Deathlands 071: Ritual Chill

by James Axler

  In the days following the first hunting party, the companions tried to keep to themselves as much as possible. Something that was made considerably easier to achieve by the attitude of the Inuit toward them. The natives of the settlement went about their daily business with a reserve toward one another that seemed exaggerated to ridiculous extremes when it came to their guests. It was usual for the inhabitants of a ville to be curious about strangers. Be they friendly or hostile, the native dwellers usually had some desire to know about the strangers who had landed in their midst, an attitude that was driven by survival, at either extreme. Curiosity brought questions, brought answers, brought information: a simple chain of cause and effect that would inform whatever action the dwellers would take against the interlopers.

  A simple piece of human behavior that drove so much interaction, and which time and the ravages of the nukecaust had done nothing to change.

  Except here, in this ville for which they didn’t even have a name. For it was true that Thompson had been so reluctant to converse in any sense other than the strictly necessary with Ryan that he hadn’t even told them if the ville had a name. It was possible to speculate that it retained some old predark name as a last vestige of the links with the Scots and Irish settlers who had integrated with the Inuit. But that was all it could be, mere speculation.

  For several days the companions joined with the Inuit to take their food from the cookhouse that served the whole settlement. Not a word was said by any of the natives, not the most casual of inquiries nor even the simplest gesture of acknowledgment. It was as though the companions had always been there and were not even of the slightest interest.

  That did not, however, mean that they were to be left to their own devices. Thompson had been exact in his terms of their stay. The Inuit worked hard to survive in the climate, and the fact that they were well-fed and their dwellings well-maintained was owed to hard work.

  Regular hunting parties set off each day to track for food, and for skins and furs that could be stripped, cleaned, cured and used for both clothing and bedding. They had little in the way of woven materials. Old woolens, cottons and some man-made fabrics that had lasted since the predark days were now at the end of any life that could be wrung from them, requiring a return to old traditions. When the hunting parties returned, and the carcasses had been dragged up onto the slopes and into the ville, teams of Inuit would set to work bleeding and skinning the carcasses before they were quartered, some of the meat being used for fresh, the rest salted to be preserved. The hides and pelt were then taken by other members of the tribe, and the processes of curing and cleaning begun before the prepared hide and pelt were worked into clothing and blankets. It was a well-organized production line, and worked in speed and silence.

  While this went on, there were other activities. A small herd of livestock was kept for milk, and a constant guard, with teams working in rotation, kept the herd safe from wolf and bear. Sec patrols also circled the forested areas at regular intervals for both human and animal intrusion.

  There were some attempts to grow vegetables using the trough methods that J.B. and Mildred had seen back in the ruined ville on the plain. The sight of these was something that gave the Armorer pause for thought. Had the Inuit taken the idea by force when attacking the ville? Something that troubled at the corners of his mind, for there was no real evidence that the Inuit were interested in taking on other villes in combat. Indeed, their existence seemed to revolve around maintaining a certain isolation.

  Meanwhile, while the hunting and sec parties made their rounds, within the settlement each had their appointed tasks. The gathering and preparation of wood to fuel their stoves; the rendering of tallow of use in lamps and stoves; the maintenance of the huts and cabins; the preparation of food and drink; the cleaning of the dwellings. Each of these tasks was the duty of a small group of Inuit, who would set about each day with methodical stoicism. There was no rush, but neither was there any sense of complacency. The whole tribe worked as one unit and seemed to operate without the need for any obvious communication.

  “How the hell do they ever reproduce?” Krysty asked Ryan as they were resting in their hut. Despite the fact that there was no apparent surveillance, she still kept her voice low.

  “Same as everyone else, I guess,” Ryan replied, “except for the fact that there are so many muties that it must be getting harder for some of the women to bear children.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Krysty said. “I mean, how does one of them ever know if the other wants to have sex? They don’t look like they’d ask.”

  Ryan stifled a laugh. “Mebbe they have that organized like everything else, and it happens once a year, between harvesting the crop and skinning the deer.”

  Doc had been lying in the dark, listening, and felt it incumbent upon himself to speak. “It is so easy to mock, my dear Ryan, but who are we to poke fun at the way they live? Does it not strike you that they have a system appropriate to the environment in which they are forced, by chance, to live?”

  “I wasn’t dismissing them, Doc,” Ryan answered. “They get by pretty well, especially as keeping themselves isolated means they’re chilling themselves in the long run. Have you noticed many kids running around? It’s getting harder for them to reproduce because they’re too damn inbred, and mebbe too strict. You saw how they treated that guy Taggart a couple of days back. And they haven’t been exactly friendly toward us.”

  Mildred had risen from her bed and was now looking out the window. It was a clear night and there was enough moonlight to illuminate the sleeping settlement.

  “I don’t like it here,” she said as she watched a group of sec men shuffle out of the settlement and into the cover of the woods. “Yet the weirdest thing is that I couldn’t tell you why. It’s not like they’ve done anything to threaten us, and they don’t seem to care whether we’re here or not, as long as we work with them…but maybe that’s it. Why don’t they care? They’ve made no effort to try to find out if we’re going to do them harm, or if we want to stay. It’s like we’re invisible to them.”

  “Perhaps that is because they have no concern about us, consider us no threat,” Doc said quietly. “Is that not really the thing that unsettles you the most? They aren’t wary. You have no power.”

  “Hey, make that ‘we’ have no power, or are you bailing out on us?” Mildred said angrily, turning to face Doc. “Maybe you’re right—but what’s wrong with that? The only thing we have going for us in a situation like this is that we don’t look like a pushover. If we come across like the kind of pussies who can be walked on easily, then we’ll buy the farm in no time.”

  “My dear Doctor, pray do not allow your paranoia to boil over. Has it not occurred to you that the ‘problem,’ as you see it, has nothing to do with our little group per se? This is not about how we appear to them, it is about how they are. We do not threaten them because we have assimilated into their system, and they have not become friendly on our terms because, to them, such a thing is alien and does not, in fact, exist.”

  Mildred shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re arguing philosophy with me on this. Perception and—”

  “And bullshit,” Jak blurted. “Mebbe you know what say, but not me. Don’t care. Something here not right. J.B. tell about the crop?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan stated. “Crop cultivation exactly the way they were doing it in the ville we found.”

  “Come, sir,” Doc frowned, “you cannot suggest that a method of cultivation constitutes grounds for suspicion.”

  “It does when it’s a method we’ve never seen before and the wood on the troughs they’ve got here has been freshly cut,” J.B. commented darkly. “It looks like a new idea for them, and it’s just a little suspicious that they started using it so soon after the other ville got wrecked.”

  “Are you sure that your fears are based on nothing more than that they are different to us?” Doc reiterated.

  “Mebbe,” Ryan admitted, �
��but you’ve gotta admit, Doc, it’s what’s kept us alive up to now. Gut instinct has saved us more than reasoning.”

  “Has it? Has it really? I wonder…” the old man mused.

  “Stayed too long already. Best go Ank Ridge.” Jak interjected.

  “He’s right, lover,” Krysty said quietly. “No matter how much we argue about this, the fact is that they haven’t welcomed us, and they haven’t been hostile. It’s not going to stay that way forever. Sooner or later, they’re going to want us to either do more or stop using their resources. Mebbe the time to go is now, before they reach that point.”

  “What about the wrecked ville?” J.B. asked. “If they did that, then they may have attacked others—”

  “That’s not really our concern,” Ryan snapped, cutting him off. “It only becomes our problem if they make it ours by attacking us. If they don’t, they can do what the hell they want to other people.”

  “You haven’t seen it that way before,” Krysty said, a little bemused by the one-eyed man’s definite stance.

  “Mebbe I’ve not been this cold, this pissed off, and this willing to get the hell out of the north,” Ryan answered.

  A silence fell across the cabin. It was eventually broken by Jak, the albino, as ever, wasting few words.

  “So go tomorrow, get away from this place and feeling, yeah?”

  Ryan nodded firmly. “Yeah. Hell, yeah.”

  MORNING COULDN’T BREAK quickly enough. Knowing that they would be on the move, none of the companions could get much rest, but for differing reasons. Jak and J.B. would have been glad to get out of the ville that night, not risking any kind of confrontation over their choice to leave. Mildred and Krysty were, in their own ways, concerned over Ryan’s attitude. The man who assumed the mantle of leadership seemed, for the first time they could remember, uneasy with it. Which didn’t bode well, for any group needs a strong leader in times of trouble, when decisions need making fast and debate wasn’t an option. As for Doc, he, too, was pondering Ryan’s state of mind, but for a different reason. Did this mean that his time to rise from the ashes was coming near? He would have to watch and wait.

  Ryan, for his part, wasn’t content with his state of mind, nor his behavior. He thought he’d shaken it off with the coming of action, but since the hunting party and his witnessing of Taggart’s death, the uncertainty had returned. Possibly the inertia of the past couple of days had contributed. They had taken part in the ville’s activities, but these had been matters of routine, with too much time for his brooding mood to settle once more. Try as he might, the nagging fear that they were doing nothing more than treading water wouldn’t go away. As long as they were on the move, and in some kind of action, then he was able to keep these fears at bay. But one moment’s respite and they would creep around the corners of his consciousness.

  Maybe that was to be his fate: to keep moving, almost literally running away from his fears.

  As the companions emerged from their cabin into the chill morning air, the Inuit were already about their tasks and paid the companions the same attention as for the past three days: none at all. The six of them went and collected their morning meal and ate it in almost total silence. This wasn’t to be deemed unusual, as it seemed that the Inuit behaved in much the same way and merely assumed—if at all—that the companions were falling in with their ways.

  After they had eaten, Ryan searched out Thompson while the others waited in the center of the ville. The fact that they weren’t joining any of the parties of workers, as they had on the two previous mornings, should have delineated that something unusual was to occur. Yet even with this possibility, they were spared no more than the occasional half glance.

  Ryan found Thompson in his cabin. When Ryan entered, the chief was seated alone and seemed to be doing nothing more than staring into space. He had to have been doing something before the one-eyed man entered, and yet it appeared to Ryan as though the Inuit chief could have been in the same position all night and could continue to sit in this manner all day.

  “I wanted to tell you that we’re moving on,” Ryan began. He paused, waiting for an answer, but there was none forthcoming. The only thing that could be remotely construed as an acknowledgment was a barely perceptible nod. Ryan continued. “It’s not that we don’t appreciate your letting us stay here, and it’s not that we’re not prepared to work. But we feel that we should be moving on to where we were headed before we first ran into your hunters.”

  “If you must go, you must go. You have given as well as taken, so we have no problem with you.”

  Ryan waited, wondering if there was to be anything beyond this gnomic utterance. But Thompson fell silent again, leaving Ryan feeling as though he had to explain: “We’re ready to go now. We’ll head back to the bottom of the slopes and out across the plain, on the Ank Ridge trail.”

  Thompson didn’t, seemingly, acknowledge this last statement. So Ryan turned and left the chief’s cabin.

  “We go now?” Jak asked as Ryan approached.

  The one-eyed man nodded. “They don’t seem to care one way or the other, but keep it triple red, just in case.”

  “You don’t trust them?” Krysty asked in a whisper.

  Ryan shook his head. “I don’t trust myself. I’ve just got a weird feeling that this is too easy.”

  Without a backward glance they left the center of the ville. They left the huts and cabins behind and they plunged through the undergrowth until they reached the concealed exit to the trading trail. In an uneasy silence they made their way along the trail as it snaked first upward, then back down toward the plains, echoing the route of the hunting party from a few days previously.

  It seemed as though their passing hadn’t even been noted by the inhabitants of the ville. Only a few of those working around the huts had raised their heads as the companions left; and there were none to watch them pass on the trail.

  But they were only too well aware that appearance can be deceptive.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  It began when they hit the plains. As the lower slopes of the volcanic region filtered their sparse growth of tree and foliage into the icy rock and snowdrifts of the wastes, so the weather began to bite harder. Without the warm channels of lava infusing heat into the ground, the air around them grew harsher; without the shelter of the trees, the winds were unbroken, strong and stinging as they bit into exposed flesh.

  Taking the march in line, keeping a steady pace, they found themselves unconsciously slowing as soon as they were out of shelter. The rocks were slippery underfoot, the freezing air filled with ice and snow, the sulfurous smell catching at the backs of their throats, making breathing hard and unpleasant.

  At the head, Ryan found himself wondering why they had set out now. The conditions back in the ville were much more clement. Yet something was tugging at the corners of his consciousness, making his gut turn as he thought about the Inuit. Like Mildred and Jak, he had a feeling that was hard to articulate, but that screamed at him that it was time to leave. He hoped that the others felt the same.

  Behind him, J.B. and Jak were thinking much the same, in their own ways. Both men huddled into their thick outer coverings, trying to keep as much warmth as possible within the fur and fabric. As both were slight of build, wiry but thin, they lost more heat than the others, who had a little more body fat. Even Doc, for all his ranginess, was better equipped for the cold. Movement generated warmth, but was no substitute for the upward flow of volcanically heated air they had left behind. Jak wondered if they would be able to hunt before long. A good supply of food would be imperative. J.B. wondered if the next ville or settlement was more than half a day’s march. What would they do if they hadn’t come upon somewhere by nightfall?

  Mildred and Krysty were also wondering such things, but in the Titian-haired woman’s mind was something else: a growing feeling that there was danger, and not even as far as on the horizon. The Inuit had seemed indifferent to their going, and
the bears and wolves were, generally, nocturnal. So what was the source of the feeling that hugged itself to her, a black void that drained her spirit? She wanted to say something, but was too cold to speak unless she could articulate clearly and simply, not wasting breath.

  Mildred was worrying about Doc. The old man seemed to be okay, and although he was vague, that was no different to usual. All the same, there was something odd about him that she couldn’t quite identify. Whereas once, whatever the madness in him, they could see the real Doc shining through, this time there was no real Doc. He seemed to be acting normally, but it was only surface: a bland exterior masking…what? That was the worrying thing. She had no idea what was beneath and what—or even why—had changed.

  Doc, for his part, put one foot in front of another and kept walking, lost in his own world of dreams.

  THE TRADING TRAIL HUGGED the lower slopes, winding between crops of rock that clustered malevolently at the base of the volcanic surge. Beyond, there was little except flat rock, bleached white by sun and wind building layers of ice to reflect the light with a blinding intensity. The wind swept across the barren landscape, driving ice and snow almost horizontal against whoever or whatever should be in its path. Yet, for all the hostility of this environment, it was free of the lurking dangers that the lower slopes held. There was no cover out there for any predators to conceal themselves, ready to strike. No bear or wolf that could hide until you were upon it, with no time to defend yourself.

  As such, it was obvious that, as the trail wound down from the tree line, it would be a virtual admission of buying the farm to strike out across the icy plain. The settlers who had forged the trail had opted to try to tread as safe a path as possible among the crops of rock that littered the base of the downward slope and would provide enough cover to keep the worst excesses of the weather from them, but not enough to enable the predators to lie in wait.

  The trail itself was a treacherous combination of some loose topsoil that was trodden flat and hard by generations of wags and feet, iced solid and then thawed during volcanic activity before being frozen over once more; and rock from beneath the thin crust that poked through, hard and treacherous on the ankles if caught. It was barely twelve feet wide as it snaked in and out of the taller rocks, with some towering up to twenty feet over the companions as they walked. The majority of the rock crop was between five and ten feet in height, but the shadows cast by the taller formations were ominous. To their left as they marched, the rocks were almost continuous, but to the right there were breaks, eroded by the conditions, that gave out onto the empty and desolate plain, allowing the howling gales to drive ice and snow through the gaps. There were places where snowbanks had been made, spilling over and narrowing the trail, threatening collapse on those who dared to pass.