Chapter Thirty-Seven

 

 

A strange mutie creature galloped across the road in front of the armawag, casting a long, grotesque shadow on the highway. Ryan had taken over the controls, and he swerved and braked to avoid it, staring in disbelief.

 

The body was a large deer, though with shortened, stubby legs that ended in furry, clawed paws. The neck was short and muscular, supporting a head that looked like a cross between a wolf and a pig, a rooting snout and a double row of wickedly curved teeth that glinted red in the setting sun.

 

It turned as it reached the edge of the pavement and snarled at the vehicle, glaring from the three split-pupil eyes. There was such an aura of hatred from it that Ryan flinched. Instinctively he dropped his hand to the butt of the blaster on his hip, even though he knew that the layers of armored steel that surrounded him would protect him from any attack, even from a monstrous creature like that.

 

"What that?" Jak asked, peering out one of the side ob slits.

 

"Don't know," Ryan said, setting the pedal to the metal, making the engine roar. "Just hope I don't ever meet it on a moonless night." The wag vibrated as they built up speed and roared into the ville of Glenwood Springs.

 

 

 

THEY'D DISCUSSED the possibility of trying to find someplace to eat in the ville, but Krysty had pointed out the serious risk that the girl, Maria, from Ma's Place, might spot them and rouse a lynch posse against them.

 

"Should've strangled her, you and Doc," Jak insisted. "Trader said live enemy's bad enemy."

 

"And the only good Indian is a good Indian," Doc countered. "Yes, dear youth, we do all know that. But the taking of human life still comes hard to me. Call me a humanitarian old fart, but I would rather spare than take."

 

Mildred grinned, unwilling to miss the chance. "Sure. You're a humanitarian old fart, Doc."

 

The old man nodded. "I realize that traveling the way that we do through this blighted world of Deathlands must inexorably weaken the sensibilities. But it will never justify a callous disregard for the sanctity of life."

 

The albino shrugged. "Live like you want, Doc. Just saying girl was vicious. Better chilled. Now can't risk a stop here to eat. Shame."

 

 

 

THEY PASSED the burned-out ruins of Ma's Place, heading a little way out of the ville, up toward the north. They took a side trail that carried them another mile, up a long, rising grade, past some raggedy, tumbled shacks, shortening the walking distance from the redoubt.

 

The road petered out along a forest of stunted pion pines. Ryan tried to force the wag a little farther, but the slope was too steep and it ground to a halt, the arrow on the temperature gauge sliding deep into the red.

 

"And that concludes the entertainment for the day," Doc said, swinging open the hatch. "Oh, my dear friends, smell that wonderful scent."

 

Conifers in the cool of evening, after a hot summer's day, had liberated the odors of the balsamic sap.

 

Everyone piled out of the sweating interior of the armawag, Ryan last of all, having switched off the engine, which began to click as it became chilled by the dusk.

 

"Going to leave it or blow it?" the Armorer asked. "Could just walk away. Give someone a nice present."

 

Ryan nodded, tossing the ignition key into the driver's seat, leaving the hatch open. "Hell, why not?"

 

He took several deep breaths. "Fireblast! You're not wrong, Doc. That is some good air."

 

"Are we going to walk on up to the redoubt, lover, or camp here?"

 

Ryan considered the question, glancing up at the red-tinted, cloudless sky, with the segment of silver-bright moon riding high. "Should be enough light, I reckon," he said.

 

 

 

BEFORE FULL DARK descended over Colorado, they covered a mile and a half, climbing constantly up a winding path among trees. Twice they disturbed small herds of long-horned goats that clattered off across the bare rocks.

 

Doc struggled with the climb, still not acclimated to the altitude.

 

"Upon my soul! There was a time in my life when I used to do this sort of madness for pleasure! Presume not that I am the man I was." He looked around. "I have the odd feeling that I have already said that, not long ago. Perhaps I did and perhaps I did not. I know not."

 

"Can't help you, Doc," Mildred said. "Truth is, we never listen to what you say, anyway."

 

 

 

RYAN CALLED A HALT when they crested a ridge, a half hour later, pausing to look down over the twinkling lights of the ville, now far, far below them.

 

"How's everyone? Doc?"

 

The familiar voice boomed from the darkness a little farther down the winding trail. "I confess that for once I shall almost be pleased to make a jump. Anything to get away from this damnably thin air."

 

"But it's good thin air, Doc," Mildred said. "You told us that yourself."

 

"That was then, madame," he retorted, finally joining them and slumping down with a creaking of joints, "and this is definitely now."

 

After a brief rest Doc was ready to carry on. "How much farther, my dear Ryan?"

 

"We're moving across to cut the trail we came in on. Unless there's a problem, my guess is that we should find ourselves back close to the redoubt in about another hour. Hour and a half. No more."

 

 

 

THE HUGE BONEYARD outside the main entrance seemed to tower higher, its sharp angles stark in the moonlight.

 

"Hope no more crazies," Jak said, staring up at the towering redoubt.

 

"Think we killed off the last of the breed," Ryan replied. "Soon find out."

 

He realized that he'd been unconsciously waiting for Dean to jump forward and offer to press in the triple-digit number code that would open the vast vanadium-steel sec doors, as he always did.

 

"You waiting for Dean to do the numbers?" J.B. asked. "Me too."

 

Everyone smiled as they realized that they'd all had precisely the same thought.

 

"Allow me," Doc said.

 

"No sign water," Jak stated, bending and touching the ground below his boots. "Dry."

 

Ryan nodded. He'd already noticed that. There was no way of knowing until they were actually well inside the ranging military complex whether the flooding that had been going on when they left had continued, or how much damage it might have caused, or how deep it might have gotten. It could have reached down into the deeps of the redoubt and affected the mat-trans complex and the gateway itself.

 

Far too many questions.

 

No answers.

 

"Everyone get clear of the doors," Ryan cautioned, "in case we get a tidal wave rolling over us."

 

"A tsunami," Mildred said. "That's what they call them in Japan."

 

Doc pushed a finger at the worn keyboard, peering to make sure he was hitting the right numerals in the correct order, lips moving. "Three five two."

 

There was the familiar distant grinding of gears, and the door began to move. To Ryan's relief there was no sudden gushing tumble of water.

 

"After me," he said, walking cautiously into the main entrance of the redoubt, his nostrils flaring at the damp smell that permeated the complex. "Keep on double red."

 

"Should I close the door again?" Doc called, standing inside. "Be safer."

 

"Sure. Let her go."

 

The old man pressed the numbers in reverse, two, five, three, and the moonlight was shut away. Most of the strip lights inside the complex had malfunctioned, and it felt as if the air-conditioning had also failed in the few days since they were last there.

 

"Damp's gotten into the heart of the place," J.B. said, pausing to wipe his glasses on a white handkerchief that he'd taken out of one of the capacious pockets of his coat.

 

"Just hope it hasn't done any damage to the gateway." Ryan looked around. "I think we should go straight there and try for the jump. Something here that doesn't feel good, Krysty? You feel anything?"

 

She touched her sentient hair, now curled tight against her skull. "See for yourself. Can't feel any life, though."

 

 

 

THE PLACE REEKED of stale water. There were puddles in all the dips of the floor, and a film of oil lay on top, making any movement treacherous and difficult.

 

Some kind of mutated lichen, a sickly phosphorescent green, had taken over some of the first floor, splashing itself over walls and doors.

 

Doc began to sing a song about how times were getting hard, and if things didn't get better, then he was going to leave the place. His voice echoed flat and hollow, sounding depressing. After a single verse, he fell silent again.

 

"Looks like the main reservoirs must've drained down," Mildred commented.

 

"But where's water gone?" Jak looked around, his feet slapping in a shallow puddle.

 

"Down." J.B. offered a hand to Mildred to help her around one of the largest pools. "It'll have found its own level and soaked away."

 

Ryan stopped. "Yeah. Down. To the gateway?"

 

They worked their way through the levels, finding that the elevators still worked. Krysty hadn't been happy.

 

"Suppose they malfunction and lose power when we're halfway down in one of them. Don't want to spend eternity in a cold, wet, metal box."

 

"Worst comes to it, we can climb down the cables," J.B. said.

 

"Then let us profoundly pray that the worst doesn't come to it," Doc muttered.

 

 

 

"SMELL'S WORSE." Jak sniffed, head on one side, eyes glowing like stoplights in the bare overhead lights.

 

The deeper they got into the redoubt, the more harm seemed to have been done by the flooding. Twice they encountered long stretches of corridors where all of the strip lights had blown out, sprinkling the floor with shards of razored glass.

 

Ryan had stood everyone down from double red, and they had all holstered their weapons. There seemed to be little doubt that the complex was now totally uninhabited, and there was no threat from anything living.

 

He sniffed. "Smells more like an underground cave than a redoubt."

 

"Decay. Rotting." Mildred pulled a face. "Sort of stink that lies on your belly and makes you want to puke. If it gets much worse, we could have problems."

 

"How?" J.B. asked.

 

"Poisonous gases, John. Workmen who are involved in digging deep shafts and tunnels sometimes get overcome by some very nasty substances. And they die. Often get this smell, but it covers up the danger lying below."

 

"You get any warning?" Ryan sniffed again, trying to decide whether he was beginning to feel a little lightheaded, unable to be sure.

 

"No. Safest here is for us all to string out into a line and take it slow and easy. Then, if the guy out front goes down, the others get a warning and they can probably take deep breaths and drag him out to safety. The pockets of gas are likely to be very localized."

 

It was obviously sensible advice and Ryan implemented it, taking point himself.

 

Now that he was aware of a potentially lethal threat, Ryan moved much more cautiously, constantly stopping to check his own reactions.

 

But the air seemed breathable, though foul, and he eventually found himself in the passage that led downhill to the locked sec door of the gateway.

 

 

 

"FOUND THE WATER," he said, his voice drifting back to the others.

 

"Much?" Krysty called, walking second in line about fifty paces behind him. "Enough. Plenty."

 

"Safe to join you?" Mildred shouted, her voice sounding flat, reaching him from a dark section of corridor.

 

"Yeah, feel alright. Bit sick. Air's not that great." They joined Ryan, staring at the motionless expanse of black water that filled the corridor in front of them. "How much farther gateway?" Jak asked. "Close. I'm certain it's around the next bend. I remember that locked door we just passed." Ryan tested it with his foot. "Starts shallow, but it'll get deeper as the floor drops."

 

"The sixty-four-thousand question is whether it has penetrated into the actual mat-trans chamber." Doc whistled softly. "If it has, then goodbye will be all she wrote." Ryan considered options.

 

"If it's flooded we can't jump. Climb back. Find the armawag, if nobody's gotten to it first. And move on until we can find a gateway we've used before."

 

J.B. rubbed at his chin. "If it isn't flooded already and the sec door's holding it back, then we open the door and it pours in. That could be unpleasant if the electrics start shorting out white we're knee-deep in Old Muddy."

 

"All the consoles and the main controls are at least waist high, are they not?" Doc closed his eyes, trying to work out the problem. "All to do with liquid flow dynamics and cubic Say there's about sixty feet. Pythagoras says that means a volume of approximatelytwo hundred million gallons. No, that surely can't be right. Oh, I see where my fuddled brain made" Finally Doc opened his eyes again.

 

 

"Well?" Ryan said.

 

Doc looked at him. "My guess is that opening the sec door will certainly produce a flood of some dimension. Important to slide it up gently so that it doesn't come tearing in with a heated rush. My calculations indicate that the level might not reach the key controls on the gateway."

 

"Might!" Mildred exploded. "What the! What does 'might' mean, Doc?"

 

The old man smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "It means that the game is afoot and we shall try to prove the case, my dear Doctor. I believe that no great harm is particularly likely to come to us."

 

"Still some water," Jak said, pointing at the sheen on the wall, where the flow still trickled down, joining the other uncounted gallons.

 

"Means we could get trapped, Doc," Ryan said.

 

"I think not."

 

Ryan bit his lip, sighing. "Let's try for it," he said.

 

 

 

THE WATER WASN'T AS COLD as he'd expected, only a little below blood heat. But it quickly grew deeper, reaching his waist as Ryan led them around the corner, in sight of the sec door to the mat-trans unit.

 

Mildred and Jak were both only five feet four inches tall, and the dark water rose halfway up their chests.

 

"Can't go too much farther without starting swimming," Mildred complained, holding her ZKR 551 revolver over her head to keep it dry.

 

The others carried their blasters as high as they could.

 

"Levels off here," Ryan said, finally reaching the doors. The green control lever was out of sight in the murky water. Only one overhead strip light still functioned, casting its insipid glow over the six friends.

 

"Want me to open her up?" J.B. offered, his spectacles glinting in the pallid light.

 

"No, I'll do it. Take your point, Doc. Do it gently. Until the level stabilizes inside and out. Then all the way and we go straight for the chamber to jump. Don't waste any more time. Everyone ready? Here we go."

 

 

 

IT TOOK about ten minutes.

 

The water started to drop, bubbling under the heavy sec door, through the six-inch gap that Ryan had left for it, dropping until it wasn't much above the knees.

 

"Open her the rest of the way, Ryan," Doc said. "I fear that it will not get more shallow. Only deeper."

 

"Right." He threw the lever all the way up, moving back as the massive weight of the sec steel lifted ponderously to the ceiling, letting them into the main control area.

 

The water level was close to the tops of the monitor desks, lapping at the walls. At first glance Ryan saw that about half of the comp panels were down, the screens dull and lifeless.

 

He waded toward the anteroom, careful not to make too great a turbulence, followed by Krysty, then Doc and Jak. Mildred and J.B. brought up the rear.

 

At his heels he heard a gasp, followed by a splashing and thrashing. He looked back to see that Jak had caught his feet on an overturned stool, hidden below the surface, and had fallen, sending a wave right around the chamber that broke against the tops of some of the nearer desks.

 

"Sorry," he spluttered, his snow-white hair pasted to his shoulders like a bridal veil.

 

Ryan didn't say anything. No point in warning them all to be careful. He reached the door to the small anteroom, seeing the six-sided armaglass chamber just in front of him, its pale pink walls gleaming. There was a crackling sound from behind, and half the remaining lights cut out, leaving them in almost total darkness.

 

"Time to go," Ryan said, easing open the door. As the water gushed in, he noticed the small smear on the floor that had once been Melmoth Cornelius.

 

"Have to stand," Krysty said, bracing herself against the back wall.

 

"Yeah. Quick." Ryan waited until everyone was inside the chamber, huddled together, all pale-faced and nervous. He reached for the door, ready to trigger the jump mechanism.

 

As he touched the metal edge of the door he got a sharp electric shock that made him jump, and a bright blue spark leaped across the gap.

 

"Fireblast!"

 

"You all right, lover?"

 

"I am. Just hope that the rad-blasted jump mechanism is all right."

 

"Water still rising slowly," Jak warned.

 

Ryan didn't answer. He pulled the armaglass door firmly shut, walking across and standing next to Krysty, putting his arm around her.

 

"So long to Harmony," she said.

 

They waited for the disks in floor and ceiling to start glowing, the latter just visible under the water, for the mist to gather above their heads and for the brain-sucking darkness to swoop down over them.

 

"Has anyone considered that if we fall unconscious, we might drown during the jump?" Doc asked.

 

But the jump didn't start.

 

Ryan opened and closed the door again. All that happened was a flash of silver light from the control room and all the lights went out. In the silent dark, the water was still rising.