J.B. took a few steps into the side turning, stooping to pick something up that was laid against the bottom of the wall. He held it out to the others.
“A 9mm bullet,” Jak said. “Got different look. Not like most.”
“Equaloy,” Trader observed, bringing it closer to his eyes to examine, angling it for the best illumination from the overhead strip lights.
The Armorer nodded. “Right. Hardly ever come across them. Think they must still have been sort of experimental when the big fires started burning.”
Mildred took the unfired round from Trader. “What’s so special about it, John? The coating’s like plastic or”
“Nylon. Self-lubricating.”
“Feels too light.” Mildred handed it on to Dean. “Whys that?”
“Aluminum. From what I know about them, the idea was that the bullet was high velocity, but when it strikes a target it checks momentum very quickly, so all of the kinetic energy goes flowing onward.”
“Devastating,” Ryan said. “Could do with a few hundred rounds of that. Must have had a massive effect on anyone who got in the way of it.”
Mildred moved to the wall and ran her finger over the chipped holes. “You’re right, Abe. They’re bullet holes, all right.”
Doc wasn’t at all interested in the rare example of predark ammo. He had joined the doctor, staring down at their feet. “I suspect that if you were to analyze that black substance that stains the floor, my dear Doctor, you might well find that it is almost certainly human blood.”
She stopped and rubbed her finger over it. “Old, old, blood, Doc. But you won’t find me arguing with you over it.” She straightened and looked again at the wall. “Firing squad.”
“I fear that it was.”
Everyone gathered around. Ryan was surprised. The evidence of some quasi official executions wasn’t something that they’d come across before. It spoke of a violently traumatic episode in the last days, or hours, as the sky grew dark with the foreign missiles, of a mutiny or a rebellion.
“We’ll never know,” Krysty said.
They moved on.
THEY PASSED AN ENTRANCE or stairwell on the right, seventy paces farther along. But it had been sealed with shutters of sec steel. Without any plas-ex or some grens, they had no way of opening them.
“Getting bored,” Trader said. “Thought these redoubts were treasure houses.”
“Nobody told you that,” J.B. protested. “This one looks like they did a good number on evacuating it. Odds are we won’t find anything.”
“Then we might as well make another jump and get out to someplace more interesting.”
“Patience, Trader,” Ryan said. “You used to say that a man who walks sees a whole lot more than a man who runs.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“Anyway,” Mildred said, “I’d like to check outside. Find out where the jumps taken us.”
“I’d like some sleep,” Dean said, yawning to prove his point. “Triple whacked.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Abe agreed. “Looks like there’s another passage just ahead.”
“Vid cameras following us.” Jak pointed at the tiny boxes with the gleaming lenses that were suspended from the angle between wall and arched ceiling. They roamed ceaselessly, back and forth, sending their pictures to some distant, unmanned sec center at the heart of the redoubt.
Ryan held up his hand as they reached the junction with the side corridor on their left. It was more constricted and appeared to climb upward.
“Hold it here. I’ll go check with J.B., just a little farther along. Rest of you wait here on orange alert. Be back within fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll take charge here,” Trader said.
“No. Nobody takes charge here. Jak and Krysty been around with J.B. and me for long enough to know how things go down. Let it lie, Trader.”
The older man nodded, stifling a yawn. “Make it quick. I could do with some sleep as well as the boy here.” He patted Dean on his shoulder.
“Fifteen minutes at the outside.”
IT DIDN’T TAKE ANYWHERE near that long. They passed another sealed exit in the first hundred yards, then the passage narrowed and climbed much more steeply, with several flights of short, broad steps, a ramp at the side for wheeled vehicles.