“Well, I’ll be darned,” he breathed. “The old gal done did it.”
“We still have Mexico to make,” Keene reminded him.
Legermount settled down more comfortably behind the wheel. “The way she feels right now, I reckon we could make Argentina,” he replied.
The service track brought them to a wider farm road, which they followed south for a mile or so before curving around to follow the contours in a more-or-less westerly direction once again. They emerged onto Highway 281 at a point Keene recognized as being only a couple of miles north of the turnoff to Amspace’s San Saucillo launch site. As they turned left onto 281, they could see water northward, away to the right. That would be the valley of the river that bounded the north side of the landing field, Keene informed the others. Past the landing field, the river curved south, marking the perimeter of the two-mile safety zone around the launch pads. Depending on how far upriver the tide had penetrated, and if the water had reached 281 farther south, the San Saucillo facility could have become an island on three sides by now.
50
It was like coming back to a place of fond remembrances and finding everything bulldozed away for a new highway intersection or a shopping mall—except the recollections weren’t from some idealization of distant growing-up years but a matter of mere weeks ago. The last time Keene saw the grounds bordering the approach road had been from the helicopter taking him and Vicki back to Kingsville after flying from Montemorelos, when cleanup crews had been collecting the trash left after the launch demonstration. There had been stone falls and cratering, and the area to the south was charred and blackened. Disabled vehicles stood along the roadside, all of them dented and holed, several burnt out, most with wheels missing and hoods and trunk lids open, stripped of movable essentials.
Loud concussions sounded from the north. The sky was the eeriest they had seen, causing even Mitch to gaze up wordlessly with an awed expression that probably came as close as he was capable of to dread. With the clearer masses of air coming in from the ocean, the canopy that had remained solid for days with dust and smoke from the conflagrations inland was now a turmoil of fiery clouds rolling down to blot out the landscape at one moment, then a minute later opening into vast vaults of emptiness extending upward like inverted canyons between walls of incandescent colors. All the time, the rumbling of distant thunder and the booms of bodies passing above or exploding in surrounding regions merged in a background of noise punctuated by occasional nearer detonations that were becoming practically continuous.
There was something ironic about the way the familiar sign by the main gate had survived unscathed, still proclaiming it the entrance to amspace inc. orbital launch & flight test facility. The gatehouse was demolished, and there were gaps torn in the outer security fence. The parking areas beyond had been pulverized, and Legermount had difficulty finding a path through the wrecked vehicles. A mound of recently bulldozed earth near the ruin of what had been the Sports and Social Club perhaps explained the absence of bodies.
Immediately ahead, one end of the main administration building had collapsed, while the remainder presented the familiar scene of a windowless facade with shattered upper levels open to the winds. The second floor was now a reinforced roof, and below, the ground floor had been turned into shelters behind earth banks and walls of sandbags. A number of wrecked military trucks suggested that the site had been used as a relief or evacuation center, probably on account of its large landing field. Behind the front offices, the flight preparation and assembly complex was for the most part a burned ruin, above which the larger vehicle assembly building had split down the middle into two parts that now hung outward in a deformed V against the sky. Legermount brought the truck to a halt. They sat surveying the scene.
“So this is what it all came to, eh?” Mitch said after a silence. “The end of the dream.”
Keene was too overcome by images of how he remembered it all to respond. Legermount murmured, “Maybe Reynolds is right. It all needed a new start over again—but with different people.”
“Don’t tell me he’s got you as a convert,” Mitch said.
Legermount shrugged. “I dunno. But looking at the way it all happened . . . It makes you think.”
They felt the jolt of the rear door being opened. Moments later, Cavan, still toting his submachine gun, appeared by the passenger-side door. Mitch picked up his rifle and got out to join him. They stood, letting their eyes roam over the desolation. “Well, is there any hope here, Landen?” Cavan asked finally.
“There’s always hope,” Keene replied, sliding across the seat to get out.
“So where should we begin? Isn’t there a pad area too, somewhere?”
“It’s two miles away at the other end of the airfield.” Keene shook his head. “Anybody who was waiting wouldn’t hide back there. The only way out of it is up.”
“Look, I hate to sound pessimistic, but shouldn’t we agree on a time limit on this before we start?” Mitch said.
Just as Keene eased himself down off the end of the seat and straightened up, an amplified male voice rang from the administration building ahead of them.
“DO NOT MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVES. YOU ARE BEING COVERED. EITHER LEAVE NOW, OR ONE PERSON ONLY COME FORWARD UNARMED AND STATE YOUR BUSINESS.”
Keene looked along the bottom level of barricaded windows and sandbagged openings but could see nobody. Cavan moved a few yards from the truck, presumably to show no hostile intent.
“What’s happening?” someone said from behind. Keene glanced back and saw Colby peering around the rear corner of the truck from inside.
“Near the center, just right of the main doors,” Mitch said, keeping his gaze ahead.
“Interesting, but at the moment, academic,” Cavan observed. “I’d say we have little initiative in this particular matter, Mitch.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Keene moved out from the truck, keeping his hands high to show he wasn’t carrying a weapon. “I’ll go,” he muttered to the other two. “This was supposed to be my party, anyway.”
He began moving forward, picking his way through the rubble and glass fallen from the building. As he approached, he caught a movement from the place Mitch had indicated: a sandbagged opening into one of the ground-floor rooms where there had formerly been a door and adjacent window. Closer, and he saw that it was a figure in a woollen cap and combat jacket, covering him with an automatic rifle. “That’s far enough,” the figure called in his own voice when Keene was about five yards away. Keene halted. The figure straightened up from behind the sandbags to see him more clearly. Keene caught a glimpse of another farther back, also holding a leveled gun. “Okay, who are you, and what do you want here?” the one in front asked. Keene drew a breath to launch into the simplified explanation that he had been composing in his head. . . . And then, instead, his posture relaxed, and his face creased into a grin. “What’s so funny?” the figure demanded.
Keene waited a second or two. “Have I really aged that much? Although, I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me. Or is it the fancy dress like yours?”
“Look, I’m not in a mood for games.”
Keene gave it a moment longer. Then, “Oh, stop it, Joe, you stupid shit. It’s Lan Keene, for Christ’s sake. I’m sorry we took our time getting here, but the traffic was a bitch. . . .” He broke off and could do no more than shake his head as the flippancy drained from him. It was Joe Elms, who had piloted the NIFTV the day they took on the Air Force spaceplane. He had the same reddened, blistered face as everyone else, with the beginnings of a beard, and looked more like a guerrilla fighter than a spaceship pilot. But it was Joe.
Even now, Elms came out warily, the other behind him still covering. He moved closer and peered disbelievingly. “It is you. . . . You look like you’ve been in a volcano. Jesus, have we all changed that much?” Elms turned to the other and waved for him to lower the gun. “It’s okay, Sid. It’s them. They made it!” Elms looked back at Keen
e, his expression dazed. The message seemed only now to be sinking in. “We . . .” He gave up and shook his head.
Keene looked past him at the younger man stepping out over the parapet of sandbags. “Sid? I know you. . . . Sid Vance, right? You came with us to the Osiris.” It was the Sid who had won the place on the shuttle, the kid from Navigation Systems Group, just out of college, who had been with Amspace a month.
“I never gave up on you,” he told Keene. “I kept telling them. You just never seemed the type.”
It hadn’t fully sunk in yet with Keene either. Only now was he beginning to realize how much, inside, he had been steeling himself for the worst. There was only one more question. He interrogated Joe with a look for a second as if hoping to divine the answer before he dared ask it. “And Vicki?” he managed finally.
Joe nodded. “She’s here. Robin’s hurt his arm, but he should be okay. Too bad we didn’t have a doctor. We had some trouble here a couple of days ago, and he took a bullet. I did what I could . . .”
Keene didn’t hear the rest, partly because the relief that swept over him, and the strange, sudden weakness that came with it, almost causing him to collapse. The other reason was that he could see into the room behind the sandbagged opening; another person had appeared framed in the doorway at the far end. Keene was unable to make out the face or expression in the shadows; but without really trying, in some unconscious reading from years of learning her postures and her body language, he knew it was her.
Keene moved away from Joe and Sid and stepped over the low wall of sandbags into the room. It had once been an office but had been turned into a watch post, with an improvised bed, a collection of coats, capes, hats, and weapons hanging along the opposite wall, and the desk serving as a general table. Vicki didn’t make any immediate move but stood staring from the doorway as if paralyzed. Keene was distantly aware of Joe’s voice outside saying something over the bullhorn. He crossed the room slowly and looked at her. She was wearing jeans with a stained shirt and sweatband around her forehead; her hair was matted, and her face, he could see even in the dim light, was cracked, swollen, and streaked where perspiration had carried away the grime. He didn’t think he had ever seen anyone look more wonderful. Her eyes looked him up and down silently. Keene waited for the offbeat remark, the dry understatement. He could see her mind running over the combinations, rejecting one after another as not fitting the moment. And then, instead, she just came a step nearer, hugged him with both her arms, and buried her face against his shoulder. Keene pulled her tight, rubbing his face onto her hair. He felt her gripping tighter, then starting to shake as everything she had been storing up found release. In that strange way things had always been with them, it was the things they didn’t say that said the most. Finally, he drew back enough to speak.
“About Robin. Joe said . . .”
“His arm’s broken, but it seems clean. We tried to set it.”
“I’ve got a couple of medics with me. He’ll be okay.” A hundred questions were tumbling over one another to get out. Keene shook his head, not knowing where to begin. “What about the others?” he asked. “Karen, Judith?”
“Karen left for Dallas with her boyfriend before the evacuation started. Celia came here with me but left with the military. I never heard from Judith. . . .”
Keene could see the tears starting, her fighting to hold them back. “I guess we won’t be going back to the Bandana this time,” she whispered.
“I never liked the music there, anyway.”
Now the stupid talk. It had to come. They were never going to change. And then Vicki abandoned the attempt and hugged him close again, and he kept holding on because he felt his face wet too and didn’t want her to see. And all the time he wondered to himself why this was the first time they had ever let each other know their feelings like this.
The noise of the truck pulling up outside and the voices of the others finally parted them. Another figure appeared from the corridor behind the door that Vicki had come through, thirtyish maybe, with sandy hair and stubble, dressed in baggy pants and a red T-shirt. Vicki said his name was Jason, an Amspace prelaunch technician that Joe had brought with him after Vicki relayed Keene’s message. Jason had actually worked on some of the equipment installation at Montemorelos and knew the layout there. And that was it: just the four of them, and Robin.
Keene was perplexed. “No others? Harry Halloran? Wally? Ricardo?”
Vicki shook her head tiredly. “Sorry. Harry got here but he didn’t make it through. I don’t know about any others. It’s a long story.”
Cavan came in with Joe, who from the shouts and laughs Keene could hear outside had already passed out the news that Vicki was here. “We’ve been on the move since first thing this morning,” Cavan was saying. “Everyone could use a meal. How are you stocked here?”
“Not too badly. Our dining room is across the corridor. The menu’s a bit restricted, but there’s plenty of room. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”
“We’ll need to be ready to move out as soon as the water recedes.”
“And travel overnight?” Joe sounded skeptical.
“There’s no choice,” Cavan said. “The next tide will cover this whole place.” Joe whistled. It seemed he hadn’t realized things were that close.
Alicia and Dash came in with a medical pack. “Where’s Robin?” Alicia asked.
“This way,” Jason said, turning to lead back the way he had come. Keene followed them to a room across the corridor that was evidently being used for living quarters. Robin had been napping on a couch, from an office suite or reception area somewhere, that had been made into a bed. He had his share of blotches and facial sores like everyone else, but he was clean and looked rested. From his expression as he rubbed his eyes and looked the arrivals up and down, he evidently couldn’t say the same about them.
“I never knew you dressed like that,” he told Keene. “It’s like out of some movie. You look like you should be in a war somewhere.”
“Me?” Keene objected. “You’re the one who got shot in the arm.” Robin conceded the point with a rueful nod. “How does it feel?” Keene asked.
“Oh . . . it could have been worse, I guess.”
“We’ve got a couple of people here who are going to take care of it. Professionals. You’ll be okay.”
“Mom told me about Earth being a satellite of Saturn, and the gravity being less then, and that’s how the dinosaurs existed. Is that the way you think it really was?”
Keene shook his head incredulously. At a time like this, that could still bubble to the surface of his mind? “That’s only part of it,” he answered. “Half of science is going to have to be reconstructed. You’re going to be a busy guy when you get older.”
Alicia, who had been waiting near the door with Vicki and Dash, moved forward. “We’d better take a look at that arm,” she said.
“I get squeamish about these things. I’ll leave you to it,” Keene said, moving toward the doorway.
“Do you really think I could get to be involved in work like that, Lan?” Robin called after him.
Keene winked back at him. “You’d better believe it.”
Robin’s upper arm had been hit by a ricochet, but the break was a simple one. Alicia and Dash reset it and announced that it should heal without complications. Over bowls of a spicy beef and vegetable stew that Joe had concocted, accompanied by hunks of crusty buttered bread and, incongruously, a selection of not-bad wines purloined from a cabinet in the Executive Suite, the arrivals told their story and listened to a condensed account of events at San Saucillo.
The trouble at Kingsville, which Harry Halloran had described when Keene called him from Vandenberg, had resulted in different groups deciding to go their own way instead of the concerted early evacuation that Keene and Marvin Curtiss had hoped for. When Vicki began recruiting for a group to go with her to San Saucillo and wait for Keene, others had conceived the idea of organizing a launch from San S
aucillo themselves and trying to join the Osiris. By that time the military was using the San Saucillo airfield as an adjunct to the vulnerable coastal bases around Corpus Christi to fly essential cargos inland. One shuttle was launched but exploded in the boost phase—it was thought from a meteorite hit. After that, the pad area rapidly became unserviceable and further attempts were abandoned. Most of the others gave up then, and left with the military when they pulled out three days previously. “We might have done too,” Vicki concluded. “But some kind of local gang came in—because of the stuff the military had left behind. But that wasn’t enough; they wanted what we had too. There was fighting. That was when we lost Harry, along with a couple of others who’d stayed. They got away with the truck that we’d kept, so we were stuck here. So you can see why Joe was jumpy when you showed up in that circus truck. I mean . . . what kind of breaker’s yard did you find it in?”
“Don’t jest. It’s still your only ticket out,” Keene reminded her.
There was little more to be done when they had finished eating. Joe had made sure to have everything they needed to take sorted and packed in case a quick getaway was called for. They had also collected a supply of gasoline, which the troops transferred to the truck’s tank, with a reserve in the rear in cans. They took an extra half hour to sandbag the truck’s roof and fix spotlamps on the cab door pillars for the night drive. Mitch used an ax to cut a hole through the wall at the back of the cab to allow communication with the rear compartment.
Worlds in Chaos Page 43
