“Make a hell of a distraction, too, if we time it right.”
“Sounds good. Help me with that barrel of black powder, will you?”
While the two men got to work, Mildred continued sorting through some tools on a workbench, hoping to find a replacement for her lost scalpel, when she spied an ancient binder tucked into a shelf and blew off the dust to read the faded cover.
“Rockpoint Water Storage Relay Station Nine,” the physician read aloud in amazement, flipping through the yellowed pages of the operations manual. “So that’s why the ville is here. This used to be a pumping station for a major city. Water shortage my ass.”
“Which means that isn’t an artesian well attached to the fiberglass scorpion,” Krysty said, practicing to reload the Hollands & Hollands. “There must be a feeder pipe somewhere.”
“Not matter,” Jak declared, checking the play of a Winchester lever action rifle.
There had been a lot of .38 long cartridges for the short barreled longblaster, and it was in prime condition without a sign of rust or corrosion. A lot of folks would fire weapons and then store them away without cleaning, only to return a month later to find the dampness in the air had combined with the residue of the powder to form a kind of acid that ruined a blaster. Mildred had told him the name of the chem, but it slipped his mind at the moment. Carbolic, or something. But there was none of that on the Winchester, which shone with oil.
“No, we can use that to our advantage,” Ryan countered. “Let’s find that feeder pipe.”
Following a blurry map in the manual, Mildred led the group through the armory into a back room, the doorway damaged in spots where the door had been forcibly removed. Inside was a huge steel pipe rising from the ground and doubling back down again. There were some meters and a wheel valve on the pipe, along with a small diameter bleed rod that went into the brick wall and out of sight.
“Straight up the ass and out of the mouth of the Scorpion God,” Ryan said. “Gaza controls the water from here, turning it on for the faithful, and off for the people he doesn’t like.”
“Surprised he hasn’t declared himself a god yet,” Dean said, showing a surprising understanding of the situation.
“Probably will someday,” his father stated. “Bastard of a way to rule a ville. A brave man will charge blasters, but thirsty people will do anything to get a drink of water.”
Checking a toolbox on the sandy floor, J.B. used a cloth to wipe the condensed moisture off a pressure meter. “Dark night! This valve is holding back over fourteen tons of pressure. There’s enough water here to flood that whole ville. Wash it clean off the map.”
“Over here!” Krysty cried out, waving.
In the corner of the pump room was a predark iron ladder bolted to the brick wall leading to a hatch set into the concrete ceiling.
“Let’s check outside,” Dean said eagerly, reaching for the ladder.
Pulling the boy back, Ryan said, “Remember, these folks like traps.”
Using his panga to probe the way, Ryan found razor blades attached to the center of the first couple of rungs. Anybody grabbing in a hurry would have sliced off fingers under their own weight. Checking carefully every foot of the way, he reached the ceiling and forced open the hatch. A warm wind blew into the armory, carrying the sound of the alarm bell still stridently ringing and clanging, and raised voices shouting in the distance. Crawling onto the roof, Ryan stayed low until he was sure there were no guards present, then worked his way to the edge and slowly stood to see the whole ville.
Rockpoint was in turmoil, torches moving along the top of the wall and cries rising from everywhere below the rippling canopy across the ville. The light of the wag could be seen from the top of the temple in the distance, distorted shadows on the adobe wall showing the barn was occupied. But whether it was Sparrow looting the wag, or ville sec men setting a trap was unknown.