"That just sounds dandy."
"It's harsh. But that's what seems to work."
They crossed the remaining distance the following morning, the rocks sheer as fortresses and smooth as breasts. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but tendrils of smoke announced human habitation. With it came Daniel's realization that the challenge had shifted from coping with wilderness to coping with people. In less than three weeks he'd entered the wild, been humbled by it, and now was coming for succor to a society that sounded more restrictive than the one he'd tried to escape.
He'd tested himself, he thought gloomily, and failed.
"Welcome to Erehwon," Ethan said as they reached the edge. "Some people just call it the compound."
"Easier to spell," Ico quipped.
There was no fence or boundary that Daniel could see. The settlement's outskirts were marked by refuse: scraps of salvaged metal and glass glinting in the sun, random shreds of hoarded plastic and fabric, a pit of garbage picked at by birds, and the acrid odor of a latrine. Two women were moving slowly through this litter, bent and swaying as they picked through the debris, their features hidden by the curtain of their long hair. On a rock above a canyon entry, a squatting sentry with a spear watched the approach of the newcomers, laconically waved, and then stood to blow on what looked like a cattle horn. Its blat echoed through the canyons ahead. They'd been announced.
"He doesn't seem very surprised to see us," Ico said.
"No," said Ethan. "Most who try to escape come crawling back."
A sandy track led into a grove of trees, the shade a relief. They'd entered the labyrinth of valleys and canyons between the red loaves of rock, a hot desert breeze rustling the gum and acacia trees. When they had passed out of view of the sentry, Raven told the group to wait for a minute and left the trail, disappearing into a small side crevice. When she came out a bulge in her pack was gone.
"It's important to keep quiet about the activator," she explained.
"Just make sure you put it where we can find the damn thing again," Ico replied. "No more misplacements."
The party passed a wooden corral where two sleepy-looking camels rested, dusty and huge. "The British brought them from Afghanistan and some escaped into the wild," Ethan explained at their questioning looks. "They're still in the bush so the Warden caught a few to try to break. So far they eat more than they're worth, so we may just eat them. We've also got a few wild cows, a horse, and some kangaroo in the stables. We're trying to learn how to ranch them."
Ico wrinkled his nose. "It stinks," he said.
"That's a farm smell, city boy," Amaya replied. "Stables." She looked thoughtfully at the crude barns.
Farther along was a pit and scattered logs indicative of a sawing operation, and beyond that racks where meat dried in the sun, orbited by flies. Despite the primitive nature of the settlement- it reminded Daniel of a medieval village- the adventurers began to unconsciously relax. Here was the familiarity of a community. Whatever might happen, they weren't alone anymore.
The canyon opened to a broader park between the sandstone monoliths, an area several hundred yards across that was a mix of trees and trampled clearings. Water glinted at the base of one towering rock and a cordon of dry brush blocked casual access to it. Thatched huts, sheds, and simple roofs were scattered about in a seemingly haphazard plan. On a slight rise with its back to a cliff was a more substantial cabin of freshly cut logs, the wood still new and white-yellow. Smoke wafted from its chimney. Tame dingoes snoozed in the shade of the clearing and cockatoos stalked across the dirt. In the shade of a brushwood awning, someone slept in a fiber hammock. There was a pungent odor of unwashed humans, fire, cooked meat, and manure.
I'm in a time machine, Daniel thought.
They stopped at a rock-rimmed well and Ethan brought up a skin of water. Tucker slumped in the dust. It was quiet in the midday heat. Flint had told them more than two hundred people lived in this cluster of rocks but most seemed to have dispersed to one task or another.
"Well, Ethan," Ico assessed, "this Warden character sure picked the right name for this dump. Erehwon! We're right in the middle of it, no doubt."
"You can walk away at any time."
"Calling yourself a Warden implies you can't."
"He doesn't think you'd make it. That's why I don't expect him to be surprised we've come back."
Raven told them to wait and mounted the hill to the cabin, speaking to someone in the doorway. Then she returned. "The Warden is still asleep. We'll get some food, and then you'll meet him. I'm going to try to get access to the transmitter."
"Asleep at noon?" Ico asked. "What's to stay up late for?"
They moved to the shade of a thatched lean-to and ate smoky meat, some white root, and a strange, nutty bread. "Kangaroo, bush banana root, and mulga seed bread," Ethan identified. "The bread was difficult. Appreciate it."
"After some time in the bush, bread does seem pretty marvelous," Amaya agreed. "But the roo is pretty plain. Don't you believe in seasonings?"
"We don't have any, except salt. Or what newcomers bring with them."
"So the last of our food is about to go into the community pot?" Daniel asked.
"Yes. Marx would approve."
"And who the devil is this Warden we're waiting on?" Ico asked. "Some goon sent by United Corporations? What makes him top dog?"
"He's just a convict," said Ethan. "A thief and assailant, sent here to rot like the rest of them. No one really liked chaos, so he put himself in charge."
"No vote?"
"Two men challenged him. Both disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"The ones he just wants to punish he makes more public, like hanging them up on rocks in the sun. A day of that, and the fight goes out of them."
"And two days of that and they're like the pilot."
"Exactly. Don't anger him."
The door of the cabin opened and a young, slim blond woman came down the dusty hill to find them. She was dressed in a simple shift that looked cut from salvaged cloth- a parachute? Daniel wonderedthat showed her figure to good effect. Her brown arms and calves were bare and she was shoeless, her soles apparently hardened to the hot earth. "The Warden will see you now," she said, smug as a prom queen, her eyes passing appraisingly over Raven and Amaya to calibrate any competition. "Bring your offering." Then she walked back, provocatively swaying.
"Offering?" Tucker asked.
"That's you," Raven explained. "Fresh labor."
"Great."
"At least I know what he stayed up for," Ico said, following the blonde with his eyes.
"Keep away from her," Ethan said. "Drina is Rugard's."
"Rugard?"
"That's the Warden's name. Rugard Sloan. But don't call him that. He doesn't like it."
They climbed the hill. The log cabin walls facing the compound were broken only by the stout wooden door and slit-like loophole windows. Side walls extended to the rock of the backing cliff, making the structure look more like a blockhouse than a residence. The door opening was dark, and the newcomers expected the house to be stifling inside. When they ducked through, however, they saw that a back wall was absent from the cabin and the roof extended only halfway. There was a rear open terrace of hardpan dirt against the cliff, half of it shaded by a flat roof of woven branches. A low cave in the cliff face was closed off by a stake door, and a spring at the rock's base fed a shallow pool. The backing cliff rose two hundred feet. Daniel recognized the essential elements of a well-situated fortress: high ground, thick walls, a secure water supply, and even an apparent storeroom. The place was designed to withstand a siege. No vote, indeed.