When she had finished, J.B. pushed back his fedora, scratched the top of his head, then whistled softly.
“And we’re supposed to be flattered that the old baron trusts us?” he said finally.
“Why not?”
J.B. gave a short, barking laugh. “Think about it, Millie. Mebbe you’ve not noticed, but we’re not exactly popular around here. Someone tried to chill me yesterday, and another man was chilled so that we could be blamed. If Markos or anyone close to him or his brother gets a sniff of this, we’ll be lynched.”
“Markos wouldn’t do that,” Mildred said in a way that made the Armorer look at her shrewdly.
“That’s as may be,” he said, opting not to argue. “Mebbe you trust him, but how do you feel about that brother of his?”
Mildred took a deep breath. Should she mention the argument she had overheard between the two of them that morning? How could she without it leading to matters that would cloud the issue?
“Exactly,” the Armorer said, reading her pause the way she had hoped. “He’s going to be a big problem.”
“But we’ll do it, right?”
The Armorer shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s up to Ryan. I’ll tell him everything you’ve told me, and then we’ll see. Problem is, if we do it, then how do we all get out of the ville or away from our work parties, get the treasure and hide it without anyone becoming suspicious or noticing we’re gone?”
Mildred sighed heavily. “Yeah, you’ve got me on that.”
J.B. stood and looked around. “Yeah, well, I guess we’ll just have to work that one out when we come to it. We’d better get back. Someone on sec will have noticed us leave, and if we spend too long out here they’ll get suspicious and come looking.”
They returned to the center of the ville in silence, passing a sec patrol on the way. When they were in the small square, both J.B. and Mildred noted a sec man watching them with interest.
“Markos likes to keep his eye on things,” J.B. commented wryly. “And I’ll tell you something else, Millie. We haven’t really talked much about anything except—”
“I know,” she said, cutting him off. “Priorities?”
“Mebbe. But it’s not just me. Where do we all stand with you?”
Mildred shrugged. “I don’t even know where I stand right now. Things are going too fast for me to step back to figure it out. But I know I’m going to have to,” she added before J.B. had a chance to speak.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Look, I need to get back to discuss this with the others. Tomorrow morning, right here, before we set off for the felling area.”
“Yeah. Be careful, John,” she said, holding him for a moment.
“Mebbe you should be thinking that of yourself,” he murmured before turning to go.
Mildred watched him leave the square, heading toward the companions’ quarters. What exactly had he meant by that last remark? she wondered. Glancing over to Sineta’s quarters, she wondered if she should break her promise to Barras and tell his daughter. It could help if they ran into sec trouble while trying to retrieve the horde. But someone from Pilatu knowing would really complicate things.
Mildred decided to take a walk to take some time to think about things. She set off alone.
AS SHE WALKED DOWN the side streets of the ville, wrapped in her own thoughts, Mildred felt so safe that she wasn’t listening for attack, or keeping the corner of her eye fixed on that spot in her peripheral vision that was always the first indication of danger. She had grown soft during the days she had spent in the company of Sineta and Markos, believing the danger would be to her companions, not to her.
She turned into the alley, thinking only of her dilemmas. Should she speak to Sineta? Was her future with the Pilatans or her companions who had rescued her as a freezie? What was she to do about J.B. and Markos? It was a problem for Mildred simply because she was a woman who had never really had to think about such things before. In the predark world she had fought every inch to become a doctor and exist to be considered a woman first and an African American second. Not because she wished to deny her heritage, but because she had felt this would be the only way on her chosen course to beat back prejudice. Maybe she had been wrong, and had forgotten things learned from her father and his teachers. It was right at the time. And then, after waking up in Deathlands, she’d had no time in which to consider such niceties—for that was what they had become. It was chill or be chilled, and survive at all costs. Given a choice, you tried to do the right thing, but what was that, now? Always, her whole life before and after skydark had been based around acting and reacting, moving forward. There had been no choices such as this to make; or, at least, no time to think about them when you had to move on with such rapidity.