Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“But what about her visions? That’s all mystical gobbledygook.”

“We think so. But she believes what she sees, and so do her followers. That gives her visions a reality that we have to accept, even when they sound vague enough to apply to a lot of natural disasters.” Wilmer motioned toward the door. “Those guns are real. The willingness of her followers to do anything that Pearl Lazenby commands is real. Based on the evidence, I can make a case that she has a better handle on reality than the rest of the world. After all, she was the one who predicted and prepared for disaster. We had no idea it was coming.”

“I agree with Wilmer.” Reza had been standing in the doorway, a rapt expression on his face. He came forward. “She knew, many years ago. No one else did. There are more ways to truth than science admits. I think that Pearl Lazenby is an amazing woman.”

“Or at least a lucky one,” Jenny said. She came across and sat on the bed next to Celine. Her eyes were red from fatigue and loss of sleep. “Don’t glare at me like that, Reza, pure luck would do it. Pearl Lazenby decided, for whatever reason, that she disliked smart machines that made use of microchips. So she predicted that they would fail, and after that she and her followers avoided them. Did you notice the railcar we rode here on, and those guns and bullets? They were old. No chips in them.”

“Maybe. But they are more useful than anything that does use chips.” Reza seemed ready for more argument. “So who was the smart one, tell me that. Pearl Lazenby, or the rest of us? Hate the Legion of Argos as much as you like, you can’t deny that her prophecies came true.”

“By dumb luck.” Jenny stared up at Reza, who shook his head. Celine sensed a new tension between them. “Pearl Lazenby and her followers are one-eyed prophets,” Jenny went on, “in the country of the blind.

She knows she has a temporary advantage, and she intends to do something with it. My question is, what? How many followers does she have? A thousand, or a million? Where are they? And what are they going to do?”

“She made her intention clear enough.” Celine was watching the other three closely. “You heard her, humanity has to be cleansed of sin, even if it means ’scraping to the bone.’ I don’t know what that means, but I don’t like the sound of it. We have to find out what they propose to do — and we have to find a way to warn other people, so the Legion of Argos can be stopped.”

“I do not think that they can be stopped.” Reza stared at Celine defiantly. “Not by anyone or anything. The Eye of God has seen the future.”

“Stopping them certainly won’t be easy.” Celine changed her mind about what she was going to say next, as the door opened and two women entered carrying trays of food. She took the offered bowl of thick lentil soup, and went on, “We don’t have enough information. We don’t know what’s been happening in the world since the supernova. We don’t even know where we are, within a couple of hundred kilometers. One thing’s for sure. In the next few days we must all become the most loyal, devoted, and dedicated members that the Legion of Argos has ever had. And I suspect that Wilmer will be our star performer.”

The thaw at the Maryland Point Syncope Facility was not a local event. It extended from the hidden Virginia valley, where the Clark orbiter had made its emergency landing, all the way north across the Appalachians to the Pennsylvania/New York border.

The Indian Head naval base lay well within that region. Saul had gone to bed — alone, and far later than he cared to recall — in a starless night of crackling frost and sudden wind. He awoke to clear, bright morning and the steady trickle of snowmelt from a slate roof. He frowned up at the yellowed ceiling, and realized that he had been roused by a brisk rat-a-tat-tat on the thick oak of the bedroom door.

A head peeked discreetly into the room. “Good morning, Mr. President.” A huge tray loaded with covered dishes went onto the cherrywood table by the door. The head — it was attached to a young woman in an old but well-laundered white uniform — nodded. She withdrew before Saul had time to notice her rank, or wonder what the woman would have done if she had walked in on a naked President. The stock diplomatic answer — “Sorry, madam” — wouldn’t work in this case.

He walked over to the window. It faced west, across the three-mile-wide Potomac. In all that broad expanse he could count just seven vessels. Four were Navy ships, moving away from Indian Head. Saul guessed that they were part of last night’s flurry of activity when word spread along the river of his trip by water to Indian Head. Only one ship now lay at the jetty where he had landed. It was smaller than the frigate that had brought him, and it had the lines of a small tugboat.

The other three were fishing boats, all heading downstream to the bay. The river was a flat calm, and the lines of their wakes lay ruler-straight on the surface.

Good. If Yasmin had any trouble traveling to the Q-5 facility by road, she would certainly be able to get there by water. Which led to one other thought. He walked back to the bed, picked up the unit on the bedside table, and stared at it dubiously. It lacked control panel, display, antenna, and keypad. As he held the truncated black cone to his ear, a voice said, “Yes, Mr. President?”

“What year was this telephonic unit made?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Ask a stupid question. Saul suppressed the urge to inquire if the man at the other end had been sitting up all night, awaiting a possible presidential call. The odd thing was the chatter of children’s voices in the background.

“One of my aides, Ms. Yasmin Silvers, will be visiting the Q-5 Syncope Facility today. In view of last night’s activity downriver, I would like her to have a military escort.”

“Very good, sir. It will be arranged.”

Which ought to be enough — except for a possible excess of zeal. “Not a big escort, please. No more than a dozen.”

A moment’s hesitation, enough to make Saul think his added command was justified. “Yes, sir. Sir, I have two hundred and seventy-three messages for you here, forwarded from Washington.”

“Hold them for me.” A quiet morning, by presidential standards. “ It is not necessary for me to meet with Ms. Silvers before she leaves. And if convenient to Captain Kennecott, I will be ready for a review of the base in thirty minutes.”

“Do you wish to speak with him, sir? He is right here.”

And probably has been, poor devil, since before dawn. “ Yes, put him on, if you please. Captain Kennecott? Good morning to you. Yes, it looks as though we have a much better day for a tour than yesterday. No, as a matter of fact I haven’t tried it yet. But I’m sure the food will be fine.”

Saul hung up, reflecting that in many ways it was better to be asked about a meal before you tasted it. A relay of cooks had probably been working on that since before dawn, too.

They had taken no chances. A dozen different dishes sat on the tray. Saul drank hot tea with lemon, ate a piece of brown bread onto which he slathered several ounces of grape jelly, and resisted the urge to explore a large, light blue egg.

Salmonella tested? Not in this universe. The standard household test kit undoubtedly contained at least one chip.

Captain Kennecott was waiting in full dress uniform. He was not alone. Saul accepted a bouquet of thornless red roses from a shy three-year-old toddler whose finger went up her nose as soon as she had delivered her gift.

He smiled and thanked her with grave politeness. 7 am President of all the people. You had to work on that at first, but after two years it became automatic. It was even true. She would remember this seventy years from now.