“Liar,” the corporal said, a hint of a smile crossing his face. “Where could you get coal pieces, unless they were stolen?”
The young woman worked her lips a few times, but nothing come out. Everybody stole coal pieces; it was the only way to stay alive. Didn’t they understand?
“Perhaps you gave yourself to the miners for scraps,” the corporal taunted. “Crime. And now you lie. Another crime.”
He smiled openly at her now, his blue eyes shining. “Mebbe a day with Eugene will change your, words.”
She grabbed his leg. “No! Please! I have no knowledge of strangers! I obey the law!”
The corporal snapped his fingers, and a sec man moved behind her drew a knife and slid it across her throat. Blood welled and the teenager fell backward, clutching her neck, bubbling crimson.
“Assaulting a freeman,” the corporal said, wiping a spot of her warm blood off his boots onto her skirt. “Crime.”
Going outside, the sec men found the marketplace empty except for a few stragglers, mostly cripples and young children. But as the corporal glanced at the crude homes he saw motion behind closed curtains and in doorways.
“The girl is dead!” be announced loudly. “As will be all traitors who help the invaders! Assassins come to slay our beloved ward!”
“Praised be his name!” the squad chorused.
“Then may the lord of us all guide their blasters,” muttered an old man, leaning on a crutch. From under his ragged garment only one leg reached the ground.
In a fluid move, the sec man pulled his blaster and fired. The villagers watched in horror as the cripple fell to the muddy street, his rags shifting to show the countless scars on his skeleton-thin body.
“You will tell us their location!” the corporal screamed, brandishing his revolver. “Lying is a crime! Crimes are punishable by death!”
Silence greeted this announcement.
“The Deathlands scum aren’t your friends!” the corporal screamed. “We are your friends! Tell us where they are, I command it!”
Nobody spoke or moved.
“Failure to obey a freeman, crime!” he bellowed and gunned down two more people at random. “Squad, tear this street apart! Find me the invaders, or find me somebody who will talk!”
Eagerly, the squad began shoving people aside, entering homes and smashing furniture. Unarmed, the people didn’t attempt to defend themselves, but merely bowed their heads and prayed for deliverance from the living hell of Novaville.
“HERE THEY ARE,” Lisa said, hurrying into the tunnel, her arms full of paper bundles. Troy entered with her but stayed near the disguised entrance, a hand resting casually on his holstered blaster.
Placing aside their plates of food, mostly bread and boiled vegetables, the companions gathered around a table as the brunette spread out a map of the mountain valley.
“This is a survey map,” Ryan said, placing a wooden mug on a corner to hold the paper flat.
Doc rubbed the paper between fingertips. “Excellent condition. Where did you find it?”
“There is a cave of bad air,” Lisa said, “sealed off with a wall of brick. But there’s a door, edged with tar, and anything in that cave Doesn’t age or rot.”
“Methane,” Jak guessed. “From the mine.”
Mildred nodded. “No free oxygen. Paper would last for centuries in there. However, food stored in the gas would taste awful. Eventually become poisonous.”
Lisa didn’t reply, but her face was bright with awe at their great knowledge.
“Is the cave a library,” Dean asked, “open to anybody?”
She shook her head. “None may enter but freemen. For a slave to do so is punishable by death.
All crimes are.”
“Like feudal Japan,” Doc muttered. “Serfs and samurai.
Ryan carefully smoothed out some wrinkles in the rolled paper. The prison appeared to be a large rectangular structure, with high walls and lots of turrets. There was only one gate offering entrance, just north of a four-story building.
“That’s where we got gassed,” J.B. stated.
“Near the crosses.”
“And the gallows,” Dean added. “What’s that building, the palace?”
“The Citadel,” Lisa said, scowling. “I don’t know the word palace, but it’s where the ward and his spawn live.”
Krysty used a cartridge to measure the size of the land around the prison. “Four, no six hundred acres. Damn, that’s big.”