"I'm delighted to make your acquaintances, gentlemen. Forgive me that I'm not able to show my gratitude in a more positive way, but I am temporarily a little short of funds, or I would not have hesitated... hesitated to... to seek... I fear..." His hand went to his brow and he attempted a conciliatory smile. "The words have somewhat trickled away from me down the culverts of time."
Ryan stood suddenly, intending to pass Doc a mug of water. But the old man recoiled, hands flying to cover his face against the blow.
"No, don't...!"
"Doc, I'm not goin' to burnin' hurt you. Chill that kind of idea. This isn't Mocsin."
"Ah, Mocsin. Sweet pearl set in... Do you know what Mr. Teague and Mr. Strasser made me do if I displeased them in aught?"
"We don't want to talk about that," said J.B. "We're more interested in the Darks."
But Doc wasn't to be sidetracked. Once his mind set off, there was no checking him. Not until his thoughts reached some blind corner and then lurched into a siding.
"I was taken to the pigpens. I... I who was once... But I disremember that." There was a momentary pause. Then he continued, in the same, deep, rich baritone voice and the peculiarly old-fashioned way of speaking. "I was stripped and made to attempt carnal union with our porcine brethren." A ghost of a smile, revealing the excellent, strong white teeth. "Perhaps sisterhood is a better turn of phrase. Only when I had succeeded in such a union was I allowed free once more. This happened many, oh, so many times."
J.B. took off his thin-rimmed glasses and busied himself polishing them. If the old man hadn't been so damned tragic, Ryan would have smiled at the unusual sight of J. B. Dix lost for words.
"How did Teague get his blubberin' claws into you?" asked Ryan.
"I believe... Ah, I fear me that such things are lost in the far-off mists."
The door opened and Krysty appeared, the brightness of her hair flooding the nav room with crimson light. "Kathy says Kurt's goin', Ryan."
Very faintly Ryan heard "Claws an' teeth" from the main part of the war wag.
"I'll be along. Thanks."
Doc bowed at the appearance of the woman. But Krysty did not notice.
"Should I absent myself, Mr. Cawdor? Cawdor... I have the feeling I have heard the name before, but I confess that I think that about many things. The price of my age."
Ryan realized that the old man's brain was nine-tenths scrambled. It was amazing after what Strasser's evilly fertile imagination had done to the old man that he still lived and functioned. But there was no hope of getting any worthwhile or reliable information out of Doc.
Maybe one day?
"You can go, Doc. Talk to you again, huh?"
"It would be my pleasure, sir." Nodding to J.B., he added, "Mr. Dix, my best wishes." In the doorway, the old man paused. "Did I understand you to say something about our ultimate destination? Our ultima Thule, perhaps, is what you call the Darks?"
"It is." Ryan caught J.B.'s eye. Maybe this was one of the glimmerings of sanity.
"Known, I believe, as one of the great parks of the nation. One nation, in... How did it go? Glacier, that's it. That was the name of the Darks. Great hills, ice tipped. Ravines dark as graves. Water pure and clear. I think I have been to the Darks more than once." The man's brow furrowed and the eyes became veiled, their milky blues vanishing under a thin membrane.
"Doc? Go on."
"I fear I can no longer 'go on,' as you put it, Mr. Cawdor. There is nowhere to go. But in the Darks there were many wonders. Wonders of F to G and G to H and on from alpha to omega, they told me, but I saw only... Saw what, I wonder. Ah, well."
Shaking his head, Doc walked through the door, reaching behind him and softly closing it. J.B. looked at Ryan.
"I'd have said he was crazed as an out-brain mutie. Then he ups and talks like he did just."
"You think it's all mutie talk?"
"Who knows?" J.B. shrugged, reaching for his leafy, crudely packed cheroots. "One of these days I'll give these things up. I'm told they'll kill me." Through the billowing smoke he reviewed the situation. "Seems from Doc, and Kurt and Krysty, that there might be somethin' secret up there. Maybe..."
"Maybe what? Come on, J.B. What?"
"This talk about moving. Suppose there really was a transmitter of matter. I've read about things like that in old books. It was fiction, of course, not fact. But if there was... I've seen them called 'jumpers' in books. Worth thinking on, old friend. A way of getting from Deathlands to the Western Islands in the wink of an eye. Or from the Baronies out east to beyond the Big Black Water. That, instead of weeks of danger in a war wag. Think on that."
Ryan stood up. "I've got to go see Kurt."
As he moved into the corridor, he could hear the screams of the dying blaster.
"The fog. Claws an' teeth!" But the voice was now weaker.
Out of one of the ob slits, Ryan stood and watched the setting sun on the left side of the war wag. The sky was dappled pink, streaked with shades of darker, menacing maroon. There was a big wind starting up outside and all the doors had been closed, but it was still possible to hear the muted whistling of the gale. Banks of trees all around them crowded up the edges of the ruined highway, most of them with their upper branches stunted or broken by the weather.
Once the doors were battened and bolted and the ob slits locked shut, the voices in the war wag became quieter and the oppression became a tangible thing, sitting on everyone's spirits.
Now, with a man dying, hardly anyone was talking. Those on duty were busy enough, but the rest either dozed or listened to tapes through the cans. Ryan eased his way along to the tiny sick bay. Generally it was not much used. In a firefight there were rarely any wounded.
Krysty was sitting on the edge of the bunk, wiping Kurt's forehead. Even in the past few hours the man had sunk. The mouth was relaxed, the eyes open. Even the babbling had finally stopped. The eyes followed Ryan as he moved into the room.
"How is he?" asked Ryan.
It was Kurt himself who answered. "He's near finally fucked, Ryan."
"Looks that way."
He was conscious that someone had come in behind them. Out of the corner of his eye Ryan recognized the shambling figure of Doc.
"Better here than back in hellsuckin' Mocsin, Ryan," said Kurt.
"Yeah."
"Man could choose worse company than this to die in."
"Guess so. Anythin' you want?"
"Mebbe a long drink and a tall blonde. No, make that... make that two of each." There was a dreadful spasm of strained breathing and the man's whole body racked upward, mouth gaping, the air hissing in his chest. Then Kurt lay still a moment, eyes fixed to Ryan's face. Finally his eyes closed and the flurried movement of his chest ceased. Ryan glanced across at Krysty, who shook her head and reached down to pull the gray blanket up over the blackened features.
"Gone beyond the river from which no man returns," said Doc quietly.
"He's chilled, Doc. The rest is crap. Life's just somethin' you lose."
"Ah, I was meaning to ask you, Mr. Cawdor, if by any chance any of your people had come across a possession of mine."
"What possession, Doc?"
"Plural, I think. There are two of them. Past tense. Were two of them. Small, gray spheroids, about... about so big." He held his fingers apart to indicate something roughly the size of an implode-stun grenade.
"Haven't seen them. What were they?"
Just for a moment a look of foxy cunning faded across the old man's wrinkled face. And went just as quickly. "Nothing of importance, my dear sir. Nothing at all."