Страница 81 из 96
Lucania wasn't breathing.
For one gut-wrenching moment, Charlie didn't know what to do. Rescue breathing, his training whispered, when his brain couldn't formulate a plan of action.
He bent over her, got the baby onto her back. Charlie pressed sharply upward on her abdomen. Seawater trickled from her mouth. He tilted her head back, checked for obstructions in her throat, found none. He picked her up by the ankles and pounded her back hard enough she threw up seawater.
Breathe... Breathe, dammit! Please, Lucky, breathe... She stirred, then, under the pounding of his hand against her back; she coughed and threw up more seawater. Charlie pressed up under her ribcage, forcing the tiny diaphragm up against her lungs. The little girl coughed violently, then vomited yet more seawater. Then she drew in a shuddering gasp... and another... .
Charlie sank down beside her. He discovered his hands were shaking. Her eyelids fluttered open and she mewled, a baby sound without sense. Charlie snatched her to his aching chest and held her close. She stirred against him, hiccoughing a little, then put baby arms around his neck. Oh, honey....
He touched Lucania's ash-streaked hair, just sitting on the beach, not even thinking yet about what would happen when he was discovered with a damaged collar, a fugitive brand, and no master to speak for him. Bad as slavery to Decius would have been... there had been practical aspects to it.
He stared emptily at the sea. Three more deaths. Decius Martis had been a fair man. Charlie was sorry he and his little family had died so close to safety. Sorrier than he'd believed possible. Eventually he realized he couldn't just sit on the open beach all night. Volcanic bombs were dropping from black skies with frightening regularity. He needed to find shelter, some food for his child. Maybe, if Decius' body were recovered, the authorities would believe Charlie's story and spare his life... .
Charlie struggled down the beach toward town, dragging his bad leg awkwardly and straining to maintain his balance. Lucania gradually stopped crying against his scarred neck. Her head drooped. She stuffed a fist into her mouth and grew quiet. It was only then, as the adrenaline surge died away and left him almost too weary to move, that Charlie made a startling discovery.
Part of the numbing roar in the air was the ominous rumble of thunder. Charlie slowed his footsteps, tilted his head to stare up at the black sky. Ash and grit rained down onto his upturned face. Without conscious thought, he guarded Lucania's little head with one hand. Overhead the blackness which choked the air seemed to boil. Pink lightning flashed...
Pink lightning?
An abrupt, wild stab of hope tore at him, left his pulse shuddering as raggedly as it did after sex.
A time storm?
Lightning slammed into the beach eight feet away. Thunder stu
A sliver of white light opened out of thin air.
It was at least twenty feet away. Lightning blasted out of it, struck the sand and the waves, arced upward and outward into the clouds. Charlie stood immobilized and watched the white light grow larger. The unearthly blaze bathed Lucania's face with its u
Charlie's heart pounded so hard he couldn't hear anything else. His whole awareness shrank and centered on that crack through time itself. Wherever it led, it had to be better than a volcanic eruption in ancient Stabiae. Could he force his flagging body and crippled leg twenty feet across the sand before the portal disappeared again?
He cupped one hand behind Lucania's head, narrowed down his eyes against the hurtful brightness, and ran—
A familiar snarling sound roared out of the brilliance. Charlie yelled. A flash of metallic grill and glass impacted on his awareness.
Truck!
They were right in its path.
"What's that?" Joey asked.
Francisco stopped breathing. The cold gun muzzle remained locked against the back of his neck. Nelson's fingers stayed twisted through his hair, but Nelson didn't squeeze the trigger.
Rough ice underfoot had cut through Francisco's parka and uniform pants. Packed snow was red where his knees and his nose had bled into it. He knelt in the snow and shook while his executioners stared off into the distance. Don't let them shoot me first and go look later. Please, God, don't let them shoot first... .
A rumble of thunder allowed him to guess what they stared at.
"Nobody's due to come though, are they?" Nelson muttered. "You didn't mash the recall too soon, did you?" he asked Joey suspiciously.
"I haven't touched it! Jeez, Nelson, I'm not that stupid!"
"We better find out what's going on over there. I don't like this."
They seemed momentarily to have forgotten Francisco. He prayed with all his strength, hardly daring to hope. Nelson let go of his hair. Then pulled the gun barrel away from his neck. Francisco's breath shuddered out reflexively. Please...
Nelson paused a moment longer. "Bring the doc along, Joey. We'd better find out what this is before we do him. If it's trouble, we might need him again."
The bitter air seemed momentarily sweeter as Francisco drew it into his lungs. Tears froze against his eyelashes. Then Joey yanked him to his feet. He followed wordlessly on rubberized legs. The imprint of the steel gun muzzle lingered along the back of his neck. He had to scrub at his eyelids to wipe away the crust of ice that had formed.
I'm not out of this yet; it's just a reprieve... .
But he was still alive.
They set off across the ice field toward a lowering thunderstorm. Nelson led. Joey followed suspiciously behind Francisco. They were still two hundred yards away when the air split open with a deafening roar. A surge of glowing gas belched out of the rumbling sky. Incandescent gas and ash—the whole mass glowing brilliant yellow, even white—scalded at least a mile along the snow field, melting everything in its path.
All three of them dropped flat to the ice. Francisco shielded his face. He coughed as a stench of sulfur and other noxious fumes reached them. Joey began to swear monotonously. Nelson's vocabulary was more creative.
The explosion of hot gasses cut off abruptly as the now visible time portal shrank and closed. Nelson coughed and cautiously regained his feet. Joey followed, dragging Francisco. The snow was black a hundred yards away from the path of destruction. Francisco stooped curiously and gathered up a mittenful. It was ash. And pumice.
"What is it?" Joey asked suspiciously.
"Volcanic debris," Francisco said slowly. "Somebody punched open one of these crazy holes in time during a volcanic eruption."
Nelson began to swear. He ran forward.
What—?
"Bring the doc!" he yelled over his shoulder.
They ran after him, slipping and sliding across slushy black ice, until they hit steaming mud. Francisco saw movement out in the middle of the mess. Nelson had bent down across something alive. Dear God, something lived through that? Francisco caught a glimpse of something else moving, farther away, clear of the mud. A lone figure struggled to crawl farther away still.
He moved instinctively toward that person. The person who'd been caught squarely in the center of that blast might be alive, but not for long. Even the best medical care couldn't do much for a victim of that. Joey, however, hauled him back. Nelson was yelling for him.
They waded out into steaming muck. Nelson had crouched beside a dead horse and a horribly burned man. Nelson was practically gibbering.
"Keep him alive! It's Tony—oh, Christ, Carreras will have our heads if he dies—"