Leaving the room, Harold shouted her name again as a skinny teenager appeared at the end of the corridor brandishing a homemade blaster, a thin metal barrel attached to the wooden grip by baling wire.

"Hold it right there, buddy!" the runt cried out, and slid a .22 cartridge into breech of the zip gun. With the other hand, he pulled back a nail attached to a rubber band. "Ain't no fighting on the f.u.c.k floor allowed!"

His beleaguered mind couldn't comprehend the full meaning of what was said, but he recognized a threat, and panic for Laura seized him worse than before. Finding he still held the broken handle from the first door in his hand, he threw it at the teenager, catching him in the stomach. The boy doubled over, vomiting, and dropped the blaster. The weapon fired as it hit the floor, a puff of dust exploding from the wall near Harold.

Not connecting the two events, Harold went unconcerned to the next door and kicked it open to find more people wrestling.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on here?" shouted the man on top of a woman with raven-black hair. "Scram, gimp! I paid for this s.l.u.t-she's mine for another hour."

But as the stranger resumed his actions, Harold saw in horror that it was Laura under him. Her slim arms were tied to the bedposts, her nude body splayed like a cow for slaughter. Her blue eyes were closed, a dirty rag stuffed in her mouth, and his new wife made little whimpering noises as the big man between her legs began pumping again.

Stepping to the bed, Harold punched the man in the face as hard as he could. Blood sprayed from the impact, and the stranger flew off the bed, tumbling to the floor in a tangle of clothes. Looking down at Laura, he saw she wasn't really naked. Her clothes were undone and in wild disarray, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s fully visible and the tangle of ebony hair between her legs exposed.

A moist pink slit ran along the downy triangle, and it fueled a strange new hunger inside the hunchback.

"Don't you move!" a cold voice said from the doorway.

Instincts honed in a hundred battles before his accident, Harold sensed real danger now and spun with his hands clenched for a fight.

Standing in the ruined doorway was a hugely overweight woman dressed in frilly clothes and holding a longblaster. Not a homemade model like the kid in the hall, but a proper shotgun. She worked the pump and pointed the muzzle not at him, but straight toward Laura. Harold moved between them to protect the girl.

"Smart move, Sarge," Patrica stated. "But this is loaded with bent nails and gla.s.s, boy. Cut you open like a fish."

"Mine," he offered in simple explanation, pointing at the bound girl. "Mine!"

The gaudy house madam shook her head, never taking her eyes off the hunchbacked giant. "No, Harold," Patrica said quietly. "Laura is mine. Her father sold her to me. I own her."

Harold lowered his head and took a step forward.

Instantly, the madam triggered the blaster, blowing a hole in the plasterboard wall the size of a sewer grating. He stopped the advance as she worked the pump action again, but didn't relax.

"Mine," Harold repeated, his deadly hands still extended.

"Sergeant O'Malley, listen to me," the madam said slowly. She was armed, but if the shotgun didn't kill him on the spot, he'd rip her head off before dying.

"Harold, by the law of the ville, this was a legal transaction," Patrica said in a motherly tone. s.e.x appeal wouldn't work on the enraged idiot. She had to be nice. "The baron himself is a client here and encourages whoring. It's a service to the ville. We forge treaties between families. Immigrants don't get raped anymore. It's a good thing. s.l.u.ts are special people. The ville needs s.l.u.ts."

"Gonna marry her!" he screamed, spittle coming from his slack lips. "Father said okay. Called me son!"

"She mine!" Harold repeated, glancing at the bound girl supine on the sweat-stained bed. "Mine."

"Interesting." Now the madam felt more in control. His tone was softening, and she was starting to understand. So old man Arnstein had sold his daughter cheap, knowing the ville hunchback was in love with her. That's why n.o.body else wanted the girl, in spite of her incredible beauty. Well, she'd settle the score with the old cheat later. Right now, she had a brain-dead Hercules who wanted to walk off with her prize s.l.u.t. No way Pat was going to let that happen. At least not without making a profit. Maybe the sarge could be of use to her in certain matters. Debts to be collected, break a few legs. She might have him under her control for years. "Well, that's too bad about her father, Sarge. I paid for her fair and square. Canned food and shoes. A good knife and two blankets without holes."

"Me buy," he mumbled, not sure of what to do. Things that had to be moved or broken, invaders or muties to kill-these he could fathom, real things you could touch. This was beyond him, and the voices were beginning to whisper terrible b.l.o.o.d.y suggestions.

Tucking the shotgun under her arm, Patrica laughed heartily, making her whole body jiggle. "Oh, my poor young fool. You work shoveling boiled c.r.a.p in the greenhouses. You could never steal enough vegetables to pay for a beauty like this!"

Behind her, the skinny kid reappeared, the tiny blaster in his grip, a savage expression on his face.

Harold looked directly at the boy the way he did with the desert wolves, and the teen went pale, backing into the corridor.

The package in his back pocket suddenly felt warm, and Harold removed it. "Got this," he said, tossing the bundle to the woman. It landed on the floor between them.

Wary of a trick, Patrica moved aside and let her a.s.sistant get the package. Opening it carefully, the madam almost dropped the shotgun in shock. Inside was a pre-dark handblaster, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum in perfect condition, the barrel shining with oil, as smooth as winter ice. Even the cushioned grip was intact, without a single crack or tiny piece missing. Unfamiliar with the blaster, she fumbled a bit before managing to release the cylinder and check the barrel. Perfect. The d.a.m.n thing might as well be brand-new. She dry fired it a few times to check the spring, the solid sound of the hammer falling music to her ears.

Shutting the cylinder with fingertip pressure, Patrica stared at Harold, standing as if braced for a whipping. He was fully capable of tearing this whole house down to the foundation, and now he stood in fear of her words. Did he know what this actually was, and what it was truly worth?

"And bullets," Harold hastily added, showing a fistful of cartridges, fearing her lack of response was an indication the blaster wasn't good enough. It was the best he could find. He was supposed to give it to her father as dowry, but was it enough to buy his wife free from the bed?

Without fear, Patrica walked closer and took the bullets from his trembling palm. "This is forbidden.

None but the baron and his men can own blasters." But the madam took them and tucked them into the fold of her dress. With a blaster like this, a person could risk leaving the ville. Be free of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Machine forever. Anybody could leave the ville, but outside there were many muties and animals who waited for norms to risk crossing the desert. Not many ever came back. A working blaster in this condition could have bought him the whole d.a.m.n gaudy house for a week. Ten times enough to buy a r.e.t.a.r.ded s.l.u.t who had to be tied to the bed to keep her from rolling over and offering the wrong end to a customer.

"Enough?" Harold asked, hope burgeoning within. "We go now."

"No. This doesn't buy her, boy," the woman lied with a straight face. "A lovely quiff like Laura can earn more than this each moon for years. The baron himself wants her, and who can risk angering him?"

Choking slightly on her gag, Laura shivered on the bed, and Harold gently reached down to lay a blanket over her partially nude form. She smiled around the rag at him and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep. "Buy me a month," he said, staring at his wife. "A month no kissing?"

Kissing. How sweet, the poor dullard. "No, Harold. Everybody works," Patrica said, crossing her arms.

"No work, no food." An animal growl started low in the man's throat, and the madam realized she had gone too far.

"But it will buy you a week off her back, if that's what you mean," she hastily corrected, smiling for her life. "She can scrub pots in the kitchen and clean the lavs. Mop the floors."

Ask for more, screamed the voices in his head. "Two weeks!"

"One," Patrica said, surprised he would even try to bargain. Mebbe he wasn't as insane as she had heard. "Plus, I don't tell the baron you found a blaster...in the ville?"

Harold shrugged noncommittally.

d.a.m.n, he wasn't talking. "However, if you want to marry her, it will cost a lot more than this one poor blaster." She pressed her thumb against the hammer and pulled the trigger a few times. "See? It's no good. Broken already."

The man frowned, contorting his face into a grimace.

"I know longblasters," he said slowly, testing each word as if they were rotting timbers on a bridge. One wrong move and he would fall to his death. "Bag full."

"A duffel bag?" Patrica asked, trying not to show her excitement.

A glum nod. "That enough?"

In the hallway, her a.s.sistant sharply whistled.

"Yes, dear Harold. That's enough. Come back in a week with a bag full of working blasters, and Laura is your wife. Working, mind you," she scolded. "Not junk, like this!"

He nodded again.

"And ammo, of course," the madam added hastily. "Blasters are useless without ammo." She smiled as sweetly as possible. "That sounds fair, doesn't it, Sarge?"

A minute pa.s.sed, then two. The only sounds were of labored breathing from the customer bleeding on the floor, and the m.u.f.fled noise of s.e.x from down the corridor. A fight in another room.

"Ammo," he repeated in agreement. "All I can."

"Your word of honor?"

"Yes," he said in a perfectly normal tone.

The momentary transition to sanity frightened the madam worse than his growling. This was a dangerously unstable individual. "Done," Patrica said, offering her plump hand for a shake. "In one week, you deliver a duffel bag of working rifles and ammo, and she's yours forever."

With a ma.s.sive effort of will, Harold tried to concentrate enough to recall how many days in a week.

"Six days," he said. "Back six day." He brushed past her, ignoring the offered hand and moving down the hallway as indomitable as an express train.

"What a freak!" exhaled the teenager, tucking his zip gun into his belt.

Patrica grabbed the boy by the arm. "You heard nothing," she snapped. "Not a f.u.c.king thing, or I'll whip you to death myself."

"And risk the Machine? Bulls.h.i.t." The boy smiled. "I want a cut."

Impressed, she released him. "One blaster."

"Five."

"Two."

"Done."

They shook on the deal.

With a soft groan, the customer stirred and struggled to sit upright. His nose was mashed flat, and the lower half of his face was clotted with dried blood.

"Gonna kill that mutie," he mumbled, struggling to his feet. "I got an ax. That'll do him!"

Surprisingly quick, Patrica walked over and grabbed the man between the legs. He gasped as she squeezed hard.

"Touch him before the next moon," she whispered, "and I'll remove these with blunt scissors."

Nearly wetting himself, the man nodded emphatically. She released him and smiled seductively.

"Still got one coming," Patrica added, loosening the frilly top of her dress and pulling it down to expose her fat sagging b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She pinched the nipples, making the wrinkled bags of flesh harden. "Come on, I'll do you right here."

Yanking up his clothing, the man backed out of the room. "I'll come back later. Got to get a healer to fix my nose. Later."

As he dashed away, Patrica stepped into the hall and hoisted up her skirts, showing that she wasn't wearing anything underneath. "I'll be waiting for you, lover," she called.

Gagging and pale, the man scurried down the stairs.

"He won't be coming back." The teenager laughed. "But I'll do you, boss." "On Tuesday, as usual," the madam stated, fixing her clothes. "Not before, Jimmy."

"Fair enough. But what about the girl?" he asked, jerking a dirty thumb at the sleeping form.

Her lips pursed in thought, Patrica slowly walked over and slapped the girl. Laura awoke with a start, struggling against the ropes.

"Just throw a bucket of water over her to cut the smell," the madam said, "and tell the boys downstairs the line forms to the left."

Chapter Four.

In the kitchen of the redoubt, Mildred, J.B. and Doc were a.s.sistants with the preparation of dinner for the group. It was their turn, and having ovens at their command was making the usually odious task easy.

Especially since, while the redoubt may have been out of food, the life-support system still functioned, and everybody had luxuriated in a hot shower. After three jumps in one day, the group needed a good scrubbing to get out the sour stink of sweat. They each took turns while somebody else stood guard in the hallway. It was a basic survival plan that all members of the group were never unarmed at the same time.

Sneaking a glance at J.B. busy working at the table, Mildred remembered being joined in the shower, and they used the rare privacy to make love. Privacy was hard to come by these days. Unfortunately, the s.e.x had really put an edge on her appet.i.te.

Scrubbed and shaved, they happily found that the laundry worked fine, if somewhat noisily, and donned clean clothes afterward. As well, many of the officers' quarters hadn't been completely cleaned out, and they located replacement boots for her, a fresh shirt for Dean and underwear for everybody. Reaching inside her denim shirt, Mildred shifted the strap on her U.S. Army-issue bra. It wasn't a perfect fit, but a h.e.l.l of lot more comfortable than the old Air Force one, which had been one cup size too small.

Rooting about in the cabinets, Mildred had made a lucky find of a few staples lost amid the petrified breakfast cereals and dust-filled plastic wrappers of granola bars: tea, honey and rice, items that didn't go bad with age if kept away from dampness. Keep rice dry, and it lasted forever. Not a lot of nourishment, but it would bulk up their meager meal of beans. The group needed fresh food supplies quick, or else they really would be reduced to eating their leather goods. After which, she didn't care to think about.

Lowering the heat of an electric grill under a small saucepan, Mildred placed the open jar of honey on a folded cloth lying at the bottom of the softly boiling water.

"Can't believe that stuff is still good after a hundred years," J.B. said from his work table.

The table nearest the stove was covered with full water pitchers, napkins, disposable plates and cups for the evening meal. Spread out before the Armorer at the next table over were several pairs of Army boots, and he was meticulously removing the laces from one to insert in another. His own battered boots were lying on the floor, the soles worn paper thin in spots, the leather badly cracked. His feet were wrapped in brand-new woolen socks taken from the base PX. He wiggled his toes at the sensation, savoring the feeling.

"Honey doesn't ever go bad," she informed him, lifting the lid on the pot full of rice and stirring thecontents with a long fork. "Over a few years, honey crystallizes as solid as a rock, but low heat will melt it again. I caught on TV once how honey from Egyptian times had been recovered and found to be edible, and that was a h.e.l.l of a lot longer than the big blow."

"Hot tea, with honey for desert," Doc observed, sitting patiently before the chugging dishwasher. "What a delightful treat. What kind is it, madam? Orange pekoe?"

"U.S. Army-issue food stuff. Cla.s.sification-tea, for drinking."

"Oh." His face fell, then rose. "Still, better than naught."

"Sorry there aren't any scones," she joked, adding some water to the stew. The delicious smell was a knife in her belly, and the physician had to restrain herself from tasting it constantly. At least with the rice, they would all be able to eat their fill.

"Scones and jelly." Doc sighed. "How I miss that."

"Bananas," Mildred said after a moment. "Hurts to think I might never have another banana."

"Vids," J.B. added, finishing the first boot and starting on the next. "Back in Alaska, we found a redoubt once with a working vid player and a ton of vids."

"Denzel Washington." Mildred sighed, then stole a glance at J.B. and winked. He returned it with emphasis.

"Jeremy Brett," Doc said. "A superlative thespian, compounded by the fact that we look so similar."