The sun was long gone, with only the palest hint of its passing tinting the western sky. A three-quarter moon was sailing calmly through tattered relics of cloud. During the warmth of the day a surprising amount of the snow had melted away, patches of white remaining only in hollows and shadowed places.

"Don't want to lead them to the others," Ryan said.

"Can keep 'em out easy of that place. There was shutters against the broken windows on the first floor. Doors were sound."

Ryan agreed with the Armorer. "Sure. But if they set outside for a while, it could kind of attract some attention to us."

"If we were closer to the hut we could have cut some flesh off the giant mutie. That would have sidetracked them."

J.B.'s suggestion was a good one, but the loping wolves could be on top of them within fifteen minutes. Ryan looked at the narrow stream, at that point less than a dozen feet in width.

"Come on," he said, wading in, gasping at the coldness as it soaked instantly through his breeches. It was nearly waist deep on him, and came up over the belt of J. B. Dix, who took off his fur coat and removed the blaster before stepping into the fast-flowing stream. Krysty Wroth came last, whistling between her teeth at the biting shock.

"Gaia! All I need. Perfect end to a fruitful, perfect day."

"Tomorrow we do it again with Rick to field the questions. Crazy to think about doing it this way," J.B. panted.

"Long as the freezie don't die on us," Ryan added, stepping cautiously over a submerged branch.

The old trick worked. Without it they could have found themselves fighting the wolves off from the very steps of the American country dacha. They heard the high, nerve-rending cry of the hunting pack drawing closer, the animals running at an easy pace, devouring the miles on their wide-padded paws.

Just as Ryan and the other two reached the grounds of the mansion, they heard the sound of the wolves change suddenly. From eager anticipation to confusion. The note became lower, individual animals howling this way and that as they scoured the swift stream for some sign of where their prey had gone.

"Nice one, lover," Krysty murmured, smiling at Ryan in the moonlight and squeezing his arm.

"Hope they're gone by the time we set out again tomorrow."

"Right," J.B. agreed fervently.

The others were surprised to see them back the same evening. Rick had already gone to bed. Doc was sitting near him, tending the small fire in the open hearth. Jak was on watch, patrolling the second floor of the rambling building. He spotted Ryan and the others as soon as they broke cover and ran down to the main doors to greet them.

"Freezie's ill," he said, speaking, as he nearly always did, only to Ryan. He virtually ignored the other two.

"Bad?"

"Fucking tired."

"See anyone, Jak?"

The albino boy shook his head. "No. Heard wolves. After you?"

"Yeah. We sidetracked them. Doc okay?"

"Sure. Happy. Forget Lori."

Krysty spoke for the first time. "Maybe not forgotten, Jak. Just put away into one of those back rooms in our mind where we store things we don't care to think on too much."

He considered that. "Could be. Yeah. Could be right." Krysty smiled. It was as near as she got to praise from the teenager.

They didn't bother to wake Rick to tell him he was traveling the next morning. Time enough for that.

Chapter Fourteen

"No way, Ryan."

"No choice, Rick."

"Go and piss up a rope, you monocular son of a bitch!"

"Sure. But you still have to come with us. There's no..."

The freezie was angrier than any of them had ever seen him. He shook his head so violently that his heavy glasses nearly became dislodged.

"I'm sick, you ice-hearted bastard!" Suddenly he was near to tears. "Christ on a cross! I got this shitty illness and I'm dying and I get fucking frozen. Supposed to be woken up when it's time for the doctors to cure me! And you did it too early."

Krysty tried to calm him. "Rick, it wasn't too early. You know that. The world you knew got blown to hell on January 20, 2001. There won't be a cure. There won't everbe doctors like you knew, hospitals. Nothing like that. Just the Deathlands forever and ever."

"Amen," Doc muttered.

"So, why go on? Why fucking bother, Krysty? Let's just give up now. Right now!"

He was weeping, leaning on his stick, tears streaming down his thin cheeks. Ryan realized how frail and ill he'd become in the past two or three days.

Krysty laid her hands on his shoulders, trying to steady him. "Why? Why don't we all just sit down and give up?"

"Yeah." He wiped his eyes with a clumsy hand. "Yeah. Why go on?"

Outside the sun shone with a hard, facile brilliance, from a faultlessly blue sky. The snow had virtually disappeared, and there had been no sign of the wolf pack.

Krysty's emerald-bright eyes fixed the man with a cold, inexorable stare. Rick actually took a stumbling step away from her flaring anger.

"I can't mend that damaged door. Ryan can't. Nor can J.B. or Jak or Doc. If it doesn't get fixed we stay here, Rick. We stay here and we all get chilled. Sure, we can hold out for a few days. But in the end, though we're good, they'll track us down and chill us. You sit down on your ass and give up and youchill us. Just as surely as if your finger tightens on the trigger of the Kalashnikov."

The sun-splashed room was very quiet. The others were all standing, listening to the argument. No one interrupted.

Rick nodded slowly. "I see that, and I guess I'll do what I can. But after that? Why do you keep trying, Krysty?"

She smiled then, and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Tell you the truth, Rick, I sometimes wonder about that myself."

Something had awakened Zimyanin from a deep sleep. He eased himself away from the hoggish bulk of his wife, wondering if it was the newborn twin baby boys in the apartment immediately above who disturbed his sleep. They bawled endlessly.

But it wasn't that.

Something in his sleep. "The bed was exceedingly comfortable. Thank you for asking," he whispered to himself.

Anya Zimyanin rolled onto her back and farted long and loudly.

He swung his legs out of the bed, wincing as his feet made contact with the cold plas-floor. There was some of the weeks' ration of chay left. If the power was high enough he could boil a pot of water and make himself a cup of tea. The idea appealed to Zimyanin. But he still couldn't quite remember what it was that had woken him in the first place.

The cramped kitchen seemed smaller than usual. Dirty dishes and cutlery remained piled on the counter by the sink. It hadn't been a bad meal. Anya had bought some smoked sprats for the appetizer, serving them with buckwheat pancakes.

Zimyanin knew the old conventions about meals and made sure they were observed whenever possible. He insisted that Anya prepare pervoe blyudoand vtoroe blyudo— fish for the first main dish then meat for the second main dish.

Minced pike was followed by some indeterminate meat that his wife had sworn was mutton. Unless they were putting horseshoes on sheep, he'd permitted himself to disagree with her. Out east he'd eaten enough horse meat to be sure. A young recruit had once asked him why he hadn't called his horse by any name. He'd replied that he wouldn't give a name to something he'd probably end up having to eat.

For dessert they had consumed a store-bought cake, sticky with honey and raisins. Anya had gotten up from the table and kissed him drunkenly, her mouth oozing sweetness. Someone had given her a bottle of heavy Moldavian red wine, and it had gone to her head.