* * *
Even under the fierce afternoon sun, Freeville reeked of life and vigor. All about could be heard welcoming shouts and the flow of good-natured obscenities. One of those gazing hopefully at that glorious site was a grizzled soul called "Fibs."
His was a nickname earned for being the wildest storyteller in the corps of pickers. A handle and knack that kept him in drinks and smokes during the infectious mood of Rendezvous and supplied him with modest travel donations when he started back for his solitary months in the field.
Maybe forty years old, Fibs looked eighty. Personal neglect and abuse had left him battered and toothless; a man hardly taken seriously, except of course, by himself. In his early days, Fibs'd made some respectable finds. But a robbery and near-fatal beating changed that. Reduced him to a brain damaged kind of hobo existence that he somehow managed on alone.
Unable to afford any transport of his own, Fibs hiked everywhere. Bedroll, canteen, and walking stick made him a recognizable and sympathetic Johnny Appleseed kind of figure. And though having him around for any length of time rapidly wore thin, he was considered something of a lucky piece among veteran pickers, one meant to be touched and quickly passed on.
Fibs had developed a routine of culling the same exhausted treasure grounds time and again for overlooked bits of value. His efforts rarely gained him more than a handful of profit. But his needs were simple, so he survived.
Outwardly, this time was no better. He had a few ounces of electronic silver gathered over months of solitary campfires. Some curiosity pieces that might interest jewelry smiths. But one thing Fibs had found he knew was his best treasure ever . . . and it was where no one could steal it away—overhead.
Later, Fibs would begin his ritual of wandering from tavern to tavern, begging drinks in exchange for his usual blend of wild tales. Now though, the charitable meal offered paupers by the Freeville Christian Organization beckoned. So he took a place in its serving line, just ahead of two other men and a young woman.
* * *
Top had deposited Trennt, Baker, and Geri at the same aid station. Their reward for enduring a considerable wait would be chipped bowls full of a perpetually simmering, nondenominational stew: cabbage hunks, runted spuds, and bitter carrots mixed with tough cubes of jerked meat, beans, and random corn kernels. Afterward, an offer of tattered blankets and a place out of the weather would be extended, with a few pages of scripture, for those who cared to spend the night.
"If anybody is looking for you, sooner or later they'll know to stop here," said Top, depositing his pack of grateful strays.
"I'll see what I can hock your goods for. If you need me, come out to the truck park. Otherwise, hang loose."
"Peace," he said, flashing an odd, split-finger hand sign and was gone.
The old Marine's words proved cruelly prophetic. For the trio hadn't even finished their meals, when Geri stiffened and came electrically erect at her place across from Trennt. He followed her gaze, astonished as well. For there stood Royce Corealis himself, appraising them from across the broad dining tent.
CHAPTER 15
Corealis left the safety net of his security people to approach the trio alone. His eyes flared like glowing embers as they touched on each grimy face, then he leaned forward on the table between Trennt and Baker. He spoke in a much restrained, though cutting whisper.
"All right, gentlemen. What the hell happened?"
In shabby contrast to the fresh-scrubbed face hovering over him, Trennt sat with travel grit caked deep in the pores and creases of his own skin. He still wore the clothes he'd put on weeks before and sported clownlike dollops of first-aid cream on his collection of heat blisters and peeling skin. But he was unrattled.
As in their first meeting, Trennt again matched stares with the man. He glanced up from his nearly finished stew, put his spoon aside and settled back to answer for all.
"Just about everything you could imagine," he began. "The only thing that went as planned was the ride out there. We found the research team dead and the lab ruined. Your Professor Keener was poisoned and barely alive. To make a long story short, our plane got loaded down with storm ice and dumped us dead center in three hundred miles of desert."
"Keep your voice down," Corealis ordered.
"Bullshit!" Trennt snapped back. "After what I've been through I don't care who hears me!"
Nearby heads turned at the outburst. That included a young Russian corporal monitoring sidewalk traffic through the open street-side doors. Baker and the corporal touched gazes through the distance and Baker came up from his chair to intervene.
"Why don't we all go get a little air out back, fellahs?"
But outside, the atmosphere was no more hospitable.
"No researchers. No catalyst. No data, no airplane," itemized the director. "I presume you at least carried out the proper destruction of the research station."
"We torched it."
"Torched? As in fire? Did you not have a device specifically designed for more than just that?"
"It wouldn't arm."
Corealis swung a demeaning glance between his two agents. "Unbelievably sloppy and totally unacceptable work from people I understood were the best at their trade."
Trennt was unrepentant. "Believe whatever you want. But I'd say we did damn well, under the circumstances. Survived a storm and plane crash. Made it across a few hundred miles of desert by sheer luck. Almost died from exposure and almost got killed by foreign legion troops. But we're here to tell of it."
Corealis considered the point. "All right. I do appreciate your survival skills. That's what qualified you for this work in the first place. Discounting all the sloppiness, your primary task was to retrieve chemical samples developed at the site. I'll write off everything else if you'll just turn them over."
Trennt sighed. "I didn't get them off the plane in time."
The director leaned closer. "Excuse me?"
"They were with us until the very last moment before bailout," defended Trennt. "Then something happened and the ejection charges blew early. I fell one way and they went the other."
"Lost?"
"Back onboard the jet. We did save some research papers and computer cubes that might have value."
Corealis snorted. "Something, at least. Well, let's have them."
Trennt turned back for the dining hall. But before he even stepped inside he could see Geri's empty chair. The satchel of documents was gone with her.
"I'll get them back," he declared. "But as far as I'm concerned, the real issue here is an unselfish pilot who stayed aboard to try and get that crippled wreck down in one piece. He's alone out there somewhere right now. Maybe hurt bad. And for his sake only, I say if that plane can be found, we're still the ones to do it."
Corealis slowly shook his head.
"Spare me the inappropriate chivalry. Your failed task will be assigned to more capable persons. As of this moment, you are terminated from any further employment with our organization.
"Against my better judgment, I will allow you a degree of compensation for your inept work. You can choose between a ride back to the streets of Chicago, or a measure of undeserved severance pay in the trade dollars of this place."
The director waved an ominous finger in Trennt's face.
"But do not get any ideas of intervening in this matter—for humanitarian reasons, or otherwise. Because if either of you are seen interfering, in any manner, you will be shot out of hand. Now, which payment is it to be?"
Trennt hissed and turned away. "You know what you can do with either."
Corealis nodded curtly to his aide.
"John, pay them here."
The aide nervously stepped out from between the guards. He offered a fold of bills that neither Trennt nor Baker reached for. After trembling with the outstretched money a few long seconds, he dropped it at their feet and made off with the departing entourage.
Baker scooped up the coarse paper only after they were out of sight
. Regarding the clutch of scrip dollars, he looked glumly to his partner.
"Closest I ever been to grabbin' the brass ring."
Trennt thrust an arm after Corealis.
"I told you not to join this circus from the start! Now he walks off and tosses out thirty pieces of silver like we're a couple rookie street walkers. If you want more of that treatment, then go, chase him!"
The shooter blanched. Uncharacteristic distress clouded his face. In one of the rare little-brother moments he allowed for no one else in the entire world, Baker's words flowed in an uncommon, wounded tone.
"Ain't no call to talk to me that way, Jimbo. No call! Business is business. That's all. You know I'd take a bullet 'fore I'd ever crawl to anyone. You know that!"
Both men went silent. Baker made another doleful examination of the money he clutched, then looked about the new town.
"Well," he said rhetorically, "If 'n the old goat don't up and run off with our trade goods, I s'pose we kin make a new start herebouts."
Trennt sighed. Disgusted with himself about the whole chain of events, he plopped a fist on Baker's drooped shoulder in something of an apology. When he spoke again his words were a vow, his tone a threat.
"I don't care who Corealis is. Or what he says. I don't plan to just let myself be washed out of this thing. If there's any way at all, we'll find his plane. Just to shove that damn stuff down his throat."
Baker straightened to a dose of regained pride.
"Good enough, Pard," he declared. "But how do we start?"
Trennt swiped at his exhausted eyes. "Something that control voice said in the cockpit's been eating at me."
Baker looked over optimistically. "How's that?"
"It called out four course corrections just before the storm hit us. The third was for 250 degrees. But the very last was for 40 degrees relative. Because of the pole shift, all compasses are celestial-mathematic. With no magnetic variation, that would make an actual heading of 290 degrees, or somewhere northwest and right this way."
Baker desperately wanted to side with his friend's logic. But he saw too much daylight.
"Jimbo," he reminded, "we were all over the sky in that wind. And 'member, when that engine cut loose, we got turned clear back the way we came."
"Yeah, I know. But part of what made Kosinski decide to drop the passpod came from something automatic taking away control of the plane. He said it felt like a bit of stray logic was fighting him to turn back and climb."
Baker shrugged. "That still leaves a lotta ground to cover. How we gonna know for sure?"
Trennt nodded toward the distant truck park.
"First thing tomorrow, we find Top."
* * *
It was nearing sundown. The lull between daytime trade and nighttime hellraising was almost over. Soon a din would spill from the town's saloons capable of muffling gunshots. But now it was still placid enough to hear the rising night breeze tug at loose shingles of this particular gaming tavern—and magnify a familiar shuffle of slowing feet just outside its door.
The bartender recognized the familiar sound and stink, and mumbled under his breath, "Oh shit."
From his place at a distant table, Top waited to play some poker. But for now he sat alone. With a portion of his wagon master's fee, he'd bought himself a hot bath and shave, clean clothes and a room. Absently shuffling a deck of cards, he watched the familiar, ragged picker tentatively scout the sparse gathering of early patrons.
The picker's weather-beaten mug lit to the vacant grin of a friendly old dog as he dared step inside.
"Hiya, bro," he said through a slur of missing teeth and advanced state of inebriation.
The barman hissed and shook his head.
"When I'd heard you'd made it back, I figured sooner or later you'd work your way over here."
The picker shrugged. "Youse know me, bro. I keeps plugging."
"So, what can I do for you, Fibs?"
"Well, sell me a drink, ah course."
"Sure thing. Just show me some credits."
The old bum shuffled his filthy boots, studying them for a time. "Truth is, I'm a little short."
"Already? Or didn't you have anything to begin with?"
"Hey," objected the bum, "I had me some silver."
"But you drank it up."
At that, Fibs might have blushed. Yet under his filthy skin, who could tell? He simply stood quiet.
"Yeah," complained the barkeep. "Like always. Just once, I'd like to see you start at this end of town while you still had some money."
The old beggar shuffled again. Sweeping his eyes among the few other patrons, he saw no invitations and finally conceded defeat.
"No hard feelings," offered the barkeep to his back. "Maybe later some of the guys'll start feeling generous."
Fibs paused and turned. His voice livened.
"Hey, wait. I do got somethin' to trade. Well, not all of it. But a little piece."
The barman conceded. "Dammit, Fibs! Okay! One shot, that's all! Then you gotta move on, understand?"
The picker nodded vigorously and hopped aboard an ancient bar stool.
"Uh-huh. Oh yeah, sure."
Measuring out the drink, the barman pushed it over, careful to stay beyond his patron's noxious bouquet. He watched Fibs sip the sour mash graciously. Then, bobbing his head, wanted to get the usual aftermath over quickly.
"So okay, Fibs. What is it this time? You see space aliens out there again? Ghosts in some graveyard? Maybe L.A. rising up from the sea?"
Fibs settled back in a regal motion, which instantly transformed his threadbare stool into a throne. From it he grinned in kingly amusement at the barkeep's pitiful lack of insight.
"Heck no, bro. None of that junk. You could never guess."
He paused to regard the glass.
"But, gimme another of these and I just might share a little something special with you."
Like what?"
"Well, like an airplane, flying around with a big hole in its belly."
"Uh-huh."
"Not only that, this one can stop, go to the side, and back up, even."
"Yeah."
"I tell you!" The bum defended, thumping his chest. "I seen it, myself."
"Oh, well, that makes it true for sure."
A couple of nearby customers chuckled pathetically, bringing on a flash of rare anger in the usually docile bum.
"I did!" he charged aloud. "I seen it; more'n once!"
"Right, Fibs. You've seen lots of things."
Fibs frowned in heavy concentration, working to draw some reasonable analogy. He glanced about and fidgeted, as if he were betraying some great trust.
"Just about sunup, it'd come round every few days and do the same thing every time. Like, like it was lookin' to set down an' nest. Only, only, it'd act like it changed its mind and come back next time, a little farther on down and do the same thing again, just maybe a tiny bit lower in the sky."
"Right. And where's all this been happening?"
Fibs leaned across his drink with a tone of grave confidentiality.
"North and west, all the time. North and west. Seen it do the same thing for the last two solid weeks comin' here."
"And that's where you've been? Northwest? When everyone knows the treasure fields are all south and east?"
The barkeep leaned back expectantly.
"Next thing you'll say is you were in the Wilds and met up with a nice bunch of crazies, who made you their king. And I'd believe that first. You probably didn't have any trade goods at all when you came to town this time, did you?"
The barkeep swept a dismissing thumb toward the door.
"On your way, Fibs. You suckered me for the last time."
His welcome used up, the derelict's throne turned back into a commoner's stool. But from deeper inside the saloon a charitable hand intervened.
"Go ahead, dude. He's worked hard. Give him one, on me."
The barkeep looked over in admonition.
"
Top, you know this guy. Start now and you'll not get rid of him. And neither will I."
Top shrugged off his generosity. Buying a half pint of bootleg whisky, he led Fibs out the door and to a sidewalk bench. In a few minutes he sat as the private audience to an impossible tale of a beat up airplane that repeated its appearance and maneuvers every few mornings.
CHAPTER 16
Rendezvous. Town streets swelled with tradesmen, rough necks, and gunslingers. Like any other frontier town through the ages, vendors and outfitters hawked trinkets and hard goods from quick-set sidewalk stalls. Further down, kitchens, repair shops, and brothels offered their own brand of service from more stationary locales.
In between hovered the league of returned pickers. Gunny sacks of excavated electronic booty and bric-a-brac hoisted securely atop their shoulders, they milled about in vast herds, considering which traders might give the best deal.
This place called Freeville was the post-quake metropolis of the modern West Coast, the hub of major commerce, which all other new-shore towns longed to be.
Christened for the notion of openness it wished to portray, the Ville drew its life blood from an economic system regulated by its warrior landlords. Since the Soviets were its primary benefactors, it had surrendered its identity to one assumed more pleasing to them. Cooking and dress hinted at a Slavic flair and East European phrases found growing acceptance in the local tongue.
The effort, however, did little to appease Major Josef Dobruja, one of the transplanted Soviet officers living here. This morning he crossed the crowded street on his usual prenoon policing round. A dour tech sergeant walked at his side.
Josef raked powerful, tanned fingers through his still-damp hair and reset his limp duty cap. A freshwater shower aboard the cargo sub was one of few real luxuries offered military personnel in this pitiable locale. Yet, just the short walk here from the dock had made both men nearly as sweaty as the pathetic vagabonds pressing about them.
Dobruja was a fighting man grown long bored with this caretaker's assignment. He'd come across twenty-two months earlier from Saint Petersburg. There, an admiral-uncle had kept him sequestered as a tactics instructor, safely stashed away from the filthy North American Flu epidemic.
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