The only dreams he could ever remember were those that involved his dead wife and child, Christina and Jenny. Terrible dreams, dreams where they were close to death and he was always prevented from saving them, condemned for all eternity to relive their deaths in an infinite variety.
If that was dreaming, then Jak didn’t want it.
And now there was the woman. Who was she? And why had he seen his friends chilled and spread around the veld? Why had he survived?
Jak could recall every detail of it as though it were real. He could taste and smell the ground, the death, the woman…
If he was becoming a doomie, then he didn’t want to know. It disturbed him, and Jak was rarely disturbed. He acted and reacted to stimulus, and didn’t stop to think. It wasn’t what he did.
But now Jak did think. Should he mention the strange dream, the like of which he had never experienced before during a jump? Would it unsettle his companions before they even knew what they had landed in this time around?
Jak didn’t realize how distant this made him seem until he was aware of Mildred standing over him, bent forward so that her plaits were dangling before her.
“Jak, are you feeling well enough to move?”
THE JUMP HAD BEEN better for most of the companions than usual. Why that should be, no one had any idea. Come to that, no one cared. Using the mat-trans was a good way of moving from one area of the Deathlands to another in the constant search for that indefinable something, perhaps somewhere to settle, to build lives away from the constant struggle until a person bought the farm.
At least, that was what they all told themselves in their own ways. The truth was that no one wanted a hundred percent to admit that there was probably no escape from this life, as it was all they knew and all that there was.
Ryan was usually first to come around after a jump. He was the strongest and seemed to weather the jump better than the others. It was always bad at first, like a hangover from jolt or bad shine. But this time had been marginally better. His head still thumped as if it had been kicked by a mutie mule, but it cleared quickly, and his limbs felt less sluggish as he rose to his feet and checked himself.
Krysty was also soon conscious. Her hair flowed freely, suggesting that they were, for the time being, safe. She was so surprised by how good she felt that she even remarked on it to Ryan as she rose to her feet, stretching aching muscles and massaging life back into her limbs.
J.B. and Mildred were also rapidly up to speed, the Armorer checking his weapons and adjusting his spectacles so that he could make sense of his surroundings while Mildred went to check Doc. It was unspoken, but all worried that one day there would be one jump too many for Doc Tanner. His fragile psyche had received far too many shocks of this kind before they had even first encountered him, and the physical effects of having been trawled through time were all too obvious. But even Doc had taken this jump well. He was still unconscious when Mildred went over to him, but he wasn’t muttering to himself in delirium, as sometimes happened after a bad jump. He showed no sign of distress, and he soon came around.
Dean was quickly on his feet. Like a younger version of his father in every way, it was only the lack of stamina engendered by his youth that prevented him from being one of the first to recover. Like the others, he remarked on how well he felt compared to a regular jump.
That left only Jak. The whip-thin and small albino had an incredible strength and stamina for his frame and size, but the mat-trans took no account of that and seemed to drain him of strength. It always made him vomit and bleed, and feel as though he had been ripped out from the insides and then put together again roughly, which, in a sense, he had been.