“It would appear, friend Ryan, that this is the end of the road, if you’ll excuse the appalling word play,” Markos said ruefully. “From our discussions, I gather that many villes and trade routes are built along these old roads and that would have been our surest chance of hitting something approaching civilization.”
“Yeah, apart from the fact that civilization is just a word that I’ve seen in some old predark books,” Ryan said quietly.
“Point taken, my friend. Let us just say that it would bring us into contact with other people. But now…”
“Well, it’s not that great a disaster. There’s more than one old blacktop left across the land. If we keep going, we’ll come to something sooner or later—some place where you can settle.”
“But not you?”
Ryan smiled wryly. “I doubt it.”
The sec party returned to the main body of the caravan and reported their findings before carrying on with the trek up the long incline.
It was an easy trek after the past few days. There was a plentiful supply of animals, fruits for food and water in streams that flowed down and across the downs at strange angles. It was such a peaceful procession, that actually reaching the peak of the plain was somewhat of a surprise. The pinnacle stretched out before them for a hundred yards, before beginning the descent into a valley below.
“Wow, just look at that,” Dean whispered softly as the caravan came to a halt and they all surveyed the territory in front of them. The far side of the valley was a much shallower incline, leading on to lands beyond. They could see the remains of old roads in the distance and the marked-out remnants of arable fields and pasture. At one time, before the nukecaust, this land had been prime farming acreage and had road contacts to villes that may lay beyond, which were still possibly extant and served by trade convoys.
“Now that looks good to me,” Mildred said to Sineta. “What do you think?”
“I think that it may be what we are looking for,” the baron said on reflection. “It has farming possibilities and the space to build a new settlement. Moreover, it is not at present populated, so we will not be intruding on another ville’s space and sparking conflict that we can ill afford while still settling.”
“All in all, sounds perfect,” Mildred mused.
“Perhaps it will be,” the baron said softly. “Perhaps for all of us?”
“That I couldn’t say,” Mildred replied in as noncommittal a tone as possible, for she had just noticed that J.B. and Ryan were conferring about something they had seen down in the valley.
The caravan began its descent down the soft slope toward the floor of the long valley, and the perfect settling lands that lay there. Ryan beckoned to Mildred to join them. As she did, he indicated a small crevice in the land that lay about three miles to their left, at the join of the incline to the valley floor. Casting her eyes over it, Mildred could see that it had all the recognizable hallmarks of a hidden redoubt. To most eyes, it would look like nothing more than a small rock indent in the land, but the trained observer would be able to tell the camouflage around a redoubt entrance. Some may have been stripped of this after skydark, but this one still retained its disguise.
“We’ll tell them tonight when we rest and then strike out for it tomorrow,” Ryan told her. “We’ve got a few things we need to sort out among ourselves,” he continued with a meaningful glance at Sharona and Dean, before adding, “That’s if you want to come with us.”
Mildred smiled wryly. “I’ve made my choice, Ryan.”
The caravan continued until the twilight, when they established camp for the night. After they had eaten, Ryan joined Markos, Sineta and Mildred.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” he began. “Come first light, we’ll be moving on.”
“But where to?” Markos answered, bewildered. “I can see nothing around here that could distract you from our shared path.”
“There’s something. Something to do with following the dream, I suppose.” Ryan smiled when he saw the sec boss’s uncomprehending expression. “It’s something we have to do. Besides, we have our own problems to contend with and we need to be able to concentrate on those.”