LITMIR.BIZ

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blaster cracked once and chilled it through the skull. The crunching and grinding turned to snapping and tearing as its brethren devoured its lower half in a frenzy to get to the opening. “J.B.!” Krysty called. “They can get through the door!”

      J.B. took a knee beside one of the ventilation ducts, removed his survival flashlight and gave the generator handle a few cranks before shining it down the shaft. He scowled. There it was, a stickie, one hell of a lot closer than he would have liked. Its squeezed-out-of-shape skull was impossibly jammed against its outstretched arm in the tiny space. Nonetheless, it splayed out its suckered fingers and its rubbery muscles squirmed beneath its flesh, conspiring to pull it forward a few more inches. J.B. spit in disgust. “Dark night.”

      He fired his M-4000 and filled the duct with buck. J.B. racked a fresh round into his scattergun and peered down the shaft again. The stickie was mostly a gooey mess now. J.B. rose and walked over to the other duct. One peek showed him the same situation. The stickie worming its way up the other duct blinked into the glare of J.B.’s flashlight before resuming its creeping progress. J.B. let fly with another buckshot blast that obliterated the stickie’s hand, arm and face. For the barest of seconds there was a moment of blessed silence.

      The shattered stickie’s jammed-up corpse jerked a little and J.B. heard the crunch of bones as the mutie behind began chewing its way toward him through its friend from the toes up.

      Krysty walked in reloading the round she had spent in the hallway. “Given time, they can get through that door.”

      “Heard you.” He glanced up as the thumping and bumping in the ceiling continued and pondered the unpleasant idea of the stickies ripping their way out of the ducts and falling upon him and Krysty through the light fixtures.

      “How are we on chron, again?” Krysty asked wearily. She already knew, but she vainly hoped that somehow J.B. or maybe even Gaia herself would give her a happier answer.

      J.B. looked at the mat-trans comp unhappily as she shucked fresh shells past the loading gate of his blaster. “Two more days.”

      Chapter Six

      Ryan and Doc examined the ville through their optics. “This ville is old,” Doc said. “Plainly it was already old in my time. The cobblestone streets are original.” They scanned the steep streets and crowded narrow buildings. “Almost all the modern construction, buildings from Mildred’s time, have rotted away. Like the church on the sister isle, it is the ancient and solid construction that has survived. It is Mediterranean in style, in keeping with their presumed Portuguese forebears. Everything fashioned post the apocalypse is plank-and-beam or dry-mortared stone. Clearly the present generation has not the skill to copy the ancient buildings.”

      Ryan ran his eye appraisingly over the ville. Far too many people in the Deathlands were still feasting on the bones of Mildred’s predark time. This island appeared to have escaped skydark and transitioned fairly smoothly. Ryan grimaced and considered the chill-pale Roque and his crew. He noted the heavy iron-bound doors of all the houses. None that he saw had first-floor windows, the lower windows of those of older construction were either bricked up or barred, and that brought his thoughts back to whatever it was that awaited the night in the cave behind them. The island hadn’t escaped skydark entirely.

      Not by a long shot.

      Men in long coats and wide hats moved about on the streets. Some few more were engaged in activities on the dock. Others Ryan assumed to be women wore equally dark-hooded robes and veils. A clutch of them were busy down on the beach harvesting buckets of shellfish from the rocks.

      “And in what fashion should the Grand Turk and his illustrious vagabond enter upon the stage?” Doc asked.

      Ryan simply stared.

      “How shall we…make our play?” Doc tried.

      Ryan had been giving that some thought. “What you said this morning. Shipwrecked royalty. It’s not bad. We tell them we went down in the storm. Since they lost Roque, they might buy it. With your fancy talk and Latin you might convince them you’re somebody to be reckoned with. Try to make some discreet inquiries about the mat-trans.”

      “And you?”

      “I’m your right hand. I’ll just stand around and look mean. We haven’t seen much in the way of blasters or sec men. Tell them there were two more ships with us, and if they didn’t go down they’re looking for us, and tell them they’re big. If they think you got a few dozen guys like me looking for you, that might keep them honest. You? Be charming. Be imperious. Be a baron. Don’t bastard it up.”

      “Decorus Imperiosus Rex, so shall I be,” Doc assured him.

      “Let’s get fed.”

      They emerged from their hide among the boulders. The strand opened up to a decent stretch of beach around the harbor. Doc drew himself up to his full height and spun his cane jauntily as he walked down the sand. The women bolted erect from their labors to reveal veiled faces and smoked lenses. They made suitable sounds of alarm and then hiked up their robes with gloved hands as they scuttled toward the pier. Ryan kept his Steyr at port arms. Doc wasn’t exactly acting like a baron, but to his credit he didn’t appear to be afraid of anything. The men on the docks and boats drew knives and clutched at gaffs. Others ran full-tilt into the ville shouting. Ryan and Doc ignored them all and mounted the stone steps that descended between the ville and the sand. The area had a fountain and formed a bit of a ville square before the twisting streets wound up into the steep hillsides.

      A church bell began ringing in alarm.

      Doc stopped and struck a pose with one fist on his hip and the other on his cane. He made an imperious gesture with his hand. Ryan bellowed up at the ville. “Baron Theophilus Algernon Tanner seeks words with the baron of this island!” The cliffs on either side of the harbor gave his voice a nice echo. Doc whispered in Latin.

      Ryan roared out, and punctuated it with a full auto burst from his blaster into the air. “Baron Theophilus Algernon Tanner peto lacuna per Baron ilei Insula!”

      A phalanx of men in black came charging down the cobblestones. The man in the lead had some kind of assault blaster. The five men behind him had long double-barrel blasters, apparently homegrown, and probably black powder. The street behind them began to fill with men carrying single-barrel blasters, axes, shovels, sledges and anything else that was heavy or bladed.

      Doc looked utterly unimpressed. Ryan took two steps forward to interpose himself between Doc and the mob and arranged his scarred features into their hardest look. His body language radiated that very little was keeping him in check from chilling them all. The leading man was tall and whip-thin. A sparse beard and mustache were visible beneath the shadow of his broad hat. He had a predark blaster in an open holster on his belt. As he halted, so did his men and the mob behind them. Clearly there was fear. Ryan detected the people here weren’t used to being surprised. It seemed certain they were used to occasional visitors from the mat-trans and perhaps spying a sail upon the sea. They weren’t expecting company dropping out of nowhere on their doorstep.

      “I heard.” The leader spoke. Ryan was reminded of the accents when he had been to Amazonia. “You…speak English?”

      “You.” Doc snapped his fingers. “Your name.”

      “Jorge-Teo.” The man came an inch from snapping to attention. “Constable Jorge-Teo.”

      Doc waved a dismissing hand. “Show us to Baron Barat.”

      Ryan’s stomach tightened. Doc was already blowing it.

      Ryan could hear Jorge-Teo’s eyes widening behind his dark glasses. “You…know the baron?”

      Doc peered down his nose from his six-foot, four-inch height and recovered nicely. His voice dropped an intolerant octave. “We are aware of him.”

      “Will you join me in my office?”

      “We will.” Doc turned his eye upon the crowd and raised an eyebrow. The constable

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