James Axler – Starfall

“Nobody’d blame you if you stayed,” Ryan said. But be knew he’d miss the old man. Doc was one of the loyalest and truest friends he’d ever had.

“However tempting it might be,” Doc said, “I find that I must follow my heart. There is this current problem with Krysty, and I have known no true home in Deathlands ex­cept at your side. It is there that I shall stay, dear Ryan, long as we may both yet live. Or perhaps until I find a way to return to the bosom of my family.”

“Wouldn’t be the same without you,” Ryan told him.

“So when you get ready to sally forth into the hinter­lands, simply let me know.” Doc cut a salute with his swordstick. “I shall be at your side.”

“It’ll be soon. Mebbe come morning if the storm isn’t too rough.”

“Until such time,” Doc said, “I shall stay with the lady as long as I can, taking and giving what comfort that I may.”

“Always heard the best comfort was the high and hard kind,” Ryan said with a grin. “Frequent is good, too.” He left Doc standing there, nearly glowing with rad intensity in his embarrassment.

THE CHEM STORM BROKE at 8:15 p.m. according to Ryan’s chron. It filled the air with the flash of lightning and the stink of ozone, and thunder shook the trading post’s main house.

Ryan watched the poisonous rain spill from the leaden indigo sky from a windowed room off the dining area. He had his arm around Krysty. They’d almost left the house and headed back to the barn before the storm burst loose. For the moment, they were trapped in the main house.

“Spectacular, isn’t it?”

Turning, keeping one hand on Krysty to aid her in speed if necessary, Ryan dropped his hand to the SIG-Sauer blaster and looked at the speaker.

Baron Shaker walked into the room. Three sec men flanked him, but he waved them off as he approached Ryan.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“I didn’t catch your name,” the baron said. He seemed even more imposing in the shadows, bigger and colder.

“Didn’t throw it. Name’s Ryan.”

“Have you another name?”

“Ryan’ll do.”

“My name’s Curtis Shaker.” The big man peered through the window at the rampaging storm. “That’s a hell­ish thing to be caught out in. Lucky for us, Annie’s trading post is here.”

Ryan didn’t say anything. Too many hard years had trained him to be silent until all the cards were on the table. Or at least as many of them as he could get a look at.

“You came by the boat tied up at the pier below,” Sha­ker said.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not your boat, though.”

“No. Hired the boat’s skipper and his sons.”

“I also heard there were more people with you than just the ones at the tables inside.”

“Is that any business of yours?” Ryan asked. “Or are you just taking a census?”

“I’ve always been of curious nature,” the baron said, not taking any offense. But he had to check the sec men who’d stepped forward at the perceived disrespect. “Now I find myself curious about you.”

“I was always told,” Ryan said, “that if a man’s business extended much past his nose, he often found himself in over his head really sudden-like.”

Shaker smiled thinly. “Wise words. Under other circum­stances, mebbe I’d listen to them. But not now.”

“What is it that you want?” Krysty asked.

“To know more about you,” Shaker replied, switching his gaze briefly to the redhead.

“We’re scavengers,” Krysty said.

“Looking for what?”

“Whatever we can find. We brought blasters in to trade with Annie.”

“So I’d heard. But in my experience, scavengers tend to hang around a certain area, mining whatever rumors and half truths they can find.”

“I’m more fiddle-footed than most,” Ryan said. “But getting back to the curiosity part, you asking so many ques­tions makes me curious about you.”

Shaker spread his hands. “Why not? I’m in a magnani­mous mood. Good food and creature comforts have always brought that out in me. What do you want to know?”

“What’re you doing here?” Ryan asked. “Most barons I’ve heard about seem more content to stay at home than wandering the countryside. Still got a lot of rad areas around here, chem storms and muties. Why not stay at home?”