pretty little girl who'd joined War Wag One from War Wag Three just before the shambles of Mocsin. He recalled that Hun had been paying some attention to her.
'If I see her, Hun, I'll tell her. Take it easy, now.'
Hunaker was wearing her new black satin blouse with green leaves embroidered on it. The blood didn't show on it at all.
'Don't shoot no more. Keeper says to put up the blasters. Keeper says he'll yield.'
Ryan Cawdor stayed where he was, shouting to the old man, 'Gun first, Quint. Then you, hands high as you can get 'em.'
Nothing happened for some seconds. Then: 'Keeper says how can he trust you?'
'Do it. You have my word nobody'll ice you. But throw out the gun first.'
There was a tiny sound from Hunaker, and Ryan looked back to where she was huddled.
'Hun? Hun, can you hear me?'
There was an unmistakable stillness to the green-headed girl, and Ryan knew she was gone.
Krysty was close behind him. 'Dead?'
'Yeah.'
'Don't like to think of her dyin' like that, kind of on her own.'
Ryan looked around and saw there were tears glistening at the corners of the girl's eyes. 'We all have to, you know.'
'You swear you won't hurt Keeper? You done for poor, sweet Rachel and little Lori.'
'That murderous old slut blasted the kid,' shouted Henn.
'Didn't have to chill Rachel.'
'Come out, old man,' yelled Ryan, the pistol rock steady in his right fist.
'Swear I'm safe.'
'You're safe, Quint. Come on, before we come and gun you out of there.'
Now they were all standing, all pointing their blasters at where Quint was cowering. Even Doc had finally appeared, clutching the Le Mat cannon in both hands.
'Here's the gun,' yelped Quint, tossing the Heckler & Koch on the floor. It skidded and bounced, finishing up a yard or two from Ryan's feet.
'Watch the bastard,' warned J.B., who was right behind Ryan. 'Could have a hider up his sleeve.'
'Yeah. Watch him.'
'Keeper's comin' out. Ally, ally oxen free. Don't shoot poor old Keeper. He had to do it. Rules is rules and the law's the fuckin' law, ain't it? You understand, don't ya?'
'Move it!' shouted Ryan, feeling his anger rising. He'd liked Hunaker. She'd been a friend for about three years.
'You promised the Keeper,' mumbled Quint, cringing as he left his cover.
His sequinned jacket flashed, gaudy and cheap. The heel had broken on the woman's boot he wore, and he limped, his hands trembling in the air. A thread of spittle dangled from his thin lips, and he was shaking like an aspen in a hurricane.
'Promised Keeper,' he repeated.
Ryan put a 9-mm bullet between the deep-set eyes, sending the old man crashing backward, arms flailing, mouth dropping open in shock.
Ryan bolstered his pistol, not even bothering to watch the death throes of the last Keeper of the Anchorage Redoubt. A man didn't get up when he'd been rained on with a 9 mm through the forehead at twenty paces.
'Turn off the vid and Hun's music,' he ordered. 'Drag those two stiffs out of here. J.B.?'
'Yeah?'
'We'll move out tomorrow. First light. Get all the maps you can. Take Finn and Okie and get some buggies serviced and fueled up. Henn, you and Krysty take charge of stocks of food, pyrotabs, spare snospex, ammo, grens, thermals,' he said, ticking off items on his fingers as they occurred to him.
'What may I do to be of service, Mr. Cawdor?' asked Doc, struggling to force the big pistol into its holster.
'Check the gateway's exit and entrance codes. Might come back here for another jump if there's nothing much around. Look out for muties about the stockpile.'
'What about her?' asked Okie, pointing contemptuously to where Lori was weeping on the floor, holding bloodied fingers to her face. 'Shall I ice her?'
'We'd all be iced if she hadn't shouted,' suggested J.B. 'How bad is she hurt?'
The girl sat up then, looking around at the angry, tense faces. 'Got bullet across head from Keeper.' She showed the wound, a livid crease on her head among the blond hair. The wound was clotted with blood that was already drying. It didn't look too bad.
'What should I do with the gateway, Mr. Cawdor?' asked Doc, oblivious of the fact that the conversation had moved on.
'Just look it over. Make sure there's nothin' wrong with it. You know more about them than we fuckin' do, Doc, don't you?'
The old man shook his head in bewilderment. 'I fear that my memory is rather like a train, Mr. Cawdor. The farther it pulls away, the smaller it gets.'
'What about her?' asked Finn. 'She saved us, but she's kin to those dirty bastards.'
'Take me,' begged the girl. 'Take Lori or Lori die here.'
'Anybody else for wastin' her?' Ryan asked. Nobody replied. 'We take her, then. Okie. Get her bandaged if she needs it.'
'What about Hun?' asked the girl blaster.
'Can't bury her. Anyone seen any crems? Lori? Anyplace bodies can be burned or whatever?'
'I show you room where they put some.'
'Sure. Doc, you can help. After Lori's cleaned up, go with her, and take Hun down to where she shows you. Some kind of freezin' place, I guess. Use one of the plug-in buggies around. Take those two...' he indicated the corpses of Rachel and Quint '...and dump them out the door near the freezin' place. Check the return code.'
'Triple number followed by a letter was common in these places, as I recall,' said Doc. 'Sure. Come on, people. Let's all get movin'.'
Supper was a doleful meal. More of the microwaves had gone on the blink, and the long room stank of burned food. At least it helped to drown out the sour-sweet scent of death. Finn suggested that they move to another of the linked dormitories for the last night, but everyone felt too tired to bother.
Ryan and J.B. had agreed on what they'd do. The maps showed a large town called Anchorage on the coast. Seemed worth a careful recon to see what remained.
All the maps were loaded; also food, heating supplies, ammo and all the blasters they wanted. Lori's cut had been wiped and disinfected, and she was in good shape, talking excitedly about leaving the stockpile for the first time. Okie was the only one who made her dislike felt. The others simply accepted Lori as one of their own.
The buggies were juiced and ready to roll.
Doc had been unable to open the door to the chambers where they thought bodies might be frozen and stored, so the corpses of Hunaker, Quint and Rachel had been placed outside the door. 'Won't hurt Hun now,' Ryan had said. Doc had also carefully noted the current reentry code and each of them had it written down and memorized. It was the numbers one, zero, eight, followed by the letter
Each ice buggy held three or four people, with plenty of storage room for extra gas and supplies. Ryan was to drive the lead vehicle with Krysty; J.B. would take the second with Lori and Finnegan; Hennings would share the third with Okie and Doc.
The vehicles were already heavily armed with mortars and machine guns. Judging from his encounter with the local muties, Ryan figured they should be more than able to wipe out any opposition.
At the suggestion of J.B. Dix, everyone went to bed early that night to be ready for a dawn start.
Krysty came to Ryan, in the night, whispering that they should go to the next dormitory, where the beds were clean and the smell of death was missing, and where they could make love without being overheard.
