Chapter Nine

 

 

"Springtime," Jak said. "But look winter."

 

"Yeah," Ryan agreed.

 

The cave was narrow and twisted around a major bend, opening onto a mouth they had to squat to see through. A valley fell away below them, filled with short trees, a brook that meandered through the heart of it and boulders that stood up from the landscape like mushrooms.

 

There were no lights, no signs of civilization. A layer of white frost overlaid everything, brightening up the weak efforts of the quarter-moon in the dark heaven overhead. When the wind blew across the mouth, it made a mild whistling sound that gave an added emphasis to the chill circling Ryan.

 

"J.B.," he called.

 

"Yeah."

 

"Come ahead." Ryan turned down the wick on the lantern, almost extinguishing the light so it wouldn't be seen at a distance. He took a deep breath, and the chill cut through him like a knife. But it was cleansing, too, and took away many of the desert memories and the stink of death.

 

J.B. joined them there on the lip of the valley. He peered intently at the landscape, then up at the moon. "Night."

 

Ryan nodded.

 

"These jumps don't take that long," the Armorer said.

 

"I know," Ryan agreed.

 

"Dark night, but we must have come a long way."

 

"It was the middle of the afternoon in New Mexico," the one-eyed man said. "Where'd that put us in the dark hours?"

 

"Could be north," Jak ventured. "Alaska. Plenty cold there anyway. Like this. Dark earlier, too."

 

Under the thin layer of frost, Ryan could make out the verdant growth breaking free. "Farther north," he said, "there'd be a bunch of fir trees. More than we're seeing here. There's birch, like there would be in northern Deathlands, but there's more, too. Beech. A lot of oak."

 

"Safe jack's that we're in the Northern Hemisphere," J.B. said. "Going by the kind of weather we're seeing before us. Say we went west, following the sun and getting there before morning arrived, that'd put us in China or Russia, or mebbe even Japan."

 

"No."

 

"Then Europe," the Armorer said. "France."

 

Ryan looked out over the midnight landscape and shook his head, not wanting to believe. But they'd been to Japan. The gateways could take you anywhere.

 

"No find other mat-trans," Jak said, "gonna be long walk back."

 

Ryan didn't have anything to say about that.

 

 

 

"TOOK A LOOK around outside," Ryan told Krysty and the others when they returned to the redoubt. He patted the side of the wag. "There's no way to get this rig outside."

 

 

"I found one," Krysty said.

 

 

Mildred had gotten the generator running, though the screech the bearings made after being idle for possibly a hundred years wasn't pleasant. The high pitched scream was almost but not quite above the range of human hearing.

 

 

The sound made Ryan's teeth ache. He followed Krysty to the door. Jak had been left posted up top as a guard, with a couple self-heats containing a vegetable stew and a ring-pull of water. The hidden door had closed with difficulty.

 

Krysty tapped the door in front of the wag at upper and lower contacts. "Blast plates," she said, striking them hard enough that a heavy gong sounded. "And a detonation switch in the wag." She walked back to the vehicle and indicated the compact plastic box on the dash. "Someone set off the explosives, I'm guessing that they were designed to blow the door outward. The wag could roll out over them."

 

"I assume there must be some sort of escape route, then?" Doc asked. He hunched down beside Mildred. The first thing they'd hooked up to the generator after the lights was a compact hot-plate-space-heater combo. He held out his hands to absorb the heat.

 

"Nothing but forest out there," Ryan answered. "Not even anything close to a road that I could see."

 

J.B. nodded in agreement.

 

"So even if we were able to juice the wag's batteries enough to get the engine to turn over," Mildred said, "we'd be all revved up with no place to go."

 

"That's about the size of it." Ryan took the self-heat J.B. handed him. It had already heated itself up. He didn't even bother to read the label when he opened it. Whatever it was, it would be hot, and for now that was enough. His mind was filled with the possibilities of the jump. As far as he knew, crossing the Lantic Ocean was impossible by craft. Deathlands wasn't much, but it was home. "The trenching tool still holding?"

 

 

The Armorer nodded. "For now. Way it's folding though, could be the contacts will get close enough to allow a jump soon."

 

"Nothing else to put in there?"

 

J.B. shook his head. "This place is full of disposables. Nothing really impact resistant. Best bet would be to shove a blaster in there. Steel they're made out of can take a ton of pressure before they give. Don't have anything harder than those."

 

"How many extra do we have?"

 

"Nine," Krysty said. "Seven handguns Doc and I salvaged, and two rifles Mildred and I found down here."

 

"Keep them," Ryan said. "We might need something to barter." He sat with his back to the wall, gratefully soaking up the warmth given off by the space heater. H spooned up the stew inside the self-heat and chewed with real satisfaction. His eyes fell on the .50-caliber machine gun on the wag. "But there's one we can't take with us."

 

 

 

KRYSTY FOUND a toolbox in the back of the wag. It too more than half an hour to unbolt the heavy machine gun from the rack. Though it was probably originally airtight, the hideaway had given way to erosion and the passage of time. Moisture had crept in and partially rusted the retaining bolts.

 

Ryan ended up having to wedge the tire tool against two of them and snap them off. When the gun was loose, he and J.B. carried it back to the mat-trans unit.

 

Lights were on in that room, as well, running off the generator. As with every other gateways the companions had found, this one had its own independent nuclear source. But the builders had obviously chosen not to tie into it for the hideaway's needs.

 

The doors on the gateway had almost succeeded in crushing the trenching tool. There was barely enough room to slide the .50-caliber's barrel into the slot left open. It took a lot of effort to get the machine gun positioned inside.

 

All the while, blue skeins of electricity kept arcing across the contact points. Thin clouds of the familiar mist twisted inside the mat-trans unit. The glowing disks intermittently flashed to brief life.

 

"We can't stay here," Ryan said when they'd finished.

 

"Maybe we could wait outside somewhere," Mildred said. "If those soldiers do come through, we could leave them a false trail to lead them away, then circle back and use the mat-trans again."

 

Ryan considered that. None of them was happy about being trapped on the wrong side of the Lantic. "How many people did you see coming at the gateway back in New Mexico?"

 

"Seven. Eight," Krysty amended. "Might have been more in the tunnel that made it through after we left."

 

"The tunnel might not have even gotten blocked good," Ryan stated. "Could be they're coming and going through there as they please."

 

"Even if we went back," Doc said, "there is the possibility that the tunnel is blocked. We would have nowhere to go. And if we did, escaping across the desert with the mad major at our heels is not an event I would look forward to."

 

Ryan glanced at Mildred. The others seemed reconciled to their present lot.

 

"Okay," Mildred replied. "If we're going to do it, let's do it now."

 

"How are we fixed for supplies?" Ryan asked.

 

"Plenty of self-heats and ring-pulls," Krysty answered. "We take too much and it's going to slow us down, though. There's also jackets. I didn't check the sizes as I went through the boxes, but I think we'll be in good shape."

 

"Ammo for the blasters?" J.B. asked.

 

Krysty nodded. "The people that put this together had a siege mentality. They got ammo stored, high and tight, and blades that you can carry and that you can conceal. I found a dozen pop-up tents that haven't even been taken out of the package. Looks like they sleep four if the people in them don't mind sleeping close. They're made of nylon. Not insulated, but they'll be easy to carry. Sleeping bags and blankets, too. And there's backpack frames made out of aluminum."

 

Ryan nodded. "Take two tents. A sleeping bag for everybody and a couple of blankets. As much ammo, self-heats and ring-pulls as is safe to carry if we have to move fast and quiet."

 

 

 

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, the companions were ready to go. They stood in the mouth of the cave looking down at the winter landscape. Night still hung over it, and there was no way to tell how soon morning would come. Jak had reported no movement except for a few nocturnal predators.

 

Ryan shifted the backpack frame and tried to find a position where it didn't dig into his kidneys. A couple more tries and he succeeded.

 

"Jak," Ryan said.

 

"Yeah."

 

"You got the lead."

 

Without a word the albino surged forward, disappearing into the lush foliage.

 

Ryan went second, with Krysty a half step behind him, spread out enough that a surprise attack couldn't take them out at the same time, but close enough to talk without their voices carrying too far. J.B. brought up the rear.

 

"You find out anything about that colonel while you were prowling his office?" Ryan asked. They went down the side of the mountain at an angle, taking their time because a fall could result in a serious injury that would hold up the whole group. The frost lay over rock and holes with treacherous smoothness.

 

"His name was Walker," Krysty replied. "He was shot, probably while he was at his desk. Not much else I learned. There wasn't much time once things started happening."

 

"Walker," Mildred said. "That journal I'm reading mentions a Colonel Henry Walker."

 

Ryan pushed aside a limb that was icicle encrusted. The icy layers cracked with a series of pops that echoed around them. The brush was so thick at the lower level of the mountain that it was hard to see more than a few feet in any direction. He was following Jak's footprints, and realized then that if any of Burroughs's coldhearts did make it through the gateway after them, they'd be leaving a clearly marked trail.

 

"What did it say about him?" Ryan asked.

 

"Man was hated by nearly everyone at the complex," Mildred answered. "He was a bureaucratic watchdog, had his nose up everybody's ass. Flexed liaison muscle to get funding and extensions on project development, and ran interference when there was a problem. A man like him in a position like that could make a lot of friends or enemies."

 

"I surmise that the colonel, given his grievous exit from this mortal plane," Doc said, "seemed to lean more in the direction of making enemies."

 

"The woman who wrote the journal referred to him as a cast-iron son of a bitch," Mildred said. "He was more interested in currying continuing favor with government leaders than representing the project developers and supervisors."

 

"Why?" Krysty asked.

 

"To keep his power," Mildred replied, "and his position. Plain as the nose on your face if you've been around the brown-nose system." She smiled. "Course, I'd understand you not really getting the full picture, seeing as how there's not much in the way of bureaucracy in Deathlands."

 

A powerful, swooping hiss drew Ryan's attention to the trees on his left. An owl, thick and squat with an almost unbelievable wingspan, leaped from the upper branches and took silent flight.

 

"What about Burroughs?" Ryan asked. He didn't bother sliding the SIG-Sauer back into leather. It hadn't left his hand since they'd departed the cave. The cold wasn't enough to interfere with the action.

 

"Burroughs is the man who killed him."

 

"Why?"

 

"After the nuclear war, you got to remember what it was like in the complex. People afraid of dying. At the same time knowing they can't go outside, so maybe they're afraid of living, too. Probably very confused times."

 

"Adding to this was the paranoia of each department trying to keep its research secret. Days passed, then weeks and months. Things got crazy in there. They'd been set up to take orders and be responsible to outside parties that no longer existed. Burroughs took it on himself to get control of the situation."

 

"And he did," Mildred went on. "He tried to talk to people first, then started killing."

 

"If Walker had access to a gateway," Krysty asked, "why didn't he just get out of there?"

 

"I don't know. Maybe right after the nukes fell, he didn't want to chance going through the mat-trans unit. Electromagnetic pulse bomb could have screwed up the atmosphere and signals for a while. Two and a half months into the big freeze, Walker got nailed by one of Burroughs's snitches about nosing into project development. Power was still on in sections of the installation. The woman writing the journal knew that Burroughs killed the colonel. Everybody knew. It let the complex know for sure that Burroughs wasn't going to cut any corners in his bid for taking control."

 

Ryan understood the methodology easily enough. When he'd been with the Trader, they'd been attacked by road gangs from time to time, young guys who should have had more sense, but they'd let themselves get cocksure following a would-be mercie who knew the talk and tried the walk. In the long run it was generally easier to kill the one doing most of the talking, let the others know they were going to be dealt with seriously. Most times the violence on the part of the road gang ended before their leader's brains hit the ground. Killing one could save a lot of lives.

 

"Burroughs didn't know about the mat-trans unit or the hidden tunnel," Krysty said. "Makes you wonder what kind of information Walker was keeping on all those computers in that room."

 

"Guy was able to keep everything that bastard secret," Ryan said, "you got to ask yourself who he was working for. Especially since this isn't near Deathlands."

 

"So Walker had a rat hole to bolt to if things got messed up," Mildred said.

 

"I think it was more than that," Ryan said. "But there's no way to prove it. Trader always said a man who worked his ass off to cover his tracks was probably planning big things even if he never got it worked out. Whatever this Walker fella had going on, he had a partner. Bet on it."

 

"A hundred years ago, lover," Krysty said, "knowing that might have mattered. Whoever was around then is dead and gone by now."

 

"Major Drake Burroughs isn't," Ryan reminded her, glancing back at her.

 

She nodded, her sentient hair coiled tight against her skull for the added warmth, her breath making soft white plumes in the gentle breeze.

 

"You really think he's going to send someone after us?" Mildred asked.

 

"Hard to say," Ryan said, sidestepping a large pool of water covered over with ice. "But I'd rather plan on him being right back there over my shoulder for a while than to look up and be surprised."

 

 

 

RYAN PUSHED THEM, keeping his friends moving for two straight hours before allowing a brief rest. They'd been awake for more than twenty hours, and going from the desert heat into the chill was sapping their reserves. Still, he was determined not to rest until he'd pushed them as far as he felt he safely could.

 

J.B. had kept a close watch over their backtrail. There'd been no lights, no signs of pursuit.

 

The land remained broken and uneven, the terrain almost impassable. Bringing the wag out of the complex, even with its four-wheel-drive capability, would have been impossible, at least if they wanted to remain inconspicuous. The forest surrounding them was dense, almost virgin, and the wildlife had been plentiful.

 

Ryan crouched beside a boulder after checking his blasters and making sure they hadn't fouled, then opened a self-heat that contained rice and some kind of meat he wasn't sure he wanted to identify. He ate it anyway. His body would take care of turning it into fuel no matter what it was. When he finished, he took a trenching tool from his pack and dug a hole in the rocky soil, carefully cutting away the topsoil so it hung together like a plug. He dropped the empty self-heat inside.

 

"You finish with those things," he said, "drop 'em in. If the frost melts off with the morning, there won't be any tracks for Burroughs to follow. No sense in making another trail. Last one finishes kicks the dirt over the mess and covers it with the sod."

 

"You feel it, lover?" Krysty asked as she approached him.

 

"What?"

 

The woman shook her head, but her hair stayed coiled into her scalp. "I don't know. Wrongness, mebbe. Feels like the forest is alive around us, like it's watching."

 

"You figure somebody's spying on us?"

 

"No." A hesitant smile flitted across the woman's mouth. "Can't explain it, lover. Just don't get the feeling we're welcome here."

 

"We get plenty of that most places we go," Ryan said. "I'd be worried if you got the feeling someone was going to roll out the red carpet hearing we come to town." Still, he used his peripheral vision to scan the closest brush. The shadows, though leaned out and stretched thin by the moon and the added illumination from the reflection off the frost, still had plenty of places to hide ambushers.

 

"How far have we come in two hours?"

 

"Mebbe five, six miles. Been hard getting that distance under these conditions." Ryan had kept them heading west. Not because it seemed like the direction to go, but subconsciously they all knew it was a step in the right direction.

 

"And in that time we haven't seen sign of a trail or civilization, past or present. How likely does it seem to you that Walker and his unknown allies would put in a hidden retreat so far from anywhere? Especially if they were doing computer theft or fraud?"

 

The thought had been bothering Ryan, too, but he had no answers. "Got no choice," he said quietly. "We're in it now. We'll have to see it through to the end." He gave her a brief hug, letting her feel the love that he held for her.

 

They went back to the others and got the hike under way again. Twenty minutes later they found the dead men.