Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (34 page)

The emergency platform at the hospital complex was ready, the tube transferred and expedited away, Maggie Barrow led to a computer console to begin the forms necessary for Rourke’s admission and treatment.

But all the while, she had not been able to concentrate on the forms—not that they required that—but rather had

thought of Rourke. Was he five centuries old?

And then Remquist had come. He didn’t remember her. But who did remember one student out of so many? “You’re Commander Barrow?”

“Yes, doctor,” she had answered, for Remquist, despite his manner, the title reverential.

“Gave me a tough one, Doctor Barrow. But we’ll see if I can pull it out of the fire.” Remquist had already turned and started to walk away.

She hadn’t realized she was speaking until she heard her words. “He isn’t an ‘it,’ Doctor Remquist. He’s a man.”

“What did you say, miss?”

“I said that your patient is a living human being, not just another challenge to your consummate skills, doctor.”

Remquist looked at her oddly. “I’ll try to remember that.” And he walked away.

She felt like shit… .

The hum of the monorail underscored Jason Darkwood’s silence. Maggie Barrow wondered if perhaps his silence had derived from her own and she decided to break it. “I’ve been lousy company. I’m sorry. I’m just thinking about that poor man Rourke.”

Jason smiled at her. His brown eyes were pretty, always had been. “You did all you could.”

“What I said to Doctor Remquist. How the hell could I have said that?”

Jason looked at her, his left hand reaching out and covering hers, which were in her lap. “It was the truth, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was the truth—but—”

“If Sebastian were here, he’d doubtless tell you that the truth is always the truth and denying it as such is the ultimate stupidity. Which is why, of course, Sebastian has very few friends.” Jason grinned and she felt herself smiling, and then she laughed a little.

“You’re mean to say that.”

“But, truthful, nonetheless. So Sebastian would be

compelled by his own worship of logic to commend me for the statement, wouldn’t he? As I commend you for speaking up to that pompous ass.”

“How do you know Remquist is a pompous ass?”

“You told me one time when you’d had too much to drink.”

“I didn’t think you listened to women when they were drunk.”

“Hmm.” He smiled. “There were other things to do, of course. But you did seem interested in talking.” “And what did you do—what ‘other things’?” “Listened. That’s all I did.”

She laughed. He was a good listener, but he was a better lover. He was as close to perfect as she’d ever found, or for that matter thought she ever would. And he’d gotten to be a better listener too. “Are you trying to get me angry with you?”

“Now, talk about logic. ‘Angry with’ me is a totally silly way of putting it. The construction implies that we would get angry together, like going for a walk together or making love. No—I don’t want you angry with me or without me. I don’t want you angry period. I’m sorry about that dinner.”

” ‘When duty whispers lo thou must . .

“But speaking for myself alone, of course.” Jason smiled. “I haven’t been classifiable as a youth for some time—sad to say.”

“Why do they want me at this meeting?”

“I think Command and General Staff wants to ask you if in the considered medical opinion of Navy Lieutenant Commander Margaret Louise Barrrow it is conceivable that such a person as a five-hundred-year-old man could indeed exist. And then I have a feeling they’re going to send us after his girlfriend just in case she’s five hundred years old too. Sounds like fun to me.”

She never liked it when he acted flippant because he wasn’t really that way. But she knew why he was Sounding that way now. “They’d want you to send a team in to penetrate the Russian city.”

“Yes,” he said, standing now, tugging down the tunic of his uniform dress whites.

She stood up with him, the monorail beginning to slow, the Administration Hub station visible ahead. She asked him, “How’s my hat? I hate these things.”

“It’s fine—your hat’s fine.”

Wearing her uniform hat always meant putting her hair up, which was the only way the hat fit, and working in the submarine service she had long ago gotten out of the habit of keeping her hair in regs because it never mattered. When she had shore leave, the Reagan in port for a refit or for a long break between assignments, she avoided all official functions that required a uniform and stuck to things like blue jeans and sundresses. When she had first heard the term—sundress—when she was just a little girl, she had asked her mother why people wore special dresses for something that you didn’t see. Her mother, a computer specialist, had never left Mid-Wake, never seen the sun. She had not seen the sun until she had gone on the survival course at the Naval Academy. The sun had felt so hot, it had further bemused her why anyone would wear a dress designed to expose bare skin to its harshness.

When her mother had been dying, she had sat at her mother’s bedside and told her mother about such things as sun and wind and salt spray, and her mother had remarked that the world beyond Mid-Wake sounded like Paradise. Margaret Barrow had deduced early on in her life that the world outside Mid-Wake once was Paradise, and that the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden could well have been a prophecy foretelling man’s destiny rather than an apocryphal tale of his origins. But she had never said that to her mother. As she positioned her uniform shoulder bag, smoothed her uniform skirt, and considered the ridiculousness of wasting time to put on special clothes for a few hours just to see people who knew you didn’t normally dress that way at all, she realized that Jason Darkwood was the only person to whom she ever told her private thoughts.

Jason put on his uniform hat and smoothed his hair

back at the sides. The monorail stopped. “Here we go, Maggie,” he whispered, then touched his hand at her elbow as she started to step from the monorail car and onto the platform… .

Each tentacle was a different color. Blue for Naval and Marine, of course, yellow for Medical/Dental, Educational, and Food Services, indigo and violet for the primary living areas, red for Security/Detention, green for Agriculture/Animal Husbandry—she wondered now as she always had why white had been chosen for the Hub. Perhaps they had run out of colors.

They entered the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and she stopped for an instant.

The President was there.

“Commander Darkwood. And Doctor Barrow. It is an honor to meet two of Mid-Wake’s finest officers.”

The President came around the Chairman’s desk and extended his hand to Jason Darkwood and Jason—who had saluted—dropped the salute and took it. Then he extended his hand to her and she found his grip firm, warm, and dry. “Mr. President,” she said, feeling her cheeks flushing a little as he looked at her. Jacob Fellows was not only the President of Mid-Wake, but one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. And she found that his image on television didn’t do the man justice. Steel-gray hair and eyes to match in a face that looked chiseled by Michelangelo.

“If the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs doesn’t mind,” Jacob Fellows said, “I’ll do the talking.”

“Certainly, Mr. President.” Admiral Rahn beamed.

She licked her lips. Jason looked perfectly at ease, but she knew him well enough to know that he hated this kind of stuff. But it went with commanding the Reagan.

“All right then—both of you—sit down, please.”

Jason held a chair for her and she sat down, tugging her skirt over her knees, Jason preferring to stand, beside her chair.

Very well, President Fellows said, perching on the edge of Admiral Rahn’s desk. “We have a situation I understand might prove of immense importance to the citizens of Mid-Wake now and in the future. Commander Darkwood. This man John Rourke. Tell me about him.”

“The Commander of my Marine Assault Force, Captain Samuel Aldridge, was MIA. All of a sudden, he’s back and Captain Aldridge claims that this John Rourke is responsible. I have no reason to doubt Captain Aldridge, and indeed anything Captain Aldridge would say I would swear by.”

“I’ve read Captain Aldridge’s preliminary debriefing out of your computer, commander.” His eyes looked at her. “Doctor Barrow. Could this man really be the John Rourke spoken of in our history?”

She swallowed hard. She wasn’t a scientist any more than any normal doctor was. “I don’t know, Mr. President. He’s obviously not from Mid-Wake, and what evidence I was able to glean during my examinations indicated that he was not Russian.”

“Explain, miss.”

“Certainly, sir. With our culture and theirs—the Soviets, I mean—having no interchange whatsoever, certain procedural matters have evolved along similar but significantly different lines. I could tell from surgical scars, old wounds—no Russian doctor cared for him. And then there’s the vaccination mark.”

“What’s a vaccination mark?”

“In the old days, children were routinely given vaccinations against possible disease threats, as are all of our children, of course. But they were given a vaccination—or an injection—against smallpox, a disease which hasn’t existed in five centuries and has never existed here. By the latter portion of the twentieth century, the practice had been discontinued almost entirely. Certainly, any surface culture which did survive in underground bunkers might well have included persons so vaccinated, but since the disease was so rare it would seem likely that it would not have been encountered and vaccination would not have

been restarted.”

Admiral Rahn spoke. “Could it be that, if this man named Rourke is just a contemporary man sent on some sort of exploratory mission, he would have been vaccinated against this smallpox just in case?”

Maggie Barrow assumed the Admiral had addressed his question to her. So she tried to answer it. “Highly unlikely, sir, since it would have been necessary to have a smallpox culture in order to immunize, and there would be no reason to suppose that smallpox vaccine would have been considered a survival necessity. The disease was in virtual worldwide remission at the time World War III broke out.”

“And it couldn’t be anything else but this smallpox vaccine that caused this scar, Commander Barrow?”

She turned here eyes toward the Marine Commandant, General Gonzalez. “No, sir. Not to my knowledge.”

“But your knowledge isn’t all-consuming. Correct?”

“Yes, sir. But I believe, sir, that medical history records would bear me out.”

“They do, Doctor Barrow,” the President said. “And I like an officer who sticks to her guns even when she’s up against superior rank.” Jacob Fellows clapped his hands together loudly. “So—we have a man who is very likely five hundred years old. Which is impossible, but we can worry about that later. He sustains mortal wounds in a vain effort to save a female companion. If he dies, this remains an enigma, fascinating but fruitless. But if this woman is five centuries old—just supposing—what if there’s a whole colony of them? Hmm? What do you think, Commander Darkwood?”

She looked up at Jason. His brown eyes seemed to hold a hint of amusement. “I don’t have any opinion on the five-hundred-year-old theory, but I agree that this woman this man had attempted to save must be of some importance. Beyond his emotional attachment to her, of course.”

“Would you, commander,” the President asked, “attempt to save a female comrade against impossible odds?”

Jason Darkwood didn’t answer for a moment, but then.

“I would, sir. Some females more than others.”

The President grinned. “You’re a straightforward man, commander, and I like that. How about you attempting to do what this self-proclaimed John Rourke was unable to do? What are the chances of getting inside the Russian sphere of influence, extricating a female prisoner, and getting her back out alive?”

“Statistically, Mr. President?”

“However you wish to express it.”

“Forgive my bluntness, Mr. President—but the chances are zip. Which doesn’t of course preclude doing it.”

Admiral Rahn cleared his throat loudly.

Jason Darkwood went on. “From what Captain Aldridge said, this man John Rourke, or whoever he is, was exceptionally gifted at what might be loosely termed commando work. I doubt anyone I could muster would be that good. So, if Rourke or whoever he is failed, I have no reason to suppose that I or any of the men under me could do the job any better. If he is the real John Rourke spoken of in the history by Commander Gundersen, he’d have vastly more experience than we could imagine. If I recall the story correctly …” And Jason Darkwood stopped talking. “Sir—has anyone checked the Gundersen memoirs in detail other than for the name of John Rourke?”

“Damnit—you’re right.” The President leaned over the desk and pushed the com-box button marked “computer,” and the voice of Mid-Wake Central Computer came over the speaker. It was a sexy-sounding woman’s voice. Maggie had felt flattered when Jason had told her once that the voice sounded almost as good as hers. “This is the President.”

“Confirming voice print.” There was a pause, then, “Voice print confirmed.”

“Consult the memoirs of Commander Gundersen, computer. Is there mention of a woman having accompanied John Rourke?”

“Processing.” There was another slight pause, then, “Affirmative.”

Jacob Fellows hesitated for a moment. “Computer.

Pertinent data only concerning the woman.”

“Data as follows. Female, Tiemerovna, Natalia Anastasia, Major, Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), physical description as follows: approximate age late twenties, height approximately five-foot-eight, Gundersen memoir classifies woman subjectively as—this is quote: ‘… as beautiful as some statue of a goddess, with eyes more blue than the sea.’ Physical description Tiemerovna, Natalia_Anastasia, Major KGB, ends.”

“Computer—anything about her skills?”

“Processing.” There was a pause, then the sexy voice came back. “Extract—skilled with firearms and edged weapons and in unspecified martial arts discipline/disciplines. Data exhausted.”