As Ryan walked in the narrow space between the backs of the chairs and the wall, he saw that there were panels set in the tabletop in front of all the places, including his. He also saw that the table wasn’t new. There were scars on its surface and its edges were chipped. The chair he sat in had an odd but not unpleasant covering, pebbled like animal hide only much thicker. The stuffing was leaking out of one of the arms.
“We only have a few initial questions,” the white-haired man said, “then we will let the doctors have a look at you.”
It was the woman who addressed him first. Her plaque said Omnico. Of all the screens, hers was the only one that seemed slightly out of focus, as if she were being videoed through gauze. Her collar-length, auburn hair had been ratted into a bubble shape on top of her head, and it flipped up at the ends. Her lips were exceptionally thin, and the expression they wore was impatient.
“Ryan,” she said, “on the table in front of you is a video screen. Please look at it. Good. What you see there is a map of our world. Until a century ago, the major features of your Earth and ours looked exactly alike. We would like to know if the nuclear holocaust you suffered has altered the major land masses. We’d also like to know what areas you have visited on your world. Would you please touch the screen with your fingertip on any places you think you recognize.”
There was only one shape that looked at all familiar. Ryan knew the outline because Trader had shown it to him on a predark map. When he touched the shape with his finger, that part of the screen turned red.
“And you call that?” the Omnico woman prompted.
“Deathlands,” he said.
“The former United States of America,” Huth added.
“Any others?”
“I’ve been outside of Deathlands a few times, but I don’t know the places on a map. Russia. Amazon. Japan. I didn’t go overland or by sea. Too dangerous. Used the mat-trans system, instead. None of these others look familiar to me.” Deathlands suddenly filled the screen. “Would you please touch the screen where you know there are cities,” the woman continued. “We’re interested in locating your largest existing cities. Touch the spots where they are first.”
Ryan hesitated. If they did have an eye in the sky, they could do all this by themselves, with whitecoat technology. Why were they bothering to ask him? Was it some kind of test? “Mr. Cawdor?”
Slightly irked, he put his finger on the screen. “D.C.,” he said. “Newyork, and here, Norleans.”
“How many people in each?” This question came from the man in the screen marked Mitsuki. He had graying hair, clipped short, and the color of his eyes matched the blazer.
“Couldn’t say for sure. A few thousands, mebbe.”
“Where are most of the people, then?” the man followed up.
“Scattered around. Outposts and barons’ villes.”
“Is there much commerce between these villes?”
“A little. Only if they’re close enough. Travel is almost always by foot. Roads are bad and dangerous.
The people are mostly on their own, grow their own food.”
“And is there any industry? Manufacturing?” asked the man whose plaque said Invecta. He was gaunt-faced and dour. The hair that remained to him was shaved down to a horseshoe-shaped shadow that wrapped around the back of his head.
“Scavenging, that’s what people do,” Ryan told him. “Working over the ruins for things they can use.”
“What sort of communication is there between these small, isolated villages?” This question came from the last interviewer, a round-faced man with small close-set brown eyes. His screen said Questar.
“Word of mouth, passed by travelers. There’s no other way.”
The Mitsuki man asked, “And the military organization is based on these barons, this primitive feudal system?”
“There isn’t much of what you’d call military organization. Just the sec men hired by the barons. They’re the ones who maintain control around villes and in the barons’ outlying territories.”
“How do they manage this?” the woman said. When Ryan gave her a blank look, she rephrased the question. “What are these sec men armed with?”