the matter.
“It’s all to do with psychology, madam. Are you familiar with that term?”
“Not as familiar as I hope to be with you, you old hunk o’man, you, sweet talking me like that,” Ramona mocked. “Si-wha’? Listen up, the only reason we’re both on this wag is because we’ve been with Armand the longest, and this is the wag with the jack. He trusts us.”
Doc eyed the interior of the wag once more. There was one seat up front, for the driver. Another at the rear, for the sec man, which he occupied. The bunk on which Raven lay was along one wall, with a makeshift kitchen area—no more than a hotplate and a small icebox—at the foot. A small comm unit and some tech reception equipment was on the wall opposite. An old safe with a combination lock was beside it. The rest of the space in the narrow wag, apart from an even more narrow channel they all used to negotiate the interior, was taken up with the stock that could not have been fitted into the front wag.
“It’s a combination safe,” Doc noted. “You may not know the combination.”
“Yeah, we do,” Raven said, obviously not as bored into slumber as she had made out. “Someone got to know it other than Armand, in case he buys the farm before we get to destination. He changes it every time. Don’t know how he does that, though. Guess he trusts us, but not that much. Must do some, otherwise we could just take the bastard and blow it with plas ex.”
“A fair point,” Doc conceded. “LaGuerre seems to be a deeper thinker than perhaps—if you will excuse me—he appears.”
Both women laughed.
“Armand ain’t exactly what you’d call sharp in some ways,” Ramona mused, “but in others he is, kinda. Guess he’s like all of us, he’s good at some shit, and, well, shit at other shit.”
“His secret, seemingly, is that he knows the dividing line,” Doc suggested.
Ramona thought about that for a moment, pausing only to swear at a particularly deep fissure in the road that she nearly missed. Then she said, “I guess you could say that about anyone, honey. And ya know, you’re right. Most of the driving crew have always been women. ’Cept Ray, but I kinda don’t know about him, sometimes. Quartermaster and sec have always been male. Quartermaster, couldn’t say why. Sec, I guess it makes sense. Most guys are stronger like that. I know I couldn’t have beaten Tarran in a fight of any kind, and Raven there always got herself pinned down…But mebbe that was different. Anyways, Armand does like to use women more than most traders I’ve seen. Course, as we’re all so grateful for work and jack, and it does mean the boy has pussy on tap….”
It gave Doc a mental image that was far from her intent, and for a moment he was transported into a world of surrealism. But Doc was feeling sharp at the moment, and was determined to stay as such. Shaking this from his head, he asked, “And that would include the young woman Eula?”
Both Raven and Ramona laughed at that, the former so hard that she almost fell from the bunk, cursing as she caught herself in time.
“You have got to be shittin’ me, Doc, baby,” Ramona wheezed between gasps of laughter. “Think if he dared to pull it out near that one she’d damn near whip it off with her knife. Mebbe not right off, just leave him something as a reminder of what a bad boy he’d been.”
“Something about her that is real scary, though,” Raven said quietly. “Tell you, Doc, me and her over there have been together in this convoy for some time now, and we get on okay. Hellfire, everyone in here gets on okay with one another, really. That’s what Armand likes. A happy crew does good work, he says. What the sneaky fuck means is that a happy crew ain’t gonna slit his throat and run off with his jack. Anyway up, Eula comes in, and things ain’t quite the same anymore. She don’t talk none.”
“I would suppose that would make you distrust her, as you all seem to be a little on the garrulous side,” Doc murmured.
“Honey, I dunno what that word means, but it ain’t nice, I can tell,” Ramona said. “Ain’t true, either, if it means what I think. ’Cause you ain’t met Reese. She don’t say more than five words a year, and mostly that’s to tell you to fuck off.”
“Reese?”
“Big muscle fucker, traveling with the sister.” Ramona sniffed. “Lucky her…No, Reese is okay, just a little quiet. And scary. But openly. Unlike our gal Eula. She’s too damn quiet in the wrong way. It’s like she’s always brooding on something. Something to hide. She looks at you like you’re shit on her shoes, like she’s got some little list in her head where she’s adding up the good and bad.” She snapped her fingers. “I know what it’s like—it’s like when Armand adds up the jack and stock he’s got and that’s he’s got rid of, see if it balances. That’s what she’s doing. She got something on her back that’s weighing her down, and some fucker’s gonna get it big when she finds out who it is.”
Doc was concerned by that. “And you think it may be my friend?”
“We dunno, do we?” Raven muttered sleepily from the bunk. “But she sure as shit seems to know him. Even if he don’t know her. Think he does and he’s not letting on to you, Doc? No offence, like, but are you sure?”
“I have known John Barrymore for some time now,” Doc said stiffly, “and in times of emergency, the man has always been straight.” His tone then softened as he bit his lip. “No, if he does know anything about her, he is truly unaware of it. It may be a mistake on her part. There was certainly no mistaking the bemusement on his face. Our good Armorer cannot hide certain things. He is controlled, and can mask emotion in combat. But he can be caught on the quick, and this was such a time. Tell me, ladies, what do you know of this Eula?”
“’Bout as much as you, hon,” Ramona answered. “She says she comes from the east, and sure we picked her up there. But she don’t say where, or how she learned so much about blasters and shit. Don’t say much about nothing. Tell you, don’t think even Armand knows much about her. Tell you something else, though—he thinks she’s powerful medicine, and he trusts her judgment.”
“And you do not?” Doc asked, sensing that in her tone.
Ramona gave a guttural laugh. “Hon, I’d trust that bitch even less than I could throw her scrawny ass.”
Raven stirred on her bunk. “See, thing is, we ain’t really got no secrets from each other, any of us. Can’t do if you travel like we do, and for as long as we have. Secrets you’d like to have sometimes, sure, but it don’t work that way. That’s part of being a team, right? Sooner or later it comes out, or you walk. Now, you take Eula. That bitch is so tight it even pains her to piss. But no matter how hard she wants to keep it in, sooner or later it’s gonna come out. And she ain’t the type to walk if even the wildest guess comes close. And that’s what we’re kinda afraid of, right, Ramona?”
“Damn straight,” the driver replied with an emphatic nod.
Doc kept his own counsel for once. He suspected Eula’s secret was inextricably tied to the Armorer. And two taciturn people in the same wag would be oppressive to the point where the pressure would blow.
The only questions were when and how.
THE ARMORED WAG at the front of convoy was the only one to have a clear path ahead of it. Those in its wake were forever driving into a cloud of dust.
Zarir, the silent driver of the armored wag was, however, even more diligent than those who followed him. He was gripped by a paranoia that riders would come out of nowhere and attempt to outrun him. Maybe they wouldn’t even bother with that. Maybe they would just ram into him, hoping they could deflect him from the smoothest of courses, running the wag into a crevice, a ditch, or even a trap. He was a good driver. No, he was the best. But there was always someone out to take that away from you. Well, he’d decided they wouldn’t take that away from him. No. So he stayed tight-lipped, grim and silent as he concentrated on the road ahead with an intensity that made his head pound and ache. That was okay. A snort of something