Haven's Blight Read Online Free PDF

high level. For periods ranging from minutes to months at a time. And sometimes he was easily confused.
    “I’ve been wondering the same thing, too,” Mildred said. “I mean, no offense or anything. But why don’t you share more of your knowledge with people? You could make a big difference.”
    “You think we haven’t tried?” Katie asked with unlooked-for ferocity. Normally the wrench was among the most approachable of Tech-nomads, would’ve been considered affable by the standards of normal people. To the extent anybody in the Deathlands could be considered normal.
    The others tossed a look around like it was something hot.
    “Uh-oh,” J.B. said to Ryan under his breath. “We stepped on some toes, here.”
    Ryan shrugged. However spiky the Tech-nomads could be, no one had ever called them quick on the trigger. While he was never going to take for granted they could never get pissed off enough to chuck him and his friends over the rail and tell them to walk from here, a Tech-nomad was more likely to get spit on your shirt screaming into your face than take a shot at you.
    Long Tom wrinkled up his bearded face. “Don’t think we haven’t tried,” he said. “The problem is, people aren’t willing to listen.”
    “Tom,” Great Scott began. “Are you sure—?”
    “No,” Tom said. “It’s been a long time since I was sure of anything. But if we’re going to trust these people to have our backs in a fight I think we can open up a little with them.”
    “Good thing we had them in that fight with the mutie sea cows,” Sparks said. “Without Ryan and the kid they’d’ve sunk us for sure yesterday.”
    Jak looked fierce at being called a “kid,” but he didn’t say anything.
    “Problem is,” Sparks said, “most people don’t want to know. Or the barons won’t let them learn. And we never teach to barons.”
    “You don’t believe in law and order?” J.B. asked.
    Sparks shrugged. “Mostly we don’t believe in rule.”
    “When we give common people what I like to call tech-knowledge-y,” Styg said, “the barons steal it, suppress it, or both.”
    Styg was a stocky Tech-nomad with curly brown hair, who carried a number of pens and mechanical pencils in an ancient, cracked, yellowed protector in the pocket of the long-sleeved blue, white and black plaid flannel shirt he wore despite the humid heat. He’d been introduced to the companions as, “Styg, short for Stygimoloch. Don’t ask.” Nobody had.
    “When we give it to barons the barons use it to strengthen their iron grip on the people. So I say, fuck barons, and fuck people who won’t help themselves.”
    That got a murmur of assent, although Long Tom looked pained. To Ryan the Tech-nomads sounded frustrated.
    “What if they grab you and try to make you teach them?” Ryan asked.
    Long Tom chuckled humorlessly. “That’d be a triple-poor idea, friend. We make real bad captives and hostages, and even worse slaves.”
    “We got measures,” Randy said with a nasty grin.
    “What ones?” Jak asked.
    “Pray you never find out.”
    “Wait,” Krysty said. “There’s something here I don’t understand.”
    “What’s that?” Long Tom asked. Like all the men except Great Scott, he was especially attentive to Krysty. Mostly it amused Ryan.
    “Isn’t the cargo we’re guarding Tech-nomad tech for the baron of Haven?”
    Everybody spoke denial at once. “It’s not the baron, ” Long Tom managed to say over the others. “It’s his chief healer and whitecoat, Mercier.”
    “But he works for the baron,” J.B. said. “What’s the difference?”
    “She,” Katie said.
    “Huh?” J.B. said.
    “Mercier,” Long Tom said. “She’s a she.”
    “Don’t you think a woman can be a whitecoat?” asked Katie, who seemed to still be in defensive mode.
    J.B. shrugged. “Man, woman, doesn’t matter to me. At least, not that I’d ever let on, or Mildred’d yank a knot in my…tail.”
    “Damn straight,” Mildred said, crossing