Here and there were rickety huts and stalls made of poles and canvas. Greasy fires inside them splashed ruddy light against the thin walls, amplifying every inner movement into pantomime shadow dramas. Crowds clustered around the brimming flames and in their faces Killeen read not the exhaustion he had expected, but a firm, silent, unassuming strength. They worked at their techcrafts, using the last glow of available light.
Gangs unloaded mech carriers. There was a whole fleet of mech autotrucks as well. He was impressed at their high level of scavenging; this surpassed anything he had seen on Snowglade. Everywhere there were mech implements and a wealth of spare parts.
Killeen asked for Family names and his escorts called them out as they passed campsites: Treys, Deuces, Double-Noughts, Niners, Septs, Five-ohs, Jacks, Aces. As they approached each group a guard hailed and they replied with code words.
There was a plan to the camps, which he at first had thought just a random conglomeration. Each Family was deployed in a pie-shaped wedge, its long-range weapons facing outward to command a fraction of the perimeter. He passed a wide wedge of Family Niner, clustered beneath an array that poked long-snouted rods skyward.
“Skybolts,” one of his escorts replied to his question. She sniffled with a cold and her eyes were swollen. “Can knock down mechs.”
“How?”
“Electromagnetic.”
“What band? Microwave? IR?”
Her sunburned face tightened with suspicion. “Family business.”
“You a Niner?”
“Naysay. Families keep their tech stuff to selves, though.”
“Your Family does?”
“Sure. I’m Cap’n of the Sebens. Believe me, we got reasons.”
“Like?” Killeen persisted.
“Old ways, from back in the days when the Families didn’t have so much trouble from mechs.”
“I thought we were all united under the Supremacy.”
“His Supremacy.”
“Yeasay, yeasay. Look, how the Sebens fit in w’all the other Families? I can’t follow all the Family names and—”
“Old sayin’, Seben Come Elebben. Only there aren’t many Elebbens left now. Mechs cut ’em up somethin’ awful. What was left the Cybers pretty well mashed.”
The woman’s voice was like gravel poured down a pipe. Killeen could hear the edge of authority in it that Fanny had possessed. He said carefully, “Still, we united, why not share tech?”
“Wont be secret then.”
“It’d help if we knew each other’s weapons.”
“Howcome?”
“Things get tight, more’n one Family can use ’em.”
The woman shook her head. “You don’t keep a craft to yourself, you lose it.”
“But—” The woman’s exasperated shake of her head told Killeen this was useless territory to explore. He changed tack and said casually, “Must be hard, carryin’ ’quipment big as all that ’round on your backs.”
“Seen worse.”
“Okay for holdin’ someplace, like a Citadel, but—”
“Your people had a Citadel?”
This was the first sign of interest in his origins anyone had shown. Killeen wondered how concerned he would have been when he was running from mechs on Snowglade; probably not much. “Yeasay, a great one. Good air defenses.”
“We kept some our big weapons. Held off the mechs long enough so’s we could break ’em down, pack out the parts on carryslings.”
Killeen could guess the price paid in such a holding action, caught in the wild, unreckonable swirl of battle, crossed by deviant slants of deadly fortune. He said respectfully, “That stuff must slow you down when you hit and move, though.”
“That’s true ’gainst mechs. Up ’gainst Cybers, though, you have the heavy stuff or they’ll squash you. Cybers’re harder.”
“Howcome?”
“They can read your tech straight out. Feel a ticklin’ in your head and then it’s gone.”
“You mean invade your sensorium, take your knowhow? But that’d kill you.”
“Don’t hafta.” She hawked roughly and spat a brown wad a hand’s length in front of her right boot, all without breaking stride.
Killeen said, “Where I come from, mech bothers to do all that much, it just kills you suredead long as it’s taken the trouble.”
She nodded and coughed. Fifteen men came struggling up the path carrying a piece of mechtech that Killeen could not identify and the three of them stepped aside to let the party pass.
She said, “I ’member when mechs did that. But they stopped when we started gettin’ the better of ’em.”
“His Supremacy says you had ’em beat.”
Grudgingly she said, “For a while.”
“How?”
“We cooperated a li’l with some mech cities. Helped ’em take out their competition.”
Killeen was puzzled. “Other mechs?”
“Yeasay. His Supremacy worked it out with ’em.”
“Where I come from, we had some Families try that. Dangerous, though. The deals never lasted long.”
“Ours did. We’d smuggle stuff onto mech carriers. See, one mech city would give us fake supplies. Made up so looked like real thing. We’d slip in, get it onto a convoy headed from the outside fact’ries into the big cities.”
“Impressive,” Killeen said respectfully. “How?”
“Wear no metal. Crawl through the convoy’s detectors real slow.”
“Sounds pretty slick.”
“Was. Kept us alive.”
Killeen said, “His Supremacy did all that?”
“Yeasay. Started out cuttin’ a deal for just his Family. Mechs they’d work for would give ’em protection. Once we seen how it went, whole Tribe was his for the askin’.”
“I saw some mech cities pretty well done in.”
“We did that. We’d smuggle in bombs, plant ’em.”
“Dangerous work.”
“With mech help we could get through the traps.”
“We never learned that,” Killeen said, hoping to keep drawing her out.
“Easy, once you know. We’d grab fancy stuff, ’quipment. Wish it’d gone on like that.”
“What happened?”
“All sudden, no mechs aroun’. Least not many. Seemed like most were up in orbit. We’d see ’em at night….”
“Maybe they had more important business. Cybers.”
“We figured.”
“When was that?”
“A while back, maybe two seasons—not that we had a decent summer, not with the clouds coverin’ the sun most times.”
“And you skragged the mechs good,” Killeen prompted her. She kept looking alertly around, a habit Killeen knew never left you after you had spent years running in the open.
“His Supremacy, he said this was our big chance. We raided mech cities ourselves. Knew the tricks, see.”
“Ah,” Killeen said appreciatively.
“Hit ’em hard. Just when we’re seein’ our way clear, there comes five nights when there’s big lightballs goin’ off up there”—she gestured with a gnarled hand skyward—“and thunder comes down sometimes. All over the sky, loud as you please.”
They were passing a large roaring bonfire with hundreds of people packed around it. Killeen could feel the heat snapping off the flames. A low moaning song rose in the surrounding murk as the last traces of twilight ebbed. It was unfamiliar and yet carried a mournful bass solemnity that reminded him of the Citadel, long ago, and Family songs unheard for many years.
The Sebens’ Cap’n walking beside him made a gesture, crossing from shoulder to hip, through the belly and back to the opposite shoulder, evidently a sign of respect. The crowd blocked the path and they stopped.
She whispered, “So then after that we don’t see mechs much anymore. But Cybers we get plenty.”
“You ever see Cybers before these times?”
“Naysay. Family Jack say they fought some Cybers long ’fore this, but my man Alpher says Jacks, they’re always yarnin’ on ’bout things they dunno ass-up ’bout. And he’s right.” A closed look came into her face. “Not that I’m sayin’ anything ’gainst another Family united under the Supremacy, you understand.”
Killeen nodded. “So the Cybers beat the mechs, you figure?”
“Looks like.”
Killeen considered telling her about his experience in the Cyber nest and decided he hadn’t sorted it out enough himself to make good sense. Instead he started working his way around the close-packed crowd. They were singing their slow song more rhythmically now, punctuating it with unnerving shrill wails that made his scalp prickle. All faces turned toward the crackling flames, eyes unfocused and tear-filled. Killeen sensed the gravity of this Family ritual but it was unlike any he knew. A large red insignia on a man’s shoulder told him they were Eight of Hearts.