The taciturn J.B. nodded. “Mebbe it suits his purpose better. Certainly not for the good of all.”
“Which should be his job…” Mildred looked ahead of her. The moon was only a crescent, casting little light on the arid and flat plain. The fact that they hadn’t been visited by the scouting party suggested the way ahead was clear. But how far did they have to go now before reaching Samtvogel.
The same question was crossing Ryan’s mind as he marched beside Alien. The baron was breathing hard with the pace of the march, and the one-eyed warrior was concerned that the man would be too exhausted to fight well when they reached Samtvogel. Like J.B., Ryan wondered if this was part of some hidden agenda from the sec chief, a way of disposing of a popular baron without raising any suspicion.
“Hey, Harvey,” Ryan called, keeping his voice low but loud enough to carry, “how far now?”
“About a mile and a half, mebbe two miles, Cyclops. Why, you getting tired there, boy?”
“No, but mebbe others are.”
The sec chief looked back over his shoulder. The light was poor, but Ryan was sure that Harvey’s gaze was on the baron rather than on himself.
“No time to rest,” the sec chief said simply. “We just gotta press on.”
Krysty felt her hair tighten about her as the whispered words reached her ears. She was cold, shivering and tired, but still her mutie sense was sharp enough to pick up on Harvey’s intent. At the same time, she felt a sudden lift within her.
“Jak,” she whispered.
“The scouting party is near,” Doc called, walking close to Krysty and catching the lilt in her voice.
Within a few minutes, black shapes appeared against the darkness of the night. Two large, two small: the scouts.
The war party halted under the stars, gathering around the scouting party while Blake relayed the information gathered. There were no guards or patrols, but it seemed that Sunchild himself and a few trusted Sunchildren were preparing for something.
“Did they look like they were ready for an immediate attack?” Ryan asked, aware of the stare Harvey gave him, aware that by speaking before the sec chief he was speaking out of turn.
Jak shook his head, the pure white of his flowing hair seeming almost incandescent, like a flare in the darkness.
“No. If Sunchild know to trigger nuke, it gone by now.”
Doc interjected. “May I?” he asked politely. Then without waiting for an answer said, “Did Sunchild have any kind of computer tech visible? Or perhaps he had the cone of the nuke open. Some of them have the tech within, so that they could be set off in the silos in the event of an invasion. Or it could be a remote control, handheld. But then he may have to—”
“You know a fuck of a lot about this shit,” Harvey growled, interrupting Doc.
“I have had, um, some experience, you may say,” Doc said softly, avoiding eye contact with the sec chief.
He returned his attention to Jak. “Was there anything like that?”
The albino shook his head. “Look like muties praying to it like god.”
Doc nodded, ignoring some of the nervous laughs from the war party. “This is good. I would say that we are in no immediate danger. Perhaps,” he added, eying the baron speculatively, as well as a few of the older members of the war party, “we could rest awhile.”
Harvey shook his head. “Hit hard, hit fast and don’t let the fuckers even get the slightest clue as to Sunchild what’s happening to them. We rest, they could send out their own scouting party.”
“That’s unlikely,” J.B. murmured. “And if they do, then we just chill them. No one’ll notice until it’s too late.”
There was a murmur of agreement among the weary war party, stilled by a gesture from Harvey.
“Who the fuck is the sec boss here?” he hissed at the Armorer. “We do what I say…right, Alien?”
The baron looked uneasy. “Well, I feel like the rest would do me good. But in these situations, I put you in sole charge, and it would be wrong of me to override this just for my own convenience.”