by Steve White
“No, it won’t,” Jason repeated. Then he indicated the newly released slaves, standing bewildered. “But it also won’t see their like again.”
“I know,” said Aiken in a voice almost too small to be heard, lowering his head. After a moment he looked up, and his young eyes sought Jason’s. “Sir, aren’t things ever unambiguous?”
“No. You’ll learn that.” But you’ll never learn to like it, Jason decided not to add.
“One exception to that,” Mondrago demurred. “The Transhumanists are unambiguously evil.”
“Amen,” intoned a deep voice behind them.
They all whirled to face Gracchus. The black man was dressed in his usual rough, nondescript laborer’s clothes, and stood inconspicuously in the depot’s turmoil. “Remember I told you I intended to be here around on this day, Commander.”
“So you did. I didn’t understand why at the time. Still don’t, in fact.”
“Simple. I knew this city is going to fall tonight. And I know Mr. Lincoln is coming day after tomorrow. I want to be here for that.”
“You know—?” Jason swung around and stared at Aiken.
“Yes, Commander, I told him,” said Aiken miserably.
“You what?!”
Aiken wilted under Jason’s glare. “I thought I owed it to him, sir. And I didn’t reveal anything else.”
Jason opened his mouth to say more. But then he closed it again and shook his head. “Well, what’s done is done. We won’t bother Rutherford with things he doesn’t need to know. And,” he added, turning to Gracchus, “I’m glad you’re here. For one thing, I can tell you that I kept my promise.” He looked around anxiously, but under the circumstances no one seemed to be taking any notice of their conversation, which was practically inaudible above the uproar anyway. “I went back to Jamaica on the date your letter required.”
“Ah.” Gracchus’s face was unreadable.
“And I saw your founder Zenobia die.” Jason said it bluntly, and watched Gracchus’s face carefully. But those dark features now went entirely—and strangely—expressionless.
“Yes. I knew she was going to die around that time,” the black man said in a carefully neutral voice.
“And so,” Jason continued, “I still don’t know why your letter-writer wanted me there at that time, since I accomplished nothing.” Except the death of a Teloi, which is somewhat more than “nothing,” Jason mentally amended. But he held his peace, for Gracchus wouldn’t have understood, and it had no apparent relevance to the enigmatic letter. “However, that’s water over the dam. Here I am now, and here’s where we stand.” He described their finding of the second nanobot cache and their encounter with the Transhumanist on Belle Isle. “So,” he concluded, “we worked our way across the river to the city to rendezvous with Angus—and, we hoped, you as well. But now we need to get back across to the south shore of the river before dawn tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I may as well tell you that that’s when the retreating Confederates are going to burn the Mayo Bridge—the last one left—as soon as the last of their troops are across it. We’ve got to be with them.”
“Again, why?”
“Because, for reasons you don’t need to understand, we can’t destroy the cache before the fifth. With all the bridges gone, we wouldn’t be able to get to Belle Isle from this side of the river without a boat—and we can’t count on being able to get one, with the city under military occupation.”
“Why not go across the river now?”
“I know for a certainty that there are Transhumanists here in Richmond now, most likely including Stoneman. If it can possibly be done, I want to find them and deal with them before they can try and interfere with us on the fifth.”
“I understand,” said Gracchus. “And I think I might just have an idea of where they are. But let’s wait here a little longer, until things get to the point where nobody will notice us on the streets.”
“That won’t be much longer,” said Dabney.
It was a little past five when Jefferson Davis arrived with his staff. The chaos was such that he was barely noticed. Dabney explained that his wife and children had already left on a train for Charlotte, North Carolina. The plan was for him and his cabinet to depart for Danville, Virginia at 8:30, one railroad car per department, but in fact he didn’t get away with his peripatetic government until eleven, beginning a forlorn flight south.
Midnight came, and Gracchus led them out of the depot, unnoticed, amid the mounting exodus. Jason became aware that they were headed southeast, toward the lower-class housing areas near the river and Shockoe Creek.
Dabney realized it too. “Wait! We don’t want to go in this direction.”
“That’s right.” Jason, who had never exactly been noted as a mindless rules-robot, nevertheless swallowed hard before he could speak. “Later tonight, large areas between the river and Capitol Square are going to burn to the ground.”
Gracchus’s eyes grew wide. “Then we’ve got to go there and get my people out! Come on.” He pressed ahead, and the others followed after only the slightest hesitation.
As they entered the Exchange Alley area south of Main Street, they were startled by a sound of shattering glass. Moments later, a trio of raggedly dressed men emerged from a broken store window, loaded with merchandise, and hurried shiftily on.
“The looting has started,” Dabney told Jason. “The inmates have broken out of the unguarded jails, and the lowlifes are starting to come up from the riverside tenements. And there’s nothing to keep order except a token force of Confederate troops left behind to burn the Mayo Bridge as soon as the last of Lee’s rear guard is across it. The respectable people who haven’t fled are barricaded inside their houses. From now on, the mob rules the night.”
They continued south, and the signs of pillaging grew worse and worse. Ahead, they heard a roar of shouting voices. Then they emerged into the intersection of Fourteenth and Cary Streets, where the commissary depot was located, and entered a scene from hell.
A hungry mob had descended on the commissariat, and was looting those stores of food which had not been transported. Nearby, the militia had followed the City Council’s well-intentioned order and smashed the heads of three hundred barrels of whiskey, pouring thousands of gallons into the streets. Now the looters, on all fours like animals, were scooping and lapping it up from the gutters, heedless of how much foul, muddy water went with it. And the more they swilled, the more the frenzy grew. The looters were no longer furtive. They smashed their way into any abandoned building, fighting with each other over their plunder.
The smell of whiskey might have been overpowering, but it was already overlaid by another aroma: that of smoke. And to the south the glow of flames was lighting the sky.
“They’ve carried out the council’s other order and fired the tobacco warehouses along the riverfront. And the fire is already spreading.”
“Yes. I remember.” Even as Jason said it, he felt a stiff southerly wind begin to blow.
As they watched, the flames leapt from building to building, igniting the old colonial-vintage timber of many. As the roaring, crackling, hissing inferno rolled up from the waterfront, consuming the commissariat, the heat and smoke grew stifling and even the rioters fled. Old buildings came crashing down in showers of sparks and flying bricks and plaster as their beams split.
They stumbled on, until Gracchus recognized a black man—particularly black, with soot—up ahead. They spoke briefly, and Gracchus turned grimly to Jason.
“The rest of my people have already headed northwest, toward Capitol Square. Lots of people are sheltering there—at least it’s away from the burning buildings.”
“And maybe the Transhumanists are up there,” Novak speculated, coughing on the smoke that made it increasingly difficult to speak.
“Maybe,” said Jason. He summoned up his implant’s digital clock display, and frowned. His eyes met Mondrago’s in an instant of shared understanding. �
��We’re going to have to be very cautious in that area. You see …” He decided not to explain why; there was no time, and Gracchus wouldn’t have understood anyway. “All right, Gracchus, lead the way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
They headed west along Cary Street, until the canal basin was on their left, its water reflecting the flicker of flames to the southeast. To the right, up Eleventh Street three blocks, they could glimpse the darkened expanse of Capitol Square, on Council Chamber Hill. They started to turn in that direction.
It was at that moment that a tiny cluster of blue dots flickered at the edge of Jason’s field of vision … to the west, further along Cary Street.
“Gracchus, the Transhumanists are this way.”
Gracchus didn’t bother asking how Jason knew. He pointed north. “I’ve got to go find my people.”
“All right. We’ll find you later.”
“Or I’ll find you.” And Gracchus was gone, up the hill.
“Let’s go!” Even as Jason said it, the dots flickered again, and were gone. Cursing the short range of the bionics-detector function, he led the way by the light of the flames to the south, past the packet office from which the last canal packet boat had long since departed and on across the railroad tracks that ran along the center of Eighth Street. There, the blue dots blinked tantalizingly, only to vanish as the Transhumanists again opened up the distance between them. He urged greater speed on the others. Ahead, the fire was spreading and they went cautiously between burning buildings, wary of collapsing walls. Just ahead and only a block to the right, at Fifth and Main, the flames had engulfed the United Presbyterian Church, and its tall steeple was swaying drunkenly.
“Commander!” gasped Dabney, struggling to keep pace. “Surely you realize we’re headed in the direction of—”
“I know,” said Jason impatiently. “Remember, I was here before.” And, in fact, Jason Mk I is here right now, he reminded himself. He consulted his clock display. It was almost three A.M. “But we’ve got a little time. In fact—”
All at once, an idea occurred to him.
The Transhumanists, aside from a few not-very-well-regarded specialists, have no interest in history—in fact, such an interest is slightly suspect among them. Stoneman will, of course, have been briefed by those specialists. But he may be hazy on the exact sequence and location of events tonight.
Maybe … just maybe… .
“Come on!” he snapped, and continued along Cary Street.
Dabney was openly jittery now. Even Mondrago looked a little nervous. “Uh … sir, are you keeping an eye on your clock? We’re headed toward—”
At that moment, just a block to the right, the burning, tottering United Presbyterian spire finally toppled over and, with a rending crash and a shower of fiery debris, crashed to the street amid the screams of the watching crowd.
It was so startling and so distracting that Jason didn’t notice the reappearance of the little blue dots until it was too late.
“Halt! Don’t move!” came a horribly familiar voice, this time with the undertones of a vocal enhancement implant. Caught unaware, they were susceptible to that subsonic suggestion for the second or two before they could nullify it by conscious resistance. They froze as commanded. By the time their mental defenses had taken hold, four goons had stepped out from an alley, aiming Colt revolvers. They stayed frozen under those guns, in hands whose trigger fingers were actuated by genetically upgraded reflexes. Jason had a feeling the goons were under instructions to watch his face for indicia of the mental concentration required to activate his party’s “controllable” TRDs, and that their retrieval would return four bullet-riddled corpses to the Authority’s displacer stage, leaving one red-haired one lying in Cary Street until April 5.
Behind the goons came Stoneman, smiling.
The fleeing, panic-stricken people in the street paid no attention. On this night of horror and lawlessness, one group of Confederate soldiers pointing guns at another was hardly to be noticed, and certainly not to get involved in. No one interfered as one of the goons relieved them of their own revolvers under the watchful eyes and steadily aimed Colts of the other three. Stoneman sauntered up before Jason, wearing his infuriating smile. His revolver was, Jason noted, held nonchalantly.
“So you’re still here,” Jason observed in a tone he hoped was as irritating as Stoneman’s smirk.
“Quite. I remained in northern Virginia for some time after your escape, during which time I informed my superiors of what had occurred via message drop.” (Meaning, Jason mentally interjected, that you weren’t using a “controllable” TRD. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Transhumanist underground doesn’t have them.) “So these reinforcements were dispatched.” Stoneman indicated the goons. “They brought the cache you have located on Belle Isle, and which I gather you haven’t already destroyed, doubtless for some reason connected with the Observer Effect. Now, of course, you’ll never destroy it.”
“Speaking of which,” asked Jason levelly, “why are we still alive?”
“You won’t be for long. But to answer your question, there are two reasons.” For an instant, Stoneman’s mask of insouciance slipped to reveal sheer, gloating malice. “The first is that before you die I want you to know what a chance you missed when you blew up my cabin. All the delicate advanced equipment was destroyed, true. But this survived the blast, as I discovered when I sifted through the rubble afterwards.” With a theatrical gesture, he reached inside his tunic pocket and produced a tiny lozenge-shaped plastic case. Jason recognized it, for it was standard: what appeared to be simple plastic was in fact a superhard composite laminate substance, for this was a damage-resistant casing for a data chip.
“The chip,” Stoneman explained, “was one which we required for various functions. It also bears certain data which needs to be returned uptime. Otherwise I would have destroyed it after finding it, to eliminate any possibility of you subsequently obtaining it. For, you see, it contains a great deal of incidental data about our technology—including our time travel technology—which you would have liked very much to possess. Oh, yes: very, very much!”
Jason commanded his face to expressionlessness, not wishing to give Stoneman the satisfaction of revealing that which the Transhumanist so avidly wanted to see there. But inwardly, his thoughts were raging. My God! A clue to the hole in Weintraub’s math that causes our temporal displacement hardware to be almost prohibitively massive and inefficient and energy-intensive, while theirs is compact enough to be concealable and even semi-portable. There’s nothing we wouldn’t give for it!
“You indicated that there’s a second reason,” was all he said.
“Yes.” Stoneman seemed slightly miffed by Jason’s seeming impassivity. “I want to know if you have any more men at large in or around this city, and if so where they are. I advise you to tell me. Remember, you can go quickly and cleanly, or else … otherwise.”
Once again, Jason kept his features immobile with an effort, for now his earlier half-formed idea came roaring back. He summoned up his clock display. Yes. Almost 3:00 A.M.
It might actually work.
I’ve got to play it very carefully, though. I can’t fall down at Stoneman’s feet, slobbering and begging for mercy. He’s too smart—he’d know it was fake.
“What makes you think I’d tell you?” Jason infused the question with the truculent defiance Stoneman would expect, but he insinuated the barest quaver, the subtlest hint of underlying apprehension.
“This.” Stoneman seemed to seize on the slight suggestion of weakness. He held up his seemingly standard Colt Model 1860 .44 caliber Army. “It incorporates an undetectably miniaturized but quite effective nerve-lash.”
It took very little acting skill for Jason to break out in a sweat. In his time, the nerve-lash was seriously illegal to possess, much less use. But in the nightmare years of the Transhuman Dispensation, a century and a half before that, it had been a common instrument for control of “lo
wer life-forms.” Thankfully, it was only usable by direct contact. By direct neural induction, it stimulated the human nervous system to the ultimate capacity of its pain receptors short of driving the mind in question, shrieking, into the refuge of insanity.
But even now, he knew Stoneman wouldn’t buy a too-facile surrender. And thus he knew, with gut-churning certainty, what had to be done next.
“You’re lying,” he made himself say.
At once, a goon grasped his arms from behind and pulled them up into an immobilizing position. With a smile, Stoneman touched an invisible control on the side of his revolver and, very gently and briefly, brushed the muzzle against the side of Jason’s neck.
At that fleeting contact, his entire body, mind and soul contained nothing but excruciating agony. Heedless of the relatively trivial pain in his arms, he arched convulsively in the goon’s grip, then went limp, shuddering, as the nerve-lash was instantly withdrawn. The goon released him, to fall in a shivering, nauseated heap.
“All right,” he gasped, “I’ll tell you.” He wished, in defiance of the negative results of centuries of research, that there had been something to telepathy, so he could mentally command his followers not to queer the pitch. Because this was crucial.
He needn’t have worried. Dabney understood, because he knew what was about to happen, and the Service men grasped it at once. In fact, Mondrago comprehended it so well that he broke in with his own contribution. “Don’t tell him, Commander! God damn it, don’t betray the others!”
Stoneman gestured impatiently to one of the goons, and a pistol barrel was backhanded across the side of Mondrago’s head, not hard enough for him to lose consciousness but sufficient to send him to his knees, dizzy and bleeding. Stoneman turned back to Jason. “Well, Commander?”