Atlantis Reprise

Ryan shrugged. ‘Lie down, go back to sleep and buy the farm.’

FACED WITH A CHOICE that stark, even the most tired of limbs, the slowest of dulled reactions, couldn’t fail to click into gear. Mildred made Doc as warm and comfortable as was possible and then joined the others in their mission under the fading light.

There were animals roaming, lost around the rim of the valley. Some of the dogs still had sleds or partial sleds attached to them. The companions’ task was to round up as many of the animals as they could, taking care not to spook them. Easier said than done, as the events in the valley had set a wave of fear trembling through those creatures that survived. But they, too were exhausted, and so, with a little patience, the companions were able to round up the surviving livestock and tether it as best as possible.

The plan was simple: from the partial and whole sleds that survived, they would attempt to cobble together enough transport to hook up to the beasts. That would enable them to tackle the distance between their position and the redoubt perhaps faster than they would on foot, and certainly enable them to preserve their energies. The remainder of any salvaged wood they could use for fires along the journey, to warm them and their pack beasts in the darkest, coldest watches of the night.

The beasts could be used to pull the transport. They could also be slaughtered along the way to provide food for both the companions and for those beasts that survived. The slaughter would perhaps put fear into the beasts, but that would be countered by their intense cold and hunger, which would make them perhaps more malleable than usual.

By the time that they had collected the livestock, made a fire for the now imminent night, and begun to hammer together enough sleds to carry them and any animal carcasses they would slaughter for food back to the redoubt, they were exhausted. Unwilling to begin the slaughter so soon and to face a sleepless night with the unsettled livestock, the companions resorted to the remaining self-heats. Whatever else occurred, J.B. and Mildred always insured that they could keep their essential stocks close to hand. It wasn’t even something they thought about: it was a second nature.

The food was foul, but it was nutritious enough to justify forcing it down rather than throwing it to one side in disgust. Their stomachs full, they settled to rest, Ryan opting to force himself awake to keep first watch.

As his companions and the beasts slept soundly into the night, Ryan cast his eye around him. The valley was now a distant glow, the fires finally burning themselves out. Nothing more had emerged from the ruins, and nothing was likely to have survived. Just the six of them and a smattering of livestock.

The one-eyed man wondered at how his friends were able to drag themselves from precipitous situations, coming back time and again from the brink of being chilled. One day their luck would run out, but until then there was little they could do except to keep moving.

But to keep moving across this plain that they already knew to be so hostile? With the sleds and the livestock, they had increased their chances of survival. Nonetheless, it was going to be a hard ride.

THE JOURNEY WAS LONG and hard. Started the next morning, it took two days and well into a third before the area of the redoubt hove into view. They stuck to the trail proscribed by the traffic between villes, now reinforced in view by the detritus left a few days before by the Inuit as they had passed. The pace they set was steady. To go too fast and risk burning out the strength left in the livestock would have been ultimately self-defeating. Nonetheless, it was important that they cover the ground quickly. The wood for fires, the livestock for food—neither would last for very long. Moreover, it was vital for their state of mind that they traverse the trail with speed and get out of that godforsaken territory.

It was almost a pleasure for them to be able to relax and to rest weary and torn muscles as the beasts pulling the sleds took most of the strain. They still had to be steered, which sometimes took its toll on wounded biceps and shoulders. A small price to pay for such a rapid and relatively easy progress.

Along the trail, the few landmarks that existed seemed to come upon them so much faster than before—inevitably, given their mode of transport, but vaguely disorienting after the rigors of the outward-bound march.

The deserted settlements, ripped apart by the plas-ex detonations of their previous visit, stood alone and desolate, their keening loneliness speaking more of the isolation and vast tracts of empty space than the companions could have cared to be reminded of, reliant as they were on exhausted beasts on a trail to nowhere. They were a stark reminder of how close the companions had come to being chilled themselves in such a manner—not once, but several times during the expedition. Even now, they weren’t out of danger. The weather had been holding for more than forty-eight hours, the heavy yellow-tinged chem clouds pregnant with rains and snows that could engulf them, lose them in the roaring blizzard, and soak and chill them to the bone, with no shelter within view where respite could be sought.

There were, in the distance, the occasional glimpses of deer or bear as the packs and herds went about the business of trying to survive. They could be a danger if they approached, but hopefully held too much fear of the sleds and those pulling them, based on past experience, to come too near.

The ice and snow plucked from the rock and swirled in the never-ending flurry of winds still numbed and chilled when coming into contact with exposed skin. Despite the layers of skins and furs that still swathed them, the companions were chilled to the bone by the constant crosswinds, this time without the exercise of marching to warm them in any way. It was all they could do not to succumb to the ravages of hypothermia. How ironic if their attempt to increase their speed was to cause their demise. However they chose to make their flight, it seemed as though they faced nothing but life-threatening obstacles.

Two nights huddled by fires built—on the second night—from some of their sleds caused them to double up for the last day, and to put more strain on the livestock—livestock that was becoming more and more unsettled as Jak slaughtered some to feed the others and to feed the companions. Ryan had been correct in his assumption that the creatures would be too hungry and cold to be that distressed by the slaughter, intent as they were on eating their chilled companions to appease the hunger gnawing at their guts; however they were still unsettled enough for their pace to be upset on the following day’s trek.

The trail took them along the base of the volcanic slopes that housed the Inuit village. They skirted the rock-enclosed passage and didn’t take the trail as it wound up into the wooded slopes, choosing to avoid a possible firefight by keeping to the base of the slope. Ryan hoped that the few remaining Inuit wouldn’t be hunting at that point in the day. The way he had it figured, they’d have enough trouble keeping the settlement going, and it was too early for them to be sniffing around for any sign of their warriors returning.

After passing the volcanic region, and watching it recede peacefully into the distance, it was only a matter of a few hours by sled before they reached the area where the redoubt was hidden.

All the while, Doc hovered between conscious and unconscious. Mildred tended to him, but could still find no reason why he shouldn’t be fully aware of what was occurring around him. It seemed to her almost as if he were surfacing, taking note of his surroundings, then retreating into his own mind after deciding that he didn’t like what he saw.

J.B. took what sightings he could in the appalling conditions, trusting the accuracy of the minisextant and his own skill to attain an accurate reading. Ryan hoped that the Armorer’s sense of direction under these conditions was accurate. They couldn’t last for much longer without some respite from the weather.

He didn’t care where they might end up when they made the mat-trans jump. Anywhere had to be better than this…although, he realized with bitterness it was probably how he’d felt before they ended up in these icy wastes.

J.B. motioned them to change direction and a familiar outcropping came into view. The end of their quest was in sight.

It was almost as if Doc knew. He surprised Mildred by raising himself up on one elbow and looking at her with a quizzical air that was at once all too familiar to her.

A suspicion confirmed when he opened his mouth and said, in a voice that was distinctly his own, ‘My dear Doctor, what on earth are we doing out here in these appalling conditions? And why, pray tell, do you look as though you’ve been on the losing side of a fight?’

Chapter Two

Although nothing had changed within the confines of the redoubt since they had last set foot there a few days before, the atmosphere that greeted them was totally different. Where there had previously been an air of gloom and foreboding, now there was nothing but a sense of relief. Despite the memories that had been stirred by their last incursion, there was no trace of remorse or remembrance. The strange atmosphere that had seemed to drape itself over them, penetrating to their very souls and painting their emotional world a darker shade of black, had now lifted.

Perhaps those ghosts that had been stirred had now dissipated, blown away by the experiences of the past few days. Perhaps those ghosts had never really existed and were just random memories that had fed a deeper malaise triggered by the act of a mat-trans jump. Or perhaps they were still here, but were now kept at bay by the fatigue that ate into their very bones, deadening all thought and all feeling in the effort just to keep moving until they were in a position to fall unconscious with exhaustion.

Ryan punched in the sec code once they were on the inside of the heavy entry doors. The remaining beasts had been freed from the sleds and driven away from the entrance. They lurked at a distance, unsure of what to do and where to go. Born into service, they were wild but with muted survival instincts, wanting to stick close to humans they saw as a source of food. There was only a slim chance that they would survive in the harsh environment, finding their way back to the remaining Inuit if they were lucky. It might have been kinder to have chilled them all, putting them out of their misery quickly and efficiently, yet it would have required an effort that none would have felt they had the energy to discharge.

As the door closed on the lurking beasts, on the snow and ice carried on chill winds and on the barren rock landscape, they felt a collective relief. The slightly musty recycled air, heated to a bearable temperature, kicked in, driving the cold from their bones. It was all they could do to keep from collapsing in the tunnel.

Except, perhaps, for Doc, who seemed filled with a new vitality.

‘By the Three Kennedys, I don’t know what’s been going on—nor, come to that, why I am still with you when I appear to have been in some sort of coma all this time—but I do know that whatever it is, it appears to have taken a hefty toll upon you all.’

‘Hefty toll,’ Mildred repeated with a short, barking laugh. ‘Doc, you mad old freak of nature, I don’t think you even know how funny that is.’

‘Funny would appear to be a strange word for it, given the condition in which you find yourselves,’ Doc replied, a little perplexed.

‘You know, it kind of depends on what you mean by funny, I guess,’ Mildred answered him. ‘I mean, do you see me laughing?’

‘That would seem to be the last thing that you are capable of doing right now,’ Doc threw back at her with all seriousness.

Mildred fixed him with a shrewd look. ‘I don’t think you’ve got the slightest idea what’s been going on, have you?’

Doc opened his mouth, but no words came forth. Only Mildred now stood at the end of the corridor with him. The others had wordlessly made their way down the corridor, headed for the showers and the dorms. They moved slowly and with the grim determination of those only kept awake by sheer willpower, a dogged one-foot-in-front-of-the-other approach all that kept them going. Mildred followed the direction of his gaze, read the complete confusion in his eyes.

‘No, I don’t suppose you have,’ she murmured more to herself than to the bewildered old man. Then, in a louder voice, she added, ‘Doc, I can’t tell you everything now. I’m just too damn tired and aching. Another few hours aren’t going to hurt. We just need to rest and clean up before we jump.’

‘We’re using the mat-trans again, so soon? But surely we should be looking for—’

‘Doc, just don’t,’ she interrupted, holding up a hand to silence him, then turning away to follow the others. She threw a parting shot over her shoulder. ‘Just wait, keep it all in until tomorrow, then you’ll understand.’

Doc stood watching her, a frown furrowing his brow. Whatever had happened out there—whatever it was that he couldn’t remember—it had some kind of effect on those people he called his friends. The only friends he had in this godforsaken land in which he had been forced to strive for survival. Even in the few short minutes that he had been conscious he had noticed that there was some kind of distance that had arisen between them.

Why? He could recall being here and leaving to strike out toward Ank Ridge. But then? He could recall depression, and he could recall a storm that mirrored his mood, a blizzard that obscured the landscape in the same way that his feelings had obscured his ability to observe and function what was happening around him…and after that? A blur of ideas, images and emotions that he couldn’t grasp.

The distance he felt was mirrored by the way in which they had left him at the head of the tunnel. As Mildred disappeared around a dog-leg bend, leaving him isolated by the entrance, he felt that the physical distance was nothing more than a mirror.

Reluctantly—for he had no idea what he would face when the others had rested—he followed on from them. By the time that he had reached the showers, they were stripped and washing the filth, ice and blood from their battered bodies.

Doc sat quietly as they finished and dried themselves. Only the barest necessity of communication took place, no more than a few words in each exchange. It was almost as though they were too tired to even acknowledge one another’s existence. Certainly, none seemed to acknowledge Doc’s presence.

Before too long he was left alone in the shower room, the others having gone in search of washing machines. Automatically, he stripped and washed himself, noting with an almost detached bemusement the signs of combat, the scars of recent wounds and the discoloration of contusion on his body. How he came to have these, he had no idea.

Frankly, he didn’t care. It was with no little sense of foreboding that he eventually joined the others in the dorms, where he tried to settle to sleep.

The redoubt was silent and still. Doc tried to will himself to sleep, but his mind was racing. Fragments of what might have occurred, and of the thoughts that had plagued what, to him, seemed like a distant dream, ran through his mind, tripping over each other in the race to assume order and to make some kind of sense.

Eventually the effort of trying to make sense from chaos was enough to tire him and he fell into a fitful, uneasy sleep.