Fata Morgana

by Steven R. Boyett

  The crewmen raised their guns.

  The figure stepped out from the shadow of the wing.

  “Jeez Louise,” said Francis.

  Wendell Bonniker pushed back his A-3 cap and turned his head and spat on the floor. “Never met her,” he said.

  thirty-one

  Farley, Wennda, and Yone hurried along the groove in a slight crouch. They were well past the Typhon now but Farley couldn’t let go of what had happened back there. The thing had looked him in the eye, or so he’d thought, and he had gone completely rabbit.

  It’s just a glorified fighter plane, he told himself. It’s what a P-47 will turn into in a hundred years.

  They crossed one of the lines that marked where the groove bisected the circular design outside a repair bay. Wennda suddenly called a halt and frowned down at the line.

  “You all right?” Farley asked.

  She looked up at him. Then she climbed up out of the groove.

  “Wennda?” Farley tried to keep his tone calm. “What are you doing?”

  “Come up,” she called down. “The Typhon can’t see us now.”

  Farley looked at Yone and Yone shrugged. Farley climbed out of the trench, then pulled Yone out.

  They stood before one of the repair bays. This one held a massive framework gantry from which hung hooks and claws and cables meant to move across a hangared typhon to effect repairs. But there was no typhon in here, just an empty platform centered on the ditch-like groove that led toward the tunnel’s central groove. The bay that housed the Typhon was far behind them, near the wall that marked the end of the enormous tunnel.

  A drone skittered by, carrying a metal box in that direction.

  “Look here,” said Wennda. She indicated the large circular design on the ground in front of the repair bay. The circle was paler than the rest of the floor, and outlined in a ring of metal. The main groove ran through it; another groove ran from the outer ring to the repair bay.

  “What am I looking at?” Farley asked.

  “These circles turn ninety degrees,” Wennda said. “So that the sleds that hold the typhons can move out onto them. Then they rotate back to line up with the trench.”

  “It’s a transport system,” Yone realized. “To move the typhons to other repair hangars. Or to where they took off and landed.”

  “I think it is how they took off,” Wennda said. “It’s a magnetic accelerator.”

  Farley frowned. “Come again?”

  “A launch rail.” She waved at the bay. “That’s where they housed them, repaired them, programmed them. Then they moved them to the main rail and launched them, one after another. I’d bet my next ten dessert shares that this tube comes out somewhere in the crater.”

  “The well,” Farley and Yone said at the same time.

  “We have to go that way,” said Wennda.

  “Whatever causes the vortex is still operating in there,” Yone said doubtfully.

  She shrugged. “It’s still the way out.”

  “Perhaps we will find a third way.”

  “I’m all for it,” said Farley. “So long as we keep moving.”

  Yone indicated his injured leg. “You should leave me behind. I will only keep you from reaching your aircraft.”

  “I don’t leave my people behind,” Farley said.

  “Even without me slowing you up, you know that you will only catch up to your crew if something goes wrong on their side of things.”

  “I also know that things go wrong a lot more than they go right, so we’ve got to try. And if everything goes perfectly and they make it out with the bomber, we still have to try. No one ever made a flight by giving up.”

  Wennda smiled a Mona Lisa smile. “Are they all like you where we’re going?” she asked.

  Farley smirked. “I’d have to say most of them are like me, but less so.” He pointed down the vast tunnel. “Get moving, soldier.”

  *

  They stopped to check out one of the open-frame buggies. The little vehicles weren’t much more than two molded bucket seats in a hard plastic framework on four balloon tires. A storage box behind the seats. The tires were dry-rotted.

  Wennda pressed a button on the steering wheel and shook her head. “The only things that have been maintained here in the last two hundred years are the Typhon and the launch rail. I’ll be surprised if we find anything that powers up.”

  The repair bays continued. Perhaps their typhons had been operational after the destruction, but had gradually worn out over the years, until only the one remained. The bugs—repair drones, Wennda called them—must have cannibalized whatever was closest first, then begun to work their way down the line.

  At one point they encountered a bug that had broken down. Its belly lay on the floor and its tendrils moved fitfully as the four rear legs tried to lift it but could not. Even as it struggled to rise it was swarmed by other drones. By the time the three humans drew even with it the faulty bug was half stripped and no longer moving.

  “Are these things alive?” Farley asked as they gave a wide berth to the bugs savaging the body of the damaged bug. “Is the Typhon alive?”

  “What you mean by alive?” said Wennda.

  “I mean is it an animal or is it a machine?”

  “Your question is binary,” Wennda said. “It only lets the Typhon be one or the other.”

  “Well—isn’t it?”

  “It’s not that simple.” She indicated the vast facility around them. “These people made machines the size of germs that used organic chemicals for fuel. They fed, they made little machines, they combined to make more complicated machines.”

  “So they were cells?”

  “Manufactured cells. Entire machines made out of millions of little machines. Independent pieces programmed to work together.”

  “But were they alive?”

  “Is a baby alive? It’s just a bunch of chemicals that organize into cells that combine and grow and reproduce.”

  “The Typhon isn’t a damn baby.”

  “The Typhon was made to be exactly what it is, Joe. By people. Hating it is like hating a hammer.”

  “A hammer that decides what it’s going to hit.”

  “You fly a machine that drops bombs. Aren’t you a hammer that decides what to hit?”

  Farley frowned. “All I can say is that I know I’m not,” he said. “I’m more than that.”

  Wennda raised an eyebrow. “How do you know the Typhon doesn’t feel the same way?” she asked.

  *

  Overhead lights came on as they advanced. The first time it happened it scared the hell out of Farley. He thought they’d been spotlighted from above, but Wennda was unconcerned. “It looks like I was wrong about things powering up,” she said. Then she saw Farley about to bolt. “It’s okay, Joe. It’s reactive lighting. There’s a motion sensor here somewhere.”

  “So we’re being tracked?”

  “If we are, I doubt there’s anyone reading it. It’s just an automatic system to save power.”

  Farley looked skeptical. They went on. Another overhead light came on. The one behind them went out.

  “Okay, that’s just spooky,” said Farley.

  Wennda smiled. “I won’t let it hurt you, Joe.”

  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  The farther they went, the more Farley felt like an archeologist exploring some buried tomb built by an unsuspected civilization. Ancient, mysterious, indecipherable. Haunted. He became aware of faint thrumming, some vast dynamo spinning beneath the ground for centuries.

  Soon the sporadic parade of repair drones veered to the right, down a lighted corridor between two repair bays.

  “Where do you think they are going?” Yone asked.

  “Some kind of fabrication shop?” said Farley. He indicated the few bugs headed their way from the corridor. “Something’s making replacement parts for the Typhon.”

  Yone looked worried. “Then there are people here?”

  Wennda shook he
r head. “I don’t think so,” she said. She smirked at Farley. “But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing alive down here.”

  “Gotta love an optimist,” said Farley.

  *

  A mile later the repair bays ended. The maglev launchway tunnel continued smooth and featureless until it ran into a blunt white wall a quarter-mile ahead.

  “End of the line,” said Farley.

  “It didn’t occur to me that the launch tube would have a door,” said Wennda.

  “Gotta keep the bad typhons from getting in somehow.”

  “There has to be some way to open it,” said Yone.

  Farley nodded. “Or a people-sized way out.”

  Past the final repair bay was another lighted corridor, plenty large enough for human beings, but looking like a gopher hole beside the enormous hangar. Empty, motionless, with evenly spaced doors. It curved slightly to the left. Across the launchway another corridor led in the opposite direction, curving to the right.

  Farley frowned at the launchway door. “The well’s on the other side of that?” he asked.

  “There’s every reason to think so,” said Wennda.

  “I think this corridor circles it.” Farley indicated the curving corridor on the other side of the launchway. “That’s the other end.”

  “This facility is a wheel,” Yone realized. “We are in a spoke, and that corridor is the hub.”

  “I’ll bet the important stuff’s in the hub,” said Farley. “Command and control, communications, administration.”

  “Power,” Wennda added.

  Yone closed his eyes. “The vibration is stronger,” he said. “Can you feel it?”

  Farley could. The thrumming hummed through him now like engines oscillating in unison. He could not tell whether he was hearing it or feeling it.

  He didn’t realize he had shut his eyes until he opened them. Wennda and Yone stood facing the corridor with their eyes closed, mouths open, faces relaxed. Wennda looked peacefully asleep, her face free of worry for the first time Farley could remember. There was something lulling in the thrum. Despite his urgency Farley thought how easy it would be to close his eyes again and bathe in that sound. To rest. He was so tired.

  He opened his eyes again. What the hell?

  “Wennda,” he said. She didn’t move. Farley grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Wennda!”

  Her eyelids fluttered open. “Joe,” she said, and looked surprised. “I was—was I dreaming?”

  Farley pointed at Yone. The sleeping man’s eyes were moving beneath the lids.

  Wennda frowned. “I think we should keep moving,” she said.

  thirty-two

  Wen still wore his grease-smudged fatigues and his beat-up A-3 cap and a pissed-off expression. A filthy rag flopped in his back pocket and a smoking Lucky drooped from the corner of his mouth. He looked for all the world as if he were at home in a hangar at Thurgood, and he looked completely unsurprised to see the crew.

  “You knew we’d be here?” Broben asked, after the arm-punches and insults subsided.

  Wen took a deep drag of his Lucky. “’Course I knew,” he said. “Cap’n wouldn’t just leave her here.” He looked around at the crew, paused at Sten, pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and waved it. “Where is the captain, lieutenant?”

  The men glanced at each other and looked down.

  “He didn’t make it, Wen,” Broben said.

  Wen nodded slowly. All that showed on his face were lines where his mouth went tight.

  “Sten here is from—you know about the Dome?”

  Wen nodded again.

  “He helped us get here,” Broben said. “He’s on the level. He lost people too.”

  Wen took one last laconic pull from his Lucky, then dropped it and ground it out with his boot. “We should get on the ship,” he said, and turned toward the bomber.

  “Hey,” Broben called. “Where the hell is everybody here?”

  Wen stopped and looked up at the distant grid of roof. He took a deep breath and turned back around. “Ain’t that many,” he said. “Three, four hundred maybe. They got a lotta gizmos, but they’re barely holdin’ on here.” He squinted at the scaled-down city in the distance. “What works here works great, but half of it don’t work at all. Everything’s all patches and spare parts. Including them. They’re a pretty scary bunch.”

  “So they leave you alone with a bomber?”

  “Hell no. I’m chaperoned like a church dance.” Wen put index and pinkie fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The enormous spider-like creature on the wing scurried down the engine cowling with a multilegged determination that creeped Broben the hell out. It dropped to the ground beside Wen.

  “They call these things biobots,” Wen said. “They all over the place. This here’s Abbott. That one that run off is Costello. Mostly they do repairs, but if I try to escape or sabotage the bomber, they’re s’posed to stop me.” A corner of his mouth drew up. “Something still goes wrong every time I about get her going, though.”

  Broben’s heart sank. “You’ve been putting off fixing her,” he said resignedly.

  “You kidding? These little jaspers are the best grease monkeys you ever saw. They spoiled the hell outta me. You gotta train ’em up, but they learn pretty good.” He fished the battered pack of Luckies from his shirt pocket and shook out a last cigarette. The spider extended a supple foreleg toward him and the tip glowed yellow-white. Wen bent and lit the cigarette against it. He straightened and blew smoke and turned to Broben. “I ain’t been keeping ’em from fixing her,” he said. “I been keeping ’em from knowing she’s fixed.”

  Broben stared. “She can fly?” he said.

  “Milk truck coming our way,” Plavitz announced.

  They all looked to see a large square vehicle like a delivery truck headed their way from the direction of the little city.

  “Everybody on the bomber,” Broben ordered. He looked hard at Wen as the crew ran for the main door and the bomb bay. “She can fly,” he said again.

  Wen nodded.

  “Okay,” said Broben. “Okay.” He ran to the main door and hurried into the bomber and pulled up short. Another spider was perched on top of the ball turret’s hydraulic assembly.

  “Rochester won’t bother you,” said Wen.

  “He bothers me now,” said Broben.

  Wen waved it off as if a yard-wide spider on a Flying Fortress were something you saw every day. Broben tried to press himself flat as he sidled by the bug without taking his eyes off it. When he was past it he ran past Shorty at his seat in the radio room and hurried toward the cockpit.

  “Hey, where’s the ammo?” Everett called. He was scowling at the .50-caliber Browning on its swivel mount in the right-side window.

  “I’m working on that,” said Wen.

  “Well, what the hell are we supposed to shoot with?”

  “You got the .30 and a bunch of pistols. Improvise.” Wen hurried after Broben.

  *

  Broben climbed into the pilot seat. It felt like years since he’d been in the cockpit. It felt like hours. He frowned at the controls as Wen climbed up to the pit behind him. The C-1 autopilot box below the throttle was gone. In its place was a white box the size of a cigarette pack, with a single button on one side.

  He glanced out the window at the box truck heading their way. It was a lot closer than he wanted it to be. “How long before I can start her up?” he asked Wen.

  Wen pressed a button on the white box and a light glowed green. “You can start her now.”

  Broben looked up at him in disbelief. “We can go,” he said.

  “Whenever you want.”

  “I want now.”

  “All right, then. I’ll be up top.” Wen dropped down.

  Broben looked at the oncoming truck. It couldn’t be a minute away. He glanced at the battery and inverter switches and verified that they were on even though he could hear their faint hum. The volt meter hovered around twenty-f
ive. He engaged the hydraulic pumps and heard them whine. When they cut off he opened the fuel shutoff valves and engaged the booster pumps, then slid the red bar of the master switch to on and flicked the ignition switches for Engines One through Four. He glanced out windows and saw that Wen had left the cowl flaps shut to warm the engines faster.

  The milk truck was driving on the open staging area now and moving much faster.

  Mixture-cutoff levers to Full Rich, throttle to ten percent, parking brake and tail wheel lock engaged. Prop RPM high, magneto switch One & Two on.

  He hit the Number One engine starter switch for ten seconds, then flicked mesh. The engine caught right away. No bronchial wheezing, just the sudden deep cough of start. Broben glanced left and saw the prop spinning up. No smoke had coughed from the engine. The cabin vibrated gently and Broben smelled high-octane fuel. The fuel-pressure gauge began to climb.

  The milk truck was two hundred yards away now. Broben slipped on his headset and switched on the interphone. “Pilot to crew,” he said. “Skip the checkin, we’re raising anchor. Bombardier, close the bomb bay doors.”

  “Close doors, roger,” Boney said immediately.

  Broben heard the whine from back in the fuselage as the doors began to close. He hit the Number Two starter switch, then hit mesh. Number Two started up like butter.

  He remembered the belly turret guns pointing down into the floor divot. “Belly gunner, level the turret,” he ordered.

  “Belly gunner, I’m already leveled.”

  Fifty feet from the Morgana the transport cut left and stopped.

  “Waist gunner here,” said Garrett right away, “I’m taking the .30 up front.”

  Number Three started up without a hitch. Instead of the usual guttural roar and shaking there was a rich bass thrum and a steady vibration.

  Broben started Number Four and motion caught his eye. A panel had opened on the roof of the truck and something shaped like a sideways bowl was rising up on a pole.

  “Shoot it,” Broben ordered. “Shoot whatever the hell that is.”

  “Thirty’s not in the gun port yet,” Boney said calmly.

  The bowl swiveled toward the bomber and a keening whine began to rise, like a turbine spinning up. It reminded Broben of those nerve guns. The economy-size version.