"Fucker's jammed!"
Everyone had tried it, pushing, heaving and lifting. Even Rick had leaned against the armored door, ear pressed to the lock, fumbling at the handle while everyone else kept silent and waited to see what happened.
"Nothing," he pronounced.
It was only then that the grim reality of their position struck Ryan Cawdor.
The controls of a gateway were triggered in one simple way. After the numerals and letter coordinates had been set on the coded panel in the outer room, the closing of the door initiated the technical process of the jump. If you couldn't open the door, you couldn't start a jump.
"We're trapped here," J.B. said quietly, reaching the same conclusion as Ryan.
"Looks that way."
Rick sat on the floor with a sigh. "This is all my fault, isn't it?"
"How d'you figure that?" Krysty asked.
"I worked on these goddamned gateways, didn't I? I knew about how they functioned."
"But you never knew all the transmit codes, did you?" Doc asked.
"No, but I knew the codes to make sure you didn't hit a damaged gateway, and the thirty-minute automatic recall code." Rick shook his head, lips trembling, on the edge of tears. "And now I forgot them. All that bullshit I put up with for years about sec clearance. If I could've remembered that, we'd be on our way out of here real soon. But I can't... can't remember it. I think it started with a... No, I can't recall any of it."
"No point talking," Ryan said. "Wastes breath. Wastes time. Mebbe you'll remember it one day. Mebbe not. Either way, it doesn't help us any stuck in here now."
"Blasters?" Jak asked.
"Ricochet," J.B. replied.
It was true. The armaglass walls of the chamber would bounce back bullets from their blasters with lethal effect.
"Got some plas-ex," suggested J.B, the armorer of the group, just as he'd been the armorer to the Trader during the years that he and Ryan had ridden the war wags together.
Ryan shook his head. "Last resort time. Same as bullets. Any kind of explosion in here and we'd be picking bits of wall out of our bellies. Gotta be a better way."
"Over, under or around," Krysty said. "Isn't that what Trader used to say when there was a real serious problem?"
"Yeah. Trouble is, lover, we got the same kinda stuff all around us. And over and under, too. It's the door or it's nothing."
"I could use the Earth Mother's force," she said after a long pause.
Nobody said anything. Rick looked up at her. "Earth Mother? What's that, Krysty? Sounds like something out of San Francisco in the good old flowery sixties."
"You know what it does to you," Ryan warned, ignoring the freezie's question.
"Got a better idea, lover?" she replied, smiling at him. "I'll be all right. Just need a rest after I've done it."
"Take no notice of Richard Ginsberg. Pretend he's not there. Bloody invisible man, that's what I am," Rick complained.
"Sorry. From when I was a skinny sprat, back in the ville of Harmony, I was being trained. Taught certain... well, powers, I guess. My mother, Sonja, always told me to strive for life. Now, if I go inside myself, I can sometimes... get the power. I can't describe it any other way, Rick."
"Let me try the door one more time," Ryan suggested. He'd only seen Krysty use the mysterious power on a few occasions, but he'd seen how his woman was devastated by the aftereffects.
The handle moved an inch or so, then it stopped solid. The doorframe looked as if it had been twisted and warped, probably the result of the earth-shifts caused by the massive nuking.
"No," he said, "not going to move."
"I'll try it. Might as well sit down a while. It takes a little time."
Ryan hunkered down next to Rick, while the other three ranged themselves around the six-sided gateway. Doc managed a half smile in Ryan's direction, then folded his arms on his bony knees and lowered his head onto them.
Krysty turned away and leaned against the cool glass wall, closing her eyes, relaxing her whole body. Her arms hung loosely at her sides and her lips moved as she began to psych herself into the mystic depths of her arcane power.
"Gaia, aid me! Send me the blessed strength of your power. Draw it from the earth, and the sea. From the mountain and the valley. From the sky, the sun and the moon. From the cold stars. From the desert and the lake. From the chem storm and from the tumbling wind."
Her voice was becoming dulled and flat. She swayed back and forth, fists clenching. Ryan watched her closely, seeing the trickle of crimson blood from her hands, where her own nails were gouging half-moons from her skin. Krysty moved a few steps to her left, until she was pressed against the door. Her flaming mane of hair shifted uneasily, coiling at the nape of her slender neck.
"Gaia! Gaia, help me. For Mother Sonja and all her wisdom. For nail and skin. For eye and tooth. And for the blessing of the blood. Gaia, help me for the blessing of blood!"
She was trembling as though a fever possessed her. Through the thin material of her shirt, Ryan could see that her nipples had hardened. She was breathing faster, the words coming more harshly. The climax was close.
"Gaia! Oh, Gaia, help me! Give me the power, the power, the power! Now!"
She seized the lever in both hands, putting all her strength against it. Ryan could actually hear her muscles cracking with the enormous strain. The soles of her boots creaked against the floor. Veins stood out across her temples like throbbing cords, the sinews in her jaw tightened.
"Judas H. Priest!" Rick breathed with an almost reverential awe.
"Gaia..." she moaned. The door handle still hadn't moved.
"Can't do it," Jak whispered.
"I thought it... No, wrong I guess," J.B. muttered.
Doc yelled out loud, making them all jump. "Yes, yes, Miss Wroth. Epur si muove. Galileo was right. Yes, it doesmove!"
"Only problem is, Krysty bent the handle and ripped the lock apart. Could be difficult to get the little booger patched up ready for when we want to jump out of here. Wherever 'here' is," Rick concluded as he finished his examination of the broken lock on the chamber door.
Krysty lay on the smooth floor, her head cradled in Ryan's lap. The sentient hair had gone limp, seeming to lose its bright color. Her eyes were closed and her skin was parchment pale. Ryan was chafing her hands between his.
The supernatural effort of wrenching the jammed door open had carried her over the brink of total exhaustion. Her pulse was fluttering and irregular, her breathing shallow. As soon as the metal had crunched apart and the chamber entrance had begun to swing open, she had let go her hold and slumped semiconscious to the floor, where Ryan had been just in time to catch her.
"How long before the sweet child has recovered sufficiently for us to continue with our perilous voyage of exploration?" Doc asked.
"Hour or so," Ryan replied, smoothing Krysty's forehead with his long, muscular fingers.
"Make that a day or so, lover," she said, opening one eye and managing a weak smile. Krysty licked her lips. "Could do with a drink. Anyone got any prenuke brandy? Uncle Tyas McCann back in Harmony had a dozen bottles. Used to have a sip on special occasions. Best I ever had."
"I guess that means you're feeling a whole lot better." J.B. grinned.
"I feel like I might not die after all," she replied. "But I'd surely like some eats and some drink. Calling on the Earth Mother always drains me right down."
Ryan glanced at J.B. questioningly. "Ready to move?"
The armorer nodded. "Why not?"
Everyone was standing, except Krysty. She shrugged off Ryan's hand and pulled herself to her feet, with a little help from the gray wall. She shook her head. "Something's not right. Don't know what, but I can feel it. The air or... Don't know."
"Let's go," Ryan said, leading the way, blaster cocked and ready. Everyone else had their handguns drawn, except Rick. Despite all of Ryan's efforts, and the urging of the others in the group, he'd steadfastly kept to his old nineties peacenik beliefs. Shortly before they'd left Snakefish, Rick had been forced by circumstances to finally use a blaster against another human being. But he'd hated the experience and hated his new friends who had compelled him to pick up a loaded gun and squeeze the trigger.
He was unarmed now, except for the heavy bamboo cane.
Ryan knew what to expect beyond the damaged door to the gateway. There would be a small room about twelve feet square, probably completely empty. Most of the buried and hidden redoubts that they'd discovered so far had been deserted and abandoned.
Beyond the antechamber would be the main control room for the mat-trans unit, filled with flickering lights and humming computers. All of the massive fortress complexes had been run by independent nuke-power plants. Most of them still functioned even after a hundred years of neglect.
And beyond that control room would be the locked sec doors that sealed the gateway off from the rest of the redoubt. Normally, if there was danger, it came when those doors were opened.
Ryan stepped outside the chamber, pausing and glancing quickly around.
"Not the same," he announced.
There was no small anteroom. The armaglass door swung back to reveal a control room, but it was tiny compared to the others that they'd seen — barely twenty feet across, with a single, simplified master console. Ryan recognized some of the basic command units from other redoubts.
"Why so small?" Jak asked wonderingly.
"Experimental?" J.B. suggested. "Or a real small redoubt."
"There's some state-of-the-art technology in here," Rick said, limping heavy-footed around the comp-displays. "A lot of real costly miniaturization and laser-tech boards. Not experimental, J.B. No way, Jose."
"This place is inordinately clean, is it not?" Doc observed, running a finger along the top of one of the desks, showing it untouched by dust. "And I do believe... Yes." He stooped and peered underneath. "I think we should exercise a little care in what we touch in this place."
"Why?" Krysty asked.
Ryan knelt down and looked where the old man pointed, straightening slowly. "See what you mean, Doc."
"What is it?" the woman repeated.
"Place is boobied. Nice little packets of plas-ex, some shiny detonators and plenty of red wire and green wire and even some blue wires."
"Sabotaged, you mean?" Rick said, puzzled. "Who would do that? And why? It isn't as if the good old U.S. of A. was in any danger of being invaded. Who were they hoping to catch?"
"Could be demolition charges. Could be they were just taking precautions." J.B. scratched the side of his nose, looking carefully at the wiring, but not touching anything. "No. Definitely antipersonnel. Not big enough to blow the building. Take your head off in a messy kind of way."
"Cut 'em?" Ryan asked.
"Not a lot of point. Nothing on the deck here we need."
"We have to repair that door," Krysty reminded them, "or we don't get out of here again."
Rick had been looking at the damaged portal to the gateway. "Not easy, lady. Not easy at all. The main contacts need some serious electrical work."
"Can you do it?"
"Sure, Ryan. I might be dying and my memory's got more holes than the Jets' defense, but I can still do me some wiring." He paused. "But it'll take some time, Ryan. A couple of days heavy work, the way it looks to me."
"We'll take a look around first. Then make a decision on what you do. And when. First thing's to get us some food and drink."
"Leave this?" J.B. asked, gesturing to the wired-up explosives.
"Yeah. Plas-ex that old might blow if you look at it wrong."
"Do you suppose trying to use the gateway again triggers the boobies? Then I fear that we would find ourselves in the deepest ordure."
"We all gotta go sometime, Doc." Ryan grinned. "Let's cross that overpass when we come to it."
Krysty was standing still, staring vacantly into space across the control room. She shook her head. "Something bad here. It doesn't feel like any redoubt I've ever been in."
"Danger?" Jak asked.
"Not immediate. But... Can't find the handle for it."
"No point sticking around. We'll worry about that broken lock when we're ready to leave, Rick. At least the main doors don't look like they've been tampered with."
The hugely strong sec doors were painted a very light shade of green. The control lever was a darker green.
And it was in the Open position.
"Think it's mined?" J.B. asked.
"Probably," Ryan guessed.