He finished a swig of Recklin-brewed bitewater and pointed down the cracked avenue to some taller ruins in the distance. Kel nodded and followed him.

Ah yes, making use of the string. He’d been in Reklin at leas a year before he’d gotten himself noticed. Not in a good way, but one had to roll with the punches. A trip gone bad, half a gregga team dead, and he and the other survivor no longer on speaking terms.

“Come near me and I’ll cut your throat,” old Vegg had promised.

They’d made a bad decision, had bad luck and had run into a group of scavenging mechs. Not his fault at all. The escape had made the rest of the team swear off going south ever again. But it also made Goa a bit of a celebrity, at least amongst the younger and more restless almost-adults in the settlement.

Goa liked Reklin. Unlike most of the other settlements he’d lived in or passed through in the course of his journeys it didn’t have the kind of sadistic strongman who typically dominated larger settlements. That being so, it created a different kind of person, and a different kind of gregga.

The Reklin greggas weren’t as tough or as touchy as others. Good partners to have along and good targets in case things went bad.

But of course, after a crappy trip, one has to do some selling. Not so much of the treasures of the adventure, ‘cause those were damn few – but of the escape from certain death. Yeah, if someone could survive a mech attack, than anyone could, right? And kids, well, they don’t think about death all the time like men his age.

So, over several weeks, he worked on the group of potential partners, the gaggle of local youths who had time on their hands and were hungry, for food, which he could afford to buy, and stealing tech from the mechs, stories which he had aplenty.

“So, yeah, there we were,” he told the rapt collection of six. “Suddenly faced with one of the big walking mechs. Ten legs and arms that ended in steel claws. And it was looking for us through the ruins. I tell you, those things have rockets and heat beams that can blow you clean away in one blast!”

“How did you get away?” on of the girls wanted to know. Yeah, he’d invited girls into his circle. Goa didn’t care what his new partner was. Both sexes each had their own benefits and drawbacks. The boys could carry more and could handle themselves better in a fight. Girls had more endurance; they could travel night and day, and were more cautious, tended to live longer. Different partner, different kind of trip, that was all.

“We weren’t planning on getting away,” he replied, leaning forwards, catching each of their expectant gazes. “Those things can run a good hundred klicks. No way you can outrun that. But anything that’s got legs, can fall down. So that was a trick we could make use of, ‘cause we had plenty of rope.”

There was one set of eyes Goa could tell were more interested and less childlike than the others. A connection, of sorts, something Goa knew he needed to find out more about.

The kid’s name was Kel, and he was the third son of his family, reacted to Abek differently than most, and allowed him to apply his moves where others would have been more cautious.

And he had been to the south before, an added bonus.

“Yeah, twice,’ he told Goa later. “Nothing like what you’ve done, though.”

Green, but not a complete idiot.

“So why aren’t you part of a team then?” Goa wanted to know.

The boy shrugged.

“Not to popular,” he confessed. “I’m not the kind the men want with them. I make them nervous for some reason.”

He turned away.

Abek knew what he was talking about, reached out to grip the boy’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to worry about that with me,” he said, giving the blonde kid a grin. “I’ve been to a lot of settlements, seen a lot of things. There’s all different kinds of men. And more than a few just like you.”

The boy was still plenty cautious about other things, so it took some time for Goa to turn him around. But Abek knew a good partner when he found him. Kel would be just the guy he needed.