Salvation Road. James Axler

a little about medical supplies from his time with Trader. The old man had insisted that all his people know the rudiments of first aid, and there had also been a thriving trade in the few medical supplies and drugs that could be salvaged and used for barter and trade. But Mildred was the expert.

      Her plaits swinging around her face, masking her expression as she muttered to herself, Mildred sifted through the vacuum packs of drugs and dressings. Some would be of little use on the outside, and those that were for minor ailments, such as the inoculations against the flu virus, were dismissed. People had to be hardier, and there was too little space for those drugs that couldn’t be termed lifesaving. Besides, many of the smaller bugs and viruses from predark times had mutated into something that could no longer be combated by the old drug.

      The medicated dressings were always useful, and Mildred had to decide which to take on the matter of size: were they easy to stash in her jacket? Would they be too small to be of any practical use? Taking all the larger ones was no answer, as once the seal was broken they were rendered useless and no longer sterile, so it would all too easy to waste so much.

      J.B. waited patiently while Mildred made her choices and placed them carefully in the pockets and bags sewn into the coat, turning it from just a protective garment into a walking repository.

      When she had finished, Mildred looked up at the silent Armorer. “Guess this’ll be you tomorrow when you’re in the armory, right?”

      J.B. nodded. “Different thing, same purpose,” he said simply.

      RYAN DECIDED to shower before eating. Like J.B., he couldn’t face the thought of Dean and Doc in the kitchens before relaxing with a hot shower—assuming that the water-heating system was still operative.

      The one-eyed warrior made his way to the shower rooms, noting the sound of running water as he drew near. It was unlikely that Krysty would be showering under a cold stream, so he felt assured that the heating system was fine.

      Entering the communal area where Krysty’s clothes lay discarded, Ryan picked a towel from the pile that was stacked in an open cupboard space. He shook it vigorously, and a fine rain of dust was released into the air. It was an indication of the gradual failure of the air-conditioning, but was nowhere near enough for any of them to worry about.

      “Come on in, lover, the water’s fine,” Krysty called from in the shower.

      “How did you know it’s me?” Ryan replied, as he left the towel on the bench that ran around the walls and began to strip off his clothing, putting his blasters down first and unstrapping the panga from its sheath along his thigh.

      “Who else would it be?” Krysty replied with a laugh in her voice.

      “That’s a fair point,” Ryan answered as he stepped into the showers. A long stall with several showerheads supplying the hot water, some of them were partially stoppered with scale and so spluttered intermittently, while the majority sent streams of almost scalding water onto the one-eyed warrior’s leathery skin. He shuddered involuntarily as the pinpoint needles of hot water hit his aching muscles, releasing the tension within them. Steam swathed their bodies as he moved closer to Krysty.

      “Feels good to get the sweat and dirt off, doesn’t it?” she said, her mass of Titian hair plastered to her scalp by the running water, her strongly muscled but still shapely frame glistening with the wet.

      “Feels better to get the tightness out of my muscles and feel them relax,” Ryan replied, turning his face into the jet stream of one showerhead and feeling it run down his face, his good eye closed against it, the water pounding a tattoo on his eyelid. “We need this now and again. Need this respite, this chance to relax and rest up.”

      “Need it for a lot of things,” Krysty whispered, moving closer to him.

      Ryan opened his eye and found himself looking directly into Krysty’s green eyes, opening directly into her inner being.

      Ryan Cawdor was a man of action, a practical man not given to flights of fancy, but he knew that Krysty’s mutie genes gave her abilities that were beyond everyday comprehension. One of the things Ryan had read in the fragments of old texts that he was sometimes lucky enough to find was something about eyes being “windows to the soul.” It was a notion mostly too fanciful for the bleak realities of the Deathlands.

      But looking at Krysty, Ryan could believe that it was sometimes so, and that she could somehow see into him—whether he wanted her to or not.

      And right then he wanted her to.

      JAK HAD CHECKED the dorms and found an array of beds and also a supply of fresh clothing, untouched since before the nukecaust. Satisfied that they could all rest comfortably and refresh some items of clothing, he made his way back to the kitchens, his guts grumbling, reminding him that it was too long since he had last eaten.

      The four corners of the kitchens—large enough and well enough supplied to feed a full complement of personnel for an indefinite period in the event of a nukecaust—had been scoured. There was a plentiful supply of self-heats and bottled water, which would be plundered by all the companions in order to carry emergency supplies with them on a trek into the unknown. There were also other foodstuffs which, if not perishable, had a shelf life that would see them stale. Unwilling to use any of the self-heats, which were barely palatable, Doc and Dean had tried to concoct something edible from what was available to them. Neither was a particularly good cook, but between them they hoped to pull together a meal that would be both nourishing and, at least in some degree, palatable.

      Despite the fact that the meal was a bizarre stew of vacuum-packed rice, frozen vegetables of indeterminate origin and a meat substitute made presentable by a liberal use of spices and seasoning, it was good enough to keep the rest of the party happy. Even Jak, who had a propensity to complain about any food that came his way, was able to enjoy the meal.

      With the medical supplies sorted by Mildred, and the self-heats and water sorted by Dean and Doc, it just left the armory to be dealt with.

      “I’d like to get a look right now,” J.B. said, stretching, “but I figure it’d be better if I showered and slept first.”

      Mildred looked at the Armorer in amazement. “John, I never thought I’d hear you say that. Maybe I should look at you in a professional capacity.”

      “That what you call it?” Jak commented.

      At that they parted company. Jak, Dean and Doc took showers and slept. Mildred and J.B. cleaned up before locating their own private room. Ryan and Krysty had already located theirs, and took the rare opportunity to make love before sleep engulfed them.

      IT WAS MORNING when they all awoke. Although the redoubts were artificially lit and could change from day to night at the flick of a switch, the companions had their wrist chrons to help them keep track of time in the outside world. They knew it was midmorning by the time they had risen and breakfasted on the remains of the edible food left from the night before. After finishing, they made their way to the armory.

      “Need plas-ex more than anything else except spare ammo for the blasters,” J.B. commented as he punched in the sec code for the door, which opened with a purr. “But if we find any blasters that are more powerful and mebbe in better condition than ours, we should load up on what we can carry.”

      As the door opened and the extent of the armory became clear, the normally taciturn Armorer pursed his lips and blew out a low whistle.

      “Bet this hasn’t seen the light of day for a century,” he said with a touch of genuine awe in his voice as he almost crept into the room, surveying the boxes of oiled rifles, the machine blasters still cased in their constituent parts, the handblasters that hung on the walls alongside the rows of grens and the boxes of plas-ex that were stored in one corner.

      Ryan stepped into the room behind him. “I know you could spend days looking over this, but I reckon that mebbe we should get up top as soon as possible, see if we can get out and find out where the fire-blasted hell we’ve landed up this time.”

      J.B., snapped out of his reverie