Doomsday Warrior 18 - American Dream Machine (6 page)

“Well, how about you give me a mug of that stuff,” Rock demanded. As soon as he downed the cup that Archer poured from a battered percolator set over on a small, propane-fired camping stove in the corner, Rock asked, “Are all the women gone?”

Archer nodded. “They no stick around. But leave presents.” He yawned like a bear. And his breath was like a bear’s too.

“Where’s Zydeco?” Rock asked.

Before Arch could answer, the little elf-man came out of his own room, wearing a candy-eating happy grin. “Great experience!” he exclaimed. “Excellent physical abilities. Good energy levels! Energy is product of ratio of—”

“Yeah,”
Rock said derisively, again feeling the scratches smart on his back, “and good fingernails too! Sit down Zydeco, and have a mug. After coffee we’ll set off for that Cavetown of yours. It’s a long walk so—”

“No walk,” Archer smiled, putting down his cup. “Women leave mounts as presents. Three mounts! We ride!”

“Great,” Rock said, meaning it this time. “What kind of horses are they?”

“They not horses.”

“Oh—mules? Donkeys?”

“Come see!” Archer said, laughing.

They put down their cups and Archer led them into the blinding light of morning. There was a coating of frost on the ground and their breath came out in white clouds. Rockson and Zydeco had put on their boots, but Archer just walked in his holey old brown and stiff socks. The cold didn’t seem to bother his size-twenty feet a bit.

When they had come around to the other side of the bowling center’s main building, Rock saw the three mounts they were to ride—and gasped. “They’re ostriches!” he exclaimed.

“Not exactly,” Zydeco said, in pleased tones. “They are much better than that! I believe these mounts are Guam rail birds. Very large ones. Women-tribe uses them.”

The seven-foot-high birds had their bridles tethered to a fallen branch under a bare tree. They turned their long necks and gazed suspiciously at the three men. The plumage of the birds was multicolored, like peacocks’. But the birds were shaped more like quails.

“Nice saddles,” Rock said, seeing silvery embossed edging on the tawny leather saddles. He approached the birds slowly and they seemed to back off.

Zydeco said, “I saw the wild-women come here a few days ago riding some of these birds—with a few spares along. They told me it’s important to smile when you approach the birds. Show no fear. Otherwise they can bite you—or kick you with their big taloned feet. They’re very tough-rough-mean birds. They’re descended, I believe, from some smaller of their species that escaped from zoos during the Nuke War. Those saddles are put on once. They stay on. They don’t mind the saddles.”

“Can they take Archer’s weight?” Rock asked, somewhat dubious of any
bird’s
ability to carry the oversized mountain man. Archer’s feet would brush the ground, even if he sat on the saddle of the tallest bird.

“They can carry us easily,” Zydeco said. He went over to one of the birds, smiling broadly and making cooing noises. The elf-man picked up a tuft of grass and fed it to the huge-beaked, tall bird, which took it and nuzzled against his tiny face. The bird’s red beak was bigger than the elf-man’s head. “Archer will get this big one. She likes mountain men, don’t you Maha?” The bird seemed to nod, and then leaned into his caress, and he gave her some more grass. “Your bird is called Zaza, Rockson. And my baby is Mumu.”

Archer ran back to fetch some clothing and lock up.

When Archer returned, Rockson said, “Come on. Let’s mount up.” The Doomsday Warrior, though he’d walked boldly toward the
meanest
of men, approached the second bird, Zaza, with the utmost caution, smiling as broadly as he could manage. Zydeco shouted out a series of pops and wheezes and the Guam rails, or whatever the hell they were called, squatted down, like they were sitting on eggs. Zydeco said, “Just like camels, the birds bend down for the rider to more easily mount them.”

“Here goes nothing,” Rock said. He did as Zydeco instructed, throwing his small pack of supplies up around the bird’s thick neck. The supply bag hung there like a necklace. Then he scrambled up into the soft leather saddle. A few feathers fluffed off the bird’s molting neck, and one stuck in his nose.

“Don’t sneeze,” Zydeco cautioned as Rockson rubbed it away. “They go mad if you sneeze. Remember, never-never-never sneeze.”

“Just great,” Rockson mumbled under his breath. He gingerly took the reins of the bird and once she stood up he said, “Giddy-yap, Zaza.”

Nothing happened. Zydeco emitted a little, high-pitched giggle. “You say, ‘Terp-terp!’ ” And with those words, his bird, Mumu, turned toward where he pulled the bridle and set off at a trot. Rock’s and Archer’s mounts followed suit. Soon they couldn’t even see the bowling center. Rock figured they were making about twenty miles per hour. The ride was smooth and rolling, almost dreamlike. Occasionally a feather or two would dislodge and sometimes tickle at his nose. And he daren’t sneeze!

The birds ran like pigeons, their necks jerking forward as if they were attached to the bumpy-skinned legs. They were ungainly but fast.

The adventurers traversed rolling grasslands for a while. Then the flat, frozen turf gave out onto a desert plain scattered with red-leafed pine shrubs. “How do you know where we’re going?” Rock shouted over to Zydeco. “Are you following some landmarks? Do you have a compass?”

Zydeco’s reply was nearly whipped away by the wind: “We Techno-survivors . . . innate sense of direction . . .” It would have to do as an explanation. The birds were running flat out now on the hard surface. Rock estimated that they were making about a hundred miles per hour! The wind was icy—good thing Archer had provided him with a parka!

After they rode for another hour, a rolling mist, scented with something that must have been decayed carcasses, came at them.

“Just a warm front,” Zydeco called over to Rockson. “These Guam rails can see in fog; we don’t have to slow down.” Rock nodded but he felt that queer warning prickle on the nape of his neck that meant danger. This time it was
definite.

They rode on at breakneck speed into the whiteout-solid mists. Rock hoped whatever the danger his sixth sense was detecting would be quickly skirted.

Not so.

Suddenly, the mist thickened and became dark as obsidian. They slowed down all of a sudden. Even the birds’ keen infrared detecting eyes couldn’t make things out in all this denseness. The birds seemed to shiver, as if they were cold. Or afraid. Zydeco clicked out some commands to the mounts. The shivering stopped.

Then the sounds came echoing in the darkness. Sounds like a thousand castanets being shaken. Rockson knew that sound. Snakes! Big rattlers made that sound. They were very near; a whole nest of them! But with all the echoes in the mist, it was hard to tell where the snakes were.

“Hey, do these birds fly?” Rockson asked hopefully.

Zydeco’s reply was, “I wish.”

Rockson quickly had his shotpistol out, and was pointing it at his best guess of where the rattlers were. A wind stirred the mists and the view before him turned from utterly black to dark gray. And he saw them. A hundred writhing diamond back sidewinders, sliding their angry way over the hard-packed soil. Rockson was about to fire—he had reloaded the shotpistol with the last of his ammo back at the bowling center. Archer too had his weapon out—the good old shotgun. Somehow, it didn’t seem like enough.

“Put the guns away,” Zydeco said. “And hold on tight, very tight to your saddles and the reins.” He whispered out some bird-command words, and the Guam rails leapt suddenly into the air. They didn’t fly, but they sure the hell could jump! Rockson realized that Zydeco was trying to have the birds hop right over the snakes, bound out of the area of danger. He jammed his boots into the stirrups and wrapped the reins triple around his hands, doing his best to keep from sailing off the mount.

But it didn’t work. When the megabirds came down, they were right in the middle of a circle of writhing, ten-foot-long, pissed-off snakes. Out of the frying pan into the fire!

The Guam rails panicked and started shivering and shaking. The birds made whiny sounds, as if they were scared shitless. And all that shaking shook off clouds of itchy, twitchy feathers. Rockson got one jammed into his nostrils and he did what he had been told
not
to do—he sneezed!

That sneeze triggered a sudden insanity in the birds, just as Zydeco had cautioned it would. The birds lost their fear and squawked and jumped around as if someone had put a branding iron to the voluminous asses. Their fear was gone, replaced by a manic rage. The birds’ talons dug into snake bodies, they jumped and kicked and pecked at the snakes, oblivious to the many venomous strikes against them. They also tried to throw their riders. More feathers flew, and Rockson, and Archer too, gave out terrible
AAACHHOOOOSS!
That kept the birds crazy.

Rock was glad for wearing his boots, as several sharp rattler-jabs hit his toes. The frenzied action went on for a minute or more, the riders holding on like rodeo riders in a rodeo of death. The snakes, suddenly, were the ones in danger. They were being torn into mincemeat by the furious birds. It was all Rockson could do to hold onto his seat.

Then it was over, over as fast as it had begun. There were nothing but torn-open snakes below the birds’ bloody toes, and the rest of the rattlers were sliding away into the mists. The birds simmered down. Rockson tried and succeeded in not repeating his sneezing fit, although fluff was everywhere in the misty air. Rockson took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure he had even breathed the whole time the incredible thing was happening.

“Anyone hurt?” Rockson asked. But he could see no one was hurt. Archer was still in the saddle; the giant mountain man hadn’t even let go of his twenty-gallon leather hat. And Zydeco was still atop Mumu. The elf-man was pallid, but otherwise looked all right. God knows they’d have been dead a thousand times over if they had fallen off their kill-mad mounts. At Rock’s urgent suggestion, Zydeco gave a set of commands to the birds, who turned and started to run in the direction opposite the remaining snakes. Soon they were out of the near-opaque mists, and once again into bright sunlight. Rock rode alongside his companions neck and neck. It was as if the birds were running for the finish line in a strange Kentucky Derby.

“We must be going one eighty!” Rock shouted.

Both Zydeco and Archer laughed. Zydeco’s laugh was a high-pitched, tinny, elf laugh, a strange mad cackle that increased in volume as he took the lead.

Six

T
he bird-riders were dusty and worn by the time they came upon the great cliff of caves at dusk. The orange beams of low sunlight illuminated a deep darkness in one of the rock faces immediately before them. “That’s Cavetown—up there.” Zydeco announced. “Come on, I’m sure they have seen us approach. Let me go ahead first, so the guards don’t ray us down. They don’t expect me to come back on top of a Guam rail bird. We Techno-survivors have had trouble with renegade bands of Russians once in a while. The Red deserters roam as bandit marauders in this area of Utah.”

“Russians?” Rock unclipped his shotpistol holster. All the Russian soldiers were supposed to be off American soil, but the Sov government had lost contact with some of its far-flung Special Forces. The bastards were worse than sidewinders.

Zydeco saw Rock move toward his pistol and said, “Don’t worry! The Reds haven’t bothered us this year at all. Let’s get inside and have some sustenance!”

“I’m for that—and a nice cold beer, right Arch?” Rock added. “Bring on the Blatz!”

Archer just shook his head up and down emphatically. Rockson thought the big man’s bird was looking a little the worse for wear. He felt sorry for anyone that had to carry the megapound moose-man on his back.

Their strange mounts plunged on after Zydeco, up a dusty ramp and into the darkness of a huge cavern. Inside they saw no one for a while. Then, from a hundred hiding places pairs of tiny yellow and green eyes appeared. As the eyes moved forward, huge banks of lights came on in the high ceiling.

Rock gasped. It was a vast chamber filled with equipment, populated by several scores of men and women much like his elfish companion. The Techno-survivors were dressed in tunics, the women—cute, little long-haired pixies with pointy noses and red cheeks—wearing also short skirts. Some of their outfits were red, some orange, some yellow or green. It probably denoted rank, or job specialty, Rock decided. They were chittering away to one another as the riders moved along into the center of the cavern and dismounted. All around Rock and his friends, bizarre plastic and metallic shapes loomed, machines of incomprehensible scientific functions.

After they dismounted, a man in a white tunic—the only one in a white tunic—came over to Zydeco and raised a hand, palm forward. “Greetings and undeserved happiness, Zydeco-citizen,” he said.

Zydeco bowed slightly and said, “And I, noble surgeon Escadrille, am giving you the same.”

The noble surgeon, who had silver gray locks, turned to look at Zydeco’s towering companions and asked Zydeco, “Have either of these outlanders
dissed
you?”

“No, they are honorable,” Zydeco replied.

Only then did the chief surgeon smile at Rockson and give him and Archer fond greetings, which Rockson returned as best he could. He wondered if the little ray gun hanging on the surgeon’s side would have been drawn on him if Zydeco had told the elder that Rockson had “dissed” anyone. Rockson had no doubt that a ray from that tiny gun could do bad things to a man! The level of science indicated by the machines in this cavern betokened great power—to harm or to help. No dissing allowed!

Together with Escadrille, they went over to a long plasti-wood conference table. Archer was seated at one end, and Rock at the other, as honored guests. A long line of little people paraded by, the pixie-women curtsying to the visitors, the men shaking their hands. Some of the awed populace asked for Rock’s autograph, and he obliged, borrowing a funny soft-tip pen.

They were served some green, odd-shaped but tasty fruit, some dry but peppery bread, and some vintage wine. Then came a main course, sizzling hot meat buns—probably deer meat. The buns were very small and Archer liked them very much. He gobbled them down with swigs of the wine. The server-girls brought more whenever Archer finished a pile. They were piled so high at one point that Rock couldn’t see Archer behind the buns! But that was only for a short time. Archer quickly ingested the pile. A tremendous burp issued from the mountain man’s lips, and as he turned red, all those within earshot—and that was most of the populace—laughed. Archer laughed too, an echoing rumble like an earthquake.