by Lucas Cole
“It let me go. I let it go. A mutual arrangement.”
“Glad you think this is amusing, Crisp. Those things are our enemies. You let one of them go. Some would see that as treasonous.”
“It’s not treasonous to utilize judgment. To reason—.”
“You don’t reason with a deadhead. You put a pellet into its skull. I thought you IMF types understood that.”
IMF type. I guess he noticed my belt buckle.
The crowd around us murmurs in agreement with Todd. We’re in the cafeteria; we’ve been back no more than five minutes before a kangaroo court has gotten into full swing. Todd paces in front of us. His Luger is prominently displayed on his hip holster. (My weapon was reappropriated by Chief Self.)
Carly looks properly terrified on my behalf. She sits off to the side, hugging her arms around herself, as though for comfort.
Various researchers and some maintenance guys crowd around. How could we let a deadhead walk—or limp—away without blowing its head off, they must wonder?
But treason? Todd is clearly a megalomaniac. The psychologists would say he had a narcissistic personality.
“The only good deadhead is a dead deadhead,” I say. “Or a really dead-this-time deadhead, right?” Some laughter with this, but Todd’s not having any.
“Funny?” His cerebral-looking cranium is red with emotion. “You’re one step away from being sentenced to death for treason. Official status or not. How’s that for funny?”
More murmurs. Not all of them in agreement with Todd. I note that some of the maintenance guys are exchanging dubious looks and move a little closer to Larry and me. Some of the intellectuals—geneticists, geologists, engineers, and the like, sidle closer to Todd. Brainiacs to one side, workers to the other. I find myself in favor of the workers, in this case.
Somehow, I don’t see Todd throwing me to the zombies. More likely, he would order a pellet to the head or a throat cutting. “I thought it best to learn about these creatures. See what makes them tick.”
“What about you, Larry? You know better.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes they attack. Sometimes they don’t. Besides, it was Peter Chan. He’s still a station manager—your equal. Isn’t he?”
Todd pales, his jaws tighten. His hand strays near his Luger—a movement every one of us in the room notices. “Peter is a deadhead. A good SM would not let that happen to himself.”
Larry says, “We all make mistakes.”
Todd pulls the Luger half-way from its holster. “You’re making a big one, now. Siding with a deadhead. And an off-world snoop.”
Larry gulps, but stands his ground. “Pete was there. On the plateau. I saw him carrying a metal beam to their building. A building! We figured them wrong. They can still think, maybe even talk to us. The one we saw up close was wearing a blue patch. I don’t think these…blues…are like the others.”
Carly stands, shouts, “Todd, put your gun away. You may be Station Manager, but you’re not supreme ruler! This is insane!”
I smile bravely. “Listen to the lady, Todd. There’s a difference between being a leader and being a tyrant. Besides, I’m here on Imperial business. If you—.”
“Shut up!” His pistol clears the holster.
Maybe I have a growing reason to sympathize with the deadheads. I have a flashback of Abe’s head exploding, brains and blood spattering my face, my lips coated with the muck, the inadvertent licking of my lips. No, don’t go there, I tell myself. But maybe there is more to fear than Todd.
It is the deadheads who postpone the confrontation between Todd and me. A siren begins wailing and a red light set in the wall begins to flash.
“A breach!” Todd shouts. “A tunnel breach!”
“What tunnels?”
Men and women are scattering, many of them wrapping web belts and holsters around their waists, some of them toting compressed air rifles. A security guard in his red uniform approaches, holding out two web belts with holstered pistols.
Todd shoves one of the web belts in my hands. The other belt he gives to Larry. “Mining tunnels, below the station. They run west and east. Follow me, Crisp. You want to make peace with the deadheads? Here’s your chance.”
We run down a corridor choked with armed personnel. “Let me through!” Todd yells. Chief Self appears at his side. Todd moves through a portal with a winding metal staircase. We descend single-file, the clanking of our boots on the steps echoing in the stairwell. “Two ways to go, Crisp,” Todd shouts, his breath in gasps from the excitement and the exertion. “I’ll take the east route…” and I note the crafty look that Self casts my way, “…and you’ll take the west. Less likely for you to run into trouble.”
I glance back—nearly falling down the stairs—and see the frightened pale faces of Carly and Navarro. “Both of you—stay back! Go on!” After all, I have to protect my investments.
Carly hesitates, then turns away, ushering Navarro ahead of her.
Todd reaches the bottom of the stairwell, runs through the already open airlock. A number of armed men and women in miner and security guard uniforms, are gathered, waiting, their faces flushed.
Ahead of the crowd and to the sides are two large, black tunnels, poorly lit from overhead florescent lamps. Self hands me a small communicator.
“This half,” Todd says, motioning to half the crowd with his outstretched hand, “comes with me to the east tunnel. The rest follow Mr. Crisp the other way. Any sign of deadheads, you pull back and signal us. But defend the entrance here. Nothing gets through!”
Half the crowd follows Todd, their footsteps making clanking sounds as they enter the metal tunnel.
The half assigned to me does not look pleased. There are women in the group, but I cannot afford to excuse them from this encounter. Besides, they can fire a weapon—the Lugers have no kick, after all—as well as I can.
“Okay. Let’s move out…carefully. And hold your fire until I give the order.” I do not relish the back of my head being blown off by someone’s over-eager shot.
The tunnel is dark, illuminated only a few feet ahead at a time and I have my pistol drawn as I lead the miners forward, all of us straining to see in the gloom. We pass through the first section of mine into another small landing without incident. The next section of the west tunnel lies ahead, descending at a sharper angle, lit only a few feet at a time by the florescent lamps overhead. I am beginning to think we drew the safe route; Todd can handle the deadheads coming his way. But my relief is short-lived.
A scraping sound comes from the dark tunnel. I raise my hand, halting the miners behind me. We listen, all of us automatically trying to stifle our breathing to better hear. Another scrape. Then another: the sound of a slow shuffle.
Twenty feet ahead, a pale face appears from the dark. The creature steps closer and I see that it wears a red armband. In its hand is a machete. It opens its foul mouth and screeches—a hoarse keening—and then charges. I aim carefully and shoot it full in the face, the pellet dislodging half its skull in a gust of black and brown powder and the creature drops, the machete bouncing on the metal floor.
“Back! Back to the landing! Run!” I order and not too soon. A mass of shuffling sounds emerges from the dark as we retreat. I press the communicator to my face and press the ‘send’ button. “Todd. Todd—get back to the west tunnel. We’re being attacked.” I don’t wait for a response.
We reach the landing, terror no doubt gripping every one of us by the neck.
“Two lines of fire. Two lines. First line, kneel. Second line behind—.” But we have no more time.
A horrible screeching wail—the combined war cry of thirty Reds—blasts from the west tunnel and then they charge at us, en masse, about thirty of them, carrying clubs, pick axes, metal spikes, and even kitchen knives. Before we can react, they fall upon us, hacking and stabbing, ripping into arms and legs, crushing skulls, and slicing open arteries as they nearly decapitate the first miners they reach.
Blood spray
s into the air and onto the attackers’ faces and this seems to energize the Reds even more. The striking and slashing becomes even more frenzied and brutal. A third of our group lies dead on the floor within seconds.
The rest of us scramble back against the landing wall as we snatch at our weapons, getting off wild shots. We inadvertently shoot some of our own men in the back as we fire at the maniacal deadheads. A miner’s head flies through the air like a bloody comet and bounces off a table. I fire at a deadhead closing in on me and see his cranium explode in a dry puff of smoke and desiccated brain matter. No blood, though—just the explosion and the creature drops to the floor like a stone.
“Aim!” I shout over the screams of the humans and the horrible shrill wail of the Reds. “Aim, dammit! Aim for their heads.” I aim and fire and another dry skull shatters into a hazy cloud, the deadhead frozen in his tracks, then toppling to the floor. A woman beside me, blood running from claw marks on her face, takes aim and squeezes off a round. It strikes a deadhead in the shoulder, but her next round pops his skull and he goes down. A cascade of shots erupts around me and the Reds are falling.
My ears are ringing and my hand is shaking but I convulsively fire at the surviving deadheads as they pull back, tripping over the bodies of the fallen in their haste to retreat. Our panic is over and our bullets are better targeted and deadly, outmatching the crude weaponry of the attackers. The last surviving Red shambles toward the tunnel but is literally blown apart by the gunfire of several miners.
The miners grin in triumph and one of them fires a round at a wounded deadhead still squirming among the bodies. “Yeah!” The miner shouts, then he lowers his weapon and his face suddenly goes blank. He is staring at the layer of mangled corpses strewn across the floor, the mass of bodies entangled in a pool of blood a couple inches deep. Someone retches and a woman begins crying.
I glance around and I am shocked to see only twelve other people standing beside me. Eleven men—twelve counting me—and one woman.
My first campaign against the deadheads is over before it started…and my army has been demolished.
Todd’s men finally arrive, their breathing ragged. “Where…where…Almighty Caesar!” Todd stares at the bloody mass of corpses and body parts.
Self steps around the bodies and peers through the tunnel. He turns to a guard. “We need to seal this one. Get an engineer down here.”
Todd glares at me. “This is what I’m facing here, Crisp. Tell Rome what you saw here today. Tell them to send me Imperial troops—otherwise, you—and they—can stay the hell out of my way.”
Go to Beginning
CHAPTER VI
Revelation
Murmurs, voices of several people, are indistinguishable until I come closer to the entrance of an open bay. A female voice, is asking a question and then there is laughter at someone’s response. As I near the room’s entrance, a voice I recognize speaks. It belongs to Gershom.
Emotionally spent, but unable to sleep, I have wandered within the station seeking the company of humans. A natural reaction to the horror, I suppose, even for a former Marine. I am not alone in this need, apparently.
I slip onto a seat just inside the entrance. There are about thirty people, mostly men, but a few women also in the group, all of them wearing the utility uniforms and light ‘sand boots’ of Station A, but in the different uniform colors denoting status and occupation.
Gershom, stubbornly still clothed in his space-traveler’s clothing, is sitting on a chair in the center of the group. His face is flushed, his eyes lit with an internal energy as he addresses his listeners.
“Old Earth you call it? Yes, old once, but no longer, because it has been made new. You must come and see it. Its streams rush wild and clear as glass where once they were murky and thick with refuse and toxins…and with the blood of many men. The mountain peaks glisten in the distance with pure white snow and the seas abundantly teem with life again—fish and crustaceans and brilliantly colored coral. Ah, the seas…even the Leviathan reclaims his deep kingdom, bowing only to one—to the only one greater than he. But more majestic than all these things—more wonderful than the Old Earth made fresh and clean—is the One who refreshed it, who—.”
“That’s enough.” The voice is harsh, almost snarling. Everyone in the room turns to see Todd standing at the doorway. Behind him are Security Chief Self and two armed guards.
“Preaching is out of regulation,” Todd says. “I think you know that, Mr. Gershom. It’s subversive. It’s considered a felony on Elemental property.”
“I am not preaching,” Gershom says. “We are discussing. I never preach from a sitting position; it would be disrespectful.” He smiles. “But I agree with you, Station Master Todd. The truth always seems subversive when it is directed toward those who are unused to speaking it.”
Todd smirks. “Truth? What is truth? On Station A, I decide what the truth is.” He looks at me. “What do you say, Crisp? You’re an official envoy from Rome.”
“Elemental,” I correct him wearily. “Elemental Mining. No longer attached to the Roman government—not directly. Let him speak. Then we’ll all know where he stands.”
“Very well. Speak!”
But Gershom is watching me. “I would like to hear Mr. Crisp’s opinion of Old Earth. He is an educated man, a former military officer, if I am not mistaken.”
I look around at the people in Gershom’s impromptu congregation. By their uniforms, they are mostly the lower caste: miners, kitchen staff, and technicians. But I see one or two engineers sitting in the back, now trying to stay inconspicuous. They all watch me with interest, some with distaste; as if I were a pagan or a hostile witness about to denounce their newfound prophet. “You sure you want me to go on?”
Gershom spreads his arms, as if to say the room was mine.
Sitting beside me, a woman with the first stages of gray in her hair touches my arm. Her name tag states, “SMITH, RUBY, KITCHEN.” “You arrived on the Provincial with him, didn’t you? Please, tell us what you know about Old Earth. Many of us have been away a long time.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay…here’s what I know. There was a man—an associate of mine, a very reliable source, who was on Old Earth during the apocalypse ten years ago. He said that Hell had taken hold of Earth. Earth was tearing itself apart. Volcanoes blackened the sky with poisonous gas and dust, typhoons launched tidal waves a mile high—unbelievable walls of water that drowned coastal cities in minutes. Earthquakes leveled entire nations. Packs of wild animals ravaged the countryside and plagues of stinging insects swarmed through the streets. Even the pets of humans turned on them, killing them in their sleep or hunting them down. Pestilences—strange diseases—ravaged populations.”
The faces of my audience are rapt with attention, all eyes on mine.
“Disease, starvation, and worst of all: war. Two major conglomerations of nations fought against each other over ancient disputes concerning the Middle East.” I see Todd watching me closely. I suppose he feels this talk will disrupt life on the station. Maybe it will.
I continue. “One of these major forces opposing one another was the Revived Roman Empire, the central force of the European Union. Most of the other armies came from what was once Russia, combined with a Muslim confederacy and joined by a massive Asian army from the far east. This horde marched upon the European Union and her allied American states, catching the remaining countries in the middle. They were set to clash on an ancient battleground near Israel. A place called Megiddo. A site where the war-to-end-all-wars was foretold to take place. Biblical stuff: cataclysms, death by the millions, seas of blood. My br—this man—got off-planet, just before this doomsday battle was launched, but not soon enough. He died of what looked like radiation poisoning.”
Silence. My listeners are stunned.
An engineer, a bulky fellow with a red face, blurts out, “So this war of nations—who won? How did the U.S. come out?”
“The U.S.? The United State
s? I haven’t heard that archaic phrase for years.” How long had this engineer been out here at the end of the universe? “Well…I heard North America took a lot of hits. Not much news from that part of the world, anymore. In any case, as you must know, the U.S. stopped being a major player a hundred years ago, when they joined the EU. Doesn’t matter, really. It’s all bad news, pretty much everywhere.”
All eyes are on Gershom to hear his reply, to hear him indignantly deny all that I had just described.
But Gershom only nods sadly and says, “It’s true, I’m afraid. Quite true.”
No outcries, just looks of dismay, fear, loss. The silence of the hopeless. The red-faced engineer stares down at his hands and murmurs something that sounds like “Annie.” The name of his wife or his daughter? I don’t know. I don’t want to know.
How many of these folks planned to go home one day? Make their fortunes out here and go back to Old Earth? Most of them, apparently. Fools, I think. Live here, take a stand, and defeat the deadheads. Or go back to Old Earth and live under this new ruler—this supposed Messiah—probably just another tyrant masquerading as God on Earth. Probably no different than the ruling class on New Rome.
But Gershom does not look saddened or surprised. He stands and makes a calming motion with his hand. “Fear not! Be not dismayed. What he says is true. It was ordained. Don’t you remember your Bibles? Any of you?”
Confusion, murmurs. The florid engineer laughs dryly. “You’re talking about the Christian movement. The Jesus freaks. An old sect that died out years ago.” He looks up at Gershom and sneers. “None of those loonies made it out here. They all disappeared suddenly a few years back. Good riddance.”
“You are not rid of them,” Gershom says. “They are back on Earth. But all of this was foretold. There is peace and a new world after the time of trouble. And a new ruler, one who is just and merciful.” His voice takes on a soothing quality and draws their faces to him. His tone slows, if not stops, the hemorrhage of hope from their stricken countenances. “I am here to tell you that what Mr. Crisp described has happened…and has already passed. By now, a new peace exists and the pain and tears have stopped. A government of the Lord has replaced every murderous tyrant and cruel oppressor. We can all go home again. I promise you. This peace will last a thousand years.”
