“You want a lie-down, Doc?” Ryan suggested. “Over in the shade?”
“Dr. Wyeth, would you be so kind as to confirm to these unbelievers that I have not mislaid all of my marbles?”
The woman grinned wolfishly. “No idea what you’re blabbering about, Doc. Always knew you were at least two sandwiches shy of a picnic but this”
“You!” He stepped toward Mildred, flourishing his ebony cane at her.
She backed away, still smiling. “All right, all right.” She turned to the others. “The old goat was digging out references to a great kids’ book called Treasure Island . Rattling yarn.”
Everyone except Rain Flower laughed at the expression on Doc’s face, mixing relief and anger.
“Dad!”
It was Dean, staggering out from the shattered entrance of the base carrying a big rectangular metal box, painted olive green, with a string of coded letters and numerals stenciled white on its lid and sides.
“What you find, son?”
“Look and see.”
With an effort he managed to balance the corner of the box on the crumbling concrete of the pillbox, keeping it there with his chest.
J.B. lifted the lid, peering inside. “Dark night!”
Ryan looked over his friend’s shoulder, seeing that it was a standard army-issue container of the kind that they’d seen in many old redoubts, virtually all of them empty.
But this box was more than half full.
With grenades.
They were of mixed kinds, some with flip-top firing mechanisms and the rest with two-step buttons, one to arm the gren and one to trigger the firing system.
They were all a dull metallic silvery color, with bands of different colors around their tops.
Ryan could remember some of the color combinations but not all of them.
“Scarlet and blue’s the implode, isn’t it?” he said, picking one from the box and weighing it in his hand. He examined the slightly pitted surface of the metal, seeing that there was a trail of thick liquid drying around the top, looking like it might have leaked from the fuse elements.
“Yeah,” J.B. agreed. “Got a fine mix in here, Dean. One or two of everything. That one’s a frag and that’s a burner. Nerve gas in that.”
“Is this a hi-ex?” Jak asked. “Seen some like this back in the swamps.”
The Armorer took it from him. “Yeah, it is. Quite a fair bit of corrosion in some of them.”
“They’re greased,” Dean insisted, steadying the box when it threatened to topple off its perch.
“No. Grease has dried by now,” Mildred argued. “Not surprising after all these years. Bottom of the box is rusted clean through in this corner, as well.”
“There’s smoke and lights,” J.B. said. “Think this one’s a hi-alt gren. Remotes, delays and shraps. It’s a good mix, Dean. You did well to find them.”
“They were buried under a sort of pile of shelves that had been eaten through by ants and fallen down. Think we can use them?” he asked J.B.
“Against the Jaguar people and the slavers you mean? Don’t see why not, though I’m a bit worried about the stuff leaking from some of them.”
All of the friends had taken gleaming grens from the metal box, except for Rain Flower, who had moved several steps away from the group, fingers knotting in front of her, betraying her intense nervousness.
“Be useful,” Ryan said. He held a frag gren, looking down at a colorless sticky liquid that was seeping from under the flip-top firing mechanism. “But”
“But what, Dad?”
“But I’m a long way from being certain that they’re still safe, son.”
“Let’s try one.”
“Too much noise. Don’t want to bring ourselves some unwelcome company, Dean.”
“Could be trainers,” Jak suggested. “Found some myself back home in bayous. Old armory. Thought found best weapons in Deathlands. All filled plastic. No ex-plas.” He ran his fingers through his long white hair. “Found some ring pulls in same place. Writing gone off them all so didn’t know what they were. Exciting.”
“What were they, Jak?” Dean asked.
“Canned cabbage.” He pulled a wry face. “All dissolved into kind of porridge. Threw away.”
“We could test one of these, Ryan,” J.B. said. “Heave one into the heart of the building. Walls and roof’ll muffle explosion. Mebbe use a delay. It shouldn’t make too much of a bang in there. Then we could all take a couple with us.”