The third one had a tilted, kinked roof, and all of the exterior glass was gone.
“Earth slip,” the scientist commented, “about forty-five years ago.”
“Earth’s lip,” Doc said. “Lip o’suction pump and never give up the ship boys and girls come out to plays the thing.” He slapped himself on the wrist. “My deep apologies, ladies and gentlemen. I think my brain has become fevered at the thought of entering the demesne of those wonderful breed, the scientists. I can scarcely contain my excitement at the prospect.”
Buford stared hard at Doc. “You seem a person of some education, outlander Tanner.”
“Down in our friendly little ville of Miskatucket we were blessed with a marvelous library. Preserved in all of its predark wonder, where I misspent so much of my halcyon salad days. Housed in the spooky old Arkham house on Innsmouth Avenue; Including a rare copy of the Necronomicon , by the mad Arab, Alhazred.” He smiled. “Though not of course that notorious edition bound in human skin with the erratum on page 116.”
Ryan turned to him. “Doc?”
“You are about to suggest that I shut up, are you not, old friend.”
“I am.”
“Then I will.”
Mildred touched Ladrow Buford on the arm. He jumped sideways as though a hot golden scarab had fallen onto his hand. “We are My people are not used to sudden and unexpected physical contact like that.”
“Sorry. Just wanted to know what the surviving sections were being used for?”
“They have been united for the core research that goes on in the institute.”
“And what’s that?”
He giggled. “Soon,” be said. “All in good time.”
Chapter Nineteen
“No attempt from the chickenshit bastards to take our blasters away from us,” Trader said. “That’s what’s really making me suspicious.”
Krysty lay recovering in one of the beds, a fresh white sheet pulled up to her chin, her hands outside, folded on her breast. Doc had already remarked that she looked like a statue on a medieval crusader’s tomb.
Now she smiled at Trader. “I can see why you’ve lived as long as you have,” she said quietly, “if you get suspicious just because there’s nothing to be suspicious about.”
“I don’t see a threat here,” J.B. said. “Trader’s right. With the armament and manpower they have here in this ville, they could have taken us out more or less anytime.” He stopped, looking puzzled. “But, why the dark night do they want us here in the first place?”
Dean nodded, sitting cross-legged on the bottom of Krysty’s metal-framed bed. “Right. They tell us how nobody ever got in and out alive. Show us their barriers and their sec men.” He hesitated. “Though I thought that Ellison guy was a flash dude. One with the mustache and the big scar by his mouth. Seemed friendly. What was I saying? Yeah, they got all this power and they smile and ask us in. Too friendly, I reckon, Dad.”
“Will come into parlor said spider to fly.” Jak was slouched on a folding chair in the corner. “Christina taught me that.”
Ryan walked quietly to the door and tried the cream plastic handle. It turned easily, and he peeked out into the corridor, expecting to see a sec guard or two standing there watching him. But there was nothing.
He walked back to the others and sat on the bed by his son, reaching for Krysty’s hand. Though it clearly took her something of an effort to move at all, she responded and gripped his fingers. But with only a fraction of her normal strength.
“I’ll be fine byby tomorrow, lover,” she said. “You know using the power of the Earth Mother always leaves me feeling like the bottom of a cockatiel’s cage.”
“Seems a good place to rest. Buford said that the rest of us can meet up with the baron of the place. Or whatever he calls himself.”
“I want to prowl around,” Mildred said. “You know my specialty was cryonics, and the sign said this was a center for it. Well, I tell you that I never heard of any public research institute up in the middle of a national park.”
“Military?” J.B. suggested.