Baron Silas nodded. “It made more sense to keep them like that.”
Dean exploded. “Hot pipe! I got it, Doc! Crow said something about big jack bonuses for getting work done on time. Mebbe the different villes are trying to screw up each other’s chances.”
“Stupe behavior,” Jak said simply. “Longer work take, less jack all round.”
“Maybe, but maybe they wouldn’t think that far ahead,” said Mildred. “People don’t when they’re faced with their own prejudices.”
“Some things haven’t changed through history, no matter what,” Krysty added.
Baron Silas returned to his position at the head of the table, but remained standing, leaning on the table with his knuckles and looking them over.
“I needed something different, and quick. Then you came out of the desert like the answer to a man’s prayers. Make no mistake, I would have had you chilled at any other time, ’cause you would have got in the way. But Crow had a feeling you could come good, and so we let the workers rag you, see what you did without any weapons. You got chilled, then too bad. But you didn’t. You did good, real good. And you’re just what I need.”
“So what’s the deal?” Ryan said simply.
“The deal is this—you get your blasters and other weapons back, and you become my elite sec, patrolling the camp, well and refinery until the project is complete. I figure you could whip those bastards into line without too many problems. All you have to do is stop them blowing each other and the project to hell. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“And then?”
“Then you leave with a jack bonus. You do me right, I do you right.”
Ryan looked at the man. His every instinct told him that Baron Silas Hunter was a ruthless, single-minded baron. And yet his coldness was such that he would be the worst liar Ryan had ever met.
“Why don’t you trust your own sec?” he asked.
“I trust them, but I know from experience they can’t handle it. Too many other duties. Besides, they’ve been too involved. You’re harder, and you come from outside, with a fresh eye—no offense,” he added with a mirthless smile.
Ryan ignored the crack. Either heavy humor or an insult to establish superiority, it wasn’t worth the trouble either way. He said simply, “We’ll discuss it.”
Silas walked the length of the hall to the door in silence. It was only when he was about to close the doors and leave them alone that he tossed over his shoulder, “Not much to discuss, but I’ll give you some time.”
When he had closed the door, Mildred sat back and blew out her cheeks, tossing her plaits around her head.
“Shit, what have we got ourselves into?”
“What have I got you into, you mean,” Ryan said wryly.
“No, you just did what was right at the time,” Mildred replied. “I just don’t like the look of it.”
“Yeah, mebbe you’ve got a point there,” Ryan said, stroking his chin. “It’s not a good position, but we’ve been in worse.”
“There’s no immediate danger,” Krysty said. “But it’s going to be hard to get through this. We’re walking into what amounts to a ville war where everyone’s really within hitting distance.”
“And on top of that, we’re going to be sitting on top of a fuel dump that could literally blow beneath us,” Dean added.
“Thanks for reminding me,” Mildred said. “Problem is, we needed to give up our blasters to get food and water, and the chances of us getting better supplies depended on us going along with Crow. Mebbe we could come out of this with some jack to trade with,” Ryan said.
“That’s if we can trust Silas,” Krysty said softly.
“I think we can,” Ryan said firmly. “He’s hard and mean, all right, but that type can’t lie. He’d enjoy telling you what he was going to do to you too much. He’s put us in a shitty position as it is—there’s no need for him to be hiding anything. Besides which, if we don’t play ball, we don’t get our weapons back.”
“That’s his winning hand,” J.B. mused. The Armorer pushed his fedora back on his forehead and scratched. “Way I see it is this—if we agree, then Baron Silas Hunter gets his extra sec force. If we fuck up, then he blames us and chills us. If we come good, he gets credit and glory in front of the other barons. In return we get our weapons back, put ourselves on the line and mebbe come out of it to the good. But he knows we’ve got no option. After all, here we are in the middle of his house, surrounded by his sec people and in the middle of his ville, which is heavily walled. He knows we’ve got no option. We could mebbe get so far, but get right out of here in one piece, unarmed?” The Armorer shook his head and pushed his spectacles up his nose.