The head nodded, but the gun never shifted. The stranger's finger never moved off the twin triggers of the battered Remington.
"Long waaaaay. Sure is. Upanupanup."
The man was a perfect target for anyone behind Ryan, with that bright light haloing him, and he wouldn't be able to see any of the others in the blackness outside. However, any of the other six would also be able to see the shotgun pointing just below Ryan's breastbone. It was way better than evens that a bullet through the toothless mouth could also mean a hole in Ryan's guts.
"Why the gun?" Ryan asked, taking care not to let his own fingers stray toward the blaster in his belt.
"Why not? There's a riddle, innit? Riddlemereeeeee. You come the ladder?"
"Yeah."
"Up it?"
"Sure."
"Now you gooooo down it."
"How's that?" The muzzle jabbing toward Ryan made it clear what the mutie meant.
"Down, down." The movement stopped. "You got any Cokes?"
"Drinks, you mean?"
The face split wider in a smile of delight. "You know it."
In a few of the redoubts that Ryan Cawdor had helped to uncover, there'd been rooms full of supplies. The familiar red-and-white cans were sometimes there, still good and drinkable after all the long years.
"Could have," Ryan said cautiously, hedging his bets for the crazie.
"Where?"
"In the boat. Out there." He pointed behind him, where he could sense the others waiting, tensely, for a chance to chill the stranger.
"I been here lotsa days. Found a room with cansa Coke innit. Had..." a look of concentrated effort crossed the man's face "...had meeee same cans as fingers every day. More lotsa times. All days been here all life been here."
Ryan's mind boggled. If this gibbering dotard had really been in this redoubt all his life and had been drinking ten cans of soft drink every day, he must have finished off… hundreds of thousands of them. Somewhere there must be a graveyard of tins bigger than a dozen war wags.
"Not had any for days now. Lotsa days. How many you got?"
"Lots." Ryan held up both hands to show ten fingers, clenching and opening them, drawing the sunken, mad little eyes.
The barrels of the scattergun wavered for a moment, which was all that Ryan needed.
He slashed down with his left hand, parrying the blaster away, simultaneously diving low and to his left, inside the doorway.
"Chill him!" he yelled.
The blast of gunfire filled his ears, and he was conscious of the all too familiar warm rain of blood and bone splinters cascading over him. The mutie didn't even have time for a proper scream as he saw his own passing — a muffled cry and then the clatter of the Remington hitting the floor, followed by the loose flailing as he went down after the blaster. One of his feet kicked Ryan in the ribs before he could roll away.
"You can get up, Ryan," J.B. said. "He's going nowhere."
He stood up, dusting himself off, seeing that J.B., Jak and Krysty were all holding smoking blasters. The dead mutie lay in a jumbled heap of torn flesh, dark blood puddled all around him.
Jak picked up the fallen shotgun, flicking it open. "Empty," he said laconically. "Not fired for fifty years by dirt."
"Is that a mistake?" Donfil asked, stooping to get through the doorway, out of the screeching wind and spray.
"No," Ryan answered. "Mistake would have been if it had been me down and done for. No. No mistake at all, friend."
Doc was in a parlous state. The shock of the climb — after the immersion in freezing seawater — had carried him beyond the level of exhaustion. And, as is often the case, the mind had gone along with his body. Lori and Ryan carried him in, while Krysty finally closed the door on the bitter storm that raged outside in the night. The old man was talking incessantly, in a ragged monotone, half inaudible, the rest complete nonsense.
"Cape Cod, summer of '95. Bitter chill it was. The crabs for all their feathers were… Emily, belly swollen like a milkmaid, smiling in the sun. Rachel tarry-hooting around like a heathen savage. We went so gentle into the far-off beating of a slackskin drum." The eyes snapped open and stared with a fiery intelligence into Ryan's good eye. "You lied who told me time would ease my pain. I miss them in the turning of the tides. I miss them in the weeping of the rain. There's a wind on the heath, Brother Ryan. Life is very sweet. Who would wish to die?"
His eyes closed and he fell deeply asleep, even as they carried him into the depths of the isolated redoubt.
For reasons that nobody would ever know, it seemed that the nameless mutie had been living alone in that section of the complex for most of his life. There were rooms filled with empty and rotten self-heats and ring-pulls. It had been the storage section, and there were still enough racks of food and drink to keep a small army supplied for months.
There was also a whole wing of the redoubt equipped as dormitories, with partitions dividing off small rooms, each with half a dozen metal-frame bunk beds.
They laid Doc on one of them, and Lori crashed out on the bed beside. J.B. and Jak joined the shaman in a room just along the passage.
"We need a guard, Ryan?" the Armorer asked.
"Doesn't seem to be any sign that the crazie had any company here. After the past few hours, I figure we all need some sleep real bad. Let's take a chance. The doors are bolted at both ends of this dormitory. We got our blasters at our sides."
J.B. nodded his agreement. "Fine. I feel kinda tired."
Ryan grinned at his old friend. "That's a first. I swear I can't recall ever hearing you say before in all the years… You mustbe tired."
Krysty called to him. "Couple of beds here pushed together, lover. Not used, neither. Double spread of blankets."
Ryan closed the flimsy hardboard door and switched off the light. There was still plenty of glow from the main overhead lamps that were never switched off in any redoubt.
He felt bone weary. "You getting undressed?" Krysty asked from where she lay sprawled on the bed. Her sentient hair framed her pale cheeks limply, setting off the startling green of her eyes.
Ryan shook his head. "Nope. I'll peel off what's wet and… Guess that's everything. Fireblast! Yeah, why not?"
She didn't move, watching him as he unlaced the combat boots, cursing the seawater that had tightened the knots. He peeled the socks off his pale, puckered feet, carefully unburdening himself of his armory of weapons: rifle, pistol and panga, the hidden slim-bladed flensing knife. He unwound the white silk scarf with the strangler's weights at both ends, then removed the heavy coat with the white fur collar and the rest of his clothes, until he stood, swaying with tiredness, magnificently naked in front of her.
"Very good, lover," she said softly, clapping her hands gently together. "Now you lie down here and watch me."
"Krysty," he warned her, "I'm not going to be up to this tonight. Leave it lay until the dawning. I can't do a thing until I've slept."
"We'll see." She licked her lips very slowly, and despite his protestations, Ryan felt a tremor stirring at his groin.
He moved past her and lay on the bed, not bothering to pull up the blankets. As in most redoubts, the automatic temperature control kept conditions comfortable.
Krysty glanced across at him, admiring the planes of muscle across his lean torso, noticing, as she always did on the rare occasions she saw him nude, the seamed scars and weals of old wounds that mapped his body from temple to heel.
The woman pulled off her dark blue leather boots, throwing them down by the bed, the silver points on the toes gleaming softly. The khaki coveralls peeled away from her and fell about her bare feet, leaving only the sheen of her bikini pants, strung across her hips.