The End of Eternity

Quarantine

"You do not seem to be from these parts of the city, where do you come from?" Eric asked Mei, keeping reasonable distance from Claw, who had anticipated their fear and kept his distance in order to avoid any misunderstandings.

"We have been roaming around for a while."

"You are lucky to survive."

"We have him." Mei pointed at Claw with her chin. "He can kill just about anything."

"What is he? I have never seen anything like him."

"We do not know, we have found him in the open and managed to tame him." That was the best story Mei could conjure.

"He might be a runaway mutant, but they are not too inteligent." Eric thought about what she said.

"Regardless of what he is, we were patient and he apparently likes us." Mei smiled. She hoped the story was not too far stretched.

"You were lucky indeed. Well, I should say something about ourselves. " Walking back to the prison, Eric felt much safer, they were already quite close, the raiders were less likely to attack them here. "We live in this old prison building, we made a greenhouse on its courtyard, growing food is the basis for any larger settlement. I am surprised you have survived that long, the meat of wild animals is often irradiated and inedible." Eric rised his brows.

"It seems we are quite radiation resistant." Mei laughed softly.

"Lately, there were many attacks, as the people are turning desperate. Many people were looting the little, which was left on the planet, selling it for supplies, but just recently, a strict quarantine have been enforced on the planet, because of the growing tensions between Venus and outer planets. That made many groups unable to return home and anyone, who is not self-sufficient is in a big trouble. They are attacking people, who have food and supplies, hoping to survive longer."

"Yeah, they are trash. Attacking others instead of growing stuff themselves!" Mike joined the conversation.

"How many people are in your settlement?" Mei asked looking causally at Davena, who had been assailed by boasting men. Mei smiled and shook her head, Davena had always looked like an ethereal beauty from a fairy tale, with her dazzlingly white hair and blue eyes. Mei was sure these men had never saw someone even comparable to her.

"I do not keep count, but it is over four hundred." Eric said. "The prison is easy to defend, it is a big advantage, many people have joined our comunity during the years, but we cannot accept anzmore. There is a limit to how many people our greenhouse can feed."

Mei wanted to ask about their weapons, but she did not want to look like a spy and decided to keep that kind of questions for later. She could not ask any questions connected to this world's common sense either, it would have been too suspicious. She planned to find out much information by overhearing other people's talk, the first priority for now, was to enter their community.

"You do not have to be concerned with us regarding food, we can feed ourselves without problems." Eric was relieved to her her words, he did not want to feed that green monster, it had to consume mountains of food.

After a brief introduction and after physically pacifying one of Davena"s suitors, Eric showed them an empty room, in which they were supposed to stay. After the people found out, they did not require any food from the community, the relations improved significantly.

Claw began a new day by walking out of the prison building, ne intended to catch and cook something. Being able to hunt just about anything with little effort was a fact he tried to kept secret from the community. When he was about to leave the second perimeter of protection, which had been formed out of high fence, he saw a small group of people in front of him and gaped at them in shock. The group was probably leaving the safety of the prison in order to scavenge for any valuables around. That was nothing unusual, Claw's attention had been caught by the outfit of one of the scavengers.