Part 12 (1/2)
”Then let's do it,” Ryan said, unsheathing his own panga.
And so began the next phase of the journey. They were out of the plain, and now only a few miles from the settlement that appeared on the surface to be devoid of life, but that they knew to somehow house the Illuminated Ones-probably in a redoubt of some kind.
When they had made camp for the night, Doc sat with Ryan, Krysty and Gloria, musing on this.
”It presents us with a whole series of th.o.r.n.y little problems, doesn't it?” he asked rhetorically. ”If the Illuminated Ones are in a redoubt, then why have they never tried to travel around the Deathlands? Or at least, not to the extent where we have ever come across them before, or heard mention of them until recently.”
”Mebbe, if they are the ones of which our legends speak, and they are the guardians of the gateway, then they have greater knowledge,” Gloria mused, running loose earth through her fingers and watching it fall to the ground as she spoke. ”Mebbe they have a way of regulating their travel through the old tech- yourselves have spoken of how you cannot control where you land. Well, mebbe they can.”
Ryan and Krysty exchanged sharp glances. They, and the others, had been careful not to speak too much of their travels through the mat-trans in front of any of the Gate. Did this mean that Jak had been speaking to Gloria about these things without telling the others? There had been no set rule about this, but it had been a.s.sumed by all that it would be best to keep this quiet until or unless it was necessary.
Doc also noticed this, but chose to ignore the apparent oddity and keep his own counsel...as ever. ”A good point, my dear lady. It would seem that it was the merest accident that tapped us into the previous Illuminated Ones' redoubt that we encountered. If they have their old tech in good working order, they may be able to use other redoubts and block their own ones from receiving any, ah, unwanted visitors, shall we say?”
”Well, they may be getting them now,” Gloria said quietly, with a sly grin to herself.
Doc seemed not to notice this. He was staring over Gloria's head at some point far off in the middle distance, where there was something that only he seemed to see.
He continued in a faraway voice. ”It was a strange thing, to be pitched into the middle of an alien time and to hear so much that seemed to make sense only with the benefit of hindsight. There were rumors of a secret society that was ready to take over the government and use it for its own ends if the end time came. And yet, in one of those strange dichotomies that seem to occur so often when power and intrigue become inextricably entwined, it was also rumored that this society was funded by the black operations budget of the very government that it sought to overthrow. Indeed, it was rumored that the security agencies of that government had infiltrated the secret society to such an extent that it was, in fact, operated by the government itself and was no more than a failsafe device for retaining power if civilization collapsed around its ears...which, of course, it did. Ironic, then, is it not, that this very society is now little more than a footnote to the saga of the Deathlands, existing in its own little void somewhere in the northeast of what used to be a so-called United States?”
There was a pause, then Gloria said, ”Nice story, honey, but what does it have to do with what we're after?”
Doc seemed to snap back from his own private world, and for a moment looked at the Gate queen with eyes that were wide and innocent, uncomprehending of the world. And then her words filtered through, and a look of amazement spread across his face. ”Why, is it not obvious? If the Illuminated Ones and the government of the old predark United States were one and the same, in effect, then doesn't it make sense that the shadow center of government that I heard rumors about will be the very place where the secret society will be based? Where the gateway you seek, and where the possible entry to the stockpile and peace which we seek... Well, where they will be?”
Ryan fixed Doc with a steely gaze from his icy blue eyes. ”Are you saying what I think you're saying, Doc?”
The old man nodded. ”I believe so, my friend. Welcome, indeed, to what is left of the const.i.tutional government of the United States of America. And believe me, you really are welcome to it...” he added bitterly.
AS THE NIGHT DREW in, Gloria gathered her people before the campfire. Only the guards outside the encampment were out of sight and hearing.
The Gate queen sat with her back to the fire, no more than a backlit shadow as she spoke, the light from the fire illuminating the halo of her red mane, making it glow like the fire from her soul as she began to breathe slowly, steadily and deeply, trancing herself to begin another retelling from the legends of her people. A retelling that was to be saved especially for a moment such as this, a moment when the great aim of the tribe was to finally be within their grasp.
Her voice was huskier, deeper and more sonorous as she began to recite from her trance.
”When the time came for the world as we knew it to end and for the people to begin over, it was said that the only way to preserve the past and begin the future was to preserve that which had made the past great, that which had helped to keep the power within.
”And so they made the place of hiding in the shape of power. Five-sided and like a pentagram but yet not, it was built in secret to mirror the power as perceived. Within and below, the power would now be centered within the shadow and like unto a mirror. It would be magnified and increased through the years until it was ready to be reclaimed...reclaimed at a point where the future was ready for the next rising.
”Those who would be a part of this reclamation of power were the chosen ones, the warriors who had been trained through the ages to use that power wisely and well. They would have to search, and on that search they would learn, so that when they arrived it would be the right time. Not before, and not after...”
The incantation continued, but Ryan glanced across and noticed Doc deep in thought. So it was that, after Gloria had finished and the Gate were dispersing for the long watches of the night, Ryan called his people together and sat them before the fire.
”So, Doc,” the one-eyed warrior began, ”tell me what you think.”
”About what?” he replied, adding, ”Unless you mean what I think you mean...”
”I do, Doc. She's talking about the Pentagon, right? I read about it when I was growing up in Front Royal. It all points to that, and it all ties in with what you were saying before. My guess is that the Gate were some kind of offshoot of the Illuminated Ones, mebbe a breakaway group of some kind. I knew there was a lot of dissension before skydark, a lot of strange cults and religions that thought the world would end with the coming of a new millennium. And my guess is that each of these groups would have supporters and believers who had some kind of power somewhere, or some kind of it to that power.”
Doc smiled wryly. ”Ah, now that I would not know much about, my friend. Remember, I was not around in that time for too long. Come to that, most of the time I was there they were too busy trying to keep me quiet and out of the way. I only know the rumors-”
”Yeah, well, I lived through it, Doc, and it sure as s.h.i.+t sounds that way to me,” Mildred said, shaking her head bitterly so that her plaits shook around her head.
”The funny thing is that most of us didn't believe that there would be anything in it.”
”Yeah, but that's all history now,” Dean cut in. ”It doesn't really matter where the Gate came from, does it? It only matters that this place is what they've been looking for, and it's what we're looking for-”
”And that it's going to be heavily protected and a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to get into,” J.B. said softly.
”Right. Hard f.u.c.kers,” Jak murmured. ”We need be triple red or chilled.”
Ryan nodded. ”True enough. But we need to know as much about their history as possible. Knowing where they come from and how they think will give us an advantage. If we can get into their heads just a little bit, it'll be an advantage when we're on their territory. Otherwise we're totally blind, and that can only be a bad thing.”
”I agree with you there, lover,” Krysty said. Her hair, although flowing and not tight to her head, still twitched a little as she spoke. ”This isn't going to be easy. I don't like those laser blasters. They're not easy to fight against. We've been lucky so far because of numbers. But we don't know how many of them there are down there.”
”You're right,” J.B. agreed. ”The laser blasters could be good weapons if they were in the right hands. So far the people who've been using them haven't been good fighters. That's been our luck. That could change. Besides, if they have those, what the h.e.l.l else do they have waiting for us?”
”It will be interesting to find out,” Doc commented wryly. ”At least between us we should have an idea of how the settlement is laid out, seeing as it seems to be a replica of the Pentagon.”
”Have we?” Mildred said. ”s.h.i.+t, Doc, I lived through all that, but I don't think I could tell you what it looked like apart from the fact it had five sides!”
”Good job I try to read those old papers we find once in a while,” Ryan said. ”'Cause I've read a few things about it.”
”It's not the settlement that worries me,” J.B. muttered darkly, ”or their weaponry. It's ours. Too many small-caliber handblasters, and the laser blasters we've got. Margia's too keen to use them.”
J.B.'S WORDS WERE prophetic, as the blond armorer produced one of the captured blasters next morning, as camp was being drawn. She interrupted a brief target practice to test the weapon.
Examining the blaster from all angles, the blonde noticed that J.B. had come to watch.
”You know how to work these?” she asked him.
J.B. shook his head. ”The only ones we ever found were broke. And h.e.l.l, watching the way the Illuminated Ones f.u.c.ked up with them, I'd guess that they're not that great.”
Margia smiled, and for a second resembled her sister as one side of her mouth rose in the lopsided grin that the sour armorer was less inclined to favor than her warrior sister. ”Mebbe you just couldn't work it out anyway, sweetie,” she said. ”Just mebbe I can do it better. Wouldn't that be something, if I could outdo the great J.B. Dix?”
He refused to rise to the bait, even though he was aware that all the Gate warriors gathered there were watching for his reaction. ”Mebbe you can make it fire out here. Does that mean it's reliable in a firefight?”
”We'll have to see,” Margia said. ”Okay, let's do it.”
She stepped up to the line drawn for the target shoot and raised the rifle to her shoulder. Fumbling a switch on the side, she squeezed the trigger and released a recoilless blast of light that scorched through the target, raising a gasp of interest from the a.s.sembled warriors.
”Pretty f.u.c.king good, even though I do say so myself.” She smiled at J.B. ”Guess mebbe I can just do this s.h.i.+t better than you, honey.”
Although the slur annoyed the Armorer, he was more concerned by the fact that Margia would now be certain to use the laser blasters in combat when he was sure that they were unreliable. It was the one thing he dreaded.
J.B. turned and walked away without a word, aware that there was nothing he could do. If he went to Gloria, then it would mean a possible rift at a crucial time. And even if he told Ryan, then there was nothing much that the one-eyed warrior could do.
It was an additional problem that they didn't need as they entered such dangerous territory.