Nothing beyond the stale, flat air and the echoing sound of their own boots.
The walls remained curved, with strips of corrugated steel supports running clear over the roof. Behind them Ryan heard the distant sound of a shell hitting the closed door, but he knew the door to be strong enough to withstand anything short of an antitank shell.
They headed inward, toward the bowels of the mountain. The tunnel that they followed ran straight for several hundred paces with about a dozen chambers opening off it. Each one was stripped bare. Some of the walls showed the faint marks where cabinets or desks had once stood against them.
Out of habit, Ryan flicked on the rad counter clipped to the inside of his long coat, by the lapel. It murmured and cheeped a little, with the background crackling it always gave out in the Deathlands. But nothing here to worry-about.
Nobody spoke as they moved cautiously on. There was a deadliness in the Redoubt that oppressed the spirit. Doc was mumbling to himself, a quiet string of nonsense. Ryan wished to the bottom of his heart that the old man hadn't lost so much of his mind under the tender care of Teague and Strasser. He was absolutely certain that Doc held the key to limitless secrets. How could he have known about the fog and Cerberus and the code to the door that had saved all their lives?
"Should I call in to Cohn?" asked Henn. "If we go much hellfired deeper they won't be able to hear it."
Ryan shook his head at the suggestion. "No point, Henn. That door and this concrete will stop anything gettin' out."
The corridor reached a T-junction. It was a momentary temptation to split the party, but Ryan elected to keep together. Eight wasn't a big enough group to divide and then hope to survive a firefight. Despite what Doc had said, there might be another entrance. Or the Indians might be able to force the main door, now that they had the added incentive of pursuing them inside.
He led them to the left, wandering along a snaking passage for some minutes until it ended abruptly in a rock-fall. It looked as if half the hill had come bursting in through the roof.
There was a doorway partly buried under the stone, and Ryan scrambled up to push it open. It moved back uneasily on warped hinges and he glimpsed light and some wooden pallets. "Somethin' here," he called.
"Old stores. Left behind," said Doc.
Ryan beckoned for Krysty and J.B. to follow him, leaving the others immediately outside; there was no obvious danger of a fight, and they would give warning of any attackers. It was a corridor with a rounded ceiling, made of rows of stressed metal ribs. On the right were dozens of stacked boxes, with a few more piled loosely on the other side. At the farthest end he could see the red and silver of the sky, patched with purple chem clouds; the end of the cave was open to the world. Some of the boxes had been opened, and Ryan and J.B. began to investigate. Krysty walked to the opening, less than fifty paces away.
"Blasters," said J.B., sitting on one of the containers, peering at a bizarre weapon by his feet. It was like a large pistol with a massive ammunition drum that had chambers for a dozen rounds.
"What the hell does that fire?" asked Ryan.
"Seen a pic of one. Colt M2-0-7,40 mm gren launcher. Twelve different grenades. Laser sight and high-low propulsion system. I might come back for it once we've scouted around."
Ryan had taken a gun from its box, wiping the grease off on the sleeve of his long, fur-trimmed coat. "Nice. Close assault blaster, Heckler & Koch 12-gauge scattergun. Night scope and image intensifier. Be good 'gainst stickies in the dark." Reluctantly he laid it back in its box. "Yeah, might take some of these babies on the way out. If we get out."
Krysty appeared cat-footed at his side, her hair reflecting the fiery brightness of the sky behind her. "Not gettin' out that way. Land slip's taken off the edge of the whole mountain. Clean as a knife. Drops clean down to the gorge, and that's a long way. Not a hope."
They turned away from the small Stockpile and rejoined the others in the corridor. Ryan told them briefly what they'd found and that there was no way out.
"I believe I had already mentioned that probability, Mr. Cawdor," Doc said with a grin.
Ryan ignored him. "Let's go."
They retraced their steps, and Henn moaned about carrying the radio.
"If we ain't usin' it, then why in blazing shit am I humpin' it on?"
Finnegan patted the tall black man on the backside. "Ice your asshole, Hennings. You got the radio and I got my big gut to carry."
The other branch of the corridor went a couple of hundred paces, then forked like a sidewinder's tongue. The lights had failed in the one end but burned brightly from the roof along to the right. "That way," said Ryan, leading the others.
As they went, they checked off all the rooms, on the chance that one of them might contain some clue, some indication of what had happened in this place.
Hun picked up a torn piece of card tucked in behind one of the plastic doors. Holding it up to the light, she read the faint pencil lettering.
"Forty-Niners over the Dolphins, twenty-four to twenty-one," she read. "Now what the scorch was that? Some kind of firefight casualties?"
She tucked the scrap of paper in a pocket of her overalls.
The corridor ended abruptly. A door of vanadium-type steel ran ceiling to floor, its surface polished and gleaming, throwing back their own reflections as if it mocked them. There was no sign of any lock or control, just smooth walls on either side.
"Try that other way. Where the lights had gone out," suggested Hunaker.
Doc waved a careless hand. "Waste of time, my emerald-locked elfling. That corridor curls all the way around the Redoubt complex and returns behind that rockfall. There is nothing there."
"Just how d'you know all this, Doc?" asked J.B. "Maybe this is the place and time to tell us."
Doc's cunning eyes turned to J.B. "This is a place and a time, sir. But not thetime or theplace. When that might be, I do not know. It is beyond my control."
"You knew about the main door to the Redoubt. How about this one?" asked Ryan. Casually he allowed the barrel of his gun to move toward the old man.
Doc noted the gesture. "Ah, Mr. Cawdor... a threat. Over the years I have become overly familiar with threats."
"The door?"
"It is the last door before the gate."
Ryan closed his only eye, fighting for control. There were times when a great scarlet mist drenched his senses and an entirely insensate rage possessed him. There was the temptation to take this doddering imbecile with his antique clothes and rich baritone voice, take him and rip the seamed old face from the skull. Things were tough on Ryan now. The realization that Krysty Wroth was probably a mutie had already shaken him. He'd fallen in love with a mutie! Once this was over he would need to clear his mind on that one. But for now...
"Can you open the door, Doc?" in a voice calm as buttermilk.
"If I were within, then it would be a matter of the utmost simplicity."
"Within what?" asked Finnegan.
"Inside the door, stupe," hissed Henn.
"It cannot be opened from out here."
Ryan looked at J.B. Suddenly both of them chorused, "Over, under or around."
It had been one of the Trader's pet sayings when confronted with a problem that could not be solved directly.
"Over's impossible. Under, as well, without digging gear."
"Go back and radio the war wag for help?" suggested Hunaker.
"What about goin' in the side?" Ryan asked. "In that room there. Maybe the walls aren't as thick. Worth a try."
The room was a bare office with only a grease mark on one wall showing where someone had sat and leaned back against it.