"What d'you figure?" he whispered.

"Andies?"

Ryan shook his head. He'd seen androids, and read about them, but he knew that nobody around the Deathlands had the skill to make humanoid robots that truly worked.

"Could be adapted muties."

"Retards?"

"Mebbe, lover, with some kinda electronic voice activators."

The figure with the red stripe on its helmet turned, its blank visor angled toward Ryan and the girl. "Do not speak with no permission to speak."

At first they walked parallel to the crumbling blacktop that circled Crater Lake, then they were led down an increasingly steep slope toward the water. The path was extremely treacherous and slippery, but the guards picked their way at high speed, without a single slip.

"Ultrascope enhancers in the visors," J.B. whispered to Ryan.

The moon was hidden by the surrounding trees as they drew nearer to the lake, and several times one or another of Ryan's group stumbled and slipped. Each time it happened the sec patrol stopped and watched. It was a singular and creepy experience, since they all stopped at precisely the same millisecond.

Eventually they had all picked their way between the trees and boulders to the water's edge, where five dark green inflatable boats waited. It struck Ryan as a further oddity that not one of the guards had been left behind with the boats. It showed an amazing confidence in their control over the area. Whatever had sent out the patrol clearly ruled the region with total power. Ryan wondered what kind of baron could run a ville like that.

The boats had small, compact engines that pushed them through the water at an incredible rate in total silence. Apart from the bubbling of the water as it churned under their bows, they could hear nothing.

"Heading for island," Jak said, his white hair almost luminous in the fading moonlight.

A fanciful person might have been tempted to pinch himself to see if he was dreaming this bizarre experience. Ryan trusted himself and his own reflexes. However strange and new things seemed, he knew they had to have an explanation. His main concern was to watch and learn as much as he could. As far as he could judge, they were not being threatened, just so long as they did what they were told. The fact that they'd been allowed to keep their weapons was a reassuring sign.

They landed with a faint jarring sound, and several of the guards climbed out and waited for their captives. Their movements were peculiar. Neither fluid nor clumsy, yet not quite human either. The moon had edged behind a bank of scudding cloud, and it was very dark. Ryan could make out a concrete slope that rose thirty yards to a large doorway concealed beneath an overhang of jagged rock. He guessed that it would be difficult to spot even in daylight. One of the green inflatables was hauled up out of the water, and he noticed to his surprise that it had wheels slung beneath it, making it also usable as a road vehicle.

"Follow yellow lines strip to skin leave clothes weapons check all fresh clothes will be issued. Do you read?"

Ryan nodded. "Yes, we read you." He turned to the others. "We got coldcocked by these mutie bastards back there. No point in trying to break for it. Do what they say and try and keep your eyes and ears on overdrive."

"Second warning unspeak. Third offense leads to termination."

Against the threat of such overwhelming force, they really had no choice but to obey. There was a line seared into the stone, glittering golden, and Ryan led the way along it. A small door within the large doorway swung open with a hiss of hydraulics, and they passed through it, accompanied by the sec guards.

Doc Tanner trembled like a willow in a stiff breeze, and Lori had to take his arm to steady him. His eyes rolled, and his teeth chattered. "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate," he said.

Apart from the local dialect gabble of muties, Ryan had never heard much talk that wasn't in American. "How's that again, Doc?" he whispered.

The sec patrol had fallen a few paces behind them, content to shadow and keep the six covered with their strange weapons.

"Means abandon all hope, all ye who enter this place," the old man replied.

"Fucking cheerful, Doc," Finnegan sneered.

"Don't mock, my portly companion. Oh, mock not, ye of little knowledge. Strip off your clothing. Follow the yellow lines. Not yellow stars. Lines. Follow them. Through the door. Into the bunkers. Poison gas showers for all. Line up to be freed of lice. Into the chambers. Close and bolt the doors. Marks of nails, gouged in the stone. Screams. Blood and excrement. The stench."

Ryan was worried that Doc Tanner had finally lost what was often a fragile hold on sanity and reality. As they walked, the old man began to chant names in time with their steps. A litany of names. People? Places? Foreign words with harsh syllables. None of them sounding like any names that Ryan had ever heard.

"Belsen... Treblinka... Mauthausen... Ravensbruck... Vught... Sobibor... Dachau... Theresienstadt... Auschwitz."

There was something inherently ugly and unpleasant about the pattern of their names, something that echoed the clicking heels of their captors.

"Death camps. Bastard Nazis."

One of the sec guards moved in closer, and Lori tugged warningly at Doc's arm, shutting him up. Ahead loomed the door of what looked like some kind of elevator.

"Place is like a redoubt," Ryan said to Krysty. "Can't be any normal kind of ville."

She shook her head as a command from the sec leader brought them to a halt. "I can feel some real bad chills from this place, lover. By Gaia, but the air's filled with the cold, flat taste of death! We must step careful."

The heavy mesh gates slid across, and they walked into a massive elevator. "Big enough for a dozen war wags," he said.

"Look." Jak pointed at a tiny notice, less than three inches across, pinned to the far wall.

J.B. was nearest, and he stepped closer, peering at it through narrowed eyes. He took off his rimless glasses and polished them on the sleeve of his coat, then put them back on his bony nose and read the notice.

"What's it say?" Ryan asked.

"Welcome to Wizard Island."

They descended in the elevator, with only eight of the visored guards keeping them company. With its walls and ceiling of dulled steel, it wasn't possible to judge how far down they went, but Ryan counted eighty-five seconds before they stopped moving. At that reasonably fast speed, it meant they were way below the surface of Crater Lake. Once again he wondered what kind of complex they'd allowed themselves to be lured into.

The door slid back to reveal another dozen or more identical sec men. They all seemed much the same height, and Ryan wondered again whether it was possible that someone in the Deathlands had mastered the arcane skill of creating working androids.

"Go into doors numbered five through ten. Take off all weapons and clothes. Wash and put on fresh clothes. Wait there for orders."

The lack of any human inflection was disquieting. So was the idea of giving up all their weapons. Several of them, notably J.B. and Jak, had blades and even some residual pieces of plas-ex hidden in their coats.

"Why can't we keep our own clothes?" the Armorer asked, addressing himself to the apparent leader of the sec patrol, who stood as though locked in silent communion with himself, the strip lights along the ceiling reflected in his visor. Ryan noticed the many small remote vid cameras that were set high in corners of the corridor and over doorways, constantly blinking on and off, moving ceaselessly, like some hydra-headed techno-beast.

"I asked why..." J.B. began again, but the guard replied.

"Interdict."

"What?"

"Negative request refused. Comply now."

As though a single brain were controlling them all, the sec guards raised the muzzles of their unusual blasters.