by James Axler
Sure, the albino had gotten drunk the night before, completely insensible. But not before some alarm bell in his brain had registered the fact that he had seen Dean wandering on the periphery of the main hall. The youngster wasn't taking the opportunity to get drunk—in fact, there had been a clearness to his eyes and bearing, even at such a distance, as to suggest he was staying sober for a purpose.
And although Jak hadn't mentioned this to Doc, he had an idea what that purpose may be.
Jak's instincts had imprinted the route to that isolated corridor on his mind, and he had an almost perfect recall. The fact that he still had so much alcohol running through his system failed to slow him.
There were few people about; only those who were going about their daily tasks, those vital to the running of the ville. The other inhabitants were still shaking off the aftereffects of their celebrations. So Jak had few people to delay him, or to ask awkward questions.
But a few could be more than enough. On the way to the corridor he sought, Jak made a few detours— mostly to throw off the suspicion of any who may be observing him, and partly to scout any areas where Dean may have ended up if he had taken a wrong turn. The youngster was good, but not yet that good.
Jak had hoped to find Dean lost, as he worried about the time lag between Dean's disappearance and his search beginning. If the boy had found the door and had gotten beyond, then his not reappearing was a bad sign.
A bad sign that got worse as Jak neared the beginning of the corridor. It led off the last few desultory units, occupied by those who could no longer complete any useful tasks for Raw. They were given food and shelter still, but necessity and the harsh mode of life—even in such a fair and ordered society—meant they were exiled to areas where others didn't wish to live.
From the units, Jak could hear snoring and groaning as the celebrations took their toll on the old and infirm inhabitants. It would be useless to ask them if they had seen Dean. Even if it wouldn't arouse suspicion, it was doubtful whether many of them could remember their own names at this point.
But at least it left the way clear for Jak to move on unobserved…or so he hoped.
As the albino approached the curve of the corridor, a figure stepped from around the curve and into the poor light.
"Hey, Whitey—what y'all doing here, then? Get a little lost or something?"
Jak stopped, his pitted and scarred white face set like marble, giving nothing away.
Harvey stepped forward. His gait was casual, but there was a faint tenseness to his body language, a tightness to his movement that told Jak the sec chief was anxious beneath his seemingly calm demeanor. "Y'all not talking to me? I didn't know you white muties got mute, as well as mutie."
Jak's anger rose like a thick bile from his stomach to his throat. His fingers twitched toward the concealed knives. With an effort of will, he stayed his hand.
Harvey walked slowly around Jak. The tall sec chief towered over the albino, but Jak knew that he was quick and strong enough to take the sec man if he pounced.
If… It would be stupe of Harvey to do this now, not with Jak so close to the metal door.
"Look for Dean. Young, not drunk before."
Harvey laughed. It was forced. "Well, I guess there always has to be a first time. And the kid has gone missing, eh? You won't find him here. I've just been patrolling this sector, and I haven't found him."
"That so?"
Harvey's tone gained a hard, threatening edge. "That's so, Whitey. So if I was you, I'd get back to the old man and tell him his whelp is still lost. Or you could look somewhere else."
"Mebbe do that," Jak said slowly. His eyes blazed as they fixed on the sec chief. Harvey looked away. He knew Jak had seen through him. But Jak didn't have the full story, and the albino knew he would have to be contented with that for now.
He turned, every muscle on triple red in case Harvey should try to attack. With every step he took from the corridor, even as he passed the first of the dwellings, he could feel the sec chiefs eyes burning into his back.
Burning like the slugs Harvey would want to put there from his Magnum Carry blaster.
As Jak passed the first of the dwellings, he knew that their stay in Raw could become very bloody indeed.
DOC LAY SEDATED, whimpering softly while Mildred tended to him. The nurse whose son had been injured the day before left the unit, accepting with a sad grace Ryan's best wishes for her son. The one-eyed warrior could see her sorrow, and after hearing Doc's story had the uneasy feeling that it would only be added to in the short time to come.
While Ryan and Mildred were gone, Doc had gasped out enough garbled detail, in with his ramblings and memories, for Krysty and J.B. to grasp what he had seen in Samtvogel.
When Ryan and Mildred returned, while the nurse and Mildred sedated Doc with an opiate taken from a mutated strain of poppy that was grown above ground, J.B. and Krysty had filled in the few details they had gleaned.
Mildred left Doc and turned to her companions. "You know, it's a shame they couldn't harness some old tech from the redoubt down here. If they had some kind of hydroponics plant, they could grow those damned poppies instead of having to risk going aboveground to collect them. It's the strongest— What's wrong?" she added, changing the subject rapidly when she caught sight of their grim faces.
Ryan explained as briefly as possible. Mildred whistled to herself. "Shit, that really does upset the cart. If there's even the slightest chance that Sunchild knows how to activate that nuke, he may just be pissed enough to do it after yesterday."
"Right," Ryan agreed. "And there's too many good people down here to expose to that danger. And ourselves. Even if we left now, then there's no way we could get out of range quickly if he decides to act soon."
"Only one thing for it, lover. You've got to tell Alien this, and we've got to go in and get it," Krysty said grimly.
J.B. pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles up on the bridge of his nose, a nervous gesture in times of stress. It was the only sign the ice-cold Armorer ever showed.
"Chill a whole ville? Wipe them out with whatever we can find in the armory here? Without knowing, that's a hell of a task."
"We've been in worse than this," Ryan said simply. "I'll go to Alien as soon as we've told Jak and Dean. Fireblast, where the rad-blasted hell are they? Always when you need him, Dean is off somewhere getting himself in shit!"
"Like his father?" Krysty murmured.
Ryan looked at her. "Guess so… Okay, I'll go and see the baron now. If Dean and Jak should bother to let us know what the fuck they're doing, then tell them—"
But the one-eyed warrior didn't get a chance to voice his thoughts, as Jak burst into the unit.
"Ryan, trouble," he said shortly, gulping breath from his journey. As soon as he was sure he was out of Harvey's view, he'd run back to the unit.
Jak explained what had happened in his search, ending with "So need get Dean out."
"Sec chief behind Jenna, that's gonna mean a whole lot of trouble," J.B. muttered. "Especially if Alien's in on it all."
Ryan shook his head. "I don't think so. Don't ask me why, but I just trust him, and it feels right. What do you think?" he directed at Krysty.
"I'm kind of with you on that, lover," she agreed cautiously, "but Jenna's got me worried. It depends what kind of a hold she has on the baron."
"True. I guess we'll just have to play this one by ear," Ryan mused.
ALIEN WAS in his unit, although being the baron of Raw, the term unit was perhaps inappropriate. It lay at the rear of the main hall, with the entrance behind the long table and the old drapes. Raw being the kind of ville it was, he had no sec guard, and when Ryan cautiously pulled back the drapes he found the baron sprawled across his large bed, covered in the finest linen and velvet that could be found in Raw. The covers were thrown back, revealing the baron's torso, running to middle-aged flab, but still heavily muscled and crossed with scars that attested to his courage in leading his people. His long be
ard rested on his chest, his long white hair untied and covering his face. He was snoring and wheezing softly. In stark contrast to the white of Alien, Jenna was a dark pool on his skin, her jet-black and flowing hair spreading in tendrils across him, her darker skin smooth and young against him. Ryan found his eyes drawn to her small breasts, her dark nipples erect where they brushed against her husband.
She was awake, her glittering raven eyes catching Ryan's azure blue orb, twinkling at him with a superior smile that made him suddenly look away.
In her triumph, she sent out a psychic wave that made Krysty feel nauseous and ill at ease.
"Well, excuse us…" Mildred spoke to allay the rising gorge within her. She didn't have Krysty's seeing power, but as when she had first seen Jenna, she felt the same wave, albeit in a milder form.
Jenna rose from the bed, making no attempt to cover herself and knowing that her petite and shapely frame was drawing the eyes of the three men present, feeling their gaze run down from her sharp face, to her erect nipples and down to the black nest of her pubis. Knowing that they would want her instinctively, and drawing on that for her own strength.
"Do you make a habit of insulting your hosts?" she asked with an artificial sweetness to her tone.
"There's no insult intended," Ryan said slowly, picking his words and trying to focus. He knew she was deliberately toying with him—with them all— and attempted to overcome that feeling. "We just need to speak to Alien. Urgently."
"But as you can see, he's asleep," Jenna returned.
Alien grunted, showing no signs of being awakened by the disturbance.
"Then mebbe you should wake him," Ryan said carefully, pitching it somewhere between a request and an order.
Jenna's raven eyes gleamed and glittered, flashing a mixture of hatred and lust at the one-eyed warrior. For a moment there was a stalemate. Then, just as suddenly as she had begun, Jenna averted her gaze and shook the slumbering baron.
"Wake up!" she snapped in a tone of voice that suggested she harbored nothing but contempt for him.
Alien awoke with a groan, mumbling and rising on one elbow to stare blearily at the sight before him. He was only half awake, and unsure why there were people in his rooms. His brow furrowed as he recognized the intruders.
"What is the meaning of this, Ryan Cawdor?" he asked.
"We need to talk to you," Ryan replied, holding up both hands, "and there's no need to reach for your blaster."
Alien smiled and withdrew his hand from under the cushions and pillows that covered the far end of the bed. As he had been questioning the one-eyed man, he had slipped that hand—unobtrusively, he hoped— toward the cushions in search of the concealed blaster.
"How did you know I had one there?"
"Even the fairest baron in the most peaceful ville can't take chances against an enemy from within," Ryan replied simply. His eye flickered toward Jenna as he spoke, almost involuntarily. If she noticed, she gave no sign.
"Very well. Then tell me what it is you're wanting," Alien said, now fully awake and alert.
So Ryan began. Doc described what he had seen in Samtvogel, and when Jenna interjected with a query as to how the old man knew so much about predark tech, Doc bluffed his way out of it with a story about finding a stash of old vids in a ville during his travels. She didn't seem convinced, but Mildred hurried the proceedings along with a query to the baron as to whether they could attack Samtvogel with any degree of stealth.
Alien stroked his long beard, twisting it between his fingers in intense concentration. "I'd have to consult Harv to be really sure, but there isn't any safe way of hiding a large sec force along that route. It's too open. But those mutie fucks don't come out of their ville that often, so mebbe if we sent scouting parties ahead…"
"We have to get that nuke," Ryan said urgently. "Sunchild is pissed off, and if he has any idea how to use that thing…"
"I agree," Jenna interjected. "We should get that as soon as possible."
And as she said it, Krysty shuddered, her hair coiling about her neck. The titian-haired woman's seeing traits rose to the fore as Jenna sent out an unconscious wave of pure hate. She wanted that nuke for her own purposes. Krysty knew at that moment that recovering the missile from Samtvogel would be but the beginning of their problem.
While this raced through her mind, Ryan had swiftly moved the subject on to his missing son. It was a difficult matter to broach, as Ryan's people were all firmly of the opinion that Jenna had him secured someplace. But it was up to Ryan to raise the matter without arousing the dark mutie's suspicion.
The one-eyed warrior outlined the barest details of Dean's disappearance, and the baron was suitably sympathetic.
"We'll get Raw searched while we raise a raiding party," he stated. By now he had risen from the bed and was dressing, pulling on the freshly cleaned fatigues that marked him as the baron. Others in the ville had clothes that were patched and darned many times, repaired and faded. But as baron, Alien had the pick of any new stock from a passing trader.
When he finished, he picked up a cupped speaking tube and blew down it. Jak had noticed many small runs of similar tubes during his explorations of the winding underground ville, and had wondered what they were for. That question was now answered. They were a means of quick communication between links vital to Raw's sec.
A whistle from the far end of the speaking tube announced that the sec chief had answered. From where the companions stood, it was difficult to make out what he said, but there was no mistaking Alien's meaning from his loud bellowing. He ordered the sec chief to get his ass over right away, and before he had finished lacing his boots, the sec chief appeared in the doorway.
Jak wasn't the only one to notice that the sec chiefs eyes dwelled lustfully on Jenna's naked form. There was a look in his eye that also suggested a familiarity with her form. For the albino, this added a few things together in his mind.
Alien barked out the situation to the sec chief, beginning with the missile and ending with Dean's disappearance. The sec chiefs next words surprised everyone:
"Perhaps the muties got Cyclops Jr…"
"Dark night!" J.B. whispered to Mildred. "Has the triple stupe got a dose of rad poisoning?"
Ryan stared at the sec chief coldly. "You going to explain what that means?"
Harvey matched Ryan's stare. "Just exactly what I say. Chances of the boy going astray in Raw are next to nothing. Where the hell could he be? I reckon there was a revenge party out for more kids—mebbe some kind of sacrifice to appease their gods or something—and young Cawdor got caught."
Alien looked thoughtful. "You could be right there, Harv," he replied at length. "Sure as shit can't imagine where he could be in here." The baron looked at Ryan. His face was so open that the one-eyed warrior had no doubt he believed the sec chief completely. "Mebbe we should get that party under way and land two prizes."
"And if Dean isn't in Samtvogel?" Mildred pressed.
Alien shrugged. "Then we'll mount a search when we return. Trust me, Ryan Cawdor, there's little harm the boy can come to in Raw."
"I trust you," Ryan said slowly and pointedly. "I trust you completely. That's not the problem."
His eye met Jenna's gaze. She seemed to peer deep into him, and despite himself he felt a stirring in his loins. It took some effort to look away.
THE RAIDING PARTY assembled in the main hall about two hours later by J.B.'s wrist chron. The Armorer had taken more of an interest in these proceedings than in the assembly of the interception force from the previous day. There were a number of problems that presented themselves to any sec chief who wanted a raiding party of sharpness and quality assembled at such a short notice.
To begin with, the Armorer doubted that the previous day's blasters had been stripped and cleaned. One of the first things he had learned during his time with Trader, before Ryan had even joined the infamous party on Trader's War Wag One, was that pre-dark blasters needed regular cleaning and overhauling. When the
large stockpiles had first been found, the weapons had been taken from their packing cases, and in some instances were immediately capable of being fired. But for many, the years of being stacked and inactive had led to the grease drying out, the bearings seizing, working parts becoming fixed and dangerous.
Every new blaster that had been acquired by Trader, whether secondhand or fresh from a stockpile, had been stripped, cleaned and greased before being reassembled and tested before being handed out for use in an everyday or combat situation.
And regular stripping and cleaning became even more important in some areas of the Deathlands. The nuke-raddled landscape and tainted air meant that in some areas the blasters were more susceptible to conditions. Blasters though cleaned and greased were prone to corrosion and drying out, conditions that made combat dangerous. Many had bought the farm from a misfiring or exploding blaster. But not many of those had traveled with Trader.
So J.B. was interested to see how the armory at Raw would cope with this, given that the celebrations had begun almost as soon as they arrived back, and many in the newly constituted raiding party had been forcibly turned from their beds and even now were showing signs of still recovering from their drunkenness.
This was no idle curiosity. He knew that his own weapons were in the best condition. He knew that Ryan also kept his weapons that way. As for the others in their party, none would have survived as long as they had without that discipline being second nature. Neither would Ryan allow any to endanger the others by risking a misfire during a combat situation. They could back up one another all the way, but now they were also dependent on the inhabitants of Raw, a ville of which they knew nothing.
Therefore, J.B. resolved to keep an eye on the armory, to spot any weak points and if necessary to step in, to insure his friends' safety as much as that of the Raw dwellers.
