Letho became gradually aware of the fact that no one was using their uComs, which struck him as very odd. As he looked closer at a passerby, he noticed a ragged scar across the man’s forearm. He surreptitiously examined a few other people. They, too, had the same scars.

“Hey, Deacon. We probably shouldn’t use our uComs unless we absolutely have to.”

“Why? You used yours before!” Deacon said.

Letho gestured toward a young man as he passed, and Deacon’s eyes rose when he saw the ugly scar on his arm. It looked like an unqualified person had performed the extraction with a most imprecise implement.

They kept walking, with Letho occasionally needing to pull Deacon, who frequently became distracted by the sights and sounds all around them. It was impressive what Abraxas and Alastor had done. There was no trash on the streets, and the buildings inside the central wall had been refaced and reconstructed. There was no sign of decay anywhere to be found.

Letho watched with keen interest as a woman purchased some food from a street vendor. There seemed to be no monetary transaction. Back on the Fulcrum station, a uCom scan would have been necessary to purchase food, but it seemed that here, the woman didn’t have to pay for her food at all. She just walked away from the counter, tearing barbecued flesh from a large white bone.

“Man, that smells really good, doesn’t it?” Deacon said.

“Yeah, it does. But what kind of meat is that? Look at that bone.”

“Well, if Saul and Zedock figured out how to raise pigs and such, maybe the good people of Hastrom City figured out how to do it too,” Deacon said. “Ooooh, maybe they found some cows! Do you think they have beef? I’ve always wanted to try a real hamburger!”

“Stick to the plan, Deacon,” Letho said.

“Right. Sorry, just got a little excited. So what is the plan exactly?”

“Plan?” Letho asked, grinning. it was the first smile that had graced his face in some time that wasn’t disingenuous—despite the grim circumstances and the fact that they might be discovered by the enemy at any moment. He shuddered to think of the consequences should they be discovered for who they truly were.

“There isn’t a plan, really. I just really wanted to see Hastrom City. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Deacon. “I’m just as curious as you. By all means, lead on.”

They continued forward past vendors hawking freshly seared meat, clothing, and jewelry. After some time they came upon a group of Eursans staring vapidly at a large holoscreen built into the wall of what appeared to have once been an apothecary of some sort. The people were quite an assortment, ranging from svelte Eursans of clear high standing to the swarthy race that Saul had called the hammerheads. Letho and Deacon joined the crowd of onlookers, eager to see what so many people had gathered to watch.

It appeared to be some sort of fam-sit, represented in photo-3D. The crowd watched with rapt attention as the reluctant father interacted with his disgruntled son. Something was off in the way the characters’ bodies moved, though; the motion was too smooth. Their doll eyes stared at one another devoid of any emotion, and their facial expressions didn’t quite match the dramatic content of the episode.

“Wait a sec—I know these actors. I saw them in a fam-sit once. The only problem is that it was pre-exodus. How could they possibly still be alive?” Letho wondered aloud.

“Maybe it’s a rerun?”

“I don’t think so; the resolution is super-high, and the clothing they’re wearing is very similar to what the people are wearing all around us.”

“It’s just a fam-sit, Letho,” Deacon said.

The show went to a commercial break and another perfect digital person appeared. “This episode of Father Loves Son has been brought to you by the Corpus Verum, bringing you quality entertainment from the actors you want to see, and keeping you up to date with the news you need to know.”

“Who is the Corpus Verum?” Letho asked.

“Don’t know. Some sort of media conglomerate, maybe?” Deacon said.

“Could be. Well, let’s keep going. See what else we can find,” Letho said.

****

As the two continued farther into the city, they reveled in the sights and sounds. Letho noticed that very few of the citizens were Mendraga. He figured that Abraxas was managing the population carefully, maintaining the balance between his Eursan cattle and his Mendraga warriors. To control the population, he would have to maintain some sort of optimal ratio between the humans and Mendraga, lest one outnumber the other and upset the balance. Could the standard rank-and-file Mendraga produce more Mendraga? Or were Abraxas and Alastor the only ones that could? Letho hadn’t ever gotten around to asking Thresha about any of that.

Thresha…

Letho’s heart became a frozen tumor in his chest—then was quickly replaced by a seething anger. What if she happened to walk down the street right now? Would he kill her? He was at quite a disadvantage without Saladin or his Black Bear, but a deep dark part of his psyche, a part that savored spilled blood and killing, thought that he could definitely kill Thresha should the need arise, and barehanded if need be.

He shuddered, willing such thoughts away. Where had they come from? He wondered if they were products of the strong emotion he felt for Thresha—or whether perhaps, deep down inside, he really was twisted, a creature that actually enjoyed the killing he had done since his adventure began.

For once, his copilot had nothing to say on the subject.

The sound of bells ringing filled the air with their sweet, hollow timbre. Both Letho and Deacon moved toward the sound, curious to discover its origin. To their surprise, a church stood just beyond the edge of the market. It was an old building that must have originally promoted the worship of one of Eursus’s forgotten deities It was all angles and arches, with spires surging upward into the sky like gothic antennas set up to improve the reception of heavenly broadcasts.

Atop a flight of stairs, just in front of the doors to the church, sat a large golden statue of a Mendraga warrior in a flowing cloak and some sort of ceremonial armor. In one hand was a mighty sword. In the other was an ornate sextant.

“A church? I thought most religions were abandoned after the collapse,” said Deacon.

“They were,” said Letho. “I suspect this is Abraxas’s church.” He turned to Deacon. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go pay our respects.”

****

Bayorn surveyed his surroundings, trying to mentally map as much of the terrain as possible while the Mendraga warrior led him and Saul to the Tarsi encampment. As they continued along their route they passed a set of squat square buildings arrayed in a grid. The grounds were well kept, and Bayorn had to suppress a gasp of amazement as he saw a growing green thing for the first time in his life. A small shrub, sparse and twisted, but alive just the same, had sprung up from the soil in a flowerbed near the square buildings.

“What are those buildings?” Saul asked.

The Mendraga guard looked at Saul with suspicion in his eyes.

“What do you mean, ‘What are those buildings’? That’s a commune.”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Saul said, running a hand across his head. The very thin layer of hair that had sprouted up made a rasping sound as he did so. “I’m a colonist, see, and I haven’t been inside the walls in a while. When I left they were just setting up the living quarters for the folks from the Fulcrum stations. Never actually saw one completed. Looks nice though.”

The Mendraga eyed Saul a bit longer, then turned his eyes back toward the road. “Your slave bear is big. Never seen one that size. Must have been a bitch to subdue him.”

“It wasn’t too bad. They aren’t too smart, you know. Easy to trap. Plus if you’ve got a can of Valhalla Sausages they’ll run through broken glass to get to it,” Saul said.