that put up a fight and drag the others back here, where I could work them to death, good and proper. Your pal Cawdor and the other mercies and sec men surrounded Coupe ville. The muties saw them coming, though, and barricaded themselves in their huts. My men blasted the place up a little to show that they meant business.
“The way the other mercies tell the story, after the rebels knew they were licked, they threw out their weapons. They wanted to surrender and go home in chains. One-eye wouldn’t hear of it. Kind of went crazy. He was a coldheart bastard back then. He set fire to the place and burned them up in their huts, women and mutie brats, too. My crew didn’t bring back a single prisoner from Coupe ville. Word about the massacre spread real quick through the rebel territory. Lots of them gave up without a fight after that. Cawdor did me a big favor by going wild. Too bad he lost his taste for mass chilling. He lit out on me not long after.”
“No, he never said anything about that to me,” Krysty said. She figured it was what the baron wanted to hear. That it was close to the truth was just a coincidence. Ryan had told her and the others that he and the baron had had a disagreement over prisoner policy. He hadn’t given them any of the details. Krysty had no way of knowing whether the baron had made up the massacre story. She knew Elijah could be trying to turn her against Ryan in order to make her a more pliant zoo specimen, or to get information from her about him and about whoever supposedly was backing him.
“Take her down to the zoo/* the baron told his sec men. “Tell Knackerman I want her kept isolated. Have him put females in the cages on either side of her. I don’t want any males getting at her until I say so.”
For Krysty it was a brief stay of execution, a small consolation, but better than none.
As the sec men grabbed her arms and started dragging her off, she resisted. Determined to make a last attempt to convince Elijah whose side she was on, she stomped the toes of the nearest guard with the stacked heel of her cowboy boot. When he released her with a curse, she twisted back to face the baron.
“If it comes down to a fight tonight between you and the stickles,” Krysty said, “my skin is going to be on the line just like everybody else’s. I can handle a blaster pretty good. I’d like the chance to die with one in my hand. If the stickies come, you’re going to need every blaster you can get.”
“I don’t need no mutie slut with a blaster aimed at the back of my head, though,” the baron said. “Get her out of here.”
Chapter Ten
The creature crouched so low in the straw that even as Jak rose to his feet, he couldn’t make out the shape of its body. He had no way of telling what kind of mutated being he was sharing the cell with, no clue whether it was friend or foe. The teenager retreated as far as he could go, pressing his back against the bars at the front of the cage.
“Hey, you, over there!” he said to the pair of huge yellow eyes. He practically had to shout to hear himself over the yelling and screaming in the zoo corridor.
At the sound of his voice, the creature started to advance. It moved toward him very slowly, with utmost caution and stealth. And as it closed the distance, Jak noticed that the position of its eyes had dropped nearer to the ground. It was coiling, preparing to spring on him.
Jak wiped his battered mouth with the back of his hand. Was the smell of his blood attracting it? There was nothing he could do about that. He couldn’t stop the flow. The eyes speared into him, shifting as the creature moved to his left. It was trying to back him
into a corner. Jak knew better than to let that happen. He countered by shifting to the left, as well.