Ryan’s hand suddenly darted to the key pad and swiftly punched in the entry code. With a rumble and hiss of pneumatics, the metal disk rolled to the left. He realized that despite Mildred’s assurances he was holding his breath. An over-the-shoulder glance showed him that all of his friends were, too, Mildred included.
No one moved. Peering into the murk beyond the portal, all Ryan could see was dim light gleaming from polished metal and glass.
Doc exhaled suddenly and noisily, causing everybody to jump and glare at him. He inhaled just as noisily, then smiled and patted his chest.
“Air is fresh enough,” he announced. “There is no scent of bacteria befouling the atmosphere.”
Carefully, Mildred released her own pent-up breath and replied, “There wouldn’t be. Do you know what the Ebola virus smells like?”
With a snort of impatience, Ryan relaxed his lungs, breathed in air that was only a little stale and stepped over the raised lip of the entrance lock.
A wavery light blinked on overhead. He uttered a low whistle of surprise. His eye took in the heavy tables loaded with a complicated network of glass tubes, beakers and retorts, consoles with glass-covered gauges and comp terminals. The right-hand wall was completely covered by armaglass, running the entire twenty-yard length of the room. On the far wall was a twin of the disk-shaped entrance portal.
Ryan moved carefully into the room, blaster cocked and ready, barrel sweeping back and forth in short half arcs. Behind him, the others fanned out, weapons gripped in ready hands.
He didn’t pause to examine anything in the strange chamber—he sidled across it. Only when he reached the metal-collared disk did he stop and look around. His friends milled around him, eyes alert and watchful.
“Want to look around in here or recce the rest of the redoubt?” he asked.
“Makes more sense to find out where we are,” J.B. replied.
Another keypad was on the wall, and Ryan thumbed in the open code, the thick slab of metal rolling obediently aside. Down a short hallway, with rooms on either side, he could see the massive vanadium-steel sec door. It was down.
“Looks safe,” he said.
They moved quietly down the passage. The doors to the rooms they passed were open, and quick glances showed chambers in which to sleep, to cook, to wash.
“Smaller than most redoubts,” Jak remarked.
Usually, the underground installations were multi-leveled labyrinths of corridors, dormitories and control rooms. This one was Spartan and miniaturized.
Ryan paused at the sec door, turned toward Dean and gestured to the green lever on the steel frame. “Do you want the honor, son?” he asked.
Dean smiled and moved forward as Ryan knelt at the center of the door. The others shifted position, fingers tight on triggers, blaster bores trained on the rectangle of alloy.
“Go,” Ryan said.
Dean threw the lever up. Immediately came the grinding rumble of a complicated system of comp-controlled gears and chain pulleys that raised the multi-ton door off the concrete floor. Buried machinery whined faintly, and the door slid slowly upward.
As the bottom edge cleared five or six inches above the floor, Dean shifted the lever to a midpoint position. The door stopped rising.
Ryan went flat on the floor and squinted out between the vanadium and the concrete. He saw nothing but darkness, and a cool breeze played over his face. Wind-driven grains of sand danced over the threshold.
“Door leads to the outside,” he declared. “You’re right, Jak. Place is a lot smaller than usual. Up another six inches, son.”
Dean moved the lever, and the door slid upward. This time, Ryan saw sand, silvered by moonlight.
The air was fresh, clean and very dry. In the distance, he saw nothing but a sandy sea of desolation.
“All the way up, Dean.”
The massive door ascended, then stopped with a click. A swirl of air breezed into the corridor, bringing a scattering of sand. A reef of clouds crossed the face of the quarter moon, obscuring the view of their surroundings—not that there was much to see. No vegetation grew within their range of vision, not even the hardy strain of flower Krysty had named the Deathlands daisy.