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girls." He sniggered. "Husbands."
"Yeah," Trader said. "Only trouble is, it seems like we're widowers and not
husbands."
"Didn't need to tell him that," Ryan chided. "Makes it harder."
"Who cares? Lot of times you find that hardest is realty easiest, Ryan."
Torrance had placed his piece of chicken and glass of wine on a long table in the
hallway. He pulled the mask on over his head. "What're you saying?" he asked.
The smoke was thickening. Ryan was aware that the cavernous lobby of
Hightower was rapidly becoming deserted. Once it became obvious that a ship
was doomed to sink, the rats wouldn't want to hang around.
"Let's get the blasters and hit the trail, Trader."
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The bizarre figure with the cockerel's head moved to block their path. Torrance's
voice was muffled and weak, barely audible. "You said about widowers. What's
that mean?"
"Nothing," Ryan said.
"Tell me."
"We don't have time." Trader leveled his blaster and shot the baron once through
the upper part of the mask, between the decorated eyeholes.
The man took three halting steps backward, arms flailing for balance. Blood
flooded into the mask and began to drip through the ornamental holes at the end of
the golden beak, pattering on the dusty wooden floor.
Trader headed past the tottering corpse, into the musty stench of the late Baron
Torrance's quarters. "There." He pointed to the Armalite, the SIG-Sauer, the Steyr
and an assortment of glinting steel blades, including Ryan's own favorite panga.
Above them they heard the deep rumble of shifting timber and crumbling walls, a
sensation that felt as though it vibrated through the marrow of their bones.
"House is falling," Ryan said. "Beaten men come into their own."
Trader grabbed his Armalite, quickly checking the action. He stopped and looked
around at his colleague. "What does that mean?"
Ryan grinned. "Don't know. Something I heard Doc say a couple of times."
"Sounds like a real triple-stupe old fuckhead."
There wasn't time to argue about it.
As they ran out of the main doors, past the sprawled body of the baron, the entire
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building seemed to be dying. Glass was breaking, and someone yelled for help.
They could see the fiery glow of flames above them, and the lobby was thick with
almost impenetrable smoke.
They paused for a moment, unchallenged, in the fresher air outside. Suddenly a
land wag loomed out of the haze, with J.B. hanging on outside.
"Going our way?" the Armorer called.
Chapter Thirty-One
"Young Jak Lauren told me that this should be my destination. He says it is
known as Bearclaw Lake."
"It's lovely." Sukie had been leading Judas and she stopped, one arm draped
around the neck of the mule.
Her easy relationship with the murderous and untrustworthy animal was
something that puzzled Doc. He felt vaguely aggrieved that the woman was so
good with the vicious beast.
But that was about the only problem that he had with her. The past three days
together had been among the happiest of his life. Doc quickly made a mental edit.
The happiest since the white-coats had trawled him.
They had been content to talk and equally content to be quiet together. And the
lovemaking had made Doc feel& well, nearly two hundred years younger.
"What're you smiling at?"
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He jumped. "So sorry, my dear. My thoughts were such a long way off."
"Looked happy, Doc. Not to say a bit rude. You were leering into the distance like
a bull who just spotted two hundred cows ready and waiting."
"No, no, Sukie. Not that sort of thought. Just that this is such a peaceful place."
He hadn't yet told the woman about his past. He feared that the idea of where he
really came from would convince Sukie that he was either a stupe liar or a triple-
stupe madman. Either way, it didn't seem like a good thing to do.
Not yet.
Soon, but not yet.
THE LAKE WAS AS CLEAR as the finest crystal, about two hundred paces
across. It was surrounded by a bowl of low hills, dotted with clumps of young
pines. There were also the blackened stumps of hundreds of dead trees, evidence
of a major fire within the past ten or fifteen years.
Judas browsed contentedly among the bright grass along the edge of the water,
tethered to a feathery tamarisk. Sukie sat on a long, flat boulder, her white blouse
opened so low that Doc could see the dark rings of her nipples. The knife wound
had almost healed. Her turquoise necklace glinted in the brightness of the morning
sunshine.
Doc lay at her side, his head resting against the warm sandstone.
"This paradise, Doc?"
"Better than the Garden of Eden, Sukie. I haven't seen any serpents crawling
around to spoil things."
"You know so much, Doc. About books and poetry and stuff like that."
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