Free Haven's Blight by James Axler Page A

with the jolt and red-eye. And with the women, they say, when they make landfall. Lotta men reckon a fast death with the Black Gang beats a slow death ashore.”
    “Cast in those terms,” Doc said, “the attraction of his employ becomes, at least, more readily comprehensible.”
    Randy nodded. Despite their circumstances, Ryan felt brief amusement. The black Tech-nomad himself was pretty plainspoken. But by and large the Tech-nomads were about the only people left on Earth who didn’t think Doc talked funny.
    “Looks as if the Black Joke is making for the inlet,” a voice called from midships as the Hope fully entered the river. “Pursuing.”
    Long Tom winced. “Great. Just what we need. Even with the real storm about to land on us like as asteroid from fucking space.”
    “Thought you were the one pointed out this Black Mask slagger didn’t like to let go the trail of fat prey,” Ryan said.
    “Doesn’t mean I can’t hope,” Long Tom said.
    D ESPITE THE LASHING of wind and rain, Ryan stood in the bow of the New Hope at him. J.B. stood by his side, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. His hat was somehow crammed so hard down on his head the 60 mph winds couldn’t dislodge it. Their two other friends were inside the cabin.
    “You know, this is crazy, Ryan,” he said. Actually, he hollered. It was the only way to make himself heard. “You know, when nature gets too much for even Jak to handle, it’s probably time to pack it in.”
    “You head inside if you want to.”
    The Armorer lifted his face to the rain. Ryan wondered how he could see a blessed thing. Even if the rain didn’t totally obscure his glasses, the round lenses were fogged white as Jak’s hair.
    “Reckon I’ll stay with you a spell,” the little man said.
    This bayou wove a tangled skein of waterways, ever-changing—and never changing faster nor more decisively than when a brutal storm blew in off the Gulf. Ryan had hoped the surviving craft could power directly upriver, put some quick distance between them and the Gulf. Hurricane winds were bad, but water was the big killer.
    But they weren’t having that kind of luck. The channel here all but paralleled the coast; from time to time Ryan could see gray waves whipped frighteningly high by the storm through the trees. Sooner or later the water would rise and surge right over the trees at them. And what happened next he didn’t care to speculate about.
    “Anyway,” J.B. said, “could be worse.”
    “How do you reckon that?”
    “We could be out there in one a them little bicycle boats.”
    One of them had just appeared off the port bow, surging ahead of the New Hope along the landward bank. Normally the Hope ’s wind-augmented electric motors would drive her faster than the water-strider boaters could pedal. But they were moving against the current here. Like their namesakes, the little outrigger-equipped craft skimmed the water. The current bothered them lots less than the bigger ships, shallow draft though they were.
    The four surviving water-strider riders had all volunteered to go out despite the wind and the waves it drove up the bayou. They were hunting for some kind of side channel or passage that would allow New Hope and Snowy Egret to sail inland to a place offering better shelter.
    “Got that right,” Ryan said. “These Tech-nomads are triple weird, but they’ve got balls, got to give them that.”
    J.B. stiffened by his side. “Wait,” he said. “We’re comin’ up on the Egret ’s backside mighty quick.”
    Ryan looked. The Armorer was right. They were closing quickly on the yacht’s taffrail.
    “Shit,” he yelled. “They’re aground!”

Chapter Nine
    Tech-nomads swarmed around the grounded yacht like ants. Ryan and the companions stood in a group on a patch of ground high enough not to be boggy, although the way the rain was coming down the ground was getting soft anyway despite the roots of the tough grass that grew there holding it