James Axler: Dectra Chain

"My head is still in space," replied Man Whose Eyes See More. "I will be pleased when it catches up with the other parts of me."

"Doc's still out cold," Krysty put in. "He takes it harder than the rest of us."

Doc Tanner was the last member of the group, someone whom the shaman found disturbing. Normally his seeing power enabled him to weigh up strangers, but not the gray-haired, skinny old man in the green-mottled frock coat and cracked knee boots. When Man Whose Eyes See More talked with Doc, he had the feeling that he was seeing a misty, unreal person. He had refused to allow Doc to carry an Indian name, and the old man hadn't seemed unduly surprised. From hints dropped by the others, the shaman suspected that Doc Tanner had come, somehow, from another time.

And, of course, the Apache was right.

Dr. Theophihis Algernon Tanner had been born in South Strafford, Vermont, on the fourteenth day of February in the year of our Lord 1868. Married, the father of two young children, a leading scientist of his time, Doc had been "trawled" forward to the year 1998. He was the first and, as far as he knew, the only successful subject of a time-travel experiment, which was a part of the infamous Cerberus Project.

Because he had caused the twentieth-century scientists such trouble, they used him once more as the unwilling subject for an experiment. This time they sent him forward to the bleak scenario of Deathlands, nearly a hundred years in the future. By a fluke of good or bad luck Doc was chron-jumped only a couple of weeks before the fire and light that swept so much of the United States clean of life and living. He had been rescued by Ryan Cawdor from the ville of Mocsin, up in the Darks, saved from Baron Jordan Teague and his supremely evil sec boss, Cort Strasser.

In recent bloody fighting, with Ryan and his companions siding with Man Whose Eyes See More and the Mescalero against killers in cavalry uniforms, the wheel had come full circle. The gang of butchers had been led by Cort Strasser.

Gradually all seven within the glass-walled chamber managed to struggle to their feet. Doc was the last to come around, helped up by Lori on one side and young Jak on the other. He was coughing and gasping, doubled over.

"By the three Kennedys! I fear that I am too far I gone in years to relish this mat-trans jumping. The blackness grows ever deeper, and my heart sinks when I think of all the jumps to come."

"Mebbe there won't be any more jumps, Doc," Ryan suggested, running a finger around the collar of his long, fur-trimmed coat.

"Sure," Krysty added. "And this might be the very place in all the Deathlands where we can find what we're looking for, a place, mebbe, with a future."

"Maybe pigs fly, was what Father said." Jak grinned.

"How d'you feel, Man Whose Eyes See More?" J.B. asked, automatically checking the action on his mini-Uzi, cocking the Steyr AUG handblaster that he wore in a holster on his hip.

The shaman noticed that each member of the group was taking out their armory of weapons, doing so with a casual, professional ease that told much of how they had all survived so long.

The albino boy hefted his cannon, which looked too big for him to even hold. Lori, on the other hand, was reloading a delicate little Walther PPK .22 with polished pearl handles.

Ryan favored a SIG-Sauer P-226 9 mm pistol with a built-in baffle silencer that fired fifteen rounds.

Slung across his shoulders was a gun like nothing Man Whose Eyes See More had ever seen before. It was a pale gray rectangular automatic rifle. Jak had told him that it was a Heckler & Koch G-12.

Doc was the only one of the group who carried a gun that most of the Apaches would have recognized. It was a monstrously heavy and outdated blaster, called a Le Mat, a conventional revolver that fired nine rounds of .36 ammo. But there was also a second barrel that could be used to fire a single round of .63-caliber scattergun ball, like a sawed-off shotgun. Doc told the shaman that the gun was "just about as old as me, son. About as old as me."

Man Whose Eyes See More realized that he had allowed his thoughts to drift as he stared around at the weaponry of his six new friends.

"Sorry, J.B., what did you ask me? My mind was elsewhere."

The Armorer adjusted his fedora. "Asked how you were feeling, Man Whose Eyes See More."

Ryan stepped toward the door to the mat-trans chamber, then paused. "Man Whose Eyes See More?"

"Yes, Ryan?"

"Your name."

"It is the one given me because I have the power that..."

"I know, I know. Just that it's too long to say. If we're in a firefight, and I want you to cover me, by the time I shout your name, I'm likely dead meat."

"I don't..."

"We've all got short names. Ryan, Jak, J.B., Doc, Lori, Krysty and... Man Whose Eyes See More. We can't call you 'Man'... it'd be confusing."

"Don't have other name?" Jak asked, rubbing his finger across the side of his nose.

"No," the tall Indian replied.

"Must be a name you'd like to be called," Krysty suggested, "Some special reason for a name. Know what I mean?"

"I know what you... There is a name, but you would think me foolish." He shuffled his bare feet on the cool metal disks, looking down in embarrassment.

Ryan laughed. "You want to ride with us, brother, then you learn not to feel bad about anything. Tell us. If we laugh, then we laugh. That's all."

"It won't signify," Doc said kindly, baring his excellent front teeth in a rather frightening smile.

"Well... We had an antique ceedee player in the rancheria. I don't know where it came from but it was old, years before my time. And there was music. One that was my favorite."

"Go on," Lori prompted. "We gotten lotsa ceedees in our redoubt. Keeper's favorite was Barry someone. I doesn't remember. I liked Scum Legion and old Brucey. What did you like?"

"They were very old, I think. Brothers. I played their disk over and over until I knew all their songs. Such harmonies that even White Painted Woman could not imagine."

Doc pointed a gnarled finger at the Apache. "I know them. Two brothers from Kentucky. Can't rightly recall..."

"The Everly Brothers," the shaman said, with an almost reverential awe.

"You want to be called 'Everly,' do you?" Ryan asked. "That's almost as long as your real name."

"No. I have always loved their given first names. They were called Don and Phil. But it runs together as one name. Donfil. Like that. If you don't think it's too foolish then..."

"Fine with me," Ryan said, looking around at the other six. "No objections, I guess?"

Jak walked over to the Indian and reached up to shake his hand. "Welcome to Deathlands Six, Donfil More."

Krysty laughed. "Course. He has to have a second name. Man Whose Eyes See More. More. Donfil More."

So it was.

Ryan sometimes wondered how many gateways were scattered throughout what remained of the old United States of America. He knew from his travels with the Trader that some regions were gone forever, mainly along the earthquake-flawed West Coast, with the whole of Baja California sliding into the lapping Pacific. Over the years their explorations had revealed many of the redoubts, some of which held the secret chambers locked within them. But without the uniquely specialized knowledge of Doc Tanner, their mysteries would never have been solved.

Even now, to use them for making a journey along the invisible waves of the mat-trans chain was to risk life. Even Doc didn't know the codes that were needed to control destinations. All that could be done was to enter the chamber and trigger the mechanism by closing the door.

A number of the gateways had to have been totally destroyed or vandalized over the past century, and Ryan's first fears had been that the group might materialize in the suffocating center of some fallen mountain, or a mile beneath the unforgiving sea. Now he had come to hope that the devices somehow resisted sending a person to any gateway that wasn't still functioning adequately.