Vengeance Trail

by James Axler

  Just because there weren’t many aircraft didn’t mean death didn’t fly, unfortunately.

  One screamwing, especially bold or lucky, stooped like a falcon on the open-top emplacements. Its claws locked into the back muscles of an unwary sec man and plucked him right out of his armored nest.

  Now, to Mildred’s horror, she saw the man being borne kicking and presumably screaming away by the winged monstrosity.

  His buddies saw it, too. They instantly sprang to do what they could to help him, which was to say that every blaster that would bear instantly poured fire at the mutie and its doomed prey.

  Mildred saw the man’s body jerk as bullet-sprays ripped into it: once, twice, three times. By the third, she was sure it wasn’t moving under its own power anymore. The screamwing staggered from repeated strikes, but kept doggedly pounding the air until a burst literally sawed its left wing away at the root. Then it corkscrewed right down into the prairie, exactly like a stricken aircraft in an old days newsreel.

  “What a world,” Mildred said. She sighed.

  The battle raged on outside. The screamwings could do nothing whatever to MAGOG itself, of course. The only question was what damage they could inflict on the exposed troops before they were all driven off or chilled.

  “Gets worse from here,” the boy said ingenuously. “They say Kancity’s so hot we can’t even go out without rad suits.”

  “Great. Just great.” She made shooing gestures. “Go on. Get your skinny butt back to your station. Got a feeling I’m gonna get me some patients who need me a boatload worse than you do before too long.”

  NIGHT IN THE Deathlands.

  As dusk settled, the best shelter Paul had been able to locate had been this long-abandoned line shack, whose frame sides and tarpaper roof had mostly survived the depredations of years and storms. The most conspicuous gaps they had covered over with scraps of planking they found lying around, or shards of petrified tarpaper broken off a roll left lying against one wall an unguessable time before. It would keep off the chem storms, well enough, and at least delay any night-stalking predators long enough for the pair to prepare a blaster-catered reception for them.

  But quarters were close in there with the Paul Yawl, and would be closer still when they unrolled their bedrolls on either side of it. For ventilation, and maybe to stave off claustrophobia, they had left the door open. The sky was roiling brown and yellow clouds, twined with sinuous strands of self-luminous orange. Sometimes the seething cloud mass was lit from within by discharges, red, purple, blue-white. Your usual weather on the formerly great Plains.

  The breeze was cool and didn’t stink of toxins, anyway.

  Paul and Krysty sat inside the doorway looking out and gnawing on their last haunches of the one-eyed pronghorn she had popped with her M-16 a few days back. A mutie herself, Krysty had no reflex revulsion against eating “tainted” flesh; for his part, Paul claimed he ate anything that didn’t eat him first. To be on the safe side, because mutie meat could be poisonous, Krysty had tasted a bit of the kill’s liver and heart, trusting her poison lore and her body’s extraordinary recuperative powers to keep her from lasting harm. She experienced no adverse reaction, so they cleaned and cooked the little beast and ate him with appetite by installments.

  “Guess I’d better finish this up tonight,” Krysty said, sniffing briefly at the leg. She tore another chunk of roasted flesh out with her teeth and chewed. “Getting a little rank even for me.”

  True to his creed, the Rail Ghost just shrugged and gnawed manfully at his own chunk. The secret, Krysty knew, lay in letting the maggots have their way, only brushing them off right before you yourself were ready to chow down. That way they cleaned up the seriously nasty decay and prevented it from spoiling the surrounding flesh—just the way they did an open wound on a person.

  “So tell me,” Krysty said around a gamy but welcome mouthful, “how come you know so much about MAGOG?”

  He chewed and thought, took a swig from a water bottle, swallowed. He had a great knack for finding safe water. Not always clean, exactly, but as with their food, neither was picky.

  “Well,” he said, drawing it out long, “as you probably worked out for yourself, being such a smart young lady, I have a thing for trains. I love trains. Only two things in this life I do love—I love to tinker. To make things, to fix things, to change things around so they work better, or do things they never did before. That, and trains. Loved them long as I remember.

  “Only, as you also mighta noticed, there ain’t none.”

  “Well, not many.” In their travels the companions had come across a few working rail wags. But very few, and of so little apparent consequence that she’d put them so far out of mind, despite their novelty value, that when she’d first heard about MAGOG from the two deserters it had taken her a spell to work out what they were talking about.

  Crickets struck up the band. They were unusually loud and strident. Krysty wondered if they were outsized mutie crickets. She checked to make sure her longblaster was ready to handle, to be on the safe side. Even normal little natural crickets were carnivorous, after all.

  “No, not many at all,” Paul went on. As he did tend to do. “Just a few on milk runs here ’n’ there, mostly back East. Biggest I know has a total working track run of sixty miles, belongs to the baron of Mobile. That’s Caius Caligula Helton. Mighty forward-thinking baron, rich as Croesus and hardly cruel to speak of. His son Marc Anthony’s an officer for the General on MAGOG its own bad self. Womenfolk who seen him reckon he’s the most gorgeous man on legs. Light-skinned black kid, he is, kinda bronzy, curly hair.”

  The eyes Krysty turned on him were slits of green hellfire. He nodded. “Yeah, from your description of what happened at the wag caravan, I figgered he was the man in charge.”

  He held up his hands to ward the outburst he saw building rapidly on her lovely face. “Yes, I do know a lot about MAGOG. More’n mosta the people inside her, ’ceptin’ the General and some of his techies. Mebbe young Marc. They say he’s a studious sort.

  “Don’t ya see? I’m obsessed with her.”

  For a few moments they ate and listened to the mutie cricket choir and the shack creaking and groaning in the wind. Krysty stared at her companion, trying to assimilate what he was saying.

  “I told you, I love trains. Well, MAGOG isn’t just the greatest train around today, no sirree. She’s the greatest train ever was built, or ever will be.

  “See, one of these days somebody’ll put this land back together. Mebbe the General, like he dreams of, mebbe someone else. And mebbe not back into one big piece like it was before. But see, the tech knowledge is still out there. There’s folk right now…anyway. Once somebody gets his or her act together enough to really rebuild, they’re not gonna mess around for long with trains like you ’n’ I know ’em, even though they’re the most efficient land transport currently going. Oh, no. They’ll build magnetic levitation wags or some such, and then who knows? Mebbe antigravity. I heard some things, mebbe even seen one or two, tells me the old guys weren’t far from latchin’ on to the secret o’ that. After all, it ain’t hardly any less likely than them teleport booths you and your friends’re used to usin’.”

  Krysty blinked almost as if struck. She knew Paul knew of them. Given how far and widely he had traveled, it wasn’t at all surprising; come to think of it, despite her initial bemusement at what she thought was childlike egoism on her host’s part, she was surprised they hadn’t heard of him.

  A thought hit her and chilled her right through—if Paul knew…

  “Yep, missy,” he said, reading her face like a page. Her hair was writhing around her shoulders like snakes on fire. “Old General, he knows who an’ what your friends are, right enough. He’s a crusty old bastard, and mad as a mudhen, but one thing—ain’t no flies on him. No, none at all. He has his spies, people who ferret out bits of information from far and wide.

  “But back off the trigger before you go blastin’ off, Kr
ysty Wroth. Bryanna told you folks back in Tucumcari saw at least three of ’em hale and hearty as you please. General hadn’t iced ’em down by then, likely he reckons he’s got reasons to keep ’em alive.”

  The lashing of her hair subsided. But her face was still deadly pale. “And is this General always rational?” she hissed. A spasm of angry fear knotted her gut. She threw the wellgnawed bone into the night.

  Grass rustled as things rushed upon the prize.

  “No. No, he ain’t. But getting our bowels in an uproar ain’t exactly gonna keep your friends alive, now is it? Our best bet’s to keep a clear head and keep after ’em, ain’t it?”

  She made herself suck down a breath, deep into her belly until it almost felt as if her pelvis was expanding. Letting as much of the rage and fear and sorrow flow out of her on the exhale as she could, she nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

  After a moment, calm claimed her again. “So you’ve chased the train for years, Paul?”

  His eyes glistened behind his goggles. “Yes,” he said, hoarse, as if fighting tears. “Every night she drives through my dreams, shining like the sun. It’s what I live for, to catch a glimpse of her. To run my hand down those shining steel sides.”

  “But you’ve never actually caught up to her, have you?”

  Desolate, he shook his head.

  “Then what makes you think you can catch her now?”

  Amazingly, he grinned, that brown but brilliant child’s grin of his.

  “Why, because I never had the help of Krysty Wroth before.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The ville died hard.

  Mildred wandered through streets of fire. The flames rolled out the doors and windows and fallen-in roofs of what long ago had been the center of a typical small Midwestern town, and later resettled by survivors who crept out beneath strange skies after skydark ended. They had a voice, those flames, a deep rushing roar, a crackle, a hiss. They gave light to the night sky overhead, reflecting off the restless low hanging clouds, bringing out the oranges and reds and yellows that already dwelt within them with hellish brilliance.

  Off to the west, a line of crimson lay across the dead-flat horizon as another day died in fire.

  An especially strong rush of burning-barbecue scent hit Mildred’s nostrils. She heard a sizzling sound. Not wanting to, she looked to her right. The body of a man lay sprawled half out of the broken picture window of a building faced with some kind of shiny red stonelike sheets. He seemed middle-aged. A blue plaid shirt had fallen so that his head and shoulders were concealed. The stained white T-shirt he wore beneath had likewise slipped down, baring a wide soft pale back. Nostrils flaring, cheeks taut, she made herself look closer.

  He showed no sign of stirring as the moaning flames devoured the lower half of his body. Since he was beyond help, she felt rushing relief that he was beyond feeling.

  Some weren’t so lucky. She heard screams from all directions. Also shots.

  A hand grabbed her arm and spun her roughly. “Mildred. What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know, Marc,” she told him truthfully.

  He was wearing his battledress and steel breastplate. His black USP was in his right hand. A burn glowed angry on his smooth right cheek.

  “I guess the question is, what are you doing here?” she said. “Or maybe, why are you doing this?”

  “Rebellion,” he said shortly. “They killed some of our men left here to protect them. Something had to be done.”

  “That’s always what they say, isn’t it?” She folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts and turned to walk back toward the train, which was itself ablaze with searchlights, its steel flanks vivid with reflected flames.

  He called something after her. A rush of flames from a storefront and the collapse of a weakened ceiling consumed the words.

  THE GENERAL HELD his mesh-faced mask in the crook of his left arm. “Are you ready, Professor?”

  Doc saluted him with his epee. “As ready as I shall ever be, sir.”

  Outside it was beginning to get dark. Putting on his own mask, Doc noticed red glints playing on the glass. He paused.

  “I say, what are those flames outside, General?”

  “Justice,” the General said. “En garde!”

  The General advanced. He came on with his upper torso held almost square to Doc, and his left hand above his shoulder. Doc adopted a more sideways stance, almost as it playing foils instead of epee.

  With a stamp and a shout, the General thrust. It was a feint, too tight and short to be effective. Doc barely engaged it and then parried the actual thrust.

  So they dueled as the ville outside burned. The General had the edge in vigor, strength and aggression; his was the stronger wrist. But Doc was subtler and more skillful.

  The stiff blades rang and sang. The two were even in honors when the General called a halt to breathe and rinse mouths with water from sippy bottles. Doc was grateful; he’d been unwilling to call a halt, but was about to drop.

  “Your skill is fine,” the General told him. His face was red and he was breathing heavily, Doc was gratified to note. “I salute you.”

  “My thanks, kind sir. I studied at the salle of Adelmo Sicilio.”

  The General raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? And where was that?”

  Doc moistened his lips. Fool! You almost let slip too much. “In—in a ville on the Lantic Coast. It was really quite some years ago.”

  “I see.” The General nodded judiciously. “Well, whoever your master was, he taught you well. Shall we continue?”

  Doc in fact was still weary, but he knew better than to thwart a baron. They faced each other again, faceless behind masks. The General’s tunic had a stylized red heart appliquéd over his sternum to give his foe “Something to aim at,” he’d explained.

  They saluted each other and began to fence. This time they were more wary. Or just more tired.

  “Sometimes you mystify me, Professor,” the General said, rolling his wrist to deflect a rather weak thrust from Doc.

  “How so?” he tried not to pant the words. He hated fencing people who thought they were Cyrano de Bergerac and wanted to talk. “I certainly do not try to.”

  “You’re reticent about your past. But clearly you are a well-educated man, and a well-traveled one. Ha!” The last accompanied a touch on Doc’s forearm. They stepped back and saluted each other.

  “It almost seems you have some extraordinary means of moving about the country,” the General said.

  Doc smiled weakly behind his mask. “Semblances can be quite misleading. I see you have touched me again, sir.”

  “So I have. You seemed a bit distracted. Hardly sporting of me to take advantage. Forgive it.”

  He attacked again. Though his arms was beginning to feel like lead, Doc made himself mount a credible defense. The General had a tendency to telegraph everything, which helped.

  “I am intent on reuniting the United States, as you may know, Professor,” the General said.

  “A most laudable ambition, sir.”

  “We’re men of the world. At least I flatter myself I am. I know damned well it’d take about a century more than I’m likely to get to make much of an impression, even with an invincible armored train that can travel from one end of the continent to—Ha! Well parried! I’m searching for something.”

  “Are not we all?”

  “A man who can fence with wits and steel at the same time! Brilliant, Professor. Bravo! But what I seek—” he bound Doc’s blade, closed up to him breast to breast “—is the Great Redoubt. No point trying to hide the fact. Where the old U.S. government hid away all the means and plans to restore itself after the coming disaster. Continuity of Government, they called the concept—could anything be nobler?”

  He pushed away. “It could be,” he said, closing again behind leveled blade, “that a man as wise and observant as yourself might have learned something in his travels that might help lead to the Great Redoubt. It might even be
he knew of some marvelous means of transportation, itself a treasure second only to the redoubt, that could greatly aid the search.”

  Doc noticed the General’s parries were getting wider and wider as he worked himself up. He feinted, then lunged in a sloppy, floppy overextended attack that would have been inexcusable if it hadn’t scored a hit on the General’s tunic, at the shoulder of his sword arm. It forced another break, as Doc had prayed it might.

  “Grah!” The General emitted an inarticulate sound of disgust. He came forward stamping, beating down Doc’s blade. “I will not be denied, do you hear me?” he shouted.

  But Doc had whipped his own blade around and up and, standing on tiptoe, launched a riposte on the high line. His stiff epee blade was bowed between the cup hilt and the little red symbol sewed to the center of the General’s chest.

  “Ah, sir, you strike me to the heart.” He fell back and took off his mask. Sweat streamed down his craggy reddened face.

  “That’s enough for now,” he said in a voice harsh with passion. “But think well on what I’ve said, my good Professor, for we shall talk again about it soon!”

  “YOU’RE WAY TOO TENSE, hon,” Mildred said, kneading Singh’s shoulders with her powerful hands. “One thing you got to keep in mind, you don’t do yourself or your patients any good tying yourself up in knots. It just makes it harder to work.”

  The healer smiled wanly back over her shoulder at Mildred, who breathed a short sigh. There was a sort of role reversal going on here. Singh seemed to be trying, maybe without realizing it, to abdicate her crushing burden to her new subordinate. She had a perfect rationalization in hand: the black woman was much more medically knowledgeable and neither could deny it.

  Nor was Mildred constitutionally capable of doing anything less than what she could when her healing services were needful. This night they’d treated four men wounded during the deliberate devastation of a ville whose name no one ever knew. Despite feeling as if they’d had it coming, Mildred couldn’t refuse to do her best for them. In the same way, while she wouldn’t criticize her nominal superior—and couldn’t criticize her dedication or effort—when she saw something that needed to be done, she did it.