The Last Pilgrims (44 page)

She felt Piggy tugging at her arm, and
looked over to him as he mouthed, “WE HAVE TO GO!” She nodded, and
joined the other three as they jumped out of the eastern side of
the trench and began to dodge their way towards the command area on
the distant mesa. She felt numb and detached, and somehow separated
from her body as she tripped and stumbled over rocks and bodies,
and occasionally tumbled downwards into a shell crater. At one
point, she fell headlong down into a deep crater only to find The
Hood, Piggy, and Troy waiting there for her.

“Just wait here, Ruth. The firing has
stopped. I think they may be pulling back!” They waited for a
minute, then almost as one being they all crept up to look out of
the crater and see what was happening. The enemy had indeed
retreated, and for just a moment they all felt the elation of
victory. But, then they noticed that only a portion of the Aztlani
army had been involved in the first attack. They seemed to be
forming up for another assault.

“Oh my,” Ruth exclaimed, “they’re coming
back.”

“Just wait,” Piggy said, and he pointed to
an embassy coming forth from the Aztlani host, flying a white flag.
They watched in silence as a militia contingent made up of Pachuco
Reyes, Longbow, and Tyrell of Terrell rode out under the white flag
to meet them.

“If we could only hear what they are
saying,” Ruth said, watching with intense interest. There was some
wild gesticulating by Tyrell, and they could see the Aztlani
officers shaking their heads. “It doesn’t look like it is going
well,” she added.

The short congress broke up, apparently with
nothing solved, and they watched as the militia contingent rode
back towards their own lines.

The Aztlani army continued to form up for
the next attack, when suddenly the whole battlefield grew silent.
At first they noticed the lone rider appear to their northwest, in
the no-man’s land between the armies. It was Crown Prince Gareth of
Aztlan. He sat stoically upon his horse, with no white flag, before
standing up in his saddle so that he could be seen clearly by the
whole Aztlani host.

She could hear a murmur pass through both
armies, and then she noticed everyone looking back to the south. To
their southwest, also stationed between the two armies, was Phillip
of the Ghost Militia. He also allowed himself to be seen clearly by
the army from New Rome. Following some sort of silent signal, the
two men began to ride around the army of Aztlan in opposite
directions. Some enterprising Aztlani soldiers took wild shots at
them, but nothing seemed to come close to hitting them.

“It seems to be a demonstration devised to
disconcert the enemy,” Piggy said, laughing. “They all think that
Phillip and Gareth are dead.”

“I don’t think it’s working,” The Hood said,
calmly.

“A nice piece of theatre,” Troy said, “but I
think all it bought us was time.”

The spectacle seemed to go on for minutes
before the two leaders met back in the middle and turned towards
the enemy army.

As the two men stood facing Aztlan, a
thumping sound could be heard coming from… it seemed…
everywhere
. Ruth had never heard anything like it.
What
can that be?

The thumping grew louder, and everyone was
turning around and around, attempting to locate the origination of
the strange sound.

Phillip and Gareth had turned again and were
riding directly back towards their own lines. Both men dismounted
and ran towards the trench, sliding in between Ruth and Piggy.

The sound grew louder and the ground itself
began to shake.

“What is it?” Ruth shouted.

“I think I know what that is,” Phillip
answered, slowly standing up in the trench. “Could it be?”

From the east, rising above the horizon,
glowing eerily in the late evening sunlight, Ruth saw four black
beasts flying towards them in formation. She hadn’t a clue what
they could be, but her heart was pounding in her chest, and her
brain struggled to understand what in the world could be coming at
them. “What is it?” she shouted again.

“Blackhawk helicopters,” Phillip shouted
back, as the aircraft slowly buzzed directly over their heads.
“American military aircraft… from before the crash!”

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my
life,” The Hood yelled, holding his hood down firmly on his
head.

“None of us has,” Piggy replied.

“I have,” Phillip said. “In fact I’ve been
in one.”

“Whose are they?” Ruth yelled.

“I have no idea,” Phillip responded, as the
helicopters suddenly and simultaneously opened fire on the stunned
and frightened Aztlani army.

The battle was over in minutes. The carnage
was unbelievable. What was left of the Aztlani army—and there
wasn’t much left at all—rode hard into the desert to escape the
unexplainable sky beasts that rained missiles and bullets down on
them like fire from the gods.

As the battle ended, the four black
helicopters landed softly in the clearing that had been the
no-man’s land between the two armies. Men disembarked from the
aircraft and jogged towards the militia lines. Several of them were
dressed in very ornate military uniforms, and one of the men was
dressed sharply in a white coat and trousers. As they approached
the lines, an officer shouted, “We are looking for Phillip, the
leader of the Ghost militia!”

Phillip stood up and waved towards the
approaching party. “I am Phillip, commander of this army.”

“Well hello, Phillip, and greetings from the
people of the South States!” said the man wearing white. “I am
Richard the First, King of the South States. Your friend Jonathan
Wall wrote me a letter asking me if I might be able to help.”

A shout of joy and victory went out up and
down the militia lines. There was much hugging and celebration as
the knowledge that help had arrived began to sink in.

Ruth was still stunned at the appearance of
the black flying machines, and found it hard to grasp everything
that was happening. As the celebratory spirit began to surround
her, she found herself smiling as Piggy, The Hood, and Troy all
embraced around her, laughing and shouting for joy.

Meeting together with the King of the South
States became a very formal affair. Tents were erected hastily and
furniture and rugs that had been removed from the Harmony complex
were brought in to make the tents comfortable. Ruth stood trembling
as introductions were made, and she shook hands with the officers
from the South States as they each made their rounds and happily
embraced the militia leaders.

Soon, a conversation started between King
Richard and Phillip, and the topic turned to the Vallenses.

“I desire to meet with and converse with
Jonathan Wall of the Vallenses,” the King said. “Without his
letter… and his reputation… we certainly would not have come.”

“I am sad to report that Jonathan Wall was
captured by Aztlan earlier today,” Phillip replied.

“I am very sorry to hear that, Phillip.
Where has he been taken?”

“We understand that he has been taken to New
Rome. He will probably be tried there as a heretic.”

“I am so sorry, for you all.”

“Ruth here,” Piggy said, “is Jonathan Wall’s
daughter, and can speak on behalf of the Vallenses, Your
Honor.”

The King looked at Ruth with a kindly
expression, and motioned for her to come forward. “Young Ruth, I am
so sorry to hear about your father. Please let me know if there is
anything I can do to help you… anything at all.”

“Well, Your Honor, I thank you and I
appreciate your offer. I’d like to take you up on it. Perhaps you
can get back into your flying machines and go rescue my father from
New Rome.”

King Richard grimaced, and tried to manage a
smile as he looked Ruth in the eye. “If only we could, young Ruth.
If only we could. You see…” the King paused, trying to find the
right words, “…we only barely made it here to help you. These craft
were cobbled together with spare parts and pieces that we had to
manufacture to get them to fly. We had some old mechanics that used
to work on these things decades ago, but the machines sat unused
and exposed to the elements for 20 years. I started the process of
trying to get them flying again as soon as I received your father’s
letter. We did all we could to get here in time. We even concocted
and cooked up the fuel we had to use to make them fly. But I’ve
been told that what you just saw… that magnificent intervention in
your war… was all that those old birds had in them. These
helicopters were already old when the collapse happened. They were
run, almost completely, by computers and we just don’t have the
technology, the expertise, or the infrastructure to operate them as
they were intended to operate. You’d laugh if you knew how our
mechanics made them fly for that one mission. Our enemy could have
shot them down with slingshots if they hadn’t been so afraid and
stunned. Suffice it to say that it is only by God’s own grace that
we ever made it here, and that we were able to intervene
successfully. I feel comfortable telling you that those craft will
never fly again. In fact, my military officers have advised me to
scuttle the craft so that the weapons on them cannot be seized by
the enemy and copied.” The King looked over the assembled
fellowship and smiled his best smile. “I fear that we have all seen
the end—at least in our days—of aerial warfare.”

Phillip shook his head. “How was it done,
Your Highness?”

“With bubblegum and toothpicks is the
technical answer, Phillip. The computers were all dumped and
everything was made ‘fly-by-wire’. Every bit of excess weight was
removed, and we just had to pray that the birds wouldn’t fall out
of the sky. We made it here using very short jumps, never flying
more than ten to twenty miles at a time before we would have to
land and completely go through the fuel system and double check
everything again. The only extra weight we carried was for fuel and
spare parts. We left with six helicopters, and we made it here with
four. If we had been forced to go 100 more miles, we would have
been on foot. Frankly, I think God helped us and guided us—and that
is the spiritual answer.”

“So you cannot help my father?” Ruth
asked.

“I am not saying we cannot help, dear Ruth.
But our help will have to be more… traditional. I have an army
coming here to join us. They are sweeping up behind that
treacherous and treasonous
former
Duke of Louisiana as we
speak. The ex-Duke has been captured, tried, and hung as a
traitor.” The King turned to Phillip and continued, “When they
finish mopping up the resistance in Louisiana, they will come here
to help you as much as they can. There are currently 8,000 men who
will be at your disposal. More than that, I cannot offer. I hope
you will be pleased to accept them.

“As for us in the South States, we are
preparing for trouble from that tyrant to the north. We
all
need to be preparing to deal with him.”

Phillip and Gareth looked at one another,
then turned back to the King. “A tyrant to the north, Your
Highness?” Gareth asked. “Are there problems to the north?”

“Problems to the north? Oh, absolutely yes
there are problems to the north!”

“Your Highness,” Phillip said, “the
Vallenses have just fled to the north. All of them! They headed
that way just days ago to escape the clutches of Aztlan and to
avoid being squeezed between him and the Duke of Louisiana.”

“Oh, dear!” King Richard whispered, looking
up towards heaven. His gray eyes closed and he seemed to be praying
silently for a moment, before his eyes opened again and he looked
intently at Ruth.

“May the God of Heaven protect and keep the
Vallenses!”

THE END of Book One

B
efore the
collapse, it was easy for scoffers to deny that things could ever
get so bad. There were three fundamental errors that were pervasive
at the time of the crash, and that resulted in the failed worldview
that predominated when the world as we knew it came to an end.
These three errors were:

1. The
   Ceteris Parabus
   Fallacy (also called the
   “Normalcy Bias”)
   

2. Denying Catastrophism
   

3. The “Strongest Will Survive” Fallacy
   

The human mind is naturally, but
irrationally married to the idea of
Ceteris Parabus
.
Ceteris Parabus
literally means,
"all other things being
equal or held constant."
The
Ceteris Parabus
fallacy
holds that although there may be disruptions or slight changes, for
the most part things will eventually return to some semblance of
“normal.” The problem is, that “normal” was usually defined by the
early 21
^st
century mind as “the relatively recent and
historically aberrant ways of the modern world developed
predominantly in the the 19
^th
and 20
^th
centuries.” So, it was rarely ever assumed that “normal” might
mean:
“the way in which men has lived for almost all of history,
up until the very recent advent of the Industrial Revolution.”
To modern man, the last couple of centuries of industrial and
consumer living
were
the normal to which the world would
always return. Although electricity and the ubiquity of machines
and electronics-based production were a historically new
phenomenon, man naturally believed that the new ways were the
normal
ways.

The second error made by the scoffers was
that they always based their estimations on the idea that world
population would always increase, and that even through
interruptions, however grave,
most
of the people would
survive. This is to say that, although most people accepted
catastrophism in their religion or in their understanding of how
the world was formed, they denied catastrophism could possibly
continue on into the future. Catastrophism was always just a
historical phenomenon. So, man assumed that catastrophe had formed
and framed the world, had affected and influenced all of history,
and had on many occasions wiped out entire civilizations, but now
that we had computers and machines, all of those things were now in
the past. They could never happen again. In effect, the more
dependent mankind became on very tenuous and untrustworthy
technologies; the more man grew soft from the lack of physical
labor; the more man (in general) lost the skills and knowledge to
survive, the more he assumed irrationally that his culture was not
subject to failure.