Edward Llewellyn - Prelude to Chaos

“One last thing!” 1 wheeled my Slada to the end of the jetty, headed it toward the sea, started the motor, kicked it into gear, and let it go. Its roar died with the splash. None of those bastards up the road were going to ride my bike.

Later on I heard that Judith had done the same to her Yama.

The Council were sitting at the table and some fifty other people were crammed standing in Ranula's saloon. Among them were Barbara and Midge. Even the juniors were being brought into the act. I looked for Judith and saw her in a comer with Jehu. She waved at me to join her but it was impossible to squeeze between bulky windbreakers and I stood with Enoch by the door. I was only there because Yackle had radioed for me to come; I couldn’t give much advice now we were at sea. Every fisherman around me knew more about boats and the bay than I did.

They were discussing where to go; arguing out a last-minute decision which should have been firm months earlier. That seemed to be the usual way Believers reached decisions; despite my training I was beginning to see some sense in it. They prepared for a number of possibilities so they had a plan ready for whatever turned up. Something like dynamnic programming in computers. But unnerving to me, who had been taught to plan ahead, check the logic, and act crisply.

They were all agreed that the only place Ranula could go safely, at least for the night, was Fairhaven. The argument was now centering on whether everybody should go there with her, or whether some of the boats should set out at once along the coast in search of a more attractive home. We lay, lifting and falling in the slight swell, the fog thick around us, while Chuck Yackle used Roberts’ Rules of Order to chair a debate which was mostly wistful thinking. I wanted to escape to Aurora and consume some of Enoch’s rum, but when I tried to slip away he caught my arm and muttered, “We’ll be needing you in a moment, Mister Gavin.”

“What for? I can’t add anything to this.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” He took advantage of a halt in the debate to call, “Chairman Yackle—my little girl has an idea that’s not half bad.”

“Barbara? Where is she?” Yackle peered round the crowded saloon. “Oh, there you are. Well, young lady, what idea do you have? Don’t be shy—we need all the ideas we can get.”

Telling Barbara not to be shy was rather like telling a Trooper not to be modest. Yackle knew that as well as I did; I sensed another of those prearranged proposals which seemed the Chairman’s usual method of obtaining what he wanted from his colleagues.

She pushed her way through the crowd to stand at the end of the saloon table; shyness was the least appropriate term to describe her stance and expression. Like most of the other men and women there she had belted on a revolver and she stood with her feet apart against Ranula ’s gentle roll, her hand on the butt of her pistol. I remembered a line from Chesterton: “Barbara of the gunners, with her hand upon the gun.” Saint Barbara, the patron saint of artillery and those in danger of sudden death. The girl facing us was no saint in any sense. But she might one day figure in the legends of her religion.

“These are our alternatives. We can go to Fairhaven, pray to be left alone, and rot if we are. We can go along the coast, try to slip in some place, and be captured all together. Or we can split up, every boat for herself. Most boats will be captured or sunk when this fog clears and the choppers come after us. Some might escape. But separated—we’re nothing!” She made a gesture of disgust.

“So what’s your idea, girl?” asked an oldster who had obviously disapproved of Yackle’s calling on a junior to speak.

“To try for the only place within range where we’ll have a chance to stand off those cabron until their whole rotten system falls apart.” Her words made me realize that Barbara and Anslinger had something in common. “Jona’s Point.”

“Jona’s Point? Where the Pen is?”

“Where the Pen was. It’s a Federal supply dump now.”

Everybody started to talk at once, with the oldster piping up that the child was crazy. Yackle gaveled the meeting to silence. “The Federal Penitentiary is guarded by sophisticated radar and those deadly particle beams. We’ve been warned often enough not to let any boat stray within ten kilometers of it.”

“We haven’t been warned lately, because it isn’t any more. A boat can go right up to the wharf. The Howard does it twice a week.”

“But the John Howard’s a specially equipped ship. She’s—”

“She’s got nothing the Sea Eagle hasn’t got. And I’ve been alongside that wharf.” She glanced across the saloon. “Judith and Mister Gavin were with me. Isn’t that right, Mister Gavin?”

Everybody was suddenly looking at me. “We slipped in one night to take a look-see,” I admitted.

“And what did you see?” asked Yackle.

Barbara answered before I could. “Ten half-assed guards. All sleeping, fooling around, or screwing. In this fog we could run right in and be on them before they know what’s hit. Like the other Feds tried to hit us.”

“But their beams! Their radar!”

“Barbara’s right. There aren’t any defenses operational,” I said. “And the main entrance was open when we visited. They had crates all over the wharf and up the tunnel.” I paused. “Of course, that was months ago. Things may have changed since then.”

“Things may have changed,” said Gertrude, “but one thing hasn’t. Jona’s Point is Federal property—whether they’re using it as a prison or a warehouse. And if we invade Federal property we’ll bring down a Strike Force on us. That’s the last thing we need. We are trying to escape notice, not push ourselves out into the limelight.” She paused. “I agree, the Pen would make an ideal base. But why not settle in Fairhaven for the time being, see if Jona’s Point is as easy to approach as Barbara thinks it is, and then take it over later on.”

Barbara swung on her. “If we wait—somebody else will get there first. And we’re not likely to have another night when the fog’s thick and the Coast Guard’s tied up!”

A babble of voices. Judith’s cut through them. “We are being tested! Tested by the Light! If we fail—we will be found unworthy.” Pragmatic Judith off on her mystical kick. It brought silence to the saloon and they made way for her when she moved to the table. “Think!” she commanded us. “A calm sea, a thick fog, a moonless night. Gavin’s radar spoiler. Barbara’s trawl around the cutter’s screws. The lead tank in the creek. The overhang across the road. The children safe aboard this ship. All of us gathered here in this saloon. Do you think all these are coincidences?” She dismissed such an absurdity with a shake of her head, her hair glinting auburn and gold. “The Light has given us the means. We must find the way.”

Logically and theologically that was absurd. Persuasively, it was effective. Even I was trapped. Yackle broke the silence. “I take it, Doctor, that you favor an attempt to capture Jona’s Point now?”

“That is our challenge!” She looked round as if to see if any of us rejected it. For the moment she was not my wife; she was a prophetess, a priestess, a Wise Woman. Or a Valkyrie, choosing those who were to be slain. I shifted uneasily, and was startled when she dropped into her normal voice. “With ten boats and fifty rifles we’d have a chance of capturing the Pen, wouldn’t we, Gavin?”

I licked my lips. “If the guard hasn’t been beefed up.” Her eyes started to flash, and I added, “Even if it has—we have a chance.”

Enoch, beside me, spoke up. “That girl of mine, she’s young and her manners ain’t so good, but her thinking’s not bad. Except she hasn’t thought things through as she’ll leam when she’s a mite older! I reckon there’s fifty of us willing to take a chance, but there’s no call to risk the rest. I propose that we make up what Mister Gavin here would say was a ‘hit team’ and try for the Pen. The rest go with this ship and the young kids to Fairhaven and wait there. If we make it we can signal ’em to come across. If we don’t—” He shrugged. “They’ll be no worse off. Neither, in the end, will we. The Light expects us to try. It knows we’re not always going to win.” He put his empty pipe back into his mouth.