Mildred looked over her shoulder, first at the meager belongings, then at the dark patch. “The foam they used on the cannie,” she said softly. “They must’ve used the same thing on these people after they chilled them. To tidy things up.”
“Let’s go, Mildred,” Krysty said as she pushed on, turning down a well-worn path. She wasn’t looking for signs of life, but she couldn’t even find signs of death, except for the cloying funk in the air and the earth that seemed to be stained on every side.
As she worked her way down the lane that twisted between the deserted shacks, Krysty avoided stepping on the patches. Though her brain told her what Mildred said had to be true, it was hard for her to believe that all the stains had once been people. Hard for her to believe that in death so many had been so easily disposed of. Even though this had been a pure norm ville, even though these townsfolk would have strung her up from the nearest lamp pole if they had been alive, Krysty felt pity for them. As they approached a firing position that would give them the entire one-hundred-foot broadside of the missile for a target, Krysty saw something on the path that made her stop short. She dropped to one knee so Mildred could see what lay ahead.
Not all the corpses had been liquefied.
In the middle of the lane was a scatter of chunked body parts. Krysty had never seen such systematic destruction of human beings. She and Mildred counted the boots; it was the only way they could even guess how many people had died there.
Six bootsfour large, two smallequalled three people who had been chopped to bits, yet there was no blood to be seen.
“Either these cannies were hacked up someplace else and dumped here, or this is a spot we don’t want to spend much time in,” Mildred said.
“Mebbe we’d better go around,” Krysty agreed.
She took one step off the track and the rattraps snapped. Dirt-colored spheres jumped into the air and started to spin.
Krysty knew what they were. In that split second, she knew.
No.
The negation was more than a thought. Connected instantly, instinctively to her mutie Gaia power source, it was a tangible and awesome force.
Before the laser mines could fire, Krysty’s body unleashed a blast wave of pure energy in all directions. It slammed Mildred to the earth and it tipped the spheres out of synchronization. Laser beams discharged according to their program, but they weren’t reflected; they shot off into space or sizzled into the ground. Their cat’s cradle broken, in less than two seconds the spheres dropped back to earth.
Krysty was so drained by the sudden all-out effort that she could barely breathe. Her skin was on fire, her heart laboring. She staggered back, fighting to maintain her balance, but her legs were failing and darkness was closing in at the edges of her vision. She couldn’t let herself pass out. She had to help Mildred get to her feet. They had to fulfill their part of the plan to save Ryan.
But it wasn’t to be.
Close to death, she collapsed in a heap beside her friend.
AT THE NORTH END of Moonboy, Doc, Dean and Jak stood side by side behind the cover of a partially collapsed porch. They had their handblasters drawn and faced the aft end of the ballistic missile and the backsides of the four figures in black.
“You realize, lads,” Doc said in a near whisper, “that if we do manage to perforate the hide of that vile projectile, the resulting conflagration could consume everything within this canyon’s walls. Which would surely buy us all passage on Charon’s barge.”
Jak and Dean just stared at him.
“Styx, lads, the River of No Return. Across which the son of Erebus ferries every child born of woman. You must’ve heard of it.”
“Sure, Doc,” Dean said, humoring him.
The teenager frowned. “No river here. Chill time, Doc. Blaster up.”
“What?” Tanner said. “Blaster what?”
“Up.” Jak used the ramp sight of his Colt Python to raise the muzzle of the old man’s pistol. “Keep blaster up.”