"Mighty generous," J.B. said with a poker face. To his friends, his satirical intent was obvious. But such was his ability to deadpan that Gloria merely acknowledged him gracefully.

"You seem to have earned it, Four-eyes. And now for you, medicine woman," she said, turning to Mildred. "Before we travel on and leave these sc.u.m to return to the earth and slime that birthed them, do you still want to examine them?"

"I certainly do," Mildred muttered, taking a few paces to a fallen and chilled stickie and dropping to her knees to examine the corpse. She had chosen one that still had its head intact, and was examining the skull area minutely.

"May I?" Doc asked Gloria, indicating with his stick where Mildred was kneeling. When the warrior queen granted her a.s.sent, Doc moved forward and joined the doctor.

"Guessed what I'm looking for, Doc?" Mildred murmured to Tanner.

"I suspect that you are in search of some sign of surgery around the area of the brainpan."

Mildred nodded. "Got it in one, Doc. It'd be a cold day in h.e.l.l before a stickie ever learned how to fight tactically and arrange an ambush, unless it was some kind of superstickie, with enhanced brain power."

"And somehow I do not think Darwin's theories ever held much of a council with the notion of such a rapid development, even taking mutations into account. If anything, I would expect it to go in reverse in such a case as this," Doc muttered.

"Exactly," Mildred replied, her hands stretching the repulsive and elastic skin searching for outward signs and also probing the area beneath the skin for signs of surgery, such as sudden ridges of bone. She grimaced with disgust at the feel of the chilled mutie in her hands, but the grimace turned to a small grin of triumph as her fingers traced a small growth of bone at the base of the skull. Pulling the skin tighter, and turning the heavy head in her hands to better examine the area in question, she found a small, puckered scar.

"I believe that answers that question," Doc said quietly.

"Sophisticated technique, too," Mildred said with a touch of professional admiration creeping into her voice, an all too rare reminder of her past before the days of being a freezie and of skydark. "This is keyhole surgery, probably laser. Whoever did this had access to some pretty d.a.m.n good equipment, and what's more, equipment that was in good working order."

"I suggest we examine a few more of the corpses, if we can find any with heads undamaged enough," Doc said quietly.

Mildred nodded. "Check as many as possible." Both she and Doc rose to their feet and, disregarding the puzzled or interested stares of those around them, examined as many of the chilled stickies as they could find with enough skull intact to warrant investigation.

When they were done, they conferred briefly before Mildred addressed Ryan and Gloria.

"It's just as I suspected. These are no ordinary stickies. All of those who still have enough skull left to examine have shown signs of surgery. I suspect that their brains have been tampered with in some way-perhaps a smart drug slowly released into the cerebellum, perhaps some kind of laser modification or direct genetic engineering. They were talking about that kind of activity before skydark, so maybe whoever is left..."

She let the sentence tail off. Ryan understood immediately. Anyone capable of doing this has to have some d.a.m.n good tech, and in the best of repair. That suggested a stockpile or redoubt that was near, and in working order.

Gloria, not having the experience of the one-eyed warrior, was a little slower on the uptake, and she quizzed Mildred. "You mean the old ones of legend may have done this, and that we may finally be nearing them?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly," Mildred replied, choosing her words carefully, "but it is highly possible that a fully equipped surgery is relatively near, which would suggest a redoubt or installation of some kind-" she noted the blank look from the warrior queen and clarified "-a secret site, as you call it. Perhaps even the one we're all searching for."

Gloria's eyes lit up. "Could it be that finally, after all this time, we're within sight of our goal?"

Krysty spoke gently. "Don't get too excited yet. It could just be another marker on the way."

"When such wonders are being performed as to make stickies smart?" Gloria shook her head, her flaming hair swaying gently around her finely boned features. "Na, na, na, this is the place. We are finally near."

"So need be triple red," Jak blurted, finally speaking. All through the exchanges, he had been staring at Gloria, trying to reconcile reality with his mat-trans dream. If it was a doomie precognition, then he needed to get clear in his own head exactly what it all meant. But seeing the beautiful woman of his dream standing before him as flesh was perplexing. He had been frozen until one thought had stabbed through into his brain, one thought that saw his instincts for danger show through even the deepest confusion.

All turned to look at him, but it was Gloria who spoke first, in a voice that was edged both with concern and fascination.

"Why would that be, honey?" she whispered, as though he were a frightened child.

Jak looked directly at her. There was no recognition in her eyes, but something else-a light that he couldn't define.

He spoke slowly. "Remember whitecoat things from past. Always like watch experiments. How they know where stickies go out here? Also remember hunting herds, stalk for long time before go for kill. Mebbe..."

Doc smote his forehead with the palm of his free hand, the knuckles of the other turning white as he gripped the silver lion's-head cane.

"By the Three Kennedys! How could I have been so stupid as to not see it! The lad is, of course, right."

"Right about what, Doc?" Ryan questioned with an urgency in his voice. An agitated Doc was always inclined to take the long way around to the point, and yet the very fact that he was agitated suggested that there was little time for a long ramble through Doc's mind.

"My dear Ryan, let me take you back to the early days of my youth, when I attempted to study the migratory and hunting patterns of small mammals near my home in the beautiful hamlet of South Strafford, in what we used to call Vermont in those halcyon days-"

"Skip the travelog, Doc," Mildred snapped.

The old man shook his head as though to clear it. "Of course, of course. I apologize for my distress. It is just that I feel like a fool for not seeing it before. I used to tag animals of different species and then follow them, to see where they went. I could always spot them by the tag."

"I don't get it, Doc. What's this got to do with the stickies?" Dean asked in a puzzled tone.

"Simply this, young Cawdor-the stickies have been altered and then released. Why, if not to track them and see what they do?"

"Fireblast! In which case they'll be marked in some way, and whoever performed the surgery will be out for them soon enough," Ryan finished.

The warrior queen had been listening intently to them, all the while keeping one of her piercing blue eyes on the albino. Although some of their speech had pa.s.sed her by, she had grasped the gist of it and said hurriedly, "If we're under threat here, then we move now and get back to camp. That's far enough away to give us time and shelter, and we have numbers there."

Ryan nodded. "That's good, but it doesn't account for what you want to do with us. We coming with you or making our own way?"

Gloria flashed him a smile that showed strong white teeth that reflected the sparkle in her wild eyes. "I thought that was settled, sugar. You come with us and we look together. I'm not leaving you behind now."

Both Krysty and Mildred noticed that the woman's eyes strayed to Jak when she spoke the latter sentence.

"Then we can relax and get the h.e.l.l out?" Ryan asked.

"What are you waiting for, sweets?" Gloria said before turning to her warriors and speaking once more in the singsong "eh-la, eh-la" chant that was obviously a signal.

This time there was a different intonation to the chant, an emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first, and it was this that gave the cue for the warrior women of the Gate to holster their blasters in the small leather pouches they kept in the small of their backs.

Jak looked across at Ryan, who was puzzled by the expression on the albino's face. There was something there that Ryan couldn't recall having ever been part of Jak Lauren in all the time that he had known and fought with him. It wasn't fear, neither was it apprehension. It was something that fell into the gray area between the two.

Jak recognized the question in Ryan's steely blue eye. "Why go with them?" he asked simply.

"Makes sense," Ryan replied carefully, aware that Gloria could hear every word.

"Better on own. Something go wrong when people strange."

"Mebbe. But mebbe not this time," Ryan said guardedly. "This could help both of us, and this is land where we may need help."

"Better on own," Jak said hoa.r.s.ely with an agitated shake of his head.

"You've got nothing to fear from us, honey," Gloria said softly, aware that she was intruding but feeling it was important to make her point.

Jak fixed her with his glowing red orbs. "Not you. Something beyond. Not to

trust anyone...anything. Can't explain, but-"

"You a doomie?" Gloria asked him.

Jak gave a curt head shake. "No, but had strangest feeling."

"I know there's been something-something you haven't been able to talk

about," Ryan said quietly, "but this is necessary for both of us. We go with them, and that's final."

Jak shrugged.

Gloria smiled at him. "We're not that frightening, sweetie. And we've got this far in one piece."

Mildred was once more aware of the way Gloria regarded Jak before she turned to her warriors and snapped her fingers twice.

With an understanding that could only have been born of traveling and hunting for so long, the group that had been covering the companions dispersed into the veld and the surrounding bush, while Gloria raised a hand to stay Ryan and his people when they made to move. She waited, with her head raised and a distant look in her eyes. Her nose quivered gently at its upturned tip as she sniffed the early evening air.

From the distance came the sound of whistles, differing in pitch and length. Jak could tell that they came from five different mouths, and from an equally differing number of locations. Each whistle told Gloria something that she needed to know, and when the last whistle had died away on the darkening air, she nodded her approval.

"Okay, we can move out now. Follow me, and stay together."

"I think we've got some idea what to do," J.B. murmured laconically to Mildred as he watched the warrior queen stride out onto the veld, hair swaying in time with her hips. She made no attempt to stealth, so confident in the abilities of her scouts that she felt no danger.

Mildred turned to the Armorer. "I feel as diffident about this as you, John, but we'll just have to go with it for now."

The Armorer nodded. "Ryan's right to go with it right now. I just wish we knew more about them."

The party left the confines of the charnel house clearing and entered the veld, strung out in a line behind Gloria. As soon as they were out into the open, the atmosphere lightened. They were clear of the stench of death and the oppressive enclave of trees. The veld itself was a beautiful sight by the light of the setting sun, the last rays of the day stretching fingers of opaque orange light across the gra.s.sland. They were walking directly into the sun as it sunk beneath the horizon, and the warrior queen was outlined in silhouette, a shadow fanning out behind her to cover the first two of the party that followed-Jak being in the lead, as he had still been at the head following the initial exit from the forest.

Mildred found a strange significance in the fact that the albino was absorbed by the shadow of the woman, and she headed toward Krysty, catching up to her.

"Is it me, or have you noticed the way that Gloria keeps looking at.Jak?" she whispered into her friend's ear.

"Yeah, and that could cause us problems, right?"

"If you're thinking what I am, then it surely could," Mildred replied. "I don't know what the h.e.l.l is bugging Jak, but it has to do with whatever happened in the mat-trans jump, and somehow he thinks it involves Gloria. Because he sure as s.h.i.t hasn't been looking at her the way she's been looking at him."

"Right," Krysty agreed, "and if she comes on to him and he freaks, then that could really put us right in the s.h.i.t. Which is exactly what we don't need right now."

"So you think someone should mention this to Ryan? Just in case he hasn't noticed..."

"I'll talk to him about it when we're alone. He knows something's up, but whether he's picked up on this aspect..." She tailed off, before adding, "Well, he'll know soon enough."

IT WAS an uneventful trek across the veld. As they continued along the trail, the light faded slowly into twilight, and the temperature dropped. The hum of insects decreased in the night air, and the companions followed Gloria across the plain.

The woman walked at a steady pace, seemingly untroubled by the possibility of any attack from man or beast as darkness fell, her trust in her tribe sisters total and born of long experience and the natural arrogance of one born and bred to lead. It was reflected in the lazy hip sway of her walk, which Ryan realized was deceptive when he looked back over the territory they had covered.

As they traversed the plain, the warriors of the tribe who had dispersed to scout the territory a.s.sembled around their queen, forming a party that flanked the companions, offering them protection but also-if looked at it in a certain light- hemming them in.

Both Ryan and J.B. noted, with admiration and also for future reference, that the female warriors seemed to glide across the veld and slip in and out of the shadows, seeming to join up with the main party as though from the very air itself. They were obviously well trained and possessed a natural grace that had become a tribal trait through sheer necessity and survival over the years.

Margia, the blond armorer of the tribe, was the last to join, appearing from the shadow of a nearby outcrop and falling into step beside Doc.

"Madam, may I congratulate you on your companions' ability to deceive in the darkness," the old man murmured with an inclination of his head.

Margia chuckled. "You're a strange man, old one. You make me laugh, and I like that. It's going to be good to have you around. Most men are dullards and are only useful as packhorse or for stud."

"I fear that both functions may find me past my best," Doc commented.

Margia chuckled once more, a harsh, throaty sound that echoed across the plain, its resonance making it carry more than its volume.

Gloria looked over her shoulder. "Shut it, Marg," she snapped. Then she caught Jak's eyes as he studied her from behind.

Her tone softened as she said to him, "Whatever's worrying you, sweets, don't think about it until we reach camp."

Jak looked away without answering.

They continued in silence for another twenty minutes before they came within sight of a clump of trees. It was a smaller wooded area than the forest the companions had traversed earlier in the day, and barely visible in the darkening sky were small tendrils of smoke from a campfire.

Gloria tsked. "Stupidworks men. They never learn, never. The only safety is in invisibility."

"What do you expect?" Margia murmured. "Only good for two things."

"Don't be too harsh," added the tall tribe member with the auburn curls, her voice fluting and melodious against the harsher tones of the blond armorer. "Petor and Jon are in trust with the fires, and they're still only boys."

"Tell that to us when we have our b.a.s.t.a.r.d throats cut," Margia rejoined.

"Enough," Gloria snapped as they approached the woods. "I'll deal with it soon enough. Best just to get home first."

They had reached the edge of the woods, and the warrior queen gave a sharp whistle that pitched up in tone toward the end of its duration. As it died away on the night air, two women appeared to materialize from the shadows, leaving their posts to acknowledge the return of their queen.

As the companions entered the wood and the relative safety of the Gate camp, each wondered in turn what they would find there.

Chapter Six.