“Sir, eh?” The baron smiled tolerantly. “Very well, then, let’s go.” He turned to a sec man. “Lieutenant Kilgore, handle that matter.”
A slim, dark, handsome man snapped to attention and briskly saluted. “At once, Baron!”
Gunther reached for the door latch, but Leonard took his arm.
“Father,” he whispered softly, glancing at the writhing prisoner, “I know his crime was terrible, unforgivable, the killing of plants, the stealing of food…” He swallowed and his voice faltered.
Baron Strichland rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder until he looked up. “Never be afraid of anything. Especially when asking me for a favor. Understood?”
“Yes, my father.”
“Is it mercy you wish, for that?” the baron asked, the distaste in his voice painfully clear. “A thief and a liar who places the blame of a crime on his own child?”
“Yes,” the boy said forcibly.
Debating the issue, the baron looked directly at the rest of his council. Their opinions were also clear on the matter. The weeping prisoner had drawn his knees to his chest, fighting to keep his flesh away from the churning maw of the wood chipper.
“I can refuse you nothing, my chosen son,” the giant said gently. “Mercy it shall be.”
Leonard took his father’s hand and kissed it, “Thank you, Father.”
“Enough,” Gunther said, shaking off the embrace. “I’m the baron, not some mucking high priest.”
“Sorry.”
“Lieutenant Kilgore, show the criminal mercy.”
“At once, sir!”
“Come, lad, to my office, where we can talk in private.” The baron turned and they left the room.
“Mercy.” Kilgore sneered in contempt. “For the likes of you. This is your lucky day.”
And so saying, the lieutenant reached inside his camou-colored flak jacket, drew a Colt .45 blaster and fired once. Half of the man’s skull was removed by the bullet, blood spraying out in a hideous geyser. Limply, the feet of the warm corpse dropped straight into the blades and disappeared. The crew holding the chains released the tension, and the body dropped without hindrance and a hideous whinnying noise rose as the man was reduced to mincemeat.
“Enough!” Kilgore said after a minute, sliding his blaster away into a predark shoulder holster. “Never waste fuel. Why is that, Private Hanson?”
Caught by surprise, the middle-aged woman snapped to attention. She had been busted four times back to private for not paying attention while on duty, and here it was happening again! “Ah, because the Machine won’t run on the alcohol we make, but only on real gasoline.”
“That is correct. You there, Corporal, what is the sequence of the mix?”
His mustache merely a wisp of hair across his upper lip, the teenager swallowed and saluted. “Boil the residue twice to remove impurities, then mix him with sand in a one-to-ten ratio. Then add twice-boiled sewage two parts to five. Let it ripen for a week in summer, a month in winter.”
“Very good.” Kilgore smiled, wiping a tiny droplet of blood off his sleeve. “When he is processed, add the new soil to the contaminated soil of the repaired greenhouse. We may be able to recover some crops from this mess yet.”
“Sir, about the child who did the actual damage…”
“He is now a ward of the ville, and upon age will become a sec man trained to kill those who steal food from our bellies.” A rue smile. “We do not harm children here, Private. Only thieves and liars.”
“Yes, sir,” the woman replied, fear a lump of ice in her belly from a carrot she had stolen from the kitchens the previous week.
AS THE FATHER and son approached the office on the third floor of the museum, sec men snapped open the door and saluted. The baron waved in passing, and Leonard returned the salute properly.
The office was tremendously huge, covering half of a floor. To the east was a working stone fireplace surrounded by a sunken living room of plush couches. A wooden desk stood in the center of the room, and behind it on the wall was a map of the ville and surrounding lands. The floor was smooth fieldstone dotted with a dozen matching white rugs. To the west was a bookcase made of mirrors and glass shelves, and on display was the first ear of corn grown in the first greenhouse, fancy autofire blasters, all of which worked and were loaded, geodes because they were pretty, hundreds of bottles of liquor and predark wine, a few specially marked bottles expertly poisoned and a small teakwood box nearly full of human ears taken from every man who had ever challenged Strichland to a duel. Assassins simply went into the Machine, and the baron drank a cup of their blood in order to steal their souls and make himself stronger.