Worlds in Chaos

by James P. Hogan

  In the row in front, Nyarl was despondent that at the end of it all, nothing they did would have any measurable impact on Chryse. The control over what Hyadeans were told was too effective. What had Luodine and he been thinking to imagine they could change it? They had become too distracted by what they had seen on Earth, and then in their minds projected it into Chryse. But Chryse was not Earth. The flyer had given them a direct connection to Chryse before they had to leave it at Quito. The documentary that they made at Tevlak’s had not been aired there. The director of the agency that Luodine and Nyarl represented had balked when he saw it and requested guidance from the authorities. That meant it never would get aired. Oh yes, Luodine would get her story here. And nobody would ever get to see it.

  Across the aisle, Yassem and Marie sat together, saying little. Each, in her own way and for her own reasons, had imagined that if this journey ever took place it would mark the beginnings of a new life. Hopes for that were now gone, and both of them faced a life that opened up to a long prospect of uncertainty leading nowhere.

  The plane landed and taxied to the terminal. Military vehicles and personnel were scattered along the airport perimeter, where work crews were constructing antiaircraft defenses and dispersal bays, and digging slit trenches. There were fewer civil aircraft than had been normal for LAX, although many painted olive drab or camouflage. An official from the newly inaugurated Federation immigration office met them as they deplaned and took them through arrival formalities in a secluded area, away from the public facilities. Wyvex and Dee were already waiting beyond. Police escorted the group out through one end of the regular Baggage Claim level to the pickup zone, where Luke was waiting with Cade’s maroon limo. They climbed aboard amid an arriving military unit jostling to sort out packs and kit bags on the sidewalk.

  Inside, Vrel and Dee hugged warmly, but then Dee put a restraining hand on his arm and eased him away. Vrel frowned at her, puzzled. She moved her eyes in Marie and Yassem’s direction. Vrel returned a faint nod that he understood, at the same time reproaching himself for needing reminding.

  Introductions were completed as the limo pulled out into the traffic. Wyvex and Dee already knew Marie’s face from the documentary she had made with Cade. Vrel indicated the front, where Luke had left the limo’s privacy screen down. “And that’s Luke, who was Roland’s right-hand man, I think you say.” Luke’s eyes left the road for a moment to glance into the mirror showing the rear compartment.

  “Luke, hello,” Yassem said. The eyes found the mirror again, and Luke nodded in acknowledgment.

  “Hi, Luke,” Marie said. “It’s been a long time.”

  “You’re right about that. So how was China?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you already knew each other,” Vrel said.

  “Maybe we never really did,” Marie told him. She looked toward the back of Luke’s head again. “It feels as if it’s all my fault, Luke. I’m sorry I didn’t bring him back. . . . Things could have been so different. One day I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  Luke didn’t reply. Marie was hoping to begin building a bridge between them to close a gap that had existed in the past. His failure to respond struck her as strangely insensitive, even for Luke.

  The gray Dodge following several cars behind had pulled out from the sidewalk parking strip opposite as the limo left the baggage claim pickup area. With the intervening traffic and melee of soldiers, Laredo hadn’t been able to positively identify all of the expected arrivals. But the importance of carrying through the mission there—before any of them had an opportunity to meet people from the media or Federation government—had been stressed, and in his judgment that didn’t constitute sufficient grounds to reconsider. He slid the detonator control out from the map receptacle under the armrest and flipped the primer switch to the armed position. An amber light came on to confirm.

  Luke put the phone back in the holder on the limo’s dash panel. Still no answer. He wasn’t sure why, since there was hardly any reason to feel sentimental, but he had been trying to raise Julia ever since Warren’s call. It hadn’t required an effort of genius to fit the pieces together. If Julia had played her hand and gone, then nothing Luke said could make any difference now. He chewed on his lip as he drove, trying to decide if he should tell them.

  “ . . . the Midwest states might be about to come over,” Wyvex was saying behind. “But the East is pushing solidly into Texas. Everything’s confused.”

  “Might Hyadeans be getting ready to play a bigger part?” Luodine asked in a worried voice.

  “Nobody knows.”

  “We heard there’s been a lot of air fighting,” Nyarl said.

  “Especially in the center, yes,” Wyvex confirmed. “We’ve had raids here too. NATO is mobilizing in Europe.”

  Marie was being very quiet. Luke glanced in the mirror again. She was still watching him, her face showing hurt and confusion, on the verge of fighting back tears. Drawing a long breath, he turned his head to call over his shoulder. “Hey, everyone back there . . .” His tone brought immediate quiet. “There’s something you all ought to know.” They waited. “Roland and Hudro are both okay. They made it through the crash. The MOPAN got them to Bolivia. Roland called me from there a couple of days ago. There were reasons to keep it quiet. He was talking about trying to get back via New Zealand. I thought he might have changed his plans and met up with you people somehow.”

  The traffic on I-405 south was noticeably thinner due to the gasoline restrictions. Laredo moved out a lane and accelerated gently past the limo. He watched in his mirror as it fell back a comfortable distance behind, then released the safety latch over the fire button. A red warning light confirmed that the circuit was active. He kept the Dodge well ahead and waited for a clear stretch in the traffic pattern.

  Marie and Yassem were hugging each other in delight, Yassem smiling and trying to suppress a compulsion to laugh at the same time, Marie openly weeping. Vrel was speechless; Dee flung her arms around his neck. Luodine and Nyarl were grinning and smacking palms together in the way they had picked up from Terrans.

  “You mean we can call them?” Marie said, finally managing to speak coherently.

  “I don’t have the number here,” Luke answered from the front. “But sure, as soon as we get back to the house.”

  “But . . . why couldn’t you have told us?” Wyvex stammered.

  “I said, there were reasons,” Luke replied. “But they don’t matter anymore.”

  Laredo pressed the fire button. A green light indicated positive function. Yet nothing had happened. The limo was still there in his mirror, a couple of hundred yards back in a gap behind a truck and a Chevrolet sitting close together. He shook his head bemusedly and pressed the button again.

  Nothing happened.

  Thirty miles farther south, traffic braked and swerved wildly to avoid the remains and falling debris of what, a few seconds before, had been a cream Cadillac moving fast in the direction of San Diego and the border.

  In the trash bin outside the coffee shop by the gas station, the phone rang again for a while, then fell silent.

  Back in the limo, Luke replaced the phone for what he decided was the last time. He had done all anybody could do, he told himself.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  After a scheduled stop in Tahiti, Cade and Hudro arrived in Auckland without further incident. Neville Baxter, jovial as ever, met them personally with several other people from his company to make sure there was no hitch with the arrangement for them to enter the country as political refugees. They were granted temporary visas, and then Baxter took them to an apartment in Auckland that he had procured and placed at their disposal, recommending that they rest, relax for a few days, and adjust to the world as seen from the other side. After that, they could consider their options.

  The first thing Cade did was call Luke in California to let him know that he and Hudro were safe. It turned out that Luke had some news for him too. “Vrel and those two Hyadeans t
hat made the movie, they’re here. They arrived yesterday on a regular flight from Ecuador.”

  “Hey, that’s great!” Cade exclaimed. He looked up. Hudro was staring at him from the far side of the room. “Vrel and Luodine and Nyarl are okay. They’re in California.”

  “Yes, I heard.” Hudro got up and came across.

  “That’s not all,” Luke said from the screen. “Are you ready for this? You guys weren’t the only ones to make it out of that chopper crash. Marie’s here too—a bit thinner than when I last knew her, but looking pretty good.” Hudro gripped Cade’s shoulder as he looked past him, squeezing hard enough to make him wince.

  “I’m happy for you, Roland,” he murmured.

  Luke went on, “And the Hyadean girl is with her, Yassem. She’s the one who got out with that other guy there, yes?”

  “Yeaaah!” Cade exulted. He held out a palm. Hudro gripped it. They squeezed and shook deliriously, both unable to find words. Eventually, Cade looked back at the phone and managed, “But they don’t know about us yet, right? You’re still having to clam up because of Julia.”

  “Oh, they know,” Luke replied. “The Julia problem kind of solved itself. It’s complicated. She’s history. Mind if I wait on that till you get back?”

  Cade had suddenly decided that Julia’s story could wait anyway. “They know?” he repeated. “So is Marie there at the house? Can I talk to her?”

  “Sure.” Luke’s head turned away as he called offscreen. “Hey, Henry. You wanna go tell Marie she won’t believe who’s on the line here? And you’d better check around and see if you can find Yassem while you’re at it.”

  The next day, Cade contacted Krossig at the Hyadean scientific center for fieldwork that he had gone to in northeast Australia. Naturally, Krossig had also seen the documentary that Cade, Marie, and the others had made in South America. “So where are you calling from now?” he asked.

  “You won’t believe it.”

  “Mr. Cade, if you told me it was from the far side of the Moon, I would believe it.”

  “I’m a lot closer to you now, as a matter of fact—in New Zealand.”

  “Ah, that means you must be with that man, what was his name . . . ?” Krossig probably asked his veebee, “Neville Baxter.”

  “Fast, Krossig,” Cade complimented. “But there’s more. Look, I have another Hyadean with me. You probably won’t know him. His name’s Hudro. To cut a long story short, he needs a new start in another part of the planet. I thought that Hyadean group that you’re with there might be able to take him in—at least for a while.”

  They talked for a little longer, Cade giving the gist of how they had ended up in New Zealand.

  “I’ll make inquiries,” Krossig promised.

  Two days went by, during which the news brought reports of growing turmoil in America. Hyadean ground forces, apparently from several ships of reinforcements that had recently arrived in orbit, were occupying the Panama Canal Zone, which was generally interpreted as presaging operations in the Pacific. Already, there was talk of Asians “defending” Hawaii, which everyone understood meant securing trans-Pacific supply routes. The Hyadean move also prepared for the possible arrival of Globalist forces from South America in Mexico. The Mexican response was an outbreak of insurrection by a movement that had obviously been organizing for some time, no doubt linked to MOPAN, opposing the government’s Globalist supportive policy.

  The Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin joined the Federation, anchoring its northern frontier solidly along the Great Lakes. Washington was making accusations of Canadian railroads moving Federation supplies inland from Vancouver and through the Rockies. Significantly, perhaps, Canada had refused overflight permission to the Union. In the southern sector, the Unionist drive into Texas was continuing, with ground forces now coming into contact, maneuvering for positions, and with actual outbreaks of skirmishing in places. Cade watched shots of tanks with familiar white star markings firing on positions a few miles west of Fort Worth. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have said it was impossible.

  Then Krossig called back. Yes, indeed, his superiors at the Hyadean field center would be extremely interested in meeting Cade and Hudro. Arrangements would be made to receive them as soon as they wished.

  And so, just five days after their arrival in New Zealand, Cade and Hudro bade Neville Baxter farewell before boarding a New Zealand Air Force jet transport bound directly for Cairns, on the Queensland coast.

  While Cade and Hudro were looking out over the sunlit blue of the Tasman Sea, it was a close, muggy evening in New York. There had been air-raid alerts, fire drills in offices and schools, and a lot of merchandise moved to safes and basements, but nothing had come of it.

  Drisson met Laura for dinner in an out-of-the way but highly rated Greek restaurant frequented by gourmet aficionados on the East Side above 70th Street between Second Avenue and the river. He had decided that some investment in up-market taste could be justified in this instance. They got around to business after the appetizers and salad, and a second choice of wines to suit the entrées.

  “People in my line of work don’t trade social niceties,” he said. “That way, we save time and avoid misunderstandings. You and I are both in situations where we know things about Toddrel that he wouldn’t have wanted his mother to know. You keep him happy at playtime and know how he really does business. I know what happens to people who get in his way. It isn’t pretty.” He paused for a reaction. Laura continued watching him silently over her glass as she sipped. Drisson went on, “His South American operation has backfired, which put him right next to the big fan when the secession hit. When people like Casper are in trouble, life for everyone around them tends to get insecure.”

  Laura looked mildly reproaching. “You’re not trying to tell me I could be in some kind of danger, surely?”

  “I think you should be certain you know the person you’re dealing with.” Drisson studied her for a second or two, as if weighing whether to elaborate. “He had a wife once. I assume you know that.”

  “She drowned in a boating accident seven years ago.”

  “Right. They were heading for a divorce that was going to be bloody. She knew a lot about him that he wouldn’t have wanted to see in the papers, and she meant to use all of it.” Drisson shook his head. “It wasn’t an accident.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I told you, my job is to know things.”

  Laura’s expression registered the more serious dimension that this was taking on. “What are you asking me to do?” she asked warily.

  “I’m suggesting that you change your insurance. Or at least, take out extra cover.”

  “Which your company, of course, happens to deal in.”

  “Very professional and experienced. Long established in the business.”

  “Why? What’s in it for you? It sounds as if you can take care of yourself.”

  “Information. Access. If it ever comes time to claim on the policy, it can work a lot smoother with help on the inside.” Drisson indicated her with an extended hand. “Like I said before, separate, we’re both vulnerable. Working together, we could look out for each other pretty good.”

  Laura’s gaze flickered over him, reading the face and the eyes, comparing their message with that of the words. If things really could get that ugly, it was beginning to sound as if she might need this person around. But then she would end up in an even stronger position of knowing enough to compromise him if events took such a direction, and she felt so inclined. And he had already shown how much he believed in taking precautions. She was going to have to play this carefully, she decided. Very carefully.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The group waiting to greet Cade and Hudro at Cairns, which boasted a modestly sized airport in spite of its billing as “international,” consisted of Krossig; his Hyadean boss, Freem; and an Australian biologist by the name of Susan Gray, who worked with them. With them, local officialdom was r
epresented in the form of a grinning Aborigine in the full regalia of khaki shorts and a white shirt worn shirttails out, and an equally affable Asian in a casual jacket and slacks. They were called Tolly and Hueng. Both were nominally based at the local authority’s offices in Townsville, two hundred miles south, which served as an outpost of the state government in Brisbane. They maintained a loose contact with the Hyadean presence in Cairns and had flown up to “coordinate” with Cade and Hudro, and make their stay comfortable.

  Accommodation had been arranged in a hotel called the Babinda farther in toward the city—although Susan was from Melbourne originally, and said that nobody in Queensland knew what a real city was. They drove there in a bright orange minibus through grassy, hilly farmland and spread-out suburbs of broad streets and modern frame buildings tucked among palm trees and stands of tropical greenery. On the way, Freem talked among other things about the inefficiency of internal combustion engines. The hydrogen atom, he explained, could be catalytically induced to assume lower energy states than the “ground” state held by Terran science to be the lowermost possible, and in the process released energies hundreds of times greater than conventional combustion. It was inherently clean, using water as a fuel and producing degenerate hydrogen as exhaust, which was totally inert and diffused up out of the atmosphere. Cade had heard this from Vrel, but he didn’t want to spoil Freem’s line by saying so.