The massive doors were closed, the metal scored and pitted from the efforts of generations of muties to break them down. Doc clambered out and stretched, knees and shoulders creaking.

"Hope it's the usual three-five-two code to open her up. Don't much relish making like a mole to go back into them holes."

Three, five, two did the trick, enabling them to trigger the colored lever beside the control panel. It was a tribute to the technical skill of some of the pre-Chill engineers that the door still worked.

J.B. and Lori kept watch against possible attack by the small mutie killers who'd nearly wasted them when they'd first arrived through the gateway. But the slopes of the mountains were quiet and deserted.

"Let's go in," Krysty said.

"Sure. But... Fireblast! Look at..." His voice faded away into silent awe. Everyone turned to look where Ryan stood, frozen, staring north toward Crater Lake.

The earth was exploding.

Mount Mazama had been awakened from its long slumber, provoked into a violent eruption by the bombs and fires that Ryan and his companions had triggered far below the deep blue waters of the lake. Flames and lava jetted thousands of feet into the night sky. Even at that distance they heard the bass rumbling of the mountain heaving itself into destruction.

"Hell of a funeral pyre for Finn," Ryan said. "Man couldn't ask for a better memorial."

They watched the spectacle for several minutes until the extreme cold began to bite deep. It felt like around fifty below, with the wind bringing it another twenty lower. Ryan felt the hairs in his nostrils clogging with shards of ice.

Doc Tanner shivered. "Western wind blowing, Mr. Cawdor. Time for us to hie ourselves to another place." As he spoke, his breath froze in the air, descending all around them in a shower of miniature crystals like tiny diamonds. Doc noticed it. "Sign of the cold. Hear them fall? The Russians call that the whisper of the stars. Pretty name, isn't it?"

They progressed through the long-abandoned redoubt, toward the mat-trans gateway. At the back of Ryan's mind was the staggering knowledge about Doc Tanner. About his age. About the fact that some gateways could be used for time travel if their secrets could be unlocked. It was something to think about.

Leading the group, J.B. paused as they reached the familiar sign: Entry Absolutely Forbidden To All But B12 Cleared Personnel. Mats-Trans.

The vivid red armored glass walls of the chamber glowed to greet them. The disks of polished metal glittered brightly in the ceiling and on the floor. Jak entered first, followed by Lori, both of them sitting down with their backs against the walls, legs stretched out. Doc sat next to Lori. J.B. hunkered down, cross-legged, pulling the brim of his fedora over his eyes like a man on a stoop readying himself for an afternoon sleep. Krysty sat next, resting her chin on her arms, looking up at Ryan, who stood by the door, ready to trigger the mechanism.

"I'll miss that fat old bastard Finnegan," she said reflectively.

"And me," Lori said.

"We all will." Ryan paused. "Everyone ready for the jump? Then here we go."

He pulled the chamber door firmly shut, hearing the mechanism click into action. He quickly sat down by Krysty, holding her hand. Doc had his arm around the slim figure of Lori.

The lights began to brighten on the disks, and the walls darkened.

"If they're the future, then they can fucking have it," came the quiet voice of J.B.

Ryan felt his head beginning to throb with the building pressure of the jump. As he started to slip away, he heard Doc's quavery voice singing.

"Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

That small rain down can rain?

Christ! If my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again."

The blackness spread slowly through Ryan's brain. The last few days had been as bad as anything he'd ever known. Wherever the gateway took them, it had to be better.

As his eye closed, that was the last thought Ryan Cawdor took with him into the swirling dark.