by James Axler
Steel grated on stone, and the door moved slowly back, revealing the control area, with its familiar banks of chattering comp-consoles.
"Some of them aren't working," Krysty observed. "I don't much like the look of that."
Doc followed Jak into the larger room, staring around with an expression of fascinated horror and amazement.
"How in tarnation did we make this jump? Pile of rusting scrap like this shouldn't have jumped a fly across three inches of tabletop. Half these contacts are blown." He ran a finger across some of the banks of dead machinery. "Tell you what, my dear companions. If we ever leave here and arrive anywhere safely it will be the greatest miracle since Teddy's election. Dreadful neglect here."
"Hasn't been dusted in the best part of a hundred years, Doc," Krysty said, tapping one of the displays of flickering, fading lights with the barrel of her blaster.
Immediately the entire row of digital displays went blank. There was a sound like a distant turbine running down and shedding blades, and half of the overhead strip lights went dark.
"Don't do that again!" Ryan snapped. "That's double-stupe, Krysty!"
"Sorry. Looks like you're ace on the line, Doc. This place is ready to lie down and die, right here in front of us."
"Think we should wait here and recover some strength? I got me the feeling that whatever's out beyond the main entrance door isn't going to be smiling news."
"I think we all got that feeling, J.B.," Ryan agreed. "Doesn't look like there's any food or water around here. And we're not exactly overloaded."
"You want to go out there, lover?" Krysty asked.
"I don't want to. If you got a rock and a hard place, you pick the hard place. Let's move out of here. J.B., take the main door."
There was a note of bleak determination in Ryan's voice that they all recognized.
"Sure." The Armorer moved light-footed between the rows of long-abandoned desks, toward the heavy double doors that sealed off the mat-trans unit from the rest of the redoubt.
Stenciled on the wall beside them was the faint message: 352 Open. 253 Close.
"Nothing like a secret code that no son of a bitch can remember." Ryan grinned. "Green lever's down. Lift it and press the buttons."
"Here come the discards and retards," Doc muttered. "Gentlemen rankers, all out on… Can't recall. Just remember that we were to be damned for all of eternity."
The rambling stopped when he caught Ryan's glance. It was a worry that the old man's mind still sometimes slipped a couple of notches, though he was better than when Ryan, Krysty and J.B. had first met him. Then it had been ten parts madness to a smattering of sanity.
The scientists who'd established matter-transmitting had also dabbled in temporal transfer—time jumps. In years of ultrasecret experiments there had only been one successful trawling of a live human being from the past… and a lot of hideously pulped abortions of failure.
The one success, nearly, had been Doc Tanner, picked out of November 1896 where he'd been a happily married man with two young children and dumped a century, then two, later. He made himself such a nuisance that he was eventually retrawled forward another hundred years.
None of that made for a well-balanced, incisive mind.
Doc nodded to himself, lost in some half world of his own, as J.B. threw the lever and coded in the numbers. The door, operated by its antique mechanism, began to move slowly upward.
"Fucking stink!" Jak gagged.
As the door made its ponderous ascent, the stench came seeping in below it, almost like a visible tide wave—rotten flesh and endless nauseating decay.
"No," Krysty whispered. "No, Ryan. Something's out there."
"Yeah, but it's gotta be long dead."
The door shuddered to a halt, about three-quarters open. Beyond it they could see only that the passage was completely dark. The light from behind them spilled out, then was swallowed by the stygian blackness.
"Need lamps," J.B. said.
"Nothing." Jak looked at Ryan for orders.
"You all wait here. I'll go a ways up the corridor and see what I find."
Within five paces the darkness absorbed him.
"Let it lie, lover," Krysty called, her voice muffled.
Ryan turned to reply, and was instantly knocked to the cold damp floor.
Chapter Three
THE SUDDEN SHOCK of the fall knocked the breath from Ryan, but he automatically tried for the best defensive position. The Trader used to say that if you couldn't hit, then you tried to save yourself from getting hit. Trader was always a man who looked for the best option.
Ryan curled up tight, hands between his legs to protect his groin, head tucked in to keep his face from being too vulnerable, muscular shoulders hunched against a strangler.
Hands grabbed at him, soft flesh against his body. Breath hissed and slobbered in the darkness, with the same nauseating taste of decay as the air in the redoubt.
Almost instantly Ryan realized something very strange. The fingers that moved over him were feeble, almost tender, with no strength or power to them. In seconds he was recovered from the shock of the attack and began to resist.
"Ryan!" someone yelled. "What's happening?"
In the pitch blackness, he heard something that might have been speech, a wet, whispering sound, like someone whose tongue was too large for his dribbling mouth. Ryan kicked against the enfolding bodies and found himself easily upon his feet again.
Blunt teeth nibbled at his calf and he punched down, feeling spongy flesh that seemed to part under his fist, smearing his skin with a clammy ichor. There was a bubbling cry and something fell away from him onto the stones.
"Ryan!" It was Krysty's voice.
"It's okay! Got me some of the weakest muties the world ever saw. Stay there."
He could see the spillage of yellow light from the gateway control room, with four figures silhouetted against it. But where he stood was still inky gloom, with hands that pulled at him and tried to draw him down to the floor. He felt for the hilt of the panga at his hip and drew it in a muted hiss of promised death.
His eye had become accustomed to the blackness, and he could make out the dim figures of four attackers. One was already rolling on the floor, clutching at his face and moaning. The other three seemed torn between the desire to flee and the desire to attack. One stood off and the other two were groping at Ryan with hopeless, pawing gestures.
The muties were naked, and none was taller than five foot two. Their bodies were thin and weak. It was difficult to be sure, but there seemed to be an odd, shimmering phosphorescence about them. As far as Ryan could see, they were completely hairless and had no visible genitals.
The panga hissed once, lopping an arm off the nearest mutie. Blood pattered around Ryan's feet, and the creature went down like a gut-shot child.
"Want help?" Jak yelled.
"No. Stay there and get ready to drop the doors once I come back in."
A second hacking blow from the panga opened a huge gash across another mutie's lower abdomen, and its intestines spilled into the dirt. Now only one mutie remained up and interested.
"Coming!" Ryan yelled, his boots slithering in the puddled blood.
As he moved toward the beckoning light, the mutie suddenly hurled itself at him, fastening its puny grip around his leg, just below the knee. Ryan hardly checked his stride as he dragged the creature behind him, hearing the slimy scraping of its skin on the concrete floor of the passage.
Jak glided into the shadows, reaching for one of his concealed throwing-knives. He drew the delicate, leaf-bladed weapon and waited for Ryan to reach him so that he could stoop and slit the mutie's throat.
The smell, unbelievably, was becoming even stronger.
"Leave him, Jak. Bastard's weaker'n a half-drowned kitten."
Ryan finally reached the pool of light and could actually look down at his clinging opponent. It was the first time he'd seen the face of one of the subterranean muties.
Th
e creature's open mouth was tiny and lipless, and possessed a single row of stunted, filed teeth. Its nose barely broke the blubbery plane of the cheeks, and its ears were relatively large, sticking out on either side of the hairless skull like the doors of a war wag. But the creature's eyes won the spare mag prize. They were huge—boggling and bulbous, watering profusely even in the poor light that seeped into the corridor. The irises were colorless, and Ryan couldn't make out any sign of a pupil. Not that he was interested enough to peer too closely into the mutie's distorted face.
"Disgusting, pathetic little thing," Doc observed. "Don't harm it, Ryan."
"Let cut neck?" Jak asked eagerly, still gripping his honed blade.
Ryan reached down and plucked the mutie off his leg, heaving it out of the ring of light into the malodorous darkness. With an expression of disgust he wiped his hands on his pants.
"This redoubt must be sealed off from ordinary light," Krysty said, instinctively moving closer to Ryan. "They've evolved like that because of living in darkness. No hair, big eyes. Feeble."
"Heard of some out in the big Rockies," J.B. said. "Heard they call 'em troggies. Don't know why that is."
"I suspect that it might be an abbreviation for the word troglodyte. One who creeps into a hole. A dweller within caves," Doc offered.
"If there's no light, then there's not a lot of point in going on," Ryan said. "I know they're no threat in a firefight, but I wouldn't like to meet a hundred or so down a dark hallway."
Krysty had stepped away from him, out into the corridor. She stood with her head on one side, listening intently. "Quiet!"
"What?"
She looked at him, her emerald eyes glittering in the half-light. "I just have a feeling, lover, that you're going to meet what you didn't want."
"You mean there's…"
"Hundreds, lover. I can hear them shuffling this way. And I do mean hundreds!"
They could all hear a sibilant bubbling sound, and soon they were able to make out movement in the black corridor.
"Got the firepower to chill 'em all," J.B. said.
Ryan shook his head. "No. No way, folks. If Krysty's right, and there's a hundred or more, we can just about take them all out. But it'll mean using almost every round we got between us. Can't waste bullets on muties like that."
"Not fuckin' gateway again!" Jak exploded. "No. Let's chill 'em."
"You want to go against me, Jak, then go ahead. Want to fight? Okay. The rest of us are leaving."
"Didn't…" the young boy began, his red eyes downcast.
"No time for talk, Jak. Let's go. Drop the sec door and we're safe. Those triple-poor sons of bitches couldn't open it in a year of rest days."
Ryan was last in from the corridor. He glanced out and saw that the nearest of the muties had crept within twenty yards of him. He considered firing a warning shot, then dismissed the idea.
"Lower it. Press two five three. Drop the green lever."
"Drop the door!" he snapped, seeing the muties suddenly rush closer.
Once the entrance was barred, they could at least rest for a few uncomfortable hours before facing another jump.
"Stuck!" the teenager grunted.
"Yeah, it's stuck fast," J.B. agreed, trying to help Jak.
"Fireblast! Cover the corridor, J.B., and I'll try it." The Armorer hefted his Heckler & Koch MP-7 SD-8 and put it onto semiautomatic. Ryan joined Jak, struggling to move the heavy green lever that operated the controls of the sec door.
It moved an inch or two, then they heard the ominous grinding of stripped gears. The door fell about seven inches, then stopped again.
"Once more," Ryan said through gritted teeth, putting everything into a last effort. The lever moved again, but with the doughy softness of a broken mechanism. Ryan stepped away from it. "Coupla bursts, J.B. Then follow us in."
"Not another jump, my dear fellow! I beg you, Ryan, to reconsider. I have the gravest doubts that I shall be able to—"
Doc was interrupted by two triple-round bursts from J.B.'s weapon, the sound effectively muffled by the integral silencer.
"Hasn't slowed them much. Figure if I had a burner-gren it'd keep them back."
Ryan led the others back through the faltering control room to the gateway. The cacophony of the advancing muties was much louder. Their naked skins rustled against one another in the press of bodies, their gobbling, bubbling speech rising into a menacing crescendo.
"Inside," Ryan snapped, pushing the chamber door open. Doc, Krysty and Jak filed in.
"They're coming for real," J.B. called, firing a double burst as he ran. At least one of the bullets ricocheted into a control panel, and two rows of lights went out.
"Come on. Move it, before you wreck the whole joint," Ryan urged.
The slight figure, fedora perched perilously on the back of his head, darted inside the arma-glass walls.
"Could we not hold them off, Ryan?" Doc called plaintively. "A third jump, so devilishly close to the others…"
"No choice," Ryan insisted as he jumped into the chamber and started to close the door.
The hinges were stiff and it moved slowly, giving the mutie in the lead just enough time to slither across the anteroom and throw its body toward the shrinking gap.
Ryan saw it coming, figuring its puny strength could do no harm. The ponderously heavy door slammed shut, triggering the jump mechanism in the defective gateway. And the troggie's arm was trapped in it.
The arm was almost severed at the wrist, and the slightly webbed fingers fluttered and tapped on the nearest metal disk. Blood, virtually colorless, flowed along the side wall.
"Clear the damned door!" Doc croaked as the vaporous gas began to fill the room and the metal plates in the floor and ceiling started to glow.
"It can't get in," Ryan said, slipping to his knees.
"Not the point. Blocks contacts so micros won't properly inter…" The old man's voice was fading away.
Ryan could feel his own mind already slipping from his control. He tried to crawl across the chamber to where the fingers danced, thinking he could still manage to free the severed arm and close the arma-glass door properly.
Someone was pushing him and he heard a single, piercing yelp. "Zorro," he whispered, though his lips had become numb and rubbery.
The lights were painfully bright and he had a sudden, agonizing ache across his temples. Sensation was draining from his extremities as he reached the mutie's hand and tried to move it.
But the mat-trans process had already gone too far.
"Malfunction!"
Ryan couldn't decide if the voice came from Doc Tanner or if it was some doomsday warning from the gateway controls.
"Malfunction," he breathed.
Then the nightmares began.
Chapter Four
JAK LAUREN WANDERED through a green-leafed forest. Shafts of summer sunlight darted between the gently swaying branches, dappling the winding path ahead of him.
Every now and again the rich balsam scent of the overhanging pines filled his nostrils. Around him stretched the high, clean meadows, speckled with Indian paintbrush, like speckles of spilled blood. Delicate bear grass, tipped with abundant white lace, nodded along the edges of the trail. Purple asters, harebells and the tiny false Solomon's seal filled his vision.
Somewhere down to his right he caught glimpses of a large lake, crystal clear, with the faint tint of turquoise that whispered melt water. And up the slope to the boy's left was the distant thunder of a high falls, tumbling over starry quartz into a spray-fringed pool.
The animal appeared from nowhere.
A massive silver-tip grizzly sow, with the characteristic hump of muscle across its shoulders, was weaving its head to and fro, and bloody spittle frothed from its muzzle.
An arrow thunked into the bole of a lodgepole pine at Jak's side, a small strip of white parchment tied around it with purple ribbon. Keeping a cautious eye on the bear, the boy unpeeled the paper and read the message.
&nbs
p; Yellow cottage, quarter mile behind you. Turn left at lightning-hit live oak.
There was a distant crackle of thunder somewhere over the lake, and the wind was beginning to rise.
Constantly looking over his shoulder, Jak paced out a quarter mile. He gripped the bow in his right hand, an arrow notched and ready to loose. But the silver-tip had vanished.
For a moment he thought he glimpsed a couple of people, on a parallel path—a tall woman with startlingly red hair, and a man who wore a white bandage over his eyes.
There was the tree, its top splintered and torn by a lightning bolt. "Turn left," he muttered to himself.
The path grew wider, winding uphill, twisting and turning, with a cairn of white stones to mark each bend. Jak saw a fluttering scrap of yellowed paper held against one of the piles of rock by a piece of rusting iron.
Nearly home, Jak. Your mother and me are looking forward to welcoming you safe back. Not far to go, lad.
The bow was becoming cold and wet. He looked down at it and found the stout yew had turned into polished ice. The arrow was straw with a tip of smoldering red ash.
Ahead of him, something gray and scaled waddled across the path. It looked like a mutie alligator. The sun was gone, and dark clouds swooped over the stark mountaintops all around him. But he could see the cottage. The walls were painted golden yellow, and a lamp hung in the front window to guide the weary traveler home.
"Home," Jak said, and found that the word wouldn't fit properly inside his chilled lips.
He was less than one hundred paces from the trim little house. Behind him he could dimly hear the howling of a hunting pack of wolves. The bow was melting fast, running through his fingers and blazing like molten silver.
The cottage door opened and he could see a tall man, dressed in a green jerkin. "Come in, son. You're safe now, with us."
The door closed, and Jak found himself in a cheery room with a log fire crackling in the hearth. Copper pans winked from the shelves and a spread of food was laid out on a dazzling damask cloth—fresh-baked bread and crisp salad, with slices of smoked ham as thick as a man's finger.