James Axler - Deathlands 32 Circle Thrice

/* /*]] */ Axler, James - Deathlands 32 - Circle Thrice Krysty tugged gently .

The bell tolled immediately, its booming note echoing across the morning's stillness."Leave it," Ryan snapped. "Want to rouse the whole bastard country against us?"He noticed something lying on top of the altar. It was a multi-thonged whip, with tiny metal barbs knotted into each lash. All of them were stiff and stained black with what looked like old, dried blood. A sense of threatening danger became much stronger."Come on," he called. "Something's not right about this place. It's not a proper church. Let's get out before someone comes and brings trouble."Neither of them heard the door whisper open, but they both recognized the audible click of the twin hammers being drawn back on a scattergun."Welcome, pilgrims," said a rich, jolly voice. 32 in the Deathlands series 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 dedicated to Kathryn, Stevie and Laurie, with all the love I have to give.First edition June 1986ISBN 0-373-62532-4CIRCLE THRICECopyright 1996 by Worldwide Library.All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization 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 written permission of the publisher. Worldwide Library, 223 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.All 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 incidents are pure invention.and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.Printed In U.S.A.When Chuck Berry asked long-distance information whether he was through to Memphis, Tennessee, it was a question that arrowed straight into the heartland of the American myth. While Memphis lives, then rock and roll will truly never die.From Trying to Tell a Stranger ,by Larry "The Fox" Burrell,published by Banbury Press of Oxford, The companions' sojourn into the remnants of old Japan had drawn to its inevitable, horrific conclusion. Ryan and his friends retreated to the house that hid the gateway, intent on making a hasty jump back to Deathlands.Ryan led the way toward the airlock door, through and along to the elevator."Where are we going to put the grens?" J. B. Dix, the Armorer, asked."They've only got 20-second timers, haven't they? Not all that long."The Armorer nodded. "Right. We don't really know how long it takes for a jump to be properly initiated. Feels like thirty seconds or so before we become unconscious. Might be a deal more than that before we actually get to jump out of there.""Grens could go off while we're in midjump," Mildred Wyeth cautioned. "That what you're saying, John?""Right, love. Could put them in the elevator shaft when we're down there. Seal it off tight and also bring the house down on top of everything.""That would bury us snugger than a pharaoh in his sarcophagus, would it not?" Doc Tanner asked."Sure would," Ryan replied."And if something malfunctioned with the mechanism? What then? Then it will be a long goodbye and a big sleep for us all. As Mr. Chandler would have said."Ryan didn't know who this Chandler guy was, but Doc had a point.It could be rather like sawing off a branch that you were sitting on."Mashashige won't be invading Deathlands," he said. "Nor will any of his men. Nor his brother.""But there'll always be someone else who'll find the house and the gateway," Krysty Wroth protested.Ryan sighed. It was tempting to take the grens with them back to Deathlands, where they could always find a use. But Krysty was right. Everything that they'd seen in what remained of Japan pointed toward lethal problems over the next few years. And if the gateway should still functionThere was an obvious risk to themselves, but a greater risk for the future if they didn't act now."Use them in the house," he decided. "Last burner and an implode. Last pair of implodes can go up in the elevator at the final moment before we go to make the jump. We can check that everything seems all right in the gateway first."Nobody argued against the plan.When they stood in front of the elevator, Ryan pushed in the code six, two, eight, three, four and one.The door slid open and he stepped in, pressing the button to hold it open. "J.B., use your burner and the implode. Jak, keep yours for the last minute. Set them for the full twenty and then get in quick."The Armorer set the timer on the scarlet-and-blue implode and lobbed it out through the internal door into the hallway, following it immediately with the burner. Then he closed the doors and stepped smartly into the elevator.Ryan pushed the Down arrow and the cage began to drop."Quake now and we're deep in the ordure," Mildred commented.Ryan was looking at his chron, counting down the seconds. It was on eleven when they reached the bottom of the shaft and the door hissed smoothly open.As they were entering the mat-trans control area, the tiny digits flickered to twenty.There was a faint vibration from above them, and a few flakes of plaster fell from the cracked ceiling. Ryan noticed even at a cursory glance that the control area had suffered from the recent quakes, with some consoles dark and several ceiling lights off.One thing that had been worrying him was how they would actually jump to Deathlands, whether the ordinary Return code would do the trick.But he noticed something they'd missed on the way out. There was a piece of cardboard taped to the door by the control panel that listed several American regions."Want me to do the last grens?" Jak asked."Sure." The earth trembled and another light went off. "Do it now. Krysty, we could copy this list, take it with us and see if it operates from other gateways. Give us control over where we want to jump to."Doc shook his head. "I fear, my dear friend, that it would be fruitless. The codes differ from redoubt to redoubt. I remember that from my time with the whitecoats of Cerberus. Just pick a place and enter it."Jak Lauren came running back. "Sent them up in elevator," he said. "Got about fifteen. Closed outer door. Give protection. But should go quick.""Right." Ryan scanned the list. "How about Tennessee? Haven't been there for a while.""Do it lover," Krysty said nervously. "Got a bad feeling that something's going wrong."Like an echo to her words, they all felt a rumble that made the floor shake."Grens," Mildred said hopefully.Jak sniffed, counting to himself. "Not time. Coming upnow." They all heard the distinctive roar of the pair of implode grens far above them, though it was muffled by the sec doors that led into the gateway. The sound was overlaid by the thunder of a quake, the noise all around them, as if the walls were about to crumble at any second."In," Ryan snapped, punching in the digital code for Tennessee. Not waiting for everyone to sit on the floor of the orange-walled chamber, he stepped in and slammed the door shut to trigger the jump mechanism.Everyone knew what to do.J.B. had taken off his fedora and placed it on his lap, carefully folding his glasses and slipping them safely into a pocket. The Uzi was in his lap, the scattergun within reach. He held Mildred's hand, and she reached out for Doc Tanner, who had slowly creaked his way down, laying the ebony swordstick at his side, stretching out his aged knee boots.Jak, his red eyes swollen from crying at the sudden and shocking death of the little geisha girl, Issie, sat next to Doc, pressing his skinny back against the armaglass wall.The rumble was becoming much louder and more insistent as Ryan finally seated himself beside, Krysty, having unslung the rifle and placed it by his side."Here we go," he said." Sayonara , my friends," Doc whispered, his voice sounding small and faraway.The disks in the floor and ceiling were beginning to glow brightly, and the familiar white mist was gathering above their heads. Ryan felt as if his brain were being scooped out of his skull and whirled around and around."Tennessee," he breathed, his last sentient thought one of pleasure that they would very soon be home safely in Deathlands again.At that moment the big quake finally arrived.A HUNDRED FEET ABOVE the mat-trans unit, in the ravaged and polluted remains of Japan, the quake brought down the remnants of the burning mansion that had been built by the Americans. Erected well before skydark, it had been used by them as a safe hiding place for the secret gateway.The place had been set on fire by a burner gren and three implodes as Ryan and company made their way toward the safety of a jump.Now it was a mountain of glowing ashes in the darkness of the Oriental night, roof beams tumbled on top of the hidden elevator that ran down the reinforced concrete shaft to the gateway.A column of smoke, with glittering ruby sparks, soared high into the sky. The ground shook and churned, solid rock becoming liquid under the unimaginable pressures of the earthquake. Nearly a hundred years after the missiles darkened the skies and the ultimate war began, there were no longer any scientific instruments left in the world to measure quakes.But if there had been any, then the movement would have pushed the needle skittering across the roll of graph paper, indicating a gigantic tremor that would have been measured at something like 7.8 on the Richter scale.It caused immense damage on the southern fraction of old Japan that remained, nearly wiping out the population and triggering a series of tidal waves.The six-sided chamber with its sturdy wall of fiery orange armaglass only resisted the force of the quake for a handful of seconds. In the room beyond, desks and comp consoles slid sideways, shorting out the nuke-powered electrics. The whole system failed in less than a dozen heartbeats.As the walls splintered and a torrent of fluid stone flooded into the chamber, Ryan and the others had already left it.Just left it.Their bodies had been disintegrated, coded by the mat-trans digital controls by the door, to be reassembled in a similar gateway in the heart of old Tennessee, in Deathlands.But the process was crucially interrupted by the quake. Next page