Krysty looked around, her head back, closing her eyes, almost as though she were tasting the air.
Ryan caught the movement, and his hand went to the butt of the blaster.
“Trouble?” he asked.
“Yeah. Trouble.”
Chapter Twenty
“The jaguar. Monkeys. Birds.” Ryan punched his right fist into his left hand. “All of them moving west. All of them moving away from something.”
“What?”
“Fire?”
“No smoke. Wind’s coming at us from that direction. If it was a big fire, we’d smell it.”
“Anyway, this isn’t like the barrancas of the Southwest. Dust dry, ready for a spark to fire the tinder. This is all so wet, I doubt you could start a decent blaze, even with all the gasoline in this tank.”
“So, what? Muties?” Krysty asked. “Mebbe. Slavers? Wrong direction. Wrong direction for the Jaguar people, as well.”
Krysty shook her head. “I’m getting a feeling like I never had before.”
“Tell it.”
“Like looking into the midnight sky, in the mountains, watching all the stars. Countless diamonds. The eyes of angels, is what Uncle Tyas McCann used to call them, drawing your soul out into infinity, far, far out.”
“You mean you feel like stars are falling? Something like a chem storm? Nuke junk from deep space finally dropping back to Earth?”
“No. Not like that, lover. But sort of” Krysty stamped her foot in frustration. “Gaia! I can’t describe it. Can’t focus on it. Every time I try, the image kind of slips away through my fingers like limitless grains of sand.”
“Volcano? Could be that, Krysty. Some sort of quake or eruption.”
“I guess it could. Don’t know.”
“We’d best take us a look.” Ryan started to walk toward the base perimeter and the rotted coils of wire. “If it’s coming this way, we could all be in danger.”
“It’s slow.”
“How’s that?”
Krysty nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure of that. Whatever it is, it’s not coming at a dead run.”
“Still need to take a look.”
She hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s such a real good idea, lover.”
“Can’t not go.” It was a simple, flat statement. “You stay here and I’ll go.”
“No. No, if we go, then we go together.”
THERE WAS rapid confirmation that something was badly wrong east of the base.
There was a narrow hunting trail that Ryan started to follow through the towering trees, Krysty right behind him, her own Smith amp; Wesson double-action 640 Model cocked in her right hand, fingers close to the trigger.
Almost immediately they started to encounter all manner of forest life, all, without a single exception, moving in the opposite direction.
West.
First came the faster animals, beginning with a dozen different kinds of deer, most less than three feet at the shoulder. But a herd of a dozen mutie bucks came thundering along, forcing Ryan and Krysty to jump for cover. These creatures stood ten feet at the shoulder and had horns close to six feet in length.
None of the deer took any notice of the two humans, darting around them, some taking to invisible pathways through the lush vegetation.
There were the tiny pigs, with even tinier piglets, squeaking and squealing on their frightened way.
Twice more they saw jaguars, proud, elegant beasts, princes of the jungle, now reduced to skulking, scampering animals, running west, belly down, tails curled submissively, golden eyes darting nervously from side to side.
A bird like a peacock strutted by, but its long ornamental tail drooped sadly, the brilliant feathers trailing through the mud of the pathway.
More monkeys dived among the overhead vines, several of them stopping and urinating in the direction of Ryan and Krysty, who were able to dodge beneath the umbrellalike leaves.
The ground shook with the thunder of hooves, and Ryan turned and dragged Krysty off the trail again.
It was water buffalo, a herd of twenty or thirty of them, with long, curved horns that ended in vicious spikes. They were charging along, jostling one another, flanks streaked with mud and white salt, red eyes wide open in terror.
Ryan and Krysty pushed through some thorn-bushes, taking shelter behind the wide trunk of a walnut tree, pressing against it as the herd raged by.