"Yeah?"
"How're we doing?"
"Moving."
"How far off from the land?"
"Hundred yards, mebbe two."
"No sign of anyone coming after us, or anyone on shore?"
"Nothing. Quiet as a hunting gator."
Ryan, trying to keep a steady stroke that the others would be able to match, was worried that they were moving too slowly. The dragon-ships, fully manned, would overhaul them within minutes, once they were within sight. It was important that they keep a watch behind them, and look out for the first lightening of the eastern sky ahead of them.
The sky finally began to grow less dark, but with an infinite slowness. Ryan noticed the silvery sparkle of water off the broad blade of the oar. Glancing to his right, he realized that he could now make out the low silhouette of the shore. And, rising above it, he was now able to see the pinkish tint of the higher ground.
"Still nobody after us?" he asked Jak, aware of how tired he felt after the long row,
"No. But light's come. Head in?"
"Stop rowing a minute," Ryan instructed, taking several slow, deep breaths.
Krysty slumped over her oar, her hair trailing across it. J.B. sat back on his thwart, fedora pushed off his forehead. "I'll stick to walking or wags in future, if you don't mind, Ryan," he said.
There was a narrow headland jutting into the lake about a quarter mile ahead, with what looked to be a sheltered bay beyond it. The trees came down close to the water, and behind them the hillside seemed to slope steeply upward.
"There," Ryan called, pointing.
He sighed and wiped sweat off his face, wondering whether he'd be better off in less clothing. His attention was drawn to the lapel of his shirt, where he'd pinned the tiny rad counter.
"Fireblast!" he whispered softly. "Look at that."
"What lover?"
"Look." He pointed to the diminutive disk, which was usually a neutral green color. Now it was glowing with a deep reddish-orange.
"Hot spot," J.B. said unnecessarily.
They beached the boat in a narrow inlet at the head of the bay, pulling it as far in under some overhanging trees as they could. Ryan was worried that it might still be visible to anyone sailing by. Knowing the difficulty of the terrain they had faced before, his guess was that they'd the biggest head start that they could get.
He hefted the Heckler & Koch over his shoulder and looked ahead. They were at the bottom end of a steep-sided valley, which had a stream running through the middle. It was nearly wide enough to be called a river, about nine feet across where they stood. As Ryan looked at the water a large salmon swam slowly and erratically past him, flopping over on its side, then straightening.
Jak was bending down a few yards away, hands cupped, ready to drink from the clear, sparkling water.
"No!"
Ryan's bellow of angry warning sent the dawn birds screeching from the pine trees; a flock of gulls rose in a screaming protest from the rocks at the end of the headland. The echoes rolled and boiled off the hills.
"What!" Jak spit, stumbling with shock, water spilling from his fingers.
"Come here," Ryan said. "Put a few drops of that water on my rad counter."
"What?"
"Do it."
The boy reached out a finger and allowed a single drop of the spring water to fall on the tiny button, which immediately went from the orange-red color to a dazzling, flaring scarlet.
"Holy shit!" Mildred breathed. "Do that mean what I think it do?"
Doc nodded. "It do."
Mildred was vehement. "We don't have a choice. We go farther along the coast or we go back toward the Viking village. We cannotstay here!"
"If we go upriver and over the mountain, we'll be there and gone fast," Krysty said. "We won't be exposed to the rad for that long."
Mildred turned to face Krysty, her hands on her hips. "You got any brains in that pretty head, lady? The count here at the edge of the lake's hot enough to fry a side of pork. What d'you think it'll be like higher up, where the radiation leak has to be stronger? While we're here jawing about it, the sickness is settling on us like fine ash from an erupting volcano."
Ryan nodded. "All right, all right! No point going farther. Must be close to the ville of those muties. Have to be back. Take the boat and keep close in to the shore. Hope to spot any pursuers before they're close enough to hit us."
"Then let's go," Mildred said.
Doc coughed. "One brief moment, if I may, Ryan?"
"What, Doc?"
"It seems likely there's been some slow seepage around here for some years. Witness the appalling mutations we witnessed in the attackers. But the illness that is now striking at the Viking people seems to me to indicate some new and drastic increase in the radiation potential. The water. The fish. My interest as a scientist prompts me to ask whether we might take a half hour and go a short way up the river to see what we shall see."
Ryan looked at the others. Mildred shook her head firmly. So did Jak. J.B. shrugged his shoulders.
Krysty looked behind her into the clean-smelling pine trees. "Half an hour can't hurt much. I'd like to know."
"Fine. We leave now. And we're back in the boat in precisely forty minutes. Anyone wants to stay here can. Mildred?"
She grinned. "I'm not letting that old goat boldly go where no scientist's gone before. But we don't touch or eat or drink anything."
It took less than fifteen minutes. A clear path meandered along the left-hand side of the river, which they followed. The water flowed through a gorge, and fresh scars along its flanks testified to recent earth falls. Mildred pointed them out to the others, commenting on the minor quake they'd all experienced.
"I assume that nuking during the war was so intense that it triggered movements of some of the less stable tectonic plates. You said that most of California had slid into the Pacific, Doc."
"Right."
"So, bearing in mind a lot of the nasties were buried underground, lead-lined vaults and all that so-called 'safety' bullshit, major tremors could open them up like a hot knife through butter."
"Mildred," Ryan said as he walked beside her on the trail, "I never read anything that told how rad sickness works. I mean, I know about what it does. The rash and puking and all that. But howdoes it do that? You can't see it or anything."
She paused. "Not my specialty, Ryan. But I guess I know a little. Gather around, students." Everyone stood closer. "You won't know much about negatively charged electrons, ions or free radical molecules, right? No, I thought not. Me neither. Radiation has alpha and beta particles and they have a charge of electricity. They screw up the electrons and molecules in the body. Send them ape-shit wild. I know that structural proteins, like collagen, get smashed around. The DNA... No, you wouldn't know that, either. The tiny cells can reproduce themselves perfectly in a healthy body. Radiation messes that up."
"The cell blueprint is ruined?" Doc asked. "Is that it?"
"Sure. And the cells that reproduce fastest are the ones that get hit first and hardest. Blood, of course. And skin and hair. So, you get leukemia and your skin starts falling off and goodbye hair. More serious mutations are slower to show, but just as deadly in the long run."
"Thanks, Mildred. I just... well, it's all way beyond me."
"Radiation kills, Ryan. That's all you need to know. A man who gets a bullet through the brain doesn't need to know all about high-energy physics or ballistics. Just that he's been shot and he's going to die."