by Darrell Bain
Inside, Jeannie was trying to treat Jamie's wound based on the slight knowledge she had gained from her brief training course. She had gotten some pain killer into him and was beginning to cut off his coverall sleeve with her knife. She was sickened at the way the fabric had melted into his flesh.
Masters saw that Jamie was in no immediate danger and left her to it. The floater's computer was still on line and miraculously unhit from Jamie's wild shots. He gave it the proper channel to broadcast on and began calling immediately. “Houston, Houston! Come in! This is Captain Troy Masters. We have survivors in a captured floater.” While waiting for an answer, he glanced at the power gauge and did a hasty calculation. If Kristi were to be saved, he needed to start back immediately, and even then, he doubted there was time. Her wound was just too huge. First though, he had to make sure that they would not be shot down by their own forces, or any of the enemy still in the air.
“Houston Enclave Commander here. Give your status."
“We have wounded, in bad shape. I intend to lift off immediately and fly directly back to the Enclave. Can you cover me?"
“No need, captain, at least for the moment. We've cleared the air of enemy."
Masters turned to Jeannie. “Leave Jamie alone for now. He'll live. Get outside and tell Judy and Costa to get Kristi in here. Call the pets. Hurry!” He began readying the craft to lift, wondering how long Kristi could live with such a wound. It was bad, about as bad as it could get and still leave her breathing.
Judy, Jeannie and the wounded ranger carried Kristi aboard, then boosted Woggly and the other dogs up inside. Masters lifted off immediately. As soon as he had them airborne, he spoke to the commander of the friendly force who he knew must have communications back to the Enclave. “Call ahead and have an ER autodoc standing by at the landing field. We're going to need help as soon as we arrive."
“Will do,” the anonymous voice answered.
Masters raised the captured floater above treetop level and headed out. An escort formed around him. He added speed and wind began whistling through the broken canopy. Behind him, Lady lay beside the deathly white form of Kristi, whimpering softly.
* * * *
Randall opened his eyes and tried to move. An awful pain in his side threw him back to the ground. He gasped in agony and tried it again, moving inches at a time until he managed to gain his knees. The pain was so bad that he bit his lip, then cried out anyway. Around him lay the bodies of several of his men, all dead. The floater was gone, and with it Da Cruz, his only hope of ever returning to Moon City. Or even living at all. From behind him, he heard a squeaking noise. He turned painfully. A rat crouched a few feet away, eyes gleaming with intelligence. Two more came into view, moving cautiously at first, then more confidently as they saw how helpless the human was. Randall stared into the black depths of the hungry eyes. “Oh, God,” he said.
The rats crept closer and were joined by others. This prey, at least, would not escape.
* * *
CHAPTER 28
The pain killer had begun to work on Jamie. As the hurt in his arm eased he was able to pay more attention to the other occupants of the floater. Jeannie sat beside him, looking worriedly at Kristi, who was stretched out in the aisle between the seats. Judy was tending to her with the limited supplies in the medkits, but they had never been designed for such a massive wound. Lady kept up an anxious whimpering all the time, nuzzling close to her mistress. Every few seconds Judy had to push her gently aside in order to work. Jamie twisted in his seat to get a better look. Judy's eyes met his. They held little hope, but he felt compelled to ask, “How is she?"
“Not good.” A tear trickled down her cheek, twisting a path through the bloody bits of concrete chips still embedded in her face from the near miss.
Lady's whimper became louder. She nosed forward and licked Kristi's face, then lay beside her with her muzzle touching her neck.
“Can we do anything?” Jeannie asked through her own tears.
Judy shrugged helplessly. “All we can do is try to keep her alive until we can get her hooked up to an autodoc. If she makes it till then, she's got a chance."
Lady licked Kristi's face again. Kristi blinked her eyes open for a moment. “I'll make it. I can't die now.” Her voice was a whisper, barely audible. Her eyes closed again. Fuzzy Britches came up on the other side of her body and began helping Lady comfort her. He meowed very low and began licking the other side of her face. Presently Princess joined him.
* * * *
It was a relatively short flight back to the Enclave in distance, particularly as Masters was pushing the craft to it's limits, but it was a very long one in terms of continuing apprehension. Judy continued her ministrations, calling on everything she had ever learned about field medicine to keep Kristi alive, but as they neared the Enclave, she let out a long bubbling sigh and stopped breathing. Judy immediately began CPR, shoving the pets roughly aside. Masters heard her cry of despair. He looked back over his shoulder, saw what was happening and put the floater into an all out, engine-ruining burst of speed. The power indicator blinked from amber warning to flashing red, and the craft's computer began telling him to slow down. He ignored the advice and began a long whistling descent that left no margin at all for error. Wind whipped tears from his eyes all the way down. He brushed them aside repeatedly in order to make out the gauges of the computer screen and the tarmac of the landing field, rushing up at him like a brick wall. At the last possible second he applied braking power. The floater's skids collapsed, the floater bounced hard, then came back down in a thudding crash, but it landed upright and almost on top of the waiting ambulance sled.
“Get her out, quick!” Masters said, jumping to help. He and Judy manhandled Kristi out of the floater, not wasting time trying to be gentle. The ambulance attendants threw her onto the sled and began frantically helping the autodoc attach it's tentacles to her. She gasped and jerked when the autodoc jolted her heart with a surge of current, then drew a bubbling breath.
Jamie bowed his head as the ambulance sled raced away. Masters put an arm over his shoulders. “Nothing more we can do now, son. Come on, let's get on over to security. We'll fix up your arm there."
Whitmire's waiting security team surrounded them and attempted to lead Jamie away. He balked. “I'm not going anywhere without Jeannie and the pets. We need to stay together.” He supposed he sounded unreasonable, but it mattered little to him. He realized just then that he needed his family with him, even if it had not yet been formally declared, and that included Kristi's pets, and Kristi, if she lived. He hoped desperately that she would.
Masters backed him up. It had been many years since he had been encumbered with family, but he remembered the comfort they could provide in times of crisis. “Let them come,” he told the security men. “I'll be responsible. Let's go, all of you.” The chief of the security detail began to object until he saw the flinty expression in the ranger captain's eyes. He decided quickly that he would rather face Whitmire's admonition rather than argue with Masters. They left together.
* * * *
John Whitmire was waiting. He startled Jamie by going immediately to Jeannie and hugging her, brushing aside the security chief's attempted explanations of why a coterie of pets and humans were accompanying Masters and the other man they had been detailed to fetch.
Whitmire spoke to Jeannie briefly in a low voice that was inaudible to the others, hugged her again, then led them all into his office. He chased out his secretary, then called for enough seats to accommodate everyone, arranging them to make room for the pets as well. They had come in as if by right and he did not try to deny their presence. As they were being seated, Judy huddled with Masters for a second, then asked to be excused so that she could go sit with Kristi, if she were still living. Whitmire gently dismissed her, asking her to call as soon as she had any news.
Masters had one question immediately. “Have you found any more of my people?"
“We have, Captain.
Maria Martinez and one of your rangers, Sammy Terrence. They still aren't very coherent; apparently they were questioned under a very high dose of veronal, but they should recover. In fact, they should be arriving at the dispensary right about now."
Masters lowered his head and brushed at his eyes. Only seven survivors out of over three dozen, not including any losses among the floaters. Yet it still had to counted as a victory.
Whitmire continued. “The losses are regrettable, especially as it seems they have gone for nothing. I have a team scouring that site now, but there doesn't seem to be much left of the alien and it's spacecraft. Some sort of explosion, I understand."
“Yes, I saw that myself,” Masters said. He turned to Jamie. “But it wasn't for nothing. We got what we went for, according to Mr. Da Cruz, here."
Whitmire seemed to slough off ten years and grow two inches taller in his chair. “Do you mean that? Jamie, please enlighten me. This has not been one of my better days. I have been preparing to submit my resignation in view of the heavy loss of life and the failure to gain anything of value from them."
Jamie pulled the disk from the pocket of his coveralls and his mind was immediately assailed with the familiar kaleidoscopic images. He returned it quickly, wondering how such an insignificant little object could hold such promise, then looked up at Whitmire who was waiting anxiously for a reply. “It's all in here. Everything we need to build faster than light spaceships, and all the associated technology that goes with it. Also, I know the location of the alien mothership now. It's orbiting Saturn, but it's unmanned. All the aliens are dead. There's other stuff too, but I can't remember much of it right offhand."
Whitmire's lips parted in a beatific grin. He pointed to Jamie's pocket. “If I heard you correctly, then you have done well, indeed. Perhaps you should let me take it. I can get a team to work almost immediately."
Jamie made no move to retrieve it, drawing a frown of disapproval from Whitmire. “There's a catch. No one but me can access it, and I can't access much of the data unless I'm holding it with the intention of learning."
Whitmire's frown grew deeper. “Jamie, are you telling me that only you will be able to work with the data? Son, you can't build a spaceship by yourself, it would take a lifetime."
“Oh, no. That's not what I mean. I can use the disk, and in turn teach others what's contained in it. But there's just so much. It will take months and months. Maybe years. I don't know when I'll ever be able to get back to my own research."
“I dare say this is more important,” Whitmire smiled.
“I suppose so, but no matter how important, it can wait for a while. I want to see how Kristi is. I want to have Jeannie looked at by an autodoc.” He glanced down at his burned arm. “For that matter, I think I had better see an autodoc myself, before this pain killer wears off."
“Of course. I apologize for not seeing to it sooner, but other things seemed more important. We'll get you attended to immediately.” He turned to speak to his office computer, but it flashed a message signal before he could give voice. He glanced at it, then looked back up. The relief was apparent on his face even as he spoke. “Lt. Carson is out of danger. She should recover."
The other three humans in the room breathed sighs of relief. Lady let out a joyful woof, followed by Woggly. Both cats began purring loudly.
* * * *
Jamie retained the thought disk on his person, but he was not allowed to leave the security building. He was escorted to a treatment room and spent several hours attached to an autodoc, then returned to a small room where Jeannie and his pets were waiting. In the meantime, Masters had escorted Lady and Princess to where Kristi was still undergoing treatment. She would be attached to her autodoc for several days yet.
Security agents had followed Jamie at every step and they repeated the process when he and Jeannie asked for something to eat. They cordoned off a section of the cafeteria while they ate a huge meal, then dogged their steps back to another door, which proved to be a small apartment. Jamie became a little irritated at such close scrutiny, but soon forgot it as they did condescend to remain outside the apartment rather than inside with them.
Neither of them spoke much once they were closed in. Both of them knew exactly what they wanted to do, first thing—take a shower. The facilities were small but adequate. They both managed to fit into the stall together. Hot water and suds and soft towels later, they stretched out on the bed together, tired, but not yet ready for sleep. Jamie's mind was still whirling from excitement and the residual effects of medicinal drugs and even Jeannie's naked body curled beside him could not quite distract his thoughts.
“Jamie?"
“Hmm?"
“What's going to happen now?"
He turned and kissed her on the lips. “What do you think?"
Jeannie pinched his ribs. “Not that, silly. I mean, are we going to have to stay here from now on, with security men following us everywhere? Can't we go back to your place?"
“Tonight?"
She pinched him again, then snuggled closer. She ran her hands over the new pink skin of his arm, shivering at the thought of how close they had both come to death. “I'm not letting you out of this bed tonight now that we're finally here. But what about tomorrow, and all the other tomorrows?"
Jamie had already been thinking about that, but so far he had not arrived at any conclusion or decision. After a bit, he decided, as was his usual inclination, that the best thing to do was to wait for a while and see what happened. Right now, he wanted sleep and he wanted Jeannie. He pulled her even closer and presently they began making slow, tender love.
“Meow,” said Fuzzy Britches from the foot of the bed, thoroughly approving.
* * *
CHAPTER 29
A week passed and Jamie began to get irritable, a state he was unused to. Whitmire had brought in a huge gang of experts, scouring the various departments for their very best men. As such, they were also the most demanding, caring little for food or sleep or anything else while in the throes of scientific revelation. Jamie recognized the syndrome; he had suffered under it himself on occasion, but there were other factors involved. He was spending every day and well into the night ensconced in a huge computer room, doing his level best to pass on the information contained in the disk accurately and faithfully. It was hard work as he didn't understand much of the data himself, but he put all he had into it. Gradually, he discovered the best way of accessing the disk with his mind but it was still time consuming and difficult. He finished each day dead tired and mentally exhausted.
Jeannie remained in the security building with him, but he saw little of her; she was usually asleep by the time he fell into bed. The pets were sometimes awake when he came in, but they were becoming restless. Being confined day after day to a few small rooms was not to their liking.
On the morning of the seventh day after returning to the Enclave, he finally called a halt, refusing to divulge any more information until he met with the security director. He listened to the exhortations of the scientists quietly, then told them firmly: No more for now. His ploy worked, but it was still nearly noon before he was finally escorted in to see Whitmire.
The old Englishman looked well rested for a change. His lips were creased in the faintest of amused smiles, as if he held a secret thought just waiting for the right moment to come forth. “What can I do for you, Jamie?” He asked. “Are you having problems?"
“You know damn well I am,” Jamie said, wondering why Whitmire was smiling when he should be frowning. “I don't mind working with you and your people, but it's getting to be a bit too much. I want to go back to my own apartment. I want Jeannie to go with me. I want to see Kristi. Jeannie has already been to see her and I haven't been able to. I want to play with my pets. Hell, I just want to get this over with and get back to my own job.” He paused for breath.
Whitmire's smile grew larger. “That's quite a package, Jamie, but let's take first things first. Don't plan on going back
to your old job, at least not in the Enclave, and not in the immediate future."
Jamie was wrong footed. “Why in hell not? Once I finish passing all this information on to the experts, I'm finished with it. I'm not an engineer, nor a physicist, either."
“I know that, but be patient and listen. I spoke to some of the key men you've been working with just yesterday. They tell me they may be consulting with you for years, or as long as that thought disk of yours keeps functioning. But that's actually not the point. You can't go back to your old job because I want you to begin space training just as soon as the scientists can spare you."
“Space training! Not on your life!” Jamie couldn't imagine himself as a spaceman, nor understand Whitmire's reasoning in suggesting it. It was the same reaction he had felt when told he was going off with an expedition into the wilds.
“Bear with me. I said I had talked with some of the key people. Jamie, as valuable as all that data you've been giving them, it seems to be mostly involved with engineering and spaceships and electronics. Most of it is very exotic and far beyond my comprehension; my training is too far in the past. What I'm getting at, though, is that so far as I can understand, you have brought back nothing that we comprehend so far that can help us in overcoming the problem of the enhanced animals."
Jamie still didn't understand the reasoning. He said so.
Whitmire lost his smile. A sad expression settled over his cragged face. “Jamie, the Enclaves here are failing, just as London was overrun back when I was your age. You must be aware of that fact, at least subconsciously. I think most citizens are; they just don't care to think about it. Some of the Enclaves may last my lifetime, but they certainly won't last yours."