“Thanks,” Mildred said, but she sounded unconvinced. What kind of medical faculty? she wondered as Ricky replaced his shirt over the wound.
The group moved slower after that, with Ricky leaning alternately against Mildred and Jak as they trekked the path to Heaven Falls.
They were following a dead-straight path through the trees. Ryan sensed something familiar about the place; the foliage reminding him of Front Royal, where he had grown up. That was in Virginia, and he wondered if they had landed close. He caught Phyllida’s attention and asked her.
“Where exactly are we?” he asked.
“Almost home,” Phyllida replied, unintentionally cryptic. “You’ll see in a few minutes.”
And see they did. About six minutes later the group reached the summit of a rise and the trees parted to reveal a great mountain range towering over the grassy plains. Ryan’s breath caught in his throat as he looked out over those familiar mountains, while the others stopped and stared. It was Virginia, he was almost sure of it. They were looking out over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“Is it much farther to this ville of yours?” J.B. asked, his dour voice bringing Ryan back to earth.
“Through there,” Phyllida told J.B., pointing down a little ways through the crags.
J.B. and the others looked, and they saw lush green grass dotted by wooden, boxlike constructions that stood to roughly shoulder height. The boxy constructions featured latticed sides and stood atop what looked like table legs, and each had been painted white.
“Are those beehives?” Mildred asked, surprised.
“We farm honey here,” Phyllida told her in reply. “The bees like the coolness of the mountain air. They thrive in high environments.”
“I did not know that,” Mildred admitted.
Phyllida led the way through the rows of manmade beehives and deeper into the gorge between mountains. The beehives buzzed with a constant low hum, and Doc ducked his head as a bee flew close by.
“They won’t hurt you,” Charm told Doc, having somewhat attached herself to him during the journey over. “They just want to get to the pollen.”
Embarrassed, Doc laughed. “I told you I was an old fool,” he said.
There was an overhang of trees up ahead, creating a natural gateway leading into a sloping path. Beyond that stood a wide depression between the mountains within which lay the home of the Trai people.
And what a home it was!
There, in the wide plain that rested in the depression between mountains, stood a structure like nothing they had ever seen before. Like most villes the companions had encountered, it was surrounded by a high gated wall on which was located a sentry tower where sec men—or in this case, women—watched the surroundings, night and day. Behind that, white towers gleamed in the sunlight, arranged in a great circle that rose up into the sky, each building an almost perfectly circular tower. Tiny figures moved among the towers, striding across high walkways like acrobats in a circus act.
It was left to Doc to express what they were all thinking, albeit in his own inimitable style.
“By the Three Kennedys!”
The companions followed Phyllida and the other Melissas onto the path that led into the gorge and, from there, to the gates themselves. As they approached, it became clear that the miraculous buildings were not quite circular. Subtle lines worked around their edges to form a soft hexagonal shape, utilizing the space perfectly. Arranged together like that, the buildings reminded Mildred of the pipes of her late father’s old church organ, but even those pipes had never gleamed so vibrantly as the buildings she now saw. While it reminded Mildred of the church organ, it also reminded her of something else—a fictitious city she had seen in an old movie serial back when she and her brother had just been kids.
“Mongo,” she muttered, shaking her head. “We’ve just walked to freaking Mongo.”
The others didn’t hear her; they were too wrapped up in the incredible sight in front of them.
“Welcome to Heaven Falls,” Phyllida announced, leading the companions to the gates of this incredible ville.
The gates to Heaven Falls were tall and well secured, fifteen feet in height with great metal rivets and hinges, two alert sentries watching from a tower that loomed over them to the left-hand side. The sentries were women, dressed in the same white robes as the party of Melissas who had found Ryan and his companions. The sentry tower was like a wooden box on stilts, with barred sides and no glass, making it difficult to shoot into but also preventing the additional danger of shattering glass should a bullet find a path through the bars.
Ryan thought of those things as he approached, wondering how far he would need to be to get a good shot from his Steyr Scout into the sentry box. Such were the thoughts of a man who had been shaped by the Deathlands, where every stranger had to be presumed to be an enemy. At least these strangers hadn’t disarmed them, and that counted for a lot as far as trust went. But Ryan was still conscious that he might be leading his friends into a trap.
It was a twenty-minute walk to the redoubt, but that had been with Ricky’s wounded flank slowing them. Ryan estimated he could march it in under fifteen minutes, sprint it in maybe seven. But with the mat-trans out of commission, that knowledge would serve them little good.
The sentries recognized Phyllida and her group, and the towering gates began to withdraw on a great winch mechanism. The winch squeaked loudly as it moved the heavy gates, granting Ryan and the companions their first proper view of the ville that lay beyond.
A main track led into the heart of the ville, with other roads peeling away at regular intervals. The streets were wide and unpaved, with farming machinery, including plows and mowers, waiting at the edge of the thoroughfare. The pale-colored buildings visible over the walls were clustered close to the center, with a lot of the land to each side given over to animal farming. It didn’t surprise Ryan that the animals were kept behind the gates—there was a lot to lose in animal farming. Rustlers could move in quickly and leave a ville starving in just a few hours.
Accompanied by the Melissas, Ryan and the companions entered. While the ville incorporated the central white towers, there were also other, lower buildings spread around, with plenty of wide-open space between them. Ryan’s first impression was that the ville might cover as much as a square mile, with the walls giving way to the towering slopes of the surrounding mountains—natural protection. Grass grew everywhere, a vibrant green carpet running all through the ville, and as one looked away from the main cluster of buildings one could see the grass borders segue into rolling fields where just two or three hut-like lodges had been built.
The ville was very clean. The roads themselves were marked by borders of flowers running in great sweeping lines all the way through the ville in strict flower types, making the roads seem almost as if they had been color-coded like a landing strip. Phyllida and her companions pointed out several interesting features, including a grand meeting hall that was circular in design and covered enough ground to house a battleship. The women were clearly proud of their ville, and they were open and upbeat in welcoming these outlanders to their home.
Ryan listened without comment, nodding as social protocol demanded, but adding little insight of his own. He was too busy taking in everything: the towering buildings that reached six or seven stories into the air; the covered drainage system that ran along the sides of the streets; the series of water pumps erected at regular intervals in the gated community. There were people, too, all of them dressed well, and happy. A lot of children under five ran up and down the street, herded by women in formal-looking attire, their hair pinned back neatly.
One child ran over to take in the companions, stopping fearlessly