The Traveler Page 35

  “My God,” McIntire mumbled aloud. She looked around at the men that were slowly picking themselves off a semi-darkened ground. Fires were everywhere and the screams of shocked travelers filled the air. Several of the Russians were clearly dead.

  Virginia Pollock was magically standing in front of Sarah. Virginia quickly snatched at the blood streaming from her own nose as she leaned over and checked Sarah’s arm. She tore away the burned sleeve and then nodded. “Nothing too bad,” she said as she looked around nervously. Her features suddenly sank.

  “I’ll have … that if … you don’t mind,” came the voice of Alexi Doshnikov.

  Sarah cleared her eyes once more and saw the Russian holding the large Colt Peacemaker to Jason’s head.

  “Glad to see you made it, Ivan,” he said as Doshnikov angrily pushed Ryan toward his four companions.

  The mobster quickly removed his smoldering greatcoat and tossed it on the ground. He gave himself a quick health and welfare check and saw that other than being a little singed and having a broken nose from where he had rolled into a rather large tree, he would survive. He was shaking and was having a hard time regaining his senses beyond the ability to keep the American from gaining a weapon. He looked at several of his men as they were in various states of wakefulness. Then he saw others that would never awaken again. He counted five of these that lay smoldering and burning on the ground. He realized then that these were his people who had been on the periphery of the doorway, closer to the lasers and the centrifugal heat caused by the spinning collider as they passed through. Unlike the survivors who had been in the center of the room. This was cause and effect no one, not even Virginia or Xavier Morales, had foreseen as a consequence of the dimensional burp.

  “Oh, man, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Mendenhall said as he tried to brace Sarah for the sight.

  Fifteen feet away Joshua Jodle was half in and half out of a large tree. He had phased into this existence in entirely the wrong place. His hand was still holding the aluminum case that had all of Doshnikov’s plans and dreams. As a shocked group watched on, the case slowly slipped from the dead man’s fingers.

  A stunned Doshnikov turned and faced Sarah, Jason, Anya, Will, and Virginia and was amazed they had basically made it through unscathed. In his childish mind he thought it extremely unfair that this was the case. Even as they all stood in a semicircle the earth shook so violently that they almost lost their footing. The earthquake subsided and then the world became silent once more.

  “What have you done?” he asked as he gestured for his men to cover the Americans.

  “You wanted a trip through our little dream maker, and you got one,” Ryan said, not being able to stop the smile from coming. He disliked most Russians out of habit.

  “Tell them to turn it back on, immediately,” he said with spittle flying from his lips.

  Now Jason wasn’t so sure he should have been antagonizing the man. He looked a little unstable to say the least. The Colt was shaking in his hands.

  A loud crack and a flaming branch came down and the Russian shot it twice before he realized it wasn’t a threat outside of the flames. He nervously looked at Ryan, the man who was his antagonist since he had seen him that very afternoon. Ryan was to blame for this, Doshnikov didn’t know how, but he was sure of it.

  “As soon as you tell me how to go about that, Chief, but in case you haven’t noticed, you’re not exactly in Kansas anymore.”

  Again Doshnikov looked around and saw a burning primordial forest he had only seen in museum dioramas. He was finding it extremely hard to draw a breath. No, that wasn’t quite right, he thought. He was drawing too much. He had to place his free hand on a smoldering tree to steady himself as his head spun as if drunk.

  “The effect you are feeling is over-oxygenated air. You’re used to smog, particulates. This is a clean, unmolested environment, with the exception of volcanic fallout … exhilarating, isn’t it?” Virginia said as she nodded at Ryan that now would be a good time to leave these people before they regained all of their senses. Then she lost hope as she felt the pure oxygen effects also. She clung on to Sarah, who was down to a knee. Ryan was about to say something when he too became dizzy. To his horror he saw the Russian and most of his men straighten from their own discomfort and start shaking their heads. It seemed they were recovering far faster than he thought they would.

  “I think … I will start with … the small woman … first,” Doshnikov said as he took a menacing step toward the five. “Then we … will see if the mutual … cooperation we had earlier … returns. I want that … doorway turned back on!” He screamed the last two words. He raised the Colt revolver toward a kneeling Sarah McIntire.

  Jason was just getting ready to move his shaky body in front of Sarah’s when the scene was shattered. First came the roar and then the scream of men as a blur of orange, black, white, and gray burst through the flames of the trees and into the midst of the Russians.

  Virginia’s eyes widened and Mendenhall nearly lost the contents of his bladder when they saw what had sprung at them from the unsettled jungle and burning forest. The saber-toothed cat was at least a thousand pounds of bustling muscle and sinew. The eight-inch incisors were snapping at the men who were so shocked none of them made any move to fend off the giant lionlike beast. The scream of the animal was horrifying to say the least. The claws of the saber-tooth swung and caught the first Russian across the chest area, ripping his still beating heart from his body along with a section of breastplate and ribs. Doshnikov regained his senses first and fired two shots into the cat but that only increased its fear and hatred of the men it had cornered. It hunched its back and sprang at the next man in line.

  Before Ryan really knew what he was doing, he picked McIntire up and started pushing the other four away from the scene just as more shots rang out from the Russians, who were fast recovering from their shock after they had just witnessed their companion being eviscerated.

  They heard another shot, then another as they ran for the jungle undergrowth, but the still-burning fires made their silhouettes stand out and Jason feared that made them excellent targets. Then to cement his opinion he felt the bullet fly just past his right ear and slam into a giant fern plant as they finally made it to the undergrowth.

  Behind them the cat screamed and men died before silence once more filled the world.

  * * *

  Jack used the binoculars but the thickening ash made viewing the four miles difficult. He lowered them just as the sound of distant gunfire came to his ears. That distinctive sound made even Jenks stop his cursing over the power coupling’s loss—momentarily.

  “Carl?” Charlie asked with hope lacing his question.

  “No, that was more than one brand of weapon. I counted no less than three different calibers,” Jack said as he looked over at Henri for his opinion. The Frenchman just nodded his concurrence. Collins raised the glasses once more. “Master Chief, we were going to conserve the batteries on the two drones until we had the doorway up and running, but I think now is the time to get them in the air. We need eyes out there.”

  “Well, I hate to be the stick in the damn mud here but we have another very serious concern,” Jenks said, drawing the attention of the others. “Unless we track that damn chicken-lizard down we’re going to be sending out change-of-address cards to the post office. Now what do you suppose we do about that?”

  Jack shook his head as he looked over to the master chief. “Well, I guess we have to go and get it back, don’t we, you grumpy old bastard?”

  “When was the last time you tracked one of those Velocipedes?”

  “Actually it’s called a Velociraptor, there is a distinct—”

  The look coming from all three of his companions shut Charlie up.

  “This will be my first raptor hunt, Master Chief,” Jack said as he tossed Jenks the binoculars he had been using. He caught the glasses and then almost dropped them. “Now, do you think you and Char
lie can get those two drones up and then arm the laser defense system and possibly keep those damn things from stealing any more of our toys?”

  Jenks didn’t respond with anything other than a huff.

  “Actually, I don’t think there was a devious attempt to thwart us,” Charlie said. “I mean they are smarter than any animal in the fossil records, even their direct ancestors, but they are still animals.”

  “Come on, Doc, what in the hell are you saying?” Jack asked as he retrieved a field pack and then tossed it to Farbeaux, who was listening to Ellenshaw.

  “I mean to say that I believe the raptor stole the coupling because it was shiny. The stainless-steel housing had to look awful tempting to the animal. They are after all part of the avian family, or so the theory goes anyway. So I think this one acted just like a raven, or crow, it likes bright shiny things.”

  “So?” Henri asked as he changed out the magazine on his M-4.

  “I am saying that if you are to track them, keep in mind that they will act like an animal at first, don’t give them time to think things out. It’s like telling Pete Golding a riddle, at first he will be stumped, but give him time to think and you’re had.”

  Collins looked from Ellenshaw to Farbeaux. The poor doc hadn’t even realized that he had invoked Pete Golding’s name. It was as if Pete hadn’t died in Chato’s Crawl. Jack lowered his eyes as he concentrated on situating his own field pack.

  “Just water, Henri, we’ll travel light.”

  “That’s fine with me as I would rather eat bugs than that MRE disaster you Americans are so proud of.”

  “Before this little foray is over you may be wishing for some of that crap. Ready?” Jack asked as he slung the M-4 over his shoulder and gathered his scopes and night vision equipment.

  “Remind me again why you insisted on bringing me out of your president’s forced retirement of my services?”

  “Because you’re expendable, and for the decidedly more important fact that you owe me, not the president. After all, you’re no longer a wanted man in the United States,” Jack said while producing his only smile of the day.

  Farbeaux watched as Collins nodded his farewell to Jenks and Charlie as he left the center of the camp.

  “In case you have failed to notice, my dear colonel, we’re not in the United States.”

  Jack glanced back just before he stooped over and examined the tracks made by the thieving raptor. “Just think of it as Central Park after midnight, Henri.” Jack looked back at the raptor print and then started out.

  With a last look at Jenks and Ellenshaw, Farbeaux followed the crazed colonel.

  “You don’t suppose all of this is an adverse reactionary hallucination to all of those inoculations they gave us, do you?”

  Master Chief Jenks looked at Charlie as if he had truly lost it.

  “Exactly how many acid trips did you go on in the sixties, and how many resembled this prehistoric menagerie?”

  “Well—”

  “Never mind, Doc, your answer would probably scare the hell out of me.”

  19

  Jason and his wayward travelers finally broke out into the open. It looked like they had traveled south, but Ryan knew that was very misleading. In all directions in Antarctica you traveled north. No matter your position, and no matter what directions you thought you were traveling in, you were always headed north, there just simply was no other way to travel. All roads led north. He stopped running as his lungs cried for relief from the purified oxygen of the times. The ash cloud was now so heavy that he was fearful of breathing in some of the volcanic particulate that would eventually lead to his death.

  “Get down!” Mendenhall screamed as he pushed Anya, Sarah, and Virginia to the thickly ash-covered ground.

  The bird missed Ryan’s head by mere inches as it swooped out of the sky. Jason hit the dirt and then saw the shadow of the giant condor as it pumped its twenty-three-foot wingspan to regain altitude. Ryan had felt the tremendous rush of air as the five-hundred-pound bird nearly swept him up.

  “Holy crap!” Will said as he hustled the women to their feet.

  “Let’s take cover over by those rocks,” Ryan yelled, and made sure everyone was on the same thinking track as himself.

  Once they were hunkering around the large boulders, they saw the enormous condor swoop low again some distance away. They then heard the sound of rapid gunfire once more, thankfully quite some distance away.

  “I guess those Russian assholes have met Tweety bird,” Mendenhall said as he winked at a frightened Virginia.

  “The ones that survived Sylvester the Cat, you mean?” Sarah said, not wanting to but smiling nonetheless.

  “Exactly,” Will agreed. He looked at a shaken Jason Ryan. “What now, boss?”

  “If the colonel and the others were close by, they had to have heard the gunfire. We have a choice here: hide, or go and find them.”

  “Speaking for myself, I think I would prefer to stay in the open and not hunker down as you Americans like to say.”

  “Yeah, open sounds good to me,” Will agreed.

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Smell that?” Sarah said as she looked around the best that she could through the falling ash cloud. The earth continued to rumble beneath her feet.

  “What, the smell of primordial terror?” Mendenhall asked. “Well, I’m afraid to disappoint you, but that’s me. I may have had an accident in my drawers.”

  Sarah ignored Will’s foxhole humor and then stood up and looked to what she assumed was the west.

  “No, I’m smelling chlorine in the air. Something else.”

  “What—” Jason started to ask.

  “Methane and sulfur.” Sarah sniffed the air again. “Mount Erebus and the others are getting ready to blow.”

  “Damn Niles and his theory about Erebus setting off a chain reaction in the climate parameters of this time frame.”

  “What theory?” Ryan asked, not liking the sound of Virginia’s voice.

  “That the eruption of Erebus and her sister volcanoes brought on one of the deadliest ice ages in natural history.”

  “Okay, that should give us a little time, right?” Ryan asked hopefully, but his hope was dashed as soon as he saw Virginia’s face go slack as the earth rumbled and shook.

  “Before the ice comes, Jason, it is preceded by fire. Lots and lots of fire, earth shaking, mountains exploding, basically nature saying enough is enough.”

  “How long?” Anya asked for the others.

  It was Sarah who answered. “Hell, as far as timing goes, we couldn’t have picked a worse time or place to go sightseeing.” The earth shook harder. “We’re already on borrowed time, and the tax man is at the door.”

  Ryan looked around and decided on a course. “That way,” he said.

  “Why that way?” Mendenhall inquired as he assisted Virginia to her feet.

  “Because it’s in the opposite direction of that.” He pointed to the sky many miles distant.

  At that very moment a hard wind moved the ash particulate away and they all saw it. Erebus’s smoke plume was as red as Hades and as thick as any they had ever seen. For emphasis the ground shook again, almost knocking them from their feet.

  “Atom bombs, crazed Russians, alien invasions, monsters in the Amazon—when are we going to get a library research gig?” Will asked, turning to see no one.

  The others had already started following the commander, and Will cursed and hurried to catch up.

  * * *

  Ryan pulled up when he managed to briefly spy the small rise of rock just ahead through the irritating ashfall. In just an hour the ground had been covered by over a foot of the abrasive particulate.

  “There, we’ll hold up and rest. I don’t know about you people but my system is used to a little more pollutants in the air I guess. This clean stuff is killing me.”

  “I agree, we need to collect our bearings before we run into something we can’t escape from,” Virgini
a said as she quickly checked Sarah’s scorched arm. She smiled at the diminutive geologist as she studied her worried face. “Don’t worry, I think Jack can outsmart any big pussycats.”

  Sarah smiled and shook her head. “It’s not Jack. I was thinking about all of those lectures in school about the many theories of how the major ice age was brought on. I’m afraid I have to ascribe to the nutcase theories that Erebus was the cause of it all. It just happened to freeze the rest of the world before its own home turf.”

  “Fascinating, but can we move to a little higher ground for defense before we discuss further the shortcomings of modern science?” Ryan asked.

  “Defense?” Will asked as he followed Anya and the others.

  “Yeah, I think we may have to start making some bows and arrows.”

  “That’s what I like about working with the best organization in the world: we have all of the high-tech gadgets at our disposal.”

  * * *

  The two drones separated just short of the large canopied forest. The round, four-engined drones were capable of ten hours of continuous flight but the limitations imposed on her viewing systems were worrying the master chief. Capable of infrared or night vision, telescopic or laser-designated targeting, the drones were state of the art and had been constructed by the mechanical engineering department at Group.

  “I’m going to put number one on hover just west of the black forest there. That damn ashfall is retarding the efficiency of the plastic propellers.”

  “I can handle flying that thing, Master Chief,” Charlie said as he spared a look from the radar system of the defense pods.

  “You just concentrate on keeping those refugees from Colonel Sanders from getting too close. I’ll play flyboy.”