Taking one last handful, the child curiously walked through the trees munching steadily. The weird noise came again, louder this time, and there were faint voices—men talking and shouting.
Susie started to run and shout for her mother, but stopped. People were dangerous, even the right ones without extra arms and such. Sometimes they tried to eat you, or worse, her mother had warned. Susie carefully obeyed the warning, even though she wasn’t sure what could be worse than getting eaten by a nasty mutie.
More voices came through the forest, and the crack of a whip. That sound she knew from when they stayed at a ville and the sec men beat a man to death for stealing a blaster from the baron. It was a very bad thing to do because blasters were only for sec men, or barons. Her mommy wouldn’t let her watch the beating, but Susie heard the whips, and it seemed to take forever for the poor thief to die. Her daddy said it was a good thing he got chilled. Thieves were worse than muties because muties didn’t know any better.
Wiping her hands clean on her ragged dress, Susie followed the faint voices through the foliage until coming to the top of a steep hill. Filling the valley below was a wonderful ville, unlike anything she had ever seen before. There were houses made of brick, and many, many people, some in chains and others herding them forward with whips. More thieves? A squat building near a river had six big chimneys with black smoke pouring into the purple sky. Thick rope stretched from the building to a machine, then spread out across the ville like a spiderweb. A tremendous bowl sat in the middle of the ville, the huge white machine towering over the tall chimneys and casting the land underneath into dark shadows.
More people were digging into the side of a rocky hill, chained thieves dragging stone blocks over to a wall they were building around the whole area. A wall of stone. Susie was in awe. She had never seen such a thing before. It was wonderful! Certainly no mutie or mean old coldheart could get through that. Well, except for sting-wings, and they were little.
“Hold it right there, kid!” an adult voice growled.
Still holding her doll, Susie turned and looked up at the two big men standing in the weeds. They were wearing clean blue shirts and carrying longblasters. The tall man had a bushy beard, and the other was short and fat.
“Hello, sec men,” she said, giving a curtsy. Her mommy said to always be polite to sec men, or they would tell the baron on you. “I’m looking for my mommy. Have you seen her?”
“Oh, crap. This must be that bitch’s kid,” the tall man growled irritably. “I was hoping she would run away and get lost or something.”
“Well, she didn’t,” his companion snapped, doing something to his weapon. “And you know what that means.”
Frightened, Susie stayed still as the adults argued. When the sec men were done, mebbe they could help her. She thought about offering them some berries, but only had a few and wanted to save them for her mommy.
The tall man scratched at his beard. “Come on, Sarge. She’s too small to work in the mines.”
“And we can’t let her go. No exceptions, or it’s our necks. That’s what the boss said.” The short man aimed his longblaster at her. She hugged her doll tight, feeling very scared for some reason. Susie wanted to run, but knew they could catch her easy.
“Aw, she’s just a kid!” He sounded very angry for some reason.
“Not any more.”
The blaster fired once, the sharp report seeming to echo through the forest and into the valley where the giant machine stood poised and nearly ready to be activated.
WIPING AT THE DIRTY windshield with his hand, Stephen stared at the blockhouse ahead of the caravan and frowned in displeasure. In a squeal of metal on metal, he ground the rickety old van to a halt. In slow procession, the two trucks behind the rusty wag also stopped, the drivers fumbling with the unfamiliar brakes and gearshifts.