Lost Gates

They would find out soon enough. For now, at least Doc’s bewilderment had given them the time to take some kind of stock.

“Line them up and step back, lads. We want to see what we’ve got here.”

Now they could see the man behind the voice. It was surprising. He had the voice of a big man: barrelchested and tall. Yet the man who addressed the Hawknose sec force in such booming tones was actually a short, squat man with a mop of curly gray hair and a straggling beard, almost dwarfed by the battered Kalashnikov he cradled in his arms. Yet despite his lack of physical stature, he had a presence that told he was in charge of the sec men who flanked him, each man standing taller and broader. They looked like a hand-picked team designed to deter any arguments. As they stood, in a parallel arc to the lights that were at their rear, it certainly seemed as though they were having the desired effect on the Hawknose team, who stood back toward their wag a little defensively.

The small, squat sec man stepped forward, squinting at the six bound people now arrayed in front of him as though examining them closely.

“Yeah, they look like it to me.” He stepped back and said over his shoulder, “You reckon as much, boys?”

There was a general muttering of agreement.

Mildred, looking at them, wondered if this was because they really were in agreement, or as part of some process to soften up the men clustered by the wag. To make them more amenable to whatever may come next.

Meanwhile, the squat sec man snapped his fingers, and two of the men bent down, reaching behind them. They each withdrew three sacks, which they tossed into the center of the dirt patch, so that they landed at the feet of the companions with a clinking that betrayed the contents.

Solid jack.

“Yep,” he continued without missing a beat, “I reckon these are the dudes that Crabbe has been looking for. Stupe, really, all those missions he sent us out on, and the bastards roll up down the way apiece without us even having to do anything. Valiant did good, and so did you.”

“Then why have you only thrown in six sacks?” asked the pompous Hawknose sec man. Even if he wasn’t the senior, he had taken it upon himself to be spokesman. Like the others, he was lean of face and grim of demeanor. His face gave nothing away, like his compatriots, though none of the six betrayed by them would have betted that the others weren’t secretly relieved that they weren’t the ones on the firing line should his opposite number not like his tone.

The squat sec man sniffed heavily, growled in the throat, then spit out a phlegm ball that landed with a dull splat by one of the sacks.

“It’s like this. They look right. That’s good. We got—” and he pointed to each in turn as he reeled them off “—Brian Mordor, the one-eyed leader. Jock and Snowy, the old guy and the albino. One’s crazy as a mutie coot. The other’s a shit-hot hunter and real dangerous. Had my way, I’d shackle the little bastard at all times. Can’t trust them… Krysty, the mutie with the weird strength. Gonna have to watch her, boys. Millicent, the one who’s a healer. Don’t let that fool you, boys. Heard she can fight like a man. Kinda looks like one, to my eyes. Krysty looks more my type, though I hear she’s Brian’s woman. And then we got J. T. Edson, the blaster man. They say there ain’t shit he don’t know about weapons. Useful guy.”

“You know a lot about us,” Ryan said slowly. “We don’t know shit about you. Want to tell us?” He kept the irony out of his voice. The man seemed to know something about them, but with a strange twist. Like that old game Chinese Whispers that Krysty had told him about, where information was passed on from person to person, half heard. He wondered what else they would know, but yet not know.

The squat sec man sniffed and spit again.

That’s one hell of a sinus infection the guy’s got, Mildred thought, but held her peace.

“Listen, Brian, I ain’t got nothing against you personally, see, but unless you shut up I’m gonna have to bust you in the jaw. My baron wants you, and he’s got you. But that don’t mean that a little accident don’t happen between here and him getting to see you, especially if you can’t keep your yap shut. You don’t talk unless you’re asked something, you see?”

Ryan bristled at being spoken to in such a fashion. He could see the smug looks on the faces of the surrounding sec men, and he was seized by a desire to wipe it from their faces. But his hands and feet were still bound, and he had no weapons. He gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw cramped as he fought down his temper. Although he knew he shouldn’t rise to the bait, there was something about the squat man that irritated him—an assumption of superiority based on nothing more than the fact that he held a blaster.

And something about the way that sec man looked at him. As though he was sizing him up.

Just what did Baron Crabbe want from them? Want enough to have been searching for them, and to have collated information that seemed to be almost but not quite right? That was a cause for concern. Did he want something that they would be unable to give because they had never had it? Any further rumination, taking his mind off his anger as it did, was interrupted by the further supercilious tones of the sec man who had escorted them this far.

“Are you going to argue with Ryan—” he pronounced the name with emphasis “—or are you going to tell me why you’re not paying up in full?”

“I was in the middle of telling you when one-eye here interrupted me,” the sec man snarled, raising his blaster and checking it pointedly. Behind him, the other guards moved menacingly. “Thing is, Brian and his boys—and girls, if you’ll excuse me,” he directed at Krysty, “have got a little task that Crabbe wants them to undertake for him. Now, much as he appreciates the fact that Valiant sniffed them out, and that you’ve brought them here, he feels that it would be a little remiss of him to pay in full before they’ve undertaken that task. After all, they look right, but if they ain’t, then that’s a lot of jack to throw away. Y’see?”

“But we’ve brought them here in good faith—” the sec man began.

“Ain’t saying nothing against you or Valiant,” the squat man interrupted. “How many times? Shit, get the point. You keep the half no matter what. Turns out that we all made a mistake, then that’s it. If these’re the right guys, then you get the second half of the payment. Look at it my way—you already called out Brian as Ryan. That don’t inspire me, you know what I’m saying?”

The pompous sec man’s voice held a quiver of fear as he spoke once more. “Valiant will not like us returning empty-handed.”

The squat man coughed a laugh that was filled with scorn. “You ain’t returning empty-handed. You got half the jack. You get the other half if the task is completed. Shit, way I see it ol’ Crabbe is being pretty good to you. He’s taking you on trust ’cause he knows you fuckers wouldn’t lie if your lives depended on it. Don’t think you know how,” he added reflectively. “So if it turns out that ol’ Brian here is really Ryan, like you say, and he ain’t the man Crabbe is after, you don’t deserve the full jack. But you didn’t try to deceive him, so you get to keep that half. I’ll say it again, stupe boy—if I had my way, and these ain’t the right people, I’d be after your asses with all blasters blazing. So why don’t you be a good little man and fuck right off before I really lose it.”

There was something about the way that his tone changed over the last couple of sentences that signaled a barely concealed anger. Not one of the companions had to exchange glances with another to know that the pompous Hawknose sec man had overstepped. Without turning, they could hear the shufflings that indicated at least some of their former guards were preparing for retreat.

“Before you go, ain’t there something you forgot?” the squat man asked with a hint of mockery in his voice. From their rear, the companions could hear two of the men move forward. They appeared in front of the group, gathering the sacks of jack before hastily moving back to their wag. They didn’t look at the people they had betrayed, but Ryan could see enough to notice that both guards were sweating with fear.

The squat man watched them, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips. He put the blaster over his shoulder, as though to indicate his lack of fear and knowledge of his superior status. “Something else you forgot?” he added, waiting until the Hawknose men were almost ready to leave. There was a pause, and then one of the long-faced men stepped past the companions, carrying a clutch of weaponry. As soon as they had been rendered unconscious, Ryan and his people had been stripped of their blasters and blades. Even Ryan’s weighted scarf had been taken, and used to bind the weapons together.

They were dropped in an unceremonious heap at the feet of the squat sec boss. He nodded—a barely noticeable approval, whether at delivery or horde was impossible to tell—before speaking again.

“Yeah, that’s it. You can go now. You’ll be hearing from Crabbe if things go well. Don’t come asking.”

The sec man who had dropped the load looked up briefly as he passed Ryan. The one-eyed man caught him in a stare for the briefest of seconds, and was astonished to see the naked fear in the Hawknose man’s face. Whatever Crabbe wanted from them, he would obviously stop at nothing. His ruthless reputation was foretold in that one glance.

While the group stood, still bound hand and foot, facing the semicircle of sec men who covered them, they could hear the wag in which they had been transported start up and leave. Even the pitch of the engine seemed to have a whining note to it, as though it couldn’t get away quick enough. As it faded into the distance, they were left staring at the men who were now their captors.

“You don’t say much, Brian,” the squat man said. He looked quizzically at the one-eyed man, as though trying to peer into his very soul. “Hope for your sake that you say more when Crabbe questions you.”

“You told me to shut up when I spoke before,” Ryan said calmly. “You’re the man with the blaster. What do you expect?”

The squat man sniffed. “Don’t know. More fight, mebbe. But mebbe you’re just biding your time,” he added with a knowing look.

“Mebbe…” Ryan answered slowly. “Meantime, shouldn’t we know what this is all about?”

The sec man laughed. “I’m going to watch you very carefully, Brian…Ryan…whatever the fuck your name is.”

He gestured, and half of the lights went out. It took a moment for the companions to adjust to the sudden change, facing as they did the full glare of the arcs. In that time, the sec men fanned out so that they covered the group from all sides. As their eyes adjusted to the darker night, they could see that they were on the edge of the ville. Behind the lights lay the spread of buildings that housed the ville folk. Looking around for the first time, they could see that to the rear—where the wag from Hawknose was now nothing more than a memory—there was nothing but wasteland.

There were more men than they had originally thought. Behind the arc lights had been an additional six, who had been operating the arcs and standing in reserve. Now, with the lighting reduced to a level where they could see clearly beyond and around, it was plain to tell that these men were deployed to surround them. They might be unarmed and bound, but their reputation had obviously preceded them.

“Okay, chill the rest of the lights, and keep them covered,” the squat sec man ordered, almost casually deploying his blaster so that it now covered Ryan. The meaning of this gesture was clear to the one-eyed man—the squat sec man considered Ryan his own personal charge.

Three of the six lights operated at half beam. These were pulled down slowly until they were extinguished, allowing the sec force to keep full observation on their charges.

“Okay,” the squat man barked when the lights had faded. “Louie, retrieve the arcs come morning. Pickup accomplished. Keep the bastards covered, and let’s move on out. Aw shit, better free them up a bit,” he added, looking at their hobbled ankles.

One of the sec men moved forward silently, observed by the others who kept their blasters carefully trained on the companions. Quickly and with deft fingers he loosened the knots around their ankles, one by one. Feeling that had been restricted to pins, needles and a dull throb now flooded back into their extremities, making it easier to move and yet at the same time more painful.

The squat sec leader waited until the task had been completed and his man had fallen back into his place in the circle. With a grunt of approval, he gestured that they move.

If being drugged and spirited away to a strange ville while bound and stripped of their weapons could be called a surprise—and Ryan would be more inclined to term it stupe bastard carelessness—then this was the second one to assail them in the space of a few hours. For they didn’t move toward the lights, shapes and sounds of the ville, which was what they had expected.

It was difficult for the companions to move at the pace that the sec men tried to set. Their bonds made it difficult to move with more than the smallest of steps, despite their being loosened. Blood flow to previously numb feet made them tender and treacherous. J.B. stumbled into Krysty, who found it hard to keep her own balance. Doc fell over many times, face-first into the dust before levering himself up by his elbows. Mildred went to help him up the first time, but the barrel of a Kalashnikov jabbed in her ribs dissuaded her. Only Ryan and Jak kept to their feet with any sign of ease. That was deceptive in the one-eyed man’s case. It took all of his concentration to maintain the appearance of ease. Despite the pain and the effort, he didn’t want the sec leader to see that he was struggling. When the time came, he wanted the man to have seen no chinks in his armor. But for Jak, there was no such effort required. The innate skills that made the albino the hunter he was were more than enough for him to compensate for a minor—and temporary—disability.

The guards around them tried to force the pace, but it was of little use. The shackles of returning circulation and the bonds that were still in place made it impossible. Finally the sec leader had to compromise. With a curse and a sigh he stopped the party, directing that the ropes around their ankles be severed. He even allowed them a few moments to massage circulation back into aching ankles.

Krysty’s glance flashed across the circle, catching Ryan’s eye. He knew what she was asking, and shrugged. He had no idea why they were being led away from the ville when the baron had paid for them to be delivered to him. Was this some kind of plot by the sec boss? Or was there something else that they couldn’t as yet know?

Ryan thought that both he and Krysty had been discreet. Obviously not as much as he had thought, for as they shuffled and stumbled to their feet once more, the sec boss spoke.