The place was still spotlessly maintained, though the air quality seemed less good.
Neither man spoke. When you were on a recce patrol like that, you never spoke unless you had something to say.
Their search ended at the top of another, longer flight of stairs.
“That’s it,” J.R said, moving forward to investigate the blank wall of pale cream sec steel that blocked off the corridor from floor to ceiling.
Ryan looked at the control panel at the side. “Been sealed off.”
The coded letters and number buttons had been hidden behind a sheet of clear sec plas that would resist anything except some serious explosives.
“Not taking any chances of anyone getting into there, were they?”
“Right.” Ryan tapped a finger on the cold steel of the huge door. “No point in wasting any time here. Let’s get back to the others and try that side passage.”
A SIGN OVER THE NEXT DOOR read Leaving Section 4 Entering Section 5.
It was a manual lock, a small silver button, arrowed for up and down.
“Can I, Dad?”
“Sure.”
The boy pressed it. A red light glowed under the “up” panel, then went out. For a few moments nothing happened at all. Dean tried it again.
The red light stayed off, but the heavy door began to move upward, faltering three times before finally reaching the top and halting.
“First sign of malfunction,” J.B. said.
“So it is human after all.” Doc grinned.
It was almost the first sign of a normal response that he’d shown since coming out of the gateway chamber. He’d asked nothing about Sukie’s absence, seeming to accept her last-second change of mind and disappearance.
Ryan had picked up the heel of a woman’s boot that had been lying inside the chamber, slipping it in his pocket. His belief was that it had come off one of Sukie’s boots, and he decided it would be better if Doc didn’t see itparticularly as it seemed to have been sliced cleanly off, halfway up, by some unimaginable force.
Dean was going to run ahead into the section in front of them, but his father called him back.
“Wait. Keep together.”
Krysty touched Ryan on the arm. “There’s some sort of feeling in here, lover.”
“What?”
She shook her head, her bright green eyes showing doubt. “Not sure. Just a sort of background I don’t know like a backgroundhum of menace. It’s both close and far away at the same time. Best be careful.”
“Should we go back?”
“No. Just take care.”
IT WAS WHAT THEY’D HOPED fora self-contained area of the sprawling military complex, with a forty-bed dormitory, kitchen and ablution facilities.
The sleeping arrangements were single bunk beds, with plastic spring supports and shrink-wrapped mattresses.
The kitchen area was totally, hygienically clean, with nothing on any of the shelves or in any of the capacious range of polished steel cupboards.
Water ran from the taps there, as well as in the shower and toilet sections. It was flat, recirculated water that Mildred pronounced probably safe to drink, though she commented on how poor the air quality was.
J.B. and Jak quickly toured section five, reporting back to Ryan and the others that this part of the redoubt was also totally sealed off.
“Sec doors are locked at every exit. The only door open in the place seems to be the one between here and the gateway section,” J.B. stated. “There’s the vent grilles in the bathhouse, but nothing larger than a rat could get through there. And it’s too clean for rats.”
Trader didn’t try to hide his disappointment. “No blasters or ammo?”
“Some you lose” Abe said.
“I know that, you stupe, Lol!”
“I’m Abe, Trader.”
The flash of temper evaporated as quickly as it had flared up. “Yeah, ‘course you are. ‘Course you are.”
“Can we go to bed, Dad?”
“Sure. Place is locked up tight, so there’s no need to post a watch.”
He turned to Krysty. “How about your feeling?”
“Still there. Insistent. Not human. But I never felt anything quite like it. Definitely a sort of threat.”
Ryan nodded. “Since we can’t get anywhere else we’ll use the beds. Then jump out of here in the morning. That way nothing much can go wrong.”
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