Axler, James - Deathlands 45 - Starfall

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The lock had been ripped from the door
Ryan grabbed Krysty's shoulder and rolled her over. She twisted bonelessly, and
the loose way she moved made him certain she was dead.
The breath caught in Ryan's throat as he stared at his lover's pale face. Then he
noticed her breasts rise with a drawn breath. Gently he reached toward her face,
cupping her chin in his callused hand.
"Wake up," he urged hoarsely. The one-eyed man patted her cheek tenderly but
with enough force to rock her head slightly. "You've got to wake up!"
Abruptly Krysty sat up, her eyes snapping open and into focus like the electronic
sights on a war wag. There was another presence. "Do not presume to touch me,
whoreson!"
Starfall
#45 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
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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 April 1999
ISBN 0-373-62545-6
STARFALL
Copyright © 1999 by Worldwide Library.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any 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.
Printed in U.S.A.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand:
let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,
and let us put on armor of light.
—Romans 13:
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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 premoni-tions 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 gender 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,
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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
Ryan Cawdor rested his forefinger lightly against the Steyr rifle's trigger as he
swept his gaze over the urban shockscape of the ravaged ville. He hunkered in the
late afternoon shadows draped carelessly over the smashed re-mains of what had
once been a concrete-and-steel building in downtown Idaho Falls, Idaho, before a
nuclear warhead had nearly blown the city out of existence a hundred years
earlier.
He kept the bilious green-tinged sunset behind him, an old gunfighter's trick and
the first rule of a predator. His position also carried his scent away from the area
he sur-veyed. The last bath he had taken lay nearly four days' hard travel behind
him; he knew he carried a strong musk that an alert animal, mutie or man could
detect.
The cold wind, full of the threat of approaching winter, swirled around the big
man. He felt it rake through his clothing for a moment, searching across his flesh
with fro-zen skeletal fingers. The touch lingered even after the wind passed on,
chilling him to the bone.
Then the scream rent the air again.
The effort sounded strained and thin, as if the screamer's pain had almost crossed
the threshold into sensory over-load. It keened through the tumbledown buildings,
bounc-ing from the haphazard walls that still stood.
"Lover." The voice was soft, undemanding.
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Ryan gazed over his shoulder at the fire-haired woman hunkered down behind
him. He spoke without hesitation. "We wait."
She nodded reluctantly.
The scream died away, winding down rather than getting cut off short. The
screamer still lived.
"Mebbe by the time we find whoever's screaming, it'll be too late."
"Better to be late trying to save somebody rather than being early to your own
lynching." But the words sounded hollow even to Ryan's ears. Even being
intelligent about a play wasn't always easy.
The saying had belonged to the Trader, the man who had finished Ryan's training
in survivalism in Deathlands. In his day, the Trader had been a man strong
enough, big enough and violent enough to become a legend. His word had been
his bond, and a law unto itself. He had saved individuals and once or twice sent a
whole community straight to hell when it crossed him or threatened anything that
was his.
"I know." The woman grimaced and put a hand to her head. Her other hand held a
.38 Smith & Wesson Model 640. "It's just getting hard to take. More than just
scream-ing now. I can almost hear words."
Ryan had nothing to say to that. Krysty Wroth had a gift, inherited from and
cultivated by her mother, and it hinged on mutie abilities that Ryan never even
pretended to un-derstand. But he did understand her pain and frustration because
he saw it etched into her beautiful face, saw the way she carried it in her
movements. All the hard years of his own youth, all the carnage he'd seen and
caused while traveling with the Trader and the war wags, hadn't com-pletely
dehumanized him. But it had hardened his sense of purpose. He was determined
to live and to bring his small group through whatever waited up ahead intact.
Krysty was hurting, but she wasn't going to die from it. At least, that was the
present thinking.
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He scanned the terrain again. The shattered remains of the building they stood on
gave him a vantage point almost twenty feet above the ground. If they had been in
a forested area or the plains or mountains, the advantage would have been
enough.
The blasted remnants of the ville proved to be another matter. Idaho Falls had
been a small but thriving metro-politan area back before the nukecaust that had
ended the world. In addition to the destruction caused by the bombs, a hundred
years of chem storms and nuclear winter raised scars that stood out on the
buildings.
Rusted hulks of cars, trucks and buses lined what used to be streets. Acid rain had
scoured most of the paint from the vehicles. Windows that had survived the end
of the world had been claimed by the survivors.
Looking out over the broken maze of streets and struc-tures, Ryan was certain
nothing remained that they could salvage themselves. But the companions had
come to the city to trade with the survivors that still lived there, or to take what
they needed any way they could. Supplies—es-pecially when they traveled near
rad-blasted areas and rem-nants of unrecovered villes—remained a concern. And
they intended to gather any information about the area they didn't already have.
He glanced back at Krysty, worrying about her. For some unknown reason, she
had been hearing the screams inside her mind since early that morning after the
mat-trans jump that had brought them into the region, long before the noise had
become a physical presence to the rest of the group.
"Lot of bastard pain, Ryan," she whispered hoarsely, her sentient red hair curled
protectively against her nape.
"You," he asked, "or the other?"
"Gaia, I can't even tell anymore. Me, the other—it's all the same now." She made
a gagging noise and tried to cover it with her hand so the sound wouldn't travel.
Her shoulders hunched with dry heaves. "No separation."
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Ryan looked at her, seeing the way her hands shook. He was a big man, tall and
broad, carrying a lot of muscle in his back and shoulders. His curly black hair
nearly reached his shoulders. His right eye shone cobalt blue and piercing; the
place where his left eye should have been was covered by a scuffed black leather
patch that kept infectious mate-rial out of the empty socket. A long scar trailed
from the corner of his right eye to the corner of his mouth. He reached out and
touched her hand. "I'll be back."
She looked at him, her eyes not quite focusing. "Sorry, lover. I know it's all my
fault. We shouldn't be shackled to taking something on like this."
"No. It's not your fault. Just how things worked out— that's all." Ryan released
her hand and scrambled down the side of the rubble. He thought briefly of leaving
the Steyr with Krysty since she had the high ground and could cover him. But he
also realized that in her present condition he was better off keeping it.
He dropped from the last chunk of concrete to the street level. His boots rang
hollowly against the cracked sidewalk for just a moment. With the wind keening
through the de-bris around him, he doubted the sound carried very far.
A dozen broken-down wags littered the street in front of him. One of them stuck
out from the side of the building where it was partially buried under a pile of
shattered ma-sonry. All of the wags had long since been stripped.
Three skeletons sat in the wag jutting out from the build-ing. Tattered bits of
clothing remained stuck to the yel-lowed bone. The skeleton behind the wheel had
no head, while the one in the passenger's seat had a mouthful of broken teeth and
a collapsed lower face. The third skeleton sat in a child's safety seat at a crooked
angle.
Ryan didn't let himself dwell on the scene. Too many of them existed across
Deathlands. He stared at the building across the street. A sun-faded orange sign
sticking up from the debris read Kidwell's Korner Kafe—Ice, Beer, Maga-zines.
"Jak," Ryan called softly.
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"Yeah." The voice barely carried across the small dis-tance.
"Let's go."
"Sure, Ryan." Jak Lauren stepped out from hiding, a .357 Magnum Colt Python in
his hand. "Krysty?"
"Hurting." Ryan started forward, aiming in the direction the screams had come
from as near as he could judge.
"Find it, chill it Then move on." Jak moved into po-sition behind Ryan. The
teenager had the stark white col-oration of a true albino, and the snow-white hair
to match. His eyes gleamed like fiery red rubies in the hollows of his scarred face.
Iridescent patches of gray and brown clung to his camou-style clothing, and the
sharp bits of metal care-fully sewn into the material didn't show at all.
SHIFTING SHAPES SKITTERED across and through the debris filling the
street. Ryan recognized them as rats, and they were some of the biggest he had
ever seen. Nearly eighteen inches tall at the shoulder, they looked like small dogs
and hunted in packs like wolves. Coarse brown hair covered their rangy bodies.
Their tails trailed behind them, hairless and as thick as Ryan's first two fingers
held together. Their behavior patterns drew his instant attention because they
didn't act afraid of him at all.
When he had been at his vantage point atop the crumbled building, the rats hadn't
warranted much study. Anywhere people still clung to shreds of civilization, rats
were a sure bet.
But now he gave them his full attention because they were giving him a big share
of theirs.
"Fuckers probably rabid." Jak walked at Ryan's side little more than an arm's
length away. Far enough away they wouldn't get tangled with each other when
they moved, but close enough they could move together if they needed to.
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"If they decide to attack, a man might not live long enough to find out anyway."
Ryan reached to his right hip and loosened the thong holding the SIG-Sauer P-226
in the holster. He took up the razor-edged panga in his left hand, fingers curled
loosely around the haft. The blade was an eighteen-inch extension of himself, and
he knew it inti-mately.
"Mebbe chill couple. Let eat each other." Jak fisted some of his leaf-bladed
throwing knives.
"No." Ryan kept walking, determined to give the rats a wide berth if at all
possible. He crossed the street, staying away from the main body of the pack.
After the nukecaust, Mother Nature's hand was no longer solely responsible for
the grand designs of all creatures great and small. Especially in the rad-blasted
areas. Mutie blood showed up, changing things forever. Sometimes the rad-burn
had created a wholly new creature with no ties to whatever had originally sired it.
Without warning, the scream rushed through the street again, echoing within the
cavernous vaults left inside the collapsed buildings. The rats paused, throwing
their broad warty snouts into the breeze.
"Smell it?" Jak asked.
Ryan took a breath. The albino teen's senses were more developed than most, but
he had no problem sorting out the fecund scent of death. "Yeah."
The scream dragged on for a few short seconds, then broke in the middle. For a
moment, Ryan thought the screamer had finally died. Before he turned to glance
in Krysty's direction to check with her, the voice returned as a snuffling sob.
He couldn't recognize the words, but he knew from the tones that the screamer
was a woman.
Ryan stayed close to the crumbled remains. He kept the panga ready in his hand
while he followed the barrel of the Steyr forward. Furtive movements sounded
inside the building.
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With his trained eye, Ryan saw past the ruined facade of the building. Paths had
been cleared through the rubble, a sure indication of some kind of habitation.
The Trader had taught Ryan and everyone else under his command to look for
signs such as those. Paths around a body of fresh water or a river were
understandable and to be expected. Man and beast alike both needed a source of
fresh drinking water to survive.
But a path worn into an area where there was no source of water meant something
else entirely. Especially when the crossers of those paths were human. At those
times, the Trader had pointed out, a smart man knew he had a host of buyers just
waiting to be approached. Men or women who made it a habit of crossing other
people's paths were looking to get something they wanted from the other
party—by whatever means they could get it.
Ryan knew from studying the barren earth worn between the patches of weeds
and grass that the area was heavily traveled. It meant either the predators gathered
there to at-tack those weaker than themselves, or that someone had gone into
business managing supply and demand for the area.
The big man's curiosity flared into being. Though he had seen a considerable
amount of Deathlands, he wanted to see more.
He took up the Steyr in both hands and followed the trail up the steep incline in
front of him. He glanced at Jak, watching the youth step into the shadows under
some of the broken rock. Jak disappeared within three steps, leaving nothing to
mark his passage through the rock.
WRAPPING THE STEYR'S SLING around his forearm to better balance the
weapon, Ryan crested the hill. Peering over the edge, Ryan studied the scene
unfolding before him.
Over the top of the hill, the land fell away and pooled in a bowl-shaped
depression rimmed by stacks of junked cars and the shattered remains of a few
warehouses and garages. A rusted fence topped with barbed wire encircled most
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摘要：

file:///C|/3226%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/James%20Axler%20-%20D\eathlands%2045%20-%20Starfall.htmlThelockhadbeenrippedfromthedoorRyangrabbedKrysty'sshoulderandrolledherover.Shetwistedboneless\ly,andtheloosewayshemovedmadehimcertainshewasdead.ThebreathcaughtinRyan'sthroatashestaredathislover...

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