by Ryder Stacy
“Sure,” Rock said with a grin. Real outdoor fruit. Some of the men had never had anything but the hydroponically grown kind within Century City’s artificially lit agricultural levels. Rockson had eaten fresh fruit here and there in his travels. The taste was totally different.
“You two, come with me,” McCaughlin said to two of the recruits, who jumped down immediately from their saddles. He walked over about twenty feet to the nearest of the trees lush with large, red globe-like fruits. Taking out a small needle about as big as hypodermic, he poked it into one. Wires in it ran out to a device—the Poison Detector—another one of Shecter’s field-engineering miracles.
“These are fine,” McCaughlin said as he did an instantaneous sampling of the juices and read out the digital moving letters across a mini-screen on the small computer/monitor. The device was small enough to hold in his hand. “Take as many of these as you can carry in these bags. We’ll throw it all on the extra ’brid.” He knew it was cruel in a way to talk of the dead man’s hybrid so quickly after his demise. But the dead weren’t hungry. It was the living who had to go on.
He walked on and sampled another fruit, this one green and long. He poked the needle in again and the digiscreen read out, CITRUS—ACIDIC, BUT EDIBLE. DO NOT EXCEED TWO IN 24-HOUR PERIOD.
“Take just a few of these,” McCaughlin pointed out to the other recruit who was standing alongside him. The big Scotsman’s face was absolutely beaming with joy at the thought of what he could do with such culinary treasures in his recipes. The men would eat like kings for the next week, that was for sure. No need for the vitamin C pills to ward off scurvy.
“Here you go, Rockson,” McCaughlin laughed like a Santa Claus who’d just gotten a shipment of gifts. “Have one.”
Rock leaned down from Snorter as the Freefighter held up his plastic food storage bag. The Doomsday Warrior reached down and took a green and a bluish colored fruit and took a bite of out it, thinking maybe perhaps it was some immense blueberry, his favorite fruit. The juices had barely reached his tongue when Detroit shouted out. Tried to shout anyway, as his voice croaked halfway through. “Look Rock, we’re—we’re surrounded—”
Rockson froze, his chewing lips in midstride. And he turned to where the ebony-skinned Freefighter was pointing. Coming out of the groves of jungle trees—with their blankets of rainbow fruits was a mini-army of men, and crawling alongside all around them—snakes. Hundreds of the slithering reptiles. All sizes—from tiny ones, up to over ten feet and a few as large as twenty. Rockson was so struck by the force arriving that he just sat there holding the fruit an inch from his mouth. There were about fifty of the men. Rock suddenly saw through the dappled shadow and light streaks of the jungle, as the sun worked its way down from high above, that they were wearing snakeskins, cut to size into pants, vests, jackets. Over their heads were rounded, tight snakeskin hats as well, every one a different color.
Suddenly there were more men coming from the other side of the fruit forest—and then behind them, as Rock suddenly turned in the saddle. In the space of a bite of fruit they’d been virtually surrounded.
“Weapons out, men,” Rock screamed as the advancing force now grew truly alarming. Rockson could see that the snakemen were holding long double-headed spears on long poles. They kept prodding the snakes, which slithered all around their feet, but the snakes never even tried to bite any of them. And Rockson could hear a faint crackling sound each time as a snake was touched. The snakemen’s spears didn’t enter their flesh, just poked them and released a blue spray of sparks. The men were controlling them all, like goddamned dogs on an electric leash.
By the time Rockson had gotten his shotpistol out and was wondering where to start, he saw that they were completely cut off. There were hundreds of the snakeskin-clad men, and more trained snakes than Ted Rockson, or any of them, would have wished to see in ten thousand nightmares. The entire terrain for an acre around them was a slithering pool of hissing snakes, all eyeing them with most interested orange and red eyes. It was the tongues that got to Rock as he froze with the shotpistol, not sure what the hell to do: tongues so long and forked, slapping out fast. They made a sickly wet sound as they flew back in and out.
“What the hell do you think, Rock?” Chen asked, from several yards behind. “As fucked up as this whole scene looks—we don’t know if they’re hostile. Remember your Anthro lessons back in C.C.,” the Chinese Freefighter said. “Never assume hostility—no matter how weird some races may appear—unless they actually attack.”
“Yeah, right,” the Doomsday Warrior said, with a snort. He was wondering how the hell the man could even have an iota of humor in him at a time like this. But he held his fire and held his left arm up, the signal for the others to hold fire until Rock decided otherwise. The recruits atop their ’brids were trembling, their eyes wide. They held their Liberators, ready to deal out hot lead. Not that any man had the slightest belief that he had one chance of surviving if this crew came in, fangs a-snapping.
Suddenly a huge man came up to within about ten feet of Rockson and stopped. He was a truly formidable-sized fellow, about six-foot-seven with his bizarre outfit of snakeskin sewn together in all sorts of geometric patterns: crosses and circles and squares. He had a large gourd around his neck and pulled it forward, gripping it with both hands. The snake-general, or whatever the hell he was, blew hard on the device and an unearthly noise came out of it. Rockson had heard the sounds of Tibetan Dharma-Horns on an old video of the Himalayan monks once, and it sounded a lot like that. A thunderous bass sound seemed to ripple up his very backbone. The ’brids were nervous as hell and kept fidgeting around, but most of them stayed under control, a testament to C.C.’s stable-hands’ good training.
The snakemen and their reptile invasion force came to a stop around the Freefighters. The headman held up his conch and for a moment there was a bizarre silence which settled over everyone, man, hybrid, and snake.
“Stop!” the snake chief shouted out, holding the conch horn high to the sky.
“I am stopped,” Rock replied loudly, but without anger. At least the bastard spoke English. One word anyway. “We come in peace, and mean no harm,” the Doomsday Warrior went on, letting his pistol slip down into the holster, so the man could see it. Rock knew they didn’t have the slightest chance to take on this whole army. It was ridiculous without anything short of a field-nuke.
“Go where?” the snakeman asked, as Rock saw he had three small snakes wrapped around his right shoulder. Clearly a symbol of rank, he realized instantly, as the creatures were dead, and hung as decoration there.
“Going through this land to get to supplies in the north that we need for our village, Century City.” Rockson looked hopefully at the guy, like the name might ring a bell.
“Never heard!” the snakeman said, as he walked around Rock and his ’brid. He seemed fascinated, as the others did, by the big steeds. Apparently, though they had everything from chimps to man-eating snakes in this murderous paradise, they didn’t have horses or any mammal this big. The snakes didn’t seem to take a huge interest in the ’brids; they were just too big for even the twenty-footers to take down. But they sure as hell looked interested in the riders. Rockson remembered just where his pistol was, visualizing the route to it as he spoke.
“They’re called hybrid horses,” Rockson said with as much friendliness as he could muster. The snakeman reached and stroked Snorter’s flank and the big ’brid made a deep sound, pulling back and rearing up.
“Whoa, easy boy! He doesn’t mean to offend you,” Rock said as he brought the ’brid back down under control. “He’s just shy—like that with everyone.” The snake-general stepped back a few feet and Rockson could see in his eyes he wanted to take them out. But, just as quickly, the darkness went out and the snake-general spoke again. “You come! Take to King Bailey. He will decide!” He blew the conch again, and the whole trained-snake-and-snakeskinned infantry turned the opposite way, back toward the direction they had c
ome. Two long lines went down each side of the Freefighters, who were barely able to keep their ’brids from bolting. And they were led off through the groves of fruit trees into the mists ahead, surrounded on both flanks by a blanket of the writhing snakes.
Nine
They were marched into an area of well-cultivated fruit groves, which lasted perhaps two hundred yards. Then they came to another extremely swampy area. In fact, all of it was surrounded by swamp, extending out at least a mile or more before the mist-covered hills. Rock prayed that these people weren’t going to ask him and the rest of the team to swim in that stuff, a surface covered with muck and lily pads and centipedes dancing from rotten ferns to bloated dead fish.
But as they reached the swampline, where the solid earth faded away he saw a number of large rafts made of sections of tree thirty feet long and lashed together with twisted vines. They were marched up to the things, about ten men to a raft, with snake-troopers guarding them and looking them all up and down like they were looking at alien bugs. The snakemen had seen their share of weird nature in their valley—but apparently had never seen other men before, particularly with huge, hairy horse-creatures.
When they were all loaded up onto the rafts, two snakemen on each side poled into the swampy muck with their long snake-prongs. The things apparently doubled as long push-poles, with the current turned off. The pole-pushers would start at the front and walk down the length of the rafts. It was agonizingly slow going at first, as they pushed off the mud bank. But once they got going and in rhythm, the crafts began picking up a little speed. Nothing to write home about, but a few miles an hour. The trained snakes came right into the watery swamp all around them. It was like the entire herd was a single living entity, so intertwined were the swimming bodies. Rockson wouldn’t even think once about diving into that water to escape.
The snakemen pushed the rafts along single file and soon were out hundreds of yards into the swamp. The floral and faunal lifeforms erupted around them in a rainbow of color and jungle screams. The blue mists were low, just a foot or so off the black, thick waters. After another half mile or so, they came to just about the strangest village the Doomsday Warrior had ever seen. Set right in the middle of the black swamp was a huge development of wooden and vine houses built on stilts. They stood on thick foundation logs at each corner and ranged from simple huts with hardly more than a shack on their log-backs, to quite large structures. One house in the center of the three concentric circles of wooden stilts was like some sort of jungle palace. Huge, perhaps a hundred feet from ground to the top, it had levels every twenty feet, each one wider than the next.
As the rafts came slowly into the midst of the village, with enough space between the circles of stilt-dwellings to allow easy passage, Rockson stared in amazement. For men were fishing over the sides of their swamp homes, only they were using snakes instead of poles. Holding one end of what looked like mostly six- to eight-footers, they stood around the edges of the stilt structures on the porches that surrounded all of them. They held the snakes by the tail and then dropped their heads down into the murky depths. It seemed to take only a few seconds to get a strike. The snakes would shake a little and the men would pull them back up—with a squirming fish or frog in their wide-open jaws.
Either the snakes were amazingly well-trained—or had some kind of plugs in their throats! For once they were pulled back up onto the wooden verandas, the snakemen would sort of tickle the reptiles’ throats, and the creatures would respond by coughing out the catch. Then the snakes would be allowed to take a few breaths of air—and then sent back under for another catch.
“Wish I had a few of those back in C.C.,” McCaughlin said. He was a few yards behind Rockson on the lead raft. Detroit whistled behind him as the whole assault team gulped hard and wondered just what the hell they were getting themselves into. With fruits hanging down from trees and their ability to catch plenty of food out on the porch, Rockson decided the snake-people had it made here. It was like a mini-paradise, with every need provided for and hardly any need to work very hard.
Again, the townsfolk were clearly fascinated by the group of outsiders and their strange animals being ferried in on the rafts. They stood around their fishing platforms where they’d been talking and drinking some kind of beverage from gourds that Rockson suspected was somewhat alcoholic. They all had that slightly bleary-eyed, good-natured look that alcohol brings on. All wore variations of the snakeskin outfits: vests, shirts, pants, mocassins. And the same tight-skinned headdresses. Everything in their lives came from the swamp in some fashion. Rock was beginning to appreciate just how ingenious the swamp folks were.
They were poled up to the huge central stilt-building and then stopped, the rafts pulling side by side until they were held in place by ropes thrown up from the bow and grabbed by snakemen waiting on the nearly hundred-foot-long dock. Ramps were lowered down as the rafts were about five feet below the swamp building’s lowest story. Slowly they were led off and then directed about thirty feet. There was a long log and the ’brids were tethered up while Rockson and the rest of the unit’s men were led into the great stilt building.
Inside, Rockson could see in a flash that they were in the head-honcho’s house. The main room was immense, as wide as the entire structure itself, and at least thirty feet high. Pictures of snakes were everywhere, with skins hanging down from the walls in great tapestries. Snakes, mostly smaller, slithered all over the place, but stayed several yards away from the men, evidently trained to not entangle themselves in the humans’ feet. The place had a slightly off-putting smell, a mix of the swamp and muck beneath the building and the scent of so many snakes.
Then Rockson saw the throne at the far end of the great wooden chamber and the extremely large man sitting in it. The wooden and vine chair was equally immense, a good five feet on a side and perhaps ten feet high with a backrest that rose up nearly twelve feet. And woven together on it, in various circular patterns, were a number of snakes with extremely shimmering skins. These were dead, as far as Rock could tell.
The man seemed godlike. He too wore a snakeskin outfit, but his suit was quite elaborate, with teeth hanging all over it, a huge headdress made of small snakes and swamp flowers, and a cloak of purple snakeskin that hung down behind him. On each side of the throne stood a tall guard holding prong-weapons. The headman had his arms folded across his bared chest as he watched the entourage walk in.
“Stop!” one of the guards snapped, and pointed to a bunch of vine cushions that lay in a semicircle about twenty feet from the throne across the wide, wooden-planked floor. “Bow to King Bailey.”
The rest of the troopers looked at Rock, not knowing just what to do, as Freefighters in general bowed to no man. But Rockson had been through this before. So they all made quick little bows, most of them never having done so before, and felt strange about it.
“Sit,” the guard said brusquely. The dozen or so guards who had led the Freefighters in stood around the sides and came to a sloppy sort of attention. The men all sat down as Rockson nodded for them to obey the command.
“How exciting to have visitors,” the headman spoke up from his throne, once they were all seated. “We haven’t had any around here for about fifty years. Before I was even born,” he added with a friendly enough grin. The snake-king looked around at all of them, as if absorbing their energies. Rockson’s men shifted around uncomfortably.
Above them, in some of the cross rafters of the place, snakes, some of these perhaps twelve, even fifteen feet long, slithered around or wrapped themselves around the pieces of branch and looked down like they found the whole scene amusing in some incomprehensible snakish way.
“Why have you come here?” King Bailey suddenly spoke up, his tone changing from one of relative friendliness to one with undercurrents of hostility. “And why have you killed one of our snake-brothers?” For a moment Rockson was confused until he realized the King was referring to the snake they had taken out.
“I’m Ted Rockson,” the Doomsday Warrior replied, trying to be as calm and non-threatening as possible. “I am the leader of these men. We were passing through the swamp area here. Didn’t even know that there were men living here. I’m sorry for the intrusion. There was a terrible accident in my city, Century City, about two hundred miles to the south. We need supplies and this was a shortcut.”
The king looked on with interest, though his eyes didn’t reveal a hell of a lot.
“As far as the death of your—brother, I’m sorry about that. It took one of my men and tore off into the jungle. We tried to save him and had to kill the snake. He died anyway.” Rockson looked down at the vine and wood woven floor, feeling a surge of sadness for the dead recruit.
“Yes, I see,” the king said, as he petted a large black and gray python that crawled up to him and wrapped itself around his throne and one of his legs. The king seemed to enjoy the snake-fondling, like a man stroking a cat or a dog. “He was a rogue,” the head honcho spoke up. “We couldn’t allow Mmm-Ptahhh in the camp, as he was constantly after the other snakes and had even attacked one of our own men recently,” King Bailey went on. “So you are forgiven on that count. Please do not harm another or . . .” He didn’t have to finish the thought, Rockson got the message. The other Freefighters sitting around on the low pillows gulped hard.
“King,” Rockson said hesitantly. “May I inquire as to how you speak English so well, how this place came into being, and about your relationship with snakes? I’m not sure that you’re aware that this is not exactly how most men live in the outside world.”
“Yes, I’ll be glad to tell you of our founding,” King Bailey answered. “Our ancestors were all part of a traveling circus. ‘Barnurn and Bailey and Ringling Brothers Traveling Circus and Animal Extravaganza’ was the full name. They were heading across this part of the country when the bombs fell. That was that. With their motorized buses and trucks all made useless by electromagnetic pulses, they found this area on foot. It wasn’t as swampy as you see it now, but was a protective sanctuary from the radioactive winds and other dangers because of the walls of the great valley. So they settled here.
