Deep Trek

by neetha Napew

  "And we put in more oil," Jim added. "Not the hoses, either."

  "Should send for the doctor." Sly had made the joke within a minute or so of the breakdown and had been rewarded with a round of laughter. Encouraged, he'd been making the same joke every quarter of an hour, downcast that nobody seemed to think it was funny anymore.

  Jim walked to the center of the freeway, standing there and staring blankly out across the sunlit, shadowed landscape. A large bird was circling far above his head, way too high for him to identify it.

  Apart from that, there was nothing moving. Heat haze shimmered over the desert.

  Kyle, Carrie and Steve drifted across to join him, none of them wanting to break the silence.

  Finally it was Carrie who spoke. "Now what do we do?"

  Steve Romero scratched his neck where an insect bite flared crimson. Behind them his son was sitting in the minimal shade at the side of the broken-down truck. Heather Hilton was flicking stones, underarm, at a sign that told them that Barstow was four miles west.

  "Maybe there's a mechanic in town," Jim said.

  Kyle flicked sweat from his forehead. "That's a long shot. How come none of us know enough about the internal-combustion engine to figure out what's wrong here? Astronavigation and quantum physics we can do with our eyes shut. Truth is, we're not ready for this new world."

  Carrie laughed. "We're the intellectual elite of our generation, gentlemen. But any redneck with the intelligence quotient of a fence post would be doing better than us."

  "I'll phone in to the AAA," said Jim. "No. No, that's pointless. Think that my membership's lapsed a good while back."

  "Seriously, Skipper," said Steve.

  "Yeah, it's serious. Of course it is. Never mind the plans about Aurora and Muir Woods in three weeks' time. We need to worry about hiking in to Barstow. It'll take us a good two hours, with what we'll need to carry with us. And I don't figure they'll greet us with open arms."

  "You came in that way to Calico."

  "Right, Kyle. But by then we were on foot and we circled around any towns. Kept seeing the word 'outlanders' for strangers and signs that sort of whispered that we wouldn't live too long if we tried to pay a courtesy call on the good folks."

  There was a sudden loud crackling from behind them. Heather had gotten bored and taken out the radio that Nanci had given them.

  Sly clapped his hands. "Use the wonky-tonky!" he shouted excitedly.

  "Don't play with that," called Jim. "It's not a toy."

  "Can't I try and pick up someone on it, Dad? I know how to use one of these."

  "All right, but be careful with it."

  Steve Romero laughed. "Got more chance of snow in Death Valley, Heather. I've swept all the wavelengths, and there's plenty of nothing."

  The girl turned the main control dial, producing different levels of background static. Then came a fragment of a human voice, and then more static.

  "Go back!" shouted Jim, running over to his daughter and reaching for the set. "Back a little way on that control. Gently."

  "Chill out, Dad. I've got it. I think…just about here…"

  "Hallelujah, brothers! I'm here to bring repentance to the sinner and salvation to the faint of heart and pure of spirit."

  Steve punched his right fist hard into his left hand. "I know that voice."

  "Who?" said Carrie. "Not the same guy we heard when we were coming down in the Aquila?"

  "Yeah. Jeremiah was his handle."

  The voice was loud and clear, booming out of the little plastic Kayawa set. Heather winced and turned down the volume.

  "I'm speaking here from the mental village under a murderous sky. I'm sometimes known as the daring sleeper, but others, praise their names, call me the imp of the perverse. You may call me 'René', if there's anyone out there listening to the bard from Barstow. Over and over and O…U…T spelling 'Out.' Y'all come see Jeremiah, voice in the wilderness and friend to the coyote. Come in."

  "Give it me, Heather." Jim held out his hand for the radio.

  "No. I can do it."

  In a moment of irrational anger, he nearly slapped his daughter, then he controlled himself. "Give it to me. Now," he said.

  The girl recognized the hard, cold edge in her father's voice and handed him the set, turning on her heel, mouth set in a sullen pout.

  "Come in, Jeremiah. This is Jim Hilton of the Aquila. Over."

  There was a long delay.

  The small radio hissed and cheeped. Jim noticed that the hunting bird had zeroed in on some invisible prey. Hurtling, wings folded, it pulled up bare inches from the desert floor, seeming to have just missed its target.

  He pressed the Send button and tried the call again.

  "Hello, Jeremiah. Spoke a few weeks ago as we came in on the Aquila. You told us first about Earthblood. Remember? Over."

  "Remember you well, Jim. Heard that your ship came in fast and hard. Glad you managed to make it through. Loud and clear this time. You must be somewhere round the Mohave to be scaling nineteen from twenty for volume. Over."

  On an impulse, Jim Hilton decided that he wouldn't immediately give away his location to this crazed prophet of the airwaves.

  "Not far, Jeremiah. Not far. You in Barstow? How are things there? Strangers welcome? Over."

  "Welcome as broken glass in your breakfast cereal. Fresh as tomorrow's sunrise. Hallelujah, Brother Jim! Many in your party?"

  "Half a dozen. Over."

  "That's a fine, strong fifty per cent of the Savior's blessed sacred apostles, Jim. Sure you haven't got one called Judas Iscariot hidden in among your number? Over."

  For a fleeting instant, Jim had a vision of Jeff Thomas, but he dismissed it from his mind.

  "What we have is a broken pickup, Jeremiah. Know anybody around Barstow might come lend us a hand? Over."

  "Give us your fix, brother."

  "Coupla miles west of Calico ghost town. North side of the interstate. Over."

  "Heard there was some shooting last night over your way. Over."

  "Right. Helicopter came in from the north, and some guys opened up on it from the desert outside Calico. Blew it up. Over."

  "What happened to them?"

  "Chopper or the others? Over."

  "Others. Saw the flash of the Chinook going right on down. Requiescat in pace."

  "Some of the others got hurt. Rest vanished."

  There was a long pause. Everyone had gathered around the black-and-silver radio, listening intently to the static.

  "That the doctor man?" asked Sly.

  "Could be," replied Steve. "Wait and see, son."

  "You there, Jeremiah? Over." Jim Hilton waited.

  "Sure. Two miles west of Calico. Puts you around five miles from me. Be there in a half hour. Look out for me. Don't take any wooden nickels, Jim. This is Jeremiah from Barstow saying over, out and Hallelujah!"

  Chapter Ten

  "What are we looking for, Nanci?"

  The older woman seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding good campsites. Though she'd told Jeff that she hadn't been in that part of the country for twenty years or more, she still seemed to know every side turning and where it would take them.

  Early on Nanci had said that they were going to detour around Las Vegas. "Used to know a man there, a man called Flagg. Had some power. Might be dead now, might not."

  They'd cut off through a nonexistent blip on the map, called Icebucket Wells, then along the flank of the Spring Mountains, passing close to an Air Force base, but the road southward to it was blocked by a huge tangle of burned and rusted metal. Nanci stopped the car, letting the engine idle while she stared stone-faced at the wreckage.

  "Gas tanker ran into a couple of M-754s. Big tanks. And there's the remains of some APCs, as well. The way I read it, the base was being defended in numbers. Somebody took exception to that and came in fast and heavy."

  She slowly turned the wheel, easing the powerful sports car toward the north. They advanced across Sarcobatus Fl
at, then made a right at Tonopah, where someone fired a ranging shot at them from behind the ruins of a gas station.

  Nanci took no notice, hanging a left up 376, into Big Smokey Valley.

  Which was where they stopped for the night, pulling off into what had once been a picnic area on the right of the narrow road. Nanci edged the vehicle past an abandoned camper truck and stopped finally near a fast-flowing stream, among the dead stumps of a grove of Sitka spruce.

  It drizzled as evening came crawling in from the east, lurking behind banks of high cloud. Nanci put up the soft-top, bringing in the heater with a gentle warmth.

  As the afternoon had slipped by, Jeff had dozed, enjoying the comfort and the security. Now, in the security and darkness, with a thin layer of snow on the higher ground around them, he felt as close to happiness as he'd felt for longer than he could remember.

  Nanci touched him on the arm as they sat for a moment in the peace and stillness.

  "At one with the wonders of nature, Jefferson?" she said quietly.

  "Yeah. Reminds me of that old, old vid. My father had a worn copy. Three guys on motorbikes, hogging across the place. They all get wasted. One says something about how this…"

  "Used to be a hell of a good country once," she concluded, giving him a rare smile. "I know it, too, Jefferson."

  "I like being with you, Nanci," he whispered, amazed and scared by his own daring.

  "That right?"

  "Yeah. What is it we're looking for? You got an idea, don't you?"

  She pursed her mouth, and he almost winced, anticipating some kind of violence. But she smiled again. "Aurora? North? Sounds like the land of Oz. We're following the yellow brick road. I don't have the ruby slippers, but I got me some shining black leather boots, don't I?" He didn't answer immediately and she touched him on the hand. "Do I not, Jefferson, with very thin, spiky heels?"

  "Sure do, Nanci."

  "I don't know what you are, sonny boy. Cowardly lion? Straw man? Tin man? Bit of the cowardly lion. Bit of the wicked witch, as well. If you were holding a whip, Jeff, then you'd love to use it. Someone else has the whip, and you're on your belly, kissing it, aren't you?"

  He didn't say anything, but this time she didn't seem to mind.

  A flurry of snow blew against the car, making it rock slightly.

  Nanci stretched and yawned. "Enough of this," she said. "Tent and fire, Jefferson. Something to eat, then…" She laid the palm of her hand flat across his crotch, laughing quietly at his instant response. "Jump to attention, don't you? Well, some food first, then we'll see about other needs maybe."

  JEFF THOMAS HAD LIVED most of his life in and around cities. It didn't mean that he hadn't experienced some rough times early in his career when he was a fire-eating and profoundly ambitious young reporter, seeking out all the danger spots that the ailing planet could offer.

  The first of his brace of Pulitzers had come after he'd spent eight months locked into a state mental hospital, under total cover, investigating allegations of physical and mental abuse.

  There had been three suicides among staff the first week his articles ran in the West American.

  His second major award had come when he successfully infiltrated a cadre of high-ranking spies in London. That had led to a grotesquely bungled attempt on his life, which he'd later inflated to more than it had been.

  But Nanci wasn't quite right about Jeff, and not quite wrong.

  He wasn't exactly a coward.

  If risking his life might advance his career, he'd do it. And, like a cornered rat, if his life was threatened, Jeff Thomas was capable of rapid and violent action.

  Even capable of a sort of courage.

  MUCH LATER that night, huddled in the double sleeping bag, trying to steady his breathing, he touched Nanci with a hesitant hand.

  "What is it, lover man?" She rolled over, and he could taste her breath on his face.

  "Just… that I'm happy to be with you."

  "Sure you are," she said. "Sleep well, Jefferson."

  Angered and hurt at the cool rejection of his tentative whisper of real affection, he felt his eyes prickling.

  "SOMETHING'S COMING," said Sly Romero, his narrowed eyes searching westward.

  "You sure?" asked Jim Hilton. "I don't see anything, son."

  "Me hear it, Captain Jim."

  "Then I'm sure you're right." He half closed his own eyes, head on one side, straining to catch what it was the teenager had heard.

  "Yeah," said Carrie, joining them. "Look, there's the dust."

  Back before Earthblood, the freeways were always kept swept and clean. Now they'd all seen banks of mud or dirt piled high at the shoulders. Jim spotted the tiny trail of gray, almost invisible against the background of the desert.

  "Could be Jeremiah, could be someone else. Better be careful. Steve, see if you can pick him up on the radio."

  "Sure."

  "Wonky-tonky," shouted Sly excitedly. "Over and in and over and out."

  The dark speck was coming closer, approaching them at a surprisingly sedate speed that to Jim's practiced eye looked close to fifty-five miles per hour.

  "This is Steve Romero calling Jeremiah. Calling Jeremiah. Over."

  There was the usual roaring hiss of static, then came the familiar voice. "Well, here's a big scale-ten hallelujah for you folks. Now's the time of dogs burning and locusts whelping in the capitals of the world. Open the seventh seal, Brother Steve, and we'll get the altered altars into the knave's naves. Be with you in around two minutes and forty-five seconds. Hallelujah and out, from the one, the only, wilderness prophet."

  Steve pushed his thumb onto the Off button. But just before the set clicked into silence, they all clearly heard another voice.

  "Ordinates on map refer—"

  "Put it on again," said Jim. The first beat of his heart thrilled to the thought that this could well be Zelig. The second beat chilled at the acute realization that it could also be the men of darkness. What had Nanci Simms called them? "The Hunters of the Sun," he whispered to himself.

  But this time there was only an endless burst of crackling.

  "Who?" said Kyle.

  "No idea. But whoever it was, they've just hit on the same wavelength that Jeremiah's been using. Sooner we get moving from here the better." Jim looked back at the lowering sun. The speck was now less than a mile away.

  The six companions stood grouped together, the adults all holding their guns.

  "What kind of rescue wagon's that?" Heather asked as the vehicle drew to a smooth stop about fifty yards down the highway.

  Colored fluorescent pink, it was a small glass-sided van with a huge yellow fiberglass ice-cream cone on top, next to a fifteen-foot whip aerial. On the side were painted the words: Tinklabell For The Terrific Taste!

  The man who stepped out of the vehicle looked to be around fifty, of average height and build. He had on horn-rimmed spectacles and he was wearing a neat gray-brown three-piece business suit and dark maroon tie. His brown shoes were highly polished.

  "This is Jeremiah?" exclaimed Kyle Lynch. "The guy looks like he's just come by to sell us life insurance."

  "Good afternoon," said the man in a quiet voice with a faint Florida hint to it. "My name is Joseph J. Sirak, Jr." Seeing their bewilderment, he laughed. "Apologies, ladies and gentlemen. Of course. The J stands for Jeremiah."

  "Hallelujah," breathed Jim Hilton.

  Chapter Eleven

  Joe Sirak—it didn't seem possible to think of this gentle and respectable-looking man as the foaming prophet, Jeremiah—carefully rolled up his sleeves and placed his jacket on a black plastic hanger with the words Harknett Family Hotel on it.

  "Now, let's see precisely what your problem is here."

  He went to his ice-cream van and rummaged in the back, emerging with a handful of polished tools while everyone watched him in stunned, respectful silence.

  Then he went to work on the pickup, accompanied by his whistling and the noise of chinking metal fr
om under the hood.

  "Could someone give it a try, please?"

  "Sure." Steve hopped into the driver's seat and turned the key.

  There was a moment of hesitation, then the engine coughed into life. Smoke poured for a few seconds from the exhaust, then swiftly cleared.

  "Terrific, Joe," said Jim. "What was wrong with it?"

  Sirak emerged from behind the pickup, wiping his hands on a spotless hank of cotton rag. There was a broad smile on his face. "Guess you could say that it was a little of everything, Jim." He put on his jacket again and adjusted his tie, which had slipped a quarter inch.

  "Brilliant," said Carrie. "Saved our lives, Mr. Sirak."

  "Call me Joe. Or Jeremiah. I'll answer to either of them. Saved your life, did you say?"

  "Sure did."

  He nodded, the smile vanishing as though someone had thrown a switch.

  "Is that a figure of speech, young lady? Or do you realize that there is many a true word spoken in jest?" There was the briefest hint of the prophet Jeremiah in his words now.

  "You mean that you think there's real danger, Joe?" asked Jim Hilton, looking instinctively all around them. But nothing was moving in the wasteland of eastern California.

  "Mankind is always in danger. We give birth astride a grave, don't we, Captain Hilton?"

  "Danger from what? From who? From where, Joe? You got the ears with your radio. Tell us what you've been hearing."

  Sirak ran a comb through his black hair. "I've heard too much. As soon as Earthblood became a matter of public domain, the airwaves began to hum. Then, when the deaths started, you couldn't turn the dial without picking up a thousand calls for help. Aid the afflicted, they say. What could anyone do?" He stopped and dabbed at his eyes with an immaculate linen handkerchief. "The voices stopped quite quickly."

  "We picked you up when we were coming down." Steve shook his head. "Christ, it seems to be only a couple of days ago. The very first time we heard about Earthblood."

  Joe sighed. "Now you can go from zero up to infinity and you hardly hear a squeak. Just now and again, you know."

  "You know anything of General Zelig, Joe?" Jim thought a moment. "Or Aurora? Or some outfit called the Hunters of the Sun?"