by M S Murdock
The world slowed down. Wilma blinked, this time really feeling the muscles around her eyes stretch. “I’m . . . awake,” she managed.
“Do you know who I am?” The man’s voice was clearer now.
“Rogers,” she answered. There was a comforting security in the name.
“But who am I?” demanded Buck, testing her coherence.
“Royal pain,” she responded.
“That’s me.”
Wilma felt a strong arm slip beneath her shoulders. She was carefully lifted to a sitting position, supported by Rogers’s broad chest. She raised a hand to her forehead. “I’m coming out of it. It’ll take a minute or two more, but I should be able to travel soon.”
“Whatever that stuff is, it sure has a nasty kick. You’ve been out for two hours,’ Buck said, tapping his wristchrono.
His voice rumbled under her ear. “Drugs are one of RAM’s specialties,” she said. “This one’s potent, but it doesn’t leave side effects.” She looked down at the knife still embedded in her shoulder, its slim hilt a shining vial of poison. “It’s the other one that concerns me.”
Buck shifted his grip when he Saw Wilma flinch as returning consciousness brought the realization of pain. “It’s got to come out. How do I do it?” “It’s tough. You have to disarm it first.”
“Like a bomb?”
Wilma started to nod, thought better of it, and replied succinctly, “Yes.”
“How?” he asked, looking at the thing.
“See that screw on the end of the hilt? Loosen it but be careful.” Wilma reached up and grasped the knife blade. Fresh blood oozed from her wound.
Buck dug in his pocket with his free hand for something to turn it with, then carefully turned the screw. “Okay,” he said, feeling the tension mount.
“See those clips that lock the end of the hilt down?” Wilma’s words were strained through clenched teeth.
“I see them.”
“Lift them slowly. They have a spring, so get a good grip, or you won’t be able to control them,” she said tightly.
Buck carefully pried up the latches. Wilma’s breathing, ragged from pain, accompanied his movements.
“Got ’em.”
“Now lift the hilt cap. You’ll find the poison vial sitting in a slot. Lift it straight up. One knock, and it will eject A grain is enough to kill me.
Buck held his breath and reached for the cylinder.
He extracted it deliberately, his fingers as steady as a rock. Once clear of the knife, he held it out at arm’s length, away from Wilma, then threw it into the rubble at one side of the tunnel. “That it?” he asked, deadpan.
Wilma nodded. Tears of relief glistened at the corners of her eyes.
“Hang on. This’ll hurt.” Buck pulled the knife from the wound. Wilma gasped once, and fresh blood gushed from the incision. He dug into his pocket for his field kit, selected a thin white sheet, picked it up by one corner and shook it out. The fabric looked like a thick spider web. He set it on one knee, then ruthlessly ripped the shoulder of Wilma’s uniform, enlarging the tear made by the knife. The newly interrupted circuits of her “smart clothing” buzzed as the built-in shields retreated from the damage. Buck spread the fabric carefully over the gash, then placed his hand over the entire wound and pressed.
Wilma arched in pain, then relaxed. “That’s over,” she said as involuntary tears poured down her face.
“Yes,” said Buck. His arm still was around her. He wiped the tears away with his free hand. His touch was gentle.
“We have to get moving,” Wilma said. She blinked, quelling the tears.
“Fine. It’s dark out. We’ll have that for cover. But to Where?”
“Out of here. Off the planet,” she said.
“How?” Buck knew that Terrines would be swarming through Chicagorg.
“NEO maintains escape routes. There are two Small Scout ships docked at a private airstrip on the southern edge of the city. All we have to do is get there-that is, if someone else hasn’t already.”
“How far is it?” Buck was curious. “Maybe ten miles from here.”
Buck let the air escape between his teeth. “Can you make it?”
“I’ll have to.” Wilma lifted her pain-washed eyes.
“Rogers, if I can’t make it, you have to. RAM wants you. It wouldn’t surprise me if you weren’t the reason behind this raid.”
Buck gritted his teeth and nodded wearily. “I’d thought of that,” he said.
“If RAM catches you, it will do one of two things. If you cooperate, it will keep you like a pet cat, shown off for effect and fed from the company table. If you don’t cooperate, it will kill you.”
“Somehow I don’t like either of those alternatives.”
“I didn’t think you would. Don’t let RAM use you.”
“Like I said, I never let anyone use me. Not even a beautiful woman.” He stifled a wink, then climbed to his feet, taking Wilma with him.
Once upright, she swayed, then caught her balance. Buck flashed her a grin, a Cheshire cat’s smile floating in the dim tunnel. “We’ll get out,” she said.
They started down the tunnel, Buck supporting his guide. A rat scurried across their path. The tunnel ran two hundred meters; climbing gradually toward the surface. Soon they could see a patch of starlight. The mouth of the tunnel was covered with metal grating.
“We’re closer to the surface than I thought,” Buck said, surprised.
“The tunnel runs from the highest point in the base, for a quick exit.” Wilma knew every detail of the destroyed camp.
Buck hauled the grating back, and he and Wilma stumbled into what once had been the basement of a brick building. The upper floors had fallen away, and one wall as well. The building was a cracked shell, open to the sky. Wilma looked back at the tunnel entrance. “I guess there’s no reason to conceal that.”
Her face was white in the starlight. “Come on,” said Buck. “Which way?”
Wilma gestured tiredly, and they started forward.
It was a moonless night, clear, with a touch of fall in the air, though the southerly breeze was balmy. They kept to the shadows, moving in silence down the city’s sinister, dark streets. Buck was getting a guided tour of a major Terran city of the twenty-fifth century-his former home of Chicago. Over Wilma’s head, he could see the distant shape of RAM’s central Chicagorg complex. Built, as were all RAM’s major installations, in either pyramids or tetrahedrons, it loomed in disconcerting completeness over the ruined city. RAM had sunk its foundations into centuries of rubble, decayed and bombed-out shells that once were high-rise buildings with all the pride and prosperity that now were RAM’s,
“ ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ ” Quoted Buck.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just a poem I once read.” The line brought back his youth. The details were vivid. He could smell the woody scent of fresh pencil shavings and the chalk dust, hear the droning hum of the single computer terminal in the back of the classroom. The pale yellow Walls and the sun-drenched windows opened onto green fields. He was fourteen, in summer school, and resenting the time bitterly. A bout of rheumatic fever had set him back a semester, and he had to make up an English class during summer vacation. Miss Hammersmith’s soft voice chanted over the lines to Percy B. Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”
He shook his head," letting the night air, with its flavoring of smog, erase the memory. That world was gone. The city was desiccated piles of brick and stone, crumbling slabs of concrete moldering around the bent steel skeletons of once-towering buildings. The ruins were cobbled into semblances of shelter-bits of metal, scraps of wood, plastic, and cloth connecting the disintegrated shells. The whole smelled of garbage laced with industrial pollutants. Outside RAM’s pristine pyramid, no grass--no foliage of any kind softened the city’s ugliness. Only on the far outskirts did nature attempt to infiltrate the urban wasteland. He had only to look around to confirm the fact. In all the world, on
ly he remembered what it was like to smell fresh air, to see endless fields of abundant crops, to have the prospect of a life based on hope and achievement, not despair. He was the lone survivor of a golden age. He smiled grimly. At the time, he had not considered his era particularly blessed. Now, in contrast to this future world, it was paradise.
He and Wilma stumbled over rubble, the structure of the city he remembered disintegrating under their feet. It was a ruin inhabited by human vermin only the RAM “corporopolis” retained a sense of purpose and order. That, on the surface, was an undeniable virtue, but Buck knew" RAM caused, Earth’s decline. Now, based on Mars, it no longer considered Earth its home. Instead, it looked to its mother planet as a source of wealth, ruthlessly mining it for whatever valuables were left. Earth had become degenerate, unable to, reconstruct itself under RAM’s authority.
Buck’s thoughts continued to range over the prospects of his homeland as he and Wilma kept doggedly on. Miraculously, they escaped a confrontation with the Terrines. Once they sought shelter in the sewers to escape a patrol, but they were never close to discovery. To the east, the sky, was beginning to lighten. If they did not reach the airstrip before dawn, they would have to wait another day to try an escape. “How much farther?” he asked.
“Half an hour, if I can keep this pace.”
Wilma was leaning more heavily on him with each step, and Buck feared that half an hour was more than she could manage. His field dressing was bolding, but it had taken sometime to entirely stop the bleeding, and exertion kept the wound open. She moved with the stubborn determination of someone who had been injured and had conserved her strength before. Even so, the loss of blood was beginning to tell. The city’s ruins were not thinning out, but Wilma seemed sure of her course. Buck regarded her drawn face with growing concern.
Suddenly she stopped. “Over that,” she said, and pointed.
Ahead was a concrete bridge. Chunks had fallen away until the steel framework was more than half visible.
“That’s secure?” Buck asked, incredulous.
“’What’s secure?” Wilma replied, with a touch of her usual asperity.
“Come on, then. Grab my belt and hang on.”
“I don’t remember giving you command of this operation,” Wilma said, regaining her professional composure.
“I don’t remember asking for it.”
Buck picked his way across the crumbling structure, sure his next footstep would send them both into the murky, refuse strewn waters below. Finally they reached the opposite shore. “There it is,” said Wilma.
The ships sat in plain sight, in the center of an open square. Sparse sprigs of grass grew around them.
“They’re supposed to be war memorials,” said Wilma slowly.
“That’s about what they’re good for,” said Buck, eyeing the rusting cylindrical hulks.
“But they’re operational,” she informed him. “Let’s go.”
“A few moments ago, Wilma, I would have said you have pluck. Now I know it.” Buck grinned.
“Backing out?” she asked acidly.
“Not me. I always like a challenge.”
“Well, you’ve got one. I’m not sure how long I’m going to stay on my feet. I’ve got a feeling you’re going to end up flying one of these things, hotshot. That is, if you want to get out of here.”
“There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
“Then help me over to Our transport?
“Somehow,” said Buck conversationally, “I always thought the future would mean an easier life. It just proves how wrong a person can be.”
“Remember that. One of our poets said it’s the great truth of our times.”
They made their way to the closer of the two Scout ships-their shuttle to salvation.”
Chapter 7
The Scout ship flew low, skimming the surface of the Earth in a run that would confuse RAM’s sensors, if its pilot did not miscalculate. If the pilot did, it would plow into the ground, mocking a RAM dredge before blowing up. A cylindrical streak of red, with a black stripe running from nose to upswept tail and the RAM logo glaring on each black wing, the ship presented an impression of power. Sixty years before, when it was new, that might have been true. Now it was a joke. It was a rusting war memorial, kept space worthy in secret by a few dedicated fanatics, and no match for RAM’s current ships.
Wilma Deering knew her only chance to evade RAM sensors was to trick, instead of outrun, them. She sent her vessel toward the western seaboard at medium throttle. Once clear of Chicagorg’s shipping lanes, she pulled a tape from a plastic pocket and slid it into the control panel.
“Entertainment?” queried Buck lightly as he sat in the copilot’s seat beside her.
“RAM transport authorization code,” she returned. ”We’ve kept updated tapes in this ship since we restored her.” She gripped the controls firmly, but her knuckles were white.
“Where’re we going?” Buck asked.
“Salvation.”
“Even a reprobate like me can hope,’ he quipped.
Wilma shook her head, exasperated at his levity “Salvation Three. It’s an orbiting garbage dump. Specializes in space junk-collects and brokers defunct ships, satellites, the usual salvage. It’s also a NEO base.”
“If this is an example of NEO’s ships, it’s great camouflage.”
Wilma punched up a readout of Salvation on the ship’s navigational computers.
Buck Whistled. “You could dock an armada in that thing!” “If we had one. Unfortunately, we don’t,” said Wilma.
“You mean NEO’s whole fleet looks like this?”
“Not exactly.” Wilma’s voice was tight, controlled.
Buck watched her out of the corner of his eye. He knew she was close to exhaustion from loss of blood, as well as exertion. Under her flight helmet, beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. Her hair clung to her face in damp strands.
“Some of our ships are even older,” she said. The attempt at humor was flat.
Buck gestured at the readout of Salvation “How do we get into that thing?”
“Codes.” The single word was strained as Wilma’s head bobbed.
“You going to make it?” asked Buck.
“Sure.” Wilma flexed her fingers around the controls. “Sure,” she repeated, but her hand slipped.
“Wilma, give me the landing coordinates!” said Buck as her arm went slack. The controls rocked. He grabbed for his throttle as he felt the ship dip.
“Computer,” she murmured, and her head rolled. She was unconscious.
Buck pulled the ship’s nose up and punched into the navigational computer. He was a pilot down to his toes, and though the technology of this derelict Scout far surpassed the hot planes he had flown, the principles were the same. The moment he and Wilma stepped into the cockpit, he had begun to analyze the controls. Watching her, he had learned more. Now he was going to get the chance to put his observations into hard practice.
The computer took control of the ship’s course, and Buck concentrated on getting the feel of her before they left the atmosphere. The ship felt heavy and sluggish, and he paid Wilma’s expertise tribute. She had flown this booby at dangerously low altitudes and made it look easy. As they climbed in the atmosphere, flight became slicker. The familiar feeling of thin air made his blood race. This was where he belonged, flying on greased ice one step ahead of death.
Wilma’s course apparently skirted major shipping lanes, for Buck encountered no one on his climb through the atmosphere. “Transport codes,” he murmured. “Must’ve taken care of clearance.”
The curving edge of the planet appeared, cloaked in pale blue. Beyond was the blackness of space. Between the two extremes was a traffic jam of hardware. Buck ducked as the Scout narrowly missed a communications satellite.
0n automatic, the ship’s sensors sent it tacking and veering around other obstacles, including what looked like a gigantic metal moon or space station in the distance. Guessin
g at his ship’s controls, Buck was able to pull up a schematic view of the red and gray hulk, which, by its various sizes and types of weapons, alerted him that it was more than a simple satellite-probably a RAM fortress. He stored the information in his memory and turned again to his destination. The ship had cleared the immediate congestion. Buck could feel the trajectory adjust as the Scout curved around the Earth, heading toward the dark side of the planet.
He checked his fuel gauge. It registered half-full, but he had no idea of the rate of fuel consumption, nor of the effect the automatic pilot was having on it. All he could do was trust Wilma’s knowledge and fly the plane. He looked over at her, with concern, respect, and affection, he realized. She was slumped in her seat, sagging in the restraints, her arms floating limply in zero gravity, but her breathing was steady. Even the flight helmet could not disguise her beauty. If things were different, maybe it would work out. Maybe not.
“RAM Flight two-four-eight-one, identify. You are Within Salvation Three’s mercantile protectorate. RAM flight, come in!”
“This is RAM Flight two-four-eight-one, Salvation. I am on course.” Buck cheeked the computer. “Estimated arrival time, seven minutes.”
“Veer off, two-four-eight-one. This is a mercantile area! We have jettison in your flight path. Veer off!”
“Then you’d better move it,” returned Buck, “ ‘cause I’m comin’ in. Look, Salvation, can you scramble this transmission?”
There was suspicious silence from the station. Buck could see it now, a hulking mound of metal and plastic, probably stuck together by a solar electro magnet. Finally Salvation replied. “Say again.”
“I said scramble. I have some urgent-lucrative-business,” he replied. “If you don’t want it all over space I suggest you scramble this transmission.” Again there was a period of silence, then a different voice responded. “RAM two-four-eight-one, this is Carlton Turabian, Supervisor of Operations.”
Buck took a deep breath. “And this is Captain Buck Rogers, United States Air Force.”
“Say again?”
“Buck Rogers. I’ve got Colonel Deering with me. She’s injured. We got out of the Chicagorg mess-you’ve had word of that?”
