by James Axler
Everyone settled for soup. J.B. heated a dozen cans, stirring them together in a large pan.
It was a mix of tomato, vegetable, sweet corn and split pea, and it lined the stomach and raised the group's spirits a little.
"Hope none of us get salmonella or listeria or any of those poisoning bugs," Mildred said, licking her spoon clean. "Wouldn't fancy trying to cope with a serious gastric attack in a place like this."
"I've eaten worse," Ryan commented. "If I was going to get sick from bad food, it'd have happened twenty years ago."
She nodded. "Sure. But these cans, sitting around for a hundred years.... Only the Good Lord knows what's been breeding away in 'em."
The instant coffee was somewhat better. It tasted like burned acorns, but it was hot and there were plenty of artificial sweeteners to make it more palatable.
After a second cup, everyone rested awhile, stretched out on the inflexible beds. Ryan closed his eye, letting his thoughts wander.
He knew that this was a bad one.
Facing the very real possibility of being trapped and dying in the redoubt set him thinking.
Memories of the Trader brought back the years that he'd ridden and fought his way through the Deathlands. And not much of it was worth the pain of the mother who bore him.
So much chilling.
There'd been good times; good friends, mostly now rotting beneath the earth. But only in the months since he'd met Krysty Wroth had his life begun to have any perceptible shape or meaning. Now there was something for him personally to fight and survive for.
Ryan knew that she wanted to stop and set up a home and raise a family, and he wanted that as well. It was just a question of trying to find the right place.
And the right time.
But it looked now that it might all end in this vast concrete mausoleum.
There was enough food and drink to last them for years and years if they doled them out carefully. But what would be the point of that? If they were trapped, then sooner or later death was inevitable. Nobody was going to come bursting through and rescue them.
Ryan wouldn't wait for the last feeble choking breaths. It would be better to take a 9 mm bullet.
At least he and Krysty could go together.
Something he'd once read came to Ryan as he slipped away into a restful sleep. "I pay my price to live with myself on the terms that I will."
J.B. woke him with bleak news.
"Every possible passage is blocked by huge earth falls. Been with Jak in every direction."
"No openings?"
The Armorer hesitated. "Jak says he reckons one of the falls could be movable. Says he'd like to try and clear it out. It's the highest corridor we found. If he's right, then it could be close to the surface. Whatever that is."
"Let's go look at it."
J.B. sighed. "It's all right for you, Ryan. You been sleeping like a babe. So've Doc, Krysty and Mildred. That's okay, but me and Jak could use a rest."
Ryan swung his boots off the metal-framed cot. "Sure. Sure. Let's mebbe see if anyone feels like more food. Then—" he glanced at his wrist-chron "—then we can have a sleep. Freshen up. And then we'll go check out this earth fall. How's that sound?"
"Good."
"I don't like the look of that, Ryan," Mildred said, shaking her head over the can that he'd just opened.
"Looks okay to me," he insisted stubbornly.
The can didn't have a label and a ring of flaking orange rust was caked around its top. One side was dented as if it had suffered a heavy blow when it was being stacked.
Everyone else had avoided the self-heats. Mildred and Krysty had both selected another mix of soups. Jak had found a pile of cans, still labeled, of all different sorts of fruit and had mixed up a compote for himself.
"That'll sour your belly, kid," Mildred warned.
"Won't. And don't—"
"Call me 'kid,'" everyone chorused.
Doc had found some tinned eggs and attempted the culinary miracle of turning them into a light, fluffy omelet.
And failed.
"I fear that my old skills have deserted me," he said sadly. "Perhaps some corned beef and chili beans might hit the spot."
J.B. had carefully gone along the shelves, picking and rejecting until he'd found something that satisfied him.
"Gumbo and minced chicken," he said. "Sounds good to me."
Ryan felt bad about sleeping for so long while Jak and the Armorer had been out on an extended recon, so he just grabbed the first couple of cans he came across.
The first one had attracted Mildred's attention. It was some unidentifiable fish, gray chunks of crumbling flesh swimming in an oily, iridescent sauce. The second can was a thick gumbo with slices of potato and what looked like turnip.
He poured the contents of both tins into a pan and stirred it over a low heat. The smell that came off the mixture wasn't terrific, but there was no way he was going to back down in front of everyone.
He was the last to start eating.
"Fuck horrible stink," Jak muttered as he washed up his dish.
"I rather think something must have passed away in one of those self-heats," Doc commented. "And some time ago, too."
"Up yours, Doc."
"Doesn't look good, lover. Doesn't smell anything but rotten."
Ryan banged a fist on the metal table. "Fireblast! Just everyone shut their flapping mouths and let me get on with my food! I've eaten plenty worse. I'll be fine."
He picked up his spoon and began to eat.
Chapter Four
IT DIDN'T TASTE all that good. The lumps of fish were slick and rancid to his palate, and the heavy oil seemed to have separated into its unpleasant constituent parts. The bits of vegetable were either dissolving into mush or hard as rocks.
In his hurry to stop the criticism, Ryan was aware that he hadn't really heated the gooey mess as thoroughly as he might have done. But he was determined not to show anyone any sign of weakness.
The lukewarm sludge settled in his stomach like a pool of iced lead. Mildred came and stood by the table, looking down at him when he was halfway through the pan. Ryan had been thinking about leaving the rest, but he forced himself to ladle it out and tuck into it.
"Nothing more foolish than a stubborn man doing something he knows is wrong, just 'cause he's trying to prove it's right," she observed.
There was some tangy powdered lemonade in one of the larger tins, and Ryan helped himself to a mug of it, mixed with the dusty water. It seemed to help, and he drained a second portion. The drink felt as if it were settling the unease that was simmering around the level of his belt buckle.
"How about some sleep now?" J.B. suggested. "Snatch a few hours."
"Sure. No need to set guards. If we can't get out of the redoubt, there's no worry about anyone else getting in."
Ryan and Krysty had pushed two of the bunks together and laid an extra pair of mattresses over the top to give themselves something approaching a double bed.
The blankets were so dried and frail that any sudden movement risked tearing them into long, narrow strips.
There was no way of even dimming the stark overhead lights, so Ryan and Krysty pulled the bedclothes up over their heads.
"What do you figure, Ryan?"
"About what?"
"Will we get out?"
"Always did."
She laid an arm across his chest. Both of them were still fully dressed. He was feeling cold, though he could also feel sweat beading his forehead.
"But that door to the gateway… If it's really boobied like J.B. says it is?"
"If he says it's got an autodestruct linked to it, then it has. Never known J.B. wrong about something like that."
"We blow it?"
Ryan took her hand in both of his and gripped it tightly. "Could pass it. But if anything gets triggered, then we have to get out fast."
"Jak and J.B. found a possible way out of the redoubt."
"Could be. High up. But it'
s an even longer shot. Try and move a big earth fall and you get the world on your skull." He paused. "Saves digging a grave."
"Try the door first?"
"Yeah."
"Are you all right, lover?"
"Why?"
"You feel hot, and you're trembling."
"I'm all right. Guts are a bit… No, I'm all right."
"Sure?"
"Yeah. Like me to prove it?"
Krysty giggled, letting her free hand go crabbing down past the belt to the front of his breeches.
"You don't feel too much like proving anything yet," she whispered.
"Give me time. Can you get your pants down?"
"For you, lover, anything."
The metal frame of the bed rattled and jingled as Krysty wriggled out of her trousers, leaving them hooked around her ankles. To get them completely off would have been too much hassle.
Ryan slowly unzipped himself and pushed his dark gray pants down to his knees. He touched Krysty, fingers clumsy against the tight material of her bikini panties, sliding inside.
Her own fingers were cradling him, caressing him gently, encouraging him to his own swelling readiness.
"Never mind, lover," she whispered when he failed to respond to her. "Try it in the morning."
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Don't be a double-stupe, Ryan."
She pressed herself against him, so they lay like two spoons in a drawer, her buttocks fitting snugly into his groin.
Within a handful of minutes, they were both fast asleep.
Ryan woke, conscious that it was the middle of the night. The overhead lights were blindingly bright and seemed to sway from side to side as he peered up at them.
Krysty was still deep in sleep. Her bright red sentient hair was curled across the makeshift pillows, relaxed as it shared her rest. One arm lay across Ryan's shoulder, and he reached up and moved it carefully out of the way.
He was aware that all was far from well. His stomach was churning, and sweat soaked through his shirt. Ryan was shivering as though he had an ague, and his head was spinning. He sat up and looked across the room, seeing that the others all slept soundly.
A gasp of pain made him clutch himself, squeezing his hands to his ribs. His vision seemed blurred, and his mouth was dry. The muscles of his face felt stiff, as though he'd been sprayed with some sort of numbing gas. When he tried to swallow, his throat hurt.
The one-eyed man stood shakily, steadying himself with a hand on the side of the bed. The movement brought Krysty back to the brink of waking.
"Lover? You all right?" she mumbled.
"Feel a bit sick. Going to…"
Nausea silenced him and he want to the ablutions at a stumbling run, making it just in time.
He retched a stream of bitter green bile into the toilet. The taste was so foul that it made him vomit still more. With a shock of dismay, Ryan also realized that he was on the verge of losing control of his bowels and fouling himself. With a spasmodic effort he dropped his trousers and avoided acute embarrassment.
Another bout of sickness left him weak and helpless.
"Oh, fireblast!" he moaned.
For a moment he felt a little better. With an effort he managed to clean himself up, then stood. The bathroom was going slowly around in dipping loops. Ryan grabbed at the washbasin and tried to focus his vision on himself in the polished steel mirror.
The face that stared blankly back at him was hardly recognizable. The cheeks were sallow and hollowed, the stubble showing black against the waxen skin. He leaned forward and peered at himself more carefully, noticing that the pupil of his eye was badly dilated, as if he'd been doing jolt for forty-eight hours straight.
Threads of yellow spittle clung to the corners of his lips, and his mouth tasted foul. He touched his face, aware that the muscles were stiff and resistant to the feel.
"What the fuck's wrong?" he said, but the words weren't properly controlled and sounded slurred and far-off.
Ryan's stomach revolted again, and a gusher of vomit cascaded into the basin in front of him.
"Ryan?"
He tried to speak, but he realized that he was losing his hold on consciousness.
"Ryan? You in there, lover?"
With a massive endeavor of will, he managed to call out a reply. "Yeah. Ill."
The floor came swooping up to meet him as he fell. There was a loud noise inside his head, and then everything became extremely quiet.
Something was tied loosely across his forehead, masking his eye, and someone had poured liquid glue into the muscles and tissue of his face and throat. He could hardly swallow properly, and movement was beyond him.
All Ryan could do was lie still and listen.
The voice belonged to Mildred Wyeth.
"It's bad. Food poisoning. But I don't figure it's salmonella or something common. If it was, it could be treated easily with kaolin and morphine. Something like that."
"So what is it?"
"Not sure, Krysty."
"Not sure? But you got a good idea, don't you, Doctor Wyeth?"
"Yeah. Dilation and stiffness of cranial musculature. Eyelid eased down. It points one way."
"Which way is that?" Ryan thought that sounded like Doc Tanner, but he was losing touch with reality and couldn't be certain.
"Botulism. That's the bacterium called Clostridium botulinum. Rare. Normally found in home-prepared food. But I guess things in this place have been kind of unusual for medical science."
"Is it bad?" Ryan was proud that he knew J.B.'s voice through the slushing waves of surf that filled his ears.
There was a pause, and Ryan decided he'd finally passed into a coma. But Mildred eventually answered.
"The stiffness of the face spreads to the throat. Then to paralysis of the heart and all the breathing muscles."
"And?"
"Some die."
"Some?"
"If I was in a modern hospital and I was the duty intern and Ryan came in like this, I'd maybe lay good odds on saving him. Real good odds. But that's with all the latest drugs, equipment, ventilators and machinery."
Now the blackness was becoming overwhelming. Ryan knew that the words being spoken around him were of some importance, but it was difficult and tiring to try to focus on them. It was easier to let go.
"You seem to be saying, Mildred, if I understand you correctly, that without such modern equipment you are rather less sanguine for Ryan's chances of survival? Is that it?"
"That's it, Doc. Botulism is—was—real rare. I've never even seen a single case of it myself. Just read about it."
The words disappeared as Ryan slipped into a trough of unconsciousness.
"Don't die, lover. Please don't go and die and leave me here alone."
The noises made no sense to Ryan.
Just noises.
"Fight it. Hold on. Fight it. Hold on."
Noises.
Chapter Five
"FIGHT IT!"
"Hold on!"
"You got him, Ryan. Hang on the bastard!"
Ryan had kept his eye squeezed shut, concentrating all of his energy on what he was doing. But the shouting made him open it.
Lex was sweating, the water trickling down from his receding hairline, through his busy sideburns. The man's mouth was set in a grinning rictus of effort. The palm of his hand was becoming wet and slippery, making it harder for Ryan to maintain his grip.
Everyone was gathered around them, most rooting for Ryan Cawdor. But a sizable minority of the crew were supporting the larger, heavier, older figure of Lex.
Lex was rear gunner on War Wag One.
"You got him going, Ryan," yelled Hunaker, one of the drivers. Hun was nearly as strong as Ryan or Lex. Her cropped hair was tinted a fiery crimson, and she was licking her full lips with the excitement of the spectacle.
"Hold on there, Lex!" someone else called. Ryan wasn't sure who it was, but thought it might have been Rodge, the cook's assistant.
"Give
up if you want, Ryan," Lex panted, his small, close-set bloodshot eyes swimming in their sockets.
"Man says that is close to the edge," came a quieter, reasoned voice from just behind Ryan's metal seat.
J. B. Dix was the Armorer on War Wag One. The small, laconic weapons expert had joined the team about a year after Ryan Cawdor, and the two men had become something close to friends. When you rode with the Trader you tried to avoid close friendships. Death was too constant a companion for that.
The arm wrestling tournaments were a constant feature of life on the war wags. It was a way of settling disputes and releasing tension—and also a good excuse for gambling. A load of jack rested on the result of this particular battle.
Lex had been riding the trails of the Deathlands longer than most of the crew. Ryan had been with them for a handful of years and had risen quickly to become the Trader's right-hand man and leading lieutenant. Most of the crew accepted that happily. Some talked about the one-eyed man as being the son that the Trader had never had.
But a few of the older hands on War Wag One resented his rapid rise. The same men and women also resented the way J. B. Dix had become the specialist when it came to firearms, and any other kind of weaponry. They ignored the fact that the sallow, bespectacled young man probably knew his subject better than anyone else in the Deathlands.
"Double up the odds?" Ryan suggested, struggling to grin through gritted teeth.
"Fuck you!"
"Knew it wasn't a good idea, Lex. Then let's get this over."
The hardships of Ryan's earlier life had given him a constitution like honed steel. He tightened his grip on the other man's hand, seeing the skin whiten, swell painfully. A trickle of bright blood appeared around the nails of Lex's fingers, and the man gave an involuntary moan of pain.
"Now," J.B. said, his voice barely audible above the roars of the watchers.
Both men had their free hands behind their backs, elbows on the tabletop, trying to use their hips and shoulders to give themselves extra leverage. Lex was the much heavier man, weighing in close to two-fifty pounds. Against most lighter men, that would have been enough to give him an overwhelming advantage. But against Ryan it didn't make a lot of difference in the final outcome.
Ryan had been confident all along that he could beat the gunner. There was a momentary temptation once he felt Lex beginning to yield, to use all of his own power and either break his wrist or give it a final victory twist and dislocate his elbow.