"With Mayor Theodore Sissy? I tell you, Krysty, if you'd been there..."
They were back at their dormitory. The men had been reluctant to talk about what they'd seen and done, but both Lori and Krysty were eager to hear about it. Both had been shocked into silence at first when they had heard the horrible story.
"Like raining," Jak said.
"I feared for our lives," Doc Tanner added. His face was lined with fatigue, and he sat slumped in a smart armchair.
"Fucking murderous. Only thing I figure is that they died fucking fast. I seen mebbe two hundred rocks hit 'em in the first ten seconds," Finnegan said.
J.B. nodded. "I guess so. Man's skull was soft when he hit the dirt. Like a bag of beans, so many breaks in it."
"What happened after it was over?" Lori asked, holding on to Doc's arm.
"Nothing. Sec men led us back here. Everyone was rolling high in the street. Talking and talking, like they'd been to a great show." Ryan shook his head in disgust. "I feel fucking dirty, I tell you. I killed me a lot of folks in my time, but never because some fucking gimp with a squeaking voice tells me to."
"You couldn't help it," Krysty said.
"Sure. But the way those sick bastards loved it! Nothing like a public killing. Surprised more barons don't liven their villes with 'em. I know some do, but never with fucking stones. Fireblast! I just want t'get to bed now."
But the day wasn't over quite yet.
Without knocking, the sec commander came marching into the long room, stopping in his tracks when he saw Krysty and Lori sitting on the beds with the rest of the group.
"Outworlder Cawdor. The home-keeps don't sleep or eat with men. Only whores. You said?.."
"No, they're not whores."
"Then they go."
"What?"
"You walk the line and you'll be fine. They can stay tonight. Past nonperson's curfew on street. They'd be in the quarry at dusk tomorrow if they were caught out now. This letter from the mayor tells you what's going to happen."
It was short and to the point, written in a neat, italic, sloping script on rough-edged handmade paper: "Outworlders report to me at nine in the forenoon. Then to militia induction. All passes and food creds will then be issued and accommodation arranged separately. Home-keeps to Arthur Sissy wing of workhouse for acceptance into general pool. First sight makes me reckon both could be whores if I decide suitable." It was signed "Theodore J. Sissy, Mayor."
There was also a postscript, obviously added as an afterthought: "Outworlder Lauren is a suss-mutie. He will be taken to the lake for rogation and nondesirable rating."
After the sec man had left, Ryan silently passed the note around. Finnegan read last. "Welcome to Ginnsburg Falls," he said. "Friendliest fucking little town in the West."
Chapter Eleven
Jak slipped away at around three in the morning. They'd talked for a long while, deciding whether they should all break and run for it. The girls were both for leaving, but they were eventually overruled. Ryan had pointed out that if all seven of them escaped from the ville it was certain that the whole sec force would be turned out to hunt them into the mountains.
"Head out, kid," Ryan said finally. "Krysty 'n Lori, go where they tell you. We'll step careful, like walking on eggs. This ville is..."
"So fucking far out it's going to fucking meet itself coming back again," Finn said.
"Right," Ryan agreed. "I saw a big wag on the way to the stoning. Looked gassed up and ready to roll. We'll try to check it out sometime, if we get a chance. Get us some food and drink."
"I could find it in my heart to relish snuffing out a life or two," Doc Tanner said quietly. His deep, resonant voice was contemplative, his eyes staring out into some unseeable distance. "I've seldom met such bred-in-the-bone evil as in that gimpy dwarf."
"Main thing is to be away clear," J.B. said. "Won't be easy."
"Where to meet?" Jak asked.
"Depends on how many chase," Ryan replied. "We all agreed to track that radio message. The Kenworth truck's got a trans-receiver in the cab. Saw the whip aerial. Saw the only highway north, running along the side of the big lake. Past the quarry road. When you get clear of the ville, take that. Move fast and keep your eyes behind you."
The albino nodded. "Keep sec men out of m'ass. I'll hide up, 'round ten miles out. If'n there's fork, I'll leave marker which took. Watch for me."
Quickly they gathered around the open window of the dorm, which overlooked the sullen expanse of the lake at the rear of the long building, and watched Jak leave. Finn had crept down, making sure the elderly janitor was sleeping in his room in the basement near the roaring boiler.
"Keep warm," Krysty warned the boy.
"Sure. By time get safe away, light'll have come up. Find shelter. Got fire."
"Go," Ryan said, patting the skinny boy on the shoulder, feeling a pang of doubt and letting him slip away alone into the Oregon blackness.
"Welcome To Ginnsburo Falls," Mayor Sissy said, his tiny frame perched behind a massive leather-topped desk with a polished oil lamp at either end. "I am touched with grief that your colleague, Outworlder Lauren, has run away."
His great head wobbled and shook on his scrawny neck, as though it might topple onto his desk at any moment. Behind him stood two stone-faced sec men, arms folded across their chests, carbines slung over their shoulders. Ryan stood with Doc, J.B. and Finn, facing him, trying to look calm and under control, knowing that a wrong word here could result in a collective icing.
"Nobody speaks to me? I think that this must be because of guilt."
Ryan shook his head. "Not so, Mayor Sissy. The boy joined us only hours before we met your sec patrol. We thought he might be a mutie, but we let him travel with us until we could be sure."
"If you'd been sure?"
"If we'd been sure the boy was a mutie, then I'd have chilled him myself."
"Or brought him here for trial and then execution."
"Yeah, of course."
"Now we must decide what to do with you. Your home-keeps are waiting for me to see them and decide if they are truly whores. What is your opinion, Outworlder Cawdor? Whores?"
Ryan shrugged, as though the question wasn't of the least concern to him. "What you decide will be right, Mayor Sissy."
He clapped his chubby little hands softly. "Well spoken, for an outworlder. You will all do well in our militia. But not the dotard," he said, pointing at Doc Tanner. "He can go to the Antigone Sissy Home for the Congenitally Senile and then be tested for removal to the Ronald W. Sissy Euthanasia Center."
"Senile! Euthanasia!" Doc roared, stamping the end of his sword stick hard on the floor and making both sec men reach for their blasters. "You posturing little... urrgh."
Ryan shut him up the only way he knew how, elbowing him so hard in the guts that Doc folded over like an eager courtier, dropping to his knees with a cracking of joints. His face turned the color of curdled milk, and he gasped for breath.
"See how he behaves," Mayor Sissy said. "So undignified for one so old."
"Old, maybe," Doc said quietly. "Not surfeit-swelled or profane."
"What are you babbling about, old man?"
"Just a thought came from nowheres, Mayor Sissy. Be glad to go and see this Home you talked about."
"Good, that's better. If you live in Ginnsburg Falls and you walk the line... what then?"
"You'll be fine," they said in chorus, receiving a beam of delight in reward.
"Excellent, outworlders." Sissy leaned back, ticking points off on his fingers. "The white-headed mutie will be hunted and destroyed. The old man to the home. That can wait until the morrow. The home-keeps for me to see... I shall leave that for tomorrow. I have to oversee an exposing."
"A what?" Ryan asked.
"An exposing, outworlder. All the nonperson babies born in the past three months will all be taken by the elders of the council and exposed on the slopes about the ville. It is one of the most important of all our rites to maintain the proper balance as our founders decided."