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on her was so devastating that he couldn't face the idea of her using it, ever
again. There was the grim certainty at the back of his mind that the next time
might be the last, that the force would ultimately be so overwhelming that it
would rupture an artery in her brain or, more simply, burst her heart.
He went out into the corridor, passing a series of closed and locked doors,
all with strange letter and number combination codes on them, in a variety of
colors. A few bore their original predark signs-Nurses'
Rest Room, OrthodonticsDo Not Enter When Red Light Shows, TV RoomAbsolutely No
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Smoking;
Dietician; Blood Bank, which had a small, homemade label fixed beneath it
Dracula's Castle.
He passed a pair of patrolling guards, each with a Mossberg slung over the
shoulder. He nodded to them, and they both grinned cheerfully.
At the end of the wing he passed through two sets of double doors, finding
himself in the main atrium area that Mildred had mentioned. Here the old signs
had all gone, the walls painted fresh and clean. The closed wings were
self-evident, the wreckage visible through some obviously sealed sec doors.
The other usable area, which had been barred to J.B. and Mildred, was the next
one around the central core of the huge medical complex.
It had no sign to give a clue to what went on behind the guarded doors.
"Help you, outlander?"
Ryan spun, seeing a sec man holding his blaster, looking suspiciously at him.
For a moment he thought the man was a stranger, then he realized that it was
the sec boss, Ellison, the one with the vicious scar by his mouth. The reason
he hadn't recognized him straightaway was that the man had shaved off his
luxuriant mustache.
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"No. Just stretching my legs, thanks."
"What's your name?"
"You know my name, Ellison."
The man's eyes widened, and his finger moved onto the trigger of the shotgun.
"How the showering sheep shit do you know my name, outlander?"
Ryan could see that there was something wrong, but couldn't for the life of
him figure what it was. "I
know you because we spent hours together out in the park."
"Park?"
"Acadia."
The muzzle of the Mossberg was now aimed, very definitely, at the pit of
Ryan's stomach. "You say you and me spent hours together, outlander?"
"Sure we did."
"I say that you're some kind of sneaking liar. I never seen you before."
"Why did you shave off the mustache, Ellison?" Ryan asked, trying to find some
connection with the angry man. "Get bored with it?"
"I never had a fucking mustache in my life. I never seen you before in my
life. And you're about to find out what it's like to buy the farm."
"Hold it, Ellison."
Ryan glanced over his shoulder. He'd been about to chop his hand at the barrel
of the 12-gauge and take his chances, which he'd mentally put at around a
hundred to one.
"Buford," he said. "Didn't think I'd be saying it, but I'm glad to see you."
The scientist pointed a trembling finger at the sec man. "Gun down, Ellison.
Order! Do it or you'll be cleaning out the freak cages for the rest of your
life."
"He said he knew me, the outlander."
With the threat of the blaster removed, Ryan was becoming angry. "Course I
know him. He was with you all of the time. Saw the tree fall and everything. I
asked him why he'd shaved off his mustache."
"I never had"
Buford reached across and actually laid his hand across the sec man's mouth,
silencing him. "No more
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Deathlands Genesis Echo talking, Ellison."
"Let it lie," Ryan said. "I'll just go back and join the others. Doesn't
matter."
"It was his brother who accompanied us into the forest in our pursuit of the
animals that had escaped from our laboratory."
"Brother?"
"Yes. His twin brother." Buford took his hand away from the sec guard's face.
"Now go and carry on the patrol, Ellison. I shall speak with you at a later
time."
The man turned wordlessly and marched off, the Mossberg slung once more across
his broad back. His whole posture was one of frustrated rage.
"There," Buford said, rubbing his hands together. "No problem too small and no
solution too large. That's what we say here at Crichton."
"Sure. I'll go"
"Of course. We'll meet at six. Everyone is so very excited about it. Krysty
won't No, of course. Too early.
But, perhaps tomorrow?"
"Perhaps."
On his way back toward the rooms they all shared, Ryan wondered about the
Ellison brothers. One with a mustache and one without.
And both of them with a precisely identical scar.
Chapter Twenty
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"It was my dear departed grandmother, Melissa Crichton, who was responsible
for the foundingand a deal of the funding." The scientist emitted a fragile,
dry chuckle that sounded like the peeling off of a mummy's shroud. "Just my
little joke. Many of my colleagues have heard it, I fear, many times in the
past sixty years or more. So difficult to calculate the passing of time as one
slips into the eighth decade of life."
"I would be the first to drink to that, Professor Crichton," Doc said
gallantly, lifting his cut-crystal goblet of elderflower wine.
David Crichton was eighty-three years old, or eighty-three years young as he
sometimes declared himself.
He sat at the head of the table, with his senior staff ranged on either side,
alternating with Ryan and his friends.
Only Krysty was absent from among the visitors, and Dean, who had volunteered
he didn't want a formal supper and had offered to stay in the room to keep
Krysty company. Ryan had been glad to accept the offer.
The food was terrible, a surprisingly large proportion of it recycled and
artificial. Ryan had found himself sitting between Crichton and Ladrow Buford
and had commented on the lack of fresh meat and vegetables.
"No need for it," the little scientist explained. "We can process much of what
we need. It prevents any necessity for us to go outside the valley more than
three or four times a year. Then we mount a large-scale expedition. Stock up.
And dry and pulp and freeze and retexture the food to last us another three or
four months. Tasty, is it not?"
"Tasty" wasn't the first word that would have occurred to Ryan.
There were printed menus spaced along the table, and the food, already in
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