“You sure?” Ryan checked the mouth of the cave, but it was silent and empty.
“Yeah.”
Ryan knelt and cleaned the panga on the coat of the wolf he’d killed. He sheathed it and drew his blaster, then looked down into the valley.
“What?” Jak asked.
“Thought I saw something.”
Jak looked with him, but the flashes didn’t appear again. “Nothing now.”
“Mebbe,” Ryan admitted. He moved cautiously into the cave. The animal stink was intense. Taking a self-light from his cache, he struck it against the side of the cave.
The flame flared, then settled down to a cheery nimbus that filled most of the pave. It was about five paces across by four deep. The roof was low enough that Ryan had to stoop to keep from banging his head. At the back a chasm sank into the wall. Before he could get there to investigate, the self-light had burned down to his fingers. He lit another one and moved forward again.
The chasm ran back farther than he could see, but there was no animal smell in it. The flickering flame revealed a gentle breeze coming in through the cave mouth and blowing back through the chasm.
“Wolves not live there,” Jak said. He sniffed again. “Nothing live there.”
Ryan touched off one more self-light and examined the crack as much as he could. The sides were smooth, but had a rough texture, shaped by the elements rather than the hands of men. He took that as a positive. The passage appeared to narrow at times, but it remained big enough for him to walk through as long as he minded his head.
“Even if something else did live here,” Ryan said, “if we post a guard, it’ll have a hard time getting in.” He dropped the self-light. “We need a place to hole up and get a few hours’ rest. This is it as far as I’m concerned. Let’s go get the others. We can bring up some wood for a fire.”
Chapter Eleven
“You should be getting some sleep, Doc.”
“I will in a minute, my dear Ryan. Right now I just want to look up at the heavens and see if I recognize the constellations.”
Ryan had volunteered for first watch after the others had settled in. He’d brought a blanket to wrap up in, hoping to block some of the chill. It provided enough warmth to feel almost comfortable, but not enough to make him relaxed enough for sleep. He sat a dozen paces to the left of the cave mouth, where he could easily see along the way they’d come. He kept the Steyr across his knees.
Doc carried a blanket with him, as well. It was as thin as Ryan’s, and folded compactly enough to fit in a shoe box.
Hunkering down, his knees poking up in the air on either side of him, Doc sat and gazed at the stars with his white hair blowing around him. He pulled the blanket up to his chin.
“Morning’s going to come bastard early, Doc.”
“I know,” the old man said in a voice that was strangely gentle. “I am excited, I suppose.” He looked at Ryan and smiled.
“With everything I have been throughpardon me, we have been throughI guess I had never really thought I would make it back here.”
Ryan looked at Doc for a long minute. “We don’t know you’re back anywhere yet.”
Doc nodded. “You may not be so certain, dear man, but I am. As you would know your home, so do I. This, whatever may remain of her, is Britain.” He pointed into the sky. “See that group of stars by the Big Dipper? Those are Pollux and Castor, part of the group that make up the constellation Gemini. And there, that bright one? That’s Regulus, a heavenly gem set in Leo’s mane. It is always best seen in the spring. And there is Arcturus, part of Bootes, the Herdsman. And between him and Leo is fair Virgo. Her crown jewel is Spica. No, dear fellow, I am not imagining things.”
“Even so,” Ryan said, “things may not be as you remember them.”
“And what, pray tell, in this land of horror upon horror, is?”