Arcadian's Asylum (2 page)

And yet, harried and driven by the two sec lieuten
ants, each moving to the crews that he knew would respond best to his particular manner, it wasn’t long before the crews were beginning to look like the brew and lust had been riven from their blood. Goaded by the sec men and each other, they were soon fit enough to start the task in hand.

For the next eighteen hours straight they had worked, before resting prior to departure. Ryan and his people had been acting as sec and outriders for most of their short time with the convoy. Toms had told Ryan, as they stood on the melting pavement of the highway on which he had found them, that he knew from stories that Ryan and J.B. were survivors of the infamous Trader’s convoy. Since then, stories had circulated about their abilities to fight their way out of a tight corner. So their main purpose in being recruited was to provide additional and experienced sec to augment the force on a convoy that was swelling to the point of being unwieldy.

For the most part, this is what they had done. But now that they were about to leave Arcady sooner than originally intended, they had to earn their jack. They had been promised money and supplies on leaving the convoy, if that was what they preferred. They had also been assured a job as long as they wanted one. The benefits for this were obvious: Toms, while not generous, was an employer who believed that his crews would respond well to being well rewarded. Food was plentiful. Basic meds were stocked. Water was always well tanked. And there was jack for gambling, gaudys and brew when they hit a ville.

But in return, Toms demanded that his crews be ready to respond at an instant. They had to work hard,
and turn their hand to anything that would assist the greater whole. So it was that Ryan and his people found themselves pressed into tasks that were alien to their usual way of working.

Yet the manner in which K.T. and Lou had managed the crews after the initial hard-taken tack had been revelatory. Despite the mouth that still could outcurse anyone across the breadth of the land, K.T. had been encouraging rather than scourging, and Lou had used his immense strength to facilitate speed on some tasks that would otherwise have been delayed by the need to find spare manpower for lifting.

Now, as Ryan and Krysty sat in the eighth wag with the sec lieutenant, and he said little or nothing as his protruding bug eyes scanned the horizon before flicking back to the instruments on the dash of the wag, checking the wag jockey’s progress, it was as though the stresses of the last day or so had never occurred.

“Taken this stretch of road before?” Ryan asked, wondering why the sec man seemed so intent on the surrounding territory. If what Toms had told them was correct, then Arcady was a regular on their route.

K.T. shook his head. “Shit, no. Trader tells us at the last minute that it’s another route out of the asswipe fucker of a ville. Usually take the road heading nor’ nor’ east, which is an old highway that’s been resurfaced in part. Smooth as a gaudy’s pussy after a close shave. Sweet, easy route. This pissing road leads who knows where.”

“Jackson Spire, presumably,” Krysty murmured. It passed through her mind that it was odd that this ville should be their destination, full of trading promise,
when K.T. seemed never to have heard of it before. Her hair curled slightly.

“Yeah, probably does. ’Scepting that we’ve never been to that bastard pesthole ville before. Some ass-end-of-beyond piece of shit that ain’t got two turds to rub together, let alone serious trade.”

“Then why would it now?” Ryan questioned. K.T. shrugged. “Why the fuck should I know? Mebbe they got lucky and found some old stockpile on their doorstep while they were fucking each other and their pigs in the dirt. Mebbe they got some blasters and robbed some stupe ass convoy that wasn’t looking. Or mebbe Arcadian is setting them up in some way.”

“Setting them up? For what?” K.T. shrugged. “I don’t mean like the asshole wants to make ’em take a fall for something. But mebbe he wants to see if they can make something of themselves if they get a helping hand, or whether they’ll just piss it away like shithead scum.”

“That’s magnanimous of him,” Krysty murmured. “Kind of good,” she added as she noted the puzzled look K.T. shot her. K.T. sighed. “Weird fucker, that Arcadian. Me and Lou never really get much of a chance to be around when him and Toms are together, and I can’t say as I’m too pissed off about that. There’s just something about him that really puts the shits up me.”

His attention was taken by a patch of undergrowth on their left, and he peered toward it, cursing furiously under his breath as he tried to define if the rustling movement within it was a harmless animal, a possible predator or stickies waiting to attack.

While that occupied him, Ryan and Krysty exchanged looks. Such was the bond that had built between the two of them over the years they had been traveling that they could almost tell what the other was thinking.

If Arcadian had some motive for sending Toms to Jackson Spire, then they would be wise to be triple red. Maybe the baron was nothing more than a dabbler in trying to expand his empire than K.T. had half suggested. But maybe he had some motive that was as yet unfathomable, involving the convoy as much as—if not more than—the people of the ville.

The eighth wag of the convoy was an old military vehicle that had, at one time, been used as troop transport. Bench seats still filled the first half of its length before giving way to an area that had been cleared at the rear of the vehicle. Here were two mounted Brens, ancient but reliable, that covered both sides of the road. Currently they were manned by two of the wag crew. Ryan and Krysty were due to relieve them in an hour. Meantime, they tried to rest, knowing how uncomfortable the metal bucket seats of the Bren mountings could become. But it was far from easy, as Toms was a great believer in utilizing space to the max: cartons and wooden crates were piled precariously around them, barely contained by webbing. These were crew supplies, and were carried in sec wags to keep them separate from trade cargo. It was a reasonable system, except that it took no account of crew comfort during rest periods.

“Asshole trees,” K.T. cursed, louder than his previous mumblings. “Makes the land hard to read. You don’t
read the land, you don’t know what’s gonna jump out at you.”

Which was precisely why Ryan and Krysty were themselves cursing at that moment. They were trying to get rested so that they could stay triple red, yet thinking that the only thing that was going to leap out at them on benches like these were their own kidneys.

It was going to be a long ride, despite the distance.

“DO YOU USUALLY follow this route?” J. B. Dix asked mildly, taking a look through the periscope attachment that had been welded into the roof of the rear wag. It was a fine piece of work, salvaged from who knew where and lovingly maintained. The welder had been a craftsman, the bearing-mounted swivel allowing J.B. to take a full 360-degree look at the territory through which they were passing.

Despite the mildness of his tone, J.B. felt uneasy. He had picked up from overheard murmurs that this wasn’t the usual route taken on leaving Arcady. The scope showed him that the roadsides were dense, impenetrable foliage, almost like a jungle—creeping vines, twisted and gnarled tree trunks with overhanging branches pendant with dark, oily leaves; thick, spiky grasses that poked out of gaps and lined the hillocks on which the trees rose and fell. Dark, ominous rustling from within could be danger, or could be just the movement of the heavy plant life.

This was the territory that had once been known as Missouri. Some of the vegetation he could see would have existed here before skydark, perhaps changed by the mutation of the nukecaust. But most of it was
alien—not just to here, but to anywhere that he had ever been. Not least of which was the route they had taken into the ville. There was a sense of foreboding that hung over the old flat-top highway. It may have just been the darkness where the canopy of leaves blocked the sun, or it may have been the way in which the trees seemed to loom, as though waiting for the right moment to pounce.

Someone or something had laid this vegetation along this route. He’d bet on someone, and he also knew who would be his likely suspect. But the question was why? Was it a defense? In which case, why was the convoy being sent to Jackson Spire, which presumably was the only settlement along this old road, and the only place from which Arcady could want protection?

Or had they been sent this way because the foliage was part of an offensive rather than defensive measure? In which case, where was an attack to come from? The why could wait.

J.B.’s question was finally answered. “Not usual to go this way, no. But then, we’ve never been to Jackson Spire before. No reason to, really. As far as we were concerned, it was a dead-and-alive pesthole, with nothing to take us there. Nothing to trade, and no jack to buy.”

The giant Lou stretched himself, his arms rising so that they pushed against the roof of the wag, even from his seated position. He yawned, then pivoted on his swivel-mounted chair so that he faced the Armorer rather than the front of the wag.

“Why? Does it matter?” J.B. shrugged. He thought it might, but there was no
need to cause unnecessary panic. “I was just wondering. It’s this weird shit at the sides of the road. Not what I remember when we came in.”

Lou thought about it for a moment, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “That’s true enough,” he said slowly. “Never seen anything like this around these parts before. Then again, Jackson Spire has a reputation for being rad-blasted, which is part of the reason people like us have avoided it before. Guess it’s just rad shit that’s done this.”

J.B. sniffed. “Yeah, guess so,” he agreed.

Of course he didn’t. There was an itch at the base of his neck, a sharp prickle that alerted him to a possible danger. If nothing else, he was going to stay triple red and be ready if it came at them.

Carefully, he stepped back from the scope, took off his spectacles and polished them with the hem of his shirt. As he did, he locked eyes with Mildred Wyeth. The doctor had been checking the med supplies that she always carried with her, separate to those of the convoy. It was the first chance she’d had, given the speed with which they had prepared for departure. But as she had listened to the exchange between the giant sec lieutenant and the Armorer, she had paused in her task. She knew J.B. far too well to take his words at face value, and she knew when he was trying to keep something back. Now, as he shot her a glance that was intended to stay hidden from the other crew members, she understood.

The wag that traveled at the rear of the convoy was longer than any others, and had a larger crew. Six people, besides J.B. and Mildred, were in the vehicle.
A radio operator sat at a right angle to the wag jockey. All the vehicles were connected by an old shortwave system that, like the scope, had been salvaged and maintained with care. The whirling, crackling sounds of the rad-scoured ether were an ever-present low-volume background to the business of the wag, occasionally rising above the hum of the engine, sometimes blending with it almost hypnotically, broken now and then by the distorted voices of other wags passing messages.

The wag jockey had a sec man riding shotgun. Currently, an aging and emaciated man named Keef rode there, peering from behind spectacles thicker than those of the Armorer.

Behind these seats were chairs bolted to the floor of the wag. Lou reclined in one of these, and he was joined by another crew member. The final man in the wag crew—unusually, this was an all-male wag—was seated at the rear. A heavy-duty cannon was mounted over the rear axle, its barrel and scope exiting through the space that had once housed doors, but which had been modified to mold steel plate shielding around the blaster.

Around the chairs bolted into the floor were crew supplies, and along the sides of the wag were welded secure cabinets that housed meds and armament. It didn’t leave much room for the crew, cramming them close together. Yet, because of the low level of interior light—the windshield and wire-meshed glass on the side doors being augmented by fluorescent-lighting run off the battery—it was still possible for J.B. to convey all he wished to Mildred without anyone else in the wag being aware of what passed between them.

She moved across the floor of the steadily rolling wag, picking her way around the crates and cartons, so that she could take a look at the roadside. When she did, the sight took her by surprise: while inside the wag, having seen nothing of the outside since the convoy started to roll, she had assumed that they would be passing the kind of landscape that she had seen surrounding Arcady. This, however…

“Wow, that is kind of weird,” she said in the best ingenuous tone that she could muster. “Can I take a better look?” she asked, indicating the scope and looking toward Lou.

He shrugged, an indulgent smile on his face. “Sure. It is fascinating, I guess.”

It was obvious that he could see nothing to worry about, and was amused by the interest that the Armorer and Mildred were showing. Relieved that he had asked no awkward questions, she moved to the scope and took a look at the surrounding territory.

No question. There was something dark and disturbing about the land through which they were passing.

Without comment, she left the scope and returned to her former post. She continued to check the meds, but also found time to surreptitiously check her Czech-made ZKR blaster. J.B., catching her doing this, indicated with the slightest inclination of the head that he acknowledged her understanding.