Slowing to a walk, Ryan reloaded the Steyr and breathed in the cool air sweet with the rich smell of pine. He had grown up in woods like these, and they always felt like home to him. The trees were well spaced, the floor of the forest a soft cushion of needles and leaves. He recognized oak, ash and maple. How could two islands so close to each other geographically be so far apart in temperature and plant life?
“Nice.” Jak inhaled, pausing to slip on his jacket. J.B. did the same with his, but Krysty didn’t don her bearskin coat, luxuriating in the misty cool of the pines.
Cresting a hill and clambering through a rocky arroyo, the companions reached a small clearing in the woods and Ryan called a halt.
“We’ll break here,” he decided, sliding off his backpack. “Cold rations and water only. No fire. Don’t know if there’s anybody around here, and there’s no sense advertising our presence.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Krysty offered, and stepped away from the others to put her back to a pine tree where she had a good command of the general area.
Taking the snake from his pocket, Ryan started gutting and cleaning the reptile with a folding pocket-knife. The panga was much too big for such delicate work, reserved for big jobs of hacking through jungles and cutting throats. The curved blade was perfect for that, almost as if it had been designed for just that purpose.
“Still fresh,” Ryan announced, laying out slices on a large leaf. “Help yourselves.”
Doc took a piece and started chewing the tough meat. “Tastes nothing like chicken,” he muttered, taking another slice.
Lowering her canteen, Mildred frowned. “I still can’t get over how big that spider was,” she said, sounding annoyed. “It’s impossible. Just impossible.”
“Saw it,” Jak stated, as if that settled the discussion. Opening a self-heat can, he waited until the food was warm, then started in with a hand-carved wooden spoon, relaying the soup to his mouth with the care of a surgeon. Not a drop was wasted on the ground.
“Are you referring to the, what was it again?” Doc asked, nibbling the raw snake. The flavor was strong, but no more so than sea bass. “The inverse-square law of biology?”
“Yes!” Mildred snapped. “Muties can be utterly bizarre, any shape or color, but they always obey the laws of science. An invertebrate creature can’t grow that large. It would collapse under its own weight.”
“Saw a vid once in a redoubt,” Dean said, unwrapping the leaves around a roasted condor leg. “Big dinosaur, lot larger than this spider.”
“That was just a story,” she chided gently.
He started eating. “Looked real.”
“Can’t get very big because it only has external bones, is that the idea?” Ryan asked, finishing off the snake.
“Yes. Exactly.”
Reaching into another pocket, he unearthed a bundle of leaves and tore it open to start on some condor himself. Raw snake was good, but he preferred the taste of cooked food.
“So what if it had two?” he suggested, chewing and swallowing. “Regular bones inside, as well as that outer shell.”
“Chitin,” Mildred corrected automatically, then pursed her face. “Two skeletons? God help us, they could get a lot bigger than ten feet tall with two skeletons.”
“Big as the vid dinosaur?” Dean queried.
“Larger.”
“Hot pipe. I wouldn’t want to tangle with one of those, unless we find another APC and a ton of ammo.”
“Nature will out,” Doc said, removing the plastic wrapper for a predark candy bar, a rare treat they found only occasionally in the military MRE packs.
“Two skeletons,” Mildred repeated, pulling a gray chunk of military cheese from her med kit and cutting off slices. “What made you think of that?”
“Seemed reasonable,” Ryan replied, cleaning the last of the meat off the bone. He tossed the bone away, belched and started on another.
Mildred and Doc exchanged silent glances. Ryan was the leader of the group because he was the deadliest fighter alive, and not a fool. A thinking man was ten times more dangerous man an army of fools with blasters.
Aching for a cigar, J.B. stuck a stick of minty chewing gum in his mouth and masticated vigorously. Then taking a twig, he lifted the snake skin and inspected it carefully. “Useless,” he finally decided, tossing it onto the pile of bones and rubbish. “Too small for anything. Wouldn’t even make a decent belt.”