"Sounds good," Ryan said, hitching up his belt, a finger feeling the new hole in the strap to make it smaller. "We'll rest up tonight and leave at first light."

"It is odd, though," Krysty remarked thoughtfully. "Why would anybody advertise their presence these days? Likely to get you attacked."

"Could be throwbacks," Mildred suggested. "Savages still doing a job their great-great-great-grandfathers were supposed to. And now it's a religion to them."

"Or slaver trying to lure in fresh merchandise." Doc scowled. "Great Scott, what a disagreeable notion."

"Cannibals," Jak added, a knife appearing in his hands as if from nowhere. The teenager flipped the blade and tucked it away again.

So many questions, with only one way to get any answers. Ryan turned away from the city. "We'll find out in the morning. Come on, we have work to do."

Chapter Three.

On the far side of the dead river, the darkness descended upon the large ville, sealing them in for the night like the lid on an iron pot. Bobbing points of light came from the dozens of bright lanterns held by the sec men patrolling the outer wall, the lamps giving off an odd bluish light from the burning alcohol-soaked wicks. A stationary series of crackling pitch torches dotted the repaired main streets and the baron's huge mansion.

Closing the wooden shutters on the gla.s.sless windows, the blacksmith shut down her forges, letting them cool for the night. The gla.s.smakers did the same, but banked their kiln to keep it warm until the following day. The prisoners a.s.signed to sewer digging were unwrapping the rags from their hands used in lieu of gloves and washing the stinking grime of their toils off tired bodies.

Behind a barricade of pungi sticks and barbed wire, the shine gang ate its dinner and tossed lumps of black coal into the dull reddish fire underneath the huge distillation vat of the still. From the top, the coils of copper angled downward, leading to rows of painfully clean metal barrels waiting to be filled with alcohol for the next day-juice for the vehicles and fuel for the lanterns. And the dreaded Machine.

Murmuring voices came from the patched houses of the full citizens, joining soft conversation from the patched tents of the immigrants yet to be rewarded by full status. The crack of a whip sounded from athree-story building secreted among the ruins yet to be reclaimed by the workers. Downtown, happy laughter sallied as a family celebrated the birth of a child. A singing drunk fell to the ground in front of some sec men, who stepped over the man and kept walking. A husband and wife were screaming at each other, with the neighbors listening for any good details. And faint tinkling music drifted out from the well-illuminated gaudy house set prestigiously between the market square and the barracks of the sec men.

But from one tiny oasis came an endless barrage of cursing and grunting. A partially built greenhouse towered above the streets, the framework roof draped in folds of protective canvas.

Straining from the load in their grips, the two men shuffled away from a huge rock pile, their bare hands desperately clutching a tremendous granite slab.

"Easy, dammit, Felix," the tall man cursed. "Not so fast. Nearly tripped me!"

"Blow it out your a.s.s, Ben," the other retorted. "This thing weighs a ton!"

"Do we have to finish this now?"

"The sec men says we don't get fed till this wall is up," Felix grunted, the smell of dinner a tantalizing torment in the air. He tried not to think about baked potatoes smothered in fried onions with all the mushroom soup he could eat, and failed miserably. The baron may beat a person at a whim here, but a person was fed! "First thing they taught me when I arrived here, no work means no food."

Rivulets of sweat running down his hairy forearms, Ben struggled with his grip, the slab of stone shifting dangerously in his slick hands. "Watch it!" he cried out.

Releasing his end, Felix jumped backward as the stone hit the ground like an earthquake.

"Is it broke?" Ben asked fearfully, dropping to the ground and running his hands over the granite.

"Please, no. I can't take another whipping."

Scampering nimbly through the stacks of wood beams and salvaged nails, Felix returned with the old battered lantern. Standing over the granite, he recklessly turned up the wick, bluish light washing over the deserted construction site.

"It's okay." He sighed, lowering the light to the bare minimum again. This was all the alcohol they would get for today. When it was exhausted, they'd have to work in the dark if that stone wasn't in place. And that was a sure way to lose fingers. Wasn't a man or woman among the crew whose hands weren't covered with scars from the rigors of masonry.

"We'll never get this freaking thing in place," Ben grumbled, flexing his aching shoulder muscles. "Why can't we bust it into pieces?"

"Baron Strichland wants this greenhouse twice the size of his private one," Felix stated, "which means bigger end walls, which means stronger foundations." He glared hostilely. "Unless you want to tell the foreman to go jump a mutie."

"And get fed to the Machine? f.u.c.k that."

In the distance behind them, the great beams of the Alphaville searchlights swept the sky in their endlessmotions, back and forth, a slight wobble every now and then as a prisoner slowed at his task and a sec man encouraged him to do better with a lash from a knotted bullwhip.

"So what do we do?" Ben asked, eying the slab hopelessly.

"Gotta ask for more men on the job." Felix sighed, rubbing his lower back. "We'll take a few lashes, but that's better than busting this thing."

Ben shook his head. Another whipping. He was starting to lose feeling in his back from the acc.u.mulation of scars. Felix said the outside world was a lot worse than this place. He was an immigrant and should know. But Ben was born here and couldn't imagine a worse h.e.l.l then living in Alphaville.

"How about we take another rest, try again in a-" Ben stopped and smiled broadly. "Never mind. Here comes the answer."

Out of the dark, a huge figure was shambling along the street, moving hunched over as if struggling against a fierce wind.

"Hey, Sarge!" Ben called out with a wave. "Over here!"

Shuffling along, Harold paused and stared at the men with his good eye. Many people, when they first met him, instantly thought him to be a mutie, with his bent back, mottled hair and distorted features. But in truth, he had been one of the most handsome men in the ville until he fell through the top of a greenhouse, the shards of gla.s.s reducing his good looks into a grotesque mockery in less than seconds. And even worse, a sliver of gla.s.s had stabbed into his head, producing little blood and healing quickly, but his mind was gone, terminated like a cut cable. All that remained of the master sergeant of the Alphaville sec men was a powerful body, forged to even greater strength by the endless toil of brutally hard work.

Harold came their way at a leisurely pace, trying to smile, but only managing to distend his lips and drool slightly. In his powerful arms, he clutched a tiny box covered with flowery wallpaper.

"What's prob?" he said with slurred words, bobbing slightly. "Bad rock?"

Hands resting on his hips, Ben laughed. "Yeah, that's right. It's a bad rock. Toss it on top of the wall for us, would you, pal?"

Harold blinked at the t.i.tanic stone as if registering its existence for the first time. A soft wind blew over the work site, carrying the smell of hot dust from the outer desert. Somewhere, a wolf briefly howled and was abruptly silenced.

"Sure." Harold grinned. Putting aside his package, he started to bend to grab the rock, when a song repeated in his addled mind about lifting big things "up from the knees." He had to listen to the voices in his head, he admonished himself. They were friends.

Bending his knees, Harold slid his thick sausage fingers underneath the rock and grunted slightly as he lifted the quarter ton of polished granite to his chest.

"Where?" he asked in an embarra.s.sed tone. "Forgot."

Open mouthed, Felix could only stare as Ben directed Harold to the wall. Gingerly, so as to not hurt the puny wall, Harold placed the slab on top and stepped away quickly. Sometimes when he moved thingsthey fell over, and he didn't want to get hurt. For a split second, there flashed through his mind a kaleidoscope of images-a ladder, a push from below, falling toward the wall...but then they were gone and forgotten.

"Good job, Sarge," Ben said, slapping the giant on the shoulder. "Get along. Dinner is waiting."

"Yar," he said, drooling. Tenderly retrieving his box, Harold ambled away, so very pleased to have helped a friend in need. Softly, the voices in his head started to whisper that they really weren't his friends, but he covered his cauliflower ears and shouted until they stopped. Everybody in the ville was his friend. Didn't they always ask him for help? He was as important as the baron! And today was a special day. He clutched the canvas bundle in his arm even tighter. Harold was going to get married today!

Watching the broken goliath shuffle away, Felix fanned himself with a battered cloth cap. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h. I ain't never seen nothing like him!"

"Strong as a machine," Ben agreed, finding his shirt and pulling it on over his head. "And just as dumb.

We get him to do a lot of our work for us."

"Doesn't the foreman know?" Felix asked suspiciously.

"Naw, he does it, too. We all do."

Unwrapping the rags from his hands, Felix privately smiled at the news. That was important information to file away if he ever decided to rat to the baron on laziness in the construction crews. Might become foreman himself that away. "If that thing ever goes insane, be mighty hard to stop."

"c.r.a.p," Ben scoffed, reclaiming his own hat, a battered baseball cap with the letters removed from on the bill. Only a few loose threads showed where the embroidered logo of some predark company had once been. "A bullet in the head will stop anything."

Felix scowled deeply and cast his eyes to the cloudy sky. "No," he said. "There are some things a blaster can't stop."

Fully understanding what the immigrant was referring to, Ben felt a rush of fear and turned up the wick on the lantern as high as it would go. The area was filled with brilliant light for several yards in every direction.

"Come on, let's get inside," Ben suggested. Staying near the lantern, they hurried toward the barracks and a meal long overdue.

THE TINY GRAY HOUSE stood alone on a cracked parking lot, the single plastic window solid white from the sandstorms that occasionally swept over the ville from the desert. The roof was tough plastic and withstood the acid rains in the spring just fine. Although kind of small, it had been comfy for two, tight for three, and now was too d.a.m.n big for just him alone.

When Philip Arnstein and his wife first found the place, there had been a chart posted on the exterior listing the prices for the privilege of parking in the lot. But he had found a rusty can of paint decades ago and used half to paint the exterior twice, giving it a new look that pleased his wife greatly. She had shown him how much that night, by doing things she had only hinted about earlier. He still remembered that night and always would. Naturally, the other half of the paint was given to the baron. s.e.x was nice, but not even the wolves scared him as much as the thought of going to the Machine.

Sitting in a lawn chair by the open door, the old man shook off those thoughts and lit a corncob pipe with a piece of smoldering oak.u.m. In his withered hands was a whole fresh corncob, nicely dried and completely devoid of anything edible. Smoking contentedly, the oldster started to whittle a new pipe. This one was getting a bit oily in taste and was soon for the mash pot of the brewers. The baron didn't let anything go to waste. It was his only good point, the b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Then from out of the darkness, a monstrous shape lunged forward, and the old man screamed in fright, dropping his pipe.

"Hi, Mr. Arnstein," Harold said, grinning sloppily. "I got speak about Laura."

"Harold, don't ever do that again!" Arnstein admonished angrily, searching on the ground for his pipe.

He found it under his chair and lit it with trembling hands. "d.a.m.n near made me jump out of my skin.

Thought you was a mutie."

"Sorry. Laura?" he asked plaintively, trying to sneak a peek inside the tiny house.

"Not here," Arnstein said, surprised he got the name right. Poor dumb thing got lost inside a walled ville.

It was pathetic. The new baron should have shot him years ago, but Strichland wasn't exactly famous for his mercy.

"Marry," Harold gushed. "Wanna marry her." He held out a package. "Brought gift. Dowry."

The former sec man stumbled over the big word, and wasn't exactly sure what it meant. But the voices in his head keep screaming it was the correct thing to do. Ask first. Always ask first.

"You want to marry my daughter, Laura." The old man chewed over the p.r.o.nouncement as if it were unknown meat. d.a.m.nedest thing he had ever heard. Why would even this half-wit want to marry a r.e.t.a.r.ded wh.o.r.e?

"You f.u.c.king her?" he asked bluntly.

Harold felt his face burn bright red, and his vision clouded, dots of blackness swimming before him with a cloud of flies.

"Yes," he blurted honestly, remembering how they had once kissed. "We in love."

Rad-blast it! The hunchback and the girl were having s.e.x.

"Sorry, son, but you're a day late," Arnstein said kindly. "She was just too much trouble here, knocking over things, setting fires, so I sold her to the gaudy house."

Raw horror seized the goliath, his heart pounding savagely in his barrel chest. "She at bad place?" he squeaked like a child. He grabbed the old man and lifted him effortlessly off the chair. A ma.s.sive hand closed around Arnstein's neck, cutting off the air. "No! No! I marry her! She mine! You hear me?

Mine!"

Feebly, Arnstein clawed at the hand holding him aloft. He tried to kick Harold between the legs, but hewas too far away, his skinny foot only flailing helplessly. Finally, Harold realized what he was doing and eased his grip.

"Baron made me," Arnstein wheezed. "Everybody has got to work. You know the rules, same as me.

h.e.l.l, boy, you wrote them! No work means no food. Or worse, expulsion."

Frightened, Harold glanced at the rusty wall of smashed cars rising above the ville. Outside, the muties would get you. Laura was too little to go there. He could, but he was strong and knew the great secret.

But Laura sold to the gaudy house! Raw fury seized the man, and he felt the adrenaline rush of killing flood his body when the ghostly voices commanded him to release the whitehair. He was Laura's father.

Would Laura marry the man who killed her blood kin? Conflicting emotions shook his fragile mind. On impulse, he released the man as if gesturing in surprise.

"Back," Harold rumbled menacingly at the man cowering on the pavement. "You get back!"

"C-can't," Arnstein gasped, ma.s.saging his bruised throat. "She belongs to the house now. They own her. Probably already at work doing some sec man or farmer."

The words so simply said hit Harold like punches, driving the madness from his mind and replacing it with a deadly cold fire. He turned and stumbled, going down the streets between the array of finished greenhouses. His pace quickly became a sprint, then a lope, as he dashed across the ville to save the woman he loved from being forced into kissing other men.

The blocks flew beneath his shoes, and the greenhouses pa.s.sed by in the glittering majesty as if crystal phantoms. Reaching the market square, he plowed into numerous people, his every thought on reaching his goal.

Music, light and laughter came from every window and door of the building. A few men lounged against the wall, smiling and smoking on corncob pipes. The front door was garishly painted with a vulgar cartoon for patrons who couldn't read, and the picture fueled Harold into an insane rage. Charging, he simply plowed through the door, ripping it off the hinges. The crash stunned him for a moment, then he found himself standing inside the gaudy house, with a burly man advancing upon him holding a dented baseball bat.

"What's wrong with you, Sarge?" the bouncer demanded, brandishing the weapon. "You finally gone crazy, or forgot how to knock?"

Harold wasn't sure how to answer the man, so he said nothing. Okay, he was inside, but now what?

The giant couldn't think. His thoughts were muddled and confused. Looking about hopefully, he saw a group of men drinking at tables in the next room. The walls were covered with mirrors, and a pretty girl with garish makeup stood behind the makeshift counter, polishing a plastic tumbler, her red satin dress skintight, her bound b.r.e.a.s.t.s nearly spilling out for display.

"Mebbe he's been smoking wolfweed!" called out a drunken tailor, who immediately regretted the words as the hunchback stared at him directly with eyes filled with death.

"You're going to have to replace that door!" the bouncer stated.

"No," he rumbled. "Where Laura?" "She's not here," the girl behind the bar told him. "Pat sent her home."

Was that true? Could it be? Harold felt even more confused when he saw the s.l.u.t glance nervously at the steps leading to the second floor, and some small part of his brain that could still process information told him she was lying, that Laura had to be up there. Turning, he started for the staircase. The bouncer blocked his way, and Harold shoved him aside. The man flew across the room and hit the wall with a crunch, his limp body sliding to the floor, blood dribbling from a slack mouth.

"Laura!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "Laura!"

"She's upstairs with a customer," the tailor shouted callously. "Wait your turn. She'll be down in a second."

Screaming in fury, Harold took the stairs three at a time to the upper level. A long corridor stretched before him, lined with doors on each side. He could hear odd noises from the other side, squeaking and m.u.f.fled cries. Choosing one at random, he kicked it open, the door coming off the hinges and sagging to the floor. Inside, two people were on a bed wrestling. They froze in surprise. Without comment, Harold went to the next door and tried again. That room was empty, but strange items made of leather hung from the walls and bedposts. He didn't understand and left feeling oddly unclean.

In the room across the hall, Harold found three nude women lying on the bed covers, their limbs entangled to the point where it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. He grabbed a random leg and started to separate the moaning women. Each began to scream as he forced their faces upward to see which was Laura. None of them was.