Ryan nodded. “Yeah.”
“Take us. Take us who are left and our women and children, before we all sleep the long darkness from which there is no wakening.”
“Sorry. We can’t. WHere we go, we go alone. Sorry.”
Mildred stepped to the front of the group. “If you think I’m the wicked witch of the west, then forget all this. But I can truly give you good adviceadvice that will save the lives of some of you.”
“Some?”
She smiled at him, a little sadly. “A few weeks earlier I might have said all of you. Now, there’s some with bone-deep sickness, carcinomas breeding away like maggots in rotten fish. But there’s still time to save some. Move away down the coast, away from the radiation.”
Erik smiled at her through his broken teeth. “We must go how far?”
“Fifty miles, at least. And find some good fresh water.”
“And some will live?”
“Yes, son, yes. Some will live. If you’re lucky, then most will live.”
“It shall be.” He turned to his comrades. “Come, give help to those who are hurt. Let’s say farewell and be away, and meet perhaps some happier day.”
BEFORE MAKING THEIR WAY to the gateway, the companions rested in the redoubt and ate and drank their fill. They took a full day and night to ready themselves for the jump.
J.B. had taken Mildred into the section of the redoubt where the arms and armaments were stored. He encouraged her to pick out a good, workmanlike blaster for herself.
She chose a Czech six-shot revolver, the ZKR 551, which was based on designs originating in the Zbrojovka Works at Brno. Specially designed by the Koucky brothers, the ZKR 551 was chambered to take the Smith amp; Wesson .38 round and had a solid frame side rod ejector and a short fall thumb cocking hammer.
Mildred picked it because it had been a leading weapon in small-arms shooting competitions, and she liked the balance. And also, as J.B. pointed out, because the blaster was a serious man-stopper.
EVEN THOUGH they’d been away only a few days, there were clear signs of deterioration within the gateway’s main control rooms. Several sections of panel lights were out, and one of the big comp-tape spools had broken.
It was a manifestation of something Ryan had noticed several times. The gateways, with their reliable nuke-power units, were self-sustaining and had been kept ticking over, unused, for a century. But when a jump was made, it seemed to trigger a process of disintegration within the delicate machinery.
“Is this going to work, Doc?” Mildred asked as they entered the red-walled chamber.
“More or less, my dear.”
“More or less! Jesus, didn’t any of you guys ever see a movie called The Fly! No? So forget it. Let’s go.”
“Everyone sitting down ready?” Ryan asked, glancing around the arma-glass, six-sided room. “This is going to make your head spin, Mildred,” he warned.
“I rode Colossus Three at Magic Mountain, buddy. So this ain’t nothing. Shut the door, it’s getting too hot in here.”
Ryan slammed the door and sat next to Krysty, resting his head against the cool glass. He stretched his legs in front of him as the metal disks in floor and ceiling began to glow and the faint shreds of white mist began to appear around them.
“We won again, lover,” Krysty whispered, holding his hand in hers.
“Times like this I’m not sure I can tell the difference between winning and losing anymore,” he replied, feeling the first tingling of darkness at the front of his brain.
“We’re alive, lover. And that means we won.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. Or thought he did.
There was blackness.
Blackness.
Black.