Wennda held a hand up to Grobe. “This is a self-contained environment,” she told Farley, gesturing around them. “Everything’s recycled. Food, water, air, waste. All of it’s filtered, reverted, reused.” She indicated Boney, who had raised his head to blow smoke while his pipe fumed in his hand. “Sustainability is our top priority. Everything we do affects the ecosystem.”
Broben took a long pull and breathed smoke. “Heck, we don’t want to affect anybody’s ecosystem,” he said. “We’ll go smoke outside.”
Farley shook his head. “Just put ’em out,” he said. “We can live an hour without a smoke.”
Broben scowled, but he dropped his cigarette and ground it out. He bent and picked it up and showed it to Wennda and Grobe. Then he put it back in its pack. “I’ll save my own butt,” he said.
Grobe turned away and motioned them forward without another word.
Broben shook his head in disgust, and Farley indicated the dome. “It probably takes a lot of rules to live like this,” he said.
“Shit,” said Broben. “I bet even the Nazis let you light one up before they shoot you.”
*
Farley trudged along in exhausted silence. He had a thousand questions and concerns, but most of his energy and will were occupied with putting one foot in front of the other.
Wennda was looking more worried as they got closer to the buildings. If what Grobe had said was true, it was a good bet her team would be court-martialed for desertion, or unauthorized activity, or going outside without a hall pass, for all Farley knew.
Farley stared at two men and two women working in a field. Hoes, spades, a square barrow, light jumpsuits. Arshall waved at them and they looked surprised and waved back. They continued to stare at the party making its way across the miniature cropland.
“I got a bet with myself,” said Broben, “that Boatman is gonna shake me awake real soon and tell me I got thirty minutes to suit up, chow down, and get to the briefing.”
“Never thought I’d be homesick for those sardine cans,” Plavitz said behind them.
Behind Plavitz, Garrett said, “I just want to get horizontal for five minutes. I’m all in.”
“You can sleep in the next world,” Broben told him.
Shorty’s laugh was a curt bark. “Well, whadda ya call this?” he said in Jack Benny’s voice.
*
As they neared the buildings Farley saw that many of them had missing windows covered with fabric, some of the makeshift covers drawn back like curtains. The dark brick walkways had potholes that had been patched and worn concave.
The crew were led to a two-story, U-shaped building, dun-colored like most others here. Farley thought it looked like a budget motor court. Between two unmarked doors a group of men stood watching two others on spindly folding chairs playing a board game, making comments and offering suggestions. All wore lightweight jumpsuits. On the floor above them a man leaned on the metal railing, foot tapping and head nodding in a rhythm only he could hear. They stopped and stared as Farley’s crew approached. Farley glanced at Wennda and their escort. Wennda looked determined and led them on.
The man on the railing touched his ear and stopped moving in rhythm. He looked over Farley’s crew and didn’t seem overly impressed. “So you found her,” he said to Grobe.
“I was never lost,” Wennda called back.
“What about Sten and Arshall? Did they know where they were?”
“Not really the time for this discussion, Lang,” Wennda said wearily. “Are their quarters ready?”
“Thanks to six of us doubling up they are.” Lang nodded down at the crew. “These are the eight new mouths to feed?”
One of the game players looked up. “Nine,” he called up. “There’s one in the clinic.”
“Nine,” Lang echoed. He shook his head. “Reverter fodder.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” muttered Broben.
Farley caught his eye. “You see anyone radio ahead about us?” he asked quietly.
Broben shook his head.
“The commander appreciates your sacrifice,” Wennda called up to Lang. Farley couldn’t tell if she was being ironic.
Lang shrugged. “Nobody minds a temporary inconvenience,” he said.
*
The room was long and narrow and completely bare. No bunks, no chairs, no storage, no windows. Plain walls with thin lines where panels met. Overhead air vents. A tile floor worn colorless down the center. Light panels glowed overhead. Several were unlit, and one flickered.
“Gee, I wonder what the budget rooms are like,” said Shorty.
“It isn’t moving and there’s no one shooting at me,” said Plavitz. “I like it just fine.” He took off his boots and curled up near a wall and to all appearances instantly fell asleep. The others set down their weapons and their meager belongings and sat against the bare walls and relit their cigarettes. Boney took out his pipe and looked at it and put it back. Broben touched the pack in his shirt pocket and then reluctantly took his hand away. “Don’t you bums come begging to me when you run out,” he told Garrett and Everett.
Wennda stayed near the open door and watched with a kind of amused horror as the men blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Will this be sufficient, captain?” she asked.
“Sure, I guess,” said Farley, looking around the bare room. “For now, anyway.”
“Then I’d like you to come with me, please.”
“I don’t need separate quarters,” Farley said.
Wennda raised an eyebrow. “I’ll keep that in mind. But at the moment, the commander would like to see you.”
“All right,” said Farley. He went to the door, then looked back at Broben. “Try to keep them from burning the place down, okay?”
“Man can only do so much,” said Broben.
thirteen
Two of Grobe’s team stayed behind to guard the crew’s quarters. Farley thought about protesting but tabled it. Nobody was going anywhere right now, anyway.
Grobe and the short woman in his team flanked Farley and Wennda as they made their way through narrow pedestrian avenues. Everyone Farley saw wore the same oatmeal-colored jumpsuits, though some had been decorated with drawn designs or patterns. People stared at Farley in an unnerving way.
They entered a low, wide, dun-colored building and were ushered through a lobby the size of a living room, then went up a narrow and dimlit stairwell, their footfalls loud on the worn stone steps. On the second floor they emerged into a narrow corridor lit by small high-hats and painted a dingy yellow. Foot traffic had worn a dull path down the middle of the floor. Some of the lights were out. Farley figured it was probably a bit of a trek to get a new lightbulb around here.
Grobe opened a door. “You’ll wait here,” he told Farley. “The commander will see you after Wennda has been debriefed.”
Wennda forced a smile. “Maybe we should give him some more time to calm down.”
“He’s over fifty and it hasn’t happened yet,” said Grobe.
“True.” She nodded, then took a deep breath. “All right. Better to chop it off than saw on it, I guess.”
“You’ll be fine.” Farley thought he heard a note of contempt in the comment.
The expression that flashed across Wennda’s face made Farley think she was about to slap Grobe. It vanished as quickly as it came.
Grobe didn’t seem to have caught it. He nodded at the short woman—whose name Farley never did learn—and she nodded back and took up station by the door. Grobe indicated the room to Farley.
“Good luck,” Farley told Wennda.
A nervous smile. “I’ll try to wear him out before he gets to you,” she said. She squared her shoulders and went down the corridor, Grobe beside her.
*
Farley found himself in a small conference room, mostly muted grays and black. Half a dozen swivel chairs made of some strong black mesh around black tubing surrounded a rectangular table with a black glass top. The lighting was subtle and indirect, tho
ugh some of the lights were out in here, too. The far wall was decorated with unobtrusive geometric patterns. All of it was unremarkable and understandable to Farley, yet it was also alien. Sophisticated and dilapidated at the same time.
He went back to the door and pushed on it. It gave considerably and Farley frowned. It wasn’t wood and it wasn’t metal. He tapped the wall beside it with a finger and produced a hollow, high sound. He thought he probably could punch through it.
There wasn’t much more that the room could tell him, so he sat in one of the chairs. It was more comfortable than it looked, and adjusted in ways he wasn’t used to a chair adjusting. It would even lie flat.
If the Army had taught Farley anything, it was that you should do blanket drill any time you have a chance to, if you aren’t on R & R. And this was about as far from R & R as Farley could imagine.
He put his hands on his chest and closed his eyes.
*
He was the only boy in the world, and she was the only girl. Just like that old song his mother used to sing. There was no one else. They had the world to themselves; they were a world unto themselves. They stood across from one another, close enough that he could see her face. Every mole and line and freckle, all the little imperfections and disproportions that together comprise character. The intelligent eyes, the determined jaw. The contours someone else had drawn from his vivid memory of a face he’d never actually seen.
And yet it seemed that she was far away from him. Her expression and the set of her eyes made him wonder if she even saw him. He knew she would not hear him if he spoke. As if he were some ghost. As if she were. Or as if they both were real but the common ground they shared was not.
*
A quick dull knock brought Farley upright so fast he nearly keeled over in the reclined chair. He was startled to realize he had fallen asleep.
The door opened and Wennda and Grobe walked in. Both still wore their oddly insect-like stretchy outfits with the matte-black panels. Wennda’s hair was tied back in a ponytail. She did not meet Farley’s eye as she went to stand at attention behind a chair at one end of the black glass table. Grobe nodded woodenly at Farley and stood behind a chair at the opposite end.
Farley knew what was coming, and he quickly got to his feet as the commander entered the room. He was bald with graying stubble, not large but muscular and flat-bellied, and he moved confidently and purposefully with an athletic economy. Grobe had said the commander was over fifty, but Farley had the impression of someone a decade younger. He wore the ubiquitous plain jumpsuit, but Farley didn’t need a military uniform to know command when he saw it.
Farley glanced at Wennda as the commander went to a chair on the opposite side of the table. Her expression didn’t change, but her chin rose a trifle. That must have been some ass-chewing, Farley thought.
The commander nodded curtly at Farley and sat down. Farley waited for Wennda and Grobe to sit before he did so himself.
If the commander was amused or annoyed, his face didn’t show it. “I’m Vanden,” he said.
“Captain Joseph Farley, United States Army Air Force. You’re in charge here, sir?”
“I’m head of military operations.”
“I appreciate you taking us in.”
“Your status hasn’t been determined.” Vanden raised a hand to forestall Farley’s reply. “I need to know about your aircraft.”
Farley took a deep breath. Here we go. “I need to know about our status,” he said.
“What I learn about the one will determine the other.”
“Is that a fact. What is it you want to know, exactly?”
“Was it able to fly when you abandoned it?”
Farley couldn’t help wincing at the word. As if he’d somehow orphaned the Morgana. Walked away from her without a fight. “Not without a hangar party,” he replied. “Two engines wouldn’t start. One was intermittent. Number One was—well, I think my flight engineer could have fixed it, but without him—” Farley shrugged.
“Is that a no?” Vanden asked.
“That’s a no.”
“If you were able to make the repairs, how long would it take?”
“Couple days, maybe. If we had the parts.”
“And if you didn’t have the parts?”
“Maybe never.” Farley shrugged. “My flight engineer could answer that better than me.”
“Then perhaps I should be talking to him.”
“I wish you could. He got shot back in the canyon.”
Vanden frowned. “This is alarming news,” he said. He didn’t sound alarmed.
“You’re telling me.”
Vanden looked at Wennda. “You didn’t mention this man’s role when you made your report.”
“I wasn’t aware of it until now,” she said stiffly.
“This just gets better and better, doesn’t it.” Vanden waved her off. “What is your aircraft’s armament?” he asked Farley.
Farley folded his arms. “I’m really not at liberty to discuss that.”
The commander studied him. “There’s every reason to believe this weaponry will be used against us,” he said. “That means against you, while you are here.”
“That would be unfortunate. But the information you want is classified by the U.S. Army Air Force.”
Vanden leaned back and tapped his mouth with thumb and forefinger and looked thoughtful. Then he nodded at Grobe.
Grobe tapped the tabletop, and a lighted rectangle appeared before him. It flickered, and Grobe banged the table with a fist. The rectangle held steady. Grobe tapped symbols within it, and on the table in front of Wennda a small panel lit. She frowned down at it.
Grobe looked at the commander and spread his hands.
“Wennda,” the commander said.
Wennda’s mouth went tight as she pulled her flat binoculars from a chest pocket and positioned them in the lighted square.
Grobe tapped his panel again. A green light glowed on the binoculars, and a few seconds later a twilit miniature of the massive, pale-green wall of the Redoubt formed in the center of the table. It looked absolutely solid, as if a model of a section of the canyon had been placed upon the glass.
Grobe slid a finger along the bottom of the panel and the image blurred. His finger stopped, and now Farley was looking at a miniature Fata Morgana parked on the canyon floor in the middle of the table, bathed in the eerie greenish light of the Redoubt. The entire scene expanded until the bomber was several feet long. Farley could not believe the solidity and detail. For all he could tell, he was looking at a meticulously detailed model of his B-17F as he had last seen her. Appraising the visible damage, he also could not believe he had managed to safely land her on a canyon floor.
A flat version of the image now occupied Grobe’s control panel. Grobe drew on it with a finger, and a red halo formed around the twin fifties on the top turret. “Two weapons here in a rotating mount,” he said. “Chemical firearms with high-capacity belt-feed loading systems.”
Farley narrowed his eyes. He glanced at Wennda, but she continued to stare firmly down in front of her.
Grobe drew another red halo, this time around the ball turret. “Two more here on an X-Y axis,” he said, “possibly remotely controlled.” Red ringed the tail gun. “Two here.” The cheek port. “One here.” Floating circles formed around the empty port in the plexiglas nose bubble and the swivel mount on the right-side gunner station. “Presumably one here and here.”
His finger traced a large circle around the perimeter of his monitor, and Farley was startled when the cross-section of landscape on the table rotated as if parked on a lazy susan. The floating red rings rotated with it. Another ring formed around the Browning in its mount on the left window. “And one here,” Grobe finished, “for a total of seven emplacements. Most seem to be manually operated.”
Farley’s lips pressed tight. Son of a bitch.
“Combustible liquid fuel powers four reciprocating engines turning propellers for motive power a
t subsonic speed. Maneuverability and range projections indicate a strategic heavy attack aircraft and not a fighter. But there’s this.” Grobe dragged his finger along the panel in the opposite direction until the view on the table looked down a jagged length of canyon fissure. The cliff walls looked as solid as the little Redoubt had.
A speck entered the dusky air of the canyon diorama. Grobe dragged a finger up the edge of his panel and the scale enlarged until the speck resolved as an approaching B-17. Even though it was only a few inches long, it was easy to see that the bomber was bad off—shot to shit; right rear stabilizer askew; only one engine running, and the props not feathered on Two, Three, and Four; one wheel down and one still lowering.
Tiny tracer rounds streaked from the right-side gun port. The bomber banked right—and Farley got his first good look at the thing that had fought them through the canyon and annihilated the troop carrier that had pursued them on the valley floor. It appeared at the top of the diorama angling sharply down, and it streaked by the angled bomber from above and behind, firing some kind of weapon that hung beneath one wing. It was bigger than the Flying Fortress, though clearly lighter, and it flew like a bird and fought like a Focke-Wulf 190. More rounds streaked toward it from the B-17. The thing shot ahead of the bomber and arced up with a suddenness that would have torn a wing off any fighter plane. It spread sail-like membrane wings and snap-rolled right and out of the scene.
Garrett and Wen had argued about whether the thing had been a creature or a machine. What Farley had just seen was both.
He realized he was holding his breath. He let it out.
Grobe tapped the table again and the image froze. “The video shows the aircraft firing what appears to be a combination of targeting, incendiary, and kinetic ammunition at eight rounds per second,” he said, “with a muzzle velocity of eight hundred meters per second.”
“Enough to drive off the Typhon and destroy two armored personnel carriers,” said Vanden, looking at Farley.
Farley made his face a mask and stared back.
Vanden turned to Wennda. “You said they used these directly against Redoubt troops.”
She nodded. “From the aircraft and from a less powerful firearm they moved to a sheltered emplacement.”
Fata Morgana Page 13
