Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“Buckhannon.” Seth made sure the scow was being towed smoothly behind. “You?”

“Clarksburg. Thought I recognized West Virginia in your voice.”

“Same here. I’m long time gone, though.”

“Me, too. I’m Eastern Shore now, got my mother looking after my kids ’cross the bay in Pocomoke City. Wouldn’t want them around here, even if things was normal. You still got plenty of West Virginia in your voice. Lucky for you, or I’d probably have said no.”

“Pretty bad reason to let somebody aboard your ship, the way he talks.”

“Ain’t that the truth? Never said I was smart, did I?” The woman nodded toward the hatch. “Go ahead, tell Dad you got breakfast comin’ you.”

Three steps led down to a cramped but tidy cabin. The old man nodded when Dana delivered his daughter’s message. He gestured to bowls and plates on a rack by one of the long narrow windows and to a big iron pot standing in a hollow at one end of the table. Then he stood up and left without a word.

The woman appeared a minute later. “Dad said he’d rather spell me for a while at the wheel. He’s none too sociable mornings. We got nothing fancy here, fish chowder, corn bread, coffee. We never expected visitors, see, but there’s plenty. Dad likes to feel he can eat anytime he wants.”

Art took the filled bowl that Dana passed to him. The chowder didn’t bear looking at too closely. It included fish heads and fish livers and fish tongues and other less recognizable bits and pieces, thickened with sun-dried tomatoes and corn and seasoned with pepper. It was hot and rich and, like the bitter coffee sweetened in the pot with molasses, totally delicious.

The first bowl brought Art back to life. He nodded at the offer of a refill, set it in front of him, and kept eating. Across the table, Seth and the woman were talking. Their accents had thickened, and they spoke about unknown people and strange places. It occurred to Art that they were, in some perverse sense, flirting. This was another side of Seth, mixed in with the ruthlessness and cunning and animal vigor.

Nobody was as simple as he seemed — as maybe she wanted to seem. Dana, next to Art, had finished eating and was lolling toward him, her eyes closed and her head resting on his shoulder and left upper arm. Was she sleeping, or just pretending to? He stared at the spoon he was holding. It still dipped into the bowl and carried chowder to his mouth, but the operation seemed less and less under his control. He was vaguely aware of the old man sticking his head into the cabin and saying something to his daughter. If the man was here, and she was here, then who was steering the Cypress Queen}

Not Art’s department, he decided. It was one thing in the world that he didn’t have to worry about. He leaned his head to the left, to rest it for a moment on Dana’s.

And suddenly he was asleep, as fast and deep as if the chowder in his belly had been seasoned with opium rather than pepper.

Art was awakened far too soon, by Seth shaking his shoulders. He opened his eyes and found Dana beside him rubbing her eyes and scowling. Neither the woman nor her father was in the cabin. The little room was stiflingly hot.

“We gotta make a decision,” Seth said as soon as he was sure the other two were awake enough to listen. “Maryland Point is a mile ahead, on the port bow.”

“Didn’t we say we’d have them drop us off farther on, at Riverside?” Art drank from his mug of coffee, which now that it was cold tasted sickeningly sweet. “That’s a couple of miles farther downriver than Maryland Point.”

“It is. But I’ve been on deck with Janis, watchin’ the shore. It must be thawin’ like a son of a bitch, though you’d never know it lookin’ at the snow. It’s deep as ever, big drifts all over the place.”

“The roads?” Dana asked.

“That’s what I’m worried about. We might get off at Riverside and not make it to the Q-5 Syncope Facility.”

“But if we can’t get there, we can’t get away from there, either.”

“That’s different. We don’t hafta.”

“Seth’s right, Dana.” Art turned to her. “If we find Oliver Guest and wake him up and have to wait a day or two before we leave, that’s one thing. If we don’t get there in time and he dies, that’s another. We have to be dropped off at Maryland Point — as close to the Q-5 facility as we can get.”

“But then the people here will know,” Dana protested. “Even if they don’t know who we’re interested in, they’ll realize what we’re up to.”

“That’s all right. They won’t talk. Not if we give them a gentle hint that we know what they are up to. Right, Seth?”

“That’s my thinkin’.”

“What they are up to?” Dana looked from Art to Seth and back. “I thought this was a fishing boat.”

“It is,” Art said. “But that’s not all it is. They bring fish caught in the Chesapeake Bay up the Potomac to Washington. And they bring an unlicensed cargo of a controlled substance from the other side of the bay to the same market. Janis and her father are tobacco runners.”

“Are you sure?” Dana raised her head and sniffed. “I don’t smell it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Seth said. “They have to be careful. She gave the game away a bit when she said they’d never have taken us if they’d been headin’ upriver. That’s when they have their cargo aboard. Now they’re runnin’ back relaxed and empty.”

“With no smell,” Art added. “It would be fatal for the Cypress Queen’s owners if the ship reeked of tobacco. They must have an airtight hold somewhere — maybe under the space that carries the fish. That would be good smell insulation.”

“And I’ll bet one other thing,” Seth said. “Ol’ Dad isn’t just a runner — he’s a user. A chewer, I’d guess, when he’s belowdecks. He was all set for a quiet wad after breakfast when we rolled in. No wonder he left us an’ went topside. Up there he’s probably a smoker, too.”

He raised his eyebrows at the other two. “Well? Are we all agreed?”

“Maryland Point,” Dana said. “As close to the facility as they can get us.”

Art nodded.

“Good enough.” Seth headed for the cabin steps. “I’ll tell Janis. Though I’ll be surprised if she hasn’t guessed. We’re about as obvious as they are.”

At the top he turned. “If you gotta perform any last personal rites before we leave, do it now. Five minutes, we’ll be gone.”

The Q-5 Facility for Extended Syncope was visible from the river. Bare, ugly, and ominous, it formed a gray cube jutting up from the level ground. A tall wire fence, apparently continuous, ran around it forty yards from the windowless walls.

Art walked toward it for a closer look. He felt enormously better after the food and rest, but his stomach was quivering with tension. They were going to learn in the next few minutes if all their efforts had been a waste of time.

He bent to examine the snow-covered base. “This is normally electrified, but not at the moment. We might be able to get through with Seth’s pliers. That will be a tough job. I say we go around and look for a gate.”

“Right. Has to be.” Seth led the way, trudging through the deep virgin snow in sunlight hot enough to trickle sweat into their eyes. “Chances are, the official way in’s on the opposite side, ’cause that’s where the road runs.” He halted suddenly. “Or mebbe not. Take a look.”

He had come to a place where the fence turned through a right angle. Along the new side the snow had been flattened to make a path three feet wide. The snow base showed footprints, so many and overlapping that they could not be counted. They ran in both directions, and a heavy object had been dragged one way to smooth and partially erase them.