his own assessment.
J.B. looked like Ryan felt—as though he wanted to know what was happening with Doc but doubted that he could assimilate it. The two men had been friends for so long that Ryan was sure that J.B. felt the same way as he did. They were men of action and only used their sharp minds when action was called for. This was something beyond that range of experience.
Doc began again. ‘In my mind, I felt as though I were not here. Everything that I experienced on our journey to the Inuit ville was part of some test. I was back in the time from which I originally came. I was insane, locked in a padded room and going through these experiences as a kind of mental exercise. It was as though I were a rat in a maze, running blindly at the behest of some celestial scientist who had a purpose in mind for me, and if I reached the end of the maze I would be rewarded. Not with candy or cheese, but with the truth. A revelation that would explain why I was going through this whole experience…not just since landing here, but in the entire time since you, my dear friends, first saved me from the hands of Cort Strasser.
‘It seemed to me that in order to do this, I had to go through some kind of change, some kind of rebirth. I had to be like the butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis…even if that change meant that I had little or no knowledge of the life that I had experienced before that moment.
‘I suspect that that was the moment at which this man Jordan first made an appearance. I could not tell you who or what he was, only that once he appeared, I receded not just in your eyes, but in my own mind, as well. I have no recall of anything that happened after that, and only one fleeting memory from then until I awoke on the sled as we approached this place once more.
‘If I think about it, I can remember, just for a moment, standing in a log cabin staring at you all, wrapped in furs and skins. I tried to speak, but somehow the words would not come out. It was as though I were watching you through a gauze, as though I could hear you through a fog of white noise. My chest was constrained, making every breath something for which I had to fight, every syllable something that had to be forced from my lips. The words were there, but they would not come out.’
‘But it is fleeting, momentary, and after that there is nothing. Nothing until last evening, when I awoke to find myself on a sled, aware that something had happened, but not what that may be.’
Doc stuttered to a halt and shrugged, not knowing where to go.
‘I think that being here triggered things you didn’t want to remember and made you withdraw into yourself,’ Mildred said slowly. ‘Strange thing is, although it may sound like madness, it’s more a way of clinging on to your sanity.’
‘But at what cost?’ Doc spit bitterly. ‘What does it benefit me if I save sanity at the expense of losing identity? What use is it if I close down whenever things get too much? How does this settle with the notion that I am in some way a useful member of this group. Good heavens, Doctor, if I am to retreat into my own head at the drop of a hat, what possible use could I be to you? In fact, I could be nothing except a complete liability. And this is not a world in which to carry passengers.’
‘That’s for us to decide,’ Ryan cut in.
Doc shook his head firmly. ‘I cannot be responsible for such an eventuality.’
‘Then what do you propose to do about it?’ Krysty asked in a reasonable tone. ‘You want to stay here, alone? How long will you cling to your sanity then? You had a set of circumstances that are unlikely to occur again. I can’t see why you—’
‘But that is not the point,’ Doc shouted over her. ‘It may have been a one-off occurrence, but I cannot know that for sure, any more than you can. I cannot risk it happening again.’
‘Doc, the only way any of us can avoid a risk like that is by buying the farm right here and now, and that’s just stupe,’ J.B. said. ‘It’s this fucking place—it messes with our heads. Let’s just get the hell out and see what we feel like when we land somewhere else.’
It was a view with which all could agree, even Doc, who approached the idea with some trepidation, yet could see through his own fears how the redoubt may be, once more, exerting its pernicious influence.
They effected the quickest evacuation of all their redoubt experiences. In next to no time, they had collected what little they had to take with them, replenished from the few supplies left in the stores and were in the mattrans chamber.
Ryan stood by the door while the others filed into the chamber. As he entered and closed the door, Krysty settled on the disk-inset floor next to an apprehensive-looking Doc. She could feel the oppressive atmosphere that had once again been creeping upon them begin to lift, as if carried on the trails of white mist that began to spiral around them.
Chapter Three
Jak wretched and sent a thin stream of bile across the floor, where it settled at Ryan Cawdor’s feet.
‘Jak’s coming around,’ the one-eyed man muttered, watching the stream of liquid congeal at the toe of his heavy combat boot. He couldn’t think much beyond that, having only just managed to clamber to his feet. His head still spun wildly and it was at times like this that he was almost thankful for monocular vision, as it spared him the worst excesses of vomit-inducing blurred and double vision after a jump.
‘It’s not him I’m worried about,’ Krysty slurred, shaking her head as she tried to clear it. The movement only made things worse and she slumped forward from her kneeling position. She felt terrible. Like the others, she had been concerned that with little opportunity to recuperate after a traumatic firefight and flight, the jump would be too much of a strain. Jak always suffered after a jump, but it was the ever-fragile Doc who was the cause of most concern.
She’d worry about him later, though. Right now, her primary objective was to make sure that she was functioning.
J.B. and Mildred had stirred, and while Ryan tried to make out shapes through the opaque armaglass walls of the chamber, Krysty helped the pair of them to their feet. Jak, as ever, eschewed all help, waving away Krysty’s proffered hand to drag himself upright. He spit out a sour ball of bile and looked over at Doc.
‘He okay?’
Doc lay motionless, on his back.
‘I don’t know,’ Mildred muttered unnecessarily as she made her way over to him. The reflex reply had been necessary to cover her own concern. To all intents and purposes, Doc looked as though the trip might have been one trauma too much. He was so still, looked so peaceful, that at first she suspected that he had bought the farm while being reconstituted. It was only when she was kneeling over him that she could see he was breathing shallowly. There was still some life in the old bastard.
Something he confirmed by suddenly opening his eyes. They were wide, staring and alert, with none of the muzziness that he—or, indeed, any of the others—usually experienced after a jump.
‘Why, hello, my dear Doctor. How pleasant to see you. I must say, you don’t seem to be at all well. I, on the other hand, feel as though I have had a most refreshing rest.’ He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at the others, adding, ‘It’s most strange. Usually I feel terrible after a jump, but I feel as though I could fight an army.’
‘Doc, the way I feel, that might be a good thing,’ Ryan commented wryly. ‘But right now, let’s just get our shit together and secure the immediate area.’
He
