Worlds in Chaos

by James P. Hogan

  Keene managed a wisp of a smile. “Well, there you are, Leo. Who’s got the charisma now?”

  “Charitable of you, I grant, but where would be the future? Back in the days when there was a future, I mean.”

  Keene looked at him reproachfully. “Don’t tell me you’ve given up hope.”

  “Seriously, what do you think the chances are?”

  Keene stared down at his hands. They were blistered and split from all the digging and shoveling that he wasn’t used to. He looked up. “If we’d had a clear run through with the Rustler, I’d have said pretty good. But with the way things have gone instead . . . who knows? Maybe Furle was right. What else can I tell you?”

  After a long wait near Uvdale for a damaged bridge to be shored up, they were held in a siding to let a loaded train from San Antonio through the other way, heading for El Paso. They reached San Antonio late that night to find the city in flames. A shrieking wind turned the buildings into torches, lighting up the overcast for miles. Spitting trails of burning naphtha left veils of smoke curling downward between the cloud blanket and the ground. The scout train had stopped a couple of hundred feet ahead. Two of its officers came back to confer with the commander on the wisdom of taking the main train any farther in until the route had been reconnoitered. The decision was to hold it back until more was known. Keene and his party transferred their kit to the lead train to go into San Antonio with it and explore what further options existed from there.

  46

  The railroad yard and its surroundings were an inferno of burning rolling stock and warehouses. There appeared to be no organized effort to fight or contain the conflagration. It was past being containable in any case, and from the look of things any focus of authority capable of organizing anything had ceased to exist; very likely, there wasn’t enough water available, anyway.

  Many people had headed for the open ground along the tracks and were trying to follow that route out of town. A crowd closed around the train as it slowed to a halt, their eyes wide against streaked, smoke-blackened faces, some wailing uncontrollably, obviously aiming to get aboard and stay there till the train departed. The soldiers accepted the injured, laying them out among the sandbags and what materiel remained on the flatcars, while the officers did their best to control the numbers trying to follow. A woman tore at Keene and Colby’s jackets as they climbed down. Her face was a mass of sores and blisters in the light from the fires; her hair looked charred. “My husband! He’s trapped . . . over that way. You have to help me get to him!” Colby disengaged himself, not wanting to be brutal but needing to keep sight of the officer in charge, who was already striding ahead along the track with two of his aides. A couple of the guards drew the woman away. Keene hastened on after the others, raising an arm to his face to ward off the sparks and cinders being driven in the wind.

  An effort was under way to salvage as much as possible of the stockpiled stores. Heavily muffled figures were manhandling crates out of a burning warehouse and stacking them beside the track while others played hoses over them. A forklift following waved directions came out through the doors at the end of the building and deposited a loaded pallet. After being pointed from one place to another, the officers from the train eventually found an Army colonel and a couple of railroad managers who were trying to keep the operation moving. As Keene and the others caught up, the gist of the exchange, shouted above the roaring of the wind and the sounds of cries and screams in the background, was that it would be too risky to bring the main train in until the fires had burned down. If the track was blocked the next morning, they would move what they could out to it by road. There was no shortage of trucks, since they had been bringing loads in to San Antonio for days—although how many of them might survive the fire was another matter. Meanwhile, they could make a start by using the scout train to take back what it could carry while the connection was still there.

  Mitch, Keene, and Cavan exchanged glances at the mention of the trucks. While the officers from the train were organizing their men to begin loading, Mitch identified himself to the colonel and asked which way the trucks were. The colonel, who was clad in a water-doused firefighter’s smock, pointed farther ahead, beyond the blazing remains of some tank cars that had exploded. “There’s a whole bunch around the loading docks that way. A lot of the drivers quit here and went out on the train that left this morning.”

  “Is there anywhere we can go to for gas?” Mitch asked.

  “Like everything else—grab what you can.” The colonel shook his head uncomprehendingly. “You don’t want to go back to El Paso?”

  Mitch shook his head. “We’re going on through.”

  “Where to?”

  “The coast, Corpus Christi.”

  “What in the name of Christ for? There’s nothing left there.”

  “Special mission. . . . So there’s nothing like any kind of train heading that way?”

  “You’re out of your mind. I just said, there’s nothing left there. Mission? No kind of mission makes sense anymore. Put your men on this job instead, and you might stand a chance. Get sane.”

  “Sorry. We have to give it a shot.”

  The colonel shook his head hopelessly. There was nothing more to say. Mitch clapped him on the shoulder and moved on, waving for the others to follow. Dash and Birden stayed close behind him, Keene and Colby next, followed by Cavan and Alicia, Charlie and Cynthia. Legermount and Reynolds brought up the rear to prevent anyone from straggling. Even after everything, Keene was unable to avoid a stab of guilt as he looked back at the colonel and the others returning to their tasks.

  The heat from the burning tank cars was too intense for them to pass, forcing them to detour behind a locomotive shed that seemed to have escaped major damage. A roadway flanked on one side by office and commercial buildings in various stages of burning and collapse led in the direction that the colonel had indicated. Survivors were still emerging from the side streets amid overturned autos with motionless forms inside or thrown nearby. More bodies lay scattered along the roadway. The sight no longer attracted attention.

  The road ended in a large parking area outside the loading bays of warehouses serving an end of the rail yards that the scout train had been unable to get to. There must have been hundreds of trucks, lined in some semblance of order in some places, scattered haphazardly in others, many smashed or on fire. Not all had been unloaded, and in places groups of figures were braving the heat and the risk of exploding gas tanks to pass cartons and boxes down to others who were loading cars and other vehicles. Who were they? . . . Who could tell?

  Mitch stopped beneath one of the high concrete lamp masts that was still standing. “The quickest way to get separated is if we all start running around without a system,” he yelled through the wind. “This is the reference point we’ll work from and use as base.” He looked at Charlie Hu, who was clutching his side and wheezing heavily. “Charlie, you’re not up to any more. Cynthia, stay with him. And Legermount, stay here too to keep an eye on them. The rest of us divide into twos: Lan, you can come with me; Leo, go with Birden; Alicia, stick with Dash; Reynolds, you take Colby. We’ll take a quadrant each, and when you find something to report, you head back here.” He pointed at the base of the mast. “In any case, check back after thirty minutes. We want a vehicle that’s intact, all wheels good, preferably with the keys. If you can, check for lights, battery, and gas. Flatbed trailers would be better. If this wind gets any worse, anything higher is gonna get blown off the road. Okay?”

  “Assuming we find a road, that is,” Colby muttered in Keene’s ear as they split up.

  Keene went with Mitch toward the west side. They passed the wreckage of several trucks and cars all entangled with another truck that looked as if it had landed on them, scraping them all into a heap. Beyond that were two more trucks almost burned out, several abandoned cars, and a truck that looked reasonably unscathed until walking around the front revealed the cab smashed in by a rock. The next two were in goo
d shape; one had its keys in but wouldn’t start. A short distance farther on Mitch tried the cab of another, then reemerged, shaking his head. As they turned away, they saw watching them two men who had been draining fuel from the tank of a tractor unit minus trailer. They looked apprehensively at Mitch and Keene’s military garb and the automatic rifle that Mitch was carrying.

  “It’s okay, ain’t it?” one of them said. “Hell, it’s not as if there’s any law left to be breaking.”

  Mitch had noticed the several cans that they had with them. “What do you guys have planned?” he asked, ignoring the question.

  “Getting the hell out of here.” The heftier one gestured over his shoulder with a thumb. “Our rig’s shot, but we found another that’ll move. No sense staying here to be roasted. Looks to me like you two guys was pretty much figuring on the same thing yourselves, anyhow.”

  “What have you got?” Mitch asked them. “Another tractor-only, like this, or does it have a trailer too?”

  “It’s a full rig,” the hefty one replied. “We figured on picking up more people along the way. Chances are gonna be better for bunches of folks that stick together.”

  Keene and Mitch exchanged quick glances. Both nodded at the same time. “Then you’ve got that already,” Mitch said, looking back. “There’s eleven of us, including five Army. The others are over that way, not far.”

  “Which way you intendin’ on headin’?” the smaller of the truckers asked.

  “South—toward Corpus Christi.”

  The larger trucker shook his head emphatically. “That’s crazy. Everyone’s going the other way. You’re on your own, soldier. They’re collecting everybody around El Paso. That’s where they’re gonna hold out until it’s over.”

  “We just came on a train from El Paso,” Mitch told them. “You’re not going to get through by road. It’s blocked all the way.”

  “So what in hell do you think you’re gonna do in Corpus Christi that’s any better?” the big trucker demanded. “It’s all under water. You expecting an ark?”

  “Do you guys know the road down that way?” Mitch asked.

  “Sure we do. Been driving it for four years.”

  “Okay. Then this is the deal. We pick up some people south from Alice and then head on into Mexico. Not too far past the border there’s a space base that’s got a shuttle down a silo, ready to go.” Keene marveled at the unqualified uncertainty that allowed Mitch to say this, but he wasn’t about to muddy any waters. “We launch and meet up with the Kronian ship that you’ve been hearing all about, and we go back with them. There it is.”

  The trucker looked at Mitch warily. “Man, you are crazy! Even if it was still up there, you think it’s going to hang around for you? What makes you think they’d even have heard of you?”

  Mitch fumed impotently for a second, then threw out a hand to indicate Keene. “Do you recognize this guy?” he snapped. The two truckers looked, shrugged, obviously didn’t. “On TV all the time just a couple of weeks back,” Mitch said. “The guy in that nuclear stunt that made the Air Force look stupid, who’d been trying to tell the world to wake up to what the Kronians had been telling it.”

  The smaller trucker peered more closely at Keene, squinting his eyes against the wind. “You know, it could be him too,” he pronounced. “Tried to take their side in that stuff that went on in Washington.”

  “Landen Keene. I am,” Keene confirmed.

  “That’s him, Buff. That’s the name, all right,” the smaller trucker said, nodding. Buff, the larger of the two, looked back at Mitch, uncertain now.

  “You see, they know him. He’s with them,” Mitch said. “That’s why they’ll wait. Now are you with us? I’m telling you, there won’t be anything for you in El Paso, even if you got there. This is gonna get a whole lot worse yet.” He looked at Keene. “We could fit a couple more in, right?”

  Keene just showed his hands and shook his head. “Why not? Sure.” He didn’t know. It wasn’t a time to be calculating liftoff weights.

  The two truckers looked at each other in bewilderment. “What do you think, Luke?” Buff asked, seemingly willing to be sold now.

  “I dunno. . . . Goin’ off somewhere all that different. Where is it? Saturn out there some place? . . .”

  “There isn’t going to be anything for you here,” Mitch said. He looked from one to the other. “What do you have? Any folks you can get to?”

  Buff looked down at the ground. “Mine were in Virginia. . . . I don’t want to think about it.” Luke just shook his head bleakly. Keene turned his head away, not sure how much more of this he was going to be able to take. Mitch seemed about to say something, then stopped, trying to let the obvious speak for itself.

  Finally, Luke said, “Maybe, if it’s like they say. . . . We should give it a try, I reckon.”

  Buff looked back at Mitch, tightened his mouth for a second, then nodded. “I still think you’re crazy. But Luke’s usually right. We’ll do it.”

  Leaving Keene to give Buff and Luke a hand filling the cans, Mitch went back to the rendezvous point to round up the others. “So who else you got with you in that group back there?” Luke asked Keene as they moved on to check another tank.

  “One’s from SICA—one of the guys who went with the Kronians on their tour. There’s a scientist from the tracking labs in California. And then we have one of President Hayer’s aides from the White House.”

  “Holy shit,” Buff breathed, shaking his head.

  The others appeared in a gaggle, Mitch in front, Legermount shepherding from the rear. With the soldiers taking some of the cans, Buff and Luke led the way through to the rig they had found. It was an eighteen-wheel Freightliner, aluminum sided full-box, its windows still intact and showing just a few dents in the trailer. “Are you sure this will handle in the wind?” Mitch yelled dubiously to Buff, looking up at it.

  “There’s only one way to find out. It’ll run. That’s the main thing. You wanna go looking around the whole of San Antonio for something better, go right ahead.”

  The two troopers helped Buff and Luke finish filling the tank, while the others loaded whatever they could find that might come in useful. Then everyone climbed aboard except Mitch, who would ride up front in the cab. Buff closed the rear doors. A minute or so later, the truck began moving.

  It started rocking violently almost at once. As they went into a turn, Keene sensed it veering erratically, trying to lift. Moments later, there was a crash as they struck something, followed for a few seconds by a rending noise outside. A short distance farther on they halted again.

  “Don’t tell me this isn’t going to work,” Cavan muttered, sounding worried.

  “I suppose they are truckers,” Colby mused. “Did anyone think to check their licenses?”

  “Colby, you’re insane,” Cynthia told him.

  “That was a prerequisite for anyone wanting to work in the White House,” Colby said. The truck remained at a standstill.

  “Seems like they’re having a conference up front,” Keene observed. The troops sat stoically, waiting for what they couldn’t change to reveal itself.

  Cavan produced his pocket radio, usable at short range, and buzzed Mitch. “What’s the problem?” he said into the mike end. There was a short pause. “He says something about a shopping trip,” Cavan told the others. “Don’t ask me. I don’t understand it either.”

  At last the truck pulled away again. For what felt like a mile or two it slowed, speeded up again, turning and stopping several times. It didn’t feel as if they were on a highway or making discernible progress anywhere. All the time, the trailer heaved and bucked, seeming a couple of times to be on the verge of turning over. Then they stopped again, reversed slowly, and a few seconds later the shock came of the tail hitting something, accompanied by crashing and the sound of breaking glass. The gears shifted, and the truck moved forward again and stopped. Doors slammed up front. Moments later the rear was opened to reveal Mitch and Luke.

&n
bsp; They were at a shopping mall and had demolished the side entrance of a Montgomery Ward store. Buff was climbing in over the wreckage of the wall and doors, probing into the darkness with a flashlamp beam. “We need everybody out again,” Mitch called inside. “This thing will never take the wind. We’re going to have to turn it into a flatbed ourselves.”

  The store had been broken into already from a different entrance and was well ransacked. However, there were still axes, sledges, and other heavy tools in the hardware and garden sections, which was what they needed. For the next two hours they labored to cut and hammer the side and roof panels from the trailer, leaving the supporting ribs. From the pieces and the doors, and with the help of line and wire from the store, they fashioned a crude, ridged shelter, looking like a shallow tent, standing on the trailer’s chassis between what had been left of the sides. For ballast and protection they lashed mattresses from the bedding department over the top, weighed down with bags of fertilizer and lawn food, to be supplemented by sandbags when they came across some.

  Finally, Keene stood looking at the result of their handiwork. It looked oddly inappropriate. A moment of doubt assailed him. “I don’t know,” he said to Cavan, shaking his head. “Are we wasting our time? Is there really any point to any of this, do you think, Leo?”

  “Who knows?” Cavan replied. “There’s an old Irish saying: ‘Now is the time for the futile gesture.’ I’ve always thought it had a wonderful ring of magnificence about it. If anything does, it surely characterizes this obdurate species of ours. . . . Without it, I doubt if we’d even be here at all.” Keene was really beginning to believe that Cavan was enjoying it.

  The time by now was well into the small hours of the morning. Everyone was exhausted. They rested up until dawn, and then set out for the ring road on the south side of the city. As they negotiated their way around blocked streets and through burning suburbs, sometimes having to bulldoze wrecked or abandoned vehicles aside, a huge fireball came out of the sky and exploded to the north, sending up burning tracers dripping flames. Minutes later, another fell farther away to the west. The frequency increased as the truck made its way onto Interstate 37 South, signposted for Pleasanton.