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figure we stick it another day or so. Then we break close to midnight. Try and
pick a clear time. Go fast and hard as we can for the ridge and into that
swampy jungle. Hold up there and watch for pursuit. If it comes, we can try
for an ambush. That's the plan." He looked at them. "Well?"
"Two days?" Mildred said.
"No longer, lover? There's something about this place I truly don't care for."
"And there's the radiation sickness," Mildred added. "We've seen a dozen or
more of the folk mainly kids with too many symptoms."
"Yeah. We've noticed some of the men don't look well. Sores around the mouth
and nails missing from fingers. That kind of stuff."
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"So we wait for you to give us the word?" Krysty asked.
"Yeah."
"Best get on back."
Ryan led the way, ducking and weaving among the trees until they struck the
main trail toward the ville. They kept together, passing a couple of narrower
side tracks, one of which snaked away toward a steep outcrop of granite.
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Krysty suddenly grabbed at Ryan's sleeve. "Someone's coming."
"Up or down? Front or behind? How many?" His questions machine-gunned out.
"Up. Front. Four or so."
Ryan hesitated, glancing to the woods on both sides of them. Here the trees
weren't quite so densely packed, and there was a risk of their being spotted,
even if they went some distance undercover.
"Back to that last cutoff. Quick."
Neither Krysty nor Mildred stopped to argue. They followed him up the hillside
for a hundred yards, then onto the side trail. It snaked to the left and
right, working its way up the steeper part of the mountain, zigzagging like a
broke-back cottonmouth.
Ryan stopped and held up a hand for silence. He bent to try to peer through
the pines to the main trail, but the foliage was too dense. However, they
could all hear the sound of men's voices, raised in bellowing laughter. The
noise grew momentarily louder and Ryan reached for his pistol. But then it
faded again as the
Norsemen continued up the main track.
"Carry on, lover?" he asked.
Krysty shook her head, the flaming red hair star-bursting around her
shoulders.
"This path& there's something up here that& " Her green eyes were clouded and
puzzled. "Don't know. Don't like it. We got time to take us a look?"
Ryan glanced at his wrist chron. "Tight." But he saw the concern on her face.
"Let's go a ways and look. Watch the time."
Mildred was beginning to pant with the exertion of the climb. "Wouldn't think
I
used to hike the High Sierras, would you? Spent three weeks up in Glacier Park
one summer. Grinnell Glacier what little was left of it went there and back in
a
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morning. Most beautiful place on God's earth up there. Now I'm bushed in five
minutes."
"Wait here. Me and Krysty'll go up and take a look. Be back inside twenty. You
be okay on your own, Mildred?"
"I'm bushed, Ryan, not totally senile. Maybe Krysty should leave me her
shooter."
"No." Ryan shook his head, smiling at the look of disappointment on her face.
"We'll get you a blaster as soon as we can. But we aren't directly threatened.
Worst'll be they make you go back to the ville. Not killing time. Not yet."
A MARMOT SCAMPERED across their path as they neared the top of the climb.
It was the only wildlife they'd seen, though there were old deer tracks
everywhere.
The trees thinned out, and they could see the silvery water of the lake
stretching below them.
"Quiet up here. Thought there'd have been more signs of fresh game," Krysty
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said.
"The boy, Erik Stonebiter, told us that hunting was getting harder. Their
fathers talked of hills that teemed with deer and rivers that brimmed over
with trout and salmon."
"Could tie in with what Mildred suspects. Another good reason for moving on."
Ryan glanced around them. "Path leads over there toward that flat rock. We got
time for a look."
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