Night & Demons (73 page)

Screaming, Carter slammed the axe down on the traveler’s temple. The blade bit to the helve. Smith reached up with his right hand, tearing the staple from the flooring. He gripped the wood and it splintered as he drew the axe from where it was lodged in his bone. The Changling stood, his head flowing together like wax in a mold. His left wrist reformed as the rawhide lashing cut through it.

Sparks like shards of sunlight clawed through the high windows of the powerplant. That gush of light died. The siren began to wind, higher and higher. The motor of the van de Graff generator was speeding also, the current that drove it no longer controlled. The arcs were a constant white sheet between the bomb casings. Someone—two figures—crossed the bridge from the powerplant. The blue glow from the building backlighted them.

“Flee!” Smith cried, lifting to the crowd the scarred hand he had thrown up two centuries before to the flare of a hundred-megaton bomb. “Flee this abomination before it devours you—as it surely will, as it did the world before this world!”

Carter screamed again and struck with his riflebutt, hurling the Changling off the platform. Smith picked himself up. The guards backed away from him, their eyes wide, their cocked bows advanced as talismans and not threats.

The two figures on the bridge threw back their cloaks. The lapping arcs played across the half of Kozinski’s face and torso that was naked bone. The bare organs pulsed within, and his one eye darted like a black jewel. The Blast had sometimes preserved and had sometimes destroyed; this once it had done both in near equality.

Ssu-ma would have stood out without the artificial lightning. She had the same trim, beautiful figure as the girl she had been the night she stared into the sky above Lop Nor and saw dawn blaze three hours early. Now that figure shone blue, brighter even than the spreading fire that ate through the wall of the powerplant behind her.

The crowd was scattering toward homes and toward the river. No one approached the platform except the two Changlings walking toward their fellow.

The Chief drew up his revolver and snapped it three times, four, and at the fifth attempt an orange flash and the thump of a shot in the open air. Five of the Policemen were triggering their automatic weapons and tugging at the cocking pieces to spill misfired rounds on the platform. But the old guns could still fire. Shots slapped and tore at the night in short bursts that pattered over the flesh of the Changlings like raindrops on thick dust. And still they came, walking toward Smith and the platform.

Incredibly, the antitank rocket ignited when the sixth Policeman tugged its lanyard. In ignorance he was holding the tube against his shoulder like a conventional weapon. The back-blast burned away the man’s arm and chest in a ghastly simulacrum of Kozinski’s mutilation. The rocket corkscrewed but chance slammed it into Ssu-ma’s chest. The red blast momentarily covered the Changling’s own fell glow. Her body splattered like the pulp of a grapefruit struck by a maul. Simultaneously, the front wall of the powerplant tore apart, snuffing the arcs dancing madly between the bomb casings.

Then, evident in the sudden darkness, the bits of Ssu-ma’s glowing protoplasm began to draw together like droplets of mercury sliding in the bowl of a spoon. Her head had not been damaged. The waiting eyes smiled up at the platform.

Only Carter still stood before the casings. He had thrust the muzzle of his M16 into his mouth and was trying to fire the weapon with his outstretched finger. The round under the hammer misfired.

The powerplant exploded again, a gout of lava that loosened the hillside beneath it and sprayed the village. Wood and cloth began to burn in a pale imitation of what was happening across the creek. In slagging down, the reactor was fusing the rock and the hulls of the remaining bombs. Plutonium flowed white-hot with its own internal reactions, but it was spread too thin to self-trigger another Blast. The creek roared and boiled away as the rain of rock and metal spewed into it. The vapor that had been a plume over the powerplant was now a shroud to wrap the burning village.

“I hadn’t called you yet,” Smith said, shouting over the tumult as he clasped Kozinski’s hand with his own left hand. He extended his right to the smiling Ssu-ma.

“We heard the siren,” the Ruthenian said, his voice strange for coming from a mouth that was half bone . . . the half that had been turned away from the Strike which vaporized his infantry company, he had once explained.

“We could all tell they weren’t burning coal, couldn’t we?” Ssu-ma added.

The three travelers began groping through the night, through the smoke and the screaming. “I don’t think we’ve ever checked whether the Oconee plant was still operable,” Smith said. “It’d be a good time to see.”

Kozinski shrugged. “We ought to get back to England some time. It’s been too long since we were there.”

“No, there’s time for that,” Smith argued. “Nobody there is going to build a fission plant as long as there’s one man left to tell what we did when we found the one at Harewell.”

A pair of burning buildings lighted their path, sweeping the air clear with an angry updraft. Kozinski squinted, then reached out his hand to halt Ssu-ma. “Your birthmark,” he said, pointing to the star-shaped blotch beneath the girl’s left breast. “It used to be on the right side.”

She shrugged. “The rocket just now, I suppose.”

Kozinski frowned. “Don’t you see? If we can change at all, we can die someday.”

“Sure,” Smith agreed with a nod. “I’ve got some white hairs on my temples. My hair was solid brown the . . . when I went to New York.”

“We’ll live as long as the world needs us,” Ssu-ma said quietly, touching each of the men and guiding them onward toward the trail back through the mountains. The steam and the night wrapped them, muffled them. Through it her words came: “After all, what sort of men would there be in the world if it weren’t for men like us?”

And all three of them spoke the final line of the joke, their voices bright with remembered humor: “Men like us!”

A WORKING BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF DAVID DRAKE’S WRITING

by Karen Zimmerman, May 2012

David Drake sold his first story in 1966 and continues to write novels, short fiction, essays and other miscellaneous pieces. Although he is sometimes referred to as the “King of Military Science Fiction,” his fiction spans multiple genres. He claims to have written just about every subgenre except SF romance. This is a
working
bibliography, not a
complete
bibliography. This list does not include foreign imprints, and offers only a sampling of electronic text versions. The list continues to be updated at David’s official web site: http://david-drake.com. His web site also contains other pieces of his writing unavailable elsewhere, including his translations of Ovid, not included in this bibliography.

BOOKS

Active Measures.
1985, with J. Morris. Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Novel)

All the Way to the Gallows.
1996, Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Collection)

2004, Baenebooks.com.

The Anvil.
1993, with S. M. Stirling. Riverdale, NY: Baen.
The General Series
(Collaboration)

2003, In
Conqueror.
Riverdale, NY: Baen.

Arc Riders.
1995, with J. Morris. New York, NY: Warner Books.
Arc Riders Series
(Novel)

2009, Amazon.com Kindle eBook.

2009, Barnesandnoble.com Nook Book.

Arc Riders: The Fourth Rome.
1996, with J. Morris. New York, NY: Warner Books.
Arc Riders Series.
(Novel)

2009, Amazon.com Kindle eBook.

2009, Barnesandnoble.com Nook Book.

Armageddon.
1998, D. Drake, B. S. Mosiman and M. H. Greenberg, eds. Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Edited Anthology)

At Any Price.
1985, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Hammer’s Slammers Series
(Novel)

1998, In
The Butcher’s Bill
. Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2006, In
The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v. 2.
San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.

2006, In
The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v. 2.
New York, NY: SFBC.

2010, In
The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v. 2.
Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2011, Audible.com.

Balefires.
2007, Limited edition. (Includes “Complete Bibliography of David Drake’s Writing,” by Karen Zimmerman) San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books. (Collection)

2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.

2007, Baenebooks.com.

2009, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.

2012, In
Night & Demons
, Riverdale, NY: Baen Books. (with updated Bibliography)

Battlestation Book One.
1992, D. Drake and B. Fawcett, eds. New York, NY: Ace.
Battlestation Series
(Edited Anthology)

Battlestation Book Two: Vanguard.
1993, D. Drake and B. Fawcett, eds. New York, NY: Ace.
Battlestation Series
(Edited Anthology)

Battlestations.
2011, D. Drake and B. Fawcett, eds. Gaithersburg, MD: Prime Books.
Battlestation Series
(Edited Anthology) Includes
Battlestation Books One and Two
.

2011, Amazon.com Kindle eBook.

2011, Barnesandnoble.com Nook Book.

Belisarius I: Thunder at Dawn.
2008, with E. Flint. Riverdale, NY: Baen. $24.00.
Belisarius Series
(Collaboration) Includes
An Oblique Approach
and
In the Heart of Darkness.

2009, Baenebooks.com.

Belisarius II: Storm at Noontide.
2009, with E. Flint. Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Belisarius Series
(Collaboration) Includes
Destiny’s Shield
and
Fortune’s Stroke.

2009, with E. Flint. Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2009, Baenebooks.com.

Belisarius III: The Flames of Sunset.
2009, with E. Flint. Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Belisarius Series
(Collaboration) Includes
The Tide of Victory
and
The Dance of Time.

2009, Baenebooks.com.

Beyond the Borders.
1996, by R. E. Howard. D. Drake, ed. Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Edited Collection)

Birds of Prey.
1984, Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Novel)

1985, New York, NY: Tor.

1991, New York, NY: Tor.

1999, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2011, New York, NY: Tor..

Bluebloods.
1990, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Starhunters Series.
(Edited anthology)

Bran Mak Morn
. 1995, by R. E. Howard. D. Drake, ed. Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Edited Collection)

Break Through.
1989, with B. Fawcett. New York, NY: Ace.
The Fleet Series.
(Edited anthology)

2002, New York, NY: Ace.

Bridgehead.
1986, New York, NY: Tor. (Novel)

1990, New York, NY: Tor.

2006, New York, NY: Tor.

The Butcher’s Bill.
1998, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Hammer’s Slammers Series
(Collection)

Caught in the Crossfire.
1998, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Hammer’s Slammers Series
(Collection)

A Century of Horror, 1970-1979:The Greatest Stories of the Decade.
1996, New York, NY: MJF Books.

The Chosen.
1996, with S. M. Stirling. Riverdale, NY: Baen.
The General Series.
(Collaboration)

1998, Baenebooks.com.

Cluster Command.
1989, with W. C. Dietz. Riverdale, NY: Baen.
The Crisis of Empire Series.
(Collaboration)

Codex.
2003, Chapel Hill: Sidecar Preservation Society. A limited edition of 175 copies, some of which were bound in boards.

2012, In
Night & Demons.
Riverdale, NY: Baen.

The Complete Hammer’s Slammers’s, Volume 1.
2006, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.
Hammer’s Slammers Series
(Collection)

2006, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books. Limited edition.

2006, New York, NY: SFBC.

2009, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2009, Baenebooks.com.

The Complete Hammer’s Slammers’s, Volume 2.
2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.
Hammer’s Slammers Series
(Collection)

2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books. Limited edition.

2007, New York, NY: SFBC.

2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2010, Baenebooks.com.

The Complete Hammer’s Slammers’s, Volume 3.
2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.
Hammer’s Slammers Series
(Collection)

2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books. Limited edition.

2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.

2010, Baenebooks.com.

Conqueror.
2003, with S.M. Stirling. Riverdale, NY: Baen.
The General Series.
(Collaboration) Includes
The Anvil
,
The Steel
, and
The Sword
.

2003, Baenebooks.com.

Cormac Mac Art.
1995, by R. E. Howard. D. Drake, ed. Riverdale, NY: Baen. (Edited Collection)

Counter Attack.
1988, with B. Fawcett. New York, NY: Ace.
The Fleet Series.
(Edited anthology)

1989, New York, NY: Ace.

1996, New York, NY: Ace.

2002, New York, NY: Ace.

2012, Amazon.com Kindle eBook.

2012, Barnesandnoble.com Nook Book.

Counting the Cost.
1987, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Hammer’s Slammers Series.
(Novel)

Caught in the Crossfire
. 1998, Riverdale, NY: Baen.
Hammer’s Slammers Series

The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2.
2007, San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books.

The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2.
2007, New York, NY: SFBC.
   

The Complete Hammer’s Slammers, v.2.
2010, Riverdale, NY: Baen.