Rat King Read online

  Colt Python blaster with a fluid grace.

  "The bells, ah, the bells, Esmerelda. Ask not for whom they toll. The bells toll

  for thee, my Emily…my Esmerelda…"

  Doc's eyes were open and staring, but they shared the same faraway quality as

  his voice. The jumps always proved the hardest for Doc Tanner, whose white hair

  hung in soaked strands around his face, streaked with perspiration and the blood

  that flowed from his nose and trickled from the corner of his mouth. No one knew

  how old Doc really was. Trawled from the 1890s into the immediate years

  preceding skydark by the whitecoats of Operation Chronos, a part of the Totality

  Concept, which had also furnished the redoubts with the mat-trans units, Dr.

  Theophilus Tanner had proved to be a problem. Such a problem that the whitecoat

  scientists had decided to use him for a further experiment, shooting him forward

  in time—ironically only a short time before their own lives were ended by the

  madness of skydark—and landing him in the maelstrom that was the Deathlands.

  According to records the companions had come upon in the whitecoat hell of

  Crater Lake, Doc had been in his early thirties when snatched. The stresses of

  time trawling had made Doc physically resemble an old man, and his mind had a

  similar fragility that sometimes tipped him over into temporary madness.

  His speech was stopped by an urge to vomit, and he spewed the blood that had run

  down his throat.

  Mildred went over to him.

  "Crazy old fool. Sometimes I don't know how his mind ever snaps back from the

  strain of these jumps," she said as she ran a quick check on his vital signs.

  Doc smiled. "Perhaps it never does, and this scenario is nothing but the product

  of a disordered psyche."

  "Big words. Feel better," Jak commented shortly. "Right about bells."

  "Gaia, I've never heard a bell quite like that before," Krysty said as she moved

  toward Ryan. Now fully recovered from the jump, and with a resilience that was

  close to the one-eyed warrior's, she spoke in a low, urgent tone. "Sounds more

  like a siren. A warning of some kind, mebbe?"

  "New redoubt," J.B. commented, looking at the walls. "Could have an old alarm

  system. Mebbe working off the same power supply."

  "Never heard one before. Why now?"

  "Why not?" Dean asked. "Stupe comp systems get faults all the time."

  "Not that often, son," Ryan replied, his mind racing. "There's something else—"

  "The chamber," Krysty finished. "We've never seen one this spotlessly clean

  before. Almost like it's been swept out."

  "Which would mean someone lives here," Mildred added.

  Electrostatic air conditioning also kept the dust from the floors and walls of

  most redoubts—in theory. But in truth there had been occasions where time had

  led to at least one part of the system failing.

  "Your grasp of logic is most admirable," Doc said weakly. "Would it therefore be

  remiss of me to suggest even more than our usual caution?" He was still shaky on

  his feet, but had the heavy LeMat blaster ready, his lion's-head swordstick

  thrust into his belt.

  Ryan nodded grimly. "Last thing we need just after a jump. Going into a

  situation cold like this is the best way to get chilled."

  But already his fighter's brain was going into action. Whatever lay behind that

  door would expect them to come out blasting…if it was anything like other

  inhabitants of Deathlands. But what if it wasn't? What if it was like Alaska,

  where gatekeeper Quint had been using the redoubt as a refuge from the harshness

  of life outside?

  He dismissed the option. The only way to stay alive was to assume that

  everything was hostile until proved otherwise. And maybe even then you'd have to

  chill it.

  Ryan looked at J.B. and could see that the Armorer had been thinking the same

  way. He had the M-4000 in his hands and was checking the load.

  "Think what I'm thinking?" he asked laconically.

  "Guess so," Ryan replied. "Mebbe one or mebbe many. Either way, they'll expect

  us to come out blasting. It's our only chance. Bastard door is so narrow it

  doesn't give us a chance to spread quickly."

  "Can't stay like rats in trap," Jak said.

  In a trap or walking into a hail of blasterfire. Not much of a choice. The

  Trader used to say there was only one choice: choose to live or choose to die.

  Ryan knew that they couldn't stay in the chamber forever.

  "J.B., you lay down covering fire when the door opens. I'll head out and try to

  find cover. Mildred, Krysty, you follow. Jak, bring up the rear."

  "What about me, Dad?"

  Ryan turned to his son. "You and Doc take longest to recover from the jumps.

  Mebbe buy you a few seconds. You come out after J.B. blasts again. Door that

  narrow, it's difficult to come out with covering fire unless you want your head

  blasted."

  "Bad enough that some other bastard wants to chill you, without us chilling

  ourselves," Mildred commented with a dark humor.

  In just a few seconds, the group had loosened the chains of torpor and fatigue

  that the jumps usually left binding them, and were all running on adrenaline.

  Krysty's hair still clung protectively to her head.

  "I've got a bad feeling about this, lover."

  "So have the rest of us," Ryan replied.

  She shook her head. "No, not like that. I just get the feeling that this is

  going to be the easy part."

  "Fireblast! If this is the easy part, then I don't want to be around when the

  difficult part arrives."

  He turned to the Armorer. "Ready?"

  J.B. nodded.

  "Backs to the wall, people. This is it."

  With caution Ryan tried the wheel lock that opened the chamber door. They hadn't

  seen a chamber door like this since the old military installation in Dulce, New

  Mexico. Was this going to be a regular redoubt, or something different? The door

  was unusual but the rest of the chamber was the same as most—armaglass, not

  concrete like Dulce. The wheel gave easily under his grip, far easier than he

  expected. Yet more evidence that this redoubt was in regular use.

  Did this mean someone else knew the secret of the gateways?

  The wheel spun, and the door opened smoothly.

  Only a fraction. Ryan stopped it and braced himself for any immediate attack.

  J.B. was at his side, the scattergun up and ready.

  Nothing.

  "So far, so good."

  "Doesn't mean much," the Armorer added. "They're not stupe enough to rush us.

  Could make them more dangerous."

  Ryan nodded. They would proceed as planned.

  As they flattened themselves to the green-and-cobalt walls on the left side of

  the chamber door, Ryan reached out a hand and steadied himself to fling it open.

  J.B. stood slightly away from the wall, to one side of his friend, ready to step

  out and fire a covering blast as the one-eyed man flung himself through the

  door.

  Many years of traversing the Deathlands and encountering death, staring it in

  the face before blasting it away, gave the two friends an almost telepathic

  bond. Ryan gave only the slightest of nods before flexing his wrist and flicking

  the door.

  As he had expected from the ease with which the wheel lock had worked, the door

  opened freely, as though smoothly oiled and with no friction to impede the

  motion.

  J.B. stepped in front of the door at an oblique angle, aided by the hexagonal

  shape of the chamber, his finger closing on the Smith & Wesson's trigger and

  squeezing until the cartridge exploded with an almost deafening impact in the

  enclosed space. The flechettes of barbed steel were driven from the barrel in an

  ever-widening arc. Anyone standing in the room beyond wouldn't be standing for

  long.

  Ryan sprang through the doorway, rolling across the floor, trying to get a fix

  on any possible cover. He moved so quickly on the back of J.B.'s shot that the

  hot air from the blaster seemed to brush his cheek as he passed.

  His eye took in the surroundings at a glance as he rolled. The throbbing pulse

  of the siren still pounded in his head, but otherwise conditions seemed normal.

  The usual anteroom was missing, but the control room was fairly standard. There

  were the usual free-standing comp terminals, as well as desks, chairs and

  terminals that blinked on and off in the controlled atmosphere. The harsh

  fluorescent lighting cast no shadow on the room, leaving no place for anyone to

  hide.

  Ryan came out of the roll into a crouch behind one of the desks, which he pushed

  on its side to provide cover. It would be no good against heavy blasters, but

  the steel would act as a shield against small-caliber handblasters, as well as

  providing a visual blind.

  It was only when the clatter of the uprighted desk and comp terminal died away

  that he realized the alarm had stopped.

  Krysty, Mildred and Jak sprinted from the doorway to cover, risking their speed

  in the enclosed space against the reactions of anyone training a blaster on

  them.

  There were no blasters; there was nothing.

  Behind a desk on the far side of the room, Jak picked up a framed photograph

  that had been knocked onto the floor. The glass had cracked, throwing a web of

  lines across the smiling face of a young woman long since dead. There had been

  similar personal mementos on desks in some of the other redoubts they had seen.

  They meant nothing to Jak, but it didn't escape his notice that there was no

  dust on the frame. It had been regularly cleaned.

  Without pause he threw the frame high in the air, over the top of the desk and

  out into the unknown territory that was the rest of the room.

  There was no response. No blasterfire.

  Following through in one motion and using the momentary distraction of the

  airborne object, Jak aimed the Python over the top of the desk; bobbing up

  briefly to locate any enemies.

  The room was empty. Seemingly.

  Mildred had taken advantage of the diversion to scan the room.

  "Damn place is empty, Ryan," she called.

  "Mebbe. Mebbe only seems." Jak smiled across at her. "Mebbe not stupes."

  The last thing any of them expected was the voice that came from the corridor

  beyond the door at the end of the room.

  "Right so far, Sarj. Let's see if they're officer material."

  WALLACE WAS WATCHING the outsiders on a vid monitor positioned in the corridor.

  He could see two men and two women strung out in a line behind their temporary

  cover. The camera was behind them, positioned on the wall above and to the right

  of the mat-trans chamber door, on the angle of the hexagon.

  He now knew that there were at least four of them. They were sharp and showed

  intelligence. Were there any others still in the mat-trans chamber? The

  armaglass was too opaque to be sure.

  Murphy stood behind the big man, watching over his shoulder. He was irritated

  that Wallace had taken over management of this operation. As head of sec corps,

  it was Murphy's job to handle attacks of any kind.

  Even if they came from within.

  "Temporary stalemate, Sarj. We go in, they blast. They get blasted back. Need

  them alive, but we got more men. Numbers, Sarj, that's the key. That's why the

  mechanism is so important."

  Murphy didn't respond. The problem with the mechanism was bothering Wallace more

  than he wanted to let on. Why else mention it?

  This could be the break that Murphy had been waiting for. The circumstances when

  the regs could be broken. But that was for another time. Right now there were

  more pressing problems.

  Like how many were left in the chamber.

  RYAN SCANNED the empty room.

  "How many people beyond the door?" Mildred asked.

  "One is one too many," Krysty replied. "I feel like a complete stupe behind

  this." She tapped the edge of the desk with the barrel of her Smith & Wesson

  .38.

  "Any cover is better than no cover. And if we don't know how many of them, they

  sure as hell don't know how many of us." Ryan kept his attention fixed on the

  doorway at the far end of the room, watching for the slightest movement.

  Jak took the opportunity to recce the area to the rear, knowing that Ryan had

  the front covered.

  "Not sure. Vid behind. Mebbe watching us."

  Mildred looked around and saw the camera above Ryan's head.

  "Smile, you're on TV."

  One round from her ZKR 551 took out the camera through the lens in a shower of

  sparks. They rained over Ryan, but the one-eyed man ignored them, keeping his

  attention fixed on the redoubt doorway.

  "Just as well I held the second shot," J.B. said quietly from inside the

  chamber. He kept his voice as low as possible in the eerie quiet mat had

  succeeded the siren. "If they know about you, then there's three of us they

  don't know about."

  "So what do we do? We can't stay here forever, just like we couldn't stay in

  there," Mildred said grimly, gesturing to the mat-trans chamber.

  "One trap for another." Jak had his back to the table, checking his blaster. He

  looked over at Ryan, smoothing the milk-white hair away from his scarred albino

  skin. His red eyes were piercing.

  Ryan smiled tightly. "Read something once about what they used to call a Mexican

  standoff. Bastard stupe name, but I guess this is what they meant."

  WALLACE CURSED as the monitor went dead.

  "Sir, what do you want me to do, sir?" Murphy said in a flat monotone, trying to

  keep the amusement out of his voice.

  "I want them alive. No casualties. I want to know how they used the mat-trans."

  "It might be that they don't see it that way, sir."

  Wallace turned toward Murphy. The sec man shivered as he looked into the heart

  of his superior and saw a glimmer of insanity too close to the surface. He knew

  that the Gen would be a hard man to usurp, and hoped that Wallace couldn't in

  some way know his plans. The Gen was a true believer, fired by the regs. He had

  the fire of generations burning in his veins.

  "They will, Sarj. You make them."

  The fat man turned on his heel with an astonishing precision for someone his

  size, and waddled off down the corridor.

  Murphy looked after him, then turned to the five sec corps personnel he had with

  him. They were all trained by him personally, and were the cream of his corps.

  Their uniforms were crisp and well laundered, although still carrying some

  stains from the chilling they had accomplished on the raids to the outside. They

  were well drilled from the manual, and also had a few tricks Murphy had picked

  up along the way.

  They were the elite he would use when the time came.

  But how was he going to break this stalemate?

  Chapter Two

  Inside the chamber both Doc and Dean had taken advantage of the time bought by

  Ryan's actions to recover fully from the effects of the jump. They stood,

  blasters ready for action, to one side of the Armorer.

  "John Barrymore," Doc whispered, "if I may hazard a suggestion. We three are

  something of a Trojan horse, and could perhaps be of some use in that manner."

  "No sense there, Doc. Tell me a little more."

  "When the Trojans were at war with—"

  "Not the history, Doc. Not now. Just what you mean for us," the Armorer

  interrupted. Like Ryan he was easily irritated when Doc's lectures appeared at

  the worst moments. Like now.

  "My apologies," Doc said with a short bow. "I shall endeavor to explain in

  simple terms, in order to save precious moments. If we are in here, and our

  opponents have no idea about us, then our companions can act as a decoy by

  appearing to surrender—"

  "That's a stupe idea," Dean said angrily. "Sure way to get everyone chilled. Why

  don't we just jump again?"

  J.B. shook his head. "Came across a chamber like this before. The door isn't the

  trigger…maybe an earlier mat-trans, I don't know. This'll need triggering from

  out there." He gestured to the outside with the M-4000.

  Dean was unconvinced. "I still say Doc's idea is double stupe."

  "Mebbe not. Not if we're all quick enough," the Armorer replied. Raising his

  voice slightly, he continued, "Ryan, you hear that?"

  "We all heard," the one-eyed warrior replied. "A slim chance is better than no

  chance, and I'll go bastard crazy unless we break this deadlock." He turned to

  the others. "It's the only way to draw them—whoever the hell they are—into the

  room. But we need to be triple alert here. Scatter as soon as the others

  appear."

  He was greeted with three nods of assent.

  Ryan called out. "Hey, you out there. How are we going to end this?"