by James Axler
“Charm tells me you know how to dance,” Linda said boldly.
“Some,” he admitted, “though I am a little rusty. There is not much need for dancing when one lives life on the road, I am afraid.”
Small plates were provided, and the companions were invited to take as much as they wanted from the spread. Krysty was impressed.
“You must have an abundance of food here to be so generous,” she remarked as she added a slice of honey-roasted ham to her plate.
Phyllida shook her head indulgently. “We have enough to share,” she said. “Cooperation is at the heart of our Home, and through that we’ve produced high yields.”
Krysty nodded. “There’s not much cooperation outside these walls,” she said. “It makes a refreshing change.”
Finger bowls had been placed on the table and together the companions and the three Melissa warriors sat to eat. Sweetened water was provided along with four flagons of amber-colored mead, which were brought in by serving men who silently delivered them to the table and filled a goblet for each diner. The men were young and hardy, dressed in simple, toga-like robes that had been dyed different colors to differentiate them. The clothing was very different from that worn by the people the companions had seen working the farms and building the cabins, as if each task had its own dress code.
The atmosphere was casual and friendly. Ryan was surprised at how easily everyone seemed to be getting along. Often when two groups met in the Deathlands, differences would result in combat, yet here the Trai were friendly and accommodating and seemed to be tolerant of others’ differences. Even Jak’s eccentricities seemed unremarkable to their hosts, and at one point Charm moved to a seat beside Jak to patiently answer his questions about the meats and how they had been preserved.
“Place like this must have taken some time to build,” Ryan said, clearly impressed.
“We work together,” Phyllida told him.
Picking up on this, Krysty asked what would be expected of the companions if they were to stay.
“We’re assigned roles by the Regina,” Phyllida explained as she tore into a crisp lettuce leaf. “Everyone is asked to perform that role to the best of her ability. His or her,” she corrected as Ryan began to query.
“So I’d be given a sec man role and—” Ryan said.
“No,” Charm said from two places down the table. “Only women can guard the Home.”
“Is that right?” J.B. asked, swallowing the mouthful of mead he had just taken. He was clearly surprised.
Phyllida picked up the point. “Strict organization is at the heart of Heaven Falls,” she explained, “with a clear delineation of roles.”
“Well, I guess we can’t argue with the results, can we, J.B.?” Ryan said, fixing his oldest companion with a stare.
J.B. shook his head after a moment. “Guess not,” he said. He knew that look from Ryan—it meant that now was not the time to rock the boat; better to play it safe and hold their cards close to their chest.
The conversation continued amiably for more than an hour, during which time the goblets were refilled and the companions were invited to help themselves to seconds—and, in Jak’s case, thirds.
While J.B. found the meal a little sweet for his tastes, Mildred felt oddly wistful—the sweetness reminded her of the food she had been used to in twentieth-century America, with its added sugars and sweeteners, feeding that cultural sweet tooth that seemed to come with civilization. Idly she wondered whether the same was true here, if somehow organization brought with it a taste for sweeter food.
At the end of the meal, a tray of cakes was brought in by one of the serving men, who bowed respectfully to Phyllida after placing the tray down before leaving the room. Linda excused herself at that point, explaining that she was expected back on patrol.
“What kind of patrols do you run here?” Ryan asked as the brunette left. He tried to make the question sound casual, but was thinking once more of the bomber who had targeted the redoubt.
Phyllida seemed all too happy to share. “Heaven Falls is very secure,” she told him, “so you shouldn’t expect trouble. However, there are occasional sightings of animals and, very seldom, people like you who appear in our region. We like to keep abreast of who’s approaching and why.”
“That’s reasonable,” Ryan said, nodding.
Phyllida brought the tray of cakes around the large table, and as the companions were making their selections, the doors opened and Nancy strode in, pulling her black hair free from its clips. “Sorry I’m late,” she said in apology. “I was held up by my sister and lost track of time.”
Phyllida encouraged the dark-haired woman to help herself to what was left of the buffet, and Ryan took the opportunity to pour her a goblet of the amber mead. When Nancy joined them at the table, Mildred asked about Ricky.
“Your friend was sleeping when I left him,” Nancy said, conscious that the other conversations had petered out as the companions listened to her reply. “He appeared to be in no danger, just tired.”
“When can we see him?” J.B. asked.
“Whenever you wish,” Nancy said, taking in the whole table with a sweep of her head. “And, Mildred—Petra asked me to extend a welcome to you if you would like to tour the medical faculty.”
Mildred was surprised. “I’d like that a lot,” she said, a broad smile appearing on her face.
Once again, Ryan was struck by how friendly everyone here seemed. In fact, it was beginning to wear down even his ingrained skepticism.
* * *
AFTER THE LONG lunch, the companions trekked to the nearby tower where Mildred and Jak had left Ricky to rest. The lunch had put everyone in a happier mood. The companions were accompanied by Nancy, who informed them that she was pleased to stay but had no official position here. Phyllida’s words came back to Ryan at that point, of how the society of the Trai was rigidly organized.
Ricky had been moved to an upstairs room in the six-story building, and the companions followed a winding ramp up there. They found him as the sole occupant of a white-walled room, lying fast asleep in a freshly laundered bed. The room was of modest size, and it took a little maneuvering for all of Ryan’s crew to fit in all at once, with Nancy watching from the doorway. The room was clean and sparsely decorated, with a single small window that let in a little direct light and air. Most of the light, however, seemed to ebb through a translucent exterior wall, illuminating the room without glare.
After a few seconds J.B. nodded, satisfied. “Looks like the kid’s doing all right,” he said, turning to Mildred for confirmation.
“Yes, he is,” Mildred said, and she could hear the surprise in her own voice. Not that she had expected Ricky not to pull through—though painful, his wound was superficial and barring internal bleeding he should recover quickly. But what surprised her was how well he had been taken care of in her absence. Despite the outward differences, this place reminded her of a twentieth-century hospital, something she didn’t think she’d ever experience again.
Just then, Ricky started to stir, no doubt roused by all the movement in the room, and after a moment his eyes flickered open. Like anyone waking when ill, he looked younger somehow, innocent and more boyish. “Hey...guys,” he said weakly.
“Ricky,” Ryan said, stepping close to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like...I could take on a mutie army...” Ricky began, but Ryan looked at him firmly.
“Really, how are you feeling?” he asked. “Straight up this time.”
Chastised, Ricky looked away for a moment. “My side’s numb,” he said, “but kind of hurts, too. And my head feels light, not quite there.”
“That’s the anesthetic they used to numb the pain,” Mildred reassured him. “What you’re feeling is quite normal.”
Ricky smiled, the handsome rogue once more. “Did you do this, Mildred?” he asked. “Thanks.”
“Not me,” Mildred told him. “I had some help from the locals. You’re going to be i
n here for a few days, just to rest up until you’re back to normal.”
“We’re staying, too,” Ryan told him.
“Thanks,” Ricky said, visibly relieved. The kid had not been on the road long, and it was obvious he feared being abandoned as deadweight. “You, too, J.B.?”
J.B. nodded. “All of us,” he said, “until you’re on your feet. No one’s leaving without you.”
Ricky idolized J.B. and J.B. accepted the kid, seeing in him the potential of a knowledgeable weaponsmith. Occasionally the kid made a mistake, as most kids did, but here in the Deathlands it could get a body chilled. It had been close this time, the way he had waved that freaking flare around in the predawn as the deranged scalies had chased them down the overgrown road in California. This time Ricky had taken a shot and survived it. But next time? J.B. thought. Yeah, the kid needed a firm hand if he was going to reach his seventeenth birthday in one piece.
* * *
WHILE THE OTHERS waited at Ricky’s bedside, Mildred left them, and she and Nancy went to find Petra. They walked amiably down near-empty corridors, which featured more of the lattice-like walls to differentiate the individual rooms without closing them off entirely. The design allowed for a lot of light to pass through the building, although it cut down on privacy.
“This floor is dedicated to people recovering from physical trauma,” Nancy said, “like your companion.”
Mildred couldn’t resist peering into a few of the rooms as they passed, and she soon noticed that most of them were empty. That was encouraging anyway—it either meant that Heaven Falls was a pretty safe place, or that their medical expertise encouraged a quick turnaround in cases, helping patients to recover quickly.
“Petra’s on the next floor,” Nancy explained as she guided Mildred to a ramp.
Together, they strode up the ramp and onto the next level, which once again featured the lattice-style dividers between rooms. Walking the sterile corridor, Mildred couldn’t help but think of this place as a hospital. What was it they’d called it? A medical faculty, she recalled. The term faculty reminded her of high school, and she began to wonder if this was what she would have called a teaching hospital?
They arrived at a small room where Petra was labeling cylindrical clay containers with color-coded stickers. The room was full of such containers, each with its own color label, lined up on shelves that ran floor to ceiling along all four walls with two further freestanding aisles down the center. The containers were arranged in color-coded sequence. Reading was a luxury in the Deathlands, and while Heaven Falls appeared to have an educational program in place, it was little surprise to Mildred that they relied on a more primitive system to identify their stock. Mildred wondered where they got their supplies.
“Mildred, I’m so pleased to see you again,” Petra said, greeting Mildred with a warm smile. “If you have a few minutes, I’d like to show you around.”
“That sounds good to me,” Mildred said. And it did. Imagine, Mildred Wyeth back in a hospital after all this time.
* * *
BY THE LATE afternoon Ricky had fallen back to sleep and, confident that he was in safe hands, the companions left the medical faculty and returned to their lodgings. On the walk back past the fields, Mildred told J.B. excitedly about her tour of the tower. “They’re serious about making people well,” she declared enthusiastically. “You have no idea how amazing this place is.”
“I’ve been to a few quacks in my time, Millie,” J.B. told her. “I can see the appeal of docs who take their job serious.”
Laborers were still working at the construction of the two new wooden buildings. With the insight that Phyllida had given him, Ryan noticed that the laborers were all men, but that they were being given commands by women. That could just be coincidence, he knew—come back tomorrow and a new crew with a new male boss might be doing the job—but still it made him wonder.
With everyone exhausted from their fraught all-nighter in mutie-filled California, the friends agreed to split up and return to their own shacks for rest and a cleanup. As Ryan and Krysty walked toward their dwelling, Krysty turned to him and he noticed the joy in her face.
“What?” he asked.
“I was just thinking—it’s a nice place,” Krysty said, reaching for Ryan’s hand and taking it in her own. “It feels like home.”
Krysty’s original ville in Colorado had been ravaged by bandits, but Krysty always thought of Harmony fondly.
“I’m not sure,” Ryan said, his free hand unconsciously reaching for his holster and finding it empty.
They stopped at the stoop to their cabin and Krysty looked out at the trees, grass and flowers. “The people here have something special, Ryan,” she said. “They’ve learned to trust, and I think they try to see the good in people.”
“Yeah, mebbe they do,” Ryan agreed, reaching his arm around Krysty’s shoulder to pull her close.
Krysty turned then, and her emerald eyes shone as she looked at Ryan’s ruggedly handsome features. “Perhaps this is it,” she told him quietly. “Mebbe this is what we’ve been looking for all this time. A place we can settle and call home.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan admitted hesitantly. “But we’ll stay long enough to find out why one of their own wanted to blow up the mat-trans. Because that is bothering the shit out of me.”
Together they went into their cabin, closing the door behind them.
Chapter Nine
J.B. dreamed about scalies. In his dream, he was on a beach at night, a thin sliver of orange peel on the horizon where the sun was starting to rise, the ocean at his back. The surf rolled in and breakers crashed down with the same timbre as his M-4000 shotgun blasting, but he didn’t have the weapon in his hand. Instead he had the Mini-Uzi, with its fast action ideal for holding off a crowd.
The Armorer stood alone, but he could hear the scalies approaching, a hundred feet moving in unison, tromping closer and closer as they strode across the sand.
The first head appeared over one of the undulating sand dunes, silhouetted by the thin streak of sun. It was hairless and scarred, the face of an acid victim, and its eyes glowed an eerie silver like the moon’s reflection on a lake. J.B. raised the Uzi and squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened.
“Dark night!” J.B. cursed, feeling along the length of the Uzi to detect the problem. Knowing the weapon by touch, he kept his eyes on the scalie at the ridge. The magazine wasn’t attached properly, or maybe it had come loose.
J.B. looked down and tried adjusting the ammo feed, but the damn thing wouldn’t lock, and in moments he was fumbling with the black magazine and watching in horror as it slipped from his hands and dropped into the sand. The scalie had been joined by others, those of the hundred footsteps moving in unison, a line of heads silhouetted against the horizon as they peered over the sand.
The scalies were closer now, surrounding him on three sides, blocking any escape.
J.B. raised the empty Uzi. “Stay back!” he shouted, bringing the muzzle around in an arc to encompass the circling muties. “Help me!” The cry was sharp and sudden, a child’s voice.
J.B. turned, locating the source in an instant. Out in the dark water, twenty feet from the shore, he could see a figure waving its arms in fear. He knew who it was right away.
“Ricky!”
“J.B., help me!” Ricky cried. His hair was stuck to his head and his arms were waving, splashing the dark water as they batted against it.
J.B. stomped determinedly toward the water, the useless Uzi still in his right hand. He tossed the blaster aside as he stepped into the rippling, oil-dark mass of the ocean, striding out into the water as the scalies closed in behind him. Up ahead he saw Ricky splashing fearfully, and then he saw hands grasping at Ricky from below, callused hands reaching up the lad’s chest, pulling him down.
“Hold on, kid!” J.B. shouted. “I’m coming!”
One arm over the other, J.B. began to swim, great strokes eating up the distance. Up ahead, Ric
ky was struggling to stay afloat as the scaled hands dragged him beneath the surface. And then he was gone, and J.B. was swimming in empty water.
“Ricky?” J.B. shouted, spitting out a mouthful of salt water. “Ricky?”
A shadow moved beneath the surface where Ricky had been, like a dark balloon bobbing against the ceiling that was the ocean surface. Knowing that it was Ricky, J.B. swam.
J.B.’s jacket was heavy with water now; he could feel its weight increase with every stroke. Ricky’s head crowned the water surface ahead, just the top of his head like the first push of a baby being born, but J.B. couldn’t reach him—he was struggling to stay afloat himself.
J.B. dropped beneath the dark surface for a moment, a second under the water, two seconds, three, and then he was up again and gasping for air.
“Rick—” J.B. began, but the current caught him and dragged him under a second time.
It was cold beneath the surface, and everything was cast in a gray the shade of a rainstorm cloud in those seconds before a downpour. J.B. could see Ricky’s legs waggling in the water, his body struggling as long arms dragged him down. He wasn’t far ahead, maybe six or seven feet.
J.B. struggled to surface once again. His shoulders ached from the weight of his jacket, and he could barely pull himself away from the almost magnetic drag of the ocean bed. He did it, one arm plunging ahead after the other, cupping at the water and almost physically pulling himself up and out of it.
J.B. emerged with lungs aching and muscles burning. Ricky’s face appeared inches in front of his, eyes closed and water pouring from his mouth. Then his lips pulled back in a snarl that mocked his charming smile, and his eyes opened to show silvery, mirrorlike orbs. J.B. saw then that the kid’s face was scarred and callused like a burn victim’s, and he realized that he was too late—that Ricky was one of them now, a scalie like the others.
