in technology, but when avarice directed progress, the natural order of a community was destroyed. Lives were lost, and the Wasteland itself was being decimated.
When Jack and Katherine entered Covenant the next day, he wasn’t sure if the uneventful journey was a blessing or not. He’d half hoped for some sort of fight to help relieve his mood, and he knew his sister wouldn’t mind a bit of outlet either. At least the exertion of travel was better than waiting next to Mary’s body.
“Not a monk in sight,” Jack said as they walked toward the governor’s quarters.
“No one else knew about the meeting, Jack. If it wasn’t the brethren, that means the governor …” Katherine’s words trailed off.
“I know, but that doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Jack gave voice to the thought that had plagued him for much of their hike across the desert. He’d weighed it out in his mind, trying to find a reason why Governor Soanes would send them into a trap. They’d worked for him from almost the time they’d arrived in the Wasteland, hunting down those who broke laws or those who were skirting close to breaking them. In some cases, they’d delivered warnings; in others, they’d executed more final orders.
“Maybe it’s personal. The brethren haven’t ever been very tolerant of the law,” Jack mused.
“Could be, but why? We haven’t taken them to task for anything.” Katherine had obviously been pondering some of the very same thoughts he had. “If Soanes had word of a threat, he should’ve told us. If he didn’t, the brethren are playing their cards awfully close to the vest.”
“Just keep your eyes open,” Jack murmured as they approached two of the governor’s guards who stood on either side of the door to the squat, faded building.
The guards hadn’t expected him, but they’d known Jack long enough that they simply nodded in greeting. One of them gave Katherine a far too friendly look, but instead of her usual harsh words or occasional physical demonstration of exactly how much she did not like being leered at, Katherine merely smiled.
Jack opened the door, and as she entered he asked in a low voice, “What was that?”
“Groundwork if we need another pair of eyes,” she answered just as quietly.
The thought of needing spies in the governor’s office wasn’t one that set well with Jack, but he was, regrettably, already suspicious enough of the governor that he didn’t object. Once they were inside, they waited while the next guard sent his partner in to inform Governor Soanes of their presence.
As they walked into the governor’s office, Jack studied the Wastelander who had been his boss of sorts for years. He was a man who’d grown increasingly larger and slower from too much time behind a desk. Unlike a lot of the residents of the Wasteland, Soanes aged at the rate Jack associated with people back home. When they met, not long after Jack arrived, they’d been close in age, but after twenty-plus years, the governor looked like he was old enough to be Jack’s father. The Arrivals did more work for him than anyone else, and Jack had believed they’d had a common goal: preserving order as much as they could, helping divert crises even as Ajani worked to amass wealth and influence. Now Jack had to wonder if the governor had changed his stance.
“Jack, Kitty,” the governor greeted. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
The problem, however, was that the squat man didn’t appear to be at all surprised by their presence. His words and his expression were at odds, and Jack couldn’t tell whether it was simply because the governor was good at hiding his surprise—or if he was lying.
CHAPTER 3
When Kitty had walked into Governor Soanes’ office, she’d had to stamp down the impulse to start trouble as a test of his mettle. He wasn’t in any shape to fight, a detail that irritated her even in her most generous moods. She had no love for Ajani, the man who caused most of their problems, or for Garuda, the bloedzuiger her brother called friend, but at least those Wastelanders were able to defend themselves in a conflict. Soanes, however, had the look of something bloated. His gut protruded like a woman at the end of pregnancy, and his face had the look of a dog she’d had as a girl: jowls flapping about like the skin had started to stretch. Yet, much like that dog, he seemed more lazy than dangerous. The idea of him exerting himself to send the brethren after the Arrivals seemed to go against his persona.
“The brethren attacked us,” Kitty said as she dropped into one of the pair of chairs in front of the oversize desk where the governor sat. She twisted sideways, bending one leg and draping the other over the arm of the chair. Her dust and sand-coated boots would leave a mess behind, but it was in keeping with the demeanor of pure cussedness that she adopted around Governor Soanes. Since that day over two decades ago when she’d left home to follow after Jack, she’d learned to play a number of roles. When she was with Jack or Edgar, she felt like she could sometimes set all of that aside, but this was business. In dealing with Soanes, Jack would undoubtedly be polite, so Kitty would be brash.
The governor gestured to the empty chair beside Kitty, but Jack pointed to his holster and said, “Unless I’m disarmed, I’m more comfortable standing.”
Soanes nodded, but a slight frown crossed his face before he turned his attention to Kitty. He asked, “Did you … eliminate the monks?”
“Eliminate? We were supposed to be negotiating with them in peace; that was the order, wasn’t it?” Kitty flashed him a smile that was as falsely friendly as his always were.
And right on cue, with a warning tone in his voice and a hand on her shoulder, Jack said, “Katherine …”
“No, no. Kitty has a point,” the governor placated. “The objective was a peaceful negotiation.” He leaned back in his chair, which creaked but didn’t spill him to the floor. “To clarify, I see you here, so I’d surmised that the monks are no longer a problem. I chose my words poorly.”
“They killed one of ours.” Jack didn’t let any emotion into his voice, but if anyone knew him, they’d hear the emotion all the same.
“Dead dead or temporarily dead?”
Before Kitty could reply, Jack’s grip on her shoulder tightened in a restraining way, and he said, “We won’t know for a few more days.”
He squeezed again, this time with a couple of quick pinches, and Kitty took that to mean she was to speak now. “The brethren’s attack was unprovoked,” she started. “That kind of thing doesn’t usually happen without reason.”
“What my sister means to say is that we were wondering where you got your information before you passed it on to me.” Jack still sounded even-tempered, but the hand that was on her shoulder felt like a steel grip.
“Now, Jack, you know I can’t answer that,” Soanes said.
“Actually, that isn’t what I meant, Jackson,” Kitty said. “What I meant to say was that it seems suspicious that a peaceful meeting led to bullets and magic.” She came to her feet and stood beside her brother, positioning herself beside him rather than in front of him in case there was violence. She didn’t imagine that the governor was particularly adept with any weapons he might have concealed within his reach, but that only made him dangerous in a different way. An armed fool could be more dangerous than an experienced shooter.
“If you have some
