by David Gullen
It was time to leave, but first she must warn Palfinger and Ellen. Would she be too late?
Bianca struggled into the pilot’s chair and stared at the console in dismay. The controls were keyed to Manalito’s thumb print. Without him the seaplane would not start, not even the radio would work. Even dead he could still reach out and hurt her. Ghoulishly Bianca wondered if any of his body parts would surface.
The sun set. Bianca wrapped herself in blankets and slept uneasily.
The next day was bright and hot. Her knee burned, she changed the bandages and sprayed more antiseptic. The wound looked horrible, she hated to look at it and could barely bring herself to touch it. Weak and listless, she forced herself to search the seaplane and found tinned food and Manalito’s spare clothes.
She told herself people were looking for her, that it was only a matter of time. The solar still continued to operate, desalinating and cooling sea water. Even without food she could survive for weeks. Medicine was more limited, sepsis or gangrene inevitable if her leg became infected. Misery overwhelmed her. She fought back, then allowed herself to cry. When she was done she dried her eyes and made herself a promise: she would clean and care for herself and she would live. She would defeat Manalito one final time.
Days passed. Bianca burned with fever, her knee a remorseless drum-beat of pain. Her appetite died before the food was exhausted, all she could manage was to drink water and relieve herself. Hour after hour her mind wandered through her life, marriage with Palfinger, carrying Ellen, her daughter’s birth.
Halfway between memory and dream she finally understood that Ellen was a stranger, Tekirei was dead and Tanoata, if she still lived, hated her. All over the world she had sponsored communities of strangers and moved on. Her wish to live in an idealised world had led her to reject her own child, the one person who needed her most. She had failed her own family and destroyed another with her own selfishness. All of this she accepted.
It came to her that Palfinger had always been kind because he still loved her.
The seaplane swung at anchor. Bianca sat beside the water spigot in a semi-trance. Each morning she changed her bandages, rinsed the old ones in the sea and hung them to dry. Flesh melted from her body, the time approached when she would be too weak to help herself.
One day she dreamed she was back on Ujelang at the end of the Shadowed Path beside the graveyard. The sun shone, but she was freezing cold.
When she woke she saw a black dot far out in the ocean. Over time it resolved itself into a canoe.
Bianca realised she was dying and that it was Tekirei, come to be her spirit guide. It would be good to see him again, though she felt sad that she would never again see Palfinger and Ellen.
She was wrong. The canoe held Mautake and his father. Together, they had navigated the wind, stars and ocean currents as their ancestors had once done, and had come to take her home.
- 62 -
President Snarlow laughed with affected gaiety as she climbed down the steps of the army helicopter outside the lodge at Million Pines. Her hair was tied back in a simple ponytail, she wore a western-style blouse with a burgundy check, tan slacks and riding boots.
The rotors were still slowing when the pilot and co-pilot joined her, athletic young men in dark blue overalls with snub-nosed auto-pistols in their holsters. A plump older man and a slight woman with mousey hair manhandled medical cases onto a tracked electric cart and followed behind. Both wore white lab coats over army fatigues. Overhead, the twin F38b escorts flashed past with a crackling roar, broke left and right and headed south.
Everyone at Million Pines had gathered at the entrance. Crane advanced down the stone steps. ‘Good news?’ he said as he took Guinevere Snarlow’s hand.
‘The very best. The European Union has just declared war, Ahmed Hirsch told me himself.’
‘Surely, that’s terrible?’ Crane said.
Guinevere trilled with laughter. ‘What have they got? No armies, no air force, certainly no ballistic deterrent. What a joke. They picked this fight, we’re going to finish it.’
Crane stepped aside to let the two doctors with the electric cart up the step.
Guinevere looked at Benny, Novik and Marytha. ‘Who are these?’
‘Guests,’ Crane said. Complex emotions vied within him as he considered Novik. ‘Friends.’
Guinevere kissed the air each side of Palfinger’s cheeks. ‘We’ll go straight to your daughter.’
Palfinger, Guinevere and the doctors hurried to the medical room.
‘She’s pretty damned big,’ the male doctor said when he saw Ellen. ‘Jeez, is she fat.’
‘Ellen’s sedated and stable,’ Crane said. ‘The exoframe maintains homeostasis and provides biomechanical assists.’
‘Whatever. We’ll make our own assessment and get back to you.’
‘The equipment is specialised, tuned to Ellen’s needs. Medical AIs and expert systems have moment by moment data–’
Guinevere took hold of Crane’s elbow. ‘Let them do their job, Palfinger.’
Crane reluctantly allowed Snarlow to lead him back to the study. There, he found Novik, Benny and Marytha standing uneasily in front of the hearth. Across the room, the two airmen covered them with their auto-pistols.
Crane halted in the doorway. ‘What the hell’s all this about?’
Guinevere shoved Crane hard in the back, ‘Go keep your friends company, Palfinger.’
One of the guards held out Marytha’s Wolfenhorn 68. ‘This is all they had, ma’am.’
‘Sweet Jesus, that’s all they’d need,’ Guinevere took the gun and stood between her men.
‘If it’s just a question of–’ Crane began.
Guinevere backhanded him across the face.
‘Hey,’ Novik protested.
The airmen aimed their weapons. Novik raised a hand and stepped back. ‘Let’s everyone keep cool.’ He took Crane’s arm, ‘You okay?’
‘Yes.’ Crane gingerly touched his face. Blood streaked his cheek, a cut from a ring. ‘Why are you here, Guinevere?’
‘I need to pay my troops. The reconstruction of Europe will require gigantic investments. Your investments.’
‘You think I’ll help you now, at gunpoint with Ellen held hostage? Keep your promise, save my daughter and we’ll discuss–’
‘We’ve been through all that. You had your chance to be on the winning team, all you need to do now is die before your daughter.’ Guinevere hefted Marytha’s gun. ‘Christ, this is heavy.’ She held out her hand to one of the airmen, ‘Give me your weapon.’
‘I’m afraid my firearm is uniquely keyed to me, ma’am.’.
‘Then this will have to do.’ Guinevere’s expression turned to one of blank-eyed glee. ‘I win. Gentlemen, on my mark.’
The two airmen raised their guns.
‘Wait,’ Crane begged. ‘Stop.’
Benny shoved himself in front of Crane and Marytha.
‘Why?’ Guinevere said. ‘Mark.’
Snarlow and the airmen opened fire.
For a long moment the room was filled with sound and fury.
In the ear-singing silence that followed Benny said, ‘Okay, Mr Crane?’
Crane shook like a leaf, ‘I– I think so.’
Novik felt nothing. He remembered how Ellen had reacted to bullet wounds. Dreading what he would see he looked down at his own body. There was not a mark on him. Wide-eyed in disbelief he turned to Marytha.
She gave him a shaky smile. ‘Hello again.’
Novik’s knees shook like reeds in the wind. ‘Let’s stop meeting like this.’
Across the room the two guards lay slumped against bullet-riddled oak panelling, both dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Guinevere Snarlow sat splay-legged among the splintered wreckage of Crane’s drinks cabinet, a single heavy calibre bullet wound low in her chest.
Marytha’s pistol lay in Guinevere’s palm. Novik lifted it clear and tucked it into his belt.
Guinevere’s eye
s followed him. ‘Help me,’ she gasped. ‘I’m your President.’
Novik picked up an unbroken bottle from the wreckage of splintered wood and broken glass. It was the Bowmore 42, still one third full. He hefted it thoughtfully and turned away.
‘How?’ Novik asked Benny.
‘Ricochet armour.’ Benny flicked the pin on Novik’s lapel, ‘Told you.’
Novik drank deep. Five hundred dollars a swallow, he didn’t care. None of this was real. All he could think about was that they could have waited at the Canadian crossing like Benny had wanted. One more day, and Josie–
He couldn’t think it.
He’d thought he was right and he hadn’t listened. When it came to Benny had he ever listened?
They could have waited. Josie had believed him, she trusted him. She had wanted to go. Novik snarled with self-disgust, it had been his decision, his responsibility. They had gone because he had wanted to.
If they had waited–
Then Ellen would have been killed in the woods, Crane would be dead in this room. And right now, this very moment, Snarlow would have won.
Novik clutched his head. Was that the price? Was that what the big picture demanded? If they had waited they wouldn’t have been here, today. It had all been about spending, about money but the consequences of his decision had been beyond value and cost, far, far beyond price.
‘Give me some of that.’ Crane pulled the bottle from Novik’s hand, gulped whisky, and wiped his mouth. ‘Ellen.’
Novik stared at him blankly.
‘Ellen’s under guard.’
Novik touched his lapel pin. ‘Benny, what’s the range on this?’
‘I’ll come with you.’
Outside the medical room the two army doctors stood on guard. As soon as they saw Novik the male drew and aimed his pistol in a single fluid movement. ‘Halt.’
Novik kept coming, Benny close beside him. ‘The President’s been hurt,’
‘Final warning.’
Novik laughed coldly and drew his own weapon. ‘Shoot me. See what happens.’
‘Don’t do it,’ Benny added hastily.
The doctor fired. He cried out and staggered back, fired again and collapsed.
The female doctor had her hands in the air, her voice high and thin, ‘I’m unarmed.’
Novik checked her anyway. ‘What have you done to Ellen?’
‘Nothing.’ Her hands went higher. ‘I promise, we haven’t touched her. We’re not even doctors.’
Novik and Benny hurried into the medical room.
Ellen was still comatose, her bulk rising and falling beneath the cover. Most instrument lights and colour bars were amber, a few showed red. The equipment cases the army doctors had brought were still stacked on the electric cart. Nothing had been unloaded. Novik opened one and found it was packed with ice. Embedded in the ice were six bottles of champagne.
Crane hurried into the room. ‘Palfinger Crane,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Mary had a little lamb. Summarise.’
‘Confirmed.’ The exoframe’s synthetic voice spoke in even tones. ‘Blood pressure low and falling. Cardiac assist ninety-two percent and rising. Oxygenated haemoglobin levels falling. Core temperature rising. Oedema increasing in extremities–’
Crane walked out the room before the exoframe finished speaking, Novik followed behind.
Out in the hallway the orderly crouched beside her companion. She looked up at Novik. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Come with us.’
Novik and Benny led her to Snarlow.
Guinevere Snarlow still sat where she had fallen. Now she held an open bottle of vodka, alternately drinking and sloshing spirits over her blood-soaked chest.
‘I’m the President,’ she slurred. ‘Get me to the hospital. Push Ellen off the table and get me on it.’
Crane looked down at her dispassionately. ‘I can’t decide whether I’d rather kill you or watch you die.’
Guinevere slurped more vodka, ‘You do either and you’re in an even bigger shit storm than you are now.’
As hard as it was to imagine, she was almost certainly right.
Crane turned to Benny. ‘That thing you did with the guns?’
‘I’m an observer,’ Benny said. ‘I’m not supposed to get shot. It happened once and I didn’t like it.’
‘An observer for who?’
‘South America,’ Marytha said. ‘Acapulco.’
‘Achernar,’ Benny patiently corrected her.
Marytha frowned, ‘I thought you said you’d come across the gulf?’
‘The black gulf,’ Benny said. ‘Of space.’
It was more than Crane was able to cope with. ‘Whatever. Get Snarlow to the medical wing.’ He glared at the army orderly, she wilted under his gaze. ‘Chandra Smith will be here soon. Then we’ll have a real doctor.’
11. Choice
How did we get here? I mean, how the HELL did we end up where we are today?
I’ll tell you.
Each and every time we made a choice we went ahead and did what we chose to do. Countries, organisations, combines, industries, and individuals.
Don’t tell me some of those choices were tough, quit whining. The choices some people still have to make you forgot existed long ago. Thirsty? Which ditch do you want to drink from – the brown one, or the green one?
Well, yes, OF COURSE they should do something about it. But they’re poor, aren’t they? And isn’t poverty a choice? Some people think so. And all these opinions, aren’t they choices too?
Okay, so some decisions actually are really hard, life-and-death. I’ll let you have that one. Many are so tough we let other people make them for us. These people are called Leaders. Sometimes letting them decide is a good thing, but only sometimes. After all, they have their own choices to make.
Eat another burger / don’t eat a burger. Eat it and a cow dies, poor cow, but the owner has sold a cow to the burger factory. Lucky owner, he can buy more cows. Lucky you, you eat the burger, you put on some more weight.
Don’t eat the burger and the cow’s still alive. Lucky you – a little more time before that obesity related heart condition kicks in. Lucky cow, a few more days in the sun eating grass, or more likely a few more days in the barn eating grain.
Cows aren’t meant to eat grain, they’re meant to eat grass. We started farming cows because they turn something we can’t eat – the grass – into something we can – the cow. We’d get ten times the food value if we ate the grain but we want to eat burger. We made a choice.
Still want a burger? Of course you do, but now you know a bit more.
So you go into hospital for a bariatric frame. The surgeon doesn’t explain the procedure, there’s a problem, and you sue their ass off. Quite right too. It’s called informed consent. How can you properly choose if you don’t understand the choices?
Whose job is it to keep you informed? That would be you. You’re an adult, a free agent and in the eyes of the law a responsible one. Ignorance is no excuse.
Lots of people make choices on your behalf and don’t tell you. Be aware. Or go stick your head in a Meeja console and let your ego tell you everything is fine and dandy.
What’s my point here? Choices. We all have to make them, we all live with the consequences. Seriously, quit whining. Make better choices.
– T. Hank Yousomuch,
If You’re So Damned Happy Why Did You Buy This Book?
- 63 -
General Andriewiscz pulled the EnRel goggles off his face and returned them to the young technician. All around him his senior staff were doing the same. The coniferous forests of Canada stretched into the far distance. ‘These are no use here, son,’ he said.
The young technical infantryman looked at a point just to one side of the general’s shoulder. ‘Sir, Enhanced Reality proved very useful in Mexico, sir.’
‘Mexico was full of buildings. They had walls. Being able to see behind the walls was a big help. I already know what’s behind all these
trees – another tree.’
‘Sir, EnRel will let you visualise the landscape without the trees, sir.’
‘When we’re done I won’t need to visualise it. I’ll be able to see it.’
The soldier frowned. ‘Sir, you could compare the views and see if they were the same. That would be interesting.’
Andriewiscz tried to look the soldier in the eye. The soldier’s gaze flicked across to his other shoulder.
‘Look at me, son,’ Andriewiscz said.
‘Sir, I believe you no longer have the right to make that request.’
‘My apologies, soldier. I expect you’d rather be back with your computers and data.’
‘Sir, I’d rather have a chainsaw, sir. My daddy was a lumberjack and put me through my grades. I can strip, service and reassemble any model blindfold, sir.’
Andriewiscz scribbled a note. ‘You’re reassigned.’
‘Sir, thank you, sir.’
‘Just –’, Andriewiscz’s mouth twitched to one side. ‘Dismissed.’
General Andriewiscz was an old-fashioned man in several ways. He drank his scotch neat, he thought a man should be able to darn his own socks, and thought porn was good for team spirit. He chewed the ass off his officers if they screwed up, but never in public. He knew discipline was based on loyalty and loyalty swung both ways. Success was based on sweat, and attention to detail.
His staff were ready, his troops were ready. Men and materiel, ordnance and transport lay along the border for thirty miles in each direction. Flanked east and west by divisions of heavy infantry and armour, with skirmish lines of robo-canines already deployed, operation Pencil Head stood ready to roll.
Andriewiscz faced his senior officers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are America and we are the world’s policeman. We’re here to save the planet and right now that requires a fifty-mile-wide corridor through this forest, clear-felled all the way to Norman Wells.’
As one they snapped to attention and presented quivering salutes. ‘Sir, yes sir!’ they bellowed.