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was rubbing at his bruised throat with both hands, struggling to get his
breathing back to somewhere close to normal.
"Land of Goshen! The poor lad was possessed. I thought my last moment had
come. Who stopped him from impersonating the thuggish stranglers of the
goddess Kali?"
"Me. Bopped him with the blaster."
"Then you have my heartfelt thanks, my dear Krysty. My whole life flashed past
me."
"Did it really, Doc?" Dean asked eagerly. "Heard people say that before."
"Well, if I lay my hand upon my heart, I have to admit that it didn't really,
Dean. Just a pounding across the temples and blood filling my eyes."
J.B. quickly and efficiently knotted the cord around Michael's thumbs, behind
his back, also lashing the teenager's ankles together. He straightened.
"There. Might be all right, but I'm not taking a chance."
Ryan opened his eye and stared around the gateway chamber. "Pretty color of
purple on the walls,"
he said. "Successful jump, then?" He started to lift his hand toward the
suppurating wound on his neck.
"No, don't touch it." Mildred stooped quickly and checked the movement.
"What? Fireblast, but my neck feels... I feel triple sick and... where are the
snows of..." His eye closed again, and Ryan slipped back into the darkness.
"Boy, but we're sure all having a load of fun here." Mildred sighed. "One mad
and one sick."
"Best move it," J.B. said. "Doc."
"Yes, my dear chap?"
"Can you manage to carry Michael?"
"I shall resist the temptation to drop him on his skull, if that's what you
mean. Though, if he commences to struggle, I shall regard that as an adequate
excuse."
THE CHAMBER OPENED onto a small room, eight feet square, wtih a small table in
one corner and two rows of empty shelves. There was a rectangle of white card
pinned to one of the shelves, crumpled and fragile.
"'Paul and Danny, the Vid Men,'" Dean read slowly. "'Best Selection hi all
N.H.' What's that mean?"
"New Hampshire," Mildred said. "Looks like we've finished up in New England."
Doc had already begun to pant with the effort of carrying the unconscious
Michael slung over his shoulder. "Can we keep moving?" he asked. "I fear that
once I lay this burden down I shall not be up to taking it up again."
The control room was much like all of the others that they'd seen-rows of
desks and rows of screens, all showing shimmering rows of information; endless
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blocks of coded numerals, relating to all the aspects of
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a sign of any sort of life anywhere.
On the far end of the room were the usual double sec doors of vanadium steel,
with the green control lever set to the right-hand side.
J.B. was far stronger than his slim build would suggest, and he didn't seem to
be struggling at all under Ryan's weight. "Dean, you operate the lever.
Mildred and Krysty, both of you get your blasters ready and crouch down on the
floor. You know how to do it. Seen Ryan and I enough times.
Dean, just about nine inches. No more. Understand?"
"Sure," Krysty said, Mildred and Dean both nodding their agreement.
Doc was wheezing. "Can I lay down this sleeping beauty for a moment?"
"Sure. Get the Le Mat out and keep watch."
"Wilco, Commander Dix. You mean to watch the door with the ladies?"
"No. Watch Michael."
"He's tied up safely."
"Long as he hasn't got some sort of crazie strength to break free. Just watch
him."
"What if he escapes and looks dangerous?"
J.B. eased Ryan on his shoulder. "Shoot him, Doc. Just shoot him."
THE CORRIDOR WAS BARE.
Dean was sent off on a recce to the right, urged to be careful, returning
within less than two minutes with the news that the passage ended in a solid
wall of stone only a hundred paces or so around the curve.
The overhead strip lights glared down pitilessly, and the miniature sec
cameras probed ceaselessly from the junction of wall and ceiling.
Now that they were on a level expanse of smooth concrete, Doc seemed to have a
new lease on life, striding out, knees cracking, Michael still unconscious on
his shoulders.
There were no side passages or doors in the first quarter mile. The corridor
had been dead flat, but it now began to wind slowly upward.
Doc stopped and gently put Michael down on the floor. "I think a small rest is
required."
J.B. lowered Ryan beside the bound figure of the teenager.
"Hard time of it," he said, pushing his fedora back on his forehead.
"Think it'll be much farther?" Dean asked, standing and looking worriedly at
his father--who opened his eye.
"Father is farthest," he said. "Don't ask so many questions, son. We'll get
there when we get there. Shit, this wound on my neck hurts."
Then he closed his eye and was silent.
"Want us to take some of the load?" Krysty asked. "Must be an elevator or some
kind of intersection soon."
"I don't know where I am."
The voice was barely recognizable as Michael's, a strange, wizened, whispering
voice, like a waUed-
up crone in a labrynth.
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"I don't know who I am."
It was Doc who knelt by the boy, brushing the hair away from the dark troubled
eyes. "Your name is
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Michael, and you are with friends."
"You lie."
The ferocity of the earlier mood seemed to have altered to a withdrawn
passivity. The planes of the young man's face were as smooth as a little
child's.
"We are friends, truly," Doc encouraged.
"I'm trapped, deep inside my own bowels," Michael insisted. "All blackness."
His eyes were wide open, staring through Doc. Krysty noticed that he was
tensing all his muscles, as if he were testing the bonds.
"Watch him, Doc," she warned. "Could be foxing."
"Either I have taken some drug that has made me mad," Michael whispered, "or
I'm totally mad. I
can't tell which is the truth."
"Neither. You are Michael and we are friends. I'm Doc. There's Krysty and-"
"Imps of evil. Brother Athanasius warned us against such as you. You come
disguised with fucking smiles and fucking lies."
"Best get on, Doc," J.R said. "Want the ladies to take a turn?"
"Perhaps. I might go ahead on point."
"I was doing that," Dean protested. "Why don't you watch the back?"
There was an uncomfortable moment while the boy and the old man stared at each
other. J.B. broke the impasse. "You've been on point, Dean. Take turns. Keep
alert, Doc."
"Of course." He stuck out his tongue at Dean when the Armorer turned his back,
making the lad grin.
Mildred took Michael's shoulders and Krysty his legs, while J.B. carried on
with Ryan.
It was slower and clumsier with two of them, as Michael was conscious and kept
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