"I know it. He knows it. And now I guess you know it."

"The others?"

"They don't know nothin'." He blinked and hissed through his teeth in irritation at himself. "I keep meanin' to stop that. I mean that they don't know anythin'. I've seen the blood when he coughs."

"How long's he got?"

"Year. Month. Weeks. How do I know? I'm not a medic. And Trader won't see one."

Ryan realized he was still carrying the LAPA and he tucked it back into the looped rig inside his coat. The girl stood by him, running a hand through her mane of dazzling hair, and Ryan watched her. In the flickering light of the campfire he had the momentary illusion that the red hair had a life of its own. That it had some odd sentience. It was almost as if it responded to her hand, moving in long fronds about her fingers.

"Got to check the guards."

"I'll come."

"Yeah. Be company."

They moved away from the circle of light and into the damp coolness of the forest. Normally Ryan did not like the woods. Man couldn't see far enough. Man was vulnerable among these trees, their trunks and branches tortured and twisted from years of growing in wild weather and the extremes of toxic foulness. All sorts of muties, human and animal — and something in between — lived among these trees. But now they were moving north, into the high mountains.

"Be in the Darks in a few days."

"Peter Maritza had some old maps," Krysty said. "Back before the Fire. This was called Montana."

"I heard that. Time was I knew the names of almost all of 'em. The old States. Now I forgot 'em, don't need 'em no more."

He stopped and whistled. A low, insistent sound that carried through the darkness. After a moment they both heard a whistle in reply, from their left, close in. And then another, from the right, farther away. Ryan put his hand to his mouth and whistled once more, a double trill that faded away.

"They'll be here soon. It's Jim and Meg. Wait here and don't move around, or you might get shot. End of a sentry spell and the finger gets white on the trigger."

The girl appeared first, a rifle under her arm. She was tall and skinny, with a gray forage cap pulled low over her eyes. Ryan knew she wore it that way to help conceal her baldness. She nodded to him and to Krysty and went silently past, heading for the camp. Jim was on the outlying patrol and he came in at an easy lope, rifle at the high port.

"Near shit meself, Ryan," he said.

"What's up?"

"Heard somethin' over there, thought it was a bastard sec man of that bastard Strasser. Then I heard it again, in the brush. I was just goin' to rake it apart with this babe here, and out it comes this bastard wolverine, big as a shepherd dog, mutie teeth all curled in its lip like tusks. Thought it was goin' to gut-rip me."

"Send Henn and Lint out for the next spell," Ryan told him. "If Strasser's on the trail, he could be here before dawn."

"When do we leave?" Krysty asked as she and Ryan watched the gray-clad figure of Jim disappear into the darkness.

"False dawn, that's when. We'll put some more distance between us and Strasser!"

The girl moved to stand closer to Ryan, her hand reaching out into the gloom and resting for a brief moment on his right arm. "What do you think we'll find up there?"

"Fog. That's the only thing that's sure. Only thing they all talk of is the fog." He stared out through the trees, listening to the faint but insistent sound of fast-running water. "My guess is the fog hides somethin' from the old times. Somethin' they wanted kept hid, so they set this fog like a dog to guard it. Whoever 'they' are, they're long burned. Or chilled. But their dog's still there. I seen what it can do. I saw Kurt. He was like a man that's been through a mincer and then set on fire."

"Can we make it?"

"War wag holds plenty of gas. Food's fine. Touch short on men. And women."

"The Trader?"

"Soon. I just wish J.B. was here. And Sam and Hun and Koll. All good people to have at your back."

The wind was rising again. Off to the east Ryan saw something flare high in the sky, a vivid purple, crimson at its edges. One more piece of nuclear junk sliding back into the earth's atmosphere, burning up on reentry.

"Listen," said Krysty.

"What?"

She shook her head, her hair still luminous even in the blackness. "Quiet, Ryan. I can... Someone's coming."

The gun was in his hand, faster than a thought, his finger tense on the slim trigger. Good though his own senses were, Ryan had been around long enough to know that a lot of people had better.

"Where? How many? Creepy-crawling?"

"Southerly. Several. No. Moving fast and noisy. I guess five or six."

"How far off?"

"Difficult in this wind. Among trees. Maybe a klick or two."

That was close. Too close.

"Go warn the others. Now!" There was a bite to his words like the cut of a whiplash, and Krysty turned and vanished from his side.

Ryan headed toward the south. His life depended on the girl being correct. Half a dozen unknowns moving fast toward them. Odds were it was Strasser and an elite of his sec men, pushing quickly after them, hoping to wipe away their escape.

A hard rain began to fall on Ryan, slanting through the upper branches of the immense stand of lodgepole pines all around him. It sluiced through, turning the ground beneath his boots into a quagmire of mud and leaf mold. He knew now that his greatest hazard was running straight into the attackers. If there was to be any surprise, he wanted it on his side.

Holding the LAPA at the ready, he dropped to his knees behind a fallen tree, steadying his breathing, wiping rain from his forehead. If he'd grabbed one of the laser rifles with the night-sights he'd have been in better shape.

He knelt and waited. The Trader said that a man who cried over spilled milk got blinded by his tears.

By now Krysty would be back at the camp. The fire would have been stamped out and most of the party would be inside War Wag One, manning the entrances and gun-ports. There would be four outside, covering each compass point, watching for the attackers, ready to give him covering fire. If he made it back.

Fifty-five gifts of instant leaden mortality for the group of hostiles coming toward him with three extra sticks inside his coat, ready to slot in.

If they were muties with dark sight, he would be in the greatest danger. Then it wouldn't matter much if they were armed with flintlock muskets; he'd still be in a load of trouble. That thought made him tuck the weighted white silk scarf out of sight under the coat. He hunched and waited.

The lightning hit a tree less than a hundred paces away from him. He flinched, closing his eye against the instant blindness. The brutal thunder enveloped him, numbing his senses. He licked his lips, tasting the harsh, metallic flavor of ozone. If the attackers had been close enough, they could have taken him like a light-dazed rabbit.

"Scorch it to hell!" he cursed. Rubbing furiously at his right eye, seeing only a crimson mist, he blinked again and again. His head was lowered against the driving rain as he desperately fought to clear his vision.

He peered cautiously around the bole of the tumbled tree.

And saw them.

"Six. Seven," he muttered. All wearing the black waterproof slickers favored by the sec men from Mocsin. Hooded. High black boots. Oddly, not one of them was carrying a weapon at the ready, though he could make out rifles slung across the shoulders of some of them. It looked as if two of them were wounded, leaning on the arms of others.

They seemed more like refugees than a raiding party.

Either way, Ryan was going to wipe them from the face of this place of nukeshit and soul death called Earth. He set the LAPA on automatic and readied himself, bracing for the kick of the gun. At a range now of less than forty paces, he could take them all out in one savage raking burst of fire.