“The lack of security,” he said. “Cs don't get as much. It's the As and Bs that bandits can sell for a fortune. And I know the company because each truck's got a code on its side, if you know how to read it."
The convoy had passed out of sight, but they remained parked beside the narrow road. “When are we moving again?” she asked.
“Wait,” he cautioned.
She shifted in her seat and took a couple of meaningful breaths.
Reading the signs, Sandor turned to her. “You don't want to trail them too closely. Someone might get the wrong idea. Know what I mean?"
And with that, her brave, almost fearless brother continued to sit beside the road, hands squeezing the wheel.
“You gave somebody the wrong idea,” she said.
“Pardon?"
“Sandor,” she said. “In your life, how many convoys have you followed?"
Nothing changed about his face. Then suddenly, a little smile turned up the corner of his mouth, and with a quiet, conspiratorial voice, he admitted, “Fifty, maybe sixty."
She wasn't surprised, except that she didn't expect to feel so upset. “Is that how badly you want it? To be a Father ... you're willing to steal a ripper just to get your chance...?"
He started to nod. Then again, he looked at his sister, reminding her, “I'm still here. So I guess I'm not really that eager."
“What went wrong? The work was too dangerous for you?"
His expression looked injured now. Straightening his back, he started the car and pulled out, accelerating for a long minute, letting the silence work on Kala until he finally told her, “You know, there were thirty-two security men on that other convoy. The one hit by the Children of Forever. Plus a dozen drivers and three corporate representatives. And all were killed during the robbery."
“I know that—"
“Most of those poor shits were laid down in a ditch by the road and shot through the head. Just so motorists wouldn't notice the bodies when they drove past.” He squeezed the steering wheel until it squeaked, and very carefully, he told Kala, “That's when I gave up wanting it. Being a Father to the very best world isn't enough reason to murder even one poor boy who's trying to make some money and keep his family fed."
* * * *
A pair of mountain ranges stood as islands far out in the Mormon Sea, and they spent a few days walking the tallest peaks. Then they drove north again, up to the Geysers, enjoying a long hike through the mountains north of that volcanic country. Then it was late August, and they started back toward Kala's home. One stop remained, kept until now for sentimental reasons.
“Our best vacation,” she muttered.
Sandor agreed with his silence and a little wink.
They stayed in a reserve campground meant for employees, and Kala introduced her brother to the few rangers that remained from her days here. The mood was upbeat, on the whole. Old colleagues expressed interest in her studies, asking knowledgeable questions, and in some cases, offering advice.
One older gentleman—a fellow who had never warmed much to her before—nodded as he listened to her description of her work. Then he said, “Kala,” with a sweet, almost fatherly voice. “I know a place with just that kind of bug. I can't tell you the species, but I don't think it's quite what you've found before."
“Really? Where?"
He brought out a map and pointed at a long valley on the other side of the continental divide. “It looks too low in altitude, I suppose. And a lot of junipers are moving in. But if you get up by this looping road here—"
Sandor pushed in close to watch.
“There's a little glen. I've seen that blue bug there, I'm sure."
“Thank you,” Kala told him.
“Whatever I can do to help,” the old ranger said. Then he made a show of rolling up the map, asking, “I can take you up myself. If your brother wants to stay here and rest for a bit."
Sandor said, “No thanks."
But he said it in an especially nice way. For the time being, neither one of them could see what was happening.
* * * *
11
As promised, juniper trees were standing among the natives. Rilly birds and starlings must have eaten juniper berries outside the reserve. Since their corrosive stomach acids were essential for the germination process, wherever they relieved themselves, a new forest of ugly gray-green trees sprouted, prickly and relentless. Most biologists claimed that it was an innate, mutualistic relationship between species. But Kala had a different interpretation: The birds knew precisely what they were doing. Whenever a starling took a dump, it sang to the world, “I'm planting a forest here. And I'm going to be the death of you, you silly old trees."
Sandor squatted and stuck his thick fingers into the needle litter, churning up a long pink worm. After a summer spent watching Kala, he was now one of the great experts when it came to a single genus of pseudoinsects. “Not all that promising,” he announced.
Earthworms were another key invader from their home world. And no, nightcrawlers didn't usually coexist with her particular creepy-crawlies.
“Maybe higher up,” he offered.
But the old ranger told her this was the place, which implied that her subjects were enduring despite worms and trees: A heroic image that Kala wanted to cling to for a little while longer.
“You wander,” she said. “If I don't find anything, I'll follow."
Sandor winked and stepped back into the black shadows.
Twenty minutes later, Kala gave up the hunt. Stepping into a little clearing, she sat on a rock bench, pulling a sandwich from her knapsack and managing a bite before a stranger stepped off the trail behind her.
“Excuse me?"
Startled, Kala wheeled fast, her free hand reaching for the pistol on her belt. But the voice was a girl's, and she was a very tiny creature—big-eyed and fragile, maybe ten years younger than Kala. The girl looked tired and worried. Her shirt was torn, and her left arm wore a long scrape that looked miserably sore.
“Can you help me, ma'am? Please?"
Carefully, Kala rose to her feet while pushing the sandwich back inside her bag, using that same motion to make certain that her second pistol was where she expected it to be. Then with a careful voice, she asked, “Are you lost, sweetie?"
“That too,” the girl said, glancing over her shoulder before stepping away from the forest's edge. “It's been days since I've been outside. At least."
Kala absorbed the news. Then she quietly asked, “Where have you been?"
“In the back end."
“The end of what?"
“The bus,” the girl snapped, as if Kala should already know that much. “He put me with the others, in the dark—"
“Other girls?"
“Yes, yes.” The little creature drifted forward, tucking both hands into her armpits. “He's a mean one—"
“What sect?"
“Huh?"
“Does he belong to a sect?"
“The Children of Forever,” the strange girl confessed. “Do you know about them?"
With her right hand, Kala pulled the pistol from her belt while keeping the bag on her left shoulder. Nothing moved in the trees. Except for the girl and her, there might be no one else in this world.
“He's collecting wives,” the girl related. “He told me he wants ten of us before he leaves."
“Come closer,” Kala told her. Then she asked, “How many girls does he have so far?"
The girl swallowed. “Three."
“And there's just him?"
“Yeah. He's alone.” The girl's eyes were growing larger, unblinking and bright. “Three other girls, and me. And him."
“Where?"
“Down that way,” said the girl. “Past the parking lot, hiding up in some big old grease trees."
Kala's car lay in the same direction. But Sandor had gone the opposite direction.
Whispering, she told the stranger, “Okay. I can help you."
“Thank you,
ma'am!"
“Quiet."
“Sorry,” the girl muttered.
“Now,” Kala told her. “This way."
The girl fell in beside her, rubbing her bloodied arm as she walked. She breathed hard and fast. Several more times, she said, “Thank you.” But she didn't seem to look back half as often as Kala did, and maybe that was what seemed wrong.
After a few minutes of hard walking, Kala asked, “So how did you get free?"
The girl looked back then. And with a nod, she said, “I crawled up through the vent."
A tiny creature like that: Kala could believe it.
“I cut my arm on a metal edge."
The wound was red, but the blood had clotted some time ago. Even as Kala nodded, accepting that story, a little part of her was feeling skeptical.
“If he finds me, he'll hurt me."
“I won't let him hurt you,” Kala promised.
“There's three other girls in the bus,” she repeated. Then she put her hands back into her armpits, hugging herself hard, saying, “We should save them, if we can. Sneak up to the bus while he's hunting for me and get them free, maybe."
But Kala wanted to find Sandor. She came close to mentioning him to the girl, but then she thought better of it. Her brother's presence was a secret that made her feel better. It gave her the confidence to tell the girl, “Later. First I have to make sure that you're safe."
The girl stared up at her protector, saying nothing.
“Come on,” Kala urged.
“I want to be safe,” the girl said.
“That's what I'm doing—"
“No,” she said. Then her hands came out from under her arms, one of them empty while the other held a little box with two metal forks sticking from one end, and the forks jumped out and dove into her skin, and suddenly a hot blue bolt of lightning was rolling through her body.
* * * *
The girl disarmed Kala and stole her bag and tied her up with plastic straps pulled from her back pocket. Then she vanished down the path. The pain subsided enough to where Kala could sit up, watching uphill, imagining her brother's arrival. But this wasn't the path he had taken, and he still hadn't shown by the time the girl and a New Father appeared. A stubby automatic weapon hung on his shoulder. He was forty or forty-five years old, a big, strong, and homely creature with rough hands and foul breath. “She is awfully pretty,” was his first assessment, smiling at his latest acquisition. Then he offered a wink, adding, “He promised I'd like you. And he was right."
The old ranger had set this up.
“I didn't see any brother,” said the tiny girl.
“That would be too easy,” the man cautioned. Then he handed his weapon to the girl and grabbed Kala, flinging her over a shoulder while saying, “I don't think he'll be any problem. But come on anyway, sweet. Fast as we can walk."
They entered the open glade, crossing the parking lot and passing Kala's tiny car before they climbed again, entering a mature stand of native trees. Hiding in the gloom was a long bus flanked by a pair of fat freight trucks, each vehicle equipped with wide tires and extra suspension. And there were many more brides than three, Kala saw. Twelve was her first count, fourteen when she tried again. Each girl was in her teens. They looked like schoolgirls on a field trip, giggling and teasing the newest wife by saying, “Too old to walk for herself,” and, “Fresh blood in the gene pool, looks like."
Three young men silently watched Kala's arrival. Sons, by the looks of them. In their early twenties, at most.
“Beautiful,” said one of the boys.
The other two nodded and grinned.
With the care shown to treasured luggage, the older man set Kala beneath a tree, her back propped against the black trunk, arms and legs needing to be retied, just to make sure. Kala quickly looked from face to face, hoping for any sign of empathy. There was none. And the girl who had been sent out as bait stood over Kala for several minutes, wearing the hardest expression of all.
“He will come for me,” Kala said.
“Your brother probably will,” said the New Father. “But I've been watching you two. He's carrying nothing bigger than that long pistol, and we've got artillery here he wouldn't dare face."
As if to prove their murderous natures, the sons retrieved their own automatic weapons from the bus.
“What next?” one son asked.
“Stay here with me,” their father advised.
But the oldest son didn't like that tactic. “We could circle around, pick him off when he shows himself."
“No,” he was told.
“But—"
“What did I say?"
The young man dropped his face.
“God led us to this place,” the wiser man continued. “And God has seen to give us a sticky hot day. Pray for storms. That's my advice. Then we can punch a hole in the clouds and get power enough to finally leave...."
Lightning, he was talking about. Kala had heard about this technique: With a proper rocket and enough wire following like a tail, it was possible to create lightning during a thunderstorm. A channel of air supplied the connection to the charged earth below. The bolt would strike a preset lightning rod ... up in the tree on the other side of camp, she realized. She noticed the tall black spike and the heavy wires leading down into the ripper that was probably set in the center of the bus, a class-C that was hungry and waiting for its first and only meal.
Kala could guess why these people had come into the mountains. They liked solitude and cheap energy, and besides, the police were hunting everywhere else for those who had murdered the security guards.
Sandor was somewhere close, Kala told herself.
Watching her.
She almost relaxed, imagining her brother hunkered low in the shadow of some great old tree, waiting for a critical mistake to be made. Hunting for an opening, a weakness. Any opportunity. She went as far as picturing his arrival: Sandor would wait for afternoon and the gathering storms, and maybe the rain would start to fall, fat drops turning into a deluge, and while the devout boys and girls watched for the Lord in that angry sky, her brother would sneak up behind her and neatly cut her free.
Obviously, that's what would happen.
Kala thought so highly of the plan that she was as surprised as anyone when a figure emerged from the shadows—a man smaller than most were, running on bare feet to keep his noise to a minimum. He was quick, but something in his stride seemed unhurried. Untroubled. He looked something like a hiker who had lost his way but now had found help. Perhaps that was what Sandor intended. But his face was grim and focused, and no motion was wasted. Everybody—grooms and brides and even their captive—stared for a moment, examining the stranger in their midst. Then the newcomer reached beneath his shirt and lifted a long pistol, and the first hollow point removed the top of the father's head and the second one knocked the small girl flat. Then Sandor was running again, slipping between brides, and one of the sons finally lifted his weapon, spraying automatic gunfire until three girls had dropped and another brother had pushed the barrel into the forest floor, screaming, “Stop, would you ... just stop ... !"
Sandor had the third brother by the neck, slamming him against the broad black trunk of a tree. Then he stared out at the cowering survivors, pressing the barrel of the pistol into the man's ass, and with a voice eerily composed, he said, “Put your guns down. Do it now. Or I'm going to do some painting over here ... with a goddamn pubic hair brush...."
* * * *
12
The matronly gray robes of middle age had vanished, replaced by an old woman's love for gaudy colors. She was wearing a rich slick and very purple dress with a purple hat with a wide gold belt and matching shoes. Diet and exercise had removed enough weight to give her a stocky, solid figure. She nicely filled the station of her life—that of the fit, well-rested widow. Seeing her children standing at her doorway, Mom smiled—a thoroughly genuine expression, happy but brief. Then she found something alarming in their face
s. “What's happened?” With concern, she said, “Darlings. What's wrong?"
Kala glanced at her brother and then over her shoulder.
In the street sat a plain commercial van. Nothing about the vehicle was remarkable, except that its back end was being pressed down by the terrific, relentless weight of a class-C ripper and a powerful little winch.
The van was their fourth vehicle in three days, and Sandor would replace it tomorrow, if he thought it would help.
“I was just leaving,” their mother offered. And when no one else spoke, she added, “I don't normally dress like this—"
“Don't go,” said her son.
“Are you meeting friends?” Kala asked. “If you don't show, will somebody miss you?"
Mom shook her head. “I just go to the tea parlor on Fridays. I know people, but no, I doubt if anybody expects me."
It was the Sabbath today, wasn't it?
“Can I park the van inside your garage?” Sandor asked.
Mom nodded. “You'll have to pull my car out—"
“Keys,” he said.
She fished them from a purse covered with mock jewelry, and Sandor started down the front stairs.
Kala gratefully stepped inside. All these years, and the same furnishings and carpet populated the living room, although every surface was a little more worn now. Immersed in what was astonishingly familiar, she suddenly relaxed. She couldn't help herself. All at once it was impossible to stand under her own power, and as soon as she sat, a deep need for sleep began to engulf her.
“What's happened?” Mom repeated. “What's wrong?"
“We're going to explain everything, Mom."
“You look awful, sweetness. Both of you do.” The old woman sat beside Kala on the lumpy couch, one hand patting her on the knee. “But I'm glad to see you two, together."
Sometime in these last few moments, Kala had begun to cry.
“Tell me, dear."
In what felt like a single breath, the story emerged. For the second time in her life, Kala had been kidnapped, but this time Sandor killed two people while freeing her. A second bride died in random gunfire, and two more were severely injured. “But we had to leave them,” Kala confessed. “After we disarmed the brothers and brides, we left them with first aid kits and two working trucks ... except Sandor shot out the tires before we drove off in their bus, just to make sure we would have a head start...."
Asimov's SF, October-November 2006 Page 9
