Chapter Twenty-Five

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go wrong," Doc misquoted as the sun came hesitantly over the eastern horizon. Ryan, Krysty and Rick still hadn't reappeared.

"Why mice?" Jak asked. "Men and woman, Doc. No mice."

The old man smiled. "Figure of speech, my milky-headed young man. It's just a way of saying that it's beginning to look as though something could conceivably have gone awry with Ryan's strategies. Would you not concede that possibility?"

The albino teenager shook his head, his breath smoking out in the damp cold. "Don't get, Doc. Just say short."

"Ryan's in trouble," J.B. interrupted, walking soft-footed down the main staircase of the dacha. "Been a day too many for things to have gone well."

Doc sighed. There had been increased activity around the nearest hamlet, with sec wags buzzing along the trails of melted slush. So far nobody had bothered to come as far out into the country as the ruined mansion, but all three men knew that it could only be a matter of time. Hunting had become dangerous, and their food stocks were running low. At least the stream that flowed through the grounds meant that fresh water was no problem.

"We go after them?" Jak asked.

The Armorer took off his glasses and polished them assiduously on his sleeve, peering at the morning light to check them for smears. He considered his reply to the boy.

"Ryan said to wait. We wait. We don't have any place else to go."

Each one of them had climbed several times to the windblown attic, easing their way through the concealed door and down the steep spiral staircase to look at the ruined gateway. Each had come away again, saddened by the confirmation that the damage was beyond any of their talents to repair.

During that day it drizzled, cutting down the visibility to less than fifty yards. The three of them had to keep watch from different sides of the big house. It also became colder again, and the temperature dropped to freezing around dusk.

After dark they reverted to taking turns on guard. Doc had the shift from eight until midnight and was leaning against the sill in the main second-floor room, which commanded the best view across the land toward the tiny ville. His thoughts slurred into one another as his eyes kept fluttering shut. He was on the far edge of sliding into sleep, and his various pasts were becoming mixed and confused.

The near dreams had him under the deep blue sky of Montana, with Emily laughing on his arm, striding out through a thick pine forest, alongside a crystal waterfall. An elk bounded across their path and they both stopped to watch it. The air was heavy with the scent of sun-sodden balsam from the trees. A man was walking through the woods, staying just within sight. Doc couldn't see his face, but he knew who it was — Cort Strasser, with his skull-face and sunken bloody eyes.

And faces came swimming up to the dozing man, sepia faces from ancient photographs. Whatever happened to the faces in the old photographs?

For some oblique, unguessable reason, Doc found himself thinking back to the boys who stood knee-deep in the Johnstown Flood.

"Boys! Hell, they were men," he cried, the sound of his own voice waking him up.

He squinted out across the sleeping land, shaking his head at the continued realization that he was in Mother Russia, land of Tolstoy and Chekhov, the land that had been for so long the traditional enemy of the United States of America. Now he was within a few miles of the heartland, of Moscow. And he, with just five friends, was bitterly alone.

The rain had stopped, but the earth was covered by ghostly shreds of fine white mist that seemed to lurch across the sparse fields, between the clumps of stunted trees. Doc watched the night, feeling an iron depression settle across his soul. If only Lori hadn't died. She'd have cheered him up. The blond girl could always do that for him.

"Hey," he said quietly. "What's that?"

One of the pockets of gray fog had suddenly become more solid, and it was moving slowly toward the house. Doc's sight wasn't that keen, and he rubbed his eyes, managing to make out that it was something with silvery fur, like a hunting wolf. Yet somehow not quite like a wolf. It was definitely heading toward the dacha.

Doc stood upright, his knee joints cracking like muted pistol shots, staggering a little as sensation came back to his legs. He stumbled down the stairs, hanging on to the remnants of the banister, calling out to J.B. and Jak in a low, urgent voice.

"Something coming this way."

By the time he'd reached the main hall, both the Armorer and the boy were there, blasters drawn, fully alert.

"What?" J.B. asked, managing to appear both tense and relaxed at the same time.

"Wolf? I confess that my vision in darkness is far from the best."

Jak eased the front door open an inch and flattened his face against it. Then he looked back at the other two men.

"No," he said.

"No what?" Doc asked, puzzled.

"Not wolf."

J.B. edged him out of the way and looked for himself. "It's not a wolf."

"Then, what is?.."

"It's Krysty, and she's alone."

The woman was beat. They helped her in and laid her on the floor of the back room. She didn't wait for them to ask the obvious question. Fighting exhaustion, she panted out the pertinent details.

"Got tools. Rick's triple-sick. Can't make it out here."

"You and Ryan couldn't bring him?" J.B. asked.

"Whole ville's on sec-red. Takes two to help the freezie and one to scout. Ryan slipped out after food and nearly got trapped by street patrols. He wants you and Jak to go in. I'll tell you where. Me and Doc'll hold the fort here."

"An old man can't be trusted when the chips are down," Doc said bitterly.

"Don't be stupe." Krysty licked her lips and sighed. "Too blown to argue, Doc. You know J.B. and Jak can do the job better."

He nodded. "My heartfelt apologies, my dear Krysty. You are, as ever, completely correct. I shall bring you back to the freshness of full health by the time the others return safely. And then we can all flee this bleak land."

Krysty dozed, and woke sometime later with a start.

Something wet and slimy was touching her, smearing her with some foul...

"Zorro! Heel, you naughty pup," Doc called, urging the little dog away from Krysty, stopping it from licking her face.

"Where's Jak and J.B.?" she asked, bone-weary.

"Gone while you slept. John Barrymore Dix carried the map you'd sketched for them. Both had their firearms primed and ready." He hesitated, kneeling to pat the wiry little dog as it rolled happily on its back at his feet. "I fear that this dreadful place will be the ending of us, my dear. The good Lord knows that Deathlands is bleak enough. But this Russia is tainted with blood and with dying, layered with far too much hatred."

"Ryan'll be all right. Takes more than a handful of Russkies to chill him."

Doc sighed. "I do agree, Krysty, my dear young lady. But the sad truth is that they are up against far more than a handful of the enemy. Ah, yes. Far, far more."

Krysty tried to keep her interest going, but sleep was too pressing.

She closed her eyes.

Krysty's distinctive red hair had been spotted twice on her journey out of the center of the ville. Zimyanin had three separate reports on his desk by the time she reached the dacha. With the flimsy sheets of recycled paper in his hand, he walked across his office and looked again at the map. He touched the small flags that Clerk Second Class Alicia Andreyinichna had supplied not even a week ago and saw that the redheaded woman seemed to be moving back in the same direction — southwest.

"Peredelkino," he said, tugging pensively at his mustache.