Footfall (21 page)

The Herdmaster considered. “Very well. We will attempt to seize and keep a foothold in Land Mass Two, North, the source of most of the electromagnetic babble. We will take prisoners.”

“As many as possible, Herdmaster: I require females and children. It would also be well to have immature and aged, cripples, insane—”

“I have other priorities, but the warriers [sic] will be told. How shall we identify the insane?”

“Never mind. Some will go insane after capture.”

“Anything else?”

“I would like to show the prisoners some records.”

“Good. Where? The communal mudroom? My officers and their mates are clamoring to see the natives.”

“I’m not sure they’re ready for … Lead me. We will display them, but not in the mudroom. Use the classroom. They’ll have to get used to us sooner or later—”

“And my fithp must get used to them. We’ll be starting spin immediately. You can put your show on afterward. Will you show them the Podo Thuktun?”

“No! They’re not ready. They wouldn’t know what it means. Fistarteh-thuktun would stomp me flat.”

The Herdmaster disconnected. Fathisteh-tulk, who had not spoken during the exchange, said, “Takpusseh was a good choice. Many sleepers have lapsed into lethargy since the awakening. Takpusseh has kept his enthusiasm, his sense of wonder.”

“Yes. Why has he no mate? He is of the age, and his status is adequate … though as a sleeper he lost rank, of course—”

“His mate did not survive the death-sleep.”

“Ah.” The Herdmaster pondered. “Advise me. Shall I expect these prisoners to develop into cooperating workers? Can they persuade their race to surrender without undue bloodshed?”

“You know my opinion,” the Herdmaster’s Advisor said. “We don’t need this world or its masters. We are not dirtyfeet. We should be colonizing space, not inhabited worlds.”

Dirtyfeet: only sleepers used that term for those who had remained comfortably behind on the homeworld. The spaceborn felt no need to insult ancestors who were forever removed in space and time.

Never mind; Fathisteh-tulk had raised another problem. “Odd, that a spaceborn should hear this from a sleeper. You know my opinion too. We came to conquer Winterhome. Regulations require that I consult you as to methods.”

“Do you intend that our prisoners shall not learn of the Foot?”

The Herdmaster frowned. “It is standard procedure …”

A fluttering snort answered him. “Of course. A soldier should never know more than he must, for he might be captured and accepted into the enemy’s herd. But how could the forces of Winterhome rescue our prisoners without taking Message Bearer herself? In which case all is already lost.”

“I suppose so. Very well—”

“Wait, please, Herdmaster. My advice.”

“Well?”

“Your judgment was right. Tell them what they must know. Tell them that they must submit, and show them that we can force them to obey. Then let them speak to their people. But we must not depend upon their aid.”

“Breaking them into the Traveler Herd is the task of the Breakers. Takpusseh and Raztupisp-minz are conscientious.”

“Even so. Don’t let them know all. They are alien.”

The Kawasaki was an LTD 750 twin with a belt drive, an ’83 model which Harry had bought at the year-end sale in ’84. He had saddlebags for it and a carry rack for his guitar. Two weeks ago he had borrowed Arline Mott’s pickup truck and taken the engine in.

He was driving the same pickup truck now, and he felt guilty about it.

He’d telephoned Arline at 5:00 AM., before she’d been up or able to listen to the radio. “I’ll have it back by noon,” he’d said.

Since Arline didn’t get up before noon, that wouldn’t be a problem. She’d put the key outside her door and gone back to bed.

She ought to be getting the hell out of Los Angeles!

If I’d told her, Harry thought. But if I didn’t call her, who would? And she’d be in bed until noon anyway. So all I have to do is get the damn truck back to her.

He pulled into a 76 station. There were three cars ahead of him. He filled the truck, then filled two gas cans Arline kept in the back. Least I can do for her.

Gas was still being sold at the pump prices. That couldn’t last.

He drove North along Van Nuys Boulevard. The tools and all of the Kawasaki except the engine were in the back. It was still in pieces. A glance at Road and Track Specialties, which specialized in racing motorcycles, sent him off on a daydream. He really ought to steal one of those. It would get him there faster and more dependably, if he didn’t get himself arrested, and certainly the emergency justified it … he drove past without slowing, and on to Van Nuys Honda-Kawasaki.

His walk slowed as he passed through the salesroom. His money hadn’t stretched far enough. He needed a new fender, spare brake and clutch levers, a fairing … Jesus, that Vetter Windjammer fairing was nice. I could use the emergency thousand that Wes keeps — Only that wouldn’t work. That thousand belonged to Carlotta, and Harry intended to take it to her. Not all, but as much as possible.

No Vetter fairing, then. Just tie-down straps, and paper bags to put his hands in. He stepped up to the counter, next to a bulky, younger man.

“Hairy Red,” the man said. Harry almost recognized him; the name wouldn’t surface. “How they hanging?”

“This is the day nobody knows that,” Harry said. “Did you see the light show?”

“Damn right. I’m getting out.”

“I’m headed east. I could use a partner.”

“North looks safer,” the half stranger said. Harry nodded; he agreed. When a clerk appeared he paid the rest of what he owed out of Wes Dawson’s thousand. He paid for the engine repairs and restrained the urge to buy anything. He might need money more.

— =

He brought truck and engine to the parking lot across the alley from the motorcycle shop. The transistor radio was telling the world that there had been a horrible mistake. The aliens had attacked certain parts of the United States and the rest of the world, but now they were going away. The delegation that had been aboard the Soviet Kosmograd had been taken aboard by the aliens. Negotiations were proceeding. Citizens should remain calm. Anyone who could go to work should do that. Conserve electricity and water. Don’t waste anything. There would be inconveniences. Expect rationing soon.

That was one station. On another, the announcer was hysterical. The Martians had landed in New Jersey.

The one thing that every station announced was that all military and police personnel were to report for duty immediately.

Harry began to work.

An hour later he had some appreciation of what he’d lost.

Harry felt the urgency (what was happening now around Carlotta Dawson? And where, in hell or heaven, was Congressman Wes?) and the certain knowledge that hurrying was a mistake. His vertebrae, dreaming that they had become solid bone, woke to grating agony as he lifted and twisted and crouched and crawled. He worked muscles that had forgotten their function. They protested and were ignored. He worked as he had to, letting details fill his mind from edge to edge. It was like the calm from being ripped on marijuana, or (he presumed) from transcendental meditation. He had read
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
long ago.

It was killing labor, and Harry was drenched with sweat. He was old, old. But the Kawasaki was a motorcycle again.

This would be a hellish shakedown tour for a newly mounted engine. Harry smoked while the crankcase drained onto the weeds. He refilled it with a very light oil. He started the engine and let it run for the life span of a cigarette. He drained the engine again and refilled it with a heavier oil.

Puffing, he began to pack the Kawasaki . The sleeping bag went on the rack. It would normally carry his guitar, but not this trip! He’d already turned that over to Lucy Mott for safekeeping. He ran his spare cables alongside the working cables, ready to be attached in an instant. He reached into the fuel tank’s wide-mouthed fill — was there anyone to see? — to attach the gold peso and the dimes. Carlotta Dawson’s .45 auto went under the seat, with two clips. The .25 Beretta was in his jacket pocket. A one-quart botta bag was more convenient than a canteen for drinking while riding; he’d want to fill it before he left.

What had he forgotten? He had spare belts, high-speed belts built for industry, which fit the cycle and cost a quarter as much as store-bought. He checked everything: spare oil, ratchet set, screwdriver set, four wrenches, electrical tape, spare fuses, a can of hydraulic oil for the brakes. Tubing cut to fit. Spare clothing in a plastic garbage bag. The binoculars.

Finally he buckled on the wide kidney belt. It reduced his stomach by inches, and made him feel ten years younger.

He went to the head shop next door for cigarettes. There was only one clerk, and Harry was surprised to see her.

“Ruby?”

“Yeah, man. How’s it, Harry?”

“I thought you’d be in the mountains by now,” Harry said.

She looked puzzled.

“Aliens? Space war? Lights in the sky?”

She laughed. “What you need, Harry?”

“Two cartons of Pall Mall . No filter. Ruby, you told me about it.”

She got out the cigarettes. Harry handed her money, and she gave him back change. No premium price. “Told you about what?”

“What I said. Space War.”

She laughed again. “I thought I remembered calling somebody; was that you?” She laughed some more. “Wow, that Colombian stuff is strong, Harry. I really thought it was real!”

He was still shaking his head when he got outside. It was tough loading the Kawasaki into the truck, but he got help from the guys in the shop.

Got to return the truck, he told himself. Got to.

Fifteen hundred miles, near enough. Wish I didn’t have to take the truck back. Ought to get started … Hell, it’s only five miles to Arline’s place. Damn near on the way. Let’s get it done.

If he’d been in a car, he’d never have made it.

All the highways out of Los Angeles were jammed. Cars all over the road. Cars stalled on the wrong side of the road, people driving on the left side, anything to get out. And then the first wrecks, and the endless fields of cars behind them.

Many were piled high with clutter. Baby cribs. Footlockers. A typewriter. Blankets, toys, any damned thing you could think of, lashed on top of the cars. One king-size mattress on top of a car full of kids.

There weren’t many police, and where there were any, they were turning people back. Harry had to take out Dawson’s letter a dozen times, until he was good with the spiel.

“I’m Congressman Wes Dawson’s assistant,” Harry would say. “He’s aboard the alien ship. I have to look after his wife.”

One of the national guardsmen even said “sir” to Harry after he’d seen the letter.

“Heard much, Sergeant?”

“No, sir. They hit Hoover Dam. We know that much. Seem to have hit a lot of dams and power plants and railroad yards. Nobody knows why. Now they’ve gone.”

Harry nodded sagely. “Thanks.” Then he couldn’t resist. “Carry on, Sergeant,” he said, and roared off.

By mid-afternoon he was through the Cajon Pass , headed east across the Mojave Desert . His back had begun to hurt.

Jeri Wilson woke with a start. The sun was in the west, sinking toward one of the snowcapped peaks that surrounded the twisting mountain road. Melissa sat quietly in the backseat.

“It’s after noon,” Jeri said accusingly. “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

“You looked like you needed it.”

Jeri yawned. “I guess I did, punkin.” She glanced at the seat beside her, then looked down at the floor. “Where’s the map?”

“I have it,” Melissa said. “I was trying to figure out where we are, but I can’t.” She handed over the Auto Club map.

Jeri traced a yellow line along the map. “I’m not exactly sure myself,” she admitted. “I thought about what you said and decided we didn’t want to go through Albuquerque. Hairy Red marked a route up into Colorado. He’d have loved it, lots of twists and turns. Good thing you slept through it; you’d have got carsick.”

“So how far is it now?”

“About three hundred miles in a straight line, but I don’t know how far on the road.”

“Is — does Daddy really know we’re coming?”

“Well — sort of.”

“Does he want us to come?”

“I think so,” Jeri said. He didn’t say no! “Pour me some coffee from the Thermos. We’ve got to cross the Continental Divide this afternoon. Best we get started.”

Jeri coasted down the twisting Rocky Mountain roads in low gear, with the motor turned off, scared as stiff as the unpowered power steering. The highway was nearly deserted. Twice she pulled off for huge trucks, then used the motor to get back on the road. Once a Corvette shot into her rearview mirror, fishtailed as the driver saw her, and was still wobbling as it went past. Melissa, stretched out on the backseat, didn’t wake up.

The highway began to straighten out as it reached the bottom. The Great Plains stretched infinitely ahead. Jeri took the car out of gear, started the motor to get her brakes and steering back, and reached the Great Plains doing sixty in neutral. She waited until she’d lost some speed before going into gear.

It was mid-afternoon of a cloudless day. Behind her the Rockies, receding, seemed to grow even larger as the scale came into focus: a wall across the west of the world. She held her speed at fifty-five.

She jumped when she realized Melissa was peering over her shoulder. Melissa said, “When the gas needle says Empty, how much gas is left?”

“I don’t know. Could be anywhere from none to … five?”

They’d be out of gas soon. All she could think of was to get as far as she could. Maybe there would be gasoline at the next station, wherever that might be …

Jeri’s rearview mirror flared like a spotlight in her eyes. She slapped the mirror aside and screamed, “Don’t look, Melissa! Get down on the floor!” Hoping Melissa would obey; wishing she could do the same. Braking carefully, edging toward the right lane. Melissa said, “What—”

WHAM! Ears popped, the car lurched, the rear window crazed and went opaque. She’d expected it to shatter, to lace her head and neck with broken glass. The news had spoken of bombs falling on hydroelectric dams, railroads, major highways. George and Vicki Tate-Evans had told her (speaking in relay, impossible to interrupt) how to recognize a thermonuclear bomb flash, and how to survive.

She pulled off the road and waited. When you see the whole world turn bright, don’t look. Drop to the ground. Grip your legs, put your head between your knees. Now kiss your ass good-bye. Behind her, a Peterbilt ten-wheeler that had been charging up on her tail wobbled and tipped over and kept coming, on its side, leaving a trail of fire as it slid past and finally came to a stop ahead of her.

“Atomic bomb,” Melissa said, awed.

“Stay down!”

“I am.”

A man crawled out of the truck shaking his head. That really wasn’t much of a fire: just a streak leading to the truck, a few flames under it. Maybe the truck was out of gas too.

She waited for the softer WHAM!, the second shock wave as air rushed back to fill the vacuum beneath the rising fireball. When the station wagon stopped shuddering she pulled around the burning truck and kept going. A flaming toadstool lit her way. She kept glancing back, watching it die.

She made another six miles before the motor died. She hoped they were far enough from the radioactive cloud. She hoped it wouldn’t rain.

The old one-lung Harley had begun sputtering ten miles back. Now it died. Gynge let it coast and thought of his alternatives.

He could probably make it run another couple of hundred miles, but the damned thing had been nearly dead last year. It wasn’t getting younger.

He could walk.

There had to be something better. Up ahead was a rest area. Gynge let the Harley’s last momentum take it off the edge of the highway and into the picnic area.

The highways were deserted. At first the cops and national guards were stopping everything. Gynge had detoured three times around them. Damn good thing he knew the country. After he got into the mountains he left the main roads. There weren’t any cops at all.

A semi roared past. There was a little traffic. Food trucks. Come to that, in normal times one out of every three trucks carried food. People had to eat. But there wasn’t a hell of a lot except trucks.

The rest area was empty. Almost empty. Not quite. He heard sounds at the far end, and went to investigate.

What Gynge saw was a tired old man on a picnic table with his pants off and a girdle stretched out beside him. Bikers called it a “kidney belt,” but it did the same thing any girdle did: it held in a sagging gut. The old man’s gut was a good-sized beer belly. He was trying to hug one knee against his chest, but his gut blocked the way.

The man sat up, blowing. His frame was large; Gynge saw that he must have been formidable in his time. He didn’t look formidable now. His red beard had gone mostly gray, and the hair of his head was following. He sat up, consulted the book beside him. Then he stretched his right leg out in front of him, bent forward as far as he could manage, threw a hand towel around the arch of his foot, and pulled on both ends.

If the man had brought friends, they had had plenty of time to appear. Gynge watched a little longer. The red-and-gray-haired man switched legs, groaning.

One full day on a motorcycle had done him in.

Harry lay on the picnic table and groaned. Two whiplash accidents within two weeks would leave their mark for the rest of his life. His spine felt like a crystal snake dropped on flagstones! He knew well enough that he was overweight. That was what the kidney belt was for, but it hadn’t been enough, and his guts were about to fall out all over the picnic table.

He’d bought a book of stretching exercises. Some of those were supposed to help a bad back. It was worth a try … but it felt like he was breaking his back rather than mending it.

He had switched legs before the stranger stepped into view. A biker, probably. He strolled up to Harry’s bike, in no apparent hurry; ran his eyes over it; then stepped up to Harry. Looming. He was all muscles and hair and dirt, no prettier than Harry felt, though younger and in better condition.

He asked, “Why a towel?”

Harry flopped on his back, panting. He said, “A towel is the most massively useful thing a traveler can have. And that was a stretching exercise, because my back is giving me hell. See—”

“Skip it. Give me the key to the Kawasaki.”

“Help me up.”

The bandit did, by the slack of Harry’s jacket. He looked down at the feel of something hard over his heart. Harry’s jacket trailed from his hand, and the .25 Beretta was in the jacket pocket.

“I hold the key to a door you don’t want to open,” Harry said.

Anyone with a grain of sense would have at least stopped to think it over. The bandit reacted instantly: he batted at the threatening hand and swung a fist at Harry’s jaw.

Harry fired at once. The fist exploded against his jaw and knocked him dizzy. His gun hand was knocked aside too. Harry brought it back and fired twice more, walking the pistol up the man’s torso.

He shook his head and looked around fast. The gun wasn’t very loud. It wasn’t big either, and Harry didn’t entirely trust a .25 bullet. Any sign of a companion? No. The bandit was still on his feet, looking startled. Harry fired twice more, reserving one bullet for mistakes.

Now the bandit toppled.

Harry had spent some time finding the campground, but it wouldn’t be possible to stay. He rolled off the table, pulled his pants on. then his kidney belt. He paused to catch his breath and to listen.

The bandit was still breathing, almost snoring. Harry looked down at him. “I’ll do you the best favor I can,” he said. “I won’t check to make sure you’re dead.”

The wounded man said nothing. Ah, well.

Harry walked his bike to the bandit’s motorcycle. There was nearly a gallon of gasoline in it. Whistling, Harry disconnected the fuel line and drained the gas into a pickle jar he fished out of the trash. When he’d put the last drop into the Kawasaki, he went through the bandit’s possessions. There wasn’t much.

Then he mounted the Kawasaki and rode away, groaning. Harry was a firm believer in natural selection.

Jeri woke at dawn. Melissa was awake, but huddled in her sleeping bag. “I never knew deserts could be cold,” she said.

“I told you,” Jeri said. “Now watch.” The sleeping bags were head to head, with the Sierra stove between. Jeri made two cups of cocoa without poking more than her head and shoulders out of her bag. In the half-hour they spent drinking cocoa and eating oatmeal, the world warmed. Jeri put her hat on and made Melissa don hers. They left their sleeping bags and rolled them with one eye each on the highway below.

They had moved uphill, away from the car, into a clump of bushes at the crest. With heads above the bushes, using binoculars, they could see clearly for miles. The highway ran straight as a bullet’s flight, broken by a dish-shaped crater nine miles to the west. The precision of that crater grew scarier the more Jeri thought about it. It sat precisely on the intersection of two highways.

They watched for traffic. Jeri’s hand kept brushing the hard lump in her purse, the .380 Walther automatic. If she saw a safe-looking ride, she and Melissa could get down to the highway in time to stick out their thumbs. She hadn’t seen much yet. Traffic was nearly nonexistent. A clump of four motorcycles had passed, slowed to examine the stalled car, argue, then move on west. She stayed hidden.

“What will we do?” Melissa asked.

“We’ll think of something,” Jeri told her. I may have to pay for a lift. Hopefully with money. She prayed for a policeman, but there weren’t any. Someone ought to come look at the crater. Is it radioactive? And why here? What could aliens possibly care about, this far from anywhere?

From the west came a motorcycle. It slowed as it approached the crater. Jeri wondered if it would turn back. It moved out into the desert and circled the lip of the crater. Big cycle, big rider. He had some trouble lifting it back onto the road. He rested afterward, smoking, then started up again. They watched him come.

Ten minutes later Melissa lowered the binoculars and said, “It’s Harry.”

Jeri snorted.

“It’s Hairy Red, Mom. Let’s go down.”

“Unlikely,” Jeri said wearily, but she took the glasses. The lone biker’s head was a wind-whipped froth of red hair and beard; that was true enough. He kept the bike slow. He couldn’t be a young man, not with the trouble he’d had lifting the bike. The bike: it sure looked like Harry’s bike. Hell’s bells, that was Harry Reddington!

“Go,” Jeri said, “run!” She sprinted downhill. Melissa surged past her, laughing. They reached the bottom well ahead of the biker. Jeri puffed and got her wind back and screamed, “Harry! Harreee!”

It didn’t look like he would stop.

Harry saw the four bikers coming from a long way off. They were on the wrong side, his side, of the dirt divider. He was seeing trouble as he neared them … but they veered across the divider and, laughing, doffed their helmets to him as he passed. Harry would have liked to return the gesture, but he had one hand on the handlebars and one on the gun Carlotta hadn’t taken … because Hairy Red sure wasn’t in shape to defend himself with his fists. His belly band was tightened to the last notch, and Harry felt like he was leaking out from under it.

Beyond the bikers was a station wagon, presumed DOA. Beyond the wagon, two figures running downhill. Harry made out a woman and a little girl.

He didn’t have time for emergencies or room for passengers,

They reached the road. They were yelling at him. The adult was a good-looking woman, and it was with some regret that he twisted the accelerator.

— “Harreee!”

Oh, shit. Harry’s hands clamped the brakes. Jeri and Melissa Wilson, standing in the road. Just what he needed.

Your word of honor on record, he thought. Dead or captured by God knows what, Wes Dawson had left his life on Earth’s surface in Harry Reddington’s care. Carlotta Dawson wasn’t the type to survive without help. Stuck out here with a dead station wagon, what were the chances that Jeri Wilson and her daughter would ever tell anyone that Hairy Red had driven past them? He twisted harder, and stopped precisely alongside Melissa, and smiled at the little girl. Shit.

Harry Reddington climbed from the bike as if afraid he’d break, and straightened up slowly. “Jeri. Melissa. Why aren’t you at the Enclave?”

“I have to find my husband. Oh, Harry, thank God! Where are you going?”

Harry answered slowly; he seemed to be doing everything slowly. “I was staying at Congressman Dawson’s house. Now his wife is in Dighton, Kansas, and he sure can’t do anything to take care of her, so it’s up to me.”

“Well. Want some cocoa?”

“Sure, but — You’ve got a Sierra stove?”

“Up the hill.”

“What’s wrong with the car?”