Читать книгу Salvation Road - James Axler - Страница 8

The broken wheel weighed heavily on his chest, the sharpened and splintered spokes beginning to feel uncomfortable as they poked into his flesh. He pressed himself back into the ground, feeling the sharpness of the small rocks and pebbles in the red dust as they formed a hard, compressed mattress beneath him.

He breathed in short, shallow gasps, trying to extract the maximum amount of oxygen from the minimum movement of his chest muscles. He figured that the axle of the wheel would keep it aloft enough to prevent it penetrating the cloth, skin and flesh and breaking bone and mashing internal organs into a pulpy mess. The balance of the wrecked wagon was delicate, but he hoped that the bulk of its contents would stay on the far side, with just enough weight to lift the broken wheel and prevent it from tilting slowly and inexorably into his all too frail human frame. He would have tried to move, to wriggle out from beneath the spokes, if not for the fact that they already had him delicately pinned, moving almost with the breeze that blew dust and grit into his eyes, making him blink.

Everything was otherwise still. The delicate swirl of the wind and the almost whispered creak of the broken wagon as it shifted was all that could be heard.

He couldn’t remember exactly how the accident had occurred. A vague blur of action as the wagon hit the half-buried rock, the vast majority of its bulk being hidden beneath the loose earth, the terrified cries of the horses as the reins and harness pulled on their muscle and sinew, the wagon suddenly brought to a dead halt by the obstruction. The arrested force pulled the animals back and snapped the neck of one while the other tore free of the frayed leather and ran on, disappearing from view behind an outcrop, the sound of its terrified flight fading into the distance. His own flight, propelled by the force of the impact and pulled forward by the momentum of the reins he had been loosely clutching, had been too swift to recall.

He remembered the impact of his fall, the bone-crunching jarring of his spine on the earth recording indelibly that journey into his memory. The wagon had eventually rolled over the dislodged rock after balancing for a moment in midair, poised to fall with the full weight of twisted and splintered spokes onto his body. The weight inside the wagon, shifted to one side by the impact, had prevented the descent of the deadly wooden stakes, and thus a swift oblivion.

But perhaps this was worse.

He moved again, shuffling beneath the pointed ends of the spokes, which seemed to push back against him and pin him further, as if to emphasize their mastery over his aching, pain-racked frame. The heels of his boots tried to dig into the dust and push back, but found no purchase in the loose earth.

“Emily…my love, are you all right?”

His voice was little more than a whispered croak, the light clouds of dust that eddied around him drying out his mouth even more, making him choke. The coughing racked his body, the spokes responding by pushing harder, biting into his body, their sharpness now more than uncomfortable through his clothing, which, he realized with an obvious but still despondent resignation, offered scant protection.

There was no reply from inside the wagon. His wife had been in the back with their two children. Young Rachel would be all right, but the boy, Jolyon, was little more than a babe in arms, and Doc Tanner was worried that the child would be hurt.

But no more worried than he was about his beloved wife. Doc’s world revolved around Emily; that was why the university-educated academic was making his way across country to begin a new life, moving from the civilized and educated east to the still untamed wilds of the West.

For a moment, as he considered this, a flicker of puzzlement and worry crossed Doc’s brow, making him forget his current predicament, his mind switching to another gear.

But surely that didn’t make sense? Why was he alone with the wagon? Not alone in the sense that he had his young family with him, but alone in the fact that there seemed to have been no other wagons traveling with them. Yes, it would be true to assume that he could have become detached—lost, to be more blunt—from the rest of the train. It would be a reasonable assumption, if not for the simple truth that he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember any other wagons traveling with them at any point in the journey. In point of fact, Doc was as sure as he could be that he had no recollection of even beginning the journey.

“Emily? Please answer me, my sweet. Please talk to me. Rachel, are you there? Is Jolyon all right?”

The only answer was silence.

Tears prickled at the corner of Doc’s eyes. “Please…please let this end. Let this not happen again.”

“Why should you get off light, Doc? Least ways you’re still alive, right? Not so lucky…”

If it had been possible to do so beneath the shattered wheel without impaling himself on the splintered spokes, Doc would have physically jumped with shock and—yes—a tinge of fear at the sound of the voice.

Footsteps came to him across the ground, moving around from the blind side of the wagon, the high heels on the delicately sculpted white calf boots still managing to click, even on the relatively soft carpet of dust. Twisting his head, Doc could see the boots and the shapely denim-clad legs that moved up from the tops of the boots in a sinuous, smoothly moving line to a pair of snaked hips. Above, a slim torso was clad in a short fur jacket, the blank face surmounting it a mask of impassivity, the big, blinking eyes focused on his prone figure, the waves of blond hair flowing like honeyed gold over her shoulders.

“Lori?”

She nodded.

Doc squinted, the fear and uncertainty fluttering in his chest, a cavity that was also being filled with pain as the spokes moved and bit deeper.

“But you’re dead.”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “So’s your wife and your kids, Doc. We’re all dead. But you’re not. That’s why you’ve got to go on suffering.”

Despite the fear and agony, a wry smile crossed Doc’s face. He had often considered that those who had perished were the lucky ones. Lori Quint, found in a redoubt in Alaska and rescued from the dysfunctional family of a “father” that used her as a toy for his own gratification, only to perish along the way.

Suddenly, Doc was no longer afraid. He knew he wasn’t trapped under a wagon in the West. He wasn’t in his own time…In fact, he had no time to call his own. He had long since left Emily, Rachel and Jolyon behind. They had their lives, lived out to whatever span, without ever knowing what had happened to him. How could they? How could nineteenth-century gentlefolk ever comprehend the perverse science behind Operation Chronos, that part of the Totality Concept that had snatched Doc from his own time and propelled him into the 1990s, before his dissension and desire to return to his own time had forced his captors to send him into a future that, ironically, had preserved his life. For while he had leaped over the nuclear holocaust known in his new time as skydark, those very scientists whose Totality Concept had helped form it were to perish.

And in that dark new world of the Deathlands, Doc had met Lori and lost her.

But despite it all, despite the physical strain of being propelled through time, and immense mental torment that made him feel as though he had descended into insanity, emerged the other side and gained the ability to dip his toe in and out of those murky waters of madness, he had survived. He and his traveling companions.

And the journey wasn’t yet over.

“Do what you must,” Doc said simply.

Lori Quint nodded blankly and walked over to the wheel, poised over Doc’s chest.

“Sorry,” she said as she began to push the wheel down…gently at first, but then with more force, the effort showing on her face.

“It doesn’t matter…it just, ah—”

Doc’s ability to speak was taken from him by the rush of pain as the splintered wood bit deeper into his flesh, breaking the skin and tearing the flesh and sinew beneath, the resistance of his ribs making them almost audibly creak before the sharp snapping sounds of bone giving way to a greater force.

Doc looked up into Lori’s face as the periphery of his vision grew dim, the black edges spreading across the whole of his vision.

“It just has to carry on….” he whispered as all darkened, and the pain grew to encompass all.

“DOC LOOKS in a pretty bad way.”

Ryan Cawdor hunkered down beside the older man, whose white, straggling hair matted in sweat-soaked strands to his head. He was stretched out on the floor of the mat-trans chamber. His limbs jerked in spasm, and his open eyes flicked the whites up into his skull.

Doc was always Ryan’s main concern on arriving at a new destination. The mat-trans chambers were located in secret predark U.S. Army redoubts that were dotted across the ruins of America, in the lands now known as the Deathlands. None of the fellow travelers knew how to program the computer-triggered matter-transfer machines that were at the heart of each base; they knew only that closing the door triggered the mechanism and set the old comp tech working that was left in the depopulated bases. Each jump was a gamble. The vast land and weather upheavals that had followed the long night of skydark had changed the geography of the old Americas irrevocably, so there was always the risk that they would land in a mat-trans chamber that was crushed beneath tons of rock, or flooded so that they would instantly drown.

So far they had been lucky—either that, or the automatic default settings on the remaining working comps would only transfer at random to redoubts where the chambers were still able to receive. That wasn’t something that Ryan could assume.

But the redoubts offered them a way to move vast distances across the scorched earth. However, everything had its price. Although it gave them an advantage that few, if any, could share, it also carried its own cost. The jumps were a nightmare experience where every atom of their being was torn apart, flung across vast distances and then reassembled. It made them all feel as though they had been ripped slowly apart, each sinew stretched to snapping point, all organs squeezed tightly in an iron grip…and gave them a worse hangover and comedown than the strongest shine or jolt.

Some of the group adapted to the jump better than others, and it seemed to be reliant on something genetic rather than just fitness and strength. Although the fact that Ryan was always the first to stir after a jump could lead to that initial conclusion, for he was the most obviously physically fit specimen in the group. He stood more than six feet tall, with a mane of waving, dark curls that framed a square-jawed and handsome face, that was only somewhat marred by the patch that covered the empty left eye socket. The livid and puckered scar that ran down his cheek bore testimony to the manner in which the eye had been lost. The one-eyed man was a fighting machine, his whipcord musculature developed by years of action.

Hearing a murmur behind him as he crouched over Doc, Ryan turned to find his son, Dean, regaining consciousness and rising to his feet. Just as his father had checked the razor-sharp panga strapped to his thigh and the 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 pistol in its holster when he came to, settling the Steyr SSG-70 across his shoulder, so Dean automatically checked and holstered the 9 mm Browning Hi-Power that was his preferred blaster. Apart from the fact that he was still in possession of both eyes, Dean could have been a mirror image of his father. Now twelve years old, the boy was developing into a fighting machine that would one day be the equal of his father.

Ryan looked away from his son and back to the prone old man.

“Doc looks bad,” Dean remarked, joining his father.

Ryan nodded. “Mildred should be conscious soon. Mebbe she’ll be able to do something.”

Krysty Wroth was also beginning to stir from the stupor brought on by the mat-trans jump. She groaned as she raised her head, her long fur coat wrapped around her shapely and finely muscled body, tendrils of her Titian red, sentient hair, uncurling from around her head and flowing freely as she felt the danger recede. Krysty had the ability to sense danger, and her mutie senses were trusted by Ryan in tight spots.

The woman rose to her feet, her blue, silver-tipped Western boots clicking on the smooth floor of the chamber. Without pausing, she checked her .38-caliber Model 640 Smith & Wesson, holstering it as she strode the short distance to where Ryan and Dean were hunched over Doc.

By now, Dr. Mildred Wyeth was coming around, as was J. B. Dix. As usual, the pair made the jump side by side, their hands touching. Neither was the type to show his or her emotions, but each would put the other before him or herself.

Mildred’s dark skin was nearly ashen with the shock of the jump, her breathing labored but regular.

“Shit, I never even used to get hangovers that bad,” she muttered, her beaded plaits shaking around her downturned face as she tried to clear her head. “That’s the worst jump I can remember for a long, long time.”

“Uh-huh, I’ll second that,” J.B. whispered hoarsely from beside her. His lean, almost gaunt face was set in an expression of intense discomfort, broken only by the out-of-focus set of his eyes. His bony hand reached for the wire-rimmed spectacles he kept securely in his jacket pocket during jumps. Placing them on the bridge of his nose, he blinked as his still clouded eyes adjusted to consciousness. Where Mildred carried a generous covering of flesh on her frame, J.B. was wiry and thin, belying his strength and stamina. Known as the Armorer, J.B. had met Ryan when they traveled together as sec men for the Trader, the legendary figure who was foremost among the breed of traveling merchants who kept alive what little economy and trade could exist, sniffing out caches of predark supplies and using them for barter.

J.B. was an armorer by trade and natural inclination, his fascination and thirst for knowledge on all weapons matched only by his ability to get the best out of even the most neglected and damaged blaster. He rose to his feet, dusting himself down out of habit, even though there was no dust in the static-free atmosphere of the chamber. Bending, he picked his battered fedora from the floor and placed it on his head, not feeling properly dressed until he had done that. He then checked his Tekna knife, the M-4000 and Uzi that were his preferred blasters and trusted companions.

Beside him, Mildred had also risen to her feet and checked her own blaster, the .38-caliber Czech-made ZKR 551 target pistol. Although not the most powerful of the handblasters that had run through the hands of the companions during their time roaming the Deathlands, it suited Mildred perfectly, being the model she had used in her days as an Olympic-grade shooter.

For Mildred was, like Doc Tanner, a relic of the past who should not, by rights, have been alive in the Deathlands. She had spent Christmas of the year 2000 in hospital for routine surgery on a suspected ovarian cyst. While under anesthetic, Mildred had developed complications that saw her vital signs sinking fast with no apparent way to revive her. She was cryogenically frozen until this seemingly minor problem could be solved.

Ironically, it was the act of dying that kept her alive, for while she was frozen the superpowers executed the military and nuclear maneuvers preceded skydark and the resultant nuclear winter that created the landscape of the Deathlands.

When Ryan and his traveling companions stumbled across the facility where her frozen body was stored and managed to successfully revive her, she found herself in an incomprehensibly different world to the one she had left behind.

Unlike Doc—whose body and mind had been prematurely aged and ripped apart as a result of being flung through time—Mildred had kept a grasp on reality and adapted well to the harsh new world. Her medical skills were sometimes blunted by the lack of resources, but she had proved herself invaluable to the band of travelers by her ability to apply her knowledge in even the most exceptional circumstances.

Mildred’s first move after clearing her head from the aftereffects of the jump was to join Ryan and Krysty over Doc’s slumped body.

“You know that one day this is going to be once too often for the old fool,” she commented as she thumbed back Doc’s flickering eyelid to get a better look at his wildly rolling eye. She felt his sweat-plastered forehead. “Not too much of a temperature, though,” she said, almost to herself. Rummaging in the pockets of her jacket, she produced a battered stethoscope that had been salvaged from the ruined medical bay of a previous redoubt. She opened Doc’s shirt, roaming the end of the stethoscope across his chest until she picked up his heart rate. It was fluttering and irregular, but even as she listened it began to settle into a more regular rhythm.

“Hell, I think the old buzzard might even last this one out,” she said to the others, a smile flickering at the corners of her mouth.

“Mebbe he’ll even outlive Jak—well, at this rate it seems likely,” Dean commented wryly as he glanced over his shoulder to where Jak Lauren had risen to his knees before retching and puking a thin string of bile onto the chamber floor.

Jak looked tiny swathed in his multipatched camou jacket, and cut a pathetic figure as he coughed and spit out the last of the vomit, spasms jolting his body. But this impression was belied by the fact that the teenager—an albino from the swamps of the bayou whose pale face was covered in the scars of innumerable battles—was a born hunter and fighter, his slight frame almost entirely consisting of wiry muscle stretched over his skeleton.

Despite the vast reserves of strength that he held within his wiry frame, Jak was the member of the group who was hit hardest by the mat-trans jumps, always taking the longest to recover, his senses reeling and his body racked by pain.

“Right now be glad see Doc last longer.” Jak coughed in between gulping down breaths of air, his red eyes beginning to focus on the rest of the group. “Feel like already long chilled,” he added with a rare grin.

As Jak pulled himself to his feet, and Dean and Mildred helped a dazed and confused Doc to his feet, Ryan, J.B. and Krysty moved across to the chamber door. This particular chamber had teal-blue armaglass walls; most of the chambers they had encountered, whatever the color of the armaglass, had been opaque. And although that was a good thing because it meant that they couldn’t be observed from the outside, it also meant that exiting from each chamber and into the redoubt was fraught with the possibility of being open to an attack they couldn’t predict.

Ryan paused by the door and looked at Krysty. Her Titian mane was flowing free, not curling close to her head.

“Feels good to me, lover,” she said simply.

Ryan spared her a smile, his single eye sparkling. “Mebbe I’d gathered that,” he replied, indicating her free-flowing tresses.

“So take it yellow but still alert?” the Armorer interjected. It was a question, as Ryan was the undisputed leader—there had to be one in any group if they were to survive—but J.B. was as experienced as his old friend, and just needed the one-eyed warrior to confirm what he suspected he was thinking.

Ryan nodded. “Check the others. Are we ready?”

He looked over the rest of his people. Dean was now alert and ready for action, while Doc was recovering rapidly, attended by Mildred.

The younger Cawdor nodded assent at his readiness. Mildred muttered a swift yes before looking at Doc, who also nodded assent, leaning heavily on his lion’s-head sword stick but looking stronger with each passing second. Already he had the unwieldy but effective LeMat pistol sitting easily against the heel of his hand.

That just left Jak. The albino was resilient and strong, and he had already moved over to where Ryan, Krysty and J.B. were poised by the chamber door, his .357 Magnum Colt Python already in his hand.

“Ready,” he said shortly.

Ryan nodded and reached out for the handle on the interior of the door. It was a simple handle, seemingly too simple a lock mechanism for something that would seal a doorway against the outside world while matter transfer took place within.

Ryan’s muscles tensed perceptibly in the fraction of a second it took for the door to swing open, his easy stance replaced by a steeled spring that took him into the anteroom outside. J.B. swung into position behind him, his Uzi up and ready, covering his friend.

Ryan took in his surroundings with one swift circular glance, years of training in the art of survival meaning that every detail of the area was imprinted on his sole retina.

The comp control room was deserted, with the remaining comp consoles covered in a thin layer of dust despite the gentle hum of the air-conditioning, suggesting that the plant that cleaned the air was at least still partly working.

Ryan rolled, clutching the Steyr by stock and barrel, shielding it from harm with his body as he came up on his feet, hunkered behind one of the consoles that provided scant cover.

He looked around. The area outside the chamber was lifeless and empty, and it seemed apparent that there was little, if any, life in this part of the redoubt. It was an impression gained from the slight buildup of dust and dirt by the sec door leading to the corridor beyond.

“Safe down here,” Ryan called, rising and noting in passing that the light on top of the sec camera that stood in the top left corner of the arena was dead, “and we can’t be seen by anyone.”

Relaxed but with a residue of tension that never left them, the rest of the group exited the mat-trans chamber and dispersed into the comp control room. Dean and Krysty, who both had gained an interest in old tech, went over to the still blinking console that controlled the mat-trans chamber.

“Any idea where we landed?” Krysty murmured to Dean.

The youth shook his head. “We need some kind of direction indicator, mebbe a map with it. I guess it’s down to J.B. and the stars.”

The Armorer expressed his acknowledgment of Dean’s comment with a twitch of the lips that may have been a smile or a grimace. It was true that often the only way they knew what part of the Deathlands they had landed in was when the Armorer was able to get outside the redoubt to take a reading on his minisextant from the sky above. It was ironic that, with all the old tech around them, it was something so simple and ancient was the most reliable location finder.

It also amused the J.B. for the simple reason that, before they could get the reading, they would have to reach the surface. And that, as they all knew from past experience, wasn’t a foregone conclusion by any means.

“May I suggest, my dear Ryan, that if the redoubt is in all probability empty, then we try to make a rapid if secured progress and ascertain if there are any supplies to be salvaged?”

“Why don’t you just say let’s look to see if we can sleep and eat?” Mildred added.

Ryan suppressed a good-humored smile. The opportunity to relax enough to make jokes was rare, and if the atmosphere could be maintained by circumstances, then it would benefit them all to rest and eat before taking up their guard once more and taking a look at the outside. And there was only one way to do that.

“Okay, people,” the one-eyed man said, “let’s take a look outside. Once we get the door open, then it’s triple red. Let’s keep it tight until we know what we’re dealing with.”

In many ways it was unnecessary for Ryan to say this, as they had stayed alive for so long by following their instincts and taking such actions as a matter of course; but by saying it, Ryan helped focus himself and his companions on the task ahead.

Forming up as Ryan punched in the sec code to open the automatic door, Krysty was next in line behind the one-eyed man. Jak came next, with Doc sandwiched between the albino and Dean. Mildred fell into line ahead of J.B., the Armorer bringing up the rear. All seven were silent, their senses tuning into the stillness and quiet around as they psyched themselves up to spot the slightest change. All stood easily, yet the observant eye could see that each had shifted his or her balance in such a way that everyone was poised for the optimum reaction.

The door hissed slightly as the mechanism opened, leading onto the corridor beyond.

From their long experience, they knew that the vast majority of redoubts that housed mat-trans chambers were built on the same basic plan, which put them on one of the lower levels. Many redoubts were buried underground, running sometimes hundreds of feet deep. Sometimes, the entrances could be found built into the sides of mountains or hills, or cut into the sides of valleys, so that they were sheltered but still at ground level. The armory and general sec supplies and barrack facilities were on the higher levels, with a quicker access to the entrances, while the middle levels usually housed sleeping and recreational facilities, including the mess halls and kitchens.

All levels were accessed by the corridors, each of which was equipped with a series of sec doors that could seal off sections when required. The levels themselves were accessed by a series of large elevators, some of which were designed for large numbers of personnel, and some of which could take equipment and smaller vehicles. A series of stairwells served as an emergency backup for possible power or circuit failure on the elevators. These stairwells were accessed by sec doors, and were of bare concrete and sparsely lit. The elevators had sec risks for the companions, but from bitter experience they were all aware that the stairwells were traps from which there was less chance of escape.

So they would always choose the elevators if possible. Thus it was that Ryan led his people toward the elevator. All his senses and instincts were telling him that the redoubt was deserted. There was no sign of life anywhere on this level, and indeed it seemed that the level had seen no activity since skydark. And experience told him that, if the redoubt was in any way occupied, sheer curiosity and the search for jack and loot to trade would have led the occupants down to this level.

The companions were relaxed but still alert as they reached the end of the corridor and the dulled metal doors that closed over the elevator shaft.

Ryan studied the electronic panel. “Looks like it’s still working,” he muttered. “Let’s see….”

The one-eyed man tapped the call button, and the friends stood in complete silence, listening intently for the gentle purr of the mechanism as it approached.

“Sounds like the shaft’s unaffected,” J.B. mused.

The elevator reached their level, a muted shuddering announcing its halt. As the doors opened smoothly onto the empty car, Jak said, “Mebbe luck change…for once.”