“You were never offered the opportunity to join us before,” Dredda said as she turned. “I see now that was a big mistake. You could be a very valuable asset. You have abilities and experiences that our own males lack. You could teach us much about your world. And in return we could make you one of its rulers.”
Ryan said nothing.
“Doesn’t that prospect interest you?”
“I never thought of myself as the ruler of anything but Ryan Cawdor. Always seemed a big enough challenge for me.”
“Perhaps I should have explained the alternative first. If you don’t cooperate, you and your companions will be marched to Slake City’s ground zero, and there perform hard labor until you die.”
“What do I have to do to avoid that?”
“Use your knowledge of the people and terrain to help us organize our attack plans. We would prefer to subdue the local populations and consolidate our gains as quickly possible. Once that is done, we will need to replace the existing barony system with something more efficient. When Deathlands is under our control, we will move to the other continents of this world and conquer them in the same manner.”
“Seems like a mighty tall order for a hundred or so troops.”
“You can help us there, as well,” Dredda said. She walked over to the tall canister and put her hand on it. “Inside this canister are my extracted eggs and the eggs of all my sisters. They await fertilization by a suitable male donor. By implanting the fertilized eggs into host mothers, we will reproduce our kind. In a single generation, we can produce thousands of female offspring who, after a chemically accelerated maturation process, will undergo the same genetic transformation we did.”
“You want me to fertilize all your eggs?”
“It’s not that daunting a task, I assure you. We can store sperm for decades, just as we can store our eggs.”
“And the host mothers, where would you get them?”
“From the general population of Deathlands. The two females in your group would make prime surrogates. If they submitted to the procedure, it would save them from Ground Zero. Which one are you sleeping with, by the way? My guess is the red-haired one. Or are you servicing them both, Shadow Man?”
He didn’t dignify the question with a response. “What about the males who are with me?” he said.
Dredda shrugged. “Their only use to us is in the mines.”
“If I do what you ask,” Ryan said, “it’ll only make more mutie freaks like you. Frankly, I’d rather chill you all, or die trying.”
“Maybe a few days in the mines will change your mind,” Dredda said. “Unlike the bumbling idiots who held you on my world, I do not make mistakes. I leave no escape holes. You will cooperate with us, or you and your friends will die.”
While Dredda put on helmet and gauntlets, Ryan considered making his move. The opportunity for a one-on-one fight was there, all right, and he had the advantage of being able to launch a surprise attack from behind, but he knew the troopers outside the room would join the action as soon as they heard the sound of a scuffle. After his experience with the she-he Kira, he was pretty sure he couldn’t drop Dredda with a single punch or kick. And there were no weapons in the room to help him out. In the end, he decided the situation wasn’t right and he didn’t have the right tools for the job. Swallowing his fury, he let the former CEO shove him back out the door.
“Manacle this one, too,” Dredda told the troopers waiting in the corridor. “Send them all to Ground Zero in the next convoy.”
Seconds later, Ryan found himself sitting on the dirt with his companions, his wrists and ankles circled with bands of plastisteel. He shook the wrist cuffs. “What the blazes are these things?”
“They’re what chopped off the hands and feet of the uncooperative stickies,” Mildred told him. “There’s a laser built in. It’s activated by remote control.”
“Whitecoat guillotines,” Doc said. “If you go beyond a preset distance limit, you lose your extremities. The surgery is bloodless, but not painless you can be sure.”