A small scrap of paper had fallen from the box when J.B. opened it. He leaned down and picked it up from the dirt.
“/’// be keeping an eye out for you,” the message read.
J.B. wasn’t amused.
“So,” Trader said from behind, “you ready to fly?”
The Armorer turned to find the Trader standing next to a sky wag, a great wooden and canvas bird with biwings and single propeller. “You like her?” the older man asked, before going into a series of hacking coughs. He cleared his throat and hawked up a mouthful of blood and phlegm, spirting it off to one side.
“No way. Get up in that thing, hit a hell-wind and it’ll dump you out on your ass,” J.B. replied, walking away. “Thanks for the present.”
“Good day for flying,” Trader called back to J.B. “Not a cloud in the sky.”
He was right. The sky was as open as a traveling gaudy’s front door-and in J.B.’s mind, about as uninviting.
“Step in, we’ll go for a spin,” Trader said, appearing in front of the Armorer.
“You’re no pilot,” J.B. said, starting to back away.
“The hell you say!”
J.B. continued to back up, and pushed against something. He spun and damn if he wasn’t seated in the plane now, the Trader in the second seat behind him with the controls.
And the sky went from sky blue to electric, crackling with lightning. The hell-winds J.B. had men- tioned came sweeping in, the upper atmosphere of much of the world permanently damaged in the nuclear battle between the superpowers.
“Guess we’d better bail,” Trader said mildly, standing in his seat and giving J.B. a two-fingered salute.
“Bail?”
The Trader pointed to his back. “Parachute. Insurance policy. That’s predark slang for covering your ass.”
The big man leaped out, clearing the plane. Even as the craft began to shudder in the bucking winds, uncontrolled, J.B. peered down and watched the chute open, jerking the Trader’s hanging body in a spastic movement.
The Armorer reached into a pocket and took out a cigar, biting down hard on the end.
Hell of a way to die.
J.B. fell, plunging to his doom, surrounded by blue.
Chapter Five
Doc Tanner had started the mat-trans jump with a clear mind and a level head. As far as he could determine, he wasn’t dreaming. If he had been awake, he would undoubtedly have remarked on this as being “most unusual.” Traditionally during a mat-trans jaunt, Doc was cursed with Stygian nightmares of such dire calamities he could hardly withstand the mental assault. When he eventually returned to consciousness, his entire body always ached from thrashing on the floor of the chamber in semiremembered agony.
This time was different.
This time, he was happy to note, he slumbered peacefully.
Doc lay in a feather bed with a sweet-smelling pillow stuffed with fresh straw under his head and a second one gripped in his hands. A smiling crescent moon shone down on him through an open bedroom window, and a gentle summer breeze wafted over his slumbering form, cooling him as he slept.
Then he heard a voice. A woman’s voice.
“Emily?” he asked.
“No, Krysty,” came the reply.
For brief seconds, Doc was confused-was he in bed with another woman? “Howling calamities!” he said in disbelief, fearing for his marriage.
“Right, Doc,” Krysty replied, but he couldn’t hear the words.
“You must speak up,” he said impatiently. “I cannot hear you.”
“Where’s Lori?” the Titian-haired beauty yelled in reply, but again, even with raising her voice and calling out as loudly as possible, Doc could barely hear her voice. The words were faint, as if she were standing far, far away on a distant mountain peak and calling into a valley.
“What?” Doc answered, in a sane, calm, rational speaking voice. “What did you say?”
“Lori! Where is she?” Krysty was closer now. Doc could see her flushed face, smell her sweat. She had been running, or involved in some sort of physical activity. A guilty flash of lust crept through his loins, for after all, he was in his bedchamber and dressed only in a nightshirt, and one of the most ravishing and sexy women he’d ever laid eyes on was standing right next to his bed, wearing a skintight shut and breathing heavily.