I took the ring. It seemed to weigh nothing. “So what does this mean?” I said, fitting it over my left middle finger. “That we’re engaged?”
She laughed. “You should be so lucky. Now step back a bit.”
Once I’d retreated a few steps a door the size of a small building materialized directly over the catapult and began descending. The weapon disappeared into the door, and when the door reached the ground it disappeared.
“You did that?” I asked.
“Sure did.”
“Where did you send it?”
“To the base of the hill where we just sent Cyrus and his buddies.”
The woman had a wicked sense of humor. “They won’t like that, their own weapon pointed at them, freshly loaded, and ready to fire.”
Mock surprise. “You think?”
“Oh yeah. They’ll have to either destroy it—Geek will freak out at that—or disassemble it and hump it to the top of the hill.”
“Should keep them busy for a while.” Her smile faded. “Okay, fun’s over. Come on, more dirty jobs waiting.”
I had to hustle to keep up as she headed out along a well-worn track leading away from the place Cyrus and his followers had used as an attack base. Five minutes of brisk walking through a lightly wooded area brought us to a collection of ramshackle huts and lean-tos.
These rude housing units were arrayed around a central fire-pit, a standard-sized wishing well next to it. Trub went to stand by the fire-pit, then called, “Sarah. Better come out and talk to me.”
After a minute a tall, thirtyish, big-busted blonde came out of the biggest hut. She looked hard and mean and had a haughty air in spite of being dressed in a smudged and threadbare powder blue pants-suit, misshapen sandals, and a string of pearls. Her fingers were covered with rings and she carried a spear. She looked like a society princess on the decline toward feral bag lady, or a trophy wife who had lost most of her silver plating.
“What the hell do you want?” she asked in a voice as melodious as the clash of trashcan lids.
“Wrong question, Sarah,” Trub said. “The right one is, what do you want?”
This Sarah, who I was willing to bet was Cyrus’s other half, clearly didn’t like Trub or riddles. “What are you talking about?”
“Cyrus and his so-called men are gone.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Gone how?” Other women had appeared in the doorways of the shacks, watching and listening. They too looked like refugees from some Mad Maxed-out gated community, dressed in boutique strut that had been reduced to ragged shuffle. Their faces were as cold, closed, and grim as militant vegans stuffed in a meat locker.
“They moved on to another segment.”
Sarah shook her head. “Cyrus wouldn’t give up on getting back what is rightfully ours. I know you’re on the side of the Bugs. Did they help you run him and our men off?”
Hearing this horrible woman call the aliens Bugs made me take a mental vow to try to stop calling them that.
Trub ignored the woman’s question. She turned my way. “I should introduce you, Glyph. This is Sarah Crook, Cyrus’s second wife. Their last name fits. The two of them ran here just ahead of the law. Cyrus was skimming from an investment fund, and Sarah was financing some very nice lifestyle improvements with donations to a not-for-profit she’d gotten her claws in.”
“Those were just mistakes,” Sarah said coldly.
Trub laughed. “And you made them. Trying to take over High Vista and their well was another. One more and you’re out.”
Sarah looked like she had a mouthful of vinegar. “I don’t have to listen to any of this,” she sniffed.
“No,” Trub agreed cheerfully. “But it might be a good idea. My associate here is going to offer you a deal. A door that’s good for four days is part of that deal. Glyph, tell our lucky contestant what she can win.”
I eyed Trub uncertainly, wondering what the hell she was doing putting me in charge of a situation I didn’t begin to understand. She just smiled, making a go for it gesture.
“Ah, all right,” I stammered. “You get, well, you get a door.” I tried to make this sound like fresh news, desperately racking my brain for what to say next.
“The deal is, and I think it’s a good one, you get to choose. Your choice is staying here, or going to rejoin your men. Through the door.” As I said that, one appeared at the edge of the village. Had I made it? If so, I was clueless as to how.
“That’s a, you know, one way door to where your men went. It will stay here for four days. So you have that much time to decide whether you want to stay here or go join them. And you can use a regular mystery door to go someplace else. Maybe start a new life.” Sheer mean-spiritedness and class prejudice made me add, “Maybe go start a nice little gated community or something.”
“That’s a better deal than you deserve,” Trub said. “Take it or leave it.”
Sarah made a twinkling, ring-studded fist. “We’ll get you for this, bitch. You and those stinking Bugs.”
Trub didn’t look worried. “Hey, you heard the man. You don’t like it here, there’s a door back to Earth about five minutes’ walk from here. You could probably find a good lawyer to keep your fat ass out of prison, though it doesn’t look like you could really afford to pay one.”
“No prisons here,” Sarah said.
“Not yet.”
“No hospitals, either. Too bad, because I think you’re about to get fucked up even worse than you already are.”
It was then I noticed that the women of the encampment had begun quietly boxing us in. There were a couple dozen of them, armed with clubs and homemade knives. They didn’t look like they planned on throwing a nice tea party, or of they did, we were going to be filling for the sandwiches.
I was getting the impression that I never wanted to see or be anywhere near whatever it was that might scare Trub.
She noted the growing level of threat impassively, then turned her attention back to Sarah. “Listen,” she said, sounding more tired than worried. “That chucklehead you’re married to and his gang of greedy dimwits is gone, and they’re never coming back. You can go join them, or you can take a door somewhere else and see if you can find some man with low enough standards to take you. You have four days to voluntarily relocate. After that you are going to be taken out of this segment, and I might just send the leftovers off to start a colony of harpies. I really don’t care where you go. Nothing you can do is going to change that.”
“We could take you hostage. What would the Bugs give us to get their precious Bug-fucker back?”
Trub shook her head. “Honey, I don’t think you want to find out.”
Sarah’s smile sent my testicles scurrying for cover. “I think we’ll take our chances. Right, girls?”
There was a growl and grumble from the women surrounding us.
Trub sighed and turned her head. “Glyph, you play bimbo-wrangler.”
I almost wheeped Me? but managed to choke it back in manly self-defense; these women would jump on any weakness like a sale rack of designer shoes.
“Ladies,” I said, turning to face a particularly disgruntled and wilted nosegay of womanhood. “You’ve got this all wrong.”
A skinny, club wielding Barbietroid in patched slacks and a ragged blouse snarled, “Yeah, how?”
“Trub can’t stop herself from getting right in your faces, it’s just the way she is. What she didn’t tell you is why your men left. They went to take possession of an even bigger wishing well than the one on High Vista.”
“Bullshit,” the woman snapped.
I figured I’d just met Mrs. Geek.
“No, really.” I pulled out my trusty Rollox and showed them the image I’d used to fake out the men. Chances were these women were smarter than their men—it was hard to imagine them being any dumber, but they had hooked up with that gaggle of losers. So maybe they’d take the same bait.