"I guess we want to go up." Ryan was feeling better, but his original desire for a hot bath, food and a bed

was still there. His wet clothes had virtually dried on him, with a faint smell of mold.

"Want to come back onto the point?" J.B. asked, gesturing to Ryan with the Uzi.

"No. You stay there. 'Better' isn't the same as 'well.' Everyone keep alert."

The Armorer reached out and pressed the silver arrow that pointed upward.

Nothing happened.

"How do we know we want to go up?" Mildred asked, smiling nervously as everyone turned to look at

her. "Well, it's just a question. How do we know the gateway isn't at the top of the redoubt instead of at

the bottom?"

"Because they've almost always been at the lowest level," J.B. replied, his glasses flashing in the stark neon light. "Security, I guess."

"Why not press 'down,' just in case," Ryan suggested.

J.B. did, but nothing happened.

"All right," Mildred said. "All right. Just a thought, that's all."

"Force the doors," Abe offered.

"Agreed," Trader said loudly. "Over, under, around or through. Let's go through."

" Wait!" Ryan had to shout to stop Trader and Abe from ramming against the locked doors of the elevator.

"Why the fuck not?"

"Take it easy, Trader. Might be we'll try breaking them down. Best to stand off and think a little first.

Could easily be the controls have jammed up."

The older man shook his head, turning away and farting noisily. Sniggering at his own wit, he said, "Let's have a thinking, stinking time?"

"If you work real hard, Trader, for a few years," Mildred said, "I reckon you might eventually be able to

become a pure half-wit."

The insult simply made him laugh longer and louder.

During the exchange, J.B. had been working patiently at the elevator controls.

"Got it," he called. "I can hear machinery." He placed his hand flat on the mat-finish metal door. "Yeah, I

can feel the vibration of it."

"Double red," Ryan said into the sudden stillness. "Get ready for when the doors open."

They fanned out into a half circle, each gripping his or her favored weapon. A white strip above the door

was lighted from behind, a maroon pointer showed the progress of the car toward them.

"Over halfway," Dean said.

"Three-quarters," Doc stated.

"No more talk," Ryan warned. "Don't want to give any warning that we're here."

The pointer slowed as the elevator neared the bottom of the steep shaft. Ryan had been counting, and he

calculated that it had to be around one hundred and fifty feet to the top.

There was a faint but audible jolting noise as the car finally stopped.

Nothing happened for several long moments.

Ryan took a quick look at the faces of his companions.

Krysty's green eyes were blazing, her hair tightly knotted at the back of her neck.

Mildred stood in the classic pistol-shooter's pose, right arm extended, both eyes open, the 6-shot ZKR 551

as steady as a rock.

Trader chose to kneel to make himself a smaller target for whatever might emerge, the Armalite braced at his right shoulder, finger on the trigger.

Abe was beside him, also crouching, the overhead lights glittering off the polished metal of the .357 Colt Python.

Jak Lauren had an almost identical weapon, but with a satin finish, held down at his side. He looked relaxed and almost disinterested, but Ryan knew that the albino teenager's reflexes would bring the blaster up ready for shooting at the first moment of need.

Dean, standing by Jak, legs apart, held his Browning Hi-Power in both hands, as the Armorer had shown him, his dark eyes fixed on the large sec door of the elevator.

Doc looked like an illustration out of a predark book on the history and etiquette of the duello. He stood sideways, squinting down the barrel of the Le Mat, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

J.B. had chosen the M-4000 Smith amp; Wesson scattergun, carrying its lethal load of 12-gauge flechettes, the tiny inch-long darts that would star out and rip anyone within range to bloody tetters of skin and flesh.

Everyone was ready.

There was a hiss of hydraulics, and the heavy door began to slide back.

Ryan lifted the SIG-Sauer, taking up the first pressure on the trigger.

Chapter Six.

"Empty," Abe breathed, the obvious relief in his voice setting off a round of slightly nervous laughter from the nine friends.

The door had hissed back to reveal a rectangular metal box. Its sides were completely smooth, unmarked by scratches or graffiti. It squatted at the bottom of its shaft, gently throbbing and humming. Ryan wasn't possessed of a particularly vivid imagination, but it crossed his mind that the elevator was strangely like a patient animal, waiting for someone to step innocently into its maw.

J.B. looked back at Ryan, waiting for him to give the word for them to get in.

"Sure. Let's go, people. Still on double red."

They crowded in. There was the faint smell of machine oil and warm metal. Trader was nearest to the

controls, and he pressed the button to close the doors, following it with the single control that should take the car up to the higher level.

The door slid smoothly shut and, after a moment's pause, the elevator began to rise steadily.

"Hate this feeling," Dean said.

"Like your brain's falling through your asshole." Abe cackled at his own joke.

"Near the top," warned J.B., who'd been watching the indicator.

Ryan had lost concentration, staring blankly at the steel wall in front of him. The Armorer's words jerked him back to reality and to the ever-present menace. With that came the awareness of just how exhausted he was.

Trader used to say that being tired was equal with triple danger.

The elevator came to a smooth halt. "Hosiery, children's toys, saddlery, fine china and everything for the bride-to-be," Doc said in a singsong voice. "Let the ladies out first."

Ryan ignored him. "Here we go. Open the door, Trader."

It wasn't like the main sec doors where you could stop and start them in any position you wanted. Once

the elevator door started to open, it would go all the way.

Ryan felt his skin crawl. It was difficult to imagine a more vulnerable situation. If there was an enemy outside, armed with blasters, then they could fill the car with lead and blood.

There was nobody there, only an open space, about thirty feet across, with a single corridor opening off it.

"Think we should put a guard on this elevator?" Trader asked, "in case we need it in a hurry?"

Before answering him, Ryan turned to Krysty. "You feel anything, lover?"

"No. Place is dead as granite."

Ryan looked at Trader. "There's the answer. No need. We'll just take a look around and see if anything got left behind when they pulled out of here."

Not that he expected anything.

Most redoubts were stripped clean either just before or just after skydark.