Doc wondered if he should say something, like some old-time counsel for the defense, pleading with Ryan for the lenience of the court. Krysty needed to stop; in fact, all of them would benefit from it. But the Armorer was right, too—sometimes a new ville was nothing but chilling waiting to happen, and most villes didn’t take kindly to outlanders, especially a bunch of well-armed nomads with nothing much to offer.
Ryan started to march to the northeast, the direction that Jak had come from. “Let’s go look at this tower,” he stated.
The others followed, with Doc and Mildred taking a position on either side of the sick Krysty.
I T TOOK FORTY MINUTES to reach Jak’s tower with Ryan setting a brisk pace. As they got closer, they could see it resting on the horizon, its thin struts seeming to waver in the heat haze.
When they were fifty paces away, Doc stated his opinion. “It is just a pylon,” he asserted.
J.B. didn’t bother to turn back as he addressed the older man. “Then where are the lines?”
Shifting his grip around Krysty’s back, Doc leaned his cane against his leg and held his free hand up to shield his eyes, staring at the towering structure. J.B. was right—there were no power lines, not even the trace of where they might have once attached.
Mildred’s voice, urgent and quiet, broke into his thoughts. “Doc.”
The old man turned to look at her across their suffering colleague. “What is—?” He stopped as the shiny red droplet twinkled in the sunlight, catching his eye. Krysty’s nose was bleeding, a trickle of blood running from her left nostril, working its way to her deathly pale lips.
Doc started to call for Ryan and the others, but Mildred suddenly stumbled and Krysty lurched out of their grip, falling to the ground, making a muffled thump as her body compacted the sand.
Doc knelt, gently turning Krysty’s head, pulling up her face. She spluttered, choking on a mouthful of sand. Mildred regained her balance and crouched beside them. “How is she?” she asked.
“She’s breathing. Are you okay?” he asked Mildred.
Mildred brushed sand from her fatigue pants, little heaps of it sailing from the covers on the bulbous pockets. “I’m fine, I’m good. She just suddenly…I don’t know, did you feel it?”
“She became deadweight,” Doc responded, and immediately wished he had used a less resonant term.
Pulling an otoscope from her bag of meager possessions, Mildred held it to Krysty’s eyes. Doc unfolded his kerchief, with its blue-swallow-eye pattern, and offered it to Krysty.
“I think I’m okay,” Krysty told them both after a moment. “Just went weak for a second. Can you hear that? The noise?”
Mildred looked around her, then back to her patient. “There’s no noise, sweetie. Just the wind.”
Krysty looked confused, as though she would burst into tears at any second. “But it’s so loud.” She whimpered.
Doc looked at Krysty, a woman he had known for more adventures than any man should have in a single lifetime, and his heart broke. Krysty Wroth: capable and beautiful. No, not beautiful—stunning. The stunning, utterly capable woman he had trusted his life to on more occasions than he could count on the fingers of both hands, was sitting in front of him, confused and helpless. He never thought he would see her like this. Slowly, being as gentle as they could, Doc and Mildred helped Krysty off the ground. They didn’t bother to brush her down, as there didn’t seem to be any point. They just needed to get her moving, before she stopped moving for good. Together, they half carried, half dragged her toward the tower where the others waited.
“B IG, ISN’T IT ?” Ryan said to no one in particular as the six companions stood at the base of the tower.
“Yeah, sure is,” J.B. agreed, using the hem of his shirt to clean the lenses of his spectacles before perching them back on his nose. He took a step forward and stretched a hand toward the metal structure. He held it there, beside the tower, for a few seconds before announcing that there was no power emanating from it that he could feel. It was a quick test, hardly scientific, but it sufficed in the situation.
The tower rose forty feet into the sky. Built from struts of metal, like scaffolding, it looked somewhat like a power pylon, just as Doc had guessed. It was not a pylon, though. Up close, that was evident. There were no attachments, nothing feeding to it or from it. It was a free-standing, skeletal tower, roughly pyramidal in shape, albeit very thin. The base was only twelve feet square, and it closed to its tip very gradually.
A large metal canister, something like a prenukecaust oil drum, rested in the center of its base, half-buried in the sand.
The structure was utterly silent and displayed no moving parts, a surrealist statue on the plain.
Finally, Mildred spoke up, asking the question on everyone’s lips. “Well, what is it?”
“Nuked if I know,” Ryan replied.
Chapter Two
The companions watched as Jak clambered up the side of the structure, his hands clutching at the metal struts.
“Our Jak’s quite the climber,” Doc said in admiration when the youth reached the peak in a handful of seconds.
Both J.B. and Ryan had already run their lapel rad counters over the structure, making sure that it wasn’t hot. Then they had tested the metal legs as best as they could, for electric current and magnetic attraction, as well as eyeballing for fractures or rust. It looked stable and had hardly been touched by the elements. The obvious conclusion was that it was newly built, but by whom and why, they couldn’t tell.
“You see anything?” Ryan called to Jak at the top of the tower.
“Same,” Jak yelled back. “All over same.”
Mildred sighed, looking at the tower as Jak spidered down. “Ryan, we really need to get to that ville.” She waited, looking at Ryan as he gazed at the structure. “Ryan?”
He nodded before looking at her. “Just seems wrong, leaving this tower here. Has to be here for a purpose, Mildred,” he told her.
Mildred shrugged. “Maybe they tie their horses to it,” she suggested, looking over at the tiny ville they could all see about two hundred and fifty yards away.
“Mebbe tie prisoners,” Jak chipped in.
Doc’s cheery voice cut through them, intentionally loud, like a wake-up call. “Perhaps we could just ask them,” he suggested. The group turned to look at him. He was busy hefting Krysty to her feet once more, getting his arm beneath hers so that she could lean against him as she walked.
Krysty looked in no condition to walk. Dried blood married her face around her nose. The skin around her eyes was puffy and had darkened almost to black, and the whites of her eyes remained bloodshot red. Her flame-colored hair was a mass of tangles, twirling this way and that like the stems of a climbing plant. From the way that Doc carried her, it appeared that she had added weight somehow, her muscles no longer strong enough to support her.
Aware that he had everyone’s attention, Doc pronounced, “Miss Wroth and I are going to make our way to yonder ville and ask some questions in the hopes of enlightenment.” He struggled two steps with Krysty, and it was clear that he was taking all of her weight now.
J.B. had scrambled across to Krysty’s other side. “Let me give you a hand, Doc,” he told the older man, but he left it open, as though it were a request.
In the end, Ryan and J.B. shared Krysty’s weight, relieving the older man as the group trekked down the incline to the ville. She had mercifully fallen into a slumber, and they carried her by shoulders and feet to make the journey easier. Mildred sidled up to Doc and gave him a wink. “You sly old coot.” She laughed.
Doc shrugged. If it had