Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [72]
“Take as long as you need.” The woman spoke from the other side of the door. “The hot water tank’s powered by the generator, and it takes care of a large family.”
Hella stood under the needle spray till the heat burned away the cold. Then she got out and found a dress hanging on the door. That stopped her. She’d never worn a dress. She pulled on the underthings then stuck her head out the door. “This dress?”
The woman waited in the hallway and looked at her. “Doesn’t it fit? I thought it would.”
“I don’t … I don’t wear dresses. I’ve never worn a dress.”
“Oh. I’ll be right back.” The woman went into one of the other rooms and returned with a pair of jeans and a shirt. “Everything else fit?”
“It did. Thank you. I’m sorry.”
“Ain’t no reason to be sorry.”
Gratefully Hella took the folded clothes and pulled them into the bathroom with her.
If the situation hadn’t been so dire and so sad, Hella would have burst out laughing when she saw Stampede sitting near the stone fireplace with a blanket wrapped around his waist. He was so big that all his clothing had to be specially made or they had to find really large clothes. None of the Wroths came anywhere close to his size.
When he saw her, he evidently sensed what was going through her mind because he scowled deeply and his ears twitched. His hooves held fresh chips from the night’s action. He drank stew from a wooden bowl and chased it with milk. The Wroths kept cows too and defended their small herd by keeping them inside the lower floor of the home.
The metal man sat on his side in a corner of the room near Stampede.
“Here.” One of the younger Wroth children handed Hella a wooden bowl filled with stew and a slab of bread smeared with churned butter.
Despite all the violence and horror she’d seen, or maybe because of it, Hella was ravenous. Part of that was brought on by the energy depleted by the nanobots as they kept her weapons fed. She joined Stampede beside the fireplace and enjoyed the feel of the heat soaking up through the flagstones as well as from the fireplace.
Eight small children sat at the big table in the long room. The room was meant for family, made simple and roomy, with the table and bench seats. Flame-retardant board covered the walls, and pictures drawn by children occupied several places. All of the children watched Stampede expectantly.
“They’ve seen you before.” Hella blew on a spoonful of stew.
“Not like this.” Half naked, Stampede was a testimony to the hard and violent life he’d led. Scars crisscrossed his massive body and left pink and gray tracks in their wake. Fur no longer covered several areas where the cuts had been too numerous or he had been burned.
“They tried to put me in a dress.”
Stampede grinned. “That would have been funny.”
“Not to me.” Hella pointed her spoon at the metal man. “Anybody ask about your cargo?”
“They thought it was ’Chine at first.”
“So did you.”
Stampede shrugged and wiped milk from his chin with a furry forearm. “I still don’t know that it isn’t.”
Hella cocked her head and looked at the metal man. “A long fall like that, on fire and everything, you’d expect he would have taken some damage. Burned. Melted. Gotten bent and twisted. Something. And it’s not like he went untouched when the EMPs and the incendiary went off in that passenger compartment.”
Stampede cocked an eyebrow. “ ‘He’?”
“Yes. He’s a he.”
“It’s a machine.”
“A male machine.”
“If you say so.” Stampede scratched under his chin with a forefinger. “I don’t know what Pardot expects to get out of the thing.”
Hella shrugged and continued with her meal. She thought about Daisy, knowing the mountain boomer was doubtlessly off her leash. She hoped the big lizard wouldn’t wander far.
After long minutes of silence and eating, her stomach full, Hella stretched out her legs and put her back to the fireplace wall. She didn’t mean to, but she laid her head back and closed her eyes.
“Hey, mister.” One