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  “Ethan just wants to get to know you better, see where you’re from, where you reckon to be going. It’s not a problem, is it?”

  The wording of the second sentence was innocuous enough, but it was the tone of his voice—it carried an undertone of menace, as though he were daring them to say that it was.

  Or was it just that customs and manners were different here and the mix of races and accents that had gathered over the generations had produced a strange speech pattern? Certainly, they had heard so many different modes of speech over the years.

  Ryan looked over his shoulder at Krysty. She was his barometer of mood—her mutie doomie sense was liable to pick up the slightest tremors, even if she had no conscious idea herself. Her Titian mane was flowing, not tight and coiled, but there was some agitated movement from the strands around her neck.

  She noticed Ryan staring at her and gave him a puzzled look. The sense of danger—no, not even that, but rather of caution—was so slight that she wasn’t aware of it herself. The one-eyed man returned her look with a slight, crooked grin and turned back to the sec chief.

  “No, it’s not a problem. Not unless you want it to be. Not at all,” Ryan replied.

  So there may be no problem right now, but it was a time to be triple-red. That was okay—he could tell from his brief glimpse of the others that they felt entirely the same way, without needing to be told.

  Finally they seemed to reach the end of their journey. The corridors, which had been sparse up to now, were becoming more and more decorated. Animal heads mounted on wood, paintings that looked both new and scavenged from predark times and tapestries of bright colors were hung from the walls in an organized fashion, as though someone had applied some thought to their placement. That little fact alone gave Ryan a clue as to the man they were about to meet properly for the first time.

  A pair of white-painted double doors—modest but tellingly clean—marked the end of the corridor. Horse stopped in front of them and knocked twice, standing back to wait for a response.

  “Come,” a voice intoned from the other side, loud enough to be heard, but calm and unhurried.

  The sec chief put a hand on each door and opened them. They were on the verge of the baron’s lair and each of the companions felt a tightening in the gut. Now they would find out if this was going to be friendly, or if they would have to fight.

  They followed Horse into the baronial chamber. Like the corridors outside, it was decorated in a combination of paintings, animal heads and tapestries, tastefully arranged against a brilliant white wall. The floor was polished wood, shiny and slippery underfoot. The furnishings were sparse but comfortable: two sofas and three high chairs covered in a multicolor tapestried material that matched some of those on the walls; two long tables against the walls, with books and papers neatly arranged on the top, along with a wooden bowl of fruit and a pitcher of—presumably—water, and an old, mid-twentieth-century desk in a dark wood, polished and cared for, restored to its original sheen. Behind the desk was a late-twentieth-century swivel chair, carefully restored with animal hide, dyed and colored to resemble the original black leather or PVC covering.

  Ethan was standing behind the desk, leaning forward and supporting himself on his knuckles, resting lightly while he perused a document unfurled on the desktop. Behind him, a window onto the outside framed him in a halo of light. If this was the effect he wanted, then it succeeded. It painted him as a man caught in the middle of a busy day running a ville, a man looked up to with a godlike status. If it was chance, then he was lucky. If it was deliberate, then he was a clever manipulator.

  Which one was it?

  Ethan looked up. “Ah, good,” he said lightly, folding the document so that its contents would be concealed before coming round his desk and striding across the room to Ryan, taking the one-eyed man’s hand and forearm in his own and grasping them firmly. “You are, I trust, well rested after the rigors of yesterday?”

  “It was good of you to look after us,” he answered evenly.

  Ethan gave a crooked grin. “Not at all, not at all. The pleasure is entirely mine, I assure you. As you may recall, I described you as ‘interesting,’ and I haven’t changed that opinion in the slightest. You fascinate me, and if you wish, you can look on my hospitality as a way of satisfying my own curiosity. Now come, sit down.”

  Ethan led Ryan toward the sitting area, Horse indicating to the other companions that they should follow. They sat, following Ryan’s lead as he and Ethan reached the sofas. They were soft and yielding. Ryan felt a twinge of concern, as they were so soft that springing from them if attacked would be difficult. But why be too concerned when there was only Ethan and Horse in the room, and the baron’s attitude was distinctly nonthreatening?

  When they were settled, the baron lifted one of the high chairs and placed it so that he was positioned in the middle of the two sofas, able to see all parties. He sat, leaning forward with one elbow on his knee, fist under his chin, the very model of attentiveness.

  “You can go, Horse. I’ll summon you when I need you,” he said to his sec chief without looking up. The dreadlocked sec boss nodded almost imperceptibly and withdrew, closing the doors behind him.

  “So,” Ethan began when it was certain that they were alone, “I’m thinking that you have a tale to tell. You see, we have regular patrols around the territory, as we have to protect the trade routes to and from this ville. We have a thriving economy from our trade, and we live better than many baronies. But vigilance is the price we pay. You see my drift?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ryan said guardedly. He was all too aware of what Ethan was saying, but wanted the baron to come out with it himself. Unfortunately, Doc still wasn’t as sharp as at his best and took Ryan’s words at face value.

  “My dear boy, I feel sure that our kind host here means to ascertain how we came to be in his lands without seeming to have passed any of his patrols.”

  Ethan smiled, noting the flicker of exasperation that flared briefly in Ryan’s eye. “Precisely,” he said levelly. “I’ve never known anyone to get past our lines without warning.”

  “What about stickies?” Jak asked.

  Ethan’s face darkened and something hard and cold shone through. “We thought they would be no problem, just pass through and then go without even bothering us. Whatever stirred them up, it’s an error we won’t make again.”

  It was a plausible enough explanation, but there was a darker undertone to the baron’s voice that suggested this wasn’t the entire answer. It served to remind them to keep on guard, especially as Ethan picked up his subject again without hesitation.

  “Point is, we knew they were coming, as we left them. We didn’t know you were here until we stumbled on you and damn near chilled you along with the stickies. Now how does that happen?”

  “To tell you the truth, we don’t really know. We came from the northeast, across the dry plain. We should have been visible enough,” Ryan stated. He would let Ethan work it out from there. He wasn’t going to explain anything beyond that.

  “My people avoid the plain. Nothing can really live on that shit, and I’m mightily impressed that you got across it. But we circle it with our patrols and we should have sighted you before you hit there. It’s not that big a place and there’s nothing to conceal you if you’re observed from the surrounding territory. My guess is that you’re not telling me the whole story, here,” he added, eyeing Ryan carefully.

  “My guess is that mebbe some of your patrols aren’t as thorough as you’d like, or not as observant,” Ryan returned coolly.

  The baron gave Ryan a cold, hard stare that was difficult to read. It was as though he had deliberately hooded his eyes to block out all his feelings. From what they’d already seen, Ethan didn’t take kindly to not having his word instantly obeyed. But weighed against this was the fact that he was fascinated by the companions and could sense that there was some bigger story lurking behind their guarded words.

  He spoke
again after a long, considered pause. “Okay, if you won’t tell me, there’s not much I can do. No, that’s not true. Actually, there’s an awful lot I can do. We have methods of torture that would normally break a man in less than a day—that’s if he survived. But you people aren’t like that, I can tell. You’re not the kind who give anything away, and I figure you’d rather buy the farm than give me the satisfaction. Besides all that, you’ve proved yourselves to be exceptional fighters, and we can always do with those in Pleasantville.”

  “Really? You strike me as not having much trouble,” Ryan replied.

  Ethan gave a small smile that was entirely lacking in warmth. “Why d’you think that is? Because we fight hard for what we’ve got, and we fight hard to defend it. And people—by which I mean other, lazier barons who would want to take rather than build—know this. So they leave us alone. There’s a lot of jack and a lot of goods in this ville, and we wouldn’t be able to hang on to it if we didn’t know how to. Y’see what I mean?”

  Ryan nodded. “So what do you want from us?”

  Ethan smiled again. This time, there was a knowingness behind the eyes. “You don’t waste words, do you? I like that, although I wish you’d waste a few in telling me where you came from and where you learned to fight like you do. So I figure that mebbe you will if you hang around for a while, get used to us. Mebbe you’ll like it enough to stay. We could always do with people like yourselves, who contribute to the well-being of the ville.” He leaned forward, so that he was looking Ryan directly in the eye. “I’ll tell you what I offer. You can stay in Pleasantville for as long as you like. You’ll work for your accommodation and food, but it’ll be good work, not crap. I want you to work with Horse and look at our sec strategies, in return for which we learn things about combat from you. If you like it, then you join his men and stay on. If not, you leave and carry on to wherever you were going. And mebbe—and only if you want—you tell me how the fuck you ended up in the middle of that forest.”

  Ryan looked at the companions. Despite the rest, they were still battered from the firefight with the stickie pack. A few more days or a week in the ville, with good beds and food, would do them a lot of good before they moved on. He didn’t trust Ethan one bit, but if they could play along and buy a few days, then that would benefit them. At the moment they were in no state to stand and fight if they said no and Ethan turned on them.

  “Yeah, okay,” Ryan said with an inclination of his head. “We’ll do it.”

  “Good.” Ethan said no more, but had a smug expression as he rose and walked over to his desk. There was a bell-push on one corner, and he depressed it. Wherever the other end of the connection may lay, it wasn’t audible, and it had to have been some distance, for they waited a few minutes before the double doors opened and two sec men walked in, their blasters conspicuous from their belts, hands seemingly casual but ready for action.

  J.B. noticed this, and he also noticed Ethan indicate with a subtle gesture that relaxed the sec duo.

  “These boys will clear you out of last night’s dorm and find you regular accommodation. They’ll also tell you a bit about the ville as you go. Okay, boys?”

  The two sec men grunted. They didn’t seem as though they would be garrulous mines of information. Ethan turned away, his audience with the companions over, his attention already focused on the papers on his desk.

  Ryan rose, followed by the others, and walked toward the doors where the sec men waited.

  “I hope you’ve figured what we could be getting into here,” J.B. muttered as he joined his old friend. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “With you on that,” Ryan returned in an undertone, “but we can’t just leave—not yet. Play them along a while, see the lay of the land.”

  J.B. agreed, but his jaw was set tight. This wasn’t like the Ryan he knew. It was as though he were holding back, not sure of a course of action. The Armorer couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Ryan so indecisive.

  As the companions walked through the double doors, they noted that one of the sec men held back, so that they were led and followed by an armed man. With no blasters of their own, it was an uncomfortable feeling.

  “We’ll collect your stuff, then show you where you’re staying,” the leading sec man said in a deep, coarse voice that seemed out of place with his wiry, shaven-head form. “You’ve been allocated billets around the ville.”

  “You mean to say we’re being split up? And that Ethan already had it worked out?” Krysty asked suspiciously.

  “Course he did, lady,” the sec man at the rear piped up—literally, as despite his bulk and the beard that sprouted from his cleft chin, he had a voice that was almost falsetto. “The baron worked out what you do from what you were carrying, and made plans accordingly. He always plans for every eventuality.”

  “Does he now,” Doc murmured. “I wonder what he would have done if Ryan had refused him?”

  “Like Track said, the baron plans for every eventuality,” the shaven-head sec man at the front of the line replied in a voice that betrayed everything by its very neutrality.

  They were led back to the dormitory where they had slept the previous night to collect their blasters and supplies, under the watchful eye of the two sec men. Nothing was said, and no attempt was made to take their weapons from them, but all the companions could feel that the sec men were assessing them and the way they handled the equipment, as if sizing them up as future opponents.

  They left the dormitory and marched through yet more corridors. But these were farther away from the baron’s residence, and the farther they traveled, the more people they saw. The residents of Pleasantville moved freely inside and outside the tunnels, which linked buildings in a manner that was intended to supply strong defense and could also act as a convenience. There seemed to be nothing sinister about the ville dwellers, who went about their everyday business and looked at the strangers with curiosity.

  “Don’t they see many outsiders?” Mildred asked at yet another curious gawp.

  “None that look like they’re going to stay. Only passing through,” the man called Track replied enigmatically.

  They walked outside of the tunnels and into the harsh sunlight beyond, crossing old roadways bisected by newly hewn paths. The ville was walled off at a visible distance, the forest beyond invisible on the flat landscape as the fortress walls rose. It seemed as though the ville itself was comprised of an old stretch of suburb that had been separated from the remains of the city beyond and added to with a shantytown of shacks as well as some buildings that were sturdier, constructed of salvaged rubble from the ruined city. The smallholdings and farmlands that they had seen on their ride in, before weariness had claimed them, had to have lain outside the walls, which made them an easier target. Unfortunate, but if the land in here couldn’t be cultivated, there would be little option.

  Farming didn’t seem to be their main subsistence, however. The scrub they had seen couldn’t support the thriving population that they now encountered. As they were taken into the streets of the ville, they could see that Pleasantville supported a fairly large population, many of whom were trading on the streets or going about their business. Most were pedestrians, but there were some who were using horses—and not just sec men—as well as the occasional old motorcycle or wag, carrying goods from one part of the ville to another or headed out beyond the walls. The fuel and means to run wags and motorcycles didn’t come cheap. Ethan had spoken of trade, but it seemed that Pleasantville had something that kept it thriving.

  When they found what that may be, perhaps they would have some clues as to why Ethan was keen to find out more about them and to keep them in his ville.

  The companions were to be split up and billeted in different places around the ville. This was an obvious ploy by the baron to keep them from forming a force against him by putting physical distance between them and also by placing them where loyal Pleasantville dwellers could keep a close eye on them. But at the sam
e time, he had also chosen to place them where they would be of the most use. J.B. was to stay with the ville’s armorer, the notion being that he would add his skills to those of his host. Jak was to be housed with the hunters who foraged the forest for game. Ryan was to stay with Horse, and compare notes on running a sec force with the gaunt dreadlocked sec chief. Mildred—who from her belongings was obviously the healer of the group—was to stay with Pleasantville’s healer.

  Which left Krysty and Doc. This was a problem, as from their belongings and demeanor it was hard to know what their place in the group may be. It was as interesting for them to see how Ethan had defined them. But perhaps not flattering: Krysty had been placed with a trader who specialized in cloth and jewelry, as though he couldn’t see beyond her beauty or put any value on her beyond that. As for Doc—his was, in many ways, the most potentially rewarding as far as Ryan was concerned. For Doc had been sequestered with a man named Bones, who seemed to have no discernible purpose other than as the town scholar. Like Doc, his dress seemed a little eccentric, as he wore an old suit that was patched and mended, giving him the air of an office clerk caught in a predark time loop, worn by age. His eyesight was also bad, and he wore heavy glasses to compensate. But his task in the ville was obviously one that was important to the baron.

  This was something that was immediately brought home to Doc when he was led into the man’s house, which was one of the old, surviving suburban buildings. It was dusty and crammed full of papers and books. There was also an old comp that was working, blinking away on the man’s desk. The house was cluttered with other surviving pieces of old tech, including a camcorder, TVs, old stereo equipment with predark recordings in a variety of formats, books and manuals for the maintenance of this equipment, and a vast library of videotape that took up half of one wall, each tape annotated in Bones’s own spidery hand.