Ryan leaped from his seat, fighting the jolt caused by the wag's halted momentum

 

 He threw himself backward, barely keeping his balance as he reached the tail end of the wag. The sec door crushed the roof of the wag at the front, driving metal down onto the seat where he had sat a few moments before.

 

 Ryan jumped from the wag and ran for cover, joining Krysty, Tammy and Mildred.

 

 "Glad you could drop in, lover," Krysty said dryly.

 

 "Just had a few things to do," he replied laconically.

 

 He saw that the crushed wag—driven down with such force that the rear wheels had left the ground—held the sec door open for a gap of three or four feet. There was little indication of whether or not the Illuminated sec beyond were still in cover, or whether they had retreated.

 

 Looking back, he could see through the open outer door, into the dawn light beyond.

 

 The larger war party was advancing.

 

  

 

 Destiny's Truth

 

 #60 in the Deathland series

 

 James Axler

 

  

 

 A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

 

 TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG • STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

 

 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

 

 First edition December 2002

 

 ISBN 0-373-62570-7

 

 DESTINY'S TRUTH

 

 Copyright © 2002 by Worldwide Library.

 

 All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

 

 All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

 

 ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

 

 Printed in U.S.A.

 

  

 

 Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror,

      Victory however long and hard the road may be; for

      Without victory there is no survival.

 

 —Sir Winston Churchill1874-1965

 

  

 

 THE DEATHLANDS SAGA

 

 This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.

 

 There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.

 

 But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature's heart despite its ruination.

 

 Ryan Cawdor:The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.

 

 Krysty Wroth:Harmony ville's own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.

 

 J. B. Dix, the Armorer:Weapons master and Ryan's close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.

 

 Doctor Theophilus Tanner:Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn't have imagined.

 

 Dr. Mildred Wyeth:Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.

 

 Jak Lauren:A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.

 

 Dean Cawdor:Ryan's young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.

 

 In a world where all was lost, they are humanity's last hope…

 

  

 

 Prologue

 

  

 

 "Jak… Jak, honey, time to wake up…"

 

 Jak Lauren opened his red, sore eyes, feeling the earth spin away under him as he did so. A mat-trans jump always left him feeling weak and sick, his stomach muscles cramping to make him vomit substance where there was none. He spread his hands out to grasp the smooth armaglass floor of the chamber, expecting the cold and solid material to cool his fevered palms.

 

 But there was no armaglass; instead, registering with a ringing alarm bell in his still befuddled mind, there was warm, clammy dirt beneath his hands. His instincts fighting the jump sickness, he tried to raise himself on his elbows, his vision clearing the fog before him.

 

 Was it Gloria looking down at him?

 

 "Hey, honey, don't look so startled," the Gate queen said before drawing back a little so that Jak was able to see that they were now in the open air.

 

 The albino youth's senses began to cut into the confusion that had clouded him since awakening. He could smell the rich loam beneath him, soft and springy as Gloria stepped back. They were in a small clearing, surrounded by trees that looked like dwarfed and stunted elms, but in full leaf for all that. He could hear the hum of insects, and the rustles in among the undergrowth of small mammals—nothing big enough to be a threat, his senses told him. Normally, this would have made him relax, but in his bewildered state, his muscles remained tense, his attention struggling to focus as rapidly as possible.

 

 Where he would normally spring to his feet with a lithe ease, Jak found himself struggling to hoist himself upright. His limbs were still tingling from the aftereffects of the jump, and refused to obey the impulses from his brain.

 

 "Not right…" he said in a hoarse whisper. "Should be in mat-trans, not here. And Ryan? Others?"

 

 He was now on his feet, clearing his head with a tentative shake that made his focus blur and the earth spin again for a second before it settled.

 

 Gloria was now about twenty yards away from him, with her back turned toward him. There were marks on her skin that he couldn't identify from this distance, but it seemed like a patchwork of dark dots that randomly spread across her bared skin, disappearing under the long, flaming red tresses that hung down her back.

 

 "You feeling better now, sweets?" she asked, her husky voice low and yet carrying that melodious note that he knew so well by now. It was good to hear her. The last thing Jak remembered was the Gate tribe entering the other mat-trans chamber in the redoubt before they were flung to who knew where. There had been no guarantee that they would end up in the same place, given the unreliability of the old tech.

 

 But if they were here, where were the rest of the companions? And where was Gloria's faithful attendant, Tammy, and the rest of the Gate tribe?

 

 Even as that flickered across his mind, Jak was sniffing the air, attuning his hearing to the slightest sound around, attempting to identify its source.

 

 There was no one else around, no one human, that was, nothing but the smaller forms of wildlife that he had detected earlier.

 

 "You're not talking to me," Gloria admonished. "Why not?"

 

 "Not right," Jak repeated, almost to himself.

 

 "What isn't right?" she asked. Jak prickled as she spoke. There was something in her tone that had suddenly—for no apparent reason—turned hostile, and he was sure now that something was very wrong.

 

 The albino youth didn't reply. He steadied himself, trying to bring his still rebelling body under control, his every instinct screaming that he was going to need complete control of himself, of his fighting capabilities, before too long.

 

 He wasn't wrong.

 

 "Not talking to me again," Gloria said, an angry hiss running through her tone. "That's not good, is it, sweets?"

 

 "Mebbe," Jak replied with as neutral a tone as he could muster. It was hard, as his own hostility was rising with every moment, screaming at him that the whole situation was wrong, and that there was something even more perilous about the Gate queen than the threat of attack.

 

 "Mebbe?" Her body tensed at that. He could see the muscles rippling beneath the dark lines of dots across her tanned skin. Her posture was still relaxed, but the muscle tone gave that as a lie. She was feigning her repose, preparing for attack.

 

 Jak felt the rush of adrenaline through his body, washing the sluggishness from his system, tightening his muscles and tautening his nerves until he was ready for almost anything.

 

 Almost…

 

 "Mebbe, mebbe, mebbe…" Gloria muttered. "Mebbe it's time for you to die, then."

 

 Jak was prepared. It was like a nightmare, or a time and place where this wasn't the real Gloria, but still it hit him hard. He hadn't quite realized how his feelings for the Gate queen had grown until the sense of betrayal hit him in the pit of the stomach. However, such emotion had been rare in the life of the albino teenager, and he had had the briefest of it snatched from him before, where his wife and child had been slaughtered. After that, this was easy to quell, to put into a place where he could ignore and concentrate on the immediate danger.

 

 For danger he was sure there was. He knew with that instinct that had kept him alive for so long that he was about to be attacked.

 

 But why?

 

 There was no time for him to think about this—if, indeed, he could ever be bothered—as the need for action overtook the luxury of thought.

 

 Gloria pivoted on her heel and sprang at him. Despite her pose of a relaxed posture, Jak had been able to see at twenty yards the way in which the corded sinew and muscle in her bare thighs and calves had tensed, ready for the sudden, explosive spring.

 

 What he could not have been ready for was her face as she turned and leaped, her light red hair flying out around her, making her face visible to him as she soared through the stilled air.

 

 The look of naked fury and aggression he would have expected from such an action: her face was contorted in a snarling scream of rage and explosive anger, her lips back over her vulpine teeth, sharp and gleaming. Her long nose was wrinkled by the tension in her face muscles, nostrils distended as she sought more oxygen to power her attack. Her eyes were sharp, pupils reduced to mere dots in the ocean of color by the adrenaline rush that also coursed through her as it did through Jak.

 

 This was only to be expected. Any warrior in action would be reduced to the same set of facial characteristics, and Jak had faced this many a time in his life and—should that life continue—would face it many more times to come. But it wasn't that that, for the briefest of moments, froze him in confusion and fear— fear not of the warrior before him, but of what may be affecting her.

 

 For Gloria's face was, like the skin on her back and—he could now see—the skin on the front of her torso, covered in a map of the black dots. Except that, as she got closer, sailing through the air in motion so slow to him that she almost seemed static, it was possible to see that those dots were more than just discolorations of the skin. They were the black-ringed holes of open sores, the centers red and raw and running yellow and green with discharge and pus. The crusts of these sores pulled at the skin of her face, seeming to stretch it out of shape, almost out of recognition the more that he looked at her. It didn't seem possible that this was the same woman whom he had joined in battle only a few hours previously.

 

 It couldn't be. But whoever it was had only one thing now in mind: the chilling of Jak Lauren.

 

 His attention had been so taken by the sight of her face that the bone-chilling scream, high pitched and wailing, yet with a throaty undertone that gave it almost a dual-note quality of primal terror, had hardly penetrated his consciousness.

 

 Now it did, leaving him with a sudden awakening and a thrill of terror that made the muscles ripple down his spine. It was a totally instinctive reaction, and it was a necessary one. It jolted him from the moment of frozen confusion and made him click into the fighting mode that operated only on an instinctive level.

 

 Gloria was too close to him now for any attempt at an evasive maneuver. That would only make it easier for him to be chilled. Instead, Jak yielded to her attack, and began to fall back as she landed upon him, relaxing his muscles so that he hit the ground without damaging his thin, wiry frame. The earth was soft, but at speed and with the accelerating and falling weight of the Gate queen, to fall awkwardly could injure him and leave him easy prey for a follow-up attack. As it was, Gloria descended on top of him with her long-bladed panga in one hand and her other clawed, ready to lash out. She expected, at the back of her crazed mind, to drive him into the earth, knocking the air from him and leaving him vulnerable to a slashing blow from the panga.

 

 It didn't quite work that way. Jak's hands attached themselves to her wrists as she landed on him, fastening on with an iron tight grip, his elbows braced to keep those hands at bay. He fell back into the momentum of her fall, landing on his back and rolling as he did so, converting that momentum into a drive from his legs that flipped the woman over his head. He loosened his grip on her wrists as his legs began the drive up into her, so she was free to fly over his head and land a few yards away.

 

 Before she had even hit the ground, Jak had already finished the backward roll, landing on his feet and pivoting so that he was facing her. Her face had been close to him for only a fraction of a second, but close enough for him to smell the decay on her skin, her rancid breath steaming into his nostrils. Her eyes had been bloodshot, with yellow around the iris, pinpoint pupils smaller than any he had seen on jolt, and the pus had been running from the sores on her face, disturbed from their crusted little pools by the motion of her attack.

 

 Jak had been ready for her and ready for the recovery. Gloria hadn't, in her fury, expected such a maneuver. She had been nowhere near ready, and landed with a bone-jarring jolt on her back, the panga flying from her hand. Jak was surprised. The Gloria he had known would have recovered herself at least partially in midair, and been able to minimize the bad effects of such a landing. It crossed Jak's mind, in a fraction of a moment, that this couldn't be the real Gloria. How had she acquired such a disease—whatever it was that scored her skin—so quickly? Why had she so swiftly turned against he who had been her lover? And why was she fighting so badly when she had been the finest warrior he had ever met? None of this made sense to him in any way.

 

 But there was scant time for reflection. Already, he was aware that in pausing he had allowed her to recover, as she had rolled on her side to recover the panga and was scrambling to her feet.

 

 He couldn't make that mistake again. At any time it could prove fatal. From within his jacket, Jak withdrew one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives. He should finish this quickly if it was at all possible. He was acutely aware that it was the adrenaline that was keeping him at this pitch, and his body still hadn't recovered properly from the jump. Too long in combat, and it could start to fail him at a crucial moment.

 

 With one fluid motion, the knife came from within the hidden recesses of his combat jacket, was palmed and then flicked between his fingers. Then his arm was drawn back and released in one simple motion.

 

 The knife sped toward its target. Jak was already reaching for the next knife, to be certain; but usually there was little doubt that the sharpened and lethal piece of metal would fulfill its function.

 

 Not this time. With a speed equal to that of the albino youth, Gloria swept her panga through the air, seemingly in a random motion. There was a flash of light as the weak sun caught the blade, a spark as metal met metal, and the leaf-bladed knife was deflected harmlessly into the trees.

 

 "Have to do better than that, sweets," Gloria gloated.

 

 Jak didn't answer. He wasn't going to waste energy and breath on idle words. Instead, he stood and waited. Every sinew and fiber itched to attack, but the cool hunter's brain that had made him wait silently for days on his prey back in the Louisiana bayou, where he learned to listen to his instincts, told him to let her make the first move.

 

 Gloria stood, swaying, the panga held loosely in her fist. She laughed, a harsh, bitter gasp of breath, her lips drawing back over her teeth in a leer and her eyes—for one brief moment—returning to the Gloria that he knew.

 

 Before this had time to register in his mind as anything more than the briefest of impressions, she was on him again. With a yell that cleansed her mind and galvanized her spirit, she flew at him, the panga weaving a pattern before her that cleaved the air with the razor-honed blade in such a way that to get past the defense would be the surest way to lose an arm.

 

 Jak's answer was simple and efficient. The arc of the panga proscribed the air at a lowest point around the Gate queen's knees. It would take her only a few steps to reach him—she had already taken the first when Jak took action.

 

 The albino flung himself down and forward, so that he was close to the ground. The warm smell of the loam rose up strongly, almost as a stench, and hit the back of his throat as he grazed the ground. Rolling, he was under the defense of the blade, looking up as the panga grazed the air above his face. It began to dip as Gloria's reaction clued in to Jak's offensive maneuver, but not enough to literally cut him off. Jak was past the arc of defense and took the Gate queen at the calves, sweeping them out from under her so that she fell forward.

 

 Unable to keep her balance, it was all that she could do to stop herself from falling onto the panga blade as she pitched forward. Her arm out to one side, she caught it awkwardly as she fell, the blade jamming in the soil and acting as a sudden barrier to the free movement of her arm, the bone snapping as it was driven in two directions at once. The sudden pain forced a high pitched scream from the woman, and her body jolted in the opposite direction, as though an electric shock had flowed through her.

 

 Jak was on his feet and running toward her as she tried to recover from the pain and shock of the broken arm, which hung limply at her side. She looked up at him, the pain misting her gaze. Fumbling, she reached for the blaster that was bolstered on her hip. Jak knew that it was a Vortak Precision Pistol, capable of incredible accuracy because of its lack of recoil, and that he had little, if any, time in which to act. But the pain and shock had dulled her reactions, and she was too slow. With his last stride, Jak took a flying kick at the Gate queen, his heavy combat boot connecting with her skull at the temple. It was too high to snap her neck, but enough to fracture the bone and to render her unconscious. With a dull grunt, the light went out in the woman's eyes, and they rolled back into her head as she slumped to the ground.

 

 Jak was beside her before she hit, taking her head in one hand and pulling it back so that her throat was exposed. Like the rest of her, it was covered in a patchwork of sores. In his other hand, Jak had a leaf-bladed knife.

 

 The blade pricked her skin, drawing a bead of blood. For a moment, Jak delayed his action. Usually, in such a situation, he would have no hesitation in cutting the throat of a foe and eradicating the threat. But this was Gloria…

 

 He shook his head. Whoever this had once been, it was no longer the woman he had loved, and her only aim had been his chilling. He knew what he had to do.

 

 And yet, still he looked away as he drew the blade across her throat, opening it up and draining her life onto the soil, which drank it in hungrily, absorbing the moisture in its rich depths.

 

 Jak stood up and moved away from the chilled corpse, the knife—wiped swiftly on his jacket—back in its secret place.

 

 It was then—with the prickling of the white hairs on the back of his neck—that he became aware that he was no longer alone. Whereas there had been nothing except small mammals within the range of his senses before, now there was something altogether more menacing.

 

 Jak was on his feet and pivoting toward where he felt—rather than heard or smelled—the new threat to be. As he swung on the balls of his feet, he dropped into a crouch, palming one of his knives, his free hand reaching for the .357 Magnum Colt Python that he kept bolstered at his hip.

 

 By the time he had turned through 180 degrees, he had a weapon in each hand. But there was no way that he was prepared for the sight that met his bloodred eyes.

 

 For in front of him was a detachment of the sec force from the Illuminated Ones, complete with one of their high-tech battle wags. The vehicle stood motionless at the mouth of the clearing, where a narrow trail cut through the dwarf elms. No sound had revealed its approach, which seemed nonsensical. Equally, no sound had announced the disgorging of the seven sec men who stood before him. They had the one-piece, shiny battle suits that he was all too familiar with, and the outlying pair carried the laser blasters that he had seen used to such devastating effect.

 

 How had they arrived with no noise at all? Given that he could possibly have been distracted to some degree by his battle with Gloria to pay close attention to the slightest sound, the amount of noise made by a wag and detachment of sec would have cut through even the noisiest of hand-to-hand fights.

 

 Jak's stomach flipped. This wasn't real; this was a nightmare like the one he had encountered on the last mat-trans jump. It was in some way precognitive, just as that had proved to be. The albino had no doubt about that now, as the likelihood of his having two such hallucinations during a jump was remote for any other reason. But what would it tell him?

 

 More importantly, would he make it out of this nightmare alive? He didn't know for sure, but he had heard stories of dreams and nightmares that killed, bringing on fatal heart failure. He couldn't risk that there was any truth in these tales, he had to fight to the last.

 

 But against seven lined up against him? With no cover? And with two of them carrying laser blasters that could obliterate him in a second? Why not? The albino hunter knew that he had no choice but to fight, and it was odd that they hadn't simply blasted him when he was facing away from them. Could it be they wanted to take him alive and not chill him?

 

 If so, he had a chance.

 

 As that flashed through his mind, he shifted his weight from side to side, giving no true indication of what his next move may be. He would wait for the enemy to make the first move.

 

 And so they did. The two outlying sec men, their laser blasters trained on him, moved in a pincer movement, slow and steady steps carrying them over the springy loam. Jak's head moved from side to side, following their progress. The other five sec men strung themselves in a line and began to advance upon him. They weren't armed with blasters, but carried knives that looked like the Tekna favored by J. B. Dix. One of them carried a hypodermic syringe in his free hand.

 

 Suddenly Jak's mind clicked the pieces into place. The syringe carried whatever had infected Gloria, whatever had made her that way, and he was their next target. That was why they hadn't simply blasted him with the laser rifles when they had him unaware. They wanted to take him alive.

 

 It gave the albino an advantage, and one that he had to exploit fully. Testing their tactics, he moved lightly to one side. The sec man on the left sent a ray of light from the laser blaster that scored the earth beside him, leaving a smoking trench two feet in length.

 

 Jak nimbly skipped aside, his lips drawing back over his sharp teeth in a humorless grin. As always, their tactics were predictable. Even though they shielded their faces—their eyes—from view, the thoughts that ran through their minds were always visible.

 

 He focused on the center figure, the one who held the syringe, as well as the knife. He was their key man. Take him out of the hunt, and they couldn't fulfill their task. Then they would have to take Jak alive. That was his priority, to stay alive long enough to awaken from the mat-trans jump.

 

 The albino fought to clear his head. He couldn't allow such thoughts to take him over, as they could so easily distract him from the task. He needed all his wits and reactions about him to carry out his next move.

 

 As the line drew closer—hesitant as they could not work out why he seemed to be static—they arced even wider, so that they formed a semicircle around him. The sec team directly in front of him was now no more than a few yards away.

 

 Time to move.

 

 Jak crouched low, almost squatting and drawing as much power as he could from his whipcord calves and thighs. He had no run to gain momentum, and nothing to give him advantage in terms of height or drop, but he had no other option. This had to be as good as it got.

 

 With a sudden yell that broke the unnatural stillness, causing a ripple of alarm in the sec ranks and unleashing the power of his strength and skill, Jak straightened in a leap that carried him over the gap between the advancing line and his position.

 

 The sec soldier with the syringe and the knife saw Jak come toward him, the white hair flailing in the air, his eyes red like the blood he would spill, but could do nothing. For that all important fraction of a second, the soldier was frozen in fear and confusion.

 

 It was only that fraction of a second that Jak needed. He cannoned into the man and took him into a forward roll. Unlike Jak, just minutes earlier when Gloria had taken him in this fashion, the sec man wasn't ready for the assault. He fell heavily, making a muffled sound behind the visor of his helmet as the breath was driven from his body. Jak also heard the crack of bone as one of his adversary's arms hit the ground, the elbow shattering. A muffled scream, strangled by lack of air, also escaped Jak's prey.

 

 Following through the roll and coming upright, Jak swiveled to face his opponent and took the arm that still grasped the syringe—the shattered elbow was on his knife arm. The albino stamped heavily on the forearm, the pain deadened tissue causing the fingers to open. The syringe fell limply to the earth, and Jak stamped again, shattering the plastic vial and spilling its contents into the earth.

 

 Whatever happened now in reality, in this nightmare he had forced them to take him alive.

 

 This was the last thought to cross his mind before the butt of a laser blaster thudded against his skull, knocking him into unconsciousness. How the sec man had reached him without his noticing he didn't know, but then again, it didn't matter now.

 

 JAK AWOKE with a pounding in the front of his skull, and a succession of bright flashing lights that whirled around his head. He tried to open his eyes and raise his head, see where he was, but that only made things worse, so he let his head fall back, closing his eyes until things began to settle.

 

 "Oh, no, you're awake now," a harsh, guttural voice screamed. At least, that was how it seemed through the pain and the lights. Jak felt his head jerked forward by a hand that grasped his hair and pulled hard. He opened his eyes, ignoring the spinning and swirling lights that obscured a clear view of the bearded man clad in white who stood over him. The man held Jak's head in one hand, and in the other he grasped a syringe.

 

 Jak tried to raise his arms to defend himself, despite the weakness that ran through his body. His muscles were slow and sluggish to respond, but even so it took him no time at all to detect the restraints that tied him down to the hard bed or table on which he lay.

 

 "That won't do you any good," the voice rasped. "You're not going to get away from us this time. Just like that bitch whore, you're going to be our test sample. We'll see just how good this shit is, and how quick it travels. She was supposed to be our carrier, until you turned up and chilled her. Now you can be the carrier and we'll monitor you."

 

 "Why?" Jak managed to croak through the blur of his head and his parched throat.

 

 "Because we can use this to retain out rightful position in the world. The world as it is now, anyway."

 

 There were other questions Jak wanted to ask, but he couldn't marshal his thoughts, and his throat was too dry and cracked to force out any words at all.

 

 He felt the pressure of the bearded man's hand on his arm, and the pricking pain of a needle, the pressure of liquid forced into the vein.

 

 And then it began to fade…

 

  

 

 Chapter One

 

  

 

 Jak woke to find a similar pressure in his arm. Still halfway between conscious and unconscious, he yelled in pain and horror as he felt the needle spike him. Eyes wide open but seeing nothing, he sprang upright, hitting out around him. He felt his wildly flailing arm catch something—someone—and he dimly heard a shout of surprise and pain mixed with the crash of a human body hitting a hard floor.

 

 "Fireblast! He's freaking out. Hold him down!" Ryan Cawdor yelled, springing forward and grabbing Jak, pushing him down onto the bed in the redoubt sick bay.

 

 "Got him," J. B. Dix gritted, approaching from the other side of the bed and joining the one-eyed man in pinning Jak to the hard surface. The albino continued to yell, but it was broken by a coughing fit as he began to choke on a stream of bile that rose unbidden into his throat and mouth.

 

 Dr. Mildred Wyeth struggled to her feet, aided by Doc Tanner. She had fallen awkwardly and twisted her ankle, and the sudden pain as she put weight on it made her gasp.

 

 "If you will allow me to teach you, as it were, the art of egg sucking, then I would suggest you let me spray that ankle and apply something cold to it before it begins to swell."

 

 "Doc, you old buzzard, if you stop it hurting like hell on a hot day, then you can teach me anything you like," Mildred replied, seating herself gratefully on a chair. Doc smiled, his perfect white teeth giving his gaunt face a momentary resemblance to a grinning skull, before hurrying to a cupboard in order to obtain a painkilling spray.

 

 Meanwhile, Jak had subsided from his fit of violence, the need to vomit out the bile taking precedence in his still clouded mind. J.B. and Ryan rolled him onto his side and stepped back, allowing him to release the toxin from his body.

 

 "What the hell was all that about?" Ryan asked of no one in particular.

 

 "I don't know," Mildred replied, "but I sure as hell wish he'd found a quieter way of coming to. Ah, that's better," she added as Doc sprayed her ankle, almost instantly deadening the pain.

 

 WHEN JAK AWOKE, seemingly for the third time, the sick bay was in semidarkness, only one small lamp lighting the room.

 

 "I see you've awakened a little more quietly this time," Mildred said, getting to her feet and walking to the bed. "Which is something I'm glad for, if nothing else."

 

 Jak blinked, his albino eyes already accustomed to the gloom.

 

 "Skip it," Mildred dismissed in answer to his unspoken question. "The point is, how are you?"

 

 "Feel like shit," Jak croaked by way of reply.

 

 "Yeah, and you look like it." Mildred grinned. "You've been out for a long time. I thought you'd fallen into some kind of coma. That's why we've been waiting here for some kind of sign from you."

 

 "Waiting?" Jak was bewildered. It hadn't occurred to him up to this point, but it now registered with him that he was in a redoubt sick bay. How had he gotten here? He couldn't recall a time when Ryan would move his people out of a mat-trans chamber and into the main body of a redoubt without everyone being triple red and sharp.

 

 "Gate?" Jak asked suddenly, his guts lurching when he thought of Gloria and his bizarre dream.

 

 In the semidark he could see Mildred's plaits move on her shoulders as she shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I've been taking a look at the computers here and reckon that the mat-trans computers at the other base must have had some kind of fail-safe device on them."

 

 "Eh?" Still dazed, Jak was finding it hard to take in what she was saying.

 

 Mildred came and stood over him as she continued. "When we arrived, and it became obvious that you weren't going to come around, Ryan got Doc to stand guard over you in the chamber while the rest of us recced. As soon as we were out, we could see that there was only one chamber in the room, and we already knew that it wasn't as big as the one we'd used when we parted company with the Gate. And part company is exactly what we did.

 

 "It was pretty obvious that whatever happened, we were nowhere where the Illuminated Ones had gone, and nowhere where the Gate had ended up. We divided up and searched the redoubt. It's small as they go, and still pretty well equipped. We haven't gone for the upper levels yet, so maybe it's been left alone because you just can't get in and out of it. Whatever, it's empty and safe for now, so we set you up here so I could examine and monitor you. Speaking of which…"

 

 Mildred began to test Jak's reflexes and check his vital signs. The albino youth was silent while she carried out her tasks, waiting until she had finished before speaking.

 

 "So we're on our own?"

 

 Mildred nodded. "Seems like the Illuminated Ones computers had an automatic reset to send the contents of the mat-trans to a random redoubt unless it was operated manually. We're here, God alone knows where the Gate tribe is, and the Illuminated Ones are safely wherever the hell they wanted to be. Which is just the way they wanted it."

 

 "And me?"

 

 Mildred sucked in breath through her teeth. "That's a good question. You know as well as any of us that you always take a while to come around from the strain of a jump. But this time it seems that you went into some kind of deep trance, almost like a coma. You were completely unresponsive and there was nothing I could do."

 

 "How long?"

 

 "We've been here four days," Mildred replied, shocking Jak. He didn't realize that he had been unconscious for so long.

 

 "Know where we are?" Jak asked. "Not yet. Not until we try and get out." Jak closed his eyes. He needed to get his strength back. Every fiber of his body was aching, and as he closed his eyes, leaving Mildred to exit the sick bay, he felt waves of sleep wash over him; sleep that was devoid of dream, good or bad.

 

 "IT'S A BASTARD this has happened," J.B. muttered as he surveyed the armory of the redoubt. The walls were lined with racks where rifles, machine pistols, lightweight antitank blasters and grens should have stood. Instead there were only the remnants of trashed plastic-and-carbon fiber, the rusting remains of scrapped metal. The last scavengers or inhabitants of the redoubt had stripped the armory and then destroyed whatever was either too much to carry or simply surplus to requirements.

 

 For the Armorer, the sight of deliberately destroyed weapons was like sacrilege. His obsession was to keep as much of this old tech as possible in good working order—not just because it was essential to survival in the Deathlands, but also because he could see beauty in the varieties of weaponry, and the ways in which they worked their art of chilling.

 

 Ryan Cawdor stood by his friend, his single, piercing blue orb taking in the destruction.

 

 "Whoever was last here didn't want to give any help to those who came next, that's for sure," he stated.

 

 The armory was on a higher level of the redoubt than those they had been inhabiting since their arrival. The dorms, showers, kitchens and sick bay had been in fairly good condition, with enough supplies remaining to keep the seven companions alive, clean and fed while Jak recovered from his postjump trauma. His strength had returned quickly, and only a few days after his awakening they were ready to leave.

 

 Which was just as well, as already the supplies of self-heats were running low. Also, the heating of the water in the shower blocks was prone to be erratic, leading to a few scalding or freezing encounters. The heating and air conditioning, which were also supposed to be comp controlled, had also shown some signs of falling into decay, with sudden switches in temperature, and the presence of dust in some of the rooms that should have been taken from the atmosphere by the air recyclers.

 

 Although the companions had maintained a guard over the places on the lower level where there were points of entry for any foe, none of them had believed they were under serious threat of attack while they waited for Jak to recover. Not only did the redoubt seem to have been long since deserted, but there was also some doubt as to whether they could reach the surface level.

 

 That was the purpose of this initial recce by Ryan and J.B.—they intended to scout the next two levels before bringing up the rest of their party. Despite his assertions to the contrary, Jak was still not at full fitness and alertness, so Ryan intended to leave him with a protective party until they were out in the open. From his own experience after being wounded or traumatized in some way, the one-eyed man knew Jak would come up to speed in the action of moving out, but would still need a degree of cushioning until he had attained full health.

 

 So it was that the two men had ascended the levels of the redoubt until they were only one away from the top—and exit—level. There had been nothing to bar their way, and nothing to indicate that anyone had been there for a very long time. The comp system was failing to an even greater extent on this level, and it took them time to adjust to the dim lighting and the musty air.

 

 And then they had found the armory.

 

 "I wonder if they went out aboveground or used the mat-trans," the Armorer remarked, recovering from his anger at the sight of the armory.

 

 "Only the one way to find out," Ryan replied. "If we find the exit level fucked, then we know the answer."

 

 J.B. looked at his old friend. "You reckon we should recce that first, or bring everyone up?"

 

 Ryan shrugged. "Doesn't seem to be even the remotest chance of things going triple red, but no point in moving them until we find out if we can actually get out this way."

 

 J.B. nodded, pushing his spectacles back up his nose and setting his battered fedora on his high forehead. "Let's get to it, then," he muttered grimly.

 

 The two men set off, adopting a defensive formation. Despite the quiet, still atmosphere of that level of the redoubt, and the vague notion that they would be absurd to anyone watching, both also knew that anyone watching would make such a formation a necessity.

 

 But there was nothing, not the slightest indication of life in the upper reaches of the redoubt. Neither was it obstructed in any way. Despite the stale and dust laden air, and the lights failing with an even greater regularity, there was nothing that would in any way be an obstacle to the companions leaving the redoubt via this route. When Ryan and J.B. reached the exit door, with the code scratched onto the metal above the key plate, the one-eyed man turned to his number two. "Keep watch here. I'll get the others."

 

 When he reached the lower levels of the redoubt, he found the rest of his party ready to move. Despite the fact that the way had been cleared in advance, they still adopted an attitude of caution and moved off in formation. Ryan took the front, with Krysty bringing up the rear in lieu of J.B. Behind them came Dean, Mildred and Jak—the albino moving with an extra caution brought on by the awareness of his slightly weakened state—then Doc.

 

 At the exit doors, J.B. was waiting. He greeted them with a curt nod, and at Ryan's word they fanned out to cover the doors as they opened… if they opened, the one-eyed man added to himself as he passed on the lever that would raise the door, a chore that Dean had recently given up. There was no guarantee the mechanism would work.

 

 His fears were allayed as the door rose with a squeal, the metal buckled slightly in its frame by the land shifts that had occurred around it in the previous century. When the door had lifted eighteen inches from the ground, Ryan stopped its ascent to take a quick look outside. No one ever got chilled by being cautious.

 

 The entry to the redoubt was in a recess cut into the side of a small hill. A dirt-track road led away into an expanse of nothing—low level scrub and vegetation, with no large outcrops or forestry to give the land any kind of definition. From what he could see of the hill they were standing within, it was soil and grass covered rather than rock. With the way clear, Ryan pushed the lever, allowing the door to continue upward.

 

 Moving out cautiously, checking the surrounding area confirmed that they had been hidden within a low hill, similar to some others that were scattered around the landscape. The dirt road petered out, and there was little sign of habitation within view. The friends saw no signs of any large predators, as the land was undisturbed, with no real hiding places. There were some clusters of trees, but these were stunted and dwarf. J.B., taking a reading with his minisextant to try to determine their rough position by the sun, noted that the trees looked like mutie elms.

 

 Ryan had ordered Mildred to stay back in the mouth of the redoubt with Jak until the immediate area had been recced. The albino youth hated the feeling of being protected, and of not being able to pull his weight within the group, but he also knew that Ryan was right. Until he was one hundred percent, he was a risk, a possible liability.

 

 So he hadn't had a chance to view the full landscape until the area had been secured, and Ryan called both Jak and Mildred from the mouth of the redoubt.

 

 When Jak took a look at the area where they landed, he felt his head swim for a second.

 

 It was the area of his nightmare.

 

 THEY TRAVELED for six days, with very little happening. On the first night, after J.B. had taken a sextant reading to confirm his initial estimate, they gathered around a campfire.

 

 "Definitely what they used to call New England," the Armorer affirmed. "I figure that we must be about a hundred miles from the coast."

 

 "The farther away the better," Krysty said with a shiver.

 

 Dean gave her a quizzical stare, and the Titian-haired beauty told him about their previous visit to the New England coast, when Ryan and J.B. had been press-ganged into serving on the whaling ship led by the vicious Pyra Quadde, one of the ugliest and meanest women they had ever crossed, and far more dangerous than any of the mad male barons they had had to fight along the way. She was inclined to flog her crew for the sake of it, and drove them hard when they were on the seas. She also had a voracious and murderous sexual appetite, and had fixed on Ryan as one of her victims. It was a situation from which they had escaped by the skin of their teeth.

 

 But despite that, the younger Cawdor found it hard to suppress a laugh at the thought of his father being cornered by a sexually rampant Pyra Quadde.

 

 "C'mon, Dad, you know you really wanted it," Dean teased.

 

 The one-eyed warrior didn't answer. Instead, he reached across the campfire to cuff his son around the head.

 

 "My dear Ryan!" Doc exclaimed. "Surely you cannot blame your son for pointing out that which, to the rest of us, is nothing more than the obvious."

 

 Ryan stopped and glared at Doc for a second before cracking his face with a smile. "Mebbe he's right there, Krysty. What do you think of that?"

 

 She kept a straight face while replying, "Perhaps I should start rubbing myself with whale oil and get fat, eh, lover?"

 

 They were making the most of such an opportunity. Chances to truly relax were few and far between. But Mildred, looking across to Jak, stopped laughing when she saw the expression on the albino's face. He was always stone faced and impassive, but even he would usually have joined in with such ribaldry. However, he was distant, as though not even listening.

 

 "Jak," Mildred whispered, plucking at the sleeve of his patched camou jacket, "what is it?"

 

 The albino looked at her with eyes that, despite their fiery red, were as cold as ice.

 

 "Know this place," he said simply.

 

 The laughter ceased, all attention on Jak. Haltingly, he told them of his nightmare while in the semicoma. He gave them every detail he could remember, and was insistent about the landscape in which they now found themselves. And then he reminded them about his previous dream of Gloria.

 

 When Jak had finally finished, there was silence while the companions pondered what Jak had told them. Finally, Doc spoke first.

 

 "I think it would be unwise to discount this experience," the old man said softly. "After all, has not young Jak already shown himself to be in some way empathic to the Gate tribe?"

 

 "That's a lot of long words, Doc, but I guess what you're saying is that Jak has some kind of link with Gloria, and that this dream was trying to tell him— and us—something," Dean added.

 

 Doc nodded.

 

 J.B. shook his head. "But the settings on those comps were random. How could it land us near both the Gate and the Illuminated Ones? Surely it'd be designed to spread anyone using those chambers after them as far apart as possible?"

 

 Doc grinned humorlessly. "The ways of the whitecoats are not something that can be easily understood. Their minds worked in perverse manners, and the Illuminated Ones are nothing less than descendants of that foul breed."

 

 Ryan agreed. "I figure that we should keep on triple red. Sooner or later, we're going to run into trouble."

 

 "Tell me when we don't," Mildred added.

 

 But despite this, and despite the aura of expectation created by Jak's nightmare, it was some days before they encountered any sign of life beyond that of the small mammals and birds that populated the area.

 

 They crossed a vast region of sparsely wooded and vegetated land, with little in the way of outstanding landmasses, and the monotony of the vista before them was beginning to make them wonder if there was any population of note.

 

 It was then, when their guard was lowered most by the drudgery of their trek, that violence suddenly hit.

 

 J.B. had defined a course north by northwest, and they had just crossed the remains of what had once been a series of fields with large arable crops, when Jak stopped, his very being tense with sudden awareness.

 

 "What is it?" Ryan asked.

 

 "Listen," the albino replied.

 

 The companions stopped. All ears were attuned to the silence, although none but Jak seemed able to detect anything. However, Ryan noticed that Krysty's sentient hair had begun to curl closer to her scalp, wrapping itself protectively around her neck.

 

 A short time later a high buzzing noise became audible. It was like a swarm of insects, but somehow more alien.

 

 "Look! Over there," Dean yelled, indicating a point to the northeast. Turning, the rest of the companions could see a distant dot that was approaching rapidly, growing into a shape that was recognizable, and yet…

 

 "Holy shit," Mildred cursed, "I never thought I'd see one of those again."

 

 Approaching them, growing larger with each second was a predark biplane, making good time and homing in on them.

 

 "Some kind of sec scouting machine?" J.B. asked of no one in particular.

 

 "Whatever it is, it's got us out in the open," Ryan replied. "Take cover. Spread and keep moving until you find it. Don't give them a chance to take us as a group."

 

 He had no doubt that the craft would be armed, and this assumption was confirmed as they scattered. The whine of the aircraft was punctured by the staccato burst of a machine blaster, and the soil around them was ripped up by a hail of shells.

 

 "Fireblast!" Ryan exclaimed, diving and rolling for the cover of a clump of bushes as the shells tore at his heels. Coming up for air, he could see that J.B., Mildred and Doc had found similar cover, while Krysty, Jak and Dean were headed for more outlying clumps.

 

 The pilot of the sec machine had to be distracted while they attained that cover.

 

 "J.B.! Try and take out the engine," Ryan yelled, taking the Steyr rifle off his shoulder.

 

 "Okay, but wait until it drops a little more. Won't hit it otherwise," the Armorer returned.

 

 Watching the craft turn and start to fire on the three still heading for cover, Ryan felt a gnawing impatience. He wanted to stop his people from being fired upon, but knew that J.B. was right. To fire now would be nothing less than wasting ammo, as the aircraft was still out of range.

 

 Blasterfire strafed the ground around Dean, Jak and Krysty, firing in a wide arc that still encompassed all three.

 

 "Now!" J.B. yelled to Ryan as the biplane came closer to the ground.

 

 The one-eyed man and the Armorer both stood up from their cover and took aim. J.B. had favored his M-4000, and both blasters roared almost simultaneously.

 

 Ryan had aimed for the front of the craft and the engine; J.B., with a load of barbed metal flechettes, had aimed for the body of the craft. Knowing it was made of fabric stretched over a metal skeleton, he reasoned that the flechettes could rip through and take out the pilot.

 

 Both weapons achieved their aim. The engine coughed and spluttered as dense clouds of black smoke began to rise, and the flight path of the plane dipped and swerved as though the pilot had momentarily lost control. The machine blaster also ceased.

 

 The biplane turned and headed off shakily, the course erratic and the engine spluttering.

 

 The companions regrouped, watching it recede into the distance.

 

 "Well, at least we know there's a ville near here," Mildred stated. "We just need to follow the trail."

 

 "And I'm certain we'll be assured a warm welcome," Doc added with more than a little sarcasm.

 

  

 

 Chapter Two

 

  

 

 They followed the direction of the retreating biplane, which took them away from the course they had originally planned. The prospect of finding some kind of ville, some kind of life, was too good to ignore, even though, as Doc had pointed out, they were unlikely to receive a warm welcome.

 

 After an hour spent trekking over the rotting arable fields, they came to the remains of a two-lane blacktop road that stretched into the distance. The biplane was still visible, its oily smoke trail etched in the sky. J.B. looked toward the west, where the plane was headed, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun.

 

 "It's holding up well," he muttered, "and not dipping."

 

 "Which means?" Dean queried.

 

 "That the ville it came from is still some distance— good dozen miles, I reckon."

 

 "Let's still head for it," Ryan suggested. "We'll try and keep good time, but stay triple red. Nearer we get—"

 

 "—more likely to be sec patrols," Mildred finished. "We hear you."

 

 They strung out in formation and proceeded along the side of the road, ignoring the smoothed surface in preference to a rutted drainage ditch that ran along the side. It provided cover for them in the event of hostility; and, more importantly, would do the same for any sec ambushes. So to prevent being taken by surprise, they would flush out this territory as they traveled along.

 

 After the first four miles, the only sign they had of any kind of habitation were dirt roads that would lead off the blacktop at semiregular intervals. J.B. queried where they could lead, and both Doc and Mildred told him that they could be access roads to fields, or tracks leading to old farms from before skydark.

 

 "Any chance of them being in use?" Ryan asked.

 

 "Doubt it," Mildred replied. "Take a look at them."

 

 Ryan cast his good eye over the state of the roads and tracks. They were rutted and cracked, with little sign of any use. Whereas the blacktop, despite the cracks of age and earth movement, had traces of recent use.

 

 "Yeah. Anything that comes along this way only uses the main drag, and leaves the sides well alone."

 

 "Which means we should find the ville the only populated place around these parts," Krysty added.

 

 Progress was slow along the side of the road, and after six miles there were signs across the flat landscape that other old blacktop roads were beginning to converge in the distance.

 

 Ryan eyed them speculatively as they took a rest. "J.B.," he said softly, "do you remember ever coming around these parts with Trader?"

 

 The Armorer, removing his fedora to mop his forehead and then polishing his spectacles, thought carefully before answering.

 

 "No, don't reckon I do," he replied, "but, thinking about where we are, I do remember something I heard about. There was talk of a trade route along the eastern trail that went through a ville called Crossroads, that had four old blacktop roads—still in good repair— come together from the four points of the compass."

 

 Ryan nodded. "I can see three from here. Guess the other one wouldn't be visible until we were actually in the ville. That many blacktops isn't that common, and neither is a ville right in the middle. Remember anything said about it?"

 

 The Armorer shook his head. "Not that could help us. Good gaudies, good whiskey… The baron was a guy called Roberts, or Johnson, I heard. Pretty laid back."

 

 "So perhaps we should not be too pessimistic about our reception after all?" Doc asked, leaning heavily on his sword.

 

 Ryan smiled wryly. "I wouldn't bet on that, Doc. After all, we did blast one of his sec men, and a ville like that is worth a lot of jack, which means a lot of heavy sec."

 

 "Ah, well, so much for thinking it may be a trifle easy." Doc sighed. "Shall we press on and face the inevitable?"

 

 It wasn't until they were less than two miles from the ville, and could see the buildings in the distance, that the trouble began.

 

 Ryan suddenly halted. Knowing there had to be a reason, the rest of the companions came to a halt and also drew their blasters. J.B. moved around the rest, keeping low, until he came to Ryan.

 

 "What is it?" he asked.

 

 Ryan indicated three points in front of them—fanning out across the level of the blacktop—with the long barrel of the Steyr.

 

 "Patrol, moving across the road. I just caught sight of a man keeping low to the blacktop. There's movement in the foliage there—" he pointed to the left "—and there—" pointing to the right "—and I don't reckon the moving man was the one I saw originally. I figure they're moving across from different posts in relays."

 

 "Split into two parties and take them?" the Armorer asked.

 

 "Yeah, but try not to chill them," Ryan advised him. "We don't want to piss the baron off by chilling some of his men, but we don't want them taking us out before we have a chance to say hello."

 

 "With you there," the Armorer agreed. "How we gonna do this?"

 

 "Me, Krysty and Dean will try and get across the blacktop and take out that side."

 

 J.B. frowned. "What about Jak?" He was aware that the albino youth was the best suited among them to lead a raid such as this. Indeed, Ryan would normally have no hesitation in picking him. But now?

 

 Ryan looked back to where Jak was waiting, aware that his words, although directed at J.B., could be heard by all.

 

 "I don't want to risk Jak right now. I know it's been a while since he was out of it, but I won't risk a good man until he's sure, and I'm sure." Ryan looked back at Jak as he spoke, and was gratified to see the albino nod almost imperceptibly. "Jak can lead on this side."

 

 J.B. assented. "We'll cover you… If it doesn't go off, signal when you're in position, and we'll advance in the meantime."

 

 Ryan spared his old friend a wry grin and then indicated to Krysty and Dean to join him.

 

 The chase was on.

 

 The one-eyed warrior figured that they were far enough down the road to be fairly well covered if they kept low. There was a slight rise in the land, and it was only slackness on the part of the sec man that had allowed Ryan to catch a glimpse of him above that rise.

 

 Going first, Ryan slung his Steyr over his back and slunk down onto the dusty and dirty blacktop. He crawled rapidly on his belly, his fingers making as much of a grip on the pavement as possible to help pull himself, the toes of his combat boots pushing him forward. He couldn't allow himself to rise enough to scramble or run at a crouch across the road. The only chance for any of them was to keep tight to the ground and not allow themselves to be seen above the rise.

 

 While J.B. and Jak watched the far post for any sign of action—a closer look revealing a slightly thicker clump of vegetation that was the only sign of camouflage—Mildred and Doc watched the left-hand post, on their side of the blacktop. Meanwhile, Dean and Krysty watched Ryan make his progress with bated breath, only releasing small sighs of relief when he attained the cover of the other side.

 

 Signaling he was clear, Ryan waited for Krysty to proceed next. The red-haired beauty dropped to the ground and began her journey across, aware of the danger not just by the adrenaline rush in her guts, but also from the way in which her sentient tresses clung to her neck.

 

 She could smell the old tarmac and the scent of dead animals and ancient gasoline. It mingled with the excitement and fear in her belly, making her feel sick. She knew that she—like Ryan and soon Dean—was completely vulnerable in this position. If they were attacked, she would have no chance of saving herself. It made her hug the road all the more, balancing this with her need for speed.

 

 Ryan watched her progress, as he would watch Dean's, willing her to hurry. The others didn't dare to look, keeping their attention focused on the sentry posts. It was hard. Apart from the fact that there was a denser concentration of foliage, they had no idea what kind of defense the sec force may be concealing. Krysty reached the other side of the road with a sigh of relief, and Ryan signaled for Dean to come across. The younger Cawdor was keen to make rapid time, and set about his task with an almost reckless abandon. He crawled across the road with speed, almost heedless of the fact that he was sometimes rising above the tarmac in his haste.

 

 "Fireblast," Ryan hissed to Krysty, "he'll be seen."

 

 Almost as though he heard his father, Dean slowed fractionally and kept himself level with the road. But there was another peril to await him.

 

 When he was three-quarters of the way across, he came face-to-face with a scorpion. Although not common in the predark New England, some of the creatures in captivity had escaped after the nukecaust, and had begun to breed, multiplying over the succeeding years.

 

 It was just Dean's luck to find one right now, crawling from a hole in the road and coming up right in front of his face.

 

 Dean froze. It wouldn't even realize he was there, or a possible enemy, unless he moved suddenly. Sweat beaded his brow, trickling into his eyes, stinging them and causing tears to prickle, misting his vision even more.

 

 He was trapped. He couldn't stay there indefinitely, and yet any movement could cause him to be stung, possibly fatally.

 

 On the near side of the road, in the ditch, Jak became aware that there was no movement on the road. He had been keeping it in the corner of his eye, and was alarmed at the sudden cessation. Indicating to J.B., Mildred and Doc that he would check it out, Jak slid back to a point where he could see Dean, still on the blacktop, and the creature that swayed before him.

 

 There was only one thing Jak could do. Knowing that blasterfire was useless, and that Dean would be staying still to avoid being stung, Jak did the only thing that would resolve the situation. Palming one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives, he took careful aim and skimmed the knife along the surface of the blacktop—so close to the tarmac that it almost touched— until it slammed into the body of the scorpion. The razor-honed point of the knife penetrated the creature's armor and carried it away from Dean. The young man watched as the knife and the scorpion disappeared into the undergrowth at the side of the road.

 

 Trying not to heave an audible sigh of relief, Dean began to move across the blacktop. When he arrived in the undergrowth at the side of the road, he was greeted by Krysty, holding up the scorpion, still embedded on the knife.

 

 Jak had saved Dean and had also proved to Ryan his return to full awareness and peak condition, something that the one-eyed man acknowledged to the albino as he signaled across the road for them to continue.

 

 The two parties now made rapid progress toward their prey. Each aimed for the sec post on their side of the blacktop, and each cut through the thin cover of the overgrown fields as swiftly as possible. Although they could disguise their progress by keeping low, the level of cover in the old fields was poor, and it was a balance between speed and keeping themselves unseen.

 

 J.B. led the way for his party, with Jak taking point. Doc was just in front of him, and Mildred followed on J.B.'s heels. The Armorer slowed as they reached a sparse section, and Jak came around to crouch beside him.

 

 "Not much," he said simply.

 

 J.B. shook his head and spoke tersely. "No way we can all proceed. You reckon you can flank them without being spotted?" he asked, indicating a path around to the far side of the sec post. There was still a sparsity of cover, but possibly enough for someone with Jak's skill.

 

 "Can try." The albino shrugged. "Better go—Ryan signal soon."

 

 J.B. agreed, but before he had even had a chance to finish, Jak was gone.

 

 OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE of the blacktop, Ryan had cut a swath through the undergrowth with ease, and he had now established a position within a hundred yards of the sec post. They were so close that Krysty could see the occupants: two men, drinking from a canteen and murmuring to each other, paying scant attention to the road, and especially to the undergrowth around them.

 

 "Guess they don't get a lot of trouble, Dad," Dean whispered.

 

 "Except mebbe today," Ryan replied wryly.

 

 The one-eyed man cast a glance over to the far side of the blacktop, and cursed to himself when he realized that he was staring through foliage to an almost bare expanse of field on the opposite side of the road. There was no way that J.B. and the others could get that far forward. It gave them a harder task, no doubt about that.

 

 It was then that he caught a shining reflection from the corner of his eye. Far flung, it came from a metallic object to one side of the sec post and was shining in a regular pattern.

 

 Jak.

 

 Ryan allowed himself a smile. He should have known that they would have found a way to even the chances. He got ready to signal.

 

 J.B. SAW JAK SETTLE and then direct a signal to the far side of the road. Looking ahead, he could see that the post was manned by a pair of sec men, neither of whom was paying too much attention to what was going on around him. One had wandered away from cover and was urinating onto a tree, while the other was resting his chin on his hands, staring at the road and seemingly daydreaming.

 

 "It would seem that they are not used to regular traffic," Doc observed quietly in J.B.'s ear.

 

 "Yeah, and they expect everyone to be using the road," the Armorer replied.

 

 "I find that a satisfactory situation," Doc murmured.

 

 Before J.B. could think of a suitable reply, his ears pricked up at the sound of an owl hooting. It wasn't something that you would expect in the middle of the day, which was why it was the perfect signal for Ryan to use. It may perplex the sec men if they were listening, but it would also momentarily distract them while the companions burst from cover.

 

 Which was exactly what happened. Ryan, Krysty and Dean came out of the undergrowth, moving across the ground at speed and fanning out to present a more widespread target. They were so swift, and the reactions of the sec men so slow that they were almost on them by the time that the sec men knew what was happening.

 

 Ryan held his SIG-Sauer blaster in one hand and the panga in the other. As one man swiveled to cover Krysty, believing that his partner would take Ryan, and the other did likewise with Dean, Ryan leaped into the middle of the blaster nest, bringing the hilt of the panga and the butt of the SIG-Sauer down in a simultaneous motion on the skulls of the sec men, putting them out of action.

 

 "That was almost too easy," he remarked with a touch of surprise in his voice.

 

 On the far side of the blacktop, the others were finding their task just as easy. At the signal, Jak, Mildred and Doc had adopted a similar tactic, breaking cover and fanning out; meanwhile, Jak had skipped out from his position and taken out the urinating sec man with a blow from the heel of his hand to the base of the man's skull. He dropped without knowing what had hit him.

 

 The daydreaming sec man had been jolted from his reverie and vacillated over which of the three advancing attackers to train his blaster upon: a decision that was taken from him by the feel of cold steel at the base of his neck.

 

 "Drop or chill," Jak said quietly.

 

 From here, it was easy for the companions to regroup on the blacktop with their prisoners, stripped of their weapons.

 

 "Why haven't you chilled us?" one of the sec men asked sullenly.

 

 "Because we want safe passage into your ville, and we don't want to make any more enemies," Ryan replied.

 

 "Then why not just use the road like anyone else with decent business?" another complained.

 

 "Because, my dear young man, after we had been attacked by that heinous flying machine and replied in a somewhat damaging manner, there was no guarantee of anything other than a somewhat warm welcome," Doc said, drawing a puzzled gaze from the sec man who had asked the question.

 

 "Don't you worry." Ryan laughed. "Just— What was it they used to say in those old vids, Millie?"

 

 "Take us to your leader," Mildred replied in dry tones.

 

 So they did. The sec men led the companions through the center of Crossroads, right to the heavily guarded and opulent home of the baron—Jon Robertson, as laid-back as J.B. remembered from the old stories.

 

 For when he saw the sorry state of his sec patrol for that blacktop route and heard Ryan's story, his only comment was: "Never mind that damn plane. You boys were just lucky these people ain't hostile. Shit, I'm gonna have to toughen up on you assholes."

 

 HAVING PROVED THEIR WORTH by taking out the sec post, and their intentions by not chilling their captives, Robertson was more inclined to take their side of the story regarding the sec biplane.

 

 "Well," he said slowly when Ryan had finished explaining, "I'd say that you had every right to try and bring that fucker down."

 

 "By the Three Kennedys, it's not often that one comes to meet a man of such erudition and faith," Doc uttered, smiling broadly.

 

 "What'd he say?" Robertson asked, puzzled. "He means that we don't often come across barons—or anyone—who'd see our side of things over a firefight with their own sec," Mildred replied.

 

 "Why in hell didn't he just say that?" Robertson murmured before brightening. "Anyway, who the hell says that I'd take your side?"

 

 "But—" Ryan was about to speak, but was cut short from a gesture by the baron.

 

 "Shit, I dunno if I'd feel so inclined if it was one of mine, but it wasn't. We don't have nothing like that around here. Yeah, people've talked of a machine like that, but we just put that down to jolt."

 

 It was a startling revelation, but there wasn't time for the companions to think too closely about the implications of what the baron said, as he had already launched into a long, rambling discourse on the ville of Crossroads, with a number of asides about people whose names meant nothing to the companions, but obviously inspired great laughter among the baron's people.

 

 The gist of his dissertation, as far as any of the companions could glean, was that the ville had been a small truck stop in predark times. As some kind of network and civilization had begun to build once more, the old blacktop roads that threaded across the country became invaluable trade routes for the convoys of traders that began to ferry goods and chattels across the remains of the land. So the population of Crossroads had grown and prospered, as they played host to a succession of convoys, many with jack and goods to spare for a good time.

 

 The arable fields that the companions had come through on their journey were virtually useless. The same mutie plant genetics that had caused the stunted dwarf elms had also affected the crops, with the result that some scrub farming was done near the ville in order to keep a basic crop going, and to grow grain for the ville's own potent brand of alcohol, but otherwise the whole economy of the town existed thanks to the convoys that passed through.

 

 "So I guess I don't really have any objection to you folks staying on awhile," Robertson concluded, "but you know that you'll have to work for your keep."

 

 "Never had it any other way," Ryan replied.

 

 "Well, I'll tell you what. You can all spend some time with my sec—" he cast a glare at the sec men who had been taken "—and sharpen these stupe bastards up a little. Not taking anything from you, but they shouldn't have been taken that easily. Other than that, you can be bar sec—" he indicated Ryan and J.B. "—while you'se two can help on the farming," he added, indicating Dean and Jak. '"Cause I'll tell you what, we're shorthanded right now. There's some kind of sickness started, and our doc here ain't too sure what it is."

 

 A coldness ran through Jak as he heard this, and he thought of his nightmare. Krysty and Mildred exchanged glances as the baron continued. "He could do with some help. You two women and the old man can help. I heard two of you addressed like you were halves."

 

 "Yeah, guess we are," Mildred said softly. "But it depends what we find." They were soon to know.

 

 "THIS IS WHAT we're up against." Hector shrugged helplessly. "I've seen most of the things that get caught around here, and just about every type of clap that there is." He allowed himself a sheepish grin when Krysty looked at him questioningly, "Hell, this is a trader's ville, with too many gaudies for its own good sometimes, the amount of trade they have to keep up to survive. But anyway, that's not anything to do with this, I'm sure of that."

 

 Mildred, Krysty and Doc were standing in the middle of the large, one room shack that constituted the ville's medical facility. There were twenty beds, lined ten to each side of the room. The healer, a thin, stooped man called Hector Murray, stood beside them. His face was drawn with worry, lined with too many sleepless nights. Large, limpid blue eyes held their gaze steadily, and he had a distracted habit of running one hand through his thinning hair while the other stayed firmly in his jacket pocket.

 

 He reminded Mildred of interns she had known in her old, predark life, and she liked him instantly. He had acquired enough knowledge, and traded enough med supplies, to cope with the general run of problems in a ville like this, but was obviously baffled by something that he had never come across before.

 

 "How long since this started?" Mildred asked, moving to check some of the patients. There were sixteen in the shack, and two of them were victims of fights from which they'd come off worse, nursing broken bones and lacerations. But the other fourteen…

 

 "Only a couple of weeks since the first signs." Hector sighed, joining Mildred at the bedside of a young girl. "She was the first, and she looks to be the most advanced. It follows a pattern that you'd expect."

 

 "Which is?" Krysty questioned from the far side of the building, where she had been casting an eye over some of the other victims of the disease.

 

 Hector looked across to her. "Starts like they've got some kind of cough, so you give them the usual. But it doesn't clear up. Then they have a day or so of shitting, and that goes. Eyes run. For the first couple of days that's all. Then they get the spots—kinda like when you see that old chickenpox. Don't get that often, but it's kinda like that. They get the fever, too."

 

 "But the spots don't clear, obviously," Doc murmured, examining a sleeping man who was covered in the small blisters, red at the puckered edges of the liquid filled sacs. The old man was a doctor of philosophy rather than medicine, but he was a man from another age, and he had a creeping feeling that he knew what was happening. He wondered if Mildred had reached a similar conclusion.

 

 Unaware of this train of thought, Hector continued.

 

 "No, they don't. They start to open and weep, then form a crust around the edge. I try to keep them clean within reason, but I can't risk infecting the already open—"

 

 "You're doing right to leave them," Mildred interrupted. "There's not much you can do about them once they start. Tell me, have you lost any yet?"

 

 There was silence. Mildred looked round questioningly, and her eyes met Hector's.

 

 "You mean I'm going to?" he asked, but with a suggestion that he already knew the answer.

 

 Mildred paused before answering. She couldn't be sure, and didn't want to commit herself before she'd had a chance to… To what? What else could she do here but observe?

 

 "Guess that answers my question," Hector said softly. "You know what this is, then?"

 

 "Not exactly," Mildred answered.

 

 "Then I wish you'd share some ideas," Krysty interjected, joining Mildred, "because I've never seen anything quite like this before."

 

 "I think I may have," Doc said quietly. "I think we should talk outside."

 

 Hector agreed, and led them to his living quarters. It was a single-room shack, untidy and speaking of someone who spent little time there other than to sleep. He offered them seating, and all sat except Doc, who stayed upright—almost, it seemed, as an expression of his agitation.

 

 "Ideas, Doc," Mildred said simply.

 

 "I cannot be sure," the old man began, pausing before continuing. "I saw something like it once, but I was given to understand that it had been eradicated by the whitecoats before the nukecaust."

 

 "You're thinking on similar lines, then," Mildred confirmed.

 

 Doc raised an astonished eyebrow. "It was during my youth that it was finally killed off around the world. Trouble is, they kept some strains to experiment on—"

 

 "Typical whitecoat arrogance," Doc thundered.

 

 "I'll agree with that," Mildred muttered. "Problem is, it looks like a variant strain. And we don't have a vaccine, or the time and facilities to search for one."

 

 "Then we have no paddle, and are against the fecal tide, as it were," Tanner said.

 

 " 'Scuse me," Hector interrupted, "but you people should remember that I don't have the faintest idea what the hell you're talking about."

 

 "Me, neither," Krysty added sardonically.

 

 For a moment, Mildred and Doc just stared at them, then Mildred said, "Of course, you'd have no idea. It was way before your time."

 

 "What do you mean?" Hector was now beginning to get agitated by what seemed to be nothing more than riddles.

 

 "No time to explain," Mildred said simply. "You'll just have to believe us."

 

 Hector shrugged. "I've little choice, have I? I've got no idea what that is—" he gestured to the med building "—and you have."

 

 Mildred nodded. "Okay. Just trust us on this. Before the nukecaust, there was a disease that wiped out vast populations. It was a virus that was transmitted through contact, and it had symptoms very similar to these. They managed to eradicate it, and I've never heard of anything quite like it occurring during our travels. But this…this looks very like it. It's fast, nasty and fatal."

 

 "What can we do about it?" Krysty asked.

 

 "Without a vaccine or antidote, and not knowing anyway if this strain has become mutie in any way…"

 

 Mildred shook her head. "There isn't anything that we can do."

 

 "Fuck! What is this thing?" Hector asked, a mixture of fear and helplessness grabbing at him.

 

 Doc spoke quietly. "They used to call it smallpox."

 

 OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, while Mildred, Doc and Krysty set to work trying to contain the outbreak of the disease and keep it confined—and also trying to avoid spreading panic—Dean and Jak set to work on the small patches of cultivated scrub that were on the outskirts of the ville.

 

 The stunted vegetables and fruits that were grown there were stored and dried as reserve stock, and also used to ferment the alcohol that was sold in the ville's bars. The rich loam should have yielded strong, healthy crops, but somehow there had been a genetic mutation to all the crops in the area, and the farming was hard.

 

 It was the time of year when the soil had to be tilled and the next year's crop sown. It was hard work. The farm crew had allotted Jak and Dean a horse and plow, along with the seed that needed to be sown along the trenches. There was little chance for them to interact or get to know their fellow workers, as only a handful of the ville's inhabitants worked on the farmland, and those that did were spread about the fields, too far apart to converse.

 

 So it was down to the albino and the young Cawdor to prove themselves by work.

 

 "This not good," Jak remarked, patting the bony flanks of the horse they had been given. The creature looked old, and although not starved, it seemed to be all bone and little muscle. The pitted and scarred, time-rusted plow that they had to attach to the beast seemed too heavy for it to manage.

 

 Dean looked at the expanse of field they had to till.

 

 "Well, we've got to get it done, Jak," he said simply. "So we'll just have to work out a way."

 

 They harnessed the horse, and Jak went to the head and began to lead.

 

 The plow stuck in the rich, thick soil. It began to turn, but was so damp and firm that the plow became bogged down, stuck in the grip of the earth. Jak whispered in the horse's ear, and the creature began to respond, pulling harder against the resistance of the earth. Dean followed behind, scattering the seed into the earth before it began to close again.

 

 "Hot pipe!" he whispered to himself, then called to Jak to join him. When the albino left the horse and arrived at his side, Dean indicated the closing earth, and the level earth to their rear where there should have been a trench. "Have you ever seen anything like that?" he said.

 

 The albino shook his head. "Like earth living. No wonder horse find it hard."

 

 "Yeah," Dean agreed, "and I don't know about you, but I don't reckon that it'll get the whole field done."

 

 Jak looked at the already tired and weak beast, then at the expanse of field they hadn't yet covered. He shook his head.

 

 "Only one way," he said simply.

 

 And so the farmhands in neighboring fields, who had deliberately given the young men the weakest of the beasts as a trial, stopped and watched in amazement as Jak harnessed himself to the plow alongside the horse, and began to help drag it across the field, cutting a furrow that Dean followed, sewing the seeds as he went.

 

 About halfway across the field, the two young men changed places to spread the work. Jak followed the plow as Dean helped to pull.

 

 When they had finished the field, they found that the farmhands from the neighboring fields had come across to watch them. Dean unharnessed himself and fixed them with a glare.

 

 "Next time you want to palm us off with a dud, we'll break your balls," he said softly.

 

 There was silence for a moment, until one of the farmhands burst into laughter.

 

 "Everyone gets the old nag," he said. "Just means you've become one of us."

 

 "All with hurting back?" Jak asked.

 

 Dean wasn't sure if the albino—deadpan as always—had been joking or serious, but it had the desired result. They were surrounded by farmhands, clapping them on the supposedly aching backs in displays of camaraderie.

 

 They had proved themselves to their new compatriots, which was always a vital part of survival in the Deathlands.

 

 "WE AIN'T HAD MUCH in the way of trouble down here for a while. No big convoys going through. Kinda prefer it quiet, but then no one's getting any jack. I suppose you take your choice over which is best, right?"

 

 The fat sec man they knew as Yardie scratched his balls and hitched up his pants, waiting for an answer.

 

 "Sure," Ryan answered simply, not wanting to start the man off on another ramble.

 

 The one-eyed man and J.B. had been assigned to assist the bar sec on their nightly shift. The bar sec was a group of heavily armed sec men who also had unarmed combat skills and were used to police the bars and gaudies frequented by the trading convoys. Their task was to stop trouble without it escalating, and not to alienate the traders by wrecking their crews—otherwise they may not pass through again.

 

 With no convoys in town at present, it had been quiet for the past few nights, and the fat man who was sec chief for the area had been telling them stories about the main drag—stories in which he was mostly the hero.

 

 "Trouble is, all we get are horny men who just want to hit on any woman. They can do most what they like to the gaudies sluts, but when they get it wrong… See, there's this weird bunch of women live somewhere hereabouts—never can trail 'em—and when they come in to trade, they always get hit on. Tiny, no clothes…but real mean. I like to look after them, 'cause they shouldn't be treated like that. Had to chill a couple of mechanics once—just the one shot, clean through both of 'em. But then again, I seen one of 'em—red-haired thing that I'd crush if I fucked her— take out four men using nothing other than one of those big knife things like you've got."

 

 Yardie indicated the panga that Ryan had strapped to his thigh, and the one-eyed man shot a glance at J.B. Could it be possible? The description sounded uncannily like Gloria and the Gate tribe. The Armorer's eyebrows shot up, but before he had a chance to say anything, both his attention and Ryan's were taken by a sudden outbreak in one of the bars.

 

 All three men were standing on the boardwalk outside the bar, and through the open door came the sounds of an argument, followed by a staccato burst of blasterfire.

 

 "Three blasters," J.B. said quickly. "Small caliber handblasters."

 

 Ryan nodded. "Okay, let's take them."

 

 Almost glad of the opportunity to get away from the fat man, who was still standing, staring blankly at J.B.'s ability to determine the blasterfire, both Ryan and the Armorer were through the open doorway, opting to unsheathe their knives rather than use blasters.

 

 Inside, the room was well lit. Most of the clientele had taken cover, and two men stood at each end of the bar, holding blasters. A third, with his back to the door, was slumping to the ground from a slug that had hit him in the stomach, blood dripping onto the floor.

 

 Keeping low, both J.B. and Ryan exchanged a look, and by the subtlest of indications chose their prey.

 

 Moving around the tables, J.B. circled his man, who was torn between turning to this new threat or taking out the opponent with the blaster. His indecision cost him both targets. J.B. leaped onto a chair and used it to launch himself at the man. The Armorer's Tekna knife speared through his blaster hand, momentum taking it down and pinning it to the bar. A scream of pain was killed in his throat by a chop across the windpipe from the Armorer's free hand. The man slumped to the floor.

 

 Ryan, meanwhile, had come to his man from the side. His blaster-wielding opponent had no doubt about whom to fire on. He swiveled and took aim at the one-eyed man, who dived under the line of fire and felt the bullet pluck at his shirt as he reached his opponent. Hitting the man in the solar plexus with his full weight, Ryan drove him into the edge of the bar and heard two of the man's ribs crack under the pressure. His scream was high 5pitched and ceased as the one-eyed man brought the hilt of the panga down on his head, hitting him on the temple.

 

 "What the—?" Yardie stammered as he entered the bar, blaster drawn.

 

 "Sorry. What were you saying?" Ryan asked him, unable to keep a twisting smile from his face at the sight of the fat man's expression.

 

  

 

 Chapter Three

 

  

 

 "Must do something—find them now, before too late!"

 

 Jak paced up and down the length of the shack that had been given to the companions as a home while they were in Crossroads. He was agitated and upset, and it was obvious to Ryan that the albino wanted to move as soon as possible in search of the Gate.

 

 "We have to wait, at least for a short while," Ryan stated.

 

 Jak stopped and looked at him, red eyes burning bright in his white, scarred visage.

 

 "Why?"

 

 "Because the others know nothing of this as yet, and we need to know what they say, for one." Which was true. Jak and Dean had returned from their day's work in the fields when Ryan and J.B. had come off their sec shift and had told the albino about what they had been told by Yardie—albeit without his realizing the importance of one of his boastful stories.

 

 Given the almost certain fact that the fat sec man had described the Gate, and the outbreak of the pox disease that Mildred, Krysty and Doc had been working on, matters seemed to be conspiring to confirm the veracity of Jak's mat-trans vision.

 

 "Dad's right," Dean interjected. "It's not something I want to think about—and I know you don't— but we need to know more about the disease they might have before we go looking. Especially if it makes the Gate as wild as Gloria was in your dream."

 

 Jak paused and thought about that. All his life he had acted on instinct, but since his time with the companions had begun, he had learned the value of stopping to give a moment's thought, and how much time and triple-red danger it could save.

 

 "Okay," he said finally, "wait and see what they say."

 

 He sat down, brooding, and what followed seemed to be the lengthiest amount of time any of them had ever had to wait for anyone or anything. Eventually, Mildred, Krysty and Doc returned from the makeshift hospital they had been manning, leaving Hector and a couple of ville women to help him through the night shift.

 

 "I hoped I would never have to see such things again, despite the horrors I have witnessed during my time here," Doc said wearily as he sat stiff and slow on the edge of his bed. He looked exhausted, as did the others.

 

 "It's the fact that there seems to be nothing that we can do. That's the worst," Krysty added.

 

 "There isn't," Mildred said softly. She, too, was exhausted, but not so tired that she didn't look sharply at Jak, sensing the atmosphere of tension in the shack. "What is it?" she asked him directly. When he failed to answer, she turned her attention to J.B. "John? What's happened?"

 

 "Something that may have a bearing on what's going on here," the Armorer replied. And in a few short words, he outlined to the recently arrived companions what had occurred earlier in the evening.

 

 "If that's true," Mildred said after he had finished, "then Jak's right. We should get after them as soon as possible. Not just because it would be good to see them, but because they may have something that tells us where this bastard disease has come from and what we can do about it."

 

 Ryan agreed. "That makes a lot of sense, but we need to find out, at least roughly, where the hell they could be camped. We need to head in the right direction, after all."

 

 It wasn't only true, but it broke the tension and caused a ripple of laughter. Certainly, the Gate had defended its position so well that their tribe's exact whereabouts was unknown.

 

 The only one of the companions not laughing was Doc. He sat perfectly still, staring at the floor. It was only as the laughter died that he finally spoke. "There is one thing that we all seem to be overlooking," he said softly.

 

 Mildred felt a shiver run down her spine at his tone of voice. "What?"

 

 Doc looked her in the eye. "It's more than a trifling coincidence, wouldn't you say, that both ourselves and the Gate find it relatively easy to arrive in the same place, given that the mat-trans chambers were supposed to send us to random destinations? Not so random, would you not think?"

 

 "You mean the comp settings didn't change that much?" Dean queried, and when Doc agreed, the young Cawdor exclaimed, "Hot pipe! Then that could mean that they didn't vary that much from the original settings!"

 

 Doc nodded slowly. "And do you know what that could mean?"

 

 Ryan answered before Dean. "It could mean that the Illuminated Ones are nearby."

 

 "Exactly. And who better than a bunch of accursed whitecoat spawn to unleash such a vile disease, which was supposed to have vanished a long time ago?"

 

 There was silence while everyone digested the import of this notion. Finally, Ryan spoke.

 

 "If the Illuminated Ones are near, then we have two aims. First, we need to find the Gate to see if they're infected. Second, we need to track down the redoubt where those scum suckers are holed up and finish what we started. In that order. But before we do that, we need to try and find out as much as possible for the people here."

 

 The one-eyed man turned to Mildred. "How much time do we have?"

 

 She shook her head almost imperceptibly. "Hard to say for sure, but certainly not long. The pox seems to run its course in about three weeks. We had the first two dead tonight. Their bodies seemed to be convulsed with muscle spasms, and they were running temperatures that shouldn't be possible." She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the picture in her mind. "The pox marks get worse toward the end, running alive and open. It's impossible to make them comfortable, I'd say. It must be a horrible way to die."

 

 "And there is no cure," Doc prompted. "We could already be incubating. I agree with you, my dear Ryan, that we cannot rush into this. But be cautioned that we are on a finite time scale."

 

 "He's right," Mildred agreed. "The clock is ticking…"

 

 THE NEXT DAY, while they were in the med building, Mildred bided her time before asking. It had been a difficult night for Hector, and two more of the initial contractees had bought the farm during his spell on duty. The exhausted ville healer, who had no ideas on how to combat the disease, or even to alleviate the suffering he could see in front of his eyes, had retired to his shack to try to get some rest. The ville women who had assisted him had returned to their homes, sworn to secrecy. Chances were, they were too scared by what they had seen to raise the subject.

 

 For a while Mildred, Krysty and Doc had been on their own in the med building, tending as best as possible to those who were ill. There were three new cases, all with the mildest of blisters and a high temperature. A casual observer would have put it down to chicken pox, and none was more surprised than the patients themselves when they had been detained.

 

 However, the mounting problem was causing the conscientious ville healer acute anxiety, and it was only a few hours before he returned to the fray.

 

 "You'll make yourself ill if you don't rest," Mildred said when he first returned.

 

 He gave her a crooked grin. "Chances are I'll get ill anyway, being around here all the time."

 

 "Fair point," Mildred agreed, allowing a silence to fall. On the far side of the med building, Krysty and Doc were arguing about the contents of a poultice that the red-haired woman wanted to use. Doc, despite his distrust of whitecoats, had an almost religious faith in the use of plundered medical supplies, and was arguing his corner while Krysty attempted to use her herbal skills, learned from Mother Sonja in her home ville of Harmony. From the corner of her eye, Mildred noticed Hector deriving some amusement from the exchange between the two, and she judged that now was the moment for her to ask.

 

 "Hector," she began in a tone that immediately made him look up, "I want to ask you something. We heard something about a tribe that camps near here and keeps itself to itself."

 

 "Could be," he replied carefully.

 

 Mildred pursed her lips. "A tribe where the women are the fighters—small, don't wear many clothes… beat the living shit out of men twice their size."

 

 "Yeah, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't know who you were talking about," he answered, amused.

 

 Mildred nodded. "We've come across them before. We were allies, but got separated. It'd be good to meet with them again, if we knew where they were camped…"

 

 Hector shook his head. "I don't get out enough to know for sure, but I do hear they're in the more densely wooded parts, southwest of here. That's what I'm told."

 

 "That's very interesting," Mildred said slowly. "Maybe we should check that out. One other thing. We were allies because of a group—real heavy blaster freaks—who lived underground. We got separated trying to follow them. I don't—"

 

 Mildred stopped dead. Hector was looking at her with an expression that could only be described as fear.

 

 "I don't— No, I know nothing about anyone like that. And if you don't want to find yourself having accidents in the middle of the night, I really wouldn't go around asking about things like that too widely."

 

 With which the ville healer turned and walked away from Mildred rapidly, leaving her staring after him with a thoughtful gleam in her eye.

 

 THE MIDDAY SUN was beating down on the plowed fields. Dean, Jak and the rest of the ville workers who toiled the lands had broken for food and drink, and were gathered in the shade afforded by the side of the stables housing the plow horses.

 

 "Best part of the day," one of them said as he took a long drink of water before passing the canteen to Jak.

 

 "Now then, I always figured that the best part of the day for you was when you spent your paycheck in the gaudies by night," commented an older, more weather beaten farmhand.

 

 The first—a young man, little older than Jak or Dean, and as whip thin as the former—laughed. "That's the night," he said between bursts. "I was talking about the day."

 

 The comment caused a general wave of good humor, and Jak gave Dean a swift glance. Was this the right time to raise the matter?

 

 "Yeah, I hear it can get real wild here after dark," he said carefully. "My dad is on bar sec, and although he hasn't seen them yet, he's heard about these wild women that live outside and only come in to trade. Apparently they can stand up in a fight with any man and best them."

 

 The young farmhand whistled. "Whoa, yeah. I seen them in action, all right. Real tiny, most of them. But they can chill any man that tries." He shook his head. "I heard they live down to the south somewhere, but—" he shrugged "—I'm just glad I don't have to deal with them!"

 

 In the general good humor, Jak judged it was time for him to take things a stage further.

 

 "Ryan and J.B. also tell us about fighters with weird shit clothes, wear helmets and fight with odd blasters. They hear these pass through—"

 

 The good humor suddenly ceased, and a cold silence descended on the party. Slowly, all of the farmhands except Jak and Dean rose to their feet and headed off to their work without another word—with the exception of the young farmhand, who turned back for a second.

 

 "Just a word, friend," he said to Jak. "You and your people shouldn't talk of that. There are those around here who would rather forget."

 

 He left Dean and Jak to exchange glances and ponder the meaning of his cryptic words.

 

 J.B. AND RYAN WERE ALSO finding it hard to get a reaction. On their sec duties along the strip of bars and gaudies that formed the main drag—and the main trade—of Crossroads, they had asked a few questions of both their fellow sec and also of passing trade convoy workers who had befriended them in the bars. So far, all they had asked about was the Gate, and the response had been the same as that received by their companions: the Gate tribe was looked on as an oddity, hard to best and fair to trade, but content to keep themselves to themselves. Consensus seemed to put their camp out to the south or southwest of the ville. But things had been different when they had tried to bring up the matter of the Illuminated Ones. Deliberately keeping their descriptions vague, they had both noticed that those who passed through either knew nothing, or had only heard a few wild rumors, and those who came from the ville were quick to shut up and claim to know nothing.

 

 "One thing for sure," Ryan commented. "If we carry on and we rattle enough bars to find out something…"

 

 He said it on the third night, as he and the Armorer were patrolling the main drag. Now trusted to fulfill their task without his assistance, the garrulous Yardie had given them free rein—-just when they could really have benefited from his inability to keep his mouth shut.

 

 It had been a quiet night, with only a few drunks shooting off their mouths with nothing to back it up to trouble them, and they were looking forward to getting off shift and getting some sleep as the sun began to rise. So they were surprised when Yardie came barreling toward them, his dreadlocks swinging free in time with his fat man's walk.

 

 "Why do you think he's here?" Ryan asked J.B. The Armorer smiled. "Mebbe he's come to practice his famous fighting skills on those too drunk to throw a straight punch…or mebbe he just wants to talk."

 

 "Which mebbe is just what we need," Ryan murmured, adding in a louder voice, "Hey, Yardie— what's happening?"

 

 "Nothing much, by the looks of it," the sec chief grumbled.

 

 "So why do we need the company?" Ryan asked.

 

 The fat sec man looked the one-eyed man up and down, as though appraising him. "Y'know, I wouldn't have put you down as the stupe type," he said casually.

 

 "Me?" Ryan queried.

 

 "Yeah, you and your friends. You all ask a lot of questions."

 

 Ryan shrugged. "Just a healthy curiosity about the area."

 

 Yardie smiled without humor. "Yeah, sure. Trouble is, you ask the wrong sort of questions."

 

 "Which are?"

 

 "About people who pass through here, or people who don't."

 

 There was something in the fat man's tone of voice that made both Ryan and J.B. get that tingling up the spine, the subtle raising of the hairs at the back of the neck that presaged some kind of danger.

 

 Both immediately went for their blasters—Ryan the SIG-Sauer and J.B. his trusted Uzi—but were cut short by a gesture from the fat sec chief. Looking around, Ryan could see that they had been surrounded by bar sec, appearing from the insides of buildings all around them.

 

 Ryan and the Armorer knew when they were out maneuvered, and dropped their hands.

 

 Yardie nodded in satisfaction. "Good move, Ryan. I really wouldn't have wanted anything to happen to you. Now you'll be good and follow me. The baron wants a word with you."

 

 With which the sec man turned and headed toward the end of the ville where Robertson had his quarters. Ryan and J.B. exchanged looks, shrugged and followed. What other option had they at this stage?

 

 No words were exchanged on the short walk, and neither Ryan nor J.B. was surprised to see that the rest of their companions were already in the baron's presence when they entered his villa. Robertson himself was seated on what passed as a throne, looking as laconic as ever. He dismissed Yardie and the sec men, despite the fat man's protestation, and waited until he was alone with the companions before speaking.

 

 "I've been hearing things…things I don't like to hear," he stated.

 

 "Such as?" Ryan queried.

 

 "Well, you must have realized by now that I don't mind you asking questions about Crossroads—hell, it helps if you know a little about a place, as I figure it. But sometimes you can go too far."

 

 "Like asking about the Illuminated Ones?" Ryan asked.

 

 "That's what I like about you, Ryan," Robertson drawled. "You're sharp…sharp enough to cut yourself. And just mebbe that's what you're doing here."

 

 "Is it?" the one-eyed man asked. "All we did was ask about a bunch of coldhearts we've come up against."

 

 "Coldhearts is right," Robertson said bitterly, a shocking animation betraying a sudden depth of feeling.

 

 "Something we should know?" Mildred asked gently.

 

 Robertson looked at her. "Yeah. See, we'd heard about these bastards you call the Illuminated Ones, but they'd never come near us…not until one day when they rode in at sunrise in those armored wags of theirs, used those motherfucking weird shit blasters and took some of our people. Haven't seen them since."

 

 "What about your people?" Ryan asked.

 

 Robertson shrugged. "Don't really know. Yardie lost them out in the forest, and we never saw them again, which is why we don't like to talk of it." He stopped for a moment, as though considering whether to go on, before reaching a decision.

 

 "There is one thing, though. Whatever happened, one of ours came back. A girl. She couldn't remember a damn thing, and she was the first to develop that weird shit disease."

 

 "And the first to die from it," Krysty added in measured tones.

 

 Robertson nodded. "And we don't talk of it for one simple reason."

 

 "Which is?" Ryan questioned.

 

 Robertson looked at him with a steady gaze that belied his usual manner.

 

 "Because she was my only daughter," he said simply.

 

  

 

 Chapter  Four

 

  

 

 It was a matter of biding their time, although time was the last thing they had to their advantage. On being sent back to their shack, none would speak of what had happened by a tacit agreement, in case they should be heard by any spying sec placed by Baron Robertson. It wasn't certain he would do that, but in order to carry out any plans they may have, it was necessary to make the baron and his sec men think that they were keeping their heads down and doing as requested.

 

 But for all of them, the uppermost thought in their minds was when they would have a chance to discuss a course of action, and, more importantly, to take that course.

 

 It made for a difficult couple of days, avoiding all mention of the Gate or the Illuminated Ones. In each of their allotted tasks, they carried on as usual, letting up on the question. For Ryan and J.B. it was easy, as on the bar sec patrols they were mostly on their own, and they kept the level of any conversations during the night at little more than passing banter. Likewise, out in the fields the only time that Jak and Dean had to converse with their fellow farmhands was during mealtimes, and then it was easy to keep the talk light, touching on nothing that could be misconstrued.

 

 For Mildred, Doc and Krysty it was harder. In the med building, they were in the same environment as the ville women and Hector for most of the time, and at close quarters. But the ville healer, after being a little suspicious after the first inquiries, had taken their subsequent continuing silence on the matter as a lack of interest rather than a warning off. If he knew anything about their being taken in front of the baron, he neglected to mention it to any of them.

 

 Besides which, both he and the companions had something more pressing to think about: the pox was spreading, and now six people had died. Every bed in the med building was now full, and Hector had others brought into the building from hotels along the drag. Without more staff, those he had were working overtime just to keep the patients comfortable; there was no time to think about searching for some kind of antidote or inoculation. Anyway, as Hector said to Mildred at the end of a long night, as he sat with his head in his hands, "Even if I had time, I'd have no idea how to go about it. I've heard that before the nukecaust they could do this, and things you've said have made me think this was possible… but I only know the little that I know. I'm the healer here because there isn't anyone else, and my mother was the healer before me. Doesn't mean that I really know anything."

 

 "You're not doing so badly," Mildred said sympathetically. She could see in his drawn, pallid face and dark ringed eyes a man who cared about what he did and felt helpless in the face of what seemed almost insurmountable odds. She could sympathize because she knew how he felt, and she knew that he would soon be left to cope alone. But it was the only way they could even hope to get to the root of the evil and destroy it—for evil was what she felt it to be. Since awakening to the vastly changed world of the Deathlands, Mildred had almost forgotten about such simplistic notions as good and evil…but this was another matter entirely. She could almost taste the evil behind this revival of a disease thought wiped out in another era.

 

 Hector looked up at her as this went through her mind.

 

 "But it's not enough," he stated flatly. "Just not enough."

 

 They were words that stayed with her as she, Krysty and Doc returned to their shack.

 

 Krysty, who knew what Mildred was thinking, was the first to verbalize what had concerned them all for some days.

 

 "When we head off, Hector's going to have problems coping with this on his own. It's growing, and we've got to go soon."

 

 "By the Three Kennedy's," Doc said sighing, seating himself wearily. "It's not a pleasant prospect, but something that must be done. And yet we have not talked of it yet. I fear we must go soon, or this will become an epidemic."

 

 "I'm not so sure that it isn't already," Mildred said. "So far it's only people from Crossroads who've succumbed. But as soon as someone from outside starts to show symptoms…" She shrugged. "Then it gets really serious. If it travels—"

 

 "Then there'll be nowhere left to hide," Krysty finished.

 

 FATE WAS CONSPIRING to force their hand.

 

 Ryan and J.B. were on patrol along the main drag of Crossroads, the dark night beyond banished by the glare of neon signs powered by generators, and the oil lamps from within the darkened bars and gaudies spilling out through open doorways.

 

 It was a busy night as a new convoy had hit town, coming from the northeast and the coastal regions. It was led by a trader called Conroy, a tall, rangy man with a beard that was plaited halfway down his chest, old aviator style shades and leather pants that creaked as he walked. His sec force was hired mercies, and his staff of driver, accountant and quartermaster were regulars who had been with him for some time. He used the East Coast trade routes frequently, which brought him through the ville of Crossroads on a regular basis.

 

 Trader Conroy was a man who worked hard and liked to play hard. He had completed a successful trip, and he was ready to enjoy himself. To this end, he had immediately hired the sluts of two houses, and paid well to take over one complete bar on the strip for himself and his men. He had also invited Ryan and J.B. in to join himself and his men.

 

 "Buy you a drink, boys—mebbe a woman if you want one," he told them as they entered the bar. "See, I can tell you boys are a little suspicious, and that's fine. You ain't been here long, and you don't know how I operate."

 

 "That's not our concern, as long as there's no trouble," Ryan replied in a neutral tone.

 

 Conroy slapped his thigh and laughed heartily. "That's a damn fine answer, but that's it, dontcha see? My boys have worked hard and deserve some fun, and mebbe they'll be a little high spirited. Hell, if they get too boisterous, then you crack on them. I don't want to piss Robertson off, man, 'cause this ville is damn good to me. But—" he wagged a finger at them in a way J.B. found particularly annoying "—I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with you boys. Yardie's boys have never minded a drink or two, so why should you? After all, I give a little, you give a little…right?"

 

 The Armorer turned to go, before he gave in to the temptation to smack the trader in the mouth, but Ryan stayed him with a hand on the arm.

 

 "Won't do any harm, J.B.," he said quietly.

 

 The Armorer shrugged. "Okay."

 

 The barman gave them two measures of the potent brew in which the ville specialized. J.B. took his and wandered away, leaving Ryan with the trader.

 

 "Your friend don't like me much," Conroy observed, indicating the departing J.B.

 

 Ryan shrugged. "Mebbe he's just got things on his mind."

 

 Conroy screwed up his face. "Yeah, right. I heard you call him J.B." And when Ryan assented, he added, "That would be J. B. Dix, would it?"

 

 "That depends on who wants to know," Ryan answered.

 

 Conroy laughed once more. "Right. A one-eyed man and a guy with glasses called J.B. You Ryan Cawdor? You must be," he added, answering his own question.

 

 "And if I am?"

 

 "If you are, then I've heard a lot about you. You wanna leave this place, go back to what you know?"

 

 "And that would be?"

 

 "You know…I reckon as every trader on the road has probably heard stories of Trader and his crew. The richest, smartest there was until he disappeared. And what a crew—the one-eyed man who was the meanest and smartest fighter in the whole of the wastes, and the guy with glasses, J.B., the one they called the Armorer, who supposedly knew more about blasters, plas-ex and grens than any man who ever lived. Hell, than any two men who ever lived."

 

 "You've given us a good buildup." Ryan smiled.

 

 "Only the truth as I heard it," Conroy replied. All trace of previous humor had gone from his voice, and he was now deadly serious. "Listen, Ryan Cawdor, you must know that I hire from trip to trip. That's because I've never found anyone I can trust to handle sec and keep their shit together. Just look at these guys." He indicated the drunken revelers around them. "Fuck it, they deserve to party hard after this trip, but they're just mercies. Never found any yet that I could keep on between trips and trust not to try and rip me off or get themselves chilled. These are good boys for action if you pay them, but basically they're scum, right?"

 

 "And me and J.B. aren't?"

 

 "You're class of a different kind," Conroy said, leaning forward. "We leave tomorrow. Come with us, you and the Armorer. I know he ain't taken to me, but I don't give a shit about popularity contests."

 

 "It won't bother him any, either," Ryan said slowly. "Mebbe we will, at that. I'll talk to J.B., and we'll see you tomorrow."

 

 "I'll take a drink to that." Conroy smiled, ordering more of the spirit for himself and his companion.

 

 Ryan took the drink from the trader. He had no intention of making the rendezvous, but it could be useful cover. If the baron and Yardie thought they were leaving with Conroy, then their absence wouldn't be put down to trying to find the Gate, and they should be left well alone.

 

 Meanwhile, on the far side of the bar, J.B. was talking to a sec man whom he had seen only recently.

 

 "Yeah, I was through here only a couple of weeks back," the sec man confirmed. "I was riding with a convoy that had come across from the west, trader called Malloy. He was supposed to meet up with trader Malone down on the coast, some pesthole little ville called Godot. But before we even got that far, he got into trouble with this baron called Estragon, who claimed Malloy was trying to rip him off."

 

 "But that happens all the time," J.B. interjected.

 

 "Ah, that was the problem, wasn't it? Malloy really was trying to rip Estragon, which was a fucking triple stupe dumbass thing to do when you reckon on Estragon having just about the biggest stockpile of weaponry between here and the coast."

 

 "So what did you do?"

 

 "Only thing we could—me and some of the other boys. We jumped ship, dude. Got the fuck out as fast as possible and ended up trying to get work in the nearest ville, which is where I picked up with Conroy's crew. He pays well, and he gets rich by being hard but true—surest way for a trader to get chilled is to cheat. Play hard, but play fair if you want to survive, right?"

 

 "I'll go along with that," J.B. said, his thoughts momentarily going back to his own days with Trader.

 

 "Right. And besides, it landed us back here mighty quick, and this is just about the best damn ville in the whole land when it comes for getting drunk and getting laid."

 

 The sec man downed the rest of his brew and banged his glass down on the table in front of him. He blinked slowly and heavily, then sat, missing his chair and falling to the floor. The revelers around him laughed, those who noticed in the confusion all around. J.B. was laughing, as well, a laugh that was stilled in his throat as he bent to help the man to his feet.

 

 The sec man's skin was cold and clammy to the touch, although his face was flushed.

 

 J.B. frowned. "You feeling okay?"

 

 The sec man gave a short and unconvincing laugh as he rose unsteadily to his feet. "Should be able to take my liquor better'n that," he muttered.

 

 J.B. examined him in the light cast by the lamp over the table. The man's face was flushed, but not in the way he would have expected from the alcohol. There were also signs of a rash on his forehead and under the growth of beard on his cheeks and chin.

 

 The Armorer grabbed the sec man's arm and pulled up his shirt.

 

 "Hey! What the fuck—" the sec man began, stopping dead when he saw the beginnings of pustules running up the inside of his forearm. "What the hell are those?" he whispered.

 

 J.B. leaned in close to him. "You say you were through here a couple of weeks ago?" he questioned, and when the man nodded, continued, "I think you'd better come with me, my friend."

 

 "Where to?" the confused and drunken sec man muttered as J.B. led him out of the bar. Ryan, catching the Armorer's eye as he moved past, made his excuses to Conroy and left the trader, joining J.B. outside. "Trouble?" the one-eyed man questioned. J.B. said nothing, but rolled up the man's sleeve. In the harsh glare of the bar's neon sign, it was easier for the two men to see the full extent of the infection.

 

 "Fireblast," Ryan breathed. "Mildred's not going to like this."

 

 "No one is," the Armorer replied. "This is where we move, right?"

 

 "Triple sure on that," Ryan agreed.

 

 RYAN WAS RIGHT. Mildred was far from happy when they led in the infected sec man.

 

 "Go get Hector—and now," she said to Doc, who rushed to rouse the sleeping healer. Hector entered the med building in Doc's wake, and was grim faced as Mildred showed him the infected sec man.

 

 "If he's been carrying this to other villes," he began, but Mildred cut him short.

 

 "No time to worry about that now. You need to get Robertson in on this right now. If outsiders are getting it, then not only is it being spread across the land, but your ville stands right in the line of fire for reprisals, 'cause it isn't going to take this boy's employer long to work out what's happening."

 

 "Shit," Hector cursed, "all hell could break loose. You're right," he concluded, "I should go now."

 

 The healer turned and left. Mildred looked stonily at Ryan.

 

 "Time?" she queried.

 

 Ryan nodded.

 

 "Krysty," he said over his shoulder, "go and get Jak and Dean, and get them to gather everything then come over here—and triple fast. We're leaving right now."

 

 "Should we run out on them at this precise point?" Doc asked. "They will need our help."

 

 "They won't need anyone's help unless we get moving and find the Gate, see what they know," Ryan snapped.

 

 It seemed like hours but had to have been only a matter of minutes before Krysty returned with Jak, Dean and their collected belongings.

 

 "Any chance you were seen?" Ryan asked.

 

 "No chance. Time to take care," Jak answered decisively.

 

 The one-eyed man nodded, then outlined the situation to the group. The knowledge that Hector was talking to Robertson—the knowledge that the first outsider had contracted the pox—would be incendiary. Chaos would break loose, and in this chaos was their chance to slip away unnoticed. The offer Trader Conroy had made Ryan and J.B. would only add to any confusion that would come in the wake of the notice of their departure.

 

 Their route of escape wouldn't be easy. They wanted to go to the southwest, and the med building was situated to the east of the ville. They would have to negotiate their way around the edge of the ville without being noticed by the sec patrols.

 

 Fate was to once again help them when they were in need.