Ryan, meanwhile, had come to his man from the side. His blaster-wielding opponent had no doubt about whom to fire on. He swiveled and took aim at the one-eyed man, who dived under the line of fire and felt the bullet pluck at his shirt as he reached his opponent. Hitting the man in the solar plexus with his full weight, Ryan drove him into the edge of the bar and heard two of the man’s ribs crack under the pressure. His scream was high 5pitched and ceased as the one-eyed man brought the hilt of the panga down on his head, hitting him on the temple.
“What the—?” Yardie stammered as he entered the bar, blaster drawn.
“Sorry. What were you saying?” Ryan asked him, unable to keep a twisting smile from his face at the sight of the fat man’s expression.
Chapter Three
“Must do something—find them now, before too late!”
Jak paced up and down the length of the shack that had been given to the companions as a home while they were in Crossroads. He was agitated and upset, and it was obvious to Ryan that the albino wanted to move as soon as possible in search of the Gate.
“We have to wait, at least for a short while,” Ryan stated.
Jak stopped and looked at him, red eyes burning bright in his white, scarred visage.
“Why?”
“Because the others know nothing of this as yet, and we need to know what they say, for one.” Which was true. Jak and Dean had returned from their day’s work in the fields when Ryan and J.B. had come off their sec shift and had told the albino about what they had been told by Yardie—albeit without his realizing the importance of one of his boastful stories.
Given the almost certain fact that the fat sec man had described the Gate, and the outbreak of the pox disease that Mildred, Krysty and Doc had been working on, matters seemed to be conspiring to confirm the veracity of Jak’s mat-trans vision.
“Dad’s right,” Dean interjected. “It’s not something I want to think about—and I know you don’t— but we need to know more about the disease they might have before we go looking. Especially if it makes the Gate as wild as Gloria was in your dream.”
Jak paused and thought about that. All his life he had acted on instinct, but since his time with the companions had begun, he had learned the value of stopping to give a moment’s thought, and how much time and triple-red danger it could save.
“Okay,” he said finally, “wait and see what they say.”
He sat down, brooding, and what followed seemed to be the lengthiest amount of time any of them had ever had to wait for anyone or anything. Eventually, Mildred, Krysty and Doc returned from the makeshift hospital they had been manning, leaving Hector and a couple of ville women to help him through the night shift.
“I hoped I would never have to see such things again, despite the horrors I have witnessed during my time here,” Doc said wearily as he sat stiff and slow on the edge of his bed. He looked exhausted, as did the others.
“It’s the fact that there seems to be nothing that we can do. That’s the worst,” Krysty added.
“There isn’t,” Mildred said softly. She, too, was exhausted, but not so tired that she didn’t look sharply at Jak, sensing the atmosphere of tension in the shack. “What is it?” she asked him directly. When he failed to answer, she turned her attention to J.B. “John? What’s happened?”
“Something that may have a bearing on what’s going on here,” the Armorer replied. And in a few short words, he outlined to the recently arrived companions what had occurred earlier in the evening.
“If that’s true,” Mildred said after he had finished, “then Jak’s right. We should get after them as soon as possible. Not just because it would be good to see them, but because they may have something that tells us where this bastard disease has come from and what we can do about it.”
Ryan agreed. “That makes a lot of sense, but we need to find out, at least roughly, where the hell they could be camped. We need to head in the right direction, after all.”