Mackey was not very relieved by this response. "Is this common? Government agencies committing blood rituals?"
Parsons dismissed the notion. "Even the Department of Transportation's worst bureaucrats have more sense than that. What you saw was not a ritual. Nothing but vaseline and saltpeter. As pedestrian as a television cooking program. A blood-based cooking program perhaps. You know the kind. Another microwave roast, another bland concoction of potatoes and onions slathered with cream sauce. The myriad inevitabilities of au gratin." They all looked at him. "But with blood," he finished, drawing invisible lines on the desk with his finger.
"The event seems most likely designed to intimidate, or simply to dispose of us," Hopper concluded. "While it was certainly theatrical, I wouldn't give too much attention to the set dressings in this case."
"And it also tells us," Mary added, "that at least five Commerce agencies are involved in this scheme: the Weather Service, the Census Service, the Geodetic Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Land Service."
Mackey nodded, but he was thinking of the face of Nicholas Roerich, the old wrinkled man, calmly watching the scene. He noted that Hopper had not shared that detail in her telling of the story. Mackey decided it was best to stay quiet about it now.
Hopper gathered up the files from the desk and secured them in her briefcase. "I'll need your phone, Jack, to see when the plane will be ready to fly, or to coax another out of the Secretary's office."
"What, your jet? Forget it! Look, I'll take you myself tomorrow morning in my Vail-22. I'd love to get out of the Valley and see Los Angeles again! All bureaucrat types up here, even at Ames. All career men."
"And career women," Hopper corrected him.
"Yes, yes! No passion, only caring about the job, no interest in discovery! You know what I mean, Fred?"
Parsons snatched a tweed jacket from the floor by his desk and put it on as he moved to the door. "We'll put up in the executive accommodations here at Ames tonight, and fly straight down in the morning."
"That's fine. We could use a night of rest after this eventful evening. But Jack?" Hopper stopped him. "We'll need to destroy those notes you made. And the punch cards."
"Way ahead of you, Grace." Parsons strode over to the cabinet and pulled out a large stone bowl, which he set on the floor in front of it. He retrieved the punch cards and the page of notes, and flicked a number of switches on the computer console. "Wiped the RAM for you too, Assistant Secretary." He winked at Mackey again.
Over the bowl, he shredded the paper and, selecting a jar from the cabinet, sprinkled a bit of dark powder over it. Striking a match, Parsons applied flame to the small pile, which immediately leapt into the air with a burst of green light and a smell of frankincense as the room filled with grey smoke. Mackey removed his glasses to wipe his eyes against the overpowering fog. Ross and Thompson spluttered and coughed, while Hopper went to open a window behind the curtains. But unable to penetrate the fabric she went towards the hallway, where Parsons was already waiting with the door open as smoke billowed past him into the passageway.
"The Ames rooms aren't spectacular, but they have a great view of the test stands. There's a new engine on Number Three tonight. Maybe we'll get to see another fire!" he declared to no one in particular, charging down the hall towards the elevator, with the rest of them close behind. Mackey turned back and saw a clerk staring open-mouthed, as the smoke dissipated through the hallway. Mackey shrugged, as if to make some sort of attempt at apology for the pollution, and buttoning his jacket, he jogged to keep up.
It wasn't the radio that Fred heard, but his mother. Soft sobs, eyes welling up with tears, the slight panic in her voice as she called for his father. Fred felt the uncertainty that any child of ten would feel when they suddenly realize that their parent is deeply upset, but fail to understand why. Fred Sr. came into the kitchen and saw his wife with tears in her eyes as she leaned over to turn the volume higher.
"Today at 3:35 PM Eastern Postal Time, Postmaster Roosevelt passed away, while at the Air Mail Station just outside of Warm Springs, Georgia. The nation is in shock and mourning, as the greatest technocrat the world has ever known departed, leaving only his legacy, and a grateful world."
Fred's father took his mother into his arms and held her tight.
The next day, ten-year-old Fred was dressed in his Sunday best, and his mother put on a black veil. P-car service was stopped for the day, and so the family walked the mile downtown to the Post Office, where televisions were set up for the funeral broadcast. The residents of Fred's small town stood together in hushed groups. As the broadcast began, Fred Sr. and the other World War Two veterans snapped to attention. Saluting with his right hand, Fred's father held his son's hand tightly in his left.
Fred had been only seven when the war ended, and couldn't remember much except the joy of having his father back at home. But now, a few years older, it began to occur to him where his father had been all that time. More than the veterans' parades and the ceremonies on VE Day, Roosevelt's death elicited something in Fred's father, a foundation in him as a man, something that connected deep to the core of his beliefs.
Walking home from the Post Office together, his father spoke to Fred. "That man, the Postmaster—he saved us all, Fred. He saved this country from the Nazis. We could never have done it without him."
Fred watched the blossoms from the cherry trees swirl in the warm spring breeze, down the quiet streets of the town. He wasn't entirely sure who the Nazis were, except that they were bad and had been far away, but they would have been here in his town if it wasn't for men like his father and the Postmaster. Looking up, he caught just the briefest gleam of a tear in his father's eye.
Chapter 5
Occult Knowledges
The accommodations at Ames were quite nice, if under decorated. Each room had a large window, a bed, a desk, and a bathroom. A bit less modern than the central Ames office building, the block of guest rooms stacked into three levels was meant for guest scientists visiting the facility who did not want to be so far from their labs as a hotel in town. As such, the design seemed intended for minds that were fixated on their work at the test stands, which the windows looked out upon. The rooms themselves were bare white, without art or any decor that was not functional. Mackey didn't mind this—it was how he chose to furnish his own apartment. He simply didn't see the need for automatic baseball scoring receivers, tea-making automats, decorative weather radio window boxes, or the other meaningless technological wares that people utilized to fill their homes.
The bed linens and towels were a pale California gold. Mackey was surprised to see that the only sign of any Department or Bureau insignia were on the small water glasses next to the sink. One of them featured the blue, star-emblazoned sphere emblem of the ASTB. The other, unmatched, simply said ‘Department of Transportation' in plain type. Thompson's water glasses featured mission emblems. One was for the PX-15 high-altitude rocket aircraft, showing the black, dart-shaped fuselage crossing the boundary between blue atmosphere and dark space. The other was for an unknown project, with no number or name designation given. The logo was a ring of lightning bolts surrounding an image of cirrus clouds in an otherwise empty sky. There was a Latin motto reading: Interrogare In Terra. Neither Mackey nor Thompson could make head nor tail of it.
Their rooms were next to each other. Desperate for some sort of a drink to put in one of his Departmental glasses but not knowing where to procure such a thing, Mackey knocked on Thompson's door instead, to see how he was doing. Thompson was similarly at a loss for what to do, so they ended up chatting, Thompson sitting on the edge of his bed, Mackey in the desk chair. They angled themselves, both looking out the window with the lights dim, watching the activity around the various test facilities. While they couldn't understand quite what was being tested, things at least appeared to be going much more slowly and deliberately than Parsons' dramatic test earl
ier in the evening.
They made small talk, sharing where they had come from. Mackey told about his father's history with the Postal Administration, and his time in engineering school. Thompson's family was from Angola, but he grew up in Idaho, a child of the outdoors. The Forest Service was a career choice more for the lack of office and desk than for any political allegiance.
"So, what do you think of all this?" Mackey asked.
"Which part?" Thompson responded. "The part about almost getting killed, or the part about how our Census Service apparently believes in alchemy?"
"It was astrology," Mackey corrected. "But, yeah. Both, I guess."
"Well, I can't say that anyone has tried to kill me before," Thompson said. "And certainly the Federal Government has never tried to kill me before. Mostly, I suppose, I want to know why. Why me? Why did you happen to come along and save me? Why is any of this happening?"
"That's it, exactly." Mackey nodded, relieved. "I feel like I don't understand anything that's going on anymore. As much as I know about the bureaucracy of the executive branch, none of this has any relation to anything I know. I can't help but feel like it's made up. Like this is all a big lie, some sort of play."
"I can tell you that knife against my neck was real. That much I know." Thompson looked out the window, and then back at Mackey. "There's no use in trying to dispute what happened. It happened. I guess the only thing to do now is be ready for whatever comes next, and hope that it puts the pieces together, rather than adds more questions."
Mackey smiled. "What is a weird rocket scientist who keeps skulls in a cabinet when not blowing up engines? An answer, or a question?"
Thompson laughed. "It seems like both. He's two questions for every answer."
"Hopper too, and Ross. I mean, they're both significantly less mercurial, but still a bit occluded nevertheless."
"It seems that whatever is going on here, it's something that both of us have never seen before, although it may be more familiar to our new companions. There's going to be a lot of strange questions, and even stranger answers. I figure the only thing that we can do is try to keep up with these strange government folks, and try not to get in the way of any more daggers."
Mackey nodded at him. "Well, I think on that we can agree."
☆
"You want to fly to Los Angeles in that?"
The vehicle shone brightly in the morning sunlight. The fuselage was completely mirrored aluminum, except for the Postal Bureau insignia and number on the tail, which marked it as a personal executive transport. The problem, in Mackey's mind, was that there wasn't much in the way of fuselage at all. Or wings, for that matter. His eyes were fixated on the four massive ducted-fan nacelles, two on either side of the cockpit, and another pair flanking the tail, each positioned horizontal, to blow down onto the ground. It was a vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft. Another piece of Parsons' personality just fit into place for Mackey.
Parsons put his arm around Mackey's shoulder, gazing at the machine, clearly smitten with its beautiful, quadruped visage. "I'll handle the flying, Fred. You just relax and make us all some eye-openers."
"Where did you get this, Jack? I thought Vail Labs had scrapped the program." Hopper's hand lightly rubbed the nacelle, as if to see whether or not it was real.
Vail Labs was one of the advanced Postal Bureau research labs, named after Theodore Vail. Vail was considered the godfather of the Technocratic Administrations, responsible for planning the rollout of the Pierstorff car system by the pre-Administration Post Office. He had died not long after the cars were introduced, but the lab that bore his name had been responsible for some of the biggest technological breakthroughs in the 20th century. They had invented the transistor. They had invented programming languages. Work on the first telecommunications satellite had begun there. That fact made Mackey somewhat more confident about possibly riding in this strange craft. But also, for every brilliant advance a lab turned out, there had to be a hundred duds.
"They did, but I managed to save one from the heap. Took some string-pulling of my own to be sure, but I never did like riding in one of those damned bean pods."
"My real concern," Ross voiced, "is not the aircraft, so much as the pilot."
"Very funny, Mary!" He slapped Thompson on the shoulder, who was staring at the craft fairly impassively.
As Parsons opened the door, folding down a set of stairs, Mackey had to ask, "So—why did they scrap this aircraft?"
Parsons boarded and then climbed up into the pilot's seat as the rest entered. "Oh . . . I don't know. Apparently the lack of ability to glide in the case of engine failure makes it a ‘liability.' But nothing to worry about! It's in excellent condition. And so is the bar. Martini for me, Fred." Parsons gestured at the small wet bar at the rear of the cabin.
"Vodka soda, a double," Hopper said, as she fastened the safety belt on one of the cabin's four executive chairs.
Mackey shrugged, and looked to Ross and Thompson for their orders.
"Just orange juice for me," Ross begged off, as she climbed into the co-pilot's seat.
"I'll have whatever you're having," Thompson said. "And I'll give you a hand." They found the small bar in the rear of the cabin to be quite well stocked. When desiring a drink the night before, clearly they should have thought to look in Parsons' personal aircraft. There were bottles and bottles secured to the wall racks by clever spring-loaded restraining bars. Mackey considered that what he probably needed was his morning swim. But given that wasn't possible, he supposed a drink would have to do.
The engines came on with a loud growl, sounding as much like a carnival ride as a vehicle. After coordinating with Moffett Field tower, Parsons throttled back, and the aircraft lifted shakily from the ground. Mackey grasped the edge of the bar as the aircraft rolled slightly on its center axis. He and Thompson jostled shoulders, without any direction of acceleration for them to brace against. As Mackey poured vodka, he made the mistake of glancing out the window, suddenly noticing that he and the bottle were now hovering three hundred feet off the ground.
Parsons angled the nacelles, and as they began moving forward, liquor sloshed onto Mackey's shoes. The rocket scientist leaned forward and snapped on a broadcast radio, sending the sound of Southern California surf rock through the entire cabin before Ross leaned forward and turned it off.
By the time they had some semblance of cocktails assembled, and the glasses locked by their stems into a service tray, they were rocketing down the Valley at four hundred knots. Locked or not, a good deal of beverage spilt onto the tray by the time Mackey made his way forward.
The Assistant Secretary accepted her glass and took a large quaff. Parsons turned completely around in his seat, took his glass, drained it, and then replaced it on the tray. Mackey handed a glass of orange juice to Ross, who thanked him. Mackey nodded back with a silent thanks that she was sitting in front of a control stick.
Secure in his chair, sitting across from Thompson, Mackey gripped his gin, sipping it while looking out the window.
He watched the traffic thousands of feet below, as the bureaucrats that gave the Valley its name swarmed towards their offices on the P-car tracks. Like rectilinear ants, the cars smoothly swarmed around each other, taking the entrance tracks from their points of origin—the sprawling suburban developments of New Almaden, San Martin, Gilroy, and Hollister—before accelerating northward towards the Valley, the peninsula of San Francisco, and the East Bay. The housing developments below them looked like nets of clover, as looping tracks entered one side of a round assemblage of lots and exited the other side, before entering the next leaf. The loops tessellated across the valley, planned perfectly to use all available space, and to minimize the track distance between each whorl of development and the central arterials. Only the peaks of the hills were bare, the few surviving trees an odd bit of chaos outside the order of the interconnected ci
ty. This had all been farmland just fifty years ago, Mackey recalled. But as the efficiency of the P-car network conquered physical space, and the buildup of industry and technology manufacture brought new residents, the Valley had shifted harvests, from produce to people.
Parsons banked the aircraft west, away from the sun rising over the golden California mountains. In a few minutes they were over the Pacific Ocean, and then Parsons swung south at an altitude of barely one thousand feet. Ahead of them in the sea haze rose the shoulder of land where Mackey knew Vandenberg Air Force Base must be. One of the fringe benefits of his Bureaucratic Literacy training was that he had a good working knowledge of the geography of government installations.
As if reading his thoughts, Parsons turned and said, "We should have a good view of the 0900 mail rocket launch from Vandenberg out the port side!" Turning to Mackey, he said, "Another cocktail, what do you say, Fred?" With the steadying effect of his gin finally taking hold, Mackey collected the glassware and made his way back to the bar, this time discovering the useful overhead handholds along the cabin ceiling.
Upon returning and redistributing glasses, Mackey watched the gentle arc of the mail rocket's smoke trail as it ascended up towards the Mail Sorting Station in low earth orbit. Mackey wanted to go to space someday. It wasn't a likely destination for a engineer in a testing lab. Space operations personnel tended to be more of the pilot or experienced technician type, having at least some experience in running equipment in the field, not just on the bench. Parsons engaged the autopilot and turned in his chair, his martini glass half full in his hand. Ross gave him a look, but sipped her juice and kept an eye on the instruments.
"Well, Gene, tell us some stories about the Forest Service! What is it like over in the Commerce Department with the enemy?" He winked.
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