“Leave that for a second,” the baron said, “we have something we wish to discuss with you.”
“Ah, joy, surely you wish to inform us of your impending nuptials,” Doc announced happily.
Markos furrowed his brow and gazed at Doc, not sure if the older man was being humorous.
“May I ask just what you mean by that?” the sec boss requested gravely.
“Don’t you take any notice of the old coot. He’s just having one of his crazy moments,” Mildred said hurriedly, not wishing Doc or the sec boss to derail the conversation before it had begun in earnest. “What is it?” she added to Sineta.
“We have been discussing seriously the future of our community and we would wish for you to travel forth with us in perpetuity,” Sineta said.
Mildred whistled. “That’s something I wouldn’t have expected. I wouldn’t have thought you would have wanted us hanging around forever.”
“Especially as we’re not part of you,” J.B. added. “There’s still a lot of people here who think we’re outsiders and should stay that way.”
“But that is precisely the point,” Sineta interjected. “We do not wish you to travel with us as outsiders. We want you to become part of Pilatu and to join with our community.”
“I think you may find that quite a sizable proportion of your people may find this hard to come to terms with,” Doc pointed out. “There is still—at the very least—a residual resentment against us.”
“I know this, and I also acknowledge that you are aware of it, too,” Sineta said, speaking with great care and thought, “but if this is ever to change, then we will have to start teaching these recidivists at some point.”
“So we’re to be instruments in a lesson?” Mildred queried, amused at the manner in which Sineta had put her point.
“Not quite like that,” the baron replied, acknowledging her clumsiness with an embarrassed smile. “You have much to offer us in terms of knowledge and understanding, and we want to learn from that…most of us. The others will realize in time, as we have. In return, we can offer you a kind of security. Something, perhaps, that you have been searching for, a kind of peace and belonging. Is that not true? I could see it in you when we were on the island,” Sineta implored to Mildred.
Mildred felt uncomfortable for a moment. She had to pick her words carefully when she replied. “There is a certain degree of truth in what you say, but I have my own commitments and belonging. Maybe I’ll tell you about them later, when we’re not in the middle of packing to move on.”
She had hoped to stall indefinitely, unwilling to have to explain herself, but Markos’s words cut short any hopes.
“This is good. We will all discuss this matter—ourselves and the rest of your people—when we pitch camp tonight.”
“That wasn’t exactly what we had in mind,” Mildred said to the Armorer as they finished loading the cattle and moved out.
“Yeah, well, mebbe there are things that are going to make having to explain that unnecessary,” he said slowly.
Mildred followed his gaze to where Dean was walking with Sharona, Ryan and Krysty some distance behind.
“Hmm. I’d like to know what that’s all about, and who that woman is,” Mildred mused.
“She looks vaguely familiar,” the Armorer said. “This could be trouble.”
THE PILATAN CARAVAN moved out of the clearing and away through the woods. They took a route that carried a direction contrary to the direction of the ville from which the war party had arrived earlier in the day. They had no wish to encounter more raiders and indeed desired to put as much distance between the ville and themselves as possible. Wherever their fate lay in the search for land to build a new Pilatu, it certainly wasn’t in that direction.
By the time they had packed and begun to move, it was already into the late afternoon. The baron and the sec boss made a conscious decision to carry on marching through most of the night to put distance between themselves and any war parties bent on revenge. But by the middle of the night, it became apparent that the exhausted Pilatans would need to rest. Scouting sec parties that had been sent ahead, and also to track back to warn of any approaches from the rear, had nothing to report. There was even a lack of predatory wildlife in this part of the plain and woodland. Stretches of flat, open land had been punctuated by sudden bursts of woodland, which the Pilatan caravan had skirted around rather than risk becoming entangled. It was in the shelter around the edges of one such outcrop that Sineta and Markos brought the caravan to a halt, to allow the exhausted people to take some rest.