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.She heard the water running, and she heard the toilet flush.She held her hands out before her and staredat her fingernails.Her lower lip was moist and tasted salty.The water kept running, from bellnote through bellnote, and she thought of her parents, but she was stillafraid to go and see.Albany to Boston.A couple hundred miles.He'd managed the worst of it.The terrors of DamnationAlley lay largely at his back now.Night.It flowed about him.The stars seemed brighter than usual.He'dmake it, the night seemed to say.He passed between hills.The road wasn't too bad.It wound between trees and high grasses.He passeda truck coming in his direction and dimmed his lights as it approached.It did the same.It must have been around midnight that he came to the crossroads, and the lights suddenly nailed himfrom two directions.He was bathed in perhaps thirty beams from the left and as many from the right.He pushed the accelerator to the floor, and he heard engine after engine coming to life somewhere at his Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlback.And he recognized the sounds.They were all of them bikes.They swung onto the road behind him.He could have opened fire.He could have braked and laid down a cloud of flame.It was obvious thatthey didn't know what they were chasing.He could have launched grenades.He refrained, however.It could have been him on the lead bike, he decided, all hot on hijack.He felt a certain sad kinship as hishand hovered above the fire control.Try to outrun them, first.His engine was open wide and roaring, but he couldn't take the bikes.When they began to fire, he knew that he'd have to retaliate.He couldn't risk their hitting a gas tank orblowing out his tires.Their first few shots had been in the nature of a warning.He couldn't risk another barrage.If only theyknew."The speaker!He cut it in and mashed the button and spoke: "Listen, cats," he said."All I got's medicine for the sickcitizens in Boston.Let me through or you'll hear the noise."A shot followed immediately, so he opened fire with the fifty-calibers to the rear.He saw them fall, but they kept firing.So he launched grenades.The firing lessened but didn't cease.So he hit the brakes, then the flamethrowers.He kept it up for fifteen seconds.There was silence.When the air cleared, he studied the screens.They lay all over the road, their bikes upset, their bodies fuming.Several were still seated, and they heldrifles and pointed them, and he shot them down.A few still moved, spasmodically, and he was about to drive on, when he saw one rise and take a fewstaggering steps and fall again.His hand hesitated on the gearshift.It was a girl.He thought about it for perhaps five seconds, then jumped down from the cab and ran toward her. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlAs he did, one man raised himself on an elbow and picked up a fallen rifle.Tanner shot him twice and kept running, pistol in hand.The girl was crawling toward a man whose face had been shot away.Other bodies twisted aboutTanner now, there on the road, in the glare of the tail beacons.Blood and black leather, the sounds ofmoaning, and the stench of burned flesh were all about him.When he got to the girl's side, she cursed him softly as he stopped.None of the blood about her seemed to be her own.He dragged her to her feet, and her eyes began to fill with tears.Everyone else was dead or dying, so Tanner picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the car.He reclined the passenger seat and put her into it, moving the weapons into the rear seat, out of herreach.Then he gunned the engine and moved forward.In the rearview screen he saw two figures rise to theirfeet, then fall again.She was a tall girl, with long, uncombed hair the color of dirt.She had a strong chin and a wide mouth,and there were dark circles under her eyes.A single faint line crossed her forehead, and she had all ofher teeth.The right side of her face was flushed, as if sunburned.Her left trouser leg was torn and dirty.He guessed that she'd caught the edge of his flame and fallen from her bike."You okay?" he asked when her sobbing had diminished to a moist sniffing sound."What's it to you?" she said, raising a hand to her cheek.Tanner shrugged."Just being friendly.""You killed most of my gang.""What would they have done to me?""They would have stomped you, mister, if it weren't for this fancy car of yours.""It ain't really mine," he said."It belongs to the nation of California.""This thing don't come from California.""The hell it don't.I drove it."She sat up straight then and began rubbing her leg.Tanner lit a cigarette."Give me a cigarette?" she said.He passed her the one he had lighted, lit himself another.As he handed it to her, her eyes rested on his Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmltattoo."What's that?""My name.""Hell?""Hell.""Where'd you get a name like that?""From my old man."They smoked awhile, then she said, "Why'd you run the Alley?""Because it was the only way I could get them to turn me loose.""From where?""The place with horizontal venetian blinds.I was doing time.""They let you go? Why?""Because of the big sick.I'm bringing in Haffikine antiserum.""You're Hell Tanner.""Huh?""Your last name's Tanner, ain't it?""That's right.Who told you?""I heard about you.Everybody thought you died in the Big Raid.""They were wrong.""What was it like?""I dunno.I was already wearing a zebra suit.That's why I'm still around [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.She heard the water running, and she heard the toilet flush.She held her hands out before her and staredat her fingernails.Her lower lip was moist and tasted salty.The water kept running, from bellnote through bellnote, and she thought of her parents, but she was stillafraid to go and see.Albany to Boston.A couple hundred miles.He'd managed the worst of it.The terrors of DamnationAlley lay largely at his back now.Night.It flowed about him.The stars seemed brighter than usual.He'dmake it, the night seemed to say.He passed between hills.The road wasn't too bad.It wound between trees and high grasses.He passeda truck coming in his direction and dimmed his lights as it approached.It did the same.It must have been around midnight that he came to the crossroads, and the lights suddenly nailed himfrom two directions.He was bathed in perhaps thirty beams from the left and as many from the right.He pushed the accelerator to the floor, and he heard engine after engine coming to life somewhere at his Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlback.And he recognized the sounds.They were all of them bikes.They swung onto the road behind him.He could have opened fire.He could have braked and laid down a cloud of flame.It was obvious thatthey didn't know what they were chasing.He could have launched grenades.He refrained, however.It could have been him on the lead bike, he decided, all hot on hijack.He felt a certain sad kinship as hishand hovered above the fire control.Try to outrun them, first.His engine was open wide and roaring, but he couldn't take the bikes.When they began to fire, he knew that he'd have to retaliate.He couldn't risk their hitting a gas tank orblowing out his tires.Their first few shots had been in the nature of a warning.He couldn't risk another barrage.If only theyknew."The speaker!He cut it in and mashed the button and spoke: "Listen, cats," he said."All I got's medicine for the sickcitizens in Boston.Let me through or you'll hear the noise."A shot followed immediately, so he opened fire with the fifty-calibers to the rear.He saw them fall, but they kept firing.So he launched grenades.The firing lessened but didn't cease.So he hit the brakes, then the flamethrowers.He kept it up for fifteen seconds.There was silence.When the air cleared, he studied the screens.They lay all over the road, their bikes upset, their bodies fuming.Several were still seated, and they heldrifles and pointed them, and he shot them down.A few still moved, spasmodically, and he was about to drive on, when he saw one rise and take a fewstaggering steps and fall again.His hand hesitated on the gearshift.It was a girl.He thought about it for perhaps five seconds, then jumped down from the cab and ran toward her. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlAs he did, one man raised himself on an elbow and picked up a fallen rifle.Tanner shot him twice and kept running, pistol in hand.The girl was crawling toward a man whose face had been shot away.Other bodies twisted aboutTanner now, there on the road, in the glare of the tail beacons.Blood and black leather, the sounds ofmoaning, and the stench of burned flesh were all about him.When he got to the girl's side, she cursed him softly as he stopped.None of the blood about her seemed to be her own.He dragged her to her feet, and her eyes began to fill with tears.Everyone else was dead or dying, so Tanner picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the car.He reclined the passenger seat and put her into it, moving the weapons into the rear seat, out of herreach.Then he gunned the engine and moved forward.In the rearview screen he saw two figures rise to theirfeet, then fall again.She was a tall girl, with long, uncombed hair the color of dirt.She had a strong chin and a wide mouth,and there were dark circles under her eyes.A single faint line crossed her forehead, and she had all ofher teeth.The right side of her face was flushed, as if sunburned.Her left trouser leg was torn and dirty.He guessed that she'd caught the edge of his flame and fallen from her bike."You okay?" he asked when her sobbing had diminished to a moist sniffing sound."What's it to you?" she said, raising a hand to her cheek.Tanner shrugged."Just being friendly.""You killed most of my gang.""What would they have done to me?""They would have stomped you, mister, if it weren't for this fancy car of yours.""It ain't really mine," he said."It belongs to the nation of California.""This thing don't come from California.""The hell it don't.I drove it."She sat up straight then and began rubbing her leg.Tanner lit a cigarette."Give me a cigarette?" she said.He passed her the one he had lighted, lit himself another.As he handed it to her, her eyes rested on his Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmltattoo."What's that?""My name.""Hell?""Hell.""Where'd you get a name like that?""From my old man."They smoked awhile, then she said, "Why'd you run the Alley?""Because it was the only way I could get them to turn me loose.""From where?""The place with horizontal venetian blinds.I was doing time.""They let you go? Why?""Because of the big sick.I'm bringing in Haffikine antiserum.""You're Hell Tanner.""Huh?""Your last name's Tanner, ain't it?""That's right.Who told you?""I heard about you.Everybody thought you died in the Big Raid.""They were wrong.""What was it like?""I dunno.I was already wearing a zebra suit.That's why I'm still around [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]