Breeding Ground Part 6

He nodded, glancing away again. "Then I will grieve for my Elinor once we're okay," he said quietly. "She would want me to make it. I know in my heart she would."

Just like Robert. Alex closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she removed the harness straps securing her in and stood up. "Then let's make sure we survive."

"What in the h.e.l.l are we gonna do?" Peac.o.c.k asked. He unstrapped himself from the harness. "This is your area, Alex. Not mine. You're the expert at exploring alien terrain."

"Hey, this isn't alien," John teased. "We're home, buddy." He stretched his hands. "Out there is our beloved Earth." He raised an eyebrow. "Or is it New France?"

"As long as it isn't f.u.c.king mutant land, I don't give two s.h.i.+ts." Peac.o.c.k's lips puckered into a frown as he rose to his feet. "I'm here to tell you I've had one h.e.l.l of a bad day. I'm in no mood to deal with a bunch of b.i.t.c.hes who belong in a sideshow carnival."

Alex found her first chuckle. She walked to the other side of the pod and checked the munitions safe. "Well, here's one good thing. We've got ten small electrical bombs, six knives, six Laser-5 guns, and enough electrical current in reserve to blow up a large city."

"Excellent." John nodded. "And according to Methuselah II, the pod has almost breached the surface of the water. Another two minutes or so. Then we decompress for another fifteen."

"And then we go out there," Vlad muttered. He exchanged a wary glance with Alex. "Wherever and whatever there is."

Alex didn't say anything to the others, but she understood why Vlad was feeling so hesitant. She had the same niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach. She turned around and faced what was left of her crew. "I want us to make a pact. Right here. Right now."

That snagged everyone's attention. John's brow furrowed. "Sure, Alex. What's going on?"

"Maybe nothing." She sighed as she twisted her long blonde curls into a tight bun at the nape of her neck.

"But maybe something." This from Peac.o.c.k. "I saw that weird look you and Vlad exchanged. I don't keep secrets from you, Al. Don't go keeping them from me."

"Okay, that I definitely don't like the sound of." John pinched the bridge of his nose. "Will one of you please enlighten me and the P-man here?"

Vlad frowned. "It's just that I keep thinking back to my undergraduate studies in Moscow."

"And?" John asked.

"And, well, a lot can happen in one hundred million years, comrades."

John raised an eyebrow.

"What Vlad is saying," Alex interrupted, "is this-if that genuinely was a nuclear explosion that rocked Earth back in the year 2792, we probably lost most, if not all, of humankind."

Vlad nodded. "In the twenty-second century, it was widely accepted by scientists that humans would probably not continue to evolve. At least not significantly." He gave them a quick lesson in biology. "Certain factors must be present for evolution to occur and chief amongst them is the necessity of having a breeding ground-s.p.a.ce to evolve. This is why it was believed that city life made the continuing evolution of the human species an improbability. When we left Earth, there was no such thing as country life anymore. The entire world was too overpopulated for it."

"Too many people, too little breeding ground," Alex confirmed.

Vlad sighed. "But if a nuclear war killed off most of humanity..."

"Then what humans did manage to survive had the breeding ground necessary for evolution to resume." Alex's gaze flicked over her men. "Only we don't yet know if any humans survived. Maybe n.o.body survived." She took a deep breath and blew it out. "Or maybe," she said softly, "it was the opposing side that managed to live. And breed."

John and Peac.o.c.k stilled.

Alex snorted. "Hence the uncomfortable glance between Vlad and me."

"So what you're saying," Peac.o.c.k asked, having regained the power of speech, "is that if those mutated motherf.u.c.kers survived and made babies..." He shook his head. "They could be even stronger and deadlier than they were one hundred million years ago?"

"We just don't know, Peac.o.c.k. We can't know until we get out there and do some looking around." Alex nodded. "Which brings me back to my original statement. I want us to make a pact."

"A pact," John mumbled. "Right." He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. "Well, let's make it then. What is it?"

Alex waited until all of the surviving crew was looking at her. "Our greatest chance of making it through whatever lies ahead is staying together. n.o.body does anything stupid, n.o.body tries to be a hero. Got it?" When all three men nodded, she continued. "We have no idea what kind of a world we're about to step off into. It could be a peaceful, wonderful place or..."

"Or it could be h.e.l.l on Earth," Peac.o.c.k muttered. "s.h.i.+t."

She inclined her head. "We just don't know," she murmured. "So let's make a pact that we stick together at all times. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's more safety in numbers." She narrowed her eyes at them, underlining her seriousness and how much thought she'd given the situation. "If for some unforeseen reason we get separated, we must promise that we will not stop searching until we're reunited or a corpse recovered. Agreed?"

They murmured their agreement, then stood there silently, n.o.body moving, as they stared at each other. A long, tense moment followed until Alex chuckled, piercing the quiet.

"There's something funny?" John inquired, a dark eyebrow raising.

She shrugged. "I'm probably being silly. I doubt anything could have survived a nuclear war as devastating as that one. Not even those mutants."

"True," Vlad slowly agreed. "Unless their genetic make-up became superhuman or something." His eyes narrowed as he considered the possibility. "But I doubt such a race could have sprung up in a single century, which was the period of time between the biological war between the USA and j.a.pan and the rise of the mutated humans." He shook his head. "I don't know what was in those weapons but I doubt it could have been so powerful as that. If the humans died off in the nuclear war that followed, then the mutants probably did as well."

Alex inclined her head. "So we're probably being overly cautious here. Heaven only knows the worst discovery we might make out there is that the four of us are it. And since I think of the three of you as brothers, I guess that would mean the human race will definitely die out in our lifetime."

The four of them had a laugh over that. Alex grinned. "Unless there are droids out there that managed to survive, I suggest getting your hands in excellent condition." She winked. "You'll be using them a lot."

"Well, this is it." Alex took a deep breath and blew it out as she glanced up at the hatch. "John's readings came back fine, so we know the air is breathable and the water is drinkable. The chemical breakdown is a bit different than it was in our day, but there's nothing harmful in either." She glanced down at the others. "Unfortunately, that's all we know. I want everybody armed, Laser-5s on full charge. Are we ready?"

"Yeah, we're ready," Peac.o.c.k confirmed as he stashed a knife into the leather strap he wore around his right thigh. "Let's do it, boss lady."

"John?"

"Ready, commander."

Alex nodded. "Open the hatch, Vlad."

Vlad muttered something in Russian under his breath as he reached for the b.u.t.ton, then translated it into English. "Here goes nothing."

The sound of decompressing air hissed throughout Methuselah II as the hatch door opened. Because the craft had been built with the intention of returning to Earth via water, a ten-person life raft made of a nearly impenetrable synthetic material automatically shot out into the waters beside the work pod and ballooned up to its full length as soon as the door to Methuselah II had been opened. Still attached to the vessel, it wouldn't leave its host until the crew was ready for it to.

Alex's heart began beating rapidly, the thrill of discovery coursing through her blood. She couldn't stop the adrenaline rush, for it was part and parcel of the exploration process. That she was about to explore the world she'd once called home made no difference. That world had died out a hundred million years ago. In its wake was a place just as alien to her and the rest of the crew as any other uncharted planet.

"Here we go," she murmured as she climbed the rest of the way up the steel ladder. She stopped just shy of going through the portal and did one last weapons check. Patting herself down, she ascertained that her belt was on securely and that it contained her share of the goodies. A Laser-5 in one loop, two electrical bombs and a.s.sorted equipment in the pouch, a knife that emitted a deadly venom upon puncture in a second loop, and a pocketknife in a third.

She put the other Laser-5, the one in her hand, on full charge, held it above her head with both hands, and quietly made her way through the hatch door. Scurrying out onto the small deck that could hold no more than two people at a time, she held the Laser-5 out as she whirled around in a circle, the lightning fast move done so she could shoot at anything in the vicinity if she needed to.

Nothing, she thought, releasing a pent-up breath as she relaxed her trigger arm. Thank goodness for that.

Alex took an investigative look around. It was so black out that she couldn't register a thing. Clearly it was nighttime wherever they had landed. That seemed a bit odd since the date and time monitor had said they'd landed in the middle of the afternoon. Of course, she reminded herself, the date and time monitor had been set to central time, or what had been central time one hundred million years ago. Plus, they could have landed on the other side of the globe for all she knew.

She squinted her eyes as she tried to make heads or tails out of what the location they'd landed in looked like. Too dark. Far too dark. "d.a.m.n it."

"What is it?" she heard Peac.o.c.k shout from below. "Alex, are you okay?"