Eden’s Twilight (17 page)

It was a tight fit getting the UCV through the front gate, but the wag made it without damaging the wall. Past the gate was a fieldstone wall with two large cannons ready to repel any invader.

The guns were probably set in stone, Ryan realized, and could not be turned to fire at the ville. Smart. Razor smart. The local baron was no fool.

To the right were the stables with a corral for horses, and to the left was a flat area of bare ground for the wags. War Wag One was parked there, with the Mack trucks nearby in a triangle formation to give each other maximum cover with their blasters. There were some oldies smoking pipes across the street, talking about the wags with a pregnant woman rocking in a wicker chair, her bare feet barely touching the ground.

Angling into the corner, Mildred parked the UCV and turned off the engines. To the locals, the arrival of any trader was pretty much like a space shuttle landing in a small town during her time. Everybody knew the things existed, but to see one only a few feet away was both terrifying and exhilarating.

On guard duty, J.B. stayed behind and locked the doors after the others decamped. Then he moved to the gunnery seat and turned on the Fifty, the heavy, vented barrel turning this way and that as he worked the joystick. A lot of the townsfolk moved away from the parked wags at this point, but they were soon replaced by others.

The ville was pretty standard; the companions had seen other small towns just like it countless times before. The winding streets were paved with predark bricks, the homes were mostly log cabins, squat and sturdy, the roofs a mixture of anything that could keep out the acid rain and winter snow: floor mats, plastic sheets, tar paper and patched canvas. The evening air was scented with the rich smell of horse manure, hot cooking oil, cooking soap, the stink of tanning leather and tangy wood smoke from a hundred stoves.

From a two-story building came the sound of raucous laughter, and the tinkle of a piano clearly announced it was a tavern. Lounging on the second-floor balconies were gaudy sluts smoking hand-rolled cigs and plumping their wares to anybody who seemed interested.

On the ground, cackling chickens ran underfoot, and a gang of children raced by in hot pursuit of a squealing piglet. In the gutter, a mangy dog was chewing an aced rat, while a fat cat was sleeping on a barrel. From somewhere nearby there came the steady clang of a blacksmith at work, some men sang a work song to the sound of sawing wood, and there came the crack of a whip closely followed by a scream of pain.

In the middle of the ville was a low hill, natural or artificial, it was impossible to tell from this distance. Sitting on the crest was an ornate two-story building, surrounded by squat fieldstone bunkers. Without a doubt, that was the home of the baron.

Over by an artesian well, Roberto and Jessica had set up some folding tables and were trading with the townspeople, exchanging a pair of repaired shoes for a bushel of turnips, an
arrow for a live chicken, a hammer for string of smoked fish, a fistful of nails for a skinned raccoon, a single brass for a tattered paperback book. Business was brisk, there were a lot of smiling faces, but armed sec men walked through the crowds, their hands holding crossbows and longblasters.

Suddenly, Jessica tugged on Roberto's arm, and he looked up to see the companions. He smiled briefly, then went back to work, talking, laughing and cutting deals.

“Okay, here's the download,” the sergeant said in a bored voice. “We got a new baron, so the taverns are open again. That is the good news. But he don't allow anything else, and that's the bad. Wolfweed gets you thrown out of the ville, jolt gets you an air dance.” The man rattled off the list as if he repeated it a hundred times a day. “We castrate for rape and blind ya for theft. Unless it's a horse, then we beat you to death and feed ya to the pigs. Basically, if a sec man says frog, you jump. Oh yeah, if you have any silver, talk to the baron, and he'll issue you ville jack. Don't trade any with the villagers. He don't take kindly to that, and neither do we.”

“Fair enough,” Ryan said. “Any place we can get some chow?”

“Howard's is the best,” another sec man drawled, jerking a thumb at the tavern. “Jus' don't order a pie. They taste great, but always make ya sick.”

As the sec men walked away, the companions waited before talking among themselves.

“What was that about silver?” Mildred muttered, shifting her med kit. Professionally, she was pleased to see the latrines placed far away from the well and the horse stable. There would be no cholera or typhoid here.

“Perhaps the baron knows how to make fulminating guncotton,” Krysty said, looking at some greenhouses farther back inside the ville. She had a strong dislike for those ever since running into a baron who fed people into a woodchipper to make his loam.

Ryan agreed. “That type of explosive takes a lot of time to make, but the more silver you have, the faster it goes.”

“Indeed, sir,” Doc added, twirling his ebony stick to finally rest it between his shoes. “One can never have enough good friends, or high explosives.”

“Frag it, mebbe he just likes shiny,” Ryan growled, heading for the tavern. “Food is at the top of our list.” He had already caught a whiff of onions frying with bacon, and he only hoped it wasn't some kind of pie.

 

“H
E'S HERE
,” L
INDA SAID
, the words momentarily visible as she exhaled sweet smoke. Then she took another drag of the homemade cigarette, and filled her lungs to the point where her huge breasts nearly fell out of her loose bodice.

“What was that?” the man asked across the bedroom, looking up from putting on a boot.

“Your friend is here,” Linda repeated, puckering her painted lips to blow a smoke ring. The gaudy slut was reclining in a chair on the balcony, her skirt hitched up high, and she flashed a peek of the treasure within to any man, or woman, who showed interest. Linda was no prude like some of the sluts. Tongues and fingers did it for her just as well.

“Who…Describe him,” the man demanded hastily, tugging on the second boot, then grabbing suspenders to pull up his pants.

“Happy to.” Linda smiled around the cig. “Big fella, and I do mean big. Curly black hair, scar on his face, eye patch, fancy blasters. He's with a redhead with tits almost as big as mine, a healer, I can see her med bag, an albino and a wrinklie in weird clothing walking with a stick.” She chuckled and scratched an armpit. “That's gotta be him, honey. Now where's my reward?”

Walking quickly to the entrance of the balcony, Delacort looked down upon the bustling ville and spotted Ryan instantly, heading straight for the tavern, and it wasn't even
night yet. The damn fools weren't supposed to get here before dark. This was going to ruin everything!

“I asked about the reward,” Linda repeated, her silken tones taking on a hard edge.

Ignoring the slut, Delacort rushed over to the bed.

Sprawled naked under a damp sheet, Billy was sound asleep, his gunbelt hung over a newel only inches from outstretched fingers. Nudging the bed with his knee, Delacort stepped back fast, and the boy came awake with a leaf-shaped throwing knife in his hand.

“They're here,” Delacort growled. “So we gotta take 'em now. Right now. No choice.”

Rising naked from the warm bed, the boy yawned and sheathed the throwing knife to draw the stiletto. Smiling at the thin blade, he tested the needletip on a thumb, then licked off the bright red drop of blood.

“No prob,” Billy whispered, his face shiny with excitement. “I'll take care of them, you handle the slut.”

“Fair enough.”

“What are you talking about?” Linda demanded suspiciously, a hand slipping into her bodice to touch a razor blade hidden there for emergencies. But before she could draw the blade, Billy made a jerking motion, she turned around fast and Delacort slammed the barrel of his blaster into the back of her head. Wiping the wheelgun clean on the slut's lacy dress, Delacort holstered the weapon. “Now let's go have some real fun.”

Entering the tavern, the companions were greeted by a wave of warmth reeking of new shine, old sweat and sex. Across the room, a busty woman wearing only a feathered robe was leading a young sec man up the stairs. She was giggling, he was blushing, and nobody else paid them any attention whatsoever.

Sitting on a stool at the end of the bar, a young girl of Asian ancestry was wearing a pale green dress slit up the side to show a lot of thigh, the neckline low enough to almost expose her pert breasts. Touching her ebony hair, the slut pointedly ignored Doc, but smiled warmly at Ryan. He looked back coldly, and rested an arm on Krysty's shoulder. Accepting the rebuff, the slut turned her smiling attention to J.B., but Mildred already had a hand tucked into his rear pocket, the universal signal of sexual partnership. With a sigh, the woman glanced briefly at Jak, then shrugged and lit a cigarette.

“It seems that the young lady at the bar thinks you are a mutie of some kind, Jak,” Doc said to the unconcerned teen.

“Good,” Jak replied. “I like riding, but prefer wild filly, not ville swayback.”

“Well said, my young friend! So faithful in love, so gallant in war, I daresay there was not a knight like the young Lochinvar!”

Some of the locals looked up at the shout, then decided it was not the start of a fight and went back to their drinking.

Easing the grip on their blasters, a group of sec men over
by an open window continued to play cards, live brass piled on the table instead of chips or jack. A wrinklie was softly snoring on top of a table, a mug of shine still tight in his hand, and a scrawny kid was sitting alone at a table, industriously eating soup with a wooden spoon, her bare feet dangling inches off the floor. A dog lay nearby watching intently and eagerly wagging his tail.

“The locals seem a little jumpy,” Krysty said softly, her hair moving forward to hide her words. “Almost as if they're expecting trouble from us. But they must know that we're with Roberto.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ryan said, giving the woman a squeeze to bring her closer. “Let me know if you feel anything coming our way. A half-second warning can make all the difference.”

She nodded in response.

The walls were heavily decorated with faded posters of Mexico, Australia and the Bahamas, obviously looted from a travel agency. Mildred noted that there were no posters of Switzerland or Colorado, but that only made sense. For folks living in the middle of a cloudy mountain range, the sunny beach was probably their dream of heaven.

The windows were a mix of clear glass and oiled paper where an irreplaceable pane had been broken. The work was expertly done. However, the floor of the tavern was a patchwork of wooden boards and irregular pieces of linoleum. Shoddy workmanship at best.

Had to have been different owners of the tavern over the years, Ryan thought. Some cared about the place, while others did not. That made the man uneasy, although he could not tell why, and he decided to stay on his guard. There was something wrong about this ville, in spite of what Roberto said, something terribly wrong. Ryan could feel it in his bones.

Finding a table in the corner where they could watch the front door, the companions took chairs, then placed their blasters in plain sight. A couple of people who had seemed
pleased at their appearance turned away from the companions and concentrated very hard on doing something else. The sec men paid more attention to the blasters than the companions, as if registering type, style and condition, then they went back to playing cards and ignored both.

“That worked well,” Mildred said under her breath, settling the med kit on her lap.

“Always does,” J.B. agreed thankfully.

A bucktoothed waitress came over for their order and left looking bored and disinterested.

“Bony,” Jak noted in displeasure. “Not good sign about food.”

“Too true, my young friend,” Doc agreed. “One should always be wary of a skinny cook, a drunk banker, a sweaty cop and a happy mortician.”

“Cop?”

“An old term for sec man.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

In short order, the food was served, fish stew in wood bowls, sliced black bread and a tin pot of stewed apples. Nothing was said for a while as the companions dug in and concentrated on just eating. The stew was watery, the apples bland, but the bread smelled like heaven and tasted even better, although there was a strange aftertaste.

“Don't eat any more of that,” Mildred said, pushing away the plate of sliced bread. “There's some sort of contaminant. Mold, lead, I don't know what. The cook probably just had dirty hands, but the last thing you want is a case of cholera.”

“Damn,” Jak muttered, putting back a slice. He had eaten the first few rounds so fast he wouldn't have noticed if the bread possessed tentacles. “Stew okay?”

“Fine.” She smiled. “If there's anything bad in there, I can't taste it.”

“While I can barely taste it at all, madam,” Doc added,
pouring a spoonful of the thin stuff back into his bowl. “I do believe that I have told lies thinner than this ethereal broth.”

Reaching into a pocket, Krysty started to offer the scholar a packet of salt from an old MRE envelope, when she noticed that Ryan was not eating, but oddly inspecting his spoon.

“Something wrong, lover?” she asked, resisting the urge to look around the room. If he was planning something, that might tip his hand.

“Don't know yet,” Ryan replied, watching a drunk stumble across the tavern, bumping into people and mumbling apologies. The drunk was young, with tousled hair as if just awoken. However, the teenager didn't seem disoriented enough to be really drunk, and the one-eyed man mentally classified him as a thief, colliding with the patrons to snatch what he could from their pockets. It was a dangerous ploy in a room full of armed people. Unless he was only pretending to be a thief, the same way he wasn't really drunk.

His combat instincts on the alert, Ryan moved his chair away from the table. As the hiccupping youth staggered their way, Ryan turned and thrust out a stiff arm to shove the fellow away. But as he did, there was a brief sensation of warmth across his chest and suddenly his shirt was darkening with blood.

“Razor!” Jak snarled, jerking an arm toward the stranger.

Thwarted of an easy chill, Billy moved lightning fast out of the way of the thrown blade and it thudded into the counter, quivering from the force with which it was thrown.

Sweeping his arms across the table, Ryan sent his bowl of stew into the face of the teenager and Krysty kicked an empty chair off the floor. It hit the youth and down he went, only to roll back up, a knife in one hand, a remade blaster in the other, the barrel lumpy and patched with gray tape.

The companions dived aside as the weapon barked, the window shattered and somebody screamed from outside.

Everybody in the tavern was moving now, pulling blasters,
throwing axes and clubs, but unsure of exactly what was happening. Taking advantage of the confusion, Billy stood behind the card players and fired again at the companions. A wooden mug of shine exploded in front of Jak, blinding him with foam and splinters. Doc pulled him low, and Mildred returned fire, catching Billy in the shoulder, spinning him, blood spraying everywhere.

Trembling all over, Krysty dropped her blaster from splayed fingers and began to scream in mindless agony as a small clump of her hair snipped off by the round gently floated away on the breeze from the window.

Raising a chair as a shield, Ryan charged, and Billy dived over the counter to belly shoot the bartender and burst out a side door onto the street.

His combat boots thumping on the floorboards, Ryan was close at hand, even though he knew it was a trap. Turning upward, he saw the second coldheart on the balcony taking aim with a rapidfire. Ryan fired just as a knife flashed past his face, scoring a bloody furrow along his cheek, then the balcony exploded into blood and dust as the .50-caliber machine gun on the UCV cut loose with a hellstorm of hot lead, the heavy-caliber rounds tearing the coldheart apart and sending him flying through the glass doors behind.

Ignoring the dead man, Ryan took off after the teenager, with Doc and Jak close behind. However, Billy kept moving through the confused crowd, making it impossible for them to get a clear shot. He fired twice back at them, but the first round hit nothing and the second hammered a water barrel. Dozens of townsfolk had blasters out, some running away, some looking confused, others grinning, ready for a chill.

Suddenly finding himself facing a wall of grim sec men, Billy shot a young woman in the face and grabbed the infant from her arms before it hit the ground.

“Back off, or I ace the kid!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. Clearly the teenager was terrified. The plan had
gone wrong with lightning speed, and without Delacort for guidance, he had no idea what to do next. Except grab a hostage, get outside the wall, then run. Somewhere in the woods he'd find Pete. Then he would be safe. Yes, that was it, find Pete and everything would be okay!

Without pausing in his stride, Ryan leveled the SIG-Sauer and fired once.

A neat black hole appeared between Billy's eyes, and the back of his head jerked as it erupted, the spray smacking wetly on the wall of the blacksmith's shack. Already aced, the teenager worked his mouth as if trying to speak, the last impulses of his pulped brain still commanding his body, then his arms relaxed and he folded to the ground. Howling loudly, the infant rolled onto the hard bricks and started making even more noise than before.

Several women rushed from the mob to gather up the infant and carry him away from the bloody carnage.

“Nuke me!” a sec man exclaimed, lowering his scattergun. “That was a hell of a shot, One-Eye!”

“I wanted him alive,” Ryan said, holstering the blaster. “Kid okay?”

“Looks like. Kin of yours?”

“Nope.”

“You spent brass on a stranger?”

Just then a large man appeared out of the crowd, closely flanked by several armed sec men. His clothes were clean, and he carried a predark machine pistol, the deadly weapon gleaming with oil. Nobody had to say that this was the ruler of the ville; the man wore his rank like a mantle of authority.

“All right, what the frag is going on here!” Baron Kirkland Conway demanded, a hand resting on the holstered 9 mm Ingram rapidfire. “Davis, did you see what happened?”

“Yes, sir, baron,” the sec man said respectfully, giving a crisp salute. “This coldheart came out of the tavern with One-Eye over there chasing after him like a starving mutie. Some
guy on the balcony was waiting for them and popped a shot at One-Eye, then that war wag opened up with a Fifty and put the sniper on the last train west. The running guy fired a couple of times, hitting nothing, and before we could grab him, the nuke-sucker shot Rhonda and grabbed her babe. Next thing I know, the coldheart is looking at forever and One-Eye is holstering his piece.”

“That fast?” Conway asked, raising an eyebrow. “He shot while running?”

“Yes, sir. Never seen anything like it!”

“Me, neither,” the baron admitted. “What started the fight in the tavern? Somebody cheating at cards? Grab the wrong ass?”

“Hell, no!” one of the tavern's sluts declared, fists resting on plump hips. “This pinhead charged down from Linda's room, poured a beer over his head, then started staggering around like he was wild drunk.”

“He was pulling a filch?”

“Yes, sir. The outlanders called him on it, blasters started banging, and the aced guy ran behind the bar, chilled Hobart, and ran outside.”

“Hobart got aced?” the baron demanded, his voice taking on a new tone.

The slut nodded. “Deader than DeeCee.”

An angry murmur rose from the attending crowd and somebody spit on the cooling corpse.

“Anybody else hurt or aced?” the baron demanded.

“Linda,” the slut said, her tone softening. “Somebody…somebody beat her with a blaster. She's…she's…”

“That's okay,” the baron said with surprising gentleness. “I understand, Yurizane.” Looking at the second story of the tavern, he saw that there was blood dripping off the ruined balcony. “Probably the coldheart that popped a cap at One-Eye,” the baron guessed, hitching up his gunbelt. “Well, the Fifty took care of him, so that debt is paid. Is the baby hurt?”

“Just bruised a little,” a wrinklie said, proffering the infant for inspection.

The baron waved her off. “I'm no healer,” he said. “You say it—she?”

“He, my lord.”

“If you say he's okay, then I take your word.” Looking down at the chilled mother, Conway sighed. “Well, I know that Rhonda has no family, so…anybody want the kid?”

“I'll take him,” the blacksmith said, advancing from the shadowy interior of the shop. “My wife passed away last month, and I got no other kin.”

“Now you do,” the baron stated. “This is your new son…” He waited.

“Daniel, Baron. Daniel Stewart.”

“Raise him right, or I'll hear about it. Savvy?”