James Axler - Ice and Fire

The six companions stood by the subsidiary exits from the redoubt, on its northern flank. Richard Ginsberg leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

Walking was difficult for him, and the others had taken turns helping to support him. His muscles were painfully weak and wasted. Ryan noticed that the freezie's way of walking was slightly peculiar, each foot lifted rigidly then set down with an unusual firmness. Ginsberg also kept clenching and unclenching his fingers, as though they were stiff and sore.

Ryan had, as gently as he could, given him a spotty version of history from the October morning when Richard Neal Ginsberg had last seen the light of day, up to the present morning, one hundred eternal years later. The freezie had taken the news fairly well in spite of Doc's concern for his sanity.

Ryan sketched in what he knew of the end of civilization, the long winters, the barren wastes and frothing hot spots; the changes in the land and in the climate and the changes in the people.

Ginsberg had asked surprisingly few questions.

"When I saw you all, sporting guns, I guessed something was... bad. Had to be. Course, when I went under, the war talk was louder. Same old faces and voices. Hatred. I was born and raised on growing hatred in... once that... can't remember his name, the Russian leader who talked peace. Once he was toppled — word was the CIA brought him down — it all went downhill."

He'd cautiously asked how many had died in the first waves of missiles. Ryan told him that nobody knew the answer to that. All records were gone, and the months immediately following the devastation were known as "the lost days."

Rick's parents had lived in a neat apartment in a brownstone on the Lower East Side of New York. All that Ryan, helped by Doc and Krysty, could tell was that every city had been hit hard and often. There was a ten-tenth's death rate in all major metropolises, and for people within the heat core, death would come like the snuffing of a light.

"A single microsecond of surprise, and then an infinite merging with the cosmos," Doc had told him.

"What's kind of hard," Rick eventually said, "is the sure knowledge that every person I ever met in my entire life is now dead. Most died within a few miserable weeks of my being frozen. Now I'm here and I'm all on my fucking own! I'm still dying and... and what's the point of it all, huh? What's the point?"

Despite urging particularly from J.B., Rick steadfastly refused to carry a blaster.

"Sorry, John," he insisted. "I'm a little of a peacenik in my own way. I abhor violence. From what you've been telling me, I guess I might have to get used to a mighty different world from the one I knew. Maybe in some ways, I might like it better. But tote a pistol? Thanks, but no thanks."

What was odd was that he hadn't shown much interest in precisely who Ryan and the others actually were or how they'd gotten into the triple-secure redoubt or how they moved around the Deathlands.

At Doc's suggestion Ryan hadn't pestered Rick about what he'd done back before the megachill. The fact that it had been highly classified meant it could be an area of his life that might provoke a strong and upsetting reaction.

The outside doors of the redoubt swung open on the familiar 3-5-2 code. Jak led the way into the fresh air, the other six following him. Rick leaned on Krysty's arm, bringing up the rear.

"Oh, to see the sun and taste the breeze..." the freezie said, clearly on the edge of tears. "Whatever happens, I've seen this once more." He hesitated. "Why is the sky that strange purplish color?"

"Strange?" Ryan echoed. "It's nearly always that color."

Doc smiled sadly. "It wasn't always so, Ryan. What our new companion says is correct. The skies were always blue when I was a lad. Yellow sun. White clouds. Not the hideous hues of the chem clouds and the dark nuke sky that haunts us all."

"How come you remember that, Doc?" Rick asked. "Nobody's that old."

"It is a tale told by an idiot, Richard. Told by me. Too difficult to comprehend or even to believe. One day, when you are somewhat recovered, I will tell you."

"Speaking of believing," Rick continued. "In your travels, you never came across — maybe in one of these redoubts — anything called a... a gateway, did you?"

Before anyone could stop her, Lori leaped in with both feet.

"Course, stupe! That's how we always are getting around Deathlands. Jump and jump in gateways."

Once again nobody looked at the freezie. Ryan stared across a narrow blacktop that vanished steeply over the brink of the hillside. Beyond it was a sweep of valley, disappearing into some thick forest. There was no sign of a ville anywhere.

"Just a damned m-m-m-minute," Rick stammered. "Did I hear you right, Lori?"

"Yeah."

"You guys use gateways? They still work? Sweet... They still work? A hundred years after the bombs and they still work. Wow!"

"What do you know about mat-trans?" Doc asked curiously. "Is that why you were given a high-B sec rating, Mr. Ginsberg?"

"I can't tell you. Freedom of information doesn't apply. Would you be on a need-to-know listing? Of course you wouldn't. You were all dead. I mean not alive... when the last need-to-know precaution list was... Oh, this is weird, guys. Like dropping a tab of the best Nicaraguan acid. You've been using the gateways! Which ones? Where?"

Ryan suddenly guessed it. "You worked on them, didn't you? That was the reason for your high sec rating. You know all about gateways and jumps! Fire-blast! You've got plenty to tell us, friend."

J.B. interrupted him. "If we're going to get some miles before dark, Ryan, we'd best get started. Talk can come later."

Ryan ignored the good advice, glaring at Rick. "Is it true?"

"I don't know."

"What d'you mean? You must know what your bastard job was!"

"I think it... it might have been something about gateways, but I can't remember. My head hurts, and I'm tired and confused and why don't you leave me alone? Please."

"Please," Ryan mocked angrily. "You could hold the key to information that might alter all our lives!"

"Ryan," the Armorer urged, "it's a good walk down there. And the freezie's in poor shape. Don't want to get caught by dark halfway down the mountain. Come on, Ryan."

"Sure. Yeah, you're right, J.B., I know that. But..." he faced Rick again "...get your memory working and we'll talk later. You got lots to tell us."

It was a difficult journey.

In several places the road had been washed away by torrential rains or shattered by quakes. When they were about a quarter of the way down, J.B. stopped and drew out his tiny pocket sextant, checking where they actually were in the Deathlands.

Rick Ginsberg sat slumped on a huge boulder, head in his hands, panting with exhaustion. The trail was high, and Ryan was conscious of the thin air. His heart was working harder than usual, and any effort was more tiring. There was a marvellous vista to enjoy to their west — the orange sun was sliding down amid a nest of feathery thundertops tinted a light purple.

"What are the mountains, Doc?" Krysty asked, brushing dust from her coveralls.

"Look like the old Sierra Nevadas, from the shape and feel of them. But if we're in the high Sierras, then I'm puzzled at what that is way away to the west. Beneath the setting sun."

"It's a lake," Lori said. "Big, big lake, far as I can see."

Doc shook his head. "Can't be, sweetness. There is no lake of that size hereabouts. We must be a good twenty miles or more away from it and yet it looks utterly vast. Ergo, we are not in the Sierras."

"Wrong, Doc," J.B. folded the sextant and slipped it into one of his infinitely capacious pockets.