Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

Spencer crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Rita. “So let’s connect it to the battery and turn it on.”

“Roger dodger.” She made a contact with one of the batteries originally charged by the orbiting solar satellites. Static erupted from the speaker.

Spencer placed a hand on the back of their communications expert. “Okay, Romero, get on this thing and see who’s out there listening. Try to get hold of JPL.”

“Okay,” Romero said, shaking his long black hair behind him. Rita stood up, arching and rubbing her lower back to work out a cramp, then Romero slid into the chair and began working with the short-wave radio. “You sure anybody at JPL is listening?”

“Won’t know unless we try. If there’s anybody in the U.S. still broadcasting, those people will be.”

The wooden floor creaked as Spencer went to the open aluminum door of the blockhouse. He stood on the steel-grid of the porch, trying to enjoy the hot breeze. The air smelled baked and dry.

Spencer narrowed his eyes against the bright sunlight searing off the white gypsum sands. He had to keep his group going, work with them to find a new way out of this mess. Everyone in the country was in the same boat, isolated, focused on survival and local concerns, rather than global decisions made by people a thousand miles away.

Rita stepped outside the dull concrete blockhouse and lounged next to him against the shade wall. She fished a pouch from her pocket and placed a pinch of chaw in her mouth. “Why on Earth are you trying to contact JPL? That’s news to me. Why not DOE or some emergency headquarters?”

He ignored her question. “When did you start chewing tobacco?”

“When did you start being my mother?”

Spencer lifted a brow and tried to keep an amused look from crossing his face. Ever since interacting with the local ranchers, Rita had become touchy. But she seemed to be enjoying all the new attention.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment. “Tommy, the blond-haired guy, is trying to give it up, and he’s got a couple month’s supply. So he gave it to me. The ranchers think it’s hilarious to see a woman chew.” She spat. “It’s worth putting up with this awful taste just to see the expressions on their faces.” She took another mouthful. “But you do get used to it.”

Spencer touched the hot door jamb and quickly pulled his fingers away. Three others besides Romero and Rita worked in the trailer inspecting the satellite equipment. The rest of the group, as well as their two ranch guides, stayed outside in the shade of useless vehicles or in the maintenance shed, resting through the heat of the day.

Rita wiped her mouth. “We can swap out the less-sophisticated equipment with stuff that isn’t oil-based, but do you really think we can replace enough to tap the satellites?”

He pondered before answering. “Seems kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Forget the delicate computer diagnostics, the mainframes, the precision switching—that’s a lost cause. We’ll just keep the beam on all the time. But we know the Seven Dwarfs are still up there, coming overhead every day, unaffected by what’s going on down here. We can probably refit the receiving system. Not much of the other equipment relies on petroleum seals or lubricants anyway. That’s the beauty of having very few moving parts.”

She grunted, unconvinced. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

Spencer met her gaze. “Does it matter? I’d rather be trying to get this damn thing working again than high-tailing it up to the mountains like Nedermyer wants to.”

He stood, feeling antsy. Rita’s questions brought out his own doubts about getting the microwave farm working. Maybe he should examine the antennas one more time. “I’ll be back. Call me if Romero finds anything.”

“Going to check out the antenna farm?”

He tried to look surprised. “Naw—just going for a walk.”

“Yeah, right.”

He returned to the cluster of trailers and buildings two hours later. The sun lowered toward the mountains in the west, diminishing its intensity. Rita stepped out of the doorway, waving her arms for him to hurry.

“Hey Spence! We’ve got something.”

He jogged the rest of the way, feeling his throat dry and clogged from the dust. Inside the stuffy, dark blockhouse, Romero gestured from the gray-painted metal workbench next to the jury-rigged radio. Spencer leaned close to the hissing speaker. “What you got?” He wiped sweat from his face.

Before Romero could open his mouth, a static-filled voice burst into the room. “—Institute of Technology, radio free Caltech, under operation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We can barely hear you.”

Spencer pulled a seat next to the cluttered workbench; Romero pushed the microphone to him. “This is Dr. Spencer Lockwood, calling from White Sands, New Mexico. We need to get in touch with the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Can you help us out?”

“If you’ve just picked us up and have not yet registered, we need to get some information from you.” The voice on the radio paused, then sounded indignant. “FEMA guidance is that airwaves are currently for emergencies only and not for personal calls.”

Spencer scratched his rough beard and spoke into the mike, excited and annoyed at the same time. “Okay, but right now I need to speak with someone from the solar satellite division at JPL. We are a federal installation and this is important business.”

The radio fell silent for several minutes. Spencer hoped the battery wouldn’t die before the FEMA people got back to him. He tapped his fingers on the metal bench, waiting, waiting. Romero looked at him and shrugged. Finally, the woman’s voice returned. “Hello, White Sands? Part of JPL was hit by the rioting. We should be able to get someone back to you shortly, if you’re still on the air. Can we get some information from you for our files?”

Spencer pushed the microphone over to Romero. “Go ahead and help them out,” he said.

As Romero grinned and started to answer their questions, Rita raised an eyebrow at Spencer. She cocked back her hat and let her braided hair fall down. “You’ve got more up your sleeve than just getting this microwave farm back on line.”

Spencer tried not to smile as he ducked outside to scan the desert restlessly. “If we can get this receiving station back up again, wouldn’t it be nice to increase the amount of power we beam down? Keep us on line for hours at a time. Just think of those twenty satellites sitting at JPL, all finished and waiting to be sent into orbit. If Nedermyer hadn’t deep-sixed the acquisition process, they’d be here already… or maybe even up there.”

Rita spat a wad of tobacco off to the side. She seemed to be aiming at a small lizard, but the glob struck a rock instead. The lizard scurried away.

“Now I know you’ve flipped a byte,” she said. “Say those satellites still work—they’ve been in a clean room and they’re vacuum sealed, so I can buy that—and just suppose we could somehow get them a thousand miles from LA to New Mexico. Then what do we do with them? We still need to get them into orbit. Are there some rocket launchers left here at White Sands that I don’t know about?”

She trailed off as Spencer looked toward the north, toward Oscura Peak. A long thin housing for the five-mile-long electromagnetic launcher ran up the side of the mountain.

She started laughing as it hit her. “I don’t believe it. You’re crazy! Absolutely nuts! It’s one thing to change parts in a simple AM radio and make it work. It’s a thousand times harder to change out every single seal and joint in our microwave farm. But to bring those satellites cross country and use a launcher that’s only worked once ? They need to finish that thing before it can launch our satellites into a high enough orbit! And how the hell do you think we’re going to get those satellites out here—by wagon train?”