Desolation Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

what kind of a job you do.”
    “It’ll be good,” J.B. answered. He said no more. He was still absorbed in his work, and still didn’t look up.
    After a pause, Trader said, “I’ll be back.”
    He left without another word from the taciturn teenager. As he walked back to War Wag One, through the filth and misery that was Guthrie, he mused on how come a man with such a talent should end up here. He hadn’t originated from here, and he hadn’t been here that long. So what had happened that had forced him to flee wherever it was that he came from and seek to bury himself in this back of beyond pesthole?
    Trader was a student of the human condition. Not just because people fascinated him, but because it was a necessity in his occupation. You didn’t learn to read people, and damn quick, then it was certain that you’d end up with a bullet or a knife in your gut, and all your jack in someone else’s hands. So you learned to read people pretty quick. Generally. But this boy was something different. He gave so little away that it was hard to get any kind of a handle on him.
    But Trader had a gut feeling. The kid did good work, and he obviously took pride in it. That attention to meticulous detail said something about his nature. And he seemed to be reserved by that nature. If something had made him run, it wasn’t so bad that he was nervous about it. It really did seem as though he just felt it was no one else’s business.
    Okay, then, let’s see how he does with the blasters, Trader thought. He found that Poet had finished his allotted task, and he sent him along to the kid with the screwed-up ordnance. Poet returned a few minutes later, shaking his head. Kid had said to come back tomorrow and hadn’t even bothered looking up. Poet found him hard to fathom.
    So how the hell the rest of them would take him—especially someone like Hunn—was an idea that kept Trader amused for the rest of the day.
    Next morning, Trader felt that he should go and conclude this business himself. Mulling it over while drinking the night before, he’d almost made up his mind to ask the kid to join them without even waiting to see what his work was like. Hell, he could see that from everyone in this rotted ville. The only real question was how the kid would fit in. He’d either fit or fuck off pretty damn quick. So scratch that. The real question was whether the kid would want to fit with them.
    Only one way to find out.
    When Trader arrived at the ramshackle hut in which J.B. had made his home, he found that the kid was ready and waiting for him.
    “Sit down,” J.B. said, gesturing to a chair. Trader eyed it warily. It looked like it might collapse under his weight. He very carefully sat. The kid met his eyes, staring at him as though trying to work him out. It was rarely, if at all, that it was this way around, and Trader found it an unnerving experience. “So,” J.B. said finally, “why are you jerking me around?”
    “What makes you say that?”
    The briefest of smiles—only the vaguest of amusement—flickered across his face as he gestured to the immaculately cleaned and restored blasters that lay on an oilcloth by the table.
    “There was nothing wrong with your blasters. Least, there was nothing wrong till you or one of your people tried to mess them up.”
    “What makes you say that?” Trader repeated, keeping his voice even.
    “Normal wear and tear, stupe assholes misusing ordnance…that’s easy to spot. Just like it was easy to spot that someone had tried to make these blasters looked misused, and to fuck up the most difficult shit to fix. That just doesn’t happen in regular use. Mebbe one in ten, if you’re unlucky. But not every single one.”
    Trader grinned. “You got me. I wanted to see how good you were.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I want you to join us. I don’t know why you’re stuck in this pesthole, and truth is, I don’t care. But I do know this—you’re wasted here. We could do with someone