The Armorer pushed at Jak's shoulder, making him stir. The albino tried to sit up and flopped sideways, coughing and spluttering. Blood and half-digested food spilled from his white lips over his camouflage jacket. J.B. held him firmly, patting him on the back. The boy's eyes eased open, unfocused, like a newborn rabbit's.

"Been sick, Pa. Sorry. Tell Ma... where the fuck are... What?"

"Bad jump for us all, Jak," J.B. said gently. "Looks like we mostly made it. But the dog died, and Doc's not flea-jumping well."

"No jumps, Ryan," the boy gasped. "Or make 'em on ownsome."

Ryan turned his attention back to Doc. The lined face seemed somehow younger, as if most of the worry lines had been smoothed away during the horrendous jump. The old man pulled himself to his knees, smoothing his frock coat with gnarled fingers. His breathing seemed surprisingly slow and steady.

"Doc?" Krysty asked.

His eyes stared straight ahead, and there was no visible sign that anyone was home inside the leonine skull.

"Doc? I know you can hear me. Tell us how you feel."

Ryan had a little more success. At least Doc turned slowly in his direction.

"He's in shock, lover," Krysty said quietly. "Mebbe best to leave him awhile."

"Tomorrow's so devilish dangerous," Doc said, his voice as rich and deep as ever. But the eyes still didn't budge from gazing at some invisible point in a limitless distance.

"Want sick," Jak muttered, easing himself away from J.B. He retched again, managing only to bring up a few threads of scarlet blood.

"Shall we open the door?" J.B. suggested. But Ryan shook his head.

"Give it awhile. I reckon all of us can do with a rest for a few minutes."

Ryan touched the red walls, feeling the warmth that seeped through the heavy arma-glass. He wondered where in Deathlands they'd ended their jump, or if, in fact, they were in Deathlands at all.

After their last adventure there was no longer the certainty that all of the gateways were within what had once been the continental United States. Perhaps the one in Russia had been unique. But they'd already seen some evidence, admittedly circumstantial, that there might even have been a gateway on one of the space stations that had circled the Earth before dark-day and the end of civilization.

It was a thought that nagged at Ryan Cawdor, intriguing him with the possibilities, as did the thought of finding other cryonic centers and maybe, just maybe, managing to thaw out more freezies.

"Guess it's time we made a move," he announced. "Everyone ready?"

They all nodded or muttered their agreement. All except Doc Tanner.

"C'mon, Doc."

The old man sat still, as though he hadn't heard Ryan's voice. Krysty knelt at his side and touched his arm. "Doc?"

He looked up then, squinting as if he couldn't quite focus on her face. "What is it? Who are... Is that you, Emily, my dear?"

"No, it's Krysty, Doc. It's time we were moving on out of here."

"Why?"

"Get some food and drink." She winced as she stood up straight. "And a wash if we're lucky. Time's wasting, Doc."

"And let it waste, we are no longer... You know that our yesterdays are ever present. Tomorrow is another now. We cannot say when life will end, and no man can say how." He smiled and nodded to himself.

"Nice verse, Doc," J.B. said. "Won't load no mags for us."

"Nor butter any parsnips, will it, my dear brother Cyril?"

"Cyril! Who the..."

"His mind's gotten locked way back," Ryan said. "He was like this when we first met him. Back in Mocsin. Best we can hope is that it was the third jump. Pushed him too hard. Should recover."

"But we have to go," J.B. pressed, the edge to his voice showing his growing irritation. J.B.'s philosophy of life was that a man didn't show weakness, nor let down friends.

In the Deathlands that often came down to the same thing.

"Get up, Doc," Krysty said, helping him as he got unwillingly to his feet.

"Very well, Emily. I shall be guided by you in this. Are we to take a promenade?"

"Sure. All of us together." She nodded to Ryan. "I think we're ready as we'll ever be, lover."

Ryan glanced around, motioning for Jak to move over and help Doc on the other side. Then he reached for the handle on the chamber door and turned it.

Chapter Six

The heat outside the chamber was even more striking and oppressive.

"Feels like home," Jak said. "Good Louisiana warm and wet."

"Hot as the hobs of Hades." Krysty sighed. "Don't rightly know what that means, but Uncle Tyas McCann used to say it in summer back in Harmony."

Ryan led them into the anteroom that they'd come to expect. Most of them had been evacuated and bare, showing signs that there'd been warning in some redoubts of the sudden conflict of 2001.

But this particular room looked as though it had been abandoned about ten minutes ago. The small square table held four hands of cards, and a shelf contained some mugs and a tattered book. There were posters on the walls, faded and torn, revealing their age.

The friends paused and looked around. Only Doc showed no interest, head drooping on his breast, eyes dull. It looked as though he'd have slumped like a discarded puppet if Jak and Krysty hadn't been supporting him.

Ryan always felt a buzz of excitement at a moment like this. To find some sort of time capsule, undisturbed for a century, meant a thrill of glimpsing the lost past through this peephole.

He looked first at the posters. One showed a Russian hammer and sickle, both dripping gobbets of blood, descending toward the skyscrapers of an American city. A young man stood legs apart, fists raised, ready to try to combat and deflect them. The caption beneath the picture was vaguely familiar to Ryan, who'd seen it before:

"Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."

Two of the other posters were what he knew used to be called pinups. One depicted a tall blonde, sitting astride a huge black and chrome two-wheel wag. She wore a pair of thigh-length boots in dark green leather. Other than the boots she wore only a bright smile. On the other wall was a life-size poster of a heavily muscled, bronzed man, wearing a smile similar to the woman's. But he wasn't even wearing boots. The caption simply said: Stud Study X.

Doc was near collapse, and Krysty helped him to sit down at the table, where he immediately laid his head on his folded arms.

Ryan looked at the table. On one corner was a pile of small change that looked as if it had gotten rained on — the metal had sprouted a mold. "They were playing poker when the sirens sounded. Or the bells. Or whatever it was that told them dark night was on its way."

Jak picked up one of the hands of cards. "Two pairs. Queens an' fours."

Krysty smiled. "This hand won't beat you, Jak." She turned the cards over. "Pair of threes. Like I always say. There's some you lose, and there's some you draw."

"I win," J.B. said, flipping over the third hand of cards. Three sixes. "Beat that, Ryan. If you can."

One by one Ryan picked up the moist, rotting playing cards and turned them over. "Eight of clubs, ace of spades, eight of spades, ace of hearts."

"Still not good enough," the Armorer told him, wiping moisture from his glasses. "Come on, Ryan. Turn it and see what you got."

"I reckon it'll be good enough to beat you. Want a bet on it?"

"With what? Last time I had a fistful of jack was... was so long ago I can't even remember."

"Bet you first go at the next hot water we find," Ryan suggested. "How's that?"

"You got it. Turn the card." The rectangle of pasteboard was clammy to the touch. "Ace of clubs. A full house. Aces on eights. I win, J.B., I win."