Genesis Echo (Deathlands 25) by James Axler

Doc and Sukie were trailing at the back.

Ryan overheard some parts of their conversation, realizing that Doc was attempting to explain the inexplicable concept of matter transfer and what making a “jump” would mean. He seemed to be doing his best to try to reassure her, but was generally making things worse.

“It is true that there is sometimes a small element of nausea involved.”

“Bein’ sick?”

“Just a little. I believe that I have made dozens of such jumps by now, and I have avoided being sick on several of them. So it isn’t too unpleasant.”

“You pass out though?”

“Briefly.”

“I’m getting to think I should go look for my sister in Hope Springs, Doc.”

“There is the rest of your life to try to do that, my dear lady.”

“But if something goes wrong on this jump, then I won’t have any rest of my life.”

Ryan climbed a little faster and the conversation faded away behind him.

THE ORIGINAL ENTRANCE to the military complex had been wiped away by the explosion, and the way in now lay through a great scar in the raw rock. It was concealed from below by the angle and gradient of the mountainside and opened into the rubble-strewed remnants of a wide corridor.

Ryan wasn’t surprised to find, when he reached the top, that there were no signs of anyone having entered the redoubt since their last departure from it. The dust that lay thickly over everything around the inner passage was undisturbed.

The rows of concealed lights in the curved ceiling had all been destroyed, and the carved-out interior of the mountain was almost dark.

Ryan stepped back to the brink and called out to Doc and Sukie to hurry up. “Time’s running out if we’re to jump tonight! Getting black.”

“We are making our best efforts, my friend.”

“Well, try making some even better ones,” Trader shouted, “or you get up here and find we’ve all gone.”

Doc said something to Sukie, but they couldn’t hear what it was.

“SO THIS IS YOUR BOX of tricks, is it, Ryan?” Trader stood in the small anteroom, the main control consoles whirring and flickering behind him, staring at the door into the mat-trans chamber.

“Yeah. Inside, close the door. The metal disks in the floor and ceiling glow. There’s a kind of a mist filters down from the top. You become briefly unconscious”

J.B. interrupted him. “We figure that’s the actual moment of leaving here and being transmitted or transferred, all the way to there.”

“Wherever that is.” Dean grinned.

Trader ruffled his hair. “Yeah, that’s the most interesting part of all this, son.”

“What’s that panel of numbers and letters by the side of the door?” Sukie asked. Ryan noticed that her voice sounded high and strained.

“Control codes,” Doc replied. “Sadly, at the time of what is called skydark, all of the relevant documentation and comp disks have been wiped clean or destroyed or have quite simply vanished. So we have no way at all of understanding what any combination might do.”

“Why not just hit two or three at random?” Trader suggested. “See what happens?”

“No.” Ryan tried to explain. “Some of the redoubts built at the very end of the twentieth century, before the big fires and the long winters came, were destroyed. Probably a whole lot of them were. We’ll never know. And the rest have been mainly hidden since then. We kind of luck into them from inside when we jump. But some have been damaged.”

“So?”

“So, the fact that we’ve never jumped into a vacuum, or into the middle of a million tons of powdered concrete and crushed steel shows there’s a safeguard built in. Hit the buttons at random and not know what you’re doing could, for instance, override that safety device.”

“Oh, yeah. See what you mean, Ryan.”

“So, is everyone ready?”

“You sure that little box of silvery glass will hold us?” Trader asked.

“Sure.”

Sukie raised a hand. “Is there time for me to go back and find some place to take a leak?”

Abe cackled with laughter. “Make one of these jumps and you’ll probably piss yourself anyway. So why bother?”