“I’ll bet Beth puts through an inquiry to the terminal hospital to check up on them,” Dian said. Mari and Todd glanced at each other over her head, saying nothing. “Beth’s like that,” Dian went on, “no matter how many dirty tricks Riccardi plays on ComLink.”
“Yes, Beth is like that,” Todd agreed with a gentle smile. “We could use a few billion more like her. That would solve nearly every problem Earth’s got.”
The seacraft was primed and ready when they arrived at the SE hangars. Todd chatted with the mechanics while Dian and Mari fussed over the luggage, making sure the guards hadn’t overlooked anything. The one case that really concerned Todd still rode safely inside his jumper. He didn’t remove it until they were aboard and rolling out on the taxi strip.
The wind was right. He made a good takeoff and banked, peering down at the air terminal and shuttleport and the land around. Orleans Port extended in a narrow strip nearly to the western horizon. The incoming shuttles required a long glide strip; some of the craft using it were military, but mostly they were owned by the three telecommunications corporations or scientific groups. Protectors of Earth subsidized the extremely expensive upkeep of the shuttleport and the domestic terminal’s operation. Despite some of the flaws, such as faulty air-conditioning and a bumpy ride strip on the three-kilometer transfer from shuttleport to global terminal, the overview was one of tidy, well-maintained group transportation facilities.
Beyond the pavement, hangars, and passenger and shipping terminals, things changed drastically. The old cities had reached out to follow the construction while the combined port was building. For a while, there had been a boom along the Gulf, an economic surge the area had needed badly. Agriculture had suffered when the river patterns shifted after the New Madrid quake, and the ripple effect from that catastrophe had crippled industry and tourism. The region had needed the income port construction brought. But the boom was over, and it showed. Decayed and burned-out suburbs surrounded the luxuries and conveniences of the port. Empty factories and construction barns, crumbling highways, ill-kept rapid-transit tracks—the whole area from the dried-up swamps to the Sabine was a vast blot on the land. Off to the west, fires raged, oily black smoke boiling up into the cloudless sky. The syntha-food plant the officer had mentioned? Or was something else being torched? It didn’t seem to matter, in that patch of misery down there.
Unfortunately, the scene was too typical. Todd had flown over other ruins and rotting slums. They seemed to girdle every major population center throughout the world, though some were worse than others. Every time he saw this sort of human dungheap, he felt lucky, and very depressed. His reaction didn’t lessen his impotent anger with the rioters. Yet he shrank away from a sense of guilt, knowing he could never see life from their point of view, never know hunger and frustration so awful it made a man strike out in blind rage, uncaring if he hurt the innocent.
Humanity had a long history of seeking scapegoats. In this era, it was the rich, the Spacers, and anyone who was in one’s way when the agony of deprivation and fear became too much.
And I’m going to turn that fear into stark horror, for some of them. Unless Pat helps me, makes it seem like salvation, not one more, overwhelming enemy from outer space, something that’s going to hurt them and make their hellish lives still worse—if that’s possible.
“The air’s filthy, even without that smoke,” Mariette observed.
“Not too bad. You can get upwind and breathe,” Dian said tonelessly. “In some clear air, you don’t dare do that. The other side’s fillin’ it up with toxins you can’t see, smell, or taste.”
Todd banked again, turning away from the land, heading out over the Gulf, setting a course east by southeast. Dian grabbed at the safety bar and eyed him with worry. As the craft leveled out and picked up speed and altitude, she smiled a bit, settling back in the second seat.
The water was a blue-green carpet flowing back beneath them. It made depth perception tricky. Todd kept close track of the scanners to be sure of his position. There weren’t any tall obstructions on his flight path, and it was easy enough to wink at regulations over this comparatively peaceful section of the Central North American Union. He would have ignored those laws years ago. He and Pat and Mariette had skimmed the low waves and practically scooped up whitecaps, on many a flight out to Sanderhome. By now, though, he ought to have outgrown such reckless stunts.
“Is that one of the cargo blimps?” Dian asked, staring out the side window at a bulbous shape off to their right.
“Probably.” Mariette leaned over the seat to look. “Yes, that’s one. Some of the island groups make fairly steady use of them in good weather. Very fuel-efficient. They can certainly use the money elsewhere. Look! Off there! That’s one of the Sea-Search Rescue Stations. Drop down a little, Todd, so Dian can see the dolphins. .
Dian’s smile widened tolerantly. “I know about the dolphin-human Rescue teams. And Beth received her initial language translation background in one of the island universities, where she did a couple of semesters of good work with the Rescue people.”
“Did she? They do a great job. Don’t know how we ever managed without the cross-species teams . . .”
Todd was encouraged by Mariette’s chatty, cheerful manner. She had insisted Dian ride in the front seat, saying she had seen everything along the route. But now she played tour guide, constantly leaning forward between the seats and pointing out scenes of interest. Todd turned and grinned at her. Mariette rapped her knuckles lightly on his head. “Pay attention to your piloting.”
“This isn’t exactly a heavy traffic route,” Todd defended himself. But he faced forward, all the same.
“You wanted to play air jockey and override the auto-program,” Mariette said. “It’s your job to get us there in one piece. Correction, three pieces.”
Dian’s brown face broke into her sunshine grin, lifting Todd’s spirits. He forgot the ugly riot, the grimy slums around Orleans Port, enjoying the flight. They talked and took in the scenery. Occasionally Todd detoured, on request, to give them a good view of something below. Both Todd and Mari vicariously enjoyed Dian’s fresh viewpoint of what she was seeing. She had been on numerous commercial flights around the globe and on many small-craft trips with Todd, but never on a flight to Saunderhome.
Todd checked in at scheduled times, getting the weather, setting up an ETA with Saunderhome’s automated control system. As scanners started picking up their destination after an hour’s flight, Mariette squeezed Dian’s shoulder and pointed once more. “Up ahead. About one o’clock. There! That’s Saunderhome.”
“We’re still a good slice out, and it’s visible already. Big place. You didn’t tell me it was that big,” Dian teased Todd.
His mouth quirked and he steadied the craft, aligning the vector. “You never asked for specifics. It’s just the little old place we call home.”
Mari crossed her arms on the back of Dian’s seat, pillowing her cheek on her hands, looking at Todd. “Remember?”
He was momentarily startled to realize how closely their thoughts had run. “I remember,” he said. “Especially the first time Dad let me handle the Swift all the Way.”
Dian was amazed. “A Swift? A model ‘97 Swift? A prop plane? Were they still operating when you could fly?”
“They certainly were.” Mari tugged at the curling hair on the back of Todd’s neck until he shivered away. “He was fourteen, all legs and arms and impossible curiosity. He’d been practically chewing on the Swift’s wings and whining until Dad let him take the controls. ‘How come Pat can fly it and I can’t?’ ” she mimicked in a boy’s cracking voice. Todd laughed at the reminiscence.
“It was in the Twenties then,” Dian said, counting time backward from Todd’s present age. The darkness was in her expression again.
Todd sobered. “Yeah, bad times. For you, your grandmother, us—everybody. Somehow Dad and Jael managed to dodge the worst of it. Ward’s inventions were really starting to ear
n us some clout. He and Mother began building Saunderhome in 2015, after Jael swung some sort of deal with a Caribbean ruler who was trying to hang onto his island empire. Dad picked up that old Swift somewhere, restored it, and made flights back and forth from Saunderhome to Florida.” Nostalgia made him sigh. “The damned thing bucketed like a dolphin chasing a rescue hoverboat in a high surf. Sure was fun to fly, though. Nothing like it around today. No more seat-of-the-pants stuff . . .”
“Teach ‘em young, huh?” Dian spoke lightly. She offered no comments on what she and Wyoma Lee Foix had been doing while the Saunder fortunes were accumulating, buying them dream palaces and private aircraft as toys.
“We’ve all been handling fliers and boats since we were kids,” Mariette said. “Cars, too, when there was some place to drive them. Never made a mistake yet on land, sea, or air . . .”
“It only takes one.” Todd saw Mari’s reflection in the console plexi. Her bright smile vanished at that veiled reference to Ward’s fatal crash. Dian sensed the instant shift in mood, but she didn’t pry.
Finally, Mariette perked up, forcing away the memories. “Dian? Over there—the lee islands. There’s some incredible fishing there, and great boating waters. We lease it now and then as sort of an extra playground. There’s a botanical museum there, too. You might enjoy a side trip over from Saunderhome while we’re here.”
“Sounds interesting,” Dian replied politely.
Todd took an update call from Saunderhome Control, adjusting his approach slightly. The flier responded beautifully. It wasn’t the same thrill handling the Swift had been, so many years ago. But he was still very much in control of a fine machine, making it move with him. As much as he loved life in Geosynch HQ style, there were times, spacing, when he missed this, missed all of it. Contact with the planet, with weather, with unregulated air currents, oceans of water, land, wild growing things— everything. That was his youth, before he had discovered space travel, before he had looked down on Earth from an exalted distance and seen it reduced to a floating ball of brown and white and deepest blue.
Youth! He chuckled to himself, arousing the women’s wonder. He didn’t explain his amusement He had been thinking like an old man in his dotage, looking back over six or seven decades, not less than four. He wasn’t ready to be stored in the Enclave yet! He had many vigorous years left, years in which to fly and love Dian and touch the Earth and surround himself with space . . .
Years in which to learn what the alien messenger would teach them.
“SE Three TS, you are cleared to land VFR. Welcome back, sir.”
“Thank you,” Todd told the unseen controller. “That you, Jessups?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s the wife and kids?”
“Got a new one, sir—a boy.”
Todd twisted in his seat and winked at Mariette. She remembered the man, too. He had been in the family’s employ for years. “Is that so? We’ll have to bring him a present next trip, maybe a free-fall balloon.” Mari clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a guffaw. Dian just looked pained at the very tired Spacer’s joke.
“Uh . . . yes, sir. That’d be nice; he’d enjoy it, I know. See you in a little while, Mr. Saunder.”
Todd followed the track, idly cueing the weather pickups and navstar corrections. The would-be hurricane in the eastern Atlantic which he spotted a week ago had dissipated, but another was coming up from farther south and west in the ocean and looked as if it might turn into something nasty in a few days. Saunderhome would have to button down. Navstar confirmed that the flier was dead on course, not a second’s deviation. Todd felt smug. He could still match the autoprogramming for everything but really tiring, long-distance flying.
There was a natural line of outer reefs which Jael’s climate engineers had strengthened and extended into a massive seawall after the hurricane of ‘33. Todd cut speed drastically and dropped down so Dian could get a good look at the wall and the tidal energy generators outside. Then he noticed new construction activity along the reefs. The seawall had been raised at least three meters in some places, more in others. There were gaps around the perimeter, where sunken constructs bridged the space. Todd recognized the heavy metal under the water. Defense gates. If needed, they could lift up and block all the gaps, forming a solid barrier against seacraft. He wondered what that was all about. Was Jael expecting trouble from Saunderhome’s island neighbors? Or was she just getting neurotic and expecting an invasion? Nobody had tried a sea attack since the last century, not unless it was to coordinate with aerial strikes. Maybe that was it. But what did Jael plan to do about the “enemy in the air”?
He banked, following the perimeter reefs in a swooping arc, and saw the answer. The inner walls were bunkers. Most of them were camouflaged with jungle greenery and similar disguises to trick the pilot’s eye, but one or two were still under construction. How could he have missed all this the last time he flew in? Then Todd remembered. He had been reading some files and had the ship on auto. He must have flown right over the new defense line and not even noticed it.
How far down did the bunkers go? Saunderhome was built on an extensive and deep reef. An artificial bedrock could be created in the shallower waters, thanks to modern technology. He bad an uneasy feeling that the bunkers were occupied by some of Saunderhome’s now-ubiquitous security force, perhaps armed with anti-aerial weapons and missiles.
Not here, too! Was Geosynch HQ the only place where he needn’t feel as if he were in a fortress?
Neither Pat nor Jael had told him a damned thing about this, or why any of it was necessary. But then Mari and Kevin hadn’t warned him about the possibility of a missile attack on Goddard, either.
Mariette had been very quiet while he made the circle of the perimeter. Dian, too, remained silent. Todd knew they must be thinking the same things he was, worrying about it. Mari tried to distract them. “Make a wide swing and come buzzing, like we used to. Give Dian the whole thing from a skid-ride angle.”
“Okay, but be sure you’re strapped in snug.”
He took them down another notch and swerved northwest, cutting power still further with a little climb. Then he fell over on the wing and rushed across the island complex, barely clearing the palms and the miniature mountain topping the main isle. They almost hovered as Todd balanced the ship skillfully. Dian sucked in her breath, hanging onto the safety bar.
The inner perimeter hadn’t altered noticeably. The boat passages through the secondary reefs and under the connecting bridges were busy with servants’ craft bustling from the main delivery docks out to the maintenance reefs and storage islands. People looked up from tending lawns, piloting boats, or working in the gardens, recognized the flier, and waved greetings. Mariette waved back enthusiastically, and Todd dipped the wings.
“Fruit and vegetable gardens,” Mariette said, nodding to the left. Dian stretched her neck, trying to see, and Todd banked for her convenience. “Ward and Jael always loved fresh tropical food. And that’s the old heliport. They wore that one out before Earth opened Orleans Terminal. Now it’s easier to transfer there to our hangars and fly out from the coast, wherever we’re coming planetside from.” Todd dived very low over the helipad on the eastern shore, then pulled up hard to miss the line of tall trees on the slopes leading up to the main house.
Mariette looked behind them, still describing, the heliport. “V.I.P.s flew in here day and night when CNAU was negotiating to take in the Caribbean.” Grass was encroaching on the asphalt, evidence of how little the old landing spot was used nowadays. “Jael turned this place into a summit for the big shots while they figured out how to carve up a hemisphere . . .”
“Mari,” Todd said. “Truce. You promised.”
“Oh, all right.” She stabbed a long finger below them. “The family castle. Complete with moat. We’ve got bridges, too, but no drawbridge. Jael’s the dragon. Okay, okay, Todd. No more!”
The mansion had never stopped growing. A new terrace had just be
en added to one of the guest wings. Much of the huge house was sunken in the island’s natural hills. Top stories and extensions seemed to grow out of the lush slopes. Glass, polished metal, volcanic facing—all made Saunderhome unique. There was no other national or quasi-national retreat like this in the world. It lay in the hollow of the island’s hand, paths snaking between swaying trees and jungle growth, surrounded by clean beaches and visitors’ bungalows, each with its private dock. Shallow, brilliantly clear waters ringed the main island. In the mid-day Sun, the submerged tunnels connecting Saunderhome with the outer reefs seemed to shift with the gently rippling water.
“Rain or shine, you can go anywhere you want to here,” Mariette said of the tunnels and small bridges. “Anywhere as long as you aren’t afraid of heights or underwater passageways.”
“It’s all very impressive,” Dian said diplomatically. Todd wondered if she was bitter. She must be thinking of the tremendous cost; Saunderhome, rising like a jewel from the waters while pandemic and war racked the world she had grown up in. If Dian was angry, she didn’t show it.
Todd completed the flyby and banked on the opposite end of the run, coming about toward the beach landing strip on the westernmost outer island. He came in fast. Maintenance kept the strip in superb shape. Dian tried not to tense up. She knew they were coming in low for a regulation landing, no longer daredevil sightseeing. Mariette fidgeted while they rolled toward the hangars, anxious for them to be there.
Tomorrow’s Heritage Page 13
