Chapter Sixteen

 

 

 

"Missing?" Ryan repeated. His senses were honed so fine that he was totally aware that every one of the nine friends around the blaze was waiting for one tiny clue from him, a signal to draw their guns and start a firefight.

 

"Indeed. Something has recently disappeared. Something that had been proving rather useful to us. I don't suppose that you would have any knowledge at all of this 'something' of ours, would you, sailor man?"

 

"I think I need a bit more of a description," Ryan replied, his mind flooded by a sudden vision of the raggled and tortured nameless chill that was currently being destroyed, only a couple of yards from where he was sitting.

 

"Yes," Buford drawled thoughtfully. "Perhaps you could tell me if anything unusual had crossed your path, so to speak, since your arrival here on our land."

 

"Couple hundred dwarf shrews, all drinking together." Ryan rested his chin in his left hand, pondering the question. "Little ferret. Real double-big moose."

 

"I don't yet know anything about you, not even your name. But I would not be pleased if I considered you were being willfully stupid and obtuse. I have only to say a single word, and there would be many deaths here."

 

"Including yours, you four-eyed little prick." Trader had the Armalite in his hands, trained at Buford.

 

There was one of those moments when time ceased to exist, the moment when the rocks crumbled away beneath your feet at the edge of the crevasse, the moment when the prairie rattler was poised to strike at your throat, the moment when the finger had tightened on the trigger.

 

"Insults are the last resort of the intellectually impotent," Buford said.

 

Trader laughed. "Well, you sure got some nerve for a four-eyed little prick. I'll hand you that. Just don't threaten us again, all right?"

 

"We shall see."

 

He returned his gaze to Ryan. "A sensible answer to my question?"

 

"Tell me what it is you're looking for," Ryan said, keeping calm.

 

Buford hesitated for a moment, glancing at his companion. "Very well. Have you seen a dog? Or, possibly a pair of dogs? Quite similar to a casual glance, with silver collars?"

 

Dean's mouth had opened and the little man spotted it. "Yes, lad? And don't now try to tell me that you don't know what I'm talking about."

 

Ryan answered him. "Sure we saw them. A long ways off. Yesterday, about five miles or more behind. Near the shores of a real big lake."

 

"You didn't catch them? Or see them close?"

 

"No. But they did look kind of similar, now that you mention it. Like German shepherds."

 

"Yesterday. By the lake. Both of them." He stood completely still as though he were receiving a secret communication from the Almighty.

 

Ellison nudged him, whispering, loud enough for the others to hear. "We can come out tomorrow, Professor. Could find them if they haven't gone far."

 

"No. Too labor intensive. The collars would have been useful to us."

 

Ryan was conscious of the weight of the two lengths of silver in the pocket of his coat.

 

Buford reached a decision. "We will all now go back to the institute and break our fasts together. I know that my colleagues will be most interested in such an unusual group of outlanders. Shall we go?"

 

"Why not?" Ryan said. "Let's move, people."

 

 

 

BEFORE LEAVING THE CAMP Ryan used the excuse of wanting to take a leak to throw the two collars far out into the middle of the pool, hoping that the sec men from the institute didn't come back later in the day to see the heat-broken skeleton of the dead stranger among the ashes.

 

 

 

THERE HAD BEEN six other sec men with the scientist and Ellison, all armed with identical Mossberg scatterguns. Ryan noticed that, oddly, none of them carried either a bolstered handblaster or a rifle of any sort. Nor did any of them show any inclination toward conversation.

 

They all wore the same uniform of white quilted plastic jackets and black pants tucked into ankle-high boots. Unusual for sec guards, they didn't wear any kind of ville badge or identifying insignia.

 

As they walked through the swelling opalescence of the dawning, Ladrow Buford attached himself to Ryan, recognizing him as the leader of the group. He asked him for the names of all the other members, pausing to jot them down in a small notebook of maroon morocco leather.

 

He had also asked a little about their fishing trip. Ryan had explained that they had come from a tiny settlement way down the coast, called Miskatucket. That seemed to satisfy the little man, who changed the subject.

 

"We are a closed community at the institute, Ryan. Have been since before the long winters."

 

Ryan was taken completely by surprise at the bland statement. "How do you mean, from before the long winters? How can you have done?"

 

"A lucky chance. Freak of nature, winds and the ground-zero locations of the enemy missiles. We were preserved. Of course there were a number of fatalities in the months that followed, from the radiation-induced cancers. A sad number. We have never recovered from that in terms of our population. Which is, sadly, still shrinking slowly. Fertility has not been our strong point. But with the new" He stopped, giggled and clapped his hand over his prim mouth in a girlish manner. "But I go before my horse to market, Ryan. We should be there in a couple of hours, and you will see what you will see, and hear what you will hear."

 

 

 

THE FOREST WAS THICK on both sides of the trail white the game was noticeably diminished.

 

Buford wasn't capable of making much speed, and the time dragged by for some of the party, particularly for Dean.

 

With his father's permission he kept scampering off ahead of them, investigating side trails, reappearing perched high in the branches of a lofty spruce, flicking cones at the sec men, who ignored him.

 

"The boy has great spirit," Buford observed. "When we are a little nearer the institute, he must remain with us or he could come to harm."

 

 

 

IT HAD RAINED on the part of the woods they now walked through, water still dripping off the long needles of the pines, making the path muddy and treacherous.

 

"Fallen tree ahead," Ellison called, coming forward to join Ryan and Buford.

 

"Ah, yes. It has come down very recently and blocks the path. We must detour."

 

Ellison tapped a finger to his forehead. "I'll warn the others, sir." Ryan had noticed that the man had an unusual curling scar that rugged down the corner of his mouth, partly hidden by the luxuriant mustache.

 

As the word was passed along, Krysty called out to Ryan. "Dean's somewhere up front of us, Ryan. Should you go and call him back?"

 

"Don't fuss about the kid," Trader said. "Boy needs adventure. Way of the flesh. Can't raise him as some little wimp who only wants to cook and sew."

 

Mildred laughed. "I see that political correctness is a concept that never reached you, Trader."

 

"What's that?"

 

"It's a sort of idea that being a misogynist redneck peckerwood isn't necessarily being wise and godlike."

 

Jak interrupted the argument, pointing ahead of them where the trail dipped into a shallow valley. "Dean," he said. "In dropped tree."

 

It was a tall spruce, the dry brown of its foliage showing that it had already been dead before its roots lost their grip on the soil beneath it. It was a tangle of jagged branches, some of which had already snapped off, some of which were now perched at dangerous angles.

 

Dean was sitting astride it, as though on a horse, waving to his father and the others. "Come on. Safe enough to crouch under," he called.

 

"Come down," Ryan said, seeing the way that the big tree was perched at a perilous angle, its broken tip swaying on top of a bank of loose earth.

 

"No, Dad, it's"

 

There was a deafening crack, like a dozen large gren mortars being fired simultaneously. The spruce dipped and rolled, its branches exploding into flying shards of splintered wood, sending everyone ducking out of the way.

 

When Ryan opened his eye again, his son had vanished.

 

"Dean?" He started to run toward the tumbled giant, boots slipping in the mud, feeling his heart leap into his throat, almost choking him.

 

There was a cry from beneath the tree that was so piercing and shocked that it didn't seem to bear any resemblance to any human sound.

 

Ryan stopped, fighting against a blood rush of panic, knowing that he had to overcome his own fear for Dean's life before he was able to do anything to help him. He stood a few yards off and studied the horror of the situation.

 

Once the mud and dust had settled, it was easy enough to see Dean. Or part of the lad. His head, shoulder and arms were visible, pinned beneath a massive branch, that was itself poised and restrained by the main trunk of the fallen spruce. One wrong move and it would rock free and roll all the way down, crushing the boy.

 

The rest of the group, including the sec men, were moving behind Ryan. He held up his hand and shouted for them to stop. "Everyone keep the fuck back out of the way!" he yelled. "Krysty and J.B. here."

 

Buford insisted on joining them, stooping and peering owlishly over his glasses. "Most perilous," he lisped. "If the fulcrum is disturbed, then the pivotal motion will rotate about the long axis and it will"

 

He stopped as Ryan turned on him. "That's my son, you pissant little bastard. Get out of the way or I'll snap your neck like a rabbit's." When the man still didn't move, Ryan called to Trader. "Shift him for me."

 

Buford squealed as Trader stepped up and dragged him away by the upper arm, the pincering fingers probing beneath the cloak and nearly pulling the biceps muscle away from the bone.

 

Ryan ignored them.

 

Dean was conscious, his head strained back, the sinews in his throat corded with the effort of trying to look at his father. "I'm triple sorry, Dad, about"

 

"Shut up. Can you move?"

 

"No. Branch is across my stomach and the tops of my legs and feet."

 

Krysty spoke to the trapped boy, keeping her voice calm and reassuring. "Soon get you out, Dean. Can you move your arms and fingers, all right?"

 

"Yeah." The boy's voice was fragile and feathery, trembling like the beating of a bird's heart. "I can feel my toes wriggle, as well."

 

Ryan nodded. "Good. Means you got no bad injuries. We'll have you out, Dean. Don't go away."

 

Something like a laugh. "Try not to, Dad."

 

Ryan led Krysty and the Armorer a little farther away, dropping his voice to whisper urgently to them both. "What do you reckon?"

 

J.B. answered. "If we got time, we can send a sec man to fetch some good ropes from their ville. Not far. And pulleys. We can jury-rig a tackle and heave that branch off him." He paused. "If we got the time."

 

"Dad?"

 

"Hang on."

 

"No, Dad, listen. I think the branch is getting heavier on top of me. Like it's moving, real slow. I can feel it."

 

Ryan gestured for the others to keep well off. Going alone, he picked his way through the scattered detritus from the broken branches, taking the ultimate care not to slip and somehow disturb the delicate balance of the lethal trap that was crushing his helpless son.

 

"Can you see anything, Dad?" Anxiety nearly swamped his brave efforts at control.

 

"Yeah. Yeah, I can see what's happening. The sharp, broken end of the branch that's got you is sinking into the soft, muddy ground. That's gradually increasing the weight on you."

 

"Will it stop?"

 

Ryan hesitated. From where he stood, it was possible to see that the other end of the spruce branch was very slowly slipping from the trunk. Once it lost that residue of purchase, it would then fall and wipe Dean away.

 

"Sure it'll stop."

 

There was no way of getting anything else under it to check the inexorable progress downward. The other branches were brittle and dry and would snap. The trees all around had strong healthy branches, but to cut through one or two of the necessary breadth would take far too long without a power saw.

 

And, because of the configuration of the ground and the way the tree had fallen, there wasn't room for several people to get in and lift it. There was barely space at the point of balance of the shifting branch for even a single person.

 

"I'll take the weight, lover, and you have everyone else ready to try to hold some of the strain, if necessary. And get Dean out the moment I lift it up. Have to be quick."

 

"Use the Gaia power?"

 

"Yes." Krysty's face was calm, as though she were already starting to focus some of those hidden, mysterious strengths, the secret skills taught to her by her mother, Sonja, linked to the Earth Mother herself, Gaia.

 

"You know what it does to you. It comes close to chilling you when you use it, Krysty."

 

"I know."

 

"Dad, getting heavy!" Dean's face was turning red as his chest was compressed and his breathing became more and more difficult. "Be quick."

 

Ryan hugged Krysty, kissing her on the lips. "You can do it?"

 

"I can try."

 

Ryan had to draw his SIG-Sauer to force Buford away with his men, explaining in a few words to the others what was going to happen.

 

Trader had opened his mouth to protest at the absurdity of it, but then shut it again when he saw the cold death in Ryan's eye, contenting himself with the barely audible whisper of "Fucking triple impossible. In-fucking-possible!"

 

Krysty had thrown off her dark blue jacket and stood by the tree in her white shirt and blue pants.

 

Dean gasped for air, sucking in rapid, shallow breaths, his eyes closed.

 

"Everyone dead quiet," Ryan ordered. "I'll kill the first person who makes a sound."

 

The midmorning forest was silent. Not a bird flew anywhere near them. Not a squirrel chattered in the high branches. The lightest breeze rippled the tops of the pines all around, and the air carried the faint flavor of salt from the nearby ocean. The sun sailed across a cloudless sky, peeking down and casting dappled shadows.

 

Krysty's lips moved, the words just audible to the watchers. "Gaia, help me here. Aid me, Gaia, and lend me your strength for this action, only to save another's life." Her green eyes were closed, and she was deliberately controlling her breathing.

 

"That hunk of wood must weigh three or four hundred pounds, easy," Ellison muttered, not loud enough to disturb Krysty's preparation. "Just can't be done."

 

Ryan glanced sideways at the sec man, who caught the look and shook his head slowly.

 

"Can't get no air, Dad!" The boy's voice was ragged with blind fear.

 

But it didn't disturb Krysty, who had locked herself into the trance that she needed, moving below the great branch, touching it gently with the tips of her fingers, tensing herself.

 

"Gaia, help me with your power now!"