The casual observer would think that it was Ryan Cawdor who was prone on the chamber floor, then would notice that under the black mop of curly hair, the chiseled face was bereft of scarring and still held two eyes. The limbs were rangy, the musculature strong but still taking shape. But there was no mistaking that the boy was of Cawdor blood.
Dean Cawdor, recently turned twelve years old, was his father in miniature, and for Ryan it was an uncanny experience to look on his son and see himself some twenty-odd years previous. He even recognized the bridling brashness and overconfidence in his abilities that Ryan himself had been prone to at that age—except that Ryan had gone through this stage in the comparative safety and security of Front Royal, under the patronage of his father, the ville’s baron. Dean had to go through this learning experience in an environment where one wrong move could mean instant death, or worse…a lingering, tortuous death. So perhaps sometimes the older Cawdor was harsh in slapping down his son’s brazen self-confidence, but only because he was aware of what was happening inside the boy and felt an urgent need to quell the impetuousness that could be Dean’s undoing.
Even as this passed through the one-eyed warrior’s mind, Dean groaned softly and raised his head slowly, opening his eyes and then raising himself in the same manner as his father.
With Doc also now on his feet, Mildred devoted her medical attentions to taking care of Jak. The albino’s tolerance to the bodily stresses of the jumps was lower than the others.
Slowly, Jak came round, wiping the sticky mucus and bile from his face with his sleeve, and hawking a glob of phlegm from his throat.
“Okay to go?” Ryan questioned him.
Jak nodded. “As ever be.”
“Let’s do it.”
THE DOOR to the chamber had unlocked automatically when the jump had been completed. It was a safety facet of the mat-trans system that the doors on both the sending and receiving chambers had to be shut before the transfer could take place, and that the comp systems would automatically lock and unlock the doors when the transfer got underway and ended. Or at least, the aging and mostly uncared-for tech had worked that way thus far. Any deviation was beyond their control, and so not really worth consideration or worry.
They exited the chamber singly, checking the immediate area as they went, prepared to provide cover and defense for those who would follow. As always, Ryan took the lead, with J.B. at the rear.
The anteroom and control room outside the mat-trans unit were empty. The comp consoles winked and chattered softly in the semidarkness, with much of the lighting having fallen prey to the passing years and lack of maintenance. The lack of dust was due to the antistatic air conditioner, which still worked.
There were no signs of life.
It took little time for them to ascertain that the redoubt was, on these lower levels at least, completely deserted. It was in a reasonable condition. There were signs of stress in some of the walls, suggesting that earth movements resulting from the tremors and quakes following skydark had made some impact on the redoubt, but most of the lighting was still working, and there was some circulation of air through a purification plant. The air was clean, but a little thin, suggesting that the plant was damaged.
“Can’t stay here too long,” Mildred remarked as they explored the empty rooms. “The air’s fine now, but it won’t last that way forever.”
“Why not?” Dean countered. “It’s been okay up to now, right?”
“Think about it, my boy,” Doc interjected with a sardonic note. “The air is, shall we say, a little thin down here. Suggesting, I should imagine, some malfunction of the ancient technology keeping this place alive, albeit perhaps in a wheezing and somewhat dubious manner… A little like myself, in fact.”
“So?” Dean prompted, still in the dark.
“So, it’s thin and strained when the redoubt is empty. But now it has seven people breathing in at a ridiculous rate. A rate made, with some irony, even faster by its very paucity.”