James Axler: Dectra Chain

"This is it." Ryan held up his clenched fist in the signal for them to stop and beckoned them all forward into the large open space. Oil stains marked the concrete floor.

"Usual control," Jak commented, pointing to the green lever.

Unusually it was pointing in the up position, meaning that the main outer doors had been opened from the inside, which was probably the handiwork of the deceased mutie.

"Ready to go out, friends?" Ryan asked, glancing around.

"Let's do it," Krysty said.

The door swung open with a greased silence, letting in a wave of cool, fresh air, which was such a contrast to the dull recirculated air of the redoubt that it tasted like a heady, sparkling wine.

"My word," Doc breathed, stepping through the entrance. "That is just so beautiful it makes you..." He shook his head in mute wonderment at the scene.

They stood near the crest of the hill, a rounded slope that was at the center of a small island. The sea was spread around it in a dark gray expanse, touched with dappled weals of bright silver. It looked as if the island was about four miles across and barely two miles wide, the flanks of the hill speckled with stands of larch, pine and fir.

Down to the left they could see the flash of a waterfall, among an expanse of aspen, maple and live oaks. Ryan had never seen anything quite so brilliant as the magnificent show of color from the trees. Every imaginable shade from dark green, through dull brown, to fiery reds and startling orange. It was almost as if the mountain was ablaze from sea's edge to the beginnings of bare, gray rock.

"New England fall," Doc told them.

"It's beautiful," Lori said, kneeling down on a bank of soft, cropped turf.

"Road there." Jak pointed to where the blacktop, partly overgrown, wound across the flank of the hill toward the shattered remains of a stone harbor.

"Never saw anything so bright and strong as those trees," J.B. said quietly, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his sleeve.

"What makes them that color, Doc?" Ryan asked.

"The bright reds and golds? I recall reading in some... some time back. The soil and the season brings it on. All that brave array of brilliant hues and tints is simply the last scene of death. The leaves die back for the winter, and before they die they display all their rich panoply. That is what we see here, my friends. The brightness of death."

There was an infinite calm about the morning. Away to the north they could make out either the mainland or more islands. Around the granite headland below them they could see great circling clouds of cormorants, rising like smoke from the sea. Farther out, Ryan thought for a moment that he spotted some vast creature moving through the sullen waves, broaching for a moment, then disappearing. But he couldn't be certain, and it didn't reappear.

Donfil joined Lori, sitting cross-legged and gazing around him, eyes hidden by the mirrored sunglasses. He looked like some skeletal hunting bird, waiting patiently for its prey by a quiet forest pool.

"This is the first place I have seen in many, many moons," he said. "There is a word in the tongue of the lost Navaho people. They speak of hozro in their language."

"What's it mean? Hozro ?" Krysty asked the shaman.

He paused as he considered the question. " Hozro is to be as one with your world. With your... what is the Anglo word?"

"Environment?" Doc offered. "Big buzzword way back when."

"Environment. Good word, Dr. Tanner. Yes, it is to be free from all worry and anger. To relish the day and all in it for what it is. If it is a day of rain, then hozro means to enjoy the day for its rain and not moan about the wet."

"Sounds good to me," Ryan said. "Lotta times I could've done with some hozro myself."

"You must seek it within yourself, Ryan Cawdor," the Apache said solemnly. "Seek within and you shall find it."

They could see from immense fault lines in the granite slopes of the mountain that concealed the redoubt where major earth slippage had occurred during the nukings of the war. No more buildings were visible.

From high above Ryan thought he could detect the remains of a long causeway stretching out toward the distant land, but some earth shift seemed to have dropped it below sea level. For the first time it came to him that they might have serious problems in trying to get off the island.

Halfway down the rippled roadway they found a stone shelter, roofless, at an overlook.

Acadia National Park. Scenic View, said a wooden notice, deeply carved, set into the landmark wall.

"You might be interested, Jak," Doc said. "The Acadians, or Arcadians, were what became the Cajuns from down around your part."

The boy nodded, the light breeze tugging at the white froth of hair that tumbled over his narrow shoulders.

"Look at burn bits." Lori pointed at the sill of the great open window. The wood was charred and scorched, rotting where a hundred years of rain had penetrated it.

"Must have been some heavy hot spots around here," J.B. said.

"One of the bad parts, if we're truly in New England, here," Krysty replied. "Uncle Tyas McCann was real wise. Said the west and southerly-west got burned badly by the missiles. But the long winter came hardest up this way."

"Let's settle it." The Armorer reached into one of his capacious pockets and pulled out the tiny, folding sextant. He took a sight at the sun and then busied himself with his creased maps and calculations. "Yeah," he said finally. "Nearest big ville I can work is Boston."

"Acadia was up in Maine," Doc said. "As near as I can recall."

"Look." Krysty pointed to the back of the rough shelter. There was a silvery metal plaque, around five feet long and eighteen inches deep. It had an etched map of the coastline across from the harbor, with names on it, and a few lines of text.

"It's called Ile au Haut," Ryan told them. "This island we're on."

Ryan scanned the lines of text about the national park. "Says here that there's a mountain over there on the big island. Cadillac Mountain. The first rays of sunlight to touch the old United States used to brush the top of it. Talks about all the hiking trails there are around this island."

"Looks like someone tried to chisel this last bit away," Krysty commented, stooping to peer at it. "You can still read it, though."

"Where?" Doc asked.

"There." She indicated the last section of the incised text.

"Ah, yes."

All of them could read it, though Lori and Jak had problems with some of the longer words on the inscription.

Ile au Haut was once part of Acadia National Park. Founded in 1919, it was the first such park in the east and remained the only one in all of New England. For nearly eighty years the forty thousand acres of Acadia provided a haven for all lovers of nature. In 1996 the government — in its wisdom — pushed through the bill that took He au Haut away from the national park system and handed it to the military for the building of a massive, secret establishment.

"They mean the redoubt," Lori said.

"Yes," Doc sighed. "Right, child. They surely do."

There was nationwide outrage at this decision and protests by environmental groups from all over the world. An attempt by Greenpeace to thwart the plans ended in tragedy and the deaths of dozens of protestors. This taking of Acadia was followed in the next months by the government's assuming control, through the Pentagon, of all national parks. Be warned all who come after... This is only the beginning.

Doc Tanner rubbed absently at the scratched metal. "The times were changing, friends," he said quietly. "Wasn't any use to block up the hall. The wheel was in spin."

"No success like failure, Doc," Krysty said. "And failure's no damned success at all."