scorched, her eyes wide and staring, her ash-streaked face streaked by tears, he had feared for her sanity.
He knew that Mildred’s difficulties might well have been due to the aftereffects of the mat-trans leap. And the truth of the matter was, being born in the heII scape had never provided much of a defense against the mind-bending power of the jump dream. The most re-cent nightmare was a case in point. It had been particularly unpleasant for him, and it had rendered Krysty unconscious for many minutes after the transfer was complete. Though Ryan’s lover had apparently recovered from her experience, he felt a distance between them that hadn’t been there before.
Perhaps it was his fault and not hers, he thought. His own jump dream had, it seemed, uncovered a side of his nature, a hunger that he had never recognized nor fully faced-and therefore had never shared with Krysty. The hunger was for the blood and suffering of others, and it repelled and shamed him.
“Found them,” Jak said when he finally trotted up to his friends. All the white-haired teen carried was a G-12 caseless rifle and a 50-round reloading unit. Ryan hadn’t wanted the youth’s recce slowed by a heavy pack, so he and J.B. had taken turns strapping on and hauling Jak’s load of gear, “All stopped at overpass,” Jak said. “Mile and half ahead, around bend.”
“Why are they stopped?” Ryan asked. “What are they up to?”
“Not get close enough,” Jak told him. “No cover.
Didn’t want risk seen, mebbe lead them here. What they doing sine lied bad. Wind right in face.”
“What about the leader?” Ryan asked. “Did you see him?”
“All saw was a pile of stickles blocking road.”
“We going to make a wide swing around them?” J.B- asked.
“Not too wide,” Ryan replied. “If the refugee man was right and a nonstickie is running the show, he’s got to be with them up ahead. We’re going to creep to within mebbe six hundred yards of their position. Inside the chilling range for the SSG-70. If there’s a clean shot on this leader of theirs, I’ll take it With any luck maybe we can end this thing here and now.”
“Cut off the head, and the body will die,” Doc said.
“But the body isn’t going to die,” Mildred protested. “There’ll still be thousands of stickles on the loose around here.”
“Yeah, but without a leader, they’ll break up into small hunting packs and spread out, the way they always do,” Ryan said. “The baron’s sec men can track them down and deal with them.”
After they had all pulled their gear back on, Ryan led his friends off the highway, to the left. He took them into the sun because he wanted it at his back for the chill shot. They crossed a flat area of soft, moist, alluvial dirt. It was tough going, and they sank in up to their knees. The ground got harder the higher they climbed. When they reached the first patch of thorn trees, Ryan turned them parallel to the highway. They
kept well below the ridge line, to avoid being silhouetted against the sky.
Their route hopped from tree patch to tree patch, zigzagging around the bright fields of lichen. Though the frilly colonies looked harmless, looks were almost always deceiving in Death lands. The fleshy fronds had no armor or poison sap to protect them; indeed, they were very fragile and crumbled to bits at the slightest touch. Which was, in fact, their defense. When the microscopic creatures broke apart, many became airborne. When inhaled by a passing animal, these individuals thrived inside the lungs. In a matter of days they reproduced into a new colony there, which by sheer bulk suffocated the hapless victim.
When the companions reached a spot above the bend in the highway, Ryan paused behind a clump of thorn trees and scanned the road ahead. He could see the overpass, but even with mini hi noes he couldn’t make out much detail because of the distortion of the heat waves rising off the roadway, just a vague, whitish mound spread across six lanes.
Then all of them heard a noise, faint but clear. It was a roaring pulse that rode on the gusting wind. It came from the north, from the direction of the white mound.