«There's still something in the cans, Blade,» said Kareena. Before he could stop her she picked up one and pressed the button down on one end. There was a faint hissing and the perfume smell grew stronger. «It smells like a kind of soap,» she said merrily.
«Kareena-!»
She stretched out one bare arm, aimed the can at it, and pressed the spray button again. A patch of skin turned wet and glistening. Then Blade grabbed the can and snatched it out of her hand. «Kareena, you don't know what that is! It could be a poison, even if it smells like perfume!»
But Kareena was too busy rubbing the sprayed patch of skin to listen. «Blade it is a kind of soap,» she said finally. «Look.» Blade had to admit that the patch of skin she'd sprayed was much cleaner than it had been, and showed no sign of damage. «A liquid soap in a can! We've never found anything like that! What else do you suppose we're going to find?» She sounded like a child anticipating a visit to the toy store.
Blade didn't want to quarrel with Kareena. He also didn't want her kittenish curiosity to kill them both. «I do not know,» he said. «The Oltec the Sky Masters left here in the Land is different from what they left in England. I do know that we must be very careful. So never, never play with anything you find the way you did now. You were very foolish and very lucky.»
Kareena's eyes went hard and for a moment Blade was sure a quarrel was about to start. Then she sighed. «Blade, I suppose you are right. I did not think. I am not used to living so far beyond the Law that one must think about this sort of thing.»
«True, and so must everyone else in Kaldak. You're all going to have to learn.»
«Yes, but if we don't play with what we find, how are we going to learn anything about it?» She gestured around the room. «There must be enough new Oltec here to keep fifty people busy learning about it.»
«Then we'll come back with fifty people, and they can go to work. That way if one man makes a mistake and gets killed, the other forty-nine can see what happened and learn from it. If we get killed, all we've learned dies with us. It may never get back to Kaldak at all and certainly won't get back in time to help against the Doimari.»
«You think there is really going to be a war?»
«You saw that machine, Kareena. If Kaldak had a hundred of them, wouldn't your father be tempted to try destroying Doimar. And he is a man who prefers peace and the Law. I have not heard that Feragga of Doimar is fond of either.» That was a considerable understatement. From what he'd heard of the woman who ruled Doimar, she was something to frighten naughty children with at bedtime!
Kareena nodded reluctantly. «Very well, Blade. I will follow where you lead.» Blade noticed that this promise didn't keep her from scooping three cans of the spray soap into her pack.
Blade led on, trying to look more sure of where he was going than he actually was. His confidence grew as he found that about half the rooms were unlocked. After the third open room he was no longer leading quite so much in the dark. One rack there held several dozen portable lamps as powerful as miniature searchlights. They lit up the whole main corridor and showed a number of side ones as well. Blade refused to worry now about triggering alarms or defenses. He and Kareena were already far enough inside the complex to be helpless if any defenses did go into action. They were also far enough inside to have triggered them off a dozen times if they still worked.
Blade counted about forty rooms in the complex. Some of the open ones were empty or used only for what had to be junk. In many of the filled ones everything was so tightly packaged or sealed that Blade was reluctant to disturb it. He still found enough on display to impress him.
There were hundreds of sets of infantry equipment, including uniforms, boots, gas masks, body armor, and weapons. There were other garments which looked like radiation or chemical protection for rescue workers. There were portable radios and miniature computers. There was enough medical equipment for a small army, including what seemed to be a complete portable operating room. There were tons of rations, some still edible after all the years lying in the darkness. There were no waldoes or any vehicles except a few small freight trucks, but there was everything else needed to help the people of a bombed city defend its ruins.
Kareena was too amazed at the richness of the Oltec to say anything more for quite a while. When she could finally speak, the first thing she asked was, «Do you suppose there's something like this under Kaldak?»
Blade nodded. «It would make sense to have supplies stored under each city. It might be hard to carry them from one city to another in the middle of a war.»
«Then-all we had to do, to be as strong as Doimar-was to go a little farther down in Kaldak than the Law said we could? Then-it is because we have obeyed the Law that Kaldak has been put in danger?»
She looked and sounded so confused that Blade wished he could soften his answer, but knew he could not. «Yes. That is so. And the first thing we do when we return to Kaldak is explore every basement and every hole, in every basement in the city.»
They moved on, collecting samples of the smaller items as they went. Although they tried to restrain themselves, by the time they reached the center of the complex their packs were bulging and so heavy they were glad to unsling them for a while.
The center of the complex was unmistakably a command center of some sort. There was a central room with consoles, displays, and screens on all four sides. There were six reclining couches, and four unidentifiable contraptions with seats, helmets, gloves, and boots all wired to massive metal frames. Blade wondered if they were communications devices, or perhaps equipment for interrogating (and torturing) prisoners.
The rest of the command center included two bunkrooms, a storeroom full of rations and uniforms, and a bathroom. Kareena peered into the bathroom, grinned, then flexed cramped shoulder muscles. «Blade, I think I'm going to take the first bath anyone's taken here since the fall of the Sky Masters.»
«I doubt if the water's running,» said Blade, smiling.
Kareena sat down on the floor and started pulling off her boots. «Remember that soap-water in the cans? There should be some more in the storeroom.»
There was. Blade brought four cans of it, and found barrels of distilled water in the back of the storeroom. By the time he'd rolled one of them into the bathroom, Kareena was naked. She ran over and kissed him. With considerable self-control, Blade managed not to put his arms around her. He thought she looked disappointed. Then she frowned.
«Blade, do you suppose there are any ghosts here?»
Blade felt a moment's irritation at this superstition, then remembered his own feeling when he had stared at Mossev's dead towers in the evening light. He shook his head. «I don't think any of the Tower Builders died here. Even if they did, in England we think that to bring life back to a place where there are ghosts drives away the evil ones and gives peace to the good ones.» Cautiously he reached out and laid a hand on the smooth skin of her left shoulder. She did not flinch, and her eyes continued to meet his. «We're alive, aren't we?»
«Yes,» said Kareena. She raised a hand and covered his. «We're alive.» She lifted his hand, held it for a moment, then moved it down onto her right breast. She squeezed her eyes shut, and they stood like that for a moment. Then she raised a hand and began caressing Blade's neck and throat.
«Kareena,» he said. «Do you know what you're doing?» He thought he had his answer in the way her nipple was turning hard under his hand, but he wanted to be certain.
She took another step closer to him. «Yes, Blade. I know. Now both hands went to work, unbuttoning Blade's jacket. He shrugged himself free of it, then ran his hands up and down Kareena's back. He knelt as she struggled to pull the shirt over his head. When she'd succeeded, he gripped her neat, solid buttocks firmly and began kissing her smooth stomach. He ran his lips up over her ribcage and she sighed louder. So did Blade. He'd never expected to find a woman's ribcage a beautiful sight, but there was a first time for everything. When Blade's lips encircled a nipple, Kareena gave a little choking cry. When he ran one hand lightly up between her thighs to the damp hair where they joined, he could feel her trembling so hard he was afraid she would fall.