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Axler, James - Deathlands 66 - Separation

Page 25

by Separation [lit]

"May I ask just what you mean by that?" the sec boss requested gravely.

  "Don't you take any notice of the old coot. He's just having one of his crazy moments," Mildred said hurriedly, not wishing Doc or the sec boss to derail the conversation before it had begun in earnest. "What is it?" she added to Sineta.

  "We have been discussing seriously the future of our community and we would wish for you to travel forth with us in perpetuity," Sineta said.

  Mildred whistled. "That's something I wouldn't have expected. I wouldn't have thought you would have wanted us hanging around forever."

  "Especially as we're not part of you," J.B. added. "There's still a lot of people here who think we're outsiders and should stay that way."

  "But that is precisely the point," Sineta interjected. "We do not wish you to travel with us as outsiders. We want you to become part of Pilatu and to join with our community."

  "I think you may find that quite a sizable proportion of your people may find this hard to come to terms with," Doc pointed out. "There is still—at the very least—a residual resentment against us."

  "I know this, and I also acknowledge that you are aware of it, too," Sineta said, speaking with great care and thought, "but if this is ever to change, then we will have to start teaching these recidivists at some point."

  "So we're to be instruments in a lesson?" Mildred queried, amused at the manner in which Sineta had put her point.

  "Not quite like that," the baron replied, acknowledging her clumsiness with an embarrassed smile. "You have much to offer us in terms of knowledge and understanding, and we want to learn from that…most of us. The others will realize in time, as we have. In return, we can offer you a kind of security. Something, perhaps, that you have been searching for, a kind of peace and belonging. Is that not true? I could see it in you when we were on the island," Sineta implored to Mildred.

  Mildred felt uncomfortable for a moment. She had to pick her words carefully when she replied. "There is a certain degree of truth in what you say, but I have my own commitments and belonging. Maybe I'll tell you about them later, when we're not in the middle of packing to move on."

  She had hoped to stall indefinitely, unwilling to have to explain herself, but Markos's words cut short any hopes.

  "This is good. We will all discuss this matter—ourselves and the rest of your people—when we pitch camp tonight."

  "That wasn't exactly what we had in mind," Mildred said to the Armorer as they finished loading the cattle and moved out.

  "Yeah, well, mebbe there are things that are going to make having to explain that unnecessary," he said slowly.

  Mildred followed his gaze to where Dean was walking with Sharona, Ryan and Krysty some distance behind.

  "Hmm. I'd like to know what that's all about, and who that woman is," Mildred mused.

  "She looks vaguely familiar," the Armorer said. "This could be trouble."

  THE PILATAN CARAVAN moved out of the clearing and away through the woods. They took a route that carried a direction contrary to the direction of the ville from which the war party had arrived earlier in the day. They had no wish to encounter more raiders and indeed desired to put as much distance between the ville and themselves as possible. Wherever their fate lay in the search for land to build a new Pilatu, it certainly wasn't in that direction.

  By the time they had packed and begun to move, it was already into the late afternoon. The baron and the sec boss made a conscious decision to carry on marching through most of the night to put distance between themselves and any war parties bent on revenge. But by the middle of the night, it became apparent that the exhausted Pilatans would need to rest. Scouting sec parties that had been sent ahead, and also to track back to warn of any approaches from the rear, had nothing to report. There was even a lack of predatory wildlife in this part of the plain and woodland. Stretches of flat, open land had been punctuated by sudden bursts of woodland, which the Pilatan caravan had skirted around rather than risk becoming entangled. It was in the shelter around the edges of one such outcrop that Sineta and Markos brought the caravan to a halt, to allow the exhausted people to take some rest.

  As the caravan settled to rest for the remainder of the night, Markos and Sineta once again broached the subject they had raised earlier with Mildred, Doc and J.B.

  Having posted sec sentries for the night, the sec boss came over to where the companions had settled with Sharona. Ryan was about to tackle the matter of who this woman was, and why she had seemingly arrived out of nowhere when believed chilled, when the sec boss requested that he and the baron talk with them.

  In truth, Ryan was relieved for the distraction. He hadn't been looking forward to tackling the subject and had had no idea where to begin. Come to that, he still had no idea of where Sharona had been or how she had landed in the same place as the companions—and he had absolutely no idea what her intentions were with regard to her son and to the rest of the traveling party. She had been reticent on the matter during the day's march, refusing to be drawn on her own life and instead pumping Dean for details of what had occurred to him during the time that they had been parted.

  While the rest of the companions were waiting for Ryan to explain, they were stunned when he told Markos that it would be fine to talk to the sec boss and the baron.

  "What the hell did you do that for?" Krysty asked angrily. "We're owed an explanation, aren't we?"

  "And I'm sure we'll get it—in time," Ryan said pointedly, staring at Sharona. "But first let's hear what Sineta and Markos have to say."

  "I think we know some of it," J.B. ventured.

  Ryan frowned. "So we've all been keeping secrets. Fireblast, this had better not become a habit."

  Any argument was cut short by the arrival of the baron and the sec boss, who outlined the proposition put to half of the companions earlier in the day.

  Ryan whistled. "There's a lot of your people that could make it rough for us, if we agreed," he said.

  Markos nodded. "That much is true, and I acknowledge that we are not asking you to undertake that which is easy, but I feel that we could learn so much from you. Speaking personally, I know that I have learned much."

  Ryan grinned. "I told you about that. You learn about tactics as you go along, and you'll learn about the mainland as you go along. Anything that we say or do right now is no substitute for actually living it and learning from experience."

  "This much I have gathered," Markos said with due consideration. "But that is not the only thing I have learned, and in many ways, it is the least of my concerns." He continued in a halting tone, stopping to consider every word. "My brother—in the days when I believed him to be a man of honor and integrity, taught me that the black man and the white man were completely separate and that never the twain could meet. That is something that was deeply ingrained in me, perhaps even more than I was fully aware. But I do not feel that way anymore. We are different, but we are equal. That feels so strange, even now, for those words to pass my lips and to be more than just hollow.

  "It is strange to consider that just a few short weeks ago, when I first encountered you in the Pilatan woods that I shall see no more in this life, I thought of you as little more than scum who were trying to oppress, if not chill, Mildred. And I did not believe that it was possible for you and she to exist within the same group without a hierarchy of some manner to intrude. But I was wrong. I have learned, more than anything, that it is not your origin—in either a racial or geographic sense—that matters, but rather the manner in which you act and conduct yourself that is important. It is not where you consider yourself to be in terms of origins, but rather how you consider yourself and conduct yourself…how you act toward yourself and others as we all try to survive and make a life in what can be an extremely prejudiced and hostile environment.

  "And that, my friends, which I am proud to call you now, is why I feel it important that you become part of Pilatu and travel with us not just as yourselves but as a part of our community. Ther
e are still those who feel as I once did. Still those who would have us stay separate from the other races—whatever they may be. Perhaps they have learned something from our encounter with the sec force last night. But then again, some attitudes are hardily ingrained. Only a long term process can help that."

  There was a silence after the sec boss had finished. It had been a difficult speech for him to make, as he was a proud man who was admitting to mistakes. But it had been undoubtedly heartfelt.

  Sineta added her voice to his before any of the companions had a chance to reply.

  "It is not just for this reason that we wish you to become part of us. In the time since I have known Mildred I have come to look upon her as the sister with which I was never blessed, and I value her opinions and counsel. With her greater experience of the world in which we have entered, I would be a fool to wish you a speedy parting. She is of great value to me as baron of Pilatu and also as a person I love deeply."

  Mildred embraced Sineta. "I think of you in the same way, but I don't know if it would work. We're not ready to settle down, any of us. We don't belong anywhere yet."

  "But why not belong here?" Sineta queried, noticing the manner in which Dean looked at the new arrival as Mildred spoke. For a moment the baron was distracted with the feeling of foreboding that the boy's glance gave her. She wondered if any of the companions had noticed as she continued. "You told me when we on the island that it was the first time you had felt as though you had a sense of belonging for a great amount of time."

  Mildred smiled wryly. "Greater than you'll ever know. But I was wrong. Part of the belonging was only in my mind. In the real world, in day-to-day terms, this is where I belong…" Mildred looked into the distance, seeing something that no one else could, before continuing in a wistful tone of voice. "You see, the island, and the way you had lived for so many generations, was like a chasm of time, a gap into which you had fallen, where so much had stayed still for so long. You'd been in this chasm, and had preserved so much of the way you had always been, never really changing or having to change. But there does always have to be change, and that was brought home to me when you had to leave the island. There's so much that you've had to face up to and assimilate already since leaving Pilatu, and there'll be so much more.

  "And it wasn't just the island and the people that were part of that chasm. I had it in me, too. There was something in me that had been cast into that pit so long ago, before I even knew it myself. I had to lose something of myself to fit in, hide some part of my identity to operate in the world as it was. That chasm was a real thing, as well. I lost so many years, lost the world that I used to know, and maybe I lost even more of myself. Then I came to Pilatu and found a part of myself that I didn't even know was there anymore, and I felt like I'd gone from being blind to being able to see with the clearest, most incredible vision that I'd ever known.

  "But it wasn't focused. I've come to realize that the parts of me that I thought were lost were there all the time, but they just weren't so simply prescribed anymore. They were values that hadn't been lost, but had been more universally applied. I did belong, I'd just never had time to think about it. I had a family, a tribe, and I don't know if it's at all possible for us to fit in with anyone else."

  Sineta reached out and took Mildred's hand. "I shall miss you—miss all of you—if you depart. But I shall understand."

  Markos grunted. "I'm not sure that I can say the same. I will abide by any decision, but I feel a little lost."

  Ryan slapped the sec boss on the back. "You know what? I kind of feel the same. Sometimes people use a lot of unnecessary words to explain simple things. At the end of the day, anyone has to live their own way and learn their own lessons. And the problem is, I think ours are just different to yours. We're looking for something—a place we can call home, a place that seems right for us. What we need isn't what you need. Pilatu needs a plot of land where it can build a ville, start to farm and start to trade. Somehow, I think that just isn't for us."

  "Then what is?" Markos asked.

  The one-eyed man shrugged. "I don't know, but I'll let you know when we find it, because I'm sure we'll all know when we do."

  Markos and Sineta rose to leave the companions, both seeming to accept that their allies wouldn't join permanently to them.

  "Travel with us a little longer," Markos said by way of parting. "We would welcome your company until you feel the need to strike out on your own."

  "Wouldn't have it any other way," Ryan said simply.

  The companions sat in silence, watching Markos and Sineta leave them. Then Ryan turned and fixed Sharona with a monocular stare in the flickering firelight.

  "And it strikes me that Mildred isn't the only one around here with a story to tell," he said softly.

  "I DON'T REALLY KNOW where to begin," Sharona said hesitantly, "because it all seems so strange, and in a lot of ways as though it happened to somebody else, which it kind of did. I'm not the same as I was back when I last saw you," she added to Dean.

  "You look…different," her son replied. "I knew it was you straight away, though. What happened, Rona? You were buying the farm. It was rad sickness. That's why you sent me away, because you didn't have long left. So how come…?"

  "I wish I could answer that," she replied. "I truly wish I could, because then I could begin to understand what I've been through in the past few years and I could account for how I ended up here, right now. But I can't. All I can tell you is that I was deathly ill. I thought it was rad sickness and it wouldn't be long before I was finally chilled. That was truly why I sent you away," she said to Dean, "because I didn't want to see you at the end—didn't want you to see me. I thought it would be long and painful, and I had to make sure that you were looked after in some way and that you'd be all right when I was gone. And let's face it, we didn't have much of a life near the end anyway, with me having to work in a gaudy to earn some jack."

  Dean winced at the memories. Now he had his mother back, he didn't want to remember those days and what she had been through so that they could survive. "Don't, please," he said softly.

  Sharona ruffled his hair. "I've got to, sweetheart, if I'm going to explain in some way what happened to me. You see, after you'd gone, I started to waste away more and more. I became so thin that even the cheapest gaudy slut had more meat on her bones than I did. I couldn't even earn a living with my body anymore— sure, I'd pick up the odd trick, but not enough to keep alive. And even though I knew the end was near, there was still a part of me that wanted to keep alive…you know, that spark that won't let you give up, even when you feel like there's no hope.

  "So there was nothing left for me there—you were gone, and I couldn't earn a living in any way.

  "But there was a convoy coming through, a trader called Nyland. Evil, nasty piece of work, but with some surprising edges. Can't remember ever seeing a woman trader before, especially one that was so small. She must have just been five feet, if she was that. But I've never seen anyone, man or woman, who could take so much jolt or drink so much and still stay on her feet. And that was when her temper got worse. I once saw her take on a man twice her size and beat him in a fight by crushing his balls with her teeth while he tried to break her neck. He let her loose in sheer pain and she chilled him by beating him with a table.

  "And yet she took pity on me. She found me when I was trying desperately to turn a trick. I was willing to take on two of her crew for the price of one because I hadn't eaten for days. But when I stripped naked they laughed, and one of them wanted to satisfy himself by beating me first. Guess I must have screamed louder than I thought, because she found me. She had this number two called Dimitri, a fat guy with glasses who liked boys. He had a temper almost as bad as hers. The two of them ripped the shit out of these guys and left them chilled. Only thing she moaned about was how the hell was she gonna find replacements at such short notice, and she argued with Dimitri that they should have just beaten them up a little. I swear, I thoug
ht they were gonna rip the shit out of each other next.

  "Anyway, they noticed I was there eventually, and I guess she remembered why they'd gone in so hard in the first place. She asked me why I was turning tricks when I looked so bad, and I told her. That's when she offered me the chance to join her convoy. With these guys chilled, she needed someone to act as quartermaster as to cook and clean.

  "I figured she must be a little crazy—I was buying the farm— But it was a better offer than anything else I'd had for a long time, so I went with it. Once I was in her convoy, I saw a few people like my self… the lame and the useless, and I figured that it was her hobby. But at least I didn't have to screw anyone for jack anymore and she was okay if you kept on the right side of her. She had a healer from the bayous by the name of Mama Celeste. She fussed over me for weeks on end, saying that I had something called tuberculosis and a bad thyroid problem. She had a store of medicine she kept in an old footlocker, and she doctored me as if I were her own child. I got better. It wasn't rad sickness after all. I was going to live.

  "Mama Celeste was my savior, and I got strong really quickly, although I never put much weight on again and I looked different from when you knew me," she said to Dean. "My skin's still shitty and breaks out sometimes, and I look older than I am, but inside I got a whole lot stronger…stronger than I was before and sure as hell a whole lot stronger than I look, which came in useful sometimes.

  "I stayed with the convoy, and I started to do more. And we were a good little outfit. We became the tightest little outfit working this side of the coast, and we were such a stupe-looking bunch that no one figured we'd ever be the trouble we could be. Nyland became the trader that no one ever wanted to cross. Mebbe even more so than Trader," she said to Ryan.

  "Anyway, this went on for some time. I didn't think much about my old life. Not because I'd forgotten you," she said to Dean, "but because I figured that wherever you were, you were probably doing better there than you ever would with me, and that's okay. I just put it out of my mind whenever it came back to me. But then it started to change.

 

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