CHAPTER SIX
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Fortress Eden
TODD felt as if he had been tiptoeing across a thin hull for the past several days. The tension was getting to him. At Goddard, once Mari had agreed to come to the family reunion, she and McKelvey had been in good spirits. They had taken Todd on the tour of the facilities, and he had given them his promise not to reveal the missile attacks or their planned Mars expedition. They wanted both of those to be Fairchild’s ammunition in her campaign against the Earth First Party. That promise had seemed a cheap price for Todd to pay—keep his mouth shut in exchange for a harmonious trip to Earth and Saunderhome.
True to her word, Mari had been easy to get along with on the flight down to Geosynch HQ. Their pilot, Gib Owens’s temporary replacement, was a fellow habitat citizen, of course. That made Mari comfortable. It was safety in numbers, with Todd the outsider.
Matters changed, though, as soon as they arrived at Geosynch. While they waited for the heavy orbital ship and a good re-entry window, Mari went on the defensive. She began making cryptic remarks, being sarcastic in the middle of commonplace conversations, until Todd’s staff scratched their heads in confusion. Todd seethed every time Mari capped one of her stunts by glaring a warning at him to keep the cat in the bag. Dian wasn’t fooled for long. Eventually, in private, she demanded to know what was going on. There was a brief yelling match between the siblings before Mari grumpily acknowledged she had caused the confrontation herself. She liked Dian, trusted her. So Dian was let in on the news. Part of it, Todd held back some of the details about the most recent missile attack, but Dian was horrified enough by what they told her. He didn’t like to think how she would react if she knew how hair-raising things had been there for a while.
Even after Dian joined their little conspiracy, Mari didn’t shut up. Some devil nagged at her. It always had, Todd admitted with resignation. Perhaps it was part of his sister’s lifelong fascination with danger. She desperately wanted to bottle up the information so that Fairchild could use it as a surprise against the anti-Spacers. At the same time, Mari was like a little girl figuratively cupping her hands, hiding a treasure, and gloating, “I’ll bet you can’t guess what I’ve got!”
By the time the Earth shuttle docked at Geosynch HQ to pick them up, Todd wanted to shake Mari until her teeth rattled—not an easy trick in free fall.
Secrets. On all sides. And he was in the middle of them. He had to concoct convincing reasons to explain why Beth Isaacs and Anatole and Wu Min were riding down to Earth with him and Dian and Mari. The other passengers on the heavy orbital vehicle knew the work schedules of everyone along the satellite net. Project Search wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t everyday knowledge, either, not even among those highly trained techs sharing the trip with them. More lies. Todd told anyone who asked that Beth and her colleagues were going to New Washington to update some new improvements on ComLink’s translator-splitter. To his relief, the cover story was accepted without question. Mari, too, took it at face value. Dian and the others stayed away from any talk about the Global Science Council as well, despite their mutual eagerness regarding the upcoming event.
The process frayed Todd’s patience. He was becoming sick of it all, was almost sorry he had decided to sit on the revelation about the alien messenger this long. But it wouldn’t be much longer before he could tell someone.
To top off his edgy mood, the landing at Orleans Spaceport was particularly sloppy. They touched down and jounced for kilometers, Mari bitching most of the way, comparing this shoddy piloting to the crack techniques of her Goddardites. Disembarking, too, was inefficient and seemed to take forever. Todd had planned to be at Saunderhome by noon, and he began to wonder if they would make it by sunset at this rate. At last the gate checks were complete and they and the other shuttle passengers stepped onto the ride strip for another too-slow trip over to the global terminal.
The handle of the little case Todd was carrying grew slippery with his sweat. He glanced down at it in annoyance, taking a better grip. Such a small container to hold such momentous news: holo-mode data cubes, crammed with vital information about the alien messenger. Dian smiled at him, reading his mind. Then she turned back to Mariette. Beth and Anatole and Wu Min were listening with interest as Mari described Goddard’s speed language-learning experiments, its attempt to bridge the gaps in the multinational Colony.
Todd’s sweaty palms itched, and his jumper was sticking to his back. The air-recycling mechanism inside the travel tube must have failed. Pat’s SE Trans Company share-leased part of Orleans’ facilities, and big brother deserved a complaint.
Mariette had arrived at the same conclusion. She mopped her high forehead with her sleeve. “Pat’s not paying his rent? It must be forty degrees centigrade in here.” Dian and Beth Isaacs seconded her opinion. The other two techs who had ridden down with Todd, and a group of passengers from one of Riccardi’s Incorporated Network’s satellites, grumbled, too. Some of them glowered up at the arching polarized plexi window-roof covering the ride strip. It was still more than a kilometer to the global terminal, too far to carry luggage in this heat. Normally, if Todd had been in a hurry and alone, he would have toted his baggage and walked ahead, adding his own pace to that of the rolling conveyor. Condensation dripped from the plexi, now and then splattering one of the passengers underneath. Todd wished there were some way to get over to the private hangars quickly. He was anxious to climb into an air-conditioned flier and get airborne.
The ride strip was bumpy, needing repair. Several times it had shifted under his feet, nearly tipping over his luggage. A few people took extra steps and nudged their bags along with their knees. Most just endured the discomfort.
Then Todd saw something move at the edge of his vision, to his left, beyond the dark plexi. A lot of confusion out there. Vast crowds were surging this way and that across the terminal’s domestic runways, taxi lanes, and maintenance areas. They were milling about the ground traffic near the hangars, also. The normal view out there showed nothing more interesting than baggage trams or a mechanic heading for work. Today the hectares of pavement resembled an insect’s nest. People swarmed, running, waving objects Todd couldn’t identify, their mouths moving, though no sound reached him inside the insulated plexi.
“What’s going on out there?” a Riccardi tech asked of no one in particular.
He was a competitor, but Dian answered him in a friendly tone. “It’s just a run-of-the-mill civil insurrection.” She wasn’t joking. The sparkle was gone from her eyes. It was as if a door were slamming inside her, to guard against a hostile outside world.
“They’re coming this way!” Beth Isaacs shouted.
Part of the crowd split off and rushed toward the transfer tube, a sea of humanity, soundlessly howling. In the middle of that sea, several men and women rode a commandeered baggage tram. The power was on full, and some of the mob couldn’t get out of its way. The tram squashed them under its treads and rumbled on. Blood spattered; the motorized tram careened wildly, aiming for the plexi window-roof.
“Gonna hit us,” Dian warned, slipping into her old accent. “Gotta make a barricade. Luggage.”
Todd grasped her idea and shouted. “This way, everybody over to this side of the ride strip! Pile the luggage Up! Get down! Hurry!” He couldn’t play general for everyone. Riccardi’s employees were leaderless and refused his orders. Dian helped Todd push Beth Isaacs, Mariette, and the rest of their group flat on the moving strip, despite Mariette’s wanting to stand up and see what was coming.
Todd peeked over the heap of baggage as the tram smashed into the plexi wall. The entire tube roof shuddered, though it didn’t break. The sound penetrated, however, dinning at the trapped passengers. Stalled, nose up and treads spinning futilely, the tram perched against the transparent wall. The mob overran it and began beating with fists and clubs on the polarized barrier.
Riccardi’s personnel grew panicky, screaming. Those who were still st
anding staggered into one another and into their luggage. Normally they rode this strip without conscious thought. Now they lost all sense of balance, as helpless as babies.
Alarms Went off, lances of noise stabbing Todd’s ears. How many times was he going to be hit with that terrifying sound in one week? he wondered bitterly. He craned his neck, looking toward the far end of the ride strip, still a half-kilometer distant. Uniformed security troops, running, trying to get at the point of attack.
How many? Were they CNAU Civil Order Enforcement or some of the terminal staff? Todd had more faith in the national troops. But right now he would welcome any kind of assistance.
Most of the security guards were probably already busy fighting that army of rioters out on the tarmac beyond the plexi.
“We’d better try to make it to the terminal,” Todd decided. Dian was on her hands and knees, laboriously dragging a suitcase, edging forward in the ride strip’s direction of travel.
Mari crouched beside Beth and the two techs. “If I only had a . . .”
What had Mariette been about to say? “If I only had a gun?” Goddard Colonists didn’t like playing sitting duck. Mari had been through too much of that recently. She wanted to fight back.
“Forget it,” Todd told his sister. “There’re too many of them. Come on. Get moving that way, toward the guards.” He unfastened his jumper and slid the little case with the holo-mode masters inside. The stretched cloth held the case snugly against his chest. He couldn’t risk having the case knocked about or taken out of his hand. But if they broke through and killed him, they would get the case, anyway.
As that thought struck him, he heard cracking plexi and an animal roar exploding from dozens of throats, even above the tortured whine of an abused tram engine. The mob had picked up the tram and hurled it against the window-roof until they had broken it!
“Get ‘em! Get the damn Spacers!”
“Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em all!”
“Spacers! Spacers!”
The murderous crowd spilled through the narrow opening, running along the ride strip, chasing the passengers. Todd saw them in slow motion, time and space distorted. The women struggled to move, crawling or stumbling forward and trying to keep the baggage with them as protection. Their pursuers were stumbling, too, almost comically. But they kept coming, still yelling, promising what they were going to do when they reached the unarmed Spacers.
Todd dropped back, letting the women and the two male techs move ahead of him. Parallel to him, outside the plexi window-roof, the rioters who hadn’t broken through continued to scream silently and pound on the wall between them. No threat from them, so far.
Inside the tube, it was a different story. The leader of the tram commandeers outraced his companions. He was tall, taller than Pat, but thin. Eyes burned in a dark, plague-ravaged face. Gaunt hollows showed when his puffing cheeks sucked in as he gulped for breath. He knocked down a Riccardi tech, stomping the woman mercilessly, then rushed on, heading toward Todd’s group.
Filthy, clawlike hands reached out for Todd’s throat.
Todd avoided the clumsy charge, tripping the man. They both swayed awkwardly for a second as the mob leader clutched at Todd’s jumper, trying to stay on his feet. Todd felt the holo-mode case shifting against his skin. Fearing he would lose it, he brought his knee up sharply, then kicked the man’s skinny legs out from under him.
His attacker toppled backward, falling half on and half off the ride strip, writhing and screaming. The tall man was unable to get a solid purchase on the strip or the narrow stationary curbing at its edge. His long legs dragged forward along the strip while he hung onto the curb, or tried to.
In another few seconds, some of his followers had caught up. They tripped over his legs, still extended out onto the strip, blocking their way. A few jumped over him and approached, yelling obscenely. Others were busy beating and kicking the trapped Riccardi techs. Todd saw a club raise and come down on a tech’s head, splattering blood.
“Spacers! Kill the bastards and bitches!”
“Wipe ‘em out!”
Hate for the humans who had escaped an Earth-bound, miserable existence. The mob was in rags, haggard-looking. Todd didn’t know if they were starving or drugged or simply searching for loot and victims. He didn’t care. Rational thought ceased as more of the rioters loped directly for him and the women behind him.
He picked up a suitcase and threw it, hard. The bulky makeshift missile bowled into the charging forerunners, stopping two of them instantly and knocking the rest off their strides. Shrieks of outrage and pain echoed off the roof and curving walls.
“Hey, lover, that’s it!’ Dian imitated Todd, throwing several small pieces of luggage. She lacked the strength to knock anyone down, but the unexpected barrage kept the rioters dancing and ducking.
“Steady me, Beth!” Mari yelled. She swung a case around her head as the taller woman bent double, holding Mari by the waist to prevent her from falling. Mari let go of the case as if it were a discus and roared in triumph as a woman rioter went down.
The techs added their throwing arms to Todd’s as he yelled warnings. “Take your time! We’ve only got so many!”
“Let me get a clear shot at the damn Spacers!” Someone in the mob had a gun. He was pushing people out of the way and pointing the pistol at Todd’s group.
Instinctively, Todd dived at Dian and Mari, and the techs tried to shield Beth Isaacs. Mari attempted to squirm away, reaching for another suitcase to throw.
“Daminit, Mari, get your head down!” Todd couldn’t grab at her. He had his hands full with Dian. She was thrashing, whispering incoherently. There were nightmares in her expression. He didn’t know what she was reliving but feared it was something very much like what was happening now. The world in slow motion. Would he see the bullet leave the muzzle in slow motion, close in on them slowly, race slowly to kill one of them?
A shot cracked and he flinched, then realized the sound came from the other direction. The rioter wasn’t pointing a gun at them any more. He was gawking in disbelief at a spreading bloodstain high on his chest. Then he was falling like a tree sheared off in a hurricane.
More shots followed, bullets ripping into the mob, the reverberations hitting Todd’s ears again and again. The screams changed. No more cries of hate or demands to kill the Spacers. The rioters fled in terror, forgetting their prey. Again and again the shots came, picking out targets at random. The would-be killers left a trail of blood and bodies as they tried to get to the opening they had smashed with the tram. It was very far off now, from Todd’s position.
Outside the transfer tube, other rioters who had been keeping pace with the ride strip halted, realizing the danger. They scattered, running back across the tarmac toward the hangars and the fields beyond.
Uniformed guards loped past Todd’s party, firing as they came, driving the panic-stricken mob before them. Not all of the mob could run. Some lay motionless on the strip, being carried along as was Todd. Others were wounded and crawling. The guards finished them off casually, like men and women in a factory with a boring job to complete.
Some guards checked the injured Riccardi techs, then called for medics. Another officer and a uniformed man and woman helped Beth Isaacs and Mari to their feet. Todd picked Dian up, holding her close until her reactions cooled.
“Sorry about this, sir,” the officer was saying. Todd’s eyes were drawn to the side arm the man was holding. If Mari had had one of those, maybe the Riccardi techs wouldn’t have been hurt. “Mr. Saunder? And you’re Mariette Saunder, aren’t you? Really sorry this happened,” he said, as if enough apologies would remove their lingering shock. “We thought this bunch of cretins was heading for the syntha-food plants west of here. Didn’t expect them to hit the terminal. Don’t worry about your luggage, folks. We’ll deliver it to your gate. You’re going to the SE private hangars, sir?” Todd nodded. “Fine, we’ll take care of it. And if there’s any damage, Orleans Terminal will replace every
thing at no charge.”
“Just an everyday riot, huh?” Mari said sarcastically.
The officer’s bland smile never wavered. “Anyone hurt here? The terminal’s doctors will—”
“They’re not hurt. They’re Saunders.” Two guards were helping a limping Riccardi tech along the moving ride strip. The tech glared daggers at Todd and Mariette. “They probably staged this. My people are . . . God! Susan’s dead! Those . . . those animals killed her. Do you care about that, Saunder? Do you? You’re going to get a lesson one of these days . . .”
“I know you’re Todd’s competitor,” Mari began.
“Don’t.” Todd pinched her arm lightly. “Can’t you see he’s out of his head? Sure, it’s a rival company. There’s a little friction . . .”
“Spacers. You’re the damned Spacer they should have killed,” the man ranted, focusing on Mariette especially. “Damned Goddard bitch.”
The officer spoke loudly to drown him out. “Eckard, take care of Mr. Saunder and his group, will you? Make sure they get V.I.P. courtesy. And retrieve their baggage.” He saluted Todd, then he and his guards hurried on, cutting in between the Saunder group and the raving Riccardi tech, separating the two more widely. In a moment, Todd couldn’t hear the tech’s curses at all.
“That officious—”
Dian stopped Mariette this time. “It won’t do any good. It never does, with that kind.” More nightmares. Wyoma Lee and a big-eyed little girl, caught in the anarchy of the Death Years and the Chaos. The United Ghetto States had been born out of that miniature dark age. Dian had seen too much, and she remembered too much, unable to forget it, ever.
The ride strip finally ended. Because everyone was weak-kneed, Todd decided they would spend some time in the terminal lounge to wind down. A couple of drinks and some talk to release the tension helped considerably. Beth Isaacs and the techs had to reschedule their flight to New Washington as a result of the delay, but Todd promised them he didn’t mind the extra expense as long as no one was hurt. They carefully avoided mentioning the injuries and death among the Riccardi techs. Todd, Dian, and Mari saw the others off to their jet, then took a courtesy tram to the SE hangars.
Tomorrow’s Heritage Page 12
