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
