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“Well, then,” he said softly after a pause, “should we be going?”
Toms turned to Jak and Doc. He looked everywhere but directly at them, nodding without being able to bring himself to utter the slightest word. He picked up a portable handset and made for the side door of the wag, Doc and Jak at his rear.
Both were poised, even if they still had—as yet—no idea what for….
RYAN AND KRYSTY climbed out of the wag, followed by K.T. Looking up and down the length of the convoy, they could see J.B. and Mildred walking toward them, the giant Lou in their wake. Between the middle and end wags, sec men were strung out in a line, backs to the wags, facing the blank wall of oily green vegetation with expressions that veered between the nervous and the confused. They had no doubt that their sec compatriots on the other side of the road looked exactly the same.
Looking toward the lead wag, they could see Trader Toms, shuffling on the pavement, holding a shortwave handset and pointedly looking away from Doc and Jak. Even at this distance, it was obvious that both men were having trouble in not betraying the tension they felt.
Ryan and Krysty stood still, intent on waiting for J.B. and Mildred to join them. It was pretty obvious that K.T. was in no hurry, either, an impression reinforced when he spoke softly as Lou came within earshot.
“Lou, what the fuck is shortass doing?”
The giant smiled amiably. “You think I can ever work out how his mind works? He knows, and we will soon enough. C’mon, let’s move.”
The six people began to move toward the front of the convoy, feeling the questioning glances of the sec men bore into them as they passed. The handsets that K.T. and Lou carried crackled briefly before Toms’s voice sounded.
“C’mon, what are you waiting for? Hurry up.”
His tone was far from happy, and Ryan couldn’t help but notice the look that shot between the two sec lieutenants. They had no idea what the fat man wanted, and they were concerned at the way he sounded.
If Toms wanted a firefight, he could have it. His people obviously had little idea, if this was his intent, so despite being outnumbered, Ryan was sure his people could take out the sec force, or go down with most of them. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
As they drew level with the leading wag, eye contact with Doc and Jak made it clear that they should be ready to fight. The ghost of a smile crossed the albino teen’s visage. When was there a time when he wasn’t ready for such an eventuality?
Toms stepped back from his sec lieutenants, Ryan’s people and the sec man who had stepped out of the lead wag with him. He looked over all of them, slowly. It seemed to go on forever. In the elongated and pregnant pause, it seemed to Ryan that the land around them closed in. He was aware of the humid heat as the sun rose in the sky, its rays of light barely penetrating the thick canopy of leaves even though the heat bounced off the road before reflecting back off the oily, dark leaves. They absorbed the heat and moisture before bearing it back down on the people beneath.
The entire world seemed amplified. The quiet in which they found themselves now that the wag engines had died and they waited for the silent trader to speak only served to make the undertones—otherwise hidden—seem greater.
Ryan felt like his nerve endings were stretched taut enough to break; he knew without looking that the rest of his companions felt the same.
Yet still the fat man couldn’t bring himself to speak. Finally, when he did, it wasn’t at them. Rather, it was into the handset.
“Stewie, make up the jack that we owe the newbies and bring it up to me.”
The tension wasn’t so much broken as deflated, like a tire with a knife in it. Whatever they had been expecting—all of them—it wasn’t this. K.T. and Lou looked at each other, confusion written on their faces.
“Why, pray tell, are you asking for monies owed?” Doc questioned. “You surely can’t be thinking of dispensing with our services?”
Toms shrugged, but still couldn’t bring himself to look at them. “Well, these things have to happen, see, and—”
“Have to happen bullshit,” Ryan exploded. “What the fuck are you playing at? Paying us off out here? What do you plan to do, just take off without us?”
Even as he spoke, he could see from Toms’s face that he was right. But why? It made no sense.
“Boss, we’re going to a new ville that we know jack-shit about, and you want to get rid of extra sec?” Lou frowned.
“That’s just plain stupe. Only a complete fuckwad would do something like that,” K.T. added in a more forthright manner.
“He’s right,” Ryan added, fighting to keep his temper. “And you know he is.”
The one-eyed man’s first instinct was to action—but of what kind? They weren’t being threatened—if anything, the sec lieutenants did not want them to go—and yet they were about to be cast adrift outside of a ville, on a deserted road, for no reason that he could see.
“But what have we done?” Doc continued in the tone he had earlier adopted. He cast a quick glance toward where Ryan and the others were grouped, hoping that they would let him run with this. He felt that he had an affinity with the trader, or at least an affinity that the trader perceived. Perhaps he could get an answer where they would fail.
Toms shrugged. “It’s not about what you’ve done. Shit, you’ve been really good the short time you’ve been with us. But that’s kinda what this is about, I guess. How good you are at what you do.”
Mildred sighed. “Man, you are making no sense at all. And you know that what you’re doing is just gonna piss us off. So if you don’t want things to turn nasty, then you’d sure as hell better start explaining. And make sense, this time.”
Toms sighed. “Okay, okay—I will, but let’s just get things settled, first.” He spoke into the handset. “Stewie, for fuck’s sake—”
“Just coming,” a voice crackled back. J.B. looked back as he heard a wag door, loud in the now oppressive silence of the road. A fat man—not as tall as Lou, but rounder, and without the impression of underlying muscle—jumped out and huffed his way toward them. He carried a bag that jumped and jangled in his hand. It obviously contained local currency, and a fair amount. It was heavy enough to swing out of time with the blubber on the fat man’s body as he ran toward them. Red-faced and sweating, short of breath, he reached them and handed the bag to the trader.
Toms took it without acknowledgment, then spoke once more into the handset. “Okay, this is for all sec. Our newbies are leaving us, as of now. I’m paying them off, and we leave them here. They show any resistance, chop ’em down. We look after our own first. That’s an order.”
Even as he spoke the words, Ryan and his people couldn’t believe what they were hearing. There had been no provocation on their part, and they still had little or no idea why they were being left.
It was obvious, too, that Lou and K.T. felt the same way.
“Boss, what’s this about?” Lou asked, restraining K.T. as the fiery sec lieutenant was about to speak.
Toms sighed, rubbed the back of his hand—the one in which he still grasped the crackling handset—across his forehead.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he began, speaking to no one in particular, “it’s like this. You don’t get anything for free in this world. There’s always a trade-off. Even if it’s one that you might not like that much. Take Jackson Spire, for example. You think they got trade and jack all of a sudden for no reason? Course they haven’t. They got it because Arcadian thinks it’d be a good idea for the villes ’round Arcady to start to grow and develop. Something to do with this idea he has about rebuilding a new society. And they got to abide by a few things he says to get that jack. In order that he’ll send trade their way, by putting us onto them.”
“So the asswipe gets to feel like he’s got a big cock by waving at them,” K.T. fumed. “What’s that got to do with us? He sends us there to make them feel good, but he don’t own us.”
“Are you sure about that?” Krysty murmured, eyeing the trader.
Toms screwed his face up in an expression of self-disgust. “It’s like I say, you don’t get anything without a trade-off. They get a trader coming through, and we get first pickings…as long as I do something for Arcadian in return.”
“And that something is to pay us off and leave us here?” Ryan asked, incredulous. “What does that profit him?”
Toms sucked in his breath. “You know,” he said at length, “I really don’t know. Not for sure. Far as I can see, you didn’t do anything to piss him off while you were in Arcady. And you ain’t been nothing but good for us. Fact is, I was telling him that. Mebbe he wants you to work for him.”
“Bastard strange way of going about it,” J.B. mused. “Why not just ask us?”
“Because we could say no,” Mildred stated. “This way…”
“We have nowhere to go other than back,” Doc finished.
“You don’t have to do what Arcadian says,” Krysty directed at Toms. “You could just drive on to Jackson Spire, then go beyond.”
Toms grinned. “I could. But then I don’t know if he has sec there that’ll report back. Mebbe he could make it hot, start a firefight. I could certainly never come back this way again, and Arcady is good trade. It’s not like I gotta have you chilled, is it?”
Jak spoke for the first time. His words were, perhaps, surprising.
“We take and go. Toms play fair—give us jack. Supplies?” The last was a question, directed at the trader, who nodded. “Not forcing us do anything. Mebbe we go back, mebbe we move on.”
Ryan shrugged. He figured that Jak was right. Toms was making it easy for them, despite the threat of retaliation if they started a firefight.
“Okay, if that’s how it’s got to be.”
Toms’s relief was palpable. “I’m pleased you see it that way. Last thing I want is to have to fight.”
Because you’d be the first to get chilled, Ryan thought. But he said nothing. This wasn’t the time, and Toms wasn’t the enemy.
Ryan and his people stood back from the convoy while Lou and K.T. directed that their supplies be brought out and left with them. Then, as Toms ordered his sec force back into their wags, the two sec lieutenants left their former comrades. Little was said, but their unease with the resolution was plain.
The convoy started up and began to rumble down the flattop. The companions stood back and watched it disappear around a bend in the road until the last wag, and its exhaust, had cleared their view. Even the sound of the engines had become a distant rumble, fading beneath the rustling of the groves at their backs.
“Well,” Doc said brightly, “do we press on for pastures new? Or do we find out what this crazed baron really wants?”
“You calling someone crazy,” Mildred snorted. “Now that really isn’t a good sign.”
Chapter Three
If they had wondered why Toms had taken them about fifty miles out of the ville before stopping, then they had their answer soon after they opted to return. In many ways, it was a simple decision to make. Ahead, they knew, lay only Jackson Spires, over 150 miles away, on a road that was surrounded by territory that was certainly far from friendly.
Go that way, and they had no idea what lay between themselves and the next ville. And at the end of the road would be a ville that was a satellite of Arcady, along with a convoy full of wag crews who would know from their leader the possible consequences of not playing along with Baron Arcadian.
It was trouble whichever way they chose to look at it.
To go back was what the baron expected. Going against his expectation would give them some edge of advantage. But this way they knew the land, as they had recently passed it. Besides which, fifteen miles was going to leave them a lot less exhausted than 150 would. They would need to be on top of their game for whatever they faced.
“So that’s why it was such a strange distance,” Mildred said with a sigh as the sight hit her.
“Think he wants to test our ability?” J.B. asked with a sardonic edge.
“Play games, might get kick in balls,” Jak warned.
Ryan, Doc and Krysty just stood and looked, lost in their own thoughts. It hadn’t been obvious as they approached the sharp bend in the flattop, but as soon as they crested the angle of the bend, they could see that Arcadian’s people had been busy in the short time since the convoy had passed this way.
The road was impassable. Linked chains of man-traps, interspersed with land mines, had been laid across the surface. Barbed-wire barricades had been erected at regular intervals between the chains and mines. Wires that threaded through the barbed strands trailed away to generators that lay at the far end of the track made by the road modifications. It was possible that the generators weren’t operational. It was possible that the mines were inactive. There was little doubt about the man-traps. There was also a strong possibility that there were men waiting to take potshots at them if they slowed as they crossed the tracks, which they inevitably would.
There would also be men watching them in the groves as they went off-road. They all knew this.
“So is this is a test of our ingenuity, or does he wish to see how we cope with the mangroves?” Doc mused.
“Mangroves…yeah, guess you’re right there, Doc,” Mildred said. “I wonder why he’s cultivated shit like this so far from where it’s supposed to grow?”
“Perhaps,” Doc said heavily, “if we pass his little tests, then we may be permitted to know why he deems such things necessary.”
Ryan nodded. “That’s about right. Guess we should get going, then. Don’t want to disappoint the man. That can come later.”
Indicating the direction they should take with a wave of his arm, the one-eyed man led his people off-road, moving to the right of the road as they faced Arcady.
“MOVING WEST. Quasi-military formation. The one with the glasses is taking point. The albino is at the rear. One-eye and the redhead are sandwiching the old man and the black woman. Suggests that they are considered the weak link—no, correction, not weak, but rather not as strong. There is no suggestion in their behavior that they consider any of the group to be inferior. Perhaps it is, rather, a system based on knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the group, and moving accordingly. Suggests excellent reasoning skills. We will pursue at a distance. They’re moving toward Sector Five. We may be forced to drop back and lose them. Team Six should stand by.”
The squat, muscular man in black dropped the small handset from his mouth and nodded to his companion. Taller, more angular and also clad in black, he acknowledged, and in silence the two men moved off.
The undergrowth was thick, and it was slow progress to move through the shrubs, tangles of bramble and vine, and twisted tree trunks. Overhanging branches with viscous leaves that seemed to suck at the men’s faces as they pushed through them appeared to bar every possible path. The two watchers found it difficult going, and they were used to the territory. It came as no surprise that they made ground on their target group with relative ease. Yet it was at the same time impressive to observe the manner in which the targets under observation were making progress. The one-eyed man and the one with spectacles were using a panga and a Tekna knife—a fine piece, rarely seen in these parts, they observed—to hack their way through the thickest of the undergrowth. In so doing, they were making little noise, which in itself was testament to their ability. The others followed in their wake, careful to actually cover the trail that was being cut as soon as they had passed through. It showed an admirable caution.
As, indeed, did the fact that the albino hung back, keeping a sharp eye on their tail. Once or twice, it seemed that he knew he was being watched, necessitating that they pause. They couldn’t afford to be discovered. They could, however, afford to let the observed pass on.
“The albino seems to have acute senses. I suspect we have been spotted, if not positively identified. They haven’t returned for us, but rather than risk confrontation before they’re truly tested, I suggest that Team Six take over…”
“FIREBLAST AND FUCK!” Ryan cursed through gritted teeth. Their progress had been slower than he would have liked, but it had been steady, and there had been nothing to impede them other than the thickness of the undergrowth itself.
But not now. Now there was this…
The random patterns of the undergrowth resolved themselves into a series of regular structures: a maze that ran for as far as they could see on either side.
“Figure it runs both sides of the road?” J.B. queried.
“Got to,” Ryan replied. “Probably around the ville on all sides, leaving only the road as the one clear way in and out.”
Without another word, he sent Krysty and Mildred one way, Jak and Doc the other, to try to define how far the maze stretched. They returned shortly, neither pair with anything he wanted to hear.
“Tell you what,” Mildred said, “I’m betting this proscribes one hell of a circle. Tested it, too. I figure part of the reason for this shit—” she flicked at the creepers, vine and brambles that snaked between the trees “—is to cover this, like camou. If you feel underneath, there’s stone behind the green.”
Ryan grimaced. “I hate these bastards,” he muttered. “Dead ends and traps. Can’t even figure on it being fixed,” he added, recalling the maze they had encountered surrounding the ville of Atlantis. That time, movable walls had made their task almost impossible.
“We could mark our path as best as possible,” Mildred added, “but I’m telling you, we don’t have much to do it with. Not without losing stuff we don’t want to lose.”
While they had been talking, Jak had taken a step back and was looking up into the dark canopy that lay over their heads and extended across the top of the maze. Doc noticed, and stepped back to join him.
“Sure we followed,” Jak said bluntly. “Good, though. Can’t be sure where are.”
Doc knew that if Jak had trouble locating their tail, then they were skilled trackers. He also figured that they were keeping back for a reason.
“Jak,” he said slowly, “are you perhaps studying the top of the maze for a reason. Say, for instance, that if the trees extended over the length of the maze, then they may provide us with a route, albeit a precarious one, over the obstacles?”
Jak nodded. “Could be. Not much life here. No big predator. Not much birds. Got to be reason.”
Ryan and J.B. had stopped their own conversation and, like Mildred and Krysty, were taking note of Jak and Doc. Both glanced around, then looked up.
“Why leave the top of the maze exposed?” J.B. queried. “Up and over? Too easy.” He was thinking of their previous experience with a maze.
Ryan was ahead of him. “Last time it was clear across the top. This gives us some cover. Besides, with all this—” he slapped at the vine and bramble covering the stone “—who’d want to risk some nasty fucker resting up there just waiting for fresh meat? You’d take your chance on the ground, right?”
“Right,” Krysty affirmed. “Except the chances are that there isn’t anything up there. And if there is, we’ll be ready.”
“They not pick us off anyway,” Jak said mildly. “Want see how we do this. Even if they do see us.”
“How do you know?” J.B. queried.
“The young man affirms that we are being tailed,” Doc said with a wry grin. “I see no reason to disbelieve that—after all, if this is a test…”
