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Ryan went with Krysty and Jak, relying on them for eyesight and a speed of
reaction above and beyond his own. He led the way, leaving his G-12 behind in
the care of J.B., trusting to his hand blaster. Jak had his enormous .357 Magnum
with its satin finish and gaping six-inch barrel. Krysty carried her smaller, 9 mm
Heckler & Koch P7A 13.
Farewells had been short. Ryan and Krysty were becoming used to separations. A
slow, lingering kiss and a smile was all it took, and a "See you soon, lover" from
one or the other. This time it was good to be going out together, with just a
handshake for Doc, J.B. and Mildred.
They covered the ground with a cautious speed, checking the pools of dark
shadow within the canyon for any sign of movement.
"Could be other side. By water," Jak suggested.
"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "Could be. Knowing muties, they won't be that well hid.
Doesn't look like they're either in the valley or on the tops, so you could be right."
Krysty stopped, wiping grit from the corner of her eye. "I got a bad feeling, lover.
There's something about this. Maybe it's not muties."
"Skullface?"
"Don't know. I can't see enough. There's something around that Gaia! I just
don't know."
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At the entrance to the pass the ground was covered with a lot of misshapen
boulders and piles of earth of varying sizes. None of the three paid them much
attention, concentrating on the caves of blackness in the depths of the cutting.
Which was a mistake. A dozen screeching figures leaped from their dusty hiding
places.
Chapter Twelve
IT HAD BEEN a trick common among some Indian tribes during the middle
1800s. Young warriors would lie hidden beneath heaps of sand, not moving for
hours on end, totally invisible, suffering intense discomfort while they waited for
their enemies to ride by.
The muties must have seen the great pillar of orange dust that the wag train sent
soaring skyward, visible for miles in any direction. And it must also have been
quickly obvious that the fifteen rigs were taking the old winding blacktop from
east to west. Even for a mutie, the timing of an ambush wasn't that tough to figure.
But what took Ryan completely by surprise was that the muties had actually
pulled off their plan with so much cunning.
There was a fraction of a moment to recognize that these were all scalies, without
a single stickie among them. They were almost naked, with just rags of cloth
knotted about their genitals. It looked like they were all males, but with scalies it
was hard to tell. Their leathery skin glistened in the sunlight, and all of them were
armed with axes or long-bladed knives.
Odds were twelve to three, and the initial element of shock was on the side of the
muties. But Ryan, Krysty and Jak all had blasters drawn and ready for action.
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One of the creatures erupted from the dirt almost under Ryan's feet, making him
stagger sideways, nearly losing his balance.
"Fireblast!" he gasped, finger tightening instinctively on the trigger of his SIG-
Sauer blaster.
The high-velocity round hit the nearest of his attackers a glancing blow, burning
across its ribs on the right side, making its scaley jaw drop in shock. A hideous
screech of pain came from its open mouth, its fetid breath making Ryan gag.
There was time for a second, better-aimed shot at the staggering mutie, the bullet
hitting precisely where Ryan had hoped between the eyes, knocking it on its
back where it continued to scream for several anguished seconds.
Before he could get off a third shot, one of the scalies grabbed at him, its clawed
fingers splitting the skin on his arm, blood coursing over his wrist and fingers.
Ryan nearly dropped his blaster in the violence of the attack.
He heard the double boom of Jak getting off a couple of shells from his hand
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