Ben Bova - Test of Fire

“And you, Alec. Do what needs to be done. Find him and do what needs…” her voice dimmed to an inaudible hiss.

Alec sat alone in the truck’s cab for several minutes, feeling flushed and weak. Got to get a grip on myself, he thought. I’m responsible for fifteen lives. He reached for the door handle and a sudden stab of pain seared through his middle.

His head swam.

Dizzily, he stumbled out of the truck. It was cooler in the morning air. He took several deep racking breaths and forced the pain down.

“You,” he called to the nearest man, who was poking into the truck’s fuel cell, behind the cab and under the laser mounting. He looked up. Alec recognized him but couldn’t recall his name.

“Find the medical tapes and read out the information on dysentery. Remind Gianelli to get all the available data on the subject when the satellite’s in range again.”

The man looked blankly at him. “The satellite won’t be in range again for twelve hours, will it?”

Alec nodded, bringing up the dizziness again.

“Right. Do it.”

“Yeah, okay. Dysentery?” He started to look scared, rather than puzzled.

Slowly, fighting against the nausea that was gripping him, Alec made his way along the line of trucks, looking for Ron Jameson. He found him calmly sitting on the ground with his back against a truck’s wheel, cleaning his automatic rifle. The weapon was spread on a plastic sheet in front of him, broken down into its many glittering metallic parts. Jameson was deftly oiling the firing mechanism.

Ferret stood about ten meters away, watching Jameson with gleaming eyes.

“I don’t trust him,” Jameson said, as Alec’s shadow fell over the rifle parts. Then he looked up and saw Alec’s face. “You’ve got it too.”

“And you?” Alec sagged to a sitting position against the balloon tire.

Jameson nodded, keeping one eye on Ferret.

“Had a siege last night. Not much fun.”

“We’re all going to come down with it. And Douglas is pulling his people out.”

“I know. Will Russo was around here looking for you. He was pretty shame-faced about it, but they’re all leaving before noon.”

Leaning his head against the truck’s cool metal fender, Alec closed his eyes. “That means we’ll be on our own.”

“With diarrhea and vomiting as our constant companions.” Jameson said it flatly, with neither humor nor malice.

“What can we do?”

“They’re not sending a shuttle for us?”

“No…”

Another cramp made Alec gasp and fight for self-control. “We’re going north to find the fissionables. As soon as we’re able.”

Jameson was silent for a long while. Through pain-blurred eyes, Alec watched him. He was scanning the streets around them, his hawk’s eyes registering every detail of the buildings and intersections, his mind obviously working at top speed.

“Well then,” he said at last, “I guess we’d better get these trucks inside of some of the buildings, where they won’t be spotted so easily. And we’d better pick buildings that are set so that the trucks can support each other with crossfire, in case we are attacked. We’ve got to defend ourselves with a troop of sick pups.”

He glanced at Ferret again. “And I wouldn’t trust him further than I can spit.”

“We’ve got the advantage of firepower,” Alec said.

Jameson gave him a pitying look. “Won’t do much good if the gunners are crapping their guts out when it comes time to pull the triggers.”

Alec couldn’t stand any more. He lurched to his feet and staggered off to find some privacy where he could be thoroughly sick.

The Sun was almost straight overhead when he forced himself back to the street where the Post Office stood. He was drenched with sweat, yet shivering. He stank. His knees were trembling with the mere effort of keeping himself on his feet.

A pair of strong arms grabbed him from behind.

“My God, you really do have it, don’t you?” Will Russo said. His usually carefree face was dead serious now.

“I’ll be… all right,” Alec managed.

Will led him in to the Post Office and sat him down on the floor. Squatting on his heels next to Alec, he said, “Look, we’ve got to leave. There’s a lot of going on further north that needs our attention…”

“Then go.” Alec fluttered a weak hand at him.

“Let me finish, doggone it! I know you feel like you’re going to die, but you won’t. You’ll be okay in a few days. The thing to avoid is fever… it weakens you to other infectious diseases. Now, do you have any anti-fever medicines—aspirin, anything like that?”

“Yes… but nothing much more.”

“You don’t need it. Gobble aspirin and use water baths to keep your temperature down. Same for everybody.”

“All right.” Far back in his mind Alec shrank from the idea of using water for bathing. Water’s too precious.

“Okay,” Russo said. “Now, I see that some of your men are still strong enough to start moving your trucks inside garages and store fronts and such. That’s good. Keep out of sight and maybe nobody will bother you.”

Alec said nothing.

“Now, the raider bands we tangled with have apparently scattered across the countryside. But they haven’t left the territory, you can be sure. I’ve asked a couple of the local farmers to sort of watch out for you, warn you if any packs come into the area. The locals don’t like the raiders and they’ve always worked with us pretty fairly. So they’ll at least try to warn you, if they can.”

“Good.”

“But don’t depend on them too much,” Will warned. “They’re not going to risk their own necks to help strangers. Stay alert. Especially at night.”

Sure, Alec thought, stay alert. We’ll be lucky if we can stay conscious.

“Well…” Russo clambered to his feet. Towering over the prostrate Alec he said, “Good luck. I hope you get through this okay and we can meet again under happier circumstances.”

When we do, we’ll be pointing guns at each other, Alec realized.

The first night wasn’t so bad. Before the Moon rose one of the men thought he saw someone prowling along the street and fired a burst of automatic rifle fire at him. Everyone roused, the sick and the well, but the alarm was over just that quickly. Once the Moon came up and it was fairly bright, the town became absolutely still.

At least, as far as Alec and his men could tell.

The next day it clouded over and by mid-morning began to rain. Alec lay in absolute misery on the floor of the Post Office next to the two trucks that had been trundled inside there. The rain dripped through the broken roof, adding rivulets of soaking water and a chilling, soggy air to the agonies that they all felt.

Ron Jameson was the strong one among them.

He was on his feet, moving from building to building, truck to truck, man to man, carrying medicine and discipline and—most important of all—morale.

He kept a constant eye on Ferret, as well, but the pinch-faced youth never tried to run out on them, never strayed far from the trucks and the other men. He watched them, eyes darting everywhere, in their miseries.

Hunched over Alec’s makeshift pallet as the rain drummed on the sagging roof and dripped through its shattered sections, Jameson said matter-of-factly:

“I wouldn’t depend on any farmers to warn us of raider bands. From what Russo’s people told me, most of them won’t bother to help us as long as the raiders leave them alone.”

Alec nodded weakly. “I guess that’s so.”

“And the way it’s raining, the raiders could march in here with a brass band and we wouldn’t see or hear a thing until they were right on top of us.”

“How many…” Alec had to take a breath, “…how many men are on their feet?”