Desolation Crossing (12 page)

That just made it easier. J.B. held his fire until Ryan had passed through his sights; then, as the wag came into the center of his vision, he let rip a long burst of SMG fire that hit the wag head-on. The windshield shattered, the driver became a red blur of blood and bone, and as the wag swerved under the sudden lack of guidance, the sweep of fire took out the side and the men within. One shell had to have hit a gren, as the wag exploded with a sudden violence that took the Armorer by surprise.

And then it was over, almost anticlimactic.

The convoy rolled on, Zarir almost seeming to have not noticed the mayhem that had just occurred. The other wags following in his wake, unable or unwilling to slow. Ryan and Jak fell in at the rear, unable to communicate with the others, waiting for such time as LaGuerre decreed a rest stop before being able to ask questions about what had occurred and why. They were exhausted, but forced to continue.

The Armorer looked at LaGuerre.

The trader seemed unconcerned by what had just happened.

The Armorer looked at Eula.

The young woman regarded him impassively, as though the events of the firefight had not occurred, as though she were examining him in minute detail, trying to get inside his head, unconcerned by what had just happened.

J.B.’s sense of unease welled up with renewed vigor. There was something odd about the whole situation, something that could spell danger not just for him, but for all the companions.

Something for which only he could find an answer to: if he could figure out what the question was….

Chapter Eight

The Past

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Trader. I don’t know where you got that boy from, but him and Luke are like blood brothers. I’m feared that when one leaves, the other will want to follow. And we really couldn’t have that. Unless of course your boy wants to stay. Now that may be a different matter entirely.”

Baron Emmerton’s grin was broad but didn’t reach as far as his eyes. Beady, dark and glittering, they were sizing up Trader’s reaction.

The grizzled veteran of too many psychological games wasn’t likely to fall for anyone as blatant as Emmerton. The man was a fat fool, and a dangerous one because of the power he had, but a fool nonetheless.

Trader returned the grin; his, however, went up to the eyes. “I don’t think you’ve got too many worries there, Emmerton. Luke wouldn’t leave this place. Can you see him doing anything but moan about having to move his tools, pack and unpack all the time? And J.B…. Well, J.B.’s just J.B. Boy likes to keep on the move, and it isn’t my business to ask why.”

“So there’s no chance you’d try and filch Luke?”

“Luke’s one of the best, mebbe even the best. You know that as well as I do. But he’s not the traveling type, and I’ve got an Armorer who can match him. Least ways, that’s how I see it. And the thing he has over Luke for me is that he wants to travel, doesn’t want to settle down. In fact, he’d have a shit fit if I even so much as suggested a thing. And when that boy goes…Well, he’s quiet, but when those type go, they go in a big way. I’ve seen some scary shit, Emmerton, but I’d rather face that than J.B. when he’s really pissed.”

Trader had chosen his words with care. To a casual outsider, he may have seemed to have been overstating the case. Would a trader heading a convoy really let his armorer—a subordinate—behave in such a way? Not if he was going to stay a leader for any length of time. In truth, Trader would no more have stood for such behavior than he would for being short-changed in a deal. But he was more than willing to exaggerate if it would get his point across to the baron, who sat gross and sweating in front of him.

It was the worst part of having to use Hollowstar. To make the tolls worthwhile on the way through, it was best to try to do some trade with the baron and his people, which, in terms of goods and jack was passable. Hollowstar was far from rich, but its position meant that there was always something to be picked up from the tolls imposed on those who had passed before. And it had Luke: the ordnance expert was legend in this part of the country, and before recruiting J.B. it had been the chance to use Luke’s skills that had added to the appeal.

But the downside was that Emmerton always insisted on entertaining his guests. Trader had a pretty strong stomach in many ways, but Emmerton’s idea of entertainment was enough to make you puke in more ways than
one. First, you had to sit through the banquet: seven courses of meat, sweetmeat and rich sweets. The baron loved his meat to be fatty, his side dishes to be made with starchy, stodgy consistencies and strong spices. The sweetmeats were sticky and cloying, so sugary and thick in molasses that just looking at them made you feel as though you were stuck to your seat. If you could eat all seven courses without puking at least once, then you were lucky. Poet had once told Trader about a really ancient predark warrior race called the Roaming—presumably because they ruled half the old earth—and the things they had called vomitoriums. What that meant, Poet couldn’t tell him. All he knew was that these Roamings would eat until they wanted to puke, go to the vomitorium and puke their guts up, then come back and start again.

A stupe way of wasting precious food, but it was no mere chance that Poet had told him this after the first time they had been to Emmerton’s banquet. It sure as hell explained why the bastard baron was so fat. Ever since, Abe had attended the banquets with Trader, Poet refusing and claiming his gut would suffer too much. Abe was made of sterner stuff, and even though Trader gagged frequently, the skinny Abe seemed able to stomach the food. Trader didn’t like to think what it did to his insides.

But that was nothing compared to the other way in which the fat baron’s banquet could turn your gut.

Emmerton was obsessed with young women. It was something that Trader knew, disliked, but preferred to ignore in the greater interest of survival and trade. Trouble was, Emmerton had no shame about his depraved taste, and thought nothing of flaunting it. It was as if he believed
every man shared in it. So it was that the food was served to them by scantily dressed, very young servant girls. It was sickening, but Trader rationalized it by figuring that he’d seen people slice shit out of each other, and that was bad, too. It was kind of harder to ignore when the wandering fingers of the baron’s fat paws reached out and clawed idly at the girls.

And, always assuming that you could get past the sight of that without heaving, there was the floor show, which was way worse. It was amazing what some people called entertainment.

The strange thing about Hollowstar was that it was modeled after the kind of predark towns where everything was supposed to be perfect and “nice.” It was a word Trader knew from old books and vids, but there was nothing in this world that qualified for the word, as far as he understood it. The rest of Hollowstar made an effort to attain it, but their best efforts were blown out of the water by the excesses of the baron. From the outside, his house was only a little larger than the others in the ville, and it was painted in the same manner.

From the inside, it was different: the rooms had been knocked into one, with engraved columns holding up those areas where supporting walls had previously stood. The columns were engraved with figures in various stages of undress. The walls and ceiling were painted with scenes depicting similar nude scenes, and those areas that were unpainted were covered with rich drapes and hangings in heavy, dark-dyed fabrics. The baron’s sleeping area was cordoned off by railed drapes, the bed beyond large and soft when seen through the gap. The most recent of his
wives was sleeping there while they ate and talked, oblivious to what was going on. Doped out of her head, Trader guessed from past experience. The rest of the room was cluttered with ornaments from as many predark eras as could be pillaged; desks, tables and bureaux covered with papers, jack and valuables of all kinds. Couches and chaise longues were gathered around a central, tiled area.

That was where the entertainment would take place.

Trader steeled himself for this moment, and when Emmerton beckoned that he and Abe seat themselves for a good view, he consoled his turning stomach and equally rebelling conscience with the notion that he was putting up with this because it allowed his people safe passage. Besides, it would have gone on, whoever was present. Himself, or some other trader. Probably had.

Yeah, maybe…that didn’t stop him feeling soiled every time he witnessed it and had to walk away without cutting the sick bastard’s throat. After the second time, Poet having refused to attend and Abe taking his place, Trader had asked the skinny man how he could stand it. Abe had shrugged and said that there were sick bastards everywhere. As long as you weren’t one, and did what you could when you could, then screw it. What was wrong with the sec men who hung around with the fat prick every day? Why didn’t they do something? They had more chance. In the end, you zone out and just let the shit wash over it without swallowing any.

Emmerton kept returning to the subject of J.B. and Luke. He was a sly bastard at the best of times. The way he was talking about it, hunting around the edge of the subject, trying to sound out Trader’s own views all the time before voicing his own…It was hard for Trader to know
whether the fat man was worried about Luke wanting to join Trader because of the way he and J.B. had bonded, or whether he wanted to snatch J.B. from Trader and join the two of them together as a product that could be exploited for greater gain.

Either way, the baron had noticed how close the two men had become, and although it hadn’t really entered Trader’s mind up to this point, he began to dwell on it as he and Abe made their way back to the convoy, dismissed by the sec men after the baron had passed out from drinking too much. He’d become used to having the quiet man around, and with his skills he’d forged for himself an invaluable place in the convoy. He’d be more than missed.

On the other hand, they hadn’t seen that much of him for the few days they’d been in Hollowstar. In Luke, he’d found a kindred spirit. Maybe the ville would appeal to a man who had never put down roots. Not everyone was a natural nomad like Trader and the majority of his crew. He’d assumed that J.B. was one of them in that respect.

What if he was wrong?

“AND I’M TELLING YOU, if you machine tool the bore on something that old, you’re going to turn it into a piece of shit. Is that really what you want?”

“I’m paying you to do a job, and I’m telling you—”

“You’re telling me you don’t know your ass from your elbow, and you’re talking out of both.” Luke took off his battered baseball cap, which rarely left his head, scratched vigorously, and then jammed it back into place with a firmness that echoed his tone.

“Listen, bub, you might think you’re the hottest piece of shit this side of a stickie’s turd, but I’m still giving you good jack to do a job, and I expect you to do it.”

The man was small and fat, but he was quivering with rage. And he had a Smith & Wesson snubbie tucked into the waistband of his tattered pants, while Luke had nothing but the overwhelming force of his personality. Odd thing that J.B. had noticed about him—for a man who loved ordnance so much, Luke never actually carried any kind of blaster himself.

So that was one hell of a lot of lead against nothing but harsh words. A few men were gathered in the old storefront, playing cards and drinking coffee-sub. They gathered there every morning, it seemed, and Luke let them stay even though they had no business for him, and he barely acknowledged their presence. Right now, they weren’t even watching the argument.

The fat little man was flexing his fingers as he stared up, red-faced, into Luke’s impassive visage.

Calmly, Luke almost whispered, “I don’t give a rat’s fuck about your stupe jack, Howie. You can stuff it up your ass for all I care. Might even stop you talking such shit all the time. I am not—repeat, am not—going to try and machine tool an old piece of hardware like that. It was made with loving care, hand-crafted by men who didn’t know there was shit like this on the horizon, and who just wanted to do the best job they could. They loved their work, and I respect that. I love my work, and I’m not going to sully my reputation by carrying out an order—that I know to be stupe and wrong—just because some asshole thinks he knows better. Why, Howie, why, if you know how this piece of work should be done, have you even
bothered coming here in the first place? How fucking stupe is that?”

The little fat man blustered. “You…you…you shit-stained piece of rag. You always talk to me like that—”

“Yeah, and you always come back, asshole,” Luke interjected.

“Fuck you. Just do the fucking job and give me my blaster back in working order, right now,” Howie yelped, his voice rising higher and higher as his anger grew.

And as his hand crept closer and closer to the Smith & Wesson in his belt. J.B. noted that, and decided to take a hand himself.

“Listen, Luke isn’t shitting you on this,” he said quietly, sliding himself between the two men and using the soft tone he always used to calm Hunnaker when she was going ballistic on everyone’s ass. He figured that any kind of anger that would make a man squeal like a woman was somewhere near the kind of rage he’d seen from her.

Maybe he was right. Howie looked at him blankly, trying to comprehend what was being said to him, his face almost purple with rage but his eyes starting to get a puzzled light in them. Yeah, J.B. had seen this kind of thing before.

More assured now, he continued. “Luke may be telling you bluntly, Howie, but he’s right, See, this is a nice blaster,” he continued, reaching out behind him and flexing his fingers for Luke to hand him the old rifle that was the bone of contention. An apt phrase, as the cool, dry metal felt like a bleached and fossilized bone in his grasp. “It’s a really nice piece of work. Think about it—it’s lasted more than a hundred years, through skydark to now, and
it was made before men even had the machines to make blasters. This had to be done by hand. It’s a different kind of metal from blasters made by machine.”

“But metal is metal,” Howie blurted. He was still mad, but there was an uncertain edge to his voice, now. The Armorer’s calm tones and love of the craft was beginning to soothe him.

“No, Howie, that’s a mistake a lot of people make. The metals used in blasters changed from time to time, as the process of making them changed. See, if you look inside the barrel of this beauty, you can see that the bore markings aren’t as exact as those on a machine-tooled blaster of the same type. Now, if you put it in a machine like the ones Luke has out back and try to rebore it, you’ll do nothing more than ruin what’s there and probably screw up the true line of the barrel, as the metal is softer than that the machines are made for. You see what I’m saying, Howie?”

The little fat man looked at him with an odd mix of awe and complete lack of understanding on his face. He nodded, though he didn’t know why. J.B.’s tone had been both comforting, soothing and authoritative at the same time. Anyone from Trader’s convoy other than Hunn would have been astounded to hear the Armorer wax lyrical, and at such length. He was known as a man of few words. Yet, once he was on his favorite subject, it was sometimes hard to shut him up. The same was true of Luke, and no one who had heard them over the last few days and had prior knowledge of their personalities would have believed what they were hearing.