TEN
The bunkroom held the ghostly aroma of ancient spices: cinnamon and clove. Jake wondered - in a distracted, back-of-the-mind way - if the tombs beneath the Pyramids had smelled this way when the first explorers had broken into them. From the upper bunk in the corner, the reclining skeleton grinned at him, as if in welcome. Feel like a nap, little trailhand? I'm taking a long one! It's ribcage shimmered with silky overlays of spiderweb, and Jake wondered in that same distracted way how many generations of spider-babies had been born in that empty cavity. On another pillow lay a jawbone, prodding a ghostly, ghastly memory from the back of the boy's mind. Once, in a world where he had died, the gunslinger had found a bone like that. And used it
The forefront of his mind pounded with two cold questions and one even colder resolve. The questions were how long it would take them to get here and whether or not they would discover his pony. If Slightman had been riding a horse of his own, Jake was sure the amiable little pony would have whinnied a greeting already. Luckily, Slightman was on foot, as he had been last time. Jake would have come on foot himself, had he known his goal was less than a mile east of the river. Of course, when he'd snuck away from the Rocking B, he hadn't even been sure that he had a goal.
The resolve was to kill both the tin-man and the flesh-and-blood man if he was discovered. If he could, that was. Andy might be tough, but those bulging blue-glass eyes looked like a weak point. If he could blind him -
There'll be water if God wills it , said the gunslinger who now always lived in his head, for good and ill. Your job now is to hide if you can. Where ?
Not in the bunks. All of them were visible in the monitor covering this room and there was no way he could impersonate a skeleton. Under one of the two bunk-stacks at the rear? Risky, but it would serve... unless...
Jake spied another door. He sprang forward, depressed the lever-handle, and pulled the door open. It was a closet, and closets made fine hiding places, but this one was filled with jumbles of dusty electronic equipment, top to bottom. Some of it fell out.
"Beans!" he whispered in a low, urgent voice. He picked up what had fallen, tossed it high and low, then shut the closet door again. Okay, it would have to be under one of the beds -
"WELCOME TO ARC QUADRANT OUTPOST 16," boomed the recorded voice. Jake flinched, and saw another door, this one to his left and standing partway open. Try the door or squeeze under one of the two tiers of bunks at the rear of the room? He had time to try one bolthole or the other, but not both. "THIS IS A MEDIUM SECURITY OUTPOST."
Jake went for the door, and it was just as well he went when he did, because Slightman didn't let the recording finish its spiel. "Ninety-nine," came his voice from the loudspeakers, and the recording thanked him.
It was another closet, this one empty except for two or three moldering shirts in one corner and a dust-caked poncho slumped on a hook. The air was almost as dusty as the poncho, and Oy uttered three fast, delicate sneezes as he padded in.
Jake dropped to one knee and put an arm around Oy's slender neck. "No more of that unless you want to get us both killed," he said. "You be quiet, Oy."
"Kiyit Oy," the bumbler whispered back, and winked. Jake reached up and pulled the door back to within two inches of shut, as it had been before. He hoped.
ELEVEN
He could hear them quite clearly - too clearly. Jake realized there were mikes and speakers all over this place. The idea did nothing for his peace of mind. Because if he and Oy could hear them ...
It was the cactuses they were talking about, or rather that Slightman was talking about. He called them boom-flurry, and wanted to know what had gotten them all fashed.
"Almost certainly more rock-cats, sai," Andy said in his complacent, slightly prissy voice. Eddie said Andy reminded him of a robot named C3PO in Star Wars , a movie to which Jake had been looking forward. He had missed it by less than a month. "It's their mating season, you know."
"Piss on that," Slightman said. "Are you telling me boom-flurry don't know rock-cats from something they can actually catch and eat? Someone's been out here, I tell you. And not long since."
A cold thought slipped into Jake's mind: had the floor of the Dogan been dusty? He'd been too busy gawking at the control panels and TV monitors to notice. If he and Oy had left tracks, those two might have noticed already. They might only be pretending to have a conversation about the cactuses while they actually crept toward the bunkroom door.
Jake took the Ruger out of the docker's clutch and held it in his right hand with his thumb on the safety.