Chapter One

      Ryan Cawdor opened his eye, then closed it quickly as a blinding jolt of pain lanced through his skull. He half rose to his feet, then sank back to the floor, dizzy. Bastard jumps always took a toll.

      The mat-trans jump was over, and, as usual, he and his companions lay on the floor of the chamber, trying to gather their wits and keep the remnants of their last meal in their stomachs.

      After a few minutes, Ryan tried opening his eye again. The pain was still there, but had now settled into a dull throb that he could handle.

      “My word,” Doc Tanner said, removing his swallow’s-eye kerchief from a pocket of his frock coat and wiping away a trickle of blood that had seeped from his nose, “it never ceases to amaze me how utterly incapacitating these jaunts of ours can be.”

      “Still able talk,” Jak Lauren commented, lifting his right hand and moving his fingers in a motion meant to simulate Doc’s flapping gums. Jak hadn’t fared as well. The front of the young albino’s tan T-shirt was stained with vomit that had leaked out the corners of his mouth. He tried to clean himself up with a few wipes of his sleeve, but all that did was spread the mess around.

      Ryan’s son, Dean, had fared better than the others. He looked a bit dizzy, but was already able to stand. J. B. Dix sat with his back against one of the chamber’s walls. He’d lifted his head and had his eyes tightly closed as if he were in pain. He was struggling to catch his breath.

      “You all right, J.B.?” asked Ryan.

      The Armorer shook his head as he removed his wire-rimmed glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on. “Had a nightmare. I was alone in a forest somewhere. As I walked along a path, I was confronted by a huge mutie.”

      “Chill it?” Jak asked.

      “No, that’s the thing. It approached me and I leveled my blaster and squeezed the trigger…but the scattergun didn’t fire. I tried it again and again, but nothing. The creature kept coming, but the blaster wouldn’t fire. Dark night! Didn’t know what was wrong with it because I’d just finished stripping and cleaning it in my dream. So there I was, pointing a dead blaster at a mutie just itching to chill me.”

      “And did it?” Mildred Wyeth asked.

      “Tore me to pieces with a set of talons as long and sharp as my Tekna. And I couldn’t even wake up. Hurt like hell.”

      Ryan looked at Mildred, wondering if the dream meant anything.

      “Performance anxiety,” Mildred stated.

      “What? I don’t have any problems with that.”

      “No, I don’t mean sexual performance, John,” Mildred chided. “Our lives often depend on your knowledge. My guess is that lurking somewhere in your subconscious you have a fear that at some point, when it matters most, you’ll let one of us down.”

      “But I was the one who was chilled.”

      “Yeah, and that’s probably the way you’d want it to happen if it ever did.”

      “Not worry,” Jak said, putting a hand on J.B.’s shoulder. “Not let us down.”

      “Thanks.”

      The few moments Mildred had spent analyzing J.B.’s dream had done wonders to revitalize the group. Krysty Wroth was showing signs of coming around, and the rest of the companions were on their feet but still pretty groggy.

      “I suspect,” Doc said, tapping the silver lion’s-head handle of his swordstick against the walls of the chamber, “that this mat-trans is not constructed of armaglass as is customary.”

      Ryan raised his arm and pounded the butt of his SIG-Sauer against one of the dark charcoal-gray walls. Instead of the familiar tink of reinforced glass, his ears were met with the sound of a dull, hard thud. “Concrete,” he stated.

      “Not only that, but look at the LD button,” J.B. suggested.

      Ryan scanned the walls, realizing that this chamber wasn’t equipped with a Last Destination button. “There is no button,” he said.

      “What does that mean?” Mildred asked.

      “Not