Ryan rose to his feet. “Okay, let’s go and ask Gloria if we can see the documents, and if you can find the one you remember.”
“Oh, it is there. Rest assured that it is there,” Doc murmured decisively.
Before approaching Gloria, Ryan went over to where J.B., Mildred and Dean were resting, and told them all that had transpired between himself, Krysty and Doc.
“Then we’d better be with you,” J.B. said as he placed his fedora firmly on his head and pushed his spectacles back up onto the bridge of his nose.
Rising to her feet, Mildred agreed. “When Doc finds what he’s looking for, then I think we need to see it to make up our own minds about what it means.”
Dean also scrambled to his feet. “Yeah, not just that,” he said with humor, “but I’ve just got to see Jon and Petor’s faces when they realize that Doc’s not as crazy as they think.”
Doc wrinkled his brow. “It is actually a debatable point, I suspect,” he said distantly.
“What is?” Dean asked, puzzled.
Doc looked at him, wide-eyed. “Why, whether I really am as crazy as they think,” he answered disarmingly. Then he added, “By their terms, at least.”
Mildred shook her head, plaits waving wildly around her head. “I know what my answer would be, you old fool, but crazy is maybe the only way to get by around here these days. If you’re right, there’s no way they’re going to make a fuss about whether you’re all there in the head.”
“There is only one way for us to find out,” Doc said brightly. He turned to Ryan. “Lead on, dear boy, lead on.”
The party made its way through the resting crowd of Amazons and their menfolk. The lobby of the building where they had set up temporary camp was large, but not so large that the combined numbers and bulk of the Gate and their caravan hadn’t actually filled the space to an extent where, while they were at their ease, it was actually hard to move around freely.
So it took a few moments for the companions to cover the short distance to the point where Jak and Tammy were seated with Gloria, discussing possible tactics for attacking the Illuminated Ones—once they could find a way into where their enemy was based. As the companions approached, Krysty could hear Jak trying to explain the concept of the redoubt and how it worked to the two warrior women, but his lack of vocabulary and narrative skill was making it difficult. From the looks on the faces of the two women, they were having more than a little trouble grasping what exactly he meant.
“Jak, Doc’s had an idea that could help you out here,” Krysty said as they came near.
The albino looked up, relief in his eyes at this burden being lifted. “Glad hear. Words not strong point,” he said.
“Everyone has their own ways, sweets,” Gloria added softly. “Yours are more practical, is all.”
“And so is Doc’s suggestion,” Ryan said, hunkering down. “We really need to go through all those papers that you carry with you.”
Gloria fixed him with a puzzled stare, her own icy blue eyes penetrating Ryan’s singular diamond-blue orb. “My heritage? They’re precious, honey, and this is neither the time nor the place to start fucking with our history.”
“Madam,” Doc cut in softly, but with a tone of authority in his voice that betrayed in its weary edge the experiences of someone who had led a unique and unbelievable existence, “I realize the sacred importance of the words and pictures you carry with you. They have the weight of your history and destiny in them. But I believe that the history and destiny has arrived. This is the time and place of which those documents speak. This is perhaps that for which you have spent so long searching, and within those papers—handed to your forebears so long ago when they embarked on this quest—there is the key to our current situation.”
Gloria grinned her lopsided grin and reached out to Doc, ruffling his mane of white hair with a suddenness that caught him completely by surprise and off guard, so much so that he almost looked embarrassed.