Edward Llewellyn

by Prelude to Chaos

  I followed Judith slowly into the container. “You take Josh. I’ll go out under Greta.” She had a physician’s concern for the dying and indifference to the dead. “Come on, Gavin! You must have handled more corpses than me.”

  That was probably true, but the ones I had buried or dug up had either been freshly killed or dead for some time. Judith picked up Greta’s stiff body, laid her gently on the floor of the container, covered her with the black cloth on which she had been lying, and tossed me a plastic garbage bag. “Stow the styro you dig out in that. If we leave bits lying around the guards may start to look for rats.” She burrowed into the foamed styro. “Plenty of room down here!” She looked across at me. “Go on, Gavin! Move old Josh out of the way. You know he’d want to help us. And he’ll be as mad as hell if we foul things up now.”

  He would be. I put him on the floor; the wasted husk of the man who had come here twenty years earlier. I covered him with his grave-cloth as Judith had hidden Greta, and began to make a nest for myself in the foam of his coffin.

  Judith had finished hers and disappeared into it. “Not too cramped!” came her muffled voice. “Greta’s no weight. And she’s not leaking!”

  I had forgotten that bodies sometimes leak and inspected Josh. He was dry, thank God. The refrigerator had desiccated him. I climbed into his coffin and found there was just enough room for me to lie flat on my back, though I hoped I would not have to lie there too long. When I clambered out I found Judith inspecting the catches which would hold the lids closed. “We’ll have to take a strip of metal along to slide these off after they’ve clamped us down.”

  “Are you sure they don’t use nails? Or screws?”

  “Fairly sure. But we’d better include crowbars in our kits in case they do. There’s a workbench in that corner. See what you can find.”

  I found two heavy wrenches. They’d make useful clubs at any rate. I stowed one in each coffin. “Have they got metal detectors?”

  “Metal detectors, ultrasound imagers, fluroscopes, heat sensors, sniffers! There’s every damn thing in that inspection station. But I don’t think any of them are working.”

  I hoped they weren’t, and went to hide the garbage bags filled with the foam we had removed to make our nests. When I came back to the container Judith pointed to my coffin. “You get in first. You’re a tighter fit than me, and I’ll arrange Josh and his cerements.”

  “Who’ll arrange Greta on top of you?” I asked as I lowered myself into the foam.

  “I can fix myself.” The light disappeared as she spread the black grave-cloth over my embedded body. I was alone in the dark silence, the constricted space, used in one type of interrogation equipment. I tried not to think about that technique.

  Josh’s cold weight rested on my chest and stomach, but I could breath, move my head a little, and reach the metal strip and the wrench. I felt my flash. Sounds from outside were muffled but presently I heard Judith’s shout, “I’m in position. How about you?”

  “I’m as good as I’ll ever be.”

  “Breathe slowly if you have anxiety build-up!”

  “Okay and out!” I shouted back.

  I lay sweating and then, the last thing I had expected to do, I fell asleep. I was awakened by the sound of footsteps, and a man’s voice above me shouting, “Joshua Schwartz. Check!”

  “Poor old Josh!” A woman’s voice, and a flash of light as the corner of the grave-cloth was lifted. A metal rod came probing down past my right arm. “Just Josh!” the woman’s voice called and the cloth dropped back.

  I’d hardly had time to sweat for myself, but I had plenty of time to sweat for Judith as the inspection team probed the two other coffins before they came to hers. But, as she had forecast, people were not at their most zealous at dawn on a Saturday morning and assumed that one quick thrust into the foam was enough to ensure that nothing else was there. “Search complete and negative!” the man was reporting, as he must have reported many times on past mornings when the dead had left the Pen.

  “Take it away!” The container went bumping and lurching forward, tilting slightly as it slid down the rails toward the tunnel entrance. We were going through the walls and into i he inspection station where the meticulous searches were supposed to take place. I got my hand round the handle of ilie wrench. These guards might be innocent men and women, only doing their job. But if they found me I planned to take as many with me as I could hit.

  No sound had come from Judith. I had a terrible vision of her dead beneath Greta, a stab wound through her heart Then of her lying in agonized silence, blood and bile pouring from a punctured gut. The vision was so vivid that I was about to throw Josh off me when the container slowed and stopped. We had reached the inspection station and if she was injured I would soon know.

  As an inspection it was a farce. Whoever checked the container was both incompetent and careless. Even in my coffin I could hear a counter clicking at a rate which would have alerted me. A loudspeaker shouted that the heat radiation from the container was above limits; the inspector yelled back that the heat detectors always read high. I felt I was radiating enough heat to trigger every sensor in the Pen. Judith had been right. The instrument search was now a formality. The sensors were either inoperative or far off calibration. After less than a minute in the station the loudspeaker called, “Okay! All clear. Close up, ready to ship.”

  The coffin lid came down and the clamp snapped home. No nails in my coffin, thank God! The container side crashed closed and we began to bump forward. My relief that we had escaped detection was tempered by chagrin. In a way all of us prisoners had been proud of the complex systems which held us incarcerated. Now the staff had grown so slack that those systems had deteriorated until they were little better than masses of bogus gadgetry to overawe rather than use. “La Legion e’est ma patrie,” another gang of scoundrels had once claimed proudly as they cursed the regiment that was marching them through hell. Men grow loyal to the most absurd organizations if given enough time. If I’d been running the Pen I’d have been putting on simulated escape attempts at irregular intervals to keep the staff on their toes.

  The container jerked to another halt. We must be on the wharf waiting to be loaded. I heard the low throaty wail of Old Groaner, the foghorn that had roared its warning from Jona’s Point since long before the days of radio beacons and radar. It had continued to roar after the Pen had been built, warning mariners of danger even after the seas around the Point had become verboten to every ship except the John Howard. An anachronism that lived on because no bureaucrat had dared to take the responsibility for pronouncing it useless. An anachronism which we prisoners had listened to with affection because it had told us something about the world outside—that there was fog around the Pen.

  The container shuddered as the loading rails locked between ship and wharf, then lurched as it was thrust by the hydraulic rams up onto the ship’s deck. The afterdeck, I prayed. A final slam as it was gripped by the ship’s clamps. We were aboard. At last I could escape from my coffin.

  That was harder than I had expected, and the John Howard was already rolling and pitching as she left the lee of the Point before I was able to slip the catch and climb from under old Josh. The container was ringing like the inside of a drum with the noises that fill any closed compartment in a rolling ship. I snapped on my flash and lurched across to Judith’s coffin. She had not yet been able to get it open.

  The pallor of her face, the desperation in her eyes, showed that she had begun to believe that she never would. When I eased Greta aside and litfed Judith out she clung to me in a way that cured the wounds my male pride had suffered during the past twelve hours. I sat down slowly, my back against the side of the container, and held her in my arms, cradled her head in my lap.

  Presently her breathing slowed and she scrambled to her feet. “Thanks! From now on you can take me any time you want, any way you want!” She shuddered. “All I could think about was that block of concrete under my feet!”


  I had forgotten about the weight that would drag coffin and contents down to the bottom ooze. I shuddered in sympathy. “Now to find a way out of this damned box!”

  The wrenches, which I had collected primarily as weapons, now proved their worth as wrenches. We had planned to wait until the container started to tip and the side swung open, as that would give us a moment to get out before we were shot with the coffins into the sea. Now, searching with my flash, we found a manhole in the side facing aft, and with the wrenches we were able to slacken the bolts sufficiently to let in a blast of sea air and a gleam of light.

  I squinted through the crack. “We’re on the afterdeck, thank Christ! Right up against the poop.”

  “And the minicopter’s on the poop?”

  “Should be.” I looked up at her, my flash throwing her face into stark relief. “We’ve got to get out of here now and chance being seen. Once they start to dump we’ll never have lime to reach the minicopter, warm the motor, and take off before we’re spotted.”

  “Then get cracking on those bolts!” Judith had regained her old form.

  V

  We crouched together in the gap between the after end of the container and the poop bulkhead. The John Howard was rolling heavily as she swung southwest toward Clarport, the seas breaking over her and the spray driving over us. Off the port beam the Pen was shrouded by mist and rain. Overhead was a turmoil of low clouds. A bad day for a crossing, but the weather would hide us if we could get into the air without falling into the ocean.

  I eased up the poop ladder, hidden from the bridge by the container, and my heart sank. I slid back down and hissed in Judith’s ear, “They’ve got double lashings on the chopper. We’ll have to get the lines free before we can release the holdfasts round the skids.”

  “Translate!”

  “The minicopter’s locked to the deck by quick-release clamps round the skids. The poop’s a landing pad. But the Skipper’s got his toy tied down with extra ropes. We’ve got to free those before we can grab it. And when we do—God knows how we’re going to lift off while she’s rolling like this.” I glanced at the sky. “It’s not going to be any better out in the bay.”

  “Can we cut the ropes?” Judith asked.

  “We could if we had a knife.”

  She reached inside her suit and produced two scalpels. “I brought these along. Just in case.”

  To use on the guards or on herself? “They’re too light. Those lines are lurax.”

  “These scalpels are veralloy. They’ll cut any rope. Let me try.”

  I hesitated, but she could use a veralloy scalpel better than I could. “Okay! But stay flat on the deck so the container’ll hide- you from the bridge.” She started up the ladder. I cupped her ankle. “And hang on! One hand for yourself at all times. There’s nothing to stop you if you start to slide. And she’s pitching like hell!”

  She nodded and pulled herself over the edge of the pad. I eased up the ladder to watch her work, cursing our luck. Evenif she cut the lashings, how could I lift the minicopter oil ? If the ship hadn’t been rolling around like a drunken senator 1 might have been able to hold the chopper steady long enough for Judith to throw the clamps and climb aboard. I’d learned the basics of minicopter flying during my Strike force training, but not even our top pilots would have tried lo take off in this sea; in fact the hydrofoils from which we'd flown wouldn’t even have put to sea in this weather.

  J udith knew too little to know we were attempting the impossible. Flat on her stomach, sawing away at the lashings with one hand while holding onto the struts of the minicopter with the other, she was determined to push on to the end. I watched the last lashing whip out in the wind, and caught her hands as she dragged herself to the top of the ladder. The •ship pitched and we fell together to the bottom.

  When she had recovered her breath she gasped, “Anybody spot me?”

  “No sign anybody did.” I hesitated. “Judy, I don’t see how I’ll be able to get that thing airborne.” And I explained why.

  She pushed her wet hair back from her face. “We can do it if we try. Don’t you understand yet, Gavin? The Light hasn’t allowed us to come as far as this only to be captured or drowned. We’re being tested. We can make it. If we don’t it’s because we’ve failed. And if we fail, then we’re not fit to succeed.”

  Tested to destruction! Judith’s religion seemed to treat this world as a kind of boot camp in which humans were screened and trained before going on to take part in the serious business of the Universe. A crazy concept which might help her but did nothing for me. “Then perhaps your Light will—”

  “It has. Already. When the container starts to tilt that’ll hide the minicopter. You climb aboard and start the engine. I’ll throw the clamps when you signal. Then you take off.”

  “Without you? Like hell!”

  “I’ll come on the skids.”

  “On the skids? You’re mad! You’ll be blown or knocked off the moment I try to lift. In this wind and sea—”

  ‘Til rope myself to the struts.”

  “Judy—

  “Move it! They’re heaving to! Skipper’s about to dump.”Jona’s Point had disappeared astern. We must be at least I ten kilometers from the Pen, and the John Howard was lj preparing to get rid of her load. We heard the clang as the I bolts holding the container’s hinged side crashed back. The I Skipper was shouting on the bullhorn, “Forasmuch as these, I our brothers and sisters—”

  Judith began to shove me up the ladder as the inboard J edge of the container started to rise. “Go, Gavin, go!” she screamed. “It’s the only way. Get that motor turning!”

  At least we’d go fighting. I clawed across the pad to the chopper and pulled myself into the cockpit. The container had tilted high and we were still hidden. But the moment the I turbine fired and the blades began to turn, the guards would start aft. And the instant the container dropped back onto its rails, we’d be exposed to their view and their guns.

  I checked the controls and instruments. All standardized. UN regulations. Every aircraft, every auto, no matter where it was made or who made it, must follow the same control-display pattern. And the minicopter itself was a popular US model. Fully fueled with hydrides—the Skipper probably got them free from the Pen’s surplus. I put my hand on the starter and looked down at the skids. We were committed. I must do my best. If my best wasn’t good enough for the Light, then we were for the Dark.

  Judith had wound a cut lashing round herself, binding her body to the skids. Would her knots hold? Most women can’t tie a knot that doesn’t slip. But Judith was a surgeon. Hers should be good. She had one hand on the clamp-release, was signaling “Ready” with the other.

  The container had reached maximum tilt. Its seaward side swung open. The Skipper’s voice came on the wind, “We therefore commit these bodies to the deep—” I pressed the starter.

  The rotors turned. The turbine gasped and fired, hesitated ' and died. I held the starter down. The turbine tried again, gasped again, and kept turning.

  The four coffins shot overside into the welter of sea foam. The Skipper broke off his nondenominational burial prayer to shout, “What the hell?” The container dropped back onto the deck with a crash that shook the ship. The turbine roared and spluttered. Three guards were tumbling down the bridge ladder. A fourth, on the bridge, was aiming a rifle.

  It was the next stern-lift or never. I speeded the turbine mid signaled Judith. She struggled with the clamp-release. It wouldn’t free. The moment passed. The John Howard’s stem dropped into the next trough. The Light was pitching us every curve ball in its repertoire.

  The ship corkscrewed in a cross sea at the moment that the rifle stuttered. The burst went wide. The first of the guards down the bridge ladder slipped on the wet deck and the two behind fell with him. The rifleman was snapping on another magazine. Judith had both hands on the clamp-release. The stern started to rise.

  I signaled. Judith tugged. The turbine roared.
At the critical moment when the crest lifted the clamp came free. The minicopter was tossed into the air. A burst ricocheted off the deck.

  The rotors got a grip, lost it, and we dropped alongside the ship into the trough between waves. The turbine roared again and we were starting to rise when the next crest caught us, foaming around struts and over skids. Judith was submerged.

  I hauled out the overdrive control, an action likely to stall a cold engine. It started to fade, then decided to try. Power poured into the rotors. They tore us, airframe shuddering, out of the grip of the sea. I glimpsed Judith limp across the skids, and then I was into the overcast, fighting to retain control of a minicopter whose turbine was alternating between full power and failure.

  I cut the overdrive and the turbine settled into a steady purr. Below me Judith was still limp. If not already drowned she’d be dead of exposure within minutes. I rammed open the throttle and dipped through the clouds. About five kilometers ahead the seas were pounding onto a rocky coast. I dived toward the only stretch of shingle in sight.

  I touched down as gently as I could, and dropped from the cockpit to frantically attack the lashings. She had tied them well and they freed easily. I rolled her onto her stomach, pumped water from her lungs, then turned her on her back and started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She gasped and opened her eyes. “Gavin! I promised any time, anyway! But not right now!” She sat up. “Where are we? In hell?”

  “In Maine! And we’ve got to move. The hounds will be after us.”

  She began to shiver. Her jumpsuit was soaked. I helped her up into the cockpit, and dragged a rug from behind the seat. ' “Get that suit off and this around you, before you freeze.” I turned up the cabin heater, which didn’t help much while the motor was still cool. Then I took off. The overcast was our best hope.