James Axler – Way of the Wolf

Dean nodded. “Mebbe. But mebbe we aren’t—”

“Don’t,” Krysty chided.

“But mebbe we don’t have hours,” Dean repeated. “You notice how stale the air is getting in here? Breathing up all the oxygen, we’re going to have to start worrying about getting some fresh air before long.”

Ryan paused with his spoon midway to his mouth. He glanced up at J.B. “You think about that?”

The Armorer flushed, then went back to swinging the ax. “Not me. I’ve been contemplating mostly on how thick this ice is and what’s going to be on the other side of it. Boy’s right, though.”

Ryan felt a surge of pride go through him, erasing some of the anger that he felt at himself for not realizing the potential danger. “You did good to think of that, son.”

Dean smiled. “Wasn’t really my thinking. Just something I remembered from the survival classes taught at school. We had a history lesson about miners, way back before skydark, and how they used to cut coal out of the earth. Sometimes they’d get so far down in the mine shafts that no fresh air would come in, and some of them died. That’s why they started taking parakeets in cages down in the shafts with them. Bad air would chill the bird before it chilled a man. Miners kept watch over the birds. Bird turned up dead, miners caught the next elevator to the top of the shaft, ace on the line.”

“No parakeets here,” Jak said with an evil grin. He hooked a thumb at Albert. “Got little man. He dies, time to blast.”

Ryan turned his attention back to the self-heat. “Good thing you brought that up, Dean. Now I’m going to make it your responsibility to keep an eye on things. We start acting too stupe for our own good, it’s up to you to get us to blast.”

Dean nodded.

Ryan ate, listening to the steady attack J.B. made on the ice wall. The hot food and the sound of the ax falling seemed reassuring, until he heard the hollow booming echo of the thuds in the mat-trans unit.

ALMOST AN HOUR later, while Jak was taking his turn with the ax, they broke through the ice. Ryan was just about to call it wasted effort and use the plas ex J.B. had because all he wanted to do was go to sleep. He knew it was more than simple tiredness and had a lot to do with the stale air trapped inside the gateway.

Jak paused, then pulled the ax back and peered through. “Through. Inside redoubt,” he announced. “Ice everywhere.”

Ryan forced himself up and went for a look. His joints seemed stiffer than ever, and his teeth had started to chatter. He stared into the hole Jak had made through nearly three feet of ice. It was scarcely more than three inches across, but it provided enough of a view even in the dim light on the other side of the wall for him to know they were unmistakably in a redoubt.

But this one looked like it had barely survived an ice age. Ice coated all the walls and comp banks.

“What do you see?” Mildred asked. She and J.B. sat together, arms wrapped around each other, sharing the warmth. Dean had joined Krysty and Ryan, all of them huddled together. Even Doc and Albert sat close together.

“Redoubt,” Ryan said. “But it doesn’t look like it’s in any better shape than this mat-trans unit.”

THE BITTER COLD really set in after they had broken through the ice wall over the door to the gateway. Muted light somehow survived from the nuclear reactors buried somewhere below, glowing from behind inches of ice that covered every surface.

The companions broke out all the extra clothes they carried in their gear, but it wasn’t much. Ryan wore his long coat, but even it didn’t cut the chill by much. Wind breezed into the big room where the gateway was, carrying a cold that he felt he’d never experienced before.

“If we don’t find some way soon to warm up, lover,” Krysty said, “we’re going to be dead in a few hours.”

Ryan nodded, knowing it was true.