Axler, James - Deathlands 66 - Separation

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She was black

In the days before the nukecaust, that had

made a difference. Being in this community had

put her back in touch with that lost part of herself,

and that was good. But was it that great when it

came to making her doubt J.B.? Besides the

relationship they had built, there were more

pressing issues: the companions had been through

so much together, formed bonds of loyalty forged

in fire. There were things that went deeper than

age, race and sex: the knowledge that they would

pull together without it even being spoken of or

thought about.

And she was doubting that, denying it? There

was a rift between her and the companions. But

perhaps that was a good thing. It made her

examine herself, her priorities and loyalties.

In the end, the ideals of the island were pitched

against pragmatism and experience of reality in

the world outside.

Some wanted nothing less than war. But who

would make the sides in a war?

Separation

#66 in the Deathlands 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 June 2004

ISBN 0-373-62576-6

SEPARATION

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.

Most people are on the world, not in it- have no

conscious sympathy or relationship to anything

about them-undiffused, separate, and rigidly

alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but

separate.

-John Muir, 1838-1912

Printed in U.S.A.

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…

Chapter One

Black clouds of pain and despair washed over

Dean as he began to surface from the mat-trans

jump. Like being lost in a sea of black, brackish

water that infested every pore, clogging him with

filth and filling his mouth and lungs, it was a

complete isolation and a slow death. Every

muscle flooding with lactic acid, making any

movement painful and difficult beyond

imagining, he began to stir, swimming upward to

try to strike the surface. There was a patina of

light that washed across the thin skin far above,

separating the air from the water. He moved

toward the light with a determination born of the

will to live.

He struck the surface, emerging from the icy

thickness below into the weak light of the air

above, gasping as the oxygen hit his lungs, the

viscous liquid falling away from his skin,

dripping off his hair.

That moment between unconscious sleep and

awakening, that fraction of a second that seemed

to move on into an eternity…that was the time

when the hallucinations came, the time when the

dreams and nightmares at the back of his brain

were called forth to haunt him once more.

It was always this way for Dean Cawdor and,

as he floated on the surface of the sea of

consciousness, breaking for land, he drifted back

to the world of his deepest fears and insecurities,

the things that he dare not admit into his

conscious mind.

Although not always the same in every respect,

often it was always the same in essence. A

younger Dean- still the same strong, resilient

youth, but still a boy- standing before his mother

as she told him of his father, the son of a baron,

not the man who was her husband and the

powerful baron of his own ville. He could still see

her face clearly. Sharona-Rona to him-had once

been a beautiful woman. But that was something

that lay in her past. She had been ravaged by

sickness. Where once she had been slim and

graceful, with feminine curves that had drawn the

eye of Ryan Cawdor, she was thin and gaunt, her

flesh nonexistent with seemingly only skin to

cover her skeletal frame. Her once-attractive

cheekbones were skull-like, her eyes sunken back

into their sockets, resembling burning orbs in

which the fire was slowly dimming. Her lank

hair hung like hanks of rope tied into bunches to

be pulled back from her forehead to stop irritating

skin that was beyond pale. Ghostly and gray, her

once-smooth complexion had broken out with

sores in patches around her hairline and her

bloodless lips. Her clothes hung like rags from

her body.

"But why can't I stay with you until you buy

the farm-why can't I be with you?" he asked,

hearing himself as he was before his voice broke,

the high pitch sounding alien to his own ears.

"Because it isn't safe," she answered simply.

"When I die you'll be all alone. I've taught you

how to survive, but a little boy alone in the

Deathlands doesn't have much of a chance. Your

future lies with your father."

"If he's so great, where's he been when we both

needed him?" Dean asked with disgust.

Sharona's ravaged mouth twisted into a wry

smile. "He doesn't know about you."

Even though there was a part of him that knew

it was only a half memory, maybe a hallucination

as the result of the mat-trans jump, he still felt that

same heart-tearing burst of emotions he'd felt

when he had been separated from her.

It had happened exactly like that, and it didn't

happen the same way every time the memory

haunted his dreams, but it was still the same in

essence. A woman came out of the shadows and

took him by the hand, gently but firmly guiding

him away from his mother, who stood and

watched. As he was pulled farther away from

Sharona, he could see that she was no longer the

tall, graceful figure that she had once been: she

was bowed over by her illness, the sudden stabs

of light illuminating the paleness of her face and

hands, reflecting the moonlight with an equal

deathly glow. Walking backward, he could feel

the pull taking him away from his mother, could

see her recede into the background, her eyes

seeming to follow him, intense even as the

distance between them increased.

And then the scenes changed, rapidly passing

in front of his eyes. He was reunited with his

father who had saved his life. He was in the

Nicolas Brody school, then kidnapped, forced to

fight for his very life in the ruins of Las Vegas as

part of a gladiatorial contest for the entertainment

of warring barons. He'd been rescued by his

father and the group that had become his friends

and family.

Since he had joined the companions, he had

forged strong bonds with all of them, particularly

with Ryan, his father. But there was something

within him that was still empty, still missing.

Sharona had taught him to survive. She was

always with him; he could never forget. Yet time

had pushed her to the back of his mind. She came

to him in his jump dreams, and he remembered

her fierce love, a mother's comforting touch.

The light was closing in on him, the brightness

hurting his eyes, burning into his retinas,

becoming almost a physical force that made the

blood pound in his ears as his eardrums

threatened to blow. He felt his sense of balance

lose any equilibrium it may otherwise have

contained. His guts turned, the bile rising as he

felt the wave of nausea about to crest.

Dean screwed his eyes tight, trying to block the

light and failing as he opened his mouth and felt

the contents of his stomach spill out in front of

him, everything forgotten in the wrenching pain.

The pain of regaining consciousness.

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摘要：

ShewasblackInthedaysbeforethenukecaust,thathadmadeadifference.Beinginthiscommunityhadputherbackintouchwiththatlostpartofherself,andthatwasgood.ButwasitthatgreatwhenitcametomakingherdoubtJ.B.?Besidestherelationshiptheyhadbuilt,thereweremorepressingissues:thecompanionshadbeenthroughsomuchtogether,form...

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Axler, James - Deathlands 66 - Separation

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