by James Axler
HIGH CLIFFS stood like jagged teeth above the packed gray-green ice of the Bering Strait. The sea was covered in a dense mist, overlaid with volcanic fumes. The air was heavy and caught at the back of the throat, producing coughs and reddened eyes.
Somewhere beyond them was what had once been called Alaska. Now it had no name at all.
In the year 2000, half a million people had been scattered over the six hundred thousand square miles of this inhospitable land. Now there were less than a couple of thousand people in the whole barren waste. To Uchitel and his band, the country that lay hidden in the acrid fog was the promised land, containing legendary treasures and riches. The books all said so.
"We go that way, Narodniki," shouted Uchitel, waving his Kalashnikov above his head like a crusader's sword.
There was a bellow of support from the men and women at his heels, the Narodniki.
Uchitel had found the name in the ruins of what had been the central library of the Communist Party amid the wreckage of nuked Yakutsk. He had come across a passage about the populist movement in old Russia. Over two hundred years before, in the late eighteen hundreds, there were terrorist and guerrilla organizations with names like Black Repartition, and Land and Liberty. But the parent of them all was the Narodniki.
It was a name that came to mean terror and blood, a name that appealed to the dark side of Uchitel's nature, which truly had no light side.
"We camp here in the cleft of the rocks that will keep us from the worst of the wind." Above him there was a deafening crack of thunder that made some of the ponies rear and whinny. There was a searing glow of deepest purple from chem clouds that raced hundreds of miles high.
"And tomorrow?" asked Bizabraznia, lashing at her horse with a whip of braided wires.
"Down there, and across into the land of the brave and the home of many, many dead."
NUL WAS FEELING HAPPIER. The pony's fetlock was mending, and in the last twenty-four hours he'd made better time than he had for days. A biting fog had come down from the direction of the icy sea, making progress difficult, but from the fog's salty taste, he guessed that he couldn't be too far off.
The dried beef was lasting well. In one of the huts in Ozhbarchik he'd found some delicious golubtsy and had taken enough to last him weeks. The thought of the food safely wrapped in his bag made him hungry, and he reached in, taking one of the cabbage rolls stuffed with fried turnip, biting voraciously into it. The jolting of the pony made him choke on a mouthful. Cursing at the animal, tugging brutally at the reins, he brought it to a dead stop.
"Better," he said, his voice muffled by the food. The fog had drifted away to the south, and visibility was unusually good. He stood in the stirrups, wondering whether he might make out the rest of the Narodniki.
UCHITEL URGED his stallion on. The sea cliffs of Alaska were towering ahead of them, snow tipped, only a hundred paces away. Birds resembling gray gulls, but with a vastly larger wingspan, circled and wheeled from their eyries, their echoing cries like the moaning of long-drowned sailors.
Behind him in single file, came twenty-eight men and women, their horses advancing through the crumpled sheets of jagged ice, watching for the softer contours and crystalline outcrops that might hide gaps in the surface and for hidden crevasses through which a man and horse might easily slide, vanishing completely and irrevocably into the sucking waters.
For the hundredth time that day, Uchitel turned in his saddle, feeling a crick in his neck from continually looking back. Once they were across, they would be safe. He had never heard any legend or read any account of any Russian crossing this narrow shifting neck of ice. If it were true that they were being pursued, then the land ahead of them promised safety.
NUL RAISED THE LAST MOUTHFUL of the golubtsy to his lips.
Then he was lying on his back in the trampled snow, staring blankly up at the dull sky. There had been no sense of time passing. No sense of falling. No pain.
The only feeling was shock; a sensation that someone had managed to creep up unseen and strike him in the middle of the chest with a huge mallet. He was aware that his feet were kicking and twitching. It felt odd, as though his feet belonged to someone else. With gloves that seemed to be filled with iron, Nul carefully touched the numb center where the hammerblow had come.
He suddenly felt very cold.
A full fourteen hundred paces to the southwest, the tall sniper lowered the Samozaridnyia Vintovka Dragunova rifle. The rimmed 7.62 mm bullet had done its work. Through the PSO-1 telescopic sight he'd seen it rip explosively into the target's chest. The man wasn't going to move very far with a wound like that.
"Good shooting, Corporal Solomentsov. An extra ration of food this month from the grateful party."
The speaker was about thirty, with a long, drooping mustache that hid a pockmarked chin. He stood five inches below six feet and wore a gray uniform of thick material, with long boots of tanned hide. Removing his high fur cap, which bore a single silver circle at the front, he revealed a totally bald head.
"Thank you, Major Zimyanin," said Solomentsov, giving a click of his heels and a sharp bow.
"Holster the Dragunuv rifle, Corporal. You know what ice can do to the sight. Last time you left it uncovered the frost cracked the bulb of the reticle lamp."
"Yes, Major," the corporal replied, taking the long gun and pulling a cloth shroud over the neat sight.
"And send Tracker Aliev to me."
The tracker was less than five feet tall, with the slanted eyes that revealed his heritage. He had the waddling gait of a Mongolian who'd spent most of his life astride a barrel-chested pony. A thick woollen scarf was wrapped about the lower part of his olive-skinned face.
"Aliev, do they still move on toward the sea? Be sure."
The rest of the hundred-strong militia unit kept well clear of the tracker. Some of them crossed themselves when they went near him. His skill at scenting the enemy was so developed that there were those who said he was a witch. As he approached the head of the column, past the depression where Solomentsov had knelt to fire, he unwound his scarf. Though Major Zimyanin had seen him many times, he still fought hard to restrain a shudder.
The nukes used by the Americans in this part of once-mighty Russia had been awesome in their power. Aliev came from a family that had always lived near the Kamchatka Peninsula, and his face was the stigma of his background.
Most of the lower jaw was missing. Where the nose should have been, there was only a large hole fringed with damp pink tissue like rotting lace. The mouth gaped, with a few yellowed teeth left jutting crookedly from the upper jaw. Aliev had no way of closing his mouth, and all food had to be sucked into his gullet.
Across the dark cavern of his nasal orifice, Aliev had a veil of crumpled skin as thin as the wing of a moth. It moved raggedly in and out in time with his raucous breathing. To stand close was to inhale the odors from the entrance of hell, as Aliev only accepted meat that was rotting and crawling with larvae. He would bury his snout in it and devour it ravenously and noisily.
Now he dropped to his hands and knees, closing his eyes, laying his nose to the snow, sniffing. The others watched from a distance, each man holding the muzzle of his horse to quiet it.
Then, as he had a thousand times, Zimyanin wished that he could be transferred to a militia unit far, far to the west. There they had petroleum in some quantity and trucks. He knew because he had seen pictures of them. Soon, he was told, his cavalry would be given trucks. He had heard it several times from his superiors in the last three years. If the party told you something was true, then it was.
"Well?"
The face turned to him, and he nearly vomited at the nauseous panting, sniffing noise that Aliev made in his eagerness.
The brutish head nodded.
Aliev was a wonderful tracker, but he had drawbacks. Apart from the horrific look of the man, he could neither speak nor read or write, which made communication difficult and taught others to avoid unnecessary question
s.
"The same ones? Yes. How many days gone? Five? Four? Four. Good." He gestured with a gloved hand for the creature to return to his place in the patrol.
Four days journey ahead of them, twenty-eight men and women seemed to be preparing to cross the strait and move into what had been America. Zimyanin's heart thrilled in his chest. He knew that no unit of the party's militia had ever been this close to the enemy's land. They could not refuse him promotion if he… But this was leaping a wall before he had even mounted his horse. Nobody would applaud the singer just for clearing his throat.
But to catch and destroy the band of slaughtering butchers ahead would be so good. He had been trailing Uchitel and his marauders for weeks now, even closing in at times. But if they crossed the ice river, then his band of militia might be seen. Perhaps a camp for a day?
Perhaps the body of the man they'd just shot would yield a clue, Zimyanin's head was becoming cold so he replaced his fur cap and walked thoughtfully toward his horse. There was much to think about. .
CONFUSED, NUL PULLED OFF his gauntlets and again felt the numb patch in the middle of his chest. He felt chilled, but his fingers encountered a sticky wet warmth. Disbelievingly, he painfully held his hand in front of his eyes. It was dripping with blood, as though it had been thrust into the belly of a slaughtered beast,
"Is this… ?" But his words faded.
As he lay on his side, his eyes caught the great lake of crimson growing around him. The numbness was sliding away and there was a dull ache. He touched himself again, and his fingers could feel the brittle sharpness of shattered ribs.
He could dimly make out a group of people. At least a mile away, they were mere dots against the blurring whiteness. "Uchitel…?" he said. It was good that friends came to watch you. Even that heartless bastard Uchitel. He'd come back for him.
UCHITEL’S HORSE galloped off the jagged edges of the sea ice onto the wind-swept boulders of the beach. "I claim the old land of America in the name of the Narodniki. In the name of Uchitel," shouted the rider.
Some seventy miles away, Nul lay still, eyes closed, locked into the mystery of his own passing.
Chapter Seven
RYAN AND J. B. Dix were poring over a hand-drawn map of the redoubt and stockpile done on six separate sheets of paper, each one showing two different levels. The complexity of the place was staggering. It had more than seventy miles of interconnecting corridors and passages, with stairs and elevators between levels. The gateway was down on the fourth level, with the only viable exit to the bleak outside six levels below that.
Though the group had done a great deal of exploring, there were still considerable areas left where no one had been able to go.
"There be dragons," said Doc Tanner, coming up behind Ryan and J.B. and pointing with a scrawny finger at a blank area on the map.
"Dragons. What the fuck are they?" asked Ryan, straightening up from the table.
"Fire-breathing mutie lizards is the best explanation that I can offer, sir."
Behind the old man, J.B. raised his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head. Since they'd been in the redoubt, Ryan had suspected more than once that Doc's sanity was returning. But often his behavior wasn't very encouraging.
"You never been up here before, Doc?"
"Never that I recall. But I fear that some of my brain cells have somehow become displaced. I can no longer remember all I might."
"Got to go, Ryan," said J.B., walking briskly to the door. "See you, Doc."
The door hissed shut. Ryan folded the maps and tucked them into an inside pocket of his coat. "Fireblast! We've been here six days. Could stay here the rest of our lives if we wanted."
"But do you want?"
"Don't know. Good place."
"Is it really, my dear Mr. Cawdor? If I may be frank with you, I confess that I have my doubts."
"Why?"
Doc moved closer to Ryan, his boots creaking. He half smiled, showing his oddly perfect set of gleaming teeth. His voice was its usual deep, rich tone.
"This redoubt raises so many questions in my poor, fuddled mind. Why only three survivors after a hundred years? And such an odd trio. Quint, Rachel and the dumb child, Lori. He is the Keeper. That's a hereditary position, and such positions bestow power without responsibility."
"You know he doesn't read, Doc?"
"Yes." The stovepipe hat dipped forward as Doc stared down at the floor. "Where are the others? He knows how to keep this place functioning by ritual and by rote. That is all."
"That's nothin'. Most of the Trader's men couldn't read or write. But if you showed them somethin', they could do it. It's the way War Wag One was run."
Doc nodded. "And yet… so many closed doors, are there not, my dear young friend."
"Yes. We've tried to spring 'em but they've got good sec locks on 'em. If we blow 'em, then Quint would hear it. What do you reckon's behind 'em?"
"More of the past? More of the future? Surely, precious little of the present. I do not know, Mr. Cawdor."
"Mebbe we should find out. But I tell you, Doc… I'm blocked to the back teeth with this place. This afternoon I'm goin' to get out and see some sky."
"There are muties aplenty."
"I know, but I've got security," he said, patting his guns.
"Cawdor," mused Doc, laying a forefinger alongside his thin nose. "Why does that name produce a distant and tiny murmur of a muffled bell?"
Ryan stared at him with his good eye. Unconsciously his hand strayed up to the livid scar that ran down his chillingly pale blue right eye, then moved down to tug at his lip on the same side.
"What…some legend of a great and powerful baron out East, beyond the Blue Ridges. Twin sons and a dreadful feud that ended… How did it end, Mr. Cawdor?" Showing a sudden ferocious glint of intelligence, Doc's eyes were bright and piercing as a mewed hawk's. For the first time since he'd known Doc Tanner, Ryan realized that the old man had once been a grim force to reckon with.
"I don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about, Doc. Your legend doesn't mean a thing to me."
"If it doesn't have… doesn't have…? Upon my soul, but it's gone again. What were we talking about?"
"The gateways, whether you'd found any clue how to work the bastard things."
Doc shook his head. "I fear not. I have discussed the matter with Mr. Quint, who tells me that the Keeper never knew about the gateway. Said that Special Ops MT ran them. I asked him what that meant and he didn't have any idea at all. The man is simply a gibbering parrot with no brain of his own."
"So we have a choice—stay here in Alaska, try and find transport back to Deathlands or risk the gateway again."
"Man gives birth astride a grave, Mr. Cawdor. What choice is that?"
Doc turned on his heel and quickly walked out, heading back toward their quarters. Ryan watched him, then decided that some food might be a good idea. He knew that eventually he had to get outside, away from the concrete walls and strip lights or risk losing part of his own sanity.
"YUMMY, YUMMY, it's the best for your tummy."
Finnegan threw the empty package on the table. The pizza it had contained was already cooking in one of the gray microwaves along the kitchen wall.
"Momma Maria says it's the best America makes," he continued, examining the bright wrapping, on which a stout, beaming, garishly made-up elderly woman held a skillet with a huge pizza on it while a brace of wide-eyed bambinos looked on hungrily.
Hunaker was waiting for her double beanburger to finish. "Free for fiber-fighters—Double discount vouchers at your local grocery," it said on the package, and in much smaller print, "Subject to availability. Offer closes June 1, 2001."
"By the time their offer closed, the whole world had closed as well," Hunaker observed.
All of them had taken advantage of the unbelievable range of clothes and supplies to dress and equip themselves better. But most of them had also kept some of their old gear. Doc kept his hat, frock coat and battered boots, but g
ave up his faded cream shirt for a new one in faded denim. Ryan kept his long coat, but took some new thermals, dark gray breeches, a brown shirt and a new pair of combat boots with high lacings to replace the old pair with a bite from a rabid mongrel on the right toe.
Finnegan and Hennings each picked similar outfits: high-necked jumpers in dark blue, with matching pants and black combat boots with steel toe caps. Okie kept her coveralls, choosing a sweater in light green for over the top. She also took a pair of low-heeled tan leather riding boots with the name Tony Lama inside.
Hunaker picked an exotic blouse in black satin with a pattern of leaves in green that matched her hair, gray cord trousers and gray ankle boots.
J.B. changed only his pants, which had been torn in a fight in the Darks. He searched the echoing hangar of the clothes store until he found a pair as nearly identical as possible.
Krysty found a new pair of coveralls, in her usual khaki. One problem they had was that clothes in unsealed or inadequately sealed boxes tended to fray and fall apart within hours of being worn. A pair of black leather trousers that Hennings had donned began to disintegrate almost instantly, resembling midnight lace within minutes after the air attacked them.
Krysty's one indulgence was in footwear. Lori went with her, tottering on her absurd high-heeled, thigh-length boots, the silver spurs jingling behind her. She took Krysty by the arm and led her to a section labeled Fashion & Working Boots—Top Names.
There they found row upon row of large white cardboard boxes arranged by size and by maker: Tex Robin, Dave Little, Henry Leopold, Larry Mahan and, the one she liked best, J. E. Turnipseede.
Miming her enthusiasm, Lori pulled down box after box, ripping out the contents of each to reveal a cascade of dazzling colors, and patterns and leathers. Lori rummaged through the piles, looking for one she thought Krysty might like. Her first choice had a heel nearly as high as her own boots, and Krysty waved them away, smiling and trying to make the mute girl understand that she would fall over in them.