by Darrell Bain
Strongarm grinned around the piece of jerky. “I looked in the nonsense genes. Figured some of them had to have a purpose."
He was talking about the great amount of genetic material we carry in our genomes that has no apparent purpose and doesn't appear to code for proteins like the regular genes do.
I was curious. “What made you look there? So soon anyway."
He shrugged and tugged at the end of the jerky with his gums, finally managing to detach a piece of it. “Actually, some pretty smart scientists work for the white eyes government. I thought they should have found it by now if it was in the regular sequences. So I looked somewhere else. Us redskins are sneaky, huh?"
"Sounds like more smarts than sneaks,” I told him. “That's great news, Strongarm."
"Not so great. I brought along a lot of samples of white men and Cherokees, too. Only a third of us Injuns have it so far. And no white men or black men. Maybe a few Orientals. Still needs lots of study."
If what he said was true, we had been extremely lucky so far, what with giving the Tersha out to just any Cherokee we trusted.
"How about other Indians? Do you think any other tribes have the genes?"
"I don't know. There was some interbreeding with other eastern tribes back before the white men came. Captive women from wars. Then big mix-up when the stupid white eyes dumped bunches of different tribes onto the same reservations. But we were mostly from the same stock originally, so maybe other tribes carry the genes too."
I thought about what he was telling me. The genes had to have originally come from the old world. Probably the geneticists could trace it back eventually, using mitochondrial DNA studies, but even so, it appeared that Blacks, Caucasian and most Orientals were doomed to die if they came in contact with the Tersha.
"I wonder if the ones without the genes could accept the Tersha if the genes were inserted into the body first?” I said.
"No telling yet. Maybe, maybe not. Have to find a good way to get the genes into the body first. Gene therapy isn't all that advanced yet.” He grinned over the piece of jerky. “Maybe like the Tera squaw says. Kill all the white men and black men. Injuns take over the world."
He was kidding. I hoped.
* * * *
Mona and Jim spent only two days at the little private airport south of Ft. Smith. Mona came back all enthusiastic. She had been wrong about the first Blackhawks going into surplus and Jim finally had to buy a used civilian version of the helicopter. After hugging me so tight I feared she was going to crack a rib, we walked in tandem, arms around each other, back toward the kitchen where one or the other of us always kept a pot of coffee going. She was bubbling over with how well she remembered her training and how well maintained the craft was, and other tidbits of news, just as if she weren't going to be flying into the teeth of a gang of heavily armed troops soon.
"—and you should have seen that hanger guy! He tried to put the make on me a dozen times. Poor man, I'm afraid I teased him, but I had to keep him from asking too many questions.” She laughed merrily. “And you should have seen Jim! He acted like the perfect sugar daddy. He could scare dragons off with the glower he put on his face every time some young buck spent too much time in my vicinity. It scared them, for sure."
Herb and I came very near to having a disagreement over which one of us got Mona first. He wanted to show her his map again and go over approach routes, flying time, elevation and so forth. I won by being stubborn, but it might have been better if I hadn't. Not that it mattered in the end.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was still dark when Mona and I were awakened by a knock on the door.
"Who is it?” I called, feeling for my forty. I had sworn not to be very far away from it ever again.
"It's Jim. Come down stairs."
He didn't say what the problem was but I heard the urgency in his voice. Mona was sitting up beside me, blinking sleepily. She reached and switched on the lamp sitting on the floor beside our air mattress bed. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was a little past four in the morning.
Mona and I didn't try to talk. We simply pulled on our clothing and hurried down the stairs. All the others were already there, congregated around the folding tables and chairs that had been moved from the kitchen to the living room as our numbers grew. I took a quick look into the kitchen and saw that someone already had coffee ready. I poured two cups and brought them in and handed one to Mona. I sat down and saw that everyone was staring at Tera. Her face had that blank expression of someone listening to a phone conversation while others are in the room-except that she wasn't holding a phone.
"It's her friends,” Jim whispered to us. “They've been found. All of them were captured."
Uh oh. That certainly was going to change our schedule. I felt Mona's hand creeping into mine. I squeezed it gently and could feel the tension there. I could feel it in my own body simply by how fast my heart was beating.
The blank look left Tera's face. It was replaced by one of resignation. She opened her mouth, hesitated, then spoke. “They've all been taken captive, except for Mettabantaty. They killed him. Poor Meta. He was such a gentle soul. Felinti is crying."
"Where are they now?” Jim asked.
"They're in a van of some kind. All of them are handcuffed. They don't know where they're being taken."
"They'll probably be brought back to General Melofton's little house of horrors right at Ft. Chaffee, not fifty miles from here.” That was Herb, speaking in a sort of wistful tone. I knew what he was thinking. So close and yet we couldn't help them.
For a change I had something substantive to say. “The most important thing is how did they find them? And can they use the same method to find us?"
"Probably some agent working from Mona's old haunts recognized one of them, then got the others,” Jim said. He rubbed his eyes. “Tera, they will be made to talk, won't they?"
"We've always told them everything important, other than the location of the others,” she said bitterly, then ameliorated her tone. “Sorry, I know none of you would be a part of that sort of thing. Nevertheless, even though their Tershas will protect them, just the fact that I'm still missing will make them suspicious, won't it? I think we had best hurry."
I did, too, even though I wanted to hear more about how the Tersha protected the Cincans from questions they didn't want to answer. If we had the bad luck to be captured, it would be nice to know we couldn't tell about the possibility of the Tershas mutating and give Melofton time to disperse the Cincans so that they couldn't all be killed in one strike.
There wasn't time though, because our action leader, Herb Friedman agreed upon the need to hurry. He began taking command. “Folks, I never expected this to be easy, but I did hope to have a couple more bodies to work with. Well, we've got some time, but let's not push it. I want to run us all through the loading and disembarkation sequence from the chopper and make sure you each know your assignments. How about you Strongarm? Want to inject yourself and come along or simply disappear?"
"Me Injun. Been waiting all my life for revenge on white eyes. Me go on warpath! And I gave me the Tersha soon as I identified it and tested myself."
"What! Why weren't you sick like the rest of us were for two days!” I said hotly.
"Strongarm shrugged. “I felt bad for a while but I'm okay now. Ready to fight the white eyes cavalry. Get revenge for Wounded Knee."
I went back over our conversation about him identifying the Tersha compatibility genes, and sure enough, he had said “me gottum” and “when I get the Tersha going". The old reprobate has as much as told me then that he had already injected himself and it had passed me by.
Herb forced a grin through his worry. “Are you going to wear war paint, too?"
"Sure. But I want a firestick like yours,” Strongarm said. “And a knife, too."
"Okay, old man. You may as well go; you've got the constitution of a damn horse and it will probably go hard on anyone they catch who was helping t
he BEMS."
"Bems?” Tela asked. “What's that?"
"Acronym for Bug eyed monsters. It's an old science fiction term from the space opera days. Never mind. Finish your coffee and let's get organized."
Herb fitted Strongarm into one of his two missing slots, the best he could manage. I didn't doubt the old Indian would fight; I just hoped he would have the strength to keep up with the rest of us, but I don't know why I was worried; he hadn't been nearly as sick as the rest of us when the Tersha invaded our bodies. He might wind up leading the charge for all I knew.
"Let's run over it one more time here, then go outside and do a walk through,” Herb said. “Mona, you'll land with the left hand exit already open and the right closed, facing away from the lander. That will give a little protection, or at least not give them visible human targets to shoot at. Then you get out of the pilot's seat fast and catch up to Mike's rear. Mike, you and Jim out first, then Mona and Tera. Form a shield for Tera on three sides and try to keep it like that. Jake, you follow immediately and stay behind them. I'll be first out, but I'll stay in place and me and the Injun will put out all the suppressing fire we can. If they go after you, they'll be shooting downhill, so quick as you get going stay in a crouch and it may pass over your heads. You may take some fire from the opposite ridge too; it looks like a bunker had been built there. No way to tell for sure, though; just be aware of it. Remember, getting Tera into the lander is the number one priority. If she goes down, pick her up and carry her but get her to the entrance."
Herb paused for a moment and eyed each of us individually. “We can't stop for wounded, other than Tera. Once she's inside, she's going to head for the controls, then give the rest of us three minutes to get inside. After that she takes off regardless. She'll try to get over the next two ridges due east and set down to install the part. Any of us who get left behind—well, we can keep fighting and try to keep them from going after the lander. There's worse things than selling your life to give your friends a chance, so don't give up—and try to take an honor guard to hell with you. Understand?"
He went around the table, looking each of us in the eye as we nodded acceptance. Tera looked on her eyes wide and blinking rapidly. I have no idea what she thought of us from this. Just from talking to her at odd moments, we had gotten the idea that her world was a much more peaceful place than ours. Not that she was a total pacifist; all of them originally carried a personal sidearm for protection against animals and inimical humans, but of course they had been confiscated when they were captured. They hadn't attempted to fight their way free after seeing how heavily the army unit that captured them was armed. She had told us that it didn't matter that the government had their weapons; all of them were keyed to the individuals and no one else could use them. Herb had given her a revolver and made her practice dry firing it, but she was under instructions to use it only as a last resort and only if it was necessary to get her into the lander. Otherwise, we would do all the fighting necessary.
I hoped there wouldn't be any. My time in the military hadn't been spent in the combat arms. The only reason I went through Ranger School was that they wanted medics with them on all their maneuvers and I had volunteered. Through two wars, the only combat, other than a few mortar and rocket attacks, had come that one time when the perimeter of our compound was broached by a suicide unit and I had killed two of them just before they would have taken Jim out, but that had been almost like a reflex action. And Mona and I had gotten through the dust-up with the fake Homeland Security agents more through stupidity on their part and my determination to protect Mona than anything else. This was something different; a planned combat operation, where I knew what was coming. I felt my hands began to tremble and tucked them out of sight to keep anyone else from noticing. I felt ashamed of myself, especially since I doubted that Strongarm had been in combat either, despite his Wild Indian act, and he didn't look a bit worried.
With Mona not having access to the pilot's military night vision equipment, and with some of the others of us not trained to use night vision equipment even if we had it, there wasn't much choice other than to do the thing in daylight. In any event, Herb was planning on speed and surprise to carry it off. He wanted Mona to come in and land at the fastest speed she could manage, doing it in one tree-top skimming straight line, and landing early in the morning-tomorrow—before the night guards had been relieved. They would be sleepy and less alert then, thinking of hot chow and a bunk.
We went outside to practice how we would come out of the chopper, using the folding chairs to simulate the webbed seats we would be in. The first time we tried it, we stumbled into each other and two of us fell on our ass. If the house weren't so isolated and neighbors had been able to watch, they probably would have thought we were playing some weird version of musical chairs. It took a lot of practice before Herb was satisfied. I just hoped it went off as well in reality as our final session did, but I wasn't optimistic.
After that we went inside to pack the individual duffel bags that Jim had gotten for us. We could hardly appear at the air field with rifles slung over our shoulders and pistols riding our belts and in Herb and Strongarm's case, a Randall knife with a seven inch blade secured in a scabbard ready for quick access. The law would have been called on us in a New York minute, if not Homeland Security itself.
All the while during our preparations, Tera continued to monitor conversation among her friends through their PDA's. During the afternoon she began to look haggard. When Mona attempted to comfort her, she began crying.
"They've cut two of the PDA's off our people and are torturing them now. They think that's what's let them resist pain so much. Oh, Merka Teeda! Why won't they believe us? Why don't they let us try to help instead of ripping information out of us?” Her voice held anguish and a terrible sorrow.
I don't know what those two alien words meant, but I suspect they were analogous to a bitter curse. There was no answer to her questions, of course. General Melofton was acting exactly as sadistic spy masters have done all through history. Even if he believed everything they said, he still would have insisted on trying for more. It was nothing new to us, but it must be having a horrible effect on Tera's psyche, especially as she could do absolutely nothing about it. Not yet anyway, and probably never. If our operation was a success, she had said the mother ship could put them out of their misery, but that was about all.
I felt sorry for Tera but there was nothing to do other than try to keep her sane and functioning until we got her to the lander. I hated to even think of the next steps that might have to be taken to protect the earth. It isn't easy to contemplate what Tera had suggested might be necessary: sterilizing the whole area where her friends were being held in order to kill all the Tershas and keep them from spreading to the vast majority of the population who couldn't survive an infection. I don't think any of us had asked what “sterilization” might entail. We didn't want to know, probably because it couldn't be limited to her friends and Melofton's thugs. There would be other innocent people nearby.
We had a last meal at the house and began heading out after dark, going in three separate vehicles. There was one last minute addition, Robert Tenebaum, one of Friedman's friends whose body had accepted the Tersha. He called about noon and told us he could make it by dark, and he did. There was time for a brief introduction, then Herb took him in his vehicle to brief along the way.
We arrived at the airfield early, but that was no problem. Nor was getting there after dark cause for concern. Jim had paid heavily to keep the field open all night; normally it closed after dusk or when the last scheduled landing had been made. The big problem was getting into the body armor Jim had secured and getting our weapons and gear attached after we got into the chopper. There were far more elbows and knees knocking around than could be accounted for by the number of people present.
After we finally got everything in order, it was just a matter of waiting. The jump from the field to our destination would take less th
an an hour. We had almost two hours to simply sit in the chopper and wait. I couldn't even take comfort from being near Mona; she was up front, going over all the controls and checklists and maps one last time. I think waiting there in that uncomfortable webbed seat was the longest two hours of my life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We were taking a fairly big chance with Mona being the only pilot; there was no one to help watch for such things as television towers and elevation and oncoming terrain but there was nothing to do about it. She hadn't even flown over this country before and had no idea of what landmarks to look for to stay on course. She had to rely on instruments and that innate sense of being in control of the flight environment that all good pilots have. I had heard my brother talk about it when he described flying jets for the marines. I guess Mona had that sense because she got us to the right place and we were right on time. Unfortunately, the situation wasn't quite what we had planned on, or perhaps I should say hoped for.
I said that the satellite photos hadn't shown a permanent camp, so we were going on the assumption that the force guarding the lander was ensconced father back on that ridge and the next one over so they could keep stray hunters and hikers away from the immediate vicinity of the lander. From the vantage point of our proposed landing spot, Tera had said the lander could be spotted for what it was despite being disguised. Also, both the photos and Tera's memory had indicated that there was space enough to land without mishap. The assumptions and memories both turned out to be incorrect.
The first thing that went wrong was that as Mona guided the helicopter down, she saw that some huge boulders mixed in with the toppled trees and shattered trunks made it impossible to land safely on the ridge. She really should have aborted, but she didn't. She made an instant decision to try for another spot and manipulated the chopper thirty yards down the slope to where she glimpsed a tiny space in front of a large fallen tree trunk. She maneuvered the chopper into the space then swiftly touched the front of the skids to the trunk and let the rear part of them settle onto the ground. She killed the engine and the chopper settled heavily to a halt, almost level. Changing the landing site had been a snap decision and she made it instantly, knowing we probably wouldn't have another chance as easy as this. What we thought would be easy. Her superb piloting got us down safely but that was about all that went right.
