Fallen Stars, Bitter Waters

by Gilbert, Morris

  “That is very true,” Colonel Ben-ammi agreed heavily. “That would make even less sense than using nuclear devices to devastate a country. Only a madman would do such a thing, for the conquered territory would be useless to him.”

  The team absorbed these comments.

  Niklas went on, “And finally, Lieutenant Fong told me that the Germans didn’t harm any of the planes and helicopters when they bombed the base. Obviously they plan to use them—and expect them to be functional again. The spray they employed was a preventive measure, not an antidote. Therefore, your darling helicopter, Lieutenant Fong, probably won’t be grounded for too long.”

  “Hold up, Dr. Kesteven,” Deacon Fong said, sitting up alertly.

  “I missed a step there somewhere.”

  With admirable patience, Niklas explained, “They could prevent it, but they can’t fix it after it’s already happened. Preventive measures versus antidotal measures, you see. However, they are anticipating the effects wearing off, or reversing, or disappearing in a big puff of smoke or something because they’re planning on using your helicopter, Lieutenant Fong.”

  Con asked awkwardly, for he had trouble visualizing what needed to be done, “Dr. Kesteven, do you think you could—figure this thing out somehow? I mean, we’re talking big here about defeating it, but all of us—even Rio—know we can’t just shoot it. Couldn’t you get a line on what’s causing the blackout? And then maybe you could figure out how to fix it?”

  Under normal circumstances, Dr. Niklas Kesteven would have swaggered for days with his chest stuck out, bragging that he could conquer any scientific mystery. But these were hardly normal circumstances, and then there was Zoan’s reproachful gaze burning into his conscience, if not his soul. Niklas ducked his head and mumbled, “Sorry, Captain Slaughter. But unfortunately it’s like a computer loop. I can’t analyze the problem without equipment. Equipment takes electricity. The problem is that we don’t have any electricity.”

  Con nodded with an air of defeat. “Well, thanks anyway, Dr. Kesteven. If you come up with anything else helpful, like you have been, sir, we’d all appreciate hearing about it.”

  “Sure.” This turned the knife in the wound, and Niklas’s voice was almost inaudible.

  Sighing a little, Con went on, “So I guess I’ll stick to what I’ve got a slight chance of figuring out. What about the rest of the million or so military men and women in this country? Where’s the front for this war with the Goths? All the military bases are so isolated here in the West, it would be easy for them to pick us off. But most of the eastern half is still like a regular country, with unconsolidated towns and unfinished co-op cities and farmers spread out. The bases are much more interconnected with the civilians . . .”

  No one could answer any of these questions.

  After a long, brooding quiet, when they all stared into the spitting flames, David Mitchell spoke up. He was the youngest and the quietest of the group—a lean six-footer with straight sandy hair and guileless blue eyes. His absurdly long, thick lashes he would have given willingly to any of the young women who envied them. He was their Everyman. “Captain Slaughter, permission to speak?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, I would like to volunteer for a reconnaissance mission. To the East.”

  Con’s head snapped up. “How far east?”

  David swallowed hard, then answered, “I’d like to go at least as far as Arkansas, sir. But I’d do my best to go all the way to Washington and back if that’s the mission you need.”

  Con stared hard at him across the leaping flames. “Mitchell, you just want to go find your grandparents, don’t you? Puppy’s real cute. Well, I’m sorry about that. We’ve all got family we’d like to visit, but we’re soldiers in the United States Army and we have duties and responsibilities. Personal vacations aren’t part of those duties right now, Mitchell. Permission denied.”

  He was harsh, and his voice echoed sharply in the large room.

  All of the men on the team averted their eyes and said nothing.

  Con Slaughter was their commanding officer, and his word, right or wrong, was set in stone.

  But Colonel Darkon Ben-ammi and Colonel Vashti Nicanor watched and listened to Con curiously. Niklas seemed uninterested as he busied himself feeding the fire with the small bits of mesquite and piñon. Zoan was watching Con, but as usual, his face was a blank slate.

  Then with his most easygoing manner, Colonel Ben-ammi said to Con, “Captain, it’s not been my experience that Sergeant Mitchell prefabricates in any way.”

  Con stared at him accusingly, then laughed shortly. “I think, Colonel, that you mean ‘prevaricates,’ don’t you?” The rest of the team chuckled uneasily. Vashti clearly recognized Darkon’s little trick of using the wrong word to amuse Americans, which unfailingly put them at ease. But she smiled with the team anyway.

  “Yes, of course,” Darkon said good-naturedly. “Anyway, I wouldn’t presume to question your decision, Captain, but I do not think that you should base that decision on a misunderstanding.”

  Con glowered at David, who still kept his head down. “Okay, man of truth, what do you say? You going to tell me you don’t want to go look for your grandparents?”

  “No, sir, I’m not going to tell you that,” David said, his voice muted because he refused to look up.

  “Then what?” Con blustered more gently. “Look up, Mitchell. Quit mumblin’. I’m gettin’ old and hard of hearing.”

  Everyone snorted at that, and David finally raised his head with the slightest ghost of a smile. “Sorry, Captain, I forgot about your advanced age of thirty-five. Anyway, I’m kinda embarrassed, I guess, for all of you to say those things about me and all that, but the truth is, I guess I was ‘prefabricating’ a little.”

  He straightened his shoulders, then plunged in. “I’ve been praying and asking the Lord what to do ever since this happened, Captain Slaughter. Usually I don’t have to do that because I know my place, I know my superiors, I know my job, and I know my duty. But this situation—it’s different. I have to tell you that I do feel that the Lord is telling me to go find my grandfather. He’s— in trouble or danger . . .” He made a helpless gesture with one hand. “I know that sounds stupid, like everyone in America isn’t in trouble or in danger. But—that’s just what I feel. No, that’s what I know. And I know I need to go help him.”

  Con stared at David in open disbelief. “You just said, Mitchell, that you know your superiors and your place and your duty. Suppose I still don’t give you permission to go?”

  Instantly David responded, “Then, sir, I wouldn’t dream of going. You’re my commanding officer, and I took an oath. I’d never break my word.”

  Colonel Ben-ammi poked Con sharply in the side and said airily, “See?”

  Con grimaced, and Niklas muttered dourly, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Colonel Ben-ammi. He hates being poked at. Believe me, I know.”

  “I, too, know this,” Ben-ammi said amiably.

  The tightly knit group started easy conversations again, while Con sat unmoving, his arms crossed, his craggy face set in deep concentration lines. Darkon, who knew that Con needed to think it out for himself, spoke up, “As for me and Vashti, we would try to do the same thing if it were possible, Sergeant Mitchell.”

  Vashti nodded her head in agreement and added, “And I’m not certain that our motives would be as pure as yours are, either. I would volunteer immediately for a mission that would take me to my father and mother and sisters in Beersheba . . . And I’m not too certain that they wouldn’t take precedence over the mission.”

  “But you would perform your mission, and then you would come back,” David said quietly. “And so would I.”

  She nodded, then turned to Rio. “What about you, Sergeant Valdosta? You’ve never said anything about your family.”

  He shrugged carelessly. “I’m an orphan. Left at St. Thomas of Baja when I was just a baby, in the Mexican famine of ’27. An old priest ran
that orphanage, him and two old nuns. Not much new blood in the Oldest Church, you know, not then and sure not now. Anyway, they were the only family I ever knew, except for the army.”

  Vashti had noticed that the rough-and-tumble Rio Valdosta had a respect that was almost a reverence for the elderly Benewah Two Color. His history explained that instant attachment.

  Moodily Deacon Fong kicked at the floor with one booted heel, chipping the brittle sandstone slightly. “I got a big family in China. Four sisters and a brother. My parents are so stubborn.

  I’ve tried to move them over here a hundred times. But they said we couldn’t afford it until after my little brother gets his education. They were going to send him over here this summer. He’s already been accepted at NYU next fall. He was going to study this summer and take his citizenship test. After graduation, he was going to try to join the Screaming Eagles.”

  “He was actually going to become a citizen?” Niklas grunted. “I didn’t know they still gave those tests or required citizenship for any reason.”

  Fong shrugged. “They don’t. But I did the same thing, even though the INS had a good laugh. ’Til they had to dig up the test because I raised such a stink about it. It’s a matter of honor.”

  “They probably never knew whether you passed it or flunked it,” Niklas said.

  “Probably not,” Fong agreed. “But I knew.” He turned to Ric Darmstedt, who had brought out his whetstone and was sharpening his boot dagger. “Hey, Ric, how about you? Your folks are in Texas, aren’t they? Your people are probably closer than anyone else’s! Haven’t you thought about jogging over there to check on ’em?”

  Ric mumbled, “They’re on an extended vacation right now. My parents and two sisters. All of them are traveling until after the new year.”

  “Traveling where?” Fong persisted. “Do you know?”

  “Yeah,” Ric answered shortly.

  Everyone waited. Ric’s knife went scritch-scratch across the rough stone. He looked up, glowering. “All right, all right! They’re in Germany! They’ve been all over Europe, and this month they’re in Germany! They’re Germans, and we have lots of money! That’s probably why they were able to get such extended visas!”

  The silence was thick; even Con Slaughter came out of his brown funk to stare at Ric in disbelief.

  Suddenly Vashti laughed, a sharp, derisive sound. “Is that what is wrong with you, Lieutenant Darmstedt?”

  “What?” he growled.

  “You feel guilty because you’re of German ancestry?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Funny,” Slaughter rumbled, “all the time I thought you were a soldier in the American army, Darmstedt. I didn’t know your heart was with the Goths.”

  Ric jumped to his feet, his aquiline features heavy with anger.

  “Sir, I’m no traitor! I’m Airborne, Fire Team Eclipse, and I’m as loyal to my country and my comrades as you are!”

  “I know,” Slaughter said casually. “Why don’t you?”

  Ric’s jaw almost, but not quite, dropped. He sat down quickly and stared into space. After a few moments he picked up his boot and polishing cloth and began all over again. “Huh,” he muttered.

  “That’s a real good question, sir. I’ll think on that question, I sure will, sir.”

  “You do that, Darmstedt,” Slaughter said dryly. “I’ll even let you use the team brain for a while.”

  Niklas dared to sigh and say, “I think I’m going to heartily regret that crack for the rest of my life.”

  “Yes, sir, Dr. Kesteven, I’ll make sure of that,” Slaughter assured him.

  Colonel Ben-ammi was staring at Slaughter in a peculiar way.

  “You know, I just thought of something . . . Captain Slaughter, it appears that out of the seven members of Fire Team Eclipse, only two members have family here in the United States.”

  Slaughter didn’t answer.

  Ben-ammi went on quietly, “That would be Sergeant Mitchell— and you, Captain Slaughter. Your parents and grandparents in Elegy, Alabama. On their horse farm.”

  “You know, and remember, too much,” Slaughter commented without heat.

  “Maybe,” Ben-ammi replied. “But I think Sergeant Mitchell has a good idea. We do need information, Captain Slaughter. But no one should ever go on such a difficult and complex mission alone.”

  Again, no one spoke for a long time. They all watched Slaughter with ever-changing mixtures of curiosity, sympathy, and for David

  Mitchell, sudden hope. Slaughter started pacing, his head down, his eyes unseeing.

  When Slaughter spoke, it was with his old quick confidence. “Okay, Mitchell, let’s talk about a plan. And Darmstedt?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get over it. That’s an order. You’ll be next in command.”

  Darmstedt gulped. “Uh—yes, sir.”

  Zoan sighed and hung his head so low that the other members of the team noticed. “What’s the matter, Zoan?” Slaughter asked. He liked the odd young man.

  He looked up and stared solely at Slaughter, as was his wont even in group conversation. “I don’t want David to go,” he said sadly. “I’ll miss him so much. But if God tells him to, he needs to, I guess. It’s just that he’s the only Christian, like me, here. All the rest of you are real nice, and you’re my friends, but you are heathens.”

  This sincere and perhaps too precise declaration cracked up the group, but some laughed more heartily than others. Slaughter, for instance, felt a twinge—not of offense, but a fleeting sense of loss. Maybe Mitchell—and even Zoan—knew something more than the rest of them did after all?

  In his slow way, Zoan looked from one person to another as they laughed and teased each other smartly about their heathenish ways. When they’d calmed down a bit, Zoan went on, “Captain Slaughter, sir? Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, Zoan.”

  “I don’t guess you’ll be wanting to walk or even ride horses. It sounds like it’s a long way to the East. Is that right?”

  “Yeah, you sure got that right, my man.”

  Zoan’s face wavered, like an image underwater that ripples pass over, at Slaughter’s idiom. But he let it go because he was concentrating so hard on what he had to say. “Then I guess,” he said with a sigh, “I can show you where you can get a helicopter.”

  Deacon Fong jumped up as if he’d been shot out of a cannon.

  “What? A chopper? You mean a live one?”

  Zoan frowned, then nodded. “Yes. Not dead. A live one. One of those big fat ones, not the skinny ones that look like hornets.”

  Deacon hurried around to grab Zoan’s thin shoulders and yank him to his feet. Zoan submitted to this outrage gracefully. “You mean a big German chopper? A Messerschmitt-Kawasaki BK 2000?”

  “I don’t know its name,” Zoan answered obediently. “But I know where some of them are. You could get one.”

  “You bet I could get one,” Deacon almost shouted. “Captain Slaughter! I volunteer for the mission! Please, sir?”

  “Permission granted,” Slaughter said, grinning. “Glad to have the best helo driver in the army aboard. Not to mention the fact that with a helo, and you driving it, we might get there and back before the next millennium.”

  “Begging your pardon, but that would be the best helo driver in America, sir,” Deacon corrected him with dignity. “Maybe in the world.”

  Slaughter nodded. “Forgive me, Fong. I lost all sense of reason there for a minute.”

  “I forgive you, sir,” Deacon said magnanimously. “So, Zoan, where is this big helicopter?”

  Zoan was staring at Deacon in a peculiar way. The two men were the same height, and they were still facing each other. Zoan took a small sliding step even closer and looked unblinking into Deacon’s delicately slanted eyes. It gave Deac an odd feeling, both the close perusal and Zoan’s eyes that were almost all pupil, dark and bottomless, all-seeing.

  “What—what is it, Zoan?” he asked hesitantly.

&nbs
p; Zoan blinked once, twice, slowly. Then he shook his head as if he were coming out of a difficult dream. “I don’t know,” he answered, childlike. “I thought I was going to tell you not to go.

  But now I’m not going to.”

  Deac swallowed hard, though he didn’t know exactly why he felt such foreboding at Zoan’s opaque, but honest, words.

  Much later, everyone in the room would recall Zoan’s words. And then everyone would be filled with fear.

  The three black lumps on the ground looked much like mounds of dirt in the midnight murkiness—until they started crawling, but even then they were hardly noticeable. A few feet ahead of them was a knife-edged glare of light that extended four square miles or more. The cloak of darkness that covered most of America was lying heavily on the city of Albuquerque. But not even the most obscure corner of Kirtland Air Force Base, where the 77th Luftwaffe Air Wing had been based for three years, was dark. Great kliegs powered by freestanding generators blazed everywhere.

  The Germans, methodical and practical people that they were, had put Albuquerque International Airport to good use, and it was lit with their external sources, too.

  “Zoan was right,” the black lump named Con Slaughter whispered softly. “They’re keeping the helos at the airport instead of at the base with the military choppers.”

  “He was right about something else, too,” Deac Fong whispered back. “We can get one, easy. They’re not even bothering with military guards.”

  “Yes, sir,” David Mitchell added hesitantly. “But what are we gonna do with it once we get it?”

  “Fly away home, boys,” Deac said, and they saw the white flash of his teeth in a grin. He was having a famously good time.

  Directly in front of the three shapeless humps on the ground loomed the brooding mass of a Messerschmitt-Kawasaki BK 2000, the Rolls-Royce of helicopters. There were three of them on this most isolated runway at the airport. The three men surmised that the head Goths didn’t want their fine, expensive choppers quartered at the base with the grunt helos. Of course, this runway was the closest in proximity to the luxurious Villa del Sol Hotel, which could have been named a palace, and it was brimming with high-hat Germans. The high command of Commandant Tor von Eisenhalt’s army and air force would never quarter on a military base.