“Half,” she mouthed silently.
Expecting that, the madam nodded agreement and rushed down the stairs and into the muddy streets, heading straight for the front gate of the ville.
Chapter Fourteen
Stepping outside the post office, Krysty looked over Cold Harbor ville while the guards on either side of the door dropped their cigs and snapped to attention.
“Evening, Baron!” one shouted, while the other man clumsily ground his cig under a boot.
The woman walked past the sec men, wrinkling her nose at the thick smells in the night air. The ville was ablaze with crackling torches and fish-oil lanterns. In the flickering yellow light, chickens ran wild along the dirt streets, and a group of mangy dogs tormented a squealing pig wallowing in a mud hole. Swarms of flies buzzed thick around a public latrine, and the houses were ramshackle predark buildings badly fixed with banana leaves and bamboo. Most had no glass in the windows, and only a few possessed doors of any kind.
In the street, a hooting crowd was gathered around two sec men having a slow-motion fistfight, while naked children ran about screaming and a woman openly relieved herself in the weeds along a blacksmith shop. On the corner was the local gaudy house filled with a riot of partially clad people having sex in every possible combination, then a sec man stuck his head out a window and retched into the street, almost drenching some folks hurrying by. Only the dimly seen silhouettes of the guards walking along the top of the brick wall had a semblance of order.
“Mother Gaia,” the woman muttered. “It’s a drunken pesthole.”
“That’s ’cause it’s not their ville,” Ryan said, brushing away some buzzing flies. “The kitchen staff told me that the original builders of the place got aced by a plague. These folks found it empty and moved in.”
“That explains a lot,” J.B. said, trying not to breathe. “You build something, you take care of it.”
Her hair flaring in anger, Krysty turned to the closest sec man. “Where is the vault?”
“Behind the palace,” he replied, the words slightly slurred, showing that he had been celebrating while on duty, a capital offense under most barons. “Here, I’ll show ya.”
“Stay,” Ryan ordered loudly to get through his fogged mind. “I know the way.”
He shrugged. “Sure…”
Stepping over the defensive sandbags, the companions started along the main street, dodging revelers and pools of ripe offal.
“Whole ville must be drunk in celebration,” Krysty said, watching her step. “Great time for us to be attacked.”
“I know,” Ryan said grimly. “And it’s not booze. They don’t know how to make it.”
“Not know how shine?” Jak demanded, then gave a bitter laugh. “Stupes.”
“There we agree, my taciturn friend,” Doc rumbled in his deep voice.
“Dark night,” J.B. cursed, squinting at the ground so he wouldn’t trip. “We’ll have to start from scratch to make the juice we need. Be trapped here for weeks.”
“So what is it they’re drunk on?” Krysty asked. “Jolt?”
“No, some local herb called ralk,” Mildred explained dourly. “They chew it or make tea. Gets them high enough, but it’s not wolfweed or marijuana. Nothing I’ve run across before. Some local mutation. Harmless enough.”
A sudden movement made her pull a blaster, and then a man staggered from the shadows with his pants around his ankles and holding a panting woman to his chest, her dress unbuttoned to the point where her sagging breasts bounced freely. Arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his waist, she gave little jumps as he steadily hiccuped and fed her sips of some fluid from a striped gourd.
“If taken in small doses,” the physician finished, replacing her blaster. An entire ville of people hooked on drugs. She shook her head in disbelief.
Following the sandbag wall, the companions reached a quiet area behind the palace. Nobody was singing or dancing there, and it was obvious why. The area was ringed by a series of short poles with human skulls balanced on top. A row of crosses with skeletons tied to the crossbars gave mute testimony of public executions. There was a series of sharp metal poles, bones scattered below, a skeleton impaled halfway down on the thick shaft, the pole entering between his legs and exiting out his gaping mouth. Nearby was a shallow pit with the ground blackened from flames, a fresh new stake standing in the middle, waiting for the next victim. A complex collection of rusty iron pipes formed a sort of dome, and hung inside the kindergarten jungle gym was a series of tiny iron cages, more dead jammed inside, some still possessing faces, one prisoner’s arm extended through the bars clawing for freedom. Fat seagulls roosted on the cages and pecked for tidbits of rotting meat from the decaying corpses.