The Omega Terror

TWELVE

For the first hour there was no sight of the van Zeno had been driving. There were only the fresh tire tracks he left behind. Zeno was heading southeast from Mhamid, into the desert.

Sometime during the second hour I got a glimpse of the van, raking up a great cloud of dust behind it. After that glimpse, I lost the van again for over a half hour, but I suddenly came upon it sitting in the middle of a broad, parched area of sand and scrub brush, just beside a head-high rock outcropping. One tire was fiat. I stopped the Land Hover, cut the engine, and climbed out. I squinted at the van, wondering where Zeno might be. Drawing Wilhelmina, I moved to the van and looked inside. Zeno was nowhere about. The keys were still in the ignition. I looked at the ground around the van and saw the tracks leading straight ahead, in the direction he’d been driving. Zeno had to be pretty desperate to start walking in this country. I leaned into the van again to remove the keys from the ignition. As I was leaning down, I heard a sound behind me and felt the blow along the back of my head and neck. Pain exploded inside my head and then a black coolness swept over me as I hit the ground.

The sun was glaring harshly overhead when my eyelids fluttered open. For a minute I had no idea where I was. Then I looked up with blurry eyes and slowly remembered. I closed my eyes against the hot glare, turned my head slightly, and felt excruciating pain at the base of my skull.

I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to think. Zeno had ambushed me beautifully. He probably thought the blow had killed me. Otherwise he’d have taken my gun and shot me.

I opened my eyes again, and the glare from that white-hot orb was painful. The Land Rover was gone, naturally. I sat up and grunted aloud as the pain clawed through my head and neck. A hammer was pounding at the inside of my skull. I rose agonizingly to my knees and tried to stand but fell against the side of the van and almost went down again. I was seeing two of everything.

I stumbled to the door of the van and looked inside. Despite my poor vision. I could see that Zeno had taken the keys. The hood of the vehicle had been raised. I stumbled clumsily to it, looked under and found that the distributor wires were gone. Zeno hadn’t done any of this for me, since he thought I was dead. He just didn’t want the natives stumbling onto the scene and driving the van into Mhamid, where it would be connected with the laboratory.

I leaned heavily on the fender of the vehicle. Nausea welled up in my gut for a moment and dizziness came over me. I waited, breathing hard, hoping it would pass. Those damned tracks leading away from the van. Zeno had been clever. He had walked in a big circle, come back behind the rock outcropping, and waited there for me with a tire iron or jack. I had been stupid.

The dizziness subsided. I looked in the direction Zeno and I had come from and wondered if I would ever be able to find my way back to the dirt track that served as a road, even if I found the strength to walk that far. But I had to try. I couldn’t stay here.

So I pushed myself from the van and started walking. The thing I wanted most was to lie down in the shade and rest and let the pain in my head and neck subside. Better yet would be a week in a hospital bed, with a pretty nurse. Maybe Gabrielle.

I put those thoughts from my mind and stumbled along unevenly, the pain ripping into me with every step. Sweat began running into my eyes from my forehead, and there was a dry, cotton taste in my mouth. I wondered how far it was to the road. I tried to reconstruct how much time had elapsed while I drove to this remote place after Zeno, but I could not focus my thoughts on anything because of the pain.

Suddenly the dizziness came again, and a blackness crowded around the periphery of my vision. There was a jarring bump against my head and chest, and I knew I had fallen. I groaned at the pain and lay there, making no effort to get up for a moment. It was so much better on the ground than on my feet. I could feel the sun like a fiat-iron on the back of my neck and could smell the sweat from my exhausted body. And I felt sorry for myself. I felt very sorry for myself, and I told myself that I was in no condition to go on, that I had earned a rest here.

But another part of me prodded. “Get up, Carter, damn you! Get up and move or you’ll die here.”

I knew that the voice was right. I listened to it, and I knew that what it said was true. If I could not get back up now, I would not get up at all. That sun would boil my brains in an hour.

Somehow I made it to my feet again. I looked down at the ground for a trace of the vehicle I had been following. There was nothing. I squinted and tried to focus, but could not. I moved ahead a few yards, then made a slow turning circle. Blurred vision or not, there were no car tracks anywhere near me. I had lost them.

I glanced up at the sun, and it was like looking through the open door of a forge oven. It was in a different direction from when I had started walking. Or was it? I couldn’t think. I closed my eyes and squinted. I had to remember. When I started walking, the sun had been on my right. Yes, I was sure of it.

I moved forward again. I wiped the sweat from my eyes, but that made them burn even more. My head was being pummeled from inside. I ran a leathery tongue over parched lips and realized that the desert sun had already dehydrated me more than I liked to think. I saw something moving on the ground and stopped short, almost falling again. It was a shadow. I looked up and saw a vulture up there, high above me, wheeling and turning silently.

I grunted and kept moving. I squinted at the sandy ground as I passed over it, hoping to see the tire tracks again. For a while I made an effort to keep the sun on my right, but then I drifted. I was thinking of Damon Zeno and how I had let him get me. I had destroyed the Omega Mutation, but with Zeno still on the loose he could start all over again somewhere else. That was why David Hawk had said to kill him if he would not come back as my prisoner.

My tongue was becoming thick as if I had a wool blanket in my mouth. The sweating wasn’t so bad, because I was dried out inside. Dust caked on my clothing on top of the dampness and on my face and in my eyes and ears. It clogged my nostrils. And my legs were becoming very rubbery. My mind wandered back to all those rows of cultures destined for Peking. And I was in that horrible ward, passing down the aisle between those rows of stricken faces.

My side thumped the ground again and brought me around. I had been moving forward on my feet, but in a daze. Now I had fallen once more. For the first time I felt the back of my head where Zeno had struck me, and there was caked blood drying there. I looked around and saw that I was on a hard pan of salt clay that seemed to extend endlessly in every direction. It was a bad place to be. A man would fry like an egg on a griddle here in no time at all. The entire area was parched bone-dry, and inch-wide cracks patterned the clay everywhere. There was no vegetation of any kind on the horizon. I had a fleeting memory of seeing the edge of this area earlier, but then the memory was gone. Another shadow passed overhead, and I looked into the serene inferno that was the sky and saw that there were two vultures up there now.

I tried to regain my feet but could not get past my knees this time. That, and the vultures, really scared me. I stayed on my knees, breathing hard, trying to think which way the road might be. The hard fact of the matter was I could wander around out here all afternoon, moving in circles like a beetle on a string, and end up where I had started. If only I could regain clear vision, that might help.

I began moving over the hot clay on my hands and knees, the clay burning my hands as I moved. The cracks in the clay made an intricate design on the surface of the flats, and the edges of the cracks cut my hands and knees. A short time later the vertigo came back, and the landscape was whirling around me in a giddy circle. I suddenly saw a flash of bright sky where the ground should have been and felt the now familiar shock of hitting the hard clay, this time on my back.

Four vultures. I swallowed and glanced back upward and counted again. Yes, four, their wings whispering on the still, hot air up there. A small shudder passed through me, and the realization slowly dawned. I was immobile for all practical purposes, and the vultures had found that out. They, not the sun, represented the most immediate threat. I slumped down on my back, too weak to hold my body up even slightly. The concussion and the blast-furnace heat had taken their toll.

I had seen vultures in East Africa. They could tear a gazelle to shreds in fifteen minutes, picking the bones clean in another fifteen, so that all that was left was a dark spot on the ground. The big birds had no fear of a live animal, even man, if that animal was disabled. And they had lousy table manners. They had no compunctions about starting their grisly meal before the animal was dead. If it could not fight back, it was ready for the picking. There were stories about vultures and disabled men from white hunters and African trackers that I would rather not have remembered. It was best, I had heard, to lie on your face after you became immobilized, but even then you were vulnerable, because they would attack the kidneys which was more painful than the eyes.

“Go away!” I yelled weakly at them.

They seemed not to hear. After the sound of my voice had died away, the desert appeared even more quiet. The silence was a buzzing in my ears, a sound itself. I let my head fall back onto the hard clay, and the double vision returned. I moaned aloud. It was only mid-afternoon, with several hours of scorching heat ahead before dusk came. I felt I would collapse long before that. And then the birds would get me. Very quickly.

I raised up on one elbow again. Maybe I had been walking in the wrong direction. Maybe I was putting more and more distance between myself and the road, removing any hope of rescue from a passing traveler. It was possible that every time I got up and moved I was moving closer to death.

No, I couldn’t think that way. It was too dangerous. I had to believe I was heading toward the road. Otherwise I would not have the courage, the will, to move at all.

I struggled again to my knees, my head feeling twice its size. I gritted my teeth and inched forward along the clay. I would not give up. I wondered briefly if Zeno had known I was not dead when he left me, but decided to let the desert do the killing. That would be typical of him. But to hell with Damon Zeno. I no longer cared about him. I no longer cared about the Omega Mutation. I wanted only to survive this day, to live.

Foot by foot I dragged myself along. I had little idea where I was headed. But it was important to keep moving, keep trying. I stumbled along, the hard clay burning and cutting me as I went, and I thought of Gabrielle. I thought of her in a dark, cool hotel room in Mhamid, lying on the big bed, naked. And then I was in the room with her, and I was moving over to the bed. Her arms embraced me, pulled me down beside her, and her flesh was cool and soft and scented like jasmine.

A short time later I found that I had passed out again. I was lying on my back, and the sun was broiling. Six vultures spiraled over me. I licked at dry, cracking lips and pushed myself up. But I did not have the strength to move. One of the vultures soared low and settled just a few yards away, making that stiff-legged goose-step at the end of the landing. Then another bird came down.

I yelled weakly at them, my heart pummeling the inside of my chest. The two birds made a couple of hops and in a dry, heavy rustling of feathers, lifted off again and joined their comrades aloft.

I lay back. I was wheezing hard, my pulse racing. I had run out of strength. I had to admit to myself that I had lost. Damon Zeno had gotten me. The sun and the birds would end it before another hour passed. I had no idea where I was, I could not see clearly for even a few yards. I suddenly thought of Wilhelmina for the first time and felt for its familiar shape in the holster at my side. It was not there. I had had it out when Zeno bushed me. He must have taken it. Even Hugo was gone. I had no weapon to use against the birds.

The vultures swooped lower and lower, floating and gliding, their bright, darting eyes eager and hungry. I rolled on my stomach and began crawling. With blood-smeared hands I crawled along like a snake, expending the last ounces of energy.

I was jolted to sudden consciousness by a sharp, tearing pain just under my left eye. I had passed out again and was lying on my back. My eyes shot open in terror, my hand coming up automatically in defense.

Two big vultures stood on my chest. The long scrawny necks, the obscene darting eyes, the hooked sharp beaks filled my field of vision, and their odor filled my nostrils. One vulture was jabbing and tearing at the leather of my holster strap, and the other had made its first stab at my eyes. The second bird was just about to make another try, when my hand came up. I yelled aloud and grabbed at the ugly neck.

The big bird screamed raucously and tried to get away. I hung on to the snakelike neck as the other vulture flailed its broad wings, scratching my chest as he pushed off. The one I held thrashed about wildly to free itself, beating its wings against my face, my chest, and arms and digging into me with its talons.

But I would not release that scrawny neck. I imagined the hideous head was Zeno’s, and through all the thrashing and the squawking, I managed slowly to get my other hand up and onto the neck, the sharp beak jabbing at the hand all the while and drawing blood. Then I rolled onto my side, pinned the bird to the ground and with a desperate surge of strength bent the long neck double. Something snapped inside, and I let go. The bird beat the clay with its wings for another couple of moments while the rank smell of it assailed my nostrils, and then it lay still.

I was sick from exhaustion. I thought for a moment I might throw up. But slowly the nausea subsided. I glanced around and saw the others. They were all on the ground now, some moving around me in a tight circle with that stiff-jointed neck-jerking walk, some just standing impatiently, watching.

I lay back, exhausted. A couple of them edged closer. I felt numbly under my left eye and there was a shallow gash there. My hand came away with blood on it. But the vulture had missed the eyeball.

I glanced at the dead bird with a small amount of satisfaction. They might get their grisly feast before the day was out, but I would make them work for the meal.

The other birds were now moving in slowly, their grotesque heads bobbing in quick, weird movements. They were excited by the smell of blood and very impatient.

I felt a sharp peck at my right leg and looked to see the bird standing beside me. The others were close too, inspecting the body for signs of life. Only one had been distracted by its dead companion. I was the meat they were waiting for. I swung weakly at the bird that had pecked me, and it fluttered backward a couple of feet.

Well, it would not be so bad after the first shock of pain. Men had died more terribly at the hands of L5 and the KGB. I could manage it, too. But I would not let them have my face. Not first anyway. I rolled heavily onto my chest and laid my face on my arm.

I lay there quietly, thinking of Zeno and my failure, and what that failure would mean. It appeared I would not be around to see the results. I listened to the rustle of feet and feathers growing louder as they closed in.