Issue #1, Volume 1
"The Beckoning, Chapter 1: All The King's Horses..."
Written by DoomScribe
[Note to readers: This story takes place shortly after Doom2099 # 38]
The earth was brown and dull under a grey, overcast sky. Dark clouds
threatened rain, but the wind blowing up the side of the steep ascent was dry
and filled with a bitter, acrid stench. The smell of the dead was all around
this high mountain foot path, but there were no creatures, alive nor dead, to
be seen. The quiet was unnerving.
The metal boots moved over the rough surface with equal parts calm and
determination. A dark green cloak caught the wind and billowed around the tall
man like a wild animal on a short leash. He caught the cloak in a metal
gauntlet, taming it, and moved silently up the path. His metal armor, medieval
in appearance, was remarkably silent, and he made his approach without a single
sound save the soft rolling of pebbles down the hillside, disturbed by his
passing. He walked through a dark notch in the mountain cliff, a narrow
path almost completely hidden from view. He found it by memory, a distant
memory of a time long past. It was a memory he was surprised to still
find, clear in his mind like a snapshot tucked away in a dusty old family
album. It was perhaps this clear and vivid memory that broke his calm
facade like a mirror under the blow of a metal fist. For as he stepped
through the notch onto the ledge that overlooked the wide, deep valley below,
his eyes behind the silver metal mask glowed with a fierce hatred and
frustration that he had tried to keep buried these last few weeks. It
burned him deep inside, and only the distant thunder, rolling across the valley
and slamming into his body with deep, harmonic resonance, kept him from crying
out, lashing out with all his fury and might. He was alone and outgunned,
and they were far too many to attack on his own now.
"They" were the wave spiders. Free from their masters in the
America's and abroad, they flew in fat, lazy circles over what was once his
beloved homeland. They feasted on what remained of his countrymen, their
alien physiology immune to the necrotoxins they had grown in their
bellies. Necrotoxins that had reduced all of the humans living in the
valley below into a thick, greasy sludge. Their evil mission for the
corrupt Herod completed, the wave spiders now nested in the mountains and rocky
crags far above the valley, the same rocky outposts that had once harbored a
young Victor Von Doom and his fellow gypsies during the reign of the wicked
Baron Draasen. The giant flying creatures settled their long
exoskeletal limbs with equal irreverence atop his painstakingly restored castle
and the tall buildings of Gojradia. They stretched iridescent wings
over distant farms and fields turned fallow from neglect. The stench of
their guano baked into the once pristine earth. He watched them fly, and
nest, and gather their young with a cold, calculating eye. "Not
today," he thought with wry malevolence, "but soon, alien
monstrosities, soon you will be eliminated, and this land will be clean once
more!"
From the rocky hillside strewn with dying brush behind Doom a frantic rustle
caused him to whirl around, gauntlets raised and ready to fire. There in
the tangle of bracken were three dirty, frightened faces, eyes glazed and faces
gaunt with hunger. They shrank back for a moment, then recognized their
master in his new armor. "Master!" one of the men called out in
a raspy whisper. He stumbled through the bush, and collapsed kneeling in
front of his king, as much in respect as in pure exhaustion. His
companions followed suit. Their clothes were torn and dirty, their
beards unshorn.
"Master, you have come . . . " he coughed harshly, a sound like
sandpaper on rough stone.
"Apologies, Master, please, we have not had food nor drink in days,"
his companion implored.
Doom recognized these men. They were gypsies from the ravaged village
below. He offered them water from a pouch he carried, but he was
impatient. "Are there other survivors? From the village or from clan
Zefiro? Are you alone here?"
"We were sent to wait for you, to guide you to the rest . . . "
the first man began.
"I don't know the clans, there are some from Gatineau, and others .
. . " the second man seemed confused. "Yanto would know .
. . "
"Where is Yanto?" Doom demanded.
"Dead," said the first gypsy, "along with two others.
Originally we were six, now all that remains is Kosta, Uriel, and I
. . . I am Marcos, the smith."
"Marcos," Doom implored quietly, insistently, "how did you
escape the attack on our country?"
"The fortune teller warned us," answered Uriel, "we did not know
what danger was coming, but we believed the signs, and left the
city."
"Too late for some," Kosta contributed, wiping his mouth as he
returned the water pouch to Doom. "We were attacked by the spiders on the
pass. Many were killed."
"All who stayed behind are dead," added Uriel forlornly.
"Who was the fortune teller? Was it Fortune? Did she read
cards?" Doom asked.
The men shrugged and looked down. "The word was spread among the
clans that night. All we knew was to leave the valley, and head south to the
sea. There a freighter would take us to safe lands," Marcos shook
his head. "Those who believed in the old ways followed the elders without
question. Nobody really believed anything like this could happen .
. . " His voice trailed off, he did not say, "under your reign.
"
The unspoken words were echoed in Doom's thoughts. If he'd known, he
never would have left. Americas be damned! He thought. I should
have left that country to rot inside it's own fetid cesspool than leave my
homeland unguarded and at the mercy of these heartless scavengers! His
eyes began to follow the road from the pass, picturing the pitched battle that
must have taken place there between the fleeing gypsies and the airborne
attackers. "Why have you men stayed?" he asked absently, eyes
still searching the western slope of the valley.
Marcos answered quickly. "The seer Larinda, from my clan, she
sent us here to wait for you, she knew you would come back to save us . .
. " his voice trailed off as he stood and looked toward the darkening sky
to the east. Another wave of thunder washed over them. He picked up
a long stick with a sharpened bit of metal on the end. In his thick hands
Doom could see the power that once forged steel, an old skill that required
strength of heart and limb, still practiced among the gypsies, but the posture
of the man betrayed his fear. What could have frightened them so?
"How far have they gone? Where are they now?" Doom asked, gazing at
the sky and trying to see what the other man saw. Given the men's obvious
malnourished condition, they could be quite mad.
"It has been 25 days since we left them, and we traveled five days on foot
back here. But they may not have gone far. Many were on foot, and
fuel was very low. Also, water. Many wanted to stop and wait for
the rains, but the land has become treacherous. It is not safe for us out
there." Marcos anxiously twisted the makeshift spear, and the other
men grew increasingly restless. "We should take cover," he
murmured.
Doom turned his attention back to the valley, till he finally found what he was
looking for. A bunker, hidden among the trees on the valley wall no more
than five miles below them. Several months ago he had hidden a supply of
weapons, fuel and transport vehicles there, a cache designed for an emergency
such as this. His armor's eyepieces zoomed in on the low structure.
It appeared intact and undisturbed at first, not entirely a good sign, since
Fortune also would have known of its existence as a privileged member of his
cabinet. Then he saw the wave spiders, four, then five adults, and what
could only be baby spiders, a dozen or more, crawling all over the outside of
the wide, low hill that hid those precious supplies. They had made a nest
in the soft loamy soil of the weapons bunker. It would be unnecessarily
risky to try to take it now. He turned back to the men.
"Master, surely your vehicle is close, we can leave, meet up with the
others," Uriel pleaded.
"There are no vehicles here, imbecile!" Doom shouted, roughly
brushing the man away. "I arrived on a one-way shunt to a pad just west of
here. We will attempt to locate a working vehicle en route to the rest of
your tribe. Until then, we will have to walk!" Turning his back on
his homeland, Doom focused his attention on the barren landscape to the
south, now barely visible in the fading light. From the southern edge of
the Arkopa pass through the Malhela mountains, the dying light flickered over a
vast uninhabited range of low hills and scrub, treacherous canyons, and
half-forgotten mine fields from a century ago. Somewhere out there too, were
the remains of Makhelastan, and a grisly scene that they would be wise to
bypass. The blackened vista sucked up all the light from the sky. A
chill wind blew up the mountainside and unfurled his verdant cape.
"No!" Kosta shouted anxiously, pulling at Marcos' sleeve.
"We must take cover . . . the night . . . !"
The last bit of sunlight glinted off of Doom's armor and metal faceplate.
"This is no time for cowardice, man! Our kin are in need. You must
take me to them, now!" he ordered.
"No!" cried Kosta again, his face screwed up in pain and despair.
"It is dangerous to be out at night. There is no cover on the
road." Marcos said.
"What is it?" Doom asked impatiently, "What are you frightened
of?"
"The spiders," Marcos answered, pointing to the valley. A faint
hum, a deep, resonate buzzing, wafted up the mountains from the darkening
valley below. "They hunt at night. All that was once living in
Latveria is gone, and they have developed a taste for fresh meat. They
will fly beyond our borders to find it now. If we follow the road, we
will be exposed."
"Then stay off the road," Doom answered calmly, "and I will deal
with any spiders that dare challenge me!" Doom began to stride down
the steep mountain path, without a backward glance to his new companions,
certain that they would follow. Indeed, it would be foolish to stay,
cover or no, alone in these barren windswept mountains, they would soon die.
Marcos looked at the Master with new confidence, and began to make his way down
after him. Uriel too, felt a little of the pride one must have in a
leader so decisive and so fearless. He gathered up his leather sack with
his few meager belongings, and began to stumble down the path. Poor
Kosta whimpered and shivered in the dark notch in the rock, looking to the sky
and to the valley and back to his retreating companions with equal parts fear
and despair. To be alone on this mountain was certain death though,
and so what little sense was left in his poor, mad brain, bade him to go, and he
scrambled to catch up to the others.
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In the bleak sand filled deserts of a land no longer inhabited by any nation, a
wormlike train of bundled figures and slow-moving vehicles wound its way
through the sand, zig zagging around steep dunes and deep pits, moving
steadily south like a convoy of ants. Scattered among the ancient trucks
and occasional camper, were even older gypsy vardos, pulled by pack animals of
indeterminate lineage. Other animals, cattle and goats, trailed along
behind them or were patiently led by hunched figures bundled against the
blowing sand. One such figure walked near the front of the group,
carefully probing the sand ahead with a walking stick, while keeping a firm
grasp onto the lead of the cow that plodded grudgingly behind her. Her
feet were covered in makeshift leather boots, tied with straps around her
legs. The rest of her clothing was little better than rags, tied at the
cuffs to keep the blowing sand out. The hood of her cape and a
bright colored scarf covered most of her face, except for the eyes.
Her dark gypsy eyes squinted through the blowing sand underneath serious, heavy
brows. A fine film of pale sand coated her dark skin wherever it was exposed.
She carried a small pack on her back, and the remainder of her personal
belongings were securely strapped to the back of her cow. A rope around
her waist trailed behind her, tied to the waist of another man walking a
few meters back. A third man was also connected behind him. The rope was
a survival tool against the shifting sand, invisible sand traps and equally
frightening sand storms capable of reducing visibility to less than a meter in
less than an instant. Today, the rope would save her life.
Marissa steadily probed the sand ahead of her as she walked, careful to find
firm footing as she tried also to keep an eye on their intended course.
Just below the surface, her stick hit something hard with a resounding thunk,
causing her to stop and step back a pace. She probed again. There
was something there, under the sand, something with a definite echo.
Carefully she pushed her stick down into the sand, tapping twice more against
the hard surface below. She was not mistaken, there was something there!
Something hollow, possibly a buried truck, or a fuel tank! She
turned back to her companions and began to wave frantically. Just then,
the earth caved in on her.
She later would recall the strangest sensation, of falling through the earth,
with sand all around her, then suddenly empty space. Initially, all she
recognized was fear and adrenaline, the helplessness of falling, the instant of
knowing that death was very near. Then the vibrant snap of the rope at
her waist, halting her momentum only a second after the fall began. Then
she knew she was not dead, because she was instantly aware of the pain in her
back and shoulders as the rope cinched tighter around her waist and burned the
skin below. At the end of her rope, there was only darkness at first,
then her eyes began to adjust. She looked up to see the hole through
which she had fallen, a glimmer of light and a steady stream of white sand
falling through. This was not a sand pit, she was inside of . .
. something? She looked around her. Light beams touched bits
and pieces of vertical walls, reflective surfaces, strange lumpy things on the
ground far below. The cavern was enormous! What was nothing but a
massive barren sand field above covered a vast underground expanse hidden
from view and waiting for discovery. Where the sand above was thin, light
broke through what could only be called a glass ceiling. Suspended
as she was almost a hundred meters above the floor, Marissa began to get
a clear picture of what she had found.
Above her, Jake cleared the sand away from the hole and peered down, following
the swinging rope with a flashlight. "Marissa!" he called
anxiously. "Are you all right?"
"Jake!" Marissa called back as the beam of light played across her
face, "it's a city! Jake, it's the Hidden City!"
------------------------------------------------------
Later, when the gypsies had found a passage into the underground city, they
began to explore and scavenge supplies. Water was of paramount
importance, as they had not been able to replenish their supplies since leaving
Latveria. All the water that trickled down from that high mountain
country was tainted, contaminated with traces of necrovirus. The same was
true for the water from rivers and streams that had passed through their
southern neighbor, Makhelastan. There was not enough virus in the water to
kill, at first, but any who sipped it regularly soon fell sickly and
died. So once the trucks and vans and vardos were secured in a central
area of the city, the elders dispatched teams of two and three to scour the
city. There was a little food, some fuel, but the city had been scavenged
before. Perhaps the sand above the crystal dome cleared away once every
ten or twenty years, enough to keep the legend of the Hidden City alive in the tales
of the travelers who stumbled upon it as Marissa had done. What the
gypsies soon found, however, was that the city was a literal time capsule, a
frozen moment from a time that few among them had witnessed.
"How's your back?"
"Still hurts a little," Marissa answered, watching her meter as they
made their way through an underground corridor. Jake carried a shovel and
leather bag, and a head lamp strapped around his forehead illuminated their
path.
"We can go back, if you want to," Jake answered. He was tall
and lanky, no more than eighteen, and shorn of his bulky outer clothing he
appeared very thin. "Someone else can search this sector for
us."
"Don't like caves, do you Jake?" Marissa teased.
"Not really," he answered honestly.
"I used to go into the caves above Antikva village every summer,"
Marissa mused quietly. "Not too deep, but just a little, it was
always so cool and quiet."
"Shock it! You're a reg'lar bat girl!" Jake grinned. "I always
knew there was somethin' creepy bout you!"
"What's creepy is this," they were near the edge of the crystal dome
now, and Marissa ran her long fingers along the cool, hard surface. It
was clear for an indeterminate depth, three meters, maybe more. Then
behind that was solid rock. The inner surface was as smooth as Waterford
crystal, and as hard as diamonds. The low power laser from her electronic
probe reflected perfectly off of its surface.
"I heard the elders talking this morning," Jake answered, "they
said this has probably been here since before the forty-year's war, judging by
the cars and stuff they found. What's really weird is the way some of the
tall buildings go all the way up to the top of the dome, then it looks like
they were burned away. Lukas said that he thought they had used some kind
of plasma weapon, hot enough to turn the sand instantly to glass." Jake
rapped his knuckles against the surface.
"Yeah, right, like Lukas is some kind of tech jockey," Marissa
stopped suddenly, staring at her meter. "Jake! Look!" The meter
was fluctuating wildly, LED readings jumping all around. Marissa hurried ahead,
racing around a rocky corridor, Jake struggling under the low ceiling to keep
up behind her, until they burst into a large room, and stopped in their tracks.
It had been a patio, with a clay tile floor and a freestanding stone
fountain. The rubble they had just passed through was what was left of
the house, but here the patio was intact, and strangely surreal. The
fountain was empty, but the figure of a small boy sculpted from bronze danced
in its center. Behind him was the garden wall, and there the bottom curve
of the crystal bubble neatly cleaved the wall in two, disappearing into the
tile floor with barely a trace. But where the wall and the crystal bubble
met, a tiny trickle of water seeped through, staining the stone wall and
sustaining a tiny streak of amber algae along its edges. Marissa rushed
up to the wall, and sampled the water with her meter, careful not to drip any
on her skin. Jake held his breath, and licked his dry lips
hopefully.
Marissa smiled, "It's clean!" she announced joyfully. "No
trace of the virus!" She held her hand carefully under the slow
trickle, and gathered the precious fluid into the cup of her hand. She
let the cool liquid drip into her mouth and soothe her parched throat.
She stepped aside as Jake did the same. They drank once more, then
removed canteens from their pouches and carefully filled them from the slow
trickle. Too much of the precious fluid slipped away and disappeared in
the ground below, sucked up by the dry earth. Working together they
managed to move the little boy's fountain to where the basin was positioned
underneath the steady trickle. They stepped back with pride to watch as the
water slowly began to fill the dry bowl, and then hurried back to give the good
news to the rest of the clans.
--------------------------------------------------------
Doom stood alone, pacing along the ridge of a low rise in the land, scanning
the dark expense ahead with infrared scopes built into his remarkable
armor. In the low notch behind him, his reluctant companions huddled and
shivered in the cold night air, too frightened to build even a small
fire. Their progress had been agonizingly slow. The men were weak,
malnourished and dehydrated. It would not do if they were to die on him
now, before he had the chance to ascertain the path the gypsies' tribe had
taken. There were a thousand square kilometers or more between them and
the sea, and the wandering tribe could be anywhere. It was imperative
that he find them, he had to know . . . He looked back upon the men,
reluctantly admitting that despite their weaknesses he needed them. Long
ago, he had made a promise, a vow to protect his gypsy kin. The holder of
that promise was long dead now, but he nonetheless felt bound by it.
When he rejoined the men in the dark hollow, Uriel and Kosta appeared to be
asleep, huddled in their thin cloaks on the hard earth. Marcos sat alone,
warily holding his wooden spear and staring up at the stars. He stood as Doom
approached, but Doom bade him to sit again as he too settled to the ground,
pulling his cloak up around his knees.
"The way ahead appears clear," Doom stated quietly. "We
will resume at first light."
"Ahead there are two other dangers," Marcos stated, and began to
scrape lines in the dirt with the tip of the spear. "Though we leave
the spiders behind, there are other inhabitants who would attack us for no
other reason than trespass. South of Makhelastan in the valleys of Banat,
the settlement there harbors the Collective Guardsmen, formerly under the
employ of Tiger Wylde. The commanders of the Guard fled there when you
freed our country, and they have always hated the gypsies."
"I knew that some of the leaders had escaped," Doom mused
aloud. "I had not yet had the time to track them down for their
crimes against our kin. I suspect that they hold little love for me as
well."
"Hmmm, yes, well they are well armed and organized, their borders are very
well patrolled and seem to be expanding into the wastelands." Marcos
pointed to an area he sketched on the ground. "More dangerous though
are the Crow. They inhabit the hills to the west and north. They
are a wild people, crazed by the drugs they consume in their fighting rituals,
and they appear to attack without reason or provocation. We witnessed an
attack by the Crow on a CG patrol. They were ferocious beyond belief,
fighting even when mortally wounded, biting and scratching at the guardsmen
with their last breaths. Twenty or more were killed by the guardsmen's
weapons, and still they attacked. A dozen armored and armed guardsmen
were killed by the mob, only two escaped." Marcos shuddered.
"Afterwards, the Crow disemboweled and consumed the dead in a horrific
feast and ritual."
"Were the caravans attacked?" Doom asked.
"Not so far as I know," Marcos answered. "The plan was to
skirt the CG borders to the east, then head across the wastelands before
dropping into Dubrovnik from the coastal mountains, if we can find a
passage through the Dinaric. But no one really knows how far the Crow
have expanded their territories since the fall of Latveria and
Makhelastan. The spiders, too, may be ranging farther now. The
tribe was in dire need of fuel and water. The caravan could have halted
somewhere along the way. If they were attacked since we left, they would
all be dead now. " Marcos hung his head between his knees,
frightened by the prophecy he spoke.
Doom looked to the sleeping men. Alone, he could raid a Guardsmen's
outpost, collect weapons and transport. Possibly supplies, too. It
would be better for all of them to be armed with real weapons if they were
attacked along the way. He would have to leave them alone and unprotected
so that he could move quickly. "How far to the nearest Guardsmen's
outpost?" he asked.
"The permanent installations are deep inside the borders," Marcos
pointed to a place on his map. "Here is where they keep some
supplies for the border patrols, and a hundred men or more. There are
smaller stations here, and here, maybe one day's journey from where we are
now. They are very close to the main depot, " Marcos continued,
sensing the Master's intent. "Any attack on those positions would bring
swift backup from the main forces."
Doom was silent, and then he erased the map in the sand with his gloved
hand. "Say nothing of this to the others," he said
coldly. "We will alter our course eastward in the morning."
Marcos nodded in quiet compliance, not wanting to appear weak in front of the
Master. He would do as he asked, and the gods be merciful should they fail.
Doom looked to the sky as Marcos drifted off to sleep. The gods would
have their way with him, that he knew. He wasn't about to make it easy on
them though. The gods, however, wherever they rested this night,
had not yet given up in their endless quest to test his strength. Black fate,
it seemed, always followed one step behind Doom, and just when he began to
relax, it reared its ugly head into the night sky, blotting out the stars.
The wind whistled behind fluttering wings, and trees bent under the weight of
eight gangly legs. The wave spiders had found them!
From the ledge of a small cliff, a rocky perch above the long empty road, two
Crow warriors watched with morbid fascination the attack of the spiders on the
small gypsy party below. The Crow scouts had been following the progress
of the three gypsy men and their strangely armored companion since coming down
from the mountain late that evening. Silently they had stalked the strangers,
and waited out the night from a place safe from the prying eyes of the metallic
one. Now, they ventured close to the edge, hunched in curious
concentration over the scene before them.
Doom roused himself quickly at the first noise from the wave spiders, and was
firing weapons from his gauntlets as they descended with murderous intent upon
his comrades. The three adult spiders flew tightening circles above them,
avoiding the deadly blasts. Some of the fireballs struck, but glanced off
of heavily armored plates, burning but not destroying. Doom began
to fall back, changing his tactics as he adjusted his weaponry. The
spiders screeched in rage and fury as they flew above them, a sound designed to
frighten and subdue their intended prey. It roused the gypsy men from
their sleep, but mad Kosta was transfixed by those horrible sounds. One
of the spiders dove in, and though Marcos tried to ward it off with his spear,
he was swept aside by the greater bulk of the alien creature. Kosta was skewered
by the long bony mouthpart the spiders used to immobilize their prey before he
even had a chance to cry out. His body wriggled helplessly upon the
jagged spear as he died, blood spurting from the gaping
wound.
The spider was unaware for a moment, and caught up in it's gory prize it was
unable to fly away. Doom fired a series of blasts to distract the larger
of the spiders, as he leaped for the one that held Kosta. Using a dense
energy blade from his gauntlets, he cut a wide gash into the thick plate
exoskeleton on the spider's underbelly. The creature screamed and took
off into the air at an incredible rate, leaving its intended meal but with Doom
still clinging to its side. Holding on with one hand he peeled back a large
section of the exoskeleton, exposing the pulsating innards. As the
spider reached to dislodge this potent adversary, Doom fired concentrated heat
blasts into the heart of the beast. Dying, the spider fell to the earth,
and Doom landed on his feet beside it.
Marcos and Uriel were back to back, standing alone against the remaining
two. The spiders towered above them as they parried blows from mouth and
leg with spear and club. As soon as Doom landed, he began his assault on
the larger spider. The big male immediately turned its attention to this
greater threat. It hissed as it struck at the armored man with a long
bony leg that whipped out from behind it with the velocity of a runaway freight
train. The appendage would surely have cleaved a lesser man in two, and it
appeared for a moment that it had done just that to Doom! The resourceful
gypsy had instead used the phasing power within his armor to momentarily make
his molecules intangible. The limb passed through his body and he
caught it between his hands on the other side, delivering a concussive blow
through his gauntlets that imploded the limb, spraying the company with green
slime. Enraged, the male spider turned on Doom and grabbed him with both
mandibles in a crushing, vicelike grip. Doom still held onto the sharp
talon from the spider's leg, and as the spider attempted to push Doom into its
mouth, Doom buried the claw deep into the spider's eyes. The coup de
grace was a
tightly focused electrical charge, conducted from Doom's gauntlet directly
through the severed limb and into the spider's brain. The creature
collapsed, releasing Doom, as its head exploded from within in a hail of
blue fire and brain matter.
The third spider screamed in rage as her mate fell, and struck wildly at Uriel
who was thrown to the ground with a badly cut arm. The spider did not
close in for the kill, for she sensed the danger as the armored one
approached. She chose to flee, and screamed as she went, pelted by laser
blasts from Doom's armor. The energy beams burned the outer skin, but
bounced without much effect off of that hard spinal plate on her back.
She was out of range in moments, disappearing into the darkness as the sky
began to show the first signs of the new day.
On the ledge above the battleground, the two Crow warriors had also disappeared.
Gone into the desert without a sound or a trace.
On the battleground, two dead spiders began to settle into the dust.
Kosta was dead. Uriel was badly wounded. One skirmish, one day of their
journey behind them. This was a bad sign, Doom thought as he watched the
first few fingers of dawn brighten the sky. His armor's weapons systems
had proved to be a poor match for the alien biology that Herod had loosed
upon this world Marcos at least was unscathed, tending to Uriel's
wound with a ragged bandage. But Doom felt the first faint buzzing
of a warning in his armor's systems. Something had happened when that
alien limb had passed through his body. If he could stop and do a
system-wide diagnostic he was sure he could eradicate the problem. No
time for that now. No place, stranded as they were in this untamed
wilderness. He felt a slight nausea, an unpleasant churning in his gut,
then promptly ignored it. Hunger, probably, and fatigue. That too,
would have to wait. They had many more miles yet to go.
END CHAPTER ONE
". . . I have Promises to keep,
And miles to go before I Sleep."
Robert Frost
"Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening."
DS
April 9, 1996
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