Читать книгу Atlantis Reprise - James Axler - Страница 8

The ruins lay smoldering in the valley below them. Worn down by the fight, caught by the searing heat of the fires that had spread through the ville on the wings of the swirling zephyrs, there were few survivors. Not many that were people. A few mules and horses, some dogs—those that had managed to slip their bonds and scrabble their way up the steep slopes, their fear powering their limbs as they attempted to outrun the devastation.

Ryan Cawdor, Jak Lauren, J. B. Dix, Mildred Wyeth and Krysty Wroth had prevailed, with them, Doc Tanner—or possibly not Doc Tanner. Who could tell, in his currently unconscious state, whether he would wake to once more be Dr. Theophilus Tanner, or if he would be Joseph Jordan, the reincarnated or transferred soul of a Scottish trapper from the centuries before the nukecaust?

For now, it didn’t matter. Like all of them, Doc was beyond caring about such matters. While he was still wrapped in the velvet oblivion of unconsciousness, the others began to stir. They had managed to escape from the holocaust that raged beneath them, but the effort had rendered all of them too exhausted to take another step, all sinking into their own sleep of exhaustion.

Yet this wasn’t the place to succumb to such measures. The heat rising on spiraling air from the inferno beneath was enough to warm the air around and the earth beneath them, to take the edge from the ever present howling gales that swept unfettered across the barren plains of rock and ice that surrounded them. It was enough to keep them from freezing to an early chill. But it wouldn’t sustain them for long: the cold would bite, the fires below subside. When that happened, then the sudden drop in temperature would take a swift and exacting toll.

Should they even survive this, then there was the greater problem: where did they go from here?

First things first. The most important thing was to survive as long as possible, from one moment to the next, until these moments ran together to make a long stretch of time. And to survive, they had to be on their feet and moving.

Ryan was the first to surface from the blackness. Something deep inside him nagged and impelled him to come around from the comfort of oblivion. He was tired, aching, and felt as though he could settle into the arms of Morpheus forever, never to be bothered again by the rigors of having to survive. And yet still there nagged a voice that told him to face the pain and the cold. It wasn’t just about him. When he became the leader of his small group, then he undertook the duty to try to guide them through adversity to whatever it was that they had spent so long searching for. That obligation wouldn’t allow him to take the easy way out.

Ryan dragged his aching limbs, his legs still suffused with lactic acid burn from their flight, and used his less battered and more responsive arms to propel himself upward, into a kneeling position. It took a moment for him to gain his bearings. He looked out over the empty plain, the daylight already beginning to fade, then back toward the valley, the air around the rim glowing as though casting a benign radiation into the darkening skies.

But there was no mistaking the odor that drifted across the short distance. Cutting through the ever present sulfur burn that always made the air taste sour, there was the smell of roasted flesh, sickly sweet and mixed with the ashes of the woods and brick that had once constituted the ville of Fairbanks.

A glorious folly. Doc had used those words once, when he was Doc. He had been quoting some kind of old song or poem at them, something to do with six hundred men riding into a valley. Mebbe that was why he could think of it now, why it cut through the fog that still partially clouded his mind.

Not knowing what else to do, Ryan hauled himself to his feet and half walked, half stumbled across the short distance to the rim of the valley, so that he could see what was happening below.

Nothing.

Not, at least, in terms of action or life. There were still tongues of fire that whipped across the remains of the ville, crisscrossing over the rubble that was all that remained of the streets and buildings. If anything had managed to stay alive in there, it was trapped and buying the farm in a long, slow, agonizing way.

Not that Ryan cared. Those mad Inuit bastards would only have chilled them after they’d burned the inhabitants of the ville. With only a very few left back at the settlement, he guessed that this meant the end of the Inuit tribe.

Fuck them, they would have taken out his people.

His only concern about who lived was based on the assumption that any still down there may come after them. And if his friends felt anything like he did right now, then they were in no fit condition to take on anyone.

He turned his back on the mayhem below and trudged wearily to where the rest of the companions lay on the ground, some now beginning to show signs of life.

Mildred and Jak had managed to reenter the real world and were no longer blearily staring around them, struggling to make their aching limbs respond to the messages their befuddled brains were sending. By the time that they were able to lift themselves to their feet, J.B. and Krysty were also beginning to respond to their surroundings.

It left only Doc, blissfully unaware of the perils from which he had been rescued, and the perils in which he now reposed, oblivious on the cold, hard ground.

The shock of the cold beginning to hit them as the night crept on and the fires in the valley subsided rapidly, casting up less heat, was enough to focus their minds.

Mildred checked Doc. He was unconscious, but seemingly unharmed apart from a few contusions and cuts, which was no more than the rest of them had suffered during the brief and brutal battle. There was no reason that she could define to explain why he was still unconscious while the others had all managed to recover sufficiently to function.

‘What the hell do we do now?’ J.B. asked Ryan as the two men stood surveying the wasteland around them. ‘Can’t go on to Ank Ridge. We don’t know where it is, don’t know how far and mebbe couldn’t even pick up the trail.’

‘Even if we could, they’d have some idea of what’s been going on, and how the hell could we explain away the trail of devastation the Inuit left behind them? We’re all that’s left. We’d have to shoulder all the blame and the shit that would come with it,’ Ryan added grimly. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as shit not up to another firefight right now.’

J.B. cast a glance back over his shoulder to where Mildred was still tending to Doc. ‘Not if we’ve got a passenger, as well. Whoever the hell he’s going to be next,’ he said simply.

‘So, a rock and a hard place. Fireblast, whoever thought that one up must have been thinking of a place like this,’ Ryan murmured. ‘J.B., we don’t know what lies off the trails, and we don’t know how far anything is in any direction except one. We’ve only got the two choices.’

‘Go back past the slopes, all the way back to the redoubt, and then jump.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘That’s only one choice. What’s the second?’

Ryan shrugged. ‘Lie down, go back to sleep and buy the farm.’

FACED WITH A CHOICE that stark, even the most tired of limbs, the slowest of dulled reactions, couldn’t fail to click into gear. Mildred made Doc as warm and comfortable as was possible and then joined the others in their mission under the fading light.

There were animals roaming, lost around the rim of the valley. Some of the dogs still had sleds or partial sleds attached to them. The companions’ task was to round up as many of the animals as they could, taking care not to spook them. Easier said than done, as the events in the valley had set a wave of fear trembling through those creatures that survived. But they, too were exhausted, and so, with a little patience, the companions were able to round up the surviving livestock and tether it as best as possible.

The plan was simple: from the partial and whole sleds that survived, they would attempt to cobble together enough transport to hook up to the beasts. That would enable them to tackle the distance between their position and the redoubt perhaps faster than they would on foot, and certainly enable them to preserve their energies. The remainder of any salvaged wood they could use for fires along the journey, to warm them and their pack beasts in the darkest, coldest watches of the night.

The beasts could be used to pull the transport. They could also be slaughtered along the way to provide food for both the companions and for those beasts that survived. The slaughter would perhaps put fear into the beasts, but that would be countered by their intense cold and hunger, which would make them perhaps more malleable than usual.

By the time that they had collected the livestock, made a fire for the now imminent night, and begun to hammer together enough sleds to carry them and any animal carcasses they would slaughter for food back to the redoubt, they were exhausted. Unwilling to begin the slaughter so soon and to face a sleepless night with the unsettled livestock, the companions resorted to the remaining self-heats. Whatever else occurred, J.B. and Mildred always insured that they could keep their essential stocks close to hand. It wasn’t even something they thought about: it was a second nature.

The food was foul, but it was nutritious enough to justify forcing it down rather than throwing it to one side in disgust. Their stomachs full, they settled to rest, Ryan opting to force himself awake to keep first watch.

As his companions and the beasts slept soundly into the night, Ryan cast his eye around him. The valley was now a distant glow, the fires finally burning themselves out. Nothing more had emerged from the ruins, and nothing was likely to have survived. Just the six of them and a smattering of livestock.

The one-eyed man wondered at how his friends were able to drag themselves from precipitous situations, coming back time and again from the brink of being chilled. One day their luck would run out, but until then there was little they could do except to keep moving.

But to keep moving across this plain that they already knew to be so hostile? With the sleds and the livestock, they had increased their chances of survival. Nonetheless, it was going to be a hard ride.

THE JOURNEY WAS LONG and hard. Started the next morning, it took two days and well into a third before the area of the redoubt hove into view. They stuck to the trail proscribed by the traffic between villes, now reinforced in view by the detritus left a few days before by the Inuit as they had passed. The pace they set was steady. To go too fast and risk burning out the strength left in the livestock would have been ultimately self-defeating. Nonetheless, it was important that they cover the ground quickly. The wood for fires, the livestock for food—neither would last for very long. Moreover, it was vital for their state of mind that they traverse the trail with speed and get out of that godforsaken territory.

It was almost a pleasure for them to be able to relax and to rest weary and torn muscles as the beasts pulling the sleds took most of the strain. They still had to be steered, which sometimes took its toll on wounded biceps and shoulders. A small price to pay for such a rapid and relatively easy progress.

Along the trail, the few landmarks that existed seemed to come upon them so much faster than before—inevitably, given their mode of transport, but vaguely disorienting after the rigors of the outward-bound march.

The deserted settlements, ripped apart by the plas-ex detonations of their previous visit, stood alone and desolate, their keening loneliness speaking more of the isolation and vast tracts of empty space than the companions could have cared to be reminded of, reliant as they were on exhausted beasts on a trail to nowhere. They were a stark reminder of how close the companions had come to being chilled themselves in such a manner—not once, but several times during the expedition. Even now, they weren’t out of danger. The weather had been holding for more than forty-eight hours, the heavy yellow-tinged chem clouds pregnant with rains and snows that could engulf them, lose them in the roaring blizzard, and soak and chill them to the bone, with no shelter within view where respite could be sought.

There were, in the distance, the occasional glimpses of deer or bear as the packs and herds went about the business of trying to survive. They could be a danger if they approached, but hopefully held too much fear of the sleds and those pulling them, based on past experience, to come too near.

The ice and snow plucked from the rock and swirled in the never-ending flurry of winds still numbed and chilled when coming into contact with exposed skin. Despite the layers of skins and furs that still swathed them, the companions were chilled to the bone by the constant crosswinds, this time without the exercise of marching to warm them in any way. It was all they could do not to succumb to the ravages of hypothermia. How ironic if their attempt to increase their speed was to cause their demise. However they chose to make their flight, it seemed as though they faced nothing but life-threatening obstacles.

Two nights huddled by fires built—on the second night—from some of their sleds caused them to double up for the last day, and to put more strain on the livestock—livestock that was becoming more and more unsettled as Jak slaughtered some to feed the others and to feed the companions. Ryan had been correct in his assumption that the creatures would be too hungry and cold to be that distressed by the slaughter, intent as they were on eating their chilled companions to appease the hunger gnawing at their guts; however they were still unsettled enough for their pace to be upset on the following day’s trek.

The trail took them along the base of the volcanic slopes that housed the Inuit village. They skirted the rock-enclosed passage and didn’t take the trail as it wound up into the wooded slopes, choosing to avoid a possible firefight by keeping to the base of the slope. Ryan hoped that the few remaining Inuit wouldn’t be hunting at that point in the day. The way he had it figured, they’d have enough trouble keeping the settlement going, and it was too early for them to be sniffing around for any sign of their warriors returning.

After passing the volcanic region, and watching it recede peacefully into the distance, it was only a matter of a few hours by sled before they reached the area where the redoubt was hidden.

All the while, Doc hovered between conscious and unconscious. Mildred tended to him, but could still find no reason why he shouldn’t be fully aware of what was occurring around him. It seemed to her almost as if he were surfacing, taking note of his surroundings, then retreating into his own mind after deciding that he didn’t like what he saw.

J.B. took what sightings he could in the appalling conditions, trusting the accuracy of the minisextant and his own skill to attain an accurate reading. Ryan hoped that the Armorer’s sense of direction under these conditions was accurate. They couldn’t last for much longer without some respite from the weather.

He didn’t care where they might end up when they made the mat-trans jump. Anywhere had to be better than this…although, he realized with bitterness it was probably how he’d felt before they ended up in these icy wastes.

J.B. motioned them to change direction and a familiar outcropping came into view. The end of their quest was in sight.

It was almost as if Doc knew. He surprised Mildred by raising himself up on one elbow and looking at her with a quizzical air that was at once all too familiar to her.

A suspicion confirmed when he opened his mouth and said, in a voice that was distinctly his own, ‘My dear Doctor, what on earth are we doing out here in these appalling conditions? And why, pray tell, do you look as though you’ve been on the losing side of a fight?’