“That’d be neutron,” Krysty commented. “Take out life and leave things standing. The idea was you could come in and take over. Didn’t figure on doomsday and everyone gone everywhere.”
During the afternoon, they reached the ruins of a ma-jor highway, which blocked their path, coursing like a stone arrow from north to south. A couple of hundred yards to their right was a tumbled sign, hanging off its broken support. Jak trotted off, and Krysty followed him. They came back together.
“What’s it say?” Ryan asked.
“Garden State something. Begins with a P and an A, so it might be Parkway. Some roads was called that kind of name.” Krysty was seized with a coughing fit from the dust they’d kicked up. “Gaia! Could do with some fresh water.”
They crossed the wide six-lane highway and kept mov-ing west.
During the next day and a half, they found the land was changing. The bleakness gradually eased away, being re-
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placed by a greener, softer look. The arid sand was cov-ered in clumps of coarse grass that slowly became gentler turf. Here and there they found small copses of live oak and sycamore. And there were flowers again.
Purple orchis jostled among clusters of delicate starry campions. Huge sundrops overshadowed tiny arrow-leaved violets. The six walked at a steady pace through fragrant meadows, past streams that ran east toward the sea.
They found a fine place to set up camp for the night near a clean stream that ran through a pool, which was like liquid crystal and fully ten feet deep with a rock bot-tom. Trees grew in abundance, but well spread, so that it would be hard for anyone to come at them unseen, not that they’d found any sign of human activity since they’d come ashore.
For supper they opened more of the self-heats, scrap-ing out the spun-soya contents. The fire of tumbled branches was burning brightly, sending a crackling fount of red-gold sparks bursting into the cool night air.
Krysty got up, stretching herself like a tall, elegant cat. She walked the few paces to the pool, bending and put-ting her hand into it.
“Not too cold,” she said.
“You going in, lover?” Ryan asked.
“Tempting. Lori, you want to wash?”
“Why?”
Krysty laughed. “You kill me, kid. You wash because you get dirty. Right now it’s the time of month for me to need to keep extra clean.”
“When you get bleeding? Why is it dirty?”
The four men listened, interested in hearing what an-swer Krysty would give the younger girl.
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“It’s… Gaia! If you don’t know why you need to wash, then mebbe you an’ me should talk some, Lori. Get your clothes off and come in the water with me, and I’ll tell you some facts of life. Your mother should have… No, for-get that.” She turned to Ryan, face flushed in the fire-light. “Wipe that grin off, you stupe ape! And stay here and let us get bathed without you ogling at us.”
“I shall sink,” Lori said. “Too afraid.”
Krysty smiled at her. “Never you mind. Looks shallow the upstream end of the pool. Come in there, and you’ll be fine.”
The two women went together, moving out of the cir-cle of the fire. Doc Tanner broke the silence among the men. “Perhaps we might show courtesy by keeping our backs turned?”
“Yeah. Be decent,” Ryan agreed, shifting his position so that he looked away into the forest. J.B. was already facing in that direction. Jak was the only one still gazing toward the sheltered little pool of shadowy water.
“Young man,” Doc said sternly.
“Okay! All right f’you two. Got women. I don’t. Only done coupla times. Gaudies in Lafayette. Krysty an’ Lori are double-fuckable and you stop me looking.”
Ryan patted the teenage boy on the arm. “Most things a friend can take. But not my blaster. And not my woman. So turn your back.”
“But just wanna have-”
“Jak!” Ryan said threateningly. “Just do like I say.”
Grudgingly the albino did, his long white hair now re-leased from the red ribbon. They could hear giggling and then a stifled squeal from Lori as she found that the wa-ter was colder than she’d expected. Then there was only the sound of splashing, which drowned out any conver-sation the two young women might be having.