Playfair's Axiom by James Axler Page A

retains some potency. It’s better than nothing.”
    Mildred nodded.
    “So, what’s the deal with this Brother Joseph?” Ryan asked the ville healer.
    Her face shut down. “He served the current BaronSavij the last five, six years as a combination guru and right-hand man,” she said. “Now that the baron’s incapacitated and his daughter’s…missing, he’s stepped up to run things.”
    She didn’t sound too happy about that. From her body language Ryan guessed that fact wasn’t anything she wanted noised around. Fine with him; she was taking good care of the Armorer, so he didn’t want anybody jogging her elbow.
    “Is Brother Joseph a native of Soulardville?” Krysty asked.
    Strode shook her head. “Turned up nine, ten years ago. Claimed to have wandered the wilderness for years seeking spiritual answers. Lotta people who listened to him seemed to think he found some.”
    “And what do you believe, O dear and glorious physician?” Doc asked.
    Whether she was exhausted or just had heard it all already—both occupational hazards for a busy healer—Strode didn’t even give him a “you have got to be shitting me” look.
    “I’m agnostic, myself,” she said. “Some of what he says makes a lot of sense. Some of it doesn’t. He does seem to help some people. But what he brought with him…”
    “What?” Jak almost yelped. “He sickie? Plaguer?”
    “Not in any physical sense.”
    They stared at her.
    “I’ve already said too much,” she said firmly. “Obviously more of the people here agree with what he does than don’t. And mebbe he does keep us safe. That’s all I’m going to say.”
    She sighed. “All right. Your friend’s a tough bird. He’s in stable condition, and I calculate he’s likely to recover soon. But he’s going to be out of it for some days yet. Andnow I think it’s best we all leave now and give our patient time to rest without being disturbed by our noise.”
    Curiosity itched Ryan like an armful of mosquito bites. He already knew there was no point peppering the woman with more questions. Fortunately the rest of his crew did, too. They allowed themselves to be herded none-too-subtly toward the door to the outer room.
    Mildred, though, hung back, hesitating. Strode frowned. Of all the people in the small band of adventurers she clearly respected Mildred the most. Yet her expression also suggested she reckoned a fellow healer, of all people, should know better than to risk troubling the rest of somebody in the kind of shape J.B. was in.
    “Thank you,” Mildred said at last. “You’ve done right by J.B.”
    To Ryan’s astonishment the burly white healer enfolded the stocky black one into her strong arms. They hugged each other fiercely. Krysty looked on, smiling slightly and nodding.
    Ryan’s eye caught Doc’s sardonic gaze. “It is women, my dear Ryan. Some say they’re a guild unto themselves. Men of science such as myself have often speculated they’re actually a separate species. Do not bother your head trying to understand them. Men have tried that and failed for millennia before my time. No further progress I could see had been made by the time of the great killing. I doubt much has been made since then.”
    “Besides,” Krysty said as Strode and Mildred broke apart, “the heads men actually use to think with are too small for really important stuff.”

Chapter Nine
    “So you see,” the tanned and wiry man with long gray-brown hair was saying to Krysty and Doc, who sat across the heavy-laden table from him, “from the very outset we employed square-foot gardening techniques to maximize our yield. The founder, the original Baron Savij, was quite an enthusiastic proponent of organic gardening. He proved to be highly knowledgeable, as did various members of his posse.”
    “Yeah,” Mildred said. “He was definitely known for his fondness for cultivating certain forms of herb. Smoking ’em, too.”
    The speaker, whose name Ryan didn’t catch, turned