Axler, James - Deathlands 46 - Gemini Rising

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The satellite dish shook under the steady barrage of rounds

Staying low, Ryan knew that attacking meant certain death. Pawing through the

bloody clothes of the corpses piled under the dish, the one-eyed man found the

wrong end of an AK-47, a bent knife and a single gren.

Bullets zipped through the trees on either side, the cross fire closing in like the

mandibles of an army of killer ants. Ryan tried to gauge the distance to the fuel

dump. The resulting blast would obliterate the whole outpost, chilling him as well

as the blue shirts. But if Ryan Cawdor was going to die, then he would take

Overton and his troops along for the ride.

Ryan pulled the pin and prepared to charge.

Gemini Rising

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."

With great respect and admiration to Don Pendleton, the granddaddy of us

all.

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There is not one people in the history of the world to whom gaining their

independence had not brought forth the tortures which ancient poets and

theologians reserved for the damned.

—Sir Winston Churchill The Gathering Storm

First edition July

ISBN 0-373-62546-

GEMINI RISING

of this work in whole or in pan 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.

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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.

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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

"Git!" the first sec man snarled, leveling his blaster.

Dressed in tattered rags, with strips of cloth wound around their feet as crude

shoes, the couple before him whimpered in fear but didn't move an inch, so the

sec man worked the bolt of his weapon, chambering a round.

"We just want to get out of the cold, sir…" the man began, raising his empty

hands.

Without a word, the other sec man worked the bolt of his old BAR rifle. The

wooden stock was bound with gray tape, the lens in the scope badly cracked, but

the barrel was twice as wide as that of the hunting rifle and shone with fresh oil.

"Move away slow, liar," the first guard ordered, edging closer to the gate of the

ville.

The wall surrounding the town was built of everything, bricks at one point,

cinderblocks at another, field stones and notched logs here and there. But the

patchwork barrier stood ten feet tall, and the top glistened with jagged broken

glass. The only visible entrance was a wide gateway, the arch lined with bricks

supporting two thick wooden doors hung on six mismatched hinges. The left door

was bolted into place, closing off half the entrance. The second was open,

allowing a glimpse at the houses and structures within. To the left rose a high

mound of busted shale, and to the right was a huge excavation, a stone quarry

whose stepped slopes extended hundreds of feet deep to a calm pool of muddy

water. In the distance, dark mountains stretched above the thick growth of green

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forest and disappeared into the gray autumn clouds.

"Liar?" the pregnant woman gasped. "Oh, but sir, I can promise you that—"

"You said you two walked here from Culbert ville," he interrupted. "That was

stupid. First off, I never heard of the place, and secondly your shoes and pants

ain't dirty enough."

The second guard took over. "Plus you claimed not to have eaten in a week. Ain't

no traces of hunger on your faces."

"Liars and cheats don't get into our ville."

The man wet his lips, turning to look at each of the armed sec men in turn, while

the pregnant woman shivered and hugged her thin coat closer to her body.

"But, sir," she whimpered, "I'm close to birthing and the babe will die in this

cold."

"Don't care. I said git!" the sec man shouted, his breath foggy in the early-

morning chill. "Unless you wanna take an air dance like those horse thieves!"

The couple darted a glance to the gallows, which extended over the stout wall

surrounding the ville. A pair of human figures dangled at the end of thick knotted

ropes, while a crow sat on one man's shoulder pecking at his face. Hands bound

behind his back, the other weakly struggled to scare away the rest of the black

birds circling closer and closer. A strip of bark hung about his neck with his

crime scrawled there for all to read.

"Mebbe we can make a deal," the man said softly, his tone and demeanor

changing subtly.

"Last chance," the first sec man stated without emotion, his callused hands tight

around the stock of his rebuilt weapon.

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"How would you like some of this?" the woman asked, lifting her skirts.

The guards started to back away, but forced themselves to look just in case it was

a diversion so she could draw a weapon. But the woman was naked underneath

the many layers of shirts and dresses except for tall boots and a padded belt

around her fiat stomach to simulate pregnancy.

"What's the bitch…?" The sec man seemed confused.

"Few outlanders want to rape a pregger." She smirked, easing open a tiny pocket

on the pack and withdrawing a little bottle filled with white powder. "Now, just a

pinch of this will make ya more happy than ten women, and you can sell the

rest."

"That's paradise for free!" the man added, grinning eagerly as if he had a done

deal. "Just let us inside to spread around some of the joy. Okay?"

"Jolt," the guard said in horror, and then he spit as if the word itself were unclean.

"Stinking drug dealers."

"Light 'em up!" shouted his partner, and both men fired.

The smugglers were so close the flame from the muzzles actually reached their

faces. The .22 long round from the hunting rifle blew away a piece of the

woman's forehead, and the gushing corpse staggered backward from the gate, her

hands clawing the air. Bleeding from a terrible wound where his ear used to be,

her companion snarled in bestial rage and drew a massive black automatic pistol

just before the second sec man cut loose.

The big-bore rifle stuttered three times so fast it almost sounded like one shot.

The trip-hammer blows of the military cartridges opened his chest wide, and he

joined his wife on the frosty ground, steam rising from the red blood pumping out

of the gaping holes in their flesh.

The first sec man stood alert and watched for signs of treachery from friends

hidden in the bushes, while the second guard ransacked their pockets, taking only

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a small derringer from the woman and the big handcannon from the man.

"Never seen its like," the first guard said. "What is it?"

"A .44 Automag," his comrade replied, dropping the clip and looking inside. "Big

motherfucker. Damn, only three rounds."

Impressed, the first man whistled, his breath visible in the cold. "You could trade

for a good horse with that monster."

The man grinned as he tucked the gun into his belt. "My idea exactly."

"Now, my daughter would like that palm blaster."

"Well, it's my turn to get paid, but I missed with the first shot." He tossed over

the derringer. "So it's yours. Fair deal?"

"Fair deal," the sec man responded, tucking the tiny blaster into a pocket.

"Thanks. Okay, let's drag this scum to the quarry and feed the rock rats."

"Don't know if they'll eat this kind of garbage, but at least it will get them off the

road."

Just then, the woman trembled and moaned.

"Well, shit," the second guard complained, sounding annoyed. "The bitch is still

alive."

Angrily working the bolt on his rifle, the other guard pressed the hot muzzle to

her face and fired again with explosive results.

"Not anymore," he stated, wiping some gore off his face with a sleeve.

WATCHING THE GUARDS tumble the bodies into the pit, Ryan Cawdor

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adjusted the focus on the antique brass telescope, careful not to disturb the bushes

he was hiding within and give away his position.

The telescope was an amazing little thing they had found in the ruins of the

Virginia Beach Naval Station. Apparently, the base had been in the process of

building a gateway when skydark hit, and thus the job was never finished. When

the companions had jumped into the partially constructed mat-trans chamber,

every working circuit in the complex blew and they barely managed to escape

before the building burned to the ground. Afterward they dutifully searched the

ruins of the base, which included several smashed warships lying scattered about

hundreds of feet from the beach. A nuke had to have hit offshore and blown the

crafts inland. All of the weapons and food were long gone from the base and the

vessels, naturally, but Ryan had found this telescope. The unbreakable plastic

lens was heavy, but the scope compacted smaller than binocs and was perfect for

a one-eyed man.

Fighting back a shiver, Ryan tried to ignore the cold that seemed to be seeping

into his very bones. He was dressed in a fur-lined coat, but with only a thin

flannel shirt, denim pants and worn Army boots. The comfortable clothing was

perfect for the dry desert of southern California, but useless against the damp

chill of a Virginia autumn. The heavy metal of the Steyr SSG-70 rifle across his

back and the blaster at his hip seemed to be leeching away what little heat his

body generated. The weapons felt like lumps of ice pressed against his skin.

Worse, the damp cold was making an old wound ache. Ryan gently rubbed the

back of his hand against the leather patch where his left eye used to be.

Sometimes in nightmares he could still see his brother's knife descending and feel

the terrible starlight of pain that haunted him for so many years afterward.

"What happened?" asked J. B. Dix, squinting between the leaves of the bush at

the ville below. "I heard shots."

Dressed in loose neutral-colored clothing, Army boots and a brown leather

motorcycle jacket, the wiry man blended in perfectly with the molded browns and

greens of the forest. An Uzi submachine gun hung off his left shoulder, a Smith

& Wesson M-4000 shotgun was slung across his back and his backpack bulged

with explosives. Their old boss, the Trader, had nicknamed him "the Armorer"

long ago, and the title fit John Barrymore Dix perfectly. There wasn't a weapon in

existence the deadly man couldn't fire or repair with his eyes closed.

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"Guards chilled them both," Ryan said aloud. "Dark night! The pregnant woman,

too?" J.B. asked in shock.

Nodding, Ryan passed over the telescope. "She was a fake, smuggling something

in a belly pouch. Looked like jolt."

"Druggies, eh?" Taking the brass instrument, J.B. pushed his battered fedora to

the back of his head so that he could slide his wire-rimmed glasses up on his

forehead to use the long-eye. "Hope the guards did them slow and painful. Jolt

dealers trade on the misery of others and deserve whatever they get."

Shrugging his shoulders to adjust the rifle hanging across his back, Ryan agreed.

Jolt was the curse of the new world. The drug was horribly addictive and

promised a death slower than rad poisoning.

The very thought reminded Ryan to check the miniature rad counter pinned to his

collar, but the meter read clean, showing only a normal background count from

the polluted orange sky. Any nukes used in this area had to have been "clean"

bombs, the deadly radiation long dissipated.

"So what do you think?" Ryan asked, tugging on the fur collar of his coat. The

wind was soft, but every gust cut through his clothing as if it were paper. They

needed to get out of the cold mighty soon, before hypothermia cut them down.

"Looks good," J.B. stated at last, lowering the yard-long telescope and

compacting it to the size of a soup can. "Lots of families, no slave pens or

cannibal roasting pits. I think we should do it."

Brushing the black curls off his scarred face, Ryan grunted his agreement. "This

ville is our best chance. Let's go."

Rising, the two men moved stealthily into the woods. The ground was lightly

frosted with twinkling ice, and every step they took crunched softly, betraying

their movements. Following an old game trail, they soon came upon a small

clearing hidden behind a thick copse of oak trees.

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A wide hole had been dug into the stony ground, with a small fire crackling in the

middle of the shallow pit. Four people huddled close to the flames, the earthen

walls containing and reflecting the meager heat so that even a small campfire

would keep them warm through the bitter night. Ryan knew that the depression

also helped to hide the light of the blaze from the armed sec men of the ville

below.

An owl called softly, announcing their presence just before J.B. shook the

branches on a thorny bush and Ryan whistled sharply twice. The people in the

hole looked over the rim of the pit with their blasters drawn. "Hey, Charlie," said

a redheaded woman, dressed in a shaggy black fur coat. The S&W .38 revolver in

her hand wasn't pointed directly at them, but her slim finger rested on the trigger

nonetheless.

"The name is Adam," Ryan answered, giving the code name for all-clear, and the

others visibly relaxed.

Entering the clearing, Ryan and J.B. noticed a small movement in the bushes

nearby. It was the source of the owl call.

"Dean is getting better all the time," J.B. said. "I can barely spot him anymore."

"The kid is good," Ryan agreed. Cupping stiff hands around his mouth, he gave

the call of a lake bird and within a few ticks his son appeared from the trees.

There were leafy vines wrapped about his dark cloth and a slim black pistol in his

hand.

"Nobody followed you, Dad," Dean reported, bolstering the Browning Hi-Power.

Ryan allowed himself a small smile. "Good work. Take a break and get warm.

We're going for the ville."

"Hot pipe!" the boy cried, and hopped into the fire pit, landing dangerously close

to the flames. He flopped down on a rock and shoved his face toward the warmth,

breathing in the waves of heat like a fish gasping for air.

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Axler, James - Deathlands 46 - Gemini Rising

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