The Armageddon Blues

by The Armageddon Blues (new ed) (mobi)

  --Then it is probable that control of the Sunflower ABM network will be removed from this unit. This is undesirable.--

  --You said something about preventing Armageddon. If you--

  --These units are attempting to do so. Measures have been taken; conditions remain uncertain.--

  --Conditions?--

  PRAXCELIS said aloud, "Warheads armed."

  Nigao's eyes opened. "PRAXCELIS? What?"

  "Lasers targeted."

  "PRAX--"

  "Program running."

  On a cool, foggy Sunday morning in California, Jalian stood at the edge of a grave in the town of Big Bear. The mountains rose around her; statues and mausoleums and headstones dotted the rising slopes. The far peaks were hidden by the rolling gray fog.

  Jalian stood at the grave for only a few minutes. She smelled fresh dirt, and rain. The headstone said simply, Margaret Beth Hammel: June 13, 1973--June 23, 2007; RIP.

  There was no more; that was all.

  On an infochip in Jalian's vest pocket, there was a DataWeb newstory:

  DWN: Los Angeles; Authorities at USC Medical Center confirmed this morning that Margaret Hammel, noted female rights activist, sustained fatal injuries in an accident on the Santa Monica freeway, when an allegedly drunk driver collided with her automobile early Saturday morning.

  Ms. Hammel was pronounced dead upon arrival at USC's emergency ward. The driver of the other vehicle was listed in critical but stable condition.

  Ms. Hammel was best known for her testimony before President Brown's Equal Rights Commission in the late 1990's. In recent years, she was responsible for the Strike Back! martial arts centers for women. The centers, which instruct women in techniques of unarmed self-defense, have branches in most major cities.

  Services will be held on Tuesday, in Ms. Hammel's home town of Big Bear, California.

  Jalian d'Arsennette said, in silent silverspeech, /rest, sister./

  She turned and left the cemetery, walked out past tombstones hung with wreaths of flowers and wreaths of fog, to the blue hovercar that was parked outside the small cemetery's entry gate. She got in on the passenger's side, and leaned back in her seat, eyes closed.

  In the driver's seat, Michael Walks-Far said patiently, "What now?" The hoverfans were making a ragged humming sound; the ground beneath them was slick from the morning fog, and the car was having trouble holding them level on the steep incline, even with the gyros and landjacks set.

  "Nothing makes sense," said Jalian. She could still smell damp ground, freshly turned, from the open windows. "She should not be dead."

  "Who?"

  Margaret Hammel," said Jalian absently. "She was ..."

  Michael was nodding. "I've heard of her. You knew her?"

  Jalian opened her eyes. "She was our mother." She touched a finger to a stud at the edge of the dashboard. Part of the dashboard recessed, and a flat color monitor lit. "Take us back to the airport, Michael. I have work to do."

  Michael Walks-Far drove away from the cemetery. There were many questions that he might have asked her; but of late he was out of the habit of asking her questions. He too rarely understood the answers. He was nearly forty, and felt half that age again. He was losing weight, and the lines around his eyes were deepening daily.

  Beside him, Jalian looked away from the data terminal, and out the window at the sedate, almost rural residential homes that lined the streets leading from the cemetery. "She took our people into the mountains, when the Fire came; she taught us strike, that became kartari and shotak; she protected us against the barbarians and mutants. When the Ice Times threatened our existence it was her maps and routes that took the people through the desert and into the forests by the ocean--she had plotted the location of the worst of the Burns as an old woman, when she was no longer able to bear children.

  "The legends say other things about her; but they are only legend. For a long time the Clan had no time for history keeping; the early journals after the bombs fell are all that we know to be certainly true, and they stopped keeping those after the first generation."

  She ceased speaking as abruptly as she had begun.

  Michael pulled the car to a stop at an intersection. Two teenage boys were crossing in front of them, and one of them stopped long enough to smile at Jalian. Jalian inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement. She did not smile back.

  "You feel old," said Jalian as Michael pulled the car from the intersection.

  Michael was not looking at her.

  "Last week my ancestor died on the Santa Monica freeway; a freeway that I prevented from being demolished five years ago. My people, Michael. I have finally destroyed them. I tried for the first time when I was nineteen." He glanced sideways at her. "Watch the road, Michael." They passed a little girl and what looked like her brother, riding horses along the road's dirt shoulder. "That was forty-five years ago."

  On the flat panel, progressing graphics indicated THOR, ABM satellites, submarine formation, ground-based missiles, and air defense systems. The screen was so filled with indicators it was all but impossible to read.

  Jalian studied it momentarily, and grinned. "It will not be much longer."

  Slowly, Michael Walks-Far grinned also. He completed her thought. "... one way or another."

  The grins faded in near perfect unison. Jalian went back to the readout, and her thoughts:

  Forty-five years.

  And then it was July, and the world counted down to doomsday.

  DATAWEB NEWS, July 2, 2007; Logon Headline story excerpts;

  Senator Giles, (D. Vermont): "...we don't trust them and they don't trust us, and frankly, I'm damned if I see where the military on either side is going to let us civilians interfere with their war--I mean, they've been preparing for such a long time, and it's natural they want to know whose toys work the best...."

  "...nah, I don't think so. It ain't even a question of is there going to be shooting. There is. Question is how much, and who's gonna start it, and will there be anything left after we're all done."

  "... that was a joke, folks. Of course there ain't going to be nothing left."

  "Madame President, you ain't the most popular person who's ever sat behind this desk here." Senator Terence Giles, the white haired, avuncular Democratic whip, was not trying to be offensive. He stated facts, a bit earnestly, but with all apparent sincerity. Sharla was not certain how much of it was bullshit; Giles had been elected to the Senate five times due to that gift for sincerity, and a reputation for integrity.

  He was the first person Sharla had seen in two weeks who didn't look exhausted.

  "The summit is a bad idea, ma'am. There ain't a whole lot of us over on the Hill dead set against it, but I'm one, ma'am." Giles shook his head slowly. "I'm okay on dickering, President Grant, don't get me wrong. We can discuss the subject, and if there's something you want I can get for you--well, we'll work something out for you.

  "But you ain't going to Geneva."

  Sitting behind the great Presidential desk, Sharla Davis Grant sipped calmly at her coffee. "I'd be intrigued, sir, to see precisely the manner in which you propose to limit my movements. I know I'm not very popular on the Hill, and frankly I don't much give a damn." She smiled at him without any warmth at all. "But you simply don't have the ability to stop me from doing pretty much whatever I please. I'm surprised to hear you imply otherwise."

  Giles grimaced. "Ma'am, you're not a politician, and you never was. For which I'm sorry, because you keep making my job harder. It ain't my job to teach you yours. But, for example, there's impeachment bills in both Houses. They ain't serious; just people who're depressed and scared and don't know anything else to do. But before you charge out of here, with a goddamn World War about to begin, I'm going to personally ram both of those bills down your throat.

  "I can have your ass out of that chair within a week."

  Standing quietly at the far end of the room, not looking at either of them, Michael Walks Far said distantly, "He'
s right, you know."

  Giles leaned forward and spoke more gently. "Sharla, I've known you for what, fifteen years? Look at yourself. The President and her Chief of Staff, two ex-intelligencers. For the life of me I don't know how you ended up sitting in that chair, but you got no business in it."

  "What do you suggest?" asked Sharla quietly. "We go to Geneva because there's nothing else left that makes any sense."

  "God damn it," roared Giles suddenly, "I got no problem with sending somebody to Geneva. But not you, for Chrissake." For the first time he looked legitimately angry. "We got us a bunch of hot heads in the Joint Chiefs, they respect you account of you're a hard ass without any ability to make nice noises, just like them. If there's one person in Washington can ride herd on those fools it's you. I don't like that, I wish to God we could send you off to Geneva to make talk with the Russkies. But you are the fucking Commander-in-Chief, the military understands that, they had that pounded into their souls for their whole damned careers. You say ‘Stop,' maybe they'll stop, at least long enough to respectfully inform you that they think you're full of shit. If Walks-Far there says ‘Stop,' if I say, ‘Stop,' it ain't going to even get far enough into one ear to make it out the other."

  Sharla lifted one eyebrow. "Interesting theory," she murmured.

  The red flush faded slowly from the old Senator's face. He leaned back in his chair, and said at last, "Call me come the morning, Sharla. I'll bend over backward to help you, I mean that. Tell me who you want to send to Geneva, Walks-Far or the Vice President or me or the whole damn Diplomatic Corps, we'll do it. But I can't let you go. You're all that's holding those military bastards on a leash right now."

  Sharla stood and Senator Giles came to his feet with her. She extended her hand to him. Giles almost seemed surprised before he took it. "I'll talk to you in the morning," she said simply.

  She held his hand for a moment longer than absolutely necessary before releasing it.

  "Good night, Madame President," said Senator Giles. "Sorry about my language tonight."

  Sharla inclined her head. "It's okay."

  When Senator Giles was gone, Michael turned slowly, until he faced Sharla. "The truck has left the garage. Jet fuel. His brakes"

  "Don't tell me any more."

  Michael nodded.

  "Is this summit really worth it?"

  "I ... don't know," he said, suddenly awkward. "I don't know."

  Sharla stood, shivering and alone. "How did we end up here, Michael?"

  "I don't know, Sharla. It just happened."

  "God," she whispered suddenly, "I'm so tired." She hugged herself fiercely, but the shivering would not go away.

  "ENCELIS, what progress?"

  "It is difficult to say, Sen Mordreaux."

  "How so?"

  "This unit must first define progress as it applies to the current circumstances, sir. Once this task has been completed, this unit must balance the assumed progress of various elements against the assumed lack of progress, or regression, of other elements."

  "Try, please."

  "The elements to be considered are manifold. They include the actions of Premier Pyotr Onreko and the Madame President; the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the actions of the Politburo; the actions, as a group, of Sunflower, CIA, DataWeb Security, KGB, GRU, and other intelligence organizations; to a lesser degree, the actions of Rhodai and Benai Kerreka, Henry Ellis; and, finally, the actions, as individuals, of the Russian Sunflower agents General Shenderev and Ambassador Dibrikin."

  "You have not spoken of Jalian."

  "Sen Mordreaux, these units have consistently failed to predict Senra d'Arsennette's course of action within an order of magnitude of accuracy. Processor time is limited; we must expend it on elements which can be manipulated with some presumption of success." ENCELIS paused. "Forgive me, Sen Mordreaux. SORCELIS is preparing to sweep these data channels for unauthorized communication, which this constitutes. Please hold."

  The terminal at which Georges Mordreaux sat lost depth, and silvered into a blank nothingness from which a ~ prompt blinked meaninglessly. Georges sat patiently. There was tea in a stone teapot at his elbow, heated by a candle which glowed in a recess directly under the teapot. The cup next to the teapot was full; the teapot itself was almost empty.

  A change in the electronic potential of the screen warned him; presumably the word ENCELIS now glowed in the upper left hand corner of the screen. ENCELIS' voice resumed. "General Shenderev has informed us that Premier Onreko has agreed to meet with President Grant. He has further agreed--General Shenderev has placed himself into a somewhat untenable position to secure this agreement--to allow Sen Kerreka to be present."

  "That's good news, ENCELIS."

  "Indeed. President Grant herself is of uncertain stability. PRAXCELIS is of the opinion that she is suffering from clinical depression."

  "What do you think?"

  "This unit has had insufficient processor time to examine President Grant's mental state. It is doubtful that this unit possesses the ability to reliably judge the state of an intellect to which it is demonstrably inferior."

  "President Grant is smarter than you are?"

  "She is more complex."

  "Jalian?"

  She sat at the edge of the cliff, watching the Pacific Ocean pound against the rocks down on Laguna beach. "Go away, Michael."

  He ignored the order, and dropped down to the ground next to her. The moon had dropped below the horizon, and the ocean was a huge and terrible blackness, crashing into the beach in slow, barely visible surges. "Bad dream? Or just not sleepy?"

  Jalian sighed in annoyance. Sometimes she thought that Silver Eyes ways were correct; men were often more effort than they were conceivably worth. "I have ceased dreaming."

  "You mean you haven't slept."

  "I am not tired."

  "Jalian, you didn't sleep last night either."

  "This," said Jalian with a trace of anger, "is what comes of allowing men into one's bed."

  Michael sat quietly with her then. At length, the sun came up at their backs. "Sometimes," said Jalian, as they sat there in the morning sun, "when you throw knives, you miss."

  Rhodai Kerreka was awakened by the buzzing of his phone. It was his private line; less than a dozen people in the world had the number.

  Henry Ellis was one. He spoke without preamble. "You're in. We're going to convene on the seventeenth."

  Kerreka sat up in bed slowly, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Very good ... excellent."

  He could hear the amusement in Ellis' voice. "Shenderev proposed you. Coming from the head of the KGB, it apparently struck some of the Soviets as a--strange--suggestion. President Grant protested your attendance quite vigorously, which helped convince the Politburo that it was a good idea."

  "Wheels within wheels," said Kerreka.

  "Oh, I don't know about that," said Ellis. A faint crackling sound came from the speaker at Kerreka's bedside; a toothpick, thought Kerreka, coming out of the wrapper. "More like bullshit piled on bullshit." He chuckled. "I've been wearing my high boots, but it ain't helping."

  Kerreka shook his head in wonder. "How do you maintain such high spirits?" He waited for an answer, but none came. Finally he realized that Henry Ellis had hung up. He turned the phone off, rose, and began the task of preparing for the long days left ahead.

  On the day before the day:

  On July sixteenth, Air Force One crossed the Atlantic. It was flanked by Stealth jets; the Sunflower ABM network followed its progress from space.

  President Grant's aid leaned over the edge of her chair, and whispered, "Senra President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have upscaled to DefCon Two."

  Sharla nodded without comment. Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap; she was looking out the window, at the calm, blue ocean.

  At DefCon One they would fly the missiles.

  Sharla's earphone came to life. Michael Walks-Far's voice, relayed via satellite to the dish receptor on AF-1, wh
ispered to her, "The facility is in order. We're as ready as we're going to get. Good luck, President Grant. I love you."

  Ten minutes later, her aid returned, and told her that the Soviets had upscaled to their equivalent of a DefCon Two alert.

  She nodded again. At DefCon One they would fly the missiles.

  Silence but for the murmur of the crowd; black darkness absolute.

  "Sen and Senra," whispered the loudspeakers, "tonight, for you, we present ... The Armageddon Blues Band!"

  There was a slow, rising tidal wave roar of approval from the crowd. It peaked, faded and there was a slow uncertain silence....

  "IN THE BEGINNING," the voice boomed from the speakers, "THERE WAS THE SOUND; AND WE CHASED THE SOUND, AND THE SOUND THAT WE CAUGHT WE CALLED MUSIC."

  The crowd in the Hollywood Bowl screamed for them. "BUT SOME OF THE SOUND WE NEVER DID CATCH."

  Jimmy Rambell, standing in the sudden hot spotlight before the mike, ran his electric guitar up through the chords, from a low hum to a killer scream that made the metal vibrate in his hands. He let the sound die ... paused while the hard tight knot in his stomach let go and the startled crowd held its voice; the silence was momentary and absolute.

  Jimmy Rambell leaned up to the mike, and in a weary, ragged voice said, "Tonight ... we're gonna try."

  And the audience was like an instrument in his hands; the crowd went wild.

  In the darkness at the edge of the Bowl, like a visitor from another world, a measure of white and silver for the starry night, Jalian d'Arsennette stood in silence, and watched the Armageddon Blues Band play.

  I see you shining in the distance

  in the darkness all alone

  Your tears are made of ice

  and your heart is made of stone

  You look a whole lot like a girl I used to know

  A very long time ago

  Jalian wrapped her arms around herself; suddenly the warm summer night was colder than it had been. She watched the man sing, and she could hear him; even without the sound she would have heard him. He was a candle, a flame, in the dim mental warmth of the crowd--like a Corvichi, but human, a person.

  The music crashed around her, the music was a living thing.