Aftermath a-1

by Charles Sheffield

  As they moved into the bedroom she could sense Wilmer’s surprise. They had given each other none of the usual signals during dinner, and they were a couple to whom foreplay was very important.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asked as soon as they were alone.

  Celine peeped out of the almost-closed door, confirming that Jenny and Reza were following their example and heading through into their own bedroom.

  She sat down on one of the cots. “I’m fine. But we have to talk.”

  He flopped down next to her, with a what-did-I-do-now look on his face.

  “It’s nothing you did or I did,” Celine went on, “but in a couple of hours, the two of us have to escape to the surface and make a run for it. Shh!”

  His sudden turn had made the cot creak and its head bang against the wall. “Jenny—”

  “Whisper!”

  “What about Jenny and Reza?” Wilmer didn’t have a whisper, but he did lower his voice.

  “They won’t be going with us. Shut up now, and I’ll explain.”

  He listened in silence for the next few minutes, interrupting only once to say, “Break it with what?”

  “A piece from one of the cots, assuming we can get it off. That won’t be easy, because we’ll have to work quietly.”

  He nodded. As she continued with her explanation about the problem with Reza’s conversion, and Jenny’s solution to that, he moved over to the other cot and stooped beside it. Three minutes later he came back to sit beside her. He had a smug look on his face. In one hand he held the solid I-bar leg of the cot. His satisfaction disappeared when Celine said, “Wrap a piece of sheet around it. You may have to hit the guard on the head with it.”

  “But he’s just a kid. He hasn’t done anything to us.”

  “Then you’d better hope he’s sound asleep when we leave. If not, we have to knock him out.”

  “Can’t we just tie him up and gag him?”

  “Not quietly. Suppose Reza hears and comes out to see what’s happening? Be quiet now.” Celine listened closely for a minute. “Good. Jenny did it after all.”

  “Did what?”

  “Never mind. Lie there and rest. We’ll need all our energy in another hour or two. Sleep if you can.”

  Advice easy to give and impossible to follow. Celine lay on the cot, rehearsed their coming actions, listened for the end of the rhythmic sounds from the next room, and watched the clock. It was quarter past eleven when she nudged Wilmer — he had fallen asleep almost at once — and sat up. She switched off the light in the room.

  “Celine.” Wilmer spoke softly, his head close to hers.

  “What now?”

  “We have to bop him. If we don’t, they’ll never forgive him for going to sleep.”

  “I know. I thought of that, too. Can you do it?”

  “I hope so.” He gripped the cloth-wrapped iron tightly as Celine tiptoed to the door and eased it open. The young guard was sound asleep just outside, his head on Celine’s pillow. With his fair skin and unlined face he looked about ten years old. Wilmer raised the cudgel, and stood frozen. He shook his head.

  Celine took the club from him. “It’s worse for him if you don’t,” she said, and swung hard to the right side of the defenseless head. The young face went slack.

  Celine looked down in horror. She forced herself to whisper, “Get a sheet. We don’t know how long he’ll be unconscious. We have to tie and gag him.”

  And hope to God I haven’t killed him. While Wilmer was back in the bedroom she made a quick inspection. The head above the right ear was swollen. She could feel no depression beneath it. The skin was unbroken, and he seemed to be breathing normally. She eased him from the sleeping bag.

  After he was bound and gagged she had to make another decision. Should they leave him outside, where anyone in the corridor could find him? Or drag him inside, where his absence from his post might be noticed?

  Right decision or wrong decision, it was a leader’s job to make it. With Wilmer’s help she worked the bound youngster back into the sleeping bag, pulled it high on his face to hide the gag, and pushed him up against the closed door to their rooms. If anyone walked by, the lad was sleeping but everything was normal. If Reza opened the door, he would see that the rooms were still being guarded.

  “Come on. Bring the club, but take the cloth off it.” She was carrying their provisions, all the food that she and Jenny had been able to smuggle out of the cafeteria without anyone noticing. Wilmer had a blanket. It was pathetically little for an escape into the unknown.

  “What about his gun?” Wilmer was bending over the guard’s body.

  “No. If we have to shoot, we’ve lost. We’ll never get away if they’re following us so close.”

  She started off through the dimly lit tunnels, torn between haste and caution. For once, the rigid rules of the Legion of Argos were an advantage. There were hours to work, hours to eat — and hours to sleep. The corridors were deserted.

  The elevator took forever to arrive. When it finally came, the clanking of chains and groan of its cables seemed loud enough to alert anybody near. Celine hustled Wilmer aboard, hit the button beside the top icon of a book, and waited in agony until the door closed and the car began its slow ascent. The light was off and she did not know how to switch it on. They rose forever, in total darkness.

  Her memory of the observation chamber beside the schoolroom was inadequate. She remembered only one entrance, that from the elevator. Was there another, that would lead through into the school?

  The room was in darkness when they arrived. They waited, until at last Celine’s eyes adjusted to the weak glimmer coming to her from the observation window of the schoolroom. Celine went to the glass and peered through. The light was pale moonlight, and it was streaming in at the outside window.

  She turned to Wilmer, a ghostly silhouette outlined against the wall of glass. “Smash it. We don’t have time to look for another way.”

  She did not see him nod, but she heard the words: “Cover your face.”

  He put his shoulders and all his weight into the swing. The sound of iron I-bar hitting thick glass was unbelievable. The secondary noises, as Wilmer trimmed the bottom edge of the hole so they could walk through, were not much better. And then suddenly the only sound she could hear was his heavy breathing.

  “Come on. We’ll try the door on the left, and if it’s . . .”

  It was unlocked. Before she had time to think, Celine was through and standing outside on flat concrete. It was the school’s playground. In front of her stood a row of swings, a monkey puzzle, and a seesaw. The sight was so normal and yet so surprising that it made her breath catch in her throat.

  She looked around. On their left was a line of rounded hills. To the right, a half-moon hung low in the sky. The face shone a curious orange-yellow — an effect of Supernova Alpha? A week ago they had been coasting far beyond it, approaching a crescent Luna that partnered a crescent Earth.

  She sought familiar stars. Wilmer was ahead of her. “That’s north,” he said. He was pointing in front of them. “See, there’s Cassiopeia, and there’s Polaris. Which way do we go?”

  He expected her to provide an answer. She didn’t have one. In a sense, it didn’t matter. They simply had to escape from the Legion of Argos. But the whole escape would be pointless if they did nothing with the information that they had gained.

  Reza had been a damned good pilot, with a pilot’s instinctive sense of place. He thought he had brought them down somewhere north of Richmond. If that were the case, the hills on the left would be part of the Shenandoahs. And Washington would lie ahead, to the northeast.

  Then there was the moon. It was to the east of them, so it must be rising. That meant they would have light to see by — or to be seen. By dawn, they must be far enough away to go safely to ground.

  “We go east,” Celine said. “It will be flatter in that direction. We’ll make faster progress.”

  “Right.” Wilmer lifte
d the iron bar. “Do we still need this?”

  “No. You can dump it.”

  Celine spoke without thinking, and she took for granted Wilmer’s prompt release of their homemade club. But then, as she led the way east toward the strange orange moon and across a spongy damp meadow scattered with Queen Anne’s lace and tall ferns, she thought very hard.

  What has happened inside, to turn me into a woman who gives orders and expects to be obeyed without question?

  How different are Celine Tanaka and Zoe Nash and Pearl Lazenby? Are we all sisters under the skin?

  Maybe, as long as I have thoughts like this, I’ll be all right.

  32

  Art and Dana were heading for Washington, after a night where a hot meal and a soft bed had been wonderful luxuries. Yasmin Silvers had tried for an aircraft from Indian Head, but all the planes were assigned to other missions. She had settled for a topless converted Jeep, with an engine so loud that Yasmin as driver had to turn and shout if Art and Dana were to hear a word.

  It didn’t matter to Art. He had always preferred driving to flying. The morning continued yesterday’s heat wave, the snow was gone, and a breeze felt good on his face. The sun warmed the top of his head and threw golden highlights off Dana’s hair. He had never seen it so light in color. His only problem was a terrible thirst.

  They were approaching the city from the south, cruising along the elevated freeway. The AVC system that controlled vehicle speeds and separations was out of action, but the road held an amazing amount of traffic. Most of it was cars less than ten years old, presumably with fix-ups that bypassed fuel injectors, catalytic converters, and anything else that depended on chips. Tinkerers must be in huge demand. But Art also saw square-built Japanese imports from the eighties, a diesel Rabbit like the first car that he had ever owned, vintage Harleys, a finned American monstrosity older than he was, a dune buggy, a Knighton DB-4 in perfect condition, and dozens of VW bugs — the originals, not the late nineties reissue.

  Happy days, when a car still made you a king. Art closed his eyes, snuggled down in the seat, and lost himself in memories.

  That was when Dana reached out, touched his hand, and said, “Don’t worry. Your friends will be fine.”

  She had noticed his silence, but misunderstood. At breakfast Art had confided his worry that Seth Parsigian and Oliver Guest were heading for his home in Catoctin Mountain Park, while he was forced to go to Washington. He had friends there.

  But in the Jeep he had not been thinking about them at all. The sight of the cars from other generations had pushed him far into his own past. He had been reliving the September evening when a multivehicle pileup totaled their van and came so close to killing Mary.

  Art had no intention of telling any of that to Dana, even though she would probably be sympathetic. And he didn’t need to, because she assumed that his mind was on the situation up at Catoctin Mountain.

  So what was he doing, head close to Dana’s to overcome the engine noise, staring up into a smoky blue sky and explaining what had happened thirty years ago? He blurted out everything, all the details; more than he had ever told anyone before. That was before an AVC system existed, he explained, and the cause of the pileup was a doctor who had changed lanes sharply to avoid a truck entering the freeway. The domino effect went all the way to the fastest lane. Mary had been overtaking there when her van was sideswiped and pushed farther over. Another two feet and she would have hit a concrete overpass support, head-on, at sixty miles an hour.

  She had been untouched. Later they had laughed about it together, agreeing that it was the close call of a lifetime. Who could have guessed, then, that she had only six years left?

  As Art fell silent, Dana reached out and patted his arm. “I’m sorry. Sad memories. But I’m glad you told me.”

  “I shouldn’t have.”

  “Of course you should,” Dana said. “You needed to.” She turned, presenting Art with a view of the back of her blond head.

  He looked beyond her. As they came closer to the center of Washington, traffic slowed to a crawl. The roar of the Jeep’s engine reduced to a threatening grumble and normal conversation became possible. Every traffic light was out, and the police at major intersections lacked experience. The Jeep had halted with a dozen cars in front of it, waiting for the hand signal to proceed. A boy about ten and a girl not much older were pushing a baby carriage along the median beside the line of stopped cars. A hand-lettered sign on the front of the carriage said fresh frutes and vegatibles.

  “One more casualty of Supernova Alpha,” Dana said. “Without spell checkers, maybe we’ll learn to spell again.”

  “We never did before we had them.” Art leaned out of the Jeep as the carriage reached them. “What fruit do you have there?”

  The grubby-faced boy held up a little basket. “Strawberries. That’s all. Nothing else ripe yet.”

  “How much?”

  The boy conferred with the girl, then asked, “How would you pay?”

  “Dollar bills.”

  “All right. Twenty dollars.”

  Art exchanged looks with Dana — good news; currency was back in use again, at least in Washington — and said, “I bet there’s not more than a pound in that basket. Talk about robbery!”

  The girl scowled at him. “It’s not. You’re lucky to get these. It’s supposed to be too early for strawberries, but most are already rotted. Take ’em or leave ’em.”

  Art handed over the money and gave the basket of strawberries to Dana. He peered into the baby carriage as it went by.

  “Now that’s interesting.”

  “What is?” Dana was turning over the fruit, looking for the ripest. She handed one forward to Yasmin, gave another to Art, put one in her own mouth, and said indistinctly around it, “These haven’t been washed. They’re not very big, either. What’s interesting? They seemed like ordinary vegetables to me.”

  “They are. Radishes and lettuce and onions, early peas and beans. It’s what’s missing that’s interesting.”

  “All right, Sherlock. I’ll take the bait. What’s missing?”

  “No signs of the bigger-better-tastier-faster recoms. You’d expect the carriage to be full of gene-spliced forms. Not a one.”

  “So?”

  “So we and our science created superior specialized food plants, precisely tuned to a particular ecological niche. Then the niche disappeared. The older, more primitive forms survived.” Art accepted another unwashed strawberry and ate it cheerfully. “A man could become philosophical about that.”

  “A man better not, unless he wants a woman to ignore him.” Dana sat up straighter and stared ahead. “Now what’s going on?”

  The Jeep had been on Maine Avenue, ready to follow the traffic north onto Fifteenth Street. There were signs of major clear-up efforts, but the streets still held scattered heaps of trash and rubble. Instead of steering a way around them, Yasmin made an unexpected right turn at a narrow ramp and rolled down below street level.

  “Avoiding bottlenecks in the middle of town,” she shouted back to them. She sounded pleased with herself over the engine’s rattle. “We’ll go the rest of the way underground. Save half an hour.”

  Art thought again how tough she must be, under the sexy and decorative exterior. She had to be thinking about and grieving for her brother, but she held it under tight control. He was admiring Yasmin for that when Dana glanced at him in the sudden gloom and said, “An underground road system in Washington? That’s a new one on me.”

  “Me, too. And I thought I knew the city pretty well. If it’s going to be like this all the way, I don’t think we’ll save much time.”

  The Jeep had stopped at the bottom of the ramp. The automatic gate designed to accept an ID card was not working. It stood wide open, but a man in Army uniform stood by the gate. He took the pass that Yasmin held out and examined it closely before he waved them on. A couple of hundred yards farther along, the whole process was repeated.

  “The
Pentagon?” Dana asked, after the third halt and inspection.

  “But then we’d have to cross the river. Maybe Capitol Hill?”

  Yasmin must have heard their questions, but she pointedly did not answer them. All she said was, “It’s a lot quicker when the automatic ID checks are working.”

  She made a final left turn and the Jeep emerged into a vast parking garage. The floor was blacktop, the whitewashed ceiling lit by fluorescent bulbs and no more than seven feet high. Yasmin drove all the way to the far end. The spaces there were tiny, designed for electric urban runabouts. Each had a sign: RESERVED, SPECIAL STAFF. PARK IN DESIGNATED SPOTS ONLY. AS A COURTESY TO THE NEXT USER, MAKE SURE THAT YOUR VEHICLE IS PLUGGED IN FOR RECHARGE. DO NOT OCCUPY MORE THAN ONE SPACE.

  Yasmin parked the Jeep neatly, but it was so wide it sprawled across two spaces. She shrugged. “So they’ll probably sue me. Come on.”

  They climbed down. Art took three steps and paused, puzzled. After a moment he realized what the problem was. It was like the gene-spliced fruit and vegetables, something noticeable by its absence. His right knee was guaranteed to stiffen up after hours in one position. This morning he felt not a twinge. It must be the telomod treatment, it could be nothing else. The urgency hit him again. He and Dana needed to get out of here and learn what was happening with Seth and Oliver Guest. Without the genome scanners, everything going on inside their cells was guesswork.

  He hurried after Yasmin and Dana, in through yet another checkpoint complete with armed guard. Then it was an elevator, rising steadily for four floors. And, at last, they were inside a structure designed for people rather than vehicles.

  Yasmin picked up a telcom by the elevator door, made a connection, and said, “Yasmin. I’m back.”

  Art sensed an odd tension in her voice, but she went on, “How’s his schedule? Yes, ten minutes should be enough.”

  She led them along a short corridor, saying good morning to the handful of people they passed. Clearly, she was a regular. And clearly, this was the house of someone very rich. Everything — pictures, carpets, drapes — was either an antique or a superb fake.