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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
what they might have been.
Beyond that was another, much more substantial ruin, the windows missing, dark
marks of smeared carbon showing that it had also been ravaged long ago by a
ferocious fire.
"It was a place called a Visitor Center," Charlie explained.
"Seen them in the old wilderness parks," Ryan re-plied.
The last dying daggers of crimson sunlight bounced across from the high
sandstone cliffs opposite, re-flecting from the dangling golden medallions on the
hairless chest of the leader of the stickies.
Krysty had moved a few steps away from Ryan, shepherded by the guards,
leaving him alone with the skeletally tall mutie.
"What's going down?" Ryan asked quietly.
"How's that?"
"What happens now?"
"We go to the houses."
"Then?"
"Meet the rest of the community."
"Come on."
"What?"
"Fireblast! You know what I'm talking about, Charlie."
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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
"There'll be eats for all."
Ryan felt the pulse of anger beating at his temples, and the long scar that seamed
his face began to throb.
"When do we get chilled?"
"Ah. Get your drift now, Cawdor. Good question. Real good."
The toothless mouth was stretched in a beaming, God-bless-you smile, the
protruding eyes half-closed in delight. The stickie's whole body was tense, like
someone straining toward a distant orgasm.
Only at that moment did Ryan realize the total ha-tred the mutie felt for him.
"Krysty doesn't have anything to do with the cards lying between you and me,
Charlie." He knew how barren and futile the words were, even before they left his
mouth, and knew what the response would be.
"She's your woman, Cawdor. Walks in your shadow. Sleeps in your bed. Fucks
you. Eats with you. Her life is your life, Cawdor, and her death will be your cold
death."
Ryan took in a slow, deep breath, fighting down the blood rage. "Yeah. I
understand."
Charlie patted him on the shoulder. "But first you get to eat and meet some
other& visitors, I guess they are."
"Why not chill us right off?"
"Like I said, they " he gestured toward the armed men that ringed Krysty
" back me, long as I chill norms. More norms I chill, more they think I'm close
to a god. If I come up with good way of doing the chilling, then they like it even
more. You'll go out with a big bang, Cawdor. That I promise you. Real big bang."
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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
DURING HIS ODYSSEY through Deathlands, Ryan had visited any number of
villes and camps, from the richest to the poorest. He'd also seen stickie
settle-ments.
They were filthy and squalid, with oily fires and open middens. Huts leaked raw
sewage, with rotting food in stinking heaps. Lousy mongrels fought over scraps,
and naked children tormented those weaker than themselves.
Charlie's small empire wasn't anything like that.
There was a winding trail down from the ruined buildings, the lush vegetation on
either side cropped back. In the steepest parts it became a sequence of crumbling
steps.
Ahead of them they could see a towering cliff, looming over the ravine. The
farther they descended, the darker it became.
Charlie pointed toward the wall of orange rock, smeared with chemical stains of
black and gray. "You know that this remained hidden for hundreds and hundreds
of years. Local Indians were fearful of it. Bad place. Wasn't found until the middle
part of the 1900s. Cowboys were chasing lost cattle. One fell over the edge and
broke his neck. Others came down and found this."
He waved the Uzi as they reached a wider curve in the track, gesturing toward the
amazing sight below them.
It was like a town, almost buried under a gigantic overhang, a hundred feet or so
from the base of the cliff.
At first glance, there seemed to be a limitless num-ber of little dwellings. But a
second, slower look showed that there were about forty of them. Many were
linked together, some in ruins.
There were plenty of cooking fires burning as well as dozens of oil lamps,
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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
hanging in the gloom like golden eyes.
"How many you got in this place?" Krysty asked, hardly able to believe the
organization of what she was seeing.
"Last count there were ninety able men and forty-four women. Eighteen little
ones." There was a note of bitterness in his voice. "Stickies aren't great at
breeding, Firehead. Chromosome chains are faulty. Some young doctor told us
that. Just before we filled his ass with black powder and blew his cock over the
mountain."
Now the commune had seen them.
Ryan had checked on security, spotting silhouettes on the cliff top, against the
pale yellow sky. And he was certain there'd been other sentries in among the trees.
There was whooping and cheers. Someone stirred up the largest of the fires so that
a great fountain of bright sparks went whirling into the evening sky. The sight
produced even louder yells from the crowd of stickies.
"Still like flames," Ryan said.
"Bred into us in the bone," Charlie replied. "Ex-plosions, lights and flames. Not
even I can stop that."
RYAN AND KRYSTY had their ropes cut, but they were replaced with old steel
handcuffs that clicked shut, keeping their wrists bound in front of them.
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