"Soon," Krysty agreed.

"Think she'll be a triple-stupe?" J.B. asked.

Ryan shook his head. "Way it looks from what we've seen, the dice don't roll for us. Soon as the capsule opens we'd best get blasters cocked and ready."

The liquids bubbled and seethed, with a hollow, draining sound, loud enough to jerk Doc from the welcoming arms of Lethe into a sudden, startled wakefulness.

"What, what? I agree with everything that the last speaker said." He looked around, rubbing his eyes. "Sorry, gentlemen. My apologies. Must have closed my eyes for a moment. Pray carry on with your experiment. I shall be with you shortly." He laid his head back down on his arms and immediately began to snore.

Ryan looked at the old man, the thought crossing his mind that the day might be coming fast when they and Doc would have to part company. As long as he still kept a reasonable hold on reality then it was fair enough to let him keep riding with them. But this current madness seemed more deeply rooted than ever before. And you couldn't carry crazed passengers with you through Deathlands.

"Things moving," Jak called from beside the pod. "Think moved."

The fingers, with pale long nails, were twitching, opening and closing as though they gripped some invisible weapons. The eyes blinked open, staring blind and blank at the misted interior of the cryo-pod. The mouth moved in a nervous tic, the tip of the pink tongue flicking out over wrinkled, dry lips. Ryan noticed that like Doc, the woman had excellent, strong white teeth. A rarity now, in Deathlands.

"Come on, Mildred," Krysty whispered, her hand resting gently on the exterior of the capsule. "It's getting warmer," she added, looking at the others.

The blips on the screens were moving faster, like dancing emeralds. The beeping sounds were louder and closer together.

"Heart and breathing quicker," J.B. observed, his tone revealing his worry. "Could be too quick."

"Can we open it up faster?" Ryan asked, looking back at the main control consoles.

"There's a clock counting down on her numbered pod." Krysty pointed. "Down to three minutes and eighteen seconds."

"Bleeps going mutie-shit," Jak observed. "Explode any minute."

The four watchers slowly moved back from the pod, all holding blasters, ready to protect themselves against... whatever.

"Two minutes dead," J.B. said.

They heard the synchronized snap of heavy sec locks opening, the noise again stirring Doc from his slumbers. He sat up, peering curiously across the room. "Nearly cooked to a turn, is it? Then let the thanksgiving commence."

"Forty seconds," Krysty counted. "Pulse and respiration are steadying."

At thirty seconds they heard the hiss of stabilizing air and the lid began to move slowly open. They smelled the strange odor they all recalled from the last freezie center, a bitter scent carrying the taint of an ancient, chemical death.

"Like knifing gut of up-belly gator," Jak said, wrinkling his nose and turning away in disgust at the fetid stench.

"Take your word for it," Ryan told him.

The digital printout clicked its way through the last ten seconds, freezing to a stop on 00.00.

The lid was now fully open, tendrils of dank mist trailing over the edges of the container. Dr. Mildred Wyeth lay there, eyes open, breathing steadily. She showed none of the signs of madness they'd seen on other thawing freezies.

The room was flooded with a sudden stillness as the five companions stared at the woman from the far-off, almost mythic past. And she, reclining, looked back at them.

"Hi," Ryan said.

Brown eyes turned to him. The woman's tongue moistened her lips, but she didn't speak.

"Hi," Ryan repeated.

Mildred Wyeth cleared her throat. "Hi, yourself," she said huskily. "If you're a cryo-ressus team, then I'm the goddamned Queen of Sheba!"

Chapter Thirteen

"Now you know. You know who we are, and you know what's been happening in the hundred years or so since you went under."

Ryan leaned back against the pile of blankets, looking around the circle of friends, in case anyone had anything to add. Only Krysty offered to speak.

"That's about five years per minute, Mildred. But I don't think Ryan left much out."

"You got any questions?" J.B. asked.

They were holed up for the night in what had been some kind of staff lounge for the doctors and nurses. They'd found blankets in the closets and plenty of sofas. With the sec doors, it was a reasonably safe place to pass the dark hours.

One of Mildred's first requests had been for some clothes, "So's I can get out of this damned shroud."

She now wore a nurse's white blouse tucked into men's dark blue pants. They had also found white sneakers that fitted her and a heavy wool sweater in case they encountered colder weather.

Now she sat across from the others, almost as if she'd come along to be interviewed for a job. Despite the fact that she'd just been brought back to consciousness after a century of nothingness, Mildred Wyeth didn't seem at all fazed by the experience. And there was no sign, Ryan was delighted to see, of any kind of mental disturbance from the unfreezing.

Not yet, he thought to himself cautiously.

"Do I have any questions, J.B.? Let me see." The hoarseness was easing, though she had a beaker of distilled water at her side, from which she sipped constantly. "I guess that if I really set my mind to it I could come up with at least seven-and-a-half-thousand questions." The gentle smile disappeared. "What the heck do you think, mister? What a damn fool question that is!"

"Sorry, but..."

"Oh, forgive me for speaking while you're interrupting, mister. I've been lying in that icebox for a hundred years. You give me a fifteen-minute synopsis of what's been happening, and then ask if I mighthave a question!"

"Being frozen sure didn't do anything to improve your temper, lady," Doc said testily.

"What?"

"Perhaps it made you a mite deaf into the bargain, did it?"

"You damned old goat! Talk to me like that and I'll knock you on your skinny ass!"

Ryan, Krysty, J.B. and Jak watched in absolute amazement. Doc had shown no interest in the newly thawed Dr. Wyeth, totally ignoring her, which was yet another worrying symptom of the old man's withdrawal into catatonia. Now, out of the blue, he had launched into the woman — who seemed better than able to look after herself in any full and frank exchange of views.

"You and whose army, ma'am?" Doc bellowed, drawing himself up to his full skinny height.

"Go piss up a rope, asshole," Mildred snapped, also standing. But her muscles were weakened by the long immobility, and she tottered and nearly fell over.

Doc laughed. "It'll take some time before you can back up all the big talk. You're as feeble as an hour-old colt, ma'am."

"I believe that your name is Theophilus Tanner, is it not?" Mildred asked with a deceptive quietness.

"Such is my name, Dr. Wyeth," Doc replied with a courteous bow.

"Well, Theophilus Tanner," the woman began. Suddenly she raised her voice to a piercing, eldritch screech of insensate rage. "Fuck you!"

Krysty was sitting next to Ryan, and she leaned across to him, whispering, "Doesn't seem much wrong with Mildred Wyeth, lover."

"Long as you keep to the windward side of her temper." Ryan grinned.

The movement woke Ryan, and his finger automatically slid onto the trigger of his SIG-Sauer.

"Don't shoot, Ryan."

"Mildred?"

Most of the lights had been disconnected by J.B. so that they could sleep in something close to darkness. Ryan, on one of the long sofas, could just make out the silhouette of the woman looming over him.