by James Axler
"Great. Thanks a whole load, Rick. Do the same for you one day."
They kept moving for most of the day. By keeping to the sides of the roads they were generally able to dodge into the trees and scrub if they saw or heard anyone coming.
Rick's Russian was only put to the test once.
Toward the end of the weary afternoon, as the setting sun threw their elongated shadows down a narrow, winding blacktop, they saw a wooden-wheeled cart coming slowly toward them, drawn by a pair of oxen. They were being driven by an elderly peasant with a long grizzled beard. Nobody else was with him, and the wagon was clearly empty.
Krysty and Ryan exchanged glances. One man, alone. They'd seen a number of small farms and cabins on both sides of the road, set back among tilled fields, mostly surrounded by groves of trees. Men and women were working in the drying mud, taking advantage of the change in the spring weather. Most wore assorted furs and rags, and none showed any particular interest in the trio of strangers. But a shot could bring them running in seconds.
"No point in running, lover," Krysty whispered.
"Nope. Rick? Mebbe time for you to do your stuff for us."
"What?"
The freezie was patently at the end of his tether, both physically and mentally. His face was as white as water-scoured bone, and he staggered. A dozen times he'd have fallen if it hadn't been for either Ryan's or Krysty's helping hand.
"Russkie. Get your talking head on, Rick. Just say as little as possible. 'Good day,' or 'Hi, there,' or whatever."
"Hell's bloody bells! I've just this second forgotten every goddamned word of Russian that I ever learned in my entire life."
The wagon was nearly on top of them and they all stepped aside to give it passage. Ryan and Krysty tried to keep their faces turned away, both holding a cocked blaster under their long furs.
The old man looked down at them from his high seat, tugging on the reins so that the cart began to slow. Fearing this could indicate the beginning of a lengthy conversation on the price of corn or the recent disease among young pigs, Ryan risked a glance at Rick, who was swaying back and forth like a man entering a deep trance.
"Talk, you triple-stupe bastard!" Ryan growled in a low, urgent voice.
Rick offered, "Good day," in Russian and was greeted only with a suspicious silence. "The sun is warm and the snow is gone."
The wagon was still moving, at barely walking pace. "Too late for the sowing as ever!" the peasant moaned, flicking out at the oxen with the tip of a long whip.
Rick didn't risk any further attempts at social chatter. He stepped to the side of the track and slumped down on a large boulder, shoulders shaking. It wasn't until they reached him, having watched the cart rattle on down the road, that Ryan and Krysty realized the freezie was laughing.
"Sorry. Nervous relief. Felt like a character in a made-for-TV spy movie. I said, 'The sun is warm and the snow is gone.' I had this feeling he was going to reply something like, 'And the count is frying turbot with my grandmother tonight.' Then we'd exchange microfilms. Oh, Jesus! All he did was moan about the fucking weather."
Ryan and Krysty joined in his laughter. It was a good moment.
Chapter Fifteen
MAJOR-COMMISSAR ZIMYANIM was becoming puzzled— puzzled and a little intrigued.
"Who's in command out at Peredelkino, Alicia Andreyinichna?" he asked.
"Lieutenant Ulyanov, I think. Why? Is something wrong out there?"
"No. Yes." He paused. "Possibly. Just these reports he keeps sending me."
"What about them, Comrade Major-Commissar? Is it trouble?"
He shuffled the files. As he looked down at them, the morning sunlight bounced off the top of his polished skull.
"Three men missing. Horses found. No, two found. It's believed wolves took the other one. Bodies found. All shot at medium range by heavy-caliber handblasters. Good observation that! Bright boy. Could go far. Old woman's missing. Never found her. Bones. Figures the wolves again. And her mutie son found dead, standing upright in a doorway."
"Guerrilla band?" the girl suggested.
"No. Food taken, he thinks. And some furs. Why would killers steal furs and food with spring coming in fast? Slay five people? Why? Then the jeep patrol saw a trio of strangers. One-eyed man, redheaded woman, short man in glasses. I checked that. Rimless glasses. They were in furs. Stolen furs, would you say, Alicia Andreyinichna?"
"Could be. But there isn't much out that way now, is there?"
"Now?"
She blushed at the sudden sharp look he threw her. With the pockmarks and the drooping mustache she realized he looked like old pictures of the Tartar gallopers who had ruled the steppes centuries ago.
"Yes, of course. Once, I think, there were many rich houses. Dachas built by the wicked Stalin for his friends. Later used by others. Even the Americans had one there."
Zimyanin picked up a pencil and rolled it between finger and thumb, nodding.
"So? Interesting. And then a kulak driving his ox cart sees three strangers on the road to the city. Man with one eye, tall woman with red hair—very red hair, he says to Lieutenant Ulyanov—and a third person. Pale of face. Dark glasses. He walked slowly with a stick. A sickly cripple, thought the old peasant. But this one spoke a kind of Russian."
"A kind of Russian?"
"Precisely. Not like someone from that region, nor, he thought, like someone from the city. So, it means he could have come from a different part of the land."
"Have you asked the Bureau of Internal Movements if they know of—"
Zimyanin waved a finger at her. "No, no, no. This does not concern them. It is a problem for us. And we will solve it. But it is surely a great mystery. Most odd."
"Most odd," Clerk Second Class Andreyinichna echoed dutifully, knowing that such agreement was essential if she was to rise to the exalted position of Clerk First Class.
"Odder than you would think, my dear," he replied, smiling.
"Why?"
"Many months ago I encountered some of the Americans. You know this?"
"Of course, Comrade Major-Commissar. Everyone knows of the story."
"I met several of them. But among them was a man who had only one eye. His left eye was gone, and his face was scarred. I was threatened by one of the butchers of the Narodniki. My life was spared by a woman of the Americans. She had red hair. Very red hair."
"But you don't…"
Zimyanin laughed. "The same man and woman! Of course not. Impossible. Americans in Moscow! That's a good joke, Alicia Andreyinichna, is it not?" The laughter ceased as quickly as it had begun. "But, it is certainly very odd."
THERE WAS considerable evidence that the Americans in the final, and briefest, world war had used a significant proportion of neutron weapons.
Ryan had a miniature rad counter, but it stayed consistently low in the green-to-yellow margins. Once or twice he noticed it flickered well up into the yellow, but it never went anywhere near the limit of orange.
But the true story lay in the mute evidence of structural damage.
They passed through regions where the nuking had blasted everything out of existence. The devastation had been total. But they also encountered regions where many of the buildings were visibly older. As they began to reach what had been the outer suburbs, they found whole streets of perfectly preserved houses. Occasionally they saw damaged roofs, but most structures were sound. There were few signs of inhabitants. Any they did see were busy about their own business, scurrying along with heads down, avoiding eye contact with anyone else.
"Not many stores," Krysty commented.
"Not like the edges of big villes back home," Ryan agreed.
Rick was exhausted, so they found a house in a quiet side street. Its interior had been stripped, but it was dry and secure. There were so few people around that Ryan didn't bother to keep guard during the night. He bet their lives that nobody had seen them go into the overgrown garden.
WHILE THE COMPANI
ONS ATE a breakfast of smoked fish and dried meat, washed down with some of the spring water, they made plans.
From the front window they could see a tumbled apartment building, rusting strips of iron protruding from the shattered concrete. Window frames of torn iron hung loose from the crumbled walls, and scorch marks etched deep into the south wall indicated where the main blast had come from.
From the side window they could see a towering wall of what must have been some sort of a factory. Still visible, after a hundred years of Russian winters, were the remains of a giant mural. It showed a man, a worker, holding a huge unfurled flag, the crimson toned down to a dusty pink. He seemed to be leading a group of adoring men and women up a hill toward a glittering palace of white stone.
"Art on a heroic scale," Rick observed.
"What's the message?" Krysty asked, flattening her nose against the cold windowpane.
"The original one says something about how the brave workers of Govorovo will forever carry on the fight against the paper tigers of American aggression and imperialism. Kind of catchy, huh?"
"How about the painted stuff underneath?" Ryan pointed to some smeared letters in runny black paint. Rick put his head to one side, trying to make it out.
"Difficult. Kind of slang, I guess. Nearest I can get is that one day's fucking is better than a hundred days of labor for the Party. Guess I'll drink to that."
There were more people in the streets than there'd been the previous evening. The sky was overcast, but the day felt warmer. Since they depended on the furs for disguise and protection it wasn't good news.
"Best try and pick our way closer to the middle of the ville," Krysty suggested.
But Rick raised an objection to that. "I don't know what it's like now, but in the old days—my days—you'd have needed passes to pick your nose in a sec-sensitive region. You saw that patrol. Suppose there's sec men out here? Suppose you need some kind of a pass to get to certain regions? It wouldn't be that surprising, would it?"
Ryan chewed his lip. "Guess not. No. Fireblast! Never thought it'd be this difficult to pick up a hammer and screwdriver." He hesitated for a moment, uncharacteristically. "Still, I figure we have to move on. If we… What's that?"
A whooping, ululating sound cut the air, resembling the cry of a hunting animal. That was Ryan's first impression, and it proved close to the truth.
A ragged, limping man, well below average height, hobbled around the corner of the street, looking wildly from left to right. Everyone else on the street immediately turned away from him, moving briskly off in every direction. Some of them broke into a clumsy, jogging run in their anxiety to get away.
"Something's after him," Rick said, moving back from the window as the fugitive's face turned toward their house.
"Someone. Lots of someones." Krysty cocked her head. "Sounds almost like a gang of kids in a playpark."
Like magic, the suburban road was deserted, as if some staggering leper, bright with rad glow, had come screaming into a church social.
"Here they are," Ryan said quietly. "If he comes in here, we move fast and quiet out the back. Could be bad."
There were around a dozen in the screeching group that was trailing the cripple. Most had knives or long-handled hatchets, while one or two carried nail-studded clubs. They wore an assortment of skirts and pants, but all wore bright red berets with a single silver circle embroidered on the front. From behind the dusty window it was hard to tell, but Ryan's guess was that none of the pack was older than twelve.
Their prey had given up. He'd fallen to his knees, partly hidden from Ryan, Krysty and Rick by a spreading yew tree. He was holding his hands up imploringly as the children ringed him. They shuffled around the helpless figure, almost dancing. It wasn't possible to hear, but from the pattern of the words, it sounded like they were singing. As they moved around the circle they made mock cuts at the kneeling man, forcing him to cringe from them.
Rick spit with disgust. "Can't we… ? No, don't answer that. Course we can't. But that poor little gimp…"
Their game didn't last long. Like all children, the pack was easily bored.
The freezie turned away and walked across the bare boards of the long-dead room, his bamboo cane rapping furiously on the floor. Ryan and Krysty watched. It wasn't very different from other things they'd seen in other places. Just a few changes in the small details. Nothing more.
The gang beat the middle-aged man to the ground, kicking and punching at him. But the blows didn't seem designed to cause serious injury, and none of the blades were used.
Once they had him down, they kept him down. Two of the kids held each leg, forcing the man's feet far apart. Two others went to each arm. Despite their youth and size, it was obvious they were strong and skillful in their craft. Apart from tossing his head from side to side, the cripple was held totally still. The gang had stopped their whooping and chanting, and the only sound was the moaning of their victim.
The leader was a girl of about thirteen, tall and as skinny as a lath. She stood between the man's spread feet, grinning down into his face with a crack-toothed leer.
Ryan winced in anticipation, but she ignored the opportunity to inflict devastating pain. The girl was businesslike in the way she stepped astride her victim, hoicking at her skirt and squatting on his chest.
"How's the kid going to…? Oh, I see." Krysty also turned away from the window, not wanting to see the macabre ending to the minidrama.
Ryan continued to watch, seeing no good reason not to.
The girl had pulled a length of narrow whipcord from inside the leg of her bottle-green panties. It had a thicker, softer piece of rope knotted to each end to make the grip that much easier.
With an experienced hand she adjusted a loop around the victim's neck, settling herself more comfortably on his chest. She then glanced around to make certain her cohorts were ready.
With a whoop of delight she began to heave on the ends of her garrote, tightening it. She leaned back to apply more pressure, so that the waxed cord vanished into the scrawny flesh, biting deeper, drawing blood that ran dark onto the sidewalk. From his viewpoint high above, Ryan could see how fiercely the crippled man struggled for the last choking breaths of life. But the gang of street brats were too many and too strong.
The girl was good at it, and Ryan wondered idly just how many times she'd performed this obscene ritual of public execution. As the ending came near she braced herself by pushing her booted feet against the side of her victim's throat, sawing at the strangling cord to make it cut deeper.
There was a convulsive jerking from the man that the children found hard to contain. Then a gout of blood erupted as the whipcord sliced through the artery close to the ear.
With a shriek of satisfaction the girl stood up, uncoiling the murderous length of thin rope and tucking it back into her panties. She stood astride the corpse and leaned over to spit delicately into the open, boggling eyes. It was obviously some sort of a ritual with the gang, as they all followed her example before filing off down the tree-lined street, just like any other bunch of kids.
"Why that way?" Krysty asked.
"Cheaper than a speeding bullet," Rick replied, then retreated to a corner of the room where he was quietly sick.
"Welcome to Moscow," Ryan said quietly.
Chapter Sixteen
"Zup, " Rick repeated, making appropriate gestures. He mimed a pain in his jaw, then clamped an imaginary pair of pincers on the recalcitrant tooth. He heaved it free, managing a broad smile to indicate his relief from pain.
The Russian stared blankly at him from behind a positive forest of gingery facial hair.
Ryan watched the pantomime with mixed feelings. Almost immediately after seeing the butchering of the cripple, for God only knew what malefaction, the pain from his damaged back tooth flared up alarmingly. Ryan Cawdor was a man of extreme physical courage who had endured more suffering in his life than most people could begin to i
magine. But he gasped at the shock from the exposed nerve. It was like having someone probing into the marrow of his jawbone with a white-hot steel needle. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he pressed his fist against the side of his jaw.
"Mother Sonja used to say that a distillation of the oil of cloves was an aid to that sort of tooth pain," Krysty said.
"Got any?"
"Course not!"
"Then keep your rad-blasted stupe mouth shut, will you?"
She stared hard at him. "There're times I make allowances for you behaving like a hamstrung pig, lover. Luckily for you, this happens to be one of those times."
Now they were wandering around a big street market, only a mile or so farther into the ravaged suburbs of the huge ville. They'd crossed over the remains of a massive freeway, several lanes in either direction. A collapsed overpass had been partially cleared away and there were two lanes working. Ryan and Krysty had stopped and stared in amazement. Neither of them had ever seen such an amazing volume of gas-powered transport, buzzing and roaring past them: heavy wags, painted in a dull olive-green and a number of autowags; two-wheelers by the dozen. And at least two vehicles out of every three sported the silver circle that they recognized as being the insignia of "the Party."
The market wasn't very difficult from innumerable similar ones that Ryan had seen all over the scattered villes of the Deathlands. Trestles made from old doors, propped up by makeshift hunks of hacked wood, sold everything under the sun.
"Everything except weapons," Ryan observed.
Though some cautious barons controlled how blasters and blades were peddled in their villes, most markets in the Deathlands would have several stalls selling arms: longbows, crossbows, lethal catties made from steel and plaited cords of elastic, hunting spears, knives long and short. And blasters—Colts, Smith & Wessons, Mausers, Webleys, Lugers, Winchesters, Deringers and Derringers, Adams and Rugers, flintlocks and percussion cap blasters, muskets, rifles and carbines. Automatics and semiautomatics, single action and double action. Grens and launchers.
