Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

 

"You have all this land just for hunting?" Ryan couldn't conceal his amazement.

 

"It is only a few thousand acres." Mashashige had become defensive.

 

"But you keep telling us how bad your problems are of overcrowding."

 

"True."

 

"And everything's all crowded together. All the filthy air and pollution. Yet you have miles and miles of untouched parkland and woodland."

 

The shogun nodded. "This land is my land."

 

" 'From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters,' " Doc quoted.

 

"Why not let some of the peasants who live in your slums into this territory?"

 

The shogun shook his head, showing surprising emotion at the pressure from his guest. "This is not our way. My family has always held this land. We had more, but bad quakes have sent much into the sea."

 

Krysty pointed an accusing finger at him. "You seem a good man, Mashashige. Got some problems from the way you have to live. But it feels like your heart's in the right place. You care some about your people."

 

"I do. I do care."

 

"Then open up this park."

 

There was coil upon coil of razor wire all around the perimeter of the hunting land, which lay to the east of the fortress. There were white porcelain conductors every fifty yards, and death's-head signs warning of high-voltage electric current powering through the lethal fence.

 

Mashashige stamped his bare foot in the dust. "I care much and I have plans that will give my people more land than they dream of in their in their dreams."

 

"How?" Ryan asked, sensing that the shogun was about to spill some interesting beans.

 

But Hideyoshi touched his master on the arm, whispering something out of the corner of his mouth.

 

The shogun regained control of himself, biting his lip, nodding to his third-in-command. "Thanks to you," he said quietly, "I had operated my mouth without first engaging the gears of my mind. Stupe of me."

 

"Go on," Ryan prompted, though he knew the moment had passed. "How you going to help your people get more land? Wouldn't be by using the gateways, would it?"

 

"Of course it would not." The mask was back in place again. "Now, let us get to hunting."

 

 

 

THE HUNT WAS TO BE carried out on foot.

 

Ryan and all his companions had risen shortly after dawn and breakfasted on coffee sub and sugary doughnuts, served with bowls of cream laced with nutmeg and cinnamon.

 

"What kind animals we going to hunt?" Jak asked.

 

Yashimoto was sitting farther down the long table with three or four of the other samurai. He looked up at the albino teenager's question.

 

"Since skydark there have not been many creatures left living alive here," he replied. "We have farms in factories for chickens and cattle. Very intensive. Some fish in sea, but some have growths and cancers and warts and cysts and weeping ulcers all over their flesh."

 

"We had noticed that all was not well with the denizens of Neptune's deeps," Doc said.

 

"So, if there's this shortage of animals, what are we going to be hunting?" J.B. asked.

 

Yashimoto laughed. "It will not be a hunt like you have ever seen."

 

 

 

IN ADDITION TO the samurai and the shogun, they were accompanied by eighteen of the older surviving sec men, all carrying both rifles and pistols.

 

The outlanders had their weapons with them, including the Armorer's scattergun and Ryan's Steyr rifle.

 

Mashashige was, as usual, barefoot and clad in the simple black kimono, carrying just the unornamented sword. His samurai had mostly elected to wear their full armor. It was a scorchingly hot day, and they had all chosen to leave their helmets behind.

 

Hideyoshi was wearing a red-and-white baseball cap tipped back on his head, which he handled as though it were a religious relic. It carried the slogan "San Francisco 49ersSuperbowl Champions 2000."

 

They entered the hunting domain through a tall gate of barbed wire, guarded by half a dozen sec men. As soon as the hunting party was inside, the gate clanged shut.

 

"This is called Jurassic Park," Mashashige said.

 

"Why?" Ryan asked.

 

The shogun hesitated. "I do not know, Cawdor-san. I think it was once a famous place in old America." He looked at the rest of the foreigners. "Does any person know?"

 

Mildred put up a hand. "Movie," she said.

 

 

 

"BE A HELP if we had some idea what kind of prey we're after," Ryan said.

 

Hideyoshi smiled his crooked smile. "You will see what you will see."

 

"But are we looking in the trees or in the streams or the valleys? Big or little?"

 

The samurai patted him on the arm. "Yes to every of those. Up and down and around about."

 

"We seek it here, we seek it there," Doc intoned. "We seek our quarry everywhere. Is it in Heaven or is it in Hell, that demned elusive" His eyes narrowed and he scratched his head. "I fear that I have forgotten what it was that was so demned elusive."

 

"We staying together for this hunt?" Ryan asked. "Or do we get to split up?"

 

"Together," Hideyoshi replied. "Or there could be much danger from beasts."

 

"You mean beasts like Yashimoto over there?" Ryan grinned at the samurai. "Just joking. Of course."

 

Again the scarred smile. "I understand, Cawdor-san. Understand joke. Of course."

 

 

 

THE BRIGHT SUN was glinting off something running across the far hillside, dipping down into the valley ahead of them. "Looks like rail lines," J.B. said.

 

A quarter-hour later, having still seen no sign of any kind of wildlife, they reached the remains of a set of double rails, finding them buckled and twisted by one of the frequent quakes that had ravaged old Japan.

 

"Look there," Jak said, pointing with a long white finger. "Locomotive, halfway in tunnel."

 

"Handsome." Ryan leaned on the butt of the rifle and admired the train. It was covered in patches of rust, its silver flanks marked by a hundred years of rain and bad weather. The front was round and tapered, like a missile.

 

"If I remember, they were called bullet trains," Doc said. "They were the fastest locomotives in the world. Around two hundred miles an hour, I believe."

 

"Two hundred!" Ryan exclaimed. "Come off it, Doc. Nothing but planes could go that fast."

 

"Not so. Racing motorcars went faster than that."

 

Ryan laughed. "Times that your brain gets more addled than month-old milk, Doc."

 

"No, I do assure you, my dear fellow. Bullet trains. Two hundred miles an hour."

 

Ryan glanced at the Armorer, who pushed back his fedora and tapped his forehead. Mildred saw the gesture and snapped at the two old friends. "Because you got areas of ignorance bigger than a rutting hog, it doesn't mean that you can disbelieve things you know nothing about. And because Doc can be a doddering old fart some of the time, that doesn't mean he's not also right some of the time. Japanese bullet trains, like that one rotting away there, went two hundred miles an hour. All right?"

 

Ryan shuffled his feet. "Sure, sure, if you say so, Mildred. Sure."

 

"Not because I say so. Or because Doc says so. Just because it was so, Ryan!"

 

Doc saluted her with his swordstick. "We thank you for your kindness and courtesy, my dear Dr. Wyeth. Uncommon, but none the less welcome."

 

 

 

A MUTIE HERON, with enormous pink wings eighteen or twenty feet across, flapped toward them over a grove of thorn bushes. Ryan cocked the rifle and brought it up to his shoulder, but Mashashige called out a warning to him.

 

"This is not to be hunted, gaijin ."

 

Ryan eased down the hammer and slung the Steyr over his shoulder. "Then what do we shoot?"

 

Yashimoto waved a finger at Ryan. "Patience is a virtue linked with honor. I am not surprised that you lack the one as you also lack the other."

 

Hideyoshi gestured ahead of them with his sword. "Beyond temple you see. There hunting will begin."

 

"You guarantee that?"

 

"Of course, Cawdor-san."

 

 

 

THEY PASSED the tumbled stones of the ruined temple, containing a small bronze statue of a cloven-footed faun clutching a set of pipes. Like the relic of the train, a century of extremes of weather had taken its toll, and it was stained green, one arm split open by the frosts.

 

"Now we see animals to hunt," Hideyoshi said, reaching out for one of the 7.62 mm NATO blasters, a 20-round mag and a bipod for prone shooting.

 

"How can he be so sure?" Krysty whispered.

 

"You feel anything?" Ryan asked.

 

She sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Air quality's a bit better up here. A bit. Feel anything? Not really. Nothing out of the ordinary."

 

"There!" Hideyoshi called. "They come."

 

Ryan had heard a strange clicking noise, like bolts being opened or locks clicking back, and he saw a couple of the sec men scurrying away to the right, a hundred yards ahead of them, trying to keep low under the cover of the bushes.

 

And he saw their prey.

 

In Deathlands you always watched out for creatures that had been mutated by generations of radiation sickness. That meant changes in appearance, sometimes subtle and sometimes totally gross. Also, it often meant changes in size, which generally seemed to mean muties were bigger and more dangerous.

 

The animals that scampered from the long grass looked like wild boars, but they were less than ten inches in height, with tiny curling tusks and button-bright little eyes, their hooves twinkling across the dry earth.

 

"Shoot them!" Mashashige called, waving his long sword above his head.

 

There was a crackle of fire, and the ground erupted into fountains of dust and torn turf, all around the herd of tiny wild pigs. Several were hit, blown apart by the powerful ammunition of the sec men.

 

Ryan had unslung his Steyr again, but he held his fire, unwilling to take part in a massacre. None of the outlanders shot at the miniature boars.

 

The standard of marksmanship of the Japanese was amazingly poor, considering the ever-shortening range! and the large number of little animals. There were still about a dozen of them alive, squeaking excitedly, dodging and weaving through the hail of lead. The nearest of them was closing fast, less than thirty yards from Ryan.

 

"Take part in sport, gaijin !" Yashimoto yelled, his face flushed, a thread of spittle dribbling from his distorted mouth.

 

"Unsporting," Doc grunted.

 

There was another round of shooting, but the creatures were now so close that the bullets were more of a threat to the huntsmen. The nearest of them was crying out like a baby, a long weal from a bullet graze seeping blood through its delicate golden fur.

 

It headed straight for Ryan.

 

Yashimoto swung the rifle around, dangerously close to the one-eyed man, who responded calmly by leveling the SIG-Sauer at the head of the samurai.

 

"No careless mistakes," Ryan grated, and Yashimoto looked away, dropping the muzzle of the blaster.

 

The terrified little boar reached Ryan and rubbed itself against his leg, cowering and trembling. He stooped and patted it, his fingers brushing the wickedly curved tusks.

 

It wasn't that much of a surprise to find that they were made of pliable plastic, stapled to the sides of the wretched animal's skull.

 

The odd business of the sound of bolts and the lurking sec men all made sense now.

 

"They were trapped," Ryan said, straightening and looking at Mashashige. "Poor little bastards that you caught or bred and tried to make them look dangerous. About as dangerous as a field mouse! Then your men let them go so you could blast them to hell and back and call it sport!"

 

"We have no natural animals here," the shogun said. "It was best we can do."

 

"Well, it was a long way shy of being good enough," Ryan said, kneeling to pat the little animal. Several of the surviving mutie creatures had flocked to the foreigners, rubbing against their legs, making a strange, contented purring noise.

 

"If you move out of way, we can finish the hunting," Hideyoshi said.

 

Mildred had her hand on the butt of the ZKR 551, her gaze narrowed with anger. "First man touches the trigger of his blaster gets a .38 smack through the middle of his forehead," she warned, her voice as cold as pack-ice.

 

"They are born to die," the shogun said, shaking his head in bewilderment. "Their lives are not worth a grain of dust. Better they die as they are meant to."

 

"Like I said, first man harms one of them gets to be lying on his back looking at the sky."

 

As she spoke, Mildred gazed around, realizing that the bright sun had vanished, as though a black cloud had passed over its face.

 

Ryan also looked up, followed by all of the others, at the unnatural darkness that had come sweeping in over the hunting park.

 

"Fireblast!" he whispered.

 

It was like watching a giant's fist, clenched and angry, sweeping its way across the summery sky. The sun had vanished, and an unnatural stillness had fallen over the land. Not a breath of wind touched the feathery top branches of the trees.

 

Yet the cloud was swooping fast toward them, seeming to possess a seething, malignant life of its own.

 

The little piglets cowered and whimpered, bellies against the dirt.

 

"The plague of death," Mashashige whispered, his face ashen. "Plague of death."