Aftermath a-1

by Charles Sheffield

  “A bit late to tell me. Hang in there.” Dana made her decision. She had hesitated because she wasn’t sure what to do. Waiting added no information. She unstrapped the harness and opened it, then pulled out the urethral catheter. It seemed to come out forever, but maybe that was normal for a man. Oliver Guest would probably scream the next time he had to pee. From everything she had heard, he deserved that and worse.

  The IVs gave the most cause for concern. She tugged delicately at the one in his left elbow vein, and it didn’t move.

  No time for niceties. She yanked harder until it came free.

  Blood? She bent low. A few drops but nothing to worry about. They would wipe him later, once he was off the drawer.

  She removed the other IVs, wincing a bit when the tube in his navel came out snaking and bloodied for a foot and a half. Where had it been connected, and what did it deliver or remove?

  Oliver Guest should be able to tell her, he was a doctor. But first he had to survive and waken from the coma. Was there any change in the infinitesimal rise and fall of the chest? She couldn’t see one, though in principle the process of awakening had already begun.

  Dana eased the body to the edge of the drawer until she was afraid to bring it farther. She looked down. “He’s in position. Hold tight, I’m coming off. Be ready to catch him — he might slip.”

  She shouldn’t have said that. Art and Seth straightened at once and reached up to steady Guest’s body and make sure it didn’t fall. Dana’s feet slid off their backs. She tried to protect the flashlight, dropped it, and landed on the metal floor on her tailbone with a jolt that rattled her teeth.

  “Shit!” She rubbed at her backside. “What did you do that for?”

  They ignored her complaints. “Never mind your ass,” Seth said. “Get that flashlight goin’, an’ stand in between us an’ shine it up. I got the shoulders, Art got the legs, but we can’t see what we’re doin’. If we have problems, grab his middle an’ steady him as we bring him down.”

  It was easy to give orders, but if Dana worked the flashlight crank she had no hands free. Something had to give.

  “Take a good look where you want your holds to be. And then be ready to bring him down in the dark.”

  Dana worked the light to its brightest beam, keeping it going until Art and Seth were sure of their holds. She looked where her own grip on the body should be, stuck the flashlight quickly into her pocket, and reached up fast as the light faded.

  Even with three people it was an effort. Oliver Guest was a big man, and Dana felt as if at least half his weight fell on her. She braced herself, tightened her jaw, and lowered him as slowly and carefully as she could to the floor.

  “He’s down.” Art’s voice came out of the darkness, beside her on the floor. “But where the devil is the flashlight? I can’t find it.”

  “It’s in my pocket. Wait a second.”

  By the time Dana had the beam working again, Seth had already removed his jacket and was opening his shoulder bag. “You wearing two pairs of pants?” he said to Art.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not, and I got no spares. You’ll have to come through with that. I’m givin’ up my jacket an’ a shirt. We have to keep him warm, and he has to be able to travel. How about shoes?”

  “I’ve got these boots, the ones I’m wearing now, and a pair of regular shoes in my bag.”

  “Can he have your shoes?”

  Art bent to examine Oliver Guest’s feet. “They’ll never fit him — his feet are too big. But he can have the boots. They were borrowed and they’re like boats on me.”

  “An’ I have socks, plenty of ’em. Hey, that’s good.” Art had pulled a candle from his bag, lit it, and placed it on the floor. “Now we can manage without the flashlight,” Seth went on. “Can you get these onto him?”

  He handed a pair of underpants to Dana. She moved to the bony feet and slipped the clothing over, pushing it carefully up the long legs. The calves and thighs were as hairless as the head, some side effect of the somnol or maybe of the long sleep itself. She felt awkward tucking in sex organs so she could pull the underpants up to his waist. His genitals were those of an adult male, but pink and hairless as a baby’s. His belly, unless it was her imagination, had warmed a few degrees since she had pulled out the IV.

  Art and Seth had been busy on the upper body. Oliver Guest was now dressed in a shirt, sweater, and a jacket a size too small. Art was working the hands with their long, thick fingers into a pair of black gloves. They moved him to the tiers of body drawers and propped him up there before tackling pants, socks, and shoes.

  “Ain’t he a beauty?” Seth said. “How’d you like to find this under your bed one dark night?”

  Oliver Guest’s eyes were slitted open and the skin around them had an odd yellowish tinge. That, together with the bald bulging skull and the complete lack of eyebrows, suggested some evil idol from an ancient temple, brooding in the yellow glow of a worshiper’s single candle.

  “Come on, Doctor G.,” Seth said. “Can you hear me yet? Guess not, but we hafta do this. You’ll lose too much heat without it.”

  He was holding a green cloth cap with earflaps. He placed it on Guest’s head and pulled carefully down until it was only an inch above the narrow eyes. Seth lifted an eyelid and peered at the pupil behind. “Gettin’ a reflex reaction to light. He’s comin’ along.”

  The other two were busy at the lower end. Working together they eased Art’s spare pair of trousers onto Guest’s legs and up to his middle.

  “Too short,” Art said. “He’s at least three inches taller than me. But it won’t matter once we get socks and boots on. They’ll come more than high enough to cover him.”

  “Quick as you can,” said Seth. “Then we done our best. The rest is up to him.”

  “I think he’s still feeling the cold,” Dana said. “I’m noticing a shiver in his foot as I pull on a sock. Do we have any way to warm him?”

  “Not ’til we can get him outside, and he needs to be conscious for that.” But Seth took his own blanket from his pack and began wrapping it tight around Guest’s body. “Can you do the same with yours? He’s a weight. We’ll have one hell of a time gettin’ him down them stairs ’less he can walk.”

  Working together, they swaddled Guest from chin to feet. As they placed him back in position against the bank of drawers, the mouth opened and they heard a faint exhalation.

  “What did he say?” Dana was behind the awakening man, making sure that his head did not bang against the metal of the drawers.

  “Nothing.” Art peered at the eyes, open wider now but with eyelids that fluttered randomly and erratically. “I think he was just groaning.”

  “That’s one thing you never hear when they talk about judicial sleep,” Seth said. “They tell you it’s not painful when a person goes under, it feels the same as nodding off for a nap. But what about waking up? That might hurt like a son of a bitch.”

  “I looked into it four years ago,” Art said. They had done everything for Oliver Guest that he could think of, now it was wait and see. “I was down to eighty-seven pounds and my future seemed nonexistent — this was before I found out about the telomod program. I thought maybe if I was iced down for fifty years, by that time there’d be a cure. You know what they told me?”

  “Let me guess.” Dana leaned against the racks of body drawers, placed her palms together, and took on the earnest expression of a funeral home director. “ ’Although we understand the reason for your request, Mr. Ferrand, you must realize that the extended syncope facilities are built and maintained using public funds. We cannot allow unsuitable and unqualified individuals to be placed there. Have you considered private alternatives?’ “

  “You ran into the same jackass as I did!”

  “It looks like it. Aaron Petzel?” When Art nodded, she went on, “I got so mad with him, but it wasn’t worth it. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame. He was such a sniveling bureaucrat, he acted like somno
l wasn’t a restricted drug and private groups were allowed to possess it. I told him that taxes from me, and people like me, built and ran every one of those syncope facilities, and paid his fucking salary as well.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me not to use such language in his office. I never went back.”

  “I did — twice. The next time I said to him, ’Let’s get this straight, Mr. Petzel. The only people who can be placed in an extended syncope facility are people who’ve done something terrible. Is that right?’ And he said, ’That is correct, Mr. Ferrand. The extended syncope facilities are part of the criminal justice system of a civilized society.’ When I went there again, I said, ’Mr. Petzel, I owe you an apology. Now I understand the way that the system has to work. I’d have to kill somebody or do something really bad to get into an extended syncope facility.’ And he said, ’That is correct, Mr. Ferrand.’ ’Good,’ I said. ’That’s what I’m going to do. And you, Mr. Petzel, are going to help me. You’d better keep your eyes open from now on, night and day, because I’m coming after you. I will kidnap you, hide you away where no one can possibly hear you scream, and kill you. You will die very slowly and painfully, and I will record every step of the process. Then I will give myself up. That ought to be enough to get me a long sentence in an extended syncope facility, wouldn’t you say?’ “

  “Nice.” Seth nodded his approval. “You didn’t do it, though. Pity, because I’d like—”

  “He’s awake,” Dana interrupted. “I don’t think he can move yet, but look at him. He’s listening.”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Art said. “There’s no pain when you wake up, but sensory systems respond before motor systems. He can probably hear us, but he can’t answer any questions.”

  “How long?” Dana asked. She had her head cocked to one side. “How long before he can stand up and walk?”

  “Half an hour, maybe three-quarters.”

  She stood up. “That’s too long. We’re in trouble.”

  “We got half the day still,” Seth said. “An’ the weather’s improvin’. We’re in good shape.”

  She held up her hand. “Shh. And listen.”

  Now Art could hear it, too; a growl of large vehicles driven in low gear, more than one and steadily becoming louder.

  Seth was already by the staircase, peering downward. “Comin’ here,” he said. “Not that there was ever much doubt, this place is in the asshole of the state with nothin’ here but the syncope facility.”

  He returned to the group, rapidly but silently. “There could be a whole bunch of ’em. They’re sure to have lights. If it’s Pearl Lazenby’s buddies, they got guns as well. The front door’s the only way out, an’ they’re comin’ in that way so we can’t use it, even if we could get down there. The front door’s busted, too, so anybody will know somebody’s here or been here. We can’t stick big boy back in his drawer an’ say we’re tourists, ’cause he’s wakin’ up.”

  He glanced from Art to Dana. In the candlelight his eyes were like a snake’s, lively, flickering, and lighter than usual in their color. “We’re in trouble, amigos, like Dana says. Question is, what are we gonna do? We’ve come too far to give up now.”

  23

  Celine had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and the week before that had been one long effort. Fatigue and the familiar-yet-strange air and gravity of Earth gave to everything a dreamlike halo. She stared at the red utility vehicles in the opened A-frame barn. She could hear running engines and see spouting black smoke behind the rear balloon tires.

  Two of the trucks moved out of the building and came rolling toward them. One woman and one man sat in the front seat of each, apparently identical people dressed in identical tunics. They halted ten yards in front of Reza and Jenny, blocking progress toward the barn. One of the men descended.

  Celine froze, and her dream mood vanished. The man in front of her was holding a light submachine gun, which he swung easily in an arc to cover the whole of her group. The woman in the other truck had a second weapon, raised and ready.

  Celine became unnaturally alert. Who greeted strangers — unarmed strangers, who had made an obvious emergency landing — in such a fashion?

  “You probably think that guns don’t work no more,” the man said in a Texas twang. “Well, folks, that sure don’t apply to this one. You wouldn’t like it one little bit if I have to demonstrate. In one minute, you’re going to tell me why you came here. First, though, I want you to explain how you could fly that danged thing.” He pointed his gun toward the Clark orbiter. “It’s recent make, an’ it sure has to be full of chips.”

  “It is full of chips.” Celine disliked everything about the man. Belts of ammunition hung over his shoulders and around his chest. Two handguns sat in holsters at his waist. His smile was fixed, without a trace of humor, and he had the cold, unblinking gaze of Celine’s own abusive father.

  “As you can see,” she went on, “we couldn’t fly the orbiter too well even with working chips. We were lucky to be able to make a landing at all. We need help.”

  The man nodded slowly. His brow furrowed, as though he understood — or listened to — only a few of her words. “Now, lady, was your ship stored underground? So that the gamma pulse didn’t ruin it?”

  “No. The chips in that orbiter were a long way from Earth when the pulse hit.” Celine gestured, to include Wilmer, Jenny, and Reza. She spoke slowly and carefully, seeing his finger tight on the trigger. “We were in deep space, returning to Earth from Mars. We landed at this location because we had no choice. We had to adapt an orbiter using our own equipment and programs, and this was the only landing site that we could reach.” She hesitated before the next words. “We are the only surviving members of the first Mars expedition.”

  It was a bad moment. Nowhere near as awful as watching Zoe and the others immolated on their attempt at reentry, but piercing and heartbreaking in its own way. Talking about the expedition made the contrast more striking. A couple of weeks ago they had done it all, they had won it all. The crew was returning intact and healthy, coming home to certain honor and glory and acclamation.

  Now they stood, the lonely four who had lived, cold and exhausted in this snow-covered valley, facing a hostile man who showed no shred of interest or excitement at meeting the first people ever to walk the surface of the red planet. So far as he was concerned, they were just intruders. At her words he had raised his gun and was pointing it at her chest.

  “You are defilers of Heaven.” He was broad-chested and tall, topping even Wilmer by a few centimeters. The left side of his chest and the cuffs of his long-sleeved gray tunic bore an unfamiliar emblem, a bird’s scarlet talons enclosing a green globe. “If your fate lay in my hands, it would lead you straight to hell. Into the vehicles. And giddyup!”

  Celine was afraid, for Wilmer and Reza more than for her and Jenny. They were all used to taking orders — but not from strangers. Jenny would be cautious. Unless Celine acted at once, though, either Reza or Wilmer was likely to balk. Given Reza’s unpredictable mood for the past few days, he might do absolutely anything.

  “Come on,” she said, and moved quickly forward to climb the step into the backseat of one of the trucks. She sensed rather than heard the stir of rebellion on her right, and patted the seat. “That includes you, Wilmer. This is no time for heroics.”

  Her companions hesitated, looking from the man to the woman with the gun in the other truck. To her relief they moved forward without arguing. Wilmer settled himself on one side of Celine, placing his little backpack on the seat next to him. The man with the gun took the seat on the other side. “Smart move, lady,” he said gruffly. “If you got troubles, you sure brung ’em on yourselves. Didn’t you know your actions defiled God’s domain? As for your arrival here, that was foreordained.”

  Reza and Jenny had gone to sit in the other vehicle. Celine decided that they would have to fend for themselves — perhaps not too difficult, s
ince no one but the man with the machine gun had so far said a word. She turned to face him, and found that his gun was still pointing at her chest.

  “You must know who we are,” she said. “I’m sure that for months before Supernova Alpha, the media were full of news about the Mars expedition. I’m Celine Tanaka, and I was in charge of instrumentation. But who are you, and what is this group? Why do you say that our arrival was foreordained?”

  Knowledge is power. When you can’t do anything else, try to collect information.

  He scowled. “Call me Eli, an’ a devoted servant of the Legion of Argos. That will be enough. As for news of you and your flight, I didn’t hear nothing. The media, as you call them, are pure corruption.” His voice changed to a programmed chant. “ ’Attend not to their mindless babble of invented trivia, nor to the self-aggrandizing trumpeting of their own importance. They are the instruments of Satan. Reject them, and dismiss their posturing.’ We done that, even at the height of their power. Then God’s strike came, and they were smashed. That is a blessing.”

  “So, Eli,” asked Wilmer, “if you didn’t get news from the media, how do you know anything about the Mars expedition?” He was leaning across Celine, and she knew that look. It was blind obstinacy combined with a lack of concern for consequences. Wilmer was as tired as she was, and at the end of his patience. If he started needling Eli it could be fatal.

  “Wilmer Oldfield, shut up,” she said, and gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs. Before he could do more than grunt in surprise, she turned to the other man. “Forgive his lack of control — or my lack of control over him. I’m afraid that our party lacks the strong discipline of the Legion of Argos since the death of our original leader. I now serve as leader, but I am new to the task. I request that you ignore all communications from this group that do not come to you directly from me.”

  She was taking a chance — among other things, on what Reza and Jenny might be saying in the other car. But Wilmer had understood the message of the elbow. He remained silent. And organizations generally approved of what they practiced. Eli was nodding with what might be approval.