James Axler - Deathlands 035 - Bitter Fruit

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A white-hot burning

Computer-amplified screams from the entity filled the chamber. It stopped all forward

movement, seeming to wilt. Tendrils shot out of its chest, dipping down to start sucking

up the water around it. The flare hissed.

"Who's in the tunnel?" Ryan called to J.B.

"Those White Sands soldiers. They won't back down. We've got to make a move, and

soon."

Across the room, the plant-thing showed signs of regaining its strength. Ryan watched it,

the fear in his stomach cold and hard. A glance at Krysty revealed her face to be drenched

with perspiration.

"It wants me to help it," the woman cried. "Wants me to kill you." The pistol trembled in

her hands. "Gaia, help me, Ryan, but I don't think I can hold it off much longer." A fine

trickle of blood ran down her upper lip from her nose.

Without warning, Krysty swung the blaster toward him.

"I'm sorry, lover."

Bitter Fruit

#35 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 •

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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."

For Cathy Joyce and Feroze Mohammed, who hold worlds together

First edition January 1997

ISBN 0-373-62535-9

BITTER FRUIT

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.

Printed in U.S.A.

Was it just a quantum shift— magic mushroom, the Reaper's white umbrella. Lo, Nineveh

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and Tyre, Sodom and Gomorrha.

—from the diary of Marylou Crawford A.D. 2001

Chapter One

Ryan Cawdor squinted his eye tight against the blazing desert sun hanging like a

cancerous boil over White Sands, New Mexico, and wondered what had set his nervous

system to jangling a silent alarm. Without checking his wrist chron, he knew he hadn't

been outside the installation much more than ten or fifteen minutes. It was still early

afternoon, with much of the day left before him and his group for the recce they'd

planned.

The one-eyed warrior paid attention to the warning. Survival in Deathlands depended on

a man developing senses that were exceptionally sharp, then having the intelligence to

listen when they said something was wrong.

He carried his Steyr SSG-70 rifle at the ready as he jogged up one of the sharper inclines

surrounding the installation area. His boots sank through the shifting sand, almost as if

they were being sucked down. Pausing near the crest of the incline, he dropped to one

knee and surveyed the sandy sea spread out around him.

"Something?" The voice was pitched low and carried across the desert's surface only far

enough to reach Ryan.

Without glancing to his left, Ryan knew his friend, J. B. Dix, was already in position.

They'd traveled together for a long time, blooded by the years they'd spent with the

Trader in the war wags and bound by mutual respect.

"An itch," Ryan said. He was a big man, leaned out by harsh living and staying on the

move, but packing muscle that still pushed him over two hundred pounds. A scuffed

black leather patch covered the hollow where his left eye had been, and beads of

perspiration had cut a path across his forehead following the strap. A scar gouged his face

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from the corner of his right eye to below his mouth, looking waxy in the harsh gleam of

the unforgiving sun.

"Damned uncomfortable thing, one of those itches," J.B. stated in a laconic voice.

"You?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah."

"Anything?"

"No. Got an idea somebody's eyeballing us."

Ryan glanced in the Armorer's direction. J.B. was a short, wiry man. His steel-rimmed

glasses sparked briefly in the sun beneath the battered fedora he wore. His brown shirt

and gray pants were stained from long days and hard use. The tops of his high combat

boots were barely visible in the powdery sand. "Mebbe we should keep moving."

"Reckon so."

"Give me some cover," Ryan said. "I'll go down and take a look. If somebody wants in

this place, they're going to have to cross us first."

"That's what I was thinking."

Ryan shifted his weight and picked up the Steyr. The safety was already off. He started

down, staying as much within cover as he could.

After the business in South Dakota, Ryan and his group had made a mat-trans jump to

Dulces, New Mexico. They'd taken a couple days of downtime to recover from the wear

and tear of the last jump, deciding to explore the area on foot, as the wags they'd

discovered in the redoubt wouldn't start.

The journey to White Sands had been relatively quiet. The local mutie bands had been

dying slowly from the radiation sickness they'd gotten from living in the area. The

survivors worshiped a god they believed lived in the sands of fire, and were bound by

arcane ritual to the very thing that made each generation more mutated monsters than

anything human. The sustained exposure to radiation ensured none of them would live

long.

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Ryan paused beside a Hummer, its olive drab color faded over the decades to a sickly

greenish gray. Military markings adorned the sides. Only the left rear corner protruded

through the tide of sand that had washed over it. A rusted steel rod held the tattered

remains of a small United States flag that fluttered halfheartedly in the thin, hot breeze.

Three other vehicles were partially visible in the mounds of sand that had washed in over

the installation. All of them were unrecoverable.

Until Jak Lauren had scouted out a hidden entrance to the underground installation, the

trip had looked as if it were going to end up as nothing more than wasted effort and

needless risk. The albino teenager, Krysty Wroth, Doc Tanner and Mildred Wyeth were

all engaged in scouring through the honeycomb of tunnels and rooms they'd found below.

Ryan and J.B. had already rotated out for a respite from the heat and the dust below,

which bordered on life threatening.

Sand crunched behind Ryan.

Reflexes honed by years of living in Deathlands, the one-eyed man spun to his right,

crouching, both hands gripping the Steyr.

A trio of muties erupted from the sand, leaving the shallow troughs they'd evidently dug

to spring their trap. Ryan had almost walked over them.

Like some kind of confectioner's frosting, sand covered the creatures' bodies, tracking

into the crevices of the open sores that covered most of their skin.

To Ryan, they smelled like death, and the stink hovered over them as they ran at him,

screaming in rage. "Fireblast!" he gritted, wondering how the hell he'd missed the smell.

That alone should have given them away.

"Sacred grounds, outie!" one of the muties snarled. The effort was made wet and sibilant

by the upper lip gone missing to the radiation burns. The few teeth that remained were

black and filed to sharp edges, no longer seated securely in the diseased gums. The man

carried a homemade knife, fashioned by tying a keen-edged wedge of nuked silicon to a

long screwdriver. "Now you die!"

Ryan moved smoothly, bringing the Steyr's butt up in a sharp arc. Firing the weapon

would have alerted other muties in the area.

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file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/James%20Axler%20-%20Deathlands%2035%20-%20Bitter%20Fruit.htmlAwhite-hotburningComputer-amplifiedscreamsfromtheentityfilledthechamber.Itstoppedallforwardmovement,seemingtowilt.Tendrilsshotoutofitschest,dippingdown ostartsuckingupthewateraroundit.T...

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