Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Right, I want to hike all the way back to Flagstaff just so I can make a pathetic little man squirm. Cool it, Connor, we’ve got better things to do.” She turned to the gaunt woman, the only one capable of doing anything at the moment. “Would you get us some water and some packaged food?” She hesitated. “Please?”

  Connor pointed the shotgun at her moon-faced sister. “And don’t try anything!” Heather didn’t like the predatory look in Connor’s eyes. More and more of his real personality was unfolding before her eyes. With a chill she wondered what he might have done to the women if she wasn’t there.

  Connor snorted at Heather. “Man, what made you turn boring all of a sudden?”

  Minutes later the gaunt woman returned with the supplies. Heather’s heart raced and she tried to slow her breathing. She was afraid the woman might have gone for a rifle of her own, and then things would have gotten messy. But she carried only water and some boxed food. “Here… now please, leave us alone.”

  Connor was about to retort, but Heather grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around. “Let’s go,” she said, and they set off back down the dirt driveway.

  As they departed, Heather glanced back. The gaunt woman took her sister’s hand and pulled her to her feet. The two of them moved slowly forward to stand in shock over their dead dog.

  Chapter 57

  “Hey, Spence—visitors!” The words echoed in the still air around the electromagnetic launcher on the slopes of Oscura Peak.

  “Who is it?” Spencer asked with a sigh. Even with the isolation of the post-plague world, people still found ways to interrupt his work a dozen times a day. He swore that he would never be the person to bring back the telephone.

  Gilbert Hertoya shrugged, his small, compact body silhouetted against the door of the tin-roofed accelerator. “Don’t know, but they’re riding down from the north.”

  Spencer put down his wrench and wiped sweat from his forehead. His new beard itched like crazy in the stuffy heat. Pinholes of light punched through the metal siding, but no breeze came at all. Spencer could only stand to work inside the enclosure for half an hour at a time.

  He left a jumble of wiring on the concrete floor. For the past few days it was the only work he could do that wouldn’t bring a squawk from his experimentalists. They kidded him and told him to keep away from the delicate refurbished equipment after the water-pump fiasco. Short no unskilled labor, Gilbert Hertoya had cheerfully put him to work laying down relay switches on the EM launcher facility. “If liberal arts students can handle it during the summer, I think you can manage,” Gilbert said.

  Spencer emerged from the dim building into the brilliant desert sun; he held up a hand against the glare as he stared down the mountain slope. Gilbert stood on a pile of metal siding to get higher, pointing toward the north. “Looks like five of them.”

  Spencer squinted. “All on horseback?”

  “Yeah. And they’re not from Alamogordo unless they got lost coming back from Cloudcroft.”

  “Too far south. Besides, they’d stick to the mountains if they were lost.” Spencer thought for a moment. “You know, Romero’s been getting some disturbing reports—martial law in Albuquerque, riots in El Paso, a lot of the Indian pueblos killing anyone who comes on their land. We’ve been lucky up here.”

  Gilbert gingerly stepped down from the pile of rattling metal. “What should we do?”

  “Send out the welcome wagon, what else?”

  * * *

  In the concrete blockhouse at the base of the railgun launcher, Spencer and Gilbert waited in the shade. The travelers arrowed straight for the facility—the five-mile launcher could be seen for miles around.

  Spencer pushed back the drooping brim of his hat, arms folded as he watched the riders approach. The two in front wore Air Force uniforms, and he could see rifles packed behind their saddles. He had a sudden vision of the cavalry riding into town.

  “What are they up to?” he muttered. Gilbert shaded his eyes and kept staring.

  The broad-shouldered man in uniform looked young and big enough to be a football player. He called out when they were fifty yards away. “Yo! I’m Lieutenant Bobby Carron, looking for Dr. Lockwood. Can you tell me where to find him?”

  Spencer squinted at the young man; the voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Had they met before?

  One of the three men in back leaned to the side and shouted, “Hey, Gilbert! That you, you old sand rat?”

  Gilbert Hertoya broke into a grin. “Arnie!” He turned to Spencer and dropped his voice. “I used to work with him at Sandia. He’s okay.”

  Arnie spread his arms. “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Come on, let’s talk.” As the visitors kept approaching, Spencer saw a troubled look cross Arnie’s face. “You’re lucky you were down here when the plague hit, Gilbert. A lot of people died.”

  Lieutenant Carron swung off his horse; Spencer racked his brain, trying to recall where he’d seen the man before. And then he remembered: the drive back from Livermore, the rental car breaking down out in the California desert. Spencer grinned and held out a hand. “I knew you looked familiar, Lieutenant. I’m Spencer Lockwood—you rescued me, just about a month ago, when I ran out of gas near Death Valley.”

  Bobby held onto the horse’s reins and squinted at Spencer. A smile grew across his face. “You’re right. You know, I’d forgotten your name—and you didn’t have a beard then, did you?”

  “No need to waste razors.”

  Bobby laughed. “It didn’t occur to me that you’d be the same person I was supposed to find.” He introduced his group. Everyone seemed pleased except sour-faced Sergeant Morris. She stiffly shook Spencer’s hand without a trace of warmth.

  Spencer said, “What can I do for you, now that you’ve come across half the state looking for me?”

  “We heard you’ve been generating electricity down here,” Bobby said. “We came to get the full details.”

  Spencer rolled his eyes. “Oh, boy. I was afraid this might happen.”

  Bobby fumbled with the button on his uniform shirt. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper, smoothed it, then handed it to Spencer. He looked embarrassed. “We’re actually on an official mission, for what it’s worth. I’m representing General Bayclock from Kirtland.”

  Spencer held onto the paper, but kept looking at Bobby. “I thought you said you were assigned to China Lake. What’s a Navy man doing in the middle of the desert?”

  “That’s a long story. Here, this explains part of it.”

  Spencer started to read the paper. The words ATTENTION TO ORDERS were stamped across the top. He lifted an eyebrow. “Bayclock is the head guy up at the base, isn’t he?”

  “Base commander… and, uh, Marshall of Albuquerque, I guess with the martial law and all that.”

  “Marshall, huh. Like Matt Dillon?” Spencer scanned the dense paragraphs, growing more uneasy. “So this general thinks that, since he was technically responsible for our logistics before the petroplague, we’re under his martial law authority now?” Spencer looked up. “He never once visited our facility, never so much as called me on the phone—and now we’re supposed to develop a plan to provide Albuquerque with electricity, just because he says so?” It might have been funny under other circumstances. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”

  Bobby shrugged.

  “The general is not kidding, Dr. Lockwood,” Sergeant Morris said stiffly.

  Spencer folded the paper, resisting the impulse to rip it to shreds and scatter the pieces across the desert. He ignored Sergeant Morris. “So what do you think of this, Lieutenant?”

  Bobby held up his hands. “Hey, I’m only the messenger…”

  “Don’t worry, you saved my life once, and I won’t shoot you for bringing bad news. In fact, I don’t even have a gun.”

  Spencer turned to the rest of the visitors. Gilbert Hertoya and Arnie stepped up beside them. Squat Sergeant Morris remained on her horse like a stat
ue of an old war hero that belonged in some small-town square.

  Spencer said, “Okay, so what’s going on? What do the rest of you know about this?”

  Bobby Carron said slowly, “Can we get out of the sun?” He took Spencer’s arm. Stepping away from Sergeant Morris, he whispered, “I’ve got stuff to tell you about Bayclock that you won’t believe!”

  * * *

  Spencer, Bobby Carron, and Sergeant Morris sat on their mounts outside the fenced-off antenna farm. Rita Fellenstein and the three visiting scientists stood on the other side of Spencer. The expanse of whiplike microwave antennas spread out before them, like a field of gleaming silver stalks.

  Spencer leaned on the saddle as Bobby spoke. The young officer seemed to have trouble verbalizing his thoughts.

  “I’m not a scientist or anything like that,” said Bobby, “but I had enough engineering back at Annapolis to know the difference between what’s possible and what’s likely. I’d sure hate to go back and tell the general that although it might be possible to generate electricity this way, it isn’t likely to happen on the scale he envisions. This is really just a test bed! There’s not enough power for everyone in Albuquerque. So what should we do? Tell him it was a waste of our time?”

  Spencer shifted his weight in his saddle. “I don’t think I’d want to supply Bayclock with electricity even if I could. And if I can believe what you told me, they should oust him!”

  “Believe him, Dr. Lockwood,” Arnie broke in harshly. “My wife and children would still be alive if it wasn’t for Bayclock’s crackdowns.”

  Spencer scratched his beard. “Helping Bayclock amounts to validating his position, agreeing with the atrocities he’s committed.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but I can’t help you. We’ve got a fragile enough toehold out here, and taking on anything else right now would push us over the brink. Between you and me, if the general were running a different sort of operation, we might be able to take on some extra people, try and help him in the long term. I don’t want to seem like a jerk, but…” He shrugged.

  Bobby’s horse lifted its head and snorted, as if to agree with what Spencer said. Bobby pulled back on the reins. “I can’t blame you.” He smiled weakly. “I’m not looking forward to going back and delivering the bad news.”

  Rita Fellenstein pulled her horse over to join them. Her long legs dangled down to the horse’s knees, even in her stirrups. She spat a wad of chewing tobacco at the ground. “So why go back, Bobby? We could use some help getting the launcher running. A big guy like you would come in handy with the launcher.”

  Bobby looked out across the desert. Spencer guessed he had been thinking the same thing himself.

  “If nobody goes back, how’s the general going to know that something didn’t happen to you?” Rita continued. “He knows about the gangs outside the city, and he probably doesn’t have a clue what other crazies are out here. It took five of you two weeks to get here. So what’s he going to do, force an army to march down to rescue you? Sounds like he’s got enough trouble in his own back yard.”

  Arnie placed a hand on Gilbert Hertoya’s shoulder. “No way am I going back there. I’m staying here.” The two other scientists quickly voiced their agreement.

  Bobby stared out at the antenna farm. A warm breeze whipped around them, driving a miniature duststorm.

  “The Lieutenant and I are not deserting,” Sergeant Morris said. “You can talk about him all you like, but General Bayclock does have the proper authority—and you are all obligated to follow his orders.”

  Spencer turned his horse around, putting his back to the wind. Through the rising heat he caught a glimpse of the supply wagon from Alamogordo coming toward the blockhouse in the distance. “Let’s get out of this wind. We’ll unload the supply wagon and talk about this later.”

  * * *

  By the time the group reached the command trailers, the supplies were mostly unloaded. Spencer was surprised to see Lance Nedermyer standing on the flat back of the cart, helping roll a 50-gallon aluminum container of water off the side. Spencer pushed back his hat. “Hi Lance. Need help?”

  “Sure.”

  With the extra people, it took little time to unload the five drums of water. Rita went to check the supplies stored under the trailer, taking the three new scientists with her. Nedermyer leaned back against the wagon and wiped his face with the back of his hand; his mirrored sunglasses had fallen apart more than a month ago, casualties of the petroplague.

  “So what brings you out here, Lance?”

  The Washington bureaucrat took a long drink of tepid water before answering. Like the others, he had not shaved in nearly a month. His beard had shifted from looking scraggly to the verge of bushiness. Lance looked as if he missed his suits even more than his wife and daughters back in the D.C. area.

  He sounded bitter. “They’ve changed their minds about heading up to Cloudcroft. You’ve got them excited about bringing electricity on-line, and they don’t want to think about wintering in the mountains. I guess too many people remember the old ways, and you’re giving them false hope to hang on.”

  “How do you know it’s a false hope?”

  A bemused smile came over Lance’s face. “You really don’t know, do you Spence?”

  “What are you talking about? We need all the hope we can get.”

  Lance shook his head. “They’re barely hanging on down there. It’s tough, Spencer, not a game. The majority of people might not make it through the first year.”

  Spencer looked incredulous. “All the more reason to get things going here! What good does it do to herd them into the mountains?”

  “There’s game, firewood… and water for God’s sake! At least they’ve got the basics to keep them alive. Down here, all you have is desert—and your dammed microwave farm that can’t even transmit power more than twenty miles. Hell, we’d be better off in Albuquerque—at least General Bayclock is doing the sensible thing, feeding the people, keeping the law. He’s a hell of a lot more realistic than anyone around here.”

  Spencer bristled at the criticism. He really didn’t need this; maybe it was time to do what a leader was supposed to do, and toss the bugger out! He’d put up with Lance for too long, hoping he’d change his ways.

  “We ought to feel pretty lucky, Lance. From what Lieutenant Carron here has been telling us, things are ten times as bad in Albuquerque. I can’t buy any of this ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ survival talk. I think it’s about time we start all pulling together.”

  Spencer nodded to the three scientists who had accompanied Bobby Carron and Sergeant Morris down from Albuquerque. “Ask those three what it means to have hope, where somebody’s actually trying to make things better.”

  Lance stared at Spencer. “What are you saying?”

  Spencer felt lightheaded—in the past he had tried to avoid direct confrontation, but these were new times, new ways. “This job is tough enough without being second guessed on everything I do, Lance. It’s time for you to either pitch in or get out.”

  “Second guessed? What, are you afraid to get a little valid criticism? Come on, Spencer—every science project in the book debates the issues.”

  “That’s just it—this isn’t a science project anymore. It’s survival. We’ve debated things long enough. Either throw your hat in the ring or get out.” Spencer breathed heavily, his face flushed.

  The smile on Lance’s face tightened. “So it’s put up or shut up? I didn’t think you had it in you, Spencer.”

  “If you’re going to Cloudcroft, I want you on the wagon when it heads back. You can have your pick of supplies before you go and a horse.” Spencer paused. “Lieutenant Carron’s heading back to Albuquerque if you’d rather go there. It’s your choice.”

  Lance’s mouth twisted up. He turned to Bobby Carron. “When are you heading back, Lieutenant? Mind if I come with you?”

  Bobby turned away; his massive hand opened and closed.

  Sergeant Morris looked
to Bobby, but when he still didn’t answer, she said, “I’d like to get back as soon as possible, sir. The general was quite explicit in his orders.”

  Bobby kept staring out in the distance. Lance turned to him. “Lieutenant? Is it okay if I ride along?”

  “Do what you want.” It took Bobby an effort to speak. “I’m staying here.” He looked to Spencer. “That is, if Dr. Lockwood needs another hand getting this microwave farm to work.”

  Spencer blinked. “Sure, uh, we can always use someone who wants to help. Same for you, Sergeant Morris.” He hesitated. “And that goes for you, too, Lance, if you change your mind.”

  Lance Nedermyer shook his head; his entire gaunt body moved with the movement. “I’ve made up my mind. Sergeant… ?”

  The woman’s mouth was drawn tight; she looked at Bobby as if he had become the lowest form of slime. Her deep voice sounded harsh. “The Lieutenant is old enough to know what he’s doing… and knows the consequences for disobeying an order, deserting during martial law. They hang people for less than that.”

  Bobby nodded, still looking at the horizon. His hand continued to open and close. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve seen Bayclock do it.”

  Chapter 58

  With pillars of steam and dark smoke, the train announced its presence in the morning calm. The whistle, thin and tinny in the distance, was loud enough that the people in the Altamont commune dropped their work and ran to hilltops to see what was coming down the Central Valley.

  “It’s a train,” Todd Severyn said in disbelief, shielding his eyes with the palm of his hand and craning forward. “It’s a friggin’ train! Can you believe it?”

  Jackson Harris stood next to him, his dark skin glistening with sweat. His beard and hair stuck out in all directions, as if he had wrestled with a hurricane. “An old steam train,” Harris said. “How did they ever get it running?”