They quickly climbed in.
Rikki gave charge of the metal case that contained the serum to Eleanor, who sat in the middle of the back seat, as before. “I don’t need to stress how important this is. Don’t let anything happen to it.”
“We have the journals with the formula, and the chemicals,” Kanto reminded him.
“Yes, but we can’t be certain of mixing them exactly right,” Rikki said. “So I repeat. We protect the serum with our lives. All of us.”
“Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough not to be attacked between here and the Home,” Sherlock said.
“Keep dreaming,” Crom said.
Turning the engine over, Rikki looped the SEAL around to leave the Valley of Shadow the same way they came.
A.l.v.i.s. floated alongside.
With the yellow fog so thick, Rikki relied on the dash screen. It occurred to him how easy people had it before the Big Blast, what with GPS and computers and phones that were virtual computers themselves.
To his great relief, they reached the border of the valley unmolested. Rikki wasted no time in climbing the grade to the ridge where he briefly slowed to look back at the obsidian edifice that spiked at the sky.
“I am so glad to be out of there,” Eleanor said. “The Lord be praised.”
“Good riddance,” Kanto said.
Rikki made for a belt of woodland. “Keep your eyes peeled.” He didn’t relax until they reached the old highway and he brought the speedometer up to fifty.
“You wanted me up front with you for a reason?” Sherlock remarked.
“For your observations,” Rikki said. “What were you up to back there, complimenting Thanatos?”
“You acted like you two were best buds,” Kanto said.
“If he thinks that, so much the better,” Sherlock said. “Although I seriously doubt he’s that naive. He was using us to his own ends. Playing us.”
“You don’t think he needs our help against the shapeshifters?” Rikki said.
“On the contrary. I do. It’s the only reason we’re still alive. He didn’t let us leave out of any sense of decency. To Thanatos, the only thing that matters is Thanatos. Were it up to him, he would gladly let Blade, Hickok and Yama die. But they, too, are a means to his end. Namely, winning us over so we’ll fight at his side. I suspect his master plan is even more complicated. There are layers within layers to his schemes. If we’re not careful, and by we I mean the entire Family, we could find ourselves becoming collateral damage in his war with the Reptilians.”
“How’s that again, big brain?” Crom said.
“If he’s truly as intelligent as the evidence of our own eyes suggests, it wouldn’t surprise me if he arranges things so that we’re wiped out in the process of wiping out the Reptilians, leaving him in control.”
“Last man standing,” Eleanor said.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Rikki said. “First we reach the Home and help Blade and the others. Then we worry about Thanatos and the Lords of Kismet and whatever else life has in store.”
“Yay, us,” Kanto said.
No one laughed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
If there was one thing Crom had learned to hate, it was being cooped up in the SEAL. The seats weren’t comfortable for someone his size. And while he didn’t mind a little discomfort, hour after hour of having nothing to do but sit there staring out the window got to him.
He craved more action. The run to the Valley of Shadow had given him a good share but not nearly as much as he had hoped. Like his childhood barbarian hero, he lived for battle. Some Family members would call that immature. If so, better that, than to sit around all day weaving or be out tilling the fields or working at the forge. He would get so bored, he’d want to pull his hair out.
Since leaving the Valley, he had suffered through ten hours of monotony. Rikki was retracing their route, and absolutely nothing had happened. They hadn’t been attacked once.
Stifling a yawn, Crom remarked, “I hope the next run I go on is more exciting than this one.”
At the other end of the middle seat, Kanto bent his head to peer past Eleanor. “Are you crazy? We nearly lost our lives.”
Crom shrugged. “There were a few hairy moments, yeah. But we’re all still kicking.”
“Speaking for myself,” Kanto said, “I’ll be perfectly happy if we reach the Home without any more trouble.”
“Me too,” Eleanor said.
“Wimps,” Crom muttered.
A full moon shone bright and a myriad of stars sparkled. There was enough light that the crushed brush and flattened grass the SEAL had left in its wake on their first pass through these same woods was easy to follow.
Eleanor placed her hands on the container for the serum, which she kept in her lap. “I only pray this works. I like Blade and Hickok, very much. Blade’s wife, Jenny, is always nice to me.”
“She’s nice to everybody,” Kanto said. “And what about Yama? You forgot him.”
“He scares me,” Eleanor said.
Crom snorted. “He’s a Warrior. One of the best. He’s protected the Family for years. What is there to be scared of?”
“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “There’s something about him. They say he’s fixated on death. That he’s all about killing.”
“That what Warriors do, wench,” Crom said. “We have to be the best we can at....” He got no further. The SEAL suddenly braked so hard, he was flung against the front seat, nearly cutting himself on his war axe. “What the hell?” he blurted as he straightened.
“A heat signature,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said, pointing at the dash.
The silhouette on the screen suggested an animal of immense proportions.
Up ahead there was a large clearing. On the far side something loomed, something dark and massive against the background of benighted forest.
“A moose, you think?” Eleanor said uncertainly.
Crom almost laughed at her. “I killed one once when I was out hunting. They’re not a third that big.”
“Perhaps it’s a mutation,” Sherlock piped up. “Bovine, if the shape is any indication.”
Crom was trying to remember what bovine meant when the blip on the screen moved.
“It’s coming this way!” Eleanor said.
The massive shape was indeed crossing the clearing in their direction.
“Turn off the headlights!” Kanto urged. “The light might be drawing it to us.”
“The SEAL’s engine is hardly silent,” Sherlock said. “Whatever that is, it heard us long before it saw us. I advise keeping the headlights on so we can see what we’re up against.”
“Agreed,” Rikki said.
The thing was enormous. Larger by far than the giants they had encountered. Larger, in fact, than any animal Crom ever ran across on his many hunts. He was as mesmerized as the rest as the gigantic form lumbered to within a spear’s-length of the area lit by the SEAL’s headlights, and stopped.
“What on earth?” Eleanor said.
The thing came closer. A pair of eyes appeared. Huge, slightly slanted, glowing a copper hue.
“Want me to hop out and see what it is?” Crom said.
Everyone looked at him.
“What?” Crom said.
“You’ll stay put with the rest of us,” Rikki-Tikki-Tavi said. “A Warrior must learn when to fight and when to use caution. Something that big could damage the SEAL.”
“Look!” Eleanor cried.
The thing had moved into the light. Or at least part of it, a gigantic head. The eyes, it turned out, were the only part of the thing that were normal. The rest was grotesquely misshapen, the muzzle twisted as if bent, one cheek bulged, the other was shaped like a bowl. One ear was long, the other short. Splotches of hair stuck out here and there from a hide covered with pus-oozing sores.
“A mutate!” Eleanor gasped.
Crom grinned. Mutates were the scourge of the wastelands, perpetually rabid, constantly seeking prey. They
would have to fight to get past it.
“It would have attacked us by now if that were the case,” Sherlock said.
“Just our luck it hasn’t,” Crom said.
* * *
Kanto was beginning to have serious doubts about their companion’s state of mind. Only a lunatic would want to go up against a monster that size. It wouldn’t surprise him one bit, when it came time for their final evaluation, if Crom’s wish to become a Warrior was denied.
For that matter, Kanto wondered about his own status. Had he done well enough to impress Rikki? Or would he have to give up his dream and be something else? Not that any other profession appealed to him.
“Here it comes,” Eleanor said.
The behemoth advanced in a ponderous motion, moving as slow as a turtle. From either side of its wide brow curled horns as long as Crom’s arms. The horn on the right was bent upward, the horn on the left twisted toward the ground. Snot dribbled from its nose and drool dripped from a corner of its open mouth.
“I was right,” Sherlock said. “Definitely bovine.”
“How’s that?” Kanto said.
“A cow of some kind,” Sherlock said.
The creature seemed fascinated by the SEAL. A mountain of deformed flesh, it lumbered up to the grill and nosily sniffed.
Eleanor giggled.
Kanto smiled at how ridiculous the thing was, but his smile faded when the monster nudged the SEAL with its thick brow. A slight bump, no more, yet the entire SEAL shook.
“Any harder and that brute could cave in the hood,” Crom said.
The thing drew back its head, and snorted.
Kanto held his breath. To have gone through so much, only to have their vehicle destroyed by an oversized four-legged lummox! Surely not, he thought!
The creature nudged the SEAL a second time, with more force. The front end lifted, then slammed down.
Kanto was half-pitched from his seat. He only stopped himself by thrusting his arm against the back of Rikki’s. The cow pressed its muzzle to the grill, then did the last thing Kanto expected. An obscenely long and thick tongue curled out of the creature’s mouth and it licked the hood all over.
“It must think we’re food,” Eleanor said.
Kanto would have laughed, except that the mutation started to rub a shoulder as thick as a wide tree against the van. Up and down, ever-so-slowly.
With each rub, the SEAL swayed and jounced.
“We shouldn’t sit here and do nothing,” Crom complained. “Will you let me get out now?” he said to Rikki.
“I have a better suggestion,” Sherlock said. “Try the horn.”
“We risk agitating it,” Rikki said.
“There’s always the flame thrower,” Crom suggested. “We could take enough meat back to the Home to feed the Family for a month.”
“We have no time to waste butchering something that big,” Rikki said, and pressed the heel of his left hand to the middle of the steering wheel.
The SEAL’s horn was military grade, the kind used on old army trucks. It blared loud enough to be heard half a mile away. At the blast, the animal recoiled several steps and stood tossing its head from side to side.
“Uh-oh,” Eleanor said.
Kanto braced for a charge. He had no illusions about how well the SEAL would hold up.
A door opened and closed, and suddenly Crom was in front of the SEAL, his war axe held high.
“What does he think he’s doing?” Eleanor said in horror.
“He disobeyed me!” Rikki said harshly, and jerked his door open to climb out. “Stay here, all of you.”
“Wait!” Sherlock said.
The cow had stopped tossing its head and was sniffing again. Coming up to Crom, it towered over him like a living mountain.
Crom tensed but didn’t swing. He appeared to be waiting to see what the thing would do.
Lowering its muzzle, the cow sniffed his head and shoulders.
“That brute can crush him like a flea,” Kanto said.
For a few tense heartbeats the cow just stood there. Then its dripping wet tongue slid slowly out and licked Crom. Not a little lick, either. Its tongue slithered down over Crom’s head and face to his chest. The mere pressure caused Crom to back up a step. He partially turned, his features curled in disgust, as the tongue slowly slithered up his chest and again over his face and hair.
Crom practically glistened with thick drool.
“Oh, yuck,” Eleanor said.
The cow let out a loud grunt, wheeled, and departed into the night.
Crom looked at them. Scowling, he wiped at the goo, but he only managed to get it all over his hand and forearm.
Kanto, Eleanor and even Rikki-Tikki-Tavi laughed.
“Eww,” Eleanor said. “That’s just gross.”
“Oh well,” Kanto said. “We could all use a bath. He just got his first.”
They laughed harder.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The mood in the infirmary in C Block was so grim, you could have heard a feather flutter to the floor. Or so Jenny reflected as she anxiously waited for some reaction in the man she loved more than life itself.
The serum had been administered over an hour ago. Over an hour of breathless waiting, of her nerves frayed to where she wanted to scream in frustration. Over an hour, and no change whatsoever in Blade, Hickok and Yama.
Jenny wasn’t alone. The infirmary was jammed with worried Family members. Sherry was there, Hickok’s wife. Yama’s devoted Melissa. Socrates, Tesla, Clara and the rest of the Healers, all the Warriors not on wall duty, and more.
Her son, Gabe, and Hickok’s boy, Ringo, were over by a wall with others their age. She has asked them to keep out of the way, pointing out that the Healers might need to work fast should complications arise.
No one knew what to expect. Not even A.l.v.i.s. The synthezoid hovered at the head of Blade’s table, motionless except for its blinking lights.
Jenny hated the thing. From the moment Blade brought it back from the Valley of Shadow, she had argued against the idea of letting A.l.v.i.s show the Warriors how to use Thanatos’s infernal device. Blade had countered that it was the quickest way to transport him, Hickok and Yama to Thailand and take on the Reptilians in their home territory. She’d argued passionately and bitterly, to no avail. For once, Blade wouldn’t listen to her.
And there he lay.
Jenny placed her hand over his and felt her eyes moisten. How many hours had she spent standing in that exact spot, waiting for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to return? She’d refused to use a chair. She had stood and held Blade’s hand and longed with all her soul for Rikki to make it back safe with a cure.
Now, as Jenny rubbed Blade’s hand, she gave a mild start. Before, his hand always felt wooden, his skin and flesh so stiff, it was like rubbing the top of her dresser. But this time his skin gave ever so slightly to the light pressure of her fingers. Elated, but worried she might be imagining it, she rubbed harder, and to her immense joy, his skin was indeed softer. She didn’t say anything to the rest. Not yet. It would crush Gabe were she to say Blade was recovering, and he didn’t. With bated breath she continued to rub, not just his hand but his wrist and forearm, and everywhere she touched, his skin grew softer by the heartbeat.
Over at Hickok’s table, Sherry let out an exuberant cry. “Something is happening! His body is changing!”
“Yama’s, too!” Melissa said.
Everyone crowded closer.
Jenny motioned and asked some of them to move aside so Gabe could reach the table. He hurried to take Blade’s other hand. Giving a start, he looked up.
“Is he really going to live, mom? Is he really going to live?” A tear trickled from an eye.
Jenny had to cough to clear her throat so she could say, “We’ll soon know, son.”
A.l.v.i.s made a beeping noise and his lights blinked faster. “Attention, please. The heart rates of the three subjects are increasing. The blood flow to their extremities is being restored.
Their body temperatures are rising. Estimated time to full rejuvenation, two minutes.”
To Jenny, they were an eternity. Bending low, she intently watched her man’s face for any sign of returning life. For a flicker, a crease, a flutter of an eyelid, anything.
“Why isn’t something happening?” Gabe said.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Blade’s eyes snapped open. He looked about him in puzzlement and said in a hoarse whisper, “Where? What?”
Jenny had no voice to answer. She pressed herself to his chest and hugged him, tears of joy flowing unhindered. She hugged him and kissed him and hugged him some more.
Gabe had likewise thrown himself on his father, and was crying unashamedly.
From the other tables came similar sounds, and then Hickok’s voice saying, “What the dickens is this? I wake up from a little nap and you’re all makin’ a fuss.”
Blade looked around, his brow knit. “I remember passing out,, and then nothing.”
“We thought you were done for,” Gabe sniffled. “But Thanatos sent medicine.”
“Thanatos?” Blade said.
Jenny felt his body grow tense. “Relax,” she said, kissing his chin. “It’s nothing to worry about. There’s a lot to tell you but we’ll wait a while. You need to take it easy. To rest.”
A.l.v.i.s. beeped and chirped, “To the contrary, madam. My master has informed me that it is best if the three Warriors rise and move around to restore full bodily function.”
“You heard that gizmo” Hickok said to his wife and son. “Let me up, you two. You’re gettin’ my buckskins all wet with your blubberin’.”
“The world is back to normal,” Geronimo said.
* * *
A meeting was called in the common area between the Blocks. Every Family member except the three Warriors on wall duty were required to attend. They sat in a wide circle, every man, woman and child, listening in rapt attention as Socrates related, briefly, the news already spread by word of mouth. That the run to the Valley of Shadow had gone well. The stricken Warriors, as everyone could see, were back on their feet.
The Family clapped and cheered, quieting again when Blade rose.
Synthezoids Endworld 30 Page 19
