Transport 3
The Zone
Phillip P. Peterson
Translated by
Jenny Piening
Edited by
Laura Radosh
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Afterword
Chapter 1
Slowly, too slowly, Russell regained consciousness. His head was throbbing with pain, and he couldn’t focus. The burning sensation in his lungs was almost unbearable, especially when he breathed in. Where was he, and what the hell had happened?
Cautiously, he opened his eyes. A bright light shining down from above intensified the pain to an almost intolerable level. He turned his head away too quickly and was immediately overcome by nausea. He retched and coughed, and his mouth filled with a terrible taste that was vaguely familiar from bar crawls in his former life. He touched his lips, which were dry and cracked.
Russell summoned all his strength, propped himself up on one elbow, and slowly sat up. He rubbed his eyes and looked around: He was sitting on a metal cot, which was far too hard despite the mattress. The bed was covered in a white sheet and a green blanket lay unused at its foot. The room was small, nine feet long at most, and so narrow that he could touch the opposite wall just stretching out his arm from the bed. Besides the bed, the only other thing in the room was a chemical toilet. A thick grille covered a small ventilation shaft on the ceiling. Next to the bed was a tin pitcher filled with a clear liquid. Russell lifted it to his lips. The fluid trickled down his throat, horribly warm, but at least it was water and quenched his thirst.
To his left was a metal door. He could tell just from looking at it that it was locked. On his side of the door there was a keyhole, but no doorknob. Russell was in a cell and he was a prisoner.
With trembling hands he wiped the sweat from his brow. It was hot, almost unbearably so, and the air was dry. For a moment he thought he was back on the military mission in Somalia all those years ago. Had the rebels captured him? Had he been taken to one of those dirty desert backwaters and thrown into the cell of an old police station? Would the rebels demand a ransom from the UN or make an example of him and chop off his head with a rusty machete while he was forced to look into the lens of a camera?
But then the memory of what had happened came flooding back. New California! The beasts attacking in the canyon! The atomic bomb! They had defeated the animals and celebrated. Then he remembered lying in bed with Ellen. They had been ambushed. General Morrow!
Russell felt his whole body tense up. After twenty years, his old superior had suddenly turned up in their settlement with a commando unit. The transporter! Russell and his comrades had destroyed all of the transporters in the solar system, but clearly they must have overlooked one. He guessed that Morrow and his men had knocked him unconscious and dragged him off somewhere. This couldn’t be New California, it was too hot. They had to have taken him somewhere in the transporter. If he was in a prison, it could only be on Earth. Perhaps Nevada, where he had begun his surreal journey twenty years earlier.
Groaning, Russell stood up and started to cough violently. He stretched out a hand to the opposite wall in order not to lose his balance. Whatever General Morrow was planning to do with him here, his cancer would finish him off anyway. He placed a hand on the iron door. The metal was as warm as the air. Russell stumbled backward until he was standing under the ventilation shaft. He looked up at it, but that just made him feel even dizzier. He could feel a light draft of air on his skin, but even this was warm and sticky.
Russell remembered Ellen and the children. Was it possible they were here too? Maybe they had taken all the inhabitants of the settlement through the transporter and back to Earth and, along with Russell, thrown them into cells on some military compound.
Suddenly, Russell heard footsteps. Someone was approaching his cell. Then he heard the key turning several times in a lock he could not see. The bolt was drawn back with a loud rasping noise and the door creaked open.
Russell looked into the faces of two heavily armed soldiers. Their combat uniforms were the yellowish camouflage of units stationed in deserts. From the angled stripes on the epaulets he could see they were sergeants, although he was unfamiliar with this precise form of the symbol. They could be Air Force soldiers——perhaps they had changed the symbol slightly in the last twenty years. But where the lettering of the US Air Force was normally emblazoned on the breast pocket was a blue symbol in the form of a star with wings pointing upward. The men’s black caps were adorned with an emblem that was also unfamiliar to Russell. It was yellow with a solid black circle in the middle, and reminded him of a company logo. Each of the soldiers was carrying an automatic rifle, which looked like a newer version of an M-16.
“Mr. Harris, follow me please!” the first of the two men spoke. He was small and wiry and wore rimless glasses.
“What’s going on, guys?” Russell asked, without budging.
The man in the glasses didn’t bat an eyelid. “I would like you to follow me, Mr. Harris.”
Clearly this wasn’t a request. Russell wouldn’t have put it past the men to violently knock him to the ground if necessary. He had no choice, and in any case, he didn’t want to stay in this cell a moment longer. Perhaps he would finally find out what Morrow had in store for him.
“Sure, let’s go.”
Legs trembling, Russell staggered along behind the small man. His companion closed the door and followed Russell at a distance of six feet.
They made their way slowly down a narrow corridor lit by fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Russell’s cell was the last one of a row of four. In some spots along the corridor, the plaster had crumbled from the wall, revealing bare, brown stone. The facility seemed to be underground and to have been blasted or hewn straight out of a rock face. Out here, too, the heat was crippling.
“Don’t you guys have any air conditioning?” Russell asked, but he didn’t get an answer.
At the end of the corridor, they stopped in front of a heavy steel door. The soldier in front of him shouldered his weapon and unlocked it with a small key.
Another corridor. On the first door on the left there was a big, red cross, the word Infirmary below it in black letters.
A woman swore loudly. “You’ve come to me because of a little scratch? Here, take this and deal with it yourself.”
Just as Russell was passing the door, it opened and a young soldier, blood trickling into his eyes from a small wound on his forehead, stormed out. In his hand he was holding a band-aid. Through the crack, Russell saw a fierce-looking woman staring at him. The woman was probably around fifty. She had short, blond hair, which stuck up in all directions, and she was wearing a white lab coat. Their eyes met for a split second before she slammed the door shut.
To his left, Russell passed more doorways, with signs for the storeroom and the kitchen. Another corridor t
urned off to the right. The bare walls were painted a yellowish color. Two men in white lab coats, engrossed in conversation, walked past them without taking any notice of Russell or his companions. A strange place. It definitely wasn’t just a prison.
They took a turn to the left and finally came to a halt in front of the first door on the right. Brig. Gen. R. Morrow was written on it in thin black letters. Russell took a deep breath. He remembered the hate in the eyes of his former superior. He was sure that nothing positive would come of this meeting. In the worst-case scenario, all he would see for the rest of his life was the inside of a cell. But his life was as good as over, in any case. Only ... he desperately wanted to see his family just one last time.
The soldier knocked at the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. “Mr. Harris, Sir!”
Russell entered the room. It was a tiny office. Morrow was sitting behind an ugly, gray metal desk. Behind him, against the wall, was a shelf half-filled with files and a US flag.
The general scrutinized Russell without speaking. Russell had trouble looking Morrow in the eyes, which were like black ice. As in the past, it was impossible to tell what Morrow was thinking. Was it satisfaction that he had managed to catch Russell after all, after so many years? Was it hate? Russell couldn’t say.
With a brief wave of a hand, Morrow indicated a chair in front of his desk and Russell slowly sat down. The soldiers positioned themselves at the door.
“Wait outside,” Morrow said tonelessly.
“Shall we handcuff him, Sir?”
“He can’t get out of here.”
The men left the room without replying.
About a minute passed, during which he and Morrow stared at each other without speaking. It was hard for Russell to believe that twenty years had passed since his last encounter with the general. His face was as thin and shrunken, and his hair as gray, as Russell remembered. Perhaps his face had a few new lines, while others had become more deeply etched, but the eyes were as alert and clear as they had always been. Russell had never known exactly how old his former superior was, but now he must be at least eighty and long past retirement age.
“You disappointed me,” Morrow finally spoke. “You disappointed me greatly.”
His voice was calm and devoid of emotion.
“I’m sorry, General,” Russell answered in an equally calm voice.
“You of all people, Harris!” Morrow leaned back in his chair. “You used to be my best man. After Nevada, you could have gone down in history as a hero. Instead, you demoted yourself to the greatest traitor our country has ever produced. I haven’t understood it to this day, Harris. Why?” The general shook his head.
This question must have cost Morrow countless sleepless nights. “Well, the way I see it, by destroying the sphere we were securing the future of Earth.” Russell looked directly at Morrow. “Apparently without success.”
The general nodded. “Somehow you even managed to destroy the other transporters in the solar system. You have no idea what an uproar you caused with your destruction of the transporter on Mars. A space ship was in Earth’s orbit, ready and just waiting for the crew in order to set off for Mars and take possession of the transporter for the United States. Until our satellites registered the gamma flash. Our instruments also captured the atomic explosions on the other planets and moons.”
“And yet you still managed to get hold of a transporter,” Russell said flatly.
“Indeed. You made a grave mistake and underestimated us. After all, we had already mined a lot of data from the transporter technology before you blew it up in the cave in Nevada. We did find another transporter, but it was anything but easy. And of course it was only a question of time until we found the planet that you fled to.”
Russell nodded. Of course: finding the traitors would have been a top priority. “And what’s your plan now? Revenge?”
Morrow’s expression remained rigid. “Revenge? No.”
“What then?”
“Retribution!”
Russell frowned. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Revenge is an emotional reaction. Retribution, however, is a logical one. Did you think we would let you get away? What kind of signal would that give to other public enemies of the USA?”
Russell laughed uncomfortably. “I can imagine that it was a personal victory for you when you found us.”
Morrow looked at him without blinking. “You have no idea what I had to go through after the transporter was destroyed under my command. It has taken twenty years to half-way salvage my reputation.” His lips trembled. “Yes, Harris. I have waited a long, long time for the day we would finally meet again. In the end, everyone gets what they deserve.”
Russell had to know: “Where is my family? Are they here, too?”
“No. None of the inhabitants of New California, as you seem to have called your planet, will ever set foot on Earth again. A decision was reached in the Pentagon to punish the colony with permanent exile. The colony has been occupied, placed under military authority, and is being turned into an outpost.”
“But I guess you have different plans for me.”
“Indeed,” the general’s voice was silky smooth. “You are the ringleader of this uprising. You will be put on trial and, after a fair hearing, sentenced to death.”
A fair hearing, when the judgment has already been felled? Russell chuckled softly.
“What do you find so amusing?” Morrow asked sharply.
“You can spare yourself the bother. I’m sick. I’m going to die in two or three weeks. Take me back to my family, because I won’t live to experience a trial.”
Morrow’s lips curled. “We did a check-up on you while you were unconscious, so I am aware of your condition. You will be treated and go on trial a healthy man.”
Russell shook his head. “There is no cure for lung cancer in the final stage.”
“Time has not stood still on Earth over the last twenty years. Your treatment will begin shortly. Afterwards you will be transferred to the court.”
Russell looked at the general in disbelief. “You want to save my life in order to have me killed?”
“You will not escape the hands of justice. And to make one thing clear: you will never see your family again.”
Morrow’s last words echoed through Russell’s mind. He looked down at the floor. There must be a way of escaping this madness! “And if I refuse the treatment?”
“Then we will treat you by force, if that is what you want.” The general pressed a button on the side of his desk.
A moment later, one of the soldiers opened the door. “Sir?”
“We’re done here. Take Mr. Harris back to his cell.” He turned back to Russell and laughed malevolently. “Your trial will take place without your presence, since our distance to Earth does not allow any direct communication. The judgment will be executed here.”
The distance to Earth? “Isn’t this Guantánamo?”
Morrow laughed gruffly. “What gave you that idea? Haven’t you guessed already? I thought you realized your mistake!” He laughed again.
“Where the hell are we?”
“On Venus.”
Chapter 2
“Goddammit, I’ve had enough of this!” Travis Richards shouted, after storming into Marlene’s office and slamming the door behind him with such force that some of the little wooden figures Albert had made toppled over on the desk. His face was flushed and his hands were trembling.
Marlene wasn’t used to seeing him in this state, but she remained calm and didn’t get up from behind her desk. “First of all: calm down.”
“I don’t want to calm down! I’ve had it up to here! Shall I show you something?”
It wasn’t a question. Richards, who was well over six feet tall and had become a skilled farmer over the years, took off his jacket, threw it on the ground and pushed up his right sleeve. There was a bruise on his pale skin.
“One of those swine twisted my arm w
hen I tried to get into a jeep with Rhonda to inspect the fields.”
Marlene sighed. “I told you already, you need to obey the soldiers’ orders for the time being.”
Richards pulled his sleeve back down, stepped forward and leaned over Marlene’s desk. “If we don’t start working in the fields right away, there won’t be much left to harvest,” he hissed.
Marlene looked him in the eye for a second, then leaned back in her chair and let out a deep sigh.
As if I didn’t know that myself.
Three nights ago, the soldiers had infiltrated Eridu under the command of Morrow. They had dragged all of the settlers and their children out of their homes and rounded them up on the square in front of the administration building. While the colonists were still trying to grasp what was happening, the strangers had ransacked all the huts and seized any weapons they found. The jeeps had been taken to the workshop and kept under guard ever since. For hours, the colonists had been detained outside without a word of explanation, until General Morrow had finally turned up. Marlene could hardly believe it when she suddenly saw his distinctive face with the high forehead and the pointed chin. He had planted himself in front of her and announced in a formal tone that New California was now under US command and that until further notice, nobody was permitted to leave the settlement. Marlene wanted to speak with him, but the general had turned around and disappeared into the darkness. It was only later that Ellen had come to her, distraught, and told her the soldiers had taken away Russell. Marlene presumed he was now on Earth.
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