twenty feet long, eight feet wide. Their chains were pulled tight at feet and wrists so they were tightly pulled down against the rock, unable to move.
“Now watch—watch and remember what happens to any who dare betray Amun,” Killov bellowed into the mike, his eyes growing bright with the anticipation of pain. In fact, the twelve had committed relatively minor infractions—stealing bread or a pair of shoes, being several hours late for guard duty. But Killov allowed no mistakes, not one. And these would be far more useful to him as examples of his iron rule than their meager lives were worth otherwise.
He turned his hand, holding the glowing anti-grav stick, and the three slabs over his head spun slowly away from him and right over the long sacrifice stone on which the sputtering and crying men were chained down.
“Oh, Sun God, we send more souls into your burning mouth,” Killov intoned, and he lowered his hand. He moved slowly, not wanting it to be over too fast, and the three immense slabs dropped down an inch at a time as if on invisible pulleys. They reached the flesh of the men, and then slowly, terribly slowly, Killov lowered them further. There was a sudden chorus of terrible screams that even the highest on the hills could hear. Sounds that covered them with gooseflesh. And as they watched the slabs grind inexorably down on the chained victims, a wall of blood shot out from the sides of the rock-sandwich. Under such high pressure it gushed out a good twenty feet in every direction in a red waterfall spray. Killov pressed the huge rocks down even further so they touched against the slab, and then he turned them back and forth like a man squashing an ant beneath his boots.
He let them rest there silently for a few seconds, and there wasn’t a sound anywhere. Then he raised them up again, their undersides covered with blood. The nomad masses looked down breathlessly at the mess that was left behind. It was no longer recognizable as human. It was no longer recognizable as much of anything, really, beyond a tangled mess of red organs crushed like pudding dripping, and skulls and bones smashed into a wet dust. Nothing remained of the men who had disobeyed Him.
Killov raised his hand again, and now the killing rocks rose up over his head and began spinning like tops, spraying out the blood in a circle around him. Spinning like meteors, like red nightmares that would go into the dreams of all the men who had just witnessed the carnage created by Killov’s very special weapon.
“Bow to Amun, swear to Amun,” Killov bellowed out over his throat mike. “Swear your devotion, your allegiance, your willingness to die in his crushing army. Swear!”
“We swear our lives to Amun,” the masses screamed out as one. Screamed out again and again, and bowed and prayed that he would not smite them. Killov smiled the frozen smile of a skull beneath his golden crown, and he smoothed his red-splattered finery. All the while, the three huge rocks spun just above him like the crushing fists of the ancient gods.
Eleven
A merica was a checkerboard of ugliness and beauty in ever-changing proportions from the air. Rock and his strike team flew across country in the MIG X7 trying to cloud-hop, so as to avoid radar detection. The Freefighters stared out the window in fascination as their great and wounded land whizzed below them. In some places there were just miles of seared black land, sometimes the color of charcoal, filled with craters. Vast wastelands of rad-death.
Because of N-Day, it was all dead, nothing growing even after more than a century.
Yet in other spots, America was beautiful, lush, filled with soothing greens and blues, the colors of the living earth, not of the dead one. The men’s pupils alternately opened and closed as they passed over the different areas. Clearly the planet Earth was trying to heal itself, was trying to grow back in the many spots that had been nuked, burned, raped, mutilated. But it
“Now watch—watch and remember what happens to any who dare betray Amun,” Killov bellowed into the mike, his eyes growing bright with the anticipation of pain. In fact, the twelve had committed relatively minor infractions—stealing bread or a pair of shoes, being several hours late for guard duty. But Killov allowed no mistakes, not one. And these would be far more useful to him as examples of his iron rule than their meager lives were worth otherwise.
He turned his hand, holding the glowing anti-grav stick, and the three slabs over his head spun slowly away from him and right over the long sacrifice stone on which the sputtering and crying men were chained down.
“Oh, Sun God, we send more souls into your burning mouth,” Killov intoned, and he lowered his hand. He moved slowly, not wanting it to be over too fast, and the three immense slabs dropped down an inch at a time as if on invisible pulleys. They reached the flesh of the men, and then slowly, terribly slowly, Killov lowered them further. There was a sudden chorus of terrible screams that even the highest on the hills could hear. Sounds that covered them with gooseflesh. And as they watched the slabs grind inexorably down on the chained victims, a wall of blood shot out from the sides of the rock-sandwich. Under such high pressure it gushed out a good twenty feet in every direction in a red waterfall spray. Killov pressed the huge rocks down even further so they touched against the slab, and then he turned them back and forth like a man squashing an ant beneath his boots.
He let them rest there silently for a few seconds, and there wasn’t a sound anywhere. Then he raised them up again, their undersides covered with blood. The nomad masses looked down breathlessly at the mess that was left behind. It was no longer recognizable as human. It was no longer recognizable as much of anything, really, beyond a tangled mess of red organs crushed like pudding dripping, and skulls and bones smashed into a wet dust. Nothing remained of the men who had disobeyed Him.
Killov raised his hand again, and now the killing rocks rose up over his head and began spinning like tops, spraying out the blood in a circle around him. Spinning like meteors, like red nightmares that would go into the dreams of all the men who had just witnessed the carnage created by Killov’s very special weapon.
“Bow to Amun, swear to Amun,” Killov bellowed out over his throat mike. “Swear your devotion, your allegiance, your willingness to die in his crushing army. Swear!”
“We swear our lives to Amun,” the masses screamed out as one. Screamed out again and again, and bowed and prayed that he would not smite them. Killov smiled the frozen smile of a skull beneath his golden crown, and he smoothed his red-splattered finery. All the while, the three huge rocks spun just above him like the crushing fists of the ancient gods.
Eleven
A merica was a checkerboard of ugliness and beauty in ever-changing proportions from the air. Rock and his strike team flew across country in the MIG X7 trying to cloud-hop, so as to avoid radar detection. The Freefighters stared out the window in fascination as their great and wounded land whizzed below them. In some places there were just miles of seared black land, sometimes the color of charcoal, filled with craters. Vast wastelands of rad-death.
Because of N-Day, it was all dead, nothing growing even after more than a century.
Yet in other spots, America was beautiful, lush, filled with soothing greens and blues, the colors of the living earth, not of the dead one. The men’s pupils alternately opened and closed as they passed over the different areas. Clearly the planet Earth was trying to heal itself, was trying to grow back in the many spots that had been nuked, burned, raped, mutilated. But it
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