“Shut up, fool,” another man hissed, grabbing the arm of his friend and squeezing so hard his knuckles went white.
The drunk went silent and bent over his mug to concentrate on his shine.
The Core, eh? Ryan filed that name away to check into if he got the chance. Maybe that was what the Trader was calling his people these days.
Now voices dropped as the companions made their way through the room heading for an empty table. Taking a seat, Krysty noticed an old brass plaque on the wall, the lettering barely discernable, buried as it was under the accumulation of grease and dirt.
“Rockpoint Nine Relay Station,” Krysty read aloud. “Relay for what, I wonder?”
“No signs of any power lines,” Mildred said, reviewing the ville in her mind. “Might have been a satellite base, or microwave transmission relay for telephones.”
Placing his longblaster on the table in plain sight, Ryan left the table and went to the counter. The man behind the bar was tall and muscular, missing several fingers on his left hand, and his left eye was a marbled white, a long scar going from his forehead, across the dead orb and down to his dimpled chin.
“Lost it in a knife fight, eh?” Ryan said, gesturing at the man’s white scar. “Me, too.”
“But we’re still here and the other fellas ain’t.” The bartender chuckled. “Nice to meet another brother of the blade. I’m Bart. So what do you want, outlander? No eyes for sale today.”
Snorting a laugh, Ryan found himself immediately liking the man. “Just food,” he said, then on impulse reached into a pocket and flipped the man a single .22 cartridge.
The bartender made the catch with both hands and stared at the round of ammo as if it were alive.
“Damn. Prime condition. Stew is on the fire, help yourself,” Bart said, pocketing the round. “Got some roast lizzie, but not much left. If you ain’t got a plate, use a hubber, but then you scrub it clean afterward. Or there’s some flat bread. All you want.”
A hubber, a hub cap for a plate. Glancing at the fireplace, Ryan now saw a battered plastic milk crate stacked with the ornate metal disks bearing car company logos. The companions had military mess kits, but again showing off their wealth in such a poor ville would only start a fight.
“We’ll use the flat bread,” Ryan decided.
A man stumbled at the end of the bar and thumped it with a fist. “Beer!” he called out, slurring the word.
“Smart choice on the flat bread,” Bart said, pulling a chipped ceramic mug from under the counter and dipping it into an open barrel behind the counter. “Most people don’t clean the hubbers so well, and some of them are kinda ripe.”
“Is the bread fresh?” J.B. asked, joining them at the counter.
Sliding the mug down the counter to the waiting, customer, Bart looked hostilely at the man’s glasses.
“He’s with me,” Ryan said, twitching a thumb.
The sec man at the end caught the beer, slopping some of the pale fluid onto himself and the floor, then stumbled away sipping nosily at the mug.
“Fresh? Well, it wasn’t made today,” Bart admitted, wiping his mutilated hands dry on a wet towel tucked into his gun belt. There was no blaster, the holster containing a wooden cudgel instead. “But then, it wasn’t made last moon either. Fresh enough to eat, if you got strong teeth.”
“Anything to drink, Bart?” Ryan asked. This was a technique he had learned long ago. Chat with the bartender, get on his good side and slowly the man would spill the local gossip.
“Beer and shine,” the man growled. “Only water here is reserved for sec men. Ain’t none for sale.”
“That so, brother?” Ryan asked, scratching at his leather eye patch.
Keeping a straight expression, Bart placed a scarred arm on the counter and leaned forward. “Well,” he added softly, “if you pay double the price for shine, there might be water in the mug. Stranger things have happened.”
“Sounds good. A round of shine for the table,” Ryan reached into a pocket and placed a couple of .22 rounds on the counter.