Everyone looked at everyone else. Nobody dissented.
“So be it,” Cavan said.
“The reason we’ve been talking about getting to Mexico is that there’s another shuttle down a silo at a site just south of the border,” Mitch told the soldiers a half hour later. Apart from himself and Dan there were Furle, Dash, Legermount, and six troopers: four from the group that had hijacked the chopper and two uninjured from those who had stayed with the crashed Rustler. “Now, we’re not talking about huge numbers of people being there like you saw at Vandenberg. There’ll be just us here, plus a handful to be picked up in Texas. That means there’ll be extra room. After listening to Charlie, I’m willing to go for it. And for anyone else who’s prepared to take his chances, that’s the bonus at the end of the ride. But I’m not going to hang this on you as an order. It’s a volunteer mission. You’ve all heard the arguments. Each man is free to make his choice.”
Captain Furle still remembered the couple-of-hours-extra assurance that he’d heard the last time they talked about going to Mexico. “I can’t say I see how it’s going to change anything,” he objected. “Except for making our chances worse, that is. Whatever hits here, the same thing is gonna hit there just as bad. The only difference is that here we’ve at least got protection and some backup that’s halfway organized. There, we’d have nothing. We did what we could once, and it’s over. I’m still for heading north to Cheyenne Mountain. General Ullman promised us at Vandenberg that he’d find us room there.”
They showed mixed reactions. Keene could understand why. It hadn’t been that long ago when he himself had been looking for excuses to stay with the apparent safety that the military bases represented. Dan decided to attempt returning to the Air Force command in Colorado too and throw his lot in with Earth, come what may. The trooper with the hurt knee and the other who had come down sick were not up to such a further mission, and two more stayed with Furle through choice. That left two—their names were Birden and Reynolds—who would go with Mitch, Legermount, Dash, and the six civilians, including Cynthia.
Keene wondered if he was the only one who understood how much smaller the Amspace minishuttle was than a regular Air Force shuttle or the Boxcars that had gone up from Vandenberg. There was no telling how many people Harry Halloran might have brought with him, assuming he made it to San Saucillo. Keene didn’t relish the thought of possibly having to explain the situation to armed and angry men, should it turn out that there were no spare places after all. A likely response in that event might be an insistence at gunpoint that everyone submit to a draw. But first, they would have to get there. He would worry about it then, he decided. It was always possible that by that time the problem would have solved itself.
Eleven in all were driven that night to the repaired siding in the railroad yards on the east side of the city, where the train to make the run to San Antonio was being assembled and fitted out. It consisted of six locomotives, three in tandem to the front and rear of a long line of boxcars and tankers with protected tops, with flatcars at intervals mounting sandbagged machine guns and posts for armed guards. Two coach cars in the center carried the command staff and guard reserves. Two flatcars pushed in front of the lead locomotive carried rails and equipment for track repairs. To reconnoiter and clear the route ahead as far as possible, a small scout train comprising a locomotive pushing several cars with engineers and a work crew, more rails and track-laying equipment, lifting gear, a couple of small earthmovers, and an Army escort had left earlier in the afternoon.
The big train rolled out shortly before midnight under the light of floodlamps and the orange glow from a sky of flame dancing among black clouds. Beyond, the diffuse incandescence from Athena showed, moving around to Earth’s night side. Above the growl of the diesels and the rumbling of the wheels, distant thunder boomed continually. In the wilderness to the north and the south, patches of orange and red flickering through veils of unseen smoke glowed where the mountains and the desert were on fire.
45
The eleven shared space in one of the coaches with guards who were off duty or resting. It had open seats that could be folded down to make beds, rather than being divided into compartments, and a galley and dining space at one end next to the bathrooms. Several layers of corrugated sheeting alternating with sandbags overlaid the roof, and the windows were covered outside by steel mesh. Most of the soldiers were making the best of the chance to rest, and the lighting was kept dim.
Keene and several of the others remained awake, but there was little talk among them. They sat staring out through the windows at the Dantean sky and the intermittent glows shimmering through the dust and smoke-laden air—perhaps, like Keene, able for the first time since the nightmare began to reflect on the meaning of what they were seeing. The world they had known was being destroyed, never to be rebuilt in any of their lifetimes. Having risen to the highest peak in its history of comprehending and harnessing the physical universe, the human race had become distracted from its quest for truth and worthwhile knowledge, and been mesmerized instead by the pursuit of false values based on vanity and petty ambitions. The remnant that was holding together did so on time bought with the salvaged residues of a civilization that had already died. When the machines became still and the bulbs flickered out, the last ruins were ransacked for a surviving stash of cans, ammunition for a useless gun, a cake of soap, a knife, then those left would be reduced to the condition of the tribes that had wandered amidst the devastation in the years following the Exodus. The only hope for recovering in a period that would not extend over millennia now lay with the Kronians—assuming that Kronia itself was able to survive. The biblical accounts had been pretty close to the truth when they said that God periodically destroyed the world and its life, and replaced it with a new world. Now, it seemed, He was displeased with the latest life that had set up its own golden calves. Keene wondered if the next form to arise would meet with better approval as a more faithful rendering of what life and its expression were supposed to be. Did the Kronian model hint at a possible way? A light flaring suddenly, close enough to be visible through the murk, then followed several seconds later by a whoosh ending in a sharp report like a thunderclap, reminded them that the bombardment had just eased for a while, not ceased.
About three hours out from El Paso, the train halted. The lights were turned up, and the NCO in charge ordered the guards down with their weapons to stand to outside. A few minutes later, an officer from the staff coach in front came through to say that they had picked up a detail left by the scout train ahead to warn them to slow down over a risky stretch of patched track. Searchlights played over the area revealed just broken cliffs, rocky slopes, and clumps of scrub. The guard contingents manning the flatcars were changed, and the train got under way again. Everyone began settling down except Mitch and Legermount, who sat around the dining counter at the end with the troops who had just been relieved, talking, drinking coffee, and eating. Cynthia, who had been tending Charlie’s bruises and lacerations, was now huddled up with him. Tiredness overcame Keene too, finally. He stretched out, using his folded parka as a pillow, pulled his blanket close around him, and slept.
It was a little after eight the next morning when they caught up with the scout train in the rugged country between the Davis Mountains and the Tierra Vieja Mountains. They were roughly a hundred fifty miles from El Paso, having left the Rio Grande valley to cut across the large southward bend in the river, which they would rejoin two hundred miles farther on at Langtry. The scout train had halted on the approach into a shattered township, where the engineering crew were still fixing torn track and improvising repairs to an embankment. The activity had drawn out the survivors, now clustered along both sides of the tracks with the same shock-widened eyes staring from dazed, blackened faces, holding up unfed babies and injured children in the desperate appeals for help that Keene had seen a hundred times already and was sickened by because he knew there was no help, would never be help for t
hem. But there was a lot of anger out there too. An officer came back to tell everyone other than the guards deployed outside to remain on the train.
The second in command got down from the staff coach to talk to what seemed to be the representatives—it was virtually the scene outside the hangars at Vandenberg repeating itself. The train had ample room, and the people wanted to be taken aboard. The officer tried to explain that there was nothing for them in San Antonio, where the train was going. Their hope lay in the other direction. They didn’t care. After days of exposure, all that mattered was the chance of respite and to come inside anywhere that offered an escape from the terror. The problem was that the space was needed to bring supplies back. If these people were taken aboard they would never be induced to leave again, and forcing them off at San Antonio would only leave them in a worse predicament still. The officer was adamant. The best he could offer was to leave them supplies and water and pick up as many as could be fitted in on the return trip. Moreover, there was always the possibility that another train could come through before then.
With the repairs complete, the equipment was loaded and the guards climbed back aboard. Slowly, the train began moving to howls of anguish and rage from outside. Several seconds later, a window farther along the car shattered. “Incoming!” a voice yelled. Everyone threw themselves away from the windows and down behind the seats and the sills. But there were just a few scattered shots. It was impossible to tell where they were coming from. The guards didn’t return any fire.
When the train was clear, Cavan moved over and sat down opposite as Keene regained his seat.
“It’s a sad world we live in, Landen,” he observed somberly. “A sad world.”
Birden and Reynolds, the two Special Forces troopers who had thrown their lot in with Mitch, were both from his own unit and not part of the scratch force that Cavan had thrown together in Washington. Birden had dark wavy hair and an easy smile, and was from New York City. Raised in an orphanage, he had not done well in foster homes and joined the military as soon as he was old enough. This was the first time he could say he was honestly glad to have no immediate family or anyone close anywhere.
Reynolds was from Texas originally—not that far from San Antonio, as it turned out—but had moved with his family to South Carolina as a child. He was tall, with olive skin and straight black hair that suggested an Indian or Hispanic element, and was from a solid Baptist upbringing. For him, serving in the military was a way of answering a calling to serve the nation. He tried not to think too much about his folks back East, but his staunch belief enabled him to accept that whatever happened was for a reason. Keene almost envied him for that. As far as Reynolds was concerned, they would make it to Montemorelos and get away if the Lord needed them for other things, otherwise not, and that was all there was to it.
“But you’re not saying we should just sit back and wait for things to work out by themselves,” Alicia said as they talked while the miles rolled by. “I couldn’t accept a philosophy like that. I have to do what I can.”
“That was what got Charlie and the rest of us this far,” Keene agreed.
Reynolds thought about it. “No, ma’am, I wouldn’t say that,” he conceded finally. “The Lord is never ungrateful for a helping hand from those who are disposed to lend it.” He added, after a moment more of reflection, “Unlike some people.”
Legermount had grown up partly in Europe, where the family had been expanding its sporting goods business, and come back to Pennsylvania to complete high school and two college years. He had fled to the military from a tyrannical father bent on molding him into a management executive and fitting heir. “I just don’t have a head for it,” he told the others. “Never could get the hang of double entry bookkeeping. Every way I figured it, I always ended up wanting to make the entry on the wrong side. So I tried putting it on the opposite side from what I thought, instead. And that was always wrong too. So that was when I gave up.”
“Maybe too hastily,” Colby mused, cleaning his spectacles, which had still, somehow, miraculously survived. “I’m sure you’d have qualified for a high position in government accounting somewhere.”
Dash had an unassuming but intense personality. He was from a small town in Ohio, had wanted to be a doctor but been deterred by the demands of med school and joined the service to acquire practical medical skills a different way. He remembered seeing Keene on TV in the weeks before the conference in Washington. “You were one of the guys trying to get scientists to take the Kronians seriously about Venus,” he said. “And now everything’s happening again just the way you said. I was with you. It made a lot of sense to me. I mean, the evidence was right there all the time. They’re supposed to be logical people. How come you couldn’t get through to them?”
“I asked that question a lot too,” Keene replied. “I guess once people are indoctrinated into a system, they’re unable to see things in any other way than from that worldview. What you get is experts trained to know every detail and argument of the subject, but only within the system. They can’t question its premises. The notion that the whole system itself might be wrong is literally inconceivable. To do that, you almost always need somebody from outside—like you. Most of the big scientific revolutions happened in that kind of way.”
Cynthia, who was doing a wonderful job of putting the past behind, looked at Charlie Hu questioningly. “Hear what he’s saying about scientists, Charlie? Are you going to let him get away with that?”
“Oh, that’s not us. He means those guys at Yale and Cambridge,” Charlie replied.
Keene turned his head toward the window and thought back to it all. It all seemed an eternity ago, not just weeks—as if belonging to another world. Outside, the clouds of dust, smoke, and ash writhed in wind that was beginning to rise again. They passed a creek bed choked with rotting corpses of cattle underneath a strangely swaying black cloud that it took Keene a moment to realize, when they swarmed outside the window, was composed of flies. Fortunately, the window hit by the bullet had been covered with a plastic sheet. Close by, a bus had gone down the side of a ravine, spilling bodies that still lay where they had fallen or crawled to. There were more clouds of flies. Cynthia gripped Charlie’s arm as she stared out tight-mouthed, her face white and strained.
What had he been thinking? Keene asked himself. There was no “as if” about it. It had all been part of another world.
Progress was slower now that they were following behind the scout train. For long stretches the railroad ran close to the main east-west highway—still Interstate 10, running from the Atlantic coast of Florida to Los Angeles. The masses flocking into El Paso had been just the beginning. For mile after mile, the train rolled past the same scenes repeating themselves: of packed vehicles winding their way cautiously forward through the rock debris and wrecks; survivors from abandoned ones huddled in makeshift shelters, others continuing doggedly on foot; crowds pressed around emergency service vehicles; relief camps trying desperately to cope; and everywhere were the black clouds of flies signaling their gruesome message.
Keene found that he was registering it merely as a record of events having happened. The sights no longer had the ability to evoke any feelings. Twice in the course of the day, the train had to stop for major track repairs, each time being beseiged by supplicants who had to be turned away. On the second occasion, a group of them tried to rush the train and were stopped by the machine guns.
Nightfall found them past the halfway mark, descending from the southern Texas plateau into the valley of the Pecos. Repair crews had been pushing westward from San Antonio also, and the going actually became easier.
“You must be a man uniquely gifted with persuasiveness, Landen,” Cavan said. His tone was low, not intended to carry. “Did you ever think of yourself as charismatic? It isn’t a quality that I’d normally associate with my image of engineers.” It was mid morning of the second day. The country to the north was dotted with fires fanned by fierce winds. Draper
ies of oily flame still descended from a heaving sky. Cavan was wearing Army pants and a sweater with a scarlet neckerchief knotted at the throat. The incredible thing was that he looked younger and more vibrant than Keene had seen him for years.
“What are you talking about?” Keene asked.
Cavan raised a hand vaguely. “Look at all the people you have following you to help you find this woman of yours.”
Keene snorted. “Ah, come on. It’s the only chance they’ve got to get out of this to something better, Leo. That’s the reason, and you know it.”
“I’m not so sure that Alicia would agree that’s the only reason.”
“Well, she doesn’t count. She’s crazy. You’ve told me enough times.”
Cavan lowered his voice further. “But not crazy enough to think you could do it alone, without the military to help. That’s why they’re here, you know. She can be quite an engineer of things too, in her own way.”
“Oh?” Keene knew what Cavan meant but chose to act dumb, letting his frown ask the question.
“She bewitched Mitch into it, and the others followed. He’s a compulsive performer in front of any woman that happens to be around. Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed, Landen.”
Of course Keene had. It just wasn’t the kind of thing to go making uninvited comments on. “Well . . . I suppose it’s not something I really thought about,” he replied. He studied Cavan’s face for a moment. “Why? It’s not bothering you, is it, Leo? If she did, it’s as you say: to get some backup for me. Unless my judgment of people has gone to hell in the last week, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Oh God, I’ve been around too many years for that. She could do worse. He’s got nerve, he’s dependable, and he commands loyalty. If she had any sense, she’d have found herself someone like that years ago.”
Worlds in Chaos Page 39