by James Axler
“Feeling better, Doc?”
“Yes, I am. The comforting ministrations of the young woman, Clarissa, did much to calm my nerves and rejuvenate my spirits. In a way I was reminded of my dear Emily. Why, it was almost worth catching cold just to have her make a fuss over me.”
The time traveler was beginning to ramble.
J.B. grabbed his arm and gave it a firm shake. “Doc!”
Doc stopped talking and his body shuddered slightly, as if he’d just been awakened from a dream. “Yes,” he said sharply.
“Get some rest. Mildred, Krysty and Ryan, they’re waiting for us. We leave at first light.”
“Yes, of course. Some rest might do me some good.”
MILDRED SAT on the cot she’d set up in the nursery and let out a long sigh.
She had sewn up Foghat’s arm as best she could, set it in a splint so he wouldn’t tear the stitches and given him something for the pain. Then she’d fixed up Brody’s leg and wheeled him over so he could spend some quiet time with Jasmine. After that, she’d watched over both of them for a few hours to make sure infection or any other complications didn’t set in.
Now with the lights in the nursery turned down and her charges asleep for the night, Mildred lay down and rested for the first time all day.
The moment her head hit the pillow she was asleep, and dreaming of her days as an young intern.
THE FIRE ON THE BEACH had been put out for the night, and guards were posted on the edge of the marauders’ camp. In the morning they would travel north to the falls. In the evening they would take up positions around a farm there. And during the night they would break into the complex and take men and women to breed with to insure the survival of Reichel ville.
Some of them wouldn’t be making the journey home, and the mood in the camp was somber.
“Rhonda!” sec chief Ganley whispered when he saw the young woman approaching. He’d been lying on his back, staring up at the stars unable to sleep. “Unable to sleep, too?” he asked her.
Rhonda nodded.
“Scared?”
Again she nodded.
“Me, too.”
She looked surprised.
“Do you want to talk about it?” the sec chief asked.
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
“For you to hold me.”
The sec chief took her in his arms, their shared body heat keeping them warm through the night.
THE BIG CLAWFOOT BATHTUB in Krysty’s room was full of hot, steaming water. Ryan lay back in the tub, his arms stretched out over the sides, his body’s energy depleted and close to exhaustion. Krysty ran a soapy sponge across Ryan’s chest, cleaning away the afternoon’s blood and grime.
Ryan’s ribs still ached, but now that he’d had some time to rest, the pain had ebbed to a level he could tolerate. The cut on his shoulder had also cleaned up well, the wound having looked far worse than it really was.
Krysty squeezed the sponge and let the water flow over Ryan’s broad, muscular shoulders, then she guided it down his chest and over his stomach toward the water.
Ryan flinched the moment the sponge traced a line over his aching ribs.
“Sore, lover?”
“A bit tender is all, but I’ll manage.”
Krysty kept her hand under the water, but let go of the sponge and let it float to the surface.
Ryan could feel her fingers caressing him between his legs. He quickly responded by growing hard.
“I thought you were tired, lover.”
“I am.”
“But not too tired?”
“Never too tired for that,” Ryan said.
“I can see that. Or should I say, I can feel it.”
Ryan reached up and cupped one of Krysty’s full breasts. She moved closer to him, bringing the nipple close to his mouth. Ryan responded by taking it between his lips and sucking until it condensed into a rosy nub of flesh.
“Oh, lover,” Krysty whispered, continuing to stroke Ryan beneath the water.
“To the victor go the spoils,” Ryan said.
Krysty joined him in the tub.
They made love long into the night.
Chapter Thirty
J.B. had roused the group before the sun rose, and they spent the first hour of the day just getting the wag started. After having sat in the garage for several months, the wag’s battery had run down and was without power. So instead of using the wag’s starter motor, the group had to push the wag while J.B. used the clutch to put the vehicle in gear. After a half hour of trying, it seemed the engine was never going to start, but then it coughed once.
Spurred on by that success, they tried again and again, cough turning into sputter and then finally into a shaky rumble.
And then the engine roared to life.
J.B. wasted no time getting everyone on the wag and moving. The exhaust fumes had a foul smell to them, and the less they had to breathe them in the better.
The group pulled the wag out of the underground garage just as dawn broke over the horizon. The sky was a dazzling shade of orange, and the cloud cover that had been hanging over them the past two days was now all but gone.
They left the garage and soon turned onto Niagara Falls Boulevard. With an open road in good condition in front of him, J.B. opened up the throttle and the rumbling noise from the engine smoothed out into a loud but regular hum.
They drove several blocks along the boulevard until they found the remains of a building that suited their needs. J.B. stopped the wag about a city block from a deserted and crumbling bank building on Pine Avenue, keeping the engine running in the hopes that it would recharge the wag’s battery. The east wall of the bank building was made of bricks and painted white, and would provide an excellent test target for the 37 mm cannon.
J.B. judged the distance to be about one hundred yards, well within the range of the cannon and the .50 calibers, but a tough distance to cover with small-arms fire, especially from remades like those used by the farm’s sec men.
“Put a round in!” J.B. ordered.
In the back of the wag, Doc loaded one of the better shells into the cannon’s breech. They had decided to try the shells in the order of the ones in best condition first, because if the cannon didn’t fire the best-quality shells, it probably wouldn’t fire at all.
“Ready!”
J.B. paused a moment, knowing that the cannon barrel could just as easily blow apart as fire the shell. At least if the barrel exploded, he’d be chilled instantly.
J.B. pulled the cord he’d fashioned into a makeshift trigger, and the cannon boomed.
The cannon’s recoil pushed the wag back about two feet, despite J.B.’s firm pressure on the brake pedal. There was a brief moment of silence, and then the cannon shell struck the side of the building, punching a wag-tire-sized hole in the brickwork ten feet off the ground and almost directly in front of the wag.
“Hot pipe!” Dean exclaimed.
“Hot pipe, indeed,” Doc echoed.
“Well, at least we know the cannon works,” J.B. said, a broad grin on his face. “Now we’ve got to get it to the farm so we can use it on some live targets.”
“Excuse me, John Barrymore,” Doc said, kneeling so he could talk to J.B. through the open window at the back of the wag’s cab. “But I am not sure that the bridge we crossed the other day is stable enough to support the weight of this wag.”
J.B. nodded in agreement. “And the other one we saw didn’t look too sturdy, either.”
“So close and yet so far,” Doc muttered.
“There’s another bridge,” Clarissa said. “South of here.”
“How far?” J.B. asked, shifting the wag into gear.
“Ten or fifteen miles. It crosses the river upstream at Buffalo.”
“What’s the bridge like there?”
“It’s pretty rusty,” she said, “but it’s complete. You’d be able to drive the wag over it no problem.”
That settled it f
or J.B. The fuel they had in the wag was old, but they had a tankful of it and they wouldn’t be needing more than a quarter of a tank to drive the thirty-mile round trip to the farm. Sure, it would take longer, but they’d have to wait until dark once they arrived anyway, and it was better to spend some time traveling the better route than risk breaking an axle or puncturing a tire trying to cross the ruined remains of the Rainbow and Whirlpool bridges.
“All right, that’s the way we’ll take.” J.B. let out the clutch and the wag lurched forward. “What’s the name of this bridge, anyway?”
“It’s called the Peace Bridge.”
Jak smiled.
Doc laughed out loud.
SEC CHIEF GANLEY instructed a team to cover the boats with weeds and tree branches so they’d be hidden while they were away. He had considered leaving behind two men to guard them, but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing they’d need all hands to help with the raid.
They headed north on foot, moving quickly through overgrown forests and across the weed-choked flat-lands. He got the feeling that the entire area had been farmland during predark times, but nothing had grown there since the nukecaust, except for weeds and muties.
About an hour into their hike, the sec chief heard it.
“What is it?” someone behind him called out.
The sec chief raised his right arm and clenched his hand in a fist. The raiders scattered, disappearing into the underbrush as if they’d never been there on the path.
Ganley could hear the rumble of an engine growing louder. Judging by the sound, it was running well and whoever was driving was in a hurry, with no worries about fuel. The sec chief crept forward, saw the road crossing his path up ahead and crawled through the weeds toward the strip of weedy pavement.
Carefully he looked down the road to the east.
A wag was approaching. It was manned by a large crew and was armed with a couple of machine blasters and a monstrous blaster up front.
Ganley quickly dived back under cover and remained still until the wag passed. He kept down for some time after, feeling safe enough to move only after the sound of the wag’s motor had faded into the distance.
“What was it?” asked one of the raiders.
“Just a patrol.”
“They have motorized patrols?”
“Were they armed?”
“I don’t know if that was a patrol belonging to the farm we’re planning to raid, or if it was just some baron’s war wag passing through. Either way, we’re in some bad country here and we might be getting into something we’re not really prepared for.”
Silence.
“Anybody who wants to turn around and go back to the boat, I won’t stop you. And there will be no bad feelings when we return.”
Ganley waited for someone to speak.
No one did.
“C’mon, Chief,” Rhonda called from the back of the group. “We’re losing daylight here.”
“You all feel the same way?”
There were mumbles and words said by everyone, but the general consensus was a resounding yes.
“All right, then. Let’s get moving.”
Chapter Thirty-One
When Ryan awoke early the next morning, Krysty was still sleeping comfortably in his arms.
“What is it, lover?” she said.
“Time for work.”
“But you won,” Krysty said. “You don’t have to work in the orchards for a week if you don’t want to.”
“Don’t want to,” Ryan said. “Have to.”
“Why?”
“One of us has to be out in the orchards to look out for J.B. and the others. He’s had time to get organized and come up with a plan. If he’s got one, he might want to give us a message about when and where he’s going to hit the farm. Someone needs to be out in the field to receive his message.”
“What if you don’t hear from him today?”
“Then we’ll start making our own plans to get out of here.”
“Good,” Krysty said. “I’m starting to have some bad feelings about this place.”
“Anything specific?”
“Not really. But I am worried about you, lover. You might be in danger somehow.”
“I’ve been up to my knees in it since I got here.”
“No, this is something else. Different.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Krysty was silent a moment, then said, “What do you want me to do while you’re out in the orchards?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and getting dressed.
“Talk to Mildred. Find out more about where our blasters are being stored and see if we can get them out without anyone noticing. See if you can talk to some of the slaves and let them know something might be happening soon and that they should be ready.” He paused a moment, thinking. “And mebbe the two of you could come up with a plan for a diversion. We’ll need one whether we break out of here ourselves or J.B. comes to get us.”
“Anything else, lover?” Krysty asked, her hands on her hips and a smile on her face.
Ryan looked at her a moment, then crawled slowly back onto the bed, where he made love to her one more time before starting the day.
BARON FOX HAD HAD trouble sleeping all through the night. He’d called for a nonbreeder before getting into bed, but the usual sense of peace and tranquillity he enjoyed after a good rutting had eluded him.
Even now, hours later, he was still too tense to rest and his mind was far from being at peace.
There was something on his mind.
It was the outlander with one eye.
He’d been magnificent in the circle, chilling his opponents with as much cunning as brute strength. He’d chilled Mog as easily as he might a dog. It had been a good show, but there was still something wrong about the one-eye, something not right.
Mog had been a monster, but he could always be easily controlled. A few breeders and he was happy, producing offspring that netted top jack. But this one, he was a rogue, a renegade, a rebel. He wasn’t the type to be happy just working and rutting his life away on the farm.
He was wild.
Untamable.
And he was an outlander. Soon he’d be looking at the fence surrounding the farm as a prison wall, and he’d want out. Worse still was the possibility that he would spend his time on the farm convincing the other slaves to rebel. The slaves outnumbered the sec force ten to one, and any organized rebellion stood a good chance of succeeding.
And if that happened, Baron Fox knew he’d be chilled for sure, but only after a very long and painful torture session.
All it would take is the right man.
And that man was the one-eyed outlander. The baron was sure of it.
Earlier in the night, when the baron had first tried to get some rest, he’d drifted into a light sleep and dreamed of the door to his chambers bursting inward and the one-eyed outlander charging inside, blaster in hand, cutting him to ribbons with a burst of automatic fire.
That dream, a brief picture of his own hellish demise, had started the baron wondering about the outlander and whether it was wise to keep him on the farm, even if it was only long enough to ship him out and sell him at auction.
Each day would give him time to talk to the others and put thoughts of rebellion, escape and freedom into their little minds.
The baron shook his head. There was no doubt in his mind. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
The one-eyed outlander had to be chilled.
The sooner the better.
“Number One!” the baron called out.
The door to the baron’s chamber opened immediately, and Norman Bauer stood there in the doorway with the ledger in his hand, as if he’d been waiting on the other side to be summoned.
“The one-eyed outlander,” the baron said.
“The champion of the circle?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I want him chilled.”
“When?”
The baron considered it. “Imme
diately. Make an example of him.”
Bauer seemed to hesitate, as if he didn’t understand the nature of the baron’s wishes.
“Problem?” the baron asked, noticing Bauer’s unease.
“It’s not my place to ask, Baron,” Bauer said with a slight bow of his head. “But why?”
“You’re right, it’s not your place to ask,” the baron said sternly. But then he shrugged. “I just have a bad feeling about him. That’s all.”
Bauer nodded. “I’ll see that he’s chilled.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ryan tried to join the ranks of the slaves unnoticed, but his very presence attracted attention. The slaves either wanted to congratulate him on his victory over Mog, thank him for chilling the two sec men or else wanted to know if he was available for rutting that night.
Even the sec men seemed to be pointing at him and whispering among themselves.
Ryan didn’t like the looks of that. Usually the sec men were uninterested in the daily comings and goings of the slaves, but now every eye seemed to be on him, watching his every move. The attention could be explained away by his victory in the circle, but they seemed to turn away every time he looked in a sec man’s direction.
Strange behavior, even for sec men.
He could only hope that they had a sort of grudging respect for him, and not thoughts of revenge.
Ryan moved along the line, getting his breakfast. He’d had better morning meals, but he’d also had worse. This morning’s offering included a mound of tan mush that smelled like oatmeal, a bowl of fruit salad, slices of toast and a choice of juice-flavored water or coffee sub. Ryan took his tray and tried to find a spot in the corner where there wouldn’t be so many eyes upon him.
But he couldn’t hide from the crowd of slaves.
“Great job yesterday, Ryan,” said a young man from his crew. “We all won a lot of jack because of you, and we just wanted you to know how grateful we all are.”
“No problem,” Ryan said, wishing the man would go away.
“And in appreciation, we want you to have Simka here as your own personal slave for as long as you like. She can get you food, bathe you, and she’s a good rutter with both men and women.”