by James Axler
They had spent the past two days on this task, gradually moving the supplies traded from their convoy. It was dull, monotonous and backbreaking work. It was easy to see why they—the newly arrived outlanders—had been allocated this task.
Krysty straightened as the sack hit the others with a dull thud, raising a cloud of dust that caught in her throat. She was too exhausted to even sneeze or cough with any alacrity. Every spasm made her back twinge.
“These guys are tough, I’ll give them that,” she said with a wince as the spasms passed, and she stretched to allow her aching muscles to uncramp. “I have no idea what they’d be like as fighters, but if they were well organized, they’d be tough to take down.”
“They’re not that type, though,” Mildred reflected, leaning against the bar by which they alternately dragged or pulled the cart. “They believe in hard work, living simply and keeping to themselves. Lord knows that’s a rare enough commodity in this pesthole land.”
“Yeah, but what if someone comes looking for them?” Krysty countered. “There’s a whole lot of people here who don’t…ahh—” she winced as she stretched to one side “—who don’t believe in live and let live. What would they do then, and where would their work ethic be then?”
Mildred pondered that between feeling the disks in her spine contract as the muscles tightened. “You know, there were people like that back before I got frozen. Religious sects. They were pretty much left alone. The only difference between these guys and the ones from predark is that the old ones believed in God rather than a sense of destiny.”
She stopped speaking as she noticed movement in the shadows. Krysty caught the change in her companion’s demeanor and immediately snapped out of her relaxed state. She turned so that she was facing the same way as her companion.
A woman came out of the shadows. Sharp-faced, tall and angular, she looked like so many other people in the ville. Her lean, long face was lined, although she probably was younger than either Mildred or Krysty. Her clothes hung off her, not because she was thin but rather because they were recycled castoffs.
There was something about the way she moved that made Krysty’s nerves tingle. It seemed as though she had emerged from the shadows, where she had been still, observing.
But why?
“Going well with that load,” the woman noted, her voice flat and neutral. “Soon be done. You’ll be glad of that.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Damn right,” Mildred murmured. “Anything you wanted?” Like Krysty, she, too, was suspicious of the woman, although equally she would have been hard-pushed to say why. Instinct.
“Just came to tell you that the next shift won’t be yours. Baron wants to see you all later. That’s a real privilege. Means you get some time out.”
“Like a reward?” Mildred asked with heavy irony.
“Yeah. Anyone with a private audience with Valiant has time out before they go. Need to be sharp, not tired or hung over. So you have time to rest.”
Krysty suppressed a smile at the way in which the irony had flown over the woman’s head. Still, if it meant she could have a bath and soak her back….
“Why does the baron want to see us?” she asked.
The reaction wasn’t quite what she had expected. The woman shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “I don’t know. Stuff like that is private. Between him and the people he sees. Anyhow, you just finish up here and get along. I can find a replacement.” Abruptly, she turned and walked away into the shadows.
Mildred waited until she had seen the woman’s silhouette disappear through the double doors.
“That was weird. I don’t like the sound of an audience with the baron.”
“No,” Krysty said slowly. “And I’ll tell you something else. I’d swear she was there watching us before she came out. Why?”
Mildred smiled grimly. “We won’t have to wait long to find out, sweetie….”
AS THOUGH WADING through a sea of mud, Mildred grimly fought her way to the surface. She had been kicking and screaming for some time, the images of memory running through her head.
She wanted to groan as she regained consciousness and the pain washed over her like the final spray of water on emerging. But she bit her tongue, a reflex action triggered by the knowledge that she was tied up. Before she could even form the thought, her instinct told her to keep silent.
She kept her head down, opening one eye and knowing, by the way they brushed across her face, that her beaded plaits would shield her. At first, she could see next to nothing. It was incredibly dark in the wag. She knew it was a wag because of the noise and movement. Then the vague shapes took substance, and she could see the others: Doc’s head banging rhythmically on the floor of the wag beside her; Krysty still unconscious.
She knew J.B. so well that she knew he was awake and feigning unconsciousness. Jak and Ryan she wasn’t so sure of, but it was a fair bet that they had also come around. All of them had to have received approximately the same dose of whatever sedative that coldheart Valiant had administered. It had to have been in the food, as he had drank from the same brew as they had. Hell, she was angry with herself for being suckered so easily with that. A child should have seen it coming.
There was no time for recriminations now. She had to think about what was going to happen, not what was already past. She tested the rope on her wrists and ankles. Tight, but maybe not tight enough. Her joints were supple enough to perhaps allow for some manipulation. It was just a matter of being able to balance the maneuver with the necessity for stealth.
While she worked at it, to distract herself from the burning of the nylon rope on her skin she tried to recall exactly how they had come to be in this situation.
After all, for all its strange ways, Hawknose had hardly seemed the type of ville where this behavior was the norm. Events were still swimming in confusion, and if she could somehow decipher them, then it would allow her to be ready for whatever lay ahead, at the end of the journey.
TRAVIS WAS STILL at his work when Krysty and Mildred arrived at the shack. They were alone, and both bathed in silence, letting the hot water soothe their aching limbs. It was only after they had dressed that Doc and Jak arrived from their own labors. As they entered, they were bickering.
“I am sure that you cannot be right, dear boy. Why would they wish to keep us under surveillance when we are right in their midst? Surely if they had some suspicions about our intent, then they would not allow us to move so freely among them? If that were—”
“Doc, shut up.” Jak sighed. “Not care why, just saying.”
Both Krysty and Mildred’s interest was piqued by this exchange, as it mirrored their own feelings.
“You think you were being watched?” Krysty asked, following them into the room where Travis kept his primitive bathtub. A hand pump welded to a pipe that ran through the walls to a central tank behind the gas station supplied the hot water for the ville. As Jak began to pump vigorously at the handle, he turned to Krysty.
“Sure of it. Same two men pass by every five, ten minutes.”
Doc paused in stripping off his dusty clothing. “Come now, that’s an absurd leap of assumption, lad. They may simply have been going about their business.”
Jak paused. “They carry anything?”
Doc thought about this, poised on one leg. “No,” he said slowly as he finished discarding his clothes, with the exception of his drawers. “No, I don’t recall. And if you all don’t mind…” The others turned their backs, giving Doc a moment to shuck his underwear, enabling him to preserve his modesty.
“No one walk empty hand to and from anywhere,” Jak said with emphasis. “So why them?”
“But why do it?” Doc countered, climbing into the bath.
Jak shrugged as he discarded his own clothes, turned and joined Doc. “Dunno. Don’t matter. Just know it’s happening. And not good.”
“Jak’s got a point,” Mildred interjected, joining Krysty in the doorway.
“Madam, a little privacy,” Doc murmured.
“Too late for that, you old buzzard.” She grinned. “More to the point, something happened to us today…”
She went on to describe what had transpired, with Krysty adding detail while Jak and Doc cleaned up. Their own tasks, in the maintenance of the gas pumps and tanks, left them dusty from the earth, and smelling of gas. The primitive cleaners used by the people of the ville were hardly strong enough. You could always tell those who worked on gas detail by their distinctive odor. Fortunately they still had in their own supplies, some soap and shampoo taken from a redoubt some time before.
By the time Jak and Doc had cleaned and dried themselves, Mildred and Krysty had finished their own tale.
“I take back my own doubts,” Doc mused as he dressed. “I fear I did you a disservice, young Jak. For reasons that are best known to themselves, they have started to watch us.
“Tell me,” he directed to Krysty and Mildred, “did you notice this before today?”
“No,” Krysty said firmly. “You?”
Jak shook his head. “Just today.”
Doc frowned. “It is as though they were suddenly directed to keep an eye on us—perhaps so that we would not stray? Might there be a convoy due in, and that is the cause?” When the question brought forth no response, he added, “I will be most interested to hear what Ryan and John Barrymore have to say about this, and whether or not they have encountered a similar phenomenon.”
Doc didn’t have long to wait. To save gas—so important for trade—the workers in the fields walked to and from their tasks. Only the sec patrols got to use wags and bikes with any regularity. To trudge back after a hard day’s work was hard enough, but to be sent home early with an instruction to see the baron was ominous.
BOTH J.B. AND RYAN had been told to quit their tasks at about the same time that the others had also been dismissed. However, the greater distance told on them. They met about halfway back to the ville, the paths through the fields crossing so that their routes coincided. For some time they walked in silence, both too exhausted by their morning’s labors to spare the breath. It was only as they neared town that J.B. spoke.
“Think the others were called back to the ville?”
“Yeah,” Ryan replied shortly. “And I don’t like it.”
“Because we’re being watched?” J.B. asked.
Ryan looked at him. He’d thought he was being over-cautious in noting the sudden frequency and change of the sec patrols.
THEY BRIEFLY exchanged details of what they had observed. It gave them much to ponder by the time they arrived at Travis’s shack. As they stripped and bathed, Ryan and J.B. listened to what their companions had to say before adding their own experiences.
“Whatever’s going on, it’s something that’s only just happened,” Ryan mused as he dressed. “We’re agreed that it’s only been today, right?” There was general assent, and he continued. “So Valiant has decided to take a closer interest in us. Why? Has anything happened?”
“As far as I am aware,” Doc said, “there have been no arrivals or departures since the convoy left without us. Jak and myself have been central, so would have seen any arrivals or heard commotion.”
“And I’m sure we could have seen anything coming from a long way off out in the fields,” J.B. added. “No, it’s got to be something from the inside.”
“Well, we haven’t had time to do anything except work like dogs then sleep,” Krysty said. “Nothing to draw any attention to ourselves.”
“Then I’d say we be on the ball and alert with Valiant, and don’t give anything away.” Millie sighed. “It isn’t much, but it’s all we got for now.”
RYAN WATCHED carefully. His muscles cramped and he wanted to grimace, to grunt through the pain. But he couldn’t give any sign of being conscious. He was pretty sure now that Doc—whose head was still banging rhythmically on the floor of the wag with every lurch and bump—was the only one of them who was still suffering the effects of the drug.
Krysty had regained consciousness. She hadn’t moved, but her hair betrayed her. While her head still lolled, her hair falling over her face to disguise any movement of the eyes, he could see that her prehensile hair was no longer hanging limply. Now it had become suffused with a life of its own. It moved subtly, waving in tendrils that seemed to curl around her neck and then reach out, as though seeking something. The movement seemed to be in sync with the rhythm of the vehicle, so that it would be unseen to the guards that sat, bored and unmoving, between them. Only someone who knew Krysty would appreciate what it meant.
So, only Doc was still out.
At least the majority of them would be ready for what lay ahead.
“COME, SIT WITH ME and eat, drink. We must talk, but only after you have sated yourselves. The day’s work is hard, and you aren’t yet used to our ways.”
Valiant gestured them to be seated. He lived in what had once been the diner near the old freeway. The tables still remained, as did the bar and grill. In one corner, where there had once been space for jukeboxes and slot machines, a drape-hidden area now housed his sleeping quarters. Some of the nearby tables used for business were covered with papers and boxes of goods and jack. Only two sec men were in the diner with them.
The other tables were bare. The booths along the windows facing the gas station had their padded seats covered with all manner of colored drapes and throws. This area was undoubtedly where the baron would relax. But even then, it was austere by the standards of most barons, even if luxuriant by the harsh standard of the ville as a whole.
The table he directed them to was in the center of the diner. The fluorescent lighting running overhead had long since ceased to work, and illumination was provided by tallow candles in beaten metal holders. The light from these formed a shallow pool that threw the rest of the diner into darkness as the evening began to close in. In the distance, they could hear the people congregate at the old gas station, a distant buzz of background noise.
Food was prepared for them at the grill behind the old counter. Some sort of brew was placed in front of them in jugs. After tasting their food and brew, Doc in particular had formed the theory that the food was nothing more than nutrition to the ville people, their taste buds having been scoured since birth by the harsh alcohol on which they were raised.
The food that was carried out from behind the counter and placed in front of them by two women and the man who prepared it did little to dispel that theory. But the companions ate, washing it down with the raw spirit, each waiting for the baron to reveal his purpose.
Two courses had been served from a communal pot, the indeterminate meal served onto their plates with ladles. The first course had contained some kind of pickled meat in a sauce that looked a little like the mud from which they dug the vegetables. It tasted a little like that would probably taste. Doc steeled himself, having no expectations. Jak could eat anything, and so passed no comment. But for the others, it was an effort to force down the food, which Valiant seemed to enjoy so much.
As, indeed, he relished the second course. Rice, which tasted as though it was seasoned by the gasoline that was their staple, was heaped on their plates. There it was joined by overcooked vegetables in a sauce that once more seemed to be made of mud, and some stringy lumps of fiber and gristle that may have been meat. Again, only the nullifying fire of the raw spirit could erase the cloying taste from their mouths.
While they ate, Valiant spoke to them of the ville, his plans for it and how he hoped to fulfill the dreams and hopes of his ancestors. The only thing that could hurry the process beyond hard work, he had decided, was to bring more jack into the ville. Jack meant power in the world outside their valley. It may not reflect on their own codes of behavior, but if they were to use the world around them to further the aims of their forefathers, then they had to adapt in some ways.
By this time, despite the best efforts of each of them, the brew they had ingested to ease the passage
of the food was beginning to take effect. The light from the candles seemed to grow haloes of luminescence that spread out in ripples. The distant sounds of the gas station bar became distorted and echoed. And the long, rambling plans of Valiant seemed to grow more and more incomprehensible.
The third and final course was laid in front of them. Sweet meats in individual dishes that had been sugared by the raw cane that grew limp and rotting in the mud, colored by who knew what kinds of dyes into lurid colors that were still matt and dull, like all else in the ville.
They were doughy, stodgy and indigestible. But, unwilling to offend the baron before they had some idea of exactly why he had asked them to this meal, they forced them down.
Licking his fingers, Valiant sat back with the hint of a smile playing around his lean, hatchet features. It looked uncharacteristic, and set alarm bells ringing at the back of Ryan’s brain, fogged as it was by the potent brew.
“Your plans have something to do with why you pulled us out of work and got us here,” Ryan said. He spoke slowly and carefully, aware of the way in which the brew had crept up and fogged his brain. His voice sounded distant and echoed to him. “Why you were having us watched.”
“You noticed that, then?” Valiant questioned. “I was hoping my people were a bit more subtle that that. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We don’t really do that sort of thing.”
“Then why start now?” Ryan countered. “And why not when we first got here?”
Valiant took a hefty drink of the brew in his cup. “It didn’t occur to me for a day or two. I don’t know why. But then it just sprang into my head. I guess it had been there since I first saw you all, but it had to come to the surface. See, there’s a baron less than a hundred miles from here who has this mission in life. I guess we all have them. Mine’s about fulfilling the destiny that our forefathers foretold for us. His… Well, it doesn’t really make that much sense to me, but it has to do with this trader who knows something about secret places that are left from before skydark. Now, he’s long gone, but he had this right-hand man. Well, two of them. One was a big guy with one eye. The other was smaller. Hat, glasses, liked blasters. Now you tell me, who does that sound like to you?”
