by James Axler
When she didn't reply, Ryan strode outside.
After he'd given the Norton a thorough cleaning, he kicked it into reluctant life, beckoning for Sharona to join him. Despite the ordeal, she still looked like a fashion plate. The dark glasses were in place and the scarf was knotted casually about her slender neck. She picked her way daintily through the loose sand. Ryan let the engine idle quietly.
"Ready to go?"
"Why not? Nothing to keep us here, is there?"
"Nope. And we got the story straight. Wouldn't want the baron to think that we couldn't be trusted."
She was about to swing her leg over the pillion seat of the bike, but she paused, looking at Ryan with her head on one side. "I really like you, outlander. Truly. Enjoyed the good time, and you handled the bad time better than anyone I ever met."
"Thanks. Come on. Baron'll be sending out a search party anytime now."
Sharona put her hand on his shoulder and leaned to kiss him softly on the cheek.
"Don't worry about whether the baron trusts you and Trader. I should worry more about whether you and Trader can trust Baron Alias Carson." She went on quickly. "And before you ask, lover, I'm not saying any more. My husband has a long arm and a mean disposition. Let's go back to Towse."
The Norton left a long pillar of red dust rising behind it into the bright morning air.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FERRYMAN WAS LEADING the search party himself, driving one of a trio of small, fast armored wags. They braked to a halt across the highway, halfway between the ghost ranch and the ville.
Ryan slowed down and pushed up his goggles. Sharona eased her grip around his waist, peering around his shoulders. Her face was masked with dust, and she coughed and spit as Ryan finally braked the 350 twin bike.
"Where's my men?" the sec-boss shouted.
"Chilled."
A light machine gun was mounted on the front of each of the wags. Without a word being said, the nearest one dipped and swung right until it covered Ryan.
"Chilled?"
"Both."
The sec-boss swung his legs out of the driver's cockpit of the wag and jumped down. He pushed up his goggles as he walked toward Ryan.
"You chill 'em?"
"No."
"You and the woman? You and Sharona Carson? Chill them 'tween you, did you?"
"No." Ryan fought hard to keep his self-control.
"Coldcock them. Mebbe the woman offered herself. Smitty didn't have the brains of a fence post. Show him a hole in the ground, and he'd likely start trying to fuck it."
"You got a big mean mouth, Ferryman," Sharona snarled. "Baron'll hear about what you're suggesting so damned loud."
The sec-boss ignored her, keeping his eyes drilling into Ryan's face. "You got a real hard look to you, outlander. I seen hard and I know hard. McMurtry wasn't nobody's fool. Day he fell easy's the day shit stops smelling. So, how'd you do it, Cawdor? I'm real curious about that."
Ryan hadn't moved. "Like the lady says, you got a mean mouth on you, sec-boss. Wind from your lips helps keep me cool. But I had enough of that, for now. Smitty's hog broke down, a coupla miles from the ghost ranch. McMurtry stayed with him."
"I wanted to try and get some of my picture done before the storm came swooping down onto us," Sharona added.
"Two of you went on ahead, cozylike," Ferryman said. "And then?"
"Storm came," Ryan replied flatly.
"Just like that?"
"Yeah, Ferryman, just like that. Looks like the storm only skirted south toward Towse ville. That right?"
"We seen clouds. Thunder and some lightning. Not likely enough to get a couple good sec-men down and chilled."
Ryan's anger began to move from smoldering toward glazing. He pointed an accusing finger at Ferryman. "You go take a look, you son of a bitch! You'll find big trees stripped to the core. Two-wheel wags with every grain of paint scoured clear. And two corpses, Ferryman. Two corpses looking like they been blasted out of their skins. You go and look, and you fucking look good!"
He kicked the motor of the Norton into throbbing, vibrant life, and Sharona clutched him around the waist again.
A haze of dust burst from the rear wheel as Ryan gunned it, leaving the sec-boss standing in the dirt, watching them go.
Ryan and Sharona had only one brief opportunity to talk.
They rolled through the fine sunny day, finally halting in the center of the ville's plaza. A couple of sec-men started to run toward them, as did the Trader and half the crew of the war wags. And Ryan glimpsed the shadowy figure of the baron, emerging from the porch of his living quarters.
The engine died and the noises of the ville swept in all around them.
"Won't ask you again, Ryan. Not ever. But just watch your back," Sharona told him.
"Thanks," he said.
"Take care… lover."
Then they were swallowed in the crowd, surrounded by questions.
The Trader gripped Ryan by the arm, his fingers like brass bolts. "You all right?"
"Sec-men got chilled in the chem-storm. Ferryman's gone to look."
"What'll he see, Ryan?"
"What there is. Two dead men, bodies stripped by sand and wind. That's all."
The melancholic voice of Alias Carson came droning in, silencing the rest of the voices.
"I counted four people leaving the ville, day before today. Now I count just about half of that number returning. I set my mind to wondering just how that can be."
His wife told him the story, sticking to the simple scenario that she and Ryan had agreed upon, finishing up by explaining that they'd met Ferryman on the way to Towse, and that he was going to the ghost ranch by Abbyqu to check out the bodies.
Alias Carson watched her through his thick-lensed spectacles, his pale blue eyes never moving from her face.
"Interesting tale, my dear," he said. "Like most things in life, I guess we got us a mess of truth beans with just a sprinkling of chili lies. Best a man can hope for."
There was something about the tall, immaculately dressed baron that made Ryan's fingers itch for the butt of his Ruger Blackhawk.
"I just got me some news about the gas convoy," Carson said.
The Trader gazed at him as though he'd just jerked a white rabbit out of a hat.
"Said I got news on the gas," he repeated.
"What news, Baron?" the Trader asked.
Ryan and the woman's adventures in the chem-storm were immediately forgotten. Two sec-men chilled didn't weigh in the balance against the possibility of filling up War Wag One and War Wag Two with precious gasoline.
And Ryan didn't mind at all that the light was turned away from Sharona and himself. No questions was always a whole lot better than any questions— Better and safer.
"Be here tomorrow. Big problems in the processing plant out Westexas way. Got 'em sorted."
"Tomorrow?" Ryan asked.
"Sure, son. Sure as the golden sun rises up there in the east and goes falling down into the west. There'll be gas tomorrow."
"I'll count on that, Baron," the Trader said. He turned to face Ryan. "Looks like some sort of a cleanup'd be good."
"Right."
The Trader debriefed Ryan, with J.B. listening nearby, as the one-eyed man took a shower. The needle jets of water drove the grime from his pores, forcing tiredness out of his aching muscles.
"You chilled the sec-men?"
"Caught me with the woman."
"That mean you had to kill them, Ryan? I keep telling you about your temper and about finding ways out of a situation. Over, under or around. I tell you that, don't I?"
Ryan shook water from his long black hair, reaching for the control handle in the tiny shower unit.
"Sure, you do, Trader. Wasn't just they caught us ramming away."
"What else?"
"Sharona had asked me to kill her husband and take over the ville. Didn't whisper it, either."
"Fireblast," the Trader swore.
"And S
mitty and McMurtry heard that?" J.B. probed.
"Yeah, and before you ask, there was the rad-blasted father of all chem-storms going on outside the hut where we were."
"Stupid," the Trader said. "You're too bastard old to get your dick caught 'tween a rock and a hard place, Ryan. Now there's men dead."
"No way they'll track how they were done."
"How'd you get them?" J.B. asked.
Ryan considered his answer. The Armorer and the Trader were already seriously angry with him. If he told them that Sharona's hidden knife had saved them both, and that she'd terminated McMurtry herself, it wouldn't sound good.
"Hand chopped the fat guy. Knocked him into McMurtry. Took 'em both."
Trader nodded grudgingly. "Least you got that right. But what else d'you find? She wanted Alias chilled?"
Ryan started getting dressed again, grateful for the feeling of the fresh clean clothes on his skin. "She's triple-crazed, Trader. Wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her."
J.B. passed him his shirt. "She say anything else, Ryan?"
"Yeah."
"What? Dark night! It's like trying to get honey from a granite boulder with you."
"Said not to trust the baron. He's got some sort of game up his sleeve, Trader. He wants the wags to tighten up his power base. They'd let him drive free and easy all over the land, end the threat from the Indians."
The older man nodded slowly. He winced slightly and eased himself down, as though his clothes felt uncomfortable. "Keep getting these kind of pinches in my gut. Like I swallowed something real small with claws." He shook his head. "I guessed all along there was something up. But now you know for certain, we can plan extra careful. Double guards tonight. If it comes it'll be tonight. Or maybe during the fueling."
"Or after that." Ryan suggested. "Just when we figured it was safe to leave."
The Trader grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "That's better, Ryan. Shows your brain cells ain't all died."
"I'll set double watch," J.B. said. "Spread the word to take extra care. Ferryman said earlier on something about a kids' party. Asked us to go sit in on it."
The three men looked at one another in a momentary silence. The Trader broke the stillness.
"Why not? Be such an obvious time to try and raid us, the son of a bitch might even try it. We'll go along, but we step light."
"What time?" Ryan asked. "This evening? Fine. You guys don't mind, I'm going to hit the bunk. Could use some sleep."
Chapter Thirty
NEARLY SIX HOURS HAD crept by since Mildred Wyeth had given Ryan Cawdor the injection. She'd hoped for some sign of success within a couple of hours, maybe four hours at the outside. But the botulism held the unconscious man gripped in its scaled claws with a remorseless and unrelenting cruelty.
The best she could see was that he didn't seem to have become any worse, but there wasn't any evidence that he was getting better.
Everybody was restless.
Jak had asked the doctor to give him some sleepers. "Can't sleep, Mildred. Want to. Can't. Not with Ryan like…"
She'd taken pity on the teenage boy, touched by the desperation in the dark-rimmed ruby eyes. Now he lay on his back, white hair tumbled around his narrow skull, snoring gently.
J.B. had fieldstripped his blasters a dozen times, going through the mechanical motions, sometimes with his eyes shut, sometimes with them open. Every half hour or so he'd walk over and stand by Ryan's bed, looking down silently at the unconscious man, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes.
Doc Tanner couldn't sit still, and he couldn't stop talking. He'd start a halfhearted, half-remembered conversation with Krysty or with Mildred, then his tired mind would lose its way among all of yesterday's clutter and he'd wander away again.
"Did I tell you about the time that me and Harry Dean Stanton went off to San Francisco and… and I fear that I don't recall what we did there. My memory is more addled than a bucket of sun-dried eggs. Whatever it was we did there was… No."
Krysty sat in a plastic chair, leaning against the wall of the redoubt room where Ryan was deeply asleep. She'd tried praying to Gaia, but she knew in her heart that it was futile. The power of the Earth Mother could do wonders, could almost move mountains. But it couldn't combat the lethal toxins that were crushing the life from Ryan Cawdor.
For some of the time, Krysty slept, starting wakefully whenever Mildred came quietly into the room.
"Any change?" she asked.
"No. Not worse."
"Not better?"
She shook her head slowly. "I don't know, Krysty. The injection… He was closing in on death. I'm certain of that. I didn't figure he'd hang in there more than two or three hours. It's now—" she checked her chron "—six hours. He's still alive, and that's a victory. We got to cling to the small victories, if we can."
"And hold off the big defeat?"
"Right."
Krysty saw that Mildred was out on her feet. "Get some sleep," she said.
"Have to keep checking the patient—professional responsibility, you know. Lose my post as house surgeon if I don't."
"I'll watch him. I know what to do. It's easy enough. Wash him if he needs it. If he dies, I'll know, Mildred. And if he starts getting better…well, I guess I'll spot that as well."
Reluctantly the other woman went off to her own bed, extracting the promise from Krysty to call her if there was even the tiniest indication of change in any of the vital signs.
Krysty sat back and watched the still figure under the blanket. The coma was so deep that it was no longer possible to detect any sign of life. The woman leaned forward and rested her hands on her face, feeling the calming rustle of her own hair gathering around her cheeks.
"Come on, lover," she whispered. "Never known you to turn away from a fight. Do it for me, lover."
The movement was almost imperceptible.
If she hadn't been staring with all her concentration at his face, Krysty would have missed it. Even with her incredible, mutie-enhanced sight, she still wasn't sure.
"Lover!" she said.
The lid of his good right eye had trembled, as though a speck of dust had touched the cool skin. Krysty stood and moved closer, leaning over the bed.
"I saw that, Ryan, you bastard. Now do it again. Move your eye!"
This time the twitch was much more pronounced. She could see the glimmer of chillingly pale blue beneath the lid. He had opened his eye a fraction of an inch, and was looking at her. She was certain.
"Mildred!" she shouted. "Mildred! Everyone! Come here, quick!"
In her heart Krysty knew that this was the beginning of the big victory.
Chapter Thirty-One
SOMEONE BANGED HARD on the door of Ryan's sleeping capsule, jerking him instantly awake. A voice that he didn't recognize shouted out the news. "Gas! The gas's come!"
It took him moments to heave on his boots and tie the laces tightly. He plucked the heavy, long-barreled pistol from beneath the pillow and slid the door open.
The passage was bustling with people, pushing past one another. He made his way quickly along to the command deck of the battle-wag, where J.B. and the Trader were already waiting.
"Ah, the sleeper wakes," the Armorer said. "Glad you could make it."
"Thought baron said tomorrow. I didn't sleep the chron around, did I?"
"No. He sent a messenger a half hour back. Said that the gas-wags had put on extra speed to get through that chem-storm. One that chilled them sec-men. They're here now."
"Ready to fuel us up?"
The Trader looked around him. Most of the ob-slits and blaster ports were open, letting in the light breeze that relieved the stifling heat. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, glancing down at his chron.
"Said it'd be an hour or so. By then it's going to be closing up on the dark."
Ryan eased his shorts where they were pinching him. "Cutting it fine if we wanted to get on the blacktop tonight."
"That's what I think.
J.B.?"
"Not worth the sweating, Trader. Better to fuel up tonight. Go to this kids' party. Triple up the watch to red and get away safe and clear at first light. Way I see it."
"Way I see it, too. We all agreed? Fine. Let's get to it."
The whole of Towse stank of gasoline. In the failing light the refueling of the war wags hadn't gone as smoothly as they'd all hoped. A valve at the end of one of the long canvas hoses had broken a thread and snapped, tearing open the connection. A hundred gallons of precious gas had soaked into the sand of the plaza before anyone had the presence of mind to spin the lock-off wheel.
Ferryman had been in overall control of the operation, and his yell of rage and warning could have shattered crystal at three hundred paces.
"Nobody fuck up! I want every cigarette and cooking stove in the whole ville out and now! Watch steel on steel for a spark. No electric switches. No rad-contact anyplace!"
A team of men and women came swarming out of the adobe buildings to help. The walls of the ville were dappled rust red by the setting sun, and the water that streamed through the center of the plaza was slashed with blood.
They shoveled heaps of clean sand on top of the dark stain of gasoline, mixing it in until the immediate threat of a catastrophic explosion had been diminished and the refueling could be concluded.
It was only a few minutes away from full dark before the gauges on the two war wags finally leveled at Full. Tanks were locked tight and adjustments made to the pressures of tires, with the heavy extra load affecting drive and balance.
Baron Carson came striding out from his quarters, his wife, a lyric ballad in elegance, on his right arm.
She was wearing a dress, reaching nearly to the ground, of crushed violet silk that was embroidered with tumbling streaks of black and white satin. A shawl covered her shoulders, made from lace so fine it looked as if a careless breath could ravage it. A comb of lacquered tortoiseshell held up her blond hair, and rings of precious stones circled her long fingers.
