by Zach Hughes
Pressure Man
Zach Hughes
Dominic Gordon had been given the impossible mission—and in space there is no room for failure…
Pressure Man
by Zach Hughes
Chapter One
If he had been asked to rely on public transport he would have refused to make the trip. He hated the crowded, clanking, sooty, coal-burning multicarriers with their surly Civil Service attendants. He hated surface travel in general, finding the contrast between the clean, empty reaches of space and the decaying planet to be almost nauseous.
He did not, as did many spacers, hold a belligerent contempt for old Earth. She was, after all, the source, the only source of many things, the mother of all, home. She reeked and rotted and continued to condone the overproduction of Goethe’s man, so admirable in the individual, so deplorable in his masses. He did not feel contempt for Earth herself, only her people. He showed his impatience by growling obscenities as he was forced to the blown dunes at the side of the two remaining lanes of what once had been a four-lane superhighway to allow passage of a big drone cargo carrier.
He mopped perspiration from his forehead as he waited for the drone to clear, then steered the antique auto back onto the potholed road. The auto’s air-conditioning unit had been removed, not too neatly, leaving a gaping hole in the dash. Most of the lining had been torn from the vehicle’s roof, leaving only a thin layer of metal between him and the desert sun. The engine, modified to burn methane, stank, coughed, wheezed, and strained as he tried to regain speed. The poorly engineered tank on the back of the car was definitely not aerodynamic. The dry cross wind made handling a nightmare when, by coaxing and cursing and pushing to the limit, he once again attained fifty miles per hour.
When he reached the low mountains the auto inched its way upgrade and bucketed downgrade with the heavy tank trying to fishtail. He growled grand and manly profanities at the car, the hot sands, the barren rocks, the decaying road. He saved a few choice words for the Department of Space Exploration and all those involved in sending him into the heat of the desert in a ground car which should have been scrapped a decade ago.
A drone, the second he’d met since leaving the city which sprawled over every available inch of land from the desert to the sea, screamed a warning siren at him.
He found a lay-by, just in time, and the drone rumbled by, antennae wriggling like the feelers of a giant insect.
He could see the crest of the low range of hills. He eased upward, the radiator on the verge of boiling.
Then it was downhill, the engine cooled, and the speed created an illusion of coolness as wind whipped his hair into his face.
Heat waves shimmered over the flat lands. He met an auto, a relatively new model, probably one of the last production run, making it less than ten years old. It displayed a government seal on hood and doors. The driver was the first human he’d seen since leaving the city. He felt a childish desire to wave.
With easier driving, he allowed his mind to wander from the chore of keeping the shock-worn vehicle on the road and speculated about the reason for his being ordered to DOSEWEX, Department of Space Exploration West. His conclusion was that he had no idea. He was an engineer. He was a spacer. It was a good bet that he was not being called into the desert to be reprimanded. His record, for the past two years at least, was clean. He hadn’t slugged a superior officer since then, and he had served his restriction time for that one. He’d spent one full year with all the little extras forbidden, one year during which his special rations had been divided among the other crew members, one full year without ground leave, not even on Moon Base. Then, just when he thought he was set for a holiday, and was making good progress with that long-legged communications officer in L.A. Operations, he got orders to report, in all haste, to DOSEWEX, way to hell and gone in the New Mexico desert.
The sun was low behind him when he reached the outer perimeter of the base. He got out of the car, stretched, knocked dust off his uniform, and allowed a detection machine to snoop him. He stood aside as the vehicle was searched and snooped. It was standard operating procedure. You couldn’t control every yoyo in a population of three hundred million potential nuts, but you could limit their access to prime areas.
When he was passed through the perimeter guard post, he saw only more barren country ahead, but he was near enough to be able to look forward to a drink, a bath, a meal, in that order. A robot flagman slowed him. He steered the auto around a line of construction machines moving slowly in his own direction. Halfway past the group of large machines the flagman signaled him to pull in and he found himself directly behind a huge transport mounting a hefty crane. The crane transport seemed to be the control vehicle for the entire convoy of diggers and earthmovers. It was manned. He blew his horn, asking for a little cooperation in being allowed to pass. The base was near. He could see, off to his right, the profile of a low building. He inched forward to be in position to use the auto’s feeble acceleration when he was given the go-ahead to pass, bringing the hood of his vehicle under the overhanging boom of the crane.
The operator of the transport seemed to be deaf. He leaned out the window and yelled, blowing his horn. He checked the shoulder, to see if he could pull off and pass on the right. He caught a flash of motion out of the corner of his eye.
On a scale of ten his reaction time was a ten plus. It was one of his best-known abilities, his quickness. More than once lightning reflexes had served him well, and they served him again as he slammed on the brakes, rocking the old vehicle on its worn shocks. At the same time, foot still pressed on the brake, he threw himself to his right and hit the floorboard just as the falling boom of the crane crushed the flimsy roof. The auto was being dragged forward as the crane transport continued to move. There was a grinding sound as metal folded and tore. Smoke came from the locked tires of the auto. It went on for perhaps thirty seconds before the boom pulled off the crushed roof to bend the hood. The cooling fan clanked against metal. The engine sputtered and died. The car was motionless.
He sighed and relaxed. Then he was jolted as the drone earthmover behind him rammed the car, continued pushing until the car slewed sideways to the blade of the earthmover. He could hear the car falling to pieces. There was a scrape of protesting metal and another jolt as the forward motion stopped, the auto rammed up under the boom against the rear of the crane transport, crushed, held tightly.
Once again he relaxed. He was alive. He was lying in a constricted space, the roof of the car pushed down to the seat bottom, the sides pushed in toward him. He smelled escaping methane and felt a tightening of every muscle in his body, but when seconds passed without an explosion, he tried to peek through a tiny slit which had once been a window. He heard movement outside. He had glass shards on his face and he was afraid to blink his eyes lest he cause glass splinters to fall from his hair and eyebrows into them.
“Are you all right?” a voice asked, from outside the crushed vehicle.
“The gas is leaking,” he yelled. “Get some foam on this crate.”
Footsteps moved away, not fast. He had a piece of jagged metal punching into his back. He tried a move to ease it. He was not badly hurt. He could move legs, arms, his back, his neck. Part of the seat back was on top of him. He pushed on it until he could see out of the slit of crushed window. He heard footsteps coming back.
“Get some foam on this wreck before it blows,” he yelled.
He could see legs in blue work pants and service shoes. The man was standing quite near.
“Yeah, just take it easy,” the voice said.
He heard a clank, a loud hiss. He froze. Gas was now escaping rapidly from the tank at the rear. And there were more sounds. He froze, not believing it. A small pop. The workman had jus
t activated a self-igniting cutting torch.
“Turn that thing off, you dumb bastard,” he screamed. “The gas is leaking.”
“Yeah,” the workman said.
The blue-clad legs moved. He saw the flame at the tip of the cutting torch and knew what was going to happen. He braced the back of his neck against the caved-in roof of the auto and pushed, momentarily panicked. He heard the methane ignite, whooshing into flame. He felt the heat immediately, and the rank odor of combustion was in his nostrils. Like millions, billions before him, he was thinking, “No, not me. Not now. Not yet.”
Burning paint filled the crushed cab with smoke. The heat was a blast furnace. Evil black tendrils of heavy smoke snaked up into the small area in which he was trapped. A sheet of flame sprang up outside the slit of the window, cutting off his view of the world.
His mind was surprisingly clear. In a few seconds the entire tank of gas would go. At least it would be quick, one massive blow as the explosion fireballed up. At least it would be quick.
Chapter Two
J.J. Barnes was no angel. He never had been and, unless he did a lot of changing, he never would be. Precise, calm, methodical, overbearing, yes. Angelic, no. Tall, graying at the temples, eyes cold gray behind functional rimless glasses, he towered over the world, his face just as remembered, smooth-shaven, masculine, almost handsome. But he was not an angel.
All this was evident in a slow swim upward into awareness. The world was J.J.’s face, and it was a burning world, and there was a stench of burning garbage gas.
His feet hurt. He lifted his head and looked down his body. His feet were bandaged.
“It isn’t too bad,” J.J. said. “It’s painful, I know, but the damage is minor. That sore spot you feel on your ass is the only place they had to take skin for grafting.”
He turned his head and saw a hospital table with water pitcher, pill tray, glass, and a small vase of roses.
“Are you with me, Flash?” J.J. asked.
The use of his old nickname helped him bring his eyes into full focus. “I think so,” he said.
“That bastard had passed a double screening,” J.J. said. “Are you ready to hear about it, or do you want to let your head clear a bit more?”
“Water,” he said.
“Sure.” J.J. poured and he took the glass, almost letting it slide through his fingers.
“Thanks,” he said. He felt a twinge of soreness on his left buttock. The world tilted a little, then stabilized. He drank, and J.J. took the glass. “OK,” he said.
“Flash, we can’t keep all of them out. No matter how we try we can’t screen all of them out. There are too many of them. They’ve been infiltrating too long, and some of them are damned smart.”
“Why me?” he asked.
“Probably because you had a DOSE decal on your auto,” J.J. said. “Working for DOSE is reason enough.”
He was looking at his feet. They were bandaged from the calves downward. He wiggled a toe and it moved and there was only a small pain. He could feel the motion, but he couldn’t see it through the bandages.
“They’ve got the pain senders blocked off,” J.J. said.
“Yeah. I’ve been burned before.”
“They’re not as bad as you might think. One spot on the right instep had to have a graft. With these new methods you’ll be on your feet in no time.”
“I know about burns,” he said. “What I don’t know is why the administrator of DOSEWEX is taking time to hold my hand personally. And I don’t quite buy your reasoning why some yoyo tried to kill me. I can’t quite see it as an accidental selection, based on my being in a DOSE vehicle. And while I’m wondering, I wonder why said administrator of DOSEWEX pulled me away from my first ground leave in two years to come out into the desert to be almost burned to death.”
J.J. chuckled.
“Dammit, J.J.,” he said. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“My old ball-carrying buddy,” J.J. said, shaking his head with an uncharacteristic expression of kindliness on his face. “Just take it easy. Eat, drink, and rest. You’ll be walking in a couple of days.”
He turned his head to try to see the sore spot on his rump. It, too, was bandaged. “When you went back to pass, I should have let those cadets cream you,” he said.
“If you had, who would have spread your fame as the man who pulled the Army game out of the fire, excuse the reference, in oh-6? Now you take a nap like a good little aging running back and I’ll see you in two days.”
“J.J., you didn’t send for me just to pay me compliments,” Dom said. “What’s going on?”
J.J. put his hands behind his ears and looked around the room. Dom got the message. The hospital room had not been swept. The walls could have ears.
“There’ll be a couple of base investigators in here shortly,” J.J. said. “Just tell them the truth about what happened. Tell them you were coming to DOSEWEX on the invitation of your old friend, the administrator, to talk over old times and have a drink or two. Tell them you have no idea why you were singled out as a target for terrorists.”
“Just the truth,” Dom said.
“When you’re up and around I’m sure you’ll enjoy our friendly little visit.”
Dom sighed wearily. “I was invited by my old classmate, who kissed ass and got promotions. I have no idea why I was attacked. That last, at least, is the truth.”
J.J.’s look was serious. “Just cool it, Dom.”
Two uniformed security men stood beside his bed and asked the same questions repeatedly, getting the same answers repeatedly. Just the facts. Dominic Gordon, Fleet Engineer, DOSE Spacearm, arrived from Mars five days past for ground leave in the Los Angeles conclave. Dominic Gordon was to visit DOSEWEX upon the invitation of J.J. Barnes, administrator of that facility. Dominic Gordon had no information regarding possible reasons for his being attacked. He gave a minute and detailed account of the events beginning with his overtaking the convoy of construction vehicles. He did not see his assailant’s face, only his legs and hands.
Any friend of J.J. Barnes was treated with great politeness. A friend of the administrator’s could even ask questions. No, they had not been able to question the assailant. A passing patrol had seen him deliberately ignite the fuel, and to simplify matters, they zapped the fellow, putting seven slugs into his chest in one-tenth of a second, covering him and the burning vehicle with fire foam split seconds later.
“Your main problem,” a nurse told Dom later, after a nap, “is that you inhaled some of the fumes from the foam. You’ll have sore lungs for a couple of days.”
The nurse was a buxom, motherly, gray-haired lady with infinitely tender hands. He fell in love with her and, on the morning of the third day, walking rather well considering his bandages, he kissed her on the cheek and promised to bring her a carbocrystal next trip back from Mars.
Outside of his room he was met by one of the policemen who had questioned him. They walked down a long corridor in silence, boarded an elevator, exited the elevator. The security man guiding Dom boarded a tube car, and zipped at back-snapping speed to an unknown destination underground where Dom was left to wait in J.J.’s outer office. He passed the time by looking at the left profile of the receptionist. It was a very nice profile and he was in the midst of some interesting speculation when she rose, smiled, and told him that Mr. Barnes would see him now.
J.J. indicated a chair in front of his desk. Dom sat down, leaning his crutch on the chair. There was a hiss and a low rumble as a Wockshield closed down around the desk area, putting the two of them in an impenetrable shell.
“You have problems even here?” Dom asked.
“I’m often accused of being overcautious,” J.J. said, “but the last time I visited the White House the media had the details of the discussion before I was back at my hotel.”
“Name dropper,” Dom said. He wiggled, trying to ease the weight off his sore rear.
“Flash,” J.J. said, “you’re just in fr
om Mars. What was your cargo?”
“Phosphates,” Dom said. He knew that J.J. was aware of his ship’s cargo, but J.J. had to work up to things. He’d always been methodical.
“Agricultural phosphates,” J.J. said.
“Right.”
“And the trip before this one?”
“The same.”
“Do you ever think about that?” J.J. asked.
“Not a helluva lot,” Dom said.
“Why not a cargo of carbocrystals?” J.J. asked. “Or refined platinum? Or gold, or radioactives, or even petroleum?”
“I don’t place orders for cargo,” Dom said. “If you’re trying to give me a lesson in the dynamics of supply and demand, I know why we carry water out to Mars and carry phosphates back. Mars doesn’t have enough water and you don’t have enough food. You’ve let the topsoil wash into the oceans and you’ve ruined what’s left by force farming.”
“I don’t like your choice of pronouns,” J.J. said. “You. You, yourself, had nothing to do with using up Earth’s resources?”
“I voted for forced family planning in ’90,” Dom said. “That was the first time I was old enough to vote. I had common sense even at such a tender age. The rest of you didn’t.”
“I won’t bother to claim kinship by telling you that I, too, voted for family planning,” J.J. said. “It’s enough to say that the rest of the world didn’t.” He looked at Dom thoughtfully. “The man who tried to burn you was a Publicrat, of course.”
“Worldsaver?”
“Party affiliation is public record. Membership in radical and terrorist organizations is not. I would guess either Worldsaver or Earthfirster. The latter, I suspect, since they’re becoming a bit more bloody lately.”
“Which party leader was he registered under?” Dom asked.
“Our own lovable senator. The gentleman from New Mexico.”
“Do you have any ideas yet why he selected me?”