by Neal Barrett
“Yes, Griffin here. What is it?”
He spoke softly, almost a whisper. The micro-circuit in the silver threads of his collar scrambled his words, then released them in the clear, at any destination in the world.
“Captain Aachen, sir. Judge Hunter Search and Abort, Squad Seven. Sir, we’re at a wreck site. Old Ohio Sector—”
“What!” Griffin felt a cold blade twist in his gut. He knew the answer, knew he had to ask. “What wreck are we talking about, Captain? Don’t waste my time, damn you!”
A half-second pause. A little less confidence in the veteran officer’s voice.
“Aspen Shuttle, sir. The one with—”
“—with Judge Dredd aboard,” Griffin finished. His voice was deadly calm, assured. “Is he dead or alive? I want positive ID either way. No guesswork, Captain.”
“Nothing yet, sir. We’re going through the wreckage now. I’m getting a picture on-line for you, Chief Justice.”
“About time, too,” Griffin said. The Officer was doing his job, but it never hurt to shake a man up when you could.
A holo sphere blinked into life at Griffin’s eye level. It rotated slowly, giving him a complete view of the area. The wreck was a black, twisted metal shell. It had scooped out a shallow groove in the parched earth, plowed a hundred meters and stopped.
He’s dead, Griffin told himself. No one could live through that.
The Judge Hunter Squad was going about its work with practiced care. Men moved through the smoking debris, using barcode scanners to check the ID tags of the dead. Griffin wrinkled his nose. He could almost smell the oppressive heat of the Cursed Earth, the unforgetable odor of burning flesh.
“Sir…” Captain Aachen stepped into sight, his visor raised to show a man with scarred features, a broken nose, gray eyes squinting against the harsh light. “The shuttle was struck by an unidentified weapon from ground level. Two-thirds of the craft exploded at once. We’ve spotted some pieces twenty, thirty clicks out. There are sixteen casualties here but no sign of Dredd. Two men alive. One guard and a prisoner. We are presently—”
The officer turned away for a moment, frowned, and looked at Griffin. “Chief Justice, we’ve found tracks leading away from the wreck site. At least… half a dozen men. I am assuming Dredd was one of the survivors, sir.”
“No.”
“Sir?”
“No, Captain, he was not. You are clearly in error.”
Captain Aachen nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I repeat. Joseph Dredd did not survive the shuttle crash. No one survived the wreck. Is that clear, Captain?”
“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear, sir. Will there be any further—”
“Griffin out.”
The tin bee in his ear pinged once. The bright holo winked like a bubble in the sun and disappeared. Griffin quickened his steps. His throat was dry as the Cursed Earth itself, and he felt the sting of sweat on his chest.
“Damn you, Dredd,” he said to the dark tunnel walls. “You’d better be dead. You’d better be in Hell!”
Captain Aachen made his way back into the wreckage. The odor was strong enough to gag a hooker-droid, but he’d smelled the dead before. The prisoner who’d survived was nearly dead. A minute, maybe two, he’d be gone. A Medik was squatting over the guard. Aachen waved him away. He looked down at the man. The Medik had cleaned his face and set a compress against the ugly cut on his head.
“Thanks,” the guard said. He showed Aachen a weary grin. “I’m grateful for your help. Glad you guys showed up.”
Aachen brought the blunt-nosed pistol from behind his back.
“No problem,” he said.
You have got to be out of your mind, Hershey. Plain stupid—totally out of your mind…
She stood in the shadows of the lockers, held her breath and listened to the sounds of the dead half of the night. How could the silence make so much noise? She could hear the sigh of air in ventilator shafts, the hum of the elevators in the walls. A drip in the shower was a fullblown waterfall.
Hershey looked at her watch. 0210. Two minutes and a life-time since she’d stolen a look before.
A voice at the far end of the room. Another, and a laugh. A locker slammed, shattering the quiet of the room.
“Go home,” Hershey whispered. “Your shift’s over, guys, get out of here.”
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. A door whispered shut. The locker room was silent again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Dredd’s locker was 30914, two aisles down. She was grateful for the synthetic flooring that dampened her steps. You could stomp on the stuff and never make a sound.
So why didn’t they put it on the ceiling and the walls? Why didn’t someone think of that?
The lock was a simple magnetic, easy enough to open if you knew how, and every Cadet who’d gone through the Academy did. It was something you learned about the second day of Break & Enter, Basic B & E. The locks on the individual lockers were a courtesy, not a security measure. No Judge would even dream of violating the privacy of another Judge’s space.
Yeah, right. No one but you, Hershey…
Towels. A spare helmet with an awesome dent on the side. She knew where Dredd had gotten that. Brass polish. Boot polish. Really, Dredd. She couldn’t resist a smile. Still a Cadet at heart.
Something swung on a gold chain at the rear of the locker. Any Judge would know it on sight. A valor award. For outstanding heroism. And what did that get you, Dredd? What does it mean to anyone now?
Her eyes blurred and she wiped her sleeve across her face. Damn it, no time for that. It isn’t going to help…
She spotted it on the floor of the locker, behind a combat issue boot. A bullet had taken a bite out of the heel. A half-inch higher and Dredd would have a limp.
It was a black slipcase, half an inch thick, with something inside. She drew it out and held it to the light. A cheap viewie, from the quality of the picture, probably a frame from a home video. A young couple. The woman was holding a baby.
“Baby Dredd?” Hershey shook her head. “Didn’t think you were ever a baby, pal.”
She looked at the viewie a moment longer, held it, reluctant to put it down. A little too… what? Not too thick, too heavy by an ounce or two.
Turning the picture over, she slid her thumb along the rim. The frame popped open. Another image inside. Two men, mid-twenties, in Cadet blues. Graduation day at the Academy, couldn’t be anything else. One of the men obviously a younger Dredd. The other… who? Enough like Dredd to be related somehow.
Hershey frowned, studying the picture again. Not a relative, that couldn’t be. Joseph Dredd didn’t have anyone, any life at all outside of the Judges. And even that family had finally rejected him, tossed him aside. Now he didn’t have anyone at all.
TWENTY-TWO
Fergie knew he was alive. Everything hurt too much to be dead. His mother had been a closet Churcher. She told him when you died all you did was go to sleep for a while. When you woke up again, you were somewhere real nice. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t nice at all. This was like really, really bad and bound to get worse. You could tell by the ugly-looking goons who were squatting by the fire. Fergie didn’t think they looked right. People you wouldn’t want to know. That, and the hoods. The other thing his mother had told him was don’t ever talk to a man who wears a hood.
What the hell were they doing over there? Snorting and sniffing, rooting through the junk they’d salvaged from the shuttle. Whatever that might be—whatever had come down in one piece.
His hands and arms were numb. They were up above his shoulders somewhere but he didn’t look to see. If he didn’t move—ever—the groons might think he was asleep or maybe dead. Dead would be good. You’re not going to kill a guy, you think he’s maybe already dead.
“Herman Ferguson…”
It was only a whisper, but Fergie nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Don’t talk to me, Dredd. I’m not here. You want to talk, talk to somebody else.”
“You’re not making sense, Ferguson. There isn’t anybody else. Get control of yourself.”
Fergie risked a look without moving his head. Dredd was half a meter to his right, hanging from his hands, his legs dangling free. Glancing up a little farther, he could see the crossbar where their hands were tied. The building around them was a ruin, incredibly old. The ceiling above was caved in. The night was unbelievably dark. The stars were colder and brighter than Fergie had ever imagined they could be. You didn’t see a black sky and stars in the Mega-Cities. In the Cities, it was never really night.
“Listen,” Fergie whispered, “don’t you tell me to get control of myself, Dredd. Don’t you tell me a thing. It’s your fault I’m in this mess. If I ever get out of here—”
“You won’t.”
“What?”
“It’s against my nature to give up, Ferguson. Understand that. Given the chance, I will give a good accounting of myself. If at all possible, I will take several of these lawbreakers with me. Aside from that, it’s pretty reasonable to assume we have little or no chance of escape. Especially if they are who I think they are.”
Fergie felt his throat go dry. “And who—who would that be?”
“Angels,” Dredd said.
“Angels? Like in—”
“No. Like in Angels of Death. God’s Maggots. Painers. Dirt Chokers.”
“God’s Maggots?” Fergie looked at the fire. “What the hell is this, Dredd—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know, I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to—”
Someone screamed. It was a high-pitched, terrible sound that echoed through the ruins and seemed to last forever.
“Oh shit, oh shit,” Fergie moaned.
“They’ve got somebody else,” Dredd said. “There were other survivors of the crash.”
“I don’t care about anyone else. Screw ’em. I care about me.”
“That’s a bad attitude. That’s a typical lawbreaker outlook on life, Ferguson.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s normal, see? I’m a career criminal, Dredd. Not a really big-time criminal, but that’s what I do. I wire robots, I rob public droids. I can get inside nearly any electronic device. I did time for that, okay? I am not supposed to be here now. You got me into this mess!”
“You said that.”
“I said it again. What are you going to do about that? Arrest me? Good. Please do.”
The scream cut through the night again, then abruptly stopped. Fergie closed his eyes.
“Hey, Pa! We got wakies over here!”
Someone else laughed. “We b-b-better. Pa’s flat runnin’ out of sinners.”
Fergie opened his eyes, sucked in a breath and didn’t let it out. There were three of them. Ugly. Tall. Short. Skinny. Fat. Their hoods were thrown back across their crooked shoulders. One had a face like a toad. His nose was sewn shut with leather thread. He was scarcely wider than a stick. He had enormous green eyes. The hair on his face and head was scorched black and his skin was burned raw. This one still had a nose, but his ears were sewn shut.
It was the third one that made Fergie want to throw up his lunch. If he’d had any lunch that’s exactly what he’d have done. The groon had a patchwork face, alternating squares of copper and flesh like a nightmare checkerboard. One arm was real. The other was a dull metal stub. There was something mechanical protruding from his head, but Fergie couldn’t make it out.
“Hey, how ’bout you?” The creature caught Fergie looking and grinned. “I kinda like you, man. I surely do.” Something blurred, something hummed, something silver and gold sprang out of the metal stub. Something long and sharp touched Fergie’s crotch. It trailed up to Fergie’s belly and traced a narrow line. Fergie had to look. Why did I do that, he thought, why did I have to look? It was the longest blade Fergie had ever seen. They didn’t make any blades longer than that.
“I think I’m going to like you good,” the man with yellow eyes said. “Real, real good. What you think of that?”
“Whatever you do, don’t show them fear,” Dredd said.
“Yeah, right.” Fergie felt something roll over and die in his belly. “Thanks, I’ll remember that, Dredd.”
“Dredd. Did you say Dredd?”
Yellow Eyes cocked his head and studied Dredd. His eyes went bright when he spotted the Judge tattoo.
“Blessed be, Pa!” He turned and called into the shadows. “We got us Judge Dredd hisself!”
The two other freakos jumped up and down. Something walked out of the dark. Something tall and gaunt in bug-eaten rags, something that smelled before it even got near. It shuffled past the fire, tapping its stick on the ground. The others stepped out of his way. He stopped, sniffed the air, then turned his head up to Dredd. His features were masked by the filth-encrusted hood.
“Id id twoo? We gaht uds duh gwead bed up the log hidseph?”
Yellow Eyes winked at Dredd. “Pa wants to know it it’s true we got us the great man of the Law himself. Well, is it, Dredd? That be who you are?”
“I’m Dredd.”
“Hagga-lulla!” the man in the hood said.
“I know who you are,” Dredd said. “You’re the self-styled Reverend Billy Joe Angel. Wanted on a Six-Oh-Three, Crimes Against Humanity. A Five-Two-Niner, Murder in Every Degree. You and your offspring are under arrest.”
Pa Angel howled. “Oh, be are plessid, Lort! All we brayed vor was vood and sus-nance. Bud thou has de-livert our gweat enemee undo our hans!”
“Pa says—”
“I heard him,” Dredd said. “You’re still all under arrest.”
“Dredd…” Fergie shook his head. “You keep saying that, you’re going to piss this guy off.” He looked at the hooded horror. “Listen, friend, there’s been a little mistake. Him and me, we’re not together. I mean, I was in the shuttle, he was in the shuttle. You’re in the same place with somebody, that doesn’t mean you know each other, you’re even acquainted, you know? Doesn’t mean you’ve even seen each other before, you—yahh!”
Yellow Eyes poked Fergie sharply in the ribs. “Told you I liked you, man. I didn’t mean I liked you talking. I like you when you don’t.”
“Hey, I can live without the—”
“Shut up!”
Yellow Eyes squinted at Dredd and Fergie, then nodded at the horror in the hood. “That’s Pa. You already know that. You better be real nice. He’s a au-thentic babbatized avenger of the Lord.” He stabbed the air with his knife. “You mess with him, you messin’ with the fiery hand of God himself!”
“Amen!”
“Amen!”
Yellow Eyes grinned. “They call me Mean Machine. That’s ’cause I am.” He pointed a dirty finger at his head. “Pa’s got me set on One. I had a kinda accident when I was a’born. Shit. Bein’ alive’s a pure accident out here. Pa fixed me up best he could. He can turn me all the way up to Four. That’s ber-serkin’ dog-frothin’ psycho-maniac is what it is. You don’t want to never see that.
“The dumb-lookin’ one’s Junior Head-Dead. You can likely figure why. The other one’s Link-Link. He ain’t as dumb, but he can’t get his bodily functions workin’ right. If the wind was right you could tell.”
Mean Machine stepped up closer to Fergie. He pricked Fergie’s foot with his blade, turned the edge around and around in the light of the flame. When he looked at Dredd, his half-smile faded away.
“We are mighty proud to have you here, Dredd. Mighty proud, indeed.” His blade swept out faster than any eye could see. A thin line of red appeared on Dredd’s chest. “You’re hard to hurt, I bet. Pa’s going to like that.”
“Let me—snuk-snuk!—kill it, Pa!”
“Huh-uh!” Link-Link’s face screwed up in a mask. “You said I could have one, Pa!”
“Hallelujah, brother!” Fergie cried out. “Right on. Glory to the Lord! May His mighty sword smite sinners from the face of the earth! May His wrath stomp down on the unbeliever, may He damn the rich and raise up the poor!”
&n
bsp; Mean Machine’s eyes went wide. He gave Fergie a puzzled look.
“What you doing? Why you sayin’ stuff like that?”
“Lo, the wicked shall eat the dust of thy path, O Lord. E-ternal damnation to him who follows the false law of the Cities and curses the one true Lord of this dry and forgotten land!”
Pa Angel took a step forward. He turned his shrouded face up to Fergie. “Cud id be? Frum duh Cidy ub duh fallen, a fate-ful wud has a-beered?”
“Amen,” Fergie shouted. “The sheep’s come home, man, that’s me!”
“Ferguson…” Dredd shook his head in disgust. “You don’t want to do this. Believe me, you don’t.”
“Yeah? Think again, unbeliever.”
Mean Machine turned to his brothers. “Cut him down. If Pa says this’n is a Believer, why I reckon he is.”
Fergie laughed as Link-Link and Junior Head-Dead scrambled up the post to cut him free.
“The Law doesn’t make mistakes, Dredd, right? But I’m free and you’re toast. Go figure, man!”
“Wrong. I’m toast, Ferguson. You’re meat.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“These are the Angels, dope-head. They’re Cursed Earth scavengers. Scumbags. They’re also cannibals.”
Fergie stared. “Hey, no way. Don’t go telling me shit like that, Dredd. Don’t even joke about it, man.” He turned to Mean Machine. “Right, pal? Tell him, brother.”
“Hagga-lulla!” Pa Angel shouted.
“Snuk-snuk-snuk!” said Junior Head-Dead.
TWENTY-THREE
“This is terrific, you know? I mean, meeting you guys, a bunch of other Believers out here in the middle of nowhere, now what’s the chance of that? Is that God’s will or what?”
“G-g-g-glory!” Link-Link said.
“Snuk-snuk!” said Junior Head-Dead.
Fergie winked, and did a little bantam-weight shuffle. He tapped Junior lightly on the head. His hand came away with flecks of scorched hair. When the others weren’t looking, he wiped it on his pants.