Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

 

"Snowing out."

 

Ryan pulled back the corner of the blind, looking across the dark green river to the towering walls of quartz-flecked granite. By bending he was able to make out the leaden sky riding low over the valley.

 

A few flakes of fluffy white drifted gently by the window, carried on a light easterly wind. Ryan stared at what had once been a massive parking lot for the Melissa Crichton Institute, now lying under a dusting of snow.

 

Krysty yawned. "Much? Is it white over?"

 

"Not quite. By the look of the sky, it won't be long before it starts coming down for real."

 

"I'll spend some time with the whitecoats today."

 

"Sure you feel well enough?"

 

"Only talk."

 

He started to get dressed, taking his clothes off the green ribbed radiator fixed to the wall beneath the window. "Might ask Buford or his baron whether we can go out. Getting cabin fever from being locked up in this artificial air."

 

"Professor, lover. You keep calling Crichton a baron. He's not that."

 

Ryan nodded, halfway through lacing his combat boots. "Yeah, you're right. I do. Just that I don't see much difference between this place and any other fortified frontier ville. There's sec men and power, just like a ville."

 

"Not many frontier villes have a mat-trans unit of their own, do they?"

 

He sat up, stretching the tight muscles across the small of his back. Feeling the usual morning stiffness that dated back years, when a performing camel had rolled on him during a fight at a wild animal show up near Peoria.

 

"It was only the sign. Painted over years ago. Doesn't mean they still have an actual chamber."

 

"It would make sense." Krysty peeled off the thin cotton T-shirt that she slept in, revealing her breasts, the nipples peaking from the morning chill in their room. Ryan stopped and stared at her, but she shook her head. "No, lover. I'm still a little tender after last night."

 

"All right. You were saying that it would make sense if there was a gateway here."

 

"Military sponsorship."

 

He nodded. "You know what would be profoundly triple exciting, don't you?"

 

"No. But I can tell from your face that you're just about to tell me."

 

"If they had a gateway and it worked, and they knew how it worked. Still had instructions how to control where you jump to. That would really be something. Make such a fireblasted change to all of our lives."

 

Krysty's ability to get dressed in no time at all constantly dazzled Ryan. Most times in Deathlands he wouldn't feel anywhere near secure enough to take off any of his clothes when sleeping. But even when he did strip down, he always figured that he was a fast dresser.

 

One moment Krysty was standing by her bed, magnificently naked, her hair like a torrent of living fire, pouring over her shoulders. Next moment she had on her blue jacket and matching pants, tucked into the tops of her dark blue Western boots, with their chiseled silver points at the toes and the embroidered silver spread-winged falcons on the fronts, running her long, strong fingers through her hair, bringing it to some kind of stubborn order. She smiled at him.

 

"Like what you see, outlander Cawdor?"

 

"You could say that, outlander Wroth."

 

"You don't look too bad for an old man yourself, outlander Cawdor."

 

"Old! There's a whole lot less than ten years between us, as you know. And it's common fact that women grow older much faster than men."

 

"That so?"

 

"Yeah, that's so."

 

"Isn't."

 

"Is."

 

"I'll arm-wrestle you for it."

 

"No way. You'd cheat and use the Gaia power."

 

She shook her head. "Hope it'll be a good long while before I call on that again."

 

 

 

FOOD WAS SERVED TO THEM at eight-thirty in the larger, three-bed room by a couple of sec men, accompanied by the scar-faced man that Ryan had run up against the previous day.

 

His whole manner had changed, and he smiled at the group as he came in through the door. He noticed Ryan glance at his face, and he looked a little embarrassed. "Oh, the mustache," he said. "I figured it was time to get rid of it. Had it for three seasons through already. 'Ellison,' I said to myself. 'Can't hide behind that bushy growth for the rest of your days.' So, last night, before sleep time, off it came."

 

"Last night?" said Ryan. "Not earlier?"

 

The sec boss shook his head. "Allow a man to know when he shaves off his mustache, outlander Cawdor, if you don't mind. Last night."

 

"Fine." Ryan turned away to conceal his puzzlement, looking at the big plastic dishes of food that were being uncovered, steaming slightly in the cold. "Why isn't the heating turned up higher, with snow outside?"

 

Ellison sniffed. "Yeah. Way the sky's squatting on top of the valley, it's going to unload plenty of goose feathers. Professor Crichton's been sayin' for some months that the power source is starting to give up. Reckons that it's only important to keep it up in the labs. Rest of us poor folk can just shiver and pull on an extra layer of clothes."

 

Trader and Jak were both by the window, gazing out at the thickening blanket of white, ignoring the dishes of pallid gunk that were being ladled out.

 

It was Trader who turned away first, addressing the sec boss. "Ellison, just what do you do for sport in the dead-alive hole?"

 

"You mean gaudy sluts? We go out on a rota in one of the small wags, four days a month. There's a ville about fifteen miles away and the girls there"

 

"No, no, fucking no!" Trader held his forehead in his hands, reassuming control of himself. "I didn't mean that sort of sporting. I meant hunting or fishing or something like that. That ever happen?"

 

Ellison smiled, the deep livid scar curling his lip like a purple worm. "Sure. Fact is there's to be a hunt starting off around noon today. Professor Buford said I was to ask if the rest of you wanted to come, figurin' that Miss Wroth would maybe stay and help out the whitecoats."

 

"What hunt?" Jak asked.

 

"Guards at the barrier have seen a big bear. Humpback grizzly sow with a cub. Seen her two or three times. Put her in the mutie class. Reckon she's up to fifteen feet on her hind legs. Take some stopping."

 

Ryan looked at Krysty. "Sounds good to me, lover. Sure you're well enough?"

 

"Sure."

 

"I'll stay with you," Mildred said. "Hunting down a mother bear with a cub sounds like my idea of murder, rather than sport. But, don't let me stop you, gentlemen."

 

"My orders was everyone except Miss Wroth. Professor didn't say anything about anyone else being around. Have to check."

 

"Go ahead," Ryan said. "Rest of us'll eat."

 

The sec boss hesitated, then went out of the room. Ryan followed him, closing the door of the old hospital ward behind him. Ellison waited for him to speak.

 

"What is it, outlander?"

 

"Anything going to happen to Krysty?"

 

The blunt face was immobile. "Why should it?"

 

"Things happen here. Dogs vanishing. Taste of blood in the air. Not obvious, but it's there, like a forgotten promise at the back of your mouth."

 

"I believe that no harm at all will come to her. I helped in one of their experiments, but I'm sworn to secrecy. Didn't do me no harm." He touched his mouth. "This was there before. Nothing to do with them."

 

Ryan stood close, almost brushing the whispering white plastic jacket. "Anything goes wrong with Krysty, the first person I look for is you."

 

"I'll be here, Cawdor."

 

"Good." He nodded. "Now I'll go take a teak."

 

The bathroom was clean, though he noticed that the water pressure in the faucets was intermittent.

 

Outside in the corridor he could just hear Ellison talking to one of the other sec guards, their voices fading away toward the staircase.

 

Ryan finished pissing, did up his pants again and washed his hands at the nearest basin. There was a slit window behind it and he leaned forward to find out whether the snow was persisting. It was still falling steadily, cutting visibility to less than a hundred yards. It was already layering on the branches of the nearby pines.

 

There was a movement below him and he could just make out a few figures, very dimly, moving toward the edge of the trees. From the shouting and laughter he could tell that they were playing in the freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.

 

Curious, Ryan clambered onto the narrow tiled sill of the window and pressed his face against the cold, frosted glass, peering through the slits.

 

Four or five sec men, wearing quilted white jackets, were sliding around, throwing snowballs at one another. It was a scene of unusual good fellowship, and Ryan felt a momentary pang of envy for the fun they were having.

 

His face had to have been visible, dark against the opaque window, as one of the men stopped and stared directly up at him, pointing to the others.

 

Though Ryan knew there was no way they could recognize him, he pulled away.

 

One of the men had a scarred lip and was either Ellison, who couldn't humanly have gotten out there so quickly, or a dead ringer for him.

 

Or his identical twin, as Buford had said.