“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.