by James Axler
“You see anything out there that could be why we’re stopping?” he continued, directing his question to J.B.
The Armorer shook his head. “Can’t see much, for sure,” he mused. “But there isn’t anything close enough to be visible or to cause too much disturbance to the cover.”
Lou chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Then what’s the stupe bastard playing at? Last thing we should be doing is just pulling up on an open road, especially with all that cover.”
J.B. studied the big man intently. There was little doubt that he was genuine. The sense of impending danger that had infected J.B. and Mildred caused the Armorer to wonder if the convoy itself was the source of apprehension. But if there was an enemy within, then Lou had no part of this. Nor did the other members of the wag crew, who were also murmuring their disquiet.
Was it like this in every wag? J.B. wondered. If so, then what did the fat man have up his hairy-armed and snot-stained sleeve?
The shortwave, up until then nothing more than a constant background undulation with a few crackling bursts of static, burst into life as messages were relayed from wag to wag, synchronizing the slowdown to a halt. At the same time, K.T. and Lou, as sec lieutenants, became focused on sec measures when the convoy had come to a stop. Each wag carried in its crew people who doubled as gear-humpers and sec. At a time such as this, all such personnel were focused on their sec duties. It was agreed that when the convoy had stopped, each wag’s sec contingent would exit first, backs to the wags, one on each side of the vehicle, covering both sides of the densely packed verge.
“Where do we fit?” J.B. asked.
“Good point,” Lou replied. He spoke into the handset. “K.T., if we deploy the usual people in defensive positions, what should we do with the additional sec group?”
“They’re evenly spaced along the convoy, right? I’d say they could act as outrunners, mebbe scout the roadside. What do you think?”
Lou turned to J.B. and Mildred, his expression begging the question. He beckoned J.B. to the handset.
“Sounds reasonable,” the Armorer began as he approached. “Ryan, we take it in pairs or go solo?”
Ryan’s voice crackled. “Way we’re spread, take it solo. One for each side. That way we don’t leave any gaps.”
“Sounds good to me,” J.B. agreed. “Jak? Doc?”
Doc’s voice came over the airwaves. “A perfectly reasonable assumption, John Barrymore, and one which I think the good Mr. Lauren and myself would find ourselves in agreement. It only remains to be given the nod, as it were, by our immediate superiors.”
Lou gave J.B. a look that was half confusion, half amusement. “Does that old crazy mean me and K.T.?”
J.B. couldn’t resist a grin. “Yeah.”
Lou shook his head with a throaty chuckle. “Weird old fucker.”
He was about to speak into the handset when Toms’s voice cut across.
“CANCEL THAT, boys,” Toms said quickly, moving in front of Doc and taking the handset from him. “Go ahead with the usual plan for our people, but make none for Ryan and his people. You guys, I need to see you urgently up by my wag. As soon as the area is secured, then get yourselves up here.”
He signed off and turned away from the handset, at the same time turning his back on Doc and Jak.
“What is this about?” Doc asked calmly, trying to keep the tension from his voice. He could feel Jak at his back, like a coiled spring, yet he knew that to the casual observer, the albino would seem at ease. The other crew members in the wag were exchanging puzzled looks. It was obvious that whatever agenda Toms may have, he hadn’t chosen to share it with the rest of his crew. And their reactions showed that his actions were uncharacteristic.
Doc was sure that whatever was going down wasn’t something that Toms was fully comfortable with.
The trader didn’t answer the old man for some while—or so it seemed—before saying in a voice that was cracked with tension, “You’ll soon find out. Best you know with the others.”
“You tell now,” Jak said. His voice was quiet, but as hard as flint. Doc could see unquiet in the eyes of the other crew members. They were scared of the wiry and impassive albino. They’d seen him in action. If he exploded as they seemed to be expecting, it could trigger a situation that couldn’t easily be controlled.
“No, Jak, it is perhaps for the best that we discover what is behind this when we are with Ryan and the others,” Doc said slowly. There was weight in his words, and an inference that the albino picked up on.
“Okay,” he said simply.
Over the shortwave, they heard K.T. and Lou give the synchronized order, once the convoy had stopped rolling, to disembark. Giving the old man and the albino a sideways glance, the sec detail in the lead wag slipped out to cover either side.
“Well, then,” he said softly after a pause, “should we be going?”
Toms turned to Jak and Doc. He looked everywhere but directly at them, nodding without being able to bring himself to utter the slightest word. He picked up a portable handset and made for the side door of the wag, Doc and Jak at his rear.
Both were poised, even if they still had—as yet—no idea what for….
R YAN AND K RYSTY climbed out of the wag, followed by K.T. Looking up and down the length of the convoy, they could see J.B. and Mildred walking toward them, the giant Lou in their wake. Between the middle and end wags, sec men were strung out in a line, backs to the wags, facing the blank wall of oily green vegetation with expressions that veered between the nervous and the confused. They had no doubt that their sec compatriots on the other side of the road looked exactly the same.
Looking toward the lead wag, they could see Trader Toms, shuffling on the pavement, holding a shortwave handset and pointedly looking away from Doc and Jak. Even at this distance, it was obvious that both men were having trouble in not betraying the tension they felt.
Ryan and Krysty stood still, intent on waiting for J.B. and Mildred to join them. It was pretty obvious that K.T. was in no hurry, either, an impression reinforced when he spoke softly as Lou came within earshot.
“Lou, what the fuck is shortass doing?”
The giant smiled amiably. “You think I can ever work out how his mind works? He knows, and we will soon enough. C’mon, let’s move.”
The six people began to move toward the front of the convoy, feeling the questioning glances of the sec men bore into them as they passed. The handsets that K.T. and Lou carried crackled briefly before Toms’s voice sounded.
“C’mon, what are you waiting for? Hurry up.”
His tone was far from happy, and Ryan couldn’t help but notice the look that shot between the two sec lieutenants. They had no idea what the fat man wanted, and they were concerned at the way he sounded.
If Toms wanted a firefight, he could have it. His people obviously had little idea, if this was his intent, so despite being outnumbered, Ryan was sure his people could take out the sec force, or go down with most of them. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
As they drew level with the leading wag, eye contact with Doc and Jak made it clear that they should be ready to fight. The ghost of a smile crossed the albino teen’s visage. When was there a time when he wasn’t ready for such an eventuality?
Toms stepped back from his sec lieutenants, Ryan’s people and the sec man who had stepped out of the lead wag with him. He looked over all of them, slowly. It seemed to go on forever. In the elongated and pregnant pause, it seemed to Ryan that the land around them closed in. He was aware of the humid heat as the sun rose in the sky, its rays of light barely penetrating the thick canopy of leaves even though the heat bounced off the road before reflecting back off the oily, dark leaves. They absorbed the heat and moisture before bearing it back down on the people beneath.
The entire world seemed amplified. The quiet in which they found themselves now that the wag engines had died and they waited for the silent trader to speak only served to make the undertones—otherwise hi
dden—seem greater.
Ryan felt like his nerve endings were stretched taut enough to break; he knew without looking that the rest of his companions felt the same.
Yet still the fat man couldn’t bring himself to speak. Finally, when he did, it wasn’t at them. Rather, it was into the handset.
“Stewie, make up the jack that we owe the newbies and bring it up to me.”
The tension wasn’t so much broken as deflated, like a tire with a knife in it. Whatever they had been expecting—all of them—it wasn’t this. K.T. and Lou looked at each other, confusion written on their faces.
“Why, pray tell, are you asking for monies owed?” Doc questioned. “You surely can’t be thinking of dispensing with our services?”
Toms shrugged, but still couldn’t bring himself to look at them. “Well, these things have to happen, see, and—”
“Have to happen bullshit,” Ryan exploded. “What the fuck are you playing at? Paying us off out here? What do you plan to do, just take off without us?”
Even as he spoke, he could see from Toms’s face that he was right. But why? It made no sense.
“Boss, we’re going to a new ville that we know jack-shit about, and you want to get rid of extra sec?” Lou frowned.
“That’s just plain stupe. Only a complete fuckwad would do something like that,” K.T. added in a more forthright manner.
“He’s right,” Ryan added, fighting to keep his temper. “And you know he is.”
The one-eyed man’s first instinct was to action—but of what kind? They weren’t being threatened—if anything, the sec lieutenants did not want them to go—and yet they were about to be cast adrift outside of a ville, on a deserted road, for no reason that he could see.
“But what have we done?” Doc continued in the tone he had earlier adopted. He cast a quick glance toward where Ryan and the others were grouped, hoping that they would let him run with this. He felt that he had an affinity with the trader, or at least an affinity that the trader perceived. Perhaps he could get an answer where they would fail.
Toms shrugged. “It’s not about what you’ve done. Shit, you’ve been really good the short time you’ve been with us. But that’s kinda what this is about, I guess. How good you are at what you do.”
Mildred sighed. “Man, you are making no sense at all. And you know that what you’re doing is just gonna piss us off. So if you don’t want things to turn nasty, then you’d sure as hell better start explaining. And make sense, this time.”
Toms sighed. “Okay, okay—I will, but let’s just get things settled, first.” He spoke into the handset. “Stewie, for fuck’s sake—”
“Just coming,” a voice crackled back. J.B. looked back as he heard a wag door, loud in the now oppressive silence of the road. A fat man—not as tall as Lou, but rounder, and without the impression of underlying muscle—jumped out and huffed his way toward them. He carried a bag that jumped and jangled in his hand. It obviously contained local currency, and a fair amount. It was heavy enough to swing out of time with the blubber on the fat man’s body as he ran toward them. Red-faced and sweating, short of breath, he reached them and handed the bag to the trader.
Toms took it without acknowledgment, then spoke once more into the handset. “Okay, this is for all sec. Our newbies are leaving us, as of now. I’m paying them off, and we leave them here. They show any resistance, chop ’em down. We look after our own first. That’s an order.”
Even as he spoke the words, Ryan and his people couldn’t believe what they were hearing. There had been no provocation on their part, and they still had little or no idea why they were being left.
It was obvious, too, that Lou and K.T. felt the same way.
“Boss, what’s this about?” Lou asked, restraining K.T. as the fiery sec lieutenant was about to speak.
Toms sighed, rubbed the back of his hand—the one in which he still grasped the crackling handset—across his forehead.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he began, speaking to no one in particular, “it’s like this. You don’t get anything for free in this world. There’s always a trade-off. Even if it’s one that you might not like that much. Take Jackson Spire, for example. You think they got trade and jack all of a sudden for no reason? Course they haven’t. They got it because Arcadian thinks it’d be a good idea for the villes ’round Arcady to start to grow and develop. Something to do with this idea he has about rebuilding a new society. And they got to abide by a few things he says to get that jack. In order that he’ll send trade their way, by putting us onto them.”
“So the asswipe gets to feel like he’s got a big cock by waving at them,” K.T. fumed. “What’s that got to do with us? He sends us there to make them feel good, but he don’t own us.”
“Are you sure about that?” Krysty murmured, eyeing the trader.
Toms screwed his face up in an expression of self-disgust. “It’s like I say, you don’t get anything without a trade-off. They get a trader coming through, and we get first pickings…as long as I do something for Arcadian in return.”
“And that something is to pay us off and leave us here?” Ryan asked, incredulous. “What does that profit him?”
Toms sucked in his breath. “You know,” he said at length, “I really don’t know. Not for sure. Far as I can see, you didn’t do anything to piss him off while you were in Arcady. And you ain’t been nothing but good for us. Fact is, I was telling him that. Mebbe he wants you to work for him.”
“Bastard strange way of going about it,” J.B. mused. “Why not just ask us?”
“Because we could say no,” Mildred stated. “This way…”
“We have nowhere to go other than back,” Doc finished.
“You don’t have to do what Arcadian says,” Krysty directed at Toms. “You could just drive on to Jackson Spire, then go beyond.”
Toms grinned. “I could. But then I don’t know if he has sec there that’ll report back. Mebbe he could make it hot, start a firefight. I could certainly never come back this way again, and Arcady is good trade. It’s not like I gotta have you chilled, is it?”
Jak spoke for the first time. His words were, perhaps, surprising.
“We take and go. Toms play fair—give us jack. Supplies?” The last was a question, directed at the trader, who nodded. “Not forcing us do anything. Mebbe we go back, mebbe we move on.”
Ryan shrugged. He figured that Jak was right. Toms was making it easy for them, despite the threat of retaliation if they started a firefight.
“Okay, if that’s how it’s got to be.”
Toms’s relief was palpable. “I’m pleased you see it that way. Last thing I want is to have to fight.”
Because you’d be the first to get chilled, Ryan thought. But he said nothing. This wasn’t the time, and Toms wasn’t the enemy.
Ryan and his people stood back from the convoy while Lou and K.T. directed that their supplies be brought out and left with them. Then, as Toms ordered his sec force back into their wags, the two sec lieutenants left their former comrades. Little was said, but their unease with the resolution was plain.
The convoy started up and began to rumble down the flattop. The companions stood back and watched it disappear around a bend in the road until the last wag, and its exhaust, had cleared their view. Even the sound of the engines had become a distant rumble, fading beneath the rustling of the groves at their backs.
“Well,” Doc said brightly, “do we press on for pastures new? Or do we find out what this crazed baron really wants?”
“You calling someone crazy,” Mildred snorted. “Now that really isn’t a good sign.”
Chapter Three
Chapter Three
If they had wondered why Toms had taken them about fifty miles out of the ville before stopping, then they had their answer soon after they opted to return. In many ways, it was a simple decision to make. Ahead, they knew, lay only Jackson Spires, over 150 miles away, on a road that was surrounded by territory that was certainl
y far from friendly.
Go that way, and they had no idea what lay between themselves and the next ville. And at the end of the road would be a ville that was a satellite of Arcady, along with a convoy full of wag crews who would know from their leader the possible consequences of not playing along with Baron Arcadian.
It was trouble whichever way they chose to look at it.
To go back was what the baron expected. Going against his expectation would give them some edge of advantage. But this way they knew the land, as they had recently passed it. Besides which, fifteen miles was going to leave them a lot less exhausted than 150 would. They would need to be on top of their game for whatever they faced.
“So that’s why it was such a strange distance,” Mildred said with a sigh as the sight hit her.
“Think he wants to test our ability?” J.B. asked with a sardonic edge.
“Play games, might get kick in balls,” Jak warned.
Ryan, Doc and Krysty just stood and looked, lost in their own thoughts. It hadn’t been obvious as they approached the sharp bend in the flattop, but as soon as they crested the angle of the bend, they could see that Arcadian’s people had been busy in the short time since the convoy had passed this way.
The road was impassable. Linked chains of man-traps, interspersed with land mines, had been laid across the surface. Barbed-wire barricades had been erected at regular intervals between the chains and mines. Wires that threaded through the barbed strands trailed away to generators that lay at the far end of the track made by the road modifications. It was possible that the generators weren’t operational. It was possible that the mines were inactive. There was little doubt about the man-traps. There was also a strong possibility that there were men waiting to take potshots at them if they slowed as they crossed the tracks, which they inevitably would.
There would also be men watching them in the groves as they went off-road. They all knew this.
“So is this is a test of our ingenuity, or does he wish to see how we cope with the mangroves?” Doc mused.
