by James Axler
"You couldn't help it," Krysty said.
"Sure. But the way those sick bastards loved it! Nothing like a public killing. Surprised more barons don't liven their villes with 'em. I know some do, but never with fucking stones. Fireblast! I just want t'get to bed now."
But the day wasn't over quite yet.
Without knocking, the sec commander came marching into the long room, stopping in his tracks when he saw Krysty and Lori sitting on the beds with the rest of the group.
"Outworlder Cawdor. The home-keeps don't sleep or eat with men. Only whores. You said… ?"
"No, they're not whores."
"Then they go."
"What?"
"You walk the line and you'll be fine. They can stay tonight. Past nonperson's curfew on street. They'd be in the quarry at dusk tomorrow if they were caught out now. This letter from the mayor tells you what's going to happen."
It was short and to the point, written in a neat, italic, sloping script on rough-edged handmade paper: "Outworlders report to me at nine in the forenoon. Then to militia induction. All passes and food creds will then be issued and accommodation arranged separately. Home-keeps to Arthur Sissy wing of workhouse for acceptance into general pool. First sight makes me reckon both could be whores if I decide suitable." It was signed "Theodore J. Sissy, Mayor."
There was also a postscript, obviously added as an afterthought: "Outworlder Lauren is a suss-mutie. He will be taken to the lake for rogation and nondesirable rating."
After the sec man had left, Ryan silently passed the note around. Finnegan read last. "Welcome to Ginnsburg Falls," he said. "Friendliest fucking little town in the West."
Chapter Eleven
JAK SLIPPED AWAY at around three in the morning. They'd talked for a long while, deciding whether they should all break and run for it. The girls were both for leaving, but they were eventually overruled. Ryan had pointed out that if all seven of them escaped from the ville it was certain that the whole sec force would be turned out to hunt them into the mountains.
"Head out, kid," Ryan said finally. "Krysty 'n Lori, go where they tell you. We'll step careful, like walking on eggs. This ville is—"
"So fucking far out it's going to fucking meet itself coming back again," Finn said.
"Right," Ryan agreed. "I saw a big wag on the way to the stoning. Looked gassed up and ready to roll. We'll try to check it out sometime, if we get a chance. Get us some food and drink."
"I could find it in my heart to relish snuffing out a life or two," Doc Tanner said quietly. His deep, resonant voice was contemplative, his eyes staring out into some unseeable distance. "I've seldom met such bred-in-the-bone evil as in that gimpy dwarf."
"Main thing is to be away clear," J.B. said. "Won't be easy."
"Where to meet?" Jak asked.
"Depends on how many chase," Ryan replied. "We all agreed to track that radio message. The Kenworth truck's got a trans-receiver in the cab. Saw the whip aerial. Saw the only highway north, running along the side of the big lake. Past the quarry road. When you get clear of the ville, take that. Move fast and keep your eyes behind you."
The albino nodded. "Keep sec men out of m'ass. I'll hide up, 'round ten miles out. If'n there's fork, I'll leave marker which took. Watch for me."
Quickly they gathered around the open window of the dorm, which overlooked the sullen expanse of the lake at the rear of the long building, and watched Jak leave. Finn had crept down, making sure the elderly janitor was sleeping in his room in the basement near the roaring boiler.
"Keep warm," Krysty warned the boy.
"Sure. By time get safe away, light'll have come up. Find shelter. Got fire."
"Go," Ryan said, patting the skinny boy on the shoulder, feeling a pang of doubt and letting him slip away alone into the Oregon blackness.
"WELCOME TO GINNSBURO FALLS," Mayor Sissy said, his tiny frame perched behind a massive leather-topped desk with a polished oil lamp at either end. "I am touched with grief that your colleague, Outworlder Lauren, has run away."
His great head wobbled and shook on his scrawny neck, as though it might topple onto his desk at any moment. Behind him stood two stone-faced sec men, arms folded across their chests, carbines slung over their shoulders. Ryan stood with Doc, J.B. and Finn, facing him, trying to look calm and under control, knowing that a wrong word here could result in a collective icing.
"Nobody speaks to me? I think that this must be because of guilt."
Ryan shook his head. "Not so, Mayor Sissy. The boy joined us only hours before we met your sec patrol. We thought he might be a mutie, but we let him travel with us until we could be sure."
"If you'd been sure?"
"If we'd been sure the boy was a mutie, then I'd have chilled him myself."
"Or brought him here for trial and then execution."
"Yeah, of course."
"Now we must decide what to do with you. Your home-keeps are waiting for me to see them and decide if they are truly whores. What is your opinion, Outworlder Cawdor? Whores?"
Ryan shrugged, as though the question wasn't of the least concern to him. "What you decide will be right, Mayor Sissy."
He clapped his chubby little hands softly. "Well spoken, for an outworlder. You will all do well in our militia. But not the dotard," he said, pointing at Doc Tanner.,"He can go to the Antigone Sissy Home for the Congenitally Senile and then be tested for removal to the Ronald W. Sissy Euthanasia Center."
"Senile! Euthanasia!" Doc roared, stamping the end of his sword stick hard on the floor and making both sec men reach for their blasters. "You posturing little… urrgh."
Ryan shut him up the only way he knew how, elbowing him so hard in the guts that Doc folded over like an eager courtier, dropping to his knees with a cracking of joints. His face turned the color of curdled milk, and he gasped for breath.
"See how he behaves," Mayor Sissy said. "So undignified for one so old."
"Old, maybe," Doc said quietly. "Not surfeit-swelled or profane."
"What are you babbling about, old man?"
"Just a thought came from nowheres, Mayor Sissy. Be glad to go and see this Home you talked about."
"Good, that's better. If you live in Ginnsburg Falls and you walk the line… what then?"
"You'll be fine," they said in chorus, receiving a beam of delight in reward.
"Excellent, outworlders." Sissy leaned back, ticking points off on his fingers. "The white-headed mutie will be hunted and destroyed. The old man to the home. That can wait until the morrow. The home-keeps for me to see… I shall leave that for tomorrow. I have to oversee an exposing."
"A what?" Ryan asked.
"An exposing, outworlder. All the nonperson babies born in the past three months will all be taken by the elders of the council and exposed on the slopes about the ville. It is one of the most important of all our rites to maintain the proper balance as our founders decided."
Ryan took a deep breath, trying to school his face to blankness. "I see, Mayor. Where is this done?"
"To the west, at the exposing place. The creatures of the wild gather for the ceremony."
At the back of Ryan's mind was still that peculiar radio message they'd received, promising help for anyone who went north.
"Not to the north?"
Sissy shook his head so violently that his tiny blue eyes rolled like marbles in lard. "Never north, you cretin! Even a stupe outworlder should know that. North is trouble and darkness and death. Any citizen of my ville that goes north is a dead man!"
"Should we go for the induction?" Ryan asked after the tiny mannikin had sat slumped in his wheelchair for several moments, seemingly exhausted by his vituperative outburst.
"Yes, go. No, wait. Wait. If there is to be the exposing today, many sec men will be busy. Let it wait. Go back to your dorms, or walk about the ville. Enjoy it. See what a pleasant life we lead here. Creds and passes will be issued. Don't ask what Ginnsburg Falls can do for you, ask what you can do for Ginnsburg Falls.
"
As they stepped out into the warm sunshine, Finn glanced around to make sure he couldn't be overheard. "Know what I don't understand? Why the fuck isn't it called Sissy Falls?"
None of them could come up with an answer.
THE WALK BACK THROUGH town heightened their feeling of alienation.
The ville was immaculate. There were no drink houses and no gaudies, except for the main one where most of the women were herded—kept in a form of purdah, locked away in seclusion and totally subservient to the whims of the males.
The clothes and the buildings seemed to conform to some sort of norm. Homes were neat frame houses, each with its own trim front garden and wire-fenced back garden. Ryan noticed that every house was painted white, and all of them looked as if they'd been decorated within the past few months.
"No blacks," Finnegan pointed out.
"All good, decent, red-neck WASPs," Doc Tanner said cryptically. None of the others knew what he meant by that, except that it sounded as if he were being ironic.
"No commies or Catholics or aidies," J.B. said, watching the good people of Ginnsburg Falls parading nervously past the outworlders.
"Some of these buildings go back better'n a hundred years," Doc Tanner observed. "And all the newer ones are built on precisely the same pattern. All got identical mailboxes and a box for the daily copy of the Regulator. Damnedest ville I ever did see. Can't wait to shake its dust off of my boots."
THEY ATE LUNCH TOGETHER, despite the disapproving glares and sniffs of the janitor. The food was reasonable, basic meat and vegetables. The meat was protosoya, flavored with fresh herbs, tarragon and nutmeg predominating. The vegetables were compressed blocks of spinach and shredded carrots with oversteamed artichokes. To complete the meal there were slabs of green gelatin, quivering gently on plastic dishes.
"Mayor says them got to go to the workhouse," the janitor said, offering them a malicious, gap-toothed grin.
"Tomorrow, he told us," Ryan said.
"New message. Today. Three in the afternoon, they go. Down the Arthur Sissy wing. Near the lake. By the wag park. Yeah, got to go, got to get an' go an' go and get gone they gotta go."
He went out, slamming the cream-painted door behind him. Doc Tanner shook his head. "Now there's a truly prime candidate for senility and euthanasia if ever I saw one. I'll slip him the mickey myself."
"We have to go?" Lori asked plaintively.
Krysty patted her hand. "Come on, lover," she said, to Ryan. "This has gone on better than long enough. This place is sicksville. Let's go after Jak."
"In daylight?" he replied. "Get some fucking sense in your brain, Krysty. They got old blasters, but there's mebbe seven thousand vigilantes all primed and ready. If you'd been in the quarry last night, you'd have seen what a swarm of mothers we'd have on our necks. When we go, it has to be night. Take a run north. Hope that the fact they're so shit-scared of up that way, they'll leave us be."
"So we go to this workhouse?"
"Sure. Keep your chrons hid. Check the time, and we'll aim to be there and spring you at a quarter after one in the morning."
"You better be there, Ryan," she warned. "If you're not, then Lori and me will be off and running so fast you won't even see our dust."
THE SEC COMMANDER CAME AROUND two to collect the women and escort them down the highway to the workhouse at the lake's edge. He also told Ryan something about the ville's militia.
"You two go and wait in the street," he said to Krysty and Lori, not even looking to make sure they obeyed his commands, grinning at the sound of their dragging steps.
"Mayor'll give them sluts something to walk heavy about if'n he goes to check 'em tonight."
"Mayor Sissy takes a real paternal interest in the whores, does he?" Ryan said.
"Damned right he does. The Sissy family took over Ginnsburg Falls a few years after the long winters ended. Up here we were lucky. Other places in Deathlands had it bad. All dead, or mutied. Sissy clan saved us from that. Now we take real good care which outlanders come in. You did good at the stoning, all of you. But the kid with the snow hair—we'll catch him, 'less he's gone north. And if he's gone north, then he'll die anyways."
"Why?" Doc Tanner asked.
"Bad things that way, old man. Hot spots. Heavy rad counts. Muties you wouldn't believe. They send out message to try and trap… Shouldn't talk like this. Mayor don't relish words about the north."
"What messages?" J.B. asked.
"On radio. Loop tape. Forbidden to listen in. Tricks folks to follow it. Nobody never came back."
"Like the sirens' song that so enchanted mighty Ulysses upon that wine-dark Aegean," Doc Tanner said, catching Ryan's eye.
"Don't know the name, old man," the sec man said. "But I just know for sure that anyone goes north goes up there to be killed and never comes back. I know that for sure."
"Then we'll fucking keep away from there," Finnegan said, nodding.
The guard looked at him. "Blasphemy can earn you treadmill time here, Outworlder Finnegan. Mayor Sissy does not approve of swearing."
"Sure, sir," Finn replied. "Don't want no trouble here, boss. Walking the line, boss." Ryan glared at him, fearing the chubby blaster would go way over the top and bring them all some trouble.
"Good," the sec man said. "Keep straight around the ville. Mayor'll see you on the morrow."
"What 'bout the militia?" the Armorer asked, halting the man at the door.
"Men here all join militia. Good at it and you get to join sec unit. Not too hard. Part-time. Patrol for curfew breakers. Guard highways. Check out the wags and the gas supply."
"You keep 'em gassed up an' ready?" J.B. asked casually.
"Sure. Haven't had a runner from Ginnsburg Falls for 'bout…a year now. Couple whores got men to break with them. Got caught. Good stoning, that one. Man kept dodging, even catching some of the stones. He played baseball for the ville." The sec man laughed at the reminiscence. "Course the dumb stupe couldn't dodge 'em all."
THEY SPLIT UP for the rest of the day.
Ryan suggested that Doc stay in the dorm, since his age made him vulnerable for removal to the senility and euthanasia center. Doc wanted to go down and see how Lori and Krysty were, but reluctantly he agreed to remain where he was.
Finnegan offered to recce the workhouse in preparation for their visit there later that night.
J.B. checked out the big rig they'd spotted, making sure it was filled up and ready to roll, and he talked to one of the locals, who was aggrieved he hadn't been able to go to the exposing outside the ville. The man told the Armorer that the Kenworth was the best wag in town, with a range of close to a hundred miles, even allowing for the aged engine and the deteriorated blacktops.
Ryan strolled around, trying to familiarize himself with the geography of the ville. It was a huge, sprawling place, laid out in a grid pattern, the streets crossing at right angles, the main roads running parallel to the big lake. One thing he noticed early was that Ginnsburg Falls had no dogs. In fact, not even a single domestic animal was evident—no cats, no birds in cages, no fish in tanks in the curtained windows. Intermittently Ryan spotted women peering at him through the white lace that covered most casements. Here and there boys played quietly in trim gardens, rode ramshackle old bikes or threw balls back and forth.
The exposing had cleared most of the population from the ville, so there were few civilians around to question him. There were plenty of sec men still on the streets, though. They marched in pairs, carbines slung across their shoulders.
The most exciting moment was when a young lad, who looked around twelve, came racing around a blind corner on an old bicycle much too big for him. The boy stood on the pedals, his face contorted with the effort. Ryan stepped aside, feeling the rush of wind, amused at the overreaction of terror and excitement he could sense in the boy. He heard a shrill voice, crying something that sounded like "Hiyo, Silver!" Then the sound faded into the restrained stillness of the afternoon ville.
DOC TANNER FELL ASLEEP around eleven, snoring a little, hands folded across his chest, stovepipe hat resting primly on the floor beside his bed. The other three talked quietly, mostly about the old times with the Trader, casual memories not worth forgetting.
"Remember that little mutie girl with the sweet smile and the broken arm?" Finnegan asked. "Old Fletch was carrying her, an' she reached up an' plucked his eye out just like picking a fucking grape."
"I recall the Trader with an old, old woman, near blind, who brought him a watch. Good make, but it was empty. No works. Just the case. Trader took it from her hand real gentle." J.B. paused. "Never forgot the look on his face. He picked up a dried soya box. Empty one. Figured he was going to give it to her as an exchange. He looked at the old woman, you know the way he had, and he—"
"We all heard it before, friend," Ryan interrupted the Armorer. "It's time to get ready. Weapon check."
Each man slipped into the private ritual of checking and rechecking his weapons. Doc Tanner awoke and agreed to stand by the door and keep watch for the janitor. Bolts clicked, and ammunition tinkled on the floor. Then bed sheets were torn into strips to clean and polish the guns. It was fifteen minutes past midnight.
THEY WERE READY a half hour later. Finn led the way, surprisingly catfooted for such a bulky, clumsy-looking man, his HK54A2 with the drum mag and built-in silencer in his beefy hands. Doc came second, clutching the massive hand cannon of the Le Mat. Ryan prayed silently to himself that the old man didn't need to pull the trigger down on anyone with the ancient blaster. The noise would bring every man and boy in Ginnsburg Falls on the run, thinking their precious gas storage tanks had been blown.
J.B. was third, mini-Uzi braced at his hip, with Ryan, bringing up the rear of the group, holding the 9 mm SIG-Sauer pistol.
The building was quiet, with the occasional creak of settling wood and stone. Outside, through the clean windows facing north, the sky was alight with the distant pattern of lighting from a chem-storm.