“If it weren’t for that man,” Seven responded crisply, “none of us, including you, would be alive today. I’m not giving up on him. It’s far too early in the game. I’m willing to take that risk, especially considering there’s a viable alternate plan that’ll work.”
“Like what?” Legend sighed edgily, leaning back against the wall.
“You and your crew head on out to Dutch Harbor and make the pick up. Leave us with two ROV’s that Frank doesn’t know about. The Leviathan can protect us here while you fetch the folks at Unalaska. And if Bill is willing, we’ll blow the Chicom boat out of the ocean before she suspects a thing.”
Harper looked on and simply nodded his assent. “Sounds good to me.”
“Maybe we can’t afford to lose two bots for a trip like that.” Legend snapped. “Do you have any idea how long that round trip will take?”
“I don’t know,” Seven snapped back. “What, three months?”
“Five or six, I’d say. Two months outbound, riding the current and four months or more back. We’ll be stuffed like sardines and half the crew will kill one another before the ride is over, guaranteed. Now as far as I’m concerned, it ain’t worth it.”
“So what are you saying, Striker? Are you refusing to make the pick up? Are you willing to let them die?”
Legend stared at the deck for a long minute, then back at Seven. “Hell, I wish I’d never picked you up. Damn you, Seven, you don’t want much, do you?”
“Just the lives of 23 of my friends. I made them a promise, and I intend to keep it, one way or another. And, for your information, it just so happens you and the Phoenix are my second choice.”
“By the way, boy genius, it was never my promise,” Legend replied, his words cutting through Seven like a dagger. “And who was your first choice for this kamikaze, mass seppuku party, if I may ask?”
“He was,” Seven said, pointing at Commander Harper. “But he happens to be unavailable at the moment.”
Legend paused for a long moment and looked hard at Sam, then at Seven. “Fine. I may think about fetchin’ their sorry butts. But if I do, and I return here to this seamount and you’re lyin’ in a scrap heap on the bottom, I’m ejectin’ every one of your friends without a trial, at night, off the deck, into the ocean with a pint of water and a chart to Honolulu . With any luck and a good wind, they can make the swim before sunrise. And, by the way, until I get back, Aaron Seven, you’re right at the top of my list, you little pencil neck geek. When I get dozens of your friends puking their guts out all over my platform, I’m gonna save it for you to clean up when I get back, you piss-ant for brains!”
“Fine,” Seven responded with rising annoyance. “You do that, you limp wristed, fat, Harley faggot. And I’ll just have to kick your dumb, toothless, hog riding butt all over this colony when you do get back!”
Seven looked at him with a hard fire in his eyes, which Legend returned second for long second. Sam stood rigid, obviously ready for the word to snap Seven’s neck as the Commander looked on, ready to snap hers. Then, Legend burst into a loud laugh, and popped his stogie back into his mouth.
“Damn, son, you really know how to clinch a deal with a biker!” Legend said with a laughing admiration. “Where’d you learn how to close a deal like that?”
“Friends. Friends in low places.”
Legend laughed again then raised his hands for a high five, which Seven met perfectly in the air.
“With a sales pitch like that, boy, you could sell more bikes in Alabama in a week than I sold in Hong Kong in a year!
“Underway, shift colors, you swabbie pukes,” Legend said with gusto, as he slipped into a miserable pirate’s harangue. “Hoist the main, fetch me a pint of ale, ye maties …I’m gonna kick me some Chicom butt!”
“I’m sorry,” Harper said to Serea, scratching his head, “what’d I miss here?”
She just shook her head, closed her eyes and sighed.
Aaron Seven was back.
60
The residents of Miller’s cave immediately and radically changed their lives after the single set of footprints were discovered relatively close to the entrance of their cavern. While the prints never came more than half a mile from them, it was far too close for their comfort. They quickly set about vastly improving the camouflage of their entranceway and they planned that, in their future, each night-time excursion would be deliberated in detail, leaving nothing to chance. They even vowed to limit their cooking to the daytime hours so as not to attract wanderers by manufacturing curious odors. None of them knew whether the cowboy booted stranger was a local resident of a deep cave like theirs who frequented the summit just above them or someone just out for a long distance reconnoiterer on a single pass. But they planned and acted on the worst of their suspicions.
The night after Warren and Wattenbarger had worked so hard to disguise their footprints and hide any markings they may have inadvertently made back to the cave, it rained. The sky opened up and it poured for three days continuously, so that any hope of making the long anticipated trek across the mountain to the distant observatory was out of the question. In the three days of waiting for the rain to let up, Warren hardly slept, lying awake or in limbo waiting for his chance to get out and wire the observatory for their deliverance, if there was to be one at all. He knew in the deepest part of his heart that such a rescue was the longest of long shots.
The capacity to change a geophysical observatory into an operational ELF transmitter was a distant hope to begin with. But added to the unlikely recipe of low probabilities was the doubtful belief that, even if successfully received, anyone would actually believe their story, act on that belief to mount a dangerous rescue mission, and risk lives and irreplaceable equipment in the process. While Charles loudly voiced Warren’s deepest fears with pinpoint accuracy, Warren believed that plowing his last energy into a rescue plan was a better use of his final days than sitting around whining. If he had no choice but to meet the grim reaper anyway, at least he was going to meet him with a haymaker and not a snivel.
That evening, the rain had ended but the sky remained cloud covered, blocking out any available moonlight. Warren chose to remain behind one more night and hope for the moon. The following night, he was not disappointed, for the sky cleared and the air was dry and crisp.
Warren and Wattenbarger exited the cave and walked along the expansive bluff above them northward, then approached the top of Concharty above from a wholly unique direction. They were careful not to mark their track as they walked and they spoke in whispers. Soon, they made their way up the side of the bluff and onto the flat summit. The moon had not yet risen, but through the brilliance of starlight, they could easily make out the upended fuselage of the aircraft in the distance, which quickly gave them their visual bearings. A chilly, persistent wind blew from the northwest and tossed the dead leaves around on the ground around them.
“I’m taking a fix now,” Wattenbarger said as he stopped and marked his GPS and hand held compass.
Both men could see the distinct dark patch of ground where the hot ashes had been days before. In the moonlight of the previous excursion, the ground appeared to be light gray. Now, after the rain, the ground materialized flat black before them far into the distance. The waning moon would rise later in the evening and lend some light, but for now, they relied on the stars and their hand held flashlights.
After just five minutes of walking through low scrub brush, they reached the edge of the burnt ground. They could clearly see that the rain had packed the ash and, of course, had cooled it thoroughly.
“Well, my friend, we’re going to leave prints now and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Warren said, his eyes moving along the path they would travel. He checked his watch. “Okay, we gotta turn back in five hours, no matter what.”
“Let’s go,” Wattenbarger said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “It’s so incredibly great to get far away from that cave. Five hours away is like a trip to
Tahiti as far as I’m concerned.”
Warren smiled, turned and looked through the dimness at the barely visible face of his friend who smiled back at him. “I always suspected you to be the ADHD poster child. Now I’m convinced.”
“Why do you think I drank so much, Lew? I couldn’t afford doctors and Ritalin!”
Warren chuckled and turned to lead the way through the ash. His first steps revealed their initial challenge. The ash was deep and it had soaked up the rain. It immediately clung to their boots all the way up to the high tops. Warren stopped after only a dozen steps, his feet weighted down. “This is gonna be problematic,” he said evenly, shining his light down on his boot.
“Why don’t you just say this is a bunch of crap?” Wattenbarger reprised, his wrinkled face looking down at his own boots.
“It’s definitely gonna slow us down,” Warren replied looking at his watch and then ahead into the darkness.
“Look at it this way, Lew,” Wattenbarger replied. “It actually duplicates the motions of the butt-buster down at the gym. When we get done with this, we’re gonna have the finest buns of steel on this mountain! Lance is gonna beg us to come along.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I was thinkin’,” Warren replied dryly as he began to walk ahead in a slow slog.
“Okay, then what?”
“I was thinking that in a few days of dry weather, this is gonna dry out and turn into a surface as hard as an asphalt parking lot, so, sooner or later, this is gonna be an easy hike.”
“Good thinking,” Wattenbarger snickered. “But it wasn’t exactly what I was thinking.”
“What?” Warren sighed in frustration.
“At this rate, we may have to actually slit the rear of our pants just so that we can pull them on over our huge glutes. But, I don’t mind if my buns of steel hang out, do you? I mean, how hard will it be to get a date then? Remember that opening scene in the Terminator when Arnie was walking across the parking lot in his awesome, ripped nakedness? I mean, he flashed his massive glutes to billions and he never had a problem getting a date. He even got elected governor after that, so how offensive could it be in the long run...”
“Dale,” Warren interrupted, “if I live to be a thousand, I’ll never, ever figure out how your mind works. You’re so damn smart at times, but then you start off on these inane strings of comic book images that remind me over and over again that you never actually ever grew up. How do you expect to hold down a respectable job acting like that?”
“Well, at this point, I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem,” Wattenbarger laughed. “And, as far as the past is concerned, what you just said reminds me of the old poem Miss Jenkins made us memorize and say in English class. It’s kinda been the marching orders for my life.”
“You really, actually still remember old high school poetry assignments?”
“Sure. Doesn’t everybody?” Wattenbarger asked innocently.
“Okay, let’s have it,” Warren said irascibly, more out of obligation and boredom than any real curiosity as he trudged through the wet ash.
“Spoon River Anthology, Fiddler Jones,” Wattenbarger said. “It’s his epitaph. The most important verses are these:
“The earth keeps some vibration going,
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle--
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.”
Warren was silent for long moments as they walked, then he stopped and turned to his friend and faced him. In the dim light reflected between the distant stars and their two downward pointed beams, he could see on Wattenbarger’s face the look he fully expected, a strong, resilient half smile, one just waiting, fully expecting, his insulting reprise. But instead, Warren steadied his voice and said, “That was beautiful. Thank- you, Dale, I needed that. I really mean it, it was just perfect.”
Wattenbarger looked as if he were taken by surprise. “Really?” he asked.
“Yes, really,” Warren replied. “I remembered all the science and all the geology and all the mathematics. And you remembered all the important things. The town folks called me brilliant and shrewd. They called you gay. They all said I had it figured out, and they said you were a drunk loser. Well, my friend, here we are at the end of the freakin’ road, standing right on the edge of the flat earth and getting ready to fall off just like all the rest of them already have. Now they’re all dead, all their money, dreams, ideas and property is gone and it’s just us, me and you. And now that there’s just two of us left, we can take a vote, who won in life: me or you? Who was the real winner?” Warren ’s eyes filled with tears. “You won, you little fag, you won.”
Wattenbarger started to say something, then he simply embraced his life-long friend. “It’s okay to hug you now,” he said. “There’s nobody left out here to start up the gossip, unless maybe Monatawana’s hidin’ under yon bush all dressed up in his loin cloth and cowboy boots takin’ notes.”
Warren laughed and pushed him away, somewhat embarrassed with himself. “I really don’t know what that was all about…”
“Well, if I can guess, I’d say that the stress of watching the planet destroyed under your feet could cause a psychotic wrinkle or two.”
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,” Warren stammered.
“Wait till I get to heaven and tell Miss Jenkins you shed a tear at one of her poetry assignments. She’ll change your grade from a D- to an A+!”
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Warren snapped, turning away and walking on again. “She saw me cry over her assignments plenty of times.”
“Yeah, but you were crying because you had to go do it, not because you really, really liked it! I think there’s a difference.”
“I didn’t really, really like it, dammit!” Warren spat gruffly in a strong voice.
“He’s back!” Wattenbarger answered in a sing-song voice.
They trudged onward in the night, past the precariously balanced vertical aircraft and into the dark, ash covered wasteland. Warren could smell the distinctive odor of wet ashes as they walked and hear a squishing sound each time their feet sank into the bed below them. Their flashlights were adequate to light the path, and the twin beams bounced up and down as they walked, alternately crossing the trail before them. In less than an hour of silent trekking, their course began to turn downward as they walked down the northwestern slope of Concharty. But just as the ridge began to slope away, they saw a peculiar pile of twisted metal rise before them along the pathway. As they walked closer, Warren spoke.
“It looks like the remains of a power plant. Look at those canisters tangled up in the beams and wires. The tornado must have sucked up an entire substation and dumped it here!”
“And I’d say that would be the source of your explosion” Wattenbarger offered.
“What makes you think that?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” Wattenbarger quipped. “These transformers can actually hold an electrical charge, and they’re filled with oil for heat transfer. I’d guess that in all this metal, a puff of wind may have blown a wire across a set of terminals and boom!”
“Good try, Holmes, but not good enough,” Warren responded.
“Okay, what’s your version?”
“See that huge crater in the middle of this wreckage?”
“Yeah…”
“See that huge sheet of metal lying about 50 feet yonder? Now, look at the marking on its edge,” Warren instructed.
“Oops, you win!” Wattenbarger relinquished good-nat
uredly.
“As fate would have it, this 3000 gallon tank of liquefied natural gas was deposited on top of our power substation and when it came down, it probably poked a small hole in the tank. Then you got your spark from the transformer and, well, the rest we saw from a distance.”
“Whew,” Wattenbarger sighed.
“What?”
“Now I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder for Monatawana.”
Warren laughed loudly. “Hey, stupid, that was your own ghost story!”
“Well, it happens to be true!”
“Liar.”
“You’ll see,” Wattenbarger said, moving the beam of his flashlight under his chin and smiling sardonically back at Warren . “Soon enough you’ll feel the sensation of his cold blade as it slides in between your shoulders.”
“Give it up, Dale, it’s moldy and old by now.”
Wattenbarger then tossed his head back and loudly laughed a wicked, deep, maniacal laugh that echoed throughout the mountainside. But the second the reverberation ended, a loud pop and snap echoed back from the darkness ahead of them.
“What the hell was that?” Warren hissed, stooping down and hiding behind the metal girders before him.
“I don’t know,” Wattenbarger whispered in a trembling voice, kneeling in the ashes beside Warren .
“Stop your goofin’ around – you’re gonna get us killed!” Warren snapped.
The moon had just risen above the horizon to their right and behind them. It leant a kind of eerie grayness to the blasted landscape. Some 500 feet ahead they could see the edge of the woods looming – a wall of mysterious blackness that the fire had spared. It was from that barrier they had heard the sound.
“It came from in there,” Wattenbarger whispered.
“I know that,” Warren responded, his eyes sweeping the blackness ahead of him, trying to make out a single shape, motion or indication of something – anything that would make a sound.
“You think we need to turn back now?” Wattenbarger asked.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 55