Doomsday Warrior 05 - America’s Last Declaration (7 page)

Rahallah awoke, his white tuxedo stained with hot perspiration, his heart racing. What could he do? What could anyone do at this late stage? He had played the devil’s game and lost—lost for Africa, lost for world peace, lost everything.

When Vassily awoke, his eyes touched by the dawn’s icy fingers of green and orange splattering through the half drawn blinds on the window, Rahallah rushed to his side and poured him tea from the large silver samovar in the aisle and added the customary shot of brandy. He waited until the premier seemed fully awake and then said, “Your excellency, may I ask you one thing?”

“Yes, my faithful servant, what is it?” the premier asked, yawning. “You have been exceptionally quiet this whole trip. I think I know what it is—you heard me scream those racial insults last night. But, but, our forces are stretched too far. The brilliant Major Velikov has assembled this Nazi army for us by using all the old slogans and symbols of their past. But it is for
our
purposes that this propaganda must be made. Our armies are too drawn apart, too challenged worldwide. We need these German troops to destroy the evil of Rockson and the other so-called freefighters.”

“Vengeance?” Rahallah asked, standing in the long aisle beside the aging premier.

The old man’s age-spotted face grew red then purple. He clutched his bony hand against the chrome arm of the seat.

“Vengeance? Yes! You remember that man—that bastard coming to Moscow, drinking my vodka, eating my food. Him and that foul-smelling giant friend sitting with us, negotiating a fair and equitable treaty of friendship with most generous terms on my part.”

“Yes,” Rahallah answered, remembering
the Rockson,
who had struck him as a decent man looking out for the interests of his own enslaved people.

“You remember what he did? Destroyed half of Moscow, crippling our defenses, casting our chances for world peace into a pit of blood.”

“But you condemned him to the gladiator pits—and certain death,” the ebony-faced servant said firmly.

“Rahallah, you forget—and I forgive you for this—but he, this Rockson, escaped our hospitality and linked up with the ratlike dissidents in the old subway system. He killed many soldiers before I made that decision. Then he destroyed the people’s beloved coliseum, blew up our missile and satellite command center, the bastard. And finally stole one of our most advanced fighter aircraft—and flew it to America. We know that from the radar reports.”

“Perhaps he died—the plane’s range was insufficient to—”

“No, Rahallah, I know Rockson lives! The mutant has uncanny luck. He must be clairvoyant, telepathic. Some of the mutants are rumored to be so. That would explain how he could outwit me—special powers. No ordinary man could.” The premier seemed pleased at the face-saving explanation. “No, Rahallah, I need this Nazi army that so disturbs you to march against the so-called freedom fighters and their leader.
They
are the prime menace—even more than Colonel Killov. My stupid nephew, Zhabnov, has misjudged the whole battle—but I now know the danger these American rebels pose. But I promise you—once the rebels are exterminated, then we turn the Nazis loose on Killov.”

Rahallah hesitated, then told the premier of his dream. When he had finished, Vassily was pale and shaken.

“I know of your great powers of medicine and prophecy,” he stuttered out. “Can it be, Rahallah, son of the Plains Lion, that this will really happen?” He grabbed his black servant by the collar of his tuxedo jacket. “When,
when
will I die—is it . . . soon?”

“I don’t know, your excellency. I pray this fate can be averted. I will try to dream again—a solution. We must follow my dreams, must.”

The entire White House and the surrounding grounds were now under the new plastisynth impenetrable dome—and President Zhabnov was pleased. This was more like it—winter outside, summer inside. He walked around his rose garden with white work gloves on, snipping the
Rosa Familiaris Cruxae
he had recently made by combining genetically spliced hybrid stocks. He glanced back past his aides towards the semicircular Ionic portico that held the Oval Office—the White House. The new paint, a glossy white, was shining in the dull sun that pierced through the towering three hundred-foot-high plastic dome above it. Clean, neat, that’s the way he liked things. Gone were the huge concrete walls he had built for security around the presidential mansion. The clear foot-thick plastic was so much more unobtusive.

Zhabnov sighed. Turning back to his bushes he snipped a single blood-red rose off its dewy branch and held its fragrance to his fleshy nose. And sneezed. These hybrids didn’t quite have the bouquet he had wished for. A nervous gardener handed him a handkerchief. He felt in such a good mood today that he said thank you. The aide was shocked. But why shouldn’t he feel good? The sun was shining. Premier Vassily was firmly on his side in the civil war against Killov—the Skull—and his rose garden was in full bloom.

Soon, Vassily’s goose-stepping Nazi hordes would wipe out the American freefighters once and for all and then turn their might on Killov’s Denver base. Then all would be right with the world once again. The ordinary affairs of state—not another disaster, not another convoy destroyed by rebel attack, or a bridge blown up—would awaken him each morning.

President Zhabnov snipped away at his American Beauty roses—Hybrid 5, Royal Russian stock—his prize-winner. There was a competition each year in Taskent, and each year his roses won. Over all the world’s rose cultivators, he was number one. Zhabnov prided himself on that. There weren’t many world leaders past or present who did more than rule. They didn’t know a rose from an aster. But he was a first-rate horticulturist—a genius at creating new beauties for the White House gardens: hybrids of yellow-tipped, pink-tipped, red with green spots, a rainbow of soft-petaled flowers stretching out all around the mansion. He was a connoisseur of beauty—and that separated him from the rest of the power elite, all those generals and warlords who understood only cannon and blood.

He plucked the finest of each of the hybrids, the perfect specimens to send to the Taskent competition which was due to begin next month, handing each flower to aides rushing behind him who tremblingly took them, praying that they would not crush a single petal or . . . At last he reached the end of the garden and stared down at his newest creations—a bush filled with flesh-pink roses, their fleshy petals stretching out toward the sun like so many arms grabbing for the light. It reminded him of the little pink beauty his sex squads had found for him in Idaho and had flown to the White House for his pleasures tonight. He had seen the photos—a great catch—one of the little ones, a mere four-feet-ten-inches tall. And as innocent as the snowy land she was found wandering in. A real wild child that he could use to serve his whims.

He was eager to try her out. He snickered, wondering if she was big enough to take his ample member. Probably not. But he liked to hear the screams. It added to his pleasure. Pink—that was the color—just like the rose he now snipped and lifted from the bush. Pink-skinned little beauty, I will pluck your virginity tonight as easily as I pluck this rose.

“Ouch, damnit!” He sucked on his thumb as a single drop of blood squeezed out. “These goddamned thorns.” Someday he would breed a rose without them.

Five

R
ock’s and Archer’s lives were like a male dream of paradise for the next week. The big cats guarded the freefighters, always on alert outside the teepee, the women brought them food three times a day—roast succulent pigs, slabs of sizzling buffalo meat—and in the evening, their bodies. Reina was always the first to get Rockson. She would ride him two, three, even four times until she was so exhausted she could barely rise. Then the other women were allowed to partake of his manhood. But she would stand back and watch the goings-on with a jealous eye. Rockson could see that she wanted him all to herself. Several times Ishtar, the white-haired albino, who Rock had learned was the witch doctor of the tribe, tried to enter but each time Reina would reach for her knife and force the other woman out.

They were allowed to sleep seven hours each night to rest their weary bodies. In the early morning the stag horns were blown and they were awakened and “walked” through the leafy forest like pets at the end of a leash—for exercise. They were ordered to do calisthenics and climb vines to maintain their muscular builds. And like the cherished studs that they were, they were bathed and washed with gusto after their workouts.

On one of their forays into the woods they passed a small wooden temple, ornate and covered with depictions of naked women like wasp-waisted, watermelon-breasted Hindu goddesses in various complex poses carved in the hard wood. The temple was two stories high with an open space inside at the rear of which—Rock was permitted only to enter as far as the portal—amidst flickering animal-fat lamps, stood a giant stone-carved statue of the lake monster they had killed. Jewels gleamed from its body which stood nearly the full height of the temple, its flippers stretched out like a cross. Rock asked one of his Kreega guards, having picked up some of the lingo, what it was.

“This is for the two vestal virgins—the twin goddesses who live here and serve
L’Ogre.
They clean the temple and practice sexual abstinence.” Rock saw the two women inside bowing to the monstrous statue. They were clothed in transparent gossamer robes, and unlike the other women who were black-haired these were blond with long flowing tresses and blue eyes. They were young—barely out of their teens.

“Why do they live here?” Rock asked. “Away from the tribe.”

“So as not to be exposed to man-lust like we are. We keep the children pure—until they are twenty. They can talk to the animals; their purity allows
le tribe
to control the great cats.” Inside, the two blond Kreega were surrounded by a bevy of cats who glared out angrily at Rockson. He quickly moved on, but not before the virgins gave shy smiles.

I might have found the key to our survival today, Rockson realized, as he went through the proscribed exercises under the watchful eyes of eight Kreega armed with thick snakeskin whips. He glanced over at Archer who was in his two-hundredth pushup. The giant was red-faced. He hated this exercise period and was glad it was only for an hour each day. Paradise without exercise was what he wanted.

That evening Rock stirred Archer out of a deep sleep. “We’ve got to go,” the Doomsday Warrior whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here. I’ve been analyzing their tribal structure—and the key is the virgins. If they are on our side the cats will not do anything to harm us.”

Archer seemed dazed. “Goooo? We gooo? Rocksssoon crazzy. Nooo gooo. This niiice. Meeat, wooman. Archeeer staaay.” He turned his head and started to go back to sleep again.

Rock shook him awake. “You big fool. What do you think happens when they stop using us? When we get as many women pregnant as they wish? When we give out, even just a little bit? You’ve been given that blue liquid more and more. Mixed with your beer, haven’t you?”

Archer nodded, bewildered. “It gooood. Make Archeer strong, make—”

“Have you seen the skeletons out past the garbage pit? All male skeletons—I know my anatomy. That’s where they dump the men after they give out. The blue fluid robs you eventually of all your strength. It puts it into sex until you become weak as a kitten. What do you think they feed the panthers?”

“Meeeat,” Archer answered hopefully.

“Man-meat. The cats never eat, do they? Not the whole time that we’ve been here. Have you seen the look in their eyes when they see us? How they drool? They don’t drool when they look at the women, do they?” The immense freefighter suddenly looked very concerned.

“That’s more like it, pal. I will try—and you can try too—to seduce the virgins. But don’t do anything to actually deflower them. Control yourself for the first time in your life. We must tease and fondle and make them desire us—but don’t enter them or we’ll never get out of here alive.
Comprenez-vous?”
Rock was slipping into the French dialect from time to time as he heard it every minute around him. Archer nodded.

The next morning the Kreega women came to take them out for their exercise, first placing the collars on them under the watchful eyes of the cats. That afternoon, Rock winked at one of the virgins standing outside the temple. She blushed. Archer sent out a shit-eating grin at the other and she turned, red-faced, away. The flirting continued for several days until one night the two young blond women came to them, sneaking in through the back of the teepee. They dove on top of the two men with uncontrollable desire. Rock and Archer stroked their small pear-sized breasts, kissed their pink nipples. But they would not let the virgins push them down and mount them. They drove the girls to a frenzy, until they were nearly hysterical, and then sent them off in tears. The plan was going to work. Sexual desire was the strongest instinct known to man—and woman. And Rockson was going to use it as a weapon to escape.

Trouble was brewing. Outside their jailhouse teepee, Rock and Archer could hear voices arguing loudly. They peeked through the flap on the front just as the dawn sun rose and saw Reina, the queen of the Kreega, and Ishtar, her hated challenger, standing face to face, their cheeks flushed with rage.

“Il est moi,”
Reina screamed.
“Le Rockson est moi.”

“Non, non,”
Ishtar yelled back just as loudly, her long chalk-white hair swinging behind her.
“Rockson ne vous pas. L’homme etes pour le tribe total.”

The disagreement over the use of Rockson’s body grew louder and louder and though Rock couldn’t understand half the words he got the drift. They both wanted him for themselves. The Doomsday Warrior felt a certain amused pride in being so desired. Ishtar suddenly reached forward and slapped Reina square in the face. There was sudden, complete silence from the other Kreega women who stood around the encampment watching, their mouths open, their faces frozen in shock. Reina stood back and smiled, a thin grim grin.