“The first thing you learn from history is that nobody ever learns anything from history, or not for long,” her father answered. “People used to say that in the home timeline, but now that we can look at a bunch of different histories we see it’s true in all of them. People are like that. You wish we weren’t, but we are.”
“We already got stuck at the edges of one battle. I don’t want to get stuck in the middle of another one,” Liz said.
“Well, who does?” Dad said. “If it gets too bad, we disappear. I already told you that.”
“Yeah, I know you did,” Liz replied. If they were all here at the house when trouble came, they could do that. If they weren’t, if one of them or two of them or all of them happened to be out in Westwood … But Dad was ignoring even the possibility. Liz called him on it.
He spread his hands. “I don’t know what you want from me. The fighting won’t get here right away. We’ll know it’s coming ahead of time. And when we do know, we’ll be able to come back to the house, so we won’t get stuck. Right?”
“I sure hope so,” Liz said.
“You have to have some confidence that things will work out. Otherwise, you can’t do your job,” Dad said.
“I guess,” Liz answered. “I’d like that better if this weren’t an alternate that’s had an atomic war.” She got the last word. Then she had to decide if she really wanted it.
Eight
“Musketeers … shoulder arms!” Sergeant Chuck yelled.
Proudly, Dan did. He wondered whether the other new musketeers had that tiny moment of hesitation, too. He still had to work to remember he was a musketeer, not a no-account archer any more. The few remaining archers in Captain Kevin’s company were already carrying their bows ready to string and shoot.
“Riflemen … shoulder arms!” the sergeant shouted.
Their faces serious, the riflemen obeyed. With their fancy Old Time guns and cartridges, they could hit targets far beyond any a musketeer could hope to reach. But they took chances musketeers didn’t, too. A musket wouldn’t explode unless you loaded several charges of powder into it without lowering the match to the touch-hole. Old Time cartridges were just plain old nowadays. You never could tell about them till you pulled the trigger. Most of the time, they did what they were supposed to—you wouldn’t dare use them if they didn’t. Sometimes, though, they didn’t do anything at all. And every once in a while, one would blow up in your face and wreck your rifle … and you. Riflemen needed steady nerves—and nerve, period.
Chuck nodded to Kevin. “All ready, sir.”
“Very good, Sergeant.” The company commander had the sling off, but his left arm still wasn’t what it had been before he got shot. He raised his voice: “Forward … march!”
Along with the rest of the Valley soldiers, Dan tramped south down Westwood Boulevard toward the Santa Monica Freeway line. Some of the people on the sidewalk glanced at the marching men. Others just went about their business. Quite a few of them were bound not to like the Valley men. You couldn’t tell which ones, though. They knew better than to show a company’s worth of armed men that they were hostile.
Then the company had to stop, because a wagon full of beer barrels drawn by six big horses clattered across Westwood Boulevard from a side street. Sergeant Chuck yelled at the driver. So did some of the soldiers. The fellow on the wagon spread his hands, as if to say, What can I do? It’s my job.
The pause let Dan glance over in the direction of Liz’s house. He’d be going a couple of miles away—not impossibly far, but far enough. Too far, really. He would have felt even worse about it if he thought Liz cared. He sighed.
He didn’t see her, even if he’d hoped to. He did see Luke the trader, who watched the Valley soldiers with keen attention. Was he counting them? For whom?
He caught Sergeant Chuck’s eye. “See that scraggly fellow with the whiskers?” he said in a low voice.
“The guy with the pistols?” Chuck said. Dan nodded. “What about him?” the underofficer asked. “He looks like a tough customer, but so what?”
“He’s a trader. He says he is, anyway,” Dan said. “But he’s mighty snoopy. I’ve seen him prowling around, kind of looking us over, know what I mean? And now he’s doing it again.”
“How about that?” Chuck said. “Well, when we get where we’re going, I’ll put a flea in Captain Kevin’s ear. Maybe he’ll want to pick this guy up, ask him a few questions. Sharp questions. Pointed questions. Hot questions.” Chuck had a very nasty smile when he felt like using it. “What’s the guy’s name? You know?”
“He goes by Luke, I think,” Dan answered.
“Okay. Well, we’ll see what he goes by once we start finding out what’s what.” Chuck looked at the company and went from that special nasty smile to his usual sergeant’s scowl. “Come on, you muttonheads! Straighten it up!” he bellowed. “You’re not a herd of camels galumphing down the street. If you think you are, I’m here to teach you different.”
They straightened up. Doing what Chuck said was easier than trying to get around him. Armies were made that way, and had been since the beginning of time. Dan didn’t think about such things. As long as he stayed in step with the men around him, he didn’t need to.
A couple of large Old Time buildings still stood on Westwood Boulevard, even if awnings and curtains and shutters replaced almost all the glass in their windows. Most of the buildings, though, were modern shops and houses. They were made from the rubble of what had stood there before. Stone and brick and wood and chunks of stucco with chicken wire in it made up the walls. The patchwork was odd if you weren’t used to it. Dan was. A lot of stuff in the Valley was built the same way.
When they marched past a little place selling tacos and tamales and hamburgers, the soldiers’ neat footwork faltered again. The smell of greasy, spicy roasting meat made spit flood into Dan’s mouth. His stomach rumbled loudly, and his wasn’t the only one.
“Keep moving! Keep moving!” Sergeant Chuck bawled. “It’s all probably chopped-up kitty and lizard, anyway.”
“I don’t care,” somebody behind Dan said. “I’m hungry.”
“Who’s the wise guy?” Chuck shouted furiously. “Was that you, Dan?”
“No, Sergeant.” Dan could tell the truth with no trouble at all. That was a good thing, too. He might not have said anything out loud, but he didn’t care what was in the savory-smelling goodies, either. If he meowed after he ate some of them … well, so what?
Chuck challenged several other soldiers marching near Dan. They all denied everything. Nobody blew the whistle on whoever had spoken up. Chuck fumed and swore, but that was all he could do. Dan, by contrast, noted just where the little cookshop stood. The freeway line didn’t lie very far south of it. If he got some free time, he could come back and spend a dime or two.
The Santa Monica Freeway line was a good one for King Zev’s soldiers to defend. The freeway had been built above the ordinary streets around it. That gave the Valley men the advantage of high ground in a lot of places. Here and there, though, the overpasses that let the freeway leap above the ordinary streets had collapsed. Maybe that happened when the Fire fell. Maybe earthquakes brought the overpasses down later. Or maybe they just fell because nobody had taken care of them for more than a century. Any which way, that cut down the number of possible invasion routes from the south.
Of course, there were far fewer routes from the north. King Zev’s soldiers had broken through anyhow. Dan wished that hadn’t occurred to him. He and his comrades took their place on the freeway itself west of Westwood Boulevard. No trouble could approach unless they saw it first.
But some trouble was already behind them. Chuck spoke to Captain Kevin about Luke. Dan couldn’t hear what Kevin said. But a runner went pelting back into Westwood. A slow smile crossed Dan’s face. From here on out, Luke wouldn’t have a very happy time of it. Too bad, Dan thought.
A knock on the door in the middle of the night. How many books and movies and vid
eo games featured that kind of automatic suspense-maker? Liz had always thought it was such a cliché. But when somebody banged on the door to the house where she was living, her heart went thud, thud, thud. It was dark, so she had no idea what time it was. Ten o’clock? Midnight? Three in the morning? Groggy with sleep, she couldn’t have said for sure.
A few watches and windup clocks with luminous dials survived from Old Time. None was in Liz’s bedroom. She yawned and thought about sticking her head under the pillow. She decided she wouldn’t imitate an ostrich—or what people said was true about ostriches. Besides, whoever was knocking out there didn’t seem ready to go away.
She walked out into the hall, feeling her way in the darkness. She almost screamed when she bumped into somebody. Her father said something pungent. “What’s going on?” she asked. In the face of unknown trouble, she felt like a little kid again.
“Don’t know,” Dad answered. “I think I’d better find out, though.”
He was nothing but a darker shadow in a hallway full of gloom. Liz had never missed electricity so much as she did right then. “Do you have a gun?” she asked, a question she never would have thought of in the home timeline.
“You better believe it, sweetie,” her father said. “Stay here, okay? That way I have one less thing to worry about it.”
“What if you need help?” Liz squawked.
“I’m here, and I’ve got a gun, too,” her mother answered out of nowhere. “Do you?”
“No,” Liz said in a small voice.
“Then stay here, like Dad told you.”
Muttering, Liz did. She listened to her father’s soft footfalls as he approached the door. “Who’s there?” he asked. The knocking stopped, which was a relief.
Standing there in the hall, Liz shivered. Even in summertime, Los Angeles nights could get chilly. Thinking this one was, gave her a reason not to think she was scared.
She couldn’t hear the answer from whoever stood out there. She did hear Dad say, “Oh, for heaven’s sake”—and then something stronger than that. A moment later, he unbarred the door and opened it. The man outside came in. Dad barred the door again in a hurry. Then he called, “Light a lamp!”
There was always a fire in the kitchen. Liz scurried across the courtyard. She lit a twig from the hot embers and used it to light a lamp. The smell of hot olive oil filled her nose.
The lamp didn’t shed much light—even a toy flashlight would have put it to shame. Shadows jumped and swayed crazily as Liz carried the lamp toward the doorway. She didn’t need much light to recognize the newcomer, though. “Luke!” she said. “What are you doing here?” She’d more than half expected it would be Dan.
“Well, little lady, everybody’s gotta be somewhere,” the trader answered.
Her temper went off like a firecracker. “If you don’t tell me what I asked you, you’ll be out on the street again so fast it’ll make your head swim,” she snapped.
Luke blinked. She’d always played the girl who didn’t speak up for herself. Most girls in this alternate were like that. But she was from the home timeline, and she had more self-respect. And her father nodded. “Yes, Luke. You’d better speak up. What are you doing here? Who’s after you? Somebody is, right?”
The trader seemed to wilt. Reluctantly, he nodded. “It’s those Valley clowns,” he said. “They think I’m spying on them.”
“Well, you are.” Again, Liz spoke up where a local girl would have kept her mouth shut.
“That doesn’t mean I want to get killed on account of it!” Luke exclaimed. He turned to her father. “You got some place you can, like, hide me, man?”
Nobody from this alternate knew about the subbasement or was likely to find it. All the same, Liz thought No! as loud as she could. She didn’t want Luke going down there. That was where transposition chambers materialized. Nobody from this alternate had any business seeing such things.
“How far behind you are they?” Dad asked.
“Not far enough,” Luke answered.
“They’ll know to come here,” Liz said. “People will remember he’s visited us. Or maybe the Valley soldiers have bloodhounds.”
“I took care of that—I put down ground pepper.” The ghost of a smile crossed Luke’s face. As if on cue, two dogs started baying frantically. “Well, that bought me a little time, anyways.”
When he talked about pepper, he meant the red kind. It grew in the New World. Black pepper was a rare luxury here. Most of it came from Old Time supermarket shelves. The plants from which black peppercorns came grew only across the sea. Ocean traffic aboard windjammers was even more erratic than hauling goods overland.
Dad looked very unhappy, and pepper had nothing to do with it. “They will come here—Liz is dead right about that,” he growled. “I ought to turn you loose and see how fast you can run.”
“Wouldn’t try that.” Luke’s right hand dropped toward a pistol.
“Wouldn’t try that,” Mom said from out of the darkness. Luke froze—her voice carried conviction. Very slowly and carefully, he moved his hand away. She didn’t say anything else, not even, That’s better. No point to letting him know exactly where she was.
“Well, come on,” Dad said, and led Luke into the courtyard. No! Liz wanted to yell again. Biting her lip, she made herself keep quiet.
Dad didn’t send Luke down to the subbasement. Instead, he got a ladder and nudged it up against the ceiling of a storeroom. “There’s a hidey-hole up there,” he said. “Push aside a couple of boards, get in, and put ’em back. And keep quiet from then on out, if you know what’s good for you.”
Luke touched the brim of his hat. “Much obliged to you, sir.”
“Yes,” Dad said. “You are. Now climb.”
The trader from Speedro did, and disappeared into the hidey-hole. “I didn’t even know that was there,” Liz said in a low voice.
“Life is full of surprises sometimes,” Dad answered, which might have meant anything or nothing.
Liz didn’t get much of a chance to figure out what it meant, because more knocks came from the front door. “The Valley men!” she squeaked.
Dad took down the ladder. “Mm, I don’t suppose it’s the Tooth Fairy or the Great Pumpkin,” he agreed. “We’d better answer it, don’t you think?” He sounded almost indecently calm.
“Open up, in the name of King Zev!” the men outside shouted. Liz was pretty sure the Great Pumpkin didn’t go around yelling things like that.
Dad did open the door. Liz went with him. Mom stayed out of sight—and kept the pistol where she could use it in a hurry. “Hello,” Dad told the Valley men, who did have a couple of bloodhounds with them. “You probably want to know about Luke the trader, don’t you?”
“Better believe we do,” growled the sergeant who held the dogs’ leashes. “You got him here? There’s a twenty-dollar reward on his head.”
Twenty dollars, in this alternate, was a lot of money. Dad sounded impressed when he said, “Good grief! What did he do?”
“Spied for the enemy, that’s what,” the sergeant answered, and he wasn’t lying—Luke had done just that. “I’m gonna ask you one more time, buddy—you got him here?” He sounded tough and mean.
Dad looked sorry as he shook his head. He made a better actor than Liz would have given him credit for. “With that kind of reward, I wish I did. But I sent him off with a flea in his ear. I don’t want any trouble with anybody.”
“Can we track him?” another sergeant asked the dog handler. Then he asked Liz’s father, “Which way did he go?” Liz thought she would have asked those questions in the opposite order.
“That way.” Dad pointed south.
“I don’t know.” The sergeant with the bloodhounds looked almost as sorrowful as they did. “That person”—which wasn’t exactly what he said—“has some kind of smelly stuff to mess up his trail. Rocky and Bullwinkle got all fubared before we came here.”
Rocky and Bullwinkle? Liz thought. They aren’t dogs! But t
hey were here and now. And what was fubared supposed to mean? The English they spoke around here was mostly easy to follow, but every once in a while …
The bloodhounds did pick up a scent. It was probably the one Luke had left the last time he walked out of the house. The Valley soldiers seemed happy enough to let them follow it. One of the men nodded politely to Liz and her father as the group hurried off down the street.
Dad’s shoulders slumped in relief when he reached for the bar to close up the door again. “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered.
“I’m getting too old for this, and I’m a lot younger than you are,” Liz said.
That got her a weary grin. “‘Do field work,’ they told me,” Dad said. “‘You can’t really understand anything without field work,’ they said. I’ll tell you what I understand—I understand how you can be scared out of your gourd all the time when you’re doing field work, that’s what.”
“Yeah,” Liz said. “And there are plenty of alternates worse than this one, too.”
“Tell me about it!” her father exclaimed. “There are probably some of them where they give you your money back if you don’t have a coronary the first day you’re there.” He snapped his fingers. “And I understand one more thing, too.”
“What’s that?” Liz asked.
“I’d better get Luke some water and a honey bucket,” he answered. “With luck, a honey bucket with a lid.”
“A honey bucket?” Liz said, and then, “Oh.” Most of the time, euphemisms made her impatient. That one, though, she found she liked. She added, “You’d better let him know you’re not giving him to the Valley soldiers, too.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Dad said. “I think he’s liable to shoot first and ask questions later.” He sang out as he hauled the ladder into place again: “It’s just me! I’ve come with your fresh cauliflowers!”
The Valley-Westside War Page 14