by John Barnes
“Yeah. I just wish we had a way to get you to Athens; it won’t do us much good to pull the Army back together, relieve Pale Bluff, and then all be called home after the Board sends a note of apology to Lord Robert for annoying him.”
Chris spoke up. “Isn’t the radio rig still up? Let me talk to the RRC and see if something can happen.”
THIRTEEN:
A DEAL WITH A REASONABLE DEVIL
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. PALE BLUFF. ABOUT 3:30 PM CENTRAL TIME. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026.
Carol May tapped her finger on the map at St. Francisville. “Everywhere else with a decent place to land is at least seven miles further walk to Pale Bluff. And if they land at one of the not-so-good places it will take them a lot longer to get onto shore and set up. So we’re looking at sending a few men on mules over there to wreck St. Francisville, but it’s two days to get there and then the question would be, what could they do to make it really useless to the Daybreakers? Anything ten guys could pile up on the ramps, ten thousand guys could take off the ramps pretty fast. And just burning the old buildings wouldn’t accomplish much. Lord Robert might like to sleep under a roof, but he won’t let it slow him down if he can’t. And most of his force will be camping out anyway.”
“You couldn’t mine anything, or booby trap it?”
“Not so it would mean anything. We might set up a few black-powder bombs or some tripwire deadfalls, but at best you might kill or injure a couple dozen tribals, and we figure we’ll be facing tens of thousands of them. And the only one that would really count is Lord Robert, and we will not get a shot at him, I think. It’s just… we know where they’ll be coming ashore and we could probably get a few troops there first, but we can’t think of anything useful for the troops to do once they get there.”
Bambi said, “What about trees along the bank upstream? Cut them down so they fall in the river, create snags?”
“Maybe, but—”
A chime from the other room announced a radio message coming in. Carol May put on her headphones, charged the capacitor, set the spark, and keyed QRZ, “who is calling?” She listened a moment and said, “Bambi, my one-time pad is in the drawer at your right. Key 310, please.”
Bambi handed her the sheet printed with triple rows divided into neat boxes; the middle row was typed in with random numbers, the top row blank for recording the incoming message, the lower row for the decrypt. Carol May set the sheet in front of her, put a fresh pencil beside it, and keyed QRV—go ahead.
“Apparently whatever it is, it’s a big deal, because Pueblo is calling way off their regular schedule, and they—” She picked up the pencil and took down a string of letters and numbers. When the page was about half full, she set down her pencil, keyed an acknowledgment, and shut down the transmitter. “Hunh. And they repeated the clear-code for DECIPHER IMMEDIATELY at the end of the message. Like anyone would get an emergency message and not decipher it ASAP. Whatever it is they really want us to know right away.”
After the first sentence, Carol May said, “All right, you finish the decryption. I’m going to make you a bag of sandwiches and a big thermos of coffee.”
“Am I going somewhere?”
“Ninety-nine percent chance, I’d say, if when you decrypt the rest of it, it’s like that first sentence. I’ll get your food packed. Good thing you got as much sleep as you did.”
Carol May had the sandwiches and thermos ready to go in a sturdy cardboard box when Bambi emerged from the radio room. “You were right. Thanks so much, and I hope you packed enough for two.”
“Of course. I’ve already put up my TAXI YES flag, so—there we are.”
A pedicab was pulling up at the front of the house. “Just a sec while I grab my flight bag and gear,” Bambi said. By the time that Claudia, the pedicabbie, was knocking on the door, Bambi had returned to the front room, bag slung over her shoulder, in her fur-lined moccasins, jacket, scarf, and goggled helmet. Claudia gaped for a moment, and Carol May couldn’t resist teasing, “Have you never seen a pilot before, or never carried a duchess?”
Sheepishly, Claudia said, “Actually, I’ve been looking for that pattern to knit a scarf for my husband.”
Bambi grinned. “Get me to the airfield in less than ten minutes, and since I have a spare scarf in the plane, you can have this one to copy. Just remember I’ll want it back; a tough thug of an FBI agent named Terry Bolton made it for me as a wedding present.”
“With my life,” Claudia said. “And I’ll see if we can make the airfield in five.”
At the airfield, the Stearman was ready—local ground crew were efficient—so Bambi just tossed her things into the forward cockpit, switched scarves with her spare, tossed the other to Claudia, and hugged the cabbie. “What’s the fee?”
“Carol May keeps me on retainer, and the loan of your scarf is the best tip I’m getting all year. Thanks, your, uh, Duchessness? That can’t be right.”
“Don’t get too good at titles. Doesn’t look good on an American. Thanks, Claudia, see you soon I hope.”
She felt like she really shouldn’t take the time, but she trotted over to the black and yellow checkerboard-patterned Gooney Express. Quattro was in the rear. He had already removed the passenger door and bolted the S-shaped, hand-fed bomb rack to the underside. Now he was reinstalling the black-powder Gatling as a door gun.
When he saw Bambi, he dropped the tools and jumped down to hug her. “Where to, Duchess Babe?”
“There’s a revolution forming in Athens and we might be able to replace the goofy religious nuts with an only slightly crazy right-winger, which is Jenny Whilmire Grayson, so I’m going to pick her up from the Army of the Wabash and plunk her down in Athens.”
“Charming company.”
“She’s not so bad, really, and we understand each other. We both were brainy hot chick trophy daughters for power-mad fathers.”
“So you’re in the same support group?”
“Yeah, and we both know the secret handshake. No shit, she’d piss you off and she’d drive Heather or James bugfuck crazy, but I can relate to her. I’m sure that’s a character flaw of some kind.”
“Well, better you than me. And while you’re gone I’ll have the Gooney to play with. By the time Lord Robert gets here, we’ll be set up to surprise the shit out of him.”
“Eahh. That’s another piece of bad news. Estimated time of arrival is way sooner, according to Heather’s emergency message. Carol May can fill you in on that. But if I were you I’d never leave the Gooney unflyable overnight.”
“Then I won’t. I’m just a flyguy with some charisma. You’re the one that knows how to do all this danger and fighting stuff. Think I should sleep out here?”
“Well, you might need to take off in a hurry any time, but you should be okay for a day or two. Maybe after tonight. Carol May’s place isn’t that far away, and mostly I’m just paranoid these days, and I worry about you. Also there might be some delay about me getting back here; I’ll be picking up some high-priority secure communications at Athens and delivering them to General Phat at Paducah, and I kind of think he’ll have more work for a pilot and plane, and then there’s a blackout on the tenth—the moon gun went off this morning—so I might be grounded someplace for a while.”
“Bambi, hon, being apart sucks, and I want you back as soon as you can be, but I’ll be fine. I’m going to be inside a wall, and guarded by armed troops, and my plane will be safe on the ground when the EMP hits. You’re flying over hundreds of miles of tribal territory in something that isn’t much more than a powered kite, and you know how when there’s a big military operation, like the one you’re visiting in Paducah, they always want you to fly right till the second before blackout starts.”
“Well, I’ll tell them no if they ask.”
“You better. You’ve already had one force-down in tribal country, and whatever it was for you, it was the scariest week of my life till we got you back. So you are not going to worry about me.” He held her a long tim
e, and hugged extra hard. “Be back soon, Bambi, okay? I like the world better when you’re close.”
4 HOURS LATER. RICHMOND, KENTUCKY. ABOUT 8:30 PM EASTERN TIME. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026.
Conversation was impossible between the open cockpits. Bambi and Jenny could communicate in very occasional shouts over the roar of the engine, but that was all. So Bambi’s view of Richmond at sunset—a little town with lights coming on, the guard changing on the city walls, and people trudging home from work—was all her own. They had built a new landing strip within the walls, and she flew low to take a look at it. They were just hoisting the white-circle-on-blue that meant “We have clean fuel,” and the long pennon that meant “Welcome, you were not expected.” Bambi waggled her wings to indicate she’d understood, then came around and brought the Stearman in for a smooth landing, or as smooth as you could do on partially deflated greased-linen tires. She taxied over to the reception area and killed the engine.
As they climbed out, Jenny said, “Whenever you and Quattro get a chance you should take a look at that NeoGoliath’s landing gear. Chris was all impressed that they used a double-spring axle like on an old-time covered wagon, with iron-rimmed wheels.”
“Yeah, interesting. I wonder what that lands like—”
A light cough nearby made them turn to see an older man in a somewhat lumpy, probably handmade blue uniform, sort of an inexpert copy of a police patrolman’s uniform, with the Cross and Eagle insignia on both shoulders. On his chest, he wore a metal disk with the words “Airfield Master—On Duty” stenciled in black paint. “Uh, I’m supposed to ask you to identify yourselves and what you’re doing here.”
“Of course. Bambi Castro Larsen. Pilot, RRC courier service.”
“Jenny Whilmire Grayson, urgent government business, en route to Athens.”
“Uh. Well, that is, uh. I have orders to detain you. I mean you, Ms. Grayson. I have no orders about you, Ms. Larsen.”
“I would like to see that order,” Bambi said, and held out her hand.
“Um, I don’t think—”
“Would you like me to demand it as an RRC courier who has an absolute right anywhere in the United States to protect my passengers from harassment? Or as a senior RRC agent who could call in troops to occupy this airfield if I don’t like the answer? Or as the Duchess of California, so that this can be an international incident? Because I’ll be happy to play it any of those ways. Or all of them.”
The man looked terrified, which was exactly what Bambi had intended, and handed over a transcribed radiogram. Without asking, Bambi also reached out and took the lantern from the man’s hand, holding it up to read. “‘All stations, Jenny Whilmire Grayson is to be detained but not harmed, for reasons necessary to the government.’ And then it adds ‘This order has been authorized by Reverend Donald Whilmire, National Constitutional Continuity Board Chairman and Acting NCCC.’ This doesn’t give an appropriate and specific description of the reasons, it doesn’t specify anything that you would need for an arrest warrant, and it’s signed by an authority that isn’t recognized in the rest of the United States.”
“They say I have to hold her.”
“They can say you have to shoot down the moon, depose God, or kill all the firstborn males in Kentucky, and you’re still the one who has to decide whether to try to comply or not.”
“I’m a Federal official—”
“What were you back before?”
“Ain’t got nothing to—”
“Because, buddy, I was a Federal agent and we learned about warrants, since screwing one up, or using an invalid one, could cost us a job or the Attorney General a conviction. And this is not a valid warrant. Now, you can point that gun at us and see if you can make us take orders that you have no power to give, on behalf of people who also had no power to give them, or you can shut up and do your job as Airfield Master, which I would bet you’re a lot better at than you are at playing cop.” She had been walking closer to him as she spoke, holding the lantern up so it shone in his eyes. “Now are you going to be a real Airfield Master or a fake cop?”
As she asked that question, she reached forward and lifted the man’s pistol from its holster, gently, not grabbing, and held it out in her open hand, so it pointed at neither of them, but he could reach for it easily. “You need this for routine protection on your job, I know. Do I have your word you aren’t going to go any further with this arrest nonsense, you’re not going to radio anywhere for orders or instructions, and you’ll get us a maintenance and fuel wagon out here? If you’ll give me your word about that, then I’ll fix things up tonight, we’ll sleep by the plane, and we’ll take off at first light. And you can always say I took your gun away from you and you had no choice.”
The man had seemed to shrink the whole time Bambi had been talking to him. “I don’t know what—”
“Exactly. I took your gun, I had the authority, and you didn’t know what to do so you just did your job as Airfield Master. Now take the deal—and your gun back. Just say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
He mumbled, “Yes, ma’am,” and took the gun as if afraid it might go off, sliding it uncomfortably back into his holster, then slouched off toward the main buildings.
“Think he’ll keep his word?”
“Probably, at least for a while. One of those things I’ve learned to have a feel for, spotting the people Daddy used to call ‘Natural omegas,’ people who are just looking for someone to tell them what to do. He probably really is a good Airfield Master and he’ll feel a lot more comfortable doing that than he did trying to be the KGB. So I think we’re all right. And anyway, I just volunteered us into sleeping under the wing, so we’re right where we need to be if trouble starts.”
“Good thing it looks like a warm night,” Jenny said.
“And thank god for Carol May’s sandwiches. My plan is, sandwiches now, get the checkout and fuel done right after, sack out, then open the coffee thermos when we get up and take off just as the sun rises.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The meal was good, no repairs were needed, and after fuel, tire air, oil, and lye were all topped up, they stretched out in blankets next to each other under the wing. Bambi said, “Hope you didn’t mind being a mechanic’s helper before bedtime.”
Jenny snorted. “I’m only afraid I might like the job so much I decide to give up on politics and become a full-time mechanic. You ever think about being just a pilot instead of a duchess?”
“Only about every other breath.”
“Well, good, it’s nice when you take a flying trip to know that the pilot isn’t crazy.”
From the sound of her breathing, Bambi knew that Jenny fell asleep almost immediately. Well, compared to what she’s been through recently, I guess sleeping under a plane wing and hoping you won’t be arrested in the middle of the night is probably pretty restful. For that matter when I consider what’s happened to her, I realize how lucky I am. A moment later, Bambi fell asleep too.
AN HOUR LATER. RUINS OF TERRE HAUTE, THE DOMAIN. 11:30 PM CENTRAL TIME. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2026.
Terre Haute had grown into a sizable town, back before, because it was a good landing at the big bend of the Wabash; the same fact, plus the convergence of road and rail in the area, had been in Grayson’s mind when he had decided to make it the main supply base for his reconquest of the Lost Quarter.
The garrison, just a short battalion of militia, had had almost no warning before the first big flotilla of canoes and rafts had begun landing just upstream of them. The first human wave of tribals—mostly fanatical types that Lord Robert didn’t like much anyway—had torn through the waterfront side of the garrison’s camp, cutting them off from escape and enabling forces to land downstream of them. Within three hours, well before the full force arrived, Lord Robert’s personal guard had been hanging the last of the captured and wounded, while the tribals drummed and celebrated. It had been a good little party, Lord Robert thought. And these guys really needed to blow off some stea
m considering how hard they’re working and how much they’ve accomplished.
Terre Haute was a good place for the forces to get some rest and to reorganize for the next phase, and the heap of supplies was so large that it took a couple of days for Bernstein and his quartermasters to take inventory and divvy up.
“I still don’t get why this is a good idea,” Nathanson was saying to Lord Robert, who was stretched out on an antique couch that had apparently had no synthetic materials, in the main room of a big old mansion he’d made his headquarters.
“Why what is a good idea?” Lord Robert took another sip of the high-priced fancy-ass brandy they had found, and decided that it really did taste like cough syrup and he would switch back to bourbon when he wanted another drink, which need not be soon. Got this sweet life going, not going to lose it because I’m drunk when a guy shows up with a knife.
“This,” Nathanson said, waving vaguely around himself. He drank rarely but always to get drunk, with no interest in adjusting his mood but apparently an occasional desire to get stupid and helpless. He was well on his way right now, but this was about the safest situation for it. “This. The big house. The cognac. The jewelry for the house bitches, the fancy shit like eating caviar, all that stuff that says we’re rich and better than anyone else. Don’t you think that’s gonna be bad for morale, sooner or later?”
“Just the opposite. I mean my followers are not going to be impressed with just any old cheap ass junk. I need to keep a little awe going, you know, and the living-rich stuff helps with that.”
Nathanson made a face; maybe the cognac was catching up with him too. “Lord Robert, doesn’t that sound kind of like a reason you made up on the spot?”
“Well,” Robert said, “I did. But the truth is, if I tell’em they feel that way, they’ll feel that way. That’s one of the things that you gotta realize, that these Daybreaker types, the fundamental thing about Daybreakers, whether they came in from fundamentalist churches or whether they came in from environmental groups or wherever they came from, the one thing they really had in common was they sure did love to be told what to do. There’s lots of people like that, always been. Hell, I don’t think people have revolutions ’cause they want freedom, that’s bullshit they tell themselves afterward ’cause they’re proud of themselves, I think what makes revolutions, is, is, whenever people want to be told what to do more by the opposition than they want to be told what to do by the government.” He was pleased with having had the thought, though he wasn’t sure it was true.
