Red Equinox

Chapter Fourteen

"No way, Ryan."

"No choice, Rick."

"Go and piss up a rope, you monocular son of a bitch!"

"Sure. But you still have to come with us. There's no..."

The freezie was angrier than any of them had ever seen him. He shook his head so violently that his heavy glasses nearly became dislodged.

"I'm sick, you ice-hearted bastard!" Suddenly he was near to tears. "Christ on a cross! I got this shitty illness and I'm dying and I get fucking frozen. Supposed to be woken up when it's time for the doctors to cure me! And you did it too early."

Krysty tried to calm him. "Rick, it wasn't too early. You know that. The world you knew got blown to hell on January 20, 2001. There won't be a cure. There won't everbe doctors like you knew, hospitals. Nothing like that. Just the Deathlands forever and ever."

"Amen," Doc muttered.

"So, why go on? Why fucking bother, Krysty? Let's just give up now. Right now!"

He was weeping, leaning on his stick, tears streaming down his thin cheeks. Ryan realized how frail and ill he'd become in the past two or three days.

Krysty laid her hands on his shoulders, trying to steady him. "Why? Why don't we all just sit down and give up?"

"Yeah." He wiped his eyes with a clumsy hand. "Yeah. Why go on?"

Outside the sun shone with a hard, facile brilliance, from a faultlessly blue sky. The snow had virtually disappeared, and there had been no sign of the wolf pack.

Krysty's emerald-bright eyes fixed the man with a cold, inexorable stare. Rick actually took a stumbling step away from her flaring anger.

"I can't mend that damaged door. Ryan can't. Nor can J.B. or Jak or Doc. If it doesn't get fixed we stay here, Rick. We stay here and we all get chilled. Sure, we can hold out for a few days. But in the end, though we're good, they'll track us down and chill us. You sit down on your ass and give up and youchill us. Just as surely as if your finger tightens on the trigger of the Kalashnikov."

The sun-splashed room was very quiet. The others were all standing, listening to the argument. No one interrupted.

Rick nodded slowly. "I see that, and I guess I'll do what I can. But after that? Why do you keep trying, Krysty?"

She smiled then, and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Tell you the truth, Rick, I sometimes wonder about that myself."

Something had awakened Zimyanin from a deep sleep. He eased himself away from the hoggish bulk of his wife, wondering if it was the newborn twin baby boys in the apartment immediately above who disturbed his sleep. They bawled endlessly.

But it wasn't that.

Something in his sleep. "The bed was exceedingly comfortable. Thank you for asking," he whispered to himself.

Anya Zimyanin rolled onto her back and farted long and loudly.

He swung his legs out of the bed, wincing as his feet made contact with the cold plas-floor. There was some of the weeks' ration of chay left. If the power was high enough he could boil a pot of water and make himself a cup of tea. The idea appealed to Zimyanin. But he still couldn't quite remember what it was that had woken him in the first place.

The cramped kitchen seemed smaller than usual. Dirty dishes and cutlery remained piled on the counter by the sink. It hadn't been a bad meal. Anya had bought some smoked sprats for the appetizer, serving them with buckwheat pancakes.

Zimyanin knew the old conventions about meals and made sure they were observed whenever possible. He insisted that Anya prepare pervoe blyudoand vtoroe blyudo— fish for the first main dish then meat for the second main dish.

Minced pike was followed by some indeterminate meat that his wife had sworn was mutton. Unless they were putting horseshoes on sheep, he'd permitted himself to disagree with her. Out east he'd eaten enough horse meat to be sure. A young recruit had once asked him why he hadn't called his horse by any name. He'd replied that he wouldn't give a name to something he'd probably end up having to eat.

For dessert they had consumed a store-bought cake, sticky with honey and raisins. Anya had gotten up from the table and kissed him drunkenly, her mouth oozing sweetness. Someone had given her a bottle of heavy Moldavian red wine, and it had gone to her head.

Zimyanin slept naked and he looked down at his body with a shudder of revulsion. The mute evidence of their loveless coupling was matted in the wiry nest of dark curling hairs that covered his groin. While the kettle simmered he walked quietly through to the tiny bathroom and washed himself.

The overhead light was flickering and dim. Power often fell away during the night. He glanced at his face in the mirror, seeing how the erratic shadows gave the illusion that his mouth and nose had merged into a single dark cavern.

"Ah," he muttered.

That brought back the dream that had jerked him from sleep.

Aliev had been in it. He and Zimyanin had been walking through the grim wastes of the Kamchatka Peninsula, hunting the Narodniki, following their trail of bestial violence and murder.

The weather had been appalling. A chem storm had howled in from the distant purpled mountains, driving acid rain across the barren land, rad-high enough to strip a man's flesh from his bones if he couldn't find cover fast enough.

The sky seemed full of trails from old chunks of nuke waste as missiles burned down through the atmosphere. They'd passed three men on horseback, all of them so wrapped in heavy furs that their faces were obscured. Zimyanin had shouted to them to beware of the lethal weather, but they'd taken no notice. They'd ridden slowly on into the eye of the storm as though they were deaf. Aliev had snuffled and grunted at his side, pointing toward a ruined building that seemed to stand on the edge of the world.

The hurricane screamed at their heels as they closed in on the old house. But the door was locked and coated with a glittering layer of titanium steel. A tiny ob-slit was cut into its center.

Zimyanin pounded on the door with the butt of his Makarov, the noise ringing like a fist beating on a shield of bronze. But nobody came. Aliev had fallen whimpering to his knees, arms locking around the legs of his superior. To try to free himself from the grip of the tracker, Zimyanin reached down and pulled at his head. But hanks of coarse hair came away in his hand, and strips of flesh peeled whitely away from the wretch's face. Bone showed through, and Zimyanin saw to his horror and disgust that it was carved in tiny, delicate figurines of copulating men, women and animals.

He knocked again on the door and heard footsteps above the screeching of the chem storm, combat boots that marched slow and steady. A bolt grated and the ob-slit moved back on its hinges.

Part of a face appeared and studied the major-commissar for a long, long moment. Then the panel slid back again and Zimyanin could hear the steps receding.

As he sat at the table in the kitchen, Zimyanin remembered the bowel-tearing feeling of helpless horror as the lethal storm had enveloped him.

Though he'd been able to see only a small part of the man's face behind the bolted door, he'd felt that he somehow recognized him. Now, all the major-commissar could recall was that the man had been scarred. And had one eye.

Ryan, Krysty and Rick were making slow progress. Even with his walking stick the freezie needed to stop every half mile or so to sit down and recover, his head sunken on his chest, his breath rasping with a shuddering force. His lips turned a frightening shade of pale cyanotic blue.

"Time was I could hike the glacier with the best of 'em," he said. "Now I'm limp as overcooked pasta. That's what my grandmother used to say. This is crazy, Ryan. By the time we get to anywhere we can find some tools, I'll be bloody dead."

"If there hadn't been an armed sec patrol we could have risked the first plan. But without someone who can speak a little to any Russkies we meet, we'll be deader'n these coats."

"Sure, sure." Wearily he climbed to his feet again, sighing heavily. "At least most of the snow's gone today."

The weather was beautiful. The temperature was cool enough to need the coats, but not so cold that it gnawed at exposed skin. The stream chattered to itself as it tumbled over the boulders in its scoured bed.

The giant mutie had been removed from the cabin. Ryan risked a quick glance inside and saw that it had been completely stripped. The three bodies of the horsemen had also vanished. From the odd fragments of bone and torn cloth it looked as if the wolves had gotten to them before the search party from the ville.

Once they'd successfully circled around the community, the companions stopped for food. Ryan and Krysty ate sparingly of the dried meat and fish, and sipped at their canteens, replenishing them from the adjacent river. Rick hardly touched his food, but he drank heavily, draining the canteen and nodding his thanks as Ryan topped it up for him.

"You have to eat, Rick," Krysty urged. "And you should harvest the water. Might not be any where we're going."

"Food makes me wanna puke, and I get so dry I could..."

"You still have to eat."

"Why?"

"Just to keep your strength."

"What strength is that, lady?" He laughed bitterly. "One round with My Little Pony'd put me into rehab for a month."

"Little pony?" she asked, puzzled.

"Forget it."

"But I'm interested in the past and things like that, Rick."

He shook his head. "You wanna play, you gotta pay, Krysty. Be there or be square, like the man said. Radio said they was just refugees. Don't let the sun catch you crying." His eyes were closed and he seemed to have slipped into a weird kind of trance.

Krysty turned to Ryan, who shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me, lover. Guess it's like Doc. Some things a man just doesn't get over. Not all the way, all the time."

Rick stopped mumbling to himself and looked up at Ryan. "Truest thing you ever said, good buddy. Let's get moving again."

Ryan's toothache was becoming much worse, hurting to such an extent that he didn't even want to risk breathing in cool air through his mouth. But the effort of the long walk, often having to help Rick along, made him pant.

"Fireblast! What's the Russkie word for 'dentist,' Rick?"

The freezie paused. "I think it's zubnoy vrach, but I'm not really sure. I guess you just pull a face and point at the tooth that hurts and the guy'll draw it for you. Not a lot different from visiting the fang factory up in Queens."

"Great. Thanks a whole load, Rick. Do the same for you one day."

They kept moving for most of the day. By keeping to the sides of the roads they were generally able to dodge into the trees and scrub if they saw or heard anyone coming.

Rick's Russian was only put to the test once.

Toward the end of the weary afternoon, as the setting sun threw their elongated shadows down a narrow, winding blacktop, they saw a wooden-wheeled cart coming slowly toward them, drawn by a pair of oxen. They were being driven by an elderly peasant with a long grizzled beard. Nobody else was with him, and the wagon was clearly empty.

Krysty and Ryan exchanged glances. One man, alone. They'd seen a number of small farms and cabins on both sides of the road, set back among tilled fields, mostly surrounded by groves of trees. Men and women were working in the drying mud, taking advantage of the change in the spring weather. Most wore assorted furs and rags, and none showed any particular interest in the trio of strangers. But a shot could bring them running in seconds.

"No point in running, lover," Krysty whispered.

"Nope. Rick? Mebbe time for you to do your stuff for us."

"What?"

The freezie was patently at the end of his tether, both physically and mentally. His face was as white as water-scoured bone, and he staggered. A dozen times he'd have fallen if it hadn't been for either Ryan's or Krysty's helping hand.

"Russkie. Get your talking head on, Rick. Just say as little as possible. 'Good day,' or 'Hi, there,' or whatever."

"Hell's bloody bells! I've just this second forgotten every goddamned word of Russian that I ever learned in my entire life."

The wagon was nearly on top of them and they all stepped aside to give it passage. Ryan and Krysty tried to keep their faces turned away, both holding a cocked blaster under their long furs.

The old man looked down at them from his high seat, tugging on the reins so that the cart began to slow. Fearing this could indicate the beginning of a lengthy conversation on the price of corn or the recent disease among young pigs, Ryan risked a glance at Rick, who was swaying back and forth like a man entering a deep trance.

"Talk, you triple-stupe bastard!" Ryan growled in a low, urgent voice.

Rick offered, "Good day," in Russian and was greeted only with a suspicious silence. "The sun is warm and the snow is gone."

The wagon was still moving, at barely walking pace. "Too late for the sowing as ever!" the peasant moaned, flicking out at the oxen with the tip of a long whip.

Rick didn't risk any further attempts at social chatter. He stepped to the side of the track and slumped down on a large boulder, shoulders shaking. It wasn't until they reached him, having watched the cart rattle on down the road, that Ryan and Krysty realized the freezie was laughing.

"Sorry. Nervous relief. Felt like a character in a made-for-TV spy movie. I said, 'The sun is warm and the snow is gone.' I had this feeling he was going to reply something like, 'And the count is frying turbot with my grandmother tonight.' Then we'd exchange microfilms. Oh, Jesus! All he did was moan about the fucking weather."

Ryan and Krysty joined in his laughter. It was a good moment.