and his two sec lieutenants had dismounted from their wags to approach. This they did unarmed, before declaring themselves and making it known that, if little else, they had recognized Ryan and J.B. by description.
“You can see I got me one hell of a convoy, and I could use extra sec. ’Specially sec that knows what the hell it’s doing. And you boys do. Guess the rest of you ain’t no useless crap, either, else you wouldn’t be riding with One-eye and Four-eyes.”
The offensive words contrasted with the artless and disingenuous way in which they were spoken. If nothing else, Doc had to admit, they had been aware of Trader Toms’s failing from the first.
With little in the way of food and water left between them, and no real knowledge of the terrain, it had been an offer that couldn’t be refused.
Although, as the fat man shifted on his seat, raised one ass cheek and let rip with a fart so loud that it sounded above the whining note of the engine, Doc did ponder that a slow death from starvation and thirst may have been a better option. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jak tilt back slightly so that he could catch the fresh air that blew through an open port at the rear of the wag. As the fecal scent hit Doc, he wished that he had that option.
“You know, Doc, I love all that old shit,” Toms continued, with perhaps an inappropriate choice of words, in Doc’s view. “I like to try and pick up stuff like old mags, disks, vids… Funny, most people think they’re just junk, and they got no worth. Well, mebbe that’s right if you’re thinking just in terms of food or jack, and mebbe it’s right that you put that shit first, ’cause without it we ain’t gonna stand a chance. But that old stuff, man, the way people lived and thought before the big one… There’s wrinkles in there that can be used. Got a lot of ideas from that. Put me way up the food chain, more than people thought I ever would where I come from.”
“A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing,” Doc said, conscious of avoiding the irony in his voice while knowing at the same time that it would sail right over the greasy scalp of the trader. “However, the accumulation of knowledge, when applied, can reap dividends. Pay off,” he added, seeing the momentary look of puzzlement on Toms’s face.
The trader snapped his fingers and slapped a palm against a thigh covered with pants of a cloth so dirt encrusted as to be of indeterminate origin.
“Hell, that’s it exactly, Doc. Ain’t just what you know—it’s knowing who else knows it, and how the two of you can use that if you can’t turn it to your advantage on your own. That’s what I like about going to Arcady. That baron, Arcadian… There’s a man who knows his shit. Backward, forward, sideward and up a bear’s ass. Ain’t nothing that man don’t know. For real.”
Doc shrugged. “He certainly does seem to be a most learned man,” he murmured. Yes, he thought, and one who prized that knowledge and held it to himself jealously, unwilling to share. He had been cagey around Doc and his fellow travelers. Perhaps that could be put down to a healthy suspicion of those who didn’t usually journey alongside a trader with whom Arcadian seemed to do so much business.
But no. There was more to it than that. The baron was a ruler in every feudal sense that permeated these postskydark ages. Knowledge was one of the tools that he used to keep his people under the heel of his boot. Toms may have felt that he was a near equal—if not on a par—with the baron, but in truth he was a cretin in comparison. His learning was small, in real terms, if impressive for someone in this intellectually derelict wasteland. Doc would be the last to say this as a way of boosting his own ego—for where had all his learning got him in this world—but Toms was narrow-minded, and couldn’t visualize the uses of knowledge that Arcadian had seemed to have grasped with ease.
Because this was such a strong weapon in his armory, and because it was rarely challenged, so he had been unwilling to enter into the kind of discourse with Doc—particularly—and the others that Toms had tried to engineer. Toms could be ruthless in his business and the protection of his convoy and position. They had seen evidence of this. Despite his almost buffoonish persona, the workers on the convoy respected the way in which Toms had built up his convoy and given them a good livelihood in a world that placed such a thing at a premium.
Yet this was still a man who, when drunk on the potent brew that he carried for the recreation of his crews, could repeat endlessly the reasons why he liked to be called “The Don” whilst doing imitations of the actor from whom he had got the idea, cramming his cheeks with rags, shrugging and gesturing until he almost choked on the rags and his own laughter, falling flat and muttering about “Brando…brandy…” He thought he was so funny, Doc reflected, yet he was a harmless bore.
He couldn’t imagine Arcadian getting drunk, let alone having a repertoire of such party tricks. The baron had struck him as a man who could never allow himself to lose control in such a way. He had too much at stake: much that went beyond the wealth of the ville he ruled. Whatever it may be, Doc fervently hoped that he would never go back and find out.
Even as this thought crossed his mind, and he was aware of Toms burbling on about the conversion of his wags to run on water, not gas—and how he had seen something about this on an old vid, yet the motherfuck tape had frizzed to a snowstorm before all had been made clear—Doc could feel the cold fingers of fear tap at the nerves down his spine.
He looked at Jak. The albino youth’s normally impassive visage was curious. Doc shook his head slightly, then turned his attention back to the trader.
“Ah, yes, I believe one of the theories behind such vid wiping is to do with the way that oil companies liked to keep a monopoly on wag fuel. Not that different to now, really…”
It was the cue that Toms was waiting for: “Tell me about it. I did hear tell that the guy Ryan and B.J. ran with—” Doc had tired of the way in which Toms continuously got the Armorer’s name the wrong way around, but left correcting it for what seemed to be the thousandth time “—had a lake of gas. That would be cool, to find something like that again, instead of having to pay shit through the nose for what you can get. Then they complain when I have to up my prices because they up theirs. I mean, stands to any kind of reason, man, if…”
Doc allowed him to ramble on, half listening, yet disturbed by the ice that infused his blood.
RYAN CAWDOR and Krysty Wroth were riding in the eighth wag of the convoy, dead center. A fifteen-wag convoy was a pretty big undertaking and, like Doc, Ryan had decided that Toms wasn’t quite the idiot that he had first appeared to be. Nonetheless, both Krysty and himself had spent far too long in the lead wag, listening to his boring stories and putting up with the endless bodily functions that made this armored heat-trap seem preferable.
The center wag was under the command of K.T., one of the two sec lieutenants trusted with Toms’s convoy. A slim, almost girlish man of indeterminate age with dark circles under eyes that seemed to bulge out of his skull, K.T. was sharp but prone to fits of rage that seemed to come from nowhere. Ryan had wondered if it was jolt-induced when they first met, but had seen little sign of any narcotic usage on the convoy. Brew was okay. Toms drew the line at things that could truly impair efficiency. So it seemed that the sudden irrational fits of pique, and the colorful language that went with it, were merely part of K.T.’s natural state. Both Ryan and Krysty had heard some inventive cursing in their time, but had to admit that K.T. at full throttle showed a facility for stringing together obscenities that would make a deaf man blush. So it was that they were both secretly hoping that the sec lieutenant would blow his top over some trifling matter, as that was what seemed to trigger his temper. Ironically, under true pressure he was calm and collected.
But so far nothing on this leg of the journey—the first hop out of Arcady—had caused the sec man to explode. If anything, he
