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sides were smooth, but had a rough texture, shaped by the elements rather than the hands
of men. He took that as a positive. The passage appeared to narrow at times, but it
remained big enough for him to walk through as long as he minded his head.
"Even if something else did live here," Ryan said, "if we post a guard, it'll have a hard
time getting in." He dropped the self-light. "We need a place to hole up and get a few
hours' rest. This is it as far as I'm concerned. Let's go get the others. We can bring up
some wood for a fire."
Chapter Eleven
"You should be getting some sleep, Doc."
"I will in a minute, my dear Ryan. Right now I just want to look up at the heavens and see
if I recognize the constellations."
Ryan had volunteered for first watch after the others had settled in. He'd brought a
blanket to wrap up in, hoping to block some of the chill. It provided enough warmth to
feel almost comfortable, but not enough to make him relaxed enough for sleep. He sat a
dozen paces to the left of the cave mouth, where he could easily see along the way they'd
come. He kept the Steyr across his knees.
Doc carried a blanket with him, as well. It was as thin as Ryan's, and folded compactly
enough to fit in a shoe box.
Hunkering down, his knees poking up in the air on either side of him, Doc sat and gazed
at the stars with his white hair blowing around him. He pulled the blanket up to his chin.
"Morning's going to come bastard early, Doc."
"I know," the old man said in a voice that was strangely gentle. "I am excited, I suppose."
He looked at Ryan and smiled.
"With everything I have been through pardon me, we have been through I guess I had
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never really thought I would make it back here."
Ryan looked at Doc for a long minute. "We don't know you're back anywhere yet."
Doc nodded. "You may not be so certain, dear man, but I am. As you would know your
home, so do I. This, whatever may remain of her, is Britain." He pointed into the sky.
"See that group of stars by the Big Dipper? Those are Pollux and Castor, part of the group
that make up the constellation Gemini. And there, that bright one? That's Regulus, a
heavenly gem set in Leo's mane. It is always best seen in the spring. And there is
Arcturus, part of Bootes, the Herdsman. And between him and Leo is fair Virgo. Her
crown jewel is Spica. No, dear fellow, I am not imagining things."
"Even so," Ryan said, "things may not be as you remember them."
"And what, pray tell, in this land of horror upon horror, is?"
Having no answer, Ryan remained silent.
"If we are able," Doc went on, "I would like for us to find out if London still stands, if the
hand of royalty still guides her destiny. To see if God saved the Queen."
"If we can, Doc. If we can."
"CONTE."
"Sir."
"What's your situation in there, mister?" Major Drake Burroughs stared into the collapsed
tunnel. A trio of baby spotlights had been rigged up using alternate power sources. A
dusty haze obscured much of the scene, but enough clarity remained that he could see the
broken rock and buckled steel plating that blocked passage.
"The mat-trans unit's back on-line, Major," Conte replied. The radio link was tenuous
through the piles of debris, interrupted periodically by white noise.
"You'll be able to make the jump, then?"
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"Yes, sir. Turley believes so, sir."
"Your equipment, soldier?" Burroughs paced, keeping the anger in check so it wouldn't
disturb his ability to command. He was still in a rage that no one had known about
Walker's bolt hole, and worse, that no one had a clue about where it might lead.
When he'd first been given the security assignment over the White Sands R&D complex,
he'd thought the job was just a means of shelving him from the battlefield for a while.
There'd been a certain zealous General McGuire, who had accused him of taking a few
liberties with the rules of the Geneva Convention during the Bosnian action.
Then the general had dropped the charges. Before all else, Drake Burroughs had always
put his country first. His father, a career military man, had done the same. Before he'd
gone off to the battle that had claimed his life, the elder Burroughs had given his son a
hug, then stood and saluted him, saying that he was leaving the future of their country in
his hands until he returned.
Drake Burroughs had taken the assignment seriously. When the destruction had rained
down in 2001, he'd shown no hesitation about taking over the complex, then using Project
Calypso to ensure he'd be around with enough time to rebuild.
"Our equipment is in good shape, sir."
"All of you?"
"Yes, sir. We've got a few rations, but if there's a way to live off the land wherever we
end up, we'll do that."
"Until you find Ryan Cawdor and his people," Burroughs said. "Then you get your asses
back here however you can as fast as you can before I decide to declare you AWOL."
"Yes, sir. Turley says we're green at this end."
Burroughs knew he had the attention of the rest of his squad, some of whom thought he
was sending Conte and the others off to die. The future that remained open to them,
though they'd tried to prepare for the worst and had managed to see some of it on a local
level when they'd been able to hook up video links with the outside world almost thirty
years ago, had been far more disastrous than any of them could have imagined. The
stories were still coming in from the scouts that reported in irregularly, journeying past
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the limits of the radio equipment.
"Then be about your mission, soldier," Burroughs said. "And do your unit proud."
"Yes, sir."
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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