Neutron Solstice

by James Axler

  It was the worst storm that Ryan Cawdor had ever experienced.

  It wasn't the banshee gales—he'd heard those farther north in the Deathlands. But the lightning and thunder were almost continuous, pounding at the ears until the senses began to totter. The rain swept in, seeming at times as if it were a solid shroud of tumbling water. At one point J.B. stuck his head from under the tarpaulin, taking care to remove his glasses first, trying to see if there was any sign of the storm abating. He pulled back a few seconds later, blinking and gasping.

  "Can't breathe. Drown out there, in open air. That's the trouble. No damned air. Just water."

  By the time it eased to a persistent drizzle, the noise of the thunder drifting inland, it was close to dusk. The purple-black clouds remained, hiding the setting sun.

  During the two hours, Finnegan hardly spoke. Not that conversation was easy above the noise of the thunder and the drumming of the monsoon on the stretched canvas sheet. He sat, his head in hands, beside Hennings's corpse. He ignored all attempts to console him. Only Ryan's words about having iced several of the natives seemed to cheer him at all.

  For some time Ryan had worried that their attackers might be creeping around, readying an ambush. But the experience of the Armorer convinced him that as long as the rains lasted they were safe.

  But now it was quieting.

  "J.B.? What d'you reckon?"

  "Go."

  "Where?"

  "Same way we said 'fore Henn bought the farm."

  "South. Way the blacktop was going. Move until it gets dark?"

  "Yeah. Stay in the swampwag. Best chance we got. It's noisy as a butchered sticky, but it can go over any kind of land and water. We got the blasters to hold anyone off. Go south and then find a good defensive position for the night. That's the way I see it."

  Ryan agreed.

  Hennings's sudden death had depressed him, made him question what he was doing as the leader of the group. When the Trader had walked off into the night and never returned, he handed over the command of the party to Ryan. And what had Ryan done with it? Taken a handful of comrades on a crazy expedition through a mat-trans gateway.

  Then, in only a few days, three of the original eight were lost. Tall, sullen-faced Okie, one of the top blasters, a girl who kept her own counsel. Hunaker, with her cropped green hair and her incessant taste for anyone of either sex at any time.

  And now Hennings.

  "We're going to move," he said, throwing back the tarpaulin, standing and stretching. He tasted the flatness of iron on his tongue, carried on the drizzling rain. There was also a hint of the sharpness of gasoline in the air.

  "What 'bout Henn?" asked Finnegan.

  If Finn hadn't been there, Ryan probably would have dumped the body over the side of the swampwag into the swollen muddy river.

  "We bury him, Finn," he replied.

  THE VOICE WAS SWEET and pure, ringing like a crystal goblet, unsullied by the rain and the dark and a friend's violent death.

  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…That saved a wretch like me…

  The digging was accomplished with a short-hafted trenching tool they found in the back of the buggy. After going a couple of feet down, Ryan and J.B. were for stopping, but Finn took the shovel, wordlessly continuing in a frenzy of action; mud and clods flew to either side as he bent to the task; he paused only when the grave was a full five feet deep, the sides slick with the rain.

  "Now" was the first word he said.

  With a touching dignity, the fat man lifted his friend's body and laid it out straight on the short, cropped grass. He took some rags from the buggy and wiped Hennings clean, then closed the eyes firmly. Folding the arms across the chest, Finn placed the HK54A submachine gun in the cold graying hands.

  "Gimme help with a piece of that tarpaulin, Ryan," said Finn,

  Together they cut a piece off, struggling to keep it as straight as possible. While Finn steadied the corpse, Ryan wrapped the stiff cloth around it like a shroud.

  "Keep him for a'whiles," muttered Finn. "Way from the fuckers."

  As Finnegan gently put the body into the grave, Lori 'began to sing.

  "I once was lost; but now am found…"

  All of them stood around. J.B. had looked at Ryan meaningfully when Finn took the dead man's blaster and wrapped it with him, ready for the grave. Standing orders from the Trader had always been that a dead man's possessions, especially weapons, should be shared among the survivors. Ryan shook his head at the Armorer. Times had changed. They all had blasters. There was no point in burdening themselves with another.

  Besides, he figured that Finnegan would have tried to chill anyone who aimed to stop him.

  "… was blind, but now I see…"

  Doc mouthed the words along with the girl. But none of the others had ever heard the tune before.

  The rain came in gray sheets, dripping from the ghostly veils of Spanish moss. Small pools of water glistened in the folds of the canvas shroud, reflecting the somber sky. The wind had fallen to a gentle breeze. With full darkness still an hour or more away, Ryan was becoming concerned that they might be vulnerable to a sneak ambush from the locals.

  "Want to say a few words, Finn?" he asked.

  "I don't fucking know any words. Someone else best do it." He looked around the circle.

  Ryan did it, knowing it was his job. It wasn't for anyone else, once Finn had refused. That was the way of it. First the closest comrade, then the leader.

  That was the way.

  "This is Hennings, on his last ride. Hennings… I don't even know his other name—Finn?"

  "Arnold," muttered the fat man.

  "Arnold? You certain?"

  "Yeah."

  Ryan wiped a bead of rain from his nose. More water had run behind the patch on his left eye, and he lifted it, allowing the cold liquid to trickle down the unshaven cheek.

  "Henn was a good blaster. Never run from you. Always stand at your shoulder in a firefight. There aren't many men you can say you trusted with your life. Henn was one of them. Now he's gone and we'll all miss him. Times we'll talk of him, around a good fire." He stopped, looking at the others. "That's all I got. Anyone else?"

  Finn nodded. "Yeah. Just ride easy, Henn. I'll see you over the next hill."

  The slopping chunks of wet earth fell on the tarpaulin with a flat, final sound. Each of them took a turn, with Finnegan snatching the shovel and filling in the rest of the dirt and flattening it as best he could.

  "We got a marker?" he asked. "Can't just walk away from Henn and fucking leave him here like a dog."

  "It's best, Finn."

  "How come, Ryan?"

  "Put a marker, and they'll find it. Dig him up. Do…do fireblast knows what to him. That's not right. Few days, and the grass'll cover him snug and safe."

  Finnegan nodded his agreement.

  And so they left Hennings, sleeping alone and undisturbed among the trees.

  ALTHOUGH THE SWAMPWAG was equipped with headlights, Ryan figured it would be suicide to drive after dark. It would be like carrying a great sign asking folk to blast you. As soon as it got too dark to drive safely, Ryan ordered Finn to pull off the road among a grove of live oaks.

  J.B. found some strips of dried fish in the buggy, and they divvied them out. Ryan appointed guards, in pairs for extra safety, A fire was too hazardous, but the night promised to be mild and humid.

  Krysty sat next to Lori. "That was a right pretty song. I think mebbe I heard old ones sing it, back in Harmony. Where did you learn it?"

  The girl looked down, blushing in embarrassment. "Back redoubt, Krysty. Quint sing when he ice someone. Every time. I hear lots time. Called 'A Mazing Grace,' I think. Seemed right sing for poor Henn."

  "Guess it was," said Krysty.

  ALONE IN HIS BED about thirty miles from where Ryan had set the camp, Baron Tourment lay in an uneasy sleep. The grotesque exoskeleton lay propped at the side of the king-size bed, once available at a special A tariff for vis
itors to the motel. The heavy curtains were drawn across the picture window, shutting out the last shreds of the storm's lightning.

  The giant black, who often had nightmares, generally slept alone nowadays. After twice strangling bed companions in his sleep, he had agreed to forgo more deaths.

  He was restless, tossing and turning, tangling the sheets about him. Once during the night he dreamed, his right hand touching and fondling himself, bringing himself to an erection of terrifying proportions. Beneath the pillows was a silver-plated pearl-handled Magnum pistol that he'd found in the loft of a big house on what had once been the exclusive side of West Lowellton. His hands reached for the heavy pistol, caressing it, stroking the cool metal.

  And all the while he was asleep.

  Just before dawn he began to thrash and mumble, but the words were inaudible—apart from the repeated muttering of, "Strangers, strangers."

  RYAN AND KRYSTY took the last watch of the long night. They took turns circling the swampwag at a distance of between fifty and a hundred paces. The false dawn came whispering in, with a pink glow in the east and the promise of a fine morning. Then darkness returned, followed at last by the sallow light of true dawn.

  "Wake the others, lover?" she asked.

  "Soon. Let 'em sleep long as they can. A jump really scrambles up your head. And losing Henn like that…"

  The sentence trailed away into the stillness. The air was cool, with a faint mist hanging over the trees behind them. They heard the delicate clicking and chirping of insects, rousing for the new day, and the songs of birds to the east.

  The Atchafalaya Swamp was coming to life.

  Krysty laid a hand on Ryan's arm, just below the elbow. "Why do we do this, love?"

  "This?"

  "Keep running. Fighting. Now… dying?"

  "I figure you can live easy or hard. Easy, and you never stand up for a thing. Hard, and…"

  "And what, Ryan?" Her grip tightened on his arm, making him wince at her latent power.

  "Once you start with fighting and killing, Krysty, then it's killing and killing and more killing."

  "Why? When do you stop?"

  "When the reason for the fighting and the killing is done and ended."

  "When will that be?"

  "Maybe tomorrow. It's always going to be tomorrow. Until one day you find it's come. That's all there is."

  About a mile ahead of them, a thin column of gray smoke was curling up into the morning sky. Ryan and Krysty noticed it simultaneously.

  Ryan set his boot on the ladder into the swampwag, "Time to wake 'em," he said.

  Chapter Six

  AFTER SOME DISCUSSION they agreed that the safest bet was to leave the buggy behind, hidden under cover, ready in case they needed a fast-footed run from danger.

  J.B. suggested that they split into groups, circle around and then meet back at the swampwag, but Ryan insisted they stay together.

  "No. With Henn gone we're low on blaster power. You, me an' Finn. Doesn't mean Doc and the girls don't pull their weight, but we're the professionals. Best we stick close."

  The promise of a good day was vanishing fast. The sky was chameleonic, shifting from a pale blue streaked with pink to a deep purple with black clouds slashed across it.

  Ryan, as usual, took the point position, keeping as far as he could to the side of the blacktop, in among the shadows, blaster at the ready, finger close on the trigger. Krysty came second, twenty paces back, on the opposite side of the road. Then Doc and Lori, who were becoming increasingly difficult to separate, with Finn a farther twenty yards behind them. J.B. brought up the rear, keeping a good hundred paces off, on the same side of the road as Ryan.

  The temperature was already rising, humidity making the going tough. Ryan estimated that it was already close to the hundred mark. He was glad that he'd left his beloved fur-trimmed coat behind in the gateway.

  A large mosquito, wings shimmeringly iridescent in the hazy light, settled on Ryan's left wrist, readying itself to feed. "Bastard!" Slapping at it, he crushed it in a smear of blood'.

  There weren't many signs that the blacktop was actually used very much. Oases of vegetation sprouted from cracks in its surface. A sharp curve to the left was followed by one to the right. At each turning Ryan held up a hand, slowing the others until he checked out what was around the bend.

  Moving back, he called the rest to him, using the prearranged signal of touching the top of his head with his left hand. One by one they came up, J.B. at the rear.

  "Road goes straight, but we're close to a ville of some kind. And there's a guard box over on the left, near a side trail."

  As they neared it, moving closer together, Ryan was first to see that the small building wasn't a guard box at all.

  "It's a phone booth," said Doc wonderingly. "I vow that it has been…" He seemed awestruck. "…many a long year since I have seen such an artifact."

  The box, with some of its glass still intact, leaned to one side. The letters 'AT&T' were still visible on it. The group stopped to gawk at it.

  Above them the sky had darkened as it had the previous afternoon, with a jagged spear of silver lightning occasionally crackling down. To one side there was a large pool, reflecting the sullen clouds. Beyond the water several buildings were silhouetted in the distance, seemingly fairly undamaged.

  If a whole large city had really escaped the nuking of 2001, it would be an astounding thing to see. Certainly Ryan Cawdor had never seen anything like it before.

  Finnegan stepped closer, stopping about a dozen paces from the booth.

  "Some fucker's in there. I can hear it moving."

  "Get back, Finn," ordered Ryan. "Don't take any chance with…"

  The words died in his throat when he saw, as they all did, the creature that Finnegan had disturbed.

  "A fucking rat," said Lori. It was the first time any of them had heard her swear.

  In the Deathlands there were all kinds of mutie creatures. But none of them had ever seen a rat like this one. It was much larger than usual, hanging on the plastic receiver cord, gnawing at it, while its fiery red eyes stared at the invading humans. Its coat was white as driven snow.

  "Albino," said Krysty. "I had a pet mouse back home called Blanche. She was like that. Pink eyes and white coat. No pigment."

  Almost contemptuously the rat scurried down the cable, pausing in the open door to pick its way delicately over splinters of broken glass, then running across the road and stopping on the edge of the bushes. Finnegan drew his Beretta 9 mm pistol, steadying his right hand with his left.

  "No," snapped Ryan. "Don't be a stupe, Finn."

  "Why not? We can waste any local double-poor swamp muties."

  "Just like Henn did? Come on, Finn."

  During the brief conversation the rat made a leisurely escape.

  THERE WERE FURTHER COLUMNS of smoke, and soon they could actually taste the flavor of roasting meat. Finnegan was all for pushing on at best speed, going in with blasters spitting, taking what they wanted and icing anyone who stood in their way,

  He was overruled by the others.

  "Slow and easy, Finn, Usual way. Let's go and do it."

  SPREADING ACROSS HALF the roadway was a tumbling mass of brilliant azaleas, a rainbow of brightness, dazzling in the dullness of the morning. Away beyond were the buildings of the town, but the smoke from cooking fires was closer. It emanated from a dip in the land in which lay a maze of shallow swamps.

  "Flowers pretty," said Lori, staring open-mouthed at the display.

  "Road sign, yonder," said Krysty, pointing to a small rectangle of dark green, well over a mile beyond the flowers.

  "It name the ville?"

  She stood on' tiptoe, straining, her face wrinkled with concentration. "La something. Yeah. Layayette. Lafayette, and it says West… Can't… West Lowellton. Nearest place looks like it's called West Lowellton. Maybe Lafayette's farther."

  Doc looked across at her. "I believe that Lafayette was a city, Miss Wro
th. Perchance West Lowellton is a suburb of it."

  A dozen muties appeared from behind the azaleas. Suddenly and silently. One second the road was clear; the next second the creatures were there.

  "Fireblast!" breathed Ryan, dropping into a blaster's crouch, gun braced against his hip, checking to make sure the others had fanned out.

  About forty paces ahead, the swampies stood in a frozen group, staring at the invaders as if they were men from deep space.

  Ryan checked them out, trying to guess precisely what their mutation was, wondering if it might be safest to simply chill the whole lot of them in a raking burst of lead. But there might be three hundred of them around the next bend.

  The first thing that struck Ryan was their stocky build. Not one was taller than about five-two, and not one, including the single woman, weighed less than about two-twenty. Most of them had negroid features, with flattened noses and thick lips. Their hair was short and curly, and came in all shades from black to white, through red and yellow. Ryan noticed that their eyes protruded slightly, surrounded by nests of scars, like old tattoos.

  None of them had fingernails.

  As they glared at Ryan and his companions, their mouths sagged open as though their noses were blocked. There was not a blaster among them, though several had peculiar small crossbows strapped to their forearms. Each one, including the woman, wore long pangalike knives at the hip.

  They were dressed in cotton shirts and patched short trousers, with flapping sandals on their feet, hacked from chunks of old tires.

  For several heartbeats nobody moved on either side.

  Then Finn opened fire.

  Immediately all the others started shooting. After all, who was going to stand there shrugging his shoulders and complaining he hadn't been involved in a tactical planning discussion?

  Two utilities raised their feeble little crossbows as if to retaliate, but the wave of fire sent them crashing down in a tangled heap of thrashing arms and legs.