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"Should I call in to Conn?" 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
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see the red and silver of the sky, patched with purple chem clouds; the end of
the cave was open to the world.
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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?"
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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
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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
the time or the place. When that might be, I do not know. It is beyond my
control."
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"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."
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"Go back and radio the war wag for help?" suggested Hunaker.
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