Northstar Rising

by James Axler

  Northstar Rising

  Deathlands Saga

  Book X

  James Axler

  First edition December 1989

  ISBN 0-373-62510-3

  Copyright © 1989 by Worldwide Library

  Philippine copyright 1989

  Australian copyright 1989

  Content

  Excerpt

  Dedication

  Lavengro

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Excerpt

  "Mutie ants!" Ryan yelled. "Our only hope is the tree."

  The horrifying creatures were more than a foot long, and their mandibles were huge, disproportionate even to their grotesquely mutated size. Longer than a man's finger, they clicked together in a deafening warning as the ants became aware of the six companions.

  As Ryan load the charge, the front row of insects retreated, then regrouped in a solid phalanx of glittering death.

  To hesitate was to die.

  The crunching of delicate skeletons beneath boot heels almost drowned out the clicking jaws. Ryan could now see the main body of the killer army beyond the mangrove, and not an inch of ground was free of the iridescent horde that swept toward him.

  Ryan gained the mangrove. Several low branches were within easy reach, and he made a running dive, swinging to safety with prehensile agility. When he was four feet above the carpet of ants, the one-eyed man finally looked for his friends. All were winning the desperate race. Except the old man.

  Then, only a few strides from safety, Doc Tanner stumbled—

  Dedication

  This one is for Angus Wells who has been, and still is, one of the very best of friends. All good things.

  Lavengro

  There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?

  —by George Barrow

  Chapter One

  BLACK.

  Blackness.

  Blackness.

  Laughter.

  The hands on his throat remorselessly strong.

  Someone laughed.

  A voice breathed in Ryan's ear. "You who are about to die…"

  Pocked skin.

  Circle of silver and bald head.

  A smell of burned cloth and hair.

  MAJOR COMMISSAR Gregori Zimyanin, of the Internal Security Section of Moscow, felt as though someone had pushed a brass-hilted bayonet into the center of his skull, then stirred it around, puddling his brains. The Russian was immensely strong, and he was recovering from the jump with remarkable speed.

  As consciousness began to creep back into the blurred fringes of his mind, so shards of memory also lurched out into the open. There had been a dreadful firefight, with many corpses; a body of one of the enemy, flaming like a beacon of defiance; the Yank flag; a winding staircase, shrouded in choking smoke.

  The brawl had ended with swirling blackness and his fingers clawing at the throat of the leader of the terrorists. With a massive effort of will, Zimyanin managed to open his eyes.

  Something was wrong. Something had changed in the glass-walled chamber. The colors had altered and the air tasted different. The thick choking smoke was gone, and the air was thin and cold. The Russian had lived at altitude in winter and knew the sensation well. Somehow, while they were all unconscious, the Americans had succeeded in transporting the whole mysterious complex to a mountain.

  In his attempts to master the language of his bitter enemies, the officer had been secretly learning the English tongue, using a book with a publication date of 1911, nearly two hundred years earlier—The English Tongue for the Benefit of the Russian Gentleman Abroad.

  "I beg your pardon, but could you inform me as to the whereabouts of my entourage?" he whispered through dry lips.

  Where could all of his men have gone? Dozens of troops couldn't just disappear into space. He fumbled for the pistol at his belt, feeling the familiar shape of the 9 mm Makarov blaster.

  Now his eyes were focusing, settling on something opposite him that was colored dazzling white and vivid crimson.

  "By the anvil and the hammer," Zimyanin muttered.

  It was a young, skinny albino boy, his hair like the tumbled snow around the hamlet of Ozhbarchik in the far, far northeast. A thread of fresh blood inched from the lad's nose, his mouth sagged open and his eyes were shut tight.

  Next to him lay an old man with wild, silver hair, clutching a small, unconscious puppy.

  A woman with hair as red as blazing pitch was stretched flat on the floor, but she was moving, fingers opening and closing as she approached consciousness.

  Ryan Cawdor blinked, opening his one good eye. The patch over his ruined left eye had shifted during the fight with the Russian, and he lifted a hand to straighten it.

  And saw Zimyanin.

  The stocky Russian was crouched on the far side of the gateway chamber, like a beast waiting to spring. His heavy features were smeared with soot, and a worm of dried blood from the corner of his mouth had clotted in his drooping mustache.

  "Bastard," Ryan said quietly. His own blaster, the 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226, was bolstered in his belt and he began to reach for it.

  Zimyanin had a glacial moment of frozen time to make up his mind. Somehow the Americans had disposed of his men and moved him to a different location. The one-eyed killer was fumbling for his pistol, and at least one of the others was coming around from the sleeping gas. Or whatever it was they'd used to knock everyone out.

  He made his decision, diving for the door to the glass-walled room. If he was to escape this could be his best and only chance.

  A hand grabbed at Zimyanin's ankle, and he kicked out, his heavy, ash-crusted boot hitting Jak Lauren on the side of his pale skull. The fingers relaxed their grip and the Russian was at the door.

  Ryan's pistol had cleared its rig and his finger was tightening on the trigger when the Russian darted through the doorway. There was a glimpse of the room beyond, then the door slammed shut.

  "Fireblast," Ryan cursed. "He's triggered the jump mechanism again. Everyone down and get ready."

  Already the disks in floor and ceiling were glowing, and a ragged spray of gas was filling the octagonal room.

  Zimyanin hesitated outside the gateway chamber, puzzled by what he saw. There was a small room, with a larger room visible beyond it, behind a barred door. The wall to his left had broken down into fragments of powdered rock. But the peculiar thing was that the floor and walls were covered with a thin layer of pinkish slime.

  And there was a gut-churning
smell of sickly decay.

  An urgent, rustling sound emerged from beyond the broken wall. Coming toward him.

  Ryan was slipping into unconsciousness again, struggling to keep a hold on his pistol. His mind tried to blank out the bizarre appearance and disappearance of the Russian sec man.

  He could hear someone in the chamber making coughing, choking sounds, but there was nothing he could do to help. The floor was vibrating beneath him, and he could feel a rumbling, clear through the marrow of his bones. The heavy blaster dropped from his fingers and clanged on the metal plates with a harsh echo that seemed to go on and on.

  Beyond the thick arma-glass walls, Ryan thought he could just make out the figure of Zimyanin. But his vision was blurring and nothing was certain,

  There seemed to be the crack of an automatic pistol, flat and sudden, a yell, starting off with surprise and shrilling quickly into raw terror.

  Another shot.

  A third.

  The yell had become a scream, high and thin like a stallion at the gelding.

  As blackness gripped him, Ryan's last doubtful vision was of something moving beyond the walls of the gateway, something that was pale yellow and immeasurably huge.

  Chapter Two

  JAK LAUREN LAY face down in a stinking pool of his own vomit; Doc Tanner was bleeding copiously from the nose, the streaks of crimson dribbling over his neck and chest; J. B. Dix was even more sallow than usual, his eyes rolled up sightlessly in their sockets, and he was breathing fast and light through his open mouth; Krysty Wroth had managed to slide into a self-induced trance, deliberately putting herself into a coma to take away the overpowering pressures of a mat-trans jump. Her breath was shallow and slow, and her heartbeat had dropped to less than a quarter of normal.

  Ryan Cawdor's powers of recovery were astounding. His body was honed to a razored perfection, ready for any threat, but even he suffered badly from the jumps. And to have to make a second jump so soon after the first was devastating.

  His brain felt as if a high-velocity .44 had entered through his right temple and exited somewhere near the base of his skull, blowing a section of bone away and sucking most of his brains out through the exit wound.

  He coughed, then groaned softly at the agonizing pain it caused him. He tried to open his eye, but the lancing white light made him close it again immediately. All he wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and lie there on the floor for a few weeks. His fingers were numbed, and his teeth felt loose in the gums.

  Very cautiously he eased his eye open again, wincing at the light. This time he managed to keep it from closing. The walls of the chamber were a dull brown color, and there seemed only a dim light beyond them. The disks in floor and ceiling were already fading, and he could taste the bitterness of iron on his tongue. Ryan glanced around at the others.

  Krysty looked fine. Pale and drawn, but clearly under control. As he tried to sit up, she moved, shuddering slightly and opening her eyes. Her tumbled mane of bright red hair was curled tightly about her neck and shoulders. The hair was sentient and reacted to whatever was going on. Once Krysty was recovered from the jump it would uncurl and fall naturally down her back.

  "Hi, lover."

  Ryan risked a nod. "You?"

  "Been worse." She paused. "Been better. How about you?"

  "Same."

  Krysty looked around. "What in Gaia's name happened, Ryan? The Russkie?"

  "Zimyanin attacked me during the first jump. Both blacked out. Came around. He got out and slammed the door shut."

  "And we jumped again? No wonder I feel so lousy. Like a mutie rattler's been sleeping in my head for three months."

  Ryan managed to lever himself up until he was sitting with his back flat against the cold glass wall of the chamber.

  "Heard a coupla shots as I went under and saw some kind of… something real big. Mebbe the Russkie's bought the farm this time."

  "Guess we'll never know." The voice came from J. B. Dix, who'd also come around. "Wouldn't much like having that mean Red mother hiking around Deathlands after us."

  "Assuming we're in Deathlands," Krysty said. She sniffed the cool damp air. "Don't much like the smell of this place. Like coming around in the middle of an old, buried tomb."

  Krysty's mutie sense picked up on "feelings," and Ryan had learned over their months together to trust her.

  "Danger?" he asked.

  "Mebbe. Not close. I reckon we should see to Jak and Doc."

  The albino boy was showing signs of coming around. His legs moved feebly, like a drowning kitten's, and he struggled to open his pale red eyes. As Krysty stooped to help him, he coughed and spit, clearing his throat of the clogging bile. He sat up unaided and wiped at his smeared face with the sleeve of his fur coat.

  "We jump two times or dream it? Head feels dead inside."

  "We jumped twice. One of the Russians came in with us then escaped when we made the first jump. He shut the door and sent us off again."

  Jak nodded at Ryan's explanation. "Yeah," he muttered. "Fuck him."

  "Doc doesn't look in fighting shape," J.B. remarked.

  "The old man always takes a jump hardest of all," Krysty commented. "Good job Rick went the way he did. He'd never have made another jump in that kind of shape."

  The memory of the man who'd briefly lived, traveled and fought with them brought a silence. Rick Ginsberg had been a freezie, someone who'd suffered from a serious illness and had been surgically frozen in the last months before the long winters began. Ryan and his friends had been able to revive Rick. The freezie had told them about two other cryonic centers in Deathlands, and Ryan's wish was to try to locate one or both. It was possible that the companions would benefit from these freezies' skills, if more of them could be successfully thawed.

  "Oh! By the three Kennedys! Have I been bingeing with a bottle or two?" The rich, sonorous voice of Doc Tanner broke the stillness.

  "You got bloodied nose, Doc," Jak said. He stood up unsteadily, bracing himself with a hand against the wall.

  "Could be, sonny. Could be." Doc touched his lips and peered shortsightedly at his crimson-slobbered fingers. "Indeed you are correct. Tapped the claret, have I not? First blood to Theophilus Algernon Tanner, Esquire. Upon my soul, but I fear that someone has removed my poor head and replaced it with a miniature maelstrom."

  "Your mouth, Doc," Ryan said.

  "Yes, my dear friend?"

  "Wipe the blood off of it. Then close it."

  IT TOOK BETTER than half an hour before Ryan was convinced that everyone was well enough to take the chance of opening the heavy door. Previous experiences had quickly taught them the need for extreme caution when moving out into one of the redoubts, hidden fortresses that had been keystones in the defense system of the old United States. Gateways within the redoubts had the capability of transporting human beings instantly from one location to another by means of mat-trans chambers.

  But the nuclear holocaust of 2001 had destroyed some of the redoubts and buried others. Still more had remained hidden among the glowing hot spots of the Deathlands.

  Though Ryan and his comrades had made many jumps, they still had found no way of actually controlling their destinations. To use a gateway was, in every sense, to leap into the darkness.

  "Ready?"

  They all nodded. The chamber felt dank, and breath misted in the cold air. Everyone kept on the furs they'd acquired during their time in Russia. Zorro was still whimpering and when put down would huddle against his master. Eventually Doc picked up the puppy and stuffed him inside his coat.

  "Ride along with me, little fellow," he said. "Though I confess that those who have been close to me have met a sorry end."

  "Blasters ready?" Ryan held his own SIG-Sauer in his right hand. The automatic G-12 Heckler & Koch caseless rifle was slung across his broad shoulders, and the long-bladed panga was sheathed at his belt.

  Krysty, standing next to him, held her silvered, thirteen-shot P7A Heckler & Koch pistol; J.B., the
Armorer, had his trusty Steyr AUG 5.6 mm blaster; Jak held his enormous satin-finish .357 Magnum, which looked too big for him to handle; Doc, intent on the dog, left his Le Mat in its holster.

  "Let's go," Ryan said.

  The door swung open on stiff hinges, revealing a small bare anteroom. The room beyond that was also closed, and Ryan pushed at it with his hand.

  "Black dust!" J.B. exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. "That's a corpse stink, if ever I smelled it. Long dead and long rotted."

  Krysty touched Ryan on the arm. "There's bad news out there, lover. I can feel it, real strong. And not far away."

  "Muties?" he asked.

  "Could be."

  "Air itself tastes dead," J.B. said. "Don't relish another jump, but I've been better places than this."

  "I was once privileged to be present at the opening of the catafalque of some ancient Egyptian priest. Apthak… something or other. I disremember his name. It had been sealed for centuries. This redoubt has much the same odor." Doc shook his head. The blood had clotted, dark brown, on his grizzled chin, making him look as though he'd been in a fight. He was trembling with fatigue as he stood with the others.

  "Me first?" Jak asked.

  "Yeah. Watch your step. Door's real stiff. Could be anything behind it."

  The hinges were damaged and squealed alarmingly as the teenager heaved against them. The door opened a few more inches then stuck again.

  The nuke-plant that ran every redoubt was still ticking over, somewhere deep in the bowels of the military complex, supplying power and keeping the gateway functioning. Beyond the half-open door they could make out the same kind of control room that they'd seen in other redoubts. But it was poorly lit, and the smell was growing ever stronger,

  "Give it a good big push, kid," J.B. urged, and received a glare from the boy.

  "Don't call me fucking kid, old man!" Jak snarled, white hair pasted to his forehead.

  He set his scrawny shoulder to the paneled metal and braced himself against the concrete floor, gritting his teeth and straining at the task. Ryan took a half step forward to help the boy, but a sideways glance from the crimson, feral eyes stopped him dead.