Robert Adams - The Witch Goddess

Broomtown now included small shops and factories, even a small foundry. Practically all of the Center’s firearms and ammunition were products of Broomtown, as were the large and the small transceivers and powerpacks. Moreover, the younger Broomtowners were becoming quite inventive and otherwise talented, constantly developing ways and means to render their products smaller, lighter in weight and yet still more effective than the Center-produced models they copied.

But there were many needful items of high technology that Broomtown could not produce at all and that the Center turned out only with immense difficulty and hideous expenditure of energy. That was precisely why the packloads of ancient machines and spare parts for them were of such unheralded potential value to the Center, why acquisition of them had been felt to be well worth the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of men, women and children, not to mention the expense of fitting out and dispatching this packtrain and the necessary armed guards to accompany it.

Nor were the refined metals to be sneezed at; gold, silver and copper, in both coins and bars; bars of tin, lead, zinc, nickel, chromium, tungsten and aluminum; spool on spool of wire of differing materials, gauges and degree of resistance. And too there were quantities of tools and technical equipment of varying sorts.

There had never been any sure way of ascertaining just how and where those strange, savage women had gotten the combined trove, how long they had had it or why they had transported it from place to place—if, indeed, they had, for some of the devices looked to Braun as if they had been in place for far longer than the Hold of the Maidens had been occupied.

Had matters been different and the decision been entirely his to make, Braun would have preferred to extirpate the population of the hold, use the big copters to fly up equipment and personnel both from Broomtown and the Center, then observe and study the functions of the devices in their places, before beginning to dismantle them. That, he knew, would have been the proper, scientific way to do it, but the discovery that the hold lay directly atop a volcano on the verge of erupting had precipitated the Board’s decision to proceed as they had.

Some of the devices were unfamiliar to Braun and Erica Arenstein, not to mention Corbett, who was not and had never been a scientist, only a professional soldier; but from what little he had had time to skim from the ancient, crumbling books, charts, servicing manuals and blueprints, Braun could assume that most of the equipment was from a communications and/or tracking installation—a military or NASA facility, he surmised—although why a partially natural cave in the southern reaches of the Appalachian Mountains had been chosen and enlarged to contain it was beyond his imagination.

When he at last came within sight of the low, brushy ridge which twisted and turned across the track at a more or less right angle to the line of cliffs, Braun dismounted, removed his rifle from the scabbard and slung it diagonally on his back, clipped a pouch of spare magazines to his belt, then, after hesitating for a moment, added his binoculars to the load, before hitching his mule’s reins to a small pine.

The Broomtown trooper on the other side of Erica yielded Braun his place with alacrity, when the scientist came bellying up the incline.

“Now, goddammit, Harry,” Erica hissed venomously, “what the hell are you doing up here? You were supposed to be in charge of the train and the rearguard.”

She might have said more, but Corbett quickly interposed, “Oh, don’t make an issue of it, Dr. Arenstein. Since there’s been no pursuit by now, I doubt very much there will be any. Besides, Sergeant Major Vance is a competent professional, I’d make him and several others commissioned officers if Dr. Sternheimer would agree.”

“But Dr. Braun deserted his post,” snapped Erica hotly. “He willfully left the place to which he’d been assigned. Under conditions like these, I thought that that was punishable by death, Jay.”

Corbett sighed tiredly. “Doctors, you are both in charge of the scientific aspects of this mission, I am in charge of the military aspects, and, militarily speaking, you both are rankless supernumeraries. Neither of you has any assigned posting, as you both lack the ability and experience to satisfactorily fill a military command capacity. The commander of the rearguard is Vance; his brother, Sergeant Major Vance, and Sergeant First Class Cabell are each in charge of one segment of the train, and Master Sergeant Gumpner commands this vanguard, here.

“That you two doctors have been at murderous odds for centuries has been common knowledge at the Center and at our various bases. Who is or was or will be right or wrong in your feud is unimportant to me just now, nor would I particularly care if the two of you killed each other here and now. But Dr. Sternheimer impressed upon me the critical necessity of bringing the cargo of this train safely into Broomtown, and I gave him my word of honor that I would assuredly do so.

“So, Doctors, I hereby serve you both a warning: If any more of your ongoing hostility seems to me to be disrupting or even demoralizing my command, I shall have you both disarmed and bound to your mounts, or I shall personally shoot you, whichever seems the best course to me at the time. Do I make myself clear, Doctors?”

When neither answered immediately, Corbett went on in a lower but intense tone, “Please recall who and what you are. No matter how adult and sophisticated our Broomtowners may seem, from day-to-day contact, remember than in many respects they still are as primitive and childlike as were their ancestors of a century and a half ago. They all bear a degree of respect that borders upon veneration toward the Center and toward any of us from the Center, but especially for you scientists.

“Such spiteful, petty behavior as you two have evinced on this return trip has upset them more than you, or even they, realize. Dr. Sternheimer has great plans for Broomtown, you know, and intends to start to implement them soon after we get back, using some of the very men who are with us. So, for the sake of the Center, for the sake of all that we have worked for and suffered for over the centuries, for the sake of the United States of America—which we still are serving and which we can soon begin to rebuild—I beg of you both not to show these Broomtowners any more of your feet of clay. Save your mutual hatreds until you’re back at the Center, among your own kind. Otherwise, Doctors, I’ll find it a necessity to place my duty ahead of friendship.”

When a full hour had passed with no more of the shaggy fugitives coming down from the plateau and no appearance by whoever or whatever had put them to such panic-stricken flight, Corbett dispatched his subordinate, Sergeant Gumpner, and a small mounted patrol to scout out the route of march. Within another half hour, the noncom radioed back that no living mountaineers were anywhere in sight, only a couple of dead ones and a few stray ponies, which he and his men had rounded up. At that, Corbett mounted the rest of the van and signaled the bulk of the train to resume the march.

As they proceeded on, he kept both of the scientists with him, placing Braun ahead of him on the narrow track and Erica behind. They had ridden on without incident or spoken word for the best part of an hour when suddenly the air seemed filled with birds. Birds of every description soared aloft from nests and perches, all screeching, crying and whistling insanely.

Then, just as suddenly, it was all that the men and woman could do to control their riding and pack animals, which not only gave the appearance of unnatural edginess—even the placid, dependable mules—but were being driven to near hysteria by the hordes of small leaping, crawling, slithering and scuttling wildlife with which the ground suddenly seemed alive.