Worlds (28 page)

We got on a “truck road” south of Gainesville, a straight smooth ribbon of concrete, and Jeff got the RV up to 150 kilometers per hour.

“If we dared to stay on these roads, we could be at the Cape in a couple of hours. But there’s bound to be trouble … ambushes, hijackers. Soon as we get out in the country we’ll head straight southeast, toward the Ocala National Forest.” We were going through an area of small factories and shabby lowrise apartment buildings.

The road curved and Jeff slowed down abruptly. “That’s trouble, for sure.” About a half-kilometer ahead, a truck was lying on its side. At least four people were milling around it, and at least one of them was armed. Jeff turned onto a gravel path marked “Service Road,” that led behind a concrete-block factory, evidently abandoned. There was no fence in back, just a tangle of brush, taller than the RV.

“Hang on,” Jeff said. He slowed down and did something with the levers mounted by the steering wheel. The motor’s pitch dropped to a loud growl and we crawled into the brush.

It wasn’t encouraging. There was nothing to see but green, in every direction. We’d go a few meters and fetch up against something immovable, back up and try a few meters in another direction. After a half-hour of this, we were suddenly in the clear: Jeff knocked over a wooden fence and we were speeding over a manicured pasture.

“Horse farm.” He pointed to a group of the animals staring at us from a safe distance. “Well be all right if we can keep away from buildings. One farmhouse per day is plenty.”

Every kilometer or so, we’d slow down to break through another fence and take a new compass reading. We had to detour around a large lake (the RV would function as a boat, but Jeff said it would be very slow and too tempting a target), but then shot straight south across farmland to the Ocala National Forest.

The forest was full of trees, no surprise. Jeff weaved around while I tried to make sense of the bobbing compass, telling him to bear right or left, averaging rather south of
east and east of south. But it seemed safe; we encountered a few jackrabbits and armadillos, but none of them was armed.

We came upon a sand road that bore directly southeast, so decided to chance it. We were able to maintain a speed of thirty to forty kilometers per hour, slithering through the woods. Green shade and silence on both sides. I guess we got complacent.

Suddenly a metal cable jumped up from the sand in front of us. Jeff tried to stop but we slid and slammed into it.
Out
, he said, and kicked open his door and dived. But I was tangled up in the seat restraint again, and this time it almost killed me. Just as the buckle clicked free, a bullet smashed through the windshield and peppered my face with glass fragments. I felt a hot splash of involuntary urine and broke a fingernail getting the door open, fell to the ground and crawled behind a tree, blasting the riot gun in various directions.

Almost every nation on Earth denounced the United States for its cruel assault on the helpless Worlds. Every country in Common Europe withdrew its diplomats (though most of them were on their way home already), and even the Alexandrian Dominion asked for a formal explanation of the action.

The Supreme Socialist Union announced that a state of war existed between their countries and the United States, until such time as the legitimate revolutionary government was installed. Systems were unlocked and thumbs hovered over buttons.

More than a century before, the combined weapons systems of the United States and the Soviet Union (now one-third of the SSU) had grown to the point where they could completely exterminate a planet of eight billion souls. Since no planet in the Solar System had anything like that number of people, they did the logical thing. They signed papers agreeing to limit the rate of growth of their weapons systems. A few misguided idealists on both sides suggested that it might be wiser to stop the growth of the systems, or even dismantle a few weapons. But more practical men prevailed, citing the lessons of history, or at least current events. The “balance of terror” worked, first in the short run; then in the long run.

When South America blasted itself back to the nineteenth century in a nuclear round robin, the major powers made sage and pious remarks and quietly congratulated each other on their mutual sanity. When the Soviet Union was bloodily preoccupied with its Cultural Consolidation, the United States did not take advantage; neither did the resulting SSU attack the United States during the year of vulnerability that followed its Second Revolution.

For one and a half centuries after the primitive pyres of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the systems and counter-systems grew in complexity and magnitude. More and more agreements were signed. Peace was guaranteed so long as the systems worked.

The systems broke down on the American side on 16 March 2085. The same madman who had tried to kill the Worlds sat at a console under a mountain in Colorado. He turned forty keys and played a magnificent arpeggio on the buttons beneath them.

There were a few seconds of silence after my spree with the riot gun. Then two shots, pause, two more. They were on Jeff’s side, but he didn’t fire back. I hoped it was because he didn’t want the laser to give away his hiding place.

The silence stretched on. What if he were dead? Then so was I. I was pretty well hidden, behind a tree and a fallen log, but the man who was shooting (I assumed he was a man) must know about where I was. But then he also knew I had the riot gun. Maybe he would leave. Could I find my way to the Cape alone? I could take the compass out of the RV and walk southeast, maybe a week—

“Don’t move, bitch.”

He was hardly two meters away, crouched behind a tree. All I could see were his face and a hand gripping a large pistol. On the word “bitch” we both fired. He missed me. I thought I’d missed him, too, but then he stood up from behind the tree, gaping at the shredded remains of his hand, bright blood pulsing. He said “Oh” softly and started to run. A green laser pulse hit him at chest level and he fell to the ground, skidding.

I stood up trembling, trying to control sphincters. Jeff shouted, “There’s another—” and I felt a sting on my neck and heard a gunshot. I slumped down beside the RV and put my hand to my neck; blood streamed down my arm. I
felt myself fainting, put my head between my knees, and fell over sideways. I was dimly aware of gunfire, and green laser light, and some orange light, too. I passed out.

I woke up with Jeff spraying something over my neck. He pressed a cotton pad against the wound, and took my hand.

“We have to move. Can you hold this in place?”

Half the forest was in flames. I nodded dumbly and let him put my hand over the bandage. He lifted me up and put me inside the RV, slammed the door shut and ran around to his side. It was getting hot.

We backed up away from the flames and took off through the woods. “It’s not a bad one,” Jeff said. “Flesh wound. We ought to have it stitched up, though.” When we were well away from the fire, he stopped long enough to tape the bandage in place.

“You feel up to navigating?” he asked. “I don’t think we ought to follow that path anymore.”

“Let me out first.”

“Need help?”

I got the door open. “No, I’ve been doing it for years.” I squatted behind the RV and relieved myself. All very rustic, with the sweet pine smoke and leaves to clean up with. Then I politely threw up for a while, on my hands and knees, everything in proper order, wouldn’t be nice to do everything at once. Jeff must have heard me being sick; he was holding me for the last of it, and had brought out a plastic jug of well water. I rinsed out my mouth and held on to him while the dizziness passed, not crying, his shirt front salty between my teeth. The taste of him calmed me.

I pulled up my pants and buckled them. “Let’s go. I can navigate now.”

“Are you sure?” I was suddenly, helplessly furious at his professional calm.

“Doesn’t anything ever
get
to you?”

He shook his head slightly. “Not while it’s happening.” He walked me back to the RV door. “Let’s get to Cape Town and have a nervous breakdown together.”

There was a loud
boom
and something silver flashed overhead, leaving a solid-looking column of vapor behind.

“Christ,” Jeff said, “I hope that’s not nuclear.”

Both sides had defensive screens of automatic lasers and antimissile missiles, and they were remarkably efficient: not one bomb in thirty found its target. There were lots of bombs, though.

Nearly two billion people died in the first ninety minutes. In a sense, they were the lucky ones.

One missile containing a biological agent, the virus Koralatov 31, went off a few seconds too early, and dispersed its deadly aerosol into the jet stream over Lincoln, Nebraska. It didn’t infect anyone for several days. But in the weeks and months and years to follow, it would settle and thrive all over the world.

Only deserts and the poles were safe. No one would know that.

We only missed the Cape by about forty kilometers, over-shooting it to the south. We crossed the Indian River by moonlight, churning through the water at an agonizing crawl There was a bridge in sight, but we’d had one ambush too many.

Merritt Island. Lights off, we sneaked north up darkened residential streets. All along the eastern horizon the sky was red and boiling grey; we supposed it was a forest on fire.

This was the first part of Earth I ever saw, close up, gliding in on the shuttle. So full of industry and promise.

A green-white flash dazzled us, followed by a low rumble, like thunder but deeper and more sustained.

“That would be the Cape’s defensive net,” Jeff said. “Someone’s shooting at them.”

“I don’t suppose the 3R has missiles,” I said. “It’s the States after us.”

“Probably.” We had talked earlier about the possibility of the SSU taking advantage, starting The War that everybody always capitalized with their voices. Or of there possibly being a connection between the SSU and 3R.

“Do you think they’ll be all right? The missiles won’t get through?”

“I don’t know. Those lasers must have been twenty
years old when New New York bought the Cape.” He reached over and patted me on the breast, not taking his eyes off the road. My shirt was stiff with caked blood. “You know there may be no one there. Or the army or the 3R might have taken over—you could probably take the place with a squad of riflemen.”

I hadn’t let myself think of that, but it was obvious. What could they fight back with?

We found out a half-hour later. We ran out of residential area abruptly and, guessing, headed east along a road that was suburbia on one side and mangrove swamp on the other. Heading toward the fire. We came to a northbound road with a fence and someone fired a laser pulse over our heads.

A bright searchlight blinded us. “
GET OUT OF THAT VEHICLE AND IDENTIFY YOURSELF
,” said a greatly amplified voice.

I saw Jeff take the handlaser out of its holster and stick it under his belt behind his back. “Keep your hands out in front of you,” he said. “Be calm.”

We walked toward the searchlight, “
FAR ENOUGH
.”

A small woman armed only with a clipboard came out of the glare. “Are you Worlds citizens?”

I nodded. “New New York. Marianne O’Hara.”

She riffled through the pages. “Root line?”

“Scanlan.”

“Who are you?” she said to Jeff.

“He’s my husband,” I said.

“Not Worlds?”

“No, I’m an American citizen. I do want to emigrate, though.”

“Don’t blame you. I can’t wait to get out of here myself. But you know,” she said to me, “you’ll have to wait until the war’s over. If you want to stay with him, you’ll have to stay here.”

“She’s going,” Jeff said.

“Are you the one who was kidnapped?” I said yes. “They didn’t treat you too well.” To Jeff: “Drive past the gate about a kilometer, and there’ll be a road to the right; that’s Cape Town. There’s an aid station in the middle there.”

“Wait,” I said. “There’s room for one more man, isn’t there? He’s my
husband
,”

“There isn’t even room for you,” she said without inflection, “or me. Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The States tried to blow the Worlds out of the sky. There’s nothing left but New New. And it’s going to be crowded with survivors from the others.”

I was stunned speechless. “So no groundhogs,” Jeff said.

“None. There’s one last flight going out at nine-ten this morning. Every shuttle leaving. And you’d be smart to be far away; the defensive lasers shut down a couple of minutes later. We want this place blown to pieces. We don’t want the U.S. to have a launch facility.”

“You ought to sabotage it yourselves,” Jeff said—unrelenting professional. “The U.S. won’t hit it once they see you’ve pulled out.”

“You don’t know.” Her eyes glistened and her voice broke. “It’s total war. The whole fucking planet” She said Whole. Fucking. Planet.

I staggered and Jeff grabbed me around the shoulders. “You can last until nine-ten?”

“Everything’s automatic,” she said. “So far, so good. I don’t know what we’ll do if they send soldiers.”

Jeff reached back and handed her his pistol, butt first. He turned a switch on the side. “We have other weapons in the RV; you’re welcome to them.”

He gave them the riot gun and grenades and the knee mortar and the subsonic claymore. We kept the laser rifle and my pistol, just in case.

Cape Town was a mess. Paper everywhere, a lot of it American currency. Piles of clothing, books, household effects. Fancy vacationers’ tents mixed in with lean-tos of cardboard and scrap wood. Knots of people huddled around small fires.

We followed signs to the aid station, a graceful modern building that had once been a duty-free shop. The one doctor was asleep on a cot, snoring; a nurse helped me up onto a table and gave me a shot, then cut away the stiff bandages. I faded out while he was asking me what had happened.