Ryan took a deep breath, trying to school his face to blankness. "I see, Mayor. Where is this done?"
"To the west, at the exposing place. The creatures of the wild gather for the ceremony."
At the back of Ryan's mind was still that peculiar radio message they'd received, promising help for anyone who went north.
"Not to the north?"
Sissy shook his head so violently that his tiny blue eyes rolled like marbles in lard. "Never north, you cretin! Even a stupe outworlder should know that. North is trouble and darkness and death. Any citizen of my ville that goes north is a dead man!"
"Should we go for the induction?" Ryan asked after the tiny mannikin had sat slumped in his wheelchair for several moments, seemingly exhausted by his vituperative outburst.
"Yes, go. No, wait. Wait. If there is to be the exposing today, many sec men will be busy. Let it wait. Go back to your dorms, or walk about the ville. Enjoy it. See what a pleasant life we lead here. Creds and passes will be issued. Don't ask what Ginnsburg Falls can do for you, ask what you can do for Ginnsburg Falls."
As they stepped out into the warm sunshine, Finn glanced around to make sure he couldn't be overheard. "Know what I don't understand? Why the fuck isn't it called Sissy Falls?"
None of them could come up with an answer.
The walk back through town heightened their feeling of alienation.
The ville was immaculate. There were no drink houses and no gaudies, except for the main one where most of the women were herded kept in a form of purdah, locked away in seclusion and totally subservient to the whims of the males.
The clothes and the buildings seemed to conform to some sort of norm. Homes were neat frame houses, each with its own trim front garden and wire-fenced back garden. Ryan noticed that every house was painted white, and all of them looked as if they'd been decorated within the past few months.
"No blacks," Finnegan pointed out.
"All good, decent, red-neck WASPs," Doc Tanner said cryptically. None of the others knew what he meant by that, except that it sounded as if he were being ironic.
"No commies or Catholics or aidies," J.B. said, watching the good people of Ginnsburg Falls parading nervously past the outworlders.
"Some of these buildings go back better'n a hundred years," Doc Tanner observed. "And all the newer ones are built on precisely the same pattern. All got identical mailboxes and a box for the daily copy of the Regulator. Damnedest ville I ever did see. Can't wait to shake its dust off of my boots."
They ate lunch together, despite the disapproving glares and sniffs of the janitor. The food was reasonable, basic meat and vegetables. The meat was protosoya, flavored with fresh herbs, tarragon and nutmeg predominating. The vegetables were compressed blocks of spinach and shredded carrots with oversteamed artichokes. To complete the meal there were slabs of green gelatin, quivering gently on plastic dishes.
"Mayor says them got to go to the workhouse," the janitor said, offering them a malicious, gap-toothed grin.
"Tomorrow, he told us," Ryan said.
"New message. Today. Three in the afternoon, they go. Down the Arthur Sissy wing. Near the lake. By the wag park. Yeah, got to go, got to get an' go an' go and get gone they gotta go."
He went out, slamming the cream-painted door behind him. Doc Tanner shook his head. "Now there's a truly prime candidate for senility and euthanasia if ever I saw one. I'll slip him the mickey myself."
"We have to go?" Lori asked plaintively.
Krysty patted her hand. "Come on, lover," she said, to Ryan. "This has gone on better than long enough. This place is sicksville. Let's go after Jak."
"In daylight?" he replied. "Get some fucking sense in your brain, Krysty. They got old blasters, but there's mebbe seven thousand vigilantes all primed and ready. If you'd been in the quarry last night, you'd have seen what a swarm of mothers we'd have on our necks. When we go, it has to be night. Take a run north. Hope that the fact they're so shit-scared of up that way, they'll leave us be."
"So we go to this workhouse?"
"Sure. Keep your chrons hid. Check the time, and we'll aim to be there and spring you at a quarter after one in the morning."
"You better be there, Ryan," she warned. "If you're not, then Lori and me will be off and running so fast you won't even see our dust."
The sec commander came around two to collect the women and escort them down the highway to the workhouse at the lake's edge. He also told Ryan something about the ville's militia.
"You two go and wait in the street," he said to Krysty and Lori, not even looking to make sure they obeyed his commands, grinning at the sound of their dragging steps.
"Mayor'll give them sluts something to walk heavy about if'n he goes to check 'em tonight."
"Mayor Sissy takes a real paternal interest in the whores, does he?" Ryan said.
"Damned right he does. The Sissy family took over Ginnsburg Falls a few years after the long winters ended. Up here we were lucky. Other places in Deathlands had it bad. All dead, or mutied. Sissy clan saved us from that. Now we take real good care which outlanders come in. You did good at the stoning, all of you. But the kid with the snow hair we'll catch him, 'less he's gone north. And if he's gone north, then he'll die anyways."
"Why?" Doc Tanner asked.
"Bad things that way, old man. Hot spots. Heavy rad counts. Muties you wouldn't believe. They send out message to try and trap... Shouldn't talk like this. Mayor don't relish words about the north."
"What messages?" J.B. asked.
"On radio. Loop tape. Forbidden to listen in. Tricks folks to follow it. Nobody never came back."
"Like the sirens' song that so enchanted mighty Ulysses upon that wine-dark Aegean," Doc Tanner said, catching Ryan's eye.
"Don't know the name, old man," the sec man said. "But I just know for sure that anyone goes north goes up there to be killed and never comes back. I know that for sure."
"Then we'll fucking keep away from there," Finnegan said, nodding.
The guard looked at him. "Blasphemy can earn you treadmill time here, Outworlder Finnegan. Mayor Sissy does not approve of swearing."
"Sure, sir," Finn replied. "Don't want no trouble here, boss. Walking the line, boss." Ryan glared at him, fearing the chubby blaster would go way over the top and bring them all some trouble.
"Good," the sec man said. "Keep straight around the ville. Mayor'll see you on the morrow."
"What 'bout the militia?" the Armorer asked, halting the man at the door.
"Men here all join militia. Good at it and you get to join sec unit. Not too hard. Part-time. Patrol for curfew breakers. Guard highways. Check out the wags and the gas supply."
"You keep 'em gassed up an' ready?" J.B. asked casually.
"Sure. Haven't had a runner from Ginnsburg Falls for 'bout... a year now. Couple whores got men to break with them. Got caught. Good stoning, that one. Man kept dodging, even catching some of the stones. He played baseball for the ville." The sec man laughed at the reminiscence. "Course the dumb stupe couldn't dodge 'em all."
They split up for the rest of the day.
Ryan suggested that Doc stay in the dorm, since his age made him vulnerable for removal to the senility and euthanasia center. Doc wanted to go down and see how Lori and Krysty were, but reluctantly he agreed to remain where he was.
Finnegan offered to recce the workhouse in preparation for their visit there later that night.
J.B. checked out the big rig they'd spotted, making sure it was filled up and ready to roll, and he talked to one of the locals, who was aggrieved he hadn't been able to go to the exposing outside the ville. The man told the Armorer that the Kenworth was the best wag in town, with a range of close to a hundred miles, even allowing for the aged engine and the deteriorated blacktops.