Salvation Road

“Then you’re a talented man, my friend, and I’d sure as shit hate to be on the opposite side to you in a war. I take it that the one-eyed dude is your leader?”

“Kind of. We don’t call him that, and he doesn’t call him that, but it amounts to the same thing.”

“Then I guess you’re a formidable outfit, and I’d sure as hell hate you to take against us just because I was kind of cautious. I’d be grateful if you’d explain that to him when he comes around.”

“Why don’t you do that?”

“’Cause I’ve got work to do. That’s why we’re here. I’ll be back later, but in the meantime my friend Petey here will be just outside, and the kind of jack he’s on to do a good job, then he may be just a little trigger-happy if you do something rash. We’ve got a lot to do, and not a lot of time, so the bonuses are good and we can’t afford interference.”

“Just what is it that you are doing here?” the Armorer asked as Crow turned to leave.

The foreman didn’t pause, just said, “I ain’t going to waste breath. I’ll be back here when the day’s work is done, and when you’re all in a fit state to listen. Use the food and water,” he added, gesturing to the barrel and table in the corner of the shelter. “That ain’t drugged, take my word…there’s no need for it, now.”

J.B. watched him go, followed by Petey, who stopped just beyond the last sheet of material covering the shelter. The Armorer then turned his gaze to his still unconscious companions.

It was going to be a long day.

RYAN WAS THE FIRST of the others to come to, and the one-eyed warrior experienced much the same symptoms as the Armorer.

“Fireblast, what the rad-blasted hell hit me?” he complained, raising his head and opening his eye to be greeted by his old friend standing over him.

“A heavy-duty trank,” the Armorer replied without humor, “and a hell of a shock if you look for any weapons.” He went on to explain the situation as quickly and concisely as possible, before Ryan had the chance to check for his blasters or his trusty panga and the red mist of fury descended.

“Guess we’ll just have to trust what he says,” Ryan mused when J.B. had finished telling his tale. “I knew there was something about him that set me on edge, even though most of my instincts said to go with him.”

“Figure you were right in the long run,” the Armorer said. “I can see his point.”

“Yeah, and just mebbe I would have done the same thing,” Ryan added.

The two friends and longtime traveling companions decided that there was nothing to do but sit back and wait to see what happened when the day’s work was done and Crow returned to them. In the meantime, they had to wait for the rest of their party to awaken.

The amount of time it took for the others to come around depended on their individual physical condition and how much of the water they had drunk. They were all extremely fit, even Doc. Despite the ravages of his enforced time travels, which had made his late-thirties frame seem several decades older, Doc was still extremely fit. There was no way he would have survived if not. His mind was another matter, and how it would react to this shock, when he had already been delirious from the desert trek, was something that they had to ponder. Also, he had been the most dehydrated, and Mildred had made sure that he had drunk a larger amount of the water than any of the other companions.

Jak was next to awake, and he reacted to the drug and the enforced sleep in much the same way as he did to a mat-trans jump, by vomiting heavily. But he recovered his strength, and was aided by Mildred, who came around next and was able to feed him a solution from one of the packs taken from the medical bay at the redoubt which quelled his stomach spasms.

Krysty surfaced and showed her strength by gracefully uncoiling from her sleeping position and rising in a fluid movement, standing upright and still while her balance and equilibrium settled.

Dean took some time, as he had drunk copiously, and Doc wasn’t far behind. But while Dean was fine, Doc was another matter. Mildred crouched over the prone old man as he began to regain consciousness, muttering and twitching as though in the throes of a fit. His eyes stared blankly from his head, and he failed to respond to any stimulus.

“Is there anything that we can do?” Ryan asked Mildred.

She looked up and shook her head, the grim set of her face showing her concern. “Not that I can think of. Trouble is, I just don’t know what’s going on up here,” she said, tapping her head to indicate Doc’s mind. “Whatever else, it’s just more shit for him to deal with.”

Mildred and Krysty made Doc as comfortable as possible, and while the others paced the confines of the shelter, careful not to attract the attention of the sec man outside but feeling confined like caged animals, Doc responded to the cold compresses applied to his fevered brow and the sedative injection Mildred gave him. It was one of the few sealed needles that Mildred had salvaged from the medical bay, and as she was usually loath to use such items, she wasn’t surprised at the quizzical look Krysty gave her when she broke the seal on the packet.

“I know, I know. I’m not that keen, either,” she said in answer to the unspoken question, “but I don’t know what else to do. The trank has unbalanced him even more than the desert, and this is so mild that it should just keep him under long enough to get more rest. There’s not a lot else that could work,” she added, shrugging.

And sometimes desperate measures could be the most effective, for after a couple more hours of deeper rest, Doc suddenly opened his eyes and said in a clear, firm voice, “I feel as if I have been asleep for a thousand years, and have awakened to the strangest feeling that I have said that, or something akin to it, quite recently.” He raised himself on one elbow. “Now, would it be possible for someone to tell me what on earth is going on, and how we got to be here, for I have to confess that I have not the slightest idea of where, or indeed how.”

The relief Ryan felt at Doc’s recovery was shown by the smile that flickered at the corners of his mouth as he replied, “We can fill you in part of the way, Doc, but for some of it we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Until when?”

Ryan looked out of the shelter and at the darkening sky as twilight closed in on the old wag stop.

“Not long, Doc. Not long at all.”

THE WORKERS CONTINUED to labor until the light was almost gone and the temperature had dropped from the blistering heat of the day to the bone-numbing cold of night. Petey had come into the shelter, cradling his H&K, and lit a number of oil lamps that were suspended from the poles that also held up the protective sheeting.

“How long do you usually work?” Ryan asked the sec man.

Petey shrugged, keeping a wary eye on the group but showing no great hostility. “Depends on the light, but it’s more or less around this time. We get about fourteen hours of work a day.”

Dean whistled. “That’s pretty intensive.”

“Eh?” The sec man paused, staring at the boy.

“I mean it’s a lot of time and doesn’t give you much chance to rest,” Dean explained.

Petey shrugged again. “Sooner we get done, sooner we get paid, and the more jack we get. Baron Silas is generous if you play straight and work hard. Mean-eyed fucker if you don’t.”

“Baron Silas who?” J.B. asked disingenuously.

“You don’t catch me out that easily,” the sec man said with a wry grin. “Crow’ll let you know all you need when he comes in. And that won’t be too long, so you just be patient,” he added, leaving them alone.

The sec man’s assumption was correct. It was less than half an hour before Crow led the workforce into the shelter.

“Glad to see you’re all awake and well. I’d guess that the enforced rest may even have done some good after your long journey,” he directed at them before turning to his own men.

“Bronson, you, Rysh and Hal are on sec duty tonight.”

The three men took food and water from the supplies for the sec men who remained on guard duty, taking them their meal before settling to their own. While they did this, the remaining workers took their own meal, discussing with one another the day’s work and their individual performances. The companions, listening to them, all noted that the main topic of conversation was getting the work finished and collecting the large bonus for a quick finish; the men were graphic about the manner in which they would spend the bonus in a gaudy house, casting glances at Krysty and Mildred as they did so.

The two women were the last people to be worried and shocked by such talk, which was obviously the intention, and Ryan noted that Crow was watching their reaction. The foreman did nothing to halt such talk, although he was silent and impassive as he took his meal. The one-eyed warrior guessed that the foreman said nothing as he wanted to test both the resiliency of the women, and the ability of their male companions to keep their peace. A swift glance at his team showed Ryan that they wouldn’t be found wanting.

The tone of the conversation continued when Hal, Rysh and Bronson returned from their task and also began to eat. It continued until Crow had finished his repast, at which point he decided that enough was enough.

“I hope,” he said, his quiet and deep voice cutting through the talk and silencing the others despite its lack of volume, and directing his comments at the companions, “that you have also partaken of our food and water?”

Ryan assented. “We appreciate you sharing your supplies with us. And I can appreciate why you did what you did. I figure that mebbe I can trust you people not to chill us—otherwise you would have done it already. What I’m wondering now is what you want from us, and who you are and where you come from. Oh yeah, and why you’re working out here in the middle of nowhere on an old wag stop.”

Crow allowed a rare touch of emotion—a barely contained humor—to creep into his tone. “Sure there’s nothing else?”

“Not yet,” the one-eyed warrior countered.

“Okay, let’s take it from the top,” Crow began. “We all come from a ville called Salvation, which lies about three days from here along the remains of the old road. Salvation is run by Baron Silas Hunter, who’s the man who pays our jack.”

“Good jack, by the sound of it,” J.B. interjected.