by James Axler
“No! Don’t! You’ll kill us all!” Seeing the empty, twisted catwalk lying in the water, but also still connected to the next section gave Ryan an idea. He leaped forward, sailing through the air and landing on the shoulders of one of the lizardmen in the water, snapping his collarbone and sending him down into the murky depths. Falling forward, Ryan reached out and managed to snag the railing of the walkway, hauling himself up onto it before any of the nearby muties could grab him. He climbed up the slanted metal grating, using his free hand to hold on to the railing like a ladder, and keeping his panga ready in case any of the lizardmen tried to be a hero.
Halfway up, he was as close to the doorway as he was going to get, which meant he was still several feet away. Then Jak reappeared next to Krysty, carrying a length of chain. “Catch!”
The albino teen tossed the links at him, and Ryan had just enough time to sheath his panga before catching the chain. He wrapped the steel around his left hand and shouted. “Pull!”
Krysty and Jak both disappeared from sight, and Ryan practically flew through the air toward the doorway. As he rose, he caught sight of a blurred shape flying through the air at him, arms outstretched to tear his face off.
Ryan brought his right hand up and slammed the butt of his blaster into the mutie’s skull as it crashed into him, grabbing him in spite of the damage it had just taken. He hammered the blaster into its head three more times, until its grip weakened, and it fell into the lake. Ryan spun wildly in midair, then he was at the lip of the doorway, hitting it with his aching ribs and sending new needles of pain through his chest. Still gripping the SIG-Sauer, he hauled himself through as more spears clattered against the wall around him.
Scrambling into the dark hall, he was met by Krysty and Jak, but shrugged them off. “Get back!” he shouted as a dark shape appeared in the doorway. The lizardman licked its lipless mouth as it stepped forward, ready to lay into the invaders.
Ryan pointed his blaster at the scaly form and squeezed the trigger three times. The trio of bullets plowed through the mutie’s chest, not stopping it, but mortally wounding it enough so it wouldn’t be a threat to him. The dying lizardman fell to its knees, a frown crossing its face as it heard a strange roar around it.
Ryan scrambled back from the bloom of red-gold flame that had appeared around his hand and wrist as the fire from the muzzle of his blaster ignited the thick fumes in the corridor and spread back to the huge room behind the wounded lizardman, wreathing it in flames. Spotting a doorway a few feet away, he lunged for it, getting inside as the whoosh increased to a deafening roar. Scrabbling for the door, he pushed it shut just as a blinding inferno erupted in the hallway, the corridor channeling the blast up and down its entire length, and sending little tongues of fire spurting under the doorway. Ryan, Krysty and Jak scurried to the corner farthest away from the door, crouched on the floor and breathed long and shallowly, trying to draw what little oxygen remained out of the atmosphere. They couldn’t hear anything beside the sudden roar of the flame, but they didn’t need to hear anything to know what was happening to the group of lizardmen in the giant room.
“Fireblast, Krysty, what’re you doing?” Ryan wheezed as Krysty starting patting at his chest and shoulders.
“Hold still, you stupe! You’re on fire!” Krysty smothered the flames licking at his sleeve and leg, then checked the rest of him for any injuries.
Exhausted, all Ryan could do was slump back again the wall, panting and holding his side with each breath. “That is why I told you not to shoot in the big room.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ryan stood near the bowsprit of the Lament, one hand on the foremast, the other around Krysty, who stood close to him, keeping her footing with ease as the barge cut through the glass-smooth lake.
The storm system that had lashed the area for the past two days had finally moved on, and the sky was its usual mix of lemon yellow clouds and lavender again, with a hot golden sun beating down on them. The east wind was brisk, however, and dissipated most of the rising morning heat.
The rest of their group was scattered around the small ship, J.B. and Mildred lounged on one side of the cabin, hand-in-hand as they moved with the ebb and flow of the boat. Behind them, Jak stood on the cabin roof, shading his eyes as he scanned the horizon, unaffected by his brush with death just a few days earlier. Doc stood near the wheel, observing the first mate at the wheel, and for once not his usual garrulous self. Although the weather couldn’t have been better, none of them felt like talking much.
Escaping the nuclear power plant had been easy after their close call in the generator room. Once the fire had died down in the hallway, Ryan, Krysty and Jak had gone down it and found a half-submerged room with a window that looked out onto a narrow strip of beach. They’d smashed the glass and jumped out. Spotting a light on the lake, they’d signaled it with their last hand light, and saw the welcome sight of the LAV-150 rumbling out of the water, smoke drifting from every gun on it, and the top and sides slick with gore.
J.B. had summarized the effects of the diversion with his usual terseness. “Got into position, started the cannon up, and they boiled out like we’d poked an anthill with a stick. Bastards were all over us. I rotated the turret once, firing the whole time, blew a dozen of them clean off the top. They tried stabbing through the ob ports, but a couple of shots put an end to that. Eventually we killed them all, and were about to head back to the waypoint when Mildred spotted your light.”
Ryan had filled them in on what had happened inside, including Donfil More’s sacrifice. He didn’t say what he was thinking—that the Apache’s selflessness may have been unnecessary, given how many of the lizardmen they’d chilled in the fire. Still, it might have made all the difference, since there’d been more muties in the building than just the ones they had killed.
They’d immediately headed back to the ville. The LAV had quit on them about halfway there, pushed beyond even its remarkable limits over the past few days. They’d spent the next day and a half walking, reaching the ville at midafternoon of the second day they’d been gone.
The villagers had assumed they’d been killed, and their survival was met with a mix of shock, disbelief and even a bit of suspicion. Ryan had bulled his way into the elders’ room and told them what went down, which was confirmed by the sixth elder. There was a period of mourning for Donfil by the entire ville, with a strange service held on the dock to commemorate his bravery and courage the next day.
So it was quite a shock when one of the fishing boats pulled into port with a smiling Donfil More standing in the prow.
He had completed his task in the old plant and exited the room via an escape hatch that had dumped him into the lake. It had taken his hastily constructed raft—two trees lashed tighter with some vines—two days to come within range of the fishing boats, and rescue. Mildred had examined Donfil and announced that he had gotten a dose of radiation, but he wasn’t in any serious danger.
After much rejoicing and words of gratitude, the companions retreated to their billet to recuperate. Donfil retreated to his.
Two days later, Donfil and the companions stood on the dock. “Farewell, friend. May the Great Spirit keep you safe and have your back,” Ryan said.
“Farewell, dear friend. Our debt to you can never be repaid.”
With a final wave, the companions boarded the Lament.
Saire had also promised to drop them off near the blackened, blasted ruins of what had once been the city of Chicago, although he couldn’t figure out why they’d want to be in such a hell-blasted place. “Shoot, I’ll take you anywhere on the Lakes you might want to go—the forest of Michgan, or up north to Canada, if you like, just say the word.”
But Ryan and his group had been implacable, so six hours later, the Lament dropped them off in a small cove that J.B. said would be the best place to go ashore. The captain accompanied them personally in the dinghy, riding with the second group, consisting of Ryan, Krysty and Doc.
&n
bsp; Just before they splashed ashore, he’d taken Ryan’s hand in a firm grasp. “Just remember, if you’re ever in the area again, come by and see us. Be glad to have any of you on board my boat again.” They’d waded ashore, and Saire’s men had pushed off again, rowing back to the barge. The sails had risen, and soon the trim craft was heading back up the lake.
Ryan and company watched until the fishermen were just a speck on the horizon before turning to head inland. J.B. estimated they could make the concealed redoubt before nightfall, and set a hard but not grueling pace. The baked plain stretched out all around them, with only a scattered ruin of an unidentifiable structure breaking up the landscape.
True to the Armorer’s word, they reached the hidden door as the sun was starting to slip below the horizon. Ryan entered the standard code and the door ground ponderously open.
Doc’s face was expectant as the door opened, and Ryan caught it falling as the barren corridor was revealed. “There was nothing in here the last time we came by, what made you think anything might have changed?”
The old man turned sad eyes on him. “Oh, Ryan, you have no idea what hopes I have every time we come to one of these doors, that each one might hold the secrets of, if not escaping this hellish world, then of somehow making it better for those who are forced to dwell in it every day of their nasty, brutish and short lives.”
Ryan stared at him, unsure as to whether he was serious, or slipping into one of his spells again. “Well, maybe the next place’ll have just that. Come on, Doc, it’s time to go.”
They threaded their way through the labyrinth of corridors until they reached the familiar mat-trans room. Ryan waited until everyone was comfortable on the floor before closing the door and sitting down as he waited for the comps to cycle a jump that would spirit them to who knew where.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7972-2
DOWNRIGGER DRIFT
Copyright © 2011 by Worldwide Library.
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