Ice and Fire d-8

by James Axler

  "Not what," Doc replied. "More like who. Around the time I was given the big time-push forward, there was a team trying to freeze folks just before or just after they died. The idea was that the future might have advanced medical methods that could cure whatever it was killing them. Advanced! Hah!"

  "Who'd they freeze, Doc?" Ryan asked.

  "The good, the bad and the... can't remember the last bit. The rich and the famous and the important. Mostly the rich and important. Politicians were tops, because... Which reminds me. Ugly. That was it. The freezing units and the good, the bad and the downright ugly."

  "Like to go see that cryo place," J.B. said thoughtfully.

  Ryan agreed with the Armorer. "Sure. But first we go eat, and I could do with catching up on my sleep for a few hours."

  "Days," Jak added.

  "Let's head for the living quarters, then," Krysty suggested.

  "Carried unanimously," Doc said, grinning with a wolfish good humor. "And we'll go on the morrow and see if any icemen cometh. Not that they will. Not after all these years."

  Chapter Four

  When they reached one of the four sections of living quarters, they found more evidence of the haste of the final evacuation of the huge redoubt.

  The long tables in the refectories had been cleared of all the residue of whatever had been the last-ever meal. But there were several dropped knives and spoons on the floor, broken glass and plates telling their own tale of necessary haste.

  The dormitories were even more revealing.

  Beds were unmade, sheets and blankets piled in untidy heaps. Made of rot-proof poly plastics, they had already lasted a hundred years and would probably last another thousand. Each dormitory held around two hundred beds, with partitions that ran from the floor to within eight inches of the ceiling. Each living space had a locker and small folding table.

  Ryan had no doubt these long, hangarlike rooms would normally have been kept immaculate, inspected at least twice a day by pernickety noncoms eager to seek out and punish any deviation from a perfect norm. But the events of those dark winter days in 2001 must have meant anything normal going by the board.

  "Lotsa mags," Jak said, flicking through a crumbling heap of brightly colored comics and periodicals. Most of them had names such as Small Arms Digest, Close Killing and New War. It was no surprise to Ryan that J.B. immediately perched himself on the edge of one of the beds and began to flick through the weapon magazines.

  In Deathlands it was unusual to find very much printed matter. It had been Ryan's observation that as many as ninety percent of the entire population — not counting muties — were functionally illiterate. Many villes had their own little news sheets, run off on antique presses, while one or two of the wealthiest barons might have working hot-metal presses. It was rare to find anything illustrated that had been printed since the long winters.

  "Look, lover," Krysty said, laughing. She held out a frail tabloid, rejoicing in the name of The Weekly Probe. Its front pages carried several headlines of varying size: King Charles Starlet Bribe Divorce Scandal, said one. Sadly, someone had cut out the photo from the back page, which had run beneath a screaming headline: My Breasts Are Like Dried Cantaloupes, But My Hubby Adores Them.

  "Ugh," Krysty said. "Just touching stuff like that makes me feel kind of dirty." She paused. "Hey, Ryan?"

  "What?"

  "How long since you had a bath?"

  "Round 'bout nine years is my guess, Krysty," J.B. joked, glancing up from an exploded, double-page color drawing of a .32-caliber Korth revolver.

  Ryan gave him the finger. "Butt your nose out of this one. I guess the last time I had a bath wasn't all that long ago."

  "Give me a date, lover. Back in New England? Doesn't count. Just a dunking in salt ocean. I mean a realhonest-to-Gaia bath with hot water, soap and all the trimmings."

  "Not since..." He shook his head. "Truth is, I don't remember."

  "Me, neither," Krysty replied. "How 'about following that green line on the map? One that points to Bath and Shower Facilities. I could really get into some good warm suds."

  "Fucking triple ace on line!" Jak exclaimed, smacking his left fist into his right palm in a gesture of enthusiastic agreement.

  J.B. nodded, glancing across at Lori and Doc. "You two?"

  Lori sighed, hugging the old man's arm. "Little girl'd do nothing for a hot wash, Doc."

  "Anything," he corrected.

  "How's that?"

  "You said you'd do nothing for a... But, let it pass, sweetness. I confess that the prospect of laving my weary soul is too tantalizing to imagine. Will there truly be hot water and all?"

  Ryan looked again at the map. He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin, feeling the dirt and grease under his fingers, wrinkling his nostrils at awareness of the stench of his own body.

  "I don't know, Doc. But there's sure as gren-chill one way to go find out."

  Doc whooped, slapping his thigh so that a great cloud of acrid dust billowed from his breeches. "Then let's go and follow the yellow brick road," he shouted.

  "Green, Doc. It's a green line on the map," J.B. said.

  * * *

  It was magic.

  The shower rooms were only about a hundred yards away from the dormitory, and a recreation room with television, books, ceedees and pool tables opened on the right. Then locker rooms, divided into male and female sections.

  "Think I'll come in with the guys," Krysty said, "if nobody objects."

  "And me," Lori said eagerly. Nobody objected.

  Ryan sat on one of the immaculately clean and polished benches in the shower room, peeling off his clothes. There were sec locks on the inside of the entrance doors which would hold any attackers long enough for the six companions to get to their blasters.

  The bathing complex was divided into smaller sections, each with hot tubs, whirlpools and showers. By common consent, the two couples each went into one section, J.B. and Jak sharing a third.

  Krysty had turned on the polished chrome taps to the big tub, testing the water with her hand. It took some time to run warm.

  "Sure there'll be some hot left after a hundred years?" Krysty called.

  "Nuke power plant's working still. Water in a sealed recycle unit. Should be all right, if you wait long enough."

  "Yeah!" she shouted. "Steaming. Have to turn the thermo down or we'll come out pink and skinned. You got your clothes off yet?"

  "On the way. There's a fifteen-minute laundro on the wall. Clean and tumble dry. Figure I'll risk my clothes through it while we wash."

  He unlaced the combat boots, throwing his socks into the cleaning machine. The skin of his feet was pale and unhealthy, and he realized that it had been a very long time since he'd even had his boots off. One of the problems of moving through the Deathlands was that it was rarely safe to strip off completely, even for a night's sleep. The heavy-duty dark gray pants, slit so that he could pull them over the calf-high boots, came off next, followed by his shorts. The brown shirt was last, chucked into the round, glassed port of the cleaner. His long coat with the white fur trim rested neatly on the bench beside the white silk scarf that had the small metal weights in its ends. The wrist chron was waterproof, so he kept it on. Before moving toward the sounds of splashing and the billowing tendrils of steam, he made sure that all his assorted weapons lay ready to hand.

  Stripped naked, Ryan realized that his own personal freshness wasn't all that it might have been.

  He caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror by the side of the open doorway through to the showers, paused and looked himself up and down. But not from vanity. He simply looked himself over, knowing that yet another of the Trader's favorite quotes had been something to the effect that the most basic weaponry tool was your own body.

  Ryan's thirty odd years of living had been as tough as they could have been, with very little gentle quiet in them. Though he stared critically, he felt he was in good shape: a rangy, muscular body, flat across the st
omach, with deep chest and narrow hips; a mat of dark hair curling across his chest, spilling down to tangle around his groin and lower stomach. There were seams and scars all over his trunk, arms and legs, and each of them told its own painful story of bad times from his past.

  "Checking the reflec, lover?" Krysty teased, appearing in the mirror at his side. "Making sure everything's in real good working order?"

  "Yeah. It's not... Hey, stop that!"

  Krysty giggled and didn't stop. She pressed herself closer against Ryan's body, right hand reaching around his hip.

  "I said to stop doing..."

  "Yeah," she said, stepping away from him, head to one side, admiring her handiwork. "Everything's in real good working order."

  "What'd you stop for?" he complained.

  "You told me to. Know how I always obey my lord and master? Just like my mama always instructed me."

  "I'm going in to wash up. If you're not undressed and in the tub with me in about... lemme see. In about forty-five seconds..."

  "You'll what?"

  "I'll come and get you, ready or not, and heave you in."

  "That a threat or promise?"

  "You got forty seconds to find out. Forty seconds and counting."

  Krysty made it with six seconds to spare, leaving her khaki overalls in a heap and her dark blue cowboy boots with the silver spread-winged falcons lying crookedly at the side. The cleaner had swallowed her neat bra and light blue bikini pants.

  There were automatic dispensers set in the wall, with trim, polished nozzles. Krysty pressed her hand under one and a thin mescal worm of scented soap settled in her palm.

  "Come on in, lover. Water's real good. Fireblast! It's been such a damned long time."

  Ryan called to her from the sunken bath. He was stretched out full-length, resting his head on the edge of the tub, his thick hair matted and wet. He grinned up at her.

  From beyond the next partition they both heard Lori squeal. "It's cold!! Why aren't you turned it up hot, Doc?"

  They couldn't catch the old man's reply, as it was drowned out in a hissing torrent of steamy water and a burst of giggling from Lori.

  "Sounds like Doc might have gotten himself turned up hot," Krysty said, padding to the edge of the bath, looking down at Ryan's lean and muscular body beneath her in the spray-topped water.

  She was partly on his blind side, and he tipped his head to glance up at her, thinking what an amazing physique she had: broad shoulders tapered to a slim waist and tight, firm buttocks; she had the thighs of an athlete, with slim ankles; her breasts were tipped with fire, her nipples hard as cherry stones.

  The steam was affecting Krysty's sentient hair, which was uncoiling after the defensive tightness against the cockroaches, tumbling in vivid waves of luxuriant crimson. Ryan noticed that the curling hair at the junction of her magnificent thighs was opening like a soft vermilion fan.

  "See what you like?"

  He grinned. "And I like what I see. Come on, Krysty." He held his arms up to accept her into the embracing warmth of the steaming tub.

  One in the bank of hair dryers wasn't working. And when they tried to shower after their lovemaking in the tub, Ryan and Krysty discovered that half of them were only running cold.

  * * *

  After his bath Ryan took the opportunity to shave off the stubble that seemed almost a permanent part of his life, revealing the livid scar that seamed across his right cheek from the corner of his good eye past the angle of his mouth.

  Krysty brushed out her hair, making it crackle with vitality. By the time they'd finished, their clothes were ready, clean and dry, slightly warmed. Ryan laced up his boots, stretched and yawned. "That was sogood, lover," he said quietly. "All I want now is a decent meal and then twelve hours of bed."

  She didn't reply. Dressed only in her bikini briefs, she walked to stand by him, kissing him on the cheek, as soft as the caress of a hummingbird's wing.

  * * *

  J. B. Dix, trim and spruce, had found what had once been the living quarters for some of the administrative officers in the redoubt: separate cubicles, each with double-size beds, and dining areas with tables that seated six. The kitchen units held a better than average range of tinned food. To everyone's relief the stove worked and there was no need to open any of the ubiquitous and disliked self-heats.

  "By the three Kennedys!" Doc exclaimed. "But we are surely the most elegant sextet in all of Deathlands. Not to mention the most fragrant."

  Jak had appointed himself in charge of the cooking facilities and he was bustling around, helped by Lori. The boy's hair, under the rare influence of shampoo and clean hot water, danced around his narrow face like the fine spray of the ocean thrown on jagged rocks. Ryan found cutlery and plates while J.B. scavenged around some of the lockers in the individual rooms.

  "What're you heating up for us, Jak?" Krysty asked, leaning back in one chair, resting the heels of her boots on another.

  The boy peered at the faded labels as he slid them into the electric opener. "Tomato soup, oxtail soup and vegetable soup for the start. Potatoes, chicken nuggets and corn. Cherry and apple pie to finish up."

  "Sounds real good," Ryan said, licking his lips in anticipation. "Hope it's not gone sour over the years."

  "Tins would have blown," Krysty observed. "Should be fine. Oh, but that smells wonderful, guys! I can't wait."

  "And look what I found to go with it," said the Armorer, brandishing a ribbed bottle half-full of a dark amber liquid.

  "What's that?" Lori asked.

  Doc, who'd been fiddling with some sort of electrical control unit in the corner of the dining area, glanced around. "That's Southern Comfort, child. The peach nectar of the gods. Set 'em up, John Barrymore Dix. Best damned barman from Portland, Maine to... to somewhere else. Make it one for my baby and one for the road."

  Chapter Five

  It was a truly magical evening.

  Krysty found some old wax candles in a tiny cupboard marked Emergency Illumination, and they dimmed the overhead neon strips and sat in the soft pools of spilled golden light. The Southern Comfort was as marvellous as Doc had said, brimming over with the taste of peach summers long, long dead and buried in wastelands of glowing ash.

  The heated food was some of the best any of them had ever tasted. The soup was a little thick on additives and preservatives, though Lori had succeeded in scooping most of it from the top.

  Doc had managed to get the range of concealed speakers around the angles of the room to function, digging out a set of ceedees to accompany the meal. Most of it what he called classical music. Ryan would personally have liked some songs with words, but he had to admit the gentle rhythm went well with the unhurried, peaceful meal.

  "This is Vivaldi," Doc informed them, beating time to the music with his fork. "Four Seasons. Lovely, isn't it? There's a Mozart flute concerto next, and then some Gregorian chant. Monastic music." He looked around the table, seeing only a universal blankness. "Well, perhaps you'll like it anyway."

  Toward the very end of the meal, as Jak was heating a can of coffee, the sound began to crackle and cut out in one of the speakers.

  J.B. caught Ryan's eye. "Got a feeling our arrival here's starting to set some malfunction chains toppling over."

  "Could be. Often happens. You find a place untouched since the big fires. I've done it. So've you. Mebbe pick something up and it works. Hasn't been touched in a hundred years. And it works. Ten seconds later it falls apart right between your fingers."

  The candles were guttering. Lori had also gone scavenging and come across a box that had once held some chocolate-covered peppermint candy. But it had gone as hard as stone and nobody could eat any. The teenager had been upset by that, leaving the supper table before the others and wandering off to the room she was sharing with Doc.

  "My lovely flower sure gets touchy these days," the old man said sadly, more to himself than those remaining. "Must be the generation gap. I daresay there must be something like eig
ht generations between us. I hadn't thought about it like that before."

  "Figure I'll go sleep." Jak stood up and stretched like a cat, muscles cracking. "That was one of the best times." He nodded to his four friends and went off to bed, a little way along the passage from the dining area.

  Krysty topped up her mug from the pan of coffee that still bubbled on the stove, listening to the melancholy music in the background.

  "It's sad, Doc. What is it? Violin or something deeper?"

  "Cello, my dear lady. A piece by an Englishman called Edward Elgar. I met him once, as I recall. Slip of a man, yet he burned like a flame. That must have been... Oh, I disremember."

  "You're like a living time machine, Doc," Krysty observed, sitting next to Ryan, letting her hand drop with an easy affection onto his wrist.

  "There are times... have been times, when I have wished only that this time machine could grind to a halt, my dear."

  "You got friends, Doc," Ryan said softly.

  "I have a wife and I have two children. No!" The word was almost shouted. "No, Ryan," he continued more calmly. "I no longer have a wife. Emily Louise is dead and buried in the family vault in Deadwood. Mount Moriah, I think it was... up a steep hill, among trees, with a view across the hills. I went there once, with Emily, when we were young and so in love. There was a grave there, a young child's. The stone said 'We really miss our little boy.' Oh, sweet God, how I miss my own little ones! Rachel and Jolyon. Both resting with their Mama. One day, I would wish to be joined with them again, Ryan." Tears began to course down Doc's face, between the newly shaved furrows, dripping off the end of his chin onto the table. "You hear me, Ryan. If it is humanly possible, then I would wish to be buried with my wife and children in Deadwood. If it still exists. They showed me a photo of the grave once. So I know they are there. Do that for me, Ryan?"

  "If I can, Doc. But you gotta know that it's not likely."

  "No?"

  "Not likely," Ryan repeated. "Chances of us being around that part when you finally buy the farm... Chances are, we'll all have gotten chilled before you. You old buzzard, Doc. You got more years left than the rest of us together."