Test of fire, p.17
Test of Fire, page 17
“And Kobol?”
The hesitation in her voice was more than the lag of lightspeed. “There are ways of handling Kobol. He won’t stop you.”
“You’ll need to bring out the other shuttles and make supply drops for us. We’re going to need medicine and ammunition, fuel for the truck generators...”
She said, “That will take time. Several days, at least. Probably longer.”
“All right. I’ll keep in touch through the satellite. It might be a good idea to activate one of the automatic relay satellites in synchronous orbit, if you can. Then we can keep a communications line open all the time.”
Her voice was fading, the satellite was passing out of range. “I’ll try, Alec. I’ll try.”
“Take care, Mother. Be careful.”
“And you, Alec. Do what needs to be done. Find him and do what needs...” her voice dimmed to an inaudible hiss.
Alec sat alone in the truck’s cab for several minutes, feeling flushed and weak. Got to get a grip on myself, he thought. I’m responsible for fifteen lives. He reached for the door handle and a sudden stab of pain seared through his middle. His head swam.
Dizzily, he stumbled out of the truck. It was cooler in the morning air. He took several deep racking breaths and forced the pain down.
“You,” he called to the nearest man, who was poking into the truck’s fuel cell, behind the cab and under the laser mounting. He looked up. Alec recognized him but couldn’t recall his name. “Find the medical tapes and read out the information on dysentery. Remind Gianelli to get all the available data on the subject when the satellite’s in range again.”
The man looked blankly at him. “The satellite won’t be in range again for twelve hours, will it?”
Alec nodded, bringing up the dizziness again. “Right. Do it.”
“Yeah, okay. Dysentery?” He started to look scared, rather than puzzled.
Slowly, fighting against the nausea that was gripping him, Alec made his way along the line of trucks, looking for Ron Jameson. He found him calmly sitting on the ground with his back against a truck’s wheel, cleaning his automatic rifle. The weapon was spread on a plastic sheet in front of him, broken down into its many glittering metallic parts. Jameson was deftly oiling the firing mechanism.
Ferret stood about ten meters away, watching Jameson with gleaming eyes.
“I don’t trust him,” Jameson said, as Alec’s shadow fell over the rifle parts. Then he looked up and saw Alec’s face. “You’ve got it too.”
“And you?” Alec sagged to a sitting position against the balloon tire.
Jameson nodded, keeping one eye on Ferret. “Had a siege last night. Not much fun.”
“We’re all going to come down with it. And Douglas is pulling his people out.”
“I know. Will Russo was around here looking for you. He was pretty shame-faced about it, but they’re all leaving before noon.”
Leaning his head against the truck’s cool metal fender, Alec closed his eyes. “That means we’ll be on our own.”
“With diarrhea and vomiting as our constant companions.” Jameson said it flatly, with neither humor nor malice.
“What can we do?”
“They’re not sending a shuttle for us?”
“No...” Another cramp made Alec gasp and fight for self-control. “We’re going north to find the fissionables. As soon as we’re able.”
Jameson was silent for a long while. Through pain-blurred eyes, Alec watched him. He was scanning the streets around them, his hawk’s eyes registering every detail of the buildings and intersections, his mind obviously working at top speed.
“Well then,” he said at last, “I guess we’d better get these trucks inside of some of the buildings, where they won’t be spotted so easily. And we’d better pick buildings that are set so that the trucks can support each other with crossfire, in case we are attacked. We’ve got to defend ourselves with a troop of sick pups.”
He glanced at Ferret again. “And I wouldn’t trust him further than I can spit.”
“We’ve got the advantage of firepower,” Alec said.
Jameson gave him a pitying look. “Won’t do much good if the gunners are crapping their guts out when it comes time to pull the triggers.”
Alec couldn’t stand any more. He lurched to his feet and staggered off to find some privacy where he could be thoroughly sick.
The Sun was almost straight overhead when he forced himself back to the street where the Post Office stood. He was drenched with sweat, yet shivering. He stank. His knees were trembling with the mere effort of keeping himself on his feet.
A pair of strong arms grabbed him from behind.
“My God, you really do have it, don’t you?” Will Russo said. His usually carefree face was dead serious now.
“I’ll be... all right,” Alec managed.
Will led him in to the Post Office and sat him down on the floor. Squatting on his heels next to Alec, he said, “Look, we’ve got to leave. There’s a lot of going on further north that needs our attention...”
“Then go.” Alec fluttered a weak hand at him.
“Let me finish, doggone it! I know you feel like you’re going to die, but you won’t. You’ll be okay in a few days. The thing to avoid is fever... it weakens you to other infectious diseases. Now, do you have any anti-fever medicines—aspirin, anything like that?”
“Yes... but nothing much more.”
“You don’t need it. Gobble aspirin and use water baths to keep your temperature down. Same for everybody.”
“All right.” Far back in his mind Alec shrank from the idea of using water for bathing. Water’s too precious.
“Okay,” Russo said. “Now, I see that some of your men are still strong enough to start moving your trucks inside garages and store fronts and such. That’s good. Keep out of sight and maybe nobody will bother you.”
Alec said nothing.
“Now, the raider bands we tangled with have apparently scattered across the countryside. But they haven’t left the territory, you can be sure. I’ve asked a couple of the local farmers to sort of watch out for you, warn you if any packs come into the area. The locals don’t like the raiders and they’ve always worked with us pretty fairly. So they’ll at least try to warn you, if they can.”
“Good.”
“But don’t depend on them too much,” Will warned. “They’re not going to risk their own necks to help strangers. Stay alert. Especially at night.”
Sure, Alec thought, stay alert. We’ll be lucky if we can stay conscious.
“Well...” Russo clambered to his feet. Towering over the prostrate Alec he said, “Good luck. I hope you get through this okay and we can meet again under happier circumstances.”
When we do, we’ll be pointing guns at each other, Alec realized.
The first night wasn’t so bad. Before the Moon rose one of the men thought he saw someone prowling along the street and fired a burst of automatic rifle fire at him. Everyone roused, the sick and the well, but the alarm was over just that quickly. Once the Moon came up and it was fairly bright, the town became absolutely still.
At least, as far as Alec and his men could tell.
The next day it clouded over and by mid-morning began to rain. Alec lay in absolute misery on the floor of the Post Office next to the two trucks that had been trundled inside there. The rain dripped through the broken roof, adding rivulets of soaking water and a chilling, soggy air to the agonies that they all felt.
Ron Jameson was the strong one among them. He was on his feet, moving from building to building, truck to truck, man to man, carrying medicine and discipline and—most important of all—morale. He kept a constant eye on Ferret, as well, but the pinch-faced youth never tried to run out on them, never strayed far from the trucks and the other men. He watched them, eyes darting everywhere, in their miseries.
Hunched over Alec’s makeshift pallet as the rain drummed on the sagging roof and dripped through its shattered sections, Jameson said matter-of-factly:
“I wouldn’t depend on any farmers to warn us of raider bands. From what Russo’s people told me, most of them won’t bother to help us as long as the raiders leave them alone.”
Alec nodded weakly. “I guess that’s so.”
“And the way it’s raining, the raiders could march in here with a brass band and we wouldn’t see or hear a thing until they were right on top of us.”
“How many...” Alec had to take a breath, “...how many men are on their feet?”
“They’re starting to recover. We’ve got seven or eight who’re as good as new, almost.”
“Out of fifteen.”
“The worst is over. I think you got the biggest dose of all.”
Alec smiled wanly. “Good. I wouldn’t want anybody else... to go through this...” He had been vomiting aspirin and antibiotics all day. The cramps and diarrhea were not so bad now, but he was cold and utterly weak. Nothing stayed inside him.
“We’ll make it,” Jameson said, with a grim smile. “Once the Sun comes out again we’ll be okay.”
Alec translated, If we get through tonight we might have a chance.
Alec drifted to sleep. When he awoke, it was dark. Rain pelted the roof of the cab he lay in, but it seemed lighter now, diminishing. Cramps again. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and the nausea washed over him in waves. Dizzy, he grabbed for the truck door handle and half-fell, half-slid to the floor of the Post Office room.
It was wet. The drizzling rain coming through the roof felt almost good on his head and shoulders. Clutching at his midsection, Alec staggered out toward the back door. If any of the men noticed him, they gave no indication of it. He saw no one stir.
He was fumbling with the belt of his pants when the first explosion came.
It lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the muddy ground ten meters from where he’d been standing. The back wall of the Post Office was a sheet of flame and it collapsed in surrealistic slow motion, crumbling in on itself. Sparks and flaming debris soared upward.
Alec rolled over on his back in the ice-cold mud. Gunfire. Men yelling. The high-pitched whine of an electric generator revving up to top speed.
He rolled over onto his stomach, fumbling for his pistol, but couldn’t find it. Four men were running toward him. In the dancing light of the flames he saw that they were armed. Then a truck smashed its front end through a store window across the street. The running men turned to flame as the invisible laser beam hit them. Their clothing burst into fire and they jerked, screaming, hair and flesh ablaze. They fell and the ground bubbled where the invisible laser beam struck. The pencil line of boiling earth marched across the street to where Alec lay, close enough for him to hear the hellish hiss of it as he watched, paralyzed with fear.
Then the beam swung away. More explosions. Another truck started to pull free of a building that was collapsing, but the truck itself blew up, hurling pieces of men and machinery so high into the air that they were lost in shadow.
Alec couldn’t move. He lay there soaked in mud and his own excrement as bullets zinged by, kicking up puffs of mud close enough to splatter his face. One truck seemed to be the only one fighting, and running, cursing men backed away from it, firing as they fell back.
Then another truck trundled slowly around the Post Office building. A dozen raggedly-dressed men charged at it, trying to capture it intact. The laser caught them in the open and they instantly became gibbering torches. More men appeared on the rooftop of the building where the first truck stood, but they must have been Alec’s men, for they sprayed the street with automatic weapons’ fire.
Bullets spanged everywhere and Alec knew he was going to be killed. Then he felt a tug at his ankles. Turning his head, he saw Ferret, lips pulled back over his yellowed teeth, bent over double to drag him through the muddy street over to the side of a building and a modicum of safety. Ferret knelt beside Alec, wincing with every bullet that whizzed near, obviously terrified.
Before Alec could find the strength to say anything, he saw a third truck coming up from the other end of the street. Its laser was silent and a gang of armed men crouched on the mounting platform, behind the armored cab. More men walked stealthily behind it. They’ve captured that one, Alec realized, but they don’t know how to work the laser.
Jameson must have realized the same thing. Alec saw him standing erect alongside the first truck, pointing a straight unflinching arm toward the captured one. The laser generator shrilled and the captured truck was caught in its merciless beam. Men screamed and burned, tires burst and the truck slumped to a halt. Then the beam found the oxygen and hydrogen lines of the fuel cell and the truck fireballed, searing Alec and Ferret with its glaring heat.
Suddenly it all stopped. The truck burned sullenly, the Post Office was a twisted mass of smoking ruins. The shooting ceased. No more shouting. No more movement. The street was littered with bodies.
Christ! They wiped us out and I lay there like a turd.
Alec forced himself up to his hands and knees.
“Okay?” Ferret asked, his voice high with fear. “You okay? Okay?”
“Yes,” he said, still nearly breathless. “I’m all right.”
Two men jumped out from behind the corner of the building, guns levelled at them. Ferret threw his arms over his head and dived for the ground.
“Hey, it’s Alec!” Gianelli’s voice shouted.
“And that Ferret character.”
“He’s one of them,” Gianelli said. “Shoot the bastard!”
Alec heard the snick of a gun being cocked. “No,” he commanded, as loudly as he could manage. “He saved my life. Leave him alone. He wasn’t with them. He pulled me out of the line of fire.”
“You got hit?” Gianelli asked, striding to Alec. His face was grimy, streaked with soot. His partner kept his rifle levelled at Ferret.
“No,” Alec said. “I’m... I wasn’t hit.”
After an hour of cleaning and changing clothes, Alec felt strong enough to look for some food. The other men were dragging off the bodies of the dead, tending to each other’s wounds. The word had quickly spread that Alec’s deepest injury was soiled pants. The men shied away from him.
He found Jameson by a small cookfire, near one of the remaining trucks.
“You’re okay,” Jameson said.
Alec nodded. “And you?”
“Broke a fingernail on the safety of my rifle,” he said with utter seriousness.
“How many... did we lose?”
“Three killed, five wounded. Two pretty seriously. The other three are just scratched. Could have been a lot worse.”
We’re down to a dozen men, Alec thought. “Did they get one of the trucks?”
Nodding, Jameson said, “It cost them twenty-two dead.”
“And wounded?”
“They dragged most of their wounded away,” Jameson said flatly. “The others died.”
A single pistol shot cracked through the smoldering darkness.
“That’s the last one now,” Jameson said.
“I got caught between you and them,” Alec mumbled. “Went out to... never got my pants down.”
Jameson shrugged. “I hear Ferret dragged you to safety. Guess I’ll have to start trusting him a little.”
“Yeah. Maybe he can help us locate some food.”
Jameson excused himself and left Alec alone by the tiny fire. While Alec tried to get some hot broth down, he heard one of the men grumbling: “I don’t care if he does hear me! He was crapping in his pants while Ollie and the rest of ‘em were getting killed. Some leader!”
And then Jameson’s voice, quiet, calm. “Maybe you don’t care if he hears you but if I hear you make another crack like that I’ll break your jaw. Understand? He was sick... still is.”
The reply was mumbled too low for Alec to hear.
He leaned back against the metal of the truck and held the warm cup of broth in both trembling hands. A dozen men. Twelve against Thebes. Twelve of us and two trucks to cross the country and find Douglas and the fissionables. And most of the men think I’m either a coward or a madman. Or both.
He almost laughed. The only real friend he had among them was the half-witted Ferret.
Alec looked up. The first hint of dawn was lightening the sky to the east. It would feel good to have sunlight wanning him again.
“All right,” he whispered to himself. “Two trucks and twelve men. We start north. Now!”
BOOK THREE
Chapter 19
It was pleasantly cool among the trees. The Sun still felt hot, falling in mottled patches through the swaying branches and lighting up the grassy glades of clearings among the trees. The breeze had a tang to it as it gusted in from the northwest. The leaves were already falling, their colors fantastic. Alec had never seen such a profusion of reds and golds before.
But he was not paying attention to the autumn foliage now. He lay on his belly atop a carpeting of soft leaves at the rim of a hill, under the cover of the maples and birches. Out in the cleared valley below stood a walled village. A cluster of little huts with thin plumes of smoke curling from a few chimneys.
Ron Jameson lay beside Alec. “They picked a good location. Couple of klicks out in the open. Nobody can get to them without them seeing him first and closing their gates.”
Nodding, Alec raised his binoculars to inspect the village’s wall. Old cinderblock, mostly. Some newly made brick. Wooden gates, probably scavenged from one of the abandoned cities nearby.
He noticed a few men working in the cornfield between the woods and the village. No women were in sight, although they might have been in among the rows of two-meter-high stalks.
“They’re greedy,” Alec said quietly. “They’ve planted cornfields all the way from the edge of their wall to the edge of the trees. And they’re trying to get a second crop in before the frosts come.”
Jameson grinned. Perfect cover.
On Alec’s other side, Ferret jabbed an excited finger. “Road,” he said. “Carts. Wagons.”
