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[ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] worked his way down from the height, stumbling in the sudden darkness, wishing the moon were higher. Several times he adjusted Tamara's weight on his back until his shoulder muscles accepted the burden and moved with the unexpected pressure. He had no time to set a leisurely pace. He would keep walking until all movement ceased in his body. Simple as that. Ten or thirty or fifty miles. It didn't matter. If someone picked up the homing transmitter signal they would send helicopters to the scene. No question what they would find there. Smoke pouring into the sky. The arrow on the ground pointing along his direction of travel. The temperature had already fallen and he was grateful for a cool breeze. He needed that and all the help he could get. He knew his internal systems were wearing out, that only medical attention, rest, and vast quantities of liquid pouring through his system would bring his body— and Tamara's—back to health. He glanced at his wristwatch. He had been walking for hours and his shoulder muscles were cramped into numbness from her weight. He leaned forward, taking more of her weight across his back. Several times, crossing a low area strewn with rocks, he stumbled badly, once collapsing to his knees, his hands outthrust to absorb the shock of striking the ground. A sharp pain knifed through his right hand as it stabbed into a jagged rock edge. He eased himself to his knees, gasping for breath, afraid to lower his body all the way to the ground, aware that he would never be able to force himself back to his feet. In the dim light of the waxing moon he looked at his hand. He had gashed it badly and for a moment he wondered why there was so little blood. His skin was leathery. No matter that the cut was deep. The water he had absorbed was already mostly consumed by his expenditure of body energy, and he had taken in only a fraction of what his system demanded. His blood had thickened. It was now sluggish, unable to flow easily. It crawled, oozed as a thick, viscous mass, to the surface of the deep gash, welling up slowly, drying even as he looked. Well, at least he could cut himself and he wouldn't bleed to death. Blood is mostly water and he was back again to cruel dehydration. He pushed himself to his feet, stood quietly, taking in deep shuddering breaths. He forced himself to think. Left foot forward. That was all he needed. No more than that fleeting thought. No forced straining of muscles, the wild effort of moving a limb leaden with exhaustion, the muscles cramped, the tendons taut, the arteries and veins and capillaries sluggish and drowning in their own viscous substance. Not these legs. Just tickle 'em with a little ol' thought and whammo! Off we go, into the wild, blue yonder… His right leg jerked on him, a spasmodic twitch that sent him reeling to the side. "Whoa! You summbitch, whoa there!" He heard the croak of his voice, brought his hand to his mouth, felt the now shapeless tongue that rested against his teeth. He pushed the tongue back into his mouth, forcing his teeth closed. Wouldn't do, wouldn't do at all to have ol' tongue hangin' out like that, now, would it? He wondered why he had reeled so severely to the side. It wasn't the leg. He knew that. Finest you could buy in the supermarket. Comes wrapped in plastic, right? All shiny and neat and the ol' motors whirring away like crazy in there. It's your head, Austin, he scolded himself. Ol' head is fulla cotton and sand and squirrel shit, that's what. Gotta think. Gotta think if gonna walk… Walk, you son of a bitch, Austin, WALK! You do it like the manual says for the new cadets. Tha's how. Move your left foot. Now, before it stops, move the right foot, and then the left, and that's it, boys, Hup hup hut harrup threep fourp, dress it up in those ranks, chest out, get that gut in, your left, your right, your left, your right… and the long-forgotten voice of a drill sergeant hammered at his ears, and he started out, left foot, right foot, slowly starting to lean once again into his walk, and he heard the brass of the band and the big drums booming through his mind, sending out the commands, the shooting trickles of electricity coursing through his system, electro-chemical nerve processes becoming electrical signals in wires, the nuclear generators working the articulated joints, and he marched, stumbling and lurching across the desert, hour after hour, but by God, he marched. He got into the rhythm of it, and once started he was like the pendulum of a clock. His subconscious seemed to take over, and he kept walking, moving when he should have been dead hours before, huddled on the sand or amidst the rocks, but the legs, needing only that whispering urge from his brain, propelled him on and on and on. Time fled, there was no time, and his body worked for him, and he knew that Tamara was a ghostly figure strapped to his back, and he could not stop, he must not stop… Even then, even the massive numbness of body and mind could not disguise the horizon bouncing crazily up and down because… Because he was running. And how long he had been running he didn't know, the "webbing straps around Tamara cinched tightly so she wouldn't be hammered by his pounding, thrusting motion, and he felt her arms slapping against his chest and against his arms. He knew he should not be able to walk but he was running, by God, he was running. His breath sounded like a barking, gasping cough. No matter. The fire in his lungs didn't matter either. It was storming out there now, the thunder crashing in the sky, roaring in his ears, and he could hear the rain beating down, hissing against the sky, hissing against the ground, and his right leg dropped into a deep hole and twisted savagely and he felt or heard something rip, tear itself loose from something else. It didn't matter, the rain, he was falling face first into that wet ground, and the dry sand came up and smashed into his face. He lay there, stunned, unbelieving. Dry… the sand is dry… then what… what's that rain… that noise? There was no liquid for tears or spit or anything, and he choked on sand and tried to spit, but he sounded like a frog, coughing, and he tasted something, a blood taste. He managed to get his arms free of the webbing straps and crawled out from beneath the weight of Tamara's still form. He lifted himself up on his elbow and stared with his one eye into the dark night above, where strange ghost shapes danced. Now he heard again that roaring-hissing-thunder sound. He knew what it was. Turbines. Turbines and helicopter blades. Jet choppers. Had to be Israeli, this close to Israel. He yelled. No sound came from his mouth, only a spray of sand. There was still a spark left in his mind. He reached into his left wrist, where his fingers fumbled with the spheres. He was on his knees, twisting with club-thick fingers at the small sphere. There, he'd done it, and with his left arm, that once-hated bionics limb, he threw it as high as it would go. The flare burst like a star through the dark desert night. Again. Another sphere, twist, throw! [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |