Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth

by Destiny's Truth [lit]

  Ryan looked back to where Jak was waiting, aware that his words, although directed at J.B., could be heard by all.

  "I don't want to risk Jak right now. I know it's been a while since he was out of it, but I won't risk a good man until he's sure, and I'm sure." Ryan looked back at Jak as he spoke, and was gratified to see the albino nod almost imperceptibly. "Jak can lead on this side."

  J.B. assented. "We'll cover you… If it doesn't go off, signal when you're in position, and we'll advance in the meantime."

  Ryan spared his old friend a wry grin and then indicated to Krysty and Dean to join him.

  The chase was on.

  The one-eyed warrior figured that they were far enough down the road to be fairly well covered if they kept low. There was a slight rise in the land, and it was only slackness on the part of the sec man that had allowed Ryan to catch a glimpse of him above that rise.

  Going first, Ryan slung his Steyr over his back and slunk down onto the dusty and dirty blacktop. He crawled rapidly on his belly, his fingers making as much of a grip on the pavement as possible to help pull himself, the toes of his combat boots pushing him forward. He couldn't allow himself to rise enough to scramble or run at a crouch across the road. The only chance for any of them was to keep tight to the ground and not allow themselves to be seen above the rise.

  While J.B. and Jak watched the far post for any sign of action—a closer look revealing a slightly thicker clump of vegetation that was the only sign of camouflage—Mildred and Doc watched the left-hand post, on their side of the blacktop. Meanwhile, Dean and Krysty watched Ryan make his progress with bated breath, only releasing small sighs of relief when he attained the cover of the other side.

  Signaling he was clear, Ryan waited for Krysty to proceed next. The red-haired beauty dropped to the ground and began her journey across, aware of the danger not just by the adrenaline rush in her guts, but also from the way in which her sentient tresses clung to her neck.

  She could smell the old tarmac and the scent of dead animals and ancient gasoline. It mingled with the excitement and fear in her belly, making her feel sick. She knew that she—like Ryan and soon Dean—was completely vulnerable in this position. If they were attacked, she would have no chance of saving herself. It made her hug the road all the more, balancing this with her need for speed.

  Ryan watched her progress, as he would watch Dean's, willing her to hurry. The others didn't dare to look, keeping their attention focused on the sentry posts. It was hard. Apart from the fact that there was a denser concentration of foliage, they had no idea what kind of defense the sec force may be concealing. Krysty reached the other side of the road with a sigh of relief, and Ryan signaled for Dean to come across. The younger Cawdor was keen to make rapid time, and set about his task with an almost reckless abandon. He crawled across the road with speed, almost heedless of the fact that he was sometimes rising above the tarmac in his haste.

  "Fireblast," Ryan hissed to Krysty, "he'll be seen."

  Almost as though he heard his father, Dean slowed fractionally and kept himself level with the road. But there was another peril to await him.

  When he was three-quarters of the way across, he came face-to-face with a scorpion. Although not common in the predark New England, some of the creatures in captivity had escaped after the nukecaust, and had begun to breed, multiplying over the succeeding years.

  It was just Dean's luck to find one right now, crawling from a hole in the road and coming up right in front of his face.

  Dean froze. It wouldn't even realize he was there, or a possible enemy, unless he moved suddenly. Sweat beaded his brow, trickling into his eyes, stinging them and causing tears to prickle, misting his vision even more.

  He was trapped. He couldn't stay there indefinitely, and yet any movement could cause him to be stung, possibly fatally.

  On the near side of the road, in the ditch, Jak became aware that there was no movement on the road. He had been keeping it in the corner of his eye, and was alarmed at the sudden cessation. Indicating to J.B., Mildred and Doc that he would check it out, Jak slid back to a point where he could see Dean, still on the blacktop, and the creature that swayed before him.

  There was only one thing Jak could do. Knowing that blasterfire was useless, and that Dean would be staying still to avoid being stung, Jak did the only thing that would resolve the situation. Palming one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives, he took careful aim and skimmed the knife along the surface of the blacktop—so close to the tarmac that it almost touched— until it slammed into the body of the scorpion. The razor-honed point of the knife penetrated the creature's armor and carried it away from Dean. The young man watched as the knife and the scorpion disappeared into the undergrowth at the side of the road.

  Trying not to heave an audible sigh of relief, Dean began to move across the blacktop. When he arrived in the undergrowth at the side of the road, he was greeted by Krysty, holding up the scorpion, still embedded on the knife.

  Jak had saved Dean and had also proved to Ryan his return to full awareness and peak condition, something that the one-eyed man acknowledged to the albino as he signaled across the road for them to continue.

  The two parties now made rapid progress toward their prey. Each aimed for the sec post on their side of the blacktop, and each cut through the thin cover of the overgrown fields as swiftly as possible. Although they could disguise their progress by keeping low, the level of cover in the old fields was poor, and it was a balance between speed and keeping themselves unseen.

  J.B. led the way for his party, with Jak taking point. Doc was just in front of him, and Mildred followed on J.B.'s heels. The Armorer slowed as they reached a sparse section, and Jak came around to crouch beside him.

  "Not much," he said simply.

  J.B. shook his head and spoke tersely. "No way we can all proceed. You reckon you can flank them without being spotted?" he asked, indicating a path around to the far side of the sec post. There was still a sparsity of cover, but possibly enough for someone with Jak's skill.

  "Can try." The albino shrugged. "Better go—Ryan signal soon."

  J.B. agreed, but before he had even had a chance to finish, Jak was gone.

  OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE of the blacktop, Ryan had cut a swath through the undergrowth with ease, and he had now established a position within a hundred yards of the sec post. They were so close that Krysty could see the occupants: two men, drinking from a canteen and murmuring to each other, paying scant attention to the road, and especially to the undergrowth around them.

  "Guess they don't get a lot of trouble, Dad," Dean whispered.

  "Except mebbe today," Ryan replied wryly.

  The one-eyed man cast a glance over to the far side of the blacktop, and cursed to himself when he realized that he was staring through foliage to an almost bare expanse of field on the opposite side of the road. There was no way that J.B. and the others could get that far forward. It gave them a harder task, no doubt about that.

  It was then that he caught a shining reflection from the corner of his eye. Far flung, it came from a metallic object to one side of the sec post and was shining in a regular pattern.

  Jak.

  Ryan allowed himself a smile. He should have known that they would have found a way to even the chances. He got ready to signal.

  J.B. SAW JAK SETTLE and then direct a signal to the far side of the road. Looking ahead, he could see that the post was manned by a pair of sec men, neither of whom was paying too much attention to what was going on around him. One had wandered away from cover and was urinating onto a tree, while the other was resting his chin on his hands, staring at the road and seemingly daydreaming.

  "It would seem that they are not used to regular traffic," Doc observed quietly in J.B.'s ear.

  "Yeah, and they expect everyone to be using the road," the Armorer replied.

  "I find that a satisfactory situation," Doc murmured.

  Before J.B. could think of a suitable reply
, his ears pricked up at the sound of an owl hooting. It wasn't something that you would expect in the middle of the day, which was why it was the perfect signal for Ryan to use. It may perplex the sec men if they were listening, but it would also momentarily distract them while the companions burst from cover.

  Which was exactly what happened. Ryan, Krysty and Dean came out of the undergrowth, moving across the ground at speed and fanning out to present a more widespread target. They were so swift, and the reactions of the sec men so slow that they were almost on them by the time that the sec men knew what was happening.

  Ryan held his SIG-Sauer blaster in one hand and the panga in the other. As one man swiveled to cover Krysty, believing that his partner would take Ryan, and the other did likewise with Dean, Ryan leaped into the middle of the blaster nest, bringing the hilt of the panga and the butt of the SIG-Sauer down in a simultaneous motion on the skulls of the sec men, putting them out of action.

  "That was almost too easy," he remarked with a touch of surprise in his voice.

  On the far side of the blacktop, the others were finding their task just as easy. At the signal, Jak, Mildred and Doc had adopted a similar tactic, breaking cover and fanning out; meanwhile, Jak had skipped out from his position and taken out the urinating sec man with a blow from the heel of his hand to the base of the man's skull. He dropped without knowing what had hit him.

  The daydreaming sec man had been jolted from his reverie and vacillated over which of the three advancing attackers to train his blaster upon: a decision that was taken from him by the feel of cold steel at the base of his neck.

  "Drop or chill," Jak said quietly.

  From here, it was easy for the companions to regroup on the blacktop with their prisoners, stripped of their weapons.

  "Why haven't you chilled us?" one of the sec men asked sullenly.

  "Because we want safe passage into your ville, and we don't want to make any more enemies," Ryan replied.

  "Then why not just use the road like anyone else with decent business?" another complained.

  "Because, my dear young man, after we had been attacked by that heinous flying machine and replied in a somewhat damaging manner, there was no guarantee of anything other than a somewhat warm welcome," Doc said, drawing a puzzled gaze from the sec man who had asked the question.

  "Don't you worry." Ryan laughed. "Just— What was it they used to say in those old vids, Millie?"

  "Take us to your leader," Mildred replied in dry tones.

  So they did. The sec men led the companions through the center of Crossroads, right to the heavily guarded and opulent home of the baron—Jon Robertson, as laid-back as J.B. remembered from the old stories.

  For when he saw the sorry state of his sec patrol for that blacktop route and heard Ryan's story, his only comment was: "Never mind that damn plane. You boys were just lucky these people ain't hostile. Shit, I'm gonna have to toughen up on you assholes."

  HAVING PROVED THEIR WORTH by taking out the sec post, and their intentions by not chilling their captives, Robertson was more inclined to take their side of the story regarding the sec biplane.

  "Well," he said slowly when Ryan had finished explaining, "I'd say that you had every right to try and bring that fucker down."

  "By the Three Kennedys, it's not often that one comes to meet a man of such erudition and faith," Doc uttered, smiling broadly.

  "What'd he say?" Robertson asked, puzzled. "He means that we don't often come across barons—or anyone—who'd see our side of things over a firefight with their own sec," Mildred replied.

  "Why in hell didn't he just say that?" Robertson murmured before brightening. "Anyway, who the hell says that I'd take your side?"

  "But—" Ryan was about to speak, but was cut short from a gesture by the baron.

  "Shit, I dunno if I'd feel so inclined if it was one of mine, but it wasn't. We don't have nothing like that around here. Yeah, people've talked of a machine like that, but we just put that down to jolt."

  It was a startling revelation, but there wasn't time for the companions to think too closely about the implications of what the baron said, as he had already launched into a long, rambling discourse on the ville of Crossroads, with a number of asides about people whose names meant nothing to the companions, but obviously inspired great laughter among the baron's people.

  The gist of his dissertation, as far as any of the companions could glean, was that the ville had been a small truck stop in predark times. As some kind of network and civilization had begun to build once more, the old blacktop roads that threaded across the country became invaluable trade routes for the convoys of traders that began to ferry goods and chattels across the remains of the land. So the population of Crossroads had grown and prospered, as they played host to a succession of convoys, many with jack and goods to spare for a good time.

  The arable fields that the companions had come through on their journey were virtually useless. The same mutie plant genetics that had caused the stunted dwarf elms had also affected the crops, with the result that some scrub farming was done near the ville in order to keep a basic crop going, and to grow grain for the ville's own potent brand of alcohol, but otherwise the whole economy of the town existed thanks to the convoys that passed through.

  "So I guess I don't really have any objection to you folks staying on awhile," Robertson concluded, "but you know that you'll have to work for your keep."

  "Never had it any other way," Ryan replied.

  "Well, I'll tell you what. You can all spend some time with my sec—" he cast a glare at the sec men who had been taken "—and sharpen these stupe bastards up a little. Not taking anything from you, but they shouldn't have been taken that easily. Other than that, you can be bar sec—" he indicated Ryan and J.B. "—while you'se two can help on the farming," he added, indicating Dean and Jak. '"Cause I'll tell you what, we're shorthanded right now. There's some kind of sickness started, and our doc here ain't too sure what it is."

  A coldness ran through Jak as he heard this, and he thought of his nightmare. Krysty and Mildred exchanged glances as the baron continued. "He could do with some help. You two women and the old man can help. I heard two of you addressed like you were halves."

  "Yeah, guess we are," Mildred said softly. "But it depends what we find." They were soon to know.

  "THIS IS WHAT we're up against." Hector shrugged helplessly. "I've seen most of the things that get caught around here, and just about every type of clap that there is." He allowed himself a sheepish grin when Krysty looked at him questioningly, "Hell, this is a trader's ville, with too many gaudies for its own good sometimes, the amount of trade they have to keep up to survive. But anyway, that's not anything to do with this, I'm sure of that."

  Mildred, Krysty and Doc were standing in the middle of the large, one room shack that constituted the ville's medical facility. There were twenty beds, lined ten to each side of the room. The healer, a thin, stooped man called Hector Murray, stood beside them. His face was drawn with worry, lined with too many sleepless nights. Large, limpid blue eyes held their gaze steadily, and he had a distracted habit of running one hand through his thinning hair while the other stayed firmly in his jacket pocket.

  He reminded Mildred of interns she had known in her old, predark life, and she liked him instantly. He had acquired enough knowledge, and traded enough med supplies, to cope with the general run of problems in a ville like this, but was obviously baffled by something that he had never come across before.

  "How long since this started?" Mildred asked, moving to check some of the patients. There were sixteen in the shack, and two of them were victims of fights from which they'd come off worse, nursing broken bones and lacerations. But the other fourteen…

  "Only a couple of weeks since the first signs." Hector sighed, joining Mildred at the bedside of a young girl. "She was the first, and she looks to be the most advanced. It follows a pattern that you'd expect."

  "Which is?" Krysty questioned from t
he far side of the building, where she had been casting an eye over some of the other victims of the disease.

  Hector looked across to her. "Starts like they've got some kind of cough, so you give them the usual. But it doesn't clear up. Then they have a day or so of shitting, and that goes. Eyes run. For the first couple of days that's all. Then they get the spots—kinda like when you see that old chickenpox. Don't get that often, but it's kinda like that. They get the fever, too."

  "But the spots don't clear, obviously," Doc murmured, examining a sleeping man who was covered in the small blisters, red at the puckered edges of the liquid filled sacs. The old man was a doctor of philosophy rather than medicine, but he was a man from another age, and he had a creeping feeling that he knew what was happening. He wondered if Mildred had reached a similar conclusion.

  Unaware of this train of thought, Hector continued.

  "No, they don't. They start to open and weep, then form a crust around the edge. I try to keep them clean within reason, but I can't risk infecting the already open—"

  "You're doing right to leave them," Mildred interrupted. "There's not much you can do about them once they start. Tell me, have you lost any yet?"

  There was silence. Mildred looked round questioningly, and her eyes met Hector's.

  "You mean I'm going to?" he asked, but with a suggestion that he already knew the answer.

  Mildred paused before answering. She couldn't be sure, and didn't want to commit herself before she'd had a chance to… To what? What else could she do here but observe?

  "Guess that answers my question," Hector said softly. "You know what this is, then?"

  "Not exactly," Mildred answered.

  "Then I wish you'd share some ideas," Krysty interjected, joining Mildred, "because I've never seen anything quite like this before."