J.B. SIGHTED THROUGH his minisextant and took their direction. They were on the edge of the forest, back on the road out of old Seattle toward the valley of Samtvogel.
“Which way shall we head?” he asked Ryan.
“Can’t go back to the redoubt and jump,” the one-eyed warrior mused. “No way of getting back in there.”
“Could follow the blacktop north,” J.B. said.
“Mebbe find stupes with lasers,” Jak added.
“That would be most interesting, always assuming they do not just want to chill us,” Doc said wryly.
Krysty noticed that Ryan was staring at the horizon.
“What do you say, lover? Think they could be the key?”
“To the promised land?” he replied. “Mebbe. I feel like we’ve been cheated somehow, like we could have learned more in Raw if Jenna hadn’t been a crazie. If the Illuminated Ones are still out there, still living apart from the rest of us, we could have mebbe learned something about them that would have taken us away from this.”
“Maybe we still will,” Mildred said softly. “But not out here. If there are any answers—and perhaps we’re getting closer to finding that Erewhon—then we need to get to shelter before the sun goes down.”
Ryan smiled. “Fireblast, I should be that smart, not just leave it to you. Let’s head north toward the nearest redoubt.”
J.B. sighted in his minisextant, plotting a course north that took them past old Seattle and up toward the old predark borders. Up toward the lands where the Illuminated Ones and the promised land were said to be.