Latitude Zero

by James Axler

  "No," Ryan said with utter finality.

  The shouted exchange didn't take very long to establish the terms that Ryan and Strasser would meet on.

  Both men took the greatest care to avoid revealing themselves, the former sec boss in his high tower and Ryan behind the screening door within the ruined redoubt.

  No blasters. Only blades. Mildred would check Strasser for hidden firearms. Ryan gave his word that there would be no treachery from his side. The men would meet in one hour on the bridge that ran across the lake of quicksand. One would start from each end, and only one of them would walk away.

  "Once he's in the open, I'll take him with your G-12," J.B. told him.

  "No. Not this time. It goes down my way or not at all. After it's done, if he chills me, then you do what you want. Until then, we stick to what we've agreed."

  STRASSER PUSHED MILDRED ahead of him, her hands still bound, and knotted the end of the whipcord to a rusted rail. He laid his rifle and the Stechkin carefully against the wall, near the door, pointing to them.

  "There." He held out his arms and pirouetted to demonstrate to her that he had no other blaster concealed on him. "Just the knife." He showed her the ivory-hilted blade.

  "Why do it this way?" she asked.

  Cort Strasser took a step closer, so that his bony face was against hers. "Because I'm really tired of all this."

  "But what…"

  He shook his head and stroked her cheek, making her wince. "I know they could go back on their word, one of the others chill me with a long gun. Of course I know that. I'd do it that way. I don't think Cawdor will. Mebbe I'm wrong. But if I'm right, I at least get a good ace on the line at him. Him alone. That's why."

  "I still-"

  Again Strasser shook his head. "Lady," he said, "I don't have the time."

  WHILE RYAN READIED himself, warming up muscles, familiarizing himself with J.B.'s Tekna knife, Doc and Krysty had gone exploring. They discovered that the interior of the fortress, in that area, was relatively untouched by the quakes. They got within a floor of the gateway site before returning.

  "Looks clear, lover," she said.

  "Good. Once this is done, we go. Make the jump. That okay with everyone?"

  For a moment he thought that Jak was going to say something, but the boy finally nodded.

  Ryan glanced at his wrist chron. "Time."

  Krysty looked at him. "I've said it before, lover. I'll not say it again. Just take care."

  "Sure. I'll be back. If not, get the fuck out of here. Good luck everyone."

  J.B. and Jak both grinned at him. Doc shook him firmly by the hand. "Fare you well, my dear friend."

  Ryan moved to the edge of the door. "Strasser!" he yelled.

  "Yeah?"

  "Let's get to it."

  "Sure. I got your word about the blaster?"

  "Yeah. Let me hear from Mildred." He could see her, tied to the gantry. "Mildred! He just got a blade with him?"

  "Yeah. The SVD's here. And his Stechkin. As far as I can see he's clean."

  "I'm coming out."

  Having Mildred there made Ryan feel a whole lot safer, knowing that the skeletal figure of Strasser couldn't make a play for a blaster without her giving some kind of warning. He reached the tower and climbed the dusty steps, boots grating in the stillness.

  Down below him Ryan could just make out the barrel of the G-12, held by J.B., covering him against last-second treachery.

  The bridge was at least a hundred feet long, its handrail corroded and partly missing. The drop to the lake of sand was around fifty feet. In the dark doorway of the far tower, Ryan saw the tall figure of Cort Strasser, a knife glinting in his right fist.

  It was time for the ending.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  "FIREBLAST!" The moment that Ryan set his foot on the narrow bridge, he realized that Strasser wasn't the only threat he faced.

  The supports, century-old, had crumbled under the assault of the initial earth movements and the subsequent harsh weather. Now it trembled and creaked, as if it was straining to plummet into the depths beneath.

  At the far end Strasser had simultaneously made the same discovery. He shouted with harsh laughter, waving the knife in the air. "Looks like mebbe neither of us is walking away, One-Eye!"

  Ryan didn't answer him, concentrating on his own balance. The knife hilt, with its distinctive circular holes, was warm to his fingers. He held the Tekna with its sharp blade uppermost, ready for the lethal upward cut of the experienced fighter.

  Far above the two men, riding a dying thermal, a bronze-winged hawk gazed unblinkingly down.

  Ryan edged on, not trusting to the rail, passing a section of twenty feet where there was no support at all. The bridge, no more than three feet wide, was made of steel strips. A cool breeze blew around them, making the ragged wires sing. Ryan took care not to look down into the waiting mixture of sand and water, a mixture that lay waiting for the loser of the fight. Or, perhaps, for the winner as well.

  Both men had covered half the distance between them, which left only about twenty feet separating them.

  Down below, J.B. peered through the scope of the G-12, finger light on the trigger. But Krysty was at his elbow, the muzzle of her own P7A 13 in his ribs. "Don't do it, J.B., please."

  "Not yet," he replied.

  THE GAP HAD narrowed to ten feet, and both men had paused. Ryan had his first close look in months at his most bitter enemy, but time didn't seem to have changed Cort Strasser that much. The familiar riding crop still dangled from his belt; drooping, narrow mustache concealed the crushed mouth; the stump of the missing finger was against the ivory hilt. His eyes were as cold and dead as ever, the wisps of hair pasted to the goatlike skull.

  "Had a good look, Cawdor?"

  "Enough."

  "Got anything to say? Last words? That sort of thing."

  "No."

  Strasser nodded slowly. "Good."

  If you're good with a blade and you're against someone who isn't, you aim to finish it fast and clean. If the other man's also good, then you don't. Or it's you looking puzzled with your intestines looped around your knees.

  But on the swaying, creaking old bridge, things were a little different. There was no safe footing, and the handrail peeled away like the skin off a ripe orange.

  For a half minute they fenced with each other, the tips of the two knives weaving and darting, occasionally clashing lightly. But neither man would take the initiative, aware that the counterattack could lead to the winning thrust.

  There was a sharp clanging sound from behind Ryan, and a snapped cable hissed to the sand, rust spurting from its flailing length. The center of the bridge dipped, and both Strasser and Ryan broke away, fighting for balance.

  The skull-faced man was smiling. "Like I said, One-Eye… both together."

  It was now perilously clear to Ryan that Strasser had picked the place cleverly. Subtle skills were of little use. To bring the matter to a conclusion meant one of them taking a chance and closing in.

  With Ryan, to think in a fight was to act.

  He stamped hard, pitching himself violently from side to side, hearing the twanging of other cables snapping. The bridge dipped and swayed.

  And he attacked.

  Strasser was one of the most violent and dangerous men in a violent and dangerous world. He saw the threat and tried to counter it, bringing up the bone-hafted knife, aiming it at Ryan's stomach. But the one-eyed man was quicker, blocking the blow by parrying it with his forearm, accepting the flame of pain along it, below the elbow. He felt instant warmth dripping off the fingers of his left hand.

  But his right hand held the old Tekna knife, driving it in beneath Strasser's arm, feeling it plunge deep under the ribs. Ryan gave it the classic knifeman's twist as he withdrew it, tearing open Strasser's lean stomach and feeling more sticky warmth flood over his right hand. But this time the blood belonged to Cort Strasser.

  The wound was serious, but not mortal.


  And both men knew it.

  "Useless, you blind bastard!" Strasser sneered, backing away on the wildly pitching bridge. "Fucking useless!"

  "Ryan!" Mildred screamed from behind the skull-faced man. "It's going!"

  The sudden movements of the fight had been enough to complete the ruination that had been going on since 2001. More cables snapped and the whole thing slithered sideways, the entire handrail unrolling, snapping all its connections.

  There was no time to do anything very positive. No time for retreat, no time to do anything but rely on instinct and self-preservation. The bridge was tumbling from the end behind Strasser, crashing down toward the huge pit of soft sand. Ryan had a moment to drop the Tekna knife, seeing it fall away, glinting and blood-slick.

  Then he threw himself flat, fingers locking on to one of the rusted slats.

  Strasser was motivated by something more bloodily potent than self-preservation.

  Hatred.

  Mouth wide open he lunged toward Ryan, grinning his triumph as he saw his enemy's own blade spinning to the sand below.

  Ryan drew up his knees, taking his legs out of reach of the questing steel. The point of the ivory-hilted knife grated horribly on the step of the bridge just below Ryan's boots.

  By taking that last desperate shot, Strasser deprived himself of the microsecond needed to grab on to a secure hold as the bridge unwrapped itself into the sand.

  It struck bottom about a third of the way along and immediately broke up, though the end tethered to Ryan's starting point remained solid. And there it hung, trailing into the greedy sand.

  Despite the force of the fall, Ryan was able to keep his grip, rolling on one side, his legs slipping into the sand.

  Strasser was less lucky. The impact jarred him off the tumbled tangle of wires and steel, landing him in an awkward, crouched position, about ten feet away from where Ryan clung to the slats.

  Once the metallic grinding and pinging noises had stopped, there was a sudden, shocked silence.

  "Ryan! You okay there?"

  It was Mildred, leaning over the edge of the drop, still tied to the railing. Ryan could also hear footsteps, toward the edges of the great pit of sand. All around his legs he could feel the cold, sucking embrace, folding him into itself. He clung to the dangling cables and fought to pull himself free.

  "Give me a hand, One-Eye," Strasser said in a calm, conversational voice.

  With a bubbling noise, Ryan heaved himself from the sand onto the relative safety of the fallen bridge, taking a moment to turn around and look at his enemy.

  Strasser had already sunk to the waist, the sand rippling around him as he tried to kick himself free. But the sludge was neither liquid nor solid, and it resisted all his efforts. He still gripped the knife.

  "Help me. Pull me out."

  "No."

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan could see that Krysty and the others were watching, unable to help him. The only way out was up the hanging half of the bridge. It would be dangerous, but it could be done.

  But first there was Strasser.

  Now the sand was almost to the man's armpits, rising inexorably. He'd stopped kicking, and his face was turned to Ryan with a look of resignation.

  "Not this way," he said, head strained back to avoid the quicksand, the tendons in his throat standing out like steel cords.

  "Good as any," Ryan panted, beginning to work his way a little higher.

  "Chill me. Bullet in the head, now, before it's too late."

  Ryan shook his head, ignoring the quiet request. "Man gets what he deserves, Strasser. You're the most swift and evil bastard I ever knew. Nothing's bad enough for you."

  "Don't preach. Don't do that to me."

  "So long."

  Strasser's animal scream of pure rage made him turn back. The former sec boss of Mocsin heaved himself upright, teeth grinning at Ryan with an obscene ferocity. He drew the edge of the knife deep across his own throat, opening the arteries, and, in a continuation of the same movement, hurled the bloodied dagger at Ryan.

  It sliced across Ryan's upper arm, cutting a small nick in the skin, then rang off the red metal and hissed harmlessly into the sand.

  Strasser, bright crimson fountaining from the severed artery, opened his mouth for a last shriek of helpless rage, but blood filled his throat and he choked on it. He slumped into the moist fingers of the quicksand.

  Ryan perched on the fallen bridge and watched the ending, watched the bubbles of blood that discolored the yellow sand, watched the head sink slowly despite Strasser's last, agonized struggle, head back in a rictus of terror, watched the skull vanish.

  Last to disappear was the right hand, the four fingers clenched in a spasm of death.

  After that there was only stillness.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  THE SUN WAS SETTING out of a sky that flamed with purple chem clouds. The six friends, reunited, had reached the mat-trans part of the complex and found it in good functioning order. Now they stood together outside the gateway, ready to make the next jump.

  The ruined cryo-center had been a disappointment, particularly to Ryan, but he was philosophical about it. There would always be other highways to travel.

  "Everyone ready?" he asked.

  They all nodded.

  Except for Jak. "No."

  Somehow, Ryan had been expecting it. He faced the teenager. "End of the line, Jak?"

  "Yeah. Had good times. Good friends. Never forget it. Never forget any of you. But…"

  "Not Sharon Vare, surely?" Doc said. "You aren't going back for that vapid little moppet, are you,Jak?"

  Ryan answered for the boy. "It's Christina Ballinger, isn't it?"

  Jak nodded. "Yeah. Asked me if ever out her way again and sort of promised."

  "Man should keep his promises," J.B. said solemnly.

  "Anytime any you around spread we'd…you know."

  Ryan hated long farewells. He offered his hand to the slim, white-haired boy, who gripped it firmly. "Good luck, Jak, I liked her. Liked her a lot. You'll have good times. And…yeah, we'll come by that way, one of these days."

  Krysty embraced Jak, kissing him gently on each cheek. "Respect each other, and respect the kids when you get them. Bye, Jak."

  Mildred, her face still swollen from Strasser's brutal treatment, also hugged the boy. "Been good to know you," she said. "And you be careful."

  J.B. took off his fedora and shook the boy by the hand. "Always keep your back to the sun," he told him. "And keep your weapons right. Good luck, kid."

  It was the only time that Jak Lauren ever let any of them call him "kid" and get away with it.

  Doc was last, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Look after yourself, my dear young friend. A great singer and writer once said something about keeping your dreams as clean as silver. If this is the last hurrah, young fellow, then let it be a prelude to good days. I, too, promise that I will one day visit you and your lovely wife. One day."

  Jak stepped back, nodding to each of them. "One day," he echoed and turned on his heel.

  They watched him go, out through the main control room with its whirring consoles and dancing lights, his white hair flaring like a beacon.

  Ryan finally broke the long silence. "Let's go."

  The chamber was the usual design of silver-tinted arma glass. Everyone arranged themselves as comfortably as possible around the floor, avoiding the inset metal plates. Ryan stood by the entrance looking around, making sure everyone was comfortable. He closed the door firmly and sat down next to Krysty, reaching out to hold her hand.

  There was the familiar faint humming sound and the feeling of power building up. The disks in floor and ceiling began to glow, and the first delicate tendrils of mist began to appear. Ryan could feel the numbness settling over his brain.

  Krysty squeezed his fingers. "This the ending, lover?"

  "No. Like they say, 'it ain't over till it's over.'"

  The darkness came, and Ryan Caw
dor closed his eye.