down stairs the stench of brimstone, which had infiltrated the vast subterranean structure over a century or more, was replaced by cooler, cleaner-smelling air scrubbed by the filters. “Cleaner-smelling” was a relative term; the redoubt was full of a musty smell no HVAC system could exorcise, of dust and mildew and disuse—and, faintly but unmistakably, of death. They found several corpses, shrunk and mummified in the dry sterilized air, bundled in ancient U.S. army uniforms. Unusual.
When the group came back to the gateway control room Ryan was alarmed to find Krysty lying apparently unconscious on a pallet composed of their coats and jackets. “She’s just resting,” Mildred said, moving away and lowering her voice so as not to disturb her patient. “Letting Gaia get a head start on healing her. They and me got a job of work ahead of us.” She studied the four. “Especially if we need to move right away.”
“You called the shot,” J.B. said. “Place is cleaned out pretty good. No food, no weps, no meds. There’s all the water we could want. We can get cleaned up and drink until our skins are swollen out like three-day-old deaders. But that’s all she wrote for resupply.”
Mildred sucked in her lower lip. The mountain retreat had been good to them. The abundance of game and natural food to gather had left them with a few days’ MREs and self-heats in all their packs. But all that really granted them was a little time to forage for more food in whatever terrain lay beyond the redoubt—and the erupting volcano.
“And to think,” Mildred said sourly, “right about now those bastard coldhearts are stuffing their faces with that nice juicy deer I gutted. Well, we can’t stay here, even if the roof doesn’t open up and pour lava on our heads.”
She looked around at the scouting party. “You guys must have some good news,” she said, “’cause you’re bouncing around like schoolkids who got to pee. So spill it. I’m not in a mood for games.”
J.B. looked to Ryan, who shrugged. “Well, we do have to get out of here,” the small man said, “but we don’t have to walk.”
“PRETTY, ISN’T SHE?” J.B. asked, words echoing in the vastness of the underground garage. “She’s a Hummer.”
“I know what a Hummer is, J.B.,” Mildred said. “A Humvee, too. It’s not like it’s the first one we ever found.”
“Got a nuke battery, so we don’t need to worry about fuel,” Ryan said. “It’s all there and good to go.”
“Wonder why they left it,” Mildred said.
Ryan shrugged. “I suspect everyone used the gateway. Who knows?”
Mildred eyed the circular hole in the vehicle’s roof. “Too bad they dismounted whatever the pintle gun was and took it with them.”
“But then, should danger rear its ugly head,” Doc said, “we simply rely on flight rather than fight.”
“We do both,” Ryan said, “if we need to. We can always shoot through the windows. Right now, let’s get cleaned up and get a good sleep. Whatever’s waiting outside, at least we can be rested, strong and squared-away to face it.”
Chapter Four
The giant fans of the redoubt’s HVAC system produced a slight overpressure. Air gusted outward as the great doors began to slide apart noiselessly—or at least with no noise that could be heard over the horrific bomb-blast concerto playing nonstop outside.
Night waited. But no stars. A roof of cloud or maybe smoke, lit by pulsing hell-glows of yellow and orange from below, from within by blue-white lightning novas.
As the doors opened wider, the air from outside eddied back in, stinging hot, bringing a swirl of gray ash soft as the finest fur. Ryan choked and gagged on the stink of sulfur and his eye watered. He staggered back, coughing.
After a moment he got the coughing fit under control and looked around at his friends. They were covering their mouths and noses with their hands to filter out the ash and dabbing at their eyes. “What’s the verdict, Mildred?” Ryan croaked.
“Just smells bad,” came the physician’s muffled voice. “If that was hydrogen sulfide we were breathing, we’d be in our death throes already with our lungs full of sulfuric acid.”
Ryan looked back outside. The brightest and most persistent glow seemed to come from his left. He guessed the main vent was off that way. Relief: they weren’t staring down the hellbore muzzle of the mountain, at any rate.
Then a handful of blazing light balls like giant meteors arced across his vision to spatter the slopes below and to his right with brief pulses of yellow fire, just to keep him from getting cocky. But the doors themselves were clear and the ground outside seemed unobstructed by rockslide or lava flow.
“Looks like we got us a road outta here, anyway,” the Armorer muttered from behind. Ryan nodded.
Doc stretched out an arm, long finger pointing. “By Jove! Look there!”
By the underlighting of the clouds they could tell they were looking out over a bowl-shaped valley many miles wide. Way, way off lay a sheet of something like black glass, with a jagged trail of crimson stretching out across it—a lake, it seemed, reflecting the fire plume of the erupting vent. Out in the middle of that black glass sheet, reflecting in it, was visible a scatter of faint lights.
“A ville,” Ryan said.
“Villes,” Jak said.
“He’s right,” J.B. agreed. There were at least half a dozen other small clumps of lights scattered across the valley, shimmering slightly in the ground effect.
“Pretty dense habitation, comparatively speaking,” Mildred said. She hovered protectively near Krysty, who stood on her own power but seemed at least halfway in a trance, from the infection that had taken root in her shoulder despite Mildred’s best efforts—just as Mildred had predicted—or from the forces of Gaia surging so mightily around them, or both. “There’s food here. And safety.”
“How you reckon that?” J.B. asked.
“Number of villes. Way they’re spread out, rather than all clumped up together in one big defensive perimeter. You wouldn’t get that kind of population in that kind of distribution without at least comparative peace.”
The Armorer grunted noncommittally. “Likely you’re right. But still, mebbe you aren’t. No guarantees in this life.”
“Things change,” Jak said.
“Tell me something new,” Ryan said with a winter smile.
GETTING TO THE CENTERS of habitation proved to be more than difficult.
With the Hummer’s independently suspended tires bouncing over lava rocks head-size or better and his partners, including the sorely injured Krysty, bouncing around in the cab like badly stowed luggage, Ryan wondered if he would even be able to drive them off the fire mountain. It would have been vicious enough going in the dark with nothing but the jagged terrain to cope with.
The mountain was spewing. Away off to their left fountains of fire arced red across the sky. The one thing to be thankful for was that their path, such as it was, led steadily away from the
