Jak, his sensitive ruby eyes slitted against the bright blast of light, pointed to the northwest. “Something been out here. Look.”
It took everyone a few seconds to discern what the teenager was pointing at. Two narrow, parallel grooves, nearly obscured by the breeze-driven sand, cut through the desert, disappearing into the distance and the heat shimmer.
“Wheels,” Jak said.
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, eyeing the four-foot width between the narrow tracks. “Wooden wheels, like a cart. Broad axle base, too.”
“Not a gasoline-powered wag,” J.B. observed. “No horse or mule tracks around, either.”
Jak knelt, pinching a few grains of sand from one of the shallow gouges. “Week old. Mebbe ten days.”
Doc said, “Then it appears the so-called Barrens are inhabited in some fashion. It also appears our only option is strike off on foot. It is a small comfort, but at least we have a semblance of a path to follow.”
“Right, Doc,” Ryan replied quietly. He glanced over his shoulder at the pale-faced Krysty. “That’s what spooks me.”
BACK INSIDE the redoubt, all of them reached the same conclusion without a protracted discussion. The supply of food was limited in the extreme, so they had no choice but to move out overland. Traveling by night was a necessity, and no one objected to staying in the climate-controlled redoubt until sundown. They used the time to catch up on missed sleep and to put together survival provisions for a boot-leather journey.
“We might be strolling into a trap,” J.B. warned.
Ryan shrugged. “If the red-eyed bastard is as bright as Mildred says he is, then he’ll know that we know. Traps can really only work when you’re not ready for them.”
“There is one possibility we have not considered,” Doc said. “Alpha or Hell Eyes or whatever we care to call him might not mean us any harm.”
Ryan smiled bitterly. “I considered that possibility. I don’t find it very probable. Do you?”
After a moment’s thought, Doc answered flatly, “No.”
Ryan, even as agitated as he was, badly needed rest and he took to one of the bunks shortly after returning to the redoubt. Krysty lay down beside him. When the deep, steady rhythm of his breathing told her he was fast asleep, she got up and paced through the corridor.
She found Mildred in the laboratory, searching the medical stores. She looked up from deciphering a label on a bottle of tablets. “Krysty. What’s wrong?”
The red-haired woman sat on a stool, propping her elbows on a table. Her tresses curled, straightened and curled again. “Am I that easy to read?”
Mildred smiled. “That unstable coiffure of yours is. Tell me about it.”
Inhaling an unsteady breath, Krysty said, “You mentioned Lord Kaa earlier…his influence over us. Particularly me.”
“Jak, too, remember.”
“Something like it is happening again.” Krysty’s voice, low pitched, quavered. “I didn’t tell you everything about my jump nightmare. Or what happened later between me and Ryan.”
Krysty bluntly told Mildred of her vision of the red-eyed man, her feelings during it and of how her sexual desires had been aroused to a fever pitch while she slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted.
Mildred’s eyebrows rose. “And you don’t remember making love to Ryan?”
Smiling crookedly, Krysty answered, “It was like I was in a trance, performing for someone. My capacity for passion, my inhibitions were being stimulated, tested. I think I passed.”
“As I recall, Lord Kaa invoked your mating instinct and your loyalty. How close are the two incidents?”
“Superficially similar. But with Kaa, it was the result of his psionic powers and the mat-trans mind-meld. After a jump, whatever spell he had over me was broken. In this case, the emotional resonances are much more sensual, more primitive. Lust, possessiveness and even maternal feelings are all mixed-up inside of me.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, then opening them again, Mildred groaned. “Sweet Christ. I should’ve guessed.”
“Guessed what?”
Mildred sighed. “Connaught O’Brien was both mother and lover to Alpha. Physically, you resemble her. Red hair, green eyes, though you’re considerably younger.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Rudimentary psychology,” Mildred replied. “Hie first protosexual feelings a male child experiences are often directed toward his mother. O’Brien played that role for Alpha, and later he influenced her to become his lover—though I doubt he had to go much out of his way to entice her. He’s a god with very human failings, an Oedipus complex for one. I think he’s transferred it to you. If the situation wasn’t so serious, it’d be almost comical.”