“Wait a minute,” said Wennda. “We learned a lot of—”
“Tell the commander, not me,” he said. “I’m just doing my job. Which I wouldn’t have to do if you’d done yours.” He held up a hand to stop her reply. “Your weapons,” he said. He glanced at the crew. “Everybody’s weapons.”
Farley stepped forward. “Captain Joseph Farley, United States Army Air Force,” he said. And waited.
The man frowned. “I don’t know what most of that means,” he said. “I’m Grobe. I’m a lieutenant.”
“Well, lieutenant,” said Farley. “My crew aren’t part of any unauthorized mission, and we aren’t anybody’s prisoners. This woman offered us shelter in your city. One of my men is badly wounded, and we need to get him to a doctor fast.”
Grobe glanced at Wennda. “She doesn’t have the authority to make that offer,” he said. “As I said, she’s acting without permission here.”
Farley felt detached from the whole scene, as if watching it in a movie theater. His heart wasn’t even beating faster. He genuinely had no feeling for what was about to happen. “So you think we’re your prisoners?” he asked.
Grobe hesitated. He looked back at one of his own team. “We’ll sort that out when we get back,” he said. “Meantime—”
“Meantime nothing. Do you think we’re prisoners or don’t you? I have a vested interest in your answer.” He drew his sidearm. “So do you.”
Farley didn’t have to look to know that his crew had followed suit. He knew exactly where Garrett was standing with the .30-cal leveled, because all four of the new team were staring at it. Their own weapons were readied, but their bearers were uncertain.
“That weapon you’re all looking at is a Browning M1919 machine gun,” said Farley. “It fires four hundred thirty-caliber rounds a minute, and it will turn you into something a cat wouldn’t eat. Now I’ll ask you one more time: Are we prisoners, or are we guests?”
Wennda stepped closer to Farley. She held both hands palm-up, her weapon hanging freely from its sling. “Please,” she said. “Put down your weapons.”
“Not on your life,” said Farley.
“Please. This is all a misunderstanding. It’ll be cleared up when I make my report.”
“No offense, toots,” said Broben, “but what I just heard sounded like you were gonna end up in the joint.”
She looked at Farley. “You’ve trusted me this far,” she said. She turned to Grobe with her hands out and slowly went to one knee. She brought her gunstrap over her head and set her weapon on the ground, then rose and stepped back from it. “Arshall,” she said. “Sten.”
Arshall and Sten scowled but removed their weapons. Two of Grobe’s team came forward and collected them. They looked apologetic about it and Farley realized that they all knew each other.
“Now you,” Grobe told Farley.
“Pound sand.”
The two men regarded each other from behind their weapons.
“Grobe,” said Wennda, “your orders cover the four of us, not these men. They aren’t the enemy and they weren’t on my mission. Please lower your guns.” She turned to Farley. “Tell your men to holster their weapons,” she said. “Nobody wants to shoot anybody here.”
It made Farley angry that he believed her just because he already knew her face. What had that belief gotten them into?
He did not look away from Grobe as he lifted his shoulder-holster strap and slid his pistol in. Grobe looked like he wanted to argue about it some more, but he lowered his weapon and nodded.
“Stand down,” Farley ordered. He smiled at Grobe and indicated the wasteland ahead. “After you,” he said.
Grobe nodded uncertainly. He gestured to his squad and they took up positions in a diamond around the group. The woman in their party, short and dark-haired, shrugged at Arshall. Arshall shrugged back. Then he and Sten picked up Francis and the seventeen of them set out.
Farley walked beside Wennda. He had a lot he wanted to say but she was clearly occupied with her own problems.
Grobe nodded silently as Wennda and Farley caught up to him. After a moment he looked past Wennda at Farley. “What’s a cat?” he asked
TWELVE
Farley had assumed they would head into another fissure, where there would be another fish-tank city. Instead they made their way up a gradual rise of dark stone smooth as poured concrete ramping toward the crater wall. There was a cluster of enormous bulges up the rise half a mile ahead where stone floor met sheer cliff. Smooth and round and the same color as the ground on which they walked. The largest of these was at least a hundred feet wide. Like balls dropped by some careless child god, fallen to embed here in this ruined place.
Wennda and her group bucked up at the sight of them. Farley figured they must be close to home.
They rounded the largest of the seemingly embedded spheres until they reached its juncture with the crater wall. Here a dark recess led into the rock, irregular in shape, ten feet high by ten wide. The entrance blended with the shadow that usually obtained along the crater rim, and looked like a natural formation when it could be discerned at all.
The group was ushered into this space. Wennda and her crew didn’t look especially worried, so Farley stepped in and closed his eyes to help them adjust more quickly. The party stumbled against one another. The flat reverberations of their voices and footsteps told Farley that the space was long and narrow.
“Gee, the world’s cheapest Tunnel of Love,” said Shorty.
From ahead came a sound like a huge sigh. A warm breeze blew by as if a sleeping giant had breathed across them. Farley thought of Odysseus and his crew in the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops.
A small bright light shone from what Farley had assumed was a watch on Grobe’s wrist. It revealed what looked like a door to a bank vault. Beside it was a black glass plate. Grobe shone the wrist light on the panel and drew a pattern on the dark glass with his right index finger. A green square lit up on the plate and Grobe pressed his hand against it. A dull clack reverberated. Grobe glanced back at Wennda and pulled open the door. The inner side was heavily gasketed, several inches thick, and set with a wheel crank in the center.
Grobe and Wennda stepped through and cold blue light flickered on. Farley stopped short in the hatchway. Lighted ceiling panels showed a large bare metal room. On the opposite wall was a door like a heavy battleship hatch, with another black glass panel beside it.
Someone bumped into Farley from behind. He glanced back.
“What’s cooking?” Broben asked.
“Keep them back,” Farley told him. He put his hand on his pistol and looked at Grobe and Wennda. “What’s the purpose of this room?” he asked.
Wennda glanced at Farley’s hand on his sidearm. “It’s an airlock,” she said.
“Airlock.”
“The Dome’s a positive-pressure environment,” she said. “Air pressure inside is higher than outside. It lowers our exposure. We can’t have invasive insects or weeds or diseases.”
“Show me.”
“Everyone has to be inside first,” said Grobe.
Farley shook his head. “You, me, and her.”
“There’s no reason to. Just bring your men inside and—”
“Just do it,” Wennda told Grobe. “Clearly he’s figured out our plan to flatten his men with our evil smashy ceiling.”
Grobe frowned at her, but relented. “They can only throw you in the reverter once,” he said.
Farley leaned back into the hatchway. “If I’m not in here when they open up again,” he told Broben, “do what you have to do to get out of here.”