Genesis Echo (Deathlands 25) by James Axler

A few flakes of fluffy white drifted gently by the window, carried on a light easterly wind. Ryan stared at what had once been a massive parking lot for the Melissa Crichton Institute, now lying under a dusting of snow.

Krysty yawned. “Much? Is it white over?”

“Not quite. By the look of the sky, it won’t be long before it starts coming down for real.”

“I’ll spend some time with the whitecoats today.”

“Sure you feel well enough?”

“Only talk.”

He started to get dressed, taking his clothes off the green ribbed radiator fixed to the wall beneath the window. “Might ask Buford or his baron whether we can go out. Getting cabin fever from being locked up in this artificial air.”

“Professor, lover. You keep calling Crichton a baron. He’s not that.”

Ryan nodded, halfway through lacing his combat boots. “Yeah, you’re right. I do. Just that I don’t see much difference between this place and any other fortified frontier ville. There’s sec men and power, just like a ville.”

“Not many frontier villes have a mat-trans unit of their own, do they?”

He sat up, stretching the tight muscles across the small of his back. Feeling the usual morning stiffness that dated back years, when a performing camel had rolled on him during a fight at a wild animal show up near Peoria.

“It was only the sign. Painted over years ago. Doesn’t mean they still have an actual chamber.”

“It would make sense.” Krysty peeled off the thin cotton T-shirt that she slept in, revealing her breasts, the nipples peaking from the morning chill in their room. Ryan stopped and stared at her, but she shook her head. “No, lover. I’m still a little tender after last night.”

“All right. You were saying that it would make sense if there was a gateway here.”

“Military sponsorship.”

He nodded. “You know what would be profoundly triple exciting, don’t you?”

“No. But I can tell from your face that you’re just about to tell me.”

“If they had a gateway and it worked, and they knew how it worked. Still had instructions how to control where you jump to. That would really be something. Make such a fireblasted change to all of our lives.”

Krysty’s ability to get dressed in no time at all constantly dazzled Ryan. Most times in Deathlands he wouldn’t feel anywhere near secure enough to take off any of his clothes when sleeping. But even when he did strip down, he always figured that he was a fast dresser.

One moment Krysty was standing by her bed, magnificently naked, her hair like a torrent of living fire, pouring over her shoulders. Next moment she had on her blue jacket and matching pants, tucked into the tops of her dark blue Western boots, with their chiseled silver points at the toes and the embroidered silver spread-winged falcons on the fronts, running her long, strong fingers through her hair, bringing it to some kind of stubborn order. She smiled at him.

“Like what you see, outlander Cawdor?”

“You could say that, outlander Wroth.”

“You don’t look too bad for an old man yourself, outlander Cawdor.”

“Old! There’s a whole lot less than ten years between us, as you know. And it’s common fact that women grow older much faster than men.”

“That so?”

“Yeah, that’s so.”

“Isn’t.”

“Is.”

“I’ll arm-wrestle you for it.”

“No way. You’d cheat and use the Gaia power.”

She shook her head. “Hope it’ll be a good long while before I call on that again.”

FOOD WAS SERVED TO THEM at eight-thirty in the larger, three-bed room by a couple of sec men, accompanied by the scar-faced man that Ryan had run up against the previous day.

His whole manner had changed, and he smiled at the group as he came in through the door. He noticed Ryan glance at his face, and he looked a little embarrassed. “Oh, the mustache,” he said. “I figured it was time to get rid of it. Had it for three seasons through already. ‘Ellison,’ I said to myself. ‘Can’t hide behind that bushy growth for the rest of your days.’ So, last night, before sleep time, off it came.”