by James Axler
"You know," J.B. said from somewhere over to the left, "at first when I saw these white walls, I thought maybe this was one jump we didn't make it through. Still kind of crosses my mind as I sit here. Be interesting if we open up that sec door and step out onto a cloud."
In spite of the pain crashing through his head, Ryan laughed. Then he regretted it almost at once as renewed pain proved to him that he hadn't been feeling as bad as he could have. The pain got a lot worse.
"Heaven?" Ryan asked. "Somebody who's been through Deathlands the way we have? We won't even get visitation privileges."
"That's probably true," J.B. agreed. "But you know what?"
"What?" Ryan growled, irritated at the way even the Armorer's voice seemed to inflict more pain.
"Chances are, nobody we know is going to be there."
"I guess that means we won't miss anything."
Both men laughed, and Ryan knew that was because they felt all jumbled up inside, and because they were relieved to have lived through yet another mat-trans jump. He ran his hands along his weapons as he glanced around for the others.
Mildred lay curled up next to J.B., almost in a fetal position. Jak lay by himself, bleeding from his nose, his eyelids flickering.
"You awake, Jak?" Ryan called.
"Yeah. Talk too loud."
Ryan moved his blurry gaze on, finding Dean sprawled on the other side of Krysty. His son looked like he was breathing okay, but his tan color was paler than normal. He held his Browning Hi-Power in his fist. "Dean?"
"Yeah, Dad. Just don't make me move yet." Dean's voice sounded like a dry croak.
Doc had thrown up, and a pool of bile sat on the floor beside him and smeared one sleeve of his frock coat. The old man's eyes were open, but only the whites showed, threaded through with red veins.
Albert rolled over like a fish flopping on a bank, then threw up a bilious mess.
"What a stench," J.B. complained. "We're going to have to get out of here just to get some clean air."
The thing that struck Ryan the most was the cold, however. It seeped into his bones, coating the exposed skin. He ran a hand up to his head, hoping that massaging the back of his neck would relieve some of his headache. Then his fingers touched the ice crystals in his hair.
He pulled his hand down in wonder and stared at them. He couldn't stare long, because they didn't last long. Hardly had he time to draw a breath than they were gone, leaving only wet traces against his palm and fingers.
"J.B., how long have you been awake?"
"Didn't check the chron."
Ryan ran his fingers through his hair again, finding more ice crystals. He glanced around the metal disks of the mat-trans unit's floor. Little patches of ice gleamed against the vanadium. "Give me a guess."
"Ten, fifteen minutes mebbe."
"You notice how cold it is in here?" Ryan asked.
"Sure. Hard to miss."
Fear put a surge of adrenaline through the one-eyed man, giving him the strength to haul himself to his feet. "You think it's getting any colder?"
J.B. glanced at him, then noticed the frost on his glasses. "Mebbe, now that you mention it. Just figured it was my blood feeling thin after the jump. Don't always know how bad you really feel until after you start moving around. Kind of wanted to put that off for a bit."
Swaying slightly, his sense of balance still affected by the jump, Ryan put his hand against the armaglass. Burning cold pressed against his palm, cold enough to make his teeth ache in sympathy. He breathed out deliberately, watching as a plume of fog spilled out against the armaglass in front of him. "That's not white paint," he told the Armorer. "That's ice caked on the armaglass outside. We're frozen in."
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryan crossed to the door, slipping once on an ice patch in the center of the mat-trans floor. He wasn't worried about being trapped because there was always the LD button that could whisk them back to the redoubt near Hazard. Going back might entail a few days of running from Kirkland or Handsome Wyatt if the jacker leader had stayed in the area, but it beat being stuck underground in a block of ice.
"Is it just me," J.B. asked, "or does it seem to you that the lights in here aren't as bright as they usually are after a jump?"
Ryan glanced at the glowing disks on the floor and ceiling. Usually they carried a residual glow after usage, and emergency lights flared on until the unit was cleared. Now they were dim, rendering only a twilight inside the gateway.
"Power's not what it should be," Ryan agreed.
"Could be failing as we stand here talking," the Armorer warned.
"Then let's see what's what." Ryan lifted the lever that was supposed to open the door.
Nothing happened.
"Fireblast!" Ryan snarled. "Bastard door's stuck."
"Try this." J.B. handed over a camp ax from his gear.
Ryan slammed the blunt end of the head against the lever. Reluctantly, the door opened to about two-and-one-half feet before its progress was impeded.
Only ice appeared to be on the other side of the door.
"What is it, lover?" Krysty asked, sitting up and holding her head.
"Looks like we've jumped into a block of ice," Ryan said. He put his hand against the ice and tried to push. It didn't budge. "Bastard thick."
"We stuck in here, Dad?" Dean asked.
Ryan looked at his son, sitting up now and wrapping his arms around his legs. Like all of them, Dean wasn't really dressed for the sudden winter weather. And Ryan could tell the interior temperature of the mat-trans unit was continuing to plunge.
None of them would last long if they remained inside the gateway.
"Only stuck as long as we want to be," Ryan replied. "Over, under or around. There's always a way. Just need to find it."
"Best way might be to go back," Mildred said. "If this jump is going to start out this bad, give us this kind of crap to deal with from the git-go, I'm ready to take a hint. If you know what I mean."
"Another jump?" Doc groaned. "So soon? By the Three Kennedys, I fear it would be the death of us all."
"Another jump won't kill us," J.B. said. "We'll just wish it did."
"Beats slow death," Jak added. "Freezing not good way die."
"None of them are. That's why we're not going to do that." Ryan shut the door. "Everybody get set."
"Damn," Albert moaned. "Don't know that I can do that again."
"Find out in a minute, little man." Ryan pushed the LD button.
The metal disks tried to glow more brightly, but they were slow about it. Ryan sat beside Krysty, feeling the cold eating into him more now. He counted down, waiting for the mist to fill the chamber.
It didn't.
"Not going work," Jak said.
And that, Ryan knew, was the size of it. They were trapped.
SWEAT COVERED Ryan inside his long coat. His breath gusted out of him in gray plumes as he worked with the camp ax. His arm felt leaden, but he didn't want to give in to fatigue. More ice chips and chunks flew when the ax bit into the solid mass on the other side of the mat-trans unit's door.
He'd excavated a hole some two feet wide that went back almost eighteen inches. The hole got narrower as it went, too, because he couldn't work the ax very well.
"Ryan," J.B. said gently. "Take a breather. Can't do this all on your own."
"Fireblast, I know it." Reluctantly Ryan yielded the ax.
The Armorer stepped up to the ice hole and began methodically to hammer away.
Ryan crossed the floor and dropped into a seated position beside Krysty. The metal floor was so cold now it nearly froze his rear end to sit on it. Krysty took his left hand in hers. He was surprised to find that her hands felt even colder than his.
"Hungry, lover?" she asked.
"Yeah. Big meal we had at Aunt Maim's seemed to have worked itself through me."
Krysty popped the tab on a self-heat and passed it over.
Ryan relished the heat of the container when she passed it
over. The aroma was thick and not terribly appealing, but he breathed it in anyway because it was warm. Anything to get warmth back into his chilled body. He drank the broth from the container, and chewed the long noodles that were packed into it. He thought it might have been Oriental seasonings, but it could have been anything else, as well.
"We still have some plas ex," Dean said. "I've never known a time when J.B. got rid of every bit he had. He's always keeping some stashed somewhere."
"What are you thinking?" Ryan asked, looking at his son. "We might blow our way out of here? Have you given any thought to how much damage we might do to this unit if we did that? Or what could be waiting on the other side of that ice wall?"
Dean grimaced. "I thought about it some. I thought mebbe it was better to take the chance than to sit here waiting." The boy looked crestfallen.
"And I thought I taught you better than that. When you're forced to make a move, especially when you're in a tight spot, you've got to shave the odds."
Dean nodded, not meeting his father's eyes.
"That ice wall could be keeping things out, as well as us in," Ryan went on. "Suppose we're underwater? Blow that ice wall out, mebbe we all drown before we can get that bastard door shut quick enough. Keep the hole small and manageable, we can get it plugged before the mat-trans unit fills up."
"You think that's it, then?" Albert asked. The dwarfs eyes showed white with fear. "You think we're underwater?" He glanced at the hole where J.B. worked with steadfast determination, and at the growing pile of ice chips.
Disposing of the ice they were bringing into the mat-trans unit was a real problem. Depending on how much they had to store, Ryan knew they might not have enough room to take it all in.
"Don't know," Ryan answered. "Be just as likely that we're sitting at the top of a brand-new mountain range along the western coast that would drop us as part of an avalanche if we set off any plas ex."
"My dear Ryan, is it necessary to worry Albert so?" Doc admonished. "He's new to the worries and whims of capricious fate when dealing out the ill hands in regards to these demonic devices."
"A man who doesn't want to know the answers, Doc," Ryan said with some irritation, "shouldn't be asking the questions."
"The reason I asked about the plas ex," Dean said quietly, "is because we may need to use it soon."
"What the hell for?" Ryan snapped. "Still got plenty of room to haul in more ice. We can keep working that hole for hours."
Dean nodded. "Mebbe. But mebbe we aren't—"
"Don't," Krysty chided.
"But mebbe we don't have hours," Dean repeated. "You notice how stale the air is getting in here? Breathing up all the oxygen, we're going to have to start worrying about getting some fresh air before long."
Ryan paused with his spoon midway to his mouth. He glanced up at J.B. "You think about that?"
The Armorer flushed, then went back to swinging the ax. "Not me. I've been contemplating mostly on how thick this ice is and what's going to be on the other side of it. Boy's right, though."
Ryan felt a surge of pride go through him, erasing some of the anger that he felt at himself for not realizing the potential danger. "You did good to think of that, son."
Dean smiled. "Wasn't really my thinking. Just something I remembered from the survival classes taught at school. We had a history lesson about miners, way back before skydark, and how they used to cut coal out of the earth. Sometimes they'd get so far down in the mine shafts that no fresh air would come in, and some of them died. That's why they started taking parakeets in cages down in the shafts with them. Bad air would chill the bird before it chilled a man. Miners kept watch over the birds. Bird turned up dead, miners caught the next elevator to the top of the shaft, ace on the line."
"No parakeets here," Jak said with an evil grin. He hooked a thumb at Albert. "Got little man. He dies, time to blast."
Ryan turned his attention back to the self-heat. "Good thing you brought that up, Dean. Now I'm going to make it your responsibility to keep an eye on things. We start acting too stupe for our own good, it's up to you to get us to blast."
Dean nodded.
Ryan ate, listening to the steady attack J.B. made on the ice wall. The hot food and the sound of the ax falling seemed reassuring, until he heard the hollow booming echo of the thuds in the mat-trans unit.
ALMOST AN HOUR later, while Jak was taking his turn with the ax, they broke through the ice. Ryan was just about to call it wasted effort and use the plas ex J.B. had because all he wanted to do was go to sleep. He knew it was more than simple tiredness and had a lot to do with the stale air trapped inside the gateway.
Jak paused, then pulled the ax back and peered through. "Through. Inside redoubt," he announced. "Ice everywhere."
Ryan forced himself up and went for a look. His joints seemed stiffer than ever, and his teeth had started to chatter. He stared into the hole Jak had made through nearly three feet of ice. It was scarcely more than three inches across, but it provided enough of a view even in the dim light on the other side of the wall for him to know they were unmistakably in a redoubt.
But this one looked like it had barely survived an ice age. Ice coated all the walls and comp banks.
"What do you see?" Mildred asked. She and J.B. sat together, arms wrapped around each other, sharing the warmth. Dean had joined Krysty and Ryan, all of them huddled together. Even Doc and Albert sat close together.
"Redoubt," Ryan said. "But it doesn't look like it's in any better shape than this mat-trans unit."
THE BITTER COLD really set in after they had broken through the ice wall over the door to the gateway. Muted light somehow survived from the nuclear reactors buried somewhere below, glowing from behind inches of ice that covered every surface.
The companions broke out all the extra clothes they carried in their gear, but it wasn't much. Ryan wore his long coat, but even it didn't cut the chill by much. Wind breezed into the big room where the gateway was, carrying a cold that he felt he'd never experienced before.
"If we don't find some way soon to warm up, lover," Krysty said, "we're going to be dead in a few hours."
Ryan nodded, knowing it was true.
"The ice evidently has been a long time in building up," Doc stated. "Witness the fact that there appear to be no broken pipes, no sources of water. It has to be carried in by the wind from somewhere as tiny crystals. Then they cling to other like crystals to form the icy exoskeleton you see overlaying this room."
"All of which gets us what?" Ryan asked irritably.
"Why, my dear Ryan, it lets us know this redoubt is obviously open to the outside world. Else where would the wind and the airborne moisture come from?"
Ryan saw the sense in that. "Best way to find our way out is to follow the wind, then."
Doc smiled. "Precisely, my dear fellow."
"Something else to consider that Doc must have overlooked," Mildred said, coming up to join them. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and tied it over her nose and mouth. "If there is much moisture in the air, and I think there is, breathing all of it in could cause pneumonia. Get a build-up of moisture in the lungs, you're definitely going to come down with a hellacious case of it. And then we're talking serious trouble."
"Masks?" Ryan said.
"Or stop breathing," Mildred answered.
"TAKE SOME WORK," J.B. told Ryan an hour later, "but I think mebbe we can chip away enough ice to shut the emergency doors. Get this room to seal off." He pointed to a section of wall he'd been working on earlier. "I checked the relays over there, and found that power seems to be getting through the systems okay."
The emergency doors were caked in ice, held fast in the walls that shielded them. The housing over them was frozen solid.
"How much time?" Ryan asked.
"Working with the knives, ax and what tools we brought?" J.B. shrugged. "Mebbe an hour. But if we block off some of this wind, could be the room will warm up some." He cleaned his glasses and peered up
at the roof panels. "If I get the chance, I'm going to take a look up there and see if I can trace out the environmental controls for this room. They should be on a separate relay, as well."
Ryan nodded. "Don't like splitting up the team when we're in a hard spot like this."
"But you like the idea of sitting around waiting to see if anybody comes calling even less," J.B. agreed. "I know. Been having some of the same thoughts myself. Leave me with Doc and Albert. You take Jak, Dean, Mildred and Krysty on up ahead and see what you can see. We'll be here, watching your back and keeping a light on for you until you get back."
"Sounds as good as it's going to get."
J.B. grinned. "One thing about it. I don't think any predators would hang around here waiting for a meal. Too bastard cold and unfriendly."
"Yeah." Before Ryan could turn and address the others, letting them know what the plan was, a horrendous crack sounded somewhere off in the distance, rolling like a peal of thunder. Then the redoubt shivered like a dying wag-hit hound.
"Was that an earthquake, lover?" Krysty asked. Her face was mostly covered by the handkerchief she wore to protect her lungs. Ice crystals had already formed on the blue material, just as they had formed on everyone else's masks.
"Mebbe," Ryan said. "But it didn't feel like any earthquake I've ever been through before." He'd been with the Trader out along the Western Islands when he'd first experienced earthquakes. They had made him sick with fear back then, because they made every physical law he'd clung to for security seem worthless. He had seen the Cific Ocean drink down islands, seen new mountain ranges born fresh from the womb of the earth and watched trees fall like kindling for miles.
"Do you know what it reminded me of?" Doc mused. Nobody asked what, but the old man continued on anyway. "Like a big ship foundering in deep water, battling an unexpected turbulence or righting itself after a gale has torn her sails to shreds and near to capsized her. That is definitely what it reminded me of. Is that not the oddest thing?"
Nobody commented.
AFTER AN HOUR of fruitless searching through three tunnels with doors that were frozen shut, Ryan followed the main access corridor, trailing the wind that came from somewhere outside.
