Rounding a rear corner of his cabin, Fred shielded his eyes as he looked to the sky, searching for the reason why his morning mantra had been disturbed. And he found it. There to the north, flying toward the horizon at what must have been very close to the speed of sound, were three men. One had bright crimson skin and sported a flapping yellow cape; one wore a suit of gold-and-red metal; and one wore nothing but a pair of green swimming trunks.
“Far out,” said Fred Zitz. Maybe he had reached nirvana, after all!
The three flying figures diminished, then disappeared, and Fred turned back to walk to the front of his cabin. He decided that he wouldn’t tell Mr. Cassidy over at the trading post of what he’d seen, just as he wouldn’t mention the strange sight he’d witnessed a half hour earlier: the silvery jet that had swooped low over his homestead, banking so that he could see that it was being piloted by a blue gorilla. No, ol’ “Hoppy” already thought he was a weirdo. (Cassidy was probably one of the few people still alive who used the term “hippie” regularly) and there was no use in adding fuel to the prejudicial fire.
Closing the cabin door behind him, Fred crossed the dark, sparsely furnished room and sat down on his genuine polyester fur rug. As he lit a fresh stick of strawberry incense, he thought of a friend he had had in school. The friend had been from Tennessee, and frequently wore a sometimes-controversial button with the slogan, “The South shall rise again!”. As he closed his eyes and touched his middle fingers to his thumbs and began chanting a low, throaty “ommmmmmm,” Fred Zitz wondered if the same thing could ever be said about the sixties.
Right on, right on, right on.
Six
“Are we not men?”
“We are Devo! D-e-v-o!”
Quicksilver scowled as he scrunched down a little lower in his plush chair at the rear of the quinjet’s cockpit. Normally, he considered the combination crew and passenger area—roughly the same size as the passenger lounge in a top of the line Learjet—to be more than comfortably spacious. But now, he thought, the full length of a 747 couldn’t keep him far enough away from the strains of electric guitar and semi-harmony that screeched from the twin speakers set in the craft’s control console.
“My God, Beast!” he bellowed. “Can’t we listen to something beside that cacophony of useless noise? I know we’ve tapes of Wagner and Sibelius on board—I purchased them myself!”
Slumped comfortably in the swiveling pilots seat, one leg draped casually over an armrest and one furry finger deftly manipulating the ultrasensitive control lever, the blue-hued Beast cocked his head back toward Quicksilver.
“Aw, come on, Quicksy. Don’t be such a stick-in-the-muck. Punk rock is like modern art. It’s like theater of the absurd. It’s the ultimate expression of the frustration and paranoia that permeates to the core of today’s society. And anyway,” he added, turning back to the control console with a sly grin, “it’s always good for a couple of laughs.”
Quicksilver grimaced, cringing at a particularly discordant passage. “Really, Thor, Iron Man appointed you leader of this subgroup. Can’t you do something? I honestly believe the upper range of my aural sensitivity is being permanently impaired!”
Standing at one side of the cockpit, looking down out of the wide, curved windshield, Thor’s expression was also somewhat pinched. “Verily, I doth admit to a distinct preference for the dulcet tones of an Asgardian choir,” he said, turning to face the other three Avengers, “but our number hath a standing rule that doth allow this vehicle’s operator his choice of amusements. And ’tis a doctrine I see no warrant for abandoning now.”
Answering with a simple expulsion of air through clenched teeth, Quicksilver turned his chair completely around to face the rear of the cockpit. Then, as if in punctuation, he jammed his fingers melodramatically into his ears and began humming the first movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Off-key.
The Scarlet Witch, seated leisurely in the copilot’s chair, swiveled around to face the Beast, smiling sweetly. “Don’t worry, Hank, I understand. You’re just trying to make a long trip go faster, right?”
“Hey, Wanda, you got it. Right on the ol’ nose-a-roony.”
“Of course I do. I mean, all this mile-after-mile travel can get monotonous, even at the speed we’re going. And heaven forbid if we should be bored going into battle, especially into one that might cost us our very lives. Why, it’s so much more practical to stay alert by being angry, aggravated, and generally annoyed, isn’t it?”
“Uh,” the Beast cleared his throat, somewhat self-consciously swinging his leg down from the armrest and sitting up straighter. “Point taken, Wanda. Scuzi.”
With that, he reached over and plucked the “Devo” tape from its nearby slot and tossed it with characteristic skill into the floor-mounted disposal chute some ten feet away. Then he rummaged through an array of eight-track cartridges on a shelf beneath the console, slid one of Cap’s tapes into the slot, and returned, resignedly, to the task of piloting the quinjet. Soon, the laid-back voice of Perry Como filled the cockpit.
The rest of the trip should go okay, thought the Beast, if I can just keep from throwing up on the dashboard.
But though the tension quickly ebbed within the speeding aircraft, it was not replaced by joviality or small talk. For as the miles of Alaskan countryside continued to pass below, the Avengers’ thoughts turned inward, creating a brooding silence that was nearly as oppressive as it was calm.
The Scarlet Witch brought a hand up to hold her chin between forefinger and thumb, looking out past the hard glass of the windshield, past the chopped winter clouds, to see the face of her husband. She had been separated from the Vision in battle numerous times before—and she had hated it then, too. But they were professionals, with a professional’s attitude. Thus they accepted their assignments in stride, from fighting interstellar wars to filling out endless report forms to, in those rare instances when Jarvis was on vacation, even taking out the garbage.
But this time things were different. This time the Vision was going up against an enemy he had fought, and lost to, before. An enemy whose origin and capabilities were unknown, an enemy who had withstood the Vision’s greatest weapons without harm, an enemy who could quite possibly douse his life with the ease of a thumb snuffing a candle. She wanted to be with him, to help him and, if it came to that, to die with him. And it was little comfort to consider that he was almost certainly thinking the same about her. But she was, indeed, a professional, and so merely sat quietly in the copilot’s seat, knowing that all she could really do was look at the clouds . . . and love him.
At the rear of the cockpit, Quicksilver had turned his chair back around—the crooning that now wafted from the stereo speakers had no texture, but at least it was inoffensive. Settling himself more comfortably into the plush seat cushion, he scowled. It seemed as though his whole life had been a compromise, and sometimes he thought that he would have been better off had he remained in Europe, on the run, a mutant hunted for the sin of being different. At least then he had been his own man. But when the opportunity to join the Avengers had come, he had taken it eagerly; not for himself, but for his sister. And that had led to the greatest compromise of all.
For shortly before he and Wanda had been orphaned, their father had taken him aside and, as if acting on some premonition, had made him swear to always take care of his sister. Pietro had loved his father, and had done everything in his power to live up to that last promise he had made to him. Joining the Avengers had thus seemed the right move. If they were fated to face danger, it might as well be in the company of other powerful beings who could enhance their chances for survival. And so he had accepted the regimen of working within a team, had accepted the roll of superhero, and he had endured.
But then Wanda had married that . . . machine! And a great portion of his responsibility as protector had shifted to a wire-and-plastic mannequin whose very claim to life was, at best, dubious. He had felt lessened by that marriage, and demean
ed, as his sister should have. But Wanda had proven content in that joining, and thus he had lost control of one part of her destiny forever. He now looked to the front of the quinjet, at the strongly beautiful woman who was his sister, and his scowl deepened.
He was tired of compromise.
Respecting the air of introspection that pervaded the cockpit, Thor quietly crossed the passenger section to sit in one of the empty chairs, stooping slightly as he walked so that his winged helm wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. He placed Mjolnir on legginged knees, horizontal, hand resting loosely on handle, and considered his situation. He was a god, the son of Odin, and the mightiest warrior in the far-off, mystical realm of Asgard. He had friends in that homeland—Hogun, Fandral, Volstagg among others—friends who were loyal and stouthearted and true. Yet he felt a special affection for these mortal Earthlings at whose side he had fought so many times—an affection, and a respect.
For whereas he had been born a hero, granted his power and destiny by heritage and the higher gods, these self-styled Avengers had chosen their lot. Sporting abilities gained by manufacture or accident, they had elected to spend their fleeting, mortal lives in the combatting of evil, and the pursuit of just causes. His heart went out to his courageous comrades, and he hoped that their quest for Captain America would prove both short and successful. Because though, as a god, he had fair assurance that he would survive their rapidly approaching encounter with the unknown, he could only pray to his father that he would not be alone in that continuance.
The quinjet sped over increasingly bleak terrain, making a slight course change to the northwest. While at the cockpit console, the Beast switched from a near empty fuel tank to a full one, and caught himself singing along with the lyrics of “Find a ring, and it goes round, round, round . . .” Quickly, he glanced from side to side to see if anyone had noticed. Apparently, no one had. Thankful for spared embarrassment, he closed his eyes and sat back, heaving a sigh of relief. Which made it all the more startling when the Scarlet Witch spoke.
“Beast?”
“Hnyah? What?” The fuzzy pilot jumped in his seat—which, for the Beast, meant a good twelve inches off the cushion. “Oh, uh, yeah, Wanda? What is it?”
The Scarlet Witch was holding a standard navigation chart in her lap, pointing to an area in northern Alaska that had been marked with a red, felt-tipped pen. “According to this, we’re almost there. Another eight to ten minutes and we should be flying over the Bantu village.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just waiting ’til we got a little closer to break the good news. But what the—hey!” He turned in his seat to face the other two Avengers. “Heads up, guys, Eskimo country dead ahead. Keep your eyes peeled for polar bears, takeout blubber joints, and anyone who looks like Anthony Quinn.”
Nobody laughed at the Beast’s humor, not even the Beast. But the mood inside the hurtling quinjet had altered, nevertheless. Gone was the heavy aura of soul-searching, the sullen air of discontent. In their place was an electricity, an excitement, a quickening of the pulse, and a heightening of the senses. And there was one more sensation that crackled through the cockpit, a feeling that was as much a part of being an Avenger as was pride or courage.
It was the dry, anticipatory tang of fear.
The wind had eased considerably, and the snow had stopped altogether. Aningan Kenojuak stood at the base of a small hill and remembered. It had been well over a decade since he had last been here, and his nostrils dilated eagerly to the smell of the place, his eyes half closing with visions of the past. Over this single rise was the village of the Bantu—his village. He could almost see the scattered mounds of the igloos, the billowing ribbons of smoke rising from the cooking fires. He knew that the mighty Koyukuk followed its familiar path in the distance, its surface pock-marked with fishing holes, and dotted with the cured hide shelters of the fishermen. He longed for that sight, longed for it as a man lost in a desert longs for water, as a man damned for eternity longs for salvation.
“Can you sense it, My Lord? Can you taste the very splendor of it all? In mere moments, we shall be among our people once again. You will be worshiped for all the wonderment and fortune you bring, while I will be looked to for wisdom and guidance. We shall be home . . .”
There was a sparkle in the old shaman’s eyes, and a lilt in his voice that hadn’t been there for years. At his side, Captain America took no notice, being as he was still encased, unconscious, in a block of ice that floated approximately a foot above the frozen ground.
Aningan and his charge had appeared in a pink nimbus some fifteen minutes earlier, and he had spent the time since in looking, thinking, smelling—and in screwing up his courage. Now, he began to make his way up the hill, tentatively placing one heavily-booted foot before the other, savoring each small footstep. One hand stroked the shiny String Of Stones that dangled outside of the thick fur parka that he now wore. And like a bizarre, obedient puppy, the ice-crusted Captain America followed, hovering above the snow as if suspended from hidden wires.
Aningan stumbled, regained his footing, and hurried on, scrambling now, unable to control his excitement. Finally, he reached the top of the rise and turned his gaze to the site of the village in which he had lived for so many years, and of which he had dreamed for so many more.
The village wasn’t there.
The aged Eskimo blinked. He shut his eyes tightly and then opened them, slowly, unbelievingly. There were no igloos at the bottom of the hill. There were no cook fires, no dogsleds, no fishnets or drying racks. There was instead what could only be called a town. Two rows of cinder-block and shingle buildings ran parallel to each other for a length of several hundred yards, terminating at either end in a hodgepodge of more temporary-looking wood-and-canvas structures. The buildings were fronted by long, wood-plank sidewalks that ran their entire length, and the area that separated the rows—the street?—had been cleared of snow so that the occasional jeep or land rover could slog slowly through inches-deep mud and slush. The often hand-lettered signs proclaimed certain buildings to be bar, hotel, or company store, and sky-grabbing television and radio antennas reached from the roofs of many of them. The town was busy, and while some of its scurrying citizens were Eskimos, most were white.
Aningan Kenojuak didn’t understand. He looked to the distance, searching for the river, thinking that perhaps he had made a mistake, that the years of isolation had played tricks with his sense of direction. But no, the mighty Koyukuk was still there, just as he remembered. Only now something lay between the river and the town, something he definitely didn’t remember: a thick, black tube that ran from horizon to horizon, held above the ground by steel support beams and looking like some gargantuan, unmoving snake. Aningan Kenojuak furrowed his brow; he still didn’t understand.
But then, Aningan Kenojuak had never heard of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Living in self-exile, he had had no cognizance of the crisis that had befallen an energy-hungry America; no perception of the invading force of engineers, administrators, and construction workers that had moved through Alaska like a swarm of army ants, stripping the environment clean and leaving in its wake a serpentine coil of steel and fiberglass, along with a scattering of instant cities to house that coil’s keepers. Aningan had no way of knowing that his dreams of restoring the old ways had been sabotaged not by time, but by the low burble of fossil fuel, and the insidious grasp of dollar-a-gallon greed.
“You . . . you wait here, My Lord.” The old medicine man waved a bony hand at his ice-bound companion, distractedly, his awe-widened eyes still staring at the town below. “I-I’ll see . . . I mean, I’ll find out . . . I . . .”
Aningan’s trembling words faded, the sentence unfinished, as he began to skid down the slope toward the town. He couldn’t or wouldn’t take his eyes from the cinder-block buildings and so fell several times as he scurried, tripping and slipping on jutting rocks or patches of snow. On the rise behind him, Captain America hovered and seemed unconcerned.
The shaman slowed as he reached the town, passing through an alleyway and reaching out to the buildings on either side, hoping desperately that they were mere illusion, and would disappear when touched. They weren’t, and didn’t. Finally the old man stepped onto the sidewalk along the main street, and the reality of the situation hit him with the force of a doubled-up fist. From all sides he was bombarded by alien sights, sounds, and smells. People rushed, radios blared, garbage reeked. But the most appalling insult of all glared at him from across the mud-mired street, from above the single-storied structure that served as the town’s post office. It was a simple, block-lettered sign that read, “Bantu Junction.” Junction? Had his once proud and noble tribe come to this?
Aningan looked from side to side, fighting to control the turmoil writhing within his soul. There! Several buildings up the street! He saw what must have once been one of his people, a young Eskimo man about twenty years old, loading large bags of cement from the sidewalk into the back of a battered pickup truck. The man was stocky, with fine, dark features, and whistled casually as he went about his task. Aningan shuffled forward as the man heaved the last bag in and closed the truck’s loading gate. Then, placing a hand on the man’s arm to get his attention, the shaman said, “Please. You must tell me what has happened! Th-This shouldn’t be! It’s not proper!”
The young man looked down at Aningan Kenojuak with a friendly smile. “Hey, pop, what’s the matter? Got a problem?”
“This place is wrong. The village must be restored.” The old medicine man spoke matter-of-factly, as if stating an obvious truth. “I’ve returned with the One True God and we must rid His sanctum of unbelievers, lest He leave us again. We must all bow down before Him and worship Him and He will bring back to us all that is good and simple and pure.”
Marvel Novel Series 10 - The Avengers - The Man Who Stole Tomorrow Page 7
