“But what’s Chinese swords got to do with this pretty bit of rag?” Trader queried.
“Japanese, not Chinese,” Doc corrected. “Well, they sometimes have braids of silk at the hilt, like a tassel. It’s just that these threads reminded me of that.” He grimaced. “Sorry. Told you that it wasn’t going to be relevant. Silly. Not many samurai warriors making jumps in Deathlands.”
Ryan rubbed at his chin. “Well, now, remember we’ve started hearing these strange rumors. Gangs of what they called yellow-skinned killers. Only rumors.”
“Don’t get bubbles without water,” Trader said.
“Doesn’t seem likely,” Krysty argued. “All the way from China or Japan. How would they have gotten here?”
“No?” Ryan looked at her. “You forgotten about Major-Commissar Gregori Zimyanin?”
“And that lovely sniper’s rifle,” J.B. added, eyes brightening behind his spectacles. “The long Dragunov. Reworked Kalashnikov. Yeah, he got here from old Russia.”
“And we got to old Russia,” Ryan said. “We still have no idea how many mat-trans gateways there are in Deathlands. Never mind anywhere else in the world.”
“Can’t be any Japanese down here,” Abe said. “Wherever ‘here’ is.”
Jak straightened from examining the faint scuff marks in the layer of fine powdery dust. “Could be wrong, Abe. About ten or dozen feet. All of them real small. Like woman. Or child. Japanese supposed to be small.”
J.B. had stopped and run his finger through the sandy dirt. “Tell you something else,” he said. “I don’t reckon this is dust from Deathlands. Not like anything I’ve seen, and I’ve been to most places.”
“And seen most things,” Mildred added. “Sorry, poor joke at the best of times. This isn’t the best of times.”
“That was Mae West,” Doc said, beaming delightedly. “I recall she once said something about”
“Shut it, Doc,” Ryan ordered. He rubbed the dust between his fingers, realizing what J.B. had meant. It was far finer than most dirt he’d ever seen, almost like milled flour. He touched the tip of his tongue to it. There was an unusual bitterness, and something that was faintly aromatic and foreign.
“What do you think, lover?” Krysty asked.
“J.B. could be right. Who knows? I guess one bit of dirt’s a lot like another” He hesitated. “But, there’s something odd about it.”
“Think it comes from inside the redoubt here?” Dean asked. “Or brought in from outside?”
Jak answered, pointing out something that none of the others had spotted. “Small feet brought it with them. In from gateway. Dust’s thicker right by chamber door and gets thinner across floor.”
Ryan checked his wrist chron. “Let’s get moving. Been close to half an hour since we jumped.”
“Hope this place has some food and drink cached away,” Mildred said.
“I would personally settle for a comfortable bed to take my ease and rest my weary bones,” Doc stated.
What happened in the next fifteen seconds was never totally clear in anyone’s mind.
Everyone had come out of the gateway chamber itself, crowding into the cramped little room. With nine people there, it wasn’t possible for anyone to move, and Ryan was already waiting by the closed door that should open to reveal the control room.
“Don’t push,” he said.
But Abe jostled Trader’s arm, loosening his grip on the Armalite. As the blaster started to fall, Trader began to stoop to retrieve it. His hip knocked into Doc, who dropped the sword stick from under his left arm.
It landed awkwardly, somehow wedging itself between Mildred’s ankles.
She stumbled into Krysty. Jak neatly dodged her, but then got in the way of J.B., who had seen the cane drop and was about to try to pick it up.
He backed into Dean, who was totally off-balance, trying to peer down at the small footprints in the alien dust. The boy tripped backward, sprawling flat on his back on the metal disks in the floor of the mat-trans chamber, the back of his head landing with a sickly crack that stunned him for a few moments.
The confusion made Ryan turn, so fast that the SIG-Sauer cracked into Mildred’s wrist. She yelped in pain and took a step backward, bumping into Abe.
The little gunner had been trying to stop himself falling in the opposite direction, as well as keeping out of the Trader’s line of sight. The impact of the stocky black woman took him completely by surprise, and he began to fall toward the gateway chamber.