Stephen Baxter - Project Hades

Godwin said, “I rather suspected you’d try something like that. How predictable you are.”

Jones clutched his hand, shivering, breathing hard. “Calm, calm, bang, Godwin?”

“Here, have a cloth. And wipe up that gin when you’re done, would you? What a waste.” He sipped his own drink. “Aah. That’s better. Wish I had more ice.”

Jones said, “Still enjoying yourself, Godwin, are you? Still enjoying smashing everything up? Listen to what’s going on out there! You’re risking global destruction!”

“But this is the logic of total war, Jones. Such wars must be won, whatever the cost. And I am ready to command an empire of ruins, if that’s what it takes to win.”

“You really are quite bananas, aren’t you?”

The tent was soon filled with the clatter and ringing of the calculating machines, operated by Winston and a team of drafted-in orderlies.

Thelma and Clare walked in. Thelma said, “Gentlemen. We’ve brought some help for you.” She beckoned and a dozen girls followed her. “Experienced machine operatives from the city. They’re a bit grubby and tired, but they’ll get the job done.”

Winston grinned. “Come on. I’ll help you girls get set up.”

Clare said, “Yes, and just you keep your mind on the job, Winston Stubbins.”

Tremayne beamed. “Thank you, Miss Bennet. Do you know the first atomic weapon of all, the Manhattan Project, was designed largely using teams of manual computators? You can solve the most complex mathematical problem in such a way, as long as you break it down correctly. We’ll soon have your Doctor Jones’s data analysed.”

“That’s wonderful. But none of it will be any use unless we can get to Jones himself. Keep working, Professor. I think I need a talk with the soldiers.”

“How long left until your ‘second strike,’ Godwin?”

“Half an hour, or less. It’s coincidental, but it’s roughly timed for the next of your Magmoids’ ninety-minute cycles, at about six. Maybe that’s for the best. Create the biggest bang we can—what?”

“Godwin, I implore you to reconsider what you’re doing.”

“Reconsider? But if such power as this exists, how can a man resist using it? ‘Hast thou, spirit, performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?’ ”

“The Tempest . Prospero to Ariel.”

“My favourite play at school.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake—”

“Our vigil will soon be over, Jones. ‘The hour’s now come, the very minute bids thee open thine ear; obey, and be attentive.’ Can’t you see the parallels, Jones? I am Prospero, exiled here in this island in the earth. Tremayne, of course, is my Ariel, my airy atomic spirit.”

Jones huddled over his wounded hand. “In that case, Godwin, I am your Caliban. I am your conscience.”

Thelma stood with Phillips, surveying the war zone that was the base perimeter.

“We simply have to find a way into that base, Captain Phillips. If we can’t get to Doctor Jones it may be the end of everything.”

Phillips said, “Look, Miss Bennet—I told you I might have some grave decisions to make tonight. As far as my commanders are concerned, my main priority is to stop any more nuclear weapons being used. I am authorised to call in an air strike.”

“But Doctor Jones would be killed!”

“Then give me another option.”

Buck said, “Look out, bogies above!”

Again the Grendels ducked low and were greeted by gunfire.

Thelma cried, “Oh, Jones, if only you could hear me!”

Phillips said, “Time’s up, I’m afraid. Give me that radio, Sergeant. This is Captain Phillips at Aldmoor calling RAF Boulmer. Code four eight fifteen. Send in the Vulcans. Repeat—send in the Vulcans!”

0610.

The deep-buried control room began to shudder, as explosions erupted from the bowels of the Earth once more. Another ninety-minute cycle was up, Jones realised; once again the Magmoids had come to attack their pinprick assailants. He wondered how much longer this battered base could last—and himself, in this metal tomb.

Then he heard jets howl overhead. “Ah. Hear that, Godwin?”

Godwin was still drinking, though the alcohol seemed to have no effect on him. “Vulcan bombers, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That’s the RAF. Your own colleagues, come to bomb you to bits. Give it up!”

“I am prepared to give my life. And if I die here, they will build a statue to me a thousand feet high.”

“I think they’re coming back. Brace yourself, Ozymandias.”

The transmissions from the Vulcans were relayed to Phillips, outside the base fence.

“V-1 to V-wing, V-1 to V-wing. Target in sight. Hard to miss with all those detonations going on down there. One recce pass then we’ll go in. Follow my lead. Out… Ground, this is V-1. Preparing for final pass.”

Phillips thumbed his radio. “Roger, Vulcan leader.” He glanced around. “I rather suggest we all take cover.”

Thelma felt anxiety twist her stomach. From within the fence, a series of deep throaty detonations could be heard—the Magmoids’ latest attack. And, somewhere in there, Chapman Jones was pinned between lethal peril from above and below. “Wave them off, Captain Phillips, I beg you.”

Buck said, “Listen, ma’am, they’re my buddies in that base too. But the Captain just hasn’t got the manpower to fight his way in—”

Hope Stubbins called, “He has now.”

Thelma turned, shocked to hear her voice. Hope was riding a wheelbarrow pushed by a sturdy-looking Geordie in a workman’s overalls and flat cap. Clare Baines was at her side, grinning. And behind them followed a loose column of people, all adults, grim and silent, that stretched back along the track that led from the A-road.

Phillips snapped, “What the blue blazes—who are you?”

“Mrs. Hope Edith Stubbins, 112 Inkerman Street, Gateshead.”

Clare said, “Hello, Thelma.”

Thelma asked, “What on Earth are you two doing here?”

“I left Mrs. Stubbins with a walkie-talkie. She called me and said she wanted to be here.”

Phillips said, “Why?”

Hope laughed. “To save your bacon, Dan Dare. Not enough manpower, you say? Will this lot do?”

“Good God,” Phillips said. “There must be a thousand civilians with you.”

“More than that, bonny lad. We got fed up sitting in a field. So we came to do something about it. We left the bairns and the old folk behind at the camps, of course. The Geordie Army at your service.”

“But you’re unarmed.”

Hope said, “So what? Let’s get this sorted out.” She stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “Forward, march!” With Clare at her side she was rolled past Phillips’s party towards the base fence. The rest followed, in a loose column three or four abreast, their faces grey in the dawn light, and as they walked they began to sing softly.

Phillips gave no orders. His soldiers, at their loose perimeter around the base, fingered their weapons nervously, but fell back before the civilians’ advance.

Buck said, “They’re walking straight for the fence. They’ll be cut down.”

Thelma said, “And bombed flat. Captain Phillips—please—the Vulcans—”

“All right, damn it.” He lifted his radio. “Ground control to Vulcan 1. Phillips to V-1. Wave off. I say again, wave off.”

Thelma felt as much as heard the jets scream over. But there was gunfire from within the base as the civilians approached.

Buck said, “They’ll be picked off.”

“I think the Americans are firing in the air,” Phillips said, peering. “At least for now. But there are bound to be accidents.”

As if on cue somebody screamed, from the head of the column.