“He blames the Family for that?” Geronimo asked.
“So I was told,” Mitchell responded. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Be specific,” Geronimo directed him.
“The Doktor wants your Family wiped off the face of the earth,” Mitchell informed them.
“That’ll be the day!” Hickok declared.
“That day might come sooner than you think,” Mitchell said. “The Doktor has sent a large force to destroy your Home.”
Hickok slammed on the brakes so hard the troop transport slewed to an abrupt stop.
“What the hell is going on up there?” shouted someone from the back of the truck.
“Who was that?” Mitchell inquired, glancing over his shoulder. The view afforded by the small window located in the rear panel of the cab only permitted him to see the canvas-covered bed of the truck. “Is there somebody riding in the back?”
“Never mind them,” Hickok said brusquely. “What large force are you talking about?”
“The Doktor was so mad when Cheyenne was hit,” Mitchell explained, “he sent out a strike force under the command of one of his trusted officers and one of his freaks. I was part of the convoy until my jeep broke down.”
“Where is this strike force now?” Geronimo asked anxiously.
Mitchell pointed directly ahead. “Up there, somewhere.”
“How many are there?” Geronimo pressed him.
“Two thousand.”
“Two thousand!” Geronimo leaned forward, staring through the dusty windshield.
“Are they all regular Army troops?” Hickok inquired.
“Except for Brutus,” Mitchell answered.
“Brutus?” Hickok repeated.
“Brutus is one of the Doktor’s genetically produced creatures,” Mitchell said. “We call them freaks.”
“Two thousand troops,” Geronimo stated, his mind boggled by the number.
“Two thousand troops,” Mitchell affirmed, “a convoy of trucks to carry them, and the tank.”
Hickok reached out and gripped Mitchell’s left arm. “Tank?”
Mitchell tried to pull away. “Hey! You’re hurting me.”
Hickok disregarded the plea. “Did you say a tank?”
Mitchell nodded, frightened by the sudden gleam in the gunman’s eyes.
“Yeah. A tank. One of the few still functioning. The Doktor told us he wanted your Home reduced to a pile of rubble.”
Geronimo, his face pale, looked at Hickok. “The Family won’t stand a chance!”
Chapter Four
He wondered if he was going to have a heart attack.
The elderly man stood on the rampart above the lowered drawbridge and watched the stream of evacuees pouring into the Home. Men, women, and children, but mostly women and children, were hurrying within the walled confines of the Home as rapidly as their legs could carry them.
As if the 20-foot-high brick walls topped with barbed wire would withstand a determined assault!
The gray-haired man on the rampart turned and gazed over the Home itself. Kurt Carpenter had planned the compound with an eye to practical utility. A plot of 30 acres was enclosed within the square configuration of the walls. The eastern half of the Home was devoted to agricultural production or preserved in its natural state. Situated in the center of the compound, forming a line separating the eastern half from the western, were the cabins reserved for the married couples and their children. The western portion of the Home contained the Blocks. Carpenter had had six concrete structures constructed in a triangular formation. Each Block was designated by a letter. The Family armory, stocked with every conceivable weapon, was called A Block and was the southern tip of the triangle.
Northwest of A Block and 100 yards away was B Block, the Family sleeping quarters for single members. Another 100 yards to the northwest was C Block, the infirmary managed by the Family Healers. D Block, the spacious workshop, was 100 yards east of C Block. And 100 yards east of D Block was E Block, the giant library. E Block was the eastern point of the triangle. Finally, 100 yards to the southwest was F Block, used for farming and gardening purposes. Positioned in the middle of the western wall was the only means of entering and exiting the Home: a large drawbridge.
Carpenter had seen fit to provide one additional line of defense. A stream entered the compound under the northwest corner of the wall, via an aqueduct. The water was diverted along the base of the wall in both directions. It formed an inner moat, completely surrounding the compound, and flowed from the Home under the southeast corner.
All of these features were reviewed by the gray-haired man as he surveyed the commotion below. The gusty breeze was lashing his long hair and beard. A brown wool shirt and a pair of faded, patched beige pants covered his stooped, frail frame. His face was lined with creases. As he scanned the frantic crowd the worry in his blue eyes deepened.
“Any orders, Plato?” asked someone to his right.
Plato turned.
The speaker was a tall blond man, his hair styled in a crew cut, his blue eyes alert and clear. He wore a blue shirt well past its prime, and buckskin pants and moccasins. A wide leather belt encircled his waist, and attached to the belt was a long scabbard containing a genuine broadsword, one of the numerous exotic weapons Kurt Carpenter had stockpiled in the Family armory.
“Any orders?” the speaker repeated.
“How far away do we estimate them to be?” Plato inquired.
“Four Clan hunters spotted them about four miles south of Halma,” the man with the broadsword stated. “Their convoy was stopped. I suspect they will stay encamped for the night.” He gazed up at the late afternoon sun. “It’s already close to dark, and I doubt they’ll try moving at night.”
“I pray you’re correct, Spartacus,” Plato said.
“If their convoy starts out early tomorrow morning.”
Spartacus went on, “they probably won’t arrive here until noon or so.
They’ll travel slowly this close to the Home.”
“Why?” Plato questioned him.
Spartacus stared out over the field in front of the western wall. The Family deliberately kept the area outside the walls cleared of vegetation.
For 150 yards in all directions, the Family diligently removed any sprouting trees or growing shrubs, anything a potential enemy could use for concealment, an essential defense against a possible surprise assault.
More members of the Clan were flocking into the Home.
“They might be expecting us to counterattack,” Spartacus commented.
“They’ll come in slow, prepared for trouble.”
Plato gazed at a young mother hastening her two small children across the drawbridge. “We were fortunate those hunters saw the convoy,” he remarked.
Spartacus nodded. “The Clan would have been wiped out. The hunters guessed there must be a couple of thousand troops.”
Plato grimaced as a lancing spasm rocked his left leg. His body was deteriorating rapidly, all due to the accursed senility. For some unknown reason, the Family Elders were afflicted with a form of premature senility, aging years in mere months. Although the cause hadn’t been determined, a section of the Doktor’s notebooks dealt with the senility and was in the process of being deciphered by the Healers.
Did the notebooks hold the answer, not just for the senility, but for the presence of the force from the Civilized Zone? Did the Doktor know the Family possessed his notebooks? Had he sent the convoy to reclaim them?
Was the Doktor still alive? Had Blade failed in his mission to Catlow? Or had Samuel II simply decided to eliminate the Family?
Plato thoughtfully stroked his bushy beard. This was all his fault; he alone could accept responsibility. It had been his idea to send one of the Warriors, Yama, to the Cheyenne Citadel on the spying assignment. While there, Yama not only stole the Doktor’s four notebooks describing in minute detail every experiment and project the Doktor had ever devised, he also assisted Lynx in destroying the Doktor’s headquarters with a nuclear-tipped missile known as a “thermo.” Regrettably, the Doktor wasn’t in his headquarters at the time. He would want his four blue notebooks back at any cost.