by James Axler
Mildred watched him for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. “Just make sure no one sees you with those things,” was all she could think of.
“Sure,” J.B. replied, already lost in his work cleaning the blaster.
As he said it, Mildred saw the new cuts on J.B.’s hands. One of the scabs had torn open as he worked, and Mildred’s doctor instinct kicked in. She trotted across the small room and crouched in front of him. “You’re hurt,” she said. “Let me look at that.”
Reluctantly, J.B. showed her the cut on his right hand. It wasn’t deep and the scab would dry in a while, if he would only stop what he was doing long enough to let it.
Mildred reached into her satchel and brought out a little pot, not much taller than her thumb joint. She unscrewed the lid and, inside, J.B. saw a hard, greasy-looking substance of a dull yellow color.
“What’s that?” J.B. asked.
“Something I picked up at the medical faculty,” Mildred said, scooping a little of the jar’s contents onto her fingers. “It’ll help it heal.”
J.B. wondered what was in it, but he didn’t ask. He trusted Mildred—she was the doctor of the group, and she had patched them all up more than once. He sat there, one hand out and the shotgun resting in his lap as Mildred rubbed the salve into his cuts.
Chapter Twelve
On the second day Charm found Jak just before lunch. The sun was shining, and she came wandering up the aisle between potato crops in her white robes, her hair pinned back the same way it had been when he had first met her.
“You must be hungry,” she said, stopping where Jak was digging a drainage ditch. “Do you want some lunch?”
Jak looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. With the sunlight playing through the veil of her dress, Charm looked beautiful—almost angelic to his eyes. She was holding a simple, short-handled wicker basket that had a cloth wrapped over its contents. Jak’s sensitive nose could smell the food beneath.
“Yeah,” Jak agreed. “Hungry. Worked hard.”
The woman did something unexpected then—she reached down and let Jak take her hands, then helped pull him up. It pleased Jak to notice that she was strong.
“Came far?” Jak asked as the couple walked along the narrow strip between crops.
“I’m still on shift,” Charm told him, “but my patrol brought me out this way and I saw you in the field. You’re kind of hard to miss.”
Jak shrugged. He guessed he was. “Patrollin’?” he asked.
Charm smiled, trying to make sense out of Jak’s abbreviated phrasing. “You mean ‘where’? All around. The Melissas take turns checking that walls are secure, and that we don’t get any interference from anyone or anything else. There are a lot of wild animals in the mountains.”
Jak nodded in understanding as they walked toward a towering pine tree that stood at the field’s edge.
A sec woman, he thought. What a strange role for a woman to take when there were clearly stronger men working the fields. Maybe they wanted that strength to feed the ville, he thought, rather than to guard it. But if you didn’t guard it properly, no amount of food was worth shit to you.
Charm placed the basket down and sat in the shade of the tree, patting the ground next to her in invitation to Jak. “The grass is dry,” she said.
Jak sat and together they ate a small lunch of sweet, fresh bread with honey, along with a small flagon of mead, and pieces of fruit soaked in sweet syrup to finish the meal. They sat there awhile in companionable silence, listening to the insects buzz as they pollinated the flowers all around them. It was tranquil there, as if they were light-years from the ongoing slaughter and barbarism of the Deathlands.
* * *
DOC HAD SPENT his first working day being shown around the various beehives, and on the second day he was invited to pitch in.
“Honey plays a big part of our lives,” a friendly beekeeper called Jon explained. Jon was a handsome blond-haired man, whose tanned looks belied his years. As Doc spoke with him that first day, he began to realize that Jon was older than he initially appeared, and he pegged the man as being in his forties despite having near flawless skin—particularly unusual in someone who labored outdoors under the full intensity of the sun.
The “honey poachers” worked in two-or three-man teams running in strict and constant rotation through the hives. Jon was happy to have Doc on his squad, which included another man called Thomas who had so much brown curly hair that it looked like a wig. Thomas kept largely to himself, working at other hives in their vicinity while Jon meticulously showed Doc the ropes. As such, the men were never out of eyesight of one another, and the companionship tripped over into their designated lunch period when they gathered to eat fruit and fresh bread, washed down with a mug of mead.
The man-made beehives were spaced at frequent intervals around the edges of the ville walls, with further hives dotted on the landscape just beyond the gates. The hives were wooden, slatted constructions that looked a little like boxes on legs, and all of them were painted white or a very pale cream.
Bees from the hives pollinated the flora within and around the ville, which ensured hearty plant growth and helped to bolster the ville’s food supply. That, however, was a fortunate side effect of the beekeeping operation, which was primarily concerned with harvesting the honey they produced.
To access the honey, the bees would be smoked into dopey submission using a little controlled fire, such as a slow-burning, oil-soaked rag. Once the hive was sedated, the wooden roof would be removed so that each section could be accessed, slotting in and out of the boxlike construction with ease.
Doc was initially concerned that the bees might sting him as he gathered honey, but Jon assured him that that was rare.
“We keep them docile while we gather their crop,” Jon told him, “and we wear protective gloves just in case.”
Before long he had been given his own set of oversize gloves made from thick material weaved into multiple, padded layers that reached up well past his elbows.
On his first couple attempts, Doc was nervous from the buzzing coming from the hives. It sounded angry to him and he said as much to Jon.
“Buzzing doesn’t mean they’re angry,” Jon said. “You know how honeybees talk, Doc?”
Doc was too intensely focused on lifting the hive lid to answer.
“They dance,” Jon said. “Waggle their butts at one another like they’re on fire. I’ll show you, once you get your sea legs.”
Once gathered, the honey was stored in clay vessels, cylindrical in shape and standing almost up to Doc’s hip. Full, these vessels were too heavy for one person to lift, but their narrow shape and dark exterior ensured that their contents remained cool until they could be taken to a storage facility.
Under Jon’s scrutiny, Doc became a competent beekeeper, albeit a slow and wary one.
* * *
ON THE SECOND afternoon, the beekeepers’ rounds took them back into the heart of Heaven Falls where the seven towers were located. The group brought with them the great storage canisters of honey that they had gathered, placed in a small cart that was little more than a wheelbarrow and which had been delivered at one of the hive sites without any fuss. Another group was responsible for delivering these carts, leaving them at assigned spots around the ville on gathering days. It was all very regimented and efficient.
Jon led the way, assisting as necessary while Thomas wheeled the cart along the path until they reached the entrance to one of the towers. Doc had not been inside this one before and, unlike the others he had been in, he noticed that it had a proper door with a thick bolt so that it could be locked, though it was open right now. Two women in white robes waited just inside the doorway, out of the sun. They were dressed in the same manner as the Melissas, and Doc guessed they performed a similar role here, working as
sec for the store.
After the briefest of discussions between Jon and one of the white-robed women, the group was ushered inside. It was dark and cool within the tower, with the interior arranged in boxy compartments between which ran narrow aisles just wide enough to wheel the cart through. Indefinable but heavy sounds could be heard inside, things being moved or dropped or stacked.
Jon had been given some information at the doors, and he led the way through to a specific area located several floors up within the six-story structure. To reach this, Doc and his companions utilized a wall-mounted ladder that ran in the center of the hexagonal tower, while the barrow they had brought was placed on a flatbed made of wood that was connected to a pulley system a little like a dumbwaiter. Once they had ascended to the correct level, Thomas walked over to a point directly in line with the flatbed and used the winch system to pull their cart up.
Pulling the cart with them, the trio paced a compartment simply identified by an eight-inch circle of pale blue that had been painted on the floor of the open doorway. The circle was well placed, a single strand of pinprick light illuminating its center from high above. Jon stepped through, ducking his head a little because the doorway was only about five feet high, and then reached back for Doc, encouraging him to join him.
When Doc was through the doorway, he stood inside a squat room, almost circular in design, with broad shelves running the entire length of its walls, including above the low doorway. The shelves stood four feet from the walls and were arranged close to one another, leaving a space of perhaps ten inches between them. That was the ideal height to hold the clay canisters when laid down, leaving just enough space to maneuver them. Already the shelves were about one-third full, the tiny pinpricks of light allowing Doc to see just enough to make out the shadowlike mounds of full canisters.
“We need to pile our crop neatly,” Jon explained while Tom maneuvered the cart so that it abutted the doorway.
Doc was a little overwhelmed. “How much honey do you have here?” he asked.
Jon shook his head. “The store isn’t full yet, and we keep using it,” he said. “So not enough!”
Doc smiled at that logic, displaying neat rows of perfect teeth. “And this whole silo is just...”
“Honey,” Jon confirmed. “Sweet, sweet honey.”
* * *
LATER THAT SAME day, once their harvesting shift had ended, Doc was shown another building that was used for brewing mead. He was also issued for the first time two jars of honey for his own consumption. With no money or barter system, food was rationed. But the rationing was clearly generous and no one seemed to go without. There was no hunger nor any noteworthy signs of excess, Doc observed. He had seen no obese people among the population who had attended the dance.
Shortly thereafter, the other companions were placed on the rationing system, which equated to a food bank from which all produce was allocated. This system may have seemed strange, but it appeared to be effective enough. There was no squabbling, and the process was very orderly. Furthermore, the population looked markedly healthy, although Mildred suggested that this was also due to the top-notch medical care that the ville supplied as a matter of course. Most important, people were happy—genuinely happy. That was the real revelation of Heaven Falls, the one thing that marked it out from so much that Ryan and his companions had seen before.
* * *
J.B. REMAINED HESITANT to embrace the community they had stumbled upon, however. He was a natural loner in many respects, despite being a long-serving member of Ryan Cawdor’s group of survivalists and, before that, a member of Trader’s wag crew. The Armorer trusted few people, and he gave that trust none too easily. Being in a ville with plentiful food and no obvious signs of conflict wasn’t enough to reassure him. His mind kept coming back to that bomber—William, the Regina had called him—who had felt it necessary to destroy the mat-trans just hours after it had started working.
On the third day, knowing the routine of his work now, J.B. took a stroll during his lunch break.
J.B. made his way to the ville wall where the gates were located, coming at them from a side angle rather than past the towers and along the main thoroughfare. He made the walk look ambling and casual, stopping now and then as if to survey the flowers that colored the grass in pretty clusters, occasionally flat out changing direction as if he had settled on going somewhere else in midstride. For that, J.B. took inspiration from his early days with Doc, whose involuntary trip through time had left his mind addled for a long period, making him frustratingly unpredictable.
Eventually the Armorer reached the ville gates. They were closed. Adjusting the brim of his hat, J.B. gave a quick up-from-under look and checked the sentry post. Lookouts were posted; this time three of the white-robed women were within, though one sat with her legs out the open door, hanging down the side of the wall beside the ladder she would have used to climb there.
J.B. strode closer to the gates, doing his best to look both lost and as though he had every right to be there, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
Eventually the woman who was sunning her legs from the sentry post door craned her neck and called to J.B. “You look awful lost,” she said. “You expected somewhere?”
“Just, er...” J.B. waved a hand vaguely “...stretchin’ my legs before my shift starts up again.”
The white-robed woman leaned forward, and J.B. saw she was young and pretty with hair so blond it was almost white. “It’s a mighty fine day for that,” she said agreeably.
“Any way I can get out without disturbing you all up there?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Well, I didn’t want to make work for you...”
“Work’s nothing to shy away from,” the blonde replied. J.B. thought that was ironic, given that he had found her topping up her tan while the rest of the ville was sweating to build houses, plow fields and whatnot.
“In which case,” J.B. said, tipping his fingers to the brim of his hat, “can I disturb you for the gate and see where my legs take me?”
The Melissa looked regretful, her lips forming a little moue. “Not unless you have business outside,” she said. “But you knew that.”
J.B. nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did,” he said, filing the information away. “I’ll just have to take my roaming off back that away.” He thumbed vaguely in the direction behind him. “You keep watching the...er, watch.”
“All love,” the blonde called as J.B. turned.
“Yeah,” J.B. called back as he turned to walk away. “All love to you, too.”
Well, that was a bust. But it had told J.B. something. In fact, it had told him a whole handful of somethings.
First, no one was going outside without permission, which meant that permission could be gotten, and presumably from the Regina who acted as the baron of this ville.
Second, someone was getting out and probably quite a few someones because Phyllida had mentioned that the mat-trans had been brought up to working order by the ville’s engineers. Furthermore, she had stated that they would shortly repair the damage done by the bomb.
With this latter fact in mind, it wasn’t too huge a stretch of the imagination to assume that an engineering posse had visited the redoubt since the bomb blew up. Given the damage that bomb had done, any repair would involve significant man hours to complete. Which meant that someone may quite possibly be there now.
J.B. pondered all that as he walked back through the open fields toward the construction projects. Around him, pigs were snuffling in the dirt or cowering in their little wooden homes to keep the sun off, with no comprehension that they could end up as honey-roasted ham in tomorrow’s sandwiches.
“But then, pigs aren’t smart enough to realize when they’re in a prison,” J.B. muttered to himself. He wondered if his companions were.
Chapter Thirt
een
On the fourth day, J.B. got up before dawn. He had disciplined his mind to awaken him, though it had resulted in a restless sleep. He dressed in darkness and crept from the bedroom in silence. It was J.B.’s good fortune that Mildred had come home late from her role at the medical faculty and had taken the other bedroom so as not to disturb him. Now she was sound asleep, and J.B. stood at her door for a few moments, listening to her breathing.
Then he pressed one hand against the door to the cabin and pulled with the other, inching the door open as quietly as he could.
A moment after that, J.B. had slipped out into the darkness. It was a few minutes before dawn, and the purple blackness of the predawn brushed the sky through the trees. J.B. had no blaster, but he was not unarmed. The previous night when he had returned to his shack, he had gone to the weapons cache and removed his Tekna knife. The six-inch combat blade was small enough to be concealed and, if it was found on his person, J.B. was reasonably confident he could bluff that it was part of the toolkit he was amassing for his construction work.
Outside, the ville was almost silent, only the sounds of a few overdue nocturnal creatures scurrying back to their burrows and the occasional flapping of wings overhead to accompany the noise of the wind stroking the leaves.
With the streets empty, J.B. felt confident enough to take a direct path to the ville gates, though he kept to the shadows, and didn’t walk on the flower-lined thoroughfare that he thought of as Main Street. It took ten minutes to reach the exterior wall and bring the gates within sight. By then, that first surge of adrenaline had passed, and J.B. could feel the cold in the air. The sun was rising now, and droplets of dew clung to the grass and the plants, like a little distillation of moonlight stolen from the sky.
In the lee of a boxy building, hidden by its shadow, J.B. looked up at the guard tower. There were figures within, the same as there always were. No matter how free a society might seem in the Deathlands, no settlement lasted long without constant vigilance. Anyone could attack, be they norm or mutie, because those who had nothing had nothing to lose in such an attack. Even the remote location of Heaven Falls wouldn’t be enough alone to keep it safe from an army of scalies or stickies or outlanders armed and determined.
