them was the gas station and the reservoir. It kept them in business. Traders put them on the route as it suited them to have a way station here, but there wasn’t enough trade, gas or traffic to make it anything other than a case of the ville paying out with one hand for the jack they’d just taken in.

The grandiloquent Baron Valiant was onto a stone-cold losing proposition. But if he was anything like his people—or they like him, however it may be—then he was stubborn, proud, a believer in his heritage.

A fool.

Yet it suited Ryan and the companions to stop here. They had been riding sec on a convoy and it had taken this detour to refuel, a stopover that was short by any convoy standard, and that said a lot about the way the ville was viewed. Hawknose was the last place a person would want to get stranded. But the convoy was uneasy. There were tensions between the trader in charge and the quartermaster, who was bucking to oust his boss and take over. He had the backing of half the crew, and was looking for the right place to stage a mutiny. From the time they had hooked up with the convoy, it was obvious that this was why they had been hired. With no agenda, no knowledge of anyone else on the convoy, the companions would just follow orders and collect their pay.

Except that the convoy was headed across Colorado, bound for the remains of the eastern seaboard, territory that Ryan and his people knew only too well, and were in no hurry to encounter again. As the long miles passed, they realized that the reason the quartermaster was able to gain support for his schemes was down to the attitude of the trader. He was triple stupe, and Ryan had started to doubt if they would even get paid at journey’s end. They were there not so much to provide sec as to protect the trader from his own crew.

So when they reached Hawknose, and became aware that it was the last stop before a long haul into the east, Ryan figured that it was time to call it a day. The others weren’t disappointed at the time. They were sick of looking over their shoulders on what should have been an easy ride. If convoys were regular through here, then it wouldn’t take long to pick up another paying ride.

It had been almost comical to hear the alternating curses and imprecations of the trader when Ryan told him they were leaving his employ. Almost as blackly funny as the look on the face of the quartermaster as the convoy set to head out of Hawknose. It didn’t need to be said out loud that the chances of the convoy having a new trader by the time they hit the next ville were roughly the same as those of a stickie beating the crap out of a mutie bear in a shitstorm.

Yeah, it had seemed like the best option. But nobody was thinking that after a few days of the monotony and rigor of life in Hawknose. Even Ryan was hoping that the next convoy would roll in during the middle of the night.

The people of Hawknose looked the same, and they had attitudes to match. Sharp-faced and suspicious, they were dour and ground down by generations of just about keeping body and soul together. Sure, they had the conviction of their destiny, but it was nothing they took joy from. Rather, it was as though they felt they had to suffer this life to find that state. Both Doc and Mildred could identify this with the attitudes of religious communities in their day, and although the people of Hawknose believed in a redemption that came in this world, not the next, it was as though they believed it was always just out of reach.

It made them hard—hard in the manner of their lives, and hard in their attitudes to each other. And particularly in their attitude to outlanders. That much was obvious from the moment that the convoy pulled away without the companions. There was no welcome for the newcomers—not that they expected it—but neither was there hostility. Instead there was a kind of grudging and grim acceptance. They were there in Hawknose—fine. But now they had to work and fit in. Or leave. Convoy or no convoy to carry you out.

Baron Valiant was a hands-on baron. Unlike the rulers of larger villes who surrounded themselves with a sec force and whatever wealth they could secure, using the one to enable themselves to indulge the other, Valiant was one of his people in a very real sense. He worked and lived alongside them. They showed him deference, but that seemed to come from a genuine respect and belief in his birthright. The ville of Hawknose was inherited, and he was merely following the footsteps of his forefathers. They were believers in tradition. They believed in order. That was evident by the fact that in their short time thus far in the ville, Ryan and his companions had seen no need for sec except in the rare case of a person who couldn’t hold his or her brew. The sec seemed to be there purely for when convoys or outlanders passed through.

Maybe the law-abiding nature of the ville dwellers was more due to exhaustion than to any innate desire to walk a straight line, for life in the ville was hard. It soon became apparent that convoys weren’t as regular as Ryan would have hoped when he made the decision to pull out of sec duty. Supplies of food that were bought from any convoy were stored and carefully rationed. Water was plentiful, and as a result so was brew. Anything that could be made to ferment was stored and used. Any roots, rotting crop, or plantlife that could be harnessed in such a way was thrown into vats that bubbled as the alcohol was boiled and distilled from the resultant sludge. It seemed that most of the people in Hawknose spent their evenings in the bar, which was as much a communal meeting area as one to get drunk and carouse. Even in their pleasures they were a dour people.

Dour, but hardened to the potent brew that resulted from their thrifty approach. They were hard drinkers, and their ability to rise with the sun the following morning and work just as hard was something that Ryan and the companions soon found they couldn’t keep pace with.

The old service station and diner around which the ville was constructed lay in a valley, a bowl shaped by a landscape that had once been a series of gentle inclines but had been disturbed by seismic shifts as skydark hit. Pushed and pulled by nature, the land had risen to form a steeply sided bowl that required the convoys that passed through to have sharp brakes. The freeway that had once passed this way had long since been reduced to ribbons by the seismic shifts, and little evidence of it remained. Instead a carefully hewn and beaten track ran close to the site of the old road and was marked by the rubble that had been cleared in making the new path. It guided any traffic down the incline and through the ville before gently guiding it up the opposite slope and out.

That left the ville in a basin. Was it simply that the land surrounding had risen, or had the ville itself dropped? It was impossible to say, but whatever the truth, it had left the people of Hawknose with a problem that they hadn’t foreseen when they had taken possession of the old station and buildings and started to build around them.

The problem was that the land around had a high water table, and no matter what time of year it was sodden once you dug down a few feet. Any crop would rot. The land never really dried out, as the high ground around mean that the ville was in constant shadow. It was always damp and cold, even when the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. There was never enough to keep both the people and the livestock fed. Little grew wild. Both livestock and man were reliant on food brought in by convoy. Despite this, the people broke their backs on the land.

Belief in destiny was a powerful driving force. The people of Hawknose felt that in their very bones. They were in this place for a reason, not just because it happened to be the first place that was habitable that their forefathers stumbled across. And until that reason revealed itself, they would stay here. They would make it work, even if it would break the back of each person in the process. The one thing it could never break was their spirit.

Which was all very well if you lived there, and your roots were there. But, Ryan reflected as he settled on the hard bedding that had been supplied for them by Travis, it was bastard hard to get used to if you didn’t give a shit about the ville and were just waiting for the chance to move on.

People had to work for their living. You eat, you put something back. There was nothing wrong with that. Except that these people drove themselves so hard… Ryan thought it was little wonder that the ville folk drank themselves into oblivion every night. Even the children worked like pack animals. It was a fair bet that you didn’t make old bones in this ville. Travis looked as ancient as Doc, Ryan mused, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to have learned that he was younger than he was.

The one-eyed man’s head grew heavy as weariness overtook him. He could feel his mind slipping into oblivion as the fatigue of the day overwhelmed him.

RYAN WAS JOLTED back to consciousness by the sudden lurch of the wag. His attempt to recall how they had reached this point had driven him into a lapse of consciousness. It was only the whiplash of his neck and the sharp, painful crack of his head against the wag’s bulkhead that had brought him back.

Everything was rambling, unfocused. There was a reason why they were here, and he had to remember what it was before they reached their destination. It was important that he knew why.

Ryan flexed his neck muscles. Thoughts were starting get blurred once more. Through a hooded eyelid, he took another look around. He was becoming accustomed to the gloomy light in the interior of the wag. Now he could pick out his fellow travelers with a greater ease. Doc was still out cold. His physical state was always precarious, despite his inner strength. It was impossible to know how his heavily buffeted body would cope with anything thrown at it.

Jak was conscious and, like himself, was seeking to conceal it. Ryan, though, knew the albino youth too well. There was something about the set of his body. He was poised, keeping balance perfectly as the wag swayed and dipped over the rutted ground beneath. Jak was scoping out his opponents, and was perhaps even now thinking the same things that Ryan was thinking about him.

Mildred and Krysty were still out. Ryan was only too familiar with every aspect of the Titian-haired beauty’s body language. Her head lolled too loosely on her shoulders, and her sentient hair was limp rather than full or curled tight. As for Mildred, her body was jerking in muscle spasms. Her feet kicked in tiny arcs, her shoulders jerking uncontrollably. She was fighting the effects of the drug, and it was reflected in her body language.

That left J.B. The Armorer had his fedora pulled down over his eyes, at an angle that made it hard to see much of his face. But from the set of his jaw—a small sign but a telling one in a man that Ryan and known most of his adult life—it was certain that J. B. Dix had lifted himself from the depths of unconsciousness and was now observing his surroundings. Even as Ryan watched, the man moved slightly—a twist of the hip, shifting his weight on the floor of the wag. Caught from the corner of a guard’s eye, it would have seemed to have been nothing more than a result of his being jolted by the movement of the wag. But to a careful observer, which J.B. obviously hoped Ryan was, it could be seen that he moved contrary to the shift of the wag.

Ryan responded by signaling back. He lifted his right foot as far as it would go without dragging his left. Which, in truth, wasn’t much given how tightly they were bound. He then let if fall so that the heel struck the floor of the wag. He did this in short succession, paused, then again. Unless they were listening carefully, it was doubtful that the guards would catch this. But any of his companions would understand.

It was a code they had worked out in the past: a J and a B.

Ryan watched carefully, and saw the Armorer’s fedora dip in assent. Switching his attention, he saw that Jak also moved in acknowledgment.

That made three of them who were recovering. Not that it did them much good right now. But at least when they reached their destination, they should be clearheaded enough….

Fireblast! If only they had been clearheaded enough when they were back in the ville. They should have seen it coming. There had been warning signs, after all.

“WORK IS ALL. Without it we are nothing. And it will be rewarded my friend. When the time comes…”

“Mebbe we don’t want to hang around that long,” J.B. murmured as he slammed the blade of the shovel deeper into the mud.

For a moment Hardy stared at him with incomprehension on his long, lean face. Then he began to laugh, a dry, crackly sound as though it were being forced out of his lungs through layers of rustling leaves. His jowls shook, and his eyes ran with tears. He put down his shovel and took out a length of rag from his pocket, using it to blow his nose with a mighty honk before wiping his eyes.

J.B., too, stopped digging. He wouldn’t need much of an excuse, as they had been attacking the same patch for three backbreaking hours. At least, that was what his wrist chron told him, though it seemed much longer by the ache in his back.

“What’s so bastard funny about that?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. If anything, he would have expected the tall, skinny ville dweller to be angered by his dismissive comment. It had slipped out before he’d had a chance to bite his tongue.

“It’s just what any of us would expect from an out-lander.” Hardy wheezed when he could speak. “You people are all the same when you first arrive. You can’t see the bigger horizon, just what’s in front of your nose. Then you get it, and stay.”

J.B. was still puzzled. He knew that any kind of humor or levity seemed in short supply in Hawknose, but this?

“What about those of us who do move on?” he countered.

Hardy shrugged. “Well, who cares what you think when you’re gone?”

J.B. furrowed his brow. There was a kind of logic in there, he supposed.

Hardy took up his shovel once more and gestured for J.B. to do likewise. “Listen, son, it works like this. Big work gets big reward. We make this ville into something, and we get the riches that will bring with it. But on a smaller scale, it works like this. We put in a hard day here and we grow stuff in a land that don’t want to grow. So we, the workers, get rewarded by the baron, who oversees our homes and feeding. You don’t work—don’t pull together for the common cause—and you get jackshit. That’s how life should be. You put in and you get given in return.”

J.B. looked around and was dubious about the truth in that. They were about a half mile outside the main part of the ville. All around, for a distance of about three miles, spread across the rubble-and-rock-strewed landscape were fenced-off areas that were used for farming. Herds of scraggy livestock grazed on the perfunctory meadow that had been created for their use. The paddocks were waterlogged for much of the time, and the creatures looked out with doe-eyed and weary stares, the smell of decay palpable from the diseases that were engendered by the damp conditions.

Between the livestock meadows, protected by wild dogs that were housed in kennels on each corner, secured by long, rusting chains, lay the crop fields. J.B. stood in one of them, casting a weathered eye on his surroundings. What should have been fields of green and gold waving in the chill breeze that swept along the sheltered valley became nothing but stumpy pastures of brown, battered and rotting stalks. The root crops were immured in mud, and the wheat and grasses that were supposed to climb high were stunted and decaying at their base.

This was what they worked so hard for? And hard work it most certainly was. He and Ryan had been working on the farming detail for only a few days, but already he felt as though he had been a fight with an opponent who wouldn’t give up. His ribs and neck ached, while the muscles down his spine felt as though they had been unnaturally stretched. His arms felt as though they had been pummeled with the shovel that he wielded. Looking down at the clods of damp earth that were matted to the blade of his shovel, he tilted and watched as the mud slid off with a squelch, revealing the paltry growth of root crop that lay beneath the discolored greenery that topped it.

The soil was a sea of mud, barely able to sustain any growth without rotting it. The root crops and wheat were ill-nourished and dying before they were even harvested. J.B. wouldn’t be at all surprised if it transpired that the majority of what they used for food came from traded supplies.

In which case, why the hell did they put them themselves through this? Was it really because they had an almost preternatural belief in the value of their work to gain their prize?

He looked at Hardy, who had returned to attacking the unyielding, sludgy earth that just sucked at the shovel blade. There was a determination in the man’s face that was unnerving. Given the right circumstances, there was little doubt that the people of Hawknose could be dangerous. Was there anything they wouldn’t do for the good of their ville?

Meantime, J.B. felt that he should get back to work. Hardy had said nothing, but his silent return to his task had spoken volumes. As long as J.B. and the rest of the companions were in the ville, they would have to abide by the code of the ville, or risk the consequences.

The next convoy couldn’t come along quickly enough for the Armorer.

As he continued to toil, he noticed the regular sec patrols came nearer and nearer to the spot where he was digging. There had to be some kind of pattern to how they worked. For nothing more than to relieve the boredom that threatened to crush his spirit, he tried to work out this route based on what he had observed on the previous few days.

Something nagged at J.B. as he continued to dig. Thinking back, it seemed that the sec patrols were sent out to scare off any kind of wildlife that may stray too close during the hours of daylight, and to scout for any approaching wags or travelers on foot. To do this, they sped through the areas that were used for farming, and were several miles from the ville before beginning their proscribed circuit.

But this day was different. For a while it was hard for him to pin down exactly why this was bugging him. Then as he tugged at the handle of his shovel, trying to free it from sludge that was almost like quicksand, it came to him. The sound was different. Sure, he’d seen them occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, but mostly his head had been turned down, facing his task. And the noise he had heard had been distant, a buzzing in and out of focus, as the wags came and went on their circuit, farther out and then closer in.

But this day they were much closer, and the sound was louder. They were coming into the area where farming was carried out, and from the revs of the engines as they passed it was as if they were slowing at various points.

So why were they coming in so much? And why were they slowing at certain points?

A tingling of apprehension prickled at the Armorer’s scalp. There was something that worried him about this, something he’d have to mention to Ryan and Jak, if only to see if they had noticed anything similar.

J.B. ANGLED HIS HEAD BACK so that he could see from beneath the brim of his fedora. The guards were still unaware that he was conscious. Having Ryan’s signal, and seeing Jak’s response, he knew that he wasn’t the only one conscious. He hurt like hell, but that wouldn’t matter when the adrenaline started to pump. He was angry at himself for not realizing what was happening earlier. He should have known. It was all there in the attitude of men like Hardy.

The people of Hawknose would stop at nothing to further the cause of their ville.

Nothing.

Chapter Two

“This sucks. The sooner we can get out of this place, the better,” Mildred grumbled as she and Krysty added another sack of meal to the pile that was growing in the dark shed used as a warehouse. They were at the back, unloading a cart so heavily laden that it had taken the two of them a great deal of time to pull it over the rutted planks of the floor.

Concrete lay beneath the wooden base. They could see the gray through the slats of the floor, and in places the planks had broken to show patches of the hard surface beneath. They had managed to avoid the worst of them, but in so doing had always seemed to run into a groove formed by two worn pieces of wood, causing the trolley to buck and stick, wrenching their arms and backs as it did.

They had spent the past two days on this task, gradually moving the supplies traded from their convoy. It was dull, monotonous and backbreaking work. It was easy to see why they—the newly arrived outlanders—had been allocated this task.

Krysty straightened as the sack hit the others with a dull thud, raising a cloud of dust that caught in her throat. She was too exhausted to even sneeze or cough with any alacrity. Every spasm made her back twinge.

“These guys are tough, I’ll give them that,” she said with a wince as the spasms passed, and she stretched to allow her aching muscles to uncramp. “I have no idea what they’d be like as fighters, but if they were well organized, they’d be tough to take down.”

“They’re not that type, though,” Mildred reflected, leaning against the bar by which they alternately dragged or pulled the cart. “They believe in hard work, living simply and keeping to themselves. Lord knows that’s a rare enough commodity in this pesthole land.”

“Yeah, but what if someone comes looking for them?” Krysty countered. “There’s a whole lot of people here who don’t…ahh—” she winced as she stretched to one side “—who don’t believe in live and let live. What would they do then, and where would their work ethic be then?”

Mildred pondered that between feeling the disks in her spine contract as the muscles tightened. “You know, there were people like that back before I got frozen. Religious sects. They were pretty much left alone. The only difference between these guys and the ones from predark is that the old ones believed in God rather than a sense of destiny.”

She stopped speaking as she noticed movement in the shadows. Krysty caught the change in her companion’s demeanor and immediately snapped out of her relaxed state. She turned so that she was facing the same way as her companion.

A woman came out of the shadows. Sharp-faced, tall and angular, she looked like so many other people in the ville. Her lean, long face was lined, although she probably was younger than either Mildred or Krysty. Her clothes hung off her, not because she was thin but rather because they were recycled castoffs.

There was something about the way she moved that made Krysty’s nerves tingle. It seemed as though she had emerged from the shadows, where she had been still, observing.

But why?

“Going well with that load,” the woman noted, her voice flat and neutral. “Soon be done. You’ll be glad of that.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Damn right,” Mildred murmured. “Anything you wanted?” Like Krysty, she, too, was suspicious of the woman, although equally she would have been hard-pushed to say why. Instinct.

“Just came to tell you that the next shift won’t be yours. Baron wants to see you all later. That’s a real privilege. Means you get some time out.”

“Like a reward?” Mildred asked with heavy irony.

“Yeah. Anyone with a private audience with Valiant has time out before they go. Need to be sharp, not tired or hung over. So you have time to rest.”

Krysty suppressed a smile at the way in which the irony had flown over the woman’s head. Still, if it meant she could have a bath and soak her back….

“Why does the baron want to see us?” she asked.

The reaction wasn’t quite what she had expected. The woman shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “I don’t know. Stuff like that is private. Between him and the people he sees. Anyhow, you just finish up here and get along. I can find a replacement.” Abruptly, she turned and walked away into the shadows.

Mildred waited until she had seen the woman’s silhouette disappear through the double doors.

“That was weird. I don’t like the sound of an audience with the baron.”

“No,” Krysty said slowly. “And I’ll tell you something else. I’d swear she was there watching us before she came out. Why?”

Mildred smiled grimly. “We won’t have to wait long to find out, sweetie….”

AS THOUGH WADING through a sea of mud, Mildred grimly fought her way to the surface. She had been kicking and screaming for some time, the images of memory running through her head.

She wanted to groan as she regained consciousness and the pain washed over her like the final spray of water on emerging. But she bit her tongue, a reflex action triggered by the knowledge that she was tied up. Before she could even form the thought, her instinct told her to keep silent.

She kept her head down, opening one eye and knowing, by the way they brushed across her face, that her beaded plaits would shield her. At first, she could see next to nothing. It was incredibly dark in the wag. She knew it was a wag because of the noise and movement. Then the vague shapes took substance, and she could see the others: Doc’s head banging rhythmically on the floor of the wag beside her; Krysty still unconscious.

She knew J.B. so well that she knew he was awake and feigning unconsciousness. Jak and Ryan she wasn’t so sure of, but it was a fair bet that they had also come around. All of them had to have received approximately the same dose of whatever sedative that coldheart Valiant had administered. It had to have been in the food, as he had drank from the same brew as they had. Hell, she was angry with herself for being suckered so easily with that. A child should have seen it coming.

There was no time for recriminations now. She had to think about what was going to happen, not what was already past. She tested the rope on her wrists and ankles. Tight, but maybe not tight enough. Her joints were supple enough to perhaps allow for some manipulation. It was just a matter of being able to balance the maneuver with the necessity for stealth.

While she worked at it, to distract herself from the burning of the nylon rope on her skin she tried to recall exactly how they had come to be in this situation.

After all, for all its strange ways, Hawknose had hardly seemed the type of ville where this behavior was the norm. Events were still swimming in confusion, and if she could somehow decipher them, then it would allow her to be ready for whatever lay ahead, at the end of the journey.

TRAVIS WAS STILL at his work when Krysty and Mildred arrived at the shack. They were alone, and both bathed in silence, letting the hot water soothe their aching limbs. It was only after they had dressed that Doc and Jak arrived from their own labors. As they entered, they were bickering.

“I am sure that you cannot be right, dear boy. Why would they wish to keep us under surveillance when we are right in their midst? Surely if they had some suspicions about our intent, then they would not allow us to move so freely among them? If that were—”

“Doc, shut up.” Jak sighed. “Not care why, just saying.”

Both Krysty and Mildred’s interest was piqued by this exchange, as it mirrored their own feelings.

“You think you were being watched?” Krysty asked, following them into the room where Travis kept his primitive bathtub. A hand pump welded to a pipe that ran through the walls to a central tank behind the gas station supplied the hot water for the ville. As Jak began to pump vigorously at the handle, he turned to Krysty.

“Sure of it. Same two men pass by every five, ten minutes.”

Doc paused in stripping off his dusty clothing. “Come now, that’s an absurd leap of assumption, lad. They may simply have been going about their business.”

Jak paused. “They carry anything?”

Doc thought about this, poised on one leg. “No,” he said slowly as he finished discarding his clothes, with the exception of his drawers. “No, I don’t recall. And if you all don’t mind…” The others turned their backs, giving Doc a moment to shuck his underwear, enabling him to preserve his modesty.

“No one walk empty hand to and from anywhere,” Jak said with emphasis. “So why them?”

“But why do it?” Doc countered, climbing into the bath.

Jak shrugged as he discarded his own clothes, turned and joined Doc. “Dunno. Don’t matter. Just know it’s happening. And not good.”

“Jak’s got a point,” Mildred interjected, joining Krysty in the doorway.

“Madam, a little privacy,” Doc murmured.

“Too late for that, you old buzzard.” She grinned. “More to the point, something happened to us today…”

She went on to describe what had transpired, with Krysty adding detail while Jak and Doc cleaned up. Their own tasks, in the maintenance of the gas pumps and tanks, left them dusty from the earth, and smelling of gas. The primitive cleaners used by the people of the ville were hardly strong enough. You could always tell those who worked on gas detail by their distinctive odor. Fortunately they still had in their own supplies, some soap and shampoo taken from a redoubt some time before.

By the time Jak and Doc had cleaned and dried themselves, Mildred and Krysty had finished their own tale.

“I take back my own doubts,” Doc mused as he dressed. “I fear I did you a disservice, young Jak. For reasons that are best known to themselves, they have started to watch us.

“Tell me,” he directed to Krysty and Mildred, “did you notice this before today?”

“No,” Krysty said firmly. “You?”

Jak shook his head. “Just today.”

Doc frowned. “It is as though they were suddenly directed to keep an eye on us—perhaps so that we would not stray? Might there be a convoy due in, and that is the cause?” When the question brought forth no response, he added, “I will be most interested to hear what Ryan and John Barrymore have to say about this, and whether or not they have encountered a similar phenomenon.”

Doc didn’t have long to wait. To save gas—so important for trade—the workers in the fields walked to and from their tasks. Only the sec patrols got to use wags and bikes with any regularity. To trudge back after a hard day’s work was hard enough, but to be sent home early with an instruction to see the baron was ominous.

BOTH J.B. AND RYAN had been told to quit their tasks at about the same time that the others had also been dismissed. However, the greater distance told on them. They met about halfway back to the ville, the paths through the fields crossing so that their routes coincided. For some time they walked in silence, both too exhausted by their morning’s labors to spare the breath. It was only as they neared town that J.B. spoke.

“Think the others were called back to the ville?”

“Yeah,” Ryan replied shortly. “And I don’t like it.”

“Because we’re being watched?” J.B. asked.

Ryan looked at him. He’d thought he was being over-cautious in noting the sudden frequency and change of the sec patrols.

THEY BRIEFLY exchanged details of what they had observed. It gave them much to ponder by the time they arrived at Travis’s shack. As they stripped and bathed, Ryan and J.B. listened to what their companions had to say before adding their own experiences.

“Whatever’s going on, it’s something that’s only just happened,” Ryan mused as he dressed. “We’re agreed that it’s only been today, right?” There was general assent, and he continued. “So Valiant has decided to take a closer interest in us. Why? Has anything happened?”

“As far as I am aware,” Doc said, “there have been no arrivals or departures since the convoy left without us. Jak and myself have been central, so would have seen any arrivals or heard commotion.”

“And I’m sure we could have seen anything coming from a long way off out in the fields,” J.B. added. “No, it’s got to be something from the inside.”

“Well, we haven’t had time to do anything except work like dogs then sleep,” Krysty said. “Nothing to draw any attention to ourselves.”

“Then I’d say we be on the ball and alert with Valiant, and don’t give anything away.” Millie sighed. “It isn’t much, but it’s all we got for now.”

RYAN WATCHED carefully. His muscles cramped and he wanted to grimace, to grunt through the pain. But he couldn’t give any sign of being conscious. He was pretty sure now that Doc—whose head was still banging rhythmically on the floor of the wag with every lurch and bump—was the only one of them who was still suffering the effects of the drug.

Krysty had regained consciousness. She hadn’t moved, but her hair betrayed her. While her head still lolled, her hair falling over her face to disguise any movement of the eyes, he could see that her prehensile hair was no longer hanging limply. Now it had become suffused with a life of its own. It moved subtly, waving in tendrils that seemed to curl around her neck and then reach out, as though seeking something. The movement seemed to be in sync with the rhythm of the vehicle, so that it would be unseen to the guards that sat, bored and unmoving, between them. Only someone who knew Krysty would appreciate what it meant.

So, only Doc was still out.

At least the majority of them would be ready for what lay ahead.

“COME, SIT WITH ME and eat, drink. We must talk, but only after you have sated yourselves. The day’s work is hard, and you aren’t yet used to our ways.”

Valiant gestured them to be seated. He lived in what had once been the diner near the old freeway. The tables still remained, as did the bar and grill. In one corner, where there had once been space for jukeboxes and slot machines, a drape-hidden area now housed his sleeping quarters. Some of the nearby tables used for business were covered with papers and boxes of goods and jack. Only two sec men were in the diner with them.

The other tables were bare. The booths along the windows facing the gas station had their padded seats covered with all manner of colored drapes and throws. This area was undoubtedly where the baron would relax. But even then, it was austere by the standards of most barons, even if luxuriant by the harsh standard of the ville as a whole.

The table he directed them to was in the center of the diner. The fluorescent lighting running overhead had long since ceased to work, and illumination was provided by tallow candles in beaten metal holders. The light from these formed a shallow pool that threw the rest of the diner into darkness as the evening began to close in. In the distance, they could hear the people congregate at the old gas station, a distant buzz of background noise.

Food was prepared for them at the grill behind the old counter. Some sort of brew was placed in front of them in jugs. After tasting their food and brew, Doc in particular had formed the theory that the food was nothing more than nutrition to the ville people, their taste buds having been scoured since birth by the harsh alcohol on which they were raised.

The food that was carried out from behind the counter and placed in front of them by two women and the man who prepared it did little to dispel that theory. But the companions ate, washing it down with the raw spirit, each waiting for the baron to reveal his purpose.

Two courses had been served from a communal pot, the indeterminate meal served onto their plates with ladles. The first course had contained some kind of pickled meat in a sauce that looked a little like the mud from which they dug the vegetables. It tasted a little like that would probably taste. Doc steeled himself, having no expectations. Jak could eat anything, and so passed no comment. But for the others, it was an effort to force down the food, which Valiant seemed to enjoy so much.

As, indeed, he relished the second course. Rice, which tasted as though it was seasoned by the gasoline that was their staple, was heaped on their plates. There it was joined by overcooked vegetables in a sauce that once more seemed to be made of mud, and some stringy lumps of fiber and gristle that may have been meat. Again, only the nullifying fire of the raw spirit could erase the cloying taste from their mouths.

While they ate, Valiant spoke to them of the ville, his plans for it and how he hoped to fulfill the dreams and hopes of his ancestors. The only thing that could hurry the process beyond hard work, he had decided, was to bring more jack into the ville. Jack meant power in the world outside their valley. It may not reflect on their own codes of behavior, but if they were to use the world around them to further the aims of their forefathers, then they had to adapt in some ways.

By this time, despite the best efforts of each of them, the brew they had ingested to ease the passage of the food was beginning to take effect. The light from the candles seemed to grow haloes of luminescence that spread out in ripples. The distant sounds of the gas station bar became distorted and echoed. And the long, rambling plans of Valiant seemed to grow more and more incomprehensible.

The third and final course was laid in front of them. Sweet meats in individual dishes that had been sugared by the raw cane that grew limp and rotting in the mud, colored by who knew what kinds of dyes into lurid colors that were still matt and dull, like all else in the ville.

They were doughy, stodgy and indigestible. But, unwilling to offend the baron before they had some idea of exactly why he had asked them to this meal, they forced them down.

Licking his fingers, Valiant sat back with the hint of a smile playing around his lean, hatchet features. It looked uncharacteristic, and set alarm bells ringing at the back of Ryan’s brain, fogged as it was by the potent brew.

“Your plans have something to do with why you pulled us out of work and got us here,” Ryan said. He spoke slowly and carefully, aware of the way in which the brew had crept up and fogged his brain. His voice sounded distant and echoed to him. “Why you were having us watched.”

“You noticed that, then?” Valiant questioned. “I was hoping my people were a bit more subtle that that. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We don’t really do that sort of thing.”

“Then why start now?” Ryan countered. “And why not when we first got here?”

Valiant took a hefty drink of the brew in his cup. “It didn’t occur to me for a day or two. I don’t know why. But then it just sprang into my head. I guess it had been there since I first saw you all, but it had to come to the surface. See, there’s a baron less than a hundred miles from here who has this mission in life. I guess we all have them. Mine’s about fulfilling the destiny that our forefathers foretold for us. His… Well, it doesn’t really make that much sense to me, but it has to do with this trader who knows something about secret places that are left from before skydark. Now, he’s long gone, but he had this right-hand man. Well, two of them. One was a big guy with one eye. The other was smaller. Hat, glasses, liked blasters. Now you tell me, who does that sound like to you?”

Alarm bells and sirens went off in the one-eyed man’s head. Ryan and J.B. were pretty unmistakable. But who was this Baron? He tried to move but found that his limbs were sluggish. It was as if he was trying to make himself move from a very long way off. The commands from his brain, as urgent as they were, seemed to be taking aeons to filter through to his arms and legs. Even then it was as though the message was diluted so that the desire to spring up came out as a feeble twitch.

He tried to look around at the others. Even moving his head required an effort that it took supreme will to summon. From the corner of his eye he could see them—they all looked to be in a similar state to himself.

Valiant picked up one of the sweetmeats. “The only part of the meal that was served separately. Yours had an extra, added ingredient. I had to leave it till now so that you could get enough brew in you not to notice.” He sighed. “You know, I really do hate doing this. It goes against all the ways we usually do things here. But Crabbe will pay me big jack for you. I had to keep an eye on you all day, make sure I knew where you were. I can’t mess this up. Pity, though…”

Ryan wanted to call him a coldheart bastard, wanted to rise from his seat and plunge the panga into his heart. But he couldn’t move. As everything faded to black, he could see Valiant beckon his sec men.

DOC WOKE with a jolt as the wag pulled to a halt. The cessation of blows to his head jolted him back to awareness.

His head was spinning, the pain enervating as he lifted it up and looked around him at the interior of the wag.

“Are we there yet?”

Chapter Three

Brilliant white light poured into the interior of the wag as the double doors at the rear were flung wide. The sec men inside raised arms to protect their eyes, rifles held at an angle. All of the companions squinted, torn between protecting their vision from being seared and maintaining the ruse of being unconscious. One thing was certain—any chance of taking the guards by stealth had now been eliminated.

“Illuminated,” Doc whispered, the sole exception to the rule, his eyes wide and pupils reduced to pinpricks as he was temporarily blinded. “And the light pours out of me…”

“Yeah, they got to be the right ones—that sure as hell sounds like the crazy fucker,” a voice boomed from beyond the wall of light. It was followed by the sounds of laughter. Three, maybe four, male voices.

“Shit, you got to do that?” one of the sec men whined, his eyes still protected by a ragged sleeve.

“Just want to make sure you got the cargo, and it’s the right one,” the first man said patiently, as though speaking to a child.

“The people of Hawknose don’t double-deal. It isn’t our way,” said another of the sec men in the wag’s interior, his tone as pompous as his words.

“Yeah, sure you don’t,” the man replied, barely able to keep the humor from his voice. “Thing is, it ain’t me you got to convince. Crabbe don’t trust no one. Not even your precious Valiant. Seems a straight enough guy to me—you all do,” he added placatingly. “But it ain’t down to me. I’m just doing my job, just like you.”

The sec man who had complained sniffed hard. It would seem that his pride had been appeased. “That’s okay, then. Chill that engine, no sense in wasting gas,” he added over his shoulder to the wag driver, who complied. “Right, now let’s get these fuckers out of here and get the transaction over and done with.”

The sec men rose stiffly to their feet, no longer shielding eyes that had grown accustomed to the light. They hustled their captives to their feet, none of the companions making the pretence of unconsciousness. Now that their eyes, too, were becoming accustomed to the light, they could see that the sec men who had brought them were also augmented by five men, clustered within the arc of lights that cast such an illumination into the interior of the wag. The lights illuminated a semicircle of dirt that was about five yards in circumference. Beyond that, and the bank of lights, it was hard to see anything. They could be in a ville, or they could be in the middle of nowhere at a randomly chosen rendezvous. Until any of them had any idea of their location, it was best just to play along, a decision that none of them needed to consult to make.

None except Doc. The old man was last to his feet, staring around him in awe and wonder, as though seeing the world for the first time. Which, perhaps, in some ways he was. Mildred, casting him a glance as she was hustled by, wouldn’t have been surprised if he had a slight concussion from the constant banging of his head. Certainly, his dazed expression did nothing to dispel that notion.

The old man was the last to be hustled out of the wag and onto the hard ground. The others had stood idly as the sec men struggled with him—his balance seemed genuinely impaired and he had trouble keeping his feet—trying to scout their position without being obtrusive.

As they became used to the arc lights, the darkness beyond began to slowly coalesce into a series of shapes and shadows. They weren’t in the middle of nowhere—this was a ville. It was quiet, and now that the noise of the wag engine had ceased, they could hear in the background the familiar noises of people going about their business. It was late evening, almost dark. An overcast sky let little light from the moon seep through. Chem clouds hid a near full moon, and only the very occasional shaft of moonlight pierced the oppressive darkness.

The companions were, at a guess, on the edge of the ville. The sounds drifted only from two directions, the others yielding nothing but silence. Was this a compound of some kind where they were to be kept prisoner?

They would find out soon enough. For now, at least Doc’s bewilderment had given them the time to take some kind of stock.

“Line them up and step back, lads. We want to see what we’ve got here.”

Now they could see the man behind the voice. It was surprising. He had the voice of a big man: barrelchested and tall. Yet the man who addressed the Hawknose sec force in such booming tones was actually a short, squat man with a mop of curly gray hair and a straggling beard, almost dwarfed by the battered Kalashnikov he cradled in his arms. Yet despite his lack of physical stature, he had a presence that told he was in charge of the sec men who flanked him, each man standing taller and broader. They looked like a hand-picked team designed to deter any arguments. As they stood, in a parallel arc to the lights that were at their rear, it certainly seemed as though they were having the desired effect on the Hawknose team, who stood back toward their wag a little defensively.

The small, squat sec man stepped forward, squinting at the six bound people now arrayed in front of him as though examining them closely.

“Yeah, they look like it to me.” He stepped back and said over his shoulder, “You reckon as much, boys?”

There was a general muttering of agreement.

Mildred, looking at them, wondered if this was because they really were in agreement, or as part of some process to soften up the men clustered by the wag. To make them more amenable to whatever may come next.

Meanwhile, the squat sec man snapped his fingers, and two of the men bent down, reaching behind them. They each withdrew three sacks, which they tossed into the center of the dirt patch, so that they landed at the feet of the companions with a clinking that betrayed the contents.

Solid jack.

“Yep,” he continued without missing a beat, “I reckon these are the dudes that Crabbe has been looking for. Stupe, really, all those missions he sent us out on, and the bastards roll up down the way apiece without us even having to do anything. Valiant did good, and so did you.”

“Then why have you only thrown in six sacks?” asked the pompous Hawknose sec man. Even if he wasn’t the senior, he had taken it upon himself to be spokesman. Like the others, he was lean of face and grim of demeanor. His face gave nothing away, like his compatriots, though none of the six betrayed by them would have betted that the others weren’t secretly relieved that they weren’t the ones on the firing line should his opposite number not like his tone.

The squat sec man sniffed heavily, growled in the throat, then spit out a phlegm ball that landed with a dull splat by one of the sacks.

“It’s like this. They look right. That’s good. We got—” and he pointed to each in turn as he reeled them off “—Brian Mordor, the one-eyed leader. Jock and Snowy, the old guy and the albino. One’s crazy as a mutie coot. The other’s a shit-hot hunter and real dangerous. Had my way, I’d shackle the little bastard at all times. Can’t trust them… Krysty, the mutie with the weird strength. Gonna have to watch her, boys. Millicent, the one who’s a healer. Don’t let that fool you, boys. Heard she can fight like a man. Kinda looks like one, to my eyes. Krysty looks more my type, though I hear she’s Brian’s woman. And then we got J. T. Edson, the blaster man. They say there ain’t shit he don’t know about weapons. Useful guy.”

“You know a lot about us,” Ryan said slowly. “We don’t know shit about you. Want to tell us?” He kept the irony out of his voice. The man seemed to know something about them, but with a strange twist. Like that old game Chinese Whispers that Krysty had told him about, where information was passed on from person to person, half heard. He wondered what else they would know, but yet not know.

The squat sec man sniffed and spit again.

That’s one hell of a sinus infection the guy’s got, Mildred thought, but held her peace.

“Listen, Brian, I ain’t got nothing against you personally, see, but unless you shut up I’m gonna have to bust you in the jaw. My baron wants you, and he’s got you. But that don’t mean that a little accident don’t happen between here and him getting to see you, especially if you can’t keep your yap shut. You don’t talk unless you’re asked something, you see?”

Ryan bristled at being spoken to in such a fashion. He could see the smug looks on the faces of the surrounding sec men, and he was seized by a desire to wipe it from their faces. But his hands and feet were still bound, and he had no weapons. He gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw cramped as he fought down his temper. Although he knew he shouldn’t rise to the bait, there was something about the squat man that irritated him—an assumption of superiority based on nothing more than the fact that he held a blaster.

And something about the way that sec man looked at him. As though he was sizing him up.

Just what did Baron Crabbe want from them? Want enough to have been searching for them, and to have collated information that seemed to be almost but not quite right? That was a cause for concern. Did he want something that they would be unable to give because they had never had it? Any further rumination, taking his mind off his anger as it did, was interrupted by the further supercilious tones of the sec man who had escorted them this far.

“Are you going to argue with Ryan—” he pronounced the name with emphasis “—or are you going to tell me why you’re not paying up in full?”

“I was in the middle of telling you when one-eye here interrupted me,” the sec man snarled, raising his blaster and checking it pointedly. Behind him, the other guards moved menacingly. “Thing is, Brian and his boys—and girls, if you’ll excuse me,” he directed at Krysty, “have got a little task that Crabbe wants them to undertake for him. Now, much as he appreciates the fact that Valiant sniffed them out, and that you’ve brought them here, he feels that it would be a little remiss of him to pay in full before they’ve undertaken that task. After all, they look right, but if they ain’t, then that’s a lot of jack to throw away. Y’see?”

“But we’ve brought them here in good faith—” the sec man began.

“Ain’t saying nothing against you or Valiant,” the squat man interrupted. “How many times? Shit, get the point. You keep the half no matter what. Turns out that we all made a mistake, then that’s it. If these’re the right guys, then you get the second half of the payment. Look at it my way—you already called out Brian as Ryan. That don’t inspire me, you know what I’m saying?”

The pompous sec man’s voice held a quiver of fear as he spoke once more. “Valiant will not like us returning empty-handed.”

The squat man coughed a laugh that was filled with scorn. “You ain’t returning empty-handed. You got half the jack. You get the other half if the task is completed. Shit, way I see it ol’ Crabbe is being pretty good to you. He’s taking you on trust ’cause he knows you fuckers wouldn’t lie if your lives depended on it. Don’t think you know how,” he added reflectively. “So if it turns out that ol’ Brian here is really Ryan, like you say, and he ain’t the man Crabbe is after, you don’t deserve the full jack. But you didn’t try to deceive him, so you get to keep that half. I’ll say it again, stupe boy—if I had my way, and these ain’t the right people, I’d be after your asses with all blasters blazing. So why don’t you be a good little man and fuck right off before I really lose it.”

There was something about the way that his tone changed over the last couple of sentences that signaled a barely concealed anger. Not one of the companions had to exchange glances with another to know that the pompous Hawknose sec man had overstepped. Without turning, they could hear the shufflings that indicated at least some of their former guards were preparing for retreat.

“Before you go, ain’t there something you forgot?” the squat man asked with a hint of mockery in his voice. From their rear, the companions could hear two of the men move forward. They appeared in front of the group, gathering the sacks of jack before hastily moving back to their wag. They didn’t look at the people they had betrayed, but Ryan could see enough to notice that both guards were sweating with fear.

The squat man watched them, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips. He put the blaster over his shoulder, as though to indicate his lack of fear and knowledge of his superior status. “Something else you forgot?” he added, waiting until the Hawknose men were almost ready to leave. There was a pause, and then one of the long-faced men stepped past the companions, carrying a clutch of weaponry. As soon as they had been rendered unconscious, Ryan and his people had been stripped of their blasters and blades. Even Ryan’s weighted scarf had been taken, and used to bind the weapons together.

They were dropped in an unceremonious heap at the feet of the squat sec boss. He nodded—a barely noticeable approval, whether at delivery or horde was impossible to tell—before speaking again.

“Yeah, that’s it. You can go now. You’ll be hearing from Crabbe if things go well. Don’t come asking.”

The sec man who had dropped the load looked up briefly as he passed Ryan. The one-eyed man caught him in a stare for the briefest of seconds, and was astonished to see the naked fear in the Hawknose man’s face. Whatever Crabbe wanted from them, he would obviously stop at nothing. His ruthless reputation was foretold in that one glance.

While the group stood, still bound hand and foot, facing the semicircle of sec men who covered them, they could hear the wag in which they had been transported start up and leave. Even the pitch of the engine seemed to have a whining note to it, as though it couldn’t get away quick enough. As it faded into the distance, they were left staring at the men who were now their captors.

“You don’t say much, Brian,” the squat man said. He looked quizzically at the one-eyed man, as though trying to peer into his very soul. “Hope for your sake that you say more when Crabbe questions you.”

“You told me to shut up when I spoke before,” Ryan said calmly. “You’re the man with the blaster. What do you expect?”

The squat man sniffed. “Don’t know. More fight, mebbe. But mebbe you’re just biding your time,” he added with a knowing look.

“Mebbe…” Ryan answered slowly. “Meantime, shouldn’t we know what this is all about?”

The sec man laughed. “I’m going to watch you very carefully, Brian…Ryan…whatever the fuck your name is.”

He gestured, and half of the lights went out. It took a moment for the companions to adjust to the sudden change, facing as they did the full glare of the arcs. In that time, the sec men fanned out so that they covered the group from all sides. As their eyes adjusted to the darker night, they could see that they were on the edge of the ville. Behind the lights lay the spread of buildings that housed the ville folk. Looking around for the first time, they could see that to the rear—where the wag from Hawknose was now nothing more than a memory—there was nothing but wasteland.

There were more men than they had originally thought. Behind the arc lights had been an additional six, who had been operating the arcs and standing in reserve. Now, with the lighting reduced to a level where they could see clearly beyond and around, it was plain to tell that these men were deployed to surround them. They might be unarmed and bound, but their reputation had obviously preceded them.

“Okay, chill the rest of the lights, and keep them covered,” the squat sec man ordered, almost casually deploying his blaster so that it now covered Ryan. The meaning of this gesture was clear to the one-eyed man—the squat sec man considered Ryan his own personal charge.

Three of the six lights operated at half beam. These were pulled down slowly until they were extinguished, allowing the sec force to keep full observation on their charges.

“Okay,” the squat man barked when the lights had faded. “Louie, retrieve the arcs come morning. Pickup accomplished. Keep the bastards covered, and let’s move on out. Aw shit, better free them up a bit,” he added, looking at their hobbled ankles.

One of the sec men moved forward silently, observed by the others who kept their blasters carefully trained on the companions. Quickly and with deft fingers he loosened the knots around their ankles, one by one. Feeling that had been restricted to pins, needles and a dull throb now flooded back into their extremities, making it easier to move and yet at the same time more painful.

The squat sec leader waited until the task had been completed and his man had fallen back into his place in the circle. With a grunt of approval, he gestured that they move.

If being drugged and spirited away to a strange ville while bound and stripped of their weapons could be called a surprise—and Ryan would be more inclined to term it stupe bastard carelessness—then this was the second one to assail them in the space of a few hours. For they didn’t move toward the lights, shapes and sounds of the ville, which was what they had expected.

It was difficult for the companions to move at the pace that the sec men tried to set. Their bonds made it difficult to move with more than the smallest of steps, despite their being loosened. Blood flow to previously numb feet made them tender and treacherous. J.B. stumbled into Krysty, who found it hard to keep her own balance. Doc fell over many times, face-first into the dust before levering himself up by his elbows. Mildred went to help him up the first time, but the barrel of a Kalashnikov jabbed in her ribs dissuaded her. Only Ryan and Jak kept to their feet with any sign of ease. That was deceptive in the one-eyed man’s case. It took all of his concentration to maintain the appearance of ease. Despite the pain and the effort, he didn’t want the sec leader to see that he was struggling. When the time came, he wanted the man to have seen no chinks in his armor. But for Jak, there was no such effort required. The innate skills that made the albino the hunter he was were more than enough for him to compensate for a minor—and temporary—disability.

The guards around them tried to force the pace, but it was of little use. The shackles of returning circulation and the bonds that were still in place made it impossible. Finally the sec leader had to compromise. With a curse and a sigh he stopped the party, directing that the ropes around their ankles be severed. He even allowed them a few moments to massage circulation back into aching ankles.

Krysty’s glance flashed across the circle, catching Ryan’s eye. He knew what she was asking, and shrugged. He had no idea why they were being led away from the ville when the baron had paid for them to be delivered to him. Was this some kind of plot by the sec boss? Or was there something else that they couldn’t as yet know?

Ryan thought that both he and Krysty had been discreet. Obviously not as much as he had thought, for as they shuffled and stumbled to their feet once more, the sec boss spoke.

“Yeah, weird that Crabbe wants to see you so bad, yet you ain’t getting to see the baron’s palace. Am I right?” He paused, then laughed harshly. “Yeah, sure I am. But you’ll see soon enough. And if you’re who he hopes you are, then you’ll understand.”

With a gesture to his men, he ushered the party onward. There was no chance for the companions to communicate in any way, even though that was what they most urgently needed. Thoughts were whirling inside their heads. They were being marched across terrain that was rough and uneven, uncertain under their feet. Their weapons were achingly just beyond their reach, carried by one of the sec men ahead of them in the guard circle. It would be so easy to just make the effort—to stumble the short distance and make a grab—and yet if they did, any one of them, they would all be cut down before anxious fingertips could touch gunmetal.

The sky overhead was dark and unforgiving. Chem clouds scudded across the void, whipped along by winds that were at high altitude, in contrast to the stillness through which they trudged. The near-full moon was only briefly and fleetingly revealed, its wan shafts of light revealing nothing that seemed to matter. The ville lay far behind them now, and ahead there was only wild and desolate wasteland.

Still, it seemed that the sec boss knew where they were going. Whatever his aim, at least it was possible to see that he had one. And, by the pace that he was setting, the goal was still some distance away.

They continued on through the night, their energy sapped by the after-effects of the drug and the cramping, crippling effects of the subsequent confinement and constriction. As the chem clouds became suffused with the light of early dawn, turning from gray and black to a gray that was tinted orange and red as the sun attempted to signal a new day, it seemed that they had walked at least as far as they had been driven. It was almost impossible to determine direction without the map of stars denied by the cloud cover, and so it was ludicrously possible that they may be walking all the way back to Hawknose.

That idea vanished when the sec boss turned to them and, with a sly grin, said, “Well, what do ya know, kids. Looks like we’re here.”

For some time they had been ascending a shallow incline. Now they had reached the summit and could see that it fell away sharply beneath them. At the bottom of the drop was the remains of an old road, a single-lane blacktop that led through the rusted tangle of a chain-link fence until it came up against what had once been a disguised doorway. Concrete, receding into the earth, and roughly seven yards in diameter, it was now as plain as the dawning day—the entrance to a redoubt.

“Thought that might make you jump,” the squat man observed as he closely watched the companions’ reactions. Despite themselves, all except Jak had registered some sense of surprise. The albino teen had remained impassive, as ever, despite his inner feelings echoing those of his friends.

Ryan’s jaw set hard. He should have expected this. There had been hints in what Valiant had said before they had been drugged. Crabbe had pieced together a kind of history. He knew some facts, had made leaps of imagination between others, but had the basic ideas. There had to be a reason why the story grabbed him. Why not because he had found his own, personal redoubt?

So where was this going to lead them?

The squat sec boss’s face broke into a grin. “Yeah, the looks on your faces, I’d say that names and shit aside, Crabbe knew what he was looking for. And that cob-up-his-ass jerk-off Valiant is a lot smarter than I’d give him credit for. Looks like his people are halfway to the rest of that jack.”

With a gesture, he bade them to start down the slope. It was dry and dusty, the loose earth rising in clouds around them and making it hard to keep a foothold. Small rocks and stones turned at their ankles and slipped away from under their feet. Each of them was concentrating too closely on keeping their own footing to notice that the sec force surrounding them had spread out a little to allow them more room.

With good reason—the squat man knew what would happen, and wanted to keep his own people out of the way of the impact. Choked and blinded by the dust that rose around them, ropes pulling at ankles forced apart by slipping feet, balance proved to be an impossibility. Doc was, inevitably, the first to go. His feet shot out from under him and he fell heavily, rolling on his hip and pivoting sideways.

Despite catching him from the corner of her eye, and trying her best to avoid being taken down by his falling frame, Mildred couldn’t move her own feet quickly enough. A combination of uncertain terrain and limbs dulled by constriction made her clumsy where usually she would be sure.

The pair began to tumble down the incline, gathering momentum and dislodging earth and stone as they fell. It made the ground around them begin to move. For J.B., Ryan and Krysty—all of them, like Doc and Mildred, disabled to a degree by the binding and constriction of their limbs—it made things that much harder. The already unsteady ground beneath their feet was now treacherous, and the way in which Doc and Mildred had fallen made it that much more apparent that it would be all too easy for each to follow.

All of the sec men had fallen back so that they were at the rear of the group. They were surer on their feet, partly because they were unshackled, and also because they were able to pick their way around unsettled terrain with greater ease. They took the pace more slowly—no need to hurry when your captives were in no condition to make a break.

The only exception to any of this was Jak. The albino youth was always fleet and sure of foot. Even with the remnants of the drug in his system, and his ankles still partially numb from their binding, he was able to pick up speed, nimbly jumping the larger rocks that sought to disturb his balance. He rode the scree of stone and earth that began to move like a river beneath him, using the currents within it and adapting his own rhythms to run with it. When he reached the bottom of the sharp drop, bringing himself to a halt before he hit the remains of the black ribbon, he turned and looked back up the incline.

The sec force were three-quarters of the way down, picking its way carefully over the wake of the companions’ descent. The sun had now risen enough to light their way with ease. They were strung out in a line, with the squat, bearded sec chief in the center.

He stopped short when he saw that Jak was glaring at him. Their eyes met, and in the early light of morning the albino’s red eyes glowed with a passion that he usually kept masked. A shiver ran down the squat man’s spine. The albino teen had said nothing, and his face remained fixed. But those eyes said it all—if ever he had the chance, he would take vengeance for this humiliation on himself and his friends.

By the time the sec force had reached the bottom, Jak had long since turned away. He helped Ryan to his feet, and then between them they assisted the others to right themselves. Limbs ached and were bruised, there were a few contusions, but there was no major damage. Mildred murmured that she would tend to the wounds when her hands were freed. Ryan wondered why the sec men had been content to watch them fall.

When he looked toward the exposed concrete of the redoubt tunnel, there was an answer. There was a wag to one side that hadn’t been there before. As the area around was flat and open, and they had seen nothing approaching for several miles from their initial vantage point at the top of the incline, it could only have come from inside the redoubt. That impression was reinforced by the way in which the men standing on either side of the wag were dressed. There were three of them, two on the left, one on the right. Two cradled Kalashnikovs, while the third was carrying an SMG of some sort. At this distance, even J.B. couldn’t tell the model. But it was a blaster, nonetheless. As was the canon mounted on the back of the wag. No one was manning it at present, but it looked capable of serious damage over serious distance.

No wonder the sec force following them was in no great hurry.

The sec men from the incline reached the bottom and fanned out to cover them once more. The three men by the wag, two with rifles, began to move forward to reach their compatriots. The man with the SMG slung it and climbed up onto the back of the wag, covering them.

“You’re taking no chances,” Ryan observed wryly as the sec boss approached.

The squat man shrugged. “You should be proud, Brian or Ryan. Shows we take you seriously.”

“I’ll remember that next time I see a shitload of blasters ready to take me out when I’m unarmed. Makes me feel real proud.”

The squat man grinned. “I could grow to like you, Brian…if I could be bothered. Now get moving.”

He gestured to them to move. Slowly, the captive group moved toward the entrance to the redoubt. Seeing that their guards were in control, the two sec men from the wag returned to it, one of them getting behind the wheel and firing up the engine. He maneuvered the vehicle so that it faced the redoubt entrance, the SMG on its back swiveling with the movement so that it always kept the captives covered.

The companions walked slowly up to the redoubt doors, which stayed resolutely shut.

“So what now?” the one-eyed man asked, turning to the sec boss.

“Little test for you,” he called. “See if you’re who we think.”

“I thought you knew that,” Ryan countered.

The sec boss laughed, a short, barking cough. “Reckon I do. But mebbe Crabbe would like more proof. He suggested this, and who am I to go against my baron? Now stop fucking about and open the doors. If you are who we think, then you’ll know how to do it.”

“And if we’re not?”

“You’d be triple stupe to try and bluff it out, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’ll just chill you now, and not waste any more time.”

Ryan surveyed the sec force facing them. All were armed. And then there was the SMG.

They’d do it, all right. He was certain of that.

“J.B.,” Ryan muttered.

The Armorer stepped forward, raising both bound hands so that he could remove his glasses and wipe the dust and dirt from them before placing them back on the bridge of his nose.

The keypad, discreetly hidden, was directly in front of him. He punched in the three-digit entry code that was common to all redoubts.

The doors groaned into action, opening to reveal a tunnel that sloped gently down to a dogleg corner. The brightly lit interior was clean and empty. It looked like any other redoubt they had seen.

Except it was far from empty farther down.

Baron Crabbe was waiting for them.

“Move on in. Slowly,” the sec boss ordered. “Wait,” he added as the companions began to enter. “Four in front. We don’t want them to be pulling down any of those other doors and leaving us on one side, them on the other, do we,” he added.

“Smart. Wouldn’t get us anywhere when you’ve got people in there already,” Ryan said, as four of the black-clad sec men moved in front of them, reversing so they could move backward, keeping the companions covered all the while.

“Mebbe. Wouldn’t want to look stupe in front of the baron, though,” the sec chief replied. “Now you can go.”

They moved down the tunnel and into the interior of the redoubt.

Chapter Four

The wag followed them as far as the first dogleg, where it turned off to go into the vehicle maintenance bay. J.B. followed it, noting that there was only one other wag in the bay. If that was any indication, there were few sec men at the redoubt other than those they already knew about. That information could be useful.

Moving down the corridors from level to level, they began to move deeper into the bowels of the earth. All the sec doors within the redoubt had been propped open, and apart from a few areas of darkness in the distance, where lighting had failed, it seemed that the redoubt had been in good condition when discovered and hadn’t been ransacked. As they descended past the level where the armory was housed, J.B. once again cast a look toward the closed rooms that he knew would house the redoubt’s weapons. Had this Baron Crabbe stripped it, he wondered, or were there rich pickings that would serve them well? Always assuming, of course, that they could escape their captors long enough to reach the armory. Looking at the limping, dirty and exhausted group around him, it was an option that seemed a thousand miles from possible.

While J.B. was thinking of the armory, Mildred was wondering about the medical facilities. Meds and dressings would make it a lot easier for them to handle the pain and the minor injuries they had sustained. And handle it was exactly what they would need to do if they were to leap on any avenue of escape that might present itself. Krysty and Doc, meanwhile, thought of the dorms and showers they had passed. A hot shower would soothe many of their aches, and clear their heads. And they’d need clear heads if they were to make a break.

Ryan was thinking of all that, while at the same time trying to observe his companions and assess the level of punishment they could risk. There was no doubt that the night had taken a toll on them. Whatever Crabbe wanted, the longer it took him to explain, then the better it might be. At least time would give them the opportunity to snatch some recuperation.

Jak wasn’t bothered by the dirt, the pain or the need to rest. He just watched everything carefully, noting the areas where the sec men were weak or sloppy, noting where the lighting had dimmed, providing places to hide and strike. As soon as the chance came, he would be ready.

With all these thoughts preoccupying them, the companions were silent as they were led farther into the military installation.

Finally they reached their destination—the control room of the mat-trans unit.

The sec man in front of them pulled back, revealing an open door. There were noises from within: low, whispery voices and the shuffling of movement. At a gesture from the squat sec man, the companions moved into the room.

Two men stood by one of the comps. One was tall and thin, slightly stooped and balding, with long strands of hair falling around his shoulders in contrast to a pate that shone under the lights. He had a list in his hand, and Ryan recognized the type of paper. They had seen these before: single sheets, laminated to protect against constant use.

Did the sheet tell the two men something about the mat-trans? Had these men worked out how the mechanism worked? Ryan knew from experience that the companions weren’t the only ones who used the mat-trans system.

As the group entered the control room and shuffled to a halt, the two men turned. Ryan had assumed that the tall man was Baron Crabbe, but as the second one turned to face them, there was something about his expression that said otherwise. He was shorter, and stout, yet there was a hardness about his frame, and the squaring of his shoulders, that suggested the fat had formed a layer over solid muscle. He was clean-shaved, with hair cropped close to his bullet skull. Scars showed through, as did some on his face under the stubble. As he saw them, his face broke into a satisfied grin, his mouth raising only on one side, the other paralyzed by the scar that ran from the corner and down his chin.

But it was his eyes—they bored into the group, examining them minutely and flickering from one to the other. At each, he paused before nodding shortly. His eyes blazed brightly with excitement.

“At last,” he said finally. “All this time, and then you go and land virtually at my bastard feet. It seemed too good to be true.”

“They passed the code test, Baron,” the squat sec man reported. His deference was in complete contrast to the way he had spoken to his captives, and Ryan found it both amusing and instructive. Another clue on how to handle the man when the moment came.

“I knew they would, Nelson,” Crabbe snapped with a tone that veered between irritation and anger. “Stand back, let them settle. Please, be seated,” he added with a more unctuous tone, although only indicating the floor.

“It would help if we weren’t tethered like a bunch of pack animals,” Mildred said as they started to lower themselves.

“Of course, of course,” Crabbe said, although in a tone that suggested it wouldn’t otherwise have occurred to him. He gestured to his sec chief. “Nelson, cut them loose.”

The squat man moved carefully in front of the group. He had holstered his blaster and held J.B.’s knife in his hand—a deliberate move, no doubt—and used it to cut free their wrists and ankles. He brandished the knife close to Ryan’s artery as he sliced at his wrist, a grin flashing across his face as he caught Ryan’s eye. A provocation, and then he was gone again, vanished to their rear.

Crabbe, satisfied that they were now comfortable enough to listen, began while they each massaged life and full feeling back into their hands and feet.

“This must be a familiar room to you all. At least, if you’re who I think you are. You have knowledge I need. Mebbe I have knowledge that will help you make sense of what you know. It’s like that,” he added, appearing to go off at a tangent, “what’s left of the predark world. Bits and pieces, some of which make sense, and some of which makes none at all. And then you get some small glimmering that suddenly makes the previously insane seem somehow sane. Things that make no fucking sense at all suddenly seem to be transformed into things that are just so blindingly obvious that you think you must have been a stupe not to see it before.

“Like the stories of this guy, Trader,” he continued, emphasizing the name and watching them carefully. After Valiant’s explanation, they were expecting this, and so Crabbe didn’t get the reaction he wanted. His words were met with a blandness that did nothing to inform him, and little more than irritate him.

“Have it that way, then,” he said softly. “See, the thing I could never understand about the legendary Trader was his seemingly limitless supply of stuff. A hidden predark stockpile my ass. He had an underground base. I just know it My men found this one when we had a quake. The shit covering it dropped off like so much crap. Took us a long time to figure out a way in. Now that I know how it works, it’s a marvel to me that we did it all. Punching those fucking keys in any order… Now that I know how these doors work, I take it as a sign that we got in here. It’s meant.”

“What is meant?” Doc asked.

“Why, my using my knowledge and the knowledge that I get from you to run the whole of this pesthole and make it great again. I know, from what I’ve seen in here, that this land used to be the one that everyone else looked up to. Now there must be a whole chunk of world out there that’s still got people, even if it’s like us. We should be great in their eyes.”

“Ah, glory…” Doc said absently.

From the slightly glazed expression, which puzzled Crabbe, Mildred could tell that the old man was still slightly concussed.

“But not gold?” Doc added.

Crabbe’s brow furrowed. “Gold? Well, yeah, of course I mean that, too. Hell, I’d be stupe if I didn’t. Ain’t that what everyone wants? Ain’t that the same thing as glory? Glory gets you respect, and so does jack, gold. Goes hand in hand, I’d say.”

“If it’s the way to glory and jack, then why didn’t Trader take that? Why haven’t we? Suppose we are the people you say. Ask yourself why we were doing shitty jobs in Hawknose waiting for the next convoy out,” Ryan said.

Crabbe eyed him shrewdly. “Fair point, Brian. But this is the only place like this around these parts. I know that ’cause I read that there map.” He indicated the area behind them. On the wall over a row of comps lining one side of the room was a clear glass screen, outlined with a map of the predark United States. On it were marked the locations of redoubts across the continent. “The way I see it is this—somehow you wandered away from one of these places. I bet you’ve been to lots of them. Mebbe that’s what you do. Go to one of these, see what you can pick up, then move to the next. Mebbe you got a stockpile in one of them, mebbe you’re looking for the next big stockpile. Whatever, I reckon you left one of them, got into a fight and ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere. Fact is, you ending up at Hawknose may have been no accident, now that I think about it. Mebbe the reason you landed there is because you were headed for the nearest one you knew…here.”

He finished with a triumphant flourish. In the silence that followed, Ryan was unsure as to whether the baron expected them to cave in and admit that he was right. The demonstration of reasoning that had got Crabbe to this point was disturbing. What other assumptions had he made about Trader? About them? And what, as a result, would he expect from them?

Ryan decided that the only way to find out would be to play him at his own game.

“Okay, so you got us. And you’re right. Question is, where does that get you?”

Crabbe looked at Ryan closely, studying him as though to somehow discern whether he was being deceived. Ryan held the baron’s gaze, steady, impassive.

The baron’s weathered features creased. “Knew it. I fucking knew it. Didn’t I tell you, Sal?” he asked, turning to the tall, thin man.

Sal simply nodded, his face unreadable.

“So where does that leave us then, Baron? All cards on the table.”

“Huh?” The baron looked confused for a moment. “Ah, you mean everything out in the open, right? ‘Cards on the table’—what kind of a stupe expression is that? Something you’ve picked up from the old ways in your travels?”

“Yeah, must be,” Ryan answered blandly. In truth, he’d heard it all over Deathlands, and had no idea where he’d first started using it. But if that was what Crabbe wanted to believe, then that was just fine.

Crabbe shook his head, laughing. “There is just so much that I need to find out, but first, we need to get down to basics. Am I right? There’s a whole network of these underground bases, like on that map. Was that Trader’s secret?”

“Not exactly,” Ryan began carefully. “There are a number of these places, like you’ve worked out. Getting from one to the other is difficult, and some of them have been looted or are damaged in some way.”

“What ways?” Crabbe snapped, as though suspicious of anything that may deviate from his own ideas.

Ryan knew that was worth bearing in mind. “Well,” he said, “you saw how this place was exposed. Sometimes quakes bear down deep, cause cracks in the tunnels. Some places just collapse in on themselves.”

Crabbe nodded slowly. “Right…and looted, you say. So there are places where others have got into these bases.” He looked at Ryan, who merely nodded. “Then if that’s right, how come there ain’t people appearing from everywhere?”

“I told you. Getting from one to another is difficult.”

“But you do it,” Crabbe said quickly. “So you must have the secret.”

“What secret?” Ryan asked slowly.

Crabbe smiled slyly. “One of the legends of Trader. There was a disk that was part of the old tech. It showed where the big stockpile was. Where all the jack and weapons predark were hidden when they knew the nukecaust was going off. It showed where it was, and how to get there. How to get there, Brian. Which means the secret of moving between the bases. And that’s got everything to do with this.”

Crabbe turned and strode the few paces to the mat-trans unit.

The baron once again getting his name wrong was another reminder that the man’s half-assed assumptions spelled trouble. He had worked out that the mat-trans was a means of transportation, but not how it worked. That, presumably, was part of the information that he wanted to extract from the group.

More worrying was his assumption that so much knowledge was contained on one old comp disk. Again, it was rooted in a piece of truth. There once was a disk, but it had contained nothing more than a few codes for redoubts. It had been damaged, and was, in all likelihood, nothing more than a piece of tech that housed some mundane and routine information. The disk was long gone, lost during one of their mad scrambles for survival.

How could they explain that to a man who had already decided to believe what he wanted? He was certain that Trader had had a disk, but he was dead wrong.

Crabbe was on a roll, and so Ryan remained silent. The baron turned back to them, snatching at the sheet in Sal’s hand. The tall, balding man let it go quickly, so as not to anger his baron. Crabbe brandished it at them.

“You know the secret of moving, but you don’t have the disk. Think about it. If you use your knowledge to help me find the disk, how far could they take us?”

Ryan was bemused and relieved, but managed to keep this from his voice as he said, “We? An alliance?”

Crabbe grimaced. “Not exactly. A deal, sure. I like to deal. Who doesn’t? But not really what you’d call an alliance. See, I didn’t get to be baron by cutting people in on the deal. You know how it works, right? You did learn from the great Trader, after all. And I’m betting he wasn’t the kind of guy to make an alliance where he could make a bargain. You know what I’m saying?”

Ryan stole a look at his companions. Doc still looked dazed, but the others had their attention on the baron. And there was no doubt that they, like Ryan, were totally clear on what Crabbe’s meaning might be.

“Okay,” Ryan said slowly, “let’s just say that we do know how to get from one base to another. Are you saying that the disk you’re looking for—the one that contains all the information you want on how to find the kind of stash you’re looking for, and how to go from base to base easily—is in one of the places on that list?”

Crabbe smiled slyly. “I think you know it is, Brian. But if you want to play it that way, then fine. I believe the marks on this paper show the bases where the disk might be. And they also have something that shows you how to work the thing—” he gestured at the mat-trans unit “—but I don’t understand the way that they used to write stuff down predark. There ain’t no one in the ville who does. That kind of stuff has never been any use to us before.”

“Couldn’t you just ask someone else to read it for you?” Mildred asked, breaking her silence. She could barely keep the sardonic edge from her voice. “Seems a whole lot of bother just to look for us to read a list for you.”

Crabbe stared at her. He seemed to be torn between towering rage and astonishment. The latter won out.

“For fuck’s sake, how do people as stupe as you get to be the keepers of the secrets? Fuck’s sake, Brian, haven’t you ever thought that it might be an idea to keep Millicent from opening her stupe mouth?” Before Ryan had a chance to answer, Crabbe sighed then continued. “Of course they know how to do it in places around here, but you think I’m going to let any of them in on the secret? I’d be forever looking over my bastard shoulder. Sure, I could say little about it, but there would always be questions. I don’t want to be distracted by those fucking insects while I’m about my work.”

“So you want us to read that list for you, then go to all of these places and try to find the disk you want,” Mildred stated, bristling at the way in which Crabbe had spoken of—rather than to—her. The fact that he kept getting their names wrong was also irritating her out of all proportion. “So what, Mr. Smart-ass, is to stop us finding your disk and then not coming back?”

Crabbe stared at her as though he couldn’t believe she could speak to him in this manner. “Brian,” he said softly, “you should really keep a better hold on your people.”

Ryan, on the other hand, was content to let Mildred lead, to see where it took them. “She has a very good question,” he said. “I would have asked it myself. So would any of us.”

Crabbe snorted, shook his head and turned away. It took him some time to compose himself. When he had, he turned back to them, shaking his head again.

“Shit, just how stupe do you think I am? Look around you. I got men with blasters aimed at you, could take you out anytime, and yet you still talk to me like I was shit. You’ve either got balls the size of a fucking boulder, or you’re triple stupe. And that I don’t believe. Is this your way of pushing me, see how far I’ll go?”

Okay, Ryan figured, maybe he wasn’t quite the stupe he had him figured for. But still, how was he going to work this out? And why the nuking hell did Crabbe assume the nonexistent disk was in one of those six redoubts out of the dozens in the Deathlands? It just didn’t make sense.

Crabbe stood over them. He gestured to the rear of the room. “You’ve seen the sec. McCready doesn’t like you, I can see that from his face. Nelson’s a mean bastard. That’s why I put him in charge. He’d gladly blow you all away now. He’s sick of chasing you and getting nowhere, so he might be relieved that you’re here now, but he still fucking hates your guts for all the trouble you’ve caused him. All I’ve got to do is say. But if I do, just ’cause you’re all a pain in the ass, I have a problem.”

“What we know,” J.B. stated. “You want it. And not just that.”

“No,” Crabbe said softly. “Not just that. What then, J.T.?”

“You want us to go on the hunt because you don’t want to leave here. You want to stay at the center of things.”

“Smart man. I don’t know what lies at the end of each journey. Might be nothing, might be someone like me. I’d rather you faced that. You’re used to it. And you’ll come back. I can make sure of that.”

Again, the sly smile crossed his face.

“See, you don’t think I’d go to all the trouble that I have and then just let you go off as you are, do you? Do I really look like that kind of a fuckwit? No, I have a real simple plan. I might not be able to read, but I can count. Six lines on this sheet,” he said, holding it up in front of them once more, “and six of you. So I pair you up, and while one of you goes and searches, then the other four are my prisoners here. If you don’t come back, then say hello to the farm.”

“What’s to stop any of us taking our chances?” Ryan questioned.

Crabbe laughed. “From what I hear, with you people it’s all for one and one for all. That’s your strength. Thing is, it’s also your weakness.”

Chapter Five

Crabbe was, as he was so fond of telling everyone, a fair man. Certainly, he had continued to say that to Ryan and his companions many times, until they had reached the point where it was like the drip of water torture, the syllables like spikes to the brain. It was an interesting definition of fair under which he worked. In essence, although he would give them no real choice over the undertaking of the mission—do it or buy the farm—he wouldn’t expect them to embark without some kind of rest or recuperation. Because he was fair. Not because it had been his sec men who had dragged them across wasteland while bound hand and foot.

So, it was fairness that came at a price, and with a large amount of provision. But tiredness and the erosion of spirit that came with aching weariness could do a lot to alter perspectives. What would have seemed very little, if not an insult under any other circumstances, was now welcomed.

Crabbe decreed that it wouldn’t be fair to his new “partners” in the business of finding the disk if he didn’t allow them to rest and prepare for the task ahead. It occurred to all of them that this may have had something to do with the fact that a rested and prepared team was more likely to succeed. But to say as much would have been pointless at best, and provocative at worst. Leave it until the time was right to strike.

After all, Crabbe did have a point. None of them was in a fit state to take on anyone. Sore, aching limbs were matched by a fuzziness of the mind, an after-effect of the drug that had enabled Valiant to sell them like so much feed.

So it was with an overwhelming sense of relief, rather than anything else, that they allowed themselves to be led to the redoubt’s dorms. McCready escorted them himself. He was hostile and suspicious, and so would trust none of his men not to screw up. After Crabbe dismissed them, McCready and three of his men accompanied the companions to the level on which the dorms were housed. Before they left the baron and Sal to pore over the sheet that held, allegedly, the answers sought by Crabbe, Mildred stopped to ask if she could visit the medical facilities. When Crabbe, suspicion showing in his tone, asked her why, she indicated Doc.

“If you know anything about us, then you know that he’s a little crazy at the best of times. I think he took a hell of a blow on the head, and the last thing you want—shit, that we want—is him going a little more crazy on our ass.”

Crabbe had looked at the still dazed Doc, who grinned blankly when he saw the baron focus on him, and had decided that she was right. So two sec men accompanied Mildred while she went to the medical facility. To her surprise, it hadn’t been looted.

“So you boys don’t believe in the power of medicine?” she asked idly while she rifled the room for supplies.

The sec men didn’t answer. Undeterred, she continued, even though she figured that she may as well be talking to herself.

“I’m really surprised. This stuff is at a premium out there. Good jack for some of it, and a hell of a lot of use for it among your people. I would have thought that Crabbe would want to use it, rather than let it go to waste.”

“Can’t do that when this place is still under wraps,” one of the sec men mumbled.

“Shut the fuck up,” his partner snapped.

“Don’t matter if she knows,” the first man replied in peevish tones. “Ain’t like she’s gonna get the chance to mouth off about it, right? They ain’t going nowhere near the ville.”

“Shithead, don’t say no more,” the second sec man said in an exasperated voice. The first man took the point and clammed up. But the exchange had told Mildred something—Crabbe was keeping the existence of the redoubt secret from the majority of his own people. He had some obviously high hopes for what he would find, and how it would increase his power. So much so that he felt the need to keep it a close secret. So much that hardly anyone knew that they were here. So much so, perhaps, that hardly anyone knew that the baron himself was here.

It was this knowledge that she carried back, along with the medicines, to the dorms. Once there, she set about treating Doc, biding her time before sharing her thoughts with the others. As she tended to the bump on the old man’s head, which had now swollen and reddened showing the extent of the bruising from the repeated blows on the floor of the wag, she kept an eye on the two sec men. They watched her closely, as if expecting her to practice some deception.

“I’m only tending to his head, boys. Nothing to see here,” she said with a heavy irony. “Why don’t you just leave us to get some rest? Your boss has pulled the rest of you out of here, and there’s no way we can escape, right?”

The sec men exchanged looks. The woman had an undeniable point. McCready had stationed men outside the dorm, and there was only the one entrance and exit. They looked uncomfortably at each other and then withdrew.

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