James Axler – Starfall

“Got one guest staying in both guest houses,” Ryan commented.

“Heard that,” J.B. said.

“Brought his own cook. Must be a hell of a fucking guest.”

“Some of those blasters facing us off when we stepped through the palisade doors were sec men.”

Ryan nodded. He’d noticed the same thing. Sec men who’d spent time at their job developed a certain pattern of movement, a way of carrying themselves. “Going to be an interesting night.”

“If we stay,” J.B. said. “Don’t have to do that.”

“Play it as the hand is laid out. If a storm is coming, safest place for that boat is in some kind of harbor. That dock down below might not be much, but it’s deep enough to keep the boat together if the water gets rough.”

MILDRED TOOK CHARGE of the group back in the barn. She assigned Jak to watch Elmore, and she let the Heimdall Foundation man know he was on a short leash. Elmore wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t try to slip off after the first time, either.

The barn stood nearly twenty feet tall, a big spacious building with a hayloft overhead. Stalls held eight horses with room for four more. Tack and saddles covered one wall, hanging from hooks. Loose straw lay over the hard-packed earth.

“Comfortable place,” the ferret-faced man who’d guided them to the barn said. “Tight and dry during the rainy season. Spent many a night here myself.”

“You’re not one of the guests Annie’s got right now, are you?”

The man shook his head. “I’m one of Annie’s regulars. Do my scavenging and trading with her ’cause she’s fair to me. When times get lean, and they do often enough in the cold season, she stakes me, lets me stay in the barn if I got no other place.”

“Where are you spending the night tonight?” Mildred didn’t relish the idea of a bunch of strangers camping out among them. It was bad enough having Morse and his boys and what remained of the ex-prisoners of the coldhearts around them.

“Outside.” The man hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Got a tent, and Annie’s giving me my meals for a few days.”

“Is that normal?”

The man regarded her suspiciously. “Annie’s done me enough favors, I don’t kick much when she asks me for one.” He excused himself and left the barn.

Mildred returned her attention to the barn. Dean laid out a fire in the stone fireplace, using wood that was neatly stacked up in a lean-to fifty yards from the barn. The horses whinnied and nickered as the people moved around among them.

“Horses used hard,” Jak commented as he leaned against the wall and watched over Elmore.

“I noticed that,” Mildred said. She hadn’t exactly been a city girl all her life before being frozen in a cryo chamber and thawed after the nukecaust But traveling with Ryan and the other companions had sharpened her eye.

The horses were leaned out from hard travel, their coats not well taken care of. A few of them moved gingerly, as if their hooves had deep stone bruises.

“Horses shod, too,” the albino said quietly. “Probably roadwork, not open range. Used to living in ville.”

“Sec men and horses that have been pushed hard,” Mil­dred said. “Kind of leads you to think that Annie’s present guest wore out his welcome somewhere else, doesn’t it?”

Jak grinned coldly. “Best we move early in morning.”

Mildred nodded. “We’ll make our own damn breakfast or skip it if Ryan and J.B. can push the trade through to­night. Being in the middle of somebody else’s trouble is the last place I want to be.” She moved off, intending to see to the placement of their people in case things turned bad.

“WE DO OUR OWN RELOADING where we can,” Max said as he pushed boxes of ammo across to Ryan and J.B. “But the scavengers working the regions within trading distance around us still come across stuff like this often enough.”

Ryan picked up a box of 9 mm ammo and slid it open. The bullets inside stood at rigid attention, gleaming from the thin oil coat that covered them. The noses were con­cave, letting him know they were hollowpoint. “Glasers,” he commented. “These are some serious rounds.”