Third World (27 page)

All eyes turned to Hatcher. Now it was
his turn to blush beet red. With a stoic air about him, his
expression showing that he understood just how completely he had
blown it, he moved with alacrity to the side of the truck and began
stripping off in total embarrassment, facing in the exact opposite
direction from her.

Laughter rippled through the
troops.

Newton stared the people down
menacingly, with the result that comments and talk were kept to a
minimum. Even so, when he turned and saw Beth in her socks, bra and
panties, he was sorely tempted to say something. Even a dummy like
him knew this was the wrong time.

“
Okay, soldier.”

Hatcher reluctantly turned, trying
earnestly to make eye contact and avoid the peripherals.

“
Where’s that cable?” Her
voice sang out cheerfully enough.

“
In Hatcher’s pants!” A
ripple of laugher and jokes went through the group, as Newton held
up his hand and tried not to laugh.

“
That’s enough, people.”
Faber looked deadly serious and they quit.

He looked at Newton.

“
We need four bodies to help
support the cable. We need two people on each rope.”

“
Hernandez, Kane, Marlowe,
and…you. Yeah, you.” He pointed. “You follow them out into the
water.”

He had to give explicit instructions.
That was his job. He picked four more.

“
You guys hang onto those
ropes and don’t let go. Feed it out slowly.”

There was a rumble and a few gasps.
Hernandez was muttering questions and he didn’t have time to
listen.

“
The cable is heavy. You’ll
have to help support it. We have a bag tied on, and some water
containers, that will help it float. But these two are going to
need all the help they can get. I suggest you disrobe, but that’s
your choice.”

With looks of disgust, they quickly
removed their equipment, and lifting the cable, followed Spaulding
and Hatcher out into the swiftly-flowing stream. The waded in
deeper and deeper.

Hatcher, in the lead, went
under.

He floundered around, and then found
solid ground again. Beth plucked at his shoulder.

He yelled back.

“
I think it’s less than two
metres deep.”

Newton waved and nodded.

Hatcher, soaked to the skin, regaining
his feet and having nothing to lose, looked at Ensign
Spaulding.

“
Sorry about all this,
Ensign. Ready to go.”

On her signal, the pair set off across
the channel, not being so much affected by the current this time as
the weight of the wire rope dragged them down and they were
practically walking across on the bottom, although visibility was
nil with the greenish water and the silt and mud it
carried.

The pair struggled onwards, sometimes
only the tops of their heads showing.

There was a lot of shouting and
cursing, and then cheers when Hatcher and Spaulding mounted the far
side and began dragging the cable up the incline to where a stout
tree trunk beckoned.

They were spitting and cursing like the
bejeebers.

Seeing they needed help, Roy and
another soldier stroked across on their own initiative. Without
ropes, Newton’s heart skipped a beat or two but they were strong
boys and they made it. The pair grabbed the heavy wire rope and the
four of them practically ran it up the hill.

Suddenly the first one was turning and
racing back down the slope towards the river again. Beth dropped to
her knees to check the clamps.

Ten minutes later, the bunch of them
were packed into the cabs. Those so far untried by the cold water
stood around and looked at their handiwork, studying the lay of the
land on the far side and wondering if there were any real
alternatives.

One way or another, they had to get
back to town. Abandoning the vehicles was an option, as they could
all fly out in a few trips with the chopper. Civilians could
conceivably recover the vehicles later, but the mission was every
thing. It would be costly and embarrassing. It would be better if
they could get across the river.

Two more days and then he could wash
his hands of the whole mess.

Much to everyone’s surprise the actual
crossing took less than ten minutes. First, it was Unit One, with
the cable winch on the front bumper slowly winding away, and the
vehicle in low gear. Cornell judged the throttle nicely, going
slowly down-slope and then hammering it, with the vehicle falling
forward into the channel on its own momentum, water foamed up and
over the cab, and then there was a big lurch when the cable
tightened again and the front wheels found the opposite bank. The
deep treads bit and the machine drove up out of the water, as
triumphantly as an inanimate machine could be, to the sounds of
cheers and commentary on the radio.

The airwaves crackled.

“
Simple as pie.”

“
Thank you, Trooper
Cornell.”

“
Use about fifteen hundred
revs, sirs.”

“
Ah, yes. Thank you.” Faber
looked over from the left side and grinned.

One of the questions was how many
people to put in the first machine in case of disaster. Cornell
took the minimum across, himself and three others strapped in the
cab. The anticlimactic outcome only underlined Newton’s
problem.

The people over there undid the biggest
cable from the tree trunk, clearing the hazard, and waved that all
was ready. With the troops disconnecting this end, ready hands
pulled the end of it across again.

With their own cable firmly attached to
Unit Two, paying it out as Unit One crossed the creek, much reduced
in size now but still very dangerous, he tapped the switch for the
outdoor speaker on the roof.

“
Okay, people, mount up and
hang on.”

The machine sagged and jounced on its
springs as the last few soldiers climbed up the back. Suited up in
full armour, visors down, they could float a long ways if they fell
off. It was just one of the hazards of doing business. Two bodies
on the far side stood downstream in case they had to make a
rescue.

“
Ready when you are.” The
voices came in his headset.

“
Just keep it taut, okay,
people?” If they gave it a good yank, they all agreed the winch
would just come off the bumper of Unit Two.

Cornell acknowledged the
instructions.

Newton Shapiro, with Faber in the
driver’s seat, watched in a wretched sort of fascination as the sag
began to go out of the cable and then it was taut. Unit One paused,
and they were ready to go.

“
All righty then. Here we go
now.”

No one said a word.

Faber spoke into the
microphone.

“
Unit One, move
out.”

Smoke belched from the stacks of Unit
One. Unit Two lurched under the force as the wire rope lifted off
the ground and up out of the water. Faber was holding the clutch,
and then he let it out, watching the tachometer as their own truck
advanced down the slope into the water, the tow cable as tight as a
bowstring, waves curling and foaming still. Since last night it had
changed to a sort of tea with a lot of cream in it colour. With
bright sun again today, highlights glinted off the surface and
belied the cold temperature.

Faber was holding the handbrake lever
the whole time, and voices came in Shapiro’s ears as the water
began rising up the sides. The sight of the water’s surface
breaking up over the hood of the vehicle was deadly fascinating,
and then the light faltered and waves broke against the
windshield.

“
Argh.” Shapiro turned and
looked at those in the back. “I’ve never done this
before.”

They laughed in spite of the suspense,
peering out the windows and the nervous tension went up
considerably. The engine kept running, as Shapiro saw, and Faber
seemed confident enough as he gently sawed the wheel to the right
against the current and feathered the throttle as they plunged
deeper into the hole.

The interior went very dark.

“
Check for
leaks!”

There were mutters and comments, but no
one saw anything.

Then the light got brighter again and
there was a sudden force lifting the nose.

“
Uh! Damn.” Everything
bounced around and Shapiro took a quick look over his
shoulder.

“
Everybody all
right?”

The voices came from those in the back.
Shapiro almost thought he heard Mister Beveridge say
something.

“
Keep going,
sir.”

A lopsided grin came across Newton’s
face.

They were slammed against the
seatbacks. Someone cursed.

“
Cornell! Ease up!” Faber
was cursing and swearing as Unit One on the other end of the
towline accelerated on some massive whim, but then they were up and
out of the water as the vehicle ahead bounced to a halt at the foot
of what looked like a very steep incline.

The water gushed out of the nooks and
crannies of the undercarriage, but the machine was still running
and everything looked good.

“
Did we lose anybody?”
Shapiro held his breath.

“
Nope.” He wondered who that
was, but it was sufficient.

“
Lieutenant?” It was Cornell
in Unit One.

“
Yes?”

“
Shall we pull you guys on
up the hill?”

He could imagine the grins up
there.

“
Ah, negative. Make a
reconnaissance on foot, please.”

There was a long silence.

“
Roger that.”

Faber looked over.

“
Want me to go?”

“
It would take a load off my
shoulders.”

Faber put the parking brake on and left
her idling to dry off the motor.

A couple of young bucks dropped out of
the door of Unit One, and Faber just had time to catch
up.

***

Two and a half days later, they were
just cresting a ridge when Hatcher pointed out the front
window.

“
Look sir.” His face lit up.
“Lights!”

“
Yay!” The people were all
sitting up now, although they’d been half asleep a minute
ago.

They’d been driving for hours since
sunset, under the wan light of the stars and the planet’s one small
moon.

Their nightmarish journey, crossing
flooded creek after flooded creek, one constant round of cutting
trees, bridging small rivulets, winching the big machines up and
down shelf after shelf of gently-curving, weather-smoothed rock,
had left them aching and exhausted.

The lead vehicle stopped. Newton
listened to the talk back and forth.

“
How far is
that?”

“
GPS says forty-four
kilometres.”

Newton groaned inwardly. Not another
night on the trail.

“
There are lights to the
left.”

Newton lifted up in his seat as it was
all downhill on that side.

“
Holy, shit, Lieutenant.
That might be an actual road down there.” Hatcher licked his
cracked lips.

The unusually hot and sunny spell of
the last several days had taken their physical toll on troops who
had lived much of their adult lives in climate-controlled
conditions.

Third World had relentlessly moderate
conditions, and they were finding that still left plenty of leeway
for extremes of temperature, wind, sun and rain, and more than
anything, muck.

After a long and disbelieving silence,
all of them spoke up at once.

“
One at a time, people. I
need volunteers for a foot recon.” But if that was indeed a road
down there, their problems might be over—or almost.

The light had to be a house, and a
house implied a road.

***

It was the middle of the night when the
trucks, filthy with mud and dirt and dust and the leaves from a
thousand branches came to that point, and every town in the galaxy
has one, where the yellow light beckons and the first streetlight
of home stands, the first of many or at least several.

Capital City was like that—a beacon in
the night, an amber glow on the bottom of a cloud.

The streets this far out were deserted,
although Newton saw with surprise that there were motels, even a
few lit-up windows with cars parked out front.

They navigated five stoplights and then
Unit One slowed down. They slowly cruised past the
entrance.

“
Stop here!” Newton snorted
and Hernandez, driving in the last two hours, laughed outright as
Unit One kept going up the block.

“
This is a police
station?”

It didn’t look like much. It was just a
small, pastel-blue cinder block building with a sign hanging off
the wall that would have been dwarfed by the typical family barber
shop of fable and song on almost any respectable planet. Up under
the eaves the blocks were perforated with floral
designs.