Black Harvest

by James Axler

  “A wise position, but I’m not about to try and chill you just so you’ll participate in my test. However, might I suggest that you agree to participate in exchange for the hospitality I’ve shown you and your friends.”

  Ryan gestured to the food on the table. “We didn’t ask for any of this.”

  “Quite right.” The baron nodded. “Then what if I said that if you bested my sec men, I’d be willing to provide you with as much ammo as you need when you leave my ville, as well as any medicines and supplies, uh, Mildred, might want to take with her. I’m sure those sorts of things are still useful to you in your travels.”

  Ryan looked to J.B. “Running low all around.”

  He turned to Krysty.

  “Who knows?” she added. “Might be fun, firing a blaster and not chilling somebody for a change.”

  Ryan sighed. “All right, we’ll play your game, but J.B. checks all the weapons before we begin, just to make sure we’re all using the same ammo.”

  “Of course.”

  “When?”

  “Is tomorrow afternoon too soon?”

  ROBARDS WALKED slowly down the street to Eleander’s residence. Thanks to one of the outlanders, he now had to bring the woman to the dining hall and have her eat and talk to the baron’s guests.

  Dammit!

  This was an unfortunate turn of events, but not a problem.

  There were ways…

  The sec chief turned to the sec man following him. “Go find Katz. Tell him what the problem is and bring him to Eleander’s home. And make it fast.”

  The sec man turned and ran, double time.

  MILDRED TAPPED on Jak’s door with the toe of her boot.

  “Who there?” Jak asked. His words were followed by the sound of his .357 Magnum Colt Python being cocked.

  “It’s Mildred,” she said. “Brought you some food.”

  There was a metallic click on the other side of the door and Mildred knew it was safe to enter.

  “I figured you’d be hungry,” she said, pushing open the door and entering the room.

  “Guessed right,” he answered. He was sitting up on his cot, one arm hanging limply from the shoulder, the other rubbing a hand in circular motions over his empty growling stomach.

  She put the food on the rough wooden stand next to the bed, then sat on the empty bed next to him.

  “How’s your shoulder? Does it hurt?”

  “No.” Jak shook his head. “You fixed good.”

  Mildred lifted the dressing and saw that although there were still a few wet spots to the wound, it was generally healing nicely. She touched the bruised flesh with the point of her finger and Jak grimaced.

  “You know, for someone who doesn’t say many words, you’re not a very good liar.”

  Jak smiled.

  “I’ll clean the dressing later. Right now you should eat. Build up your strength.”

  “Food good?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She placed a plate on his lap and gave him a fork. “Best we’ve had in months.”

  THE WAG HAD PERFORMED flawlessly, taking its rider across the rad-choked land between the two villes in less than six hours. He had stopped twice along the way, once to refill his tank with alcohol, the other to refill himself with food and water.

  Now he was approaching Indyville, the engine still running smoothly as the dusty miles fell beneath his wheels.

  The ville’s lookouts would have spotted him by now, and the entire ville’s sec force would be on alert. That was good, because by the time he arrived there, the baron would be aware of his approach and curious to know what he wanted.

  Now, as he neared the ville’s perimeter, the road got rougher. The surface of the road was spotted with holes and was covered with rocks and chunks of asphalt. He slowed the wag by half, the engine’s song falling from a high whine to a throaty growl.

  The gates to the ville grew larger in his sights. Sec men stood on either side of the rolling door made of rusty rebar and sheet metal. One of the sec men signaled to him to slow down by waving both his arms over his head.

  He waved back with just his right hand.

  The entrance to the ville was less than a quarter of a mile away, and he slowed the wag further. Closer in, there were dead things on the road—the carcasses and bones of long-dead animals, fallen trees, strategically positioned rocks and the odd corpse of a mutie who made the mistake of trying to get into the ville. It was a strange way to protect the outer edges of the ville, but it was doing a good job of it.

  The driver was forced to slow to a crawl, just to find a way through the maze of death and ruin.

  But at last he was at the gates of the ville. He brought the wag to a stop, but left the engine running just in case it might not start again.

  “What do you want?” the sec man asked. He was armed with little more than a pointed stick, but in the towers on the other side of the gate were several batteries of large-caliber automatic blasters, some of which were aimed directly at his head.

  “Greetings from Baron DeMann.”

  The sec man said nothing.

  “I need to speak with Baron Schini.”

  “About what?”

  “Sorry, but I must speak only with the baron.”

  “She’s not seeing anyone tonight.”

  The driver nodded. He’d been told that he might be refused at the gate, and that’s why he’d been given a gift to present to the baron.

  “I’ve brought a quarter pound of bang to give to the baron.” He took the small sack from his shoulder bag.

  “I’ll take it.”

  He quickly snatched it away before the sec man could grab it. “Sorry, it’s for the baron only.”

  The sec man licked his lips, then sighed. He turned and raised his eyes to the top of the gate. “He’s got bang for the baron—let him in.”

  After a few moments of silence, the large steel door started rolling to the left, giving him just enough room to enter the ville.

  KATZ LOOKED at the body of Eleander lying on a cot in a corner of the lab. She seemed dead and lifeless, as if she wouldn’t become conscious for another few hours yet.

  Robards was rearranging her clothing, hiding the slight welts, in order to make her presentable enough to bring to the baron.

  “I can wake her up, but there will be a dangerous mix in her system,” Katz said. “If she takes anything else in the next twelve hours, it could chill her.”

  “I’ll watch over her,” Robards said, his voice emotionless.

  “And of course, there will probably be some slurring of her words—that is, of course, if she can speak coherently at all.”

  “I’ll tell them she’s been drinking.”

  “That’s probably best. She’ll seem drunk, might even feel like it, too.”

  “Rad-blasted outland scum,” Robards said. “One of them took a liking to this bitch. Asked the baron if she could join them.”

  “And the baron agreed?”

  “The outlanders wanted to leave, and I instructed the baron to keep them here for a couple or few days, till my rider comes back from Indyville. And so when the old-timer asked to see her, the baron had no choice but to agree.”

  “You could always say she’s turned in for the night.”

  Robards shook his head. “Tried something like that, but this outlander was persistent. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Probably come here to see her if she doesn’t join them over there.”

  Katz produced a large plunge-type syringe from his bag. “This will bring her around,” he said, then sighed. “But she’s your problem after that.”

  Robards put a hand on his blaster and said, “Just do it!”

  Katz gave Eleander the jab.

  At first nothing happened, and then her eyelids fluttered open. “Where, what…” She put a hand on her forehead. “Headache.”

  “Thanks,” Robards said.

  “Don’t thank me,” Katz replied. “You’re on your own. I want nothing to do with this.” />
  Robards snickered. “You’re already involved.”

  Katz shook his head. “You mention my name, and the baron will get the full story. About the others, too…” He closed his bag and left the room before Robards had a chance to respond.

  At the sound of Katz’s departure, Eleander’s eyes opened wider. When she realized Robards was standing over her, she instinctively tried to move away from him, crawling backward like a spider.

  “Relax,” Robards said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She looked skeptical.

  “The baron wants to see you. Apparently, one of the bastard outlanders has taken a shine to you.”

  A sleepy smile broke over Eleander’s face.

  “Tidy up,” Robards said, pulling back the blanket. “I don’t want to keep the baron, or the outlanders, waiting.”

  Chapter Seven

  Baron Schini was a strong, powerful woman who had risen to power in Indyville by virtue of her cunning and keen sense of picking the right person for a job. Her sec force was strong and well trained, and led by a meticulous sec chief named Viviani who left nothing to chance and no detail overlooked.

  But the baron was also a wealth of knowledge and information. Her memory was like a strongbox, and anything that she might have trouble remembering was filed in a collection of journal notes. The notes were part of a vast library housed in the center of the ville. Untouched by the nukeblast that devastated much of Indyville, the library had been the first thing the baron had sought control of when she was newly assigned to the previous baron’s sec force. Schini found that by controlling knowledge she also had power, and by acquiring more knowledge, she would acquire even more power. And so the library grew and grew, adding valuable books on subjects as diverse as basket weaving and blaster design. There were books on how to have better sex, and how to fight without blasters, knives or swords—even books on how to chill people with poisons…if you happened to have the right poisons.

  The baron had a dozen librarians reading through the texts in the library, each one with a special area of expertise, such as geography, geology, chemistry, biology and history. Every so often, one of the librarians would be called upon to solve a problem pertaining to their area of expertise and, over the years, Indyville had become a very powerful barony, selling knowledge to those who needed it.

  Like Sec chief Robards…

  “So,” Baron Schini said. “The sec man at the gate says you brought me a quarter pound of bang in exchange for some information.”

  “That’s right, Baron.”

  “Well, what does Robards want to know?”

  The sec man sent by Robards cleared his throat. “Baron DeMann is playing host to a group of outlanders—”

  “I thought he hated the scum?”

  “He does, but he’s holding them for a reason.”

  Baron Schini nodded slowly.

  “One of the outlanders, their leader in fact, goes by the name of Ryan. He’s rather distinctive looking with a large scar on the right side of his face and a black patch covering his left eye.”

  “Plenty of outlanders have scars like that.”

  “Yes, but this one is unique. His band of six includes an albino teenager, an old man, a black woman, another woman, fair skinned with flaming red hair, and a thin man who wears wire-rimmed spectacles and a fedora.”

  “A motley crew to be sure, but why the fuck should I care?”

  “Sec chief Robards thinks this Ryan may be the same outlander who chilled Baron DeMann’s brother a few years ago in a gaudy house in Spearpoint.”

  Baron Schini suddenly appeared more interested in Baron DeMann’s outlanders. If their leader was the one who chilled the baron’s brother, then he’s also the one who chilled her son in the very same gaudy house firefight. “What makes Robards suspect this outlander is the one?”

  “Well, he remembered hearing something about a one-eyed outlander working for a man they called Trader, and he knew it was one of the Trader’s men who chilled the baron’s brother while the Trader was at Spearpoint working on a deal with Levi Shabazz.”

  “Why not just ask the outlander if he’s the one? Or just chill them all and be done with it?”

  “These outlanders are dangerous, and he didn’t want to let them know he suspected who they were until he was sure they were the ones.”

  “And so he sent you here to me.”

  “Correct.”

  “And if this is the outlander who chilled the baron’s brother, what does that candy-ass Robards plan to do about it?”

  “Why, chill the scum and his friends on behalf of Baron DeMann, of course.”

  Schini shook her head.

  “You disapprove?”

  “Not at all,” the baron said. “It’s just that if this one-eyed outlander is the same one who chilled the baron’s brother, then he’s also the one who chilled my son, Luca. And if that’s the case, I damn well want to be there to watch him die.”

  Robards had warned the sec man that this request was a possibility. “As you wish, Baron.”

  The baron smiled politely. “But first we need to know we have the right man, eh?” She turned to one of her sec men. “Take him to the archives and look up the journal entries on Luca’s death. And keep me informed as to what you find.”

  The sec man nodded and led the messenger away.

  THEY WERE ALMOST finished eating when Eleander entered the dining room.

  “Ah, here she is,” Baron DeMann said. “The mother of the beautiful Moira.” It was obvious he had none of the same feelings for the older woman as he did the younger.

  Eleander stepped slowly into the big room, as cautious as if she were walking over broken glass with naked feet.

  “She was resting soundly,” Robards offered in explanation. “I was sorry to wake her up, but when she knew she had been asked for, she insisted on joining you.”

  Doc smiled broadly, his eyes stuck on the older woman.

  Ryan had never seen Doc so smitten by a woman before, though he had had a few liaisons. He had spoken countless times of the wife and children who had been left behind when Operation Chronos snatched him from his own era and brought him forward in time. But while he spoke of his dear wife Emily with fondness, romance, love and respect, he seemed to eye Eleander with a lust that was somewhat uncharacteristic of the man. But with his mind shaken so badly from the jumps in time, and emotional scarring, a person could never be sure of Doc’s mental state. Ryan was glad that this time he appeared to be affected by lust, instead of the usual madness that bordered on lunacy.

  “There’s an empty seat here next to me if you like,” Doc said, pulling back the chair and patting its seat as if that would make its hard wooden bottom more comfortable.

  Eleander walked slowly toward Doc and took the chair with a slight nod. She smiled broadly at him.

  “Right,” the baron said, acting as if the woman wasn’t even there. “I imagine you and your weapons man might want to look over the blasters you’ll be using tomorrow.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “I would like that very much,” J.B. added.

  “Let’s go have a look, shall we?”

  Ryan and J.B. got up to leave with the baron. Ryan looked to Krysty to ask if she were joining them.

  “I think I’ll stay behind with Doc.”

  Ryan glanced at the old-timer, who was already making conversation with Eleander. “I don’t think he needs a chaperone.”

  “No, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on him.”

  Ryan couldn’t argue with that logic.

  “Later, then,” he said.

  Krysty smiled coyly. “I’m looking forward to it, lover.”

  THE LIBRARIAN was an old, old man, hunched over a gnarled wooden walking stick and moving about with a considerable limp. His right leg was twisted strangely to the left, and it looked to be a few inches shorter than his other one.

  “You say you want the volume documenting the death of the baron’s so
n at Spearpoint?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “I want to see the description of the scum who chilled him.”

  “Might not be one there, you know.”

  “But the journals must have recorded the eyewitness accounts of that time.”

  “Sure, sure…but there might not be the exact description you’re looking for. For all I know it might just say the baron’s son was killed by some outlander. Nothing more.”

  “Even if the outlander has several distinguishing features?”

  “Well, if he had just one arm, it might be written in the journals. I’m just saying we may not find what you’re looking for. You might be disappointed.”

  “I’ll take my chances. Besides, your baron’s got an interest in this, too.”

  The librarian perked up at the mention of his baron as he no doubt realized that if his journals were short of the information she wanted, he might be held accountable for it.

  “Here it is. Journal 52.”

  The librarian turned the pages of a ragged oversized book that was two feet long and a foot and a half wide. The pages were stark white and covered with tiny handwritten scrawls, each letter no bigger than a drop of water. “We bleach the pages of the books whose information isn’t valid anymore. Then one of our scribblers who can write in very small letters records new information on the pages.” He was looking over the book’s type with a magnifying lens that was the size of a bottle bottom.

  “Spearpoint, you say, eh?”

  “Yeah, where Baron DeMann’s brother, Joshua, and Baron Schini’s son Luca, were both chilled by an outlander in a firefight.”

  The librarian continued to pour over the handwritten text in silence, now deeply engrossed in his task.

  Every once in a while he blurted out a few words as he read.

  “…confrontation with Vernel, crew leader for Levi Shabazz, in gaudy house over fat dancer named Big Dumpling. No, that’s not it.”

  He continued reading, mumbling a few words every so often as he went.

  Then, after a few minutes…

  “Mebbe this is it.” The librarian adjusted the lens and reset it over the page.

  “Members of Trader’s crew stole several wags. Made a run for it after rescuing several captured members of their group. Firefight with members of Baron Zeal’s sec force.”