Point Apocalypse (21 page)

"It wouldn't. First, we have casualties. Second, I've no idea who's waiting for us there.
Could be Varlamov's cybers for all I know."

"I wouldn't bet on the raiders giving us a car," she interrupted. "They could be home or in New Pang, you can't tell. Besides, any vehicle here is worth its weight in gold. More."

"I've got gold," I patted my
pants pocket. Before I could continue, she butted in again,

"They'll kill us and take the money."

I looked at her as I considered all the pros and cons. I had to agree with Kathy: our little group was badly armed and had two wounded men to boot. Now we were more than just comrades in misery: we were outlaws entering a trap. The girl was right: the moment the raiders saw the money, we were history. Lars Swenson knew it - that's why he told me to go see the riggers and Fritz Havlow first.

"Right," I said. "
Imagine we arrive at the oasis and the raiders aren't there. What
is
there? A farm? Some livestock?"

Kathy
thought about it.

"We could swap some ammo with the shepherd for his
mules and a bit of food."

"That'll do," I turned to the rest. "Everybody ready?"

Georgie looked at me frowning. Wladas nodded. Jim apparently couldn't care less, so used he was to being ordered around. Wong maintained his usual smile, albeit slightly forced, his arm bandages soaked with blood. How much blood had he lost? Would he make it? Once we got to the cave, we had to inspect his wound and patch it up. He needed some proper rest, too, if we wanted him to move on.

"
Kathy's one of us now," I said.

Georgie sniffed.

"She
is
one of us," I repeated for his sake and pulled the gun off my shoulder. "Let's get going. Kathy and myself first, Jim and Wladas next. Wong and Georgie in the rear. Kathy will show the way."

She didn't move, her absent stare
fixed on the truck.

"
Kathy?" I called. "It's time to go."

The girl stirred
. "I want my gun back."

Chapter Three

Jim

T
he cave wasn't a cave, really - more like another one of those Forecomers' mysteries. The oblong entrance, too regular to be natural, barely showed in the steep hill slope. Grass grew over its top edge. A truck could pass through it easily. It opened into a tunnel a few hundred feet long, too straight and level, its walls artificially smooth with marble-like veins running through the gray stone. I tried to scratch it with my knife, but the blade left no trace on the matt surface glistening in the twilight. The beacon towers back on the river seemed to be made of the same material. The tunnel ended in a rough black basalt wall, or at least that's what I thought it was.

We wer
e way too exhausted to start a fire. I prepared to stand guard through the night: if I got too tired, I could ask Jim to replace me. Wladas and I cleaned Wong's wound and patched it up the best we could, then did the same to Georgie's. Finally, I told everyone to get some sleep.

I sent
Kathy to the end of the tunnel away from the rest. She didn't look too happy about it but chose to keep it to herself even though I could see she was dying to give me a piece of her mind. I strategically placed Georgie by the entrance hoping he and the girl wouldn't bump into each other during the night as they still kept exchanging hateful glances. Between them lay Wladas, his head resting on his bag and handgun, and the ever-watchful Wong.

Night descended onto the hills and the valley below. The black sky
twinkled with stars. The silence would have driven me mad, had it not been for my men's disturbed breathing. It didn't feel real, as if I wasn't on Pangea any more; it was as if I had no mission, no FSA brass to report to, just sitting there musing on top of a hill far from civilization, and below lay the Russian steppe overgrown with feather grass, its air fragrant with lavender and filled with grasshoppers' chirping.

I woke up with a start. Had
I been dozing off for long? Pangea had no moons, and the starlight was barely enough to make out the outline of the shadowless hills. I hadn't a chance in hell of telling the time.

After a moment's hesitation, I woke Jim up. He
forced his eyes open, nodded and, shotgun in hand, walked toward the cave entrance.

I looked over our
trophies. Two Remingtons and thirty cartridges. Kathy's gun turned out to be Italian: as I looked closer, I made out the word
Benelli
on the grip. The gun had an elongated magazine and a switch between pump and semi-auto. A good gun: light, trustworthy and versatile. Not a bad choice at all considering the terrain. I wasn't quite ready to trust Kathy with it, and Georgie even less so. Let's see first how they got along with the others.

I watched Jim's back as he sat by the cave's entrance. Then I walked over to Wladas and pulled the
handgun out from under his bag. He kept sniffing away even as I lifted his head and took the bag itself. Wong opened his eyes the moment I approached, and it took me some time to explain to him, in a whisper, why I needed his gun.

Cleaning the guns would make the time pass quicker.
It would keep me awake, too. I sat down next to a sleepy-eyed Jim and reached into the bag for some rags with Kathy's gun across my lap.

"Let me do it," he said.

He sounded like a fully grown man, not the underage deck boy I'd known. This was the first time he'd really spoken to me, and the fact in itself was weird considering we'd already been through thin and thick together.

He pulled the bag closer, took the gun and began taking it apart
deftly and expertly, laying the pieces out on a clean cloth that I had put down for him.

"Where did you learn all this?" I
asked. "You know how to use a gun, don't you?"

Jim looked up at me. "My uncle taught me."

He was still a teenager with his starry eyes and a pride in his voice. At this age, praise from one's father or a mentor gives you wings and makes you forget past wrongs. It feels as if life will never end.

Had he had a normal life, really? Jim hadn't seen anything yet, apart
from Pangea. He'd never been on Earth. Whatever he knew about it, he knew from Pangean deportees.

"I need to ask you something," he said, serious.

"Ask away."

Jim fingered the breech
staring at the valley, preparing to speak.

"They all say," he nodded at the cave, "Georgie, Uncle Lars,
Grunt... everyone says the same thing. Life on Earth is real hard, they say. Governments choke the life out of people with their laws, prisons and taxes. Before, there used to be political parties, or so I've been told. It was they who fought for power and started the war," he scratched the top of his head. "Now that they've discovered Pangea, they use it to exile offenders. To instill law and order, like. But that's something I don't understand. How come there're so many offenders? They keep shipping them in several times a month."

He looked up at me. I frowned looking for the right words to explain. But apparently, he hadn't finished.

"This is the thing I wanted to ask you. If all these political prisoners are exiled because they wanted justice for everyone, how come they start doing the same things here?" He thought and added, "Here, they're also at each other's throats fighting for power. They take advantage of the weak. It's like they wanted a better life on Earth, but here they start doing the same thing their governments do."

I stared at him, unable to answer while he went on, "People like
McLean, it's pretty obvious they shouldn't have any power. So why do they all obey him back in town? Why should they?" He recovered his breath and finished, anxious, "Did you understand? You know what I mean?"

I did indeed. Talk about
straightforward.

"Listen," I reached for the flask in the bag's side pocket. "How d'you know
this stuff about laws and taxes? Who told you about parties and political prisoners?"

"My parents did."

"Who are they? Who were they back on Earth?"

"My dad was a neurosurgeon.
My mom, a schoolteacher."

"
Where are they now?"

"
They died. During the plague."

He took out his knife, pushed the gun parts to one side and used the end of the cloth to wipe the breech.

"I'm sorry," slowly, I unscrewed the flask top. "I really am."

"
It's all right. It's been a while."

He
sat there, composed. Even his voice didn't give.

"I don't remember my parents," I took a large swig and put the flask away. "I grew up in an orphanage. I remember getting here, but not what happened to my family.
It's as if I'd had a memory wipe."

I sat there, silent, surprised at my own thoughts. I'd never thought about my parents before. I didn't know who
they were or what they did. Weird. Not normal.

"You," I started, "you're right what you've just said.
You can't change everyone. We just don't seem to be able..."

I wanted him to
understand me but I didn't know which words to use with this homeschooled boy.

"To do what?" he opened the breech
and picked up the slide spring. "Able to do what?"

"Did your father tell you about his work?"

"He did. He told me a lot. I loved listening to his stories. He had a journal where he kept all his science notes."

"Then you must know that our bodies
are made of flexible systems. We are decentralized."

"I know what you mean,"
he nodded. "We don't have one particular organ which controls all of our body."

"Exactly.
Now if some system unit fails, the system would normally restructure the traffic. But if your heart or liver or kidneys are damaged, you'll most likely die."

"It still doesn't mean tha
t those organs are dominant in the human body."

"Right. That's how they create electronic chains these days: with routers
, so that if one unit fails, the others will bypass it until the failure is repaired."

"So?" Jim lowered the spring.

"Our society has a different model. It's vertical, with one control organ on top. It issues orders and decides what to do in any given situation. Every law-abiding citizen should obey the rules - called laws - imposed on them by the government.

"Yeah," he nodded staring at the valley. "If you destroy the
controlling organ, the whole system will collapse."

"You got it. So they could try and build a new society here on Pangea. But
it wouldn't change people's nature. Speaking genetically... have you heard about genes?"

"
It's," he looked up, "it's some kind of inbred memory, right?"

"It is, it is. Generations of our ancestors have formed the current society model which is based on obedience. There'll always be a leader
, and whether he's elected or an usurper doesn't really matter. Can you tell me something? Are you a free man? Think well first."

"I..
. I think I have some control over my life," he said slowly. "But I still can't do whatever I want. I have to..." he nodded, "yes, I do have to obey. I obey the loggers' foreman. Uncle Lars."

"And," I raised my hand, "what if there is no Lars
Swenson?"

"There'll be another one," Jim said quickly. "Another leader."

"Who will head the loggers' team," I pointed out.

Jim
didn't answer. But his face was different now. He'd understood.

"Shame," Jim finally said. He
put down the spring and reached for the firing mechanism housing. "Does it mean things will never change?"

I
shook my head. "We won't know even if they do. We won't live long enough."

For a while, Jim didn't move mulling over our conversation. Then he picked up the rag and started wiping t
he breech.

The stars started to fade over the horizon.
The dawn was creeping into the sky. Someone grunted; we both turned to see a gasping Georgie toss and turn on the cave floor. He rose wincing from the pain in his leg and pleading for some water.

I
handed him the flask. "Go sleep now." He glanced at the far end of the tunnel where Kathy slept, then lay back down, careful not to disturb his wound.

"Lars Swenson," I said when I came back to the entrance, "is he really your uncle?"

"Yeah," Jim handed me the assembled gun and reached for the other one. "On my mother's side."

He lay his
suntanned hands on the weapon and started depressing lugs and twisting latches, unclicking the parts with blindfolded ease. The boy seemed to have potential. His parents must have known as much which was probably why his father had kept notes and spoken to his son about his work. They must have hoped for the much-rumored repatriation amendment. Back on Earth Jim could do well. He could become a teacher or an engineer; he could continue his dad's research. He had the brains and the skills... but not the luck.