Seedling

by James Axler

  And there, only a few yards away, Ryan could just make out a child. A frail, elfin little girl, looking to be in her early teens. She was dressed in a variety of russet rags, orange, brown and faded yellow, that whirled around her as though she were the epicenter of a fall storm. Her face was pale, the eyes dark and intense.

  He didn't say anything to the others.

  The creature danced, barefoot he noticed, leaping effortlessly, never slipping or falling, the snow seem­ing to part in front of her.

  "Left here, J.B.," he called. "Better slow down so we can see where we're going."

  The engine grated down through the gears as the wag rumbled up to the junction. The nearside wheels supped for a moment in drifted snow, then found purchase, making the vehicle jerk to the right.

  "By the three Kennedys!" Doc called. "Worse than a Frisco cable car."

  Ryan peered out, squinting against the cold wind and the wet snow that found its way in through the ob-slit He glimpsed the child for one last, frozen moment. She had pirouetted on the points of her toes, then she vanished in front of the turning nose of the armored vehicle.

  "No," he breathed. "Dark night!" J.B. exclaimed, stamping on the brakes.

  I Ryan waited for the thump of the impact of tons of steel against a frail body, but there was nothing.

  "What's up?" he shouted through the intercom.

  "Don't know. Thought I saw someone or something right in front. But it sort of… skipped, yeah, skipped out of the way and vanished."

  "Just keep going," Ryan ordered.

  "NO GOOD RYAN." J.B. said.

  "Brakes?"

  "Partly that. Main thing is I can't see more than about twenty yards. Worst damn blizzard I think I ever saw."

  "Mebbe we should stop awhile and wait it out."

  "How's the time?" Mildred asked.

  "Time we get where we're going it'll be close on midnight," Ryan said.

  "I think we should keep going, lover." There was an urgency in Krysty's voice that everyone picked up on.

  Ryan responded to it. "Trouble?"

  "Feels bad. I think we should keep right on mov­ing."

  "Hear that, J.B.? Take it slow but keep going."

  "You know where we are?" the Armorer asked.

  "Yeah. Course. Well, sort of. I reckon we're about one block south and two blocks east of where we want to drive into the river."

  "Forgive a note of doubt from an old man's fe­vered imagination, but are you certain this tin box is truly amphibious?"

  "Sure," Ryan replied.

  He knew that this kind of Light Armored Vehicle had been designed to travel with equal facility on land or on water. Ryan pushed to the back of his mind the nagging doubt that the past hundred years might have diminished the recce wag's efficiency.

  Krysty's feelings weren't to be ignored. Whatever the risks, they had to keep on.

  ANOTHER OF THE SCALIES had tried to put the make on Dean during the evening, only pulling away when an officer shouted at him to get back to his guard post. The squat mutie bent low over the cowering boy.

  "Off at the deepest part of night, little one. Be seeing you then. Get ready for what I'll give you." It patted itself on the crotch and grinned, showing its double row of reptilian teeth.

  As it waddled away into the darkness, its boots ringing on the damp stone, Dean relaxed. His right hand let go of the butt of the gutting knife he'd stolen earlier.

  THEY HAD ALL THE OB-SLITS OPEN, and everyone had pressed their faces to the freezing air, trying to see anything that would tell them where they were. But the snow was still cascading down, producing white-out conditions in the streets.

  In a narrow compartment in front of his seat, Ryan had found a thick booklet covering driving and maintenance. But the section on amphibious use had been torn away. Something nagged at Ryan about precautions, but it kept sliding away as he concen­trated on navigating for J.B.

  "See anything, Ryan?" With the ob-slits open it was necessary to use the intercom for any conversa­tion.

  "No, but we should—"

  The front of the wag dipped suddenly and vio­lently, and the engine raced. Then they fell and crashed. And the armored vehicle began to fill with a gushing flood of icy river water.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  RYAN HELD ON to the metal bar at his side, but the im­pact was so severe that he bent it away from its fixing point. He lurched forward and took the initial wave of cold, salty water full in the face.

  It made him gasp for breath and blinded him.

  "Ob-slits!" Doc shouted, surprisingly the quick­est in the wag to realize what had happened and where their principal danger lay.

  "Close them," J.B. ordered, but the deluge shorted out some of the electrics and his voice disappeared.

  It felt like the cumbersome LAV was going clear to the bottom of the Hudson.

  Ryan managed to slam the hatch shut, locking it tight, but he was soaking wet and could still hear wa­ter pouring in somewhere below him.

  "Mildred!" Krysty yelled.

  "I'm stuck."

  Doc, with a ragged edge of panic riding over his voice, said, "I can't reach past her to shut the port."

  The vehicle still hadn't stopped plunging, and Ryan was conscious that they were also being moved slowly sideways by the current. There was another solid jar­ring thump, and they tipped over farther.

  The engine was faltering, coughing and cutting out, barely managing to maintain ignition. Amid the bed­lam Ryan was aware of J.B. muttering a calm litany of curses. "Got to close that ob-slot! Can you reach it, Krysty?"

  "I'll try. Gaia! The water's twenty below freezing and I'm soaked. I think if… Yeah. Sorry, Doc."

  The sound of the torrent suddenly ceased, and Ryan heard locks snapping shut.

  Doc's voice, calmer, said, "Don't apologize, my dear young lady, having my mouth filled with the toe of your boot is a small price to pay to render us a mite more waterproof."

  Gradually, like a mortally wounded whale, the wag seemed to be stablizing itself, becoming level and rising steadily toward the surface of the river. The engine was still reluctant to fire properly, but at least it was running.

  "Intercom's out!" J.B. shouted. "But I got control."

  Ryan had fumbled in the chaotic darkness and located a small periscope. He raised it with a hydraulic, hissing sound and looked through the lens. He couldn't see a thing, couldn't even judge whether they were underwater or whether they'd broken the surface.

  "Everyone all right?" he called.

  "Wonderful," Doc replied.

  "Cold, wet and bloody miserable," Mildred called.

  "Surviving, lover…"

  "We above the water yet, Ryan?" J.B. asked. "I'm stone-blind here."

  "I'll risk opening the ob-slit. Rest of you keep 'em shut."

  Only a few of the dim lights inside the vehicle were still functioning. Ryan screwed his eye up, shaking wet hair off his face, found the locking handle and eased it up a little. Nothing happened, so he took a chance and threw it clear back, ready to shut it again if the river flooded in.

  "We're out," he called. "Still a lot of snow, but I think it's easing some. J.B., can you turn her around and give me a chance to recce?"

  "Sure. Reverse port and forward with starboard. And around we go."

  The wag began to swing.

  Ryan stared out into the night, straggling to catch a glimpse of anything that might give a clue about where the shore lay.

  "Can I ask a question?"

  "Sure, Mildred," J.B. said.

  "Just what happened back there? One minute we're driving along and next moment we're falling into deep water."

  Doc's laugh echoed through the wag. "Just like life, isn't it?"

  Ryan detected a faint flicker of light, but the LAV was swinging steadily and he couldn't be certain. He was about to ask J.B. to pull her the other way, but he decided it would be better to let it go around one more time.

  "Ran off a dock, Mildred," the
Armorer shouted. "Blame our high and mighty nav-man up there."

  "What are you complaining about? Fireblast, it's a sure signal you're feeling better, J.B., moaning like this. I said I'd get us into the river. And I did."

  "Sure. Want me to stop circling?"

  "Not yet. Yeah, there it is. One more time around, but real slow. Ready to check when I say the word. I can see something. Must be the shore. I'll open the hatch and try to get out. Should be able to see from there."

  "Make sure we're high enough out of the water," J.B. called. "Open up the big hatch if we're not, and we'll float like a lead balloon."

  Ryan eased it open a quarter inch. A little water seeped in, but there was no serious problem. He flung it all the way back, wincing again as the biting gale dashed snow in his face.

  Out in the night air it was surprisingly easy to get his bearings. The wind was blowing steadily from the north, and he knew the river ran more or less north-south. So once he stared into the driving blizzard, shielding his eye from the snow, he knew the Newyork shore lay to his right. Over to the other side were the big swamps.

  Ryan stuck his head back inside. "You hear me, J.B.? Steer right."

  "Sure."

  "And open up your hatch, as well. Get a bit wet, but you'll be able to hear me."

  "Sure."

  They made the turn, heading in a ponderous quar­ter circle. In the gaps between the snow flurries Ryan thought a couple of times that he saw a distant, flickering light.

  Krysty joined him. "Making me feel pig-sick down in there. Rather be wet and cold."

  "Don't know where we are. I figure we must've gone in the river a couple of blocks too late. So we need to go south for a quarter mile or so."

  "You got the map?"

  "Sure. But it's falling apart with the water. I can remember it."

  "Think we'll make it?"

  She was hanging on to his arm. Though they were so close, the blackness meant they couldn't even see each other's face.

  "I know we'll get to where we're going. The rest is…" She felt him shrug.

  The flow of the river was another factor in the im­possible equation. They didn't know how fast it was flowing, so they didn't know how far south they were being carried. And, since they hadn't known where they were in the first place, there was an awful lot of guesstimates involved.

  "Snow's easing some, lover," Krysty said.

  The wind was also dropping, but still whipped whitecaps off the tops of the waves all around them.

  The LAV butted its way through them, its blunt nose making a loud, thwacking noise and kicking up a wall of white spray.

  Ryan was steadying himself on the side of the tur­ret, the long barrel of the blaster against the side of his leg. His own G-12 caseless was strapped securely across his shoulders.

  "How'm I doing?" J.B. shouted. "Still can't see."

  "About as you're going now," Ryan replied.

  The map had shown two prongs of fallen rock and stone, like the straight horns of a cow. Stanton said they'd been warehouses once, but now they provided a kind of natural harbor that the scalies sometimes used for their fishing rafts.

  Once shore was reached there was a big arched tunnel that gave access, so Stanton believed, to the heart of the muties' empire.

  The engine now sounded healthier, and Ryan was grateful for the storm. If the night had been calm, then the scalies would have heard them coming five miles off.

  "Can I come up top?" Doc shouted. "I fear the poor remnants of Stanton's feast are about to reap­pear."

  "Careful of the controls," Ryan called.

  Three seconds later he was in the blackness of the river, swimming for his life.

  One moment he and Krysty had been pressed close, then the turret began to swing around, the barrel of the Bushmaster catching Ryan just below the knees sending him teetering off the slippery, wet metal into the Hudson.

  Krysty hung on to the blaster, hearing Doc's voice very faintly.

  "Sorry. Caught my foot on some lever. Hope it wasn't important. I said, I hope it's not important."

  Ryan heard nothing, just the rushing, bubbling sound of the river beating in his ears. He kicked his way to the surface, hampered by the weight of the ri­fle. His head above water, he looked around for any sign of either the wag or the shore, but he couldn't see either. He could just catch the distant rumble of the six-cylinder diesel engine.

  Then something brushed against the side of his leg.

  Chapter Forty

  THE SHOCK MADE Ryan open his mouth, and he swal­lowed a great gulp of freezing water that nearly choked him. He kicked out, feeling his boots jar against something long and solid that floated just below the surface of the river.

  As he pushed against it, he felt it move, pressing upward. The panga slipped into his right hand and he reached down, ready for mortal combat—with a long, splintered branch, slimy from its long immersion in the Hudson.

  The relief made him yell out loud, fumbling to get the weapon back into the sodden leather sheath at his hip.

  But the clinging, smothering cold was already bit­ing at him, making movements clumsy and slow. Ryan had a momentary flash of a tattered book the Trader had once lent to him about the big firefight called the Second War. Convoys of water wags went into the Arctic to supply the Russkies. If a man went in the water when they were attacked, he'd die in less than two minutes if he wasn't rescued.

  "Hey! Over here! Hey, Krysty!"

  As soon as J.B. realized what had happened, he'd begun the slow process of turning the wag around, steering it in a big circle, trying as he did so to allow for the effect the current was having on them and what effect it might be having on Ryan.

  Krysty, Doc and Mildred were now all on top, grabbing hold of anything they could, scanning the dark surface around them for some sign of Ryan.

  "Should be soon!" J.B. yelled.

  "Can you cut the engine?" Krysty shouted.

  "What?"

  "If he's calling, we can't hear him. Can you stop the engine?"

  "Daren't. She's hardly firing as it is."

  Krysty cautiously slithered to the front, leaning to speak to J.B. through his ob-slit. "If you don't, then we might not find him and he'll die."

  "I stop the engine and we all could die. Not the way Ryan'd want it, Krysty. Sorry."

  The word of apology was only a token gesture, and they both knew it. Both knew that the Armorer was making the right call.

  Krysty wished they had Jak Lauren with them. The albino teenager had poor vision in bright sunlight but excellent sight in darkness. Krysty herself could see better than most, but the intermittent flurries of snow made it very hard. There was no way of telling what was water, sky or land.

  By one of those flukes so beloved by the lords of chaos, it was Doc Tanner, with much the worst eye­sight, who spotted Ryan.

  "There!" he yelled, sliding forward on his belly, grabbing hold of one of the front lights. It was only afterward that it occurred to him that if he'd missed his grip he'd have gone onward and downward, straight under the bow of the wag.

  Mildred threw herself after him, grabbing hold of his flailing legs at the second attempt.

  J.B. banged the gears into reverse, bringing the lumbering LAV to a gradual halt.

  Ryan was hardly moving. The cold numbed his en­tire body, slowing the blood until the calm of death seemed a pleasant option. He was barely aware of the black mass of the eight-wheeler alongside him. A voice called a familiar name that he recognized through the net of ice that was drawn around his brain, and something poked him sharply in the shoulder.

  "Catch hold, Ryan!" Doc pushed the lion-headed swordstick at him. "Damn it, man! Wake up!"

  The momentum of the massive wag was carrying it past him, the strong wind pushing it down the river. Ryan was sliding alongside toward the stern. In an­other thirty seconds or so he'd bob out of reach and vanish once more into the freezing blackness.

  Ryan was tired, and the jabbing stick wa
s an irri­tant. "Fuck off," he mumbled, reaching up to push away the thing that kept hitting him, grabbing hold of its smooth wood.

  "Don't let go, lover! Use both hands."

  "Krysty," he said, surprised that he knew who it was. With that realization came a surge of aware­ness, where he was and what was happening.

  He was in the icy Hudson, and he was on the way to dying. "No," he shouted.

  J.B. was fighting the controls, struggling to keep the unwieldy monster stationary in the water. Krysty swung herself off the top, feet scrabbling for a pur­chase on an anchor point on the side, reaching and locking her fingers into the mass of black curly hair, steadying Ryan for a moment.

  It was still a ferocious battle to get him up and out of the freezing embrace of the big river. A gust of wind turned the wag broadside, and it lurched, nearly throwing all four of the companions into the Hud­son.

  Finally they were all huddled on top of the LAV, while J.B. gave it the gun, heading due east toward the Newyork shore.

  The snow had finally stopped, and there was a seg­ment of silver moon showing through ragged cloud. Without that pale light it would have been vastly dif­ficult to locate their destination. The entire Lower East Side had been devastated by the nukes, and one pile of rubble looked a lot like another. But they picked their way along until Krysty spotted the two horns of rubble, shown on Stanton's map.

  The Armorer throttled back, bringing the engine note down to a muted rumbling, easing the wag in toward the shore, all lights out. Once they were inside the northern spur of rock, they were sheltered from the biting wind.

  On top Krysty, Mildred and Doc were clustered around Ryan, trying to keep him from freezing to death. The problem with that was that all of them were soaked and cold.

  "Have to get warmed up," Ryan muttered, his teeth chattering. "Or first scalie'll take us all out with one claw tied behind its back."

  "Least we're out of the wind," Mildred said. "Lose that chill factor."

  "I can see a light. Looks like a fire. Just inside that kind of tunnel opening," J.B. called.

  "Could be guards. Best tie up here. Weather like this there's a good chance they won't have spotted us yet."