“Thank you, my dear. You have told me much, although you may not realize it,” Doc said quietly. He didn’t look to his companions, for he knew that they had all drawn the same conclusions as himself.
Gloria looked askance at Doc, and when she spoke again her voice had returned to its normal timbre.
“I get the impression that mebbe you people now know more than I do. That won’t last for long. I’ll make you an offer. It seems to me that we’re both searching for something, and that mebbe that something is the same thing. So mebbe it would be good for us to join together, at least for a while, and see if our goal is the same.”
“And if we don’t agree?” Ryan asked as neutrally as he could.
Gloria shrugged. “You don’t seem to mean us harm. And so what if you do? We outnumber you and you’re mostly men. You—” she added, addressing Mildred and Krysty “—shouldn’t let the one-eyed man here lead you. Sisters are better suited to go in the front, and so it has always been. If you come with us, then that’s more or less the way it will be. Though I will, out of deference, let the men travel with us instead of manning the supplies as is their place.”
“Mighty generous,” J.B. said with a poker face. To his friends, his satirical intent was obvious. But such was his ability to deadpan that Gloria merely acknowledged him gracefully.
“You seem to have earned it, Four-eyes. And now for you, medicine woman,” she said, turning to Mildred. “Before we travel on and leave these scum to return to the earth and slime that birthed them, do you still want to examine them?”
“I certainly do,” Mildred muttered, taking a few paces to a fallen and chilled stickie and dropping to her knees to examine the corpse. She had chosen one that still had its head intact, and was examining the skull area minutely.
“May I?” Doc asked Gloria, indicating with his stick where Mildred was kneeling. When the warrior queen granted her assent, Doc moved forward and joined the doctor.
“Guessed what I’m looking for, Doc?” Mildred murmured to Tanner.
“I suspect that you are in search of some sign of surgery around the area of the brainpan.”
Mildred nodded. “Got it in one, Doc. It’d be a cold day in hell before a stickie ever learned how to fight tactically and arrange an ambush, unless it was some kind of superstickie, with enhanced brain power.”
“And somehow I do not think Darwin’s theories ever held much of a council with the notion of such a rapid development, even taking mutations into account. If anything, I would expect it to go in reverse in such a case as this,” Doc muttered.
“Exactly,” Mildred replied, her hands stretching the repulsive and elastic skin searching for outward signs and also probing the area beneath the skin for signs of surgery, such as sudden ridges of bone. She grimaced with disgust at the feel of the chilled mutie in her hands, but the grimace turned to a small grin of triumph as her fingers traced a small growth of bone at the base of the skull. Pulling the skin tighter, and turning the heavy head in her hands to better examine the area in question, she found a small, puckered scar.
“I believe that answers that question,” Doc said quietly.
“Sophisticated technique, too,” Mildred said with a touch of professional admiration creeping into her voice, an all too rare reminder of her past before the days of being a freezie and of skydark. “This is keyhole surgery, probably laser. Whoever did this had access to some pretty damn good equipment, and what’s more, equipment that was in good working order.”
“I suggest we examine a few more of the corpses, if we can find any with heads undamaged enough,” Doc said quietly.
Mildred nodded. “Check as many as possible.” Both she and Doc rose to their feet and, disregarding the puzzled or interested stares of those around them, examined as many of the chilled stickies as they could find with enough skull intact to warrant investigation.