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scratches and scrapes or dispensing medication. Over the past six months, she
had sewn up knife wounds, set broken bones and performed major reconstructive
surgery.
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To Domi, Brigid said, "Grab your gear and meet me in the ready room in two
hours."
Domi bobbed her head, working the stiffness out of her shoulder. "Gotcha."
Brigid walked toward the corridor. "I have just enough time for a swim."
DeFore called after her, "Have you seen Auer-bach?"
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"No. Why?"
"He was supposed to be on duty ten minutes ago. If you see him, tell him his
shift started without him and the doctor isn't happy about it."
Brigid walked along the passageway to the elevator and took it to the second
level. The small swimming pool had only recently been made functional again,
and she used it whenever she had the opportunity.
She passed through an open area filled with weights, stationary exercise
cycles and workout mats. The pool and exercise rooms had been built to provide
the original inhabitants of Cerberus with a means of sweating off the stress
of being confined for twenty-four hours a day in the installation. After the
nukecaust, just staying alive was probably more exercise than they actually
needed.
She reached the set of double doors leading to the pool room. As she put her
hand on one of them, her ears caught the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking.
She was glad her hearing was so acute and so saved her from barging right in,
but she felt a flash of an-
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JAMES AXLER
noyance, too. The pool was a community area, and everyone in the redoubt had
private quarters.
Brigid began to step back when she heard a female's voice, high with passion,
giving instructions. Since she had just left the other two women of the
redoubt, only Rouch was unaccounted for. And so was
Auerbach.
Feeling like six different varieties of voyeur, Brigid inched the door open
and peered into the dimly lit, bowl-shaped room. Auerbach lay on his back at
poolside. Rouch sat astraddle him, riding him roughly, face a mask of
determination. Grunting, Auerbach writhed beneath her.
Brigid backed away, letting the door close quietly. In that brief half second,
Rouch looked up and stared directly into her face. Her dark eyes glittered not
with lust, but defiance, and the smile crossing her sensual mouth was one of
pure malice.
Chapter 15
As in all the fortress cities, a narrow roadbed of crushed gravel led up to
Ragnarville's main gate. The first checkpoint station was a small
concrete-block cupola, manned only by a single guard in the pearl gray duty
uniform of the Magistrates, but without a badge. He was young, perhaps
fourteen, which both
Grant and Kane knew he would be.
Traditionally, the guards posted at the outer perimeter were the most recent,
unbadged recruits. It was scut work, delegated to the greenest of the green.
Grant didn't brake the Sandcat as it rumbled toward the striped wooden
barrier; he only let up his foot's pressure on the gas pedal, slowing it just
enough to give the guard time to get out of the cupola.
He peered through the wag's fore ob port, saw the pair of armored, helmeted
men and hastily raised the barricade before the nose of the Cat rammed it.
Kane gave the young man a cold nod as they passed by him, and the guard
returned it with a deferential nod of his own.
Kane wasn't comforted by the ease of their passage. Neither was Grant. He
tightened his hands on
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the horseshoe-shaped steering wheel and said darkly, "The next one won't be as
easy, I hope you know."
Kane knew and so didn't respond. They had been waved through three frontier
checkpoints without being questioned, but that wouldn't happen at the main
gate a quarter of a mile up the road.
Massive, pyramid-shaped "dragon's teeth" obstacles made of reinforced concrete
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lined both sides of the path. Five feet high, each one weighed in the vicinity
of a thousand pounds and was designed to break the tracks or wheels of any
assault vehicle trying to gain access.
A dozen yards before the gate, stone blockhouses bracketed either side of the
road. Within them were electrically controlled GEC Miniguns, capable of firing
6000 rounds of 5.56 mm shredders per minute. If the blasters opened up, the
Sandcat would be caught in the middle of a cross fire, with no way to turn.
Grant would have to throw the wag into reverse and back up blind.
Beyond the blockhouses, stretching the width of the road, rose a triple row of
steel girders deeply sunk in a concrete pad.
Lifting his gaze, Kane eyed the Vulcan-Phalanx gun emplacement on the wall
overlooking the checkpoint. Beyond it and above loomed the edifice of the
Administrative Monolith. His eyes narrowed.
"Look at that," he said.
"Look at what?" Grant said tensely, not wanting the distraction.
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225
"Damage to the monolith."
Grant glanced up, but he gave only a cursory inspection of the structure's
white facade. He could just make out the black-edged holes and shallow
cavities marring its smooth surface between B and A
Levels.
"Looks like it's been shelled," he noted absently.
Kane took a second, closer look. "Yeah," he agreed. "But by who and what?"
"Something else for us to find out," Grant retorted. "If we live long enough."
As the Sandcat approached the checkpoint, a guard stepped out of the
right-hand blockhouse and stood in the middle of the road. He was a badged
Mag, in full armor. In his right hand, he held a remote sensor pad. He watched
their approach, his body stance not communicating any emotion in particular.
Kane only hoped he wasn't one of the guards on duty when Brewer, Hadley and
Arnam had departed two days before.
The badges Grant and Kane had appropriated would get them through the
sensitive sensors at the checkpoint, would identify them as Ragnarville
Magistrates, but the guard might insist on a visual confirmation of their
identities in lieu of an electronic one.
The Cat rumbled through the invisible photoelectric field between the
blockhouses. The guard didn't move from his position, but he raised a languid
left arm, gesturing for them to stop. Grant applied the brake but kept the
engine running as the guard
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227
1
moved to the passenger's side, peering through the ob port at Kane. He
consulted the information transmitted from the sensors to the remote unit in
his hand.
"Hadley, Brewer," he said in a monotone. "Supposed to be three of you. Where's
Arnam?"
"Left him to stand watch," replied Kane, matching the monotone. "Barch called
us back. Some sort of emergency."
The Mag nodded in grim accord. His voice took on an animated inflection.
"That's the fuckin'
understatement of the century. You two heard?" Kane said simply, "We heard."
"More than I have, I
bet." The guard paused, obviously hoping Kane would respond to the overture
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and say more. Evidently, though the news of the baron's death was common
knowledge in the Magistrate Division, actual details had been soft-pedaled.
Kane said nothing more.
The guard waited, then asked, "You two get caught in that bastard storm?"
Kane hesitated before answering noncommittally, "It was a bastard one, all
right."
"No shit, no shit!" The Mag seemed eager to talk about the weather since he
had been rebuffed in his attempt to get more information about the murder of
Baron Ragnar. "Lightning, burnin' hail if it hadn't been so wet, half of
Tartarus would have gone up in smoke. Never saw anything like it. Hell, never
even heard of anything like it"
Although he would have liked to know more, Kane said matter-of-factly, "Pass
us through. We're overdue as it is."
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