cowering. Even Doc had finally appeared, clutching the Le Mat cannon in both
hands.
“Here’s the gun,” yelped Quint, tossing the Heckler & Koch on the floor. It
skidded and bounced, finishing up a yard or two from Ryan’s feet.
“Watch the bastard,” warned J.B., who was right behind Ryan. “Could have a hider
up his sleeve.”
“Yeah. Watch him.”
“Keeper’s comin’ out. Ally, ally oxen free. Don’t shoot poor old Keeper. He had
to do it. Rules is rules and the law’s the fuckin’ law, ain’t it? You
understand, don’t ya?”
“Move it!” shouted Ryan, feeling his anger rising. He’d liked Hunaker. She’d
been a friend for about three years.
“You promised the Keeper,” mumbled Quint, cringing as he left his cover.
His sequinned jacket flashed, gaudy and cheap. The heel had broken on the
woman’s boot he wore, and he limped, his hands trembling in the air. A thread of
spittle dangled from his thin lips, and he was shaking like an aspen in a
hurricane.
“Promised Keeper,” he repeated.
Ryan put a 9-mm bullet between the deep-set eyes, sending the old man crashing
backward, arms flailing, mouth dropping open in shock.
Ryan bolstered his pistol, not even bothering to watch the death throes of the
last Keeper of the Anchorage Redoubt. A man didn’t get up when he’d been rained
on with a 9 mm through the forehead at twenty paces.
“Turn off the vid and Hun’s music,” he ordered. “Drag those two stiffs out of
here. J.B.?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll move out tomorrow. First light. Get all the maps you can. Take Finn and
Okie and get some buggies serviced and fueled up. Henn, you and Krysty take
charge of stocks of food, pyrotabs, spare snospex, ammo, grens, thermals,” he
said, ticking off items on his fingers as they occurred to him.
“What may I do to be of service, Mr. Cawdor?” asked Doc, struggling to force the
big pistol into its holster.
“Check the gateway’s exit and entrance codes. Might come back here for another
jump if there’s nothing much around. Look out for muties about the stockpile.”
“What about her?” asked Okie, pointing contemptuously to where Lori was weeping
on the floor, holding bloodied fingers to her face. “Shall I ice her?”
“We’d all be iced if she hadn’t shouted,” suggested J.B. “How bad is she hurt?”
The girl sat up then, looking around at the angry, tense faces. “Got bullet
across head from Keeper.” She showed the wound, a livid crease on her head among
the blond hair. The wound was clotted with blood that was already drying. It
didn’t look too bad. “What should I do with the gateway, Mr. Cawdor?” asked Doc,
oblivious of the fact that the conversation had moved on.
“Just look it over. Make sure there’s nothin’ wrong with it. You know more about
them than we fuckin’ do, Doc, don’t you?”
The old man shook his head in bewilderment. “I fear that my memory is rather
like a train, Mr. Caw-dor. The farther it pulls away, the smaller it gets.”
“What about her?” asked Finn. “She saved us, but she’s kin to those dirty
bastards.”
“Take me,” begged the girl. “Take Lori or Lori die here.”
“Anybody else for wastin’ her?” Ryan asked. Nobody replied. “We take her, then.
Okie. Get her bandaged if she needs it.”
“What about Hun?” asked the girl blaster.
“Can’t bury her. Anyone seen any crems? Lori? Anyplace bodies can be burned or
whatever?”
“I show you room where they put some.”
“Sure. Doc, you can help. After Lori’s cleaned up, go with her, and take Hun
down to where she shows you. Some kind of freezin’ place, I guess. Use one of
the plug-in buggies around. Take those two— ” he indicated the corpses of Rachel
and Quint ” — and dump them out the door near the freezin’ place. Check the
return code.”
“Triple number followed by a letter was common in these places, as I recall,”
said Doc. “Sure. Come on, people. Let’s all get movin’.”
SUPPER WAS A DOLEFUL MEAL. More of the microwaves had gone on the blink, and the
long room stank of burned food. At least it helped to drown out the sour-sweet