Rude Astronauts (35 page)

Whatever the reason, they had been caught unaware by the flash flood which had suddenly ripped down the valley. The rushing wall of water was on them before they could escape; the walls of the valley were too steep for them to climb, the current too fast for them to swim. Howling their anger at the dark sky, they were torn by branches and battered by stones. In their dying panic, they had clawed and bitten at each other. Finally, one by one, their heads went under the surface for the last time. Their lungs filled with cold water, the fire perished from their eyes, and they died.

Died, and were reborn almost seventy million years later, recalled to life in a sterile white lab by the descendents of the little rodent-like creatures they had once hunted …

Pete Chambliss’s chair scooted back from the folding table where he had been working, interrupting Denny’s reverie. He looked up as the senator picked up his empty beer can. “I’m going in for another one,” Chambliss said. “Ready for another round?”

“Umm … no thanks, Pete. Still working on this one.” He nodded toward the laptop computer on the folding table. “Did you remember to save?”

Chambliss glanced back at his temporary desk, made a self-disgusted grunt, and stepped back across the porch to type a command on the Toshiba’s keyboard. Chambliss took the minicomputer with him on all his trips—tonight he was working on a speech for a National Press Club luncheon next week—but he was forever forgetting to save files in memory when he was working on computers. It was one of the little jobs of his aides to foresee this absentminded quirk. “Thanks,” Chambliss said.

He walked across the porch and opened the screen door, then quickly stepped aside as Gerhardt came out. “’Scuse me,” the senator said as the two men sidestepped each other, then Gerhardt let the door slam shut behind Chambliss. Steinberg fixed his eyes on the darkness beyond the porch as he listened to Gerhardt walk onto the porch, pause, then slowly walk behind him. He heard the rocking chair beside him creak as the Secret Service man settled into it. Then, suddenly, a cold can of Budweiser was dropped in his lap.

Gerhardt laughed as Steinberg started, then popped the top on his own can. “Might as well enjoy yourself,” he said. “Tomorrow night we’re down to noodles and instant coffee.” He took a long tug from his beer and indulged in a resonant belch. “God, I just love the great outdoors,” he added sourly, propping his feet up on the rail.

Steinberg picked the can out of his lap and set it down on the floor next to his warm, half-empty beer. “I thought you guys were trained to endure hardship.”

“Yeah,” Gerhardt replied indifferently. “But I spent two years in the Marines lugging a gun across Central America. Every night down there I sacked out in some rainstorm promising myself that, if I survived this shit, the nearest I would get to wilderness would be mowing the back yard on Sunday.” He toasted the night with his beer. “And so what do I do? I join the Secret Service so I can escort some senator on a canoe trip through the Okefenokee. Same job, different swamp. Talk about justice, huh?”

“Maybe you should have been a lawn mower salesman.”

“Maybe.” Gerhardt took another long sip from his beer. “What’s your problem, kid? Still upset because I made you carry the luggage this afternoon?”

“No.” He took a deep breath. “I’m just upset because I’m stuck for a weekend with a raving asshole like you.”

Gerhardt sighed and shook his head. “Jeez. Try to be nice, and look where it gets you.” He looked straight at Steinberg. “Well, if it’s any consolation,” he said in a lowered voice, “I’d rather be somewhere else than with a brown-nosing little yuppie. I’m here because it’s my work and you’re here because you want to score points with the boss. Okay?”

Steinberg said nothing, but he felt his face grow hot. Like it or not, Gerhardt had scored a bull’s-eye with that remark. He was saved from having to formulate a weak comeback by the screen door opening again and Chambliss swaggering out onto the porch. He held a beer in his right hand and his backpack was slung over his left shoulder. Just behind him was Tiffany Nixon, also carrying a backpack. “Let’s go load the canoes, boys,” the senator said heartily. “If we do that now, we can shove off a little earlier in the morning.”

“Sounds like a right idea.” Gerhardt drained his beer, crushed the empty can in his fist, and dropped his feet to the floor. Chambliss tromped across the porch and hopped down the steps. Tiffany threw Denny a quick smile as he stood up to follow, then Gerhardt grabbed his bicep and tugged him toward the stairs. “What’s the matter, kid?” he murmured. “’Fraid you might get mud on those expensive designer boots of yours?”

“Fuck off.” Steinberg twisted his arm out of Gerhardt’s hand, then walked in front of him. Now more than ever, he wished he hadn’t volunteered for Pete’s spring vacation trip. But then he glanced at Tiffany Nixon’s backside as she walked alongside the senator down to the dock and reconsidered. Maybe a little sweet seduction in the swamp would make it all worthwhile. After all, somebody had to share a tent with her tomorrow night, and since Gerhardt himself admitted that he had a job to do …

From far away, somewhere out in the moonless dark of the Okefenokee, there came a sound: a
grruuuunngg
from a reptilian throat older than time. Denny stopped on the porch steps as it faintly echoed across the wetlands, feeling an unseasonal chill. On the other hand, he thought, tomorrow night I may want to be sleeping with Gerhardt’s MAC-10 instead.

From the testimony of Harlan Lloyd Castle; superintendent, Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge:

KAPLAN: Mr. Castle, can you tell us a little about the permanent staff of the wildlife refuge? That is, who works there and what do they do?

CASTLE: Well, sir, since the refuge was turned over to the University of Colorado team for their research, the staff was necessarily reduced in number, since we didn’t have to maintain the campgrounds and visitors’ center and so forth. In fact, we had to let go of most of our resident staff to make way for the team, so …

KAPLAN: Pardon me, sir. Your resident staff? What do you mean by that?

CASTLE: Those employees who stayed in the refuge on a full-time basis … the ones who lived there year-round. I was able to keep my own residence, of course, and our naturalist Ms. Nixon was able to keep her cabin, but our two full-time rangers and the chief groundskeeper were let go. Fortunately the Interior Department found them other positions within the national park system.

KAPLAN: So there was only Ms. Nixon and yourself living in the park besides the university team. Then who did the maintenance work? Mopping the floors, scrubbing the toilets, cooking for the research staff and so forth?

CASTLE: Well, the science team was responsible for its own cooking. When the changeover occurred, I told Mr. Yamato (
NOTE: Benjamin Yamato, Secretary of the Interior
) that I would be happy to have them in the refuge, but I’d be darned if I’d supply them with a concierge. (
Laughter.
) Was that funny? Well at any rate, as for the day-to-day maintenance work, we had a number of part-time people who came in each day to do the groundskeeping and cleaning duties. And before you ask, they were brought in each day on the same aircraft which transported the … ah, livestock for the dinosaur herd.

KAPLAN: I see. And these part-timers … were they official employees of the refuge?

CASTLE: If you mean to ask if they were on the payroll, yes, but I wouldn’t characterize them as civil service employees. Since it was rather menial work and part-time at that, we hired whoever we could find in the area who was willing to come in for four hours a day. Typically, we had high school kids, housecleaning staff from nearby motels, locals who wanted to moonlight for a few extra dollars a week … that sort of thing. Again, since we were no longer open to the public, we didn’t need to have folks who had passed civil service examinations … just people who knew how to handle a broom or a toilet brush and who didn’t get airsick when they flew in.

KAPLAN: I see. And was there much turnover for these jobs?

CASTLE: Typically, yes, sir, there was. People quit on us all the time. It was dirty work and it didn’t pay all that well … in fact the Burger King in Folkston paid better wages than we did … so we hired who we could get. That’s why it wasn’t civil service work. There was so much paperwork involved with getting civil service employees that we managed to get an exemption from the Interior Department for these positions.

KAPLAN: Uh-huh. And did these part-timers have access to all the buildings? Including the storage closet in the main building where the reflex inhibitors were kept?

CASTLE: Out of necessity, yes, sir, Mr. Kaplan. Of course, the key rings were given to them when they clocked in at the beginning of the day and they turned them back in when they punched out on the time clock. But … ah, yes, they had access to all unrestricted areas of the main compound.

KAPLAN: And that includes the storage closet in the main building?

CASTLE: Yes, sir. There were some cleaning supplies which were kept in that closet, so necessarily they had to …

KAPLAN: I understand. One further question, Mr. Castle, and this goes back to what I was asking you about earlier. Just prior to Senator Chambliss’s visit to the refuge, did you hire any new part-timers?

CASTLE: Ummm … why, yes. One of our cleaning staff, Mary Ann Shorter, suffered a collision with a hit-and-run driver on the highway. She was laid up in the hospital with neck and back injuries, so we had to find a new person to temporarily take her place. A young guy named Jake … um, Jacob Adderholt. He answered an ad we had placed in the Folkston newspaper and we hired him. As I recall, that was about a week before the senator came to the refuge.

KAPLAN: And did Mr. Adderholt come to work on the day that Senator Chambliss and his party arrived?

CASTLE: Yes, he did. In fact, he went out with the rest of the part-time staff on the same Osprey that … oh, good Lord, Mr. Kaplan, you’re not implying …?

KAPLAN: Mr. Castle, did Jake Adderholt reappear for work at the park following Senator Chambliss’s death?

CASTLE: Oh, my God …

KAPLAN: Mr. Castle, please, did Jake Adderholt come back to work after …?

CASTLE: No, he didn’t, he … oh, my sweet Lord, how could have I known …?

His paddle dipped again into the dark water. He pulled it straight back to his shoulder, raised it again and absently watched the cool water dribble off the end of the blade, then plunged it forward again into the river. The canal ran straight as a two-lane highway through the low, monotonous swampland; dredged by an industrial explorer in the 1890s in an attempt to form an intracoastal waterway before nature and lack of funds conquered his efforts, the Suwannee Canal was a liquid path through the Okefenokee. Farther downstream it entered the deep bayou of the swamp, a long maze, before it ended at a manmade sill and the mouth of the Suwannee River. But that was a long way from here; they had only travelled the first five miles of the canal, and Denny was already tired.

He pulled the paddle out of the water, rested across the gunnels behind the pointed bow of the Mad River canoe, tipped back his cap and wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead. The early morning fog had long since been burned off by the rising sun; it was close to noon now and the day was getting warmer. An otter had been racing in front of them for a mile or so, occasionally sticking its furry brown head above the water to look back at them as if to say “Nyah nyah nyah, you slowpoke humans” before diving and racing forward again. The little animal had apparently lost interest in them, though, because Denny hadn’t spotted him in the past half-hour.

“Out of shape?” Tiffany asked and he looked back over his shoulder at her. She was in the stern seat behind him; he watched as she effortlessly made a J-stroke to keep them in the middle of the narrow canal. “How long has it been since you paddled a canoe?”

“Longer than I care to remember,” he admitted. About thirty feet behind them, the second canoe was moving down the river. Joe Gerhardt was doing the muscle work in the bow seat while Pete Chambliss steered from the stern. They had fallen behind because the senator had been constantly pausing to scan the area with his binoculars or to take snapshots of cranes, vultures, otters, and gators. If the Secret Service man had minded, though, he hadn’t said anything; like Denny, he had taken off his jacket when the day had become hotter, and now they could all see the Ingram gun slung in the oversized holster under his left armpit. There was also a headset radio slung around his neck; every now and then he had paused to report in, radioing a status report to the compound.

“Catch your breath,” Tiffany said. “We’ll wait for ’em to catch up.” She pulled up her own paddle and laid it across the gunnels, then checked her wristwatch. “We’ll be stopping on a little island just up ahead, so you’ll get a chance to take a breather.”

Denny shifted his butt on the lifejacket; they had long since taken them off and placed them on the hard metal seats. “Lunch?”

“Maybe,” she said tersely. She was staring off across the grasslands to their right. Tiffany had been laconic all morning. When they had pushed off from the compound just after sunrise, she had done little more than to make sure everyone’s gronker was switched on. Even though the temperature had continued to rise and all the men had stripped down to their undershirts, she hadn’t pulled off her own shirt—which was too bad, since Denny would have liked to see what she looked like wearing only shorts and tank-top. Their itinerary called for them to make camp on Bugaboo Island tonight—who the hell had come up with that name?—then to forge their way through the deep swamp tomorrow until they reached the end of the refuge and, just beyond that, Stephen C. Foster State Park, where they would be pulling out of the river for good.

If Denny still hoped to have an amorous adventure with her, it would have to be tonight on Bugaboo Island. Yet, somehow, he was beginning to have his doubts. Tiffany seemed aloof today: her refusal to take off her shirt was a bad omen. Maybe she had come to realize that she was one woman about to spend the night with three men and didn’t want to do anything which would seem like a come-on to any of them. But he watched her check her watch again and wondered what sort of schedule she was trying to keep …