“Easy walk?”
She nodded, half turning to glance over her shoulder at the one-eyed man. “Easy for me. I am used to walking. Not so easy for all of you.” It seemed as if her eyes searched out Doc when she said that.
He smiled at her, showing his wonderful teeth. “My dear child, you do me wrong. It is perfectly true that there are certain segments of my body that function less well than once they did. But that doesn’t apply to all the parts. I am still capable of keeping up on a gentle stroll through the forest.” He plucked out his swallow’s-eye kerchief and wiped sweat from his brow.
“Just as long as we pause now and then for the briefest of rests.”
The young woman looked puzzled. Jak touched her on the arm, making her jump like a startled deer. “Doc says he can walk all right,” he said.
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
RAIN FLOWER TOOK DOC at his word, setting an even more brisk pace, deeper and deeper into the jungle. The trail grew more narrow, and she turned to ask Ryan to use his panga to hack away some overgrown strands of liana.
“Looks like this track isn’t used all that much,” he commented, wiping the sticky green ichor from the polished steel blade and resheathing it.
“We afraid spirits of past. Nobody comes this way for long years.”
Krysty moved alongside Ryan. “Why are we going to look at this ghost-haunted place, lover?”
“Never know what you might find. Itzcoatl said something about there being a fight there in predark times. If the natives are scared of it, then you never know what might be there waiting, untouched.”
“And whatever walks there walks alone,” added Doc, who’d joined them in time to hear the end of their conversation. “As the wonderful Shirley Jackson once said.”
J.B. was at their heels. “If it was an army base and it was sealed like the redoubts, then there’s a good chance of picking up some ammo or some unknown weaponry.”
“Soon there,” Rain Flower said. “Water there.”
“Could do with a drink,” Mildred stated. “Amazing how quickly you can get dehydrated in such damp weather.”
“IT’S AN M-551,” J.B. said, surveying a rusted heap of scrap metal that lay almost buried in the undergrowth just off the trail.
“Tank?” Ryan asked, doubtfully. He could see the tracks, fallen into ribbons of orange decay, and what might have been the barrel of a heavy cannon.
“Light tank,” the Armorer amended. “It had a four-man crew. Carried a missile launcher, as well as a range of machine guns. Used to be called the Sheridan. It was employed a lot out in Nam.”
“Has it been here ever since the nukecaust of 2001?” Mildred asked. “I can’t believe that there’s anything left of it.”
“No strong winds. No frost to break it up.” J.B. reached out and touched a piece of the side paneling, crumbling it between his fingers like red sand. “Just rotting quietly away here in the jungle.”
“What happened to its crew?” Mildred asked.
“I’ll look,” Dean chirped, eagerly vaulting up onto the front of the ancient vehicle.
Rain Flower rubbed her knuckle on her forehead, turning away, looking frightened.
“Don’t worry,” said Ryan reassuringly. “Any ghosts are long, long dead.”
The hatch above the commander’s control position was open, hanging on by a few threads of rusting steel. Dean knelt and started to lean in.
“Look for snakes,” the young woman called, stopping him dead. “Big snakes here.”
The boy hesitated. He banged his fist a few times, generating a hollow, dull ringing sound. Nothing happened, except for a flight of vivid yellow parakeets rising, screeching, into the upper branches of the trees.
He slowly lowered his head inside the turret of the old tank, staying motionless for a few moments. “Nothing,” he called, his voice muffled and echoing. “Stripped bare.”
“Come on back,” Ryan said. “Best stay on the trail. What’s left of it. Could be mined.”
J.B. nodded. “Probably antipersonnel rather than magnetic. Wouldn’t expect any big military move against the base. More likely paratroops. light-armed skirmish unit. And any mines laid way back before the long winters must mostly have deteriorated by now.” He took off his fedora and mopped his forehead. “They’d have antidisturbance devices fitted, as well.”