"Once we get over the ridge," Ryan said, "it should ease a whole lot."

Doc was doubled over, hands on knees, hawking up strings of pale spittle. He coughed, rackingly, his shoulders shaking. "I confess that I did not care overmuch for that fetid heat we encountered when we first came to Minnesota. Yet it would be thrice welcome after this damnable piercing wind." He turned to squint up the path. "How much farther, Ryan?"

"Not far, Doc. Mebbe another quarter hour, and then it'll all be downhill."

He was a touch optimistic. The last hundred yards had to be covered on hands and knees, the gale tearing at them, driving them toward the spine of the hill.

One by one they crawled over the top, grateful to see the lush jungle ahead. Ryan was last over, gasping for breath. Even twenty feet down the other side, the lee of the slope protected them and life was hugely easier. "Yeah," Ryan said. "All downhill now."

Chapter Thirty-Six

"This climate's like being in a Holiday Inn sauna," Mildred said. "But in a Holiday Inn it's a lot of fun."

"I've stayed places like that," Doc told her, wiping sweat from his forehead with his swallow's-eye kerchief. "I recall that the best surprise was no surprise. Was that not their slogan? Or was it that they tried harder? I fear that all of this excitement has somewhat addled my brain."

Ryan held up his hand to call a halt to the group. "Not far from the real serious jungle. This scrub's okay for safety. No chance of an ambush here. Coupla hundred feet lower down the path, things could get nasty."

"And there's all kinds of wildlife in the forest down there," Krysty added. "Not home and safe yet. Double-care."

"Make it triple," J.B. said.

After the chill air near the lake and the banks of icy fog, the tropical heat farther down the trail was overwhelming. The sickly scent of exotic flowers swamped everyone's breathing, and the sweltering humidity reduced the friends to sweating misery.

As soon as they reached the point where the path grew less steep and the lush foliage met in a dark green ceiling, it became an effort to continue walking. The butterflies were everywhere. Turquoise and gold. Maroon and dazzling green. Some of them as large as dinner plates, fluttering between the flowering shrubs that covered so much of the ground in the clearings.

"No sign of the Vikings," Krysty said to Ryan.

"If they came over the top on a different path, they'll likely not come at us until we reach that river near the freezie center."

"Can we try and find a sidetrack?"

"Yeah, but I guess we could be lost within fifty strides, jungle like this seems to grow while you watch it."

Mildred called out to Ryan. "Can we take a break? Doc's kind of frayed around the edges."

"If you want a rest, madam, then I suggest you ask for one for yourself. I can keep going as long as you can."

Ryan grinned at Doc. "So you don't mind if we don't take a halt?"

The old man shrugged his shoulders with a studied casualness. "A matter of scant concern to me, my dear fellow. But if the good lady here is feeling a touch frail..."

Mildred flopped to the ground and lay on her back, staring up at the sky through the thick green leaves.

"All right, Doc. I'm bushed. At least I'm man enough to admit it."

Doc folded himself beside her, knees cracking like small-caliber pistol shots. "I would confess that the heat is somewhat oppressive. How long before we reach the water, Ryan?"

"It's late morning. I recall the river's not that far from here. But we have to be real careful."

"Killer fishes?" Jak asked, tugging at the strands of hair that had become pasted across his face with perspiration.

"Place like this could have fish, insects, animals, birds, snakes..." Ryan started to run out of breath. "You get the idea, folks. Just be careful about everything!"

"Listen!"

"What?"

"Thought I... Quiet, everyone!" Krysty held up her hand, her head on one side.

"Behind us?" Ryan asked.

"No."

"Ahead? Side?"

She shook her head in irritation. "Can't tell. I can hear the river, close now. But I heard something else."

Ryan pressed her. "But it wasn't behind us? You're sure on that?"

"Think so, lover. But I can't swear to it. Guess it might have been a deer or something, moving through the brush."

"Patrol red," Ryan said, glancing at Mildred. "That means we..."

"My mother didn't raise any stupid children, Ryan."

He smiled. "Sure. Sorry. I go first. J.B. comes last. Jak second, then you. Doc and Krysty at four and five. Blasters ready."

"I'll be damned glad when you get me a decent gun, Ryan," she said. "I never was much into the NRA and all that God-given-right-to-bear-arms stuff. But I sure as hell feel naked without something on my hip around here."

They soon arrived at the river. One thing Ryan had noticed was that the swath cut through the jungle by the marauding army of ants had almost totally disappeared under fresh, green growth.

From there to the ruins of the Wendigo Institute of Botanical Research, incorporating the Black wood Center for Chemical and Neurological Research, Military Division, with the Shelley Cryonic Institute — Private, wasn't all that far.

They saw few signs of life: a glimpse of what could have been a small pig or a large rodent, scurrying about its business, rooting among the leaf mold; fresh, seeping tracks of a massive snake, winding sinuously across their trail, so recent that water still oozed into the long furrows.

As they moved down from the higher part of the mountain, they'd seen a lot of birds, including bright parakeets and tiny, darting budgerigars. But in the past ten minutes the birds had disappeared and the vast tract of jungle had fallen silent.

Ryan held up his hand again. "Got a feeling there's company around."

"We don't have a lot of time to wait them out," J.B. said. "We need water. If they hold the river, we're in serious trouble."

"Can't we loop around them, if they're near that small bridge?" Krysty asked.

Ryan shook his head. "One way or another we have to get over the river, and I'm not going to try swimming it. I'll go ahead on my own. See if I can spring the trap. Rest of you stay close, but not too close."

"We got double-blaster on 'em," Jak said. "Chill 'em up front."

"No. If it's Jorund and the rest of his men, they'll have picked up all their blasters from the ville on the way through. If we'd had time I'd have got them and heaved them all in the lake. The Vikings could've got over the ridge before the worst of the weather."

J.B. agreed. "And in this kind of hostile terrain they could be dug in well. Sure, we got the firepower, Jak. But we won't have the chance to maximize it. Time and place give them the megacull facility over us. Ryan's right."

"Why can we not attempt to sneak up behind them and ambush the ambushers?" Doc asked. "Hoist them with their own petard, as it were?"

"Look at you, Doc. Look at Mildred. Look at all of us. We're real tired. Tired man makes mistakes. Make a mistake in this forest and it's your last. No. I'll go ahead. J.B., give me a word."

The two men stood together, talking quietly and earnestly. J.B. took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve, looked up at the pink sky through them, then replaced them on the narrow bridge of his nose. He burrowed his hand into one of his deep pants pockets, then gave something to Ryan.

Ryan took it and nodded, and they walked back to the others. "This is it. I go ahead. J.B. leads the rest of you behind. Keeps as close as he thinks safe. I'm gonna try to talk to them. Seems there's been enough chilling, and they may listen and let us go through. We'll see."