by James Axler
Within a few minutes they'd made their way, unchallenged, to safety, a good half mile from the edge of the settlement, on a rising point in the buckled trail, where they could pause and look back at the smoking ruins of Hopeville.
"Seems like given up," Jak said, shading his eyes with a long white hand.
"Surely do," J.B. agreed, pausing to wipe splattered dirt from the lenses of his spectacles.
"I'm glad we're out of there," Dean added. "Sure hope Doc's okay."
There was activity around only one of the burning buildings, the large house that belonged to Joshua Wolfe. There was a feeble bucket-chain operating, and one man was at the top of a rickety ladder, directing water from a hose into the inferno of bright orange flames.
Coils of dark smoke enveloped him, and it was impossible to make him out clearly. Then the wind suddenly dropped and veered, and everyone recognized him.
"Wolfe," Mildred said.
With his left hand missing, the leader of the Children of the Rock was struggling to hold the hose while keeping himself steady on the swaying ladder. Ryan stared across the hazy distance, balancing against a small aftershock, squinting at the figure of his bitter enemy. Krysty laid a hand on his arm.
"Said you'd leave him be, lover," she said quietly. "We can walk away."
"Sure, only Trader used to say that when you walked and left an enemy alive, you were storing up future trouble for yourself. Know what? He was right."
He slowly unslung the Steyr bolt-action rifle from his shoulder, then took Doc's ponderous Le Mat from his belt and handed it to J.B. "Mind this for me, friend. Just while I do me some hunting."
The Armorer took it and jammed it into his own leather belt. "Wind's dropped," he said. "Still about ten miles an hour, left to right."
Ryan levered a 7.62 mm round into the chamber, then hefted the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the Starlite nightscope with the laser image enhancer. The scope brought Joshua Wolfe much closer, the crosshairs centering on his chest. Though he couldn't see it at that range, Ryan knew that a tiny red dot would have appeared on the man's shirt, almost invisible.
"Good half mile," Mildred said. "Way beyond my blaster's range."
Ryan remembered her advice on classic target shooting: hold your breath, and keep the rifle well braced into the shoulder. He didn't need to close one eye. Mildred claimed that all great shots fired two-eyed anyway. His finger took up the slack on the trigger, and he readied himself to shoot, taking account of his heartbeat, aiming to fire between beats for maximum efficiency.
At the very last moment Wolfe seemed to sense his danger and turned on the ladder, staring directly toward Ryan. He spotted the red dot on his shirt and brushed at it with his good hand, his mouth opening as though he were about to yell for help.
Too late.
Ryan corrected his aim a fraction, centering the sight on Wolfe's mouth. He then squeezed the trigger, bracing himself against the buck of the walnut stock.
Eye locked to the sight, he saw a crimson rose blossom from the centre of the man's chest.
Joshua Wolfe threw his arms wide, in the pose of crucifixion, and toppled from the ladder into the flaming heart of the inferno, vanishing into the fire.
"That's one of the finest shots I ever saw," Mildred said admiringly.
Ryan grunted. "No, it was one of the worst. I was aiming at his head."
DOC HAD FOUND a rusted shovel in an outbuilding and was already three parts through burying the small body of Maya Tennant, picking a shady patch of ground beneath an ancient, twisted quince tree.
Ryan called out as soon as the old man came into sight, so as not to frighten him.
"Looks like there's been some blood spilled hereabouts, Doc. We passed a handful of sec men on the trail, heading for Hopeville like their asses were on fire."
Doc straightened and sighed, rubbing at the small of his back. "Getting too old for this, friends. I would be grateful for a hand with the interment. A fine woman died here. That scum dog Owsley butchered her down."
"Didn't spot him on the trail," J.B. said, handing over the Le Mat to Doc.
"You chill him?" Jak asked.
"I dispatched him to dwell with his master, Beelzebub," the old man replied.
"How?" Dean asked interestedly.
"Trusty rapier. Gutted him like a landed trout."
Ryan laughed. "And we were all worrying about you! You did good, old friend."
Doc nodded solemnly. "But what a price to pay," he replied, pointing to the woman's corpse.
"I'll help you," Dean offered.
"We'll all help," Ryan said. "Then we'll head on back toward the redoubt."
IT TOOK THEM a little under the hour, during which time there were three more aftershocks, one of them passingly severe, causing some of the excavated earth to slide back into the unfinished grave. But they quickly cleared it out and laid the body reverently into the cold ground.
"Want to say anything, Doc?" Ryan asked as J.B. Dix patted down the pile of gray brown dirt.
"She was a good woman and I scarcely knew her. But what I knew was good and brave and kind. She saved my life from those running dogs."
"Amen," Krysty said, followed by the others.
Ryan brushed muddy earth off his hands. "Time to go now, friends."
"Think that the Children of the Rock'll come after us?" Mildred asked.
Ryan grinned and shook his head. "No. They're finished. From the red reading it looked like the quake opened up the hot spot at max level. Means they count in days."
J.B. picked up his fedora and placed it back on his sallow head. "Yeah," he said. "And the sooner we're out of here the better. Let's go."
Chapter Thirty-Six
Both Doc and Krysty had tired quickly as they picked their way along the trail, through the trees. The quake didn't seem to have been so powerful as around Hopeville, but a number of the pines had come down.
It was nearly dark when they finally walked through the massive sec door of the redoubt, heading for the elevator that should take them down through the buried levels to the subterranean floor of the mat-trans unit, past the notice that they all remembered from passing by on the way out.
The elevator worked smoothly, carrying them silently into the deeps of the military complex. Nobody spoke, all of them sharing the usual apprehension about the pending jump.
Ryan was thinking back to their last glimpse of the outside world before the sec door slammed shut. A magnificent sunset blazed away toward the Cific Ocean, in the not-so-far west. It seemed to set the tips of the pines on fire with a blazing radiance. Pale tendrils of white mist gathered around the peaks of the Sierras, drifting down into the valleys.
Jak had gone inside, followed by Dean and Doc, his arm around the boy's shoulders. J.B. had led Mildred in by the hand, leaving Krysty and Ryan standing together in the cool of the evening.
The setting sun dazzled off her fiery hair, making it seem as though her skull were ablaze. She turned and smiled at Ryan, the bright emerald light from her eyes filling him with a wave of fondest love.
"We made it again, lover," she said, squeezing his fingers in her hand.
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Been plenty of blood spilled in the last couple days."
"Not ours."
"No."
She looked up at him, scuffing the silver toes of her boots in the dust. "How much longer, lover?"
"Who knows. Just keep on to the end. When we get to the end, then I guess we'll know it."
Krysty tightened her grip. "You still think about settling down, lover?"
"Course. Not a day passes without thinking about it. One day it'll happen."
"One day."
THE FRIENDS TROOPED through the control room with its rows of desks with the cheeping consoles and flashing banks of lights, into the little room and on to stand together in front of the actual gateway chamber.
"Sec doors all locked behind us, Dean?" Ryan asked. "Best be safe."
"Sure are, Dad
. All locked."
The armaglass walls were glistening with a deep, deep maroon color, the door slightly ajar, showing the hexagonal interior of the unit.
"Everyone ready for the jump?" Ryan looked around the circle of friends, getting nods from all, though Doc was his usual unenthusiastic self.
"I confess that I shall be more than delighted when the jump is over and done," he said.
Despite his reluctance, he led the way into the chamber, crossing the floor and sitting down slowly, his knee joints cracking like pistol shots, and leaned his back against the vivid-colored translucent wall. Jak and Dean were next, sitting on either side of the old man, Jak's white hair a startling contrast to the maroon armaglass.
Mildred made herself comfortable next to the albino youth, patting the floor next to herself for J.B. to sit down. "Here we go again," she said.
The Armorer carefully removed his spectacles and folded them into a pocket of his jacket, laid the scattergun and the Uzi alongside himself and finally took off his fedora and settled it into his lap.
Krysty took a last quick glance around before taking her place between Doc and Dean, leaving a gap for Ryan to join at her side.
He took a long, slow breath before moving, feeling suddenly tired, in need of a long vacation.
Maybe the next jump down the line could take them someplace like that.
"Yeah, mebbe," he muttered.
He stepped inside the gateway chamber, aware that the maroon walls were giving everyone, even Jak, a healthy, ruddy glow to the skin.
Before sitting down between Krysty and Dean, Ryan unslung the Steyr from his shoulder and laid it on the metal disks in the center of the floor.
As he stood by the door, he looked around at the group of old friends, his mind flashing back for a moment over some of their adventures together, knowing that a man couldn't ever have better companions.
"Ready, Jak? Dean?"
"Ready," the youths chorused.
"Mildred?"
"Let's get on with it. Sooner we start, the quicker we get to finish."
Her beaded plaits rattled softly against the maroon armaglass wall behind her.
"J.B.? Ready to jump?"
The Armorer, true to form, simply nodded.
"Doc?"
There was no answer, just a faint snoring sound from the old man's open mouth.
"Guess he's ready as ever," Mildred said, smiling.
"Lover?"
Krysty looked up at him, lines of strain etched around her mouth. "Let's move on, lover. Like Mildred says, sooner we start the jump, the sooner we'll be someplace else."
"Here we go."
He tugged the heavy door firmly shut, feeling the solid click as the lock engaged, triggering the mat-trans mechanism and feeling the system engage.
He sat down quickly, giving Krysty's hand a firm squeeze, settling himself comfortably, and adjusted the holstered SIG-Sauer and the long blade of the panga.
The opaque white mist began to gather between the metal disks set in the ceiling of the gateway, coiling around and becoming thicker, and the humming sound started, so faintly insistent that you couldn't tell whether it came from outside or inside the maroon chamber.
Or from inside your own skull.
Ryan took a last look at the others as the mat-trans process began to suck at his mind.
Doc was either asleep or already unconscious, head to one side, a thread of yellow bile trickling between his cracked lips, staining his ancient jacket. Jak and Dean had also passed out, slumping sideways, a worm of blood on Jak's chin where the teenager had bitten the end of his tongue.
Mildred had her eyes closed, holding J.B. by the hand. The Armorer seemed to have gone, but he sensed Ryan looking at him and opened one eye in a reassuring wink.
"See you soon, lover," Krysty whispered, her voice muffled and echoing into Ryan's mind from a vast distance.
"Yeah, see you…" he tried to reply, but the effort of speech was enormous.
The maroon walls of the chamber were receding from him at an alarming rate.
The darkness came, and Ryan Cawdor closed his eye.