He decided to take the chance and carefully eased open his right eye again.
This time, the sickness was less insistent.
The first impression was the certainty that the jump had, at least, carried them away from the partly ruined redoubt in New Mexico.
The silver armaglass had gone, replaced by walls of vivid, flame like orange, a color so hot and bright that it almost hurt to look at it.
The door was shut firmly, but there was something on the floor by the entrance that looked like the broken heel off a woman’s boot.
Ryan glanced around the six-sided room, checked that everyone had made the jump.
Sukie Smith was missing, which was no surprise.
Doc had fallen sideways, into the space where the woman had been sitting. His hair was ruffled, a tiny worm of dark crimson blood creeping from the corner of his open mouth.
J.B. and Mildred seemed to have supported each other through the jump. Both still sat upright, though both were unconscious.
Abe had been sick all over his shirt and pants, his face the color of flour-and-water paste. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Jak had pulled his bony knees up under his chin. His ruby eyes were slit open, staring toward Ryan, but there was no indication there that he had actually come around and was seeing anything.
Dean was showing signs of recovery, his tongue licking his dry lips. His right hand was trembling, the fingernails making a faint scraping sound on one of the metal disks in the floor.
Ryan glanced up and saw that the last swirling fragments of the mist were evaporating.
“Colors of all” Krysty mumbled, her hand still locked in Ryan’s.
He looked last across to his old leader. Trader had slipped sideways into a kind of hunched, prenatal position. It took Ryan several seconds to work out quite what had happened. As soon as be realized, he pulled himself from Krysty’s grip and tried to move across the smooth floor, though it involved an enormous effort of will.
The Armalite was now cradled by the prone figure, the butt between the knees. Trader’s index finger was snugly around the trigger of the blaster.
And the muzzle was between his lips.
“Fireblast!” The struggle to crawl to Trader, so soon after recovering consciousness from the jump, was immensely difficult.
“Hi, Dad.” Dean had come around, with the natural resilience of the young. “What’re”
Jak was moving as well, with an exaggerated slowness, squinting across at Trader.
But it was down to Ryan.
If anyone disturbed Trader, or forced him into a sudden movement, then the finger would squeeze the trigger, the blaster would fire and the orange arma-glass walls would be splattered with matted hair, ragged skin, splinters of jagged bone and a gruel of blood and brains.
“Don’t touch hand,” Jak whispered, stopping and doubling over, retching with a noisy violence.
Ryan had thought it through that far. Trying to move Trader’s finger would also lead to the Armalite being fired. But his fogged mind hadn’t yet come up with the answer.
He reached his old war chief, seeing the first flickering movements that meant he was coming around. Time was running out like gasoline from a ruptured tank.
“Safety,” J.B. breathed from Ryan’s right side. “Put on the safety.”
He gripped the scarred barrel of the blaster in his left hand and carefully eased the safety from the fire position with his right.
Trader’s eyes snapped open, staring blankly into Ryan’s face, totally without any recognition. His lips mimed the word “Fucker,” and he pulled the trigger, oblivious to the end of the muzzle jammed into his mouth.
Ryan knew better than to try to remove the Armalite from Trader by force.
Over the years he’d sometimes wondered what would happen if the two of them had ever gotten into a no-holds-barred fight. In the early war wag days, the idea that he might ever be able to beat his leader was nonsense. Trader would’ve simply broken him into small pieces.
Later, it had preoccupied Ryan to the extent that he had seriously considered trying to provoke Trader into a knockdown, kicking and gouging brawl to try to test himself. But he had enough sense to know that it would be a fight that he could not truly win. If he lost to Trader, then it would diminish the respect of the rest of the war wags’ crews. If he beat Trader, then the old man would almost certainly have chilled him.