Rocket Science (22 page)

“From anywhere in my line of sight,” answered Pegasus. “Under the right conditions, all the way out to a range of about two hundred kilometers.”

Two hundred kilometers. That was about one hundred and twenty miles. And Pegasus could locate people hidden in cellars and behind walls. What the cops wouldn’t give for a system that just did what I was seeing.

Cops. Missing people. Something fearsome gripped my heart, a cold hand of mixed hope and dread.

“Can you find my dad?” I asked in a small voice.

“Unfortunately, I cannot sufficiently refine the scan to identify individuals.”

I missed the radio preacher voice. Talking to Pegasus had become something like reading a textbook, but that was a language I could understand, even if I didn’t normally speak that way. My college education was finally coming in useful. “Dad has a surgical steel plate in his skull. And I think he’s somewhere here in Butler County.” After a moment’s consideration, I added, “He’s probably dead, though.”

“These killers extinguished your father?”

“Yes,” I said miserably. I didn’t know which particular set of killers had done the deed. They were all starting to run together in my mind — bad guys everywhere, out to get me, out to get Pegasus. At this point, it didn’t really matter any more. They were all evil sons of bitches as far I was concerned, even the Army.

“When we are next airborne, I will execute a scan. Assuming human skeletons with implanted metal content are reasonably rare, your father can probably be located.”

Somehow, that made me feel worse rather than better. Even though I had asked for the help, in a way I didn’t really want to know. As long as Dad was missing, I could hope that he was still alive, even against all common sense.

I was pretty sure Pegasus would find Dad, and I was pretty sure he would be dead. Discomfort or not, for my own peace of mind, I needed to know what had happened to him. I didn’t matter whether Truefield had killed him, or if he really had been kidnapped like Hauptmann had told me. Maybe if we found Dad’s body, I could figure something out from his remains, where and how we found him. Clearly I wasn’t going to get any help from Pegasus in avenging my father, but then my limited taste for vengeance had already run dry in the stress of the last few hours.

The machine was rubbing off on me.

Besides, I’d brought a lot of this on myself. I’d signed myself up for trouble by going along with Floyd’s obviously criminal intent in the first place, seduced by the magic of Pegasus. If Mr. Bellamy’s story was true, and I figured it was, Dad had never been blameless. There were old sins and crimes going back to the First World War. The only real innocent was Mrs. Bellamy, regardless of whatever grudge Mr. Bellamy had carried in the twenty-five years since Floyd was born.

But I still needed to know about Dad. And Dad’s fate wasn’t going to be knowable until we got Pegasus out of Mr. Bellamy’s barn and away from the Kansas City Mob and the Bellamy Gang.

“What are the people in those cars doing now?” I asked Pegasus.

The image shrank to include more of the area around the farmhouse. I tried to imagine the lens that could do all that, somehow distributed among the specks of Pegasus’ magic dust. The three incoming automobiles slowed to a stop in front of the house, next to the old Ford coupe. On Pegasus’ scan the vehicles showed up as simplified schematics, like the house had, to the point where I couldn’t identify the make or model. There were four people in each car.

Floyd’s breath hissed. That meant he was worried. Twelve mobsters come to call on four old men. It didn’t look good for his father if negotiations got energetic. As I suspected they would.

“Can you see those license plates?” I asked Pegasus.

The image jumped and switched back to the greenish photographic-type view I had seen before. The three cars filled the screen in sharp focus. Now I could see that they were all Cadillacs, Series 75 limousines from about 1941. Even the mob couldn’t get new cars during the war. Cadillac had been building tanks for Uncle Sam, and Detroit was only just now retooling.

Pegasus blew up the view to center on the license plate of the lead car. It was a Missouri registration. This was definitely Roanoke Joe and Vinnie the Snake. Along with ten of their closest friends, no doubt heavily armed.

I had to figure a way out of here that didn’t leave those guys or Mr. Bellamy’s friends hanging on our tail. “Look Pegasus,” I said. “You say you won’t kill anyone. I guess I can understand that. I’m not eager to do it either.”

I meant that. I had been so frightened, so angry, for much of the past few days that I expected to be ready to kick butt and take names. Maybe Pegasus’ Quaker morals were infectious. But pacifism in the air or not, I had always tried to be a prudent man. Leaving these guys behind us wouldn’t be prudent.

“You’ve got a lot of capabilities,” I continued. “Can you disable those automobiles so that when we takeoff from here they won’t be able to use them to chase along after us?”

It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but determined men on the ground could follow an aircraft. This part of Kansas was covered with straight-line roads that ran in gridded squares, all to bring produce and livestock to market.

Pegasus didn’t answer for a moment. I wondered if it was busy, whatever that might mean. “I can take care of the problem,” the computational rocket finally said. “Those vehicular electrical systems are unshielded and extremely vulnerable.”

To what the electrical systems were vulnerable was an open question, but Pegasus obviously commanded more physics than I would ever understand. I looked at the view screen. The image had pulled back to the original view, over the shoulder of the house. Half a dozen men in long coats stood in front of the three cars. More waited in the cars. Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville walked off the front porch to meet them.

“Pegasus,” I said, “I think that this would be a good time for us to leave.”

“Do you wish me to disable their personal weapons as well?” said Pegasus.

I laughed. “Of course. I didn’t know you could do that.”

A low hum filled the cabin, like the noise of a poorly maintained transformer. One of the smaller view screens lit up with a curve diagrammed against a grid. The curve kept rising in an asymptotic path. I assumed it related to energy output, but I could only imagine what that energy source would be. I figured the energy itself was electromagnetic. Obvious, really, in light of the comments Pegasus had made about the automobiles.

I looked back at the main screen. The detail was mediocre at the current magnification, but I could see at least two of the newcomers had started to twitch. The sniper on the roof was also having trouble with his weapon, taking first one hand off then the other to shake them out, as if ants were crawling on him.

Pegasus spoke in my ear. “Takeoff sequence commencing in twenty seconds.”

“Hang on, Floyd!” I called out. I could hear him crooning to himself. He was terrified — maybe the first time in my life I’d seen him so upset.
Tough cookies
, I thought. I’d given him fair warning, I didn’t have time for anything else from him. I was watching the view outside, waiting to see what miracle Pegasus would produce.

By now all of the men in front of the house, including Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville, were jumping around. It looked like they were yelling at each other, judging by some of their motions, including the shaken fists. Pegasus wasn’t providing any sound, but it was clear enough what was likely being said. Mr. Bellamy threw his shotgun onto the ground as the remaining occupants of the three Cadillacs came tumbling out of their cars. The sniper on the roof dropped his rifle. The weapon slid down the roof and pitched off the front, barely missing Mr. Neville as it fell to the ground.

“Ten seconds. I suggest your grab the control handles, Vernon Dunham.”

Out in the yard, they were stripping off their clothes now. Belts and suspenders were being thrown away, and all the men had thrown down their guns. Some of the Italians grabbed knives and other weapons from under their coats and down their pants and tossed them on the ground as well. One of the Cadillacs was vibrating noticeably.

“You’ve got a way to heat all the metal out there,” I said.

“Yes. Unfortunately, I am afraid that I might set fire to the house as well. I am destroying the barn in five seconds.”

I counted down. Four Mississippi, three Mississippi, two Mississippi, one Mississippi.

The inside of the barn had been visible on one of the smaller screens. The building blew away with a roar that I could feel in my bones while the television image shuddered, blacking out for a second or two. It flickered back to life to show shattered wood flying off in all directions as Pegasus rocked back and forth. The f-panzer rocked on its tracks, nearly toppling, as the straw blowing around it caught fire. I wondered about the cats and chickens.

Everyone I could see on the main screen was on the ground, taking cover from the blast. They probably thought I’d blown up the airplane. The view on the screens shook, whether from Pegasus’ movements or the violence outside I had no way of knowing. One of the Cadillacs exploded — the gas tank must have gone up. Shattered barn wood began to rain down all over the house and the yard.

Then the ground dropped away with dizzying suddenness, two or three hundred feet in one eye-grabbing blur judging by my perspective on the viewing screen. It looked like we had fallen straight
up
, in violation of Newton’s laws as well as the law of gravity. I felt no motion at all inside Pegasus’ cabin, which implied direct control over the inertia of mass.
Another astounding technology that would change the world
, I thought with a sigh. I also realized my worries about being chased from the ground were ludicrous — it shouldn’t be any surprise to me if Pegasus could magnificently outperform any airplane ever built.

One of the screens flickered, then refocused to show the barn and yard beneath us. All three Cadillacs were on fire, as was Mr. Bellamy’s Willys pickup truck. The barn was a flaming mess. Dad’s Mack stake bed had been obliterated, reduced to lumps of glowing metal and hot ash, while the f-panzer was burning up with the barn. None of these guys were going anywhere unless they walked.

It looked like a fistfight was taking place in the front yard. Knock down, drag out. I’d place even money on a bunch of cranky old shine runners against three carloads of Kansas City mob torpedoes deprived of their hardware.

As we pulled away and the view shrank even further, I could see that a corner of the front porch was on fire. The Bellamy house was an old frame building, likely to burn up like so much straw if the flames got fully established. I wondered if Mr. Bellamy would stop the fighting in time to save his house. Then I had a sick moment wondering if Mrs. Bellamy would be able to get out.

Those old bastards sure as heck weren’t going to stop and help her.

“We have to go back,” I said. I couldn’t believe myself, but I couldn’t leave her to die in that fire.

“What...?” Floyd was beside himself, somewhere between terror and anger.

“Look. Your mother’s in the root cellar again. And the house is burning. Pegasus, can you get down in the back yard?”

“Is this advisable?”

“She’s going to die.”

Though I felt no swaying, no tug of inertia, I knew we were moving. One of the smaller view screens showed the land tilting in perspective as we banked back toward the house.

“Mama,” Floyd said. “Oh, God, Vernon.”

“We’ll get her out,” I promised.

Except I couldn’t trust him free, inside Pegasus or out. And those damned old men...they were killers.

And then we were down in the back yard, between the outhouse and the kitchen. “Go now, Vernon Dunham,” Pegasus said in my ear.

I grabbed Floyd’s knife from where he still had it in his belt. “Hang on, old buddy,” I told him. “Pegasus here will watch over you.”

Outside it was dark enough, the sky cloudy. There was quite a racket from the front of the house. I hobbled fast as I could toward the kitchen, my body refusing to cooperate fully, protesting all the recent abuse, the falls and injuries I had sustained.

The door slammed open just before I got there. It was an old man I didn’t recognize — the sniper on the roof?

“You’re mine, boy,” he said, his eyes gleaming like angry stars. “You and that damned airplane.”

“Heck no!” I swung the carving knife at him, missed completely, but it threw the old killer off his stride and he stumbled down the steps. I kicked him with my good leg, promptly falling as my bad leg collapsed under my weight.

He was up and on me in an instant, one fist cocked wide, but from inside the house Mr. Neville was shouting, “MacLaren!”

And like that, he stopped. It was weird. The way a machine might have stopped, without any of heat of anger. “Later, boy,” he said, tapping my cheek before getting to his feet and turning away.

I was no threat at all to him. As he showed me his back, I made to throw the knife, then stopped.

I couldn’t do it. Not even now. Pegasus had gotten into me.

“She’s in the root cellar,” I called after MacLaren, as he slammed the kitchen door.

Then I pulled myself to my feet and tried to follow, but the door was locked. There was shouting around both sides of the house, and I could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames.

It was time to go, Mrs. Bellamy or no Mrs. Bellamy.

“Lord take it,” I hissed, limping back to Pegasus as quickly as I could. My eyes stung hot, but I climbed in the little hole which snicked shut behind me.

Back in the straps, quickly as I could, before their guns cooled off and the bad guys got down to some serious work.

“Where should we head, Vernon Dunham?” asked Pegasus, behind my ear where I felt like it belonged.

“Augusta.” That’s where the oil refinery was, where Pegasus could meet its refueling needs. That’s where I figured Dad’s body was, which was what I needed to find. Beside me, Floyd made a shuddering, gasping noise that sounded a lot like a panic reaction.

“I’m sorry, Floyd, I couldn’t get her.”