Krysty had been trained to hone this empathy by being in tune with the energies of Gaia, the great Earth Mother. By tapping into these energies, the power field of the planet itself, Krysty could gain superhuman strength for a limited time.
Ryan had an eleven-year-old son, Dean. The issue of a brief encounter between Ryan and Sharona, the wild wife of a frontier baron, Dean had been united with his father for only a short time. Ryan grew used to being called “Dad” and was totally devoted to the boy. Recently he had enrolled the lad for a year in the Brody School in Colorado. While his son received an education, the companions continued their journeys throughout Deathlands, with Ryan hoping to find that undefined something that would give his soul peace.
Frequently they used the gateway chambers to make mat-trans jumps, but those jumps had too many variables, since they never knew whereor even ifthey would rematerialize.
As Doc had pointed out on more than one occasion, it was like deliberately jumping from a hot yet familiar frying pan into an unknown fire.
Though gateways were hidden in subterranean military complexes all over the continent, the vast majority were concentrated in the Southwest.
Mildred had said that even in her day, the public was aware that the government maintained secret underground bases in some Southwestern states. She claimed the official story was that the subterranean centers were part of the COG program, the Continuity of Government, in case of a national disaster, but most people suspected some kind of covert scientific research was going on. According to her, the gateway redoubts were probably only a small part of many hidden predark installations.
In fact, the wag the companions were traveling in had been found in an underground installation in Dulce, New Mexico, into which they had materialized from their last jump. It wasn’t the same redoubt they had visited several times before, a few hours’ journey from Jak’s former ranch. They had realized in short order that the complex wasn’t even a Redoubt. It was older and of a far different design. The mat-trans gateway was an addition to the original specs, almost an afterthought. There was little clue as to what function the installation had been built to serve. There were the usual No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Point warnings posted, but a curious symbol was imprinted at the bottom of every sign a red triangle with three horizontal black lines running through it.
The Land Rover, one of several identical vehicles, was in almost perfect condition, with barely a hundred miles on the odometer. A former patrol wag, it was outfitted with a barricade remover, spotlight and public address system. There were a number of airtight containers of gasoline in the subterranean hideaway, and these had been used to power up a generator and recharge the battery. They had found a hand-operated air pump to reinflate the tires.
A cupboard in a side room yielded camping gear, which they loaded into the vehicle, plus an assortment of shirts and jeans, which they stuffed into a backpack and took along.
Though earnestly searched for, no spare tires could be found beyond the one they boosted from another Land Rover, but the supply of gasoline and spare cans was sufficient to carry them several thousand milesup through Kansas and Nebraska, skirting a corner of Colorado and eventually to the ville once known as Calgary. After surveying that region, they intended to circle back around and pay a visit to Dean at his school.
For the past few days they had been following a remarkably well-preserved strip of road through South Dakota, toward the Black Hills. Ryan and J.B. had passed through the region before, and since in predark days it had been one of the most sparsely populated areas of America, they hoped violent encounters with muties or humans would be limited.
However, the injured man on the floor had obviously come from a settlement of some sort, either a ville or a barony. He had regained a sort of semiconsciousness, but he didn’t speak, only murmured and groaned.
“Hitting the bottom of the grade, Ryan,” J.B. stated. “What’s the plan?”
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