Sara, Len, Floyd and Naomi were sitting on the front veranda of Joanne's house on the morning when Rip and the others arrived. The Acheron appeared as a dot in the sky to the east - they must have checked in Lyla - and then approached at a speed that made Floyd and Naomi stare. As soon as it landed the pilot - Eve - had cloaked it and the crew came walking down out of apparently thin air.
It had been a week of getting to know each other. Sara had been interested to meet the middle-aged woman despite - or maybe because - the casual nature of their relationship Mick loved. That had been plain, even before she came here. Mick was different - he was a bit tidier, a bit bettr4 dressed, just a bit nicer - the man in her recovered memories. Joanne had turned out to be a tough, shrewd, no nonsense type with little regard to government, officialdom, bureaucracy. She had told Sara something of her story - her father had owned a small farm where oil had been discovered. As Joanne put it, Pa Hervey was nobody's fool and never had been. He had held out for a good deal before he signed over his land - but bitterness touched Joanne's voice as she described the veiled and not-so-veiled threats that those who wanted the land thought could be levelled at a black family back then. It made Joanne's viewpoint easy to understand. With her legacy from her father, she'd been able to do whatever she wanted and that had been to come here with her then partner.
''We were Survivalists'' she told Sara. ''Cold War stuff and all that.''
They had settled in this tucked away canyon - Dead End - was an appropriate name - which had once housed hippies. They were long gone and - eventually - so most of the Survivalists, her partner included. Joanne liked it there and had stayed.
About ten years ago, she'd been in a nearby town and called into a bar for a drink. Mick - and Len - had been sitting at the counter. And that, she said, was it.
On the third day, Len and she had taken a walk up the caves. Len and Joanne had said they were nothing much, which was true, but it gave them a bit of time alone. Len had already told them that he knew Savage and the others were coming for them. After all she'd been through,Sara found it no harder to accept his psychic ability than the others did. He'd told her why this was a good place to make their stand and she agreed. That was also the day when they got back to Joanne's and found that Floyd and Naomi had arrived.
''She made me'' Floyd declared and Sara was inclined to believe him.
Naomi - not her original name but one she'd chosen because she liked it - although barely out of her teens could take the alpha role with the former assassin when she chose to. She'd been a street orphan who'd grown up the hard way somewhere in South America. Floyd had met her when he was on a solo mission in Mexico and that - as Joanne put it - was it. Naomi had picked Floyd's brain about Sara's new friend and then declared she wanted to see for herself.
About a day later, she had given her verdict. ''I think this bad guy could be very good for you.''
Sara wasn't thrown by the apparent contradiction in the also referred to Floyd as a 'bad guy'. She used different words to describe some of the men she'd encountered in her earlier years.
On the day the Acheron arrived Mick and Joanne had gone to meet some local Dead End residents who were involved in the plans for the defense against Savage. There were introductions to be made, news to be exchanged, toasts to be drunk.
It was not until the next day that Sara had the chance to ask Ray why Nora seemed to be on edge. Ray told her about the incident and, although Sara sympathised, she didn't really understand. If people wanted to kill you and you could stop them - so be it.
Two days later Savage and his allies showed up.
