Doomsday Warrior 03 - The Last American (16 page)

The others joined him within a few minutes, huffing and puffing near collapse. Dean Keppel and Ms. Shriver virtually fell off their ’brids and lay on their backs on the grainy black sand of the crater plateau. They needed rest—the ’brids too. The big steeds were breathing hard, their nostrils flaring, their lips spitting out white foam. The sun would be setting soon, anyway.

“All right, let’s set up camp,” Rock said, much to the relief of the two on the ground. “We’ll need tents tonight. Up here there’s not much protection if a storm should come.” Far off in the distance, like mountains in the sky, Rockson saw a migration of immense dark clouds that he didn’t like the looks of at all. He had the party set up two tents, curved like little balls, nylon with alumisynth collapsible frames. The pegs had to be set very deep because of the porosity of the ground, but they struck some sort of hard surface after about eighteen inches.

They had a quick but delicious meal created by “master” chef Ted Rockson himself. Dried deer-chunks sautéed in dandelion with cactus juice. He prepared it in a small wok Chen had produced from his saddlebag. It was Rock’s turn to cook. He didn’t like the chore and feared the results, yet he made the most of it.

They sat around the campfire eating the delicacy from metal cups. At first hesitant, his companions now ate with gusto. Even Ms. Shriver had to say “Simply scrumptious, young man.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” the pleased-with-himself Rock said with a grin. “You should try my cactus needle in sand sauce. Made it a few times when we ran out of everything and were in the middle of nowhere. Chen’s had it—he’ll tell you.”

“The
best,”
the Chinese Warrior said, between bites. “Makes being lost in the desert with no supplies, no directions, and no water, a real treat. I recommend it highly.” The ’brids watched their human masters eat and licked their own thick lips in anticipation. But they would have to wait. Their bodies were constructed to go up to ten days without food, three or four without water. They’d survive, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t get hungry.

Rock had been right in his premonition of a storm. They had barely bedded down, Chen and Rock in one of the ball tents, Keppel and Ms. Shriver in the other, when the winds picked up, gusting and blowing at the seemingly fragile little balls of nylon and super-light alloy. Within minutes the monstrous clouds hit into them with a vengeance, pouring down rain by the bucket, unleashing gale force winds. From inside it sounded as if a herd of plains buffalo were trampling on their thin fabric roof just feet above their heads. Rock and Chen had been through it before. They knew that the tents could take it. They had been designed in one of Shecter’s field equipment labs to take winds of up to a hundred eighty miles per hour. They both listened to the fury of an enraged Nature, and, from their years of training, were actually able to fall asleep in the midst of the titanic blowout. In the other tent six feet away, Ms. Shriver and Dean Keppel were not faring quite as well. Every bolt of lightning made them both jump, every explosive gust that shook their nylon walls made them cringe. They talked to each other to try to stay calm—about anything—pretending, wishing they were back in Century City having an afternoon tea at one of the restaurants.

But somehow when morning dumbly rolled over and opened its rain-clogged eyes—everyone was still alive. They zipped open the doors to their flimsy but powerful mini-tents and stumbled out onto the crater plateau. Ms. Shriver and Dean Keppel were groggy-eyed and weary, but extremely happy just to be alive. They talked all morning, recounting their long night. Terror turns to adventure once it’s over—they’d have some great stories to tell their stodgy colleagues back home.

They loaded up the ’brids and started cautiously down the inner crater wall. The going was better down than it had been up, and as they headed down the slope the angle of descent grew easier. After only about an hour and a half, Rock’s palomino reached the very bottom and started out onto the extraordinarily flat terrain. The whiteness was even more pronounced now that they were right on it. With the sun beating down from almost directly overhead, it was like a mirror beneath their feet, blinding. The ground was hard, and the hybrid’s hooves clattered across it with sharp cracks. Behind him, the other three edged carefully forward. Everyone was tense, even the mounts, who sensed that this was not the usual ground beneath their feet. The surfaces appeared to be solid, in fact flawless—without a crack or a seam—but it had a very strange texture to it. Hard but brittle, so brittle it felt as if it might crack like a piece of glass. Rock leaned over in the saddle and looked closely at the almost translucent surface as the ’brid moved slowly ahead, obviously having trouble with its footing on the smooth surface. Could the blast of the Super Bomb, perhaps another on the other side—have actually melted the earth for hundreds of square miles and then fused it into some kind of crystalline structure—melted it into an atomic glass? Not a blade of grass, not a creature stirred, not even . . .

The Doomsday Warrior took out the radmeter and held the collector toward the strange surface. Hot, and moving up all the time—the needle was edging into the seventies and the red zone of the meter, meaning “Watch Out.” Rock hoped they could get across it fairly quickly. He didn’t want to be responsible for either of his charges ending up with cancer in a year. The hybrids moved very cautiously, as if each step they took had to be felt out before they put their full weight down. Rock sensed that the palomino was growing increasingly nervous, lifting its big head around from time to time and staring at its master with apple-sized brown eyes, as if asking, are you sure this is where you want me to go?

A lone hawk hovered far overhead, circling on the constant updraft of hot air from the superheated convection oven of the mirrorlike surface. From above the party of travelers looked hardly bigger than ants. A trail of insignificant dots heading, the hawk knew, off to death—as all creatures did that entered this plain. It would have bones to pick clean. Soon. Soon.

The Free Americans had gone for about two miles without incident when the first vibrations started. It was almost like a humming sound—and for the sheerest second, Rockson thought perhaps one of the party was playing a harmonica—the high frequency whir of the base note. Then it grew deeper and louder, much louder. A subsonic tone rumbled through their bones, gripping them, shaking men and hybrids with an overpowering vibration. It felt as if their very bones were about to be torn loose from their containing ligaments. The ’brids tossed their heads in fear and reared backwards, trying to get away from the unseen enemy.

Then, just as suddenly, the vibrations stopped. The ’brids calmed down and everyone caught their collective breath.

“What the hell was that?” Chen asked, his face ashen. It was the only time Rockson had seen the master with even a trace of fear in his warrior face. Men, beasts he could handle. But that sound—of the very gods screaming—it had shaken him.

“I think it was a minor tremor of some kind,” Rock started. “I just hope—” Before he could get another word out the vibrations began again, only this time the earth shook with them. The quake hit instantaneously and with full force. Everything vibrated, as if in some absurd dance. The freefighters’ arms and heads jerked around like marionettes. They were helpless—totally controlled by the increasingly powerful waves of the earthquake. Dean Keppel’s ’brid stumbled down onto its front knees, and the dean flew from his mount and crashed onto the rock-hard smooth ground.

Everything suddenly seemed to move in slow motion. Rock could see them all flailing around atop their ’brids, which slid in terror along the crystal ground. It was like a dream in which you can see every minute detail but can do nothing to stop it. The earth shook more and more powerfully, taking their minds, their thoughts. There was nothing but violent motion everywhere. It was as if they were in the hands of a race of giants, being squeezed and shaken until their very brains would surely explode through their skulls.

Rock felt the palomino falling to the side as the roar grew completely deafening. He rolled free and tried to rise, but there was no way, no solidity beneath his feet. Suddenly the ground began ripping, cracking apart, tearing its very guts open. The ’brids screamed in terror as clouds of dust shot up through the cracks like geysers of solid sand. A network of fractures opened up, instantly stretching off in all directions like a spiderweb. The earth moaned with a deep, wrenching sound, as the crystalline surface came apart at the seams. The hairline cracks widened and grew within seconds to black rivulets, then chasms, creaking, opening into bottomless darkness.

Rock heard an animal scream, for a moment even louder than the roar. Dean Keppel’s ’brid was disappearing into a six-foot-wide fissure. It fell backwards, its flailing hooves useless in the air. Rock stopped trying to rise and fell flat onto his stomach. He spread his arms and legs out as wide as possible and held on to the very flesh of the earth as she raged uncontrollably. Rock could feel his bones being jarred inside his body, as if he were riding the biggest bucking bronco that had ever lived. He held on for dear life. He tried to crane his neck around to see the others, but in the mist created by the streams of sand being shot up from the fissures at high speed it was like looking through a thick fog. An immense fissure ripped open just yards away from Rock, tearing the earth like a piece of paper. On the other side it looked as if another ’brid with someone on top went down into the earth. Damn, he couldn’t even make out who it was. Another crack started opening just beneath him. Rockson felt it coming and rolled to the side, making contact with solid ground as the chasm sucked down the earth where he had been sprawled. For a second he could see down into the dusty black hole. It seemed to go down forever. Rock prepared himself for death. He felt no fear, but great sadness. Sadness that they wouldn’t get to the convention to help form the new America, and a deeper and more wounding ache, that he would never see Kim again. He calmed his mind and heart and waited, as the cracks opened everywhere, to die.

Twelve

A
s suddenly as it had begun, the quake was over. The tremors died down with a cough or two of delayed aftershock and then all was still. Rock rose slowly to his feet to survey the damage. His legs felt unsteady after being in the grip of such a powerful force. Around him the hybrids lay on their sides, trying to right themselves—two left. With a flurry of motion they jumped to their feet. About fifty feet away lay Ms. Shriver, motionless on the now jagged and torn ground. At least she was alive. He turned quickly around, searching for the others. Chen and Dean Keppel were nowhere in sight.

“Rock, Rock,” he heard a voice yell. “Over here.” He turned a full hundred eighty degrees. It was Chen, alive. Rockson said a quick silent prayer inside. If he had ever felt that a man was his brother, Chen was that man. The Chinese freefighter was about a hundred fifty feet away, on an island of the crystal rock, surrounded on all sides by immense chasms.

“Ended up in a bit of a pickle, I guess,” Chen yelled to Rock with a shrug.

“I’ll get you off in a second,” the Doomsday Warrior shouted back. He ran over to Ms. Shriver, who groaned as he lifted her.

“What? What?” she said in a daze.

“Easy,” Rock said gently, getting her in a sitting position. “We were in a quake. You’re going to be all right, though.”

“Oh, God,” she exploded out, suddenly remembering the terror she had felt. She burst into tears. Rock patted her shoulder and then quickly rose to help Chen. Rock, Ms. Shriver, and the two remaining ’brids were on a large shelf, about two hundred feet square, with only hairline fractures. He rushed to Snorter, who was shakily standing, his knees half buckling as he tried to regain his equilibrium.

“Easy boy, we’re okay now,” Rock said, stroking the steed’s side. The palomino seemed to relax at his touch, trusting the master that things were in fact all right. Rock called the other ’brid over. It came quickly and stood next to Snorter. He took the rope from the side of the ’brid and tied it around the saddle-horn, then led the palomino across the relatively flat terrain to the chasm that separated Chen.

“I’ve got my own little island here, Rock,” the oriental freefighter laughed. “Maybe I should stay. Peaceful, quiet.”

“Here, catch the end of the rope,” Rock yelled, throwing the loose end the forty feet over to Chen. The fissure below disappeared into utter darkness; God only knew what was down there. Chen caught the rope and looked around for something to tie it to—but there was nothing.

“I’ll have to swing over, Rock,” he said. “Pull the ’brid back about ten feet.” Rock did so and then commanded the palomino to stay absolutely still. As skittish as he still was, the hybrid instantly obeyed Rock, locking its legs into a frozen position.

Chen took a tight hold of the inch-thick nylon, stepped to the very edge of the crevice, and jumped. He swung down in a long arc, kicking out at the last second before he would have crashed into the opposite fissure wall. As soon as he had stopped swinging, he quickly pulled himself up hand over hand and appeared at the edge at Rock’s feet. The Doomsday Warrior reached down and grabbed hold of Chen’s hand, pulling him up with one strong motion.

“Ah, that’s a little better,” Chen said, dusting himself off and starting to coil up the rope. “What’s the damage report?”

“Two ’brids gone and—I’m afraid Keppel’s bought it.” Chen’s smile at his rescue vanished at the words.

“Shit, we didn’t need this. Didn’t need it at all.” The two freefighters walked back to Ms. Shriver, who was now standing and drying her eyes.

“I’m sorry I broke down, Mr. Rockson, I’m all right now, I assure you. Where is Dean Keppel?” Rock looked down, not wanting to tell her. Suddenly they all heard a loud bellow of pain from the other end of their shelf. The two freefighters ran over and peered down into the darkness. Dust was still settling, but it looked as if one of the ’brids was lying on its side some two hundred feet down. Rock grabbed his field glasses from his pack on Snorter and focused down into the fissure. Yes—Keppel’s ’brid, with its large brown circle on the side. He moved slowly along the rocky cavern far below and found a shape. He focused. It was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like Keppel.