Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“Getting a message,” the driver interrupted. “Our man at the top thinks we got problems down below. Signal interrupted. He’s trying to make contact again.”

“They failed?”

“Don’t know that, but apparently it’s not going clean. Keep quiet a minute, let me listen.”

Celine stared at the displays. They showed the same morning scene, with the schoolhouse sitting peaceful at the bottom of a gentle incline. The van was suddenly uncannily quiet, except for Saul Steinmetz’s voice continuing from the television.

“ — at once, and with not a day to lose. Therefore, I am arranging an immediate series of meetings with the heads of governments all around the world. In those meetings, I propose that this country pledge its manpower and materials to the rebuilding of the infrastructure and industry of other less fortunate nations. Let me remind you that such an act is not without precedent. Eighty years ago, in one of this nation’s finest hours, we rebuilt the economies of those who had recently been our adversaries in the most bitter war in human history. Surely we will do no less now, for our friends. And, in return, we will ask their total commitment to a project which will save the world. Before seeking the support of other nations, however, all of us here must first be convinced that this action is necessary and indeed inevitable. To that end, I have arranged for a series of briefings, to begin tomorrow morning. The first ones will demonstrate both the danger and the need for action. Then the scale of the operation will be outlined—”

“Shit.” The driver dragged off his headset and hurried to the rear of the van, for a direct view of the schoolhouse. “It’s looking bad. We have casualties. They’re on the way back up, but they didn’t have time to disable the other elevators. I’m going to join Grossman and give them fire cover. You stay here and get in the driver’s seat. If you see anything coming out and it’s not our own people, don’t wait and don’t watch. Take off in the van and don’t stop ’til you reach Washington.”

He was already in full body armor. Without waiting to hear Celine’s response he dropped his helmet into position and jumped off the open rear of the van.

She took one step toward the empty driver’s seat, and paused. If the long years of the Mars expedition had taught her one thing above all others, it was that you did not abandon a teammate in trouble. Not ever, not for any reason. At the moment she was a part of the Pearl Lazenby capture team — she was even responsible for its existence. There was just one important difference: the others had to obey the commands of their team leader; she did not.

She went to the side wall of the van, inspected the body armor suits, and took down the one that seemed closest to her size. It took a minute to climb into it, but her experience with spacesuits helped a lot.

The choice of weapons was more difficult. She hated the idea of killing anyone, but gas bombs might be useless if the Legion of Argos followers had their own gas masks.

Finally she hooked three gas grenades to her belt and picked up an automatic rifle. The gun’s advanced capabilities had been dumbed down a lot by the gamma pulse, but that suited her just fine. It was now a simple single-shot point-and-shoot projectile weapon, with a hundred-round ammo cartridge.

Celine carefully climbed from the open rear of the van and walked down the hill. The schoolhouse at the bottom seemed astonishingly normal and neat. It was hard to imagine violence taking place in or underneath it.

She recalled Eli’s cold, unblinking face and the belts of live ammunition around his chest. She began to walk faster. Soon she was at the door of the schoolroom, and still no sound came from within.

She looked inside, past the broken glass window. The driver and the radioman Grossman stood side by side, guns raised. They were covering two of the three elevators.

The driver had seen her arrive, and he gestured angrily at her to leave. She ignored him. An elevator was on its way up — no, two were rising in the shafts, she could hear the creak of their cables.

The big question: Who was inside them?

Apparently her companions had no more idea than she did. The third elevator sat silent, but their guns veered between the other two.

She heard a final rattle of cables. The door of one elevator slid open. She held her rifle at the ready. Two people in body armor staggered forward. They were carrying a long object swaddled in light-colored material.

“Take this and get out of here.” She recognized the captain’s voice, hoarse and strained. “Grossman, you and I cover.”

The driver grabbed the end of the burden thrust at him by the captain and started with the other man up the hill. Celine, ready to turn with them, saw from the corner of her eye that the door of the second elevator was sliding open. Grossman and the captain stood right in front of it. They began to shoot, but gray-clad soldiers at the back of the elevator were shielded by those in front. Celine saw a black oval fly through the air to explode right at Grossman’s neck. His head vanished. Celine felt a hail of shrapnel on her armor and saw the captain blown backward — injured, dead, or stunned, she could not tell.

She grabbed a gas grenade from her belt and threw it forward in the same movement. The gray fog of the explosion filled the air. When it cleared, no one in the elevator was left standing.

Celine turned to where the captain lay. She was relieved to see him struggling to his knees. As she moved to help him, she heard the rumble of an ascending elevator. The third one was on its way.

The captain was dazed. Given a choice, he might have stayed to tackle the next arrivals. Celine didn’t give him the option. She took his arm and steered him up the hill.

The driver and his companion had reached the van with their burden. They looked her way and shouted a warning. Celine did not stop, but she turned her head. Forty yards behind her, boiling out of the schoolroom like angry ants from a nest, came a score and more of people wearing Legion of Argos uniforms. They were all carrying rifles.

Celine didn’t wait to find out what they would do with them. She staggered the last few steps to the van and helped the driver to hoist the half-conscious captain inside. As she put her own knee wearily on the tailgate she heard the slap of sharp impacts on the vehicle’s side.

“Good,” the driver said. “We got her. But don’t stand there unless you’re tired of life.”

“How do you know we got her? What’s happening?”

“Because they didn’t shoot at you. The only way that makes sense is if we have their precious leader, and they’re hoping to put this van out of action. They know we’d never get her away from them on foot if they disable it.”

“Can they do that?”

“Not a prayer.” The driver was back in his seat, hands on the wheel and foot on the throttle. “The body and tires of this baby are fullerene-reinforced to hell and gone. They’d need armor-piercing shells to do us any damage. But come on, ma’am. Get your ass on board, and let’s move out of here.”

As Celine placed her other knee onto the tailgate she caught a glimpse on the television of President Steinmetz saying forcefully, “ — and survive the time of maximum danger.” Surely, that program had finished hours ago. It seemed more like days.

She heard a bullet hum a few inches above her head. As she ducked, the engine roared and the van rocketed forward. She almost fell out of the back, but saved herself by a frantic grab at the cloth bundle. It slid backward a foot toward the rear of the van.

“Hey, don’t give her back.” The captain had removed his helmet and gas mask. He had a bloody nose, but seemed back to full consciousness. “We don’t want to lose her after all our trouble getting her.”