Crucible of Time

by James Axler

  "Quake probably broke it open inside. Set the main nuke-power source to leaking. If we went exploring, we'd probably find it cracked wide."

  Jak, Dean and Mildred joined them, leaving Krysty standing alone in the bright sunshine.

  "Going in?" Dean asked, his high voice muffled by the echoing space ahead of them.

  "No." Ryan studied the contours of the land above and around the entrance to the old redoubt. "Shame, really," he said. "Look at that."

  J.B. read his mind. "Yeah. It would have been real easy to do."

  Mildred smiled at him. "You two are like identical twins, some of the time. Symbiosis. Knowing precisely what the other one's thinking even before you speak. It's kind of irritating to a mere outsider like me."

  "I was thinking how simple it would have been to have brought down the whole mountainside with a handful of plas-ex," Ryan explained.

  The Armorer put his arm tenderly around Mildred's shoulders. "If they'd done it years ago, they'd have sealed off the rad leak."

  "Oh, I get it. And then none of them would have been sick. And they could have carried on breeding. How different life could've been for them."

  "No fighting Apaches," Jak added.

  "Thriving community, instead of one hanging on the edge of extinction by broken fingernails." Ryan turned away. "All too late now."

  Krysty called out to them. "I really don't like this place, friends. Can we get away now?"

  Even as she spoke, as though nature were sympathetic to her feelings, a great bank of cloud came sweeping over the tops of the pines, from the north, veiling the sunshine, dropping the temperature and bringing the threat of rain.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was still pouring. The cloudburst had begun almost as soon as they left the deserted ruins of the redoubt, a cold, driving, penetrating downpour that slanted in from the north. The sky had turned leaden, all trace of blue vanishing, the sun disappearing behind a great bank of cloud. The temperature fell by twenty degrees in as many minutes.

  A dank mist appeared, clinging to the upper branches of the enormous trees, so that the sky-scraping tops became totally enveloped in gray white.

  By the time they caught the scent of the cooking fires of Hopeville, Ryan and the others were completely soaked through to the skin.

  They found that Doc was fast asleep. The woman bidden to care for him was sitting, dozing, by a smoldering pile of embers, her breath smelling of whiskey. She woke with a start as they came dripping in, blinking at them.

  "Old gentleman's been a tad poorly," she stammered. "Slept some after…after he'd taken a nip of something to fight the fever off from him."

  Mildred leaned over Doc, laying a hand on his forehead, wincing. "He's burning up," she said. "It's not the kind of fever to take you up the hill on the death cart, but enough to make you feel pretty damned rough."

  "Anything you can give him?" Ryan asked. "Mebbe Wolfe has some drugs."

  "Could ask. I guess that—"

  "I'll go ask," Jak said, having roughly toweled some of the rain from his parchment hair. "Back in minute."

  He slipped out into the murky cold, vanishing like a wraith in the darkening mist.

  The woman was sent scurrying out of the hut, and Krysty piled some fresh, dry kindling onto the fire, bringing it back to a healthy blaze. They all quickly peeled off their sodden clothes, drying themselves by the flames, shrouded in blankets as they stood around the fireplace.

  The noise and light dragged Doc back from his sleep. He sat up in bed looking startled and surprisingly fragile. "By the Three Kennedys! What malign, monkish figures are forgathered here at their vile ministering?"

  "Only us, Doc," Ryan said reassuringly, seeing the fear depart from the wrinkled face. "How goes it with you?"

  "Ah, it passes, dear Ryan." He coughed. "Would there be any liquid refreshment of any sort available? My throat resembles the front garden of Death Valley, Scotty. Did I ever tell you of the occasion that I was stranded out near Sweetwater? I recall a wheel had come off our trusty Conestoga. No…?" Another rasping cough. "I fear that I am dry, barren, arid, parched. Do you begin to get the picture, my good friends?"

  "Yeah, we see," Mildred said, pouring some water from an earthenware jug into a chipped goblet of colored glass, which she handed to Doc.

  "Thank you, madam." He took several deep gulps, spilling some down his chest. "Ah, that is so much better. I confess that I feel a few notches below my usual effervescent best. Perhaps a little rest would be of benefit?"

  "Sure." Ryan was checking his blaster, sitting cross-legged on his bed. Jak reappeared in the doorway, empty-handed. "Anything to help?"

  The teenager shook his head, the strands of snowy hair clinging limply to his etched cheeks. "Found him in big house. Think drunk. Eyes like poached eggs. Red cheeks. Said regretted that ville didn't have medical skills or drugs. Hoped Doc got better quick. Ready for testing. Tomorrow."

  Ryan bit his lip. "Yeah, I haven't forgotten. Fireblast! Surely they won't expect a sick old man to have to take part in this testing."

  "Think will," Jak said, huddled under a mottled gray blanket while he shook off his wet clothes. "Yeah. Afraid that think will."

  "Mebbe he'll be okay by then and be able to take part," Dean suggested.

  "Doubt he'll be in much shape to take part in anything for a couple of days," Mildred said. "Children of the Rock can't be that insensitive, can they?"

  None of the others answered her.

  SUPPER WAS BROUGHT around to their hut by a brace of the younger women, one of whom had a vile cancer disfiguring her face, a rotting hole of fringed flesh, where what remained of her nose joined her mouth. The upper lip was already consumed, showing the line of her rotting teeth.

  She tried hard to keep her head turned away from the gentle golden light of the two oil lamps that smoked on the table by the side window, concealing the worst of her hideous scarring from the outlanders.

  There were bowls of thick soup, with chunks of carrot and parsnips floating in it, followed by some tough mutton chops, with whipped potatoes that had been grievously undercooked, leaving hard lumps. The bread was good, fresh-baked rolls, with a dish of salted butter. Mugs of frothing, creamy milk completed the meal.

  "Soup tasted bitter," Krysty commented. "Recognized some of the herbs in it but I don't know what it was that gave it that sour aftertaste."

  Mildred drained her drink, wiping a white mustache from her upper lip. "Didn't notice. Potatoes were lumpy enough to match the tough mutton. Mustard took away the worst of the flavor from that."

  Doc had been awakened and had sipped at the soup, but hadn't felt like facing the meat, drinking the milk and asking for more to combat the dryness of his sore throat.

  Within minutes he was fast asleep again.

  RYAN YAWNED. "Dropping off," he said, puzzled at how his voice seemed to be coming from a vast distance away, echoing inside his skull.

  "Could go for a walk, lover. Fresh air do us good. It's real muggy inside here."

  Ryan opened the door of their cabin, looking out into the late evening. The rain had almost ceased, still dripping noisily from the overhanging branches of the towering trees. The cloud cover was being lashed away in the rising wind, showing an occasional glimpse of a sliver of moonlight.

  No signs of life were visible outside the buildings of Hopeville, though all the huts showed lights through the slitted shutters. There was a burst of laughter from the big house where Brother Joshua Wolfe lived, and the sound of someone playing a piano, loudly and badly.

  "Someone's having a good time," Krysty said, joining him, her warm body pressed against his.

  He glanced behind them. Doc was snoring loudly, mouth gaping open. Dean and Jak were lying on their beds, folly dressed again, as they all were. The youths' eyes were closed tight and their chests were moving rhythmically.

  J.B. and Mildred were locked in each other's arms on a double bed that they'd contrived by pushing two of the singles t
ogether. They also looked like they were asleep.

  "Only us chickens awake," Ryan said. Krysty yawned, leaning up against him. "And it's only a matter of time before…" The rest of the sentence muffled by another massive yawn.

  Ryan burped, wincing at the bitterness that came flooding into his mouth, reminding him of the flavor of the thick soup. The odd flavor of the soup.

  A loose shingle was rattling on the roof, distracting him from what he felt had been an important chain of thought. He'd remembered something that really mattered, but he couldn't now recall what it had been.

  "What was it?" he muttered.

  "What? Didn't hear you, lover."

  Her voice was indistinct, like it came from inside a suitcase. Ryan steadied himself on the frame of the door, feeling the roughness of the hewed wood.

  "Didn't hear you, lover."

  "Said that before."

  "Did I?"

  "We going for that walk?"

  A flurry of rain dashed into his face, making him blink. For a moment he was worried. Something was definitely wrong. He shouldn't be feeling this tired.

  Krysty hadn't answered him, leaning more heavily on his arm, making him reach around to support her slumped dead weight. The odd, cold realization that she had fallen asleep, standing up, registered. That wasn't right, either.

  "Krysty?"

  The piano had fallen silent, and Ryan had the strange, familiar hunter's suspicion that someone was watching him from the pools of the dark shadow around the ville.

  It had gone very still.

  HE WAS LYING on the bed, one arm jammed underneath him. Ryan squinted from his good eye, seeing that Krysty lay on the bed at his side, her bright hair illuminated by the flickering flames of the fire.

  A pulse pounded in his temple, like a deadening hammer blow. With an enormous effort he turned his head, seeing that the door of the hut stood wide open, a few drops of rain falling, tinted red by the fire. The door shouldn't be open at night; it should be locked and barred.

  "Bolted," he said, his tongue feeling swollen, filling his mouth.

  He should swing his legs over the side of the bed and walk the few paces across the floor, push the door closed and slide the heavy bolt. But the idea of so much effort was cataclysmically impossible, so far beyond the realm of possibility that Ryan laughed at the thought.

  There wasn't a bolt on the door. Funny. He never noticed that before. Anyone could walk in out of the night.

  Ryan burped again, the taste of bitterness seeming stronger, almost making him gag.

  The odd flavor of the soup.

  Odd flavor.

  "Odd," he said.

  Ryan closed his eye.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ryan dreamed, a clogged, dark dream, one that carried him into deep waters and vaulted caverns.

  He was the chaser, pursuing a nameless, faceless creature along the slippery corridors. Damp streamed down the rough-hewed walls of what seemed like an ancient mine. His own steps echoed all around him, distorted, making it sound like he was surrounded, behind and before.

  He was wounded.

  In the biting chill of the caves, Ryan could feel an ominous warmth clotted around his groin and lower stomach. He touched himself, reaching inside the coat. His fingertips, numb with cold, touched hot stickiness.

  There wasn't much pain.

  A throbbing, pounding feeling lanced across his temples, and a sick dizziness. Two or three times Ryan felt that he was going to lose his balance and fall in the slimy passages. But if he fell, then his prey would escape him.

  Or he would find that he had suddenly, inexplicably, become the prey himself.

  The shafts kept forking and dividing, yet he somehow always knew which trail to follow. Onward and downward, once having to use the rotting length of braided rope that clung to the one wall like a handrail.

  His hand gripped what he had thought was his big SIG-Sauer pistol, but a feeble, guttering lamp had revealed that the blaster in his right fist was really only a single-shot, bolt-action .22. It was a Chipmunk Silhouette, a heavy, long-barreled pistol, almost unique in the bolt action, for a handblaster. It wasn't the kind of weapon that Ryan had ever carried before, hardly the sort of man-stopper that he needed for this subterranean chase.

  A black plastic box was hooked to the wall just ahead of him. It made a sinister crackling sound, and then a calm voice came from it, a voice that sounded like the man who ran the legendary Children of the Rock.

  "You have four minutes and thirty seconds to complete the testing."

  Ryan stopped and doubled over, being violently sick, his mouth flooding with the bitter taste of golden bile. He dropped to his hands and knees, pressing his forehead to the seeping walls of the corridor.

  It felt like someone had a fist knotted down in the soul of his guts, tugging and twining, trying to rip out the greasy loops of intestines. He moaned out loud, feeling warm tears streaming down his stubbled cheeks, leaking under the eye patch, the salt stinging his skin.

  For a moment he stopped, battling the sickness. He paused in the dark stillness, waiting for his prey to give him some clue where it was lurking.

  But there was nothing.

  The blackness was filled with complex, shifting shapes. It was like being locked into the heart of a huge puzzle that had a simple solution. Once he had found the missing shapes—or were they symbols?— and slipped them into the correct places in the puzzle, then everything would be all right. Just like that.

  He heard the soft sound of someone sniggering with laughter, a vile, triumphant noise, a cruel merriment that began to swamp the tunnels all about him, flooding and welling up, louder.

  "Fireblast!" he whispered. There was a bitter anger in his heart that threatened to become a scarlet mist that would shroud his brain and imperil all sense of balance and harmony.

  Things were getting worse.

  The sickness and dizziness pressed down on the unprotected surface of his brain.

  Blood trickled down his thighs, into his combat boots, an icy feeling that seemed to be spreading from the gaping wound in his stomach.

  The floor dipped, suddenly, and Ryan dropped, a jolting fall that felt like fifty feet, but that common sense told him was probably no more than eight or ten feet. It was hard enough for him to lose his balance and to bang his elbow, a painful, bone-scraping blow that triggered the reflexes in his fingers. They opened, and the unusual blaster spun away out of his grip.

  He stayed where he was, crouched on hands and knees, slowly recovering from the shock of the fall. He reached out around him on the wet granite for the blaster, but it had totally disappeared in the blackness.

  Shakily Ryan stood. He felt for the walls, finding one, then, four or five paces off, the other one. Both were hacked from stone, both streaming with melt-water, as cold as whispered sin. Cautiously he reached up into the singing space above his head, but there was no roof to be felt.

  He knew that he could never climb back up to the previous level, which meant that there was only one way to go. And that was onward.

  But now he was weaponless, and the tumble had stretched the torn lips of his gashed belly. The blood was flowing more quickly, and he had no way of checking it. You couldn't put a tourniquet on your own stomach.

  "Lonesome, low-down," he muttered to himself. He wished that Krysty were with him in the catacomb. The Trader always used to say that in a tight spot, two were ten times as good as one.

  Ryan blinked again, reaching to rub at his good eye. He pressed hard with his palm, expecting to see a dazzling array of silver-and-gold sparks flashing across the retina. But there was nothing. No reaction.

  Just all-over sable.

  It felt like he was losing it; his senses were betraying him. Now the pain in his stomach was burning hot, making him cry out in shock. The steady dribble of blood from the wound was bitterly cold, making it difficult for him to lift and lower his feet. But when he did, it was like walking across an infinite pavem
ent of human eyeballs that squished and rolled under the soles of the boots, making him lose his balance.

  When Ryan brushed against the invisible wall, it wasn't hard stone like it had been before. Now it was just like plunging his fingers into the rotting body of a flayed corpse. He had the horrible sensation of hundreds of blind maggots, writhing in both hands.

  "Ryan?"

  The word sounded so far away.

  The dizziness swept over him like a great wave of nausea, bringing him again to his knees.

  "Come on, Ryan."

  He couldn't form the words of a reply.

  "Ryan Cawdor?"

  His mouth was dust dry, and when he tried to speak, there was no sound, not even the faint mewing of a drowning, newborn kitten.

  Doom.

  The single word pounded in his brain, like the beating of a slack-skinned drum, heard shimmering through the heat haze of a luxurious summer meadow.

  "Ryan!"

  It was louder, meaning that he was going to have to open his eye again, which didn't seem like the best idea in the world. It would be uncomfortable and painful.

  Better by far to sleep and die.

  "Give…drink…"

  Cool liquid flowed into his mouth, over his swollen tongue and into his parched throat.

  "Good," he mumbled.

  The other voice said, "What'd he say?"

  Another man, whose voice was vaguely familiar, replied, "Said it was good, Brother. Shall I give him more?"

  "No. Sit him up. Slap his face if he won't come around. Need him awake."

  A blow jolted Ryan's cheek, making the vertigo worse.

  "Open your eye, Ryan."

  "Soon."

  "Not soon. Now."

  "Others are coming around. Except old man and the albino kid. Both flaked out."

  "Kid had two helpings of the soup, and the old-timer's got Sierra flu. Drug was bound to work a deal harder on him than on the others."