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plugs permanently adhered into their drains were behind a por-table curtain.
Most of the people seemed to be dressed in similar loose-fitting jumpsuits.
"What kind of ville is this?" Dean asked, cocking his head in a quizzical
fashion.
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"Not a ville. It's a commune," a woman retorted. "What you see is what you
get, so don't go shooting off those blasters or trying to push people around.
Mind your business like everyone else is doing, you're welcome to stay."
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"A commune, you say? So, where are the flowers in your hair, madam?" Doc
asked.
"Haven't worn flowers in years, but it's a nice sen-timent. I'm Shauna Watson.
I
run the place, such as it is."
"Ryan Cawdor," Ryan replied. "This here's my boy, Dean. The older man is Doc
Tanner. J. B. Dix is on his right. The lady's Dr. Mildred Wyeth."
Shauna Watson looked to be about forty years old. Her thick black hair was cut
painfully short to the scalp. Blue eyes, the same color as the blades of the
windmill the companions had first seen, were set in a tanned face. Freckles
dotted the bridge of her pug nose. She'd been cute, once that much could be
seen. Now, approaching middle age had taken a new spin, giving her an elfin,
gamine quality she'd carry to her grave.
Like the others in her commune, she was wearing a one-piece khaki jumpsuit
with a zipper running down the length of the front from throat to crotch.
The zipper was open down to the navel, leaving little to the imagination
regarding her small yet still firm breasts. The sleeves of the functional
attire were rolled up high on her upper arms, revealing veined biceps. Shauna
wasn't a woman used to sitting back and letting others do the work. Knee-high
boots with a flat heel and a wide utility-type work belt completed the
ensemble.
"Two doctors?" Shauna said, looking at Doc and Mildred. "We could use a
physician."
"Only one to choose from, I'm afraid," Doc in-terjected, having returned to
his usual demeanor once more. "I am a doctor of letters. My colleague is the
general practitioner."
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"Got a little girl broke her arm just yesterday. I've tried to set up a
temporary splint, but I'm no medic. Would you mind?"
"Not at all, but I've got to get some kind of nour-ishment in my stomach,"
Mildred said. "The shape I'm in right now, I wouldn't be much help to
any-body."
"Fair enough. We can get together some food while your party washes up." Her
gaze fell to the holster of Ryan's SIG-Sauer, as well as the other hardware
the group was carrying.
"What the story behind the blasters? You and your group are packing enough
is heat to burn down my entire place here without even emptying the clips."
"Protection," Ryan said. "The only man without a blaster these days is a dead
one."
"You free-lancing for Poseidon? Doing merc work?"
"No. We don't even know who Poseidon is," Ryan said.
"One of the men when we first obtained our vessel mentioned a Lord Poseidon,"
Doc said. "They mock-ingly called themselves disciples."
Shauna snorted. "Calling himself a lord now, is he? Guess it's a good a title
as any. Yeah, Lord Po-seidon is a real piece of work, showing up here all the
time and bleeding us dry. Bastard. No naval ves-sels can enter this part of
the coast without his say-so."
"We did " Mildred began to say, and stopped.
"Yeah, and then you found out the hard way about his paranoid little piece of
the world," Shauna added. "The Admiral doesn't like surprises. He's the one
who blew your boat out from under you."
Ryan's eye narrowed. "He's the one who caused the accident?"
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"Unless you had a chart with the locations of the mines."
Ryan felt like he'd just been knifed in the stomach and gutted up to his chin.
The sensation was a mix of pleasure and pain. The mine that had wrecked the
Patch
had a source, and the source's name was Po-seidon. His hand shot out and
grabbed
Shauna by the upper arm, pulling her close to him.
"I have a debt to settle with your Admiral," he grated.
"Don't we all?" a new voice said from the nearby tent. The group turned and
saw not a person, but the twin barrels of a shotgun sticking out of a window
flap. "Let the lady go, One-eye, and we'll give you all the dope you need to
know about
Poseidon. Be-lieve me, we don't exactly care for the son of a bitch, either."
"How did you know about our boat?" Ryan asked the woman.
"Mike told me. Mike and Ida," she replied.
"Mike and Ida?" Dean retorted. "What kind of stupe names are those?"
"Mike and Ida are what we call the two Dwellers who saved your ass, boy,"
Shauna said. "You've seen them, so you know they're muties. Far as I can tell,
Mike must've heard the explosion, mebbe he was even out that way when it
happened. He's the one who found you, came back and discussed it with his
people. They sent him to me, and we were all in agreement to bring you in."
Ryan tamped down his rage and released his grip on Shauna's arm.
She rubbed her upper arm vigorously to return the circulation. Ryan's fingers
had clamped down like steel bands.
"Now," she said, "I'm letting all of you keep your blasters, just to show we
can trust one another. Here at the commune, our day-to-day survival depends on
our word."
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