“It him!” Domi cried with relief, turning away from the precipice and striding swiftly to the point where the narrow road broadened onto the plateau.
Lakesh followed her, noting wryly she had said “him” rather than “them.” He called, “Be careful. We don’t know who it is.”
“Who else it be?” she retorted.
Who else indeed, thought Lakesh. As unlikely as it seemed, he didn’t rule out the possibility of an assault force of Magistrates. There had been no Deathbird re-con flyovers, but he attributed that to the unpredictable down and updrafts swirling among the peaks of the Bitterroot Range. The reengineered Apache 64 gun-ships were rare, difficult to repair and almost impossible to replace. Cobaltville had already lost two of its fleet in the past six months, and Lakesh doubted that Abrams, the Magistrate Division administrator, would care to risk another one. An attack by land made the most strategic sense, and it was certainly the most cost-effective, in terms of ordnance.
“Recognize engine sound,” Domi piped up. “It himI mean themall right.”
Lakesh felt comforted by her assurances, but he didn’t fully relax until the Hussar Hotspur’s dull gray shape hove into view. The six-wheeled Land Rover was one of two all-terrain vehicles stowed in Cerberus. Its blocky, armored chassis was very unprepossessing, but it was a bit more maneuverable than the Sandcat on the mountain road.
Kane braked the vehicle at the edge of the tarmac and opened the metal shutters of the driver’s-side ob slit. Lakesh and Domi peered in. Though Brigid and Grant were dirt streaked, Kane looked as if he had just that moment climbed out of a barrel of flour.
“Didn’t have time to wash up,” Kane said, speaking loudly in order to be heard over the controlled throb of the powerful engine.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” replied Lakesh. “It’s a five-hour trip down to the pass.”
Grant spoke up. “We finished early.”
Lakesh caught the cryptic note in Grant’s voice. “What do you mean? Did you set the proximity sensors?”
Kane gestured impatiently to the sec door. “Let us in and we’ll explain.”
Lakesh regarded him doubtfully and he and Domi crossed the plateau to the door. He raised the control to the midway point, and the heavy vanadium panels creaked aside, folding one atop the other until the opening was wide enough to admit the Land Rover.
Kane stopped just inside the door, and Brigid and Grant climbed out. He steered the vehicle down the twenty-foot-wide main corridor to the storage depot.
Lakesh used the lever on the interior wall to close the sec door all the way. Painted beside it was a large, luridly colored illustration of a three-headed black hound. Fire and blood gushed between yellow fangs, the crimson eyes glared bright and baleful. Underneath it, in ornate Gothic script was written Cerberus.
The painting had been done sometime prior to the nukecaust but after Lakesh’s reassignment to the Anthill complex in South Dakota. Though he couldn’t be positive, he figured Corporal Mooney was the artist, since its exaggerated exuberance seemed right out of the comic books he was so fond of reading. He had never considered having it removed. For one thing, the paints were indelible, and for another, it was Corporal Mooney’s form of immortality. Besides, the image of Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of hell, represen-tated a visual symbol of the work to which Lakesh had devoted his life.
He turned back to Grant and Brigid. Domi stood very close to Grant, beaming up into his face. He smiled nervously down at her, obviously discomfited by the adoration shining from her ruby eyes. Everyone in the redoubt knew she was in love with Grant and very jealous if she perceived he paid attention to another woman. Lakesh was also aware that the girl had tried in the past to seduce him, though as far as he knew, Grant had managed to evade her attempts.
“You’re all safe?” Lakesh asked.
Brigid nodded. “Kane needs minor medical attention.”
“Why?”
“A knife fight,” Grant replied matter-of-factly.
Lakesh’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “A knife fight? With whom? The country beyond the foothills is unpopulated for at least a hundred miles. There’s no one around except for”