“Ryan Cawdor and J. B. Dix,” he said. “Never thought to meet up with you again.”
The men clasped hands, Trader’s grip as strong as ever. While they stood grinning at one another, Abe finally blundered over the crest.
Ryan turned to him, patting him on the back. “You did well, Abe. Real well.”
“Thanks.” Despite the cold and the exertion, the little man had a wide smile stretched across his face. Tiny icicles were crusted in his drooping mustache, making him look amazingly like a happily lugubrious walrus.
Trader simply stood there nodding. “Well, I’ll be hung, quartered and dried for the crows,” he said. “This truly is something.”
“Ain’t it just,” J.B. agreed. “We heard you’d been having some trouble.”
“Causing trouble, J.B., causing trouble. Man who admits to having some trouble is in real trouble.”
Abe laughed. “If that wasn’t real trouble we had a few days ago, Trader, then I sure as shit don’t ever want to find myself in real trouble.”
The older man turned sharply, the smile disappearing like dew off a summer meadow. “I told you” He hesitated. “Abe. Told you before about arguing.”
“Sure, sorry.”
It was a prickly moment, and Ryan hurried to pass it over. “Listen, we got a lot of catching up to do. We could use a roof and some food. Any ideas?”
Trader glanced toward the distant ruins of the sprawling city. “Probably our best chance is to scout around the suburbs.”
“Yeah, agreed,” Ryan said.
“Skirmish line.” Trader beckoned to Abe. “Take point. I’ll go second. J.B., follow me and Ryan bring up the rearguard. Let’s go, men.”
The Armorer glanced across at Ryan, who shrugged. It wasn’t that much of a surprise that the Trader had automatically assumed command of them, just as though no time had passed. No sand run through the glass. No water flowed beneath the bridge.
Just as though he were still leading the full, highly trained crews of the two war wags.
THEY DROPPED DOWN into a wide valley, following the path of an old blacktop. Abe twice managed to lead them into regions of swampy ground, where they all broke through thin ice into rank, stinking water.
They saw a solitary figure, accompanied by a dog, watching them from the hogback ridge to their left. Apart from that, their first hours together were uneventfulno threats from any kind of life.
“Muties in these parts, Trader?” J.B. asked when they stopped for a brief break after the first hour of steady walking.
“Haven’t got a sniff of any. How about you?”
“Yeah. Way back.”
Trader stopped suddenly. “Hey!”
“What?” Ryan queried, catching up, drawing the SIG-Sauer, suspecting that Trader might have seen some danger. In front of them, Abe turned so quickly he slipped on an iced puddle and nearly fell over.
“No danger, Ryan. Stand down from double red and relax a little. Just that I realized I never asked you where you were when you got the message.”
“Down in New Mexico on the ranch of a friend. Krysty Wroth is there. Remember her?”
“Hair that was so hot it scorched your eyeballs? Course I remember her.”
“And the old-timer, Doc Tanner. He got himself time-trawled with Operation Chronos.”
“Chronos?”
“Sure. It was a section of Overproject Whisper. Cerberus was a bit of that. That lethal fog?”
Trader nodded. “Sure, sure. All bits of that fucking cosmic puzzle they called the Totality Concept. Abe here’s been telling me plenty of that.”
“Sure brought him up to date,” Abe said, grinning eagerly and wiping moisture off his mustache. “How did the message get through to you? You get several copies of it?”
“Just one.”
“Bet it was that big black guy with one ear missing,” Trader said.
Ryan bolstered his blaster. “No. Little ville called Patriarch Springs. Something like that. Drummer was called Friedman. Smoked the foulest cigars I ever smelled.”
Abe punched his right fist into his left palm. “Damn it! He was about the last we asked to carry the message to you, Ryan. And he did it.”
“What did you pay these packmen?” J.B. asked.
Trader laughed. “Pay! You been away from the war wags too long, Armorer! Trader doesn’t pay for what he can trade.”