Sunchild

“Right. Stink like mutie polecat on heat,” Jak grunted.

It didn’t take long to find the shower stalls and washing facilities. Like most redoubts, this one was laid out to a specification that had been generally used. There had been exceptions, but for the most part it could be assumed that if a person had explored one redoubt, he or she had a fair chance of navigating every other one he or she came across.

The showers were still working. As with several of the redoubts they had encountered so far, the lighting in this one was erratic. But the water was still on, and the heaters still worked. The first streams of water were lukewarm, flecked with some decay and foreign matter from the pipes, but after a minute or so by Ryan’s wrist chron the water was clear, flowing freely and of an even temperature.

They took turns to shower, keeping a guard at all times. It seemed that the redoubt was deserted apart from their presence, but they could never be too sure. The friends had been taken unawares on a previous occasion.

It was a simple matter to find clean clothing. The store rooms for all redoubts were situated in the same place, and in this redoubt they were lucky enough to find underclothes and thermally insulated outerwear that had lain unused for over a century. They took the opportunity to change clothes and would later launder what they usually wore.

One strange thing, though—the clothes weren’t the usual regulation khaki and olive-green, or white. Some of the clothes were in colors that seemed, under the dim lighting, to be black or a dark blue. Some of it, under the better lighting of the corridor, even revealed itself to be purple, a color rarely if ever seen in predark sec conditions. And the lighter colors were yellows and sky-blues. It was a small but significant difference.

“These make a change,” Dean remarked as he dressed, “but it doesn’t seem right to me.”

“You’re right,” Krysty agreed. “The armies from before skydark would never have used this.” She held up a purple T-shirt that seemed, in the light, to have streaks of a faded pattern running across it. “This is no ordinary military redoubt.”

“Built on the same lines, though,” Ryan said thoughtfully. “Odd. Most of the nonmilitary redoubts we’ve jumped to have been different. But this…”

“I know,” Mildred said. “It’s uncanny, and maybe just a bit creepy. It’s a military base, but with so many nonmilitary touches. If only it wasn’t so damned dark…I’d swear that these rooms are just a bit smaller than the usual size. It’s like someone got the military blueprints but had to downscale just a bit.” Mildred shivered. “It just gives the place a screwy atmosphere, like looking into a distorting mirror.”

Jak looked at her, puzzled. “Not feel danger here,” he said simply. “Old sec weird. Seen plenty weirder.”

Doc, who had so far been silent, leaned thoughtfully on his swordstick, hands clasped over the silver lion’s head. “I wonder…” he mused, then lapsed into silence.

“Wonder what, Doc?” Ryan asked gently, knowing that when the old man was straining to recall, it was best to keep patience and coax it from him.

“Whitecoat paranoia,” Doc continued. “You know, those fools always believed there were secret cabals out to overthrow them—private armies, hidden money and knowledge. All power, I suppose. But perhaps…”

“If this was such a place—another sec force—then mebbe it’s got a good armory.” J.B. almost smiled as he jammed his fedora onto his closely cropped scalp. The twinkle in his eyes betrayed his excitement.

“We could do with a few new blasters, mebbe some grens,” Ryan said. “Should be easy to find the armory if this follows standard layout, right?”

They all nodded agreement.

“Well, I vote we get some sleep first,” Krysty said with a sigh. “We know we can’t stay here too long, and I can’t feel any danger at all, lover.”

“Okay. We’ll search for the armory after we’ve slept, mebbe see if we can access some information. This place seems to be in good order, so mebbe the comps won’t be too fucked up.”

The weariness with which his companions agreed and the fact that the Armorer was content to leave the weapons search until after sleeping were sure signs that the friends badly needed some rest.

As they had all suspected, the dormitories were easy to find. Echoing Mildred’s impression that the redoubt was on a smaller scale than most old sec installations, the dorms housed only a few beds per room. In fact, it looked as though the total personnel of this redoubt couldn’t have been more than thirty at most.

Dean, Jak and Doc took one room. Mildred and J.B. another, leaving Ryan and Krysty to take their pick of the remaining dorms.

Shutting themselves away from the others, and gaining a rare privacy since the beginning of their travels, they settled into one of the beds. The controlled environment of the redoubt had kept the linen fresh, and little dust or dirt had accumulated over the preceding century.

Krysty moved closer to Ryan, molding herself to his body and running a fingernail over the ridges of the one-eyed warrior’s ribs.

“Still tense, lover?” she asked, feeling the knotting of his muscles.

“Mebbe it’s got to where I’ve forgotten how to relax,” Ryan replied. “It’s too quiet, too calm. I don’t like it…. It’s not right. Too easy.”

Krysty drew circles with her nail on his rippling muscles. “Mebbe so…I can’t feel anything, and I’m cherishing the calm. Gaia knows we don’t get too much of that. It’s not a calm and peaceful world, so finding an oasis of peace for just a little while…Do you think you’d be able to settle if we ever did find the promised lands?”

Ryan smiled at her choice of words, knowing that she had deliberately picked them to amuse him, relax him. “Mebbe. And mebbe I just can’t think of that now when there’s a fight around every corner. Guess I’ve spent, hell, we’ve all spent too long having to be on our guard. Peace like this just feels like the calm eye of some rad-blasted storm.”

“Well, we’re in the eye of that storm right now, so we may as well make the best of it,” she replied softly, moving on top of him, using every muscle in her body to coax the tired warrior away from his concern and into focusing on her. And their togetherness.

Krysty was so skilled, and moved so intuitively, that Ryan found his restlessness draining away, and his attention drawn entirely to his lover’s body as she roused him to a passion that they had too little time to consummate.

And afterward, he slept his first entirely dreamless and restful sleep since he couldn’t remember when.

Chapter Two

Both Ryan and Krysty awoke the next day refreshed. Ryan felt easier, and on examining his wrist chron found that they had slept for almost twenty-four hours.

After he and Krysty had risen and dressed, they ventured out of the dorm. The unearthly quiet that always accompanied a deserted redoubt was broken by the distant and muffled sounds of talk and the clatter of dishes. Exchanging puzzled and amused glances, they followed the sounds until they became more audible.

“…don’t give shit. Not eating slop when self-heats there.”

“C’mon, Jak. Doc’s done his best, and it would make more sense to keep the self-heats and take them with us.” Mildred’s exasperation was showing through in her edgy tone.

“Yeah, but this crap’ll kill us before we get out of the main door, so then we won’t need self-heats anyway, will we?” There was a wry edge to Dean’s tone that suggested he was enjoying helping Jak to exasperate the more sensible Dr. Wyeth.

Who was looking for backup. “John, don’t just sit there and say nothing. Help me out on this one.”

“Leave me out of this, Millie,” came J.B.’s laconic tones. “This crap isn’t really edible, but then I don’t like self-heats much, either.”

Ryan and Krysty entered what was obviously the redoubt’s kitchen to find their companions arguing at a table, with the exception of Doc, who was standing over a pan that bubbled busily on a hot plate. He greeted them with a sheepish grin.

“I fear I may be the cause of some discontent,” he began. “Upon finding a supply of self-heats, but also some foodstuffs that had been dried and preserved, I reasoned that it would be sensible to try to make a meal from the latter, thus preserving the self-heats for our travels. However, I must confess that my attempts at the culinary arts have not been altogether—shall we say—successful.”

Krysty wrinkled her nose at the stale stench emanating from the pan, then glanced at Ryan. He, too, had noticed the smell. Doc noted their silent exchange.

“Precisely,” he replied to their unspoken question. “The desiccated foodstuffs and—well, what they were I can only assume—seem to be as stale as the spices with which I have endeavored to enliven them. Also, the consistency leaves a lot to be desired.”

“It’s not going to kill us,” Mildred argued. “It’ll still be nutritious, and that’s the main thing. We can’t waste self-heats.”

Ryan looked from Mildred to Doc. The old man shrugged once more, and smiled, revealing his eerily perfect teeth.

“I suspect I know exactly what you’re thinking,” he stated. “If I had merely dismissed the dried foodstuffs as so much dross, and merely pointed out the discovery of the self-heats, then all this argument could have been avoided.”

Ryan laughed. It was the first time for ages that he had felt able. “Don’t worry about it, Doc. Guess you’re right, but it’s nice to just be somewhere for a while where we have the time to argue about nothing.”

Doc grinned, his gleaming white teeth in his tightly drawn and lined face giving him the appearance of a skeletal jester. He said no more, but tossed the one-eyed warrior a self-heat, which Ryan opened.

“Let’s just enjoy it for now,” Ryan added, opening the container and setting off the process by which the contents were heated.

Doc distributed some more of the containers, and even Mildred conceded that, as poor as some self-heats could be in terms of taste, they were still superior to the bizarre hotchpotch, still bubbling gently if a little malevolently, Doc had thrown together on the hot plate.