Come Back

by George Erlynne

  "It is not nuclear." Marie cried breathlessly. I could have told her that because if it had been a twenty kiloton charge we would all have been glowing in the dark by now. "The brain, it thinks it was an air fuel weapon. It was not designed to penetrate, non." She added, her frown growing to serious proportions.

  "Surface blast, eh?" I pondered. I would have to go and see what was left of Bradley and Hilary soon, but pragmatically they were alive or they weren't. "Why no armour piercing?" I muttered, seeing Marie's white face turning my way. "Yeah."

  She nodded. "It is what you think. They do not want to damage the big installation under 'ere."

  "They only want to damage us." I agreed and grabbed Melanee's arm. "We're going up to see what's left. See if you can track the origin of that bomber, find out where the hell it came from."

  "It will not be difficult." Marie said softly. She knew where it had come from and so did I but we had to be sure.

  The long climb up the sagging concrete stairs was energy sapping and depressing. The whole structure was out of true, the central core buckled, ominous cracks showing. Clouds of dust had settled over everything with larger chunks of decaying cement and rusting metal from the armoured doors lying at crazy angles. Melanee was silent, awed by the power of some remote homicidal maniac, her eyes betraying fright and something more, an understanding of what she didn't know and couldn't begin to understand. She kept close as I finally made it to the ground level.

  "Bloody hell." I muttered. The high tunnel to the entrance had collapsed although shards of daylight showed through the tumbled wreckage. The ceiling sagged, an alarming bulge showing clearly. The upper levels must be a shambles, masses of debris pressing down and it wouldn't be long before this lot came down, sealing us all inside. Painfully scrambling up the pile of sharp edged stonework and assorted tree fragments that seemed to have been blasted in, I heaved Melanee over the worst bits, finding myself at the top of the pile, allowing us to see outside.

  The cutting where the entrance road had narrowed into the complex was gone and in its place was a crater, still smoking. The background of greenery was flattened, the trees reduced to smouldering fragments. We made our way with care, picking a path through churned up earth and rocks, until we were well clear. The forest for a hundred yards in all directions had been reduced to burning matchsticks, the air heavy with a smell of combustion and explosives. Overhead, a black pall of smoke was slowly drifting away in the summer breeze.

  "Bradley, 'Ilary." Melanee said, looking stricken. I felt a little stricken myself, this was a deliberate, malicious attempt to kill us all. We knew they didn't like us but this was a cold blooded, preconceived act of assassination, the second time they had tried. I had put the first attempt down, illogically, to momentary bad temper on Max's part, but this? Gazing back to the hill we were living in, the complete top, the summit, had been blasted clean of vegetation, leaving a scarred, chalky detritus, steaming with blue smoke. Areas of collapse revealed where the inner chambers had folded up. We walked round the hill with some difficulty, made worse by rain that started to fall, reducing the debris to a black sludge under foot but eventually we could see the loading ramp where our precious aircar had been standing. It wasn't there, but scattered wreckage, burning furiously, showed where the main fuselage had tumbled down the slope, the fuel tanks exploding as it went.

  There was no response from the data box signal, not surprisingly, and a careful, depressing search only found what might have been Bradley's torso, the ribs showing as well burnt steak, the backbone protruding in a blackened curve. Melanee was abruptly sick but I couldn't help her. It was no good telling her what clever people we had all been ten thousand years ago, she could see the evidence all round her. She stared at me, white faced, but didn't resist when I took her hand and climbed painfully up the slope to examine the remains of our launching shaft.

  The big blast door which had swung down to rest horizontally to create our landing platform had been blown back on its hinges to slam up against the shaft entrance. This was when the aircar must have been thrown off but the result was that the inner shaft was nearly undamaged, the door warped and jammed over the opening. Peering through the gap, I could see the launch tracks which seemed in one piece. Gazing round from our high point I noted that the second missile had landed some distance off, a mile or more, and through the curtains of rain falling, we could see the column of smoke. One just outside the entrance, one just on top of the main complex and one gone wild.

  Faint noises drew our attention to Mike and Mary, well below us, treading warily through the devastated area. I watched as they came up to the pitiful remains of Bradley, seeing Mary suddenly turn away and bend over while Mike stood with his hand over his mouth.

  "Go back." Melanee suggested, holding my arm like a drowning swimmer. Nodding, I helped her down the nasty bits until we came up with the other two, scrambling over piles of rubble.

  "Bradley." Mike stuttered, his face covered in sweat. "Any sign of Hilary?"

  I shook my head. They had been caught right under the impact point and Bradley's burnt bones were all we were ever going to find. Silently, we all made our slow way back down to the light and a very frightened Marie and Jules who watched us come in with strained expressions. It was time to take stock.

  "They didn't do that just for fun." Mike said, wiping his face with a rag, watching Mary who was sitting down with misery and tears streaming down her face.

  "Non!" Jules agreed explosively. "They want to stop us."

  "Doing what?" I enquired mildly.

  "It can only be something to do with what is under 'ere." Marie said.

  "Where did the bastard come from?" I asked her.

  "Montana." She said simply. "The ship see the launch."

  We stood around in moody silence, absorbing the unpalatable facts. Far away, so far we had no means of getting at them, Selena's mob were intent on completing or starting up again some master plan. The tactics involved whatever we had under our feet, two hundred feet down, and that entailed removing our presence from the landscape. Why? What could we do?

  "Go see mm 'Verness." Melanee spoke into a defeated silence, causing us to stare at her.

  "Only one car." Mike muttered. He looked at me with lines of pain and determination springing up around his mouth. "Why not?"

  "If you go, we go." Marie said promptly. The prospect of staying here with fuel air bombs raining down was not attractive.

  "What else is there to do?" Mary said wearily. "Wait until more of us die?"

  Thus, we drifted into deciding to fly off to the far North, an act that we had all thought stupid less than a day ago. Of course, we lost the drone which was still up somewhere, there was no way of landing it now, but Mike volunteered to check the guide path up the ramp while I routed out explosives to blow off the inconvenient armoured door that had settled itself across the entrance. Mary and Marie, meanwhile, with Melanee's active help, searched the whole place for stores we would need. Marie had disinterred a mass of medical equipment and drugs from deep freeze, although whether they would work or not was anyone's guess; nevertheless, she made us all have prophylactic jabs and swallow evil tasting pills. The inscrutable computer downstairs provided a flight plan which I pored over with Melanee breathing down my neck until Mike, sweating heavily, puffed up after hours of effort and slapped a dirty hand on the desk I was using.

  "Just had a thought." He said, coughing out dust. "We come back here, where do we land the thing?"

  "Outside." I said laconically, strolling over to see Marie. "That big area sealed off a long way down under us, you found any breathing holes, air vents, that kind of thing?"

  She pursed her lips and tapped away at the keyboard. "I think yes but the drone does not show them, only the deep radar scan picks up outlines. Somewhere in Quissac." She glanced up, her dark eyes with their well-marked brows looking at me without expression. She had a small, delicate chin and engaging dimples that came and went, her complexion roses
and cream with red lips and white teeth. I understood Jules fascination, particularly as her shirt bulged symmetrically, but I wondered what was going on behind that intelligent forehead.

  "We can find it, yes?" Jules, as ever, had drifted up behind me, he always did when I talked to her. "But I think it takes a time, eh? With only six of us, eh? It is a big forest." He regarded me impassively. The bruise on his jaw was subsiding but not the bruise to his ego, his brown eyes declared that quite clearly.

  "Hm." I grunted, leaving it at that. I felt they knew something or they suspected something, and they didn't want to say but then paranoia was growing in my head, ever since Linda had gone and only Melanee stopped it from erupting into violence.

  We decided to go next morning. Any longer and one of Selena's bombers might come back to finish the job, but before then we buried what was left of Bradley, or at least the men did, with Melanee a distant spectator. Marie was endlessly tapping at complex programs and Mary wept for them. It was a distasteful duty and messy but we couldn't leave his bones to be gnawed by wandering hogs. Jules was tight lipped and Mike silent as we dug deep. It was becoming a habit, digging graves, and I made a promise to myself that I would kick it soon.

  That night, when it was dark, (Jules had discovered how to make the lights dim down) I lay awake, images of Bradley's friendly gaze and Hilary's welcoming smiles flitting through my head to mingle with Linda. Murder was what we were looking at, murder for a purpose, but what purpose? What could anyone gain when the whole planet was dead? Melanee woke up and slid her arms round me, knowing without asking what thoughts were banging against my skull. The feel and smell of her, the faint perfume that was her personal scent, was comforting, more than I liked to admit to myself. Her long slender legs entwined themselves around mine, her breasts slithered seductively against me and before I knew it I was running my hands down her curves. Somewhere in the inner recesses of my mind, I still had faint doubts as to why she had thrown herself at me when she knew what sort of man I was. But now, such thoughts ebbed away as we joined together, her gasps of pleasure urging me on until we were both spent and sweaty, lying together in the darkness. Soon, I slept, dreaming of green things and dark eyed girls.

  Setting the charges in the dawn light, I was careful, we didn't want to wreck the guide path completely, it was already damaged. Behind the armoured hatch we waited for the timers to run down, the six of us seeming a small group in this vast, empty mausoleum to human ambition.

  An hour later, with Mike in the co-pilot's seat and Melanee, of course, just behind me, I was running down the take-off check list, scanning the instrument display. We had full ammunition for the forward cannon and minigun, five automatic rifles with a thousand rounds each, food, courtesy of Melanee and Mary's fruit gathering activities, various black boxes Marie wanted, a mass of paper printouts that Jules was eternally poring over and that was about it. No extra clothes but a box of medical stores in case we felt like committing suicide.

  "OK." I muttered. "Inverness here we come."

  Chapter 16

  GOING NORTH

  Clouds of warm rain were spread across central France that day; the whine of the turbines being accompanied by the watery hiss of heavy drops across the forward screens. I sat in silent depression watching the green carpet of trees pass under us at a hundred and fifty knots. Gaps appeared from time to time but no riot of buildings filled the empty spaces. Gone were the ancient cities of France. Instead, areas of marshland where the rivers had wandered over the land were covered in long water plants and thousands of birds, strange brilliantly coloured birds. Marie peered with delight at the myriads of red dots that flew up in splendid swarms as we spoilt their peaceful occupation. She watched for long minutes until the sheets of water disappeared and the thick, verdant forest resumed its never-ending vista. Mike was in the navigator’s chair, saying nothing but thinking unhappy thoughts, while in the back Marie, Jules and Mary slumped in a silence of defeat, their expressions showing the effects of the last days, of murder and death and reality. Melanee kept her fingers on my shoulder for most of the time, an action that Mike observed with a bitter smile. He thought I was forgetting Linda but in truth Melanee was keeping me sane. The car rocked gently in the air currents but the steady hum of the engines was soporific, allowing eyes to wander and thoughts to roam. It was time to examine life, our lives, and see if they had any meaning. I thought so, but then my meanings were composed of future action which, I hoped, would allow Linda to rest in peace, knowing she had been avenged. After all, we had survived and here we were, refugees from a past age, kept afloat by technology that might give up the ghost at any moment.

  The charges had blown with controlled violence, the thud only mildly alarming to Marie who had positioned herself by the big armoured hatch. Chanting the take-off check list with Mike industriously running through the instrument displays was almost a religious ritual that induced a calming effect on Jules who had seemed more nervous than ever that morning, Marie's close presence notwithstanding. None of us looked into each other's eyes in case we saw what we dreaded. The whole expedition had an unreal feel about it, a journey into unknown but somehow familiar territory. What would we find? Was it worth the risk? But it was too late for second thoughts now.

  The booster motors were good for thirty seconds of fierce acceleration and I remembered crossing fingers in an age-old superstition, hoping that the propellant was not turned into a lump of ten-thousand-year-old pudding. But the countdown figures on the flight panel had run down to Zero, Melanee's eyes widening in shock as the motors fired and the airframe punched us all in the back with a three G burst of acceleration. The wings extended as soon as we cleared the entrance, the jets running at full take off rating, the nose thirty degrees up. Under us, the blackened expanse where the bombs had detonated passed by in a blur, the eternal forest replacing it in a green haze.

  The boosters fell away on time and the main motors throttled down to cruise flight with me anxiously watching the displays, scanning the auto controls for fault. We had programmed the flight path into the control computer which was supposed to fly us all the way to Calais or where Calais would have been, without me doing a thing, but I was uneasy. To keep the fuel consumption down to reasonable limits we had to fly low and that meant the tree tops whisked away only fifty feet under the wings. Any indigestion in the auto pilot and we would have about a tenth of a second to do something before we made acquaintance with the canopy.

  "Another sixty-four minutes." Mike muttered, breaking the long silence. Grunting, I ran through the diagnostic programs for the tenth time, but all was well. From the back, Jules rustled paper and whispered to Marie, while Melanee put her head over my shoulder and gazed at the passing landscape as if entranced. For a stone age girl with no knowledge of technology up to weeks ago, her acceptance of our marvellous machines was impressive and thought provoking. She understood about speed and airflow, about lift and engine thrust although the mathematics puzzled her. Mike, provoked into some mental activity, explained what all the instrument display was telling us, looking skeptical when she nodded her head and smiled.

  "We 'ave the wild life survey." Jules said suddenly from behind my left ear. "Plenty of fish in the sea, and reptiles."

  "Reptiles?" Mike twisted round to look at him.

  "Lizards, they are everywhere, and they get big." He explained. "Where it is 'ot enough, the crocodile family does well, they are swarming, they are 'uge."

  "It is that where most of the large mammals were wiped out, other species are taking their place." Marie added. "The pigs." She rustled Jules paper. "We see a lot, eh? But the ship say they are getting bigger as well."

  "There were plenty of pigs when we left." I said sourly. "In fact, we brought some back with us."

  That comment stopped the conversation which was, in any event, beginning to lacerate my nerves. So what? Bears and pigs can fight it out for all I cared. Mike smiled his thin smile and Mary came up, rubbing her eyes, to peer o
ut of the front screens. "We landing soon?" She stared at the navigation display. "Will we be close to the sea? I fancy a swim."

  The flight monitors bleeped at us just then as Mike smiled at her. "I knew you would." He said. "That's why we put that dump right next to the beach."

  "Going manual." I announced and turned off the auto control. We were within ten miles of the target and the sun had decided to come out. Here, the land was flatter, rolling country, much like southern England, the ubiquitous trees apparently covering everything right up to the water's edge. Mike began to call out compass corrections as I lowered the speed to hover slowly across the tree tops. In the bright light of a slanting sun, a clearing appeared, the green of grasses and flowered shrubs beckoning us down. In the middle was the ugly fuel bladder and I hoped no local pigs had taken to gnawing the skin.

  The car swung slowly in the air as the landing gear came down. I let us descend until a gentle bump told me we were down. The engines sighed their way into silence and we all looked at each other. Everyone had been wondering if some technical gremlin would appear and condemn us to permanent exile in the middle of a dark forest, I could see it in their faces. The hatch swung up with a hiss and warm sunlight flooded in.

  "Right." I sat up. "Mike, you and me go and search the area. We don't want inquisitive bears along." I turned to view my crew. "Marie, you and Mary make a fire. Jules, you and Melanee collect wood but you don't start until me and Mike say it's OK."