"Axler, James - Deathlands 021 - Twilight Children - Laurence James 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Axler James)

Nobody corrected his language, all of them looking at the bizarre insect that he held, trembling in the palm of his hand.

It was an inch and a half long, its narrow body a dull gold color. There were four sets of filmy gray wings, and its head had six separate eyes, like tiny orbs of polished copper. At the end of its tapering tail there was a sting, grossly out of proportion to its overall length.

"Like a scorpion," J.B. stated, examining it carefully. "Hooked and barbed."

Krysty peered at the boy's face, where a nasty lump was already swelling. "Keep an eye on that, Dean."

"Don't think it had much chance to squirt its poison in before I got it. Hurts like a bastard, though."

He tipped it off his hand onto the shale at his feet and crushed it under his heel.

"The whole atmosphere is redolent of despair." Doc looked around at the misty wasteland. "For once I

would like my voice heard on behalf of making a jump again immediately. I have not been an eager apostle for this, but-"

Ryan held up a hand. "Sorry, Doc. But there's something triple-weird here. That gateway looked like it had been thrown together. No redoubt. Open to anyone passing through. Now we can't find any way of even knowing where we are. So, I figure we should explore a little."

The old man shook his head. "I do see the gist of your thinking, my dear fellow. No doubt the rest of our little party agrees with you." He looked at the others. "Well, nobody disagrees with you. Come, then, let us leave this peak in Darien and venture into this slough of despond."

Ryan felt more uneasy than he had for a very long time. The short hairs at his nape were prickling.

But, apart from the undoubted dreariness of the region, there didn't seem any immediate danger.

"Let's go look," he said.

Chapter Three

"This air's so rotten it makes you feel tired." Krysty was second in their skirmish line, with Dean following close behind her. "It seems like a part of the planet that Gaia must've overlooked."

As usual, the rest of the group was strung out, with J.B. bringing up the rear, the 20-round, 9 mm Uzi held loosely in his hands.

By the time they'd descended about one hundred and fifty feet, they found themselves in one of the swirling banks of fog. It was puzzling the way the banks of cloud kept moving around them, as there wasn't a breath of wind.

The stones were soft and crumbled beneath their feet, making progress unsteady and dangerous. At no point was the man-made track wider than a dozen feet, and there was no way of guessing the deeps that lay to their left. Dean had thrown a fist-size stone over and listened for its fall. But all they heard was what sounded like a human cry of pain, which wasn't repeated.

Once they were within the acrid mist, visibility was down to fifteen or twenty feet.

Ryan told everyone to close up and keep on triple-red alert, knowing from previous experience that muties loved to attack from the heart of fog or darkness.

There was still little or no sign of life around.

But Mildred pointed out that there were little tufts of sickly yellowish sedge growing in some of the cracks between the moldering stones.

The canyons were so deeply blighted that Ryan twice checked his rad counter, tapping it with his forefinger in case it was malfunctioning.

But it remained stubbornly in the safe, green level, showing no inclination to move toward yellow or orange, which meant there was no residual danger from the nuking.

J.B. was thinking along the same lines. "Nearest thing to a hot spot I ever saw," he called, his voice muffled and flattened by the damp fog.