Seedling

by James Axler

  "Sure burn well," Mildred completed, and they both laughed loud and long.

  They made so much noise that they didn't hear the light-footed approach of the Armorer. His quiet voice made them both jump. "Private joke?"

  Doc shook his head. "No, but it would take a frightfully long time to try to explain it."

  J.B. shrugged. The last feeble glow from beyond some broken windows bounced off the metal-rimmed glasses. "Fire's going well down there, and there's some food readied."

  "I think my belly and backbone are getting used to being stuck together," Doc said. "I shall go and force down a little something. What do you say to a little something, Mildred?"

  "I probably say, 'Hello, little something.' Sorry. Wasn't that good a joke a hundred years ago, and it hasn't improved with age."

  "You going down?" J.B. asked.

  "Not yet. But you go ahead, Doc, and if you find any Renoirs, put them on the fire."

  They watched the old man pick his careful way down and out of sight. J.B. moved a few steps to stand by the window, looking down across Fifth Av­enue

  . "Cold night."

  "It is."

  She joined him, standing so close that their bodies brushed together. They stared as a figure moved past, heading north. It was difficult to make out, but it looked like the stunted little creature they'd passed earlier as they'd made their way to the Guggenheim.

  "J.B." She grabbed his arm.

  "I seen them."

  There were two more shadows skulking against the tumbled wall of the park. They were closing in on the solitary figure that marched stolidly up the center of the road.

  Mildred started to draw her ZKR 551, but J.B. laid a hand on her wrist. "No. Not our fight, Mildred. And it'll attract attention to us."

  They watched the tiny drama of life and death. The victim only became aware of the threat at the very last moment, whirling around and drawing some sort of blade. But it was way too late, and the two attackers closed in.

  A soundless scuffle, then the street was suddenly empty again. Except for the small, huddled corpse at its center.

  "I could've chilled them both," Mildred said softly.

  "Not the way."

  She sighed. "Guess not." She looked over her shoulder across the landing at what had been some kind of administrative suite. There were a couple of seat cushions in the dark room. "John Barrymore?"

  "Yeah."

  "If we went in there, we could lie down for a few minutes."

  "We could." He was as laconic as ever, no sur­prise or question hiding in his voice.

  "And you could make love to me."

  "I could."

  "Would you like that?"

  She saw the specter of his narrow smile in the darkness and felt his lips brush against hers.

  "I would."

  Chapter Sixteen

  "THINK THEY'RE OKAY up there?" Ryan picked his teeth, locating bits of grainy bread and sucking at his long fingers.

  Krysty laughed very softly. She was stretched out on the floor, the firelight playing off the planes of her face and the tumbled curtain of her dazzling hair. "I think they're very probably okay up there, lover."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" The penny dropped. "You don't think they're… ? Not Mildred and…Not J.B. Dix!"

  At that moment they all heard the sound of feet coming down the long ramp, out of the cold dark­ness above. Two pairs of feet.

  Dred had been dozing and he started awake, hand going for his Saturday night special.

  "Relax," Krysty said.

  J.B. and Mildred walked into the pool of warm light cast by the dancing flames of the fire. They were standing close together, then glanced at each other and took an uncomfortable step away.

  "Better in here," the Armorer said. "Saw some­one go down to a street attack. It's a jungle out there. The beasts come out at night."

  "Yeah," Mildred added, her words tumbling over the end of J.B.'s sentence. "Safer in here."

  "I'm sure it is," Ryan said. "As far as you and—" He stopped as Krysty lifted her head and gave him a withering glare. "I mean… Sure. Here, Mildred, have some food."

  OUTSIDE THE VAST sprawling ville was surprisingly quiet. The dominant sound was the howling of dogs. Sometimes the noise was more like a hunting pack of wolves. Once there was a terrible scream, long and bubbling, rising and falling and finally falling away into stillness again.

  Once there was a bark of a single blaster, which J.B. guessed as being a Smith & Wesson .38. And once came the brief stutter of automatic gunfire that both Ryan and the Armorer agreed unhesitatingly was an Uzi.

  "Time for some sleep," Krysty suggested. "Retha's crashed already."

  The girl was curled up in a fetal position, sucking at her thumb.

  Ryan nodded. "Right. Have to take a watch. Only one entrance, isn't there?"

  "No." J.B. had been sitting on the far side of the fire, close to Mildred. "Sort of rear exit through that door. Leads into a kind of alley, mostly blocked. But someone could get in if they tried hard."

  "Right." Ryan stood and looked around. "Still cover that from the bottom of the ramp. Best bet is we all sleep one level up. Guard stays here." He pointed at the main lobby area, where the floor began to cir­cle upward.

  "Better do it in pairs," J.B. suggested, "in case anyone drops off."

  "You're on watch and you don't fall asleep," Ryan snapped.

  "You wouldn't and I wouldn't, but…" He looked around at the others.

  Mildred's head was nodding, and Doc's eyes were already closed and he was snoring gently. Krysty was still wide awake, and Dred was watching from the corner where Retha was fast asleep.

  "All right. But you and me do it on our own. Spread the load."

  "Sure."

  PART OF THE PASSAGE that spiraled around the shell-like interior of the Guggenheim still retained patches of carpet, making it possible to move around in al­most total silence.

  Doc had been roused enough to take the first watch, and Ryan took over from him. Dred and Re­tha were to go next, followed by Krysty and Mildred, with J.B. taking the last round until dawn.

  Now everyone was sleeping as Ryan picked his way cautiously around the abandoned museum. The G-12 was down by his sleeping place, and he had the SIG-Sauer P-226 in its holster. There were times when you felt the spice of danger and times you didn't. The Guggenheim had such an atmosphere of long abandonment that there didn't seem any serious risk.

  He walked clear to the top. There were high clouds racing across the face of a bright moon. Its light came through the broken windows and splashed over the walls, showing the faint, rectangular marks where paintings had been hung a hundred years ago.

  Ryan leaned his elbows on the sill, staring out across the sleeping ruins. This was the place. Damn near the biggest city in the world. The true capital of the United States of America. He'd seen it several times on old, flickering vids and in pix in torn books and faded magazines. Now he was in its center, look­ing over the finest street in the whole ville.

  On Fifth Avenue

  it was beginning to snow.

  The first frail flakes whirled down on the teeth of the blue norther, settling immediately on the cold, cold ground. It covered the sharp edges of the tum­bled masonry and metal, veiling the old horror of the biggest slaughterhouse in history. There had never been such a killing as when the missiles dropped over Manhattan Island.

  And there never would be again.

  Dred was already awake when Ryan returned to the lobby. "Time for us?"

  "Yeah. It's snowing outside."

  The boy uncoiled with a coltish grace, rubbing at his eyes. "Had some bad winters in this ville. Colder'n a well-digger's cock."

  Ryan tossed a few more broken branches onto the smoldering embers of the fire, generating flaring or­ange flames. "Wake Krysty and Mildred on time."

  "Sure, Chief. Can I borrow that… No. Nobody borrows blasters."

  Ryan sat down and tucked his coat around his
feet, glancing around. "Where's Doc gone?"

  The old man's voice answered from the valley of black shadows at the very rear of the building. "Been out to point my peter at the porcelain. When you reach my age, my dear friends, you will find that you want to do less more often, if you take my meaning. I'm all right now. Until next time."

  The pressure of the double-jump, combined with the firefight and the tension of being in this alien ville all worked to make Ryan feel utterly bone-tired. By the warm fire, with a double watch out, he felt rea­sonably secure, so he fell asleep quickly.

  AS THEY BURNED THROUGH, the branches crumbled away into frail columns of ash. They tumbled one upon the other with a soft, whispering sound, but it was loud enough to wake Ryan.

  He started to sit up and felt the jar of something poked into his chest. There was just enough light left from the dying fire to make out the silhouette of Dred, holding the G-12 caseless, the muzzle touching Ryan's breastbone. Retha was on the other side of him, the homebuilt blaster in her small fist.

  "So fucking long, outie," the teenage boy said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE TRIGGER PRESSURE on the Heckler & Koch G-12 caseless had been adjusted by J.B. at Ryan's own re­quest, pulling it down a few notches. It was only in misinformed vids that the hero had a weapon with a hair trigger. Have that and you'd be shooting any­thing and everything, including your friends and your own feet.

  What you wanted was a light trigger tuned to your own reflexes.

  Ryan knew he was only a couple of ounces of fin­ger-tightness away from death. The blaster was on full-auto and would pour out twenty rounds in a fraction of a minute, pulping his heart and lungs.

  "Lie down, outie," Dred whispered.

  Under his coat Ryan's fingers were also reaching for the hilt of the long panga, the only weapon he could get at without making a fatal move. "Sure."

  The boy giggled, a bizarre, feathering sound that rasped at the nerves. "Got your fucking gun you wouldn't borrow me, outie."

  "Yeah."

  The muzzle had moved away from his chest, but still pointed at him.

  "You, then that smart-bastard Dix. Old man with triple-stupe talk. Black bitch and redhead last. Save them for fucking last—" again the obscene snigger "—or for last fucking."

  "Yeah," Ryan repeated, racking his brain for something to say.

  "Now, outie," Dred whispered.

  "No," Doc said, his voice as calm and reasoned as if he were refusing a nephew a third trip to the cookie jar.

  It was as though Dred were an android who'd mal­functioned. A metal spring had broken and uncoiled from within his throat, bursting from the front, standing out by at least eight inches.

  A tiny fragment of time passed, and Ryan realized what he'd seen.

  The tip of Doc's swordstick, thrust with a savage force into the back of the teenager's neck, had pene­trated and emerged from the front.

  As quickly as he'd struck, so Doc withdrew his blade, lunging again, this time into the boy's back, two fingers to the left of the spine and four fingers below the scapula.

  Dred started dying.

  He gave a strangled, bubbling gasp, blood begin­ning to froth from his gaping mouth. He was already falling, the Heckler & Koch sliding from nerveless fingers. Retha half turned, looking around at Doc's monosyllable, seeing Dred run through by the slim blade. She began to scream, uncertain whether to shoot at the old man or at Ryan, still flat on his back in front of her.

  "You…" she said.

  With his left hand Ryan threw off the encum­brance of the long coat. He'd drawn the panga with its eighteen-inch blade. He gripped it in his right hand, swinging it sideways in a short, hacking arc, aiming at Retha's skinny legs.

  The heavy rubber boots did little to deflect the fe­rocious power of the blow. Ryan used his wrist to give extra bite, pulling the panga back and across after the clunk of the impact. Behind Retha's scream was the frail sound of snapping bone.

  Her pistol fired once, a thin crack in the echoing stone vault of the museum. The bullet whined off the roof, then disappeared into the upper blackness.

  Ryan rolled sideways, avoiding the toppling body of Dred. Retha hopped backward, dropping her gun, starting to fall. She clutched at Doc, who was about to deliver the coup de grace to the moaning figure of the boy.

  In the dim half-light the others were waking. J.B. was instantly on his feet, blaster probing the dark­ness, trying to work out what was going down.

  Krysty was also up, hair seeming to crackle with a fiery electricity, her own Heckler & Koch P7A-13 pistol in her fist.

  Close to J.B., Mildred was just coming to life, sit­ting up, fumbling for her own gun, her softer reflexes leaving her several vital seconds behind the others.

  Ryan was now standing, falling naturally into a classic knife fighter's half crouch, ready to take out Dred if the boy showed any sign of recovery.

  But the teenager was flailing around on the cold floor, both hands at his throat, as if he might be able to check the blood that was pouring through the nar­row lips of the wound. His movements were slowing, and Ryan knew the boy was already inexorably set on the last train to the coast.

  The girl was a different matter.

  Screeching like a gut-shot horse, she was clinging to Doc, arms locked around his neck, making it im­possible for him to shorten his grip on the lion's-head hilt of the swordstick to stab her. Blood was filling the long boots, sloshing out through the cut across the shin.

  "Push her away, Doc!" Ryan shouted, shifting closer, waiting for a clear chance to kill the girl with his panga.

  "Can't. I fear…"

  It was like watching a hideous dance of death. The old man, frock coat whirling, spun around, almost whisking Retha clear off the floor. She was crying out in a reedy, babbling voice, begging for her life, tight­ening her grip around Doc's neck, almost strangling him.

  By now Krysty, J.B. and Mildred all had their blasters drawn, but it was impossibly risky, in the poor light of the dying fire, to try to shoot the girl.

  Dred gave them the chance.

  He rolled over and over, his struggle weakening, until his feet and legs rested in the glowing embers. Smoke began to rise, and there was the smell of scorching cloth and flesh.

  Retha noticed it and broke away from Doc, her pale face frantic. "He's burning, you bastards!"

  It was Ryan's opportunity, and he took it.

  As she moved toward Dred, he swung the panga in a singing blow. The edge was razor-honed, and he put enough power behind it to sever the skull from the neck.

  It wasn't the perfect, clean kill he'd hoped for. At the last moment the girl's street awareness made her glance toward him. Her arm came up to try to fend off the weapon.

  She might as well have tried to fend off a great white shark with a breadstick.

  The severed hand went spinning up into the air, the fingers opening wide as the tendons relaxed. Blood fountained, hissing into the ruby embers of the fire, splashing all over the corpse of Dred.

  Retha tottered, her broken leg failing to support her. As she dropped to her knees, J.B. put a single bullet through the side of her head. It smashed her down and she twitched a few times, the boots sliding and squeaking on the wet concrete.

  Then there was the final and unmistakable still­ness that marked the ending of life.

  "Thanks, Doc," Ryan said, stooping and wiping the dulled steel on the girl's coat.

  "You're more than welcome, my dear chap. Nasty business." He was also cleaning his slim swordstick, wiping it on one of the few dry patches on the lad's clothes.

  "How come you were up and awake, Doc?" J.B. asked.

  "My little problem, for once, came in frightfully useful."

  "What problem's that?" Mildred asked. Then she smiled. "Ah, you mean the little problem that makes bad-tempered old farts like you have to get up in the middle of the night?"

  "Indeed, yes."

  Krysty grinned. "More power to your pisser, D
oc."

  "I was returning to my sleeping place when I saw our two deceased companions whispering together. I closed in as quietly as my creaking knee joints would permit. The lad plucked up your rifle, Ryan, and that was when I decided I would need to draw my steel."

  Ryan pulled the charring corpse of Dred out of the fire, waving his hands to dispel the smoke. "Again, Doc, thanks. Owe you one."

  Doc sniffed. "Nonsense. Stuff and bloody non­sense! By the three Kennedys, Ryan, if you owe me one, then I must owe you at least fifty."

  J.B. shared the remainder of the night guard's du­ties with Krysty and Mildred. The bodies were heaved out of the way, through the shattered doors and onto what had once been the bustling sidewalk of Fifth Avenue

  .

  In the morning it was no great surprise to find that both were gone.

  As the dawn's early light came creeping up from behind the Guggenheim, Ryan and Krysty stood to­gether and looked out at the ruins that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  And so much farther than that.

  The woman put her arm around the man's waist, drawing him closer to her, savoring his strength and power. "Lover?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Now what? Do we go on back to the redoubt and jump out of Newyork?"

  He rubbed the stubble that was sprouting from his chin, darkening the angle beneath the jaw. "We can spare enough ammo to trade food for a few days yet. Or we can just take it when we want."

  "So we're staying." It was a statement, not a ques­tion, and he didn't bother to speak. Krysty went on. "What about this big gang of scalies the kid talked about? Down at the docks."

  "We can keep clear and walk careful."

  "You sorry about them? Retha and the boy?"

  "Dred? Not specially. Tried their luck and lost. I know you thought he might have been a sort of…replacement. Tell you this, lover. He was no Jak Lauren." He paused. "Never would have been."

  Chapter Eighteen

  NOW IT WAS back to the five of them, and they were able to revert to the familiar loose skirmishing pat­tern that they all knew so well. Ryan was out on point, the G-12 held ready in his hands, eye raking the heaps of stone and metal that lined every street in Manhat­tan. Krysty was immediately behind him, then Doc, still stepping out with a dandyish elegance, rapping his cane on the frosted cobbles. J.B. and Mildred shared the rearguard position, walking close to­gether and occasionally talking quietly and ear­nestly.