wooden pallets. “Somethin’ here,” he called.
“Old stores. Left behind,” said Doc.
Ryan beckoned for Krysty and J.B. to follow him, leaving the others immediately
outside; there was no obvious danger of a fight, and they would give warning of
any attackers. It was a corridor with a rounded ceiling, made of rows of
stressed metal ribs. On the right were dozens of stacked boxes, with a few more
piled loosely on the other side. At the farthest end he could see the red and
silver of the sky, patched with purple chem clouds; the end of the cave was open
to the world. Some of the boxes had been opened, and Ryan and J.B. began to
investigate. Krysty walked to the opening, less than fifty paces away.
“Blasters,” said J.B., sitting on one of the containers, peering at a bizarre
weapon by his feet. It was like a large pistol with a massive ammunition drum
that had chambers for a dozen rounds.
“What the hell does that fire?” asked Ryan.
“Seen a pic of one. Colt M2-0-7,40 mm gren launcher. Twelve different grenades.
Laser sight and high-low propulsion system. I might come back for it once we’ve
scouted around.”
Ryan had taken a gun from its box, wiping the grease off on the sleeve of his
long, fur-trimmed coat. “Nice. Close assault blaster, Heckler & Koch 12-gauge
scattergun. Night scope and image intensifier. Be good ‘gainst stickies in the
dark.” Reluctantly he laid it back in its box. “Yeah, might take some of these
babies on the way out. If we get out.”
Krysty appeared cat-footed at his side, her hair reflecting the fiery brightness
of the sky behind her. “Not gettin’ out that way. Land slip’s taken off the edge
of the whole mountain. Clean as a knife. Drops clean down to the gorge, and
that’s a long way. Not a hope.”
They turned away from the small Stockpile and rejoined the others in the
corridor. Ryan told them briefly what they’d found and that there was no way
out.
“I believe I had already mentioned that probability, Mr. Cawdor,” Doc said with
a grin.
Ryan ignored him. “Let’s go.”
They retraced their steps, and Henn moaned about carrying the radio.
“If we ain’t usin’ it, then why in blazing shit am I humpin’ it on?”
Finnegan patted the tall black man on the backside. “Ice your asshole, Hennings.
You got the radio and I got my big gut to carry.”
The other branch of the corridor went a couple of hundred paces, then forked
like a sidewinder’s tongue. The lights had failed in the one end but burned
brightly from the roof along to the right. “That way,” said Ryan, leading the
others.
As they went, they checked off all the rooms, on the chance that one of them
might contain some clue, some indication of what had happened in this place.
Hun picked up a torn piece of card tucked in behind one of the plastic doors.
Holding it up to the light, she read the faint pencil lettering.
“Forty-Niners over the Dolphins, twenty-four to twenty-one,” she read. “Now what
the scorch was that? Some kind of firefight casualties?”
She tucked the scrap of paper in a pocket of her overalls.
The corridor ended abruptly. A door of vanadium-type steel ran ceiling to floor,
its surface polished and gleaming, throwing back their own reflections as if it
mocked them. There was no sign of any lock or control, just smooth walls on
either side.
“Try that other way. Where the lights had gone out,” suggested Hunaker.
Doc waved a careless hand. “Waste of time, my emerald-locked elfling. That
corridor curls all the way around the Redoubt complex and returns behind that
rockfall. There is nothing there.”
“Just how d’you know all this, Doc?” asked J.B. “Maybe this is the place and
time to tell us.”
Doc’s cunning eyes turned to J.B. “This is a place and a time, sir. But not the
time or the place. When that might be, I do not know. It is beyond my control.”
“You knew about the main door to the Redoubt. How about this one?” asked Ryan.
Casually he allowed the barrel of his gun to move toward the old man.