Axler, James - Deathlands 17 - Fury's Pilgrims

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

"Autodestruct in operation at ninety minutes and counting…

"Goin' to blow us all with it," Abe shouted. "Let's go!"

Ryan still held the blue folder he'd taken from Krysty, and he glanced down at it.

"We've got an hour and a half. No hurry. We could get back to the gateway and

make the jump in a whole lot less than that."

The stylized black lettering on the file told him that it was the log for the previous

six months. It was going to be interesting to find out about this top-secret

establishment.

"Self-destruct mode operating at ninety. At eighty. At seven and seven and

seventy minutes. One hour and counting. This is a practice drill. Not act… drill.

Not. Fifty minutes."

"Fireblast! It's out of control. Let's go!"

Clutching the folder under his arm, Ryan turned on his heel and sprinted for the

sec door, his friends close behind.

The alteration in the force of gravity threw their natural reflexes off kilter.

Ryan overcompensated and banged his shoulder into one of the consoles. His

body slithered sideways, knocking into Dean, who took out J.B. and Mildred.

Krysty might have made it, if Abe hadn't skittered into Doc. The old man dropped

his swordstick, which somehow caught between Krysty's ankles. Her mane of hair

splayed out like a dazzling burst of radiant fire as she fell toward the control panel

of the sec door, clipping it with the heel of her boot.

There was the hiss of valves, and the slab of steel began to descend, trapping the

companions.

"Destruct now forty and thirty and twenty minutes. Nineteen minutes and

counting. Nineteen..."

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

Fury's Pilgrims

# 17 in the Deathlands series

James Axler

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • RARIS • 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."

This is for all the members of the Deathlands Dining Club, past, present and

future, who have had the best taste since Alferd Packer.

Seriously though, folks, this comes with my genuine gratitude, respect and

affection. Thanks.

First edition January 1993

ISBN 0-373-62517-7

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

FURY'S PILGRIMS

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 permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill

Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada MSB 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. TM are Trademarks of the publisher.

Printed in U.S.A.

There is so much evidence that the future is totally shrouded from our vision. If

you don't believe this then pick some odd moment from your present life. Imagine

you have a video camera to film this moment and a time machine. Travel back to

when you were, let's say eighteen, and show your young self the video. Five gets

you five hundred that your past persona would be absolutely staggered at what

you've become.

All Truth Is Perceived,

Therefore All Truth Is Fallible,

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

by Melissa Moore, 1991

Chapter One

Ryan could feel his brain starting to scramble. The last thing he heard was Krysty

whispering gently to him, her breath soft against his cheek.

"Good time the last few weeks, lover. I envy Christina what she's got. Husband

and baby. Nice home. Be good…" The words started to fragment. "One day…

you and… real good… us… lover."

The rest vanished into the blackness.

RYAN OPENED HIS EYE, realizing that something had gone appallingly,

hideously wrong.

The silver armaglass walls of the gateway chamber were gone. Now they were a

rich, deep, glowing purple. The metal disks in the floor and the ceiling were

fading quickly, and the mist that often filled the mat-trans chamber during a jump

was almost gone.

Ryan's muddled mind was battling to try to come to terms with the odd color of

the walls, seeking a hold on a memory that he'd seen something like that before.

"Where?" he croaked, his voice as dry as the sands of the Mohave Desert.

He shifted his position, closing his eye and opening it again, trying to work out

just what was so terribly wrong.

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

Two things, he concluded.

Air and gravity.

And that also rang a feeble bell in the dusty west wing of his memory.

Ryan drew a long slow breath that somehow didn't seem to satisfy his need, then

drew another and another. But still he felt a faint and disturbing echo of

suffocation. His heart was pounding in his chest as if he'd just run a mile up a

sand dune in combat boots, and the blood coursed through his ears like the tide

along the gulf shore.

"Altitude," Ryan whispered.

That was the only possible explanation.

He remembered his hard-riding days with the Trader. They'd been moving

westward across the rolling plains of what had once been Missouri and Kansas,

making good time, driving at top speed for twenty-four hours solid.

They traveled past the haunted, hag-ridden ruins of Denver, straight up into the

mountains, stopping at a trading post in a place called…

"Leadville?"

The Baby Doe Trading Post.

"Why am I…"

His mind was reeling out of control, staggering down side trails when he should

be concentrating with all of his energy on what was happening right here and

now.

But it had felt a bit like this, that first night in Leadville. The heart and the breath

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

and the ears. Several of the crews of the two war wags had suffered from

headaches, sickness and nosebleeds. And that had been caused by altitude.

Ryan lifted a hand to brush a strand of black hair off his forehead.

"Fireblast!"

This was something else, not like it had been in Leadville.

Ryan's hand felt as though it were floating in soft water. He moved it,

experimentally, above his head, then cautiously around in a slow circle.

"What the fuck is going on?" he asked.

But the others all seemed to be still locked away into the dark coma that a jump

often produced.

The six bodies were scattered around the chamber, like the discarded toys of a

petulant child.

Krysty lay on one side of him, her hair curled tightly around her head

protectively. Blood and watery mucus trickled from the corner of her mouth.

Doc Tanner was sitting, oddly, bolt upright, his sliver-headed sword stick gripped

firmly between both hands, his leonine head resting on the gnarled backs of his

wrists.

Abe lay one side, knees tucked up, hands thrust between his thighs like a sleeping

child seeking security.

Mildred and J B. Dix were lying together, fingers tangled. J.B. was bleeding from

the nose, a steady trickle of crimson that dripped across the floor of the chamber.

Ryan's young son, Dean Cawdor, was on his other side. The boy had been sick,

with threads of golden vomit trailing onto his jacket. His eyes were squeezed shut,

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

and he was gripping the turquoise hilt of his favorite knife in his right fist. There

definitely wasn't enough air. Ryan knew from bitter experience that panic could

be a very effective killer in its own right. With a positive effort of will he tried to

take slower, shallower breaths, not allowing fear to control and overwhelm him.

He tried to stand, but when he pushed himself off the floor, the one-eyed man had

the sickening feeling of swimming.

He dropped to a crouch, sighing. Doc's voice startled him. "Perfectly simple, my

dear chap. We are in a controlled environment with low gravity and a

concomitant shortage of air."

"Concomitant? What's…"

"I'm so sorry, Ryan. Old habits die hard. Yes, Die Hard Two, Rambo Four. Close

game that." The old man shook his head. "I do apologize. What on earth was I

saying?"

"Gravity and air."

"Indeed, yes. It would indicate a return to that mysterious location that we've

tripped upon before. Not an out-of-body experience but, perhaps, an off-planet

one."

Ryan felt sick, his throat contracting to avoid actually throwing up. It seemed as

though his brain were still in free-fall inside the whorled chamber of his skull.

"Off the planet?"

"We have suspected for some time that the gateways were being used by some

other force. And that we had once ourselves been to some distant object in space.

Do you not recall?"

"Yeah, yeah. Course. The air's so thin, Doc. How can anyone live with this?"

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

"Perhaps this mat-trans section is kept this way when not in use. To conserve

energy." Doc scratched the stubble on his chin with the carved silver lion on his

cane. "But I feel something is also awry with the Newtonian force of gravity. Do

you not feel that, Ryan?"

"Sure. Like floating."

Doc Tanner was different, in a strange, subtle way that confused Ryan. He was

much more concise, and sharper, somehow. There was a great deal less rambling

than usual.

"Like floating, Ryan. Precisely." He steepled his fingers. "So, the thin air could be

deliberate. But I do not believe that it would be feasible to maintain a part of a

larger unit at a different level of gravity to other parts."

"You mean this has somehow broken away?"

"Perhaps."

J.B. was stirring, whistling softly between his teeth as he sat up and rubbed his

bloodied nose on his sleeve. He picked up his battered fedora and settled it in

place.

He looked at Ryan and Doc. "Something's wrong."

"Yes," Doc replied. "We believe that we are no longer on Earth, John, and that we

may be the victims of some sort of malfunction."

"Thin air and strange gravity," Ryan added. Speaking was peculiarly difficult, as

though someone had placed a layer of thick sponge over each one of his teeth.

The Armorer nodded slowly, his glasses reflecting the rich purple of the armored

walls.

"Could be. We always wondered."

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

At his side, Mildred Wyeth was stirring. She rolled over, eyes closed tight,

moaning.

"Feel rotten." She opened one eye, then the other. Mildred sighed, a puzzled

expression creeping over her face. "Decompression or something. And…

Gravity?"

"We could be off Earth," J.B. told her. "Take it real slow and easy."

Krysty was next to regain consciousness. She looked around, naked fear flashing

for a moment in her green eyes. "Gaia! Where are we?" She turned to Ryan, her

fingers touching his wrist. "Lover, I got such a bad feeling about this."

Abe hadn't moved, or given any clue that he was back with them. But he echoed

her words. "Got a bad feeling, too, Krysty." He sniffed. "Thank God! I thought at

the least I'd have shit myself after that lousy feeling. It always like this, is it?"

"This wasn't a bad one," Ryan replied.

"Well…hey, what's wrong with the…I can't breathe properly! Is it just me?"

Doc answered him. "It's all of us, Abraham. So I venture to suggest that we all

move with great caution. In every way."

Dean was last to revive. He looked down at himself and blushed. "Oh, shit! I've

puked all over. Sorry, Dad."

"Don't worry, son. Least of our worries, that is."

Slowly, with some staggering, the companions got to their feet.

It was amazing how the apparent change in gravity had made them all so clumsy.

Doc dropped his cane and even the cat-footed J.B. stumbled and would have

fallen if Mildred hadn't snatched at his arm to steady him.

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d17 Fury's Pilgrims

Dean recovered with the infinite resilience of the very young.

He jumped against the wall, whooping as he found himself able to leap nearly

three feet clear of the floor, almost high enough to touch the glittering disks in the

ceiling.

"Cut it out, Dean," Ryan snapped. "Someone can get hurt here."

He hadn't heard any sound or sign of life beyond the ponderous door.

Krysty had closed her eyes again and was standing against the wall, shaking her

head. "Can't feel anything, lover," she said finally. "Sort of general bad

vibrations."

"No excitations?" Mildred asked, then shook her head. "Sorry. Doesn't make

sense to you, does it?"

J.B. looked at Ryan. "Condition double red," he said.

"Yeah. Blasters out and ready, everyone." Ryan was conscious of the terrible

shortage of breath, and hoped that he wasn't going to have to do anything to exert

himself. He looked around to make sure everyone was prepared, then put his hand

on the cold metal of the door-opening mechanism, releasing it.

Chapter Two

The door opened onto the usual small antechamber, with a view beyond it into

the main control room. Both appeared empty.

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d17Fury'sPilgrims"Autodestructinoperationatninetyminutesandcounting…"Goin'toblowusallwithit,"Abeshouted."Let'sgo!"Ryanstillheldthebluefolderhe'dtakenfromKrysty,andheglancedd\ownatit."We'vegotanhourandahalf.Nohurry.Wecouldgetbacktothegatewa\yandmakethejumpinawholelotlessthanthat."Thestylizedblacklett...

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Axler, James - Deathlands 17 - Fury's Pilgrims

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