by James Axler
Epilogue
Mildred’s Journal
The light from the campfire was low and reddish, almost as if the world had been painted with blood. A warm breeze was blowing across the Great Salt, and Dr. Mildred Weyth was sipping a hot cup of coffee, the companions taking a much-needed rest. Under her anxious fingers was a small leather journal. She had found it in the redoubt and decided it would be perfect for a codex, a sort of catalog of all the useful information that she learned during their travels. She could also record a few observations.
Not anything I would ever need, Mildred noted, but something to help some future generation to stay alive and thrive. Even in these blighted days knowledge was power, often more useful than a loaded blaster.
Opening the journal, Mildred took out a scavenged predark pen, gathered her thoughts and carefully began to write.
For those who come after me…In this journal I will list all of the useful knowledge that I have gained over my long and bloody travels through this strange new world. For example, boiling excrement and mixing it with clean sand makes a perfectly good soil for growing plants.
She then drew a crude picture to show how window glass from predark houses and office buildings could be used to build greenhouses to keep off the acid rain. That started a new train of thought, and Mildred described how to make black powder, and how to convert that into the much more powerful gunpowder, and then how to make fulminating guncotton. It was tricky, but John had taught her how and now she could pass on that knowledge.
Lifting the pen from paper, she frowned. There was so much data, so much vital knowledge that she wanted to impart to future generations, but there was no way for her to list it in any kind of order. Things would simply be listed as they occurred to her. Random knowledge for a random world. Somehow, that seemed only proper.
Pine ville is located in western Colorado, north of the Great Salt. It is a peaceful ville with a fair baron. Do not be afraid to go there in times of trouble. But the sec men are tremendous fighters, so don’t piss them off!
She paused again, feeling the warm breeze move her hair.
This is the third ville I have encountered with a rule by law, rather than the drunken whim of madmen. They are Front Royal in Virginia, Two-Son ville in New Mexico, New Mex, I suppose, just below the Great Salt, and Pine ville. Slowly but surely, a few people are carving out slices of civilization from this savage wilderness. Seek them out, there is strength in numbers, and use this codex to aid the struggle for peace.
She paused again.
“Millie?”
With a jerk, the physician looked up and saw J.B. running stiff fingers through his rumpled hair. “Something wrong?” she asked in concern.
“Nope, it’s just your turn to get some sleep,” he said with a smile, taking his glasses out of a shirt pocket and putting them on. “What are you writing?”
“Just a poem,” Mildred lied, closing the journal and cinching it tight with a leather strap.
“Dirty?” John asked hopefully.
“Now, why ever do you ask?” She laughed, rising to kiss the man good-night.
The task took longer than expected, but nowhere near as long as they both would have liked. Eventually, Mildred left the man to his work. She didn’t know why she had lied to her lover about the journal, but in retrospect, it now seemed a wise precaution. She suspected that her companions wouldn’t approve of her writing about the redoubts as the knowledge might be used against them someday.
And that was correct, she admitted privately. This codex could end up biting them all in the ass. But it was a chance she would have to take. Her father would have called it a moral imperative.
If I hide knowledge away like a baron did his guns and food, hoarding it for my own personal use, then I’m as guilty as the fools who destroyed the world, damning the innocent to lives of brutal hardships, needless toil and abject misery.
Was the book dangerous? Hell, yes. Was it necessary? Also, a resounding yes.
Mildred admitted to herself that most likely nobody would ever see the codex, much less find it useful. But Ryan had taught her to prepare for what an enemy could do, not what they might do. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I’ll add more as often as I can, until the book is full, she vowed.
The predark physician stood gazing at the starry sky, then looked into her soul. Somehow, there had to be a way to end the bloodshed and warfare, to return peace to the world, and she vowed to do whatever she could to try to make the dream come true.
Because in spite of everything—nukes, muties, droids and coldhearts—hope still survived, even there, deep in the heart of the Deathlands.
First edition March 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1424-2
DESERT KINGS
Copyright © 2008 by Worldwide Library.
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