September 6th, the Year of Our Lord 2282
Early Evening
Father looks pensive as their convoy files into the building which the Sky Walkers have set aside for their use. Father has been looking pensive a great deal, of late.
"Daughter, I do not mean to call you a liar, but every member of the Sky Walkers tribe we have spoken to has named you their chief's wife. Is there something that you have not told me?"
Tears is a little annoyed to find herself blushing again.
The journey through the old White Legs territory was a stark reminder of how far their tribe had come. From roving hunters to farmers. From living in tents of hide to living in buildings of brick and stone. In truth, Tears had not recognised the site of their former main camp until her father pointed it out, so little was there to mark it as a place of significance.
Some people still lived in the ruins of the town of Lincoln, operating its foundries and hunting the lands around for meat, but it was a tiny fraction of the numbers who once dwelt there.
And in the lands they had conquered between Lincoln and New Canaan it was almost as if it had not happened. The strange people of the Timekeepers tribe from Vault 24 were still building their clocks, the only change to their lives being that they now sold their excess to the Canaanite trade caravans rather than chasing them away. The Tar Walkers had paid them tribute, but now that had been cancelled to try and persuade them to listen more to the missionaries. The only change that Tears found in
their lands was her father's youngest wife -only a few years her senior, which explains how he keeps his strength up when not on campaign- introducing them to her family.
But there were Ammonites who walked these lands. Though they had not precisely been White Legs territory, since there was only barren wasteland between Lincoln and the settlements of the Sky Reavers, neither side saw the need to an exact border. The people of Lincoln told them that was no longer the case when their caravan passed through, but to see so much land turned to not just farms but actual forests with such strange birds and animals in them… It was a strange sight.
And the great town of Groom Lake itself! Tears had seen robots and motor-driven carts called 'cars' and 'trucks' in Colorado. Utah had simple vehicles, usually little more than engines strapped to welded-together frames. In Groom Lake, the vehicles were like the vehicles from before the war left stranded on or next to the old roads. Only they were new and they still worked!
And the people dressed as Krono's warriors in Colorado dressed hailed her as the wife of their chief, and offered them hospitality and bade them enter. Did Krono think they were married? Did his tribe have a custom where they were betrothed until the
moment when he met her mother and father and then they were
immediately married? She
had thought that they would have a Mormon ceremony, but he did not say anything about how his tribe does marriages.
"I do not think so, father. I think that they saw the same broad cast that you did and have not spoken to their chief since then."
"They believe that the machine-matchmaker is legitimate."
"Honestly, it's more that we're glad-" A man dressed in the manner of the Sky Walkers walks towards them, two Ammonites walking just behind him as an escort. "-that he's interested in anyone. This is a new situation for us. With our last chief-. The Whisperers, our old ruling council, had a kind of group arrangement to preserve their power. We're all hoping that Krono has something a little more conventional, and you fit the bill."
Her father
frowns, causing the Sky Walker man to raise his hands.
"Not that Tears-In-The-Rain isn't a great woman to have as a wife! The Chief's a lucky man! She proved that when she won the contest! It's just that he's been Chief for three years and still hasn't married."
Her father is still frowning, but less aggressively.
"Is his manhood sick? Can he not function as a man?"
"Um."
The man clearly doesn't like thinking of his chief in those terms. Tears knows a few brews which can
help with some difficulties, but she knows of warriors whose loins were injured and were never able to function again. A warrior should not feel ashamed by an injury unless it was gained foolishly, but she does not envy them. She does not think that she would feel complete if she could not bear a child.
"No, I don't think so. When we got the showers working, ah… I saw him, one time. It works."
Tears is not quite so sheltered that she does not know that might still mean that he isn't interested in marrying a woman. Still, he is a chief. He has an obligation to sire an heir. Just… Not with her if
that is the case. She wants more than one. And she's fairly sure that Mormonism frowns on brother-husbands.
"Anyway. I'm Keanan Smith of the Sky Walkers, and I've been assigned to be your guide to Groom Lake. At least until Chief Krono gets back from Colorado."
Her father nods. "I was told that the monster from Los had been destroyed."
Keanan-Smith nods back. "Yeah, we all felt it. But there're a lot of important people over there right now, so the chief is using the opportunity to have everyone talk face to face. Sort out trade agreements and military pacts while everyone's in the same place."
Tears only remembers one such meeting of equals, when her father sat down with Chief Thunderbird of the
Eighties to trade for a part of their territory which he needed for the attack on New Canaan. Thunderbird agreed, since he wanted to capture lands to the west and had no interest in the east. Other than that, her father's meetings were with war chiefs and the elders of defeated tribes. He was clearly in charge.
"What agreements does he seek?"
"Well, who gets the territory that the Super Mutants overran. Texas claims the part near Los, but there's a whole lot that used to belong to the Legion that needs someone looking after it and they don't think they could hold that much. The NCR had a research team up there and they wanted help backing them up. Except that's WARDEN's territory, so they had to sort out a treaty that would let them work there but acknowledged that they were WARDEN's guests and don't run the place. Rio Grande wanted the NCR navy's help with the Cartels, and they needed to agree a timetable for fighting Caesar's Legion. And the Chief wanted to make sure that the different Brotherhood of Steel chapters around there were cooperating with everyone. And he's probably going to talk about our accession to the NCR."
Her father looks around, frowning once more. "Has the NCR conquered your tribe?"
"No, but-. The NCR is a federation of tribes, with a great council that decides matters which affect them all. Given that we're friends and that almost all of our trade happens with the NCR, it makes sense for us to join as a new state."
"Would Krono still be your chief?"
"In the NCR, the chief of a tribe is called a 'governor', the chief of the federation is called a 'president', and the people who represent the tribe in the great council are called 'senators'. He could pick either job, but he couldn't do both. Or he could do something else. He said that if the Sky Walkers joined the NCR then he'd rather be the chief shaman of the NCR than Governor of the Sky Walkers."
Tears didn't know if the Ammonites would maintain the tradition of spirit walks. It wasn't something New Canaanites did but she didn't remember anything about it being explicitly
forbidden. She did remember Krono's voice sounding in her head, but-.
Did the television show that sort of voice?
Her father looked confused. "Shaman? He talks with spirits?"
"Oh, no. Sorry, I forgot that your people haven't had much to do with ours. Like this."
Keanan-Smith turns away, than reaches his right hand out towards a crate on one of the wagons. It shakes for a moment, then rises into the air. It stays there for a moment, then floats over to a pile of similar crates and lands.
"Krono wants everyone to have this sort of-."
"Magic."
Tears can hear the tension in her father's voice. Not fear, but caution at suddenly discovering that something you believed about the world was fundamentally wrong. A White Legs shaman might assist someone in discovering something about their own nature, or show surprising insight into a situation, but she could not remember any story about them lifting things with their minds.
"Did you barter with demons for that power?"
"No. No,
God no. This is-. We used pre-War technology to alter our minds. Demons-." He shakes his head. "I was part of the warband we sent to Oregon to stop the Odious King. He had a demon in his head, and right before Krono and Andrew Shaw banished it we all got a look at its mind." He shakes his head again, more vigorously. "None of us are crazy enough to barter with something like that."
"It is technology?"
"Yes. I can-. If Tears-In-The-Rain and Krono marry, we'd be offering it to her as well."
"I would like to see this 'technology'."
He sounds sceptical, but he has seen a great deal in recent years that in his youth he did not think that he ever would.
"No problem." Keanan-Smith nods happily. "Once you're settled in, I can show you around."
