Axler, James - Deathlands 10 - Northstar Rising

VIP免费

2024-12-07 0 0 513.51KB 266 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

d14

"Mutie ants!" Ryan yelled. "Our only hope is the tree."

The horrifying creatures were more than a foot long, and their mandibles were

huge, disproportionate even to their grotesquely mutated size. Longer than a

man's finger, they clicked together in a deafening warning as the ants became

aware of the six companions.

As Ryan load the charge, the front row of insects retreated, then regrouped in a

solid phalanx of glittering death.

To hesitate was to die.

The crunching of delicate skeletons beneath boot heels almost drowned out the

clicking jaws. Ryan could now see the main body of the killer army beyond the

mangrove, and not an inch of ground was free of the iridescent horde that swept

toward him.

Ryan gained the mangrove. Several low branches were within easy reach, and he

made a running dive, swinging to safety with prehensile agility. When he was

four feet above the carpet of ants, the one-eyed man finally looked for his friends.

All were winning the desperate race. Except the old man.

Then, only a few strides from safety, Doc Tanner stumbled—

Northstar Rising

James Axler

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (1 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON • PARIS • AMSTERDAM •

STOCKHOLM • HAMBURG • ATHENS • MILAN • TOKYO • SYDNEY

This one is for Angus Wells

who has been, and still is,

one of the very best of friends.

All good things.

First edition December 1989 ISBN 0-373-62510-3

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 permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill

Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All the 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 the incidents are pure invention.

® are Trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office

and in other countries.

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (2 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

Printed in U.S.A.

There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother,

all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother;

who would wish to die?

—Lavengro by George Barrow

Chapter One

BLACK.

Blackness.

Laughter.

The hands on his throat remorselessly strong.

Someone laughed.

A voice breathed in Ryan's ear. "You who are about to die…"

Pocked skin.

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (3 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

Circle of silver and bald head.

A smell of burned cloth and hair.

MAJOR COMMISSAR Gregori Zimyanin, of the Internal Security Section of

Moscow, felt as though someone had pushed a brass-hilted bayonet into the center

of his skull, then stirred it around, puddling his brains. The Russian was

immensely strong, and he was recovering from the jump with remarkable speed.

As consciousness began to creep back into the blurred fringes of his mind, so

shards of memory also lurched out into the open. There had been a dreadful

firefight, with many corpses; a body of one of the enemy, flaming like a beacon of

defiance; the Yank flag; a winding staircase, shrouded in choking smoke.

The brawl had ended with swirling blackness and his fingers clawing at the throat

of the leader of the terrorists. With a massive effort of will, Zimyanin managed to

open his eyes.

Something was wrong. Something had changed in the glass-walled chamber. The

colors had altered and the air tasted different. The thick choking smoke was gone,

and the air was thin and cold. The Russian had lived at altitude in winter and

knew the sensation well. Somehow, while they were all unconscious, the

Americans had succeeded in transporting the whole mysterious complex to a

mountain.

In his attempts to master the language of his bitter enemies, the officer had been

secretly learning the English tongue, using a book with a publication date of 1911,

nearly two hundred years earlier—The English Tongue for the Benefit of the

Russian Gentleman Abroad.

"I beg your pardon, but could you inform me as to the whereabouts of my

entourage?" he whispered through dry lips.

Where could all of his men have gone? Dozens of troops couldn't just disappear

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (4 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

into space. He fumbled for the pistol at his belt, feeling the familiar shape of the 9

mm Makarov blaster.

Now his eyes were focusing, settling on something opposite him that was colored

dazzling white and vivid crimson.

"By the anvil and the hammer," Zimyanin muttered.

It was a young, skinny albino boy, his hair like the tumbled snow around the

hamlet of Ozhbarchik in the far, far northeast. A thread of fresh blood inched

from the lad's nose, his mouth sagged open and his eyes were shut tight.

Next to him lay an old man with wild, silver hair, clutching a small, unconscious

puppy.

A woman with hair as red as blazing pitch was stretched flat on the floor, but she

was moving, fingers opening and closing as she approached consciousness.

Ryan Cawdor blinked, opening his one good eye. The patch over his ruined left

eye had shifted during the fight with the Russian, and he lifted a hand to

straighten it.

And saw Zimyanin.

The stocky Russian was crouched on the far side of the gateway chamber, like a

beast waiting to spring. His heavy features were smeared with soot, and a worm

of dried blood from the corner of his mouth had clotted in his drooping mustache.

"Bastard," Ryan said quietly. His own blaster, the 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226, was

bolstered in his belt and he began to reach for it.

Zimyanin had a glacial moment of frozen time to make up his mind. Somehow

the Americans had disposed of his men and moved him to a different location.

The one-eyed killer was fumbling for his pistol, and at least one of the others was

coming around from the sleeping gas. Or whatever it was they'd used to knock

everyone out.

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (5 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

He made his decision, diving for the door to the glass-walled room. If he was to

escape this could be his best and only chance.

A hand grabbed at Zimyanin's ankle, and he kicked out, his heavy, ash-crusted

boot hitting Jak Lauren on the side of his pale skull. The fingers relaxed their grip

and the Russian was at the door.

Ryan's pistol had cleared its rig and his finger was tightening on the trigger when

the Russian darted through the doorway. There was a glimpse of the room

beyond, then the door slammed shut.

"Fireblast," Ryan cursed. "He's triggered the jump mechanism again. Everyone

down and get ready."

Already the disks in floor and ceiling were glowing, and a ragged spray of gas

was filling the octagonal room.

Zimyanin hesitated outside the gateway chamber, puzzled by what he saw. There

was a small room, with a larger room visible beyond it, behind a barred door. The

wall to his left had broken down into fragments of powdered rock. But the

peculiar thing was that the floor and walls were covered with a thin layer of

pinkish slime.

And there was a gut-churning smell of sickly decay.

An urgent, rustling sound emerged from beyond the broken wall. Coming toward

him.

Ryan was slipping into unconsciousness again, struggling to keep a hold on his

pistol. His mind tried to blank out the bizarre appearance and disappearance of the

Russian sec man.

He could hear someone in the chamber making coughing, choking sounds, but

there was nothing he could do to help. The floor was vibrating beneath him, and

he could feel a rumbling, clear through the marrow of his bones. The heavy

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (6 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

blaster dropped from his fingers and clanged on the metal plates with a harsh echo

that seemed to go on and on.

Beyond the thick arma-glass walls, Ryan thought he could just make out the

figure of Zimyanin. But his vision was blurring and nothing was certain,

There seemed to be the crack of an automatic pistol, flat and sudden, a yell,

starting off with surprise and shrilling quickly into raw terror.

Another shot.

A third.

The yell had become a scream, high and thin like a stallion at the gelding.

As blackness gripped him, Ryan's last doubtful vision was of something moving

beyond the walls of the gateway, something that was pale yellow and

immeasurably huge.

Chapter Two

JAK LAUREN LAY face down in a stinking pool of his own vomit; Doc

Tanner was bleeding copiously from the nose, the streaks of crimson dribbling

over his neck and chest; J. B. Dix was even more sallow than usual, his eyes

rolled up sightlessly in their sockets, and he was breathing fast and light through

his open mouth; Krysty Wroth had managed to slide into a self-induced trance,

deliberately putting herself into a coma to take away the overpowering pressures

of a mat-trans jump. Her breath was shallow and slow, and her heartbeat had

dropped to less than a quarter of normal.

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (7 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

Ryan Cawdor's powers of recovery were astounding. His body was honed to a

razored perfection, ready for any threat, but even he suffered badly from the

jumps. And to have to make a second jump so soon after the first was devastating.

His brain felt as if a high-velocity .44 had entered through his right temple and

exited somewhere near the base of his skull, blowing a section of bone away and

sucking most of his brains out through the exit wound.

He coughed, then groaned softly at the agonizing pain it caused him. He tried to

open his eye, but the lancing white light made him close it again immediately. All

he wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and lie there on the floor for a few weeks.

His fingers were numbed, and his teeth felt loose in the gums.

Very cautiously he eased his eye open again, wincing at the light. This time he

managed to keep it from closing. The walls of the chamber were a dull brown

color, and there seemed only a dim light beyond them. The disks in floor and

ceiling were already fading, and he could taste the bitterness of iron on his tongue.

Ryan glanced around at the others.

Krysty looked fine. Pale and drawn, but clearly under control. As he tried to sit

up, she moved, shuddering slightly and opening her eyes. Her tumbled mane of

bright red hair was curled tightly about her neck and shoulders. The hair was

sentient and reacted to whatever was going on. Once Krysty was recovered from

the jump it would uncurl and fall naturally down her back.

"Hi, lover."

Ryan risked a nod. "You?"

"Been worse." She paused. "Been better. How about you?"

"Same."

Krysty looked around. "What in Gaia's name happened, Ryan? The Russkie?"

"Zimyanin attacked me during the first jump. Both blacked out. Came around. He

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (8 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

got out and slammed the door shut."

"And we jumped again? No wonder I feel so lousy. Like a mutie rattler's been

sleeping in my head for three months."

Ryan managed to lever himself up until he was sitting with his back flat against

the cold glass wall of the chamber.

"Heard a coupla shots as I went under and saw some kind of… something real

big. Mebbe the Russkie's bought the farm this time."

"Guess we'll never know." The voice came from J. B. Dix, who'd also come

around. "Wouldn't much like having that mean Red mother hiking around

Deathlands after us."

"Assuming we're in Deathlands," Krysty said. She sniffed the cool damp air.

"Don't much like the smell of this place. Like coming around in the middle of an

old, buried tomb."

Krysty's mutie sense picked up on "feelings," and Ryan had learned over their

months together to trust her.

"Danger?" he asked.

"Mebbe. Not close. I reckon we should see to Jak and Doc."

The albino boy was showing signs of coming around. His legs moved feebly, like

a drowning kitten's, and he struggled to open his pale red eyes. As Krysty stooped

to help him, he coughed and spit, clearing his throat of the clogging bile. He sat

up unaided and wiped at his smeared face with the sleeve of his fur coat.

"We jump two times or dream it? Head feels dead inside."

"We jumped twice. One of the Russians came in with us then escaped when we

made the first jump. He shut the door and sent us off again."

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (9 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

d14

Jak nodded at Ryan's explanation. "Yeah," he muttered. "Fuck him."

"Doc doesn't look in fighting shape," J.B. remarked.

"The old man always takes a jump hardest of all," Krysty commented. "Good job

Rick went the way he did. He'd never have made another jump in that kind of

shape."

The memory of the man who'd briefly lived, traveled and fought with them

brought a silence. Rick Ginsberg had been a freezie, someone who'd suffered

from a serious illness and had been surgically frozen in the last months before the

long winters began. Ryan and his friends had been able to revive Rick. The

freezie had told them about two other cryonic centers in Deathlands, and Ryan's

wish was to try to locate one or both. It was possible that the companions would

benefit from these freezies' skills, if more of them could be successfully thawed.

"Oh! By the three Kennedys! Have I been bingeing with a bottle or two?" The

rich, sonorous voice of Doc Tanner broke the stillness.

"You got bloodied nose, Doc," Jak said. He stood up unsteadily, bracing himself

with a hand against the wall.

"Could be, sonny. Could be." Doc touched his lips and peered shortsightedly at

his crimson-slobbered fingers. "Indeed you are correct. Tapped the claret, have I

not? First blood to Theophilus Algernon Tanner, Esquire. Upon my soul, but I

fear that someone has removed my poor head and replaced it with a miniature

maelstrom."

"Your mouth, Doc," Ryan said.

"Yes, my dear friend?"

"Wipe the blood off of it. Then close it."

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Jam...Deathlands%2010%20-%20Northstar%20Rising.html (10 of 266) [12/29/2004 6:20:31 PM]

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

d14"Mutieants!"Ryanyelled."Ouronlyhopeisthetree."Thehorrifyingcreaturesweremorethanafootlong,andtheirmandibles\werehuge,disproportionateeventotheirgrotesquelymutatedsize.Longerth\anaman'sfinger,theyclickedtogetherinadeafeningwarningastheantsb\ecameawareofthesixcompanions.AsRyanloadthecharge,thefront...

展开>> 收起<<

Axler, James - Deathlands 10 - Northstar Rising.pdf

共266页,预览10页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Axler, James - Deathlands 10 - Northstar Rising

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: