Labyrinth - James Axler

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night!” J.B. exclaimed, thumbing his glasses back up the slippery bridge of his nose.

      From a distance, it was like skydark had never happened.

      Like the flooding of the canyon had never happened, either.

      A mile or two from the near shore of the lake, stone and brick buildings clustered around a central square with a little park in the middle. The largest building was three stories tall with a clock tower. On the far side of the city center stood a row of grain silos. A black strip of two-lane highway paralleled that end of town. The road petered out in the middle of the plain, either buried under shifting sand or ripped away by receding waters.

      “Little Pueblo,” Mildred said. “Just the way I remembered it.”

      “’Tis indeed a wonderment,” Doc prononunced. “Further evidence that the hand of the Creator works in mysterious ways.”

      “I’d say it was more a case of the laws of physics, working predictably,” Mildred countered.

      “And whose hand lies behind the laws of physics?” Doc asked with a confident grin.

      “Why does there have to be a ‘hand’?”

      “Touché, dear Mildred. I am sure we would all like to hear your explanation.”

      “On nukeday, the water was five hundred feet deep over the town,” she said. “All that liquid acted like a giant cushion to protect the buildings from shock and blast effects of incoming airburst missile strikes. My guess is the dam didn’t get off so easy, and that’s why the reservoir disappeared.”

      “Could have been a near-miss with an earthshaker warhead,” J.B. suggested. “Those babies had an effective blast diameter of five hundred miles.”

      “That would explain how the entrance to that redoubt got uncovered,” Ryan said. “The ground tremors brought the whole cliff down. Cracked the dam open, too.”

      “I don’t see any people moving, anywhere,” Krysty said, squinting against the glare. “And there’s got to be people. Not just our water thief. Somebody’s been tending those fields.”

      With rifle scope and binocs, Ryan and J.B. surveyed the terrain downrange.

      There was something else wrong with the picture.

      Unlike most other inhabited outposts in Deathlands, Little Pueblo didn’t have a defensive berm of piled dirt and debris.

      There were no perimeter gunposts. No fortified gates.

      J.B. lowered the binocs. “I suppose there could be snipers and spotters up here on the rim,” he said. “Although they wouldn’t be much use.”

      Ryan had to agree with that assessment. The canyon was so wide that much of it was beyond the range of even super-high-velocity, .50-caliber milspec rounds. Cap-and-ball weapons would be about as effective as chucking rocks. Snipers spaced out on the rim couldn’t protect the ville from a large invading force—they couldn’t concentrate enough fire to turn back attackers. The best they could do was harrass. And then only during the day. That was the problem with rim-based, spotter outposts, too. They’d be useless at night. Even if somehow they saw the invaders coming, they wouldn’t be able to direct defensive ambushes in the valley.

      “It’s like they don’t give a damn if they’re overrun,” J.B. said.

      “Or they know it isn’t going to happen,” Ryan said. “What do you mean ‘they know’?” Krysty asked. “They’re sitting on an oasis in the middle of a radblasted desert. The nearest ville of any size must be 150 miles away. A gang of blackhearts that sets out for Little Pueblo isn’t going to be in shape to rob it by the time they get here. If they get here.”

      “How would robbers even know it existed?” J.B. said. “After the reservoir was built, the ville’s name was probably taken off all the maps. It sure wasn’t on the one in the redoubt. Only way to find Little Pueblo would be to stumble onto it by accident. Then you’d have to walk out again to gather a chilling crew. And then walk in again to do the looting.”

      “It’s a safe bet that’s never happened,” Ryan said. “If it had, folks down there would know the desert wasn’t enough to keep trouble out. And there’d be perimeter defenses. “

      “Bastard thief got in, maybe two days ago,” Krysty reminded them.

      “He could be swinging from a tree right now,” J.B. said. “Or else his head’s on a stick in the middle of that square. No way of telling what kind of reception the folks down there give to strangers.”

      “We need water and food,” Mildred said.

      “Wait for dark, then steal,” Jak suggested.

      Doc didn’t like that idea. “From this vantage point the valley looks bucolic and peaceable in the extreme, with ample sustenance for all,” he said. “Perhaps the residents would happily share their bounty with us, if only to get news of the world beyond the hellish plain.”

      Jak came back with a less rosy, but much more likely possibility. “Chill us for blasters and ammo.”

      “We have a better chance of fighting our way out during daylight,” J.B. said. “At least we can see trouble coming.”

      “There’s another problem, whether we steal what we need or not,” Ryan told them. “It’s going to be a bastard long march out of this desert. It may not be possible to carry enough supplies to make it. Once we leave, there’ll be no turning back.”

      After a pause, Krysty said, “What about Minotaur?”

      “You read my mind,” Ryan said. “If that three-dimensional map is right, there’s a redoubt down there somewhere. And if there’s a redoubt, there’s a chance it has a working mat-trans unit.”

      “That would save us a whole lot of boot leather and blisters,” J.B. said.

      Before descending the cliffs and starting across the canyon floor, Ryan and J.B. each scoped the opposite rim, looking for sun flash off telesight lenses or gunbarrels, or evidence of shooters’ hides built among the rocks. When they found nothing, they assumed that their side of the gorge was likewise undefended, and that it was safe to proceed. A conclusion based on battlefield experience and common sense. No way would snipers be posted on only one rim of a canyon so wide. The most effective kill zone would be created by overlapping cross fire from two sides at once.

      In fighting formation the companions followed one of the large arroyos gouged out of the sand by the reservoir’s violent retreat. Long before they reached the outskirts of the ville, signs of vegetation started to appear on the slopes around them. First, scattered dry weeds and brush. Then living trees, albeit stunted and scraggly. As the weeds grew thicker and green, and the trees became more sturdy, the companions saw lizards, insects, rabbits and birds. The bugs sawed and sang in the afternoon’s blistering heat.

      When the arroyo took a dogleg to the right, they climbed the soft bank for a recce. Just ahead was a row of rectangular, concrete pads, each sprouting rusted wires and conduit, and broken off plastic pipes.

      “The remains of government-built, reservation housing,” Mildred said. “Those are the foundation pads for modular prefabs and double-wide trailers. The buildings must’ve washed away when the water ran out.”

      Around the slabs were unfenced, row-crop fields bordered by irrigation ditches. The water ran clear in the ditches, shaded by tall grass and overhanging trees.

      “Look at the current,” J.B. said. “The river’s still here, underground. They’ve got it working for them.”

      The companions then took turns laying on their bellies, washing their faces and necks, and drinking their fill of cool water. When they couldn’t drink any more, they rinsed out and refilled their canteens.

      “Somebody watching,” Jak said softly to Ryan.

      It was difficult to detect glee

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