"You can't," Pat said positively. "You're too big to lift. But I'm not. If you guys give me a hand I think I can make it to the top."
It turned out that, indeed, she could-not easily, and not without a couple of near misses that threatened to drop her to the floor. But she did it. Stepped from Jimmy Lin's crouching back to Martin's hunkered-down shoulders. Braced herself with her palms against the cabinets as the general slowly rose. Got her arms across the top of the cabinets and, with both men pushing from beneath, scrambled on.
Patsy heard a faint sound of crunching as Pat got to her feet, examining the legs of her slacks. "It's a mess up here," she reported, panting. "There's scratchy stuff all over, like spun glass, but not that hard; there are big balls of it on some of the tops, but a lot is just broken into powder."
"I think that might be what I saw before," Rosaleen called. "Is it orange? And luminous?"
"Orange, yes. Luminous, no." Pat raised herself on tiptoe, shading her eyes to gaze in the direction the others had gone. "No sign of Dan. I can see where the smoke's coming from, though; it's a fire-I can see the flames-but not very big, and a long way off. And around in the other direction"-as she turned-"there's-hey! There's sunlight! Real sunlight, I'd bet a million dollars on it, and-oh, my God-trees!"
"Trees?"
Patsy couldn't say which of them had incredulously repeated the word-maybe it was all of them-but Pat was positive. "You damn bet they're trees, and not too far away, either. Closer than the fire." She appeared at the edge of the cabinet, peering down. "Do you think some of us should go take a look?"
"No," said Rosaleen firmly. "Not now. Wait till Dan comes back." Because, she didn't say, Dan was the only one of them who seemed to have an actual plan-or, Patsy thought, if not a real flan, at least the determination to keep trying to find things that would be useful to them.
And then she thought what it would be like if Dan didn't get back, and shuddered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Patsy
It was foolishness, Patsy scolded herself-yes, and it was gender treason as well-to allow herself to feel so lost simply because Dan Dannerman was away.
It was also embarrassing, because the other women in the party were clearly not as troubled about it as she. All three of them were asleep, even Pat, while Jimmy was morosely poking at the machine that looked like a two-humped camel, just outside the cell boundaries. (Poor Jimmy, she thought, almost sympathetically; he was taking the loss of the helmet hard. But of course it had had more to offer him than anyone else.) Martin was flat on his back, hands locked behind his head, open eyes regarding their tattered ceiling with incurious distaste. Once more he had positioned himself next to the sleeping Rosaleen. At least, Patsy was grateful to him for that; if freedom was an unexpected challenge for all of them, it was a challenge that could hardly be met for Rosaleen Artzybachova. The old lady couldn't move without wincing. Taking part in any exploration was out of the question for her; the ancient body wasn't up to it.
But Patsy's body was, and she was too restless to sit still. "I'm going to look around," she called to Martin, keeping her voice low.
But not low enough. Martin didn't answer but Rosaleen did. "Be careful," she said, not opening her eyes. "Yell if you need us." And what, Patsy asked herself, could a couple of unarmed men and three equally unarmed women, one of them frail and old, do if she should really need help? As well she might, in this baffling combat zone.
That was a thought that should have been frightening. Oddly, she wasn't particularly frightened. Oh, there was a lot of fear, even something not too remote from panic, that sat there at the back of her mind, ready to appear if something startled her, but curiosity outweighed the fear. Everything she saw was a new mystery-not one that she could hope to solve, no, but something to wonder at. That smoke that drifted overhead, sometimes pale, sometimes inky black and stinking with some foul chemical odor. The machines all around-all silent, some in ruin. When she looked up, crane her neck as she would, she could get no glimpse of anything that looked like sky, only layers and layers of construction and mechanical puzzles.
The first time she saw a Doc standing motionless before her she yelped out loud. She couldn't help it.
But the creature didn't move. Its eyes were open behind the fuzzy beard, but unfocused; the half-dozen limbs were hanging loose and still. So it was with the next one she saw, a moment later. It was alive, all right. She could see an artery pulsing in the Doc's throat and it seemed to be breathing.
Patsy couldn't resist. She passed a hand before the creature's eyes, the way they said tourists used to do for the guards at places like Buckingham Palace. It didn't blink.
Patsy was almost smiling as she turned away, and that was when she saw the dead Dopey.
Oh, Jesus, she whispered to herself, staring. The body had been roughly handled. It lay in a pool of sticky dark fluid and its head had been crushed.
But it was smaller than Dopey-smaller than their Dopey, at least-and the peacock plume was far more modest: matted and discolored now, but nothing like the great fan that Dopey had worn.
That was enough for Patsy. She turned on her heel and headed back to the company of the others. Rosaleen was standing at the perimeter of the cell, leaning on the useless cooker, Martin close behind. They were both watching for her. "Yes?" Rosaleen said, and Patsy poured out everything she had seen.
"I was frightened," she finished. "I'm sorry."
"But why should you be sorry? Of course you were-" Rosaleen didn't say "scared shitless"; she was kind, and only said "startled."
"Thank you," Patsy said, and then was immediately startled again. They heard a faint chittering sound, and when she turned something very strange was coming slowly toward them. It was a round… well… a round thing, turtle-shaped, beach-ball-size. Possibly it was an animal, possibly not. Feathery fronds extended upward from the short-legged body, and clinging to the tip of each frond was a tiny creature, no bigger than a mouse. The little creatures were all peering worriedly behind them, chittering softly to each other; and Patsy was almost certain she had seen them before. That shark-toothed grin on the tiny faces surely belonged to the variety of the Seven Ugly Dwarfs called "Happy." "But I didn't think they would be so small," she said stupidly.
She had spoken softly, but the little things heard. One of the creatures turned and saw the humans staring at them. It squeaked in shrill alarm. All dozen of them turned, toothy mouths wide in fear. There was a chorus of chittering, and they turned their mount toward another corridor and galloped away out of sight in obvious panic.
"My God," Rosaleen remarked behind Patsy, crossing herself. "Patsy? Did it not seem to you that they were running away from something?"
And so it had; but it was Martin who saw what that something was and called, "It's all right. It's only Dan coming back."
In spite of everything, some little part inside of Patsy had been hoping that when Dan returned he would be bringing good news. She couldn't imagine what the good news might be. Certainly not like-like-well, like finding that Colonel duValier's expedition had got to Starlab, and found the transmitter there, and used it to ship themselves and a brigade or two of commandos here to rescue them. She hadn't really expected anything like that, but there had still been a hope that Dan would have something to report that might make things look better for the captives.
He didn't. What he had was a bundle of metal rods tucked under one arm, and a discouraging report. "Looks like somebody's dismantling this whole enterprise," he said. "I went about two or three hundred meters down one of the corridors, heading toward where the smoke was coming from. I didn't want to get too close-"