Trinity's Child

by William Prochnau

  “I know, sir,” Sedgwick replied. “But I don't know quite how, Mr. President. Both my legs are broken, too.”

  Eleven

  1200 ZULU

  In the good old days, six hours ago, a motorist on the ice-powder streets of Fairbanks could have spun his radio dial randomly and, if the crystalline currents of the winter atmosphere had flowed purely with his dreams, found himself wafted away ever so briefly by the siren strains of another world. The fickle radio waves would have teased him with the canary-soprano lure of the Orient, taken him for the most wonderful moment far from his cares and woes, and then without so much as a by-your-leave or a sayonara, dropped him off again in his own world, Yokohama gone, Fairbanks back, driving his Chevy to the levee and the levee was dry, the upper regions huzzing at him in playful am/fm mockery. Those were the good old days. Now, six hours after thousands of preternatural solar flares had shattered the crystalline carriers of man's words and music, the mockery remained for those left to listen. But the playfulness was gone and capriciousness replaced it.

  In the Looking Glass the chunky communications officer examined the data that told her something had gone awry over the Arctic Ocean. But she withheld it from Alice, reworking it instead, certain that the currents were playing tricks again.

  In a small underground bunker in the farmlands near Olney, Maryland, a civil-defense technician despondently unzipped the heavy white suit he had worn outside to check his radio antennae. He showered to remove any lingering radiation, dressed hurriedly, and returned to his radio to send out his message again. The antennae, which he had popped up out of their concrete-and-copper silos after the EMP explosions, seemed to be working. But he received no reply.

  In a much more elaborate bunker, south of the town of Cherepovets, a gray-uniformed cryptographer sweated furiously. His superiors were pushing him. But what was he to make of the garbled message he had intercepted from the outskirts of Washington? He assumed, rightly, that it had emerged from a tomb like his and merely acknowledged that men were there, as he was. He read the same data the Looking Glass woman had read and was equally suspicious—an American bomber had turned?—but he passed it along because the pressure was on. He had unscrambled part of a confusing conversation between two American command planes. It made no sense at all. He finally sent the mystifying code word off to his superiors, too. It was beyond his ken. Let them worry about anthropocide.

  Inside Polar Bear One, heading in an unplanned and undefined southwesterly course across Alaska, the messages were mocking and capricious indeed. The music sounded tinny and hollow, and it came in dirges. It invaded helmets and souls alike, but it was not balm, not the siren strains of another world but the mournful gasp of a world departed. Suddenly the rigidly trained occupants of Polar Bear One had no world—neither the kamikaze world for which they had been programmed nor the world they had left behind. For the moment, none of them could cope with the latest change.

  Downstairs, Radnor and Tyler withdrew still deeper into their isolation, even from each other. Upstairs, Halupalai, trying to make some sense of his latest failure, had rigged the radio once again for commercial broadcasts. That was a mistake. But Kazaklis, since his return from the tombs almost a half-hour ago, had retreated into silence. He grunted into the intercom just once. The grunt came when Halupalai, in spinning across the radio bands, landed on the cadenced monologue of a distant radio-pulpit preacher: There are three strata of the heavens ... the first is the atmosphere . . . the second is the stars, and that refers to the planetary system where our solar system resides ... the third is the abode of God, where we shall spend eternity ... it is not heaven, for remember the Bible says heaven and earth shall both pass away ... the abode of God cannot pass away ... we will be taken there in the Rapture. ... In this series we will study the timing of the Rapture . . .the Rapture. . .the Rapture. . . .

  When the messenger of God's tape stuck, echoing the Rapture over and over inside the pilot's helmet, Kazaklis finally let out a disapproving grunt, no real thought attached to it, and Halupalai quickly swept through the capricious currents, finding an offering of ballads and doleful love songs instead. The Crazy Eddies were gone now, headed for the hills, and the Oxy-5 jingles, too, in final acknowledgment that acne was not the problem. If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you? . . . There were no station call letters, no pauses for news, no whining interruptions from the Emergency Broadcast System. Just a tape left running, while others ran, too.

  Kazaklis took no heed of the music. He stared silently into the red-haloed silhouette of his one-fingered glove and tried to balance its certainty against the haunting assault of Tyler's maniacal words—coward, coward, coward. He thought of Elsie trading her last drop of fuel, and everything else she had, to give them those precious extra miles. To what? Palm trees on a South Sea island? And the lonely man at Klickitat One, passing up the Jack Daniel's at Ruby's, waiting for the ash instead to give them one more eye on bandits approaching over the Pole. He thought about vengeance for the millions dead. Could they be avenged— should they be?—by killing millions more? But he could not answer his own question. He sidetracked it, as he did the music, in some obscure niche in the honeycomb of his mind.

  Flying aimlessly south over central Alaska now, only Moreau made an attempt at communication. When the radio came on, she cast a concerned glance over her shoulder at Halupalai's intently hunched back. She placed a hand on the pilot's shoulder, shaking it lightly to share her sense of danger. But Kazaklis kept his eyes on the silhouette of his rebellion and his mind on its bleak and guilty wanderings. He gently removed her hand in an unspoken reply that said if north toward nowhere had no purpose, south toward nowhere might have less. She briefly called downstairs to determine if Tyler had been badly injured. The voice came back at first with surreal calm. “I have no injuries, captain,” Tyler responded. Then the voice turned almost cadaverous in its haunt. “I am EWO ready,” he said.

  Moreau's head rattled with the decisions they had to make. Where were they going? Anywhere? Or were they simply turning their part in a mass suicide into a nice, simple, private ceremony? What did they do if American fighters, half-brothers of the MIG's, came up after them? Someone had to go down and give Tyler a hypo to knock him out, but she was not up to it yet. Radnor was already out, flying solo now. Could they go anywhere without navigators? They needed to do fuel calculations and examine their options. They also needed to get rid of the weapons. The bombs were wasted weight, the SRAM's aerodynamic flaws burning precious fuel. The questions bounced without answers through her head. The music bounced, too.

  If a man could be two places at one time, I'd be with you. . . . The music was gnawing at her, an invitation to emotional disaster. Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way. . . .

  She started to turn toward Kazaklis to protest, warn, plead. She knew the lyrics. If... If.. .

  Downstairs, the two isolated crewmen had come full circle. Tyler babbled wildly at his crewmate, crazily muddling duty and flag and courage with Radnor's wife. Radnor seemed not to hear him.

  If the world should stop revolving . . . Tyler shook his crewmate ferociously and Radnor turned toward him, his placidly happy face meeting Tyler's hideously tortured mask without fear. Radnor smiled blissfully.

  Spinning slowly down to die . . .

  He serenely placed a finger to his lips, shushing the navigator. Shhhhhh, Tyler, the music.

  I'd spend the end with you. . . .

  Upstairs, Moreau reached over and shook the pilot desperately. “Good God, Kazaklis!” He looked up in surprise. She turned in desperation toward Halupalai, whose back was still hunched, oblivious to all.

  And when the world is through . . .

  Radnor's smile spread peacefully across his face. He happily showed Tyler the small object he had withdrawn from his alert bag.

  One by one, the stars would all go out. . . .

  Calmly, he placed the white capsule in his mouth, appeared to bite once,
and started to swallow. His face was rapturous.

  Then you and I . . .

  The young radar operator slumped forward, his freckled forehead gently coming to rest below his scope, its tracking arm spinning slowly through the night, slowly above his mussed sandy hair.

  Would simply fly away. . . .

  Tyler watched in stuporous wonder. Far away, in some abandoned radio-station studio, a tape spun silently between songs. Tyler reached over tentatively and lightly nudged his friend, receiving no response. The tape whirred into the next offering. A long, long time ago . . . Tyler leaned back the other direction and reached into his own alert bag . . . I can still remember. . . withdrew a different object . . . how that music used to make me smile . . . stroked it and made sure the clip was full, reached up toward the Kodak icon and patted it reverently . . . can't remember if I cried . . . and then unhooked his radio headset, the second before the music died, and started up the steel ladder, his .45 in hand.

  Had Tyler been intent on anything else, had he been watching the tracking arm spinning through the night on his own radar scope, he would have seen a most remarkable sight. He would have seen a squadron of incognitos, at least fifteen strong, edging into the corner of his screen. Had he stayed but a few seconds longer, he would have seen a still more remarkable sight. He would have seen the incognitos begin to maneuver. But Tyler no longer had an interest in incognitos. As a consequence, no one in Polar Bear One saw the approaching Bison bombers. And no one saw their maneuverings as they made a gracefully sweeping and symbolic turn.

  “One of our bombers has aborted, general.”

  Alice swiveled in his chair and looked at the communications officer as if he had not heard her correctly.

  “Polar Bear One turned, sir. South. Southwesterly, actually.”

  “No.” Alice frowned at her and shook his head.

  “I'm afraid so, sir. I checked the data three times.” Alice swiveled slowly away from her, staring slightly upward at the countdown watch. Briefly, anger and frustration coursed through him and he slammed his beefy fist into the high desk in front of him. Then he slumped in weariness. “Southwesterly?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes, sir. Across Alaska toward the North Pacific.”

  Alice did not look back at her, but he felt her steady gaze. Sam's too. He grew pensive in his weariness, his mind drifting back to the early days of the cold war when he had been assigned to the spanking-new B-52s. It had been a great youthful adventure then, not quite so suicidal, not quite so total. Simpler. The Tightness more certain. He also remembered the islands. They all had an island, their own private preserve in paradise, and they argued about them, rambunctiously, outrageously, in bars and locker rooms and during parties in the little apartments a captain's pay could afford. They'd pull out the maps of the South Pacific, figure their fuel loads and headings, and bicker endlessly. Ponape? Tough luck, buddy. That's ours. One crew to an island. You can have Bikini and roast your balls. They'd laugh and laugh. The wives never laughed. It's a joke, Madge. Dammit, it's a mean and dirty business and we need to laugh about something. But he'd go to sleep at night, as the rest of them did, and the dream warp would take him low over the last reef, the surf cresting into an azure lagoon, his sleek new B-52 cruising toward beckoning palms. While the rest of the world fried. And he would snap out of the dream, snap out of the joke, and go back to work. As they all did.

  “We have to bring them down, sir,” Sam interrupted.

  “Now, that is a joke, Sam,” Alice replied wistfully.

  “Sir?” Alice swiveled a half-turn this time and stared into the map on the far wall. The little pasted ridge seemed to rise as high as the Urals themselves, the green dot of Cherepovets throbbing at him just beyond the seam, the blue expanse of the Pacific divided at the edges of the world.

  “We have to inform Condor, sir,” Sam continued. Alice paused thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said vacantly, “I suppose we do.”

  Something touched me deep inside . . . The tinny resonance reverberated through Moreau's skull. The day the m-uu-zik died . . . She wanted to scream again, shriek the dirge out of her head. So bye-bye, Miss American pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry . . .

  “Ha . . . lup . . . a . . . lai!”

  Them good old boys was drinkin' whiskey and rye .. . She and Halupalai turned toward each other simultaneously and suddenly froze. In the dark ten-foot walkway between them, the shadowy figure of Tyler loomed. He stood at the top of the ladder, his back to Halupalai and slightly out of the Hawaiian's reach, his face and his intent concentrated on the cockpit. He stood in a slight crouch, almost a policeman's crouch, both arms thrust forward. This'll be the day that I die . . .

  Moreau could see nothing but the form in the darkness, but she instinctively reached for Kazaklis, trying to shove his head down below his seat's headrest. Halupalai moved as quickly, lurching so suddenly out of his seat and across the open hatch that his radio wire snapped clean, whiplashing Don McLean's lyrics back into the void as the singer inquired did you write the book of love? slamming an old scatback shoulder into Tyler's kidneys, reaching a hand around as they had taught so long ago on the campus in Westwood, rousting the arms in search of a fumble.

  Halupalai felt, rather than heard, Tyler's grunt. The navigator started to go down, but Halupalai went first, one of his legs plunging into the open well to the basement. He teetered briefly, gave one last painful wrench at the handgun, and lost his balance, careening backward into the steel seat braces. He heard the gun clanging faintly as it skittered across the metal floor. For a moment his head spun foggily and he couldn't move, his leg tangled in the ladder, his back aching where the two sharp-edged braces—the ejection tracks—stabbed into his shoulder blades.

  Groggily, he saw Moreau wheeling out of her seat and Tyler on his hands and knees between them, groping for the weapon. Halupalai let out a wild, animal yell and flung himself at Tyler, catching him by the collar. He pulled with such desperate strength that the young navigator flipped backward in a half-somersault, his legs flailing upward, his head crashing down over the edge of the open well. Halupalai heard the crack, even over the engine noise. It was not the noise of a collarbone snap on the playing field, not the curdling crack of the Buff s aging back as it roared over a ridge. It was a crack he had heard only in his youthful imagination—the quick, clean spinal snap of a haole caught in a wave he had not been meant to ride.

  Moreau stood at the front of the plane, staring vacantly at the scene. The music clawed through her helmet, scratchily huzzing in and out as the beam faded and reemerged. Helter-skelter . . . huzz . . . birds flew off to the fallout shelter. . . huzz . . . got up to dance . . . huzz . . . never got the chance . . . She pounded at the helmet with two clenched fists. Stop it, stop it, stop it!

  Slowly she bent over into the darkness behind the pilot, retrieved the .45, removed the clip, and dropped both on her seat. Kazaklis looked at her desolately. Generation lost in space . . . “Four little robots,” Moreau said emptily. No time to start again . . . Moreau reached to pull the radio plug. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Squire sat on a candlestick . . . Then there was only the roar of the engines, and she started down the narrow walkway.

  It was clear at a glance that Tyler was dead. His head wobbled loosely but peacefully in the open well, only the vibration of the aircraft stirring him now. She examined him most briefly, then looked up at Halupalai. The big Hawaiian stood with his back pressed awkwardly against the far wall of the defensive station, his arms spread slightly. Moreau reached out to comfort him, but Halupalai pushed back more tightly, as if he wanted to withdraw beyond the barrier. Moreau smiled wanly at him—poor, lost, gentle friend—and knelt beside the well hatch. She carefully took Tyler's lolling head in her hands, edged it over to a resting place on the deck, and started down the ladder.

  She first saw O'Toole stretched tranquilly in the alcove, his body faintly luminous in the red light. Then she turned toward Radnor and her knees bu
ckled. She grabbed Tyler's seat to support herself, then sagged into it. She laid a hand on Radnor's sandy hair, tenderly stroked it, and gently moved him upright, briefly catching and then forever avoiding his faint smile.

  Moreau shrieked. “No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” In the aircraft no one heard her. She plugged in the radio cord. In the streets the children screamed, the lovers cried and the poets dreamed . . . “No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” Not a word was spoken, the church bells all were broken . . . She pulled herself erect and switched the radio to all channels, so she could speak through the dirge.

  “Three little robots,” she said dully.

  “Moreau?” The alarmed voice of Kazaklis cut through the hollow rhythms.

  The three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died . . . Moreau lifted a leaden arm to disconnect the radio. They were singing bye-bye, Miss American pie . . . And the sounds were gone again, the endless drone back, and Moreau stared into Tyler's screen, its whirling arm seeing no high terrain, no pulsing clouds, no incognitos. Moreau placed her head in her hands, and she cried.

  “So what do you folks do, Alice, when one of your crews goes gutless?”

  Alice floundered. He looked up from the black phone, his eyes pleading with Sam. Sam shrugged.

  “Sir, there's no precedent—”

  “Hell with precedent! No precedent for nothin' tonight!”

  “Normally, sir, we'd send up interceptors,” Alice said weakly, “and try to bring them down.”

  “Shoot 'em down?”

  “If necessary. We'd try to force them to land first.”

  “Land.” The scorn cut across the distance. “Then you'd shoot 'em. What's the difference? Deserters are deserters. Shoot 'em down.”