Chill Factor

by James Axler

  DOC WAS SLEEPING on his back, on a truckle bed made up in a corner of the larder beyond the kitchen. He was wrapped around in the warm familiar scents and flavors of his own distant youth—the cheeses and the smoked ham, salted fish and cinnamon, and ginger and strings of dried chilis, red and green.

  Doc had felt tired in Florida, tired of the oppressive heat, the pressure and the killing. The endless killing.

  "So good to rest, Emily, with my head upon your bosom," he whispered.

  His wife's face was in deep shadow, but he could just see the sunlight as it reflected off the crystal pendant that hung from her slender neck on a thin gold chain.

  He held Emily's hand, closing his eyes. There was a moment of doubt and fear, that some creature would come gibbering from the valley of darkest night. But it was a kind, gentle sleep, and Doc smiled.

  The old man was content in the embrace of his wife, nearly two hundred years dead.

  IN THE BEST guest bedroom, its shuttered window looking to the south, Ryan and Krysty lay in each other's arms. They'd been talking quietly since leaving the others. Neither felt like making love, the desolate loss of the boy hanging above the bed like the naked blade of a sword.

  Krysty knew that Ryan would go after Dean. It was a question of when.

  "Who'll go with you, lover?"

  Ryan had hesitated a long time before answering, making her think he'd actually fallen asleep.

  "Can't say."

  "All of us?"

  "Probably better not. Not Mildred and not Doc. Going to be a serious knockdown bloody-bones fight."

  "Me?"

  Another long pause.

  "Tell you what I think's going to happen in the morning."

  She could feel the icy touch of fear, probing inside her mind. "What?"

  "My guess is that Jak'll want to come."

  "Will Christina let him go?"

  "She won't stop him. He feels responsible for what happened."

  "But he—"

  He brought his hand to her face, hushing her. "Course he's not to blame. But he feels he is. Comes on down to the same thing. So, if he goes, then J.B. has to stay here. Take charge of the place."

  "Christina won't like that, lover."

  "Course. But she's not stupid. See how the wheel turns. Someone has to."

  "So it'll be you and Jak. Alone."

  "My guess, lover. No point saying I'm sorry or wishing we could all go. Be like wishing the pitcher of milk never fell off the table. Or the stray bullet didn't puddle the brains of the friend at your side. No point having regrets. Just go and do it and return here with the boy."

  Krysty rolled away from him, lying on her left side, offering him her back. Ryan said nothing, waiting.

  Finally she spoke again, her voice muffled by the pillow.

  "One day you won't come back. I know I've said this before, and you're still here. You and me, lover, we're like two parts of one whole. Take me away from you, and I'm nothing. Same with you. I wake in the night and I lie trembling at the loss that'll come. You'll die, Ryan."

  "We all will, Krysty. Until then, the man who sits down when he should be up and standing isn't much of a man."

  She swallowed hard. "Sure, lover. Doesn't stop it from hurting."

  BY MORNING all of the talking had been done. Ryan was second into the kitchen, smelling bacon sizzling in the pan and a pot of coffee-sub bubbling on the iron stove. Jak stood by, cracking eggs into a second skillet with one hand while stirring up a mess of hash browns with the other.

  "Good to see she's finally got you to learn something useful," Ryan commented.

  "Still work out with throwing knives hour every day."

  "You happy here, Jak?"

  The white face turned to him, the narrow eyes looking suspicious. "Joking?"

  "Course not. Just that you seem content here. Good place and Christina's a good, good woman, Jak. You're lucky."

  "Man makes own luck, Ryan." He concentrated on the eggs. "Over or sunny?"

  "Over."

  One by one the rest came down to join them. Doc was last, rubbing sleep from his rheumy eyes. "Oh, what a fearful sluggard and lagabed am I! Hope there's plenty of victuals left. I swear I could demolish a horse. Hooves and all."

  "Only some pig and some hen fruit, Doc," Christina said, smiling.

  Everyone could see that she'd been crying.

  Ryan caught Jak's eye across the table. "When?" he asked.

  The young man looked down at a small wrist chron. "It's just before seven now. Go at eight."

  Christina looked around slowly, her eyes brimming. Then she pushed away from the table and ran out into the bright morning sunlight.

  Chapter Four

  J.B. HAD JOINED their council of war, agreeing that this didn't sound like the kind of mission where long guns would be needful.

  "Get in close, skin on skin," he said laconically. "Best way."

  He offered them the Uzi machine pistol, but both Ryan and Jak elected to stick with their own weapons, the ones they knew best.

  Ryan had his 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 blaster. It held fifteen rounds and had a push-button mag-release, with a built-in baffle silencer. He had the trusty panga, its blade eighteen inches of honed steel, on his left hip. The slim flensing knife was snug in the small of his back.

  Jak had four leaf-bladed throwing knives, hilts taped for perfect balance. They were hidden so well about his person that even Ryan himself wasn't certain where he had them concealed. On his right hip he still hefted the enormous satin-finish cannon, the .357 Magnum with the six-inch barrel.

  They'd talked about what to wear.

  The evidence was that the slavers had come from somewhere seriously cold. J.B. pointed out that the dead man had lost three toes off one foot with what could well have been gangrene from frostbite.

  Ryan had his familiar old coat with the fur collar, and the white silk scarf, with its weighted ends, tucked inside the collar. Jak was wearing jeans and a quilted jacket, western working boots and a knitted cap in dark blue wool to hide his unmistakable hair.

  "Wish I could do something about the patch over my eye," Ryan said. "If we run into Zimyanin I figure he'll probably recognize me."

  Christina gave both of them a package wrapped in oiled cloth, which contained meat pies, savory and fresh, with some corn dodgers and strips of jerked beef. Each man had a canteen of water, drawn that morning from the Lauren's well.

  It was eight minutes after eight.

  A bay mare stood docilely in the shafts of the buggy, it's head down, munching its way through a heap of hay.

  Jak kissed his wife, hugged her and climbed into the seat of the buckboard, picking up the reins and holding them loosely.

  Ryan shook hands with Doc and J.B., embraced Mildred and looked at Krysty.

  "Time to go, lover," he said.

  "Gaia watch over you and bring you and the boy safe home again."

  "Keep your back to the sun," J.B. said, grinning at Ryan as he offered him the old gunfighter's creed.

  "Stay crucial." Mildred laughed. "And let's be careful out there."

  Ryan clambered aboard the well-sprung rig, settling himself on the narrow seat, his coat across his lap. He nudged Jak. "Let's go."

  The teenager whistled between his teeth, and the mare moved forward. The wheels clumped and rolled over the dusty ground as they headed along the trail toward the redoubt.

  Ryan clung onto the rail at the side to save himself from being thrown off.

  "See why they call it a 'buckboard,'" he shouted through gritted teeth.

  He glanced behind, seeing that everyone was waving. Christina stood a little to one side, one hand on her hip. Doc had run a few steps after them across the cropped grass.

  As Ryan waved to him, the old man called something. It was difficult to catch what it was above the noise of the buggy. It sounded like he was yelling "Shane!" but that made no sense to Ryan.

  "YOU KNOW YOU DON'T HAVE to come all the way, Jak?"
/>   "Yeah."

  They were drawing near to the rusting radar dish that lay ruined in the sand at the foot of the crook-topped mountain.

  "The horse'll take the rig back home?"

  Jak nodded, reining in. "Sure. Nearest water. Just let her go."

  Ryan jumped down, stretched his arms and shoulders. He picked up his coat and slung it over his arm. "Goin' to be a warm climb."

  Jak slapped the mare on the flank and stood watching as it trotted dutifully off, retracing its own tracks toward the distant farm.

  The trail was steep, open and unshadowed, baked by the rising sun. Jak led the way, light on his feet, Ryan panting and sweating behind him.

  There was a temptation to drink from their canteens, but they both resisted it, knowing that dehydration was the greatest killer in the bare desert, knowing that once you'd drunk your water, the going could get bleak.

  Finally they reached the crest, where a huge explosion had ripped away the entire peak and flank of the hill. A dark hole gaped there.

  Ryan followed the teenager, standing head down, taking in several lungfuls of air. He wiped perspiration from his forehead, moving his eye patch where salt irritated the empty socket.

  "See for miles," he said.

  Jak ignored the view, peering into the pitchy blackness of the wrecked entrance. "Forward," he muttered. "Not back."

  IF IT HAD BEEN a fiction-vid, Ryan would have found a clue that Dean had been taken there. Maybe his turquoise hafted knife, a distinctive button ripped off his jacket, a rumpled piece of paper carrying a vital, scribbled message.

  Life wasn't like that.

  There were the marks of feet in the driven sand that coated the tunnels and passageways of the redoubt. Jak knelt down to peer at them, shaking his head.

  "Tells nothing," he said.

  When they eventually reached the gateway chamber with its walls of silvery armaglass, Jak showed an odd reluctance to enter it.

  "Problem?" Ryan asked.

  "No." He paused. "Yeah. Always hated jumps. Made sick. Dark-out in head."

  Ryan hesitated, standing by the heavy door, looking back past the small anteroom into the main control area. "Best you go home to Christina and the others, Jak."

  "No." He shook his head firmly. "Let's get jumping, Ryan."

  He walked in and sat, his woollen cap gripped in his hand, and rested his head on his knees, back against the translucent wall. He attempted a smile, which was like the rictus of terminal agony on a death's-head.

  Ryan pressed the button marked LD, stepped inside the chamber and pulled the door firmly shut behind him.

  The lock clicked. He sat opposite Jak, adopting a similar position. He placed his coat to one side in case he was sick or suffered from a nosebleed. It was oppressively warm and humid inside, and he could feel sweat trickling down into the small of his back.

  The metal disks that patterned the floor and ceiling of the mat-trans unit began to glow, and a faint mist appeared in the air. Ryan could hear a distant humming sound, and he felt the familiar, nauseous swirling in his brain.

  "See at other end," Jak said, his voice stretched and plangent, coming from some other dimension.

  Ryan tried to reply, but his jaw was locked and his head was filled with a churning, tepid mess of lead and molasses.

  Darkness came.

  JAK LAUREN'S LAST SENTIENT thought was a sweeping regret that bordered on panic, then he slumped sideways into unconsciousness.

  And the dream began.

  He was sitting in a small boat amid the swampy bayous of what was once called Louisiana, engulfed by the scent of rotting vegetation. Spanish moss drooped from the mangrove branches like the intestines of long-dead lepers. There was very little freeboard, the thick, muddy water coming within an inch or so of slopping over the sides.

  Jak kept very still.

  Water dripped all around him, each separate drop leaving a distinct hole in the swamp.

  "Jak!"

  He turned his head, very slowly.

  "Jak, help me!"

  He knew the voice, knew that Christina was in some deathly danger. There was a ripple of movement near the distant bank, and he glimpsed the serrated back of a huge alligator. To the right was another one, hooded eyes just above the ooze. The boat rocked from side to side and filthy water came slopping in, lapping at his bare feet.

  The cry was repeated, the sound stifled by the oppressive branches that lowered around the teenager. Jak felt for his gun, but the holster was limp and empty. His knives had vanished.

  "In the name of Jesus, help me, Jak!"

  There was a fierce stabbing pain in his stomach, and he wanted to lie down. But he couldn't see for the snow that was drifting all around him, masking the sharp-fanged rocks and the lean wolves who paced hungrily up and down.

  "Christina," he said, tears rolling down his narrow cheeks, mingling with the threads of puke that dribbled from his open mouth.

  In the gateway chamber, Jak's skinny body began to go into convulsions.

  RYAN WAS RUNNING through a great forest. Tall pines blotted out any glimpse of the sky, standing so close together that he had to twist and turn to make his way along the ill-defined and overgrown path. His feet were bare, bleeding, painful.

  Somewhere behind him he could clearly catch the sound of heavy artillery, the shells screaming high above his head, landing with a distant crump far in front of him.

  Ryan knew that he had friends all around him—the snow-headed boy and his limping wife, the woman with hair like flame and eyes like frozen emeralds, an old, old man who laughed at life. There was a black woman to his right. It was odd that he knew that, even though it was impossible to see anything through the surrounding trees.

  And a pale-faced, short man in glasses. Ryan knew him.

  "John." The sound barely broke the mist that flooded the gateway chamber.

  He'd been sprinting along a narrow stream kicking his way through the polished pebbles, diving full-length onto a gravel beach, running the tiny stones, cold and wet, between his fingers.

  "A living man," Ryan whispered.

  Ahead of him he could make out the silhouette of a trestle bridge, way above the river. Sec men, wearing dark uniforms, lined the bluffs to the right and left, looking down at him.

  A boy stood on the bridge, his hands bound behind him. He was a small, sturdy figure, with a shock of dark, curly hair. A hemp noose had been tightened around his neck.

  Beside him was an officer in a slouch hat, gripping a brass-hilted saber. He was grinning down at Ryan, who stood knee-high in the surging stream far below.

  "Bastard!"

  The man lifted his hat, revealing a glitteringly bald dome. His mouth parted in a smile, his lips covering a luxuriant mustache.

  As Ryan reached despairingly upward, the officer pushed the boy with the tip of his sword, toppling him into singing space where the rope tautened and his neck broke with a dry crack.

  When Ryan recovered consciousness his eye was wet, his cheek streaked with tears.

  And he realized that he was bitingly cold.

  Chapter Five

  RYAN'S STOMACH WAS roiling as though he'd just eaten the worst bowl of dog chili that the foulest gaudy on the darkest part of the frontier could offer him.

  He closed his eye again, trying to lever himself into a more upright position. The floor was icy cold, and he could feel the chill of the armaglass through his shirt.

  Part of him wondered why some jumps were so much worse than others. Another part wondered if he was going to throw up.

  It took a hundred heartbeats to regain some degree of control over his body. Finally, cautiously, Ryan opened his eye again.

  His breath plumed out ahead of him, and he rubbed his hands together, hunching his shoulders protectively against the arctic cold. Remembering his first meeting with Gregori Zimyanin, it occurred to him that the jump might have taken him back into Alaska.

  He searched his memory for the color of the walls
of that particular chamber. A pale blue, with streaks of gray, he thought. Or gray streaked with blue. One or the other.

  These walls were so dark a brown that they were almost black.

  "Triple cold," he whispered, finding that his teeth were beginning to chatter.

  Jak lay on the floor, across from him in the six-sided chamber. The boy was still, blood seeping from his ears and nose, bright scarlet against his ivory skin.

  "Jak."

  Ryan was suddenly aware of a very faint scratching sound in the gateway, like the claws of a small bird on a shingle roof.

  He leaned forward, wincing at a shaft of pain through his good eye. He saw that the little finger on Jak's left hand was moving from side to side, nail scratching at the floor.

  Ryan crawled over on hands and knees. He rolled the teenager onto his side, reaching into his open mouth to make sure that he hadn't swallowed his tongue. Gobbets of clotted blood splattered onto the floor. Jak moaned feebly, eyelids fluttering.

  "Come on," Ryan said, trying to lift him into a sitting position.

  "Fuck off." The words were spoken with no discernible anger or passion, Jak's voice flat and dulled.

  Ryan propped the lad against the smooth wall, gently straightening his legs, then moved back to pick up his own coat and slide his arms into the sleeves.

  "Want take my blaster? Only way is to pull my cold, dead finger off trigger. So…" Jak's voice faded away into total silence.

  Ryan stood and steadied himself, closing his eye again as a spear of pain darted through his skull. "Jak, it's time to go. Freeze if we stay here too much longer. Get up, kid."

  Not even the old taunt provoked the albino teenager. He still lay prone, fingers clenching. His eyes remained closed.

  Ryan eased open the door of the chamber, peering out. His hand rested on the butt of the pistol in its holster.

  There was a small bare room outside, and dark splashes and stains on the white stone floor that looked uncommonly like old spilled blood. Beyond that, the consoles chattered and lights flickered on the control units.