“I was born back then,” Boldt said. “As you were. I was nine years old when the world ended. My father placed us in cryo sleep. So you are not the only traveler through time.”
Mildred watched a pair of men tilling the ground by hand, working with long-handled tools that looked like overambitious hoes. “Where is your father?”
“Dead,” Boldt said. “He died in the cryo chamber.”
“So you’ve been alone.” For a moment Mildred almost felt empathetic for the loneliness she heard in the man’s voice. “I’m sorry.”
“I have my memories of him. And I have his work to carry on.”
“How many of these people were in cryo sleep with you?”
“None. Just my father and I. There was supposed to be another man who joined us. Henry Walker.”
“Colonel Henry Walker?” Mildred asked.
Boldt turned to eye her curiously. “You know him?”
“Not personally,” Mildred said. “My friends and I found his body in the place I was in before I got here.” She quickly explained about the corpse the companions had found in the White Sands redoubt. Giving Boldt the information couldn’t hurt anything, and it would suggest that she was trying to deal with him honestly.
“Too bad,” Boldt said. “He helped my father build Wildroot.”
“How?”
“Walker worked with the United States,” the Celtic prince said. He switched his attention to a small field to the right. An old woman dressed in a dark green dress that had been patched over many times sat on her folded knees before a couple dozen vine beds. She was singing, and her voice carried over to the cart.
Mildred didn’t recognize all the words or the music, but the song itself was captivating, speaking of cold mornings and high places, of the will to survive.
“At the time,” Boldt continued, “the United States was involved in a number of research projects. You’ve heard of the Totality Concept?”
“Yes.”
Boldt regarded her. “I thought you might have. If you knew about the mat-trans units, you’d know about the Totality Concept.”
“Walker worked for the Totality Concept?”
“No. For another like it. You must remember, in those times no one fully trusted anyone else. The organization Walker worked for, the Lydecker Foundation, was a shadow of the Totality Concept, exploring many of the same interests as the researchers in the Totality Concept, but working independently.”
“Cross-referencing their findings.”
“Yes.” Boldt signaled for the cart driver to stop. “Sometimes the research followed along the same lines as the other redoubts’. Sometimes it took new paths.”
“Like Project Calypso.”
“I’ve never heard of that.” Boldt stepped out of the cart. “Come with me.”
Mildred got out and followed. Her guards stayed close to her.
“Colonel Walker was in charge of the funding and disbursements of the foundation,” Boldt said. “He created the means and managed the money my father needed to build the seedings of Wildroot.”
“Why?”
Boldt gestured toward the vine spread out over the ground. “Watch.”
The old woman kept on singing, though she had to have known of the others now watching her. Her eyes were closed in concentration. Slowly, beseechingly, she lifted her hands.
As if to mimic the movement, the vines suddenly started lifting, as well, digging themselves free of the earth and standing at rigid attention. The old woman swayed her body back and forth, and the vines mirrored her movements.
“Tanglers,” Boldt said. A smile carved his lean face. “One of my father’s chief successes. They have become our defense, a source of clothing in their fibers, and food, because they bear three different varieties of fruits and vegetables.”
Hypnotized, Mildred reached out toward one of the delicate vines. None of them was over six feet in length. They looked like thin rope, hard and twisted.
“No!”
Boldt’s shout galvanized the guard nearest Mildred into action. He slapped her hand away just as the vine came speeding toward it, just before she saw the thorn suddenly jet out the end of the vine, dripping ichor.
The vine twisted and curled anxiously, searching for her. It caused the vines next to it to become unsettled, as well, and they went on the defensive, too.