The intention was to meet once again directly opposite the bottom of the old road.
The sun was hotwith a temperature up in the high eightiesand the atmosphere fetid and sticky. A light breeze was blowing, but it came from the far side, where Trader said the mainland lay, bringing the oppressively bitter smells.
The going was very hard.
Jagged rocks, some of them volcanic, were smothered in sickly orange-and-green lichens that were slippery to tread on.
“Like treading in dead man’s guts,” Jak commented.
“You do have a way with words, don’t you.” Krysty grinned, gritting her teeth as she nearly fell into a deep rock pool fringed with enormous anemones.
“Don’t like the look of those,” she said. “I reckon they’ve probably got strong enough poison to see off even Trader.”
Ryan didn’t join the smiles from Jak and his son. He stopped and stood still on a flat-topped boulder. “Because Trader and I come close to fighting, it doesn’t mean I don’t have incredible respect for him and for everything he did. In his own way he brought a measure of order out of the chaos that was Deathlands, twenty or thirty years ago. Barons had to toe the line or he’d drive them under. Trader was truly a great power for good. Despite parts of him, like his cruelty and violence. If there was ever to be written a history of Deathlands, then Trader’s name should lead all of the rest.”
“What is Trader’s name, Dad? I mean, his real name,” Dean asked.
Ryan smiled. “Lot of people asked that, over the years, son. And not one of them ever got an answer.”
“You know it?” Jak asked, staring up at a black-capped albatross sailing far above them.
“I don’t even answer that question. Whether I do or not. It don’t matter, Jak.” He caught Krysty’s glance at him. “I mean it doesn’t matter,” he amended.
“It doesn’t look like there’s ever been any kind of life on this place,” Dean said. “Not a harbor or anything. Just dry, dead rock.”
Ryan looked higher up, behind them. As he’d guessed, there was no sign at all of the concealed entrance to the redoubt. There wouldn’t be any reason for anyone to come to the island and trudge up the old roadway.
And it was an island.
They could see that as soon as they clambered over a flat shelf, where a slice of rock weighing thousands of tons had sheared off and fallen from near the top of the peak.
The far side was a little less steep, making it easier to move along the shoreline, watching out for the occasional wave that came crashing in, larger than its fellows.
“Seals,” Jak said, pointing out across the sun-dappled water. “About dozen.”
They all stopped to watch the elegant creatures, cavorting and gamboling in the ocean. One of them had caught a glistening silver-scaled fish and kept tossing its limp body high in the air, in a rainbow of scattered spots of spray, like the sparks from a dying fire, then catching it again.
“Clever,” Dean said, clapping his hands.
Now they could make out what Ryan assumed was probably the mainland, though it was difficult to see and it could easily have been another, larger island. J.B. hadn’t bothered to use his minisextant, assuming that they probably knew more or less where they were.
“Good half mile,” Jak stated, squinting toward the mist-shrouded horizon.
“Could swim that easy, Dad.”
Ryan laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You always have to remember the people with you, son. Mebbe you could swim it. But you don’t know what the currents are like. Might be a powerful undertow out there.”
“An underload? What’s that?”
Ryan answered him. “Undertow. Kind of whirlpool that you sometimes can’t see but it can suck down the strongest swimmer, Dean.”
The boy looked disappointed that the “underload” wasn’t a real creature.
Ryan continued. “Even if you could swim it, then what about everyone else in the group? Think Abe could make it? Or Doc? Mildred?”
“Or me?” Ryan asked. “I reckon I’m a fair swimmer, but that’s a long way.”
“Guess so. Does that mean we have to go back to make another jump?”