Terran Tomorrow

by Nancy Kress

  Claire said, “Where is Belok^ now? I didn’t see him.”

  “I don’t know. Wherever the soldiers took him. He and La^vor don’t live in Lab Dome.”

  “I’m going to call a nurse for Marianne and then we’re going to find Belok^.”

  When they did, the boy lay curled on his side in the middle of a corridor, a soldier standing helplessly over Belok^’s huge form, La^vor shaking her brother. “Come awake! Come awake!”

  Claire bent over Belok^ and examined him the same way she had Marianne. “All his responses are normal, but…” She didn’t finish the sentence. La^vor, too frightened to speak, clutched Jane. La^vor had just lost one brother, and now the other slept as if he were the breathing dead.

  Jane thought of Claire’s curious Terran phrase: Never mind. Would Marianne, Belok^, little Caitlin never be in their minds again? And would this happen to more people?

  She wanted to talk to Colin, hold his hand, draw warmth for her suddenly cold body. But La^vor needed her. Jane put her arms around her friend and murmured to her, searching for words of comfort she could not find.

  Her headache grew worse.

  * * *

  Four people were now comatose: Caitlin McKay, Devon Jones, Marianne Jenner, Belok^. Two from the ship who’d been infected with virophage; two children from the base. But not the other four children in Enclave Dome, not Claire Patel or Mason Kandiss from the Return. Not Ka^graa, La^vor, or Jane.

  Zack and Susan sat by their daughter’s bedside, Susan’s face swollen with tears. All four coma victims had been moved to Lab Dome, carried in esuits by gurney bots through the tunnel system. A special area of the infirmary had been closed off and divided with curtains into cubicles. One of the three physicians was always on call nearby. No one knew what would happen next, but Zack’s stomach had clenched when he saw that space had been left for more cubicles. Nurses were readying more beds.

  Caity, with her beloved Bollers beside her on the bed, didn’t look ill. Her face, pale when she’d been awake and complaining of headaches, now flushed lightly with the rosiness of a healthy child fast asleep. Her little chest rose and fell. Her eyelids fluttered—was she dreaming? They had no MRI equipment on the base, which had been designed for research, not trauma treatment. They couldn’t tell if what had happened in Kayla’s and Glamet^vor¡’s brains was happening in Caitlin’s. They had no way to help her, and no answers.

  It was Zack’s job to find them. He had already stayed too long beside Caity. Now he had to leave her with Susan and resume work. There had to be a way to fight this. If the cause was the virophage, which Zack suspected it was, then maniacal work must find a way to defeat the microbe. Humanity had defeated microbes before: with antibiotics, with antivirals, with widespread eradication programs like those that had eliminated malaria from the United States and smallpox from the entire world. There was a way to cure Caitlin of whatever pernicious microbe had seized her brain.

  There was.

  There must be.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jason strode into the armory with two members of J Squad; more met him there. All wore full armor. They were going to meet the Return when it landed. Li had sent precise instructions to the ship where and when to set down in order to minimize the time it was vulnerable. The chosen rendezvous was far enough away to avoid the snipers and missile launchers undoubtedly hidden in the woods around Monterey Base.

  The armory motor pool always seemed to Jason a pathetic remnant for an Army that had once had transport capabilities to deploy a brigade anywhere in the world within ninety-six hours and a full division in a hundred and twenty. It consisted of six FiVees—five here now—three quadcopters, and two Bradleys. Ten years ago, as the world fell apart, Jason had taken considerable risks to get the Bradleys to Monterey. Army research bases did not ordinarily stock armored fighting vehicles, not even older ones. Jason had also secured modification kits for the Bradleys, which were now as good as Bradleys got, although he still regretted that he hadn’t been able to secure any Strykers. Neither Bradley had as yet left base, and the enemy didn’t know they were here.

  One was now prepared to roll. Jason was doing everything possible to neutralize possible attack by New America.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The Bradley roared out of the airlock and accelerated to its top speed, which was not very impressive, across the perimeter. Even before it reached the road, it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The vehicle jerked violently, throwing Jason against Corporal Wharton. The reactive armor installed between the armor plates exploded as it was supposed to, neutralizing the incoming fire.

  “Direct hit, sir,” Private Kandiss shouted, unnecessarily. The Bradley bulldozed through the cloud of dust thrown up by the hit and kept going. The gunner was kept busy. Noise like falling mountains assaulted eardrums. Two more RPGs, and the Bradley turned off-road toward the river.

  Immediately the ride became even rougher. The soldiers crammed into the small space bounced and clutched. Jason kept his eyes on the video display. New America had FiVees much faster than the Bradley, but no FiVee could go against the Bradley’s chain gun. He saw no FiVees. The armored vehicle crunched over saplings and rocks, keeping to open country.

  The river finally came in sight, a dull ribbon under the low sky. The rain, which had stopped, began again.

  “Okay, river ahead,” Jason said. “We turn north along it and—”

  A Stryker tore toward them from a grove of trees.

  No—New America did not have Strykers! Except, they did now.

  The Stryker had slat armor; it could withstand any ordnance that the Bradley could fire without stopping. Nor could the Bradley outrun the Stryker; tracked vehicles were just not as fast as wheeled ones. But they were more stable, with better mobility over rough terrain. And—

  “Make directly for the river, Sergeant. Gunner, if anything moves, shoot it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Stryker gained on the Bradley, firing constantly. Jason lost track of the hits. The river, when they reached it, ran a few feet below a rocky bank. “Go! Go!”

  The Bradley plunged over the bank, swaying wildly. Jason held his breath. Then they were in the river, powering across at maximum water speed of eight miles per hour. A Bradley was not an amphibious assault vehicle. Please don’t let the water level be too high.…

  It wasn’t. The Bradley lumbered across the light rapids and emerged, climbing the bank as it shed water, on the other side.

  Jason had hoped that the Stryker, wheeled, would flip when it dived over riverbank. It didn’t, but it hit a rock, bounced, and came down mired in mud.

  On the video display, the Return descended from orbit. If the Stryker had a lucky warhead shot …

  “Go! Go!”

  They raced toward the ship. It set down silently, rain sliding off its silvery hull. Jason and his troops were already out of the Bradley and running. They were barely inside the airlock when the Return lifted, soaring high above the rainy land beneath and the missile from the Stryker that just missed the hull.

  Jason gazed down at the dwindling Bradley. New America would claim it, of course. But not for long.

  Information Tech Specialist Ruby Martin waited just beyond the airlock. “Sir, welcome aboard. Lieutenant Allen instructed me to tell you that something has happened aboard.”

  “What?” On the wall screen, Earth fell away. Now the sky was black above a band of deep violet shading into grayish-white below them and blue on the horizon, which curved away in every direction. Already they were well into the stratosphere.

  Martin said, “Major Farouk has passed out and can’t be revived. We don’t know what drugs he might have taken or if this is a suicide attempt or—”

  “It’s not.” Christ, another one. “Did Major Farouk learn anything useful about the ship before he went comatose?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Did he leave notes?”

  “No, sir.”

  “H
ave you learned anything more about the ship’s communications capability?”

  “A little more, yes, by experimenting.”

  “Do you think you can contact HQ at Fort Hood, if we fly there?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, with noticeable pride. “I think I can.”

  “Good. Take me to the bridge. Sergeant, keep the squad here.”

  The ship seemed vaster inside than out, although Jason knew that was impossible. Jane had explained to him that the insides had been built for Worlders to found a colony, with animal pens and seed stores and food supplies, none of which remained. The inside of the Return had been scoured and stripped before she launched for Earth. All that remained were wooden partitions—no metal ones—that Worlders had erected to divide the space into rooms and corridors, with far fewer of each than in the two domes at Monterey Base. In that respect, the inside of the Return resembled Colin’s Settlement.

  But only in that respect. Jason walked past the FiVee that he had ordered, along with a lot of ordnance, loaded onto the ship during its previous landing. He said abruptly, “Specialist, did Major Farouk mention having headaches before he went unconscious?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you had headaches or sleepiness? Has Lieutenant Allen, or Corporal Michaelson?”

  She looked startled. “No. Sir?”

  “Never mind.”

  The bridge was a surprisingly small and unpretentious space ringed with strange machinery and three wall screens, only one active. It showed Earth, now the blue-and-white globe familiar from a million pictures and holos. Seth Allen sat on a wooden bench that looked as if it had once been a low table, topped with a cushion woven of rough cloth. More cushions were heaped in the corner. He and Michaelson stood and saluted.

  “As you were. Lieutenant, is that supposed to be a captain’s chair?”

  He grinned. “Sir, the Worlders like to sit on heaped-up cushions. I don’t.”

  “Understandable.” Jason realized that he had no idea how the Worlders lived at Monterey Base; he’d never been in any of their quarters. Did Jane sit on cushions instead of chairs, eating or studying English at a low table? “Where is Major Farouk?”

  Martin said, “We dragged him to bed, sir.”

  “Good. Lieutenant, can you fly the ship at this altitude to HQ at Fort Hood?”

  “At a lower height, yes. I need to navigate visually, unless I can home in on a long-range signal.”

  “No signal, not until we get there. Take the ship down to above a hundred thousand feet.”

  “Altitude is difficult to calculate, sir—I don’t understand their measurements.”

  “What do you understand?”

  He pointed to a small screen. “This shows symbols that seem to correspond to air temperature. The high troposphere is much colder than the stratosphere above it. Stratosphere starts at about forty thousand feet, at this latitude.”

  Jason didn’t ask how he knew that; Allen possessed a curious mind interested in any branch of science with military application. It was why Jason, lacking a trained pilot, had assigned him to the Return.

  “I want the ship low enough for rough visual navigation but still as high as you can—high enough to avoid attack by F-35s.”

  His eyes widened. “Yes, sir. I can try.”

  “What is the fuel situation?”

  “I haven’t been able to determine that, and neither had Captain Carter or Major Farouk. Our best guess was that it’s some kind of cold fusion, at least during conventional flying. When it jumps … well, anybody’s guess. Branch thought maybe it utilized dark energy or dark matter.”

  That was also what Farouk had speculated. Not useful. “When we arrive above HQ, initiate contact.”

  “Yes, sir. But we don’t need to be right above them. There’s a range—you’ll remember that the Return contacted Monterey Base from space without knowing exactly where it was.”

  Jason did remember—it was one of the few pieces of luck he’d had. What if the Return had instead made contact with New America? It could have happened that way. He said, “Proceed, Lieutenant. Martin, has HQ restored visual communication?”

  “No, sir.” And then, in a sudden burst, “That should have been an easy patch. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been restored. A monkey could do it, sir.”

  Allen began touching various protuberances. Only the one active wall screen told Jason that the ship moved; there was no sensation of motion. The screen showed Earth becoming larger again, its features more distinct. The Pacific Ocean, clouded out to sea and quite a way inland. Then mountains—how fast they were flying!—followed by desert. Somewhere down there, dead below the returning wilderness, lay deserted towns, ruined cities, overgrown farmland. However, in various places RSA survivors had banded together to form small settlements, mostly ranches and farms with a few towns that cannibalized industrial machinery. Those that managed to avoid New America’s troops were growing. The United States was building again.

  In Colorado lay the radioactive ruin of Peterson Air Force Base and Cheyenne Mountain. The complex had been built to withstand a thirty-ton nuclear blast, an EMP, and airborne biological warfare. NORAD had held out for a long time, waging the deadly war that finished off what R. sporii avivirus had begun. But eventually personnel had had to emerge, and RSA had been waiting. Survival rate there had been less than 2 percent. Jason didn’t know what had happened after that; information from Fort Hood about NORAD had ceased three years ago.

  Jason had never served at Fort Hood, which had once been one of the largest military installations in the world, home to two full combat divisions as well as various other commands. 55,000 troops had been stationed there, many being readied for deployment around the globe. The grounds had included the world’s biggest concentration of armored military vehicles: Abrams, Bradleys, Strykers. The air had been alive with Blackhawk copters on drill, with Apaches bristling with weapon mounts, with Chinooks like whales. There had been a live testing area for antitank guns and equipment. Just before the Collapse, three domes had been built at the southern end of the base, replacing the old administrative buildings.

  The domes had survived. Nearly all of the rest was gone, although Jason knew that one entire dome still housed vehicles and rescued equipment. Much of the rest of Fort Hood’s 150,000 acres was reverting to wilderness, growing amid bombed wreckage. Desert scrub was almost impossible to kill.

  “Yes, that’s Fort Hood,” Jason said. “Maintain high position over the fort, and open contact. They already know we’re here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Allen said.

  Jason prepared himself to face—metaphorically, anyway—General William Strople.

  “Fort Hood, come in. This is the spaceship Return, US Army, Colonel Jason Jenner in command. Come in, Fort Hood.”

  A startled young voice said, “This is Fort Hood.”

  “Colonel Jenner wishes to talk to General Strople.”

  “Access protocol, please.”

  Jason gave the classified codes and waited. Five minutes later, Strople’s voice sounded on the bridge. They were a long five minutes. Jason dismissed everyone from the bridge except Lieutenant Allen. Finally Strople said, “Colonel Jenner?” Still no visual.

  Jason said, “Yes, sir. I’m talking to you from the bridge of the spaceship Return. I’ve had it flown here because I suspect New America of instituting the recent attack on Monterey Base in order to lure personnel to the signal station to report to HQ. They could then follow, discover its new location, and destroy it.”

  Silence. Jason could almost hear Strople thinking. Unease formed in Jason’s stomach.

  “Very clever. However, Colonel Jenner, you have neglected to inform HQ that the spaceship can be flown over the planet in this manner. The only intel I have is that it landed near Monterey Base and has since been flown only back and forth to orbit.”

  “Sir, I reported to General Hahn that the Return had been used to bomb New America after their attack on a farming se
ttlement nearby. The ship has been contaminated with RSA.”

  “I did not receive that information.”

  What? Allen turned in his chair to throw Jason a wide-eyed look. If Hahn had not shared such vital intel with her next in command …

  Strople seemed to realize his mistake. He covered it with an attack. “Colonel, you are reprimanded for not reporting vital war intelligence directly to me. A letter of reprimand will be included in your file. The weaponized spaceship is now classified as the property of HQ. Land it immediately.”

  Jason pressed his lips together; his spine stiffened. Colleen Hahn had not trusted Strople with crucial intel. She had, supposedly, died of RSA, which no competent CO would risk contracting—and she had been very competent. Strople had jumped several ranks in too short a time. Information tech specialist Ruby Martin said that restoring visual should have been simple for HQ techs. Jason didn’t know what was going on at Fort Hood, but every instinct in him screamed that something here was very wrong. Right after the Collapse, there had been Army bases taken over by sheer force by ambitious survivors, as if the newly fragmented United States military were some South American dictatorship.

  But he could not disobey an order.

  However, if he landed the Return now, there was no guarantee that it would ever take him and his soldiers back to Monterey Base. Or if it did, Strople might send a higher-ranking officer with them to take command from Jason. Would that first-star general permit Colin’s misguided Settlers to stay at the base? How would HQ treat the four Worlders whose ship this was? Jason was well aware of the prejudice in some Army circles, including top brass, against Worlders. He had even heard, through Hillson, reports of ugly prejudice at Monterey Base.

  But he could not disobey an order.

  But … the Return technically didn’t belong to the Army at all. It was a World diplomatic vessel. Strople could not command it. Jason seized on this, even as he knew that he had commandeered the ship. Ka^graa, however, had not protested.

  “Colonel Jenner?” Preemptory, threatening.