by James Axler
"Right, Doc," Ryan replied quietly. He glanced over his shoulder at the pale-faced Krysty. "That's what spooks me."
BACK INSIDE the redoubt, all of them reached the same conclusion without a protracted discussion. The supply of food was limited in the extreme, so they had no choice but to move out overland. Traveling by night was a necessity, and no one objected to staying in the climate-controlled redoubt until sundown. They used the time to catch up on missed sleep and to put together survival provisions for a boot-leather journey.
"We might be strolling into a trap," J.B. warned.
Ryan shrugged. "If the red-eyed bastard is as bright as Mildred says he is, then he'll know that we know. Traps can really only work when you're not ready for them."
"There is one possibility we have not considered," Doc said. "Alpha or Hell Eyes or whatever we care to call him might not mean us any harm."
Ryan smiled bitterly. "I considered that possibility. I don't find it very probable. Do you?"
After a moment's thought, Doc answered flatly, "No."
Ryan, even as agitated as he was, badly needed rest and he took to one of the bunks shortly after returning to the redoubt. Krysty lay down beside him. When the deep, steady rhythm of his breathing told her he was fast asleep, she got up and paced through the corridor.
She found Mildred in the laboratory, searching the medical stores. She looked up from deciphering a label on a bottle of tablets. "Krysty. What's wrong?"
The red-haired woman sat on a stool, propping her elbows on a table. Her tresses curled, straightened and curled again. "Am I that easy to read?"
Mildred smiled. "That unstable coiffure of yours is. Tell me about it."
Inhaling an unsteady breath, Krysty said, "You mentioned Lord Kaa earlier…his influence over us. Particularly me."
"Jak, too, remember."
"Something like it is happening again." Krysty's voice, low pitched, quavered. "I didn't tell you everything about my jump nightmare. Or what happened later between me and Ryan."
Krysty bluntly told Mildred of her vision of the red-eyed man, her feelings during it and of how her sexual desires had been aroused to a fever pitch while she slept the sleep of the utterly exhausted.
Mildred's eyebrows rose. "And you don't remember making love to Ryan?"
Smiling crookedly, Krysty answered, "It was like I was in a trance, performing for someone. My capacity for passion, my inhibitions were being stimulated, tested. I think I passed."
"As I recall, Lord Kaa invoked your mating instinct and your loyalty. How close are the two incidents?"
"Superficially similar. But with Kaa, it was the result of his psionic powers and the mat-trans mind-meld. After a jump, whatever spell he had over me was broken. In this case, the emotional resonances are much more sensual, more primitive. Lust, possessiveness and even maternal feelings are all mixed-up inside of me."
Squeezing her eyes shut, then opening them again, Mildred groaned. "Sweet Christ. I should've guessed."
"Guessed what?"
Mildred sighed. "Connaught O'Brien was both mother and lover to Alpha. Physically, you resemble her. Red hair, green eyes, though you're considerably younger."
"I don't get you."
"Rudimentary psychology," Mildred replied. "Hie first protosexual feelings a male child experiences are often directed toward his mother. O'Brien played that role for Alpha, and later he influenced her to become his lover—though I doubt he had to go much out of his way to entice her. He's a god with very human failings, an Oedipus complex for one. I think he's transferred it to you. If the situation wasn't so serious, it'd be almost comical."
"I don't see much humor in it. I'm afraid to go to sleep, afraid he'll try to make me perform again."
"I don't blame you. But if it's any consolation, I imagine you can put up psychic shields against his influence. Besides, he's probably learned what he wanted to learn. Next time, though—"
Mildred realized what she was saying and didn't complete her thought. Krysty picked up the thread. "Next time, though, it may be in the flesh."
Smiling encouragingly, Mildred said, "You were too strong for Kaa."
"Barely. Alpha's influence operates on a different level entirely. Lust, love, protectiveness. I may not be able to withstand all of that."
Mildred touched Krysty's hand, which felt cold and clammy. "We'll all help you, when and if the time comes."
Krysty's intense emerald gaze fixed on Mildred's dark eyes. "That's the problem, isn't it? When and if the time comes, I might not want you to."
Chapter Eight
The flat western horizon slowly swallowed the sun, painting the sky a lurid red and splashing the desert with purple pastels.
Ryan, Krysty, Dean, Jak, J.B., Doc and Mildred moved out of the redoubt. The silver-haired man used the ferrule of his ebony swordstick to punch in the three-digit code on the keypad. The massive slab of vanadium steel slowly squealed down, the bottom edge joining the floor with a dull boom.
The redoubt had been stripped of everything useful that could be carried. Besides the dozen jugs of water distributed among the seven friends, they also packed bed linens to serve double duty as tents and makeshift burnooses, if need be.
Ryan followed the wheel trace cutting across the desert floor, and the others followed him. He didn't speak. Once again, he and his friends were embarking on another nightmare passage, another long march into the unknown, into the domain of another megalomaniac.
He accepted that Deathlands seemed to breed them, and he had collided with a lot of them in his time. The names were legion, and it was difficult to keep track of them all. Hell Eyes, whoever he was, was just the latest entry in a long line. Ryan had once toyed with the notion that he and his companions had been dispatched by some all-powerful force to scour the rad-blasted shockscape and impose some kind of order on chaos, a last gasp of freedom against tyranny.
The concept had both amused and repulsed him. He was too pragmatic to truly believe he and his people were pawns in a war between Light and Darkness. Yet, not even he could deny that he and his group seemed to lead exceptionally charmed lives. Still, he knew their string of good fortune couldn't last forever. He had made too many enemies among too many powerful barons, brought too much hell in his wake.
One day, if the baronies managed to put aside their territorial squabbles and unite, he and people like him would be hunted down like criminals. Poseidon had hinted that such overtures to unification were already under way in some places.
Ryan swallowed a weary sigh. The lush valley of Ti-Ra'-Wa seemed farther away than ever.
In the short span of time between the setting of the sun and rise of the moon, the desert became shrouded in more than dark. It was pitch-black, and J.B. unlimbered a small flashlight so they wouldn't lose the trail.
Mildred stumbled over an irregularity in the ground and would have fallen if Dean hadn't caught her. She smiled wryly and said, "I thought desert nights were supposed to be clear."
Dean wiped at the sheen of perspiration on his face. "Yeah, well, they're supposed to be cool, too. This one is almost as hot as the day."
By the time a half moon had risen, providing enough illumination so J.B. could turn off the flash-light, they had trudged over three miles. Krysty, snatching a backward glance, could see no hint of the half dome of the redoubt rearing out of the sands.
Though the sandy soil was hard packed, they occasionally crossed areas where it was loose and their feet bogged down in it. Fortunately, except for a few shallow dunes and drifts, the terrain was board flat.
After three hours, Ryan called a halt so they could rest and drink. They sat down and passed around a jug of water, drinking sparingly.
"Was this place so desolate before the nukecaust?" Krysty asked, handing the container to Doc.
"Pretty near," Mildred answered. "Believe it or not, this area was popular with Hollywood moviemakers."
"Why?" Jak inquired.
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"It could double for anyplace—the Old West, alien planets, even countries in the Mideast."
Doc gulped down his ration of water and made an exaggerated show of examining their surroundings and finding them wanting. "I see very little that would stimulate the imagination or hold much in the way of entertainment value."
Ryan, who had been silent since calling the halt, suddenly chuckled.
"What's so funny, Dad?" Dean asked.
The one-eyed man gestured to the vast sweep of sand all around them. "A couple of days ago, we were surrounded by more water than I ever wanted to see. I remember saying to myself that if I ever got back to dry land, the only body of water I'd ever go near again would be a bathtub. Now this."
J.B. drawled, "Well, if we wanted to turn south, we'd come to the Cific by and by. According to my old chart, it's about eighty or so miles away. Mebbe closer now."
Ryan shook his head. "This is just like Trader used to say… 'Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you'll be bastard sorry when you finally get it.'"
"A version of that bromide was popular in my time," Mildred remarked. "We used to call cliches like that 'bumper-sticker philosophy.'"
Jak frowned at her. "What that?"
"Before skydark, almost everybody in America owned cars. Companies used to manufacture little adhesive signs with the silly slogans of the day printed on them, and people would stick them on the bumpers of their cars. Things like Keep On Truckin, or Beam Me Up, Scotty, There's No Sign Of Intelligent Life On This Planet—"
Seeing the perplexed expressions on the faces of her friends, Mildred added, "I guess you had to be there."
"I remember seeing one," Dean piped up. "Back in a Newyork salvage yard. It said Honk If You're Horny."
J.B. frowned. "Don't recollect Trader saying anything like that."
Doc brayed out a laugh. "I submit that was a good thing. He was already unpopular enough."
Ryan got to his feet. "Time to move. No matter where we're headed, we need to find some kind of shelter before the sun rises."
The march resumed. Eventually, the temperature dropped just enough to make the air comfortably cool. As the hours wore on, the endless ocean of sand began to sprout sparse signs of life. Sagebrush, cactus and ocotilla shrubs grew from the desert floor in thin silhouettes of shadow.
At one point, they spotted a peculiar humped hillock a dozen yards to their right. Ryan and Jak noted how the wheel tracks veered sharply away from it, then resumed their northwesterly direction. They followed the slight detour without question.
J.B. continued to eye the long bump in the flat expanse. Lowly, he asked, "You remember that giant sand spider back in White Sands?"
"Too damn well," Ryan answered.
All of them increased the length and speed of their stride for the next eighth of a mile. They managed to maintain the sprightly pace for another hour. After rising from a midnight rest break, the seven companions moved slower. Dean noticed Doc was lagging behind, and he dropped back to offer him an arm.
Doc waved him away, but acknowledged the boy's concern with an appreciative smile. "No need, young gentleman. I'm merely conserving my strength in case it is needed for running."
"Not much to run from—or to—around here, Doc."
"That's one of the truly invigorating elements about following your father—the situation could change at any moment."
Dean laughed, his deep blue eyes flashing in merriment. "I really missed all of you when I was in school. I didn't miss all the running, though."
The smile fled Doc's lips. "Our portion, I fear. The lot of the survivor, to run from one broken dream to another."
Ryan called back over his shoulder. "Pick up the pace back there."
"See what I mean?" Doc asked.
For the next couple of hours, nobody talked much. Silence lay upon the arid vista of emptiness with a crushing hand. Then, from far off, came a sound, a faint, moaning wail. Jak jogged forward to join Ryan. He sniffed the air. Ryan glanced at the albino teenager, feeling worry grow within him.
"Storm coming," Jak said. He pointed northward. "That way."
Ryan sighed, his worst fear realized. "How long?"
"Hour, mebbe. More, mebbe. Less, mebbe."
Ryan ground his teeth. He had been caught in desert storms before. The lingering effects of sky-dark still made the weather not only unpredictable, but vicious. Some peculiar geothermals in Deathlands attracted such bizarre weather as 250-mile-per-hour dust storms. Regardless, he knew that when a storm wind howled across the desert, the only thing to do was to keep moving. If you didn't, you were dead and buried in minutes.
He announced a halt and directed his companions to drape themselves in the bed linens and told them to use belts and straps to keep themselves connected to one another.
"We'll lose the trail when the wind hits," Krysty said.
J.B. nodded tersely. "Yeah. But so far, it's been heading northwest. We'll just keep on moving in that direction."
After everyone was attired in the makeshift robes, they got under way. This time, Doc kept up with the others. Inside of the hour, the distant moan built to a dry, shrieking wail that filled the whole sky. They saw the first tiny dust whirls, lifting and dancing across the terrain.
They moved in an erratic, jerking pattern, gathering strength from one another. The swirls merged, then the wind screamed, rising in pitch. Without warning, the storm struck them broadside, blinding the sky with dust, tearing at everything in its path with a clawing fury. Ryan covered his lower face with a scrap of sheet and turned toward Krysty, making sure she held on to her end of the belt in his hand. She was only a few feet away, but almost obscured by the veil of mingled sand and dust.
The wind roared around them, setting their sheets to flapping like the wings of giant, ungainly birds. At the top of his voice, Ryan roared, "Keep moving!" He doubted if anyone heard him.
The storm slapped at them, pushed them as they staggered and stumbled. Wind-driven grains of sand scoured the exposed part of their bodies like a fiery lash. Blinded, half-deafened and half-suffocated, they fought their way onward, struggling to gain a foot, then a yard. No sight of anything was possible in the swirling, howling inferno. The sand underfoot rolled like water, and it was all Ryan could do to maintain his balance. The ache of his bruises, which had faded somewhat over the past few hours, returned with a vengeance. His muscles throbbed, and he was afraid if he so much as paused, they would seize altogether.
They kept walking as if through a nightmare. Ryan focused on a single necessity: to survive, they had to keep moving. So they plodded onward, linked together, ears filled with the shriek of the wind, eyes slitted but seeing nothing but a never ending curtain of grit. His feet dragged, and he kept himself from falling only by a savage effort of will.
Ryan's head began to flash visions of the snowcapped mountains and clear, rushing streams of Ti-Ra'-Wa. Krysty lurched into his back, and he reached behind him to give her hand a reassuring squeeze.
His body lost all feeling, numb to every sensation except putting one foot in front of the other. One minute, he was sure the wind was dropping; the next, it seemed to increase his ferocity.
After an eternity, he fancied the storm was crying his name. He paid no attention, shambling and reeling forward. A heavy weight dragged against the belt wrapped around his wrist, yanking him backward. He turned blindly to help Krysty up from where he was sure she had fallen. Then he realized it wasn't the wind calling his name, but Krysty.
He pawed the sheet from his face and gingerly inhaled a deep breath. The air was clear and tranquil. The wind had dropped, and the air around him was no longer clogged with dust and sand.
"It's over," Krysty said hoarsely.
Squinting through his stinging eye, Ryan made a quick head count. All six of his people were there, swaying on weary legs.
"What do you know?" he croaked. His tongue felt like a strip of shriveled, ancient leather. "We didn't die.
"
Doc coughed rackingly and sank to the ground. "I am gratified you made that observation. Up until this moment, I was not sure."
All of them followed Doc's example, dropping in their tracks. They quenched their thirsts and rinsed out their gritty mouths with water. J.B. fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out his compass.
"We didn't stray too far off course," he announced. "What now?"
Ryan eyed the position of the moon. "Only a couple of hours until daybreak. We rest for half an hour, then start moving again."
Dean scrubbed sand from his hair. "Do we have to, Dad? I'm beat."
"If we stay here, we roast by midday."
Everyone was too tired and thirsty to talk during the half hour. When it elapsed, the seven companions slowly climbed to their feet.
Krysty pressed herself briefly against Ryan, lips brushing his, but it was a painful kiss, for their lips were dry and raw from the terrible chafing of the wind.
"We'll get through this, lover," she whispered. "Been through worse."
"Yeah," he replied, cupping her cheek in one hand. "Shining times await."
Wind-drifted sand glimmered in long ripples, as if a sea had been suddenly frozen and turned to powder. The moon grew red and menacing as it sank. Before they had covered two miles, the first glintings of dawn peeped over the horizon. Within four miles, the sun topped the edge of the world and drove away the cool of the night. Inside of six miles, the air was heavy with radiating waves of sheer, hellish heat. The desert hardpan seemed to soak it up and reflect it back. There was no shelter in sight from the rising inferno.
Jak and Krysty were fair-skinned and suffered the worst. They bundled themselves in the linens, leaving only their eyes uncovered. They quickly soaked the sheets through with perspiration.
"Omnia sol temperat, purus et subtilis," Doc muttered.
"That's Latin," Dean said. "What's it mean?"
" 'The sun, pure and clear, tempers everything.' "
They slogged on through the sand. Cacti of twisted, distorted shapes grew nearby, but no trees, not even a decent-sized bush. The terrain inclined slightly, and Ryan, his mind clouded by fatigue, was only dimly aware of climbing. His feet slipped on a lip of sand, and he went rolling down a smooth slope.