by E. E. Knight
“I am to drop you off on a stretch of road. You will be picked up before dawn. A single man must stand with this torch,” he said, handing them a flashlight. “Shine it on the old sign like you are trying to read it.”
“Who is picking us up?”
“I do not know. Better that way. They try to have it so we are at most three people, and one outside our cell. Better if we are taken, you know?”
It was cool at night this close to the sea.
He led them, by dark, through cow pastures fragrant with what you expect to find in a cow pasture.
It was slow and tiresome, skirting fields and climbing fences in single file, but apparently it was safe. A few dogs barked, but no one investigated.
“The Reapers don’t prowl around at night?” Valentine asked.
“Them? No, there are not that many, and it would be a waste of time. They wait for their blood at the hospitals and police stations. It is bad to be a vagrant in Germany. It is worse to be convicted of a crime of violence. Those sorts of troublemakers are never heard from again.”
“That’s not sufficient in the United States to keep a Kurian going. They need hundreds of lives every year.”
Their guide shrugged. “We probably have more things against the law here. Just to live fully in these times is to be a criminal.”
A mass of forest stood west of them. An old road simply disappeared into the woods—trees had broken up the pavement and grown up through the cracks; what was left of the asphalt was hidden by shadow.
Zloty inspected it closely before they moved on.
“Why the caution, then?”
“This can be a bad area. Few live here, many abandoned farms. The ones that remain are more watchful but less talkative, you know?”
“Will we be resting anytime tonight?” Sime asked, looking at the mud and cow filth on his hiking shoes.
Zloty replied, “We cannot stay at a hotel. The registrations, you know? There is a farmhouse; the farmer is friendly. We can stay above the cows and be cozy. Sorry to take you across the cow paths, but we are sure to be questioned if police see us on the road.”
Later, when reflecting on it, Duvalier thought the ambush was like something out of Robin Hood. Dozens of young men dropped out of the trees in front of them, and a few behind. Some hopped over the wall they had been paralleling as they crossed the field.
They were mostly lanky teenage boys with a few young men. Duvalier thought she spotted a flash of hair and earring that might indicate a female, but you never knew.
It was a good-sized gang, certainly more than twenty. They wore a mix of cast-off military gear, fancy dress (one character sporting a monocle wore a battered silk hat with erotic postcards shoved into the band, making him look like a cross between the Mad Hatter and a doorman for a classier strip joint), peacoats and wool knit hats, and trench coats. One thing all had in common was scarves, mostly long, wound several times around the neck, giving their heads a turtlelike appearance. Their hair was either messily hanging all about the face or tied back in a rough braid. Nobody went for the skinhead look. Maybe it was out of style.
They formed two small bands, one in front on the cow path and one behind. Now that she was alerted, Duvalier’s ears picked up what were probably a few more of them creeping along the wall and moving through that deeply black forest to the east.
She’d been right about the girls. There were a few too-young-to-be-travelling-with-this-crowd girls with them. Duvalier thought they should have been at the dinner table doing their math homework at this time, not casting about the overgrown countryside looking for trouble.
“Is this the neighborhood watch?” Sime asked.
“We call them ‘the Black Youth,’” their guide said in a low voice, talking toward the ground and spitting out the words quickly. “They live rough, hiding from the labor conscription and civic indoctrination. Just ignore them. If they want something, let them have it. A jacket or a timepiece is not worth your life, you know?”
Top Hat gabbled something, and Zloty nodded and responded, holding out his hands as they talked as if to caution him against coming any closer.
“Stay still,” Zloty said. “He says we came too close to his forest. They wish an accommodation.”
They look thin, Duvalier thought. Of course, they were mostly teenagers. Teenagers could thrive on about anything, and tended to be lean.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to fighting. It would be like killing the Lost Boys from Peter Pan.
Top Hat walked up and down the line of “prisoners.” He was careful to stay out of Ahn-Kha’s reach—not knowing, of course, that she’d seen Ahn-Kha leap eight feet from a relaxed crouch like the one he was currently maintaining. Top Hat would have his head messily popped off like a shaken soda bottle being opened.
He paused in front of her and openly looked her body up and down.
Why was I born a woman?
Top Hat reached out and groped her through leather gloves. First he tried a breast. That must have disappointed him, because he switched from overhand to underhand and shoved it underneath the front of her jacket and between her legs.
“Is that all?” she asked. “Kid, I’ve been fingered by men with artificial arms that did a better job.”
He didn’t understand the English, but he took the tone as a challenge. He pulled up his hand, stuck the middle finger of his glove between his teeth, pulled it off, leaving the glove hanging there giving her the finger, and wormed his hand into her waistband.
A swirl of motion to the right caught her eye.
“Enough of that,” Valentine said. He’d drawn his old .45, the backup pistol he carried everywhere, and now held it leveled at Top Hat boy’s head. “Let’s not get piggy.” His line of fire was well clear of her, but not the rest of the gang, and a few of them shifted.
The Black Youth produced weapons of their own. Mostly they were edged weapons, and a couple of short, sharp fishing gaffs that were probably more threatening-looking in theory than practice. But one boy had a double-barreled shotgun with a few inches sawn off the end that could take out half their party if it had buckshot in it.
Most of them were eyeing Ahn-Kha. And keeping out of his reach. So they had a certain amount of street smarts.
“Translate for me,” Sime said to their guide.
“Let’s all settle down,” Sime said, stepping forward and holding his arms out in each direction, one toward Valentine and the other toward the boy with the shotgun. He gave the translator time to catch up. “If anyone shoots, there’ll be bodies in somebody’s cow pasture. The authorities can’t ignore that. They’ll call out soldiers to sweep the woods. No matter how good your hideout is, they’ll find it.
“I have here two gold coins. Maybe I have more, but you’d have to kill all of us to get them, and we have powerful friends. I’m willing to pay to stay the night in this area; that’s one coin. Your silence has a price, too. That’s the second coin. So, what is it going to be? An exchange of gold, or an exchange of lead and blood?”
She was tired of the hand gripping at her pants. She briefly considered using her claws, but instead reached her own hand across, and found the trouser leg with his testicles. She pressed hard and he gave a little yelp and what she recognized was a German profanity. What a fool. Even a backcountry cop in Kansas knew to wear a cup in case of any rough stuff.
“Best take the offer,” Duvalier advised. “Unless you want to be a featured singer with your Youth Vanguard Boys Choir.”
The translator did not bother with that, but the kid got the message. The deadly embrace released, they stepped away from each other.
The leader of the mob took the coins and kissed them before pocketing them deep in his jacket. Then he laughed in Sime’s face.
“A most friendly gesture,” he said through the translator. “Be on your way with our permission.”
A couple of the youths spat as they moved off. Not on anyone, of course, but the general intent was clear.
“See, Valentine,” Sime said. “We still have all our limbs. It doesn’t always have to end in blood.”
Valentine shot Sime an angry look. Valentine evidently wanted to treat the mob like a mob and shoot one or two, which would no doubt disperse the rest.
“Ja. Yes,” the leader said. He waved his gang back and then did a strange little flourish that involved his hand and forehead being directed at Sime, wincing a little as he bent slightly at the waist in pain.
“If you give every two-bit thug gold to leave us alone, we’ll be broke in forty-eight hours,” Duvalier said.
Sime shrugged. “I was told in my briefing that this would be the only difficult part of the journey, getting inland on the German coast. There are experts helping us with the rest.”
“Expertise like that almost got us killed outside of Halifax,” Valentine said.
“I suppose we could strike out on our own,” Sime responded smoothly. “Except we don’t know where we’re going. What do you say, Valentine? Warsaw? Oslo?”
“Everyone is getting raw,” Ahn-Kha said. “We need some food and a hot drink.”
“You feeling okay?” Valentine asked her.
“It’s just my crotch. I’ve had plenty of scumbags cop a quick feel. At least this one was young and reasonably good-looking. Body odor like a summer swamp, but good-looking. Now we’re out Sime’s bribe.”
“They would have run,” Valentine said.
“What about the shotgun?”
“If it even was loaded, I wouldn’t have given him a chance to use it. He would have taken my first bullet. He wasn’t watching me so closely, because I had my gun on someone else.”
“You didn’t like seeing someone touching me like that,” she said.
“Of course not. It’s disgusting.”
She shrugged. “One man’s disgusting is another’s champagne. I’ve learned that much in my years roaming around the zones.”
“You okay?” Pistols asked, as he checked his guns before putting them back in their holsters.
Why is everyone worried about my condition? I’m not a pregnant fifteen-year-old. I’m a goddamn Cat with over a decade in the KZs.
“Better than ever,” she said. It was nice of him to ask and not make a big scene about it. She shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. He seemed to like playing cards with Sime. Maybe they could switch from pinochle to poker one of these evenings and bury the hatchet. Valentine might even join in. She’d heard from sources in the Wolves that he was a pretty good cardplayer, too.
Their guide got them back in line and they struck out between the fields.
“We’re being followed,” Ahn-Kha said. “Some of the kids, I think.”
“Tell the guide to stop,” Sime said. Pistols loosened his weapon in its holster.
It turned out to be a couple, both in their early teens, a boy and a girl. They had a brief conversation through the translator.
“We want to travel with you. Just far enough to get out of the state. We’ve had enough of that gutter-pack.”
“We’ll be no trouble. We want to try to make it to the North. The Arctic.”
Sime shook his head. “No, our arrangements—”
“Were for two more than we actually have with us,” Valentine said.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“To whom? I doubt the Kurian Order took two kids out of Youth Vanguard training, or whatever they call it here, and inserted them into a gang of starving hooligans in the hope they’d be able to penetrate one of the Refugee Network’s lines. They don’t waste their agents hanging out with kids.”
“I’m in charge of this delegation.”
“You are in charge of Southern Command’s delegation,” Ahn-Kha said. “The Kentucky Alliance is willing to have these kids with us. For a little way.”
“You’ll have to forgive him, Sime,” Duvalier said. “He’s always picking up strays. It’s easier this way—believe me. Otherwise he’ll bitch all the way to the Baltic.”
In the end, they let “the kids” follow along. They shared their simple provisions with them. The kids produced some chocolate of their own, disgusting stuff that Duvalier recognized as KZ ration chocolate. If anything, it was worse than the American brand. She was a little surprised at that; she’d thought Europeans were connoisseurs of luxury goods.
They were passed over to a bike gang for transport to the Baltic, the Funkrad.
They were willing to take the kids along as well. They’d been expecting seven travellers from the North American delegation.
The phrase “bike gang” brings to mind leather, boots, and roaring motorcycles. This gang had the leathers, certainly, but they were leaner-lined, almost like sporting wear. The motorcycles were all electric jobs, slower but infinitely quieter. There were a few true bicycles in the group as well, pedaled by Germans with thighs like tree trunks. Along with the two-wheeled vehicles, there was a subcompact car and a van with cargo containers strapped to the roof and a rear hatch that held spare bike equipment, a camp stove, and other necessities for life on the road.
Most of Germany was well organized, by Kurian standards. Every person carried an identity card with home city and state. You needed no special authorization to move about your town or city, and within the state itself a pass was fairly easy to obtain. To leave your state, however, required approval from one of the regional security centers.
There were special exemptions, of course, and one of them was sporting teams and sports trainers. The Funkrad competed five or six times a year in Pan-European contests; the rest of their time was spent “training.” The men and women on the bicycles were “supported” by “coaches and trainers,” all riding the electric motorcycles, thirty all told, a group large enough to raise a cheer from sporting fans in the towns they passed through, but not so large it required much notice from city police or security forces.
Sometimes sports photographers rode along with the team, or journalists, or athletic candidates for membership on the team. Young fans who won entry into contests by participating in scrap metal or rubber drives could spend a week with their bicycling heroes as well. And sometimes they shuttled a handful of refugees from the northern foothills of the Alps to the North Sea.
Their pair of young lovers was dropped off at a junkyard near Itzehoe. One of the coaches knew the owner; the owner saved bike spares for the team, and they were always looking for help on their pickup routes. Even if the kids didn’t like Itzehoe, they might discover a new location while searching through scrap piles and demolished homes.
The only tricky part was finding an out-of-sight spot for Ahn-Kha, who was sure to excite comment.
“Perhaps we could be trying out a mascot?” one of the cyclists asked Doktor Lauter, the head coach and manager of the Funkrad.
“No, make a space for him in the van. Throw some sleeping mats down. We can put him just behind the seats. We will simply take precautions, many precautions, every time we stop to have a piss.”
That sort of earthy practicality marked their week with the Funkrad. They quietly buzzed through village after village on back roads as they headed east. Ahn-Kha suffered, having to stay in hiding, but the rest of the group relaxed and regained the camaraderie that had been lost with the death of Stamp and the wounding of Alexander.
The only one who seemed ill at ease during their time with the Funkrad was Pistols. Where the Germans were all sleek and graceful, he was awkward and waddling, a cowboy among ballerinas. They joked, she suspected, about the number of guns he carried (she knew the German word for gun: pistole, not that different from its English pronunciation). Pistols might be a tough enough man, but he was no cyclist or athlete, and he made no friends among the Germans.
Duvalier was no hand holder by nature, but at night she made an effort to socialize with Pistols. Sometimes she played cards with Ahn-Kha and him, or they patched their clothing. They fell asleep together in the back of the van, Ahn-Kha’s bulk warming them like a hot stove, talking quietly
about whatever drifted across their minds.
She’d made many journeys in her life, but she remembered the trip with the bike team as one of the best.
It was even fun. Fun was a stranger to her, or at best an acquaintance of limited contact.
Once in open country, flat and a mixture of woods, pasture, and field so that it resembled, to her, some parts of the Midwest, they began to really make time. The team’s management knew which towns held one or more Kurians, which had tougher Quislings and which didn’t, and they zigzagged through, heading mostly west, with little turns to the north.
One of the professional cyclists, a shaven-bald German named Horst who had leg muscles like oak roots wound around a boulder, took her out on a few trips on one of the coaches’ road bikes.
She’d been watching him practice, quietly enjoying the view. Before she knew him, she’d just mentally named him Fritz; he reminded her a little of a German shepherd she’d known by that name.
She was comfortable on bicycles, and they were a simple, inconspicuous way to get around a Kurian Zone. But she’d never ridden to race, just to get from point A to point B or to disappear quickly.
Of course she couldn’t match Horst’s power. So when they rode, she took off cross-country or through the woods, where her reflexes gave her an edge against those legs of his. She led Fritz on a merry chase, turning frequently so he couldn’t take advantage of his muscles to overtake her.
About the time she decided he was just lagging behind because he liked the view of her bottom bouncing above the bike saddle, she skidded to a halt.
“I’m lost,” she said. “I hope you can find your way back to the rest of the team.”
“They are south of us, heading for the Kiel Canal,” said Horst. “We will follow it to the Baltic.” Then he took a step closer and went on with “I would like to explore your canal.”
Yeesh. Leave it to a German to put it like that. Much of the fun went out of the day. She’d have to deal with either hurt feelings or anger. And who knew how much of it would transfer to the rest of the team?
“Down, Fritz,” she said, then realized with horror that she’d said it aloud.
