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clothes, with the exception of his drawers. “No, I don’t recall. And if you all don’t mind…” The others turned their backs, giving Doc a moment to shuck his underwear, enabling him to preserve his modesty.
    “No one walk empty hand to and from anywhere,” Jak said with emphasis. “So why them?”
    “But why do it?” Doc countered, climbing into the bath.
    Jak shrugged as he discarded his own clothes, turned and joined Doc. “Dunno. Don’t matter. Just know it’s happening. And not good.”
    “Jak’s got a point,” Mildred interjected, joining Krysty in the doorway.
    “Madam, a little privacy,” Doc murmured.
    “Too late for that, you old buzzard.” She grinned. “More to the point, something happened to us today…”
    She went on to describe what had transpired, with Krysty adding detail while Jak and Doc cleaned up. Their own tasks, in the maintenance of the gas pumps and tanks, left them dusty from the earth, and smelling of gas. The primitive cleaners used by the people of the ville were hardly strong enough. You could always tell those who worked on gas detail by their distinctive odor. Fortunately they still had in their own supplies, some soap and shampoo taken from a redoubt some time before.
    By the time Jak and Doc had cleaned and dried themselves, Mildred and Krysty had finished their own tale.
    “I take back my own doubts,” Doc mused as he dressed. “I fear I did you a disservice, young Jak. For reasons that are best known to themselves, they have started to watch us.
    “Tell me,” he directed to Krysty and Mildred, “did you notice this before today?”
    “No,” Krysty said firmly. “You?”
    Jak shook his head. “Just today.”
    Doc frowned. “It is as though they were suddenly directed to keep an eye on us—perhaps so that we would not stray? Might there be a convoy due in, and that is the cause?” When the question brought forth no response, he added, “I will be most interested to hear what Ryan and John Barrymore have to say about this,and whether or not they have encountered a similar phenomenon.”
    Doc didn’t have long to wait. To save gas—so important for trade—the workers in the fields walked to and from their tasks. Only the sec patrols got to use wags and bikes with any regularity. To trudge back after a hard day’s work was hard enough, but to be sent home early with an instruction to see the baron was ominous.
     
    B OTH J.B. AND R YAN had been told to quit their tasks at about the same time that the others had also been dismissed. However, the greater distance told on them. They met about halfway back to the ville, the paths through the fields crossing so that their routes coincided. For some time they walked in silence, both too exhausted by their morning’s labors to spare the breath. It was only as they neared town that J.B. spoke.
    “Think the others were called back to the ville?”
    “Yeah,” Ryan replied shortly. “And I don’t like it.”
    “Because we’re being watched?” J.B. asked.
    Ryan looked at him. He’d thought he was being over-cautious in noting the sudden frequency and change of the sec patrols.
     
    T HEY BRIEFLY exchanged details of what they had observed. It gave them much to ponder by the time they arrived at Travis’s shack. As they stripped and bathed, Ryan and J.B. listened to what their companions had to say before adding their own experiences.
    “Whatever’s going on, it’s something that’s only just happened,” Ryan mused as he dressed. “We’re agreed that it’s only been today, right?” There was general assent, and he continued. “So Valiant has decided to take a closer interest in us. Why? Has anything happened?”
    “As far as I am aware,” Doc said, “there have been no arrivals or departures since the convoy left without us. Jak and myself have been central, so would have seen any arrivals or heard commotion.”
    “And I’m sure we could have seen anything coming from a long way off out in