Doomsday Warrior 11 - American Eden

by Ryder Stacy

  They were on a high plateau, totally exposed to the elements. Rock had to find them cover now, or Danik would die. And the mission with him.

  Rockson took up the infrared binoculars and scanned ahead. The binocs cut through some of the obscuring effects of the storm. Dimly Rockson made out a line of boulders ten or twelve miles ahead, down from their exposed position on the hill, in a little valley. Maybe there would be shelter somewhere in that jumble of rocks. He certainly hoped so.

  The Doomsday Warrior, lifting the many fur coverings, took a glance at Danik’s face. It was ashen, his breathing was shallow. He hoped he would last till they got there.

  It took another twenty minutes to get into the sheltered valley and find a group of three huge rocks. There was a space between the them big enough for the humans to scramble through with their tent and some supplies—including the Primus stove.

  Danik had to be passed from arms to arms wrapped in his blankets, for he was completely unconscious. There was just enough room to set up the survival tent there among the boulders out of the wind. With frozen determination, they accomplished that task, and pulled the stove inside and lit it up. They placed Danik closest to the stove’s heat. The dogs would manage in the lee of the wind, sleeping in a huge tumble with one another. They had the stamina to do so.

  There in the rapidly erected silver tent the cold and hungry Freefighters huddled. As the tent slowly grew warmer, they began to unpack the bundle of food-stuffs Rock had dragged along. Danik came around as the temperature rose. They fed him some hot broth McCaughlin brewed up out of chunks of preserved venison, some melted snow, and vitamin capsules.

  They were safe from Mother Nature’s winter wrath. For now.

  The alarm woke him up at six o’clock; McCaughlin eased out among them. It was totally dark. It shouldn’t be. No—there was a bit of light at the very peak of the tent. He realized they were nearly buried in snow. The Scots-American rose up to full height, the air was very stale. He snapped open the chimney slit in the tent top. It instantly got colder, but the air was okay. He peered through the hole. It had stopped snowing—they could dig out later. The others began to stir.

  McCaughlin knew what was needed besides his jokes to restore morale. He started up breakfast: venison strips as bacon substitute and hot coffee and biscuits—the kind you just put in a pan and swell up once you cover them and they steam. His own famous trail biscuits.

  Sniffing the food odors did more to awaken his companions than did the alarm. “Rise and shine, mateys, breakfast is all ready.”

  “Never heard a more pleasant sentence,” Rockson said. He turned up the Coleman lamp and looked around at the bundled-up Freefighters now coming to life. “Why is it so dark in here?”

  McCaughlin explained. Rock frowned. “Of course—how could I be so stupid—we could have suffocated.”

  “Not with you along we couldn’t,” McCaughlin said. “You have mutant’s luck, remember?”

  Danik lay half asleep still on Rockson’s sled when they set off on their way again. He was still the worse for wear, but improving rapidly after the warmth and sleep and good food. The warming sunbeams seemed to bring the man around further.

  Rockson took sun readings every three hours, when they paused for hot green tea—an Eskimo custom Rock had picked up.

  Scheransky asked Rockson to come to look at some odd ice formations a bit away from the others. He had something, he said, on his mind. Rockson asked him what it was.

  Scheransky’s dark eyes were intense. “I want to know what really happened to you out in the desert, after our Alaska mission last year. After you left us in Alaska to chase down that missile, what happened to you? What’s the big secret about the missing five days of your trek to Century City? I heard that the only one you told is Dr. Schecter.”

  Rockson decided to tell Scheransky. He was a technician, a scientist. Perhaps someone other than Schecter should know. Maybe Scheransky could help Schecter in his project, a project based upon what had happened in Rockson’s missing five days. “I went backward in time, that’s what happened.”

  “Backward in time? Is that possible?”

  “I didn’t believe it was—but it happened. I was caught in a twin-tornado storm—one of the Kala-Ka storms you’ve probably read about. I was tossed through some sort of time portal, and went back to 1989. I’ll tell you sometime what happened back there. The important thing is I came back into the present. Schecter thinks that it would be theoretically possible to set up the same conditions I encountered in the Kala-Ka artificially in the lab and send me—or someone—back in time again. It would be very dangerous . . .”

  “Then, why—”

  “Scheransky, think a second. What could you, what would you do in 1989, if you could?”

  “Back in 1989? Why, that’s when—”

  “Right—that’s when World War Three started. If someone were to go back in time and, say, assassinate Premier Drushkin—the man who launched the surprise attack on America—”

  Scheransky gasped. “Why, then the war would never—”

  “Right. The war might never have happened. America wouldn’t have been devastated. There wouldn’t have been the death of billions of men, women, and children, the radiation clouds wouldn’t have swept over the planet.”

  The Russian sank back on his heels. “Da. But that might have some—unpleasant consequences. It would change everything. Even who is alive in the twenty-first century. It would change history so much. There would never be a Century City, for instance.”

  “You see the problem. Very good. If and it’s a big if—if Schecter can accomplish time travel, it would be a better idea to change things just slightly, so that—say—the Reds’ occupation of America after the war was not very successful. Or perhaps go back and take out just the Soviet missiles that went off track and hit our nuclear power plants—and sent all that radiation up into the air. Something like that would be better than undoing all of history.”

  Scheransky whistled. “That would be tremendous.”

  “Of course, it’s only theoretically possible. And if the Russians were to get the gist of what I just told you, they could start research on the Kala-Ka phenomenon on their own and perhaps also achieve time travel. That’s why only Schecter—and now you—know.”

  “Oh, my god. This must not get to the Soviets.”

  “Yes . . . you see the problem. Now you understand why it’s top-top-secret.”

  “I swear by my mother’s grave . . .”

  “I know, Scheransky, I know. Now I told you because I think with your technical background, with what you know about Soviet technology, you might be able to lend Schecter a hand with the project, once we get back . . .”

  “I would love nothing better, my friend.”

  “Good. I’ll see to it. Now that I let the cat out of the bag with you, I can’t see Schecter not bringing you in on it. It would take some of the enormous burden off his shoulders to have an assistant.”

  “You honor me, my friend. And I am so happy that you trust me . . .”

  Rockson squeezed his shoulder. “I trust you totally. You’re a part of the team. You’re one of us now.”

  Nine

  They made good time trekking, covering a hundred winding miles through rolling terrain each day. They camped in snow caves or rock overhangs. The routine set in. Up at dawn, check the dogs, feed them a ration portion each of the dwindling dried meat supply, get some breakfast down themselves, then drive the teams across the deep winter snow. Tea and pemmican breaks in the trek, navigation readings and comparing the notebook and their maps. And always, always, tugging at Rockson’s gut, the realization that they could be hopelessly off course.

  Six days after the Hall of Presidents, they found evidence of game. Deer tracks.

  They braked their sleds, drew them behind some winterberry bushes, as a wind shield.

  Archer was the first to volunteer. “Meeee gooo huntttt,” he demanded. He drew up his huge make-shift
crossbow and a four-foot barbed steel arrow, which he notched. “Ookayyy?”

  Rockson thought a bit, then said, “No, old fellow. We need you to watch over the teams. The dogs love you. We can’t handle them without you near.”

  Archer’s chest swelled. “Meee goooddd,” he stated, and he pounded on his chest so loud it sounded like a bass drum.

  “Thanks, pal, I knew I could count on you.”

  Rockson considered their ad hoc camp a good one. Behind winterberry brambles, a natural shield of thorns.

  “Rona and I will use some arrows and get the venison,” he promised.

  Rockson took up his compound bow—a plastic and steel marvel of engineering with a hundred-ninety-pound pull. “Ready, Rona?” She had her bow on her shoulder. “Sure, lead on.”

  Rock wanted Rona as backup. Rock had to admit she was equal to him in skill if not in sheer power of draw. He couldn’t afford to miss. And firearms were out. No sense alerting any chance Soviet patrol.

  Three hours of trekking and the couple was in sight of the eight-point buck and his doe. The problem was getting downwind from the gentle creatures nuzzling on the evergreen branches.

  It took another hour for Rockson and Rona to get in position in the boulderfield directly north of the pair of deer. Rockson carefully notched his arrow and let fly the shot at the buck, but the stag had suddenly started.

  There was a movement in the narga grass—and one of Post-nuke America’s plethora of wildswine appeared. The supersensitive snout of the beast stuck high into the air. The four-tusked three-hundred-pound beast snorted. It had caught the scent of the two Freefighters.

  “Damn,” said Rona as the alerted deer darted away, jumping into the copse of trees. “There goes our venison steaks.”

  “How about some pork chops,” Rockson said angrily, swiveling his bow and letting loose a good shot at the spoiler of their hunt.

  But the wildswine had suddenly darted sideward with a sharp squeal. The super-swift porker, a dangerous crossbreed of wild Asian swine and the domestic hog of the twentieth century, also avoided the frying pan.

  “Shit,” Rock said, reaching into his quiver and taking out another steel-tipped arrow. He notched it and said, “The pig is over in that jumble of rocks—let’s get it. Rona, you go around the other way. We’ll have pork tonight, or my name isn’t Ted Rockson.”

  But as the couple gradually, silently moved to encircle the wildswine, there was a sudden shaking of the ground. Rock swiveled on his heels to see a giant version of the swine he was stalking tear through a copse of trees the size of telephone poles, knocking them down like toothpicks. The thing was a pig—but it stood twelve or thirteen feet at its shoulders and was at least twice that length. It stopped in its tracks, snorted a twin stream of hot steam out of its flaring nostrils. And then it turned its ugly snout directly in the direction of Rockson and roared out a challenge.

  Rona and Rock let fly their arrows, each hitting one of the beast’s huge eyes. But the arrows just bounced. “Rona—head for cover in the rocks, I’ll lead it away.” With that admonition, the twenty-first-century warrior took off at a lope. The giant swine started pawing the ground, it lowered its head like a bull. Then it took off after him, like a freight train chasing a stray cat.

  “Rock,” Rona yelled, “be careful.”

  Rockson was being careful. He had made for a second outcropping of sharper, tumbled rocks, and now dove in among the boulders, rolled into a crevice. He removed his shotpistol from his holster and took the safety off. Just in time. The giant swine screeched to a stop and leaned its steamy snout down into Rock’s hiding place. Its huge tongue licked down at the Doomsday Warrior. Naturally, he fired. Point-blank.

  The lower incisors and molars of the beast exploded into chalky fragments tinged with red, and the X-pattern of explosive pellets peppered the sinewy red throat beyond. But the thing didn’t die. It pulled back, startled by the blast. Then it charged against the rocks, almost burying Rockson in a shifting mass of granite. He managed to extricate himself and, not anxious to be buried in the next attack, he took off again. Rockson was firing over his shoulder when the opportunity presented itself. Two of his frantic shots hit dead center in the snout of the beast, sending out sprays of nostril meat and blood, but it just sneezed and then continued the chase.

  The shotpistol empty. Rock flung it back, the beast swallowed it without changing pace. Rockson spotted Rona a hundred feet ahead, running fast, but not as fast as Rockson, and he soon caught up to her. “Pour it on, girl,” he gasped out, “I couldn’t stop it.”

  “Rock, how about my smoke bombs?”

  “Smokebombs? Hell, use them, Rona, quickly.”

  Rona was already reaching into her belt pouch. She tossed a handful of the small glass cylinders behind her. The pop-pop-pop of the shattering glass was music to Rockson’s ears. The thundering hoofs of their immense pursuer stopped. There was a great cloud of putrid-smelling black smoke behind the two runners now. An enormous sneeze reverberated in the cold air. Imagine what that stuff smells like to its sensitive nostrils. Rock thought. That ought to stop him for a while.

  But a while was a mere five or six seconds. Enough for the Freefighters to gain a hundred feet, but then the terrible thundering hoofs started coming again.

  Rockson could see the tangle of brambles that he hoped was the encampment wall ahead. He yelled, “Freefighters, set the Liberator rifles on full automatic, we’ve got supper coming up behind us—don’t spare the gunpowder.”

  Rockson’s rear end was now less than twenty feet ahead of the razor-sharp tusks.

  Ten

  “Did you hear that?” McCaughlin said, snapping up from where he crouched feeding another stick into the low campfire. “Look, over there!”

  Detroit saw where he was pointing, and heard more clearly what Rockson was yelling. “Quick,” Detroit exclaimed, “Aim high, don’t hit our friends. Shoot!”

  Frantically they lifted their rifles. Chen, wanting accuracy, set down his tripod mount for steadiness atop the small rise, they all fired on full auto at the beast.

  The big guns spoke a thousand throaty words. The simple statement could not be ignored. It said, “Death to big pigs.”

  A shuddering series of impacts on the pig knocked it to the ground. Splattered pieces of smoking meat and shards of bone matter flew over Rock and Rona as they dove over the brambles to their friends. All the Freefighters’ uniforms were coated with a rain of red blood. A pulsing bit of pig brain-matter splashed into Scheransky’s hands as he tried to cover his face. Rockson, too, was thoroughly reddened by the rain of blood. They kept firing for a while—just in case!

  Rona jumped across the hollow, and grabbed the Doomsday Warrior into her arms. “Oh, you great big hunk of a man,” she said, kissing his red-stained face over and over—everywhere. “You saved me. You lured the thing to you, you did it to save me.”

  When she finally let go, Rockson smiled, “Not exactly. I wanted pork chops for supper, that’s all.”

  Before the roaring cooking fire had died to red coals in the early darkness, the smell of roast pork spread through the valley. The fattiest meat was given to the ravenous wolf-dogs, who had endured so much and gotten them over eight hundred miles already. The Rock Team went to their sleeping bags with a warm glow in their bellies—especially after the Scot passed around his Glenlivet. “It’s a hundred and six years old, laddies, so don’t ye spill a drop.”

  “Now, that’s old scotch.” Detroit said, swigging down a large portion. Danik had a restorative slug too.

  “Save some for the Russkies,” said Scheransky, taking the bottle. “I prefer vodka, but defectors can’t be choosers. I’ll make do.” He too took a swig. And so did the rest of them. Rona finished it off in two glugs, and wiped her mouth, tossed the bottle into the brush.

  “Now, that’s a woman you got there. Rock,” said McCaughlin.

  The next day’s trek was an uneventful passage over gently rolling snow under pink cirru
s clouds. Rockson, stopping the group at midafternoon, used the navigation devices that Schecter had provided, and also used the toy sextant that Dutil had figured angles and distance with. He announced that they were well out on the rolling plains of Arizona. Some divine power must, they reasoned, be favoring their quest.

  The citizen of Eden had been extraordinarily quiet.

  He was sitting up on Rock’s sled, watching the scenery go by. Rock, hoping he wasn’t getting sick again, spoke to him. “You all right, Danik?”

  “Wonderful. It’s so beautiful, that’s why I’m quiet. This land is so beautiful. What is there to say in the face of such beauty?”

  “I guess we Americans take for granted the majesty of the countryside, Danik. It’s a good thing someone comes along once in a while to tell us what we have. So we notice it more. So we appreciate it. You know it was all almost completely destroyed a hundred and five years ago—when the two superpowers fired their ICBMs at one another. The ignorant bastards almost destroyed it all.”

  “Stafford plans to finish their evil handiwork—make this beautiful world a no-man’s land,” Danik said sadly. “I hope we can stop him. God, I pray that we can stop him.”

  After nearly one hundred miles more, all against a fierce icy wind, the party of bold adventurers were beginning to doubt the directions given by the note-book. They should have reached the next landmark—the tall teepee-shaped building.

  Still, there was nothing to do but go on.

  They were ten miles further along than the notebook indicated, and all were depressed and feeling hopeless, when Danik himself shouted the good news: “There it is, the whale rock. We are on the right track.”

  “Thank God Run Dutil’s notes were accurate at least to the direction, if not to the distance,” Rock uttered with relief.

  Recalculating their path taking into account the navigational error of two degrees and ten miles, Rockson headed the bone-weary squad off again to the south. And after two more hard hours fighting winds and driven snow, they came upon a crumbling highway town. There in the middle of the rust spots in the snow that had been Buicks and Toyotas and Oldsmobiles over a hundred years ago, was the giant teepee. It had the look of a new building. “We buried two companions behind it,” Danik said softly.