by James Axler
J.B. finished wiping down his weapon and tossed away his soiled bandanna.
“J.B., they’re stuck in there. Worming around in pipes. Can’t you just blow them up or something?”
“I blow the ducts then they really are in the ceilings and the walls.” J.B. gave the light fixture panel above them another unhappy look. “Then they’re in here.” He had been considering some kind of shaped charge to go burning down the ducts but they were sheet metal and he couldn’t risk weakening any section, much less ripping them open. J.B. walked over to the duct and this time stood back a prudent distance as the mutie corpse slowly squeezed through.
“So what do we do?” Krysty asked.
“Dunno.” The Armorer took a deep breath and checked his chron. It had nothing good to tell him. He looked back and forth between the two ducts and out toward the hall where the assault on the door continued. The enemy had three access points, and it was only a matter of time before all that squeezing and squirming finally popped a duct. “But we can’t afford to sleep anymore.”
THE LONG BLACK WAG pulled to a halt. Doc peered out the tinted windows at the manse. The stone wall surrounding it was tall and topped with a wrought-iron fence with sharpened spikes. Night had fallen, and the driver and the two sec men had removed their glasses, hats and gloves. Doc noted the same long-toothed mouths, purplish gums and lavender tint beneath the fingernails. However, the men all had either black or brown eyes. The manse was well lit, just as the inside of the sec station had been. The inhabitants of the large isle weren’t sensitive to light. They were very sensitive to the rays of the sun. Doc was starting to come to some conclusions.
The wag had come at sundown and despite Doc’s protestations they had forced him to leave Ryan behind in the holding cell, naked and raving in fevered dreams. On the drive into the hillsides Doc saw farms and vineyards. He found that nearly every home and building was of fortlike construction, and he was interested to find that he saw nothing in the way of horses, oxen or farm animals.
Doc also found the wrinklies who had been conspicuously absent on the smaller isle.
They all wore the same simple homespun. However, unlike their young brethren on the smaller isle who glowed with health, these men and women were stooped from hard labor, and all over the age of twenty-five. Many were moving wagons and toting bales. All of them without exception walked with a very suspicious limp. Many bore signs of the lash. Others had fresh bandages covering their inner arms.
All of them moved swiftly and fearfully as the sun set.
Doc began coming to other unsavory conclusions, as well.
The sec man beside the old man motioned with a huge, double-barreled blaster that looked suitable for elephant hunting. “Out.”
Doc exited the wag and was escorted into the manse. The interior was opulent by Deathlands standards and furnished in a hodge-podge of ancient, predark and cruder new manufactured items. Baron Barat stood in the foyer. He wore an elegant red-and-gold brocade robe for the occasion. A semiauto blaster was tucked into the belt for the occasion, as well. “Ah, good evening, Dr. Tanner, thank you for coming.”
“Doctor? I am Baron Theophilus Algernon…” Doc trailed off under Barat’s bemused gaze. Doc sighed defeatedly. When the drug had violated Ryan, he had called out to him, and called him Doc.
The baron smiled in satisfaction. The admission of the first lie was the key point in any interrogation. “Come, Doctor, will you join me in my study? Nero, you may accompany us.” The baron turned without waiting for an answer. Doc considered the blade hidden within his cane but decided he wished to learn more. Nero prodded him with his blaster and Doc followed the baron into his parlor. The room was wall-to-wall books of every description and age. A cheery fire burned in the little fireplace.
Doc decided on flattery as his own opening gambit. “I see you and many of your citizens speak excellent English.”
“Ah, well.” The baron smiled and gestured at the chair in front of his desk. “We have maintained a tutorial-based education system here as best we can, though I must admit it trickles down somewhat slowly from the high to the low. In many ways it is the second language of our island.”
Doc noticed his LeMat on the desk and noted it was unloaded. He took his seat and Barat gestured at the confiscated weapon. “I must say, Dr. Tanner, that is a grand old piece you have there. It is remarkable that it still functions.”
“Yes.” Doc gazed fondly upon the ancient blaster. “Nearly as old as I am.”
The baron smiled, not knowing how true the statement was.
“Nero.” Barat motioned his sec man and nodded to the sideboard by the fire. Nero brought a decanter and two glasses. “Will you join me in my evening constitutional, Doctor?”
Doc eyed the amber liquid warily.
Barat laughed. “Fear not, it is merely Madeira.”
“Then I would be delighted,” Doc replied.
Nero poured and Barat raised his glass. “To your health.”
“And yours.” Doc sipped the amber liquid. His closed eyes in near ecstasy. It had been over two hundred years since he had drunk Madeira. “Is this Sercial?” Doc took another sip. “No, Rainwater, bless my stars and garters, a real Rainwater Madeira.”
The baron was plainly shocked. “You are the first man not of this island I have ever met who would know the difference. May I offer you a cigar?”
Doc leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, indeed!”
The baron removed a pair of thick, blunt cigars from a humidor on his desk and handed one to Doc. Nero approached with a candelabra and the baron and Doc both leaned across the desk to light their cigars. Nero refilled Doc’s glass. Doc and Barat spent long moments silently smoking and sipping fortified wine. The baron smiled. “You approve?”
Doc leaned back with a sigh and blew heavy blue smoke toward the still ceiling fan. “People in my time always touted Cuban tobacco, but I always felt it was too powerful. I preferred Jamaican shag, much as I preferred Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.”
The baron’s black eyes starred at Doc unblinkingly.
Doc blinked. The wine, the tobacco and the antiquity of the surroundings were flooding him with memories and feelings he could barely suppress. Despite Barat’s civility, this was an interrogation. They were playing chess, and Doc realized he had made some very bad moves. Doc tried to maintain his poker face. He waved the cigar casually. “Tell me, Baron, from where did you procure it?”
The baron smiled to reveal his too-long teeth but his black eyes were hard. “Fogo.”
“Fogo Island?” Doc sat up straighter. “The Cape Verde Islands survived, then?”
“Some of them.” The baron stared very long at Doc before answering. “The voyage is somewhat long and perilous, but we do occasional trade with them.”
Doc drew himself up in his chair. “Let me speak plainly, Baron. Clearly, I am—”
The baron cut him off with an impatient wave of his hand. “Let us not bandy words, Doctor. Clearly you and your sec man are not the shipwrecked sailors you pretend.”
Doc finished his Madeira and sighed. “I fear you have discovered our ruse.”
“So then, you admit you came through the matter-transfer device on the escarpment.”
“Indeed I do.” He gestured at the decanter. “May I?”
The baron gestured at the cut crystal generously. “Please.”
Doc refilled his glass.
Barat’s black eyes went predatory. “Clearly, you are no baron. You are a fascinating conversationalist, I will admit, but you do not carry the weight of authority nor command across your shoulders like your sec man does. Indeed I believe he is the true leader here. You are a historian of some kind, using your knowledge to fool your way from ville to ville, from jump to jump, hoping to get a meal and perhaps supplies before moving on.”
Doc sighed inwardly. He was living history rather than a historian, but the baron was close to the mark on their intentions. Ryan had told him to be a baron until told o
therwise, but Doc knew all too well he was a terrible liar and Barat was seeing through him all too well. “I am a doctor of natural sciences and philosophy.”
“I see.”
“I am prepared to render you all services I am capable of in return for the safety of my friend,” Doc offered.
“I believe I am in a position to make you to do whatever I wish, regardless of the final disposition of your companion.”
“Hmm.” Things were going from bad to worse. Doc stalled for time. “I gather you realize the mat-trans device has been set to transfer only two people at a time and is set upon a timer. I have never encountered such a preset and have jumped many times. Would you be so kind as to tell me what the timing and the purpose of the cycle is?”
Baron Barat ignored the question. “I pray you, Dr. Tanner, tell me, how many more are there in your party?”
Doc ignored the question in turn and glanced around. “You have quite an impressive library, Baron. May I?”
“Please.” The baron gestured about the room. “Avail yourself. We have time.”
So, Doc thought, he feels no haste about the timer. Doc walked among the bookshelves with Nero as his hulking, somber shadow. Doc found many volumes he was familiar with as well as many predark books well after his time. Just looking at the books and tomes and touching them gave him great pleasure. The baron watched with benevolent malice, like a cat watching a mouse move around a closed room. Doc stalled. He wasn’t particularly afraid of dying, indeed being slaughtered in a well-stocked library while drinking Madeira, smoking a cigar and having an educated conversation was a far better fate than anything the Deathlands was likely to offer him. Most important, Doc had seen Ryan Cawdor escape from worse dungeons than Jorge-Teo’s well-buttressed but primitive establishment, and Doc was prepared to buy Ryan every second of the baron’s attention he could, whatever the cost. Doc suddenly smiled and stopped by a volume for several long moments.
The baron raised a mocking eyebrow. “Something intrigues you, Doctor?”
Doc pulled forth an ancient copy of The Time Machine.
Barat smiled at the choice. “Ah, H. G. Wells…a true classic. I whiled away many happy hours in my youth reading his works.”
Doc absently ran his finger down the spine of the book. Despite its advanced age it had been lovingly preserved, far more lovingly than he had. He sighed in memory. “Yes, Herbert was an interesting man. I met him when he was studying biology at the Royal College of Science under T. H. Huxley.”
Baron Barat stared. “You…met him?”
“Yes, well, we all thought young Herbert had quite a bright future ahead of him in either the natural sciences or philosophy. You might well imagine my surprise when I learned in later years that he had bent his talents to writing scientific romances.”
Barat had begun to suspect his guest might be mad, but now he was sure of it.
Doc shrugged guiltily. “Nevertheless, I must admit I had never before been able to claim the privilege of having known a successful novelist, and curiosity compelled me to peruse a few volumes of his speculative fiction.” Doc turned and tossed the book to the desk between them. “The Eloi, innocent and childlike, living in bucolic idyll beneath the sun, while the technologically advanced, cannibalistic Morlock dwell in their dark catacombs beneath, rising up at night to shear them like sheep.” Doc gazed coldly upon the baron. “The longer I live in these dark times the more truly amazing, and may I say regretful, it is to learn how many things poor Herbert succeeded in predicting correctly.”
One of the greatest ironies of Doc’s life was that it had been a twentieth-century man by the name of Wells who had torn him from his time, ripped him from the bosom of his family, experimented upon him, and then flung him like garbage into a future horrible beyond his imagining. Doc was a man always walking the thin edge of madness, but sometimes he became calmer before he snapped rather than the other way around; and sometimes rather than leaving him gibbering, hallucinating and dwelling in the past his madness was a glorious relaxation of all safeguards. Doc felt the wine relaxing him and bringing color to his cheeks. The strong tobacco stimulated him. He knew that he would very likely die in the next few moments. He decided to give himself over to violence, enjoy it, and take the baron with him.
The baron laughed. All he saw was an old man, possibly mad, disarmed, separated from his sec man and leaning upon a cane. Barat was blissfully unaware of the danger he was in. He leaned back in his chair shaking his head. “Come now, Doctor. You accuse me of being a Morlock? Surely as a man of science you realize that cannibalism is a woefully inefficient method of food production.” The baron waved expansively toward the window. “You have seen our fishing boats, our fields of grain, our laden vines.”
Doc found himself in a more lucid state than he could remember. He was relishing the educated discourse even as bloodlust welled within him. “But of course, Baron. The reproductive and maturation cycle of man is far too long and complicated for our poor species to make any decent sort of livestock. Though I must say that all too often in these intervening years I have seen the practice of cannibalism used quite successfully as a dietary supplement. However, I do not accuse you of being a cannibal. On the contrary, Baron, from what I have observed, I would name you hematophage, and blood, unlike human flesh, is a rapidly renewable resource given a large enough source of human stock. Say, an entire island of people in your thrall?”
“Hematophage?” Baron Barat gave Doc a very thin, cold smile at the scientific name for blood eater. “You name me vampire?”
“The accusation is metaphoric, Baron. Though I suspect the blood in you and your people’s veins is purple from the effects of the disease porphyria in some mutated form, and that the light of the sun would ravage your flesh as any revenant of legend, I still strongly believe that you walk among the living rather than the undead. Black with sin as it may be, your heart still beats within your breast, and it would take no wooden stake driven through that heart to slay you. Indeed!” Doc’s sword cane suddenly hissed from its ebon sheath as he lunged. “Cold steel should suffice!”
Nero gasped and fell transfixed through the heart as proof of Doc’s theory.
Doc rounded upon the baron. Barat drew his blaster with remarkable alacrity, but he gasped in turn as Doc transfixed his blaster hand before he could present it. The weapon clattered to the desktop. The desk was still between them, and Barat pushed himself back abruptly and out of range of the sword. Doc deftly slid the point of his rapier through the trigger guard of the baron’s blaster and flipped the weapon far out of reach. He jerked his head at the sword hanging over the fireplace. “Come, my good Baron! I see a blade hanging above your mantel! Let us contend like men of honor!” Doc tossed the silver hilt of his sword stick into his left hand. “Having pierced your hand, I will handicap myself appropriately!”
“Contend? As men of honor? With you?” The baron sneered as he retreated. “In the first, you are no baron. In the second, you are clearly insane. And in the third?” Barat spit in contempt. “You are an American.”
“Upon my soul!” Doc grinned savagely as he advanced around the desk. “Guilty upon all counts!”
Barat continued his retreat. “I will admit to you, Dr. Tanner, I am not the swordsman I should be. I recognize the need for steel in the world we live in but I was always more of a marksman. My son, on the other hand?” The baron reached out his unwounded hand and pulled a silken rope that hung from the ceiling. “He will be more than happy to give you the match you crave.”
A bell rang out in the hall.
Doc stopped as the door to the study swung open.
A figure filled the doorway from top to bottom. The man was draped in a caped long coat that reached his boots. A wide-brimmed black hat left his face in shadow.
Barat’s smile was sickening. “Sylvano, you are late.”
The big man’s voice sounded like well-educated slate breaking. “Forgive me, Father. I thought the situation was in hand.�
��
“It appears the good doctor is something of an adept with a blade, and you, dear one, have languished far too long for lack of a challenge. I thought perhaps you might contend with him.”
“Thank you, Father.” Sylvano shrugged off his long coat. He wore no shirt beneath it. His skin was as chalk white as Jak Lauren’s and muscled like a circus strong man with purple veins crawling beneath his skin in twisted road maps of strength. He doffed his hat and black hair fell lank and straight to his shoulders. His eyes were as black as his father’s. He unbuckled his blaster belt and hung a pair of revolvers next to his hat. He took a moment to tie back his hair and then his black-hilted rapier rasped slowly from the sheath. The giant grinned to show horse-size teeth with the gums purple and receded. “You know something of fencing, Dr. Tanner?”
“I’ve gone out,” Doc admitted modestly.
“Gone out.” Sylvano savored the anachronism. “You have dueled. I myself have not yet had the honor of a formal duel.” For such a huge man he held his weapon almost daintily. Despite that Doc was a tall man, Sylvano adopted a low guard position en tierce.
Doc matched him. The tips of their blades hovered scant inches away from each other. “I see you have studied, Maestre Sylvano.”
The pale giant’s eyes never wavered as he nodded. “It is what I do during the day.”
“Come then.” Doc took a last drag on his cigar and tossed it into the fire. “Show me what you have learned.”
Sylvano lunged.
Doc parried and retreated. Their blades rang as Doc was forced to parry and retreat twice more. He flung a wild cut at Sylvano’s arm that turned into a thrust straight for the heart. Sylvano narrowly avoided being impaled. The giant retreated a step and beat back Doc’s following attacks. Doc found he was enjoying himself. He had spent far too long skewering brutes and savages without skill. Doc smiled slyly as Sylvano turned away two more rapid attacks. “You use the Bonetti defense.”