“Wish we could’ve taken that molecule destroyer thing you spoke about,” J.B. said sadly.
Doc Tanner heard him and grasped the Armorer’s lean shoulder in a bony hand. “Don’t say that, my friend. If we have done our work well, then that place of hellish enchantments will be buried forever and a day, until the dead rise gibbering from their graves. That’s best.”
Lori smiled winsomely at him. “Like you saidthe only good scientist is a chilled one.”
The little boat made good speed over the bumpy roads. It seemed to have a kind of floating suspension that carried them smoothly over the worst bumps. Since none of them knew how the silent engine functioned, there was a very real danger of running out of whatever fuel powered it. To be stranded in that fiery cold wilderness could have meant death.
It was near dusk when they reached the friendly ville of Ginnsburg Falls. Everyone ducked low, and Jak gunned the motor, pushing their speed up to around fifty miles an hour. They heard shouts, and what might have been a blaster, falling away behind them, but no harm was done.
“And so we say farewell to Ginnsburg Falls, nicest little town in the West,” Doc Tanner said, his words almost whisked away by the driving wind.
They pressed on through the valley, following the blacktop as it snaked higher and higher. The skies were darkening, with deep crimson chem-clouds soaring toward them from the far west, bringing the threat of a severe storm.
“Not far to go,” Ryan said. “Follow the trail and watch for the fork up to the redoubt. Save having to climb all around and go through those bastard tunnels.”
They were lucky. It was so dark that only Krysty’s part-mutie vision spotted the blur of the road. Jak turned the amphib, angling carefully around the jagged boulders that had fallen from above. For the first time the engine was making noises, a faint angry whirring that didn’t bode well for continued progress. Fortunately they reached the main entrance to the redoubt within a quarter of an hour.
The massive doors were closed, the metal scored and pitted from the efforts of generations of muties to break them down. Doc clambered out and stretched, knees and shoulders creaking.
“Hope it’s the usual three-five-two code to open her up. Don’t much relish making like a mole to go back into them holes.”
Three, five, two did the trick, enabling them to trigger the colored lever beside the control panel. It was a tribute to the technical skill of some of the pre-Chill engineers that the door still worked.
J.B. and Lori kept watch against possible attack by the small mutie killers who’d nearly wasted them when they’d first arrived through the gateway. But the slopes of the mountains were quiet and deserted.
“Let’s go in,” Krysty said.
“Sure. But Fireblast! Look at” His voice faded away into silent awe. Everyone turned to look where Ryan stood, frozen, staring north toward Crater Lake.
The earth was exploding.
Mount Mazama had been awakened from its long slumber, provoked into a violent eruption by the bombs and fires that Ryan and his companions had triggered far below the deep blue waters of the lake. Flames and lava jetted thousands of feet into the night sky. Even at that distance they heard the bass rumbling of the mountain heaving itself into destruction.
“Hell of a funeral pyre for Finn,” Ryan said. “Man couldn’t ask for a better memorial.”
They watched the spectacle for several minutes until the extreme cold began to bite deep. It felt like around fifty below, with the wind bringing it another twenty lower. Ryan felt the hairs in his nostrils clogging with shards of ice.
Doc Tanner shivered. “Western wind blowing, Mr. Cawdor. Time for us to hie ourselves to another place.” As he spoke, his breath froze in the air, descending all around them in a shower of miniature crystals like tiny diamonds. Doc noticed it. “Sign of the cold. Hear them fall? The Russians call that the whisper of the stars; Pretty name, isn’t it?”
They progressed through the long-abandoned redoubt, toward the mat-trans gateway. At the back of Ryan’s mind was the staggering knowledge about Doc Tanner. About his age. About the fact that some gateways could be used for time travel if their secrets could be unlocked. It was something to think about.