Chapter Nineteen

 

 

 

"No attempt from the chickenshit bastards to take our blasters away from us," Trader said. "That's what's really making me suspicious."

 

Krysty lay recovering in one of the beds, a fresh white sheet pulled up to her chin, her hands outside, folded on her breast. Doc had already remarked that she looked like a statue on a medieval crusader's tomb.

 

Now she smiled at Trader. "I can see why you've lived as long as you have," she said quietly, "if you get suspicious just because there's nothing to be suspicious about."

 

"I don't see a threat here," J.B. said. "Trader's right. With the armament and manpower they have here in this ville, they could have taken us out more or less anytime." He stopped, looking puzzled. "But, why the dark night do they want us here in the first place?"

 

Dean nodded, sitting cross-legged on the bottom of Krysty's metal-framed bed. "Right. They tell us how nobody ever got in and out alive. Show us their barriers and their sec men." He hesitated. "Though I thought that Ellison guy was a flash dude. One with the mustache and the big scar by his mouth. Seemed friendly. What was I saying? Yeah, they got all this power and they smile and ask us in. Too friendly, I reckon, Dad."

 

"Will come into parlor said spider to fly." Jak was slouched on a folding chair in the corner. "Christina taught me that."

 

Ryan walked quietly to the door and tried the cream plastic handle. It turned easily, and he peeked out into the corridor, expecting to see a sec guard or two standing there watching him. But there was nothing.

 

He walked back to the others and sat on the bed by his son, reaching for Krysty's hand. Though it clearly took her something of an effort to move at all, she responded and gripped his fingers. But with only a fraction of her normal strength.

 

"I'll be fine byby tomorrow, lover," she said. "You know using the power of the Earth Mother always leaves me feeling like the bottom of a cockatiel's cage."

 

"Seems a good place to rest. Buford said that the rest of us can meet up with the baron of the place. Or whatever he calls himself."

 

"I want to prowl around," Mildred said. "You know my specialty was cryonics, and the sign said this was a center for it. Well, I tell you that I never heard of any public research institute up in the middle of a national park."

 

"Military?" J.B. suggested.

 

"Could be."

 

Ryan considered the possibilities. "As there's already a redoubt in the park, I don't see why the government wouldn't have built a secret military hospital here, as well. But I don't see any real danger to us. No threats at all."

 

"How about the mutilated dead man?" Abe asked.

 

"And those weird dogs, Dad? Something sort of real creepy-chucky about that."

 

"True, Dean. We know the dogs came from here. But they never mentioned looking for the poor bastard with the scars. Might have nothing to do with them. I remember seeing in old predark mags that hospitals and research places used millions of animals in their experiments."

 

Mildred nodded. "That's right. Making beagles smoke hundreds of cigarettes and putting shampoo in the eyes of rabbits. Taking the tops off the skulls of monkeys to see what effect electric shocks had direct to the brain."

 

"Indeed all of that is true." Doc cleared his throat. "I confess that I am sometimes exercised by considering whether Deathlands is truly more barbaric than the great civilization of the twentieth century."

 

Trader had been leaning against the wall, cradling the Armalite. "Want to know what I think? Well, I don't mind if you want to know or not. Because I'll fuckin' tell you. What you just said, Doc, is the straightest ace on the line I heard. Living as long as I have in Deathlands means I've seen more chilling and violence and brute behavior than you can imagine. But it's mostly prompted by a wish to live longer or have a capful more jack or fuck another woman or get more land. Personal, know what I mean?"

 

"You're right there, Trader," Abe said. "I always thought that, too."

 

"Shut it, Abe. Personal, I said. But all I heard about the best of times before skydark and the long wintersit sounds like a few had it great. Cream so thick you could cut it with a razor. The rest had shit. And the violence was impersonal. Whitecoats pressing buttons and mixing germs. I figure we're better where we are."

 

Nobody spoke for a few moments, then Krysty slowly clapped her hands. "Good, Trader, good."

 

 

 

THEY HAD BEEN GIVEN some excellent coffee sub and some honey biscuits when they arrived, though Krysty was still too weak to take any interest in any sustenance. It had kept them going into the afternoon, and Buford had reappeared briefly to tell them that they would meet with the senior men and women of the institute over supper at six.

 

He had stared at the sleeping figure of Krysty. "When will she be well enough to get up?"

 

"Mebbe tomorrow," Ryan replied.

 

"And when could she give us another demonstration of her amazing powers?"

 

Ryan had turned at that, feeling a flicker of anger at the scientist's bland assumption that Krysty was some sort of performing windup doll.

 

"You saw how ill it made her, Buford. You think she's going to go through that hell again just to entertain you and some of your friends?"

 

The eyes behind the glasses widened with shock, and the little cupid's-bow mouth pursed in disapproval. "Not entertain , Cawdor. Most certainly not. Our needs, I should say, our interest in Krysty is purely scientific."

 

Doc snorted. "When I hear a whitecoat talk about 'scientific,' then I have this extraordinary tendency to want to reach for my revolver."

 

Buford had muttered an apology and quickly left the suite that they'd been given, saying that he'd see them all again at six o'clock.

 

Mildred had said that each of the rooms would probably have been a small ward on its own. Some had two beds and others three. Ryan and Krysty had the first along the corridor. J.B. and Mildred had poached the next one. Trader had taken the third of them, choosing to share with Abe, leaving the end three-bed room for Doc, Dean and Jak.

 

They were on the second floor of one of the two surviving wings of the institute, with a view out of the side windows across the river and up toward the impressive sheer face of the nearest mountain.

 

Each room had its own cupboards and shelves, along with a large sink with long-handled chrome taps for hot and cold water. Everything was spotlessly clean and hygienic.

 

A narrow closet held brooms, brushes, dustpans and cleaning cloths. Another closet contained hangers for clothes.

 

Around the top of every bed was a long steel rail that Mildred told them would have been for curtains, to give the occupants of the wards some privacy.

 

She had gone out during the middle of the afternoon, while the others rested, exploring with J.B. for company and protection, returning in about ninety minutes.

 

"Definitely a hospital," she reported. "I had a peek at the cryology section, but it was totally destroyed. Grass growing up through the floors. Same with the ruined wings we saw from back up the trail. But the other wing is closed off from us. Guards just said it was for experimenting and research." She glanced at J.B. for confirmation. He nodded, and she continued. "This one has two operating rooms on the first floor along with what used to be a path lab and an X-ray department. Also a physio rehab unit at the far end, with double doors opening onto the gardens. They're real pretty, too."

 

 

"Security?" Trader asked.

 

 

The Armorer answered that one. "Thorough. Common weapon is the Mossberg. Silvered 12-gauge. Original blasters, but beautifully kept. Worth a fortune to a handful of frontier barons we all know of."

 

 

"How many men?" Ryan queried.

 

 

"Difficult. Like Mildred says, we couldn't get access to the closed wing. Also, the atrium at the heart of the complex had sections that we were steered away from. Didn't like the idea of our going outside, either. If I had to make an informed guess from the one short and partial recce, then I think I'd have to be looking around the hundred mark. Saw about a dozen or so of the scientists, as well."

 

 

"Well-trained guards?"

 

 

J.B. nodded. "You saw them working out in the back country, Ryan. Can't add to what we all thought. Efficient. Mebbe not combat-hard, though, is my guess, like they know in theory what to do when faced with a firefight situation, but they've never actually done it."

 

 

"Makes it easy." Trader grinned.

 

 

"Sure," Ryan said. "Just about as easy as taking candy off a gorilla."

 

 

 

RYAN LEFT KRYSTY sleeping soundly in their room. Some of the color was seeping back into her cheeks. The horrific effect that using the mutie Gaia power had on her was so devastating that he couldn't face the idea of her using it, ever again. There was the grim certainty at the back of his mind that the next time might be the last, that the force would ultimately be so overwhelming that it would rupture an artery in her brain or, more simply, burst her heart.

 

He went out into the corridor, passing a series of closed and locked doors, all with strange letter and number combination codes on them, in a variety of colors. A few bore their original predark signs-Nurses' Rest Room, OrthodonticsDo Not Enter When Red Light Shows, TV RoomAbsolutely No Smoking; Dietician; Blood Bank, which had a small, homemade label fixed beneath it Dracula's Castle.

 

He passed a pair of patrolling guards, each with a Mossberg slung over the shoulder. He nodded to them, and they both grinned cheerfully.

 

At the end of the wing he passed through two sets of double doors, finding himself in the main atrium area that Mildred had mentioned. Here the old signs had all gone, the walls painted fresh and clean. The closed wings were self-evident, the wreckage visible through some obviously sealed sec doors.

 

The other usable area, which had been barred to J.B. and Mildred, was the next one around the central core of the huge medical complex.

 

It had no sign to give a clue to what went on behind the guarded doors.

 

"Help you, outlander?"

 

Ryan spun, seeing a sec man holding his blaster, looking suspiciously at him. For a moment he thought the man was a stranger, then he realized that it was the sec boss, Ellison, the one with the vicious scar by his mouth. The reason he hadn't recognized him straightaway was that the man had shaved off his luxuriant mustache.

 

"No. Just stretching my legs, thanks."

 

"What's your name?"

 

"You know my name, Ellison."

 

The man's eyes widened, and his finger moved onto the trigger of the shotgun. "How the showering sheep shit do you know my name, outlander?"

 

Ryan could see that there was something wrong, but couldn't for the life of him figure what it was. "I know you because we spent hours together out in the park."

 

"Park?"

 

"Acadia."

 

The muzzle of the Mossberg was now aimed, very definitely, at the pit of Ryan's stomach. "You say you and me spent hours together, outlander?"

 

"Sure we did."

 

"I say that you're some kind of sneaking liar. I never seen you before."

 

"Why did you shave off the mustache, Ellison?" Ryan asked, trying to find some connection with the angry man. "Get bored with it?"

 

"I never had a fucking mustache in my life. I never seen you before in my life. And you're about to find out what it's like to buy the farm."

 

"Hold it, Ellison."

 

Ryan glanced over his shoulder. He'd been about to chop his hand at the barrel of the 12-gauge and take his chances, which he'd mentally put at around a hundred to one.

 

"Buford," he said. "Didn't think I'd be saying it, but I'm glad to see you."

 

The scientist pointed a trembling finger at the sec man. "Gun down, Ellison. Order! Do it or you'll be cleaning out the freak cages for the rest of your life."

 

"He said he knew me, the outlander."

 

With the threat of the blaster removed, Ryan was becoming angry. "Course I know him. He was with you all of the time. Saw the tree fall and everything. I asked him why he'd shaved off his mustache."

 

"I never had"

 

Buford reached across and actually laid his hand across the sec man's mouth, silencing him. "No more talking, Ellison."

 

"Let it lie," Ryan said. "I'll just go back and join the others. Doesn't matter."

 

"It was his brother who accompanied us into the forest in our pursuit of the animals that had escaped from our laboratory."

 

"Brother?"

 

"Yes. His twin brother." Buford took his hand away from the sec guard's face. "Now go and carry on the patrol, Ellison. I shall speak with you at a later time."

 

The man turned wordlessly and marched off, the Mossberg slung once more across his broad back. His whole posture was one of frustrated rage.

 

"There," Buford said, rubbing his hands together. "No problem too small and no solution too large. That's what we say here at Crichton."

 

"Sure. I'll go"

 

"Of course. We'll meet at six. Everyone is so very excited about it. Krysty won't No, of course. Too early. But, perhaps tomorrow?"

 

"Perhaps."

 

On his way back toward the rooms they all shared, Ryan wondered about the Ellison brothers. One with a mustache and one without.

 

And both of them with a precisely identical scar.