of the cache stored in the redoubt they’d just exited, but even so, it would have shown some signs of wear by now.
“You noticed it, too?” J.B. asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“Nice condition,” Ryan nodded.
“Ammo looks good, too. Not new but good quality reload stuff.”
“Mebbe the baron’s a big-time trader,” J.B. suggested.
“Trading what?” Ryan wondered.
J.B. shrugged now that the sec leader was within earshot.
“Welcome,” the short man said. “My name is Robards. I’m sec chief for Baron DeMann.”
“Name’s Ryan.” He pointed his way around the group of friends. “This is Jak, J.B., Doc, Mildred and Krysty.”
“Pleased to meet you all, and I know I speak for the baron when I say he will be delighted to meet you as well.”
Eleander and Moira walked past Sec chief Robards, their heads down as if in shame. The other two sec men fell in line behind the two women, as though they were going to keep an eye on them all the way back to the ville.
“My dear Mr. Robards, as you might have noticed, I am getting on in years and I am not ashamed to say that I am not quite up to a long walk under this stifling sun.” Doc wiped a bony hand across his forehead to emphasize the point. “And of course, young Jak’s not doing so well, either. I am curious to know how far it is to this ville of yours because if it is any great distance, I would rather take a rest now and make the journey all in one go.”
“Not to worry old-timer,” Robards said with a smile. “You’ll all be riding to the ville.”
Robards led them through the trees, and as the forest first thinned and then came to an end, they came upon a large dirty yellow wag. There was no glass in any of the window frames and the sides had been reinforced with steel plate, but there were plenty of seats inside for all of them.
“It’s an old school bus,” Mildred said in disbelief.
“That looks as if it might do the job quite nicely,” Doc said, nodding in appreciation.
“Wags, too,” Ryan muttered when he was out of earshot of the sec chief.
“Whatever he’s trading,” J.B. commented, “he must trade a lot of it, or be a really good trader.”
“Good, ruthless or dishonest,” Ryan said.
Chapter Three
The ride in the wag was bumpy, but the vehicle made good time on the washed-out dirt roads and open fields that led back to the ville.
Ryan had hoped to have the chance to talk with Moira or Eleander along the way, but the two women had been placed in the seats directly behind the driver and across the aisle from Sec chief Robards. No one was more disappointed with the seating arrangement than Doc, who had tried to take the seat next to Eleander, only to be politely told to move toward the back of the wag by one of the sec men.
“Don’t tell me you’ve taken a shine to the woman,” Mildred said, as Doc made his way back to where the friends were sitting.
For a moment Doc looked stuck for words. Finally, he said, “I find the lady attractive, yes. Any woman who ventured this far from her ville just to enjoy the pleasure of a naked swim in a cool river is…intriguing to say the least.”
“Sure is curious,” Mildred acknowledged. “Maybe even a bit strange.”
“Lots strange about ville,” Jak said through slightly clenched teeth.
J.B. was just about to comment when the wag crested a rise and the ville suddenly appeared before them.
It was a fair-sized ville in two distinct parts. On the edges were all manner of run-down and ramshackle dwellings, and several areas made up of tents. Ryan recognized a few of the structures as gaudy houses and canteens, and guessed that the rest were flophouses and shelters for the ville’s bottom-feeders. Past the outlying ghetto was a section of the ville that was fenced in by a wall of burned-out wags, piles of broken cinder blocks and bricks, and rusty and twisted steel girders. If there had once been a city on this spot, its remains had been pushed, pulled and dragged into a mile-long circle of eight-foot-high rubble. The front gate of the ville was a ten- or twelve-foot gap in the wall, which was closed off by a pair of thick wooden doors that swung freely on two massive hinged wooden posts. Most likely they served as telephone poles in pre-Dark days.
A lookout in a crow’s nest set atop the pole on the right acknowledged the driver of the wag as it approached, and the doors swung open slowly to let the vehicle inside the ville.
As the gap between the doors inched wider, Ryan studied the buildings inside the wall. Like the structures on the outside, most of the buildings inside looked slapped together, with a few looking as if they’d been made from the cargo containers. Windows had been cut into the sides of the big square boxes to make living quarters, while others had been fitted with pipes and exhausts that suggested to Ryan that the ville’s baron was more of a manufacturer than a trader. In the distance, toward the back of the ville, Ryan could make out large glass houses similar to the kind once used on pre-Dark farms. So, in addition to making items for trade, the ville grew its own food. That would explain the well-maintained wag and a well-armed and organized sec force.
There were obviously things worth protecting inside the walls.
The wag pulled up in front of a stack of square steel boxes, each set on top of another like bricks. The door to the wag opened and one of the sec men got out, followed by Eleander and Moira. Doc and the others got up to exit the wag along with the women, but Robards put up a hand to stop them. “They get off here,” he said. “You’re going somewhere else.”
The friends sat down.
Robards stepped off the wag and spoke with one of his sec men. When he was done, the sec man double-timed it down the road. Then the sec boss got back on the wag and it lurched forward as it slowly got back underway.
Jak let out a slight groan of pain as the wag was jostled by a bump in the road, then quickly said, “Not hurt.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Mildred responded.
The wag pulled up in front of another series of stacked steel boxes and Robards turned and pointed to Jak. “This is where he gets off. There are people inside who can help him. They know he’s coming.”
Jak got up from his seat.
Mildred stood up as well.
“Are you injured, too?” Robards asked Mildred.
“No, but I’m going with him,” Mildred said.
Robards seemed to consider it a moment.
“She has some experience as a healer,” Ryan said at last. “Especially with blaster wounds.”
Robards nodded, a bit reluctantly, and stepped off the wag. He led Jak and Mildred inside one of the stacked steel boxes and the rest of the friends
