Below him, in the valley of what had once been the verdant Meadow Valley Wash, a Sherman tank was trundling up the dried-up riverbed, blue smoke rings sputtering from its exhaust. A stone-tipped arrow wavered drunkenly through the air and clunked against the turret. The tank halted and laboriously cranked its gun through ninety degrees in the direction of the aggressor, apparently oblivious to the fact that the barrel was a splintered stub, like a joke cigar that had exploded.
Another arrow clattered harmlessly against the armor plating and snapped in two. From its trajectory Dan was able to pinpoint its source --a screen of bushes concealing a small opening in the riverbank.
Kneeling beside him, watching through binoculars, Jo said, "You were right, it's a raiding party of mutes. But who does the tank belong to?"
"Can you see any markings?"
"Some old army insignia, nothing recent." She lowered the binoculars and edged behind a rock that had some form of bell-shaped fungus growing on it. There were strange species of flora appearing everywhere, so commonplace they hardly noticed them. Jo's face was completely hidden behind tinted goggles and a gauze mask, underneath which she was plastered with barrier cream as protection against ultraviolet radiation. Prolonged exposure led to cataracts and eventually blindness. The thinness of the air they could do little about except to become acclimatized to what was the equivalent of twenty thousand feet up a mountain.
"Where are Fran and the others?" Dan said. "I hope they know we've got company."
There were five of them in the reconnaissance party. They had been out two days and were due back by nightfalclass="underline" Thirty-six hours was the maximum permitted by the medics. This particular skirmish was the nearest one so far to the western access of the Desert Range complex, barely ten miles away.
"Fran won't move from the camp till she hears from us," Jo said. Her straw-colored hair was pulled back under a forage cap, wisps trailing over her upturned collar. "Where do they find the diesel fuel to run a tank, for God's sake? You'd think they'd find a better use for it, to generate power or even to keep a fire going. They must--"
Dan silenced her with a wave of his gloved hand and at the same time ducked down. Somebody shrieked below them, a cry that sounded hardly human at all. The crack and echoing reverberation of a gunshot rolled along the valley.
"What's happening?" Jo said, craning to see.
"The mutes decided to rush them and somebody in the tank opened fire with a rifle. Keep down, we don't want to be spotted."
Carefully they peered over the rock and saw three men emerging from the turret. They were unshaven and wore patched-up army fatigues but were otherwise normal in appearance. The mutes--about a dozen of them--were crouched behind rocks and bushes, armed with crude spears, cudgels, and bows and arrows. One of them lay sprawled on the bank with half his face missing.
It looked to be such a one-sided contest that Dan was loath to watch. The three men were armed with rifles and pistols, the mutes with primitive homemade weapons: It was the twenty-first century versus the Stone Age. But what were they fighting for? Ownership of this barren tract of valley and riverbed that wouldn't have supported a couple of goats?
As they moved forward, dodging the missiles casually, almost indifferently, the three men picked off the mutes like plaster ducks in a shooting gallery. Dan gripped his own rifle in a paroxysm of frustration and despair. This was cold-blooded slaughter.
Jo said needlessly, "There's nothing we can do." She reached out and he felt her fingers tighten on his arm. "Come on, Dan, let's go back. We don't have to watch this."
She moved back, and as he squirmed around on his haunches to follow her, they both froze as a grunting, gibbering snarl seemed to tear the air apart. From out of the cavelike opening in the riverbank came a small bundle of fur and teeth that moved in a blur through the rocks and leaped at the throat of one of the men before he had time to sight his gun. In seconds the riverbed was swarming with the creatures. They moved so fast that Dan couldn't make out what they were--a kind of rodent, he guessed, but with an insatiable ferocity he'd never seen before.
They systematically tore the three men apart, attacking the head first and working downward. Now able to see them properly for the first time, Dan realized what they were, and his blood chilled. Ground squirrels. In the past one of the most timid and docile of creatures, almost domesticated and fed from picnic tables by generations of American kids, these descendants had mutated into voracious wild animals with a taste for human meat.
And something else he realized, amazed and fearful.
"They've been trained," he whispered numbly. "The mutes have trained the squirrels. It was a trap. They lured those guys out of the tank so that the squirrels could get at them."
Jo stared at him through the tinted goggles. "But some of the mutes were killed."
"It doesn't seem to.matter to them," Dan said. "They don't think like we do. Maybe they don't think at all--it's just instinct."
There were three writhing mounds of gray fur where the bodies had been. The clicking and snapping of tiny teeth could be heard, strangely peaceful after the gunfire and the screams. Three of the mutes had climbed up onto the tank and were poking their spears into the open hatch. Dan hoped there was no one hiding inside.
Once over the ridge they straightened up and loped down the hill to the camp, about a mile away. The raw sunlight scoured the bleached landscape and the air tasted metallic. They were reaching the point at which further exposure would be dangerous, though this wasn't the reason Dan was anxious to return to the Tomb. Six months ago there hadn't been an incident within a hundred miles. As the skirmishes got closer, the threat of discovery became more likely, and it was vital that the Tomb was alerted and prepared. It was safe from attack by prims and mutes, but now somebody--and who the hell were they?--had tanks. And tanks meant explosives. Even perhaps a nuke warhead. He shrank from the thought.
The tent was still up. The lazy bastards were still asleep or lingering over a late breakfast.
Dan pushed aside the light brush they had piled up as camouflage and raised the tent flap. It was very quiet inside and he felt a twinge of unease until he saw an outstretched leg wearing a knee-high brown boot, which he recognized as Fran's. The leg wasn't attached to her body. Next to it lay a hand, fingers curled, like a discarded glove.
The interior of the tent was dark, the canvas walls obscured by something that seethed. They were coated with millions of tiny white grubs. The grubs covered every surface and they were feasting on the three bodies and devouring them piece by piece. In the middle of Fran's chest was a hole that pulsed whitely as the grubs burrowed inside.
Small, bald, and rotund, Art Hegler was at the communications desk with headphones around his neck listening over the desk speaker and making an occasional jotting. The message was in Morse, very fast, outstripping Chase's rudimentary knowledge, and the few words he did catch were jumbled and meaningless.
After a minute or two Hegler threw down the pen and arched back. His taut straining T-shirt read: "From the womb to the Tomb."
"Same code?"
Hegler nodded, dropped the headphones onto the desk, and waddled across to the coffeepot. "Want some?"
Chase shook his head. Two cups a day were his limit. "Is it military traffic?"
Hegler shrugged. Their conversations were usually terse and cryptic. Perhaps Hegler resented the fact that he was still nominally in charge at Desert Range, when everyone knew that the scientific basis for its existence had long since ended. With its empty labs and silent equipment, the lower levels sealed off, the installation was a shadow of its former glory.
Hegler sipped his coffee and paused to belch softly. "Whatever it is, it goes on night and day," he said, as if inwardly musing.