Chapter Sixteen

 

 

The only part of the entire base that hadn't been destroyed during the fighting was a stores section at the rear end of the main building. It looked as though the skirmish hadn't reached it, as the walls were free from shrapnel or bullet damage. And there were no corpses at the back.

 

"Supplies and Armament," Dean read slowly, stumbling over the last word. "Means there's blasters and food, doesn't it, Dad? Could anything still be okay after all the years and the heat and the damp and all?"

 

Ryan looked at his son. "State of the blasters we've seen means there aren't likely to be any left here still fireable. And I doubt there's eatable food left after close on a hundred years. So don't lift your hopes."

 

Rain Flower was now so bold that she had attached herself to Jak, hanging on to his arm, staring nervously up into his face for a hint of a smile.

 

"We wait outside," the teenager said to Ryan. "Get some fresh air. This place stinks of death."

 

"Think I'll join you," Krysty told him. "Hate these predark tombs."

 

The other five went on forward, pushing through the door that led to the last part of the base. The door was stiff, creaking on unoiled hinges, and the air inside tasted of long stillness and inexorable decay.

 

J.B. stopped in the doorway, peering into the dimly lit interior. "Five gets ten there isn't going to be anything worth picking from here."

 

"There seems to be a store of chemicals over on these shelves," Doc called. "I rather suspect that they might have been used in mining or some other sort of industrial research."

 

J.B. went over to join the old man, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his sleeve. "Yeah. Iron oxide. Barium peroxide powder. Could be right, Doc." He stopped and repolished the lenses, his face suddenly alight with an unholy excitement. "Hey! Now let's see if they've also got some Yeah, they do. And how's about"

 

Ryan left him muttering to himself, going on to browse around the rest of the stores area. Ants had gotten into some of the boxes, crumbling them into dust, leaving the weapons inside exposed to the atmosphere.

 

Dean and Mildred wandered with him, staring at the lined shelves in the hope that they might somehow hold something worthwhile.

 

"No good," Ryan said. "Waste of time. Let's get outside with the others."

 

Mildred agreed. "Thought there might possibly have been some sealed first-aid kits that could have given us something useful. Like you say, it was all too long ago."

 

"Can I stay awhile longer, Dad?" asked Dean, who was on hands and knees, burrowing through the pile of dirt and sawdust under the shelves and tables.

 

"Five minutes is all. Five minutes."

 

"Doc and I have found something," J.B. called. "If I can remember how to put it all together."

 

"I think that my chemistry might come in handy for once," Doc said. "I sat in those desks for interminable hours on sunny afternoons when I would rather have been out throwing the pigskin. The utter tedium of science. Volumes of given gases and total internal reflection and osmosis and litmus paper and the lime-water equation. Seems so much wasteful gibberish to me now. Except that I think John Barrymore is on to something. Something that would take the leering smiles off the faces of those ghastly slavers!"

 

"What is it?" Ryan asked.

 

J.B. waved a hand at him. "You go on outside, Ryan. We need to find bags to hold some of this stuff."

 

"And a strong sealed container to put it in after we've mixed it," Doc added.

 

"Long as we don't blow our own fool heads off." J.B. and Doc both cackled together at whatever it was that they were planning to try.

 

Ryan smiled at their enthusiasm, wondering what piece of arcane lore the Armorer had stumbled on, knowing from long friendship with J.B. that it was unlikely to be a waste of time.

 

The air outside struck at him like a moist blanket, and he whistled through his teeth. Mildred was right behind him. "Turkish-bath time, Ryan," she said.

 

Krysty was sitting with Jak and Rain Flower a few yards away from the building, leaning against a tumbled concrete pillbox at the side of a dark swamp.

 

"Where're the others, lover?"

 

"Dean's nosing to see if he can discover some long-lost weapon that hasn't rotted to rust."

 

Mildred wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. "And John and Doc are playing at being little boys again. Discovered some big-deal secret."

 

"No ghosts?" the young native woman stammered. "You see there is no ghosts?"

 

"Nothing," Ryan replied. "Few folks that caught the last train west, close on a century gone." He saw the expression of bewilderment on the woman's face and explained. "Means some dead bodies. Gone to meet their gods, I guess."

 

"We should go back to village."

 

Jak stood. "Once agree. Been here long enough. Nothing to do or see."

 

Behind them, Doc and J.B. appeared from the wrecked entrance to the building. Both carried burlap bags that seemed to weigh heavy. The Armorer also carried a plastic bin, about three feet high and eighteen inches across.

 

"Got what you wanted?" Ryan asked.

 

J.B. nodded, grinning broadly, his fedora pushed back on his forehead. "Course, most of this stuff is likely way past its use-by date."

 

"Only about a century," Doc agreed, also grinning. "Still, plenty of chemicals retain their qualities for a good long time, if they're stored in sealed units like most of these were."

 

"What are you going to make?" Ryan asked. "My guess is that it'll either explode or flame. Or both. Can't imagine you, J.B., wasting time on anything else."

 

The Armorer rubbed the side of his nose in a secretive gesture. "Like Trader used to say, Ryan, patience is the greatest virtue."

 

"Yeah. Also used to say that a man who waited was a man who likely got himself chilled."

 

"Where's Dean?" Krysty asked.

 

"Inside," Ryan said.

 

Doc rested the bags in the grass. "Last time I saw the young imp he was burrowing under piles of rotted axes beneath one of the benches. I think that he was hoping to come upon Flint's treasure."

 

"Who Flint?" Jak said. "One of slavers?"

 

Doc smiled at the young man. "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, Master Lauren. The black spot. Cheese and Ben Gunn. Long John and the barrel of apples. The good ship Hispaniola ." He contorted his face into an actor's mask. "Them as dies'll be the lucky ones, Squire Trelawney. Right, Jim lad. Blind Pew going down screaming under the hooves of the revenue men."

 

He stopped as he realized that everyone but Mildred was looking at him as though he'd totally lost his mind.

 

"You want a lie-down, Doc?" Ryan suggested. "Over in the shade?"

 

"Dr. Wyeth, would you be so kind as to confirm to these unbelievers that I have not mislaid all of my marbles?"

 

The woman grinned wolfishly. "No idea what you're blabbering about, Doc. Always knew you were at least two sandwiches shy of a picnic but this"

 

"You!" He stepped toward Mildred, flourishing his ebony cane at her.

 

She backed away, still smiling. "All right, all right." She turned to the others. "The old goat was digging out references to a great kids' book called Treasure Island . Rattling yarn."

 

Everyone except Rain Flower laughed at the expression on Doc's face, mixing relief and anger.

 

"Dad!"

 

It was Dean, staggering out from the shattered entrance of the base carrying a big rectangular metal box, painted olive green, with a string of coded letters and numerals stenciled white on its lid and sides.

 

"What you find, son?"

 

"Look and see."

 

With an effort he managed to balance the corner of the box on the crumbling concrete of the pillbox, keeping it there with his chest.

 

J.B. lifted the lid, peering inside. "Dark night!"

 

Ryan looked over his friend's shoulder, seeing that it was a standard army-issue container of the kind that they'd seen in many old redoubts, virtually all of them empty.

 

But this box was more than half full.

 

With grenades.

 

They were of mixed kinds, some with flip-top firing mechanisms and the rest with two-step buttons, one to arm the gren and one to trigger the firing system.

 

They were all a dull metallic silvery color, with bands of different colors around their tops.

 

Ryan could remember some of the color combinations but not all of them.

 

"Scarlet and blue's the implode, isn't it?" he said, picking one from the box and weighing it in his hand. He examined the slightly pitted surface of the metal, seeing that there was a trail of thick liquid drying around the top, looking like it might have leaked from the fuse elements.

 

"Yeah," J.B. agreed. "Got a fine mix in here, Dean. One or two of everything. That one's a frag and that's a burner. Nerve gas in that."

 

"Is this a hi-ex?" Jak asked. "Seen some like this back in the swamps."

 

The Armorer took it from him. "Yeah, it is. Quite a fair bit of corrosion in some of them."

 

"They're greased," Dean insisted, steadying the box when it threatened to topple off its perch.

 

"No. Grease has dried by now," Mildred argued. "Not surprising after all these years. Bottom of the box is rusted clean through in this corner, as well."

 

"There's smoke and lights," J.B. said. "Think this one's a hi-alt gren. Remotes, delays and shraps. It's a good mix, Dean. You did well to find them."

 

"They were buried under a sort of pile of shelves that had been eaten through by ants and fallen down. Think we can use them?" he asked J.B.

 

"Against the Jaguar people and the slavers you mean? Don't see why not, though I'm a bit worried about the stuff leaking from some of them."

 

All of the friends had taken gleaming grens from the metal box, except for Rain Flower, who had moved several steps away from the group, fingers knotting in front of her, betraying her intense nervousness.

 

"Be useful," Ryan said. He held a frag gren, looking down at a colorless sticky liquid that was seeping from under the flip-top firing mechanism. "But"

 

"But what, Dad?"

 

"But I'm a long way from being certain that they're still safe, son."

 

"Let's try one."

 

"Too much noise. Don't want to bring ourselves some unwelcome company, Dean."

 

"Could be trainers," Jak suggested. "Found some myself back home in bayous. Old armory. Thought found best weapons in Deathlands. All filled plastic. No ex-plas." He ran his fingers through his long white hair. "Found some ring pulls in same place. Writing gone off them all so didn't know what they were. Exciting."

 

"What were they, Jak?" Dean asked.

 

"Canned cabbage." He pulled a wry face. "All dissolved into kind of porridge. Threw away."

 

"We could test one of these, Ryan," J.B. said. "Heave one into the heart of the building. Walls and roof'll muffle explosion. Mebbe use a delay. It shouldn't make too much of a bang in there. Then we could all take a couple with us."

 

"For the time being, put them all back in the box," Ryan said. "Hang on to it there, Dean."

 

"Sure, Dad." His skinny arms grappled with the heavy metal container.

 

J.B. held on to a single grenade with bands of dull green and bright yellow, peering down at it. "Timers on these generally run around fifteen seconds as set. You can alter the setting for anything from ten seconds to ten hours but" He squinted through his glasses. "Yeah, these have a base setting of fifteen seconds. I'll stick with that. Take it in and throw it down the end of the passage. Give me time to run back out there. Everyone take cover in case there's any broken glass. Here I go."

 

The slim figure vanished past the tumbled sec doors, fedora tipped jauntily to one side.

 

Dean struggled, refusing any offer of help, and managed to lay the box down in the grass, crouching with the others behind the ruined pillbox.

 

"Haven't seen a gren in ages, Dad," he said.

 

"Me neither. Found some a while back, and we used to have a decent store of them in War Wag One. Trader found them or bought them, somewhere up in the Darks, I think it was."

 

They all heard the sound of running feet and knelt behind the cover, Jak pulling the young native woman by the hand, reassuring her that everything would be double safe but there would be a double-loud bang.

 

Ryan knelt, hands over his ears, closing his eye, keeping his mouth open to try to minimize the effects of any blast, aware of Krysty pressed against him on the right side.

 

"Hope you remembered to kiss your ass goodbye," she whispered, making him smile.

 

J.B. came out of the doorway, springing hard, arms pumping, knees raised. He carried the Uzi, but he'd left the scattergun outside with Mildred.

 

He jinked to his right, heading toward the pillbox, his combat boots slipping a little on the damp grass. As he ran, J.B. was shouting out the timing, counting down the fifteen seconds.

 

"Nine and eight and seven" He reached the concrete emplacement, breathing hard. "And six and five and four and three and two and one and go!"

 

Everyone winced in expectation of the explosion. Rain Flower had begun to cry, sensing the tension, even though she had no real understanding of what was happening.

 

"Go," the Armorer repeated.

 

"No go," Jak breathed.

 

Dean started to get up. "Can I go take a look, Dad, and see whether"

 

"See whether you get your stupe head blown off, Dean?" Ryan interrupted. "No, on the whole I'd rather you stayed here with us for a little while. Until we know for sure if the gren's going to blow or not."

 

"Not, is my guess," Krysty said, peering uncertainly around the side of the metal box with the rest of the grens inside it.

 

They waited in the forest stillness. Ryan glanced at his wrist chron. "Thirty seconds, gone," he said.

 

"Sure it wasn't training gren?" Jak asked.

 

"Sure. Proper primer and it started to tick as soon as I triggered it." J.B. stood, straightening creases in his pants, brushing smears of mud from his knees. "Well, it sure seems like they're duds."

 

"Can't we try some more?" Dean asked eagerly, heaving the box back on top of the pillbox, barely keeping it balanced. "Some might work."

 

The Armorer shook his head. "No. Waste of time, Dean. See the corrosion and the leaking stuff."

 

"How about this one with purple and Oh, shit!" The box started to slide, falling inexorably to the turf with a shuddering crash, spilling the grens all around the boy's feet.

 

Mildred was first to stoop and start picking them up, holding one of the timer grens with its green and yellow stripes, dropping it like a hot brick.

 

"It's ticking, folks! Fucker's ticking!"