Worlds in Chaos

by James P. Hogan

  They came to an open area where military personnel at desks were working in front of a situation board occupying most of one wall, the others covered in charts, maps, and an array of aerial photographs. A large map of the surrounding parts of Texas and New Mexico was marked with red circles showing what looked like craters, and various other annotations. Weyland’s office was at the far end, consisting simply of a smaller space separated by a partition. It had a desk and side table covered with papers, more wall maps, and several upright chairs along two of the walls. A naked bulb hung from a cord overhead, shaking slightly to the vibrations of machinery somewhere nearby.

  Weyland was tall and wirily built, on the young side for his rank, Keene thought, forceful in manner, with straight black hair brushed to one side and dark, intense eyes that refused to be cowed by the situation. His face was dark with stubble, and he wore a flak jacket over a grimy, sweat-stained shirt. The three arrivals were shown in by the sergeant, who then left. They introduced themselves; Weyland invited them to take seats. He draped his elbows over the arms of his chair and looked them over.

  “I understand from the phone call that you just got here from Phoenix, and before that you were in a plane crash. You just about look it, too. We’ve got soup, beans, and coffee going, if you could use some.”

  Mitch said that sounded great but explained that they had some injured back at the airfield who needed medical attention urgently. Weyland stared at them for several seconds. Then, sparing them a lecture on the obvious, he got up, went to the gap at the end of the partition that served as a doorway, and called over one of his officers. He outlined the situation, and the officer went away to make some calls. Keene and Colby nodded their thanks. Keene didn’t feel entirely comfortable about jumping the line. But there are times when one has to look after one’s own. “And now can we get you people something to eat?” Weyland asked again. They accepted.

  It turned out that the general’s readiness to receive them stemmed more from a hope of being told more himself of what was going on than any recognition of a need to inform them. He had assumed from Colby’s credentials that they represented, or at least could enlighten him as to the existence of, some administrative authority that had survived of a national or even international nature. He was in landline contact with the military command at Cheyenne Mountain, several regional headquarters, and also a number of FEMA centers. As far as he was aware, Washington had ceased functioning. The President, along with his family and immediate staff, had vanished three days previously with Air Force One when the administration left for the war-survival and command center located near Atlanta. The Secretary of State was supposed to have taken charge in Atlanta provisionally, but Weyland hadn’t had any contact from there. A further mystery was the disappearance of the Vice President, who had left to set up a West Coast shadow government a day before the President’s departure from Washington. Colby set the record straight on that score, which led to an account of the mission that had taken him and Keene to California. It was the first news Weyland had heard of what had become of the Kronians. Keene presumed that General Ullman would have reported it at Cheyenne Mountain, which seemed by default to have become the nearest that existed to a national coordinating center. Weyland noted the details, clearly with the intention of reporting them independently anyway. His unspoken implication—that there was no guarantee that anyone from Vandenberg had made it to Cheyenne Mountain—didn’t hit Keene until a couple of minutes afterward. Maybe he was more tired than he realized, he told himself.

  Weyland then moved to local and more immediate matters. Sitting on America’s rocky spine, El Paso was the focus of two floods of evacuees converging eastward from southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and in the opposite direction from Texas and Oklahoma. They were arriving hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and traumatized, the survivors of meteorite falls, firestorms, hurricanes, and rain torrents, bringing their sick and their injured by the tens of thousands; by the hundreds of thousands. And there, in the dust, the dryness, and the heat that was setting in after the rain, they would die, as they were already starting to, in numbers almost as large. The emergency measures that it had proved possible to mobilize in the time available were too few and too late. And in any case, all the planning had been a product of the slowly evolving thinking of years gone by. None of it had envisaged anything like this. The worst that had been imagined was nuclear war, in which strikes on worthwhile targets and perhaps population centers would produce intense devastation in relatively localized areas, but with comparatively unscathed regions between, able to provide help and relief. But with everywhere smitten equally, there was nowhere to turn to. For every township and community, enclave and locality, anything beyond the preoccupation of staying alive from one hour to the next and securing a refuge to gain some respite vanished from the equation of reality. The result was that the whole infrastructure by which the nation maintained itself as a cohesive social and productive organism was coming apart with a rapidity that in any other circumstance would have been deemed impossible; and the same was no doubt true for every other part of the world also.

  “What you’ve told me confirms what we already guessed,” Weyland concluded. “We’re going to have to rely on our own resources to get us through this. No supraregional authority is going to emerge and start giving directions. The centers that I mentioned earlier have all got problems of their own as bad as ours here. Nobody has anything to spare. Our immediate concern is providing shelter accommodation and conserving fuel and provisions. The eventual aim is to consolidate communications between key centers along a line running through here, Denver, and up along the Rockies, that will enable mutually supportive logistics, including the restoration of a minimal power grid. With tight management I’m estimating hitting a rock-bottom situation at about three months from now, after which we should be able to start pulling things back together. In the war game scenarios, they used to figure on getting back to normal forty years after an all-out exchange. So maybe if we doubled that, we wouldn’t be too far out. What do you think? I wouldn’t be around to see it, but at least it would mean leading a useful life. So there’s my take. Where are you people going to fit in? What kind of plans do you have next?”

  Three months? Start pulling things back together? The words echoed dully in Keene’s mind. It seemed that President Hayer had done too good a job in instilling hope and optimism when he addressed the nation. No concept of what the present events were leading to had yet taken root on any significant basis. Probably that was just as well.

  Right now, Keene wasn’t about to launch into anything that would give Weyland cause to reappraise the prospects. Nothing was going to change them, and there was probably no better way in which he could expend his energies. And besides, Keene could feel his own energy draining, even as he turned the thought over. His eyes were closing involuntarily; he felt himself sway on the chair and checked himself with a start. The surroundings seemed to float out of focus and reverberate with hollow sounds and voices that came and went. He was distantly aware of Colby and Mitch looking at him strangely, and himself murmuring that he didn’t have any plans. . . .

  And either he passed out then, or simply fell asleep on the spot.

  44

  Keene was out until the next day and awoke to a feeling of having slept solidly for the first time in a week, probably having been given sedation. His sores had been cleaned and treated. He felt stronger. And once again a shower and a shave worked their wonders. He was in a room that Weyland had assigned in the mine vaults, where Cavan, Alicia, and Charlie Hu had also been brought. Cynthia, now resigned to the loss of Tom, had come too rather than remain with the group from Vandenberg. It seemed she wanted to break from everything connected with her old life. Nobody objected. Mitch and Dan, with the uninjured remnant of the Special Forces contingent, had moved into military quarters in the upper levels.

  Charlie Hu was mobile again, although stiff, and hobbled in with the others when wo
rd went around that Keene was conscious. The news was that Ullman’s group in the Samson had made it to Cheyenne Mountain. Meteorite storms east of the Mississippi had been severe. Communications were poor, and nothing had been heard from the national administration supposedly being set up in Atlanta. Huge tides were developing in all coastal areas. Aircraft losses had been horrific; since the surviving equipment would have to serve for an indeterminate time, further flying, except where deemed essential by the highest authorities, was discontinued until conditions eased. In the El Paso area, rock and gravel falls were continuing steadily, with occasional showers of flaming naphtha. There had been armed confrontations over demands for supplies, access to care and shelter, and possession of ownerless goods and vehicles.

  Alicia appeared just as Keene was settling down to the first food he had been able to enjoy for days. She had conceded to the inevitable and cut her hair short. Her face, while less red and inflamed than when he had last seen it, was smeared with cream and still a far cry from the cover-model complexion that had emerged from the Rustler at Vandenberg. “You’re looking amazingly better already,” she told Keene. “Quick recovery means there’s a lot of reserve left yet. Eating well, too. Even better.”

  “I never thought there’d be a day when I’d say Army cooking beats anything I can name,” Keene replied. “But there it is.” He dug hungrily into the plate of eggs, biscuit, gravy, and sausage. “What about you? How have you been? Have some coffee.”

  “Apart from the outside, not too bad. My face feels as if it’s been sandpapered.” Alicia poured coffee into a mug for herself, adding milk from a cardboard carton.

  “You’ve been working nonstop. How do you do it?”

  “It must be my virtuous character. And then having Leo around is always an inspiration.”

  “There’s another one who amazes me. How did you get to meet him? You know, in all the years I’ve known him, he’s never told me.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “No. Tell me. I’m curious.”

  “Oh, it was in a bar in Manhattan. I was young and new here—just took a notion to see the other side of the world. This guy was coming on strong and being a pain—you know, a jerk. Leo saw that I didn’t know how to deal with it, so he moved in and gave him a lesson in charm and manners. I think I just wanted to see the look on the guy’s face when I walked out to go someplace else with a man twice his age.” Alicia chuckled. “Leo knew I would, because he’s got the same kind of humor. Anyway, it grew from there. He thinks I’m crazy, you know.”

  “Does he really?”

  “Don’t tell me he never told you.”

  “If he had, I’d probably choose not to remember.”

  Alicia started to smile, then winced as it stretched the dried skin around her mouth. “Oh, how gallant! I love it. You see, underneath all this outside, you’re just a romantic too.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You give up your place on the shuttle to go and find Vicki, and even that gorgeous Kronian woman can’t make you change your mind? Of course you are! What else is there to call it?”

  “Maybe I just didn’t like the thought of being privileged,” Keene suggested. “Equal opportunity. An old American tradition.”

  “Pah. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s just the gruff outside switching itself on again.” Alicia helped herself to a spare piece of biscuit. “So tell me about her, Lan.”

  Keene leaned back in the chair and sighed. “Oh . . . It wasn’t anything romantic. Just a kind of closeness that comes from two people who think the same way and share a lot of values and things. You know—she was the kind of person you never had to explain to about what you were thinking or how you felt, because she already knew. I don’t think I even realized it myself much until these last few weeks. . . .” Keene broke off when he realized that Alicia was frowning at him. He raised his eyebrows quizzically.

  “Why do you say she ‘was’?” Alicia asked. “You make her sound like a thing of the past, a piece of history already.”

  Keene stared at her uncertainly, then jerked his head in agitation. “Well, I mean, it’s . . .” He faltered, unable to say the painful but obvious.

  “Lan, what are you saying?”

  “What else is there to say? We tried. . . . That’s not an option anymore. All we can do now is stay here and figure out what—”

  “Lan!” Alicia protested. “You can’t! We’re not staying anywhere. We’re going on to San Saucillo like we said. You can’t change your mind now.”

  “But . . .” Keene shook his head. What other way was there to put it? “Alicia, there isn’t any way to get there. All flying is over, finished. They’re saving the planes for when things get better. It’ll be years before anyone can make any again. The roads are all choked or blocked, and whatever can move on them is going the wrong way.”

  “We don’t need the roads,” Alicia said. “I’ve been talking to some of General Weyland’s staff. Stocks of gas and supplies from south and east Texas have been concentrated in San Antonio. A train is leaving here tonight to bring a load back up to El Paso. There will be plenty of room on the outward run.”

  “And what do we do after San Antonio, walk?” Keene demanded. The words came out sharper and sounding more sarcastic than he had intended. He realized that his nerves were still on edge.

  “Snap out of it, Lan. It’s not like you,” Alicia said. “I don’t know what we do from there. Maybe with everyone coming the other way the roads will be easier between there and the coast.” Her eyes flamed at him. “But you just said yourself that things are going to get worse. How long will sitting down here do any good? There is only one way out now, and that’s off the planet. And the means to do it is down there in Mexico, not here.”

  Keene felt himself starting to object; then he checked himself, hunched forward to rest his elbows on the table, and stared at her. She was right. Like a soldier who refuses to leave a foxhole under fire, even though the position must ultimately fall, he wanted to put longer-term considerations from his mind and cling to the respite they had found here after the ordeal of the last few days. The security was an illusion that would last only so long. The more they delayed, the worse, at the end of it all, the odds must become. He shook his head, as if to reawaken the sense of realism that normally resided there.

  “Have the others said what they think about it yet?” he asked her.

  Alicia shook her head. “You are the first one I’ve told. I assumed they’d think the same way as I did—that there wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Keene finished the last of his coffee and stood up. “Then let’s go and find out,” he said.

  The upshot was that Cavan knew Alicia well enough not to bother arguing. Colby, in his inimitable way, agreed as casually as if they were planning a weekend vacation trip. Charlie Hu, more than any of them, was under no illusions as to what was in store. He expected there to be a lull of several days as Athena and Earth locked gravitationally to gyrate past each other like two passing skaters momentarily linking hands, during which time the bulk of the tail would be directed away. The train of debris following Athena would then wrap around Earth, causing falls more fearsome than anything that had occurred so far. Then, after actually receding for a distance as it swung by, Athena would be drawn back in for a final close pass before being ejected on a trajectory away from Earth. Charlie’s vote was to go for any chance of getting out if a chance was there. And Cynthia, having committed herself, had little choice but to go along with the rest of them.

  The only unresolved question was whether Mitch and his men could be induced to. With conditions deteriorating and violence breaking out, to press ahead without the protection of an armed force would be folly bordering on recklessness. There was only one way to find out. First, they went to talk to Mitch.

  Mitch’s initial reaction was surprise that they were still even contemplating Mexico. He had assumed that they’d tried their best, the fates had come out against them, and the only thing
left to consider was whether to stay in El Paso and place themselves under Weyland’s command or head for Colorado. He changed his opinion somewhat when Charlie explained why the worst was far from over yet, but he still seemed uneasy at the thought of deserting his command and taking useful men away from where they might be needed. Cavan tried to set his doubts at rest.

  “This is hardly a normal situation, Mitch. Your sentiments are admirable, but I have to be honest here. The figures Weyland and his staff are estimating are wildly unrealistic. They’re doing their best, but they just don’t have any concept of what’s going on. Don’t you understand? A month from now there isn’t going to be any command worth talking about to have deserted.”

  Mitch pondered the point, scowling at the wall for a minute or two before turning back to face them. “You’re talking about getting to a place that might no longer exist, for a shuttle that mightn’t fly, and if it does, taking it up through this mess to find a spaceship that mightn’t be there. And I’m supposed to believe that the odds are better than what I’d have if I stay on with this outfit. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Just the latest of Landen’s crazy schemes,” Cavan said, as if that explained everything. “Only this time he’s got Alicia with him too.”

  “Sure, they’re lousy odds, no question,” Charlie Hu said, nodding and keeping a serious note. “But better than the alternative. I’ll take them.”

  Mitch looked around at them. He seemed persuaded, and was running over the practicalities in his mind. “It means we have to be up-front with the men too,” he said finally. “This isn’t something I can order them into blindly—or would be prepared to. They have to make their own choices too.”