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under the low, acoustic-
tile ceiling
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and the banks of sputtering fluorescent lights. At Kaa's direction they
deposited the bags on the floor beside the open door to the gateway.
The odor of death was thick and noxious, despite the hum of the nuke-powered
air-filtration system. That was because the source of the pollution was still
inside the mat-bans chamber. Kaa could see the soles of bare feet, already
blackened by decay.
The chamber door was standing wide open, which, he thought, could have
explained why no more reinforcements had arrived. Without a closed circuit at
this end, the book had said it was very dangerous to send anything living
through the system. Perhaps that's why there were so many dead inside. Had the
last stickie out of the chamber forgotten to shut the door? Stickies were
capable of great thickheadedness, especially when excited.
Kaa stuck his head in the chamber and saw the sprawled bodies of half a dozen
stickies. He knew right away they weren't mat-trans casualties because they
didn't have the telltale marks of a failed remateriali-zation incomplete
heads, fingers, toes. These stickies had been hacked to death, their skulls
broken apart by multiple blows by a sharp, heavy weapon, a cfeaver or machete.
Quite violent blows, from the look of them. Two of the stickies had their arms
cut off at the elbows.
"Get them out of there," Kaa said. "And get something to mop up the mess." The
blood, vomit and excrement in the chamber was still in a semi liquid state.
Before they used the gateway again, it needed to be
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completely swabbed out. Either that or they risked arriving at their
destination coated head to foot with a fine film of the stuff.
The zoo muties rummaged around in the surrounding rows of desks and came up
with various paper products, some more absorbent than others. They set to work
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inside the chamber.
"You," Kaa said to Jak, "what do you know about all this chilling?"
The white-haired teen didn't lie and he didn't beat around the bush. He looked
up at the mutant giant and said, "Was us or them. They didn't give us choice."
He leaned over and pulled out one of his little black throwing knives from the
throat of a dead stickie. He wiped off the blade on a desk blotter. "We were
just trying get out here," he said. "Stickies didn't want to let us."
Kaa looked at his Angelica, who nodded. It was the truth, and he accepted it
"I understand," Kaa said to Jak. "You had no choice. Regrettable, but there's
nothing more to be said." He watched the cleanup for a minute or two, then he
said to Jak, "I want you to go up in
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s%20(12/55)/035%20-%20Skydark.txt the elevator and bring the rest of the
stickies down here to me."
"Lion come, too?"
"If he wants to," Kaa said, "but don't let him smack around any more of the
stickies. They don't like it."
"Can't blame 'em for that," Jak said. He trotted off for the elevator with the
lion at his side.
When the teenager was gone, Kaa took Krysty's
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wrist and led her away from the others. She followed willingly. "Sit,
Angelica," he said, indicating one of die office chairs behind a desk. She
sat, gazing up at him expectantly with her clear green eyes.
"I want to finish the conversation I started in the Apocalypticon vault,*' he
told her. "I said that you are important to the future of the new people of
Death-lands, but I didn't explain why.
Now is the time for me to do so. I told you back in Willie ville about my
worst fear, that I might succeed in uniting our land and its people during my
lifetime, but that once I die, it will all pass into chaos again."
"I remember," Krysty said.
"Good." He smiled at her warmly. "From my study of the treasures of the
Apocalypticon, I've learned one of the secrets of history. There is a single
key to the forging of an empire that will outlast its creator. And that is,
the siring of a true heir. In this case, one who carries
Armageddon's gift of the third, all-seeing eye, one who believes in freedom
and respect for all the mutant peoples. If a true heir does not appear to
carry the standard, our noble cause is lost just as it begins."
"I understand," she said.
"Angelica, you and I will give our people such a prince, a prince to lead them
into the future. He will be the fruit of our coupled loins."
"Does it have to be a prince?" she asked.
Kaa's brows furrowed in momentary confusion. "What?"
"Couldn't it be a princess?" Krysty said.
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He laughed. "Yes, of course. External sexual characteristics don't matter in
the least. It is the seeing and the believing that matters, and possessing the
will to complete the task." He caught both her hands in his. They were lost
between his huge palms. "I ask you, Angelica, will you bear my offspring? My
prince or princess? Will you help me breathe life into my beautiful dream?"
Tears rolled down Krysty's cheeks. She was surprised to discover that she was
no longer afraid of giving birth to a gaggle of monsters, needle toothed or
otherwise. Monsters were long-suffering, noble, ill-used, capable of
greatness, as Kaa had proved. Not degenerate, but evolving. If what he
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proposed was her destiny, who was she to question it?
"It would be my honor," she said, and she kissed the back of his hairless
hand.
By the time Jak returned with the stickies, the zoo muties had scrubbed out
the gateway chamber.
Kaa ordered the plastic bags moved into the mat-trans unit and when they were
inside, he said, "There's only room for four travelers this first jump.
Angelica, you will of course accompany me."
"I want Jak to come with us," she said.
Kaa nodded.
"And lion?" Jak asked.
"Of course."
Kaa cracked open the chamber's control panel and made a few necessary
adjustments so they could reach their intended destination. Krysty and Jak
joined him
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inside the gateway, but the lion refused to enter the chamber with them. It
stood outside, roared ferociously and swiped at the air with its paw. And when
Jak wouldn't come out, the lion tried to entice him by leaping around
playfully and chasing its tail.
"I don't want to leave him," Jak said.
"It'll be all right," Kaa assured him. "It'll be safe here with the others.
We'll be back shortly with another group of stickies, and you can rejoin it
then."
Jak stuck his head out of the chamber door, and the lion licked him from neck
to forehead.
Then Lord Kaa pulled the door closed. Because the door was shut, he didn't
hear the clack and whine of the elevator as it started back up for the
surface.
RYAN AND HIS FRIENDS lost sight of their quarry as evening fell over the long
valley. They had
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s%20(12/55)/035%20-%20Skydark.txt followed them down the highway for many,
many hours. It was all they could do to dog their trail;
they were unable to make up any of the ground that separated them because the
muties kept up such a chiller pace. Before they lost them in the lengthening
purple shadows of the slope leading to the redoubt, Ryan and the others did
get a better view of the people they were tracking, a view unobstructed by
haze, glare and mirage. It was pretty obvious to all of them that Jak and
Krysty were in the group, and that Kaa was in the lead. He loomed so much
larger than the others, they looked like children tagging along behind him.
They were too far away to be able to tell if Krysty
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and Jak were being held at blasterpoint, or if they were tied or chained to
the others.
Ryan figured they were at least twenty minutes behind Kaa, which translated [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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