"Move," Jak ordered, leveling his pistol, waiting until the old man had withdrawn his sword and scrabbled out of the way. Then he put a booming bullet through the back of the dying mutie's skull, kicking it into a jerking tangle of twitching limbs.

"All done?" Ryan asked, his voice sharpened by the sudden explosion of violence.

"I counted twelve in, and I counted twelve down," J.B. replied, calmly holstering his mini-Uzi.

"Where's Lori?" Doc asked, wiping the blade of his swordstick on the rags of the nearest of the stickies, then sheathing it once more. Stooping, he picked up his faded hat and jammed it on his head.

"There," Krysty called, pointing along the narrow peninsula toward the looming forest.

Showing an unsuspected burst of speed, the old man darted like a disjointed crab to where they could now see the motionless figure of the young girl.

The others followed, Ryan and the Armorer taking a few moments to check that all of the dozen attackers were truly dead. With stickies you never could be too careful.

They were all chilled.

"Oh, my sweetest little darling," Doc sobbed, bending and cradling the girl in his arms. His knee joints cracked as he knelt on the stones, pressing her head against his chest. "My sweet dove of innocence," he moaned.

Having seen the way Lori Quint had ruthlessly butchered the drowning mutie after the incident with the implo-gren, Ryan Cawdor wasn't too sure he agreed with the description of her as an innocent dove.

"She is slain," Doc Tanner cried, his grief unrestrained. His head was thrown back, and he was howling like a tormented animal.

"She's alive, Doc," Krysty said, kneeling at his side.

"What?"

"Alive, Doc."

"No."

"Yes," Jak said. "Tits move. Breathing. She's alive."

"Oh, thanks be to the Almighty! By the three Kennedys but it seems barely possible. After those vile monsters had..."

"Best let me take a look at her," Krysty suggested.

"Look at? Oh, of course, my dear girl. Do look after the child."

Krysty stared down at Lori. "Light's no good. Ryan, carry her to the fire. Jak, get some wood from the trees there."

"I know where to get wood," he sniffed, insulted at the suggestion.

"Then do it," she snapped. "She's taken a hard knock on the temple. I can feel the lump. Move, Jak!"

It took several minutes before Lori began to show signs of recovering consciousness. The fire by then was blazing brightly, with the pine branches spitting and crackling. Jak and J.B. had gone to the end of the finger of land, watching carefully in case any more of the stickies were lurking there and waiting for a chance to attack. While Krysty worked with Lori, Ryan and Doc managed to shift the bloodied corpses of the muties, dragging them by the heels and allowing the force of the Hudson to roll them away into the night.

"Be in Newyork 'fore us," Ryan said.

But the old man was far more interested in getting back to the fire to see how Lori was progressing. His delight when she started to come around was touching. He knelt at her side, tears coursing down his wrinkled cheeks and through the gray stubble on his chin.

"What happens?" the girl mumbled, eyes blinking against the brightness of the blazing fire. "I dream and then..."

She shuddered, clutching at Krysty with white-knuckled hands.

"What was the dream?" Doc asked, holding one of her pale hands in both of his. "Tell me, my dearest child."

"I dream of Keeper. And he is fucked with me. And hand on mouth... and..." She began to cry. Krysty nodded at Doc, who took her place, holding the girl half on his lap.

"It's all done, lily of my heart. My dear deer. Your heart, dear hart, that pounds within your breast has..." He stopped rambling. "Some mutants came calling upon us, Lori. We exchanged a few words with them, and now they've gone away."

"Where, Doc?" Lori asked.

"Away down river. I think it unlikely they will return to bother us again."

"I think that's right, Lori," Ryan added. "Night swimming always was dangerous."

There was a light mist hanging on the face of the wide river, obscuring the dank forests on the farther, western shore, when they woke the next morning. A watery sun hung among citron clouds, giving a little heat in the shivering dawn.

They pushed the raft off and floated southward, none of them even glancing back at the desolate scene of the previous night's slaughter.

Chapter Six

Lori Quint recovered well from the horror of the attack by the stickies. There was some scabbing and peeling of skin around her mouth from the pressure of the suckered fingers, but it was already healing. She and Doc were happy to be together at the rear of the ungainly craft, handling the long steering oar that kept them moving roughly in the center of the current.

It was a beautiful day. The early morning mist had faded away like the dew on a summer meadow.

Ryan had ridden rivers before, but most of them had been fast-flowing, broken with turbulent rapids, places where a moment's relaxation could mean an instant chilling. The Hudson was different. Most of the time it was several hundred yards wide, rolling steadily toward the sea between wooded banks that showed little evidence of man.

For the first time in a long while, Ryan Cawdor actually felt he could lie back on the timbers and take it easy. The wood seemed to be drying out in the warm sun, and the craft was riding higher in the water.

"Those hills on the right used to be called the Cats-kills," Doc shouted, lifting his voice against the sound of the river bubbling around the raft. "Folk took vacations there."

"What were vacations, Doc?" Jak asked. The albino boy was sprawled on his back, shading his vulnerable eyes against the golden sunlight. He had peeled off both his camouflage canvas jerkin and the ragged fur vest that he wore beneath it. His skin was as white as paper, stretched tight over prominent ribs. Ryan, looking at Jak, thought at that moment that he barely looked his fourteen years, seeming more like an undernourished and skinny boy, on the threshold of his teens.

"Vacation, son?" the old man mused. "Time was folks would have laughed at you and thought you was joshing 'em."

"It's a time out from killing," J.B. said quietly, wiping spray off his spectacles.

"It's when you can be with the person you want, and go where you want and do what you want," Krysty suggested, smiling at Ryan.

"Can't do better'n that," Ryan agreed, venturing a rare smile at the girl.

"I know," Lori called. "Doc tells me. It's good time out of bad. Like a day Keeper doesn't fucking up rectum." She looked proudly at Doc, who shuffled his feet.

"Took me all this time't'stop the chit from saying something a deal worse than rectum."

Jak wasn't satisfied. "Tell us what vacation was, Doc."

"Saltwater taffy, balloons, laughter, hot dogs, ribbons and bows, gingham and lace at collar and cuffs. Smell of frying and best scent and a lot of sweat. Did I mention laughter? Believe I did. Key ingredient in any vacation, laughter. Ice cream on a stick. Fiddler in the park. Fresh-baked apple pie with a spoon of cream on top. Kids, everywhere. Taxi-dancers. Jazz bands. Linked arms along the boardwalk. Hot lips together under the boardwalk. Talking of hopes for better days. Dreams. Laughter and dreams, Jak."

The raft was silent at the litany from the long-dead, long-gone past, words that Ryan had only ever read. Doc's head dropped on his chest, and he continued to speak, softer, his voice matching the stillness of the river.

"Emily and I had but one true vacation together. My work... I couldn't... Had I but known what the future held. Ah, the future. We talked much of the future that summer's day in 'ninety-six. Rachel toddling bravely beside us, and young Jolyon on his blanket."