by Ian Whates
She sat up, reached for the pack of cigarettes on the desk top, fished out the last one and lit it. She crumpled the pack and threw it at the wastebasket. Two points. She had been quite a basketball player in college, twenty years before. She lay back down and took a long drag on the cigarette, inhaling deeply, exhaling the smoke with force, with a sigh of exhaustion. She probably couldn’t make it up and down the court a single time anymore.
She turned her head to look out the window. The blinds were open, revealing the same barren landscape that showed before. There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” she said.
Havelmann entered. He saw her lying on the floor, raised an eyebrow, grinned. “You’re Dr Evans?”
“I am.”
“Can I sit here, or should I lie down too?”
“Do whatever you fucking well please.”
He sat in the chair. He had not taken offense. “So what did you want to see me about?”
Evans got up, buttoned her tunic, sat in the swivel chair. She stared at him. “Have we ever met before?” she asked.
“No. I’m sure I’d remember.”
He was sure he would remember. She would fucking kill him. He would remember that.
She ground out the last inch of cigarette. She felt her jaw muscles tighten; she looked down at the ashtray in regret. “Now I have to quit.”
“I should quit. I smoke too much myself.”
“I want you to listen to me closely now,” she said slowly. “Don’t respond until I’m finished.”
“My name is Major D. S. Evans, and I am a military psychologist. This office is in the infirmary of NECDEC, the National Emergency Center for Defense Communications, located one thousand feet below a hillside in West Virginia. As far as we know we are the only surviving governmental body in the continental United States. The scene you see through this window is being relayed from a surface monitor in central Nebraska; by computer command I can connect us with any of the twelve monitors still functioning on the surface.”
Evans turned to her keyboard and typed in a command; the scene through the window snapped to a shot of broken masonry and twisted steel reinforcement rods. The view was obscured by dust caked on the camera lens and by a heavy snowfall. Evans typed in an additional command and touched one of the switches on her desk. A blast of static, a hiss like frying bacon, came from the speaker.
“That’s Dallas. The sound is a reading of the background radiation registered by detectors at the site of this camera.” She typed in another command and the image on the “window” flashed through a succession of equally desolate scenes, holding ten seconds on each before switching to the next. A desert in twilight, motionless under low clouds; a murky underwater shot in which the remains of a building were just visible; a denuded forest half-buried in snow; a deserted highway overpass. With each change of scene the loudspeaker stopped for a split second, then the hiss resumed.
Havelmann watched all of this soberly.
“This has been the state of the surface for a year now, ever since the last bombs fell. To our knowledge there are no human beings alive in North America – in the Northern Hemisphere, for that matter. Radio transmissions from South America, New Zealand, and Australia have one by one ceased in the past eight months. We have not observed a living creature above the level of an insect through any of our monitors since the beginning of the year. It is the summer of 2010. Although, considering the situation, counting years by the old system seems a little futile to me.”
Dr Evans slid open a desk drawer and took out an automatic. She placed it in the middle of the desk blotter and leaned back, her right hand touching the edge of the desk near the gun.
“You are now going to tell me that you never heard of any of this, and that you’ve never seen me before in your life,” she said. “Despite the fact that I have been speaking to you daily for two weeks and that you have had this explanation from me at least three times during that period. You are going to tell me that it is 1984 and that you are thirty-five years old, despite the absurdity of such a claim. You are going to feign amazement and confusion; the more I insist that you face these facts, the more you are going to become distressed. Eventually you will break down into tears and expect me to sympathize. You can go to hell.”
Evans’s voice had grown angrier as she spoke. She had to stop; it was almost more than she could do. When she resumed she was under control again. “If you persist in this sham, I may kill you. I assure you that no one will care if I do. You may speak now.”
Havelmann stared at the window. His mouth opened and closed stupidly. How old he looked, how feeble. Evans felt a sudden surge of doubt. What if she were wrong? She had an image of herself as she might appear to him: arrogant, bitter, an incomprehensible inquisitor whose motives for tormenting him were a total mystery. She watched him. After a few minutes his mouth closed; the eyes blinked rapidly and were clear.
“Please. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
Evans shuddered. “The gun is loaded. Keep talking.”
“What do you want me to say? I never heard of any of this. Only this morning I saw my wife and kids, and everything was all right. Now you give me this story about atomic war and 2010. What, have I been asleep for thirty years?”
“You didn’t act very surprised to be here when you walked in. If you’re so disoriented, how do you explain how you got here?”
The man sat heavily in the chair. “I don’t remember. I guess I thought I came here – to the hospital, I thought – to get a checkup. I didn’t think about it. You must know how I got here.”
“I do. But I think you know too, and you’re just playing a game with me – with all of us. The others are worried, but I’m sick of it. I can see through you, so you may as well quit the act. You were famous for your sincerity, but I always suspected that was an act, too, and I’m not falling for it. You didn’t start this game soon enough for me to be persuaded you’re crazy, despite what the others may think.”
Evans played with the butt of her dead cigarette. “Or this could be a delusional system,” she continued. “You think you’re in a hospital, and your schizophrenia has progressed to the point where you deny all facts that don’t go along with your attempts to evade responsibility. I suppose in some sense such an insanity would absolve you. If that’s the case, I should be more objective.
“Well, I can’t. I’m failing my profession. Too bad.” Emotion had drained away from her until, by the end, she felt as if she were speaking from across a continent instead of a desk.
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are my wife and kids?”
“They’re dead.”
Havelmann sat rigidly. The only sound was the hiss of the radiation detector. “Let me have a cigarette.”
“There are no cigarettes left. I just smoked my last one.” Evans touched the ashtray. “I made two cartons last a year.”
Havelmann’s gaze dropped. “How old my hands are! Helen has lovely hands.”
“Why are you going on with this charade?”
The old man’s face reddened. “God damn you! Tell me what happened!”
“The famous Havelmann rage. Am I supposed to be frightened now?”
The hiss from the loudspeaker seemed to increase. Havelmann lunged for the gun. Evans snatched it and pushed back from the desk. The old man grabbed the paperweight and raised it to strike. She pointed the gun at him.
“Your wife didn’t make the plane in time. She was at the western White House. I don’t know where your damned kids were – probably vaporized with their own families. You, however, had Operation Kneecap to save you, Mr President. Now sit down and tell me why you’ve been playing games, or I’ll kill you right here and now. Sit down!”
A light seemed to dawn on Havelmann. “You’re insane.”
“Put the paperweight back on the desk.”
He did. He sat.
“But you can’t simply be crazy,” Havelmann continued.
“There’s no reason why you should take me away from my home and subject me to this. This is some kind of plot. The government. The CIA.”
“And you’re thirty-five years old?”
Havelmann examined his hands again. “You’ve done something to me.”
“And the camps? Administrative Order 31?”
“If I’m the president, then why are you quizzing me here? Why can’t I remember a thing about it?”
“Stop it. Stop it right now,” Evans said. She heard her voice for the first time. It sounded more like that of an old man than Havelmann’s. “I can’t take any more lies. I swear that I’ll kill you. First it was the commander-in-chief routine, calisthenics, stiff upper lips and discipline. Then the big brother, let’s have a whiskey and talk it over, son. Yessir, Mr President.”
Havelmann stared at her. He was going to make her kill him, and she knew she wouldn’t be strong enough not to.
“Now you can’t remember anything,” she said. “Your boys are confused; they’re fed up. Well, I’m fed up too.”
“If this is true, you’ve got to help me.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about helping you!” Evans shouted. “I’m interested in making you tell the truth! Don’t you realize that we’re dead? I don’t care about your feeble sense of what’s right and wrong; just tell me what’s keeping you going. Who do you think you’re going to impress? You think you’ve got an election to win? A place in history to protect? There isn’t going to be any more history! History ended last August!
“So spare me the fantasy about the hospital and the nonexistent nurses’ station. Someone with Korsakov’s wouldn’t make up that story. He would recognize the difference between a window and an HD screen. A dozen other slips. You’re not a good enough actor.”
Her hand trembled. The gun was heavy. Her voice trembled, too, and she despised herself for it. “Sometimes I think the only thing that’s kept me alive is knowing I had half a pack of cigarettes left. That and the desire to make you crawl.”
The old man sat looking at the gun in her hand. “I was the president?”
“No,” said Evans. “I made it up.”
His eyes seemed to sink farther back in the network of lines surrounding them.
“I started a war?”
Evans felt her heart race. “Stop lying! You sent the strike force; you ordered the preemptive launch.”
“I’m old. How old am I?”
“You know how old—” She stopped. She could hardly catch her breath. She felt a sharp pain in her breast. “You’re sixty-one.”
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph.”
“That’s it? That’s all you can say?”
Havelmann stared hollowly, then slowly, so slowly that at first it was not apparent what he was doing, lowered his head into his hands and began to cry. His sobs were almost inaudible over the hiss of the radiation detector. Evans watched him. She rested her elbows on the desk, steadying the gun with both hands. Havelmann’s head shook in front of her. Despite his age, his grey hair was thick.
After a moment Evans reached over and switched off the loudspeaker. The hissing stopped.
Eventually Havelmann stopped crying. He raised his head. He looked dazed. His expression became unreadable. He looked at the doctor and the gun. “My name is Robert Havelmann,” he said. “Why are you pointing that gun at me?”
“Don’t do this,” said Evans. “Please.”
“Do what? Who are you?”
Evans watched his face blur. Through her tears he looked like a much younger man. The gun drooped. She tried to lift it, but it was as if she were made of smoke – there was no substance to her, and it was all she could do to keep from dissipating, let alone kill anyone as clean and innocent as Robert Havelmann.
He reached forward. He took the gun from her hand. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Dr Evans sat in her office, hoping that it wasn’t going to be a bad day. The pain in her breast had not come that day, but she was out of cigarettes. She searched the desk on the odd chance she might have missed a pack, even a single butt, in the corner of one of the drawers. No luck.
She gave up and turned to face the window. The blinds were open, revealing the snow-covered field. She watched the clouds roll before the wind. It was dark. Winter. Nothing was alive.
“It’s cold outside,” she whispered.
There was a knock at the door. Dear god, leave me alone, she thought. Please leave me alone.
“Come in,” she said.
The door opened and an old man in a rumpled suit entered. “Dr Evans? I’m Robert Havelmann. What did you want to talk about?”
STORMING HELL
John Lambshead
“Steampunk” applies Victorian technology, attitudes and scientific theories to a future that might have been, perhaps; in this case a sparkling yarn of interstellar naval combat …
John Lambshead is a semi-retired research scientist in the fields of ecology, evolution and biodiversity. He has always had another life designing computer games and writing fiction and military history. Married with two adult daughters, he lives on the North Kent coast of England. A lead story in Baen’s Universe magazine, this became a Best of the Year choice.
THE SUN ROSE slowly on another long day. Crystal showers of frozen air fell gently, sublimed upwards under the sun’s rays, only to refreeze and fall again. Fine snow littered the surface like baking sugar, lending the splintered landscape a surreal beauty. This was a place of dialectical extremes, of hot and cold, of light and dark and of stone and dust.
The only splash of colour came from Sarah’s multiple reflections in the viewing port. Convention decreed that her long dress and tailored jacket be Royal Navy blue, her blouse cream, but she was allowed to express some individuality in a neck tie and the band around her straw hat. She elected to wear a defiant red.
Sarah was too keyed up to enjoy the bleak landscape. She gazed out of the porthole, lost in her thoughts, disinterested in the view.
“Ma’am?” a piping voice sounded behind her.
She turned, moving carefully so that her skirt would not fly up.
A boy in a midshipman’s uniform half made a salute then thought better of it. “Is that your sea trunk, ma’am?”
She nodded in assent and he clicked his fingers at the porters. Two Selenites scuttled forward, sharp claws tapping on the stone floor. Like all lunar natives, they were six limbed but their exoskeleton was without the tripartite division that characterized the insect body. The size of a large dog, they stood mostly on four legs so that their front claws could be used as hands. The Queen Below bred them for Port Bedford’s use as part of the Cooperation Pact with the British Empire. A not unpleasant wet-straw smell drifted off the creatures as they grappled with her luggage.
“The captain presents his compliments, ma’am, and asks you to accompany me to the ship.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Lead on.”
They made a strange crocodile through the narrow corridors, the midshipman in front, her behind and the Selenites bringing up the rear. Convention decreed that they should walk in single file on the right. This necessitated one of the Selenites walking backwards, something that seemed to discommode him not at all. She thought of the Selenite as ‘him’, though ‘it’ was probably a more accurate pronoun for a sterile worker.
Sarah stepped over the lip of a double-doored hatchway into the aethership, revealing far too much ankle for her liking. The porters banged her trunk against the hatchway. She admonished them and they listened politely, clacking lateral mouth mandibles in reply before forcing her trunk through the narrow opening. The midshipman walked on without pausing, causing her to half run to catch up. It was so undignified; her instructors had impressed upon her the importance of comportment for a lady but what was one to do?
The air inside the aethership held a sharp tang of carbolic soap, like a newly scrubbed hospital. The ship had recently been refurbished so it did not yet smell of stale sweat seasoned
with the aroma of ripe latrine but, given time, it would. Port Bedford’s air was clean and natural in comparison, if a trifle musty, refreshed as it was from fungal forests below.
She was soon completely disorientated in the maze of cramped passageways and staircases. Sailors hurrying about their duties gave way when her party needed to pass. She ignored their interested glances. A final spiral staircase gave access to the bridge. The midshipman stopped in front of a man wearing a captain’s uniform and smartly snapped to attention, saluting.
The captain, who was deep in discussion with one of his lieutenants, ignored them. She took the opportunity to study the man who would be in control of her life for the foreseeable future. He was about thirty-five, tall, slim and fair-haired – a typical member of the Anglo-Norman ruling families. She resigned herself to being patronized when he finally acknowledged her existence.
“My dear Miss Brown, welcome aboard Her Majesty’s Aethership Cassandra.” He pumped her hand vigorously and grinned. “I trust that they made you comfortable at Port Bedford while you waited for us. I am afraid we had a little trouble with our cavorite panels, which delayed our departure.”
“Thank you, yes, I was quite comfortable,” she said.
“Either I am getting older, or the pilots are getting younger and prettier,” said the captain to the officer beside him.
She blushed: the interview was not going precisely to her expectations. “This is my first independent posting but I assure you that I am properly qualified, Captain Fitzwilliam,” she said. She tried to sound brisk and efficient but it came out as pompous.
“I never doubted it, dear lady,” he said. He cocked his head to one side and looked expectantly at her.
For a second Sarah’s mind blanked and then she realized that she had unaccountably forgotten to carry out her first duty. Fumbling in her bag, she finally managed to remove the two critical pieces of paper. Why did everything take twice as long when one was flustered? “My posting and pilot’s certificate, sir,” she said, handing them to him.