“Except that it doesn’t seem to have affected them,” Krysty added. “But why, if that was what the Illuminated Ones intended, hasn’t it worked?”
“Perhaps they have some kind of immunity,” Doc posited. “After all, I can remember when I was young that there were always cases of a disease spreading over a whole community, and yet some remained untouched.”
Mildred assented. “It’s possible that the Gate has some kind of immunity built into their genetic code, and it’s stronger in the women than the men. It sounds like some of the men have developed mild initial symptoms but no more.”
Ryan nodded slowly. “So you’re saying that mebbe they have it, but it just doesn’t affect them?” And when Mildred nodded, he added thoughtfully, “But it’s still in them, so they can still give it to others, right?”
“Yeah.” Mildred sighed softly. “Which makes the Gate more deadly and dangerous.”
“And makes it more imperative that we get into the redoubt and find the cure,” Ryan stated.
Mildred agreed, adding, “That’s if they actually bothered to cook one up. They seem so crazy they might just have forgotten to do that…”
IT TOOK the companions no time at all to renew their ties with the Gate. Having rested, they renewed old friendships and fell into training with the warriors. J.B. inspected the armory, and was impressed with the work Jon had been doing. Jak sharpened his knife work with the Gate warriors, and Ryan talked tactics with Gloria. Krysty and Dean worked on their marksmanship while Mildred did some body work on rebuilding the muscles bruised in the landslide. Which just left Doc, who wandered around brooding about the past. The sudden reappearance of a disease, the like of which he had thought eradicated by the nukecaust, made him think about the life from which he had been dragged kicking and screaming by the horrors of Operation Chronos and the time trawl that had taken him from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, and then beyond to his present state.
While the others were occupied, Doc grew more morose, and so was glad when the chance came to go out on a recon patrol with some of the Gate women. It would be the first chance any of the companions had to view the redoubt where the Illuminated Ones had their base, and Doc was determined to bring back a full report for the others.
Apart from himself, there were three others in the patrol: a brown-skinned, haughty warrior named Dette, a blonde named Nita who was taller than her compatriots and stood out because of that and her mane of flowing blonde hair, and Cat, who was perpetually nervous and whose hair had been hacked back close to her head, which would have made her look like a boy if not for the obvious assets of womanhood she possessed.
The patrol was to set out in the late afternoon, as the sun began to move down in the sky. That made Doc anxious.
“Will we be able to reach our destination before the dusk makes it too hard to define the area?” he asked as the sec patrol left the camp, the camouflage screens moving back into place behind them.
“Say what?” Nita asked with a frown.
“He means will it be too dark before we get there,” Cat explained, adding to Doc, “She’s not the brightest of the bunch, you know what I’m saying here?”
“Ah,” Doc said simply, not wishing to offend anyone at this stage.
“You saying I’m stupe?” Nita asked in a peeved tone.
“I don’t really have to say it, do I?” Cat replied.
Dette turned on them, her large brown eyes flashing anger. “Will you two shut it? Why the fuck I get sent out with a pair of stupes like you I’ll never know. Keep the noise down and let’s just get moving, okay?”
The brown-skinned warrior turned away without waiting for an answer. Doc cast an eye over all three of the Gate warriors, and wondered why he seemed to have been landed with the three women who seemed to be the most disagreeable of the tribe.
Despite his doubts, the rest of the trip to the redoubt area was uneventful. After their initial spat, the three women worked together well, each one taking a turn to scout ahead for the rest of the party, reporting back so that they could move safely. In deference to Doc’s comparative lack of agility, they traveled on the ground across the woodland, rather than using the treetops in the way the sec party had when the companions had been discovered. It made progress a little slower, as the territory had to be secured more assuredly, but there was still full daylight when they emerged at the edge of the woodland.