“What are you going to do?” Krysty asked, her bright green eyes fixed on Mildred.
“First thing was to find you. We’ve done that. Now we’re going to try to get away from here. Look for Ryan and Trader outside. There’s still no word of them.”
Doc tapped on the floor with his sword stick. “I am personally very strongly in favor of seeking out the throbbing, infected heart of this complex and lancing the pestilence.”
“What?” Dean asked, puzzled.
J.B. answered the boy. “Doc means blow the place apart before we leave.”
“Sounds good to me,” Abe said enthusiastically. “Let’s go light the fire.”
“I’m not at all sure,” Krysty said doubtfully, shaking her head.
Mildred noticed in passing that the bright sentient hair of her friend was much more tightly curled than usual, in its most defensive mode.
“Have you heard anything from Dad, or any word about him?” Dean asked.
“Dad? Ryan? No. They didn’t tell me anything at all. Just that he was lost in the snow with Trader.”
“You sure you’re all right, Krysty?” J.B. asked. “Only you seem sort of distant.”
“Fine. Just that I’m worried about Ryan. I need to see him real triple bad. I have to see him as soon as possible.”
“But we don’t know for sure that he’s still alive, Krysty. The storm was terrible and there’s supposed to be that mutie grizzly out there, as well.”
“Oh, he’s alive all right. I know that.”
“Mean can feel it?” asked Jak, who had always been fascinated by Krysty’s unique mutie talent for sensing what was going on around her.
“Feel?” she repeated, sounding doubtful.
“Sure. Feeling Ryan’s alive. You know.”
She stared at the albino, her brow furrowed, as if she were trying to work out a complex geometric theorem.
The odd moment was broken by J.B. “Someone’s coming this way. Let’s move.”
BUFORD WAS LEADING Ryan and Trader through a maze of narrow corridors, past research labs and operating rooms, storerooms and a vast area that was filled with comp disks.
“This is all the work that’s gone on,” the little scientist told them. “Our past. Our records.”
“You taking us to Krysty?” Ryan grabbed him, fingers biting like steel pincers, making the whitecoat wince and squeak in pain. “You don’t, then you’re dead meat, Buford.”
“I told you. She’s almost certainly in with Professor Crichton at the moment. He has his own private suite at the back of the laboratory where the mat-trans units are kept. All your blasters will be there, as well. So you can get away quickly and not hurt anyone.”
“And the rest of our friends are in their rooms?”
“Sure, Trader, sure.”
“But there’ll be sec men there?” Ryan had the SIG-Sauer cocked and ready in his right hand.
“‘Course. Crichton always has guards around. But I’ll help you take them by surprise and chill them easily.”
Trader squeezed the cheek of the sallow scientist. “Regular prince among men, Buford, aren’t you?”
“Survival is what matters. If I die, then the last few steps of our marathon of research might be damaged and seriously held back for years.”
“That so?” Ryan nodded, interested. “Then we’ll have to be real sure we take good care of you, Ladrow.”
KRYSTY HAD STOPPED, bringing everyone to a halt. “If Ryan’s in the institute, then he’ll probably make for the heart and soul, won’t he?”
Mildred answered. “Could do. But we don’t know what the heart is, or where it is.” She grinned bleakly. “And I don’t believe there’s anything in here that anyone could call a soul.”
“I would not be too surprised to learn that Professor Crichton himself might be found at the core of this wicked place.” Doc rubbed his hands together. “Rather like some vast Shelob of a spider, waiting with infinite patience for its victims to enmesh themselves in its web.”
Krysty nodded. “Doc’s right. Crichton is where Ryan’ll go. That’s where I have to go, too.” She paused a heartbeat. “Where all of us must go.”
“Don’t suppose you know the way?” J.B. asked. “Did the bastards take you there during their experiments on you?”
“Yeah, they did. Follow me.”
RYAN AND TRADER had stopped to hold a brief council of war. Buford had brought them within a door and a corridor of Crichton’s quarters, which were situated close to the end of the research wing where the botched experiment victims had been held.