She spit.
“The Chosen’s society takes care of its breeding stock?” Doc asked.
Elmore nodded. “Sure. Feed it. Clothe it. Keep it fucked and pregnant every quarter that it ain’t. This purification process, it ain’t always so gentle. Some of the get of these unions, they’re mutie strain. Mindless monsters that receive some of the powers but no brains to use them with. Some of them are so deformed that it would be a burden on the Chosen to keep them.”
“Chill, too?” Jak asked.
“Before they draw their first breath, way I hear it,” Elmore answered. “A woman in the breeding stock, they pick her young enough that she can bear thirteen children. Some kind of mystical number to them.”
“That again points back to the roots in witchcraft,” Mildred said. “Not the Totality Concept.”
“Not necessarily, dear lady,” Doc argued. “Limiting replication is a self-serving design. What we’re discussing here would severely curtail the gene pool available to these women. By the Three Kennedys, if they’ve been operating like this for any length of time, they could be carrying on disastrous DNA that would result in all kinds of birth defects and malformed children.”
“The number of live births among them has been decreasing,” Elmore said. “Which is why they been stealing kids the last five or ten years.”
“You’re not from here, are you?” Ryan asked.
“No. Farther west,” Elmore replied. “Raised up by the Cific Ocean.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Wasn’t no paradise there.” Elmore shrugged. “Guess I was just looking for someplace better. Lots of folks are. Problem is, I think we see each other in passing, but all we’re doing is trading one set of problems for another. Folks get tired of that problem, they move on again.”
Something about the man’s answer didn’t ring true to Ryan, but he couldn’t pinpoint it.
“They steal people’s children?” Mary asked. She held the little boy in the group close to her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Elmore said. “But only girl-get. You got a boy. You got nothing to worry about. You’d probably come closer to losing your man than you would your child. Your man can fuck, and he’s proved himself to any Chosen watching you all by fathering that boy. They’d take your man, leave you and the boy for dead.”
“Why take the girl children?” Mildred asked.
“They got ways of knowing which ones have some of the power.” Elmore pointed to the herbs and potions in front of her. “Probably some of them in there. Or mebbe they just mind-talk with them. Had a man tell me once that a Chosen could look in a young girl’s eyes and know if she could be brought up their way.”
“Widespread possibility of the psychic talents,” Doc said. “Still think you’re looking at a society founded totally on superstition?”
“Blow it out your ass, Doc.”
“I find this all amazing to contemplate,” the old man said. “At another time, I should like to advance further inquiries into this field of experience.”
Elmore shrugged. “Told you about everything I know.” He looked at Krysty rocking gently against the floor, her mouth silently moving to whatever words she was saying. “I’m just sorry it don’t seem to help your problem none.”
“Got a new problem,” J.B. called from the window. “Rain’s slacking up. Chem storm’s about to pass over. The baron’s men aren’t going to wait around long before they decide to do something.”
RYAN SAT AT THE WINDOW, peering over the sill. He kept the Steyr in his hands, taking small comfort from the solid feel of the sleek steel.
Phlorin lay against the back wall, her breathing sounding raspy and thin. Krysty still hadn’t come out of the coma that had claimed her.
“Slaggers are still interested in how it goes down, too,” J.B. said.
Ryan followed the line of the Armorer’s pointing finger and spotted the coldhearts in hiding farther out, away from the junkyard. Some of the mongrels had put in an appearance, as well, requiring the baron’s men to fire at will to prevent the hounds from closing in on them. As it was, Ryan knew of two men who were lost anyway. The dogs also succeeded in chasing nearly half the horses away after the baron’s men had worked to keep them covered during the chem storm.