by James Axler
“I appreciate the offer, but I’ve been with my friends awhile now and we’ve become sort of a team. I’m not ready to break it up just yet.”
“I understand,” Katz said, nodding. “But if you ever change your mind, you’ll be welcome back here.”
“Thanks,” Mildred said politely. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Here we are.”
They came upon a pre-Dark-looking structure made of bricks. Its three floors rose up from the ground, towering above everything else around it as if it were a fortress.
“Very nice,” Mildred said.
“This is the baron’s residence. The baron lives here, of course, but your friends are staying here, too.”
“Very nice.”
Katz caught the attention of a sec man outside the front door of the building. “They’re guests of the baron as well. Take them to the others.”
The sec men nodded. “This way.”
Mildred said thanks and goodbye to Katz, then she and Jak followed the sec men inside, down several dark corridors until they came upon three rooms at one end of the building.
As they approached, the middle door opened slightly to reveal J.B. standing there with his Uzi in his right hand.
“Just us, John,” Mildred said.
J.B. opened the door wide.
The sec men left Mildred and Jak in the hallway, then headed back to their post.
J.B. opened the door to the third room, where Doc was asleep on his bed. He helped Mildred take Jak to the bed on the far side of the room. The albino youth grimaced several times as he was eased onto the bed, but once he was stretched out, he closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds.
“How is he?” J.B. asked, as he and Mildred exited the room.
“Sleeping like a baby now.”
“He’ll be all right, then?”
Mildred nodded. “He’ll have some pain in a few hours, and there’s always a risk of infection, but he should be as good as new in a couple of days.”
J.B. entered their room and put down his blaster.
“Were you expecting trouble?” Mildred asked.
“Not really. Just didn’t want you to interrupt Ryan and Krysty while you were looking for a room for Jak.”
“Uh-huh,” Mildred said skeptically. She listened closely, and beneath the sound of Doc’s snoring, she could hear the soft moans of pleasure coming from next door. “That sound been giving you any ideas?”
J.B. just smiled.
Mildred began to get undressed.
AFTER A SEARCH of the residence, Katz found Baron DeMann tending to some of his open-air plants behind the mansion. These were special projects that the baron was experimenting with. Most of them were new plants he’d grown from seeds traded for on their last trip to several eastern villes. Half the seeds had been planted in the glasshouses, while the other half had been planted outside in an attempt to see which conditions best suited which plants.
Based on the size of the outside plants, growing them inside the glasshouses seemed the only way they could be grown large enough to extract sufficient amounts of active ingredients.
Katz cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Baron.”
Baron DeMann steadied himself on one knee and looked up from the leaf he was examining. “What is it, Katz?”
“I’ve just come from the clinic.”
“One of the guests was wounded, right?”
“Yes, Baron, a shoulder wound. He was tended to by another one of the outlanders.”
“And he’s doing fine now, I take it.”
Katz nodded. “The dark woman who looked after him…”
“Yes?” The baron got up to his feet.
“I think we could use her talents.”
“She wants to stay with us?”
“I made suggestions about it, but she politely resisted.”
The baron considered this, then smiled. “Not to worry. They’re not going anywhere for a while. I’m sure you’ll have the chance to ask her again under more favorable conditions.”
Katz smiled at that. “Thank you, Baron.”
Chapter Six
“Time to go,” the voice said.
Ryan stepped up to the door and pulled it open enough to look out. A sec man was standing in the hallway, one Ryan hadn’t seen before. “Time for the baron’s reception.”
The one-eyed man nodded and closed the door.
Krysty stretched lazily on her cot, getting the blood circulating again after a short but contented sleep. She turned to Ryan and said, “Can’t we stay here a bit longer, lover?”
“Yeah, but I’m curious to meet this baron, and to find out how he keeps his ville running.”
“I sure could do with something to eat,” Krysty said. She rose up off the cot and ran her fingers through her long red hair as if they were combs.
Ryan moved out into the hall where J.B., Doc and Mildred were already waiting.
“What about Jak?” Ryan asked.
“Sleeping,” Mildred said. “He’ll be out for another couple of hours. I’ll stay with him if you want.”
Ryan considered it.
“We’re just going down to the basement,” the sec man offered, overhearing their conversation. “You’ll be free to come back and check on your friend anytime you want.”
“I’ll come down with you to meet the baron,” Mildred said. “Then I’ll come back and stay with him. Maybe bring him some food.”
Ryan nodded, then noticed Doc shifting nervously from side to side behind J.B. He looked strange, different, as if he’d just passed a comb through his hair, then pasted it back with some sort of grease. His frock coat also looked cleaner, as if he’d hung it on a line and beat it with a stick to get all the dust out of its fibers.
Krysty was studying Doc as well. “Lookin’ good, Doc,” she said, joining the others in the hall.
“Thank you for noticing, my dear Krysty.”
The sec man gestured to Ryan’s SIG-Sauer and Krysty’s Smith & Wesson and said, “You won’t be needing your weapons.”
J.B. shook his head as if to say he knew the story would be changing.
Ryan looked hard at the sec man. “We don’t go anywhere without our blasters.”
“All right by me.” The sec man shrugged. “But the baron might have something to say about it.”
Ryan said nothing. The baron could say all he wanted, but they wouldn’t be giving up their blasters without a firefight.
The sec man led them down the hallway.
AS PROMISED, they were led into the basement of the mansion and into a large room that was set up as a dining hall. Paintings hung from the walls, and the floor was covered with a carpet around the edges and a hardwood floor in the center. There was a long, rectangular table on one side of the room with settings for twelve people.
On another table off to one side were pitchers full of fresh water and juices, and carafes of both red and white wine. There was also a series of small finger bowls, each one filled with different colored tablets. “Make yourself at home,” the sec man said. “The baron and the others will be here shortly.”
When the sec man was gone, the friends went to the table and sampled the water and wine. Both were clear. The water was tasteless, while the wine seemed a bit strong.
“What do you make of these?” Ryan asked Mildred, pointing to the bowls of multicolored pills.
Mildred shook her head. “I don’t know. Don’t recognize any of them.”
“Considering that these items are offered in conjunction with some truly excellent wines, I can only assume that they must be stimulants of some sort,” Doc said. “Perhaps even depressants.”
“Recreational drugs,” Mildred said. “In pre-Dark times, ecstasy was the drug of choice, especially among young people. Kids thought it was cool, but of course it was nothing but bad news.”
“So the baron’s a drug lord,” Ryan said, holding one of the pills, a yellow one, between his fingers. “Fireblast!”
Krysty eyed a tablet that
was almost as red as her hair. “That’d be my guess.”
“Can’t say it comes as all that much of a surprise,” Mildred said. “He’s produced a lot of healing drugs. If he can do that, no reason he can’t make junk like jolt and dreem.”
“By the Three Kennedys, that would explain what bang is…and smash!”
“And now we know why his sec men have such good blasters,” J.B. offered.
“We’re leaving,” Ryan ordered. “Let’s get Jak.”
The friends turned to leave the dining room, but the doors at either end of the room opened up and sec men with blasters and scatterguns filed in.
“You can’t leave yet,” the baron said as he entered the room behind his sec force. He wore an immaculate lab coat and his clothes beneath it looked just as clean and fresh. “We haven’t even met yet.” There was a hint of disappointment in his voice, making it sound as if he were being sincere.
“We don’t associate with drug lords,” Ryan stated.
The baron put up his hands, almost in surrender. “It’s true, I do deal in drugs, but I assure you, only healing ones.”
Mildred gestured to the bowls of pills on the table. “Expecting some big headaches?”
“Ha, a sense of humor. I like that in my guests.” The baron moved toward the table holding the pills. “I’m merely trying to be a good host. Since I didn’t know what you liked, I simply offered you all that I have. I’m actually glad you don’t want to sample any of the drugs, since I don’t like them, either. Makes articulate speech rather difficult and compromises one’s judgment, two things I can ill afford as baron.” He waved his arms as if he were swatting unseen insects. “Take them away.”
A sec man hurried over to the table, picked up the bowls and carted them away.
“Now, if you’ll forgive my small mistake, let’s all share a meal, shall we?”
Ryan wasn’t in favor of joining the baron for dinner, but even if they wanted to blast their way out of the situation, they wouldn’t get very far. The sec men surrounding them could throw up a wall of fire heavy enough to cut down a small forest. There would be a fight, Ryan knew, but this wasn’t the time or place for it.
Reluctantly, he put away his blaster. The others followed his lead.
“Thank you,” the baron said.
The sec men also lowered their weapons.
“I better check on Jak,” Mildred said.
“Not to worry…” the baron’s voice trailed off.
“Mildred,” the doctor offered.
“Not to worry, Mildred. Your friend is fine, I assure you. Of course, you’re free to return to him whenever you like, but I wouldn’t be much of a host if I didn’t encourage you to eat at least a little something first.”
“I’ll take it back to eat in the room.”
“Fine, fine, now let’s get started. I’m starved.” The baron sat at the head of the table. Ryan and the friends took seats on either side of him.
At that moment, Moira entered the dining room, wearing a sundress and leather sandals.
“Ah, here she is now, the lovely Moira,” the baron said, “who I believe you’ve already met, down by the river.”
The friends watched the young woman enter the room.
J.B. leaned close to Ryan. “Sounds like they’re more than friends.”
“Mebbe she’s a big jack gaudy slut,” Ryan pondered.
“Isn’t she a thing of beauty,” the baron said, gesturing for Moira to take the seat next to him.
Moira appeared to hesitate, then reluctantly joined the baron at the table.
“She’s charming,” Doc offered.
Moira smiled in Doc’s direction.
Ryan had to admit that she was a good-looking young woman, especially now that she’d had a chance to clean up and put on some clothes. And the fact that Moira was the baron’s mistress explained why they had been treated so well since entering the ville. Any man would be grateful to the people who saved his lover from a gang rape. Still, if Moira was the baron’s lover, then why had she been so afraid of Robards and the sec men at the river? Ryan had never met a baron’s woman who didn’t act as if she ran the baron’s ville for him.
“Now that she’s here, perhaps we can begin eating.”
In minutes, a man and a woman were bringing in trays of food for them to sample. Most of it was grilled vegetables such as eggplant, zucchini and red and green peppers, but there was also some fresh corn bread, dried nuts and one small sausage each, the meat of which smelled like chicken but could have been anything from possum to snake.
Ryan was famished, and when the food began appearing on the table, he looked forward to eating his fill. However, something didn’t seem right with the picture.
Doc pointed out the problem to all of them.
“Uh, excuse me Baron DeMann,” Doc said, trying to be polite.
“Yes, sir,” the baron answered.
“Oh, I appreciate the compliment, but I assure you I’m not a member of any House of Lords. My name is Theophilus Algernon Tanner.”
“Theo…”
“Most people call me Doc.”
“Doc? Are you a scientist?”
Ryan looked at Doc, curious to hear his answer.
“Not exactly,” Doc said. “I have some knowledge of old sciences, and I dabble a bit in the new ones. I suspect I earned the nickname because I’m the only one in the group who can divide three-digit numbers without the use of a stick and patch of sand.”
The baron laughed at that.
J.B. seemed to find it funny as well.
“All right… Doc. What is it?”
“Well, when my colleagues and I saved your lovely, uh, mistress from certain harm, she was with another, older woman…”
“Yes.”
“Moira here referred to that woman as her mother…” Doc’s voice trailed off, leaving the question unsaid.
The baron nodded.
“Well, if she is her mother, and we saved her from the muties as well this afternoon, I just thought that, well, it would be nice if she could join us, too.”
The baron looked inquisitively at Robards.
“She’s not feeling well,” the sec chief said.
“But she was fine when she got off the wag this afternoon,” Doc said.
“Yes, bring her here,” the baron ordered. “I’m sure she’d enjoy the company.”
The sec chief slowly got up from his seat. “I’ll see if she’s feeling any better.”
“You do that,” the baron said.
“Thank you.” Doc nodded graciously.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Mildred said, piling some vegetables on a pair of metal plates, “I’ve got to check on Jak. If he’s awake, I’m sure he’ll be hungry, too.”
“Give your friend Jak my regards,” the baron said.
“I’ll do that,” Mildred responded, collecting a bit more food for herself and preparing a tray for Jak.
The baron turned his attention from Doc to Ryan. “Am I right to assume that you are the leader of this group?”
“Name’s Ryan.”
“Then you are the leader?”
“You can assume that if you like.”
The baron said nothing for a moment. “As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve got a decent sec force here with plenty of well-trained men and some of the best blasters around.”
“We noticed.”
“Hard to come by,” J.B. interjected. “Some of those blasters look right out of the box.”
“Baron DeMann,” Ryan said, “this is J.B. He’s the weapons expert of our group.”
“A man who appreciates fine craftsmanship and design, no doubt.”
“Did you get your blasters new?” J.B. asked, avoiding any mention of the redoubt.
“I can’t be sure,” the baron replied. “I sell drugs. Good drugs that people need to survive. And when people are dying, they can get rather desperate. I can pretty well name my price for my drugs. I know that may sound hard, but I’m a tra
der and traders don’t give their wares away when they can hang on to them and get top jack.”
Ryan nodded. He’d seen top traders in action, and the baron’s assessment was right on.
“So, if I’m in the market for anything, be it blasters or blankets, I make sure I get the very best available. The best blasters, the best blankets, the best food, wine…”
“Wags,” J.B. said.
“Everything,” the baron responded. “The best that jack can buy.”
The baron paused and everyone took the opportunity to take a bite of food.
“I also like to think I have the best sec force of any ville in the area. They’re the best equipped and well trained, but one can never be sure about such things.”
“I’ve seen plenty sec men,” Ryan said. “Yours look as disciplined as any.”
“But are they the best?”
“Won’t know that until they’re tested in a firefight.”
“Exactly,” the baron said. Then he went silent, staring at Ryan a moment, as if expecting the man to comment.
“Not sure I follow you,” Ryan said.
“I have a favor to ask of you and your friends.”
Ryan shrugged. “No harm in asking.”
“We have an obstacle course we use for training sec men. In addition to blaster practice, I also use it for pitting sec man against sec man in order to see where they should fall in terms of rank.”
“Must make for a lot of dead sec men.”
The baron laughed. “No, not at all. I have blasters that fire tiny balls filled with colored water. They’re just like regular blasters, but can’t chill people. A good tool for training, and for turning poor sec men into good ones.”
“Point to all this?” J.B. asked.
“Well, my sec chief was wondering if you and your group might agree to test several of his best sec men in a contest.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, thanks. We’ve had plenty of real firefights out in the Deathlands. We don’t fight for sport.”
“I can appreciate that, and I would have the same opinion if I were in your shoes.”
“Then you know my answer.”
The baron said nothing for a while, thinking through the problem. “Ah, you need a reason to fight.”
“That’s right, usually it’s to keep from getting chilled.”
