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morning air and stared out across the dreadful blasted wilderness.
Ryan leaned his hands on his chin, aware that Krysty had moved to stand right
behind him, her head close to his.
"Some kind of massive incendiary missiles?" she asked.
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J.B. favored her with a rare, thin smile. "Sure wasn't neutron nuking, was
it?"
They'd all seen the odd phenomenon of centers of population hit by the more
sophisticated Soviet weaponry during the shortest, and last, world war,
neutron missiles that would take out all life-forms within thirty miles of
ground zero but would leave every building standing.
The idea was that the winning armies would be able to invade and find much of
their prize was still inhabitable, without any kind of lethal, lingering
radiation.
Great idea.
Except that the Americans and their allies also had neutron missiles.
And nearly everyone was dead anyway.
So there weren't any invading armies left, and nothing very much worth
invading, anywhere in the world.
"Kid's mebbe not going to make it," J.B. observed. "Shock's been too big for
him to handle."
"Could make it with our help," Krysty said.
"Well built. Good shoulders on him. And he's triple quick."
Ryan agreed with J.B., nodding. "Can't just let him wander off. Some gutter
scum'd slit his throat in the first hour."
The boy turned toward them, holding his hands out in a gesture of
helplessness.
The light wind was tugging at his black hair, rippling the hem of his long
brown robe.
"Oh, Gaia!" Krysty pushed past Dean, who was jumping out of the back of the
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d17 Fury's Pilgrims wag, and walked across the ringing highway toward Brother
Michael.
From inside the vehicle, the rumble of the engine made it impossible to hear
what was being said, but they could all see the woman, hair like living
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flames, leaning forward intently. Her hand gestured toward the midnight ruins
of the city and back toward the watchers in the armored wag.
The young oblate was listening, occasionally shaking his head and half turning
away from her, then returning his eyes to hers.
"I do not believe that any of you here can possibly begin to comprehend the
madness that surges through that poor boy's brain."
"Mebbe we shouldn't have gone ahead with the trawling, Doc?"
"No, my dear John, I cannot agree with you on that. The apparatus had been set
by other hands in other days. Science must step forward or it will atrophy and
die.
I would be the first to proselytize on its behalf, despite the scandalous
results."
"What's that 'prostitute' word, Doc?" Abe asked. "You mean you been with
whores?"
"The men and women who worked on Chronos project might well have merited such
a title, my dear Abraham." Doc laughed. "Indeed they did. But they& What were
we discussing?"
"Whether we should have trawled the kid," Ryan replied.
"Ah, yes. If you will permit me a small play on words, I think time will
tell."
"We should have blown up the whole complex," Mildred said.
"No! Upon my& No. I think we should not."
"Look. Krysty's bringing him back." J.B. pointed through the shield.
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Ryan rolled down the ob window on his side. "He still with us?"
The young man answered himself. "Just for a little time."
THE ENGINE FALTERED AGAIN as J.B. gave it the gun. He eased his foot off,
allowing it to idle for a few seconds.
"Surprising it goes at all," he said. "Sure made them to last."
Ryan leaned across and studied the comp map that shimmered on the dash. "We
going to go out across the ville? Or we can head north or south along the line
of the lake?"
Doc cleared his throat. "I have been thinking, my friends. If the truth were
told, I
have scant interest in viewing the charred corpse of a once-great city.
Perhaps you might drop me off here and I'll wait for your return to the
redoubt? I assure you that I shall come to no harm."
Ryan turned and stared into the deep, wise, pained eyes. "You know the rules,
Doc. Swim together. Sink together. No splitting up unless we have to. Been
with us long enough to remember that, Doc." The response surprised him.
"You want to tell me why I have to obey your damned rules and bloody
regulations, Ryan?" The old man had his hands on his hips, glaring at him. The
knuckles on the lion's head of the sword stick were like hewn ivory.
The response was so unexpected that Ryan didn't know what to say.
J.B. turned around sharply. "You got a hornet in your pants, Doc?"
"No. No, I do not, thank you, John. But I am tired of being treated like some
idiot cousin from a backwood holler. My opinions are valid and should be
respected. If
I wish to return to the redoubt, then I should be allowed to do so."
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The trembling anger hung in the air.
Ryan sighed. "Sure. I won't even think of trying to force you to do something
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you don't want to do, Doc. But you still know the rules. You live within them
or you die without them."
For a strange moment Ryan could actually hear the familiar voice of the
Trader, saying those very words, on a hundred occasions.
Then, for the first time, it occurred to Ryan as a genuine possibility that
his old leader might not be dead.
Doc sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I admit that I'm not sure what
came over me, Ryan, my dear old companion. Please forget that I ever said such
foolishness. It was seeing the chron-temp unit all functioning. Ready to bring
someone forward. Or take someone& But let that pass. Yes, let that pass, will
you?"
"Sure. Pressure gets to everyone, now and then. Forget it, Doc."
Ryan turned to J.B. "Let's go take in the town." This time the powerful engine
roared without a moment's hesitation and the wag jerked forward into motion,
past the lapping wavelets at the edge of the clean, sparkling water. On into
the blackened wasteland.
Chapter Twenty
The firestorm must have been of the most ferocious intensity.
Ryan had once come across the tattered pages of an old magazine, with pictures
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d17 Fury's Pilgrims and a story of the bombing of a town in a country called
Germany, during one of the big twentieth-century wars. Dresden was the name of
the place. He recalled that the bombing had been with ordinary hi-ex, but the
effects of the saturation attack had been horrific.
Incendiaries had been used in the old part of the city, and the flames had
spread and spread. And something the mag called a "firestorm" had begun. The
conflagration had become so unbelievably intense that stone and metal had
burned and the heat had sucked all of the air in for a distance around,
feeding the insatiable fires and suffocating the hiding residents of the city.
Thousands had died, their bodies charred beyond any hope of recognition.
Chicago seemed to be a little like Dresden, but worse.
Infinitely worse.
As they drove up the sloping blacktop from the buried redoubt, there had been
an air of excitement within the APC, a feeling that Ryan had often noticed
when they emerged into some new and unknown part of Deathlands.
Now that was gone.
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