Strontium Swamp

“Three days and nights. Let us hope that it does not extend to forty days in the wilderness.” Doc sighed in a distracted manner as he rose from sleep and took in the new morning around them.

“If you keep being that cheerful, I might just put you out of your misery,” Mildred told him with a sour tone. “Anyway, when the hell did you get so damn religious?”

Doc smiled beatifically. “One was always brought up with the good book, even when Mr. Darwin made certain parts of it seem a little like a fable.”

“Two suns, two argument same. Shut up,” Jak ranted as he took a sip of water then grimaced before taking a chunk out of the lizard they had cooked the night before. “Boring.”

Certainly, something had happened to Doc in the time between coming out of the jump and the current morning. Perhaps it had been the states of delirium followed by the storm, or perhaps it had been some jump-induced dream of which he had said nothing. Either way, he had been spouting in a religious vein ever since they’d begun their trek across the desert. For Mildred, daughter of a preacher in the predark world, this was irritating for some reason she couldn’t comprehend.

After the attack on their first night out of the redoubt, and after J.B. had secured a direction from his minisextant, they had started to march. Pacing was difficult. It was an unknown distance balanced against their lack of water and salt tablets, and the sparseness of their diet. The fact that there was water and life present in the desert was a given—the events of that night had proved it. However, locating the obviously deep springs and trapping some of the wildlife was another matter entirely.

The heat under the chem clouds, trapping and magnifying the intensity of the heat, set the pace for them. Regardless of any intent, to go any faster would have been to consciously buy the farm. If not right now, then a little way down the line. It would have used their water and salt resources too quickly.

So they had kept the pace steady and set up camp for the night as the darkness fell, settling in against the freezing temperatures of a desert night. Away from the storm-ravaged area, the wildlife had been less intent on a power struggle and had emerged slowly, with more caution and with less obvious hostility.

That made it easy for Jak to trap a few lizards and small mammals that strayed away from the safety of the pack. At the same time, the albino hunter observed their patterns of movement, attempting to divine where the water table came up through the sand, and rock beneath, to be close enough to the surface for the companions to attempt a dig.

He wasn’t so successful. The layers of sand kept the wells and springs of the desert running deep. However, a brief search did reveal more signs of scrub and plant life than before.

Meanwhile, J.B. and Ryan rigged their own device to try to squeeze a little water from the unwelcoming desert. Using some plastic wrap that had been on some of the materials taken from the redoubt, they built small hammocks that collected the dew in their centers. The resulting water was brackish, but at least it showed that they could attempt to prolong their survival in this manner.

Mildred and Krysty collected some of the scrub as they marched each day. It was few and far between, and mostly tinder-dry. Although not encouraging for the presence of water, it did signify that there was something present, and at the end of each day it meant that they had enough to build a fire that could keep burning—small, but bright—through the night, offering warmth and a warning to any wildlife that may be too bold.

It also meant that they could cook the small mammals and lizards that Jak had caught. These were tough, stringy and none too tasty, but compared to the self-heats that were the only other option, they were like manna from heaven. It also meant that they could preserve the self-heats for a real emergency, and the salty meat enabled them to cut back a little on the consumption of the salt tablets, another commodity they might have to retain for an emergency.

It took only two days for the companions to settle into a routine, and by the third day it seemed as though they had been marching forever. It was partly because their bodies were beginning to adjust to the conditions and the rules of consumption imposed upon them by the environment, and partly because they had no time scale they could work to, and so lived totally in the moment.

Jak finished chewing on a piece of lizard meat and choked it down. It was tough, with little taste, but at least it didn’t have the chem taste of the self-heats.

“Mebbe not have argument much longer,” he said, referring to the exchange between Doc and Mildred.

Ryan looked at him sharply. “Why’s that?”

Jak shrugged. “More life. Last night they move less wary, less searching. Like they know food and water okay. And look at that—” he gestured toward some scrub in the distance “—even from here see more green.”

“Mebbe we haven’t got too far to go, then,” Ryan said with the ghost of a smile. The thought that they may be within striking distance of a more hospitable terrain was heartening, but he didn’t want to get his hopes—or those of his companions—up too much before discovering the actuality.

J.B. looked up at the early morning sun. In the area they had now reached, there was less of the heavy, yellow chem-cloud cover, and the blue sky shone through. As the sun rose, the heat would undoubtedly beat down on them, but it would be an easier heat to deal with as the lack of cloud cover would mean less intensity and magnification.

In itself, the lessening of the chem clouds bespoke of leaving the worst of the desert behind them.

“Y’know, Jak might just be right,” the Armorer said.

So it was with a refreshed and renewed spirit that they set off once more. Packing up their camp and starting to move to the west, there was a spring in their pace that they had to fight hard to control: too much energy expended too quickly would be of no help to them if the prize was farther than they thought.

IT WAS PAST MIDDAY when the breakthrough happened. There had been an increase in the amount of scrub, and just before the sun reached its peak Jak had stopped them with a gesture, pointing up into the clear blue. There, soaring in an arc against the blue, was a dark shape with a long wing-span. It was the first bird they had seen since leaving the redoubt, and an indication that taller plants and trees lay somewhere close to hand.

It gave them a lift to see this, and they continued with a greater sense of optimism and purpose, as well as an increasing awareness—more life meant more risk of danger and attack.

The edge of the desert was delineated in a strange way. They had seen many bizarre land formations in their travels, but this was one of the oddest. For some time it had seemed to them that they were moving uphill once more, the sand lifting up before them in a series of dunes that grew higher. Although the sand here was harder packed and firmer underfoot than the treacherous grains they had first encountered, the gradient was enough to pull at their calf muscles. It was an effort to keep up the pace, so they slowed slightly to make the ascent easier.

The summit was on them before they knew it; and a strange, bizarre sight greeted them. As they stood on the peak of the dunes, they were aware that the land fell away for a couple of hundred yards then leveled, so that it was higher than the level of the desert floor behind them. This land was lush and covered in vegetation and scrub, with copses of trees peppered around, forming small woods. The air carried with it the scents of animal and plant life, and similar sounds could be heard at the edge of their hearing. There was a faint tang of ozone in the breeze, suggesting that they were nearer the coastline Jak remembered than they had realized.

Ryan looked back at the desert behind them. It stretched away as far as he could see on every side. But the dunes on which they stood also seemed to carry on out of view to the left and right. It was as though the disturbance of the land after the nukecaust had caused this area of the Deathlands to drop down and form a valley, one in which the chem clouds had been sucked in and trapped, perpetually hanging over the lands within. This had magnified the effects of the elements and converted this area into an arid desert at a rapid rate, evolving into the sandy wastelands in a fraction of the time it should otherwise have taken.

Ryan realized that the redoubt had pitched them into the middle of a trap, and it was only by dogged persistence that they had escaped. How many others had wandered into the desert at some point and never reemerged?

Turning back to the fertile lands beyond, he breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever trouble they got into from here on in, at least it wouldn’t be for starvation or thirst.

“Reckon we’re near the coast now?” Krysty asked.

Ryan shrugged. “Figure we’re closer than we were before. There’s only one way to find out. Triple red from here on in, people,” he added, shrugging the Steyr off his shoulder and checking to make sure it was ready to fire. “There’s no knowing what we may come up against now.”

The rest of the companions followed suit, checking that their weapons were ready for rapid response, then falling into line behind the one-eyed man as he set off for the interior. Jak followed directly in Ryan’s wake, with Krysty and Doc taking the middle positions, Mildred and J.B. at the rear, with the Armorer taking the last place, covering their backs.

The woodlands and scrub grew dense rapidly, and before half an hour passed, they had to start hacking a path through the thickets, watching for the tangles of roots that crossed the floor of the woods, laying treacherous traps for the unwary.

Ryan wanted them to be as unobtrusive as possible, but this was hard when the very density of the woodlands made progress impossible without some kind of noise. The thick grasses and tall plant life also made it possible for someone with a good vantage point to be able to track their progress. It was far from ideal, and Ryan was aware of the additional problem. The very noise of their progress made it hard for them to hear anyone who may be advancing on them.

The deeper they went, the darker it became as the sky overhead was shielded by a canopy of green. The sounds of birds flying between the trees and the rustling of animals and reptiles moving in the upper branches also took their attention. Most of the wildlife seemed far more wary of them than they were of it. Despite the sounds, a glimpse of anything living was a rarity. From those few examples that did occasionally come into view, it seemed that the resident wildlife of the woodlands was small and nonthreatening.

The humidity grew even as the glare of the sun vanished, and the companions became aware of the sweat that ran off their foreheads and down their backs, gathering in uncomfortable pools at the base of the spine. Some were more afflicted than others, but gradually all of them shed at least one layer of clothing, opting to wrap it around them rather than swathe themselves. The humidity and sweat was an irritation, and made them all edgy. Even though it was better than the killing sun of the desert, it had its own dangers, making them prone to be trigger happy, something none of them wanted to be. A needless shot could alert far more danger than the sounds of movement in the undergrowth. There were no signs of human life at the moment, but as they neared the coast, chances were that they would hit a ville or habitation of some kind. No one liked a group of strangers descending on them unannounced, so the companions needed to be on triple-red alert.

“Fireblast,” Ryan hissed as his panga half sliced and half bludgeoned more plant life from his path. “This seems more trouble than all that sand.”

“I think on the whole I’d rather have this,” Mildred answered, even though the one-eyed man hadn’t really been asking anyone’s opinion. “At least we can get some food and water in here, and at least we’re going the right way.”

“Mebbe, but I’m getting sick of this undergrowth. It’s thicker than flies on a twelve-times-a-night gaudy slut,” Ryan returned.

“Never fear, friend Ryan. It is said that when we come from the desert we shall find both revelation and salvation,” Doc replied beatifically.

“What’s with the revelation and salvation?” Krysty asked. “You sound like some kind of old-time preacher, like the ones that Mother Sonja used to tell us stories of back in Harmony.”

Doc looked blank for a second, as though he was scanning his mind for some kind of clue. Eventually he gave up and shrugged. “Truly, my dear lady, I have no notion of from whence these notions have sprung—nor, indeed, if they wish to disperse in some manner or to continue. I only know that they are flashing into the forefront of my consciousness with such a strength that I feel compelled to give tongue to them. I wonder,” he continued in slightly awestruck tone, as though to himself, “if they will continue, or indeed if they are some part of my mind that is trying to tell me something?”

“Trying to tell you that you’re a crazy old bastard,” Mildred muttered. “I really wish you’d give it a rest with the biblical shit, Doc. Reminds me too much of my own childhood.”

There was something about her tone that would brook no argument, but Doc was so lost in his own thoughts that this completely passed him by, and he asked in a naive manner, “Really, my dear Doctor? Why, pray tell, would that be?”

Mildred rolled her eyes and considered telling Doc where he could shove his questions, but was stopped by Jak.

“Shut up—no stupe shit,” Jak whispered, staying them with a raised hand.

Ryan stopped and turned to the albino, questioning him with a raised eyebrow. The others also stopped behind Jak, waiting to see what he had to say. Each of them listened, but couldn’t, at first, pick out what had alerted the albino hunter’s finely tuned instincts.

Jak pulled on his camou jacket with a smooth, silent motion, wrapping the material around him so that he had easy access to the leaf-bladed throwing knives hidden within the body of the jacket. As he did so, the others strained to catch what had taken Jak’s attention.

Each sound within the woodlands became more than just a part of the overall tapestry. As they listened, each sound became distinct to the point where they could isolate and identify it as bird or animal…except for something that sounded like themselves, crashing through the undergrowth. Quieter, perhaps, as mere people who were more used to the layout of the woods, and could pick their way through the thickets with greater ease. But not enough to conceal their presence.