by James Axler
It was this knowledge that she carried back, along with the medicines, to the dorms. Once there, she set about treating Doc, biding her time before sharing her thoughts with the others. As she tended to the bump on the old man’s head, which had now swollen and reddened showing the extent of the bruising from the repeated blows on the floor of the wag, she kept an eye on the two sec men. They watched her closely, as if expecting her to practice some deception.
“I’m only tending to his head, boys. Nothing to see here,” she said with a heavy irony. “Why don’t you just leave us to get some rest? Your boss has pulled the rest of you out of here, and there’s no way we can escape, right?”
The sec men exchanged looks. The woman had an undeniable point. McCready had stationed men outside the dorm, and there was only the one entrance and exit. They looked uncomfortably at each other and then withdrew.
Mildred sighed with relief. Sure, there was no way out. But who knew what the companions would discuss if left alone? Good at following orders, but not too bright could be said of both the sec men and their leader, she guessed.
Having tended to Doc, Mildred was glad to strip off and get in the shower, feeling the needle-sharp points of hot water beat at her skin, massaging away the tiredness and tension. Her wrists and ankles smarted as the water hit them, but soon the water became soothing. She could feel the waves of torpor roll over her, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep. But as important as rest might be, she couldn’t allow herself to succumb until she had discussed what had happened in the medical facilities.
Doc followed her into the showers, his head now clearing. He was, to be sure, a trifle uncertain of what had happened to him over the previous twelve hours, knowing only for sure that his head hurt like hell. But while Mildred had been showering, Krysty had filled him in. Doc firmly believed that he had been concussed. He knew what his crazy moments were like, albeit fewer of late, and they didn’t fit with what he had experienced or felt. There were parts of the past twelve hours that were clear, and others that were hazy, as though he had been struggling to move and breathe through cotton wool. He could only hope that he would be of more use in the hours to come.
The time it took him to shower allowed Mildred to gather her thoughts and listen to the others. Left alone, they had reached a consensus that now was not the time to act, but that it would be necessary to keep triple red for the slightest opportunity. None was under the illusion that Crabbe wished to use their knowledge—as he saw it—and then keep them around. He currently had the whip hand. It was up to them to see that it changed.
When Doc emerged, Mildred told them about what had happened in the medical room. It was a small enough thing in itself, but the import of it wasn’t lost on the rest of the group.
“If, perchance, we can engineer an opening in which we can reverse the positions between ourselves and the baron and his men, then an escape from here would be relatively simple. After all, who is there to follow us should we disable the forces he has down here?” Doc grinned. “And then perhaps we should pay that conniving knave Valiant a brief visit, to pay him the remainder of his blood jack in kind.”
“Easy, Doc,” J.B. said. “One thing at a time. Besides, if Crabbe disappears, who are his people going to blame?”
“Agreed,” Ryan added. “We look out for ourselves first and settle scores second. A long way settled.”
Doc pondered that. “A fair point, uh, Brian. But a man can dream. Besides which, I think I would prefer to be Brian, rather than Jock. Or even Snowy,” he added with a grin directed at Jak.
“Thing is, we should forget this for now, if we can,” Mildred said. “Keep alert for the slightest break when we’re out there, sure. But right now, rest is what we need. We’re not going to be any good to each other unless we get some of that right now.”
They retired to the beds, having dimmed the light to an acceptable level. Jak and Doc slept alone, while Krysty and Ryan, and Mildred and J.B., took the opportunity to share, and silently move closer to each other. Words weren’t necessary, and although each of them was far too weary to consider a more intimate embrace, it was nonetheless sweet for each to feel the other close.
Sleep came swiftly to the companions, but not so swiftly that something of importance occurred to Ryan, and would have kept him awake if not for the pull of inertia from his lead-heavy limbs.
Crabbe believed that they knew the secret of using the mat-trans to journey from place to place. In this, as in all things, he was only partly correct. They knew that to close the door would trigger a jump. But to where? The comps that controlled the mat-trans were subject to codes that were long-since lost. Destinations were decided by figures that were long forgotten.
In this instance, apparently, moving to a destination would be determined by the figures on the paper that Crabbe held so dear. That was simple enough. Trouble was, each destination code would be known only to the person, inputting the data, not those making the jump. It was always forward, never back. Without the code, the only way you could return was if you hit the Last Destination button inside the mat-trans.
And the last destination was only stored in memory for half an hour before the automatic default settings were restored. After that, you were at the mercy of wherever the mat-trans comp decided to send you.
That meant one thing. Whatever situation you were pitched into at the destination for each of Crabbe’s codes, you had just thirty minutes to recce and deal with it. If you did this, you could come back.
But if it took longer, then you were lost.
“GET YOUR ASSES out of bed now,” McCready roared as he turned the lights up full. “Baron Crabbe wants you.”
“Asshole,” Ryan muttered under his breath, disentangling himself from Krysty’s embrace and rolling out of bed. “So he’s ready to begin, is he?” he asked in a louder voice.
McCready grinned, a mirthless death’s head. “What do you think, bright boy? One eye, and half a fucking brain, eh?”
Laughing to himself, McCready strode out of the room, leaving two sec men to stand in the doorway, blasters ready, while the companions dressed hurriedly.
“I wonder if we will be forced to go into battle with no weapons to light our path,” Doc mused. “It is bad enough that we are already facing the unknown. To be at the mercy of it is untenable.”
“I don’t know what you mean, but I’m figuring he’s going to have to give us our blasters if he wants us to fight for him,” J.B. said quietly. “Otherwise we don’t have the chances of a stickie in a shit swamp.”
“That is rather what I said.” Doc grinned. “Although your words are a little more colorful. The question is, how will he handle the distribution of weapons? To just give them back would be—”
“Nice, but real stupe,” Krysty interjected. “My jack’s on him just handing back to those he’s sending on a jump.”
“Makes sense to me,” Ryan agreed, “in which case we should watch how they do it. Any chinks…”
“Are to be mercilessly exploited,” Mildred finished. “Now I guess we should get going. Huey and Duey over there look like spare parts, and they’ll get pissed about that soon enough.”
“One more thing,” Ryan added, remembering the thought that had kept him awake for part of the previous night. “Don’t forget that wherever you land, you only have half an hour before the mat-trans won’t send you back.”
“Better check those chrons,” J.B. stated.
They had been talking in low tones, with the sec men just far enough away to be out of earshot. But now they finished preparing themselves, taking a few seconds to check that their individual chrons were still in working order, then moving to the doorway, the sec men parting to allow them through and keep them covered. As they reached the corridor, Doc laughed quietly to himself.
“What?” Jak asked with a puzzled glance.
“Huey and Duey… Very good.” The old man chuckled, shaking his head.
Jak just looked at him blankly.
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They walked in silence to the mat-trans unit, the two sec men falling in at their rear, the remaining men lining the route at junction points.
“Don’t know where they think we’d go,” J.B. said.
“They know that we’re more familiar with these places than they are,” Mildred whispered. “Fact is, they think we know all there is to know about them. They’re terrified—or Crabbe is—that we’d be able to hide, or mount an attack.”
“Nice, Millie,” the Armorer replied. “That’s worth bearing in mind.”
McCready was waiting for them at the entrance to the control room. He said nothing as they passed him, but the malevolence coming from the man was almost palpable.
Inside, Crabbe and Sal were waiting for them, looking as though they had hardly moved since the day before. The baron beckoned them.
“Let’s not waste time. You know the offer. You get me what I want, you live. You don’t, you buy the farm. So what do you say?”
Ryan looked over his shoulder. Apart from the sec chief at the door, they were alone with the baron and his companion.
“What’s to stop me from grabbing you by the neck and just stepping into the mat-trans unit right now?”
Crabbe grinned. “You really think I’d be that stupe? What do you think Sal is doing here?”
Mildred eyed the stooping, balding man who had so far remained silent. “You know, I’ve been wondering that myself,” she said gently.
“See, Brian, you should pay more attention to Millicent. Not what I was saying yesterday, I’ll grant you. But then she was just mouthing off. There’s a lot of intelligence there, and you should just get her to focus it.”
“How about you focus on answering the question,” Mildred said flatly.
Crabbe grinned, a full, shit-eating grin the like of which Mildred hadn’t seen since the days before the nukecaust. It was the grin of a man who held all the winning cards, and was enjoying the feeling.
“See, Sal here don’t know much about reading and writing. So I ain’t got him here for that. But I ain’t never seen anyone with such a gift for engines, wags and tech. I got a shitload of old vids that I can watch because of Sal’s gift. He can take any heap of junk and fix it. Anything that’s already working, he can figure out how it does it. I really like those vids, by the way—” he leered in Krysty’s direction “—’cause they got a lot of girls who look just like you. And they do anything, sweets.”
“Are you telling us that he—” Mildred indicated the balding man “—has worked out how the mat-trans unit works?” She could barely keep the incredulity from her voice.
Sal coughed and looked bashful. Despite the incongruity of the situation, he was obviously not used to being praised by his baron. His voice, when he did speak, was somehow higher and more fluting than seemed right for his lugubrious appearance.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,” he said modestly. “The principles on which the actual process works seem to be more than purely mechanical, and so are outside the realm of my particular skills. Science has gone back to the Dark Ages, and we have a lot of catching up to do. Despite that, I have to say that I’ve found that much of the base operates on mechanical principles that aren’t so far removed from those anyone would encounter on the outside. A little more complex and developed, perhaps, but despite that not really hard to assimilate. So it has to be said that it didn’t take me long, if I may be boastful, to work it out.”
Crabbe shook his head. “Sal watches too many of those other vids, the ones where guys with spectacles like yours—” he indicated J.B. “—talk shit about the world before skydark. Too many words. To make it simple, Sal can turn the power on and off, stop the fucker from working.”
“Okay,” Ryan admitted, “you hold all the weapons, and they’re all cocked and loaded. So what’s your plan?”
Crabbe smiled and nodded. “Glad you see it that way, Brian. We’ll do it like this. You people sit yourselves down over there, backs to the wall.” He indicated the far wall of the room, farthest from the mat-trans, and waited while they moved over and seated themselves.
Once they were in position, he beckoned McCready to enter. The sec chief turned to his rear and beckoned his men from the corridor. Two of them entered the control room with their blasters raised, while another two carried between them a tarp that bore all the weapons that had been taken from the companions in Hawknose. They carried it between two desks and dumped it on the floor, stepping back as they raised their own blasters to cover the seated group.
“Now, we’ve got you, and we’ve got your weapons. Like I said to you last night, the way I’m gonna handle this is simple. Two of you will go off to one of the locations on the list while the others stay here, to make sure they return. The two going will be handed their weapons by a sec man. The rest of you will be covered by two more of my men. You so much as even look at any of us wrong, and their trigger fingers are gonna itch. Then when you get back, you hand over your blasters to my boys straight away. You might take some of us out if you get the urge, but be sure that the remainder of you will get shot to shit if that happens. Am I clear?”
Ryan looked at his companions. To an outsider, their expressions would have been unreadable. To Ryan, it was clear—they would play along for the sake of keeping themselves alive until such time as any one or two of them could find a way out for the group.
“You’re clear,” he said blandly to Crabbe.
“Good.” The baron nodded. “Now, like I said, I’m gonna send you out in pairs. Seems to me that it’d be a good idea to match Snowy with you, Brian, as I hear he don’t say much and might be the simple one.”
Ryan tried to suppress his amusement, both at how wrong the baron was and also at the anger he knew would be seething behind Jak’s calm visage.
“And I also figure that Millicent should go with Jock. I know he’s a crazie, for sure, and she’s the one who knows how to control him. I also figure that he ain’t so great at the moment, so mebbe he needs her to help him out.”
Mildred figured that the baron wasn’t far off his assessment, no matter what Doc may think of it. His concussion from the night before hadn’t done anything to change the baron’s preconceived notion, and although babysitting the old buzzard wasn’t on her favorite list of things to do, she still felt that his head injury could make him the most vulnerable. As such, she was kind of relieved that she could keep an eye on him. But seeing the look of thunder on Doc’s face, she knew his thinking had stopped at the phrase “he’s a crazie, for sure.” The rest was lost to him.
“Which just leaves Kirsty and J.T. to pair up. The strongest pairing, by all accounts. The blaster expert and the mutie. Hellfire, I’m surprised they need the rest of you. So that’s how we do it. And you go first….”
He indicated Mildred and Doc, both of whom looked surprised, particularly given the terms with which he had addressed Doc.
“Yeah, thought that would surprise you,” he said. “My way of thinking is this—get the crazie into action first, see how the bastard holds up. ’Cause you got two bases each if you’re gonna clear my list, so best to see if some of you are gonna have to double or triple up.”
“My dear sir,” Doc intoned, mustering as much restraint and dignity as he could manage, particularly as all he really wanted to do right then was to rip off the baron’s head. “You need have no fear of my failing. Not for you, for I do not give a fig about your worthless and putrid opinions, but for my friends. For I have never let them down, and nor do I intend to start now.”
“Good, good.” Crabbe smiled. “I don’t give a shit why you do it, Jock, just as long as you do. Now you and Millicent point out which of that little stash is yours,” he continued, indicating the inventory on the tarp, “and then get yourselves over to the thing there.” He waved at the mat-trans unit. “And one of you can go and punch in the code that powers it…just one of you, and you’ll be covered.”
Krysty stood and moved to the comp, nervousl
y scanning the keys and displays. She breathed an inner sigh of relief when she realized that it was the same as any she had seen. There were a few minor variations, as there always were, but the basics were those that she understood. As she stood there, Doc and Mildred stood slowly, always mindful of the blasters that were trained on them. Both hesitated.
“Move to the blasters slowly, then point yours out to my men,” Crabbe said in a low, clear voice. His demeanor had changed. Now that it had come to the business end of things, there was an iciness about him that defined why he had become a baron. While he observed, and his men covered them, Doc pointed out the LeMat and his lion’s-head swordstick. They were handed to him carefully, along with spare ordnance that was taken from J.B.’s capacious munitions bag. It amused Doc that they had defined his cane as being more than it seemed. The point wasn’t lost on Mildred as she indicated her Czech ZKR, and was handed it along with extra ammo.
“Now step over to the glass room,” Crabbe murmured. “Weird kind of glass, Brian. Mebbe you can tell me more about it.”
“Mebbe I can. Later, though, when this is done,” Ryan answered carefully.
Crabbe’s eyes shifted to him. “Sure…when this is done,” he replied in an ambivalent tone.
Then, switching his attention to his mechanic, he said firmly, “Power it up, Sal.”
The stooped, balding engineer nodded and strode rapidly to the far side of the control room. Only now, by following his passage, could Krysty see that the mechanic had put a circuit break into the power lines. It looked crude and primitive, but she marveled at the skill he had shown. It seemed that Crabbe was right about him.
Sal threw the switch and the previously dark and silent equipment hummed and pulsed into life. The monitors flickered, and Krysty could see information scrolling on the screens.
“Well?” Krysty said. “Where are the coordinates you want them sent to?”
Crabbe grinned and handed her the list. “We just gonna work from top to bottom, Kirsty. You send them to the first one.”