Doom Helix (10 page)

The baron jumped down from the dais and strode across the bridge deck.

Ignoring Blocky Head and Big Mike, Burning Man stared at Ryan, and as he did, a broad grin twisted the left half of his face. The right side remained expressionless, immobilized by the rigid plate of scar.

There was something vaguely familiar about the baron, but Ryan couldn’t recall where he had seen him before. As the man in the fireproof suit stepped closer, he racked his brain for an answer. If he and the others had run across this bastard, it was something that could potentially save their lives.

Or end them.

Then, still lopsidedly grinning, the baron reached out, clapped a grimy hand on Ryan’s shoulder, and said, “Welcome to my world, Shadow Man.”

Staring hard at the intact half of the baron’s face, Ryan finally realized where he’d seen him before. “Captain Connors?” he said.

“Sure as hell is, Cawdor,” Burning Man said. “It’s been a long time. I guess you could say I’ve changed a little since we last set eyes on each other.”

The baron immediately turned to the firing squad, waving his arms in the air. He shouted at them, “Stand down, stand down! These are comrades.” Then to the warriors waiting on horseback he said, “Cut them loose. Do it quickly.”

As Blocky Head and the other rider dismounted, whipped out sheath knives and started slicing the bonds from their necks and wrists, the companions looked to Ryan for an explanation.

“You know this guy?” Mildred said.

“Who the hell is he, Ryan?” Krysty said.

“Connors was the geologist for the first Shadow Earth invasion,” Ryan told them. “He was there at Moonboy ville with Gabhart, Ockerman, Hylander and Jurascik. You only saw him at a distance, and never outside of his cockroach suit. I saw him up close and personal without the battle armor when they took me prisoner, before they made me jump to the parallel Earth. The way I understand it, Connors was supposed to circle around to the
rear of your position and cut off your retreat. Instead, he disappeared from the battlefield. He’s the expedition’s lost man.”

“Don’t you mean deserter?” J.B. said, rubbing at his abraded wrists.

Then to Burning Man he said, “You know your fellow cockroaches thought you were chilled?”

“Let’s just say I suddenly became aware of other, more promising opportunities,” the baron replied.

“So did they, eventually,” Ryan said. “They helped us close the passage between our world and yours to stop the invasion.”

“I had guessed as much,” Burning Man said.

“Only they’re all dead for real, now,” Ryan said. “Dead and buried.”

The baron shrugged. “That’s not an altogether unexpected development,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you folks what a hostile and unforgiving place the Deathlands is, even for the well-prepared.”

“We found what was left of their bodies at the ruins of Moonboy ville,” Krysty said. “And it wasn’t Deathlands that chilled them. It was the second wave of invaders from your parallel Earth.”

“Your pals could have used you in the fight,” J.B. said.

Burning Man pointed to the wrecked half of his face. “As you can see,” he said, “I’ve had some problems of my own.”

“With a wound like that,” Mildred said, “you’re lucky you didn’t die of massive infection.”

“The native people hereabouts took care of me after I was injured, and they nursed me back to health,” the
baron said. “It took a long time for me to recover. We learned about the second invasion too late to do anything about it.”

“And precisely what were you prepared to do?” Doc said.

“Destroy them by any means,” the baron growled without hesitation. “No matter the cost.”

“So you’ve had a change of heart, then?” Krysty said.

“I can’t deny I was on the other side when I first arrived,” Burning Man said. “But because of who I used to be, I know what the people from my Earth are capable of, and what their endgame looks like. Their advanced technology would do to this planet precisely what it did to mine—decimate it beyond any hope of recovery. The nukecaust calamity here was horrendous, but on this world—now my adopted world—life and hope still survive. A future of some sort is still possible here. Like you all, I believe that hope is worth fighting for and dying to defend. By the time the warriors and I arrived at Slake City ready to do battle, the base there was already deserted, abandoned.” He glanced at Ryan. “Did you have something to do with that?”

“We did our best to encourage them to leave,” Ryan replied. “But they didn’t jump universes to get away from the likes of us. They left Deathlands to save themselves from something invisible. Turns out, Deathlands’ smallest microscopic critters were eating the she-hes alive.”

“What do you mean, ‘she-hes’?” the baron asked, a frown twisting the mobile side of his face.

“Genetically enhanced females,” Mildred told him. “Your home planet’s superwarriors.”

Burning Man seemed taken aback. After a pause he said, “Years ago, just before my expedition jumped to Deathlands, I heard rumors about ongoing research programs. The speculation was that the CEOs of the ruling conglomerate each had launched their own, ultrasecret lines of inquiry. Only a handful of the top corporate whitecoats knew any of the details, but the general idea was to create a new human subspecies that maximized biological potential—ultimate soldiers who could overwhelm and destroy the armies of the conglomerate’s competing members, and who stood a better chance of conquering and colonizing parallel Earths. As far as I know, the programs were still in the experimental stage when we left.”

“The experiment worked,” Mildred said flatly.

Ryan nodded toward Big Mike. “According to him,” he said, “the she-hes have returned to Slake City and are taking another shot at conquest.”

“When I got a look at all the clean, fresh stumps on those sniveling cowards,” Burning Man said, “the first thing I thought was, more invaders. I saw thousands of wounds just like them on my Earth. The laser cuffs were developed in the run-up to the Consumer Rebellion, a devastating weapon, psychologically and physiologically. The Population Control Service ordered us to use the technology on our own citizens to put down the Gloomtown riots. Not the proudest moment in my military career.”

Blocky Head set one of the packs at the baron’s feet and whispered something into his ear.

J.B. shot Ryan a look. The one-eyed man knew they
were both thinking the same thing: so the bastards can talk after all.

The baron knelt and opened the pack. He lifted out a gallon-sized, plastic bag filled with shiny 7.62 mm NATO rounds. “These will definitely come in handy,” he said, waving the bag at Ryan.

“If we’re all on the same team now,” Ryan said as warriors picked up and shouldered all the ammo packs, “how about giving back our blasters and blades?”

“That can wait,” Burning Man said. “You’re not in any danger here, I assure you of that. My apologies for the rough treatment, but I certainly wasn’t expecting you to turn up in these parts. The warriors assumed you were part of the fat coward’s crew, and acted accordingly. You must all be tired as well as hungry and thirsty. Please follow me and we’ll see to your needs.”

As Burning Man turned toward the barricade, he pointed a finger at Big Mike and addressed Blocky Head. “Besup,” he said, “bring that one along, too. Take him to the stockade. He and I have matters to discuss in private.”

Two beaming, whitefaced women picked up the flamethrower by the shoulder straps, hoisting it between them, holding it high overhead, like a trophy. A gang of gleeful children squabbled and scuffled over who got to carry the silver gauntlets and hood.

Ryan and the companions followed the baron through the toll gate. Behind them trouped the rest of the ville. The gate opening was steeply angled, so no one could run or drive straight through it. Foot, horse and wag traffic had to slow to a crawl and present itself broadside to the barricade’s hardened firing ports.

The whitefaced kids sitting atop the tier of tractor tires looked healthy and well fed. For that matter, everyone on the bridge did. That was unusual in the hellscape, where bloated bellies, stick arms and legs and weeping sores were more often the tragic rule than the exception.

At the far end of the bridge, ahead on the river flood plain, they got their first glimpse of Burning Man’s ville. It was a typical Deathlands defensive compound. The perimeter consisted of a ten-foot-high berm made of pounded dirt and big boulders of river rock. It was topped by crosses of metal I-beams and scavenged wood that held coils of barbed wire in place. A crude roadway of crushed black rock led to the fortified entrance, a steel-plate barrier mounted on a set of wag wheels and frame that could be pulled out of the way by horse or manpower. Three-story-high guard towers overlooked the approaches from the river and from the plain behind the ville, to the southeast. It was as secure a stronghold against conventional weaponry that Ryan had come across.

As they stepped through the gate, they were greeted by a pack of twenty or more snarling dogs. The big-headed hundred-pounders threw themselves at the heavy wire mesh enclosure that kept them penned just inside the berm’s entrance. All of them were stamped from the same mongrel mold: short hair in a variety of mixed colors, short curly tails, short powerful legs and muscular bodies. They bared their fangs, drooling, their yellow eyes full of blind rage. Their combined weight bulged the wire alarmingly, but the deeply buried fenceposts held.

War dogs, Ryan thought.

Bred to chill.

Trained to target any scent that did not belong to their owner-handlers. Turned loose on the battlefield, they were silent stalkers and savagely efficient hunters. In the Mutie Wars, similar critters had been used—roaming packs that infiltrated and routed the misbegotten enemy from its hardsites and sniper outposts. Ryan had seen war dogs follow a kill scent for miles through a sewer pipe two feet across.

“Enough!” Burning Man shouted at the animals. And as if he’d flicked a switch, the show of aggression shut off. Ears pricked up, the monsters wagged their curly tails and panted through broadly smiling mouths.

Ahead were rows of closely set, single-story hovels cobbled together with found items—sheet metal, scraps of plywood, concrete block. With no fresh materials to work with, the individual dwellings had a familiar, Deathlands’ look to them. But this wasn’t the typical, slapdash shantytown. The ville’s layout was much better organized: the lanes between huts, although narrow, were set out in straight lines, the paths made of crushed stones and bordered with functional drainage ditches, and they ended, like the spokes of a wheel, in the enclosure’s central hub.

At the end of the lane Ryan could see into the wide patch of open ground. Its main feature was a circular building, broad, low to the ground, with scrap plywood walls and a shallowly pitched roof made of limbs, logs, and heaped dirt. A kiva, a communal meeting house. The central plaza was dotted with a few semitrailers sitting on bare rims. Ryan figured they were storehouses. Pigs and goats had their own fenced pens. Chickens
ran wild and free. There was also a rock-and-mortar structure that Ryan guessed had to be a well or cistern. The ville had its own protected water supply, which was a strategic plus in case of a siege.

As they headed for the kiva’s entrance, Besup led Big Mike around the cistern toward the rear of one of the semitrailers. Women and children followed close behind the huckster-on-horseback, yelling insults at him and throwing not just rocks, but handfuls of horse and goat dung.

“Big Mike really made an impression on them,” Mildred said.

“Do not fret an instant over the fate of that wretched bastard,” Doc said. “Whatever he gets, you can be confident he has more than earned.”

“Believe me,” Mildred said, “I’m not worried about him. I just wondered what he did to piss them off so much.”

“This way,” Burning Man said, waving them through the kiva’s entrance, down a flight of steps into the wide, relatively cool room. Sun streamed in through skylights made of scavenged, double-hung windows, and through the building’s central smoke vent, which stood above a large firepit. The openings in the roof created brilliant pools of light on the packed dirt floor of the otherwise darkened room. The place reeked of ancient wood smoke—sweet and at the same time sour.

Burning Man gestured for them to sit at the benches that bracketed a long, crude, plank table.

Three gleeful, plump women entered the kiva, bearing jugs of water, which they handed to each of the companions.

Jak tipped back his jug, glugging hard, spilling a cascade of water down his chin and chest.

“Not too fast,” Mildred warned him. “Sip it. Pace yourself. Or you’ll just puke it back up.”

The water tasted real good to Ryan, too. He had to fight the urge to gulp it all down without pausing for breath.

“The food will be along shortly,” Burning Man said as the women scurried back up the steps.

After his immediate thirst was satisfied, Ryan set down the jug. Like Mildred, he was puzzled by the ville’s reaction to Big Mike’s return. The level of hostility didn’t fit the story the huckster had told.

“If you really figured the amputees were the victims of a new wave of invaders,” Ryan said to the baron, “why did you cook them to cinders on the bridge deck? They were on your side, too.”

“And why do you keep calling them cowards?” Mildred added. “Because they ran from the she-hes?”

“They were worse than cowards,” Burning Man said. “They were Deathlands scum. They showed up at the ville gate around midday, half-starved, dehydrated and missing their hands.”

“The fat one told us you wanted a toll to let them cross the bridge,” Ryan said. “He said they didn’t have anything of value and that’s why you started chilling them. Out of sheer spite.”

“If he told you that, he lied to you,” Burning Man said. “The amputees came up from the south, from Slake City. They didn’t try to cross the Snake River bridge, they came to the ville gate first, begging to come inside for food, water and protection. It was plain from looking
at them they had nothing worthwhile to trade. I offered them help because I wanted information about how they got those injuries. Besides, they were in a bad way and it seemed like the proper thing to do. Right after we let them through the gate, the bastards grabbed some of the littlest children as hostages. Toddlers. They did it all at once, on a signal—clearly their plan from the start. While they held blades at the children’s throats, the fat one with the artificial hand said they wanted our food, blasters, ammo and horses in exchange for the lives of the babies.”

“Dark night!” J.B. spit.

“My sentiments, exactly,” the baron said. “Turned out they were nothing but a pack of thieving coldhearts. And from the looks on their faces, after they used our children as shields for their escape, when the babies were no longer of any use, it was clear they were going to get rid of them. Leave ’em in the road to starve or chill ’em straightaway. If the bastards had known anything about recent history in these parts, they would have thought twice about trying a kidnapping. The local folks don’t take kindly to the idea of their own being captured and held hostage. Everybody in the Snake River valley knows the rules we live by. Women, children, it doesn’t matter who’s been taken. We never negotiate for human lives. We chill the hostage takers and bury our dead.”