Miss abigails room, p.1
Strange Deliverance, page 1
Strange Deliverance
Mary Brown
Copyright © 1997 by Mary Brown
ISBN: 0-671-87795-X
Cover art by Larry Elmore
First printing, August 1997
This One For
All
Our Friends
Baen Books by Mary Brown
The Unlikely Ones
Pigs Don't Fly
Master of Many Treasures
Strange Deliverance
BOOK ONE: REFUGEES
Chapter One
The Crew - (i)
The information banks were nearly full and had already started their retransmissions for analysis over a million miles away, to be then forwarded on from a Nymph-Ship to the main Nest. Even with their own speed home, aided by the most convenient of time-warps, all their data would have been processed long before they finally docked.
The whole craft hummed quietly as it completed its penultimate orbit. The full crew was on alert for these last few hours, moving busily about their duties; manning the controls, feeding the information banks, recharging the power-rods, discharging waste, preparing the stock for their last milking. Time enough to rest, suspend animation, when the machine was set on course for home.
Earlier visual examination of the planet below had shown the extent of the devastation. Fires raged out of control, seas steamed and rivers boiled, vast areas of land were blackened and pitted, cities lay in ruins and the amount of smoke and cloud needed the strong auto-rays to pierce their density and show a clearer picture on the monitors. The pollution sensors were still busy analyzing the air quality beneath, separating the usual contaminants from the new chemical and biological killers. These latter were most important, for if normal forays were to be made in the future and land expeditions mounted, there must be sufficient guard against their own destruction.
Information continued to come in. It seemed there were still many areas beneath that appeared normal, green and flourishing, with indication of both human and animal life, but some of these would already be infected by man-made destruction even now being borne on the errant winds, and would within weeks be empty and barren. . . .
The spacecraft accelerated over the melting snows and ice of the Antarctic and started on its last orbit.
The Villagers - (i)
The Mayor called an Extraordinary General Meeting in the Town Hall. For days rumor and counter-rumor had flown faster than the birds between town, village and hamlet, and the occasional garbled news bulletins they received on radio—the TV stations, even the local ones, had long since packed up—only made matters worse.
Everyone was uneasy, nervous and tempers were short. In spite of the continued good weather the stock were neglected, allotments untended. Several of the youngsters had already left for the city to the east, and the trickle had become a flood. This was the last thing the village needed, for it was coming up to harvest, and although the first hay harvest had been good, the next was ready for cutting, and the weather wouldn't hold for ever. Besides, the corn was ripening and there was the sugar beet to consider. The orchards promised well, winter-roots looked good, the hens were laying, but with communications having broken down over the last few weeks they might well have to depend on what they could produce themselves this winter, and if all the labor force decamped where would they be?
Damn this war! Or wars . . . Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with them. Their state had never quarreled with anyone else. Neutral they were, neutral they had ever been. And lucky, too, with all those pictures of floods and earthquakes and such in other parts of the globe. Until the last couple of weeks nothing had touched them either, but then had come the increasingly annoying cuts in electricity and the busy signal on most mains telephone calls. The mobiles still worked, of course, but even with them there were an ominous number of silences on the other end.
That was another thing; those mobiles needed batteries, and that was yet more hassle, because the last weekly consignment of goods from the city had been three weeks ago, and then short of what they had ordered. Instead of the usual canned goods, tobacco, soft drinks, chocolate, long-life bread, cosmetics, videos, batteries, pet foods and biscuits, they had sent salt, pepper, spices, cutlery—why cutlery, for God's sake!—seed-packets—who wanted lettuce, tomato and radish seeds when the actual vegetables were delivered fresh?—and sheets and sheets of useless paper.
Obviously the wholesalers had got their orders mixed, and some idiot in the village had accepted the load without checking the manifest. What was worse, he had signed for it and paid for it. . . . Of course he had tried to get hold of the suppliers, but so far hadn't been able to get through.
Then there was the problem of fuel; neither the gas tanker nor the bottled Camp-Gas trailer had called for two months, and they were dangerously low on both. Mayor? Who'd be Mayor? More like a scapegoat shopkeeper, that's what he was. Reelection? Who wanted that kind of trouble!
The Mayor looked down at his audience. All there, even the children. Of course with the constant cuts in the electricity and no direct programs on the TV, everyone was bored silly with rewatching the same old videos. Even a meeting at the Town Hall was better than twiddling their thumbs, and not everyone had CD players or radios.
No, there were still some absentees. Old Nial, the stockman, was missing but then his wife had broken her ankle last week, so he would be home with her. And the Herb-Woman never showed her face in the village if she could help it. "Herb-Woman," indeed! More like witch, if you asked him. . . .
He cleared his throat. "Citizens: I have called you here to discuss the worsening situation. . . ."
The Passengers - (i)
The entrance hall of the station was packed solid with shouting and screaming would-be passengers, and still they poured in through the arched portico. Long ago someone had tried to shut the gates, but they had been shoved to one side. In front of the gates to platform nine stood a double line of the militia, rifles at the ready.
The public address system was screeching and whining at full blast, but what with the din below and the inevitable distortion, no words were intelligible.
All of a sudden, intentionally or not, the gates to platform nine swung open, and after a moment's astonished hesitation—after all most of them had been there since dawn at the rumor of a last train—there was a concerted rush. The soldiers were swept aside, people fought with fists, elbows, feet, to be first onto the platform.
The train was there, sure enough, all ten cars of it, one of the older Volley-Class monorails, but all the doors were firmly shut. The crowd, increasingly frustrated, banged on the sides of the cars and some even tried to smash in the windows with fists, shoes, sticks, whilst above the hubbub the address system kept on bellowing out incomprehensible rubbish.
Suddenly the doors of the foremost carriage slid open, and there was a charge as everyone within reach piled in. It had obviously been intended that the rush should be controlled, carriage by carriage, but someone had forgotten to close the connecting doors and more and more passengers piled in until the whole train was rocking from side to side. Once this was realized the driver opened all the doors, fearful for his machine, and people poured in from every direction.
People were literally trampled underfoot, luggage—one suitcase per person—was torn away and everywhere fighting broke out.
Then the militia opened fire.
The Crew - (ii)
They were halfway round their final orbit when disaster struck. They never discovered what had hit them, but it was immediately obvious that the damage was considerable. Within minutes the craft was effectively without main power, though the auxiliary motor kicked in automatically.
If it had only been the power that was affected they could have managed to complete their survey and limp home safely, but it was more than that. The steering gear had also been seriously damaged, the craft refusing to obey commands, yawing violently from side to side. As they were still within Earth's gravitational pull they would have to do something, fast.
The automatic damage-sensors confirmed their worst fears. Apart from the loss of main power and the crippling of the steering, one of the main boosters was inoperable and the landing gear was suspect.
There were two options open to them. Their orders had always been perfectly clear; if there was the slightest chance of either the crew or craft being "captured" (and that included even the smallest part of the craft that could be used for analysis) they were to self-destruct. If, however, they had to land to correct a malfunction, provided the craft could take off again within a reasonable time and without discovery, then they were permitted to make the decision themselves. Of course, if the damage was irreparable, then they would immediately abort.
The crew conferred, decided. Within seconds a message was on its way to their nearest contact, on a routine Mars scan. Now to find a landing site. The way they were slipping sideways towards the earth meant they had no time to choose beyond what lay just beneath. The scanners showed two possible sites that answered their needs: remoteness from civilization and freedom from contamination.
They chose and set the coordinates. Now all they could do was wait.
The Villagers - (ii)
". . . and so I want you all to realize that this mood of senseless panic is thoroughly counter-productive." The Mayor finished his speech, not entirely satisfied that he had convinced his audience. "Any questions?"
There was a general hubbub, but at last a young man stood up at the back.
&n
"There's no official confirmation of that," began the Mayor, but he was interrupted by a woman at the front.
"You trust these Government reports? All they want to do is keep us quiet—"
"That's right! They don't want us to know the truth!" shouted another voice.
The noise grew; people were standing up, shaking their fists.
The Mayor spread his hands placatingly. "Listen! Whatever what's-his-name's cousin says, we have no definite news. I propose we pull ourselves together and stay put. After all this village has been here for hundreds of years and—"
"Hundreds of years be damned!" yelled someone else. "This is here and now!"
The Mayor thumped the table. "All right! What do you suggest we do?"
For a while they debated, and a vote was taken. It was agreed that they would wait another twenty-four hours before deciding further, in the meanwhile trying their best to contact reliable sources for news.
The Mayor should have been satisfied with his temporary victory, but he knew in his heart that it would only take the smallest spark of unease to fire a panic-stricken mass exodus. . . .
The Passengers - (ii)
No one knew whether it was the bullets or the panic that left so many collapsed on the ground but they were past caring now, trampling over those who had fallen like so much trash. Fear and panic had overtaken them all, the train was packed as tight as a Holocaust cattle-truck and, as a second volley rang out and the shrieks and screams of the wounded and dying rose above the general hubbub, the train driver decided enough was enough. He pressed the button to close the doors and opened the throttle.
The wheels screamed in protest, trying to get a grip on the rail, juddering and shaking the whole train, while the doors slammed open and half-shut again and again, frustrated from full closure by the bodies that jammed them, still struggling to get aboard.
The train started to move, imperceptibly at first, then at walking-pace, accelerating all the time. At the last door of the last carriage of all, five students were trying to pull the sixth free of the still-slamming automatic doors.
"Come on, come on, Padraig!" they urged, pulling at whatever part of him they could hold.
"For Christ's sake! Can't you see I'm stuck. . . ."
Just at that moment a strong arm held the doors open a fraction longer than usual and, as Padraig fell into the arms of his friends, a small girl carrying a suitcase was shoved on behind him by a stout, bearded man.
"Take her, take her, I beg!" he cried "I can't—"
The rest of his words were lost as the doors finally slammed shut and the train, gathering speed, left him behind. As the train finally quit the station Padraig found himself clutching a sobbing child to his breast.
The train roared on into the gathering darkness and those on board sorted themselves out as best they could, which wasn't easy as the carriage was meant to hold sixty seated, thirty standing and was now crammed with some two hundred.
The six students had managed to clear a small space near the toilets, fiercely guarding the six-packs which, to them, had been their essential luggage. Padraig sat down in the corridor and gathered the little girl, still sniveling, onto his knee and gave her a reassuring cuddle.
"What's your name then, darlin'?"
The Crew - (iii)
Side-slipping in the gravity pull to slow their speed, nevertheless the Earth was coming closer at a frightening rate. Now they were only just above the cloud layer, although the auto-rays showed a clear path down. Far away to the right and to the left was concrete evidence of continued conflict: fires raging out of control, intermittent explosions, though these latter were far less frequent than they had been days earlier.
Now the topography beneath was clear; to the west was a great area of man-planted forest, to the north high mountains, to the east an area of blasted heath, and to the south an area of plain. It was obvious that contamination was still driving in from the east, but their weather sensors confirmed that the wind would change overnight and blow the poisons back whence they had come.
Some two miles to the south of the chosen site lay a cluster of buildings, but it should be simple enough to frighten away the inhabitants, if they had not left already. The crew set their communications center to the appropriate Earth-Speak for the area they were approaching, in case it was necessary to contact the Earthlings.
Now all they could hope for was that there was enough power and the landing gear would hold up in order to avoid a crash-landing and the inevitable self-destruction.
The time had come. The crew pressed the correct buttons, ensured the cattle were in suspension and that the information banks were still churning out their data.
Now all they could do was wait. . . .
The Villagers - (iii)
The villagers started to trail out of the open doors at the end of the hall into the Church Square, but it seemed some were not done arguing their views. About halfway down the aisle a woman, her back turned to the platform, was busy haranguing anyone who would stop and listen. The Mayor groaned; she was the village's chief busybody, on every committee that would have her. Not believing in direct confrontation, she would wait until everything was decided before undermining the same with contrary argument, until her opponents really believed they might have made a mistake.
She was in full flow. " . . . more than time we had a new one, with a bit more go to him." Could she mean me, wondered the Mayor, trapped on his platform, as the aisle was now jammed. "I, for one, have had enough! They may say this war has nothing to do with us, so why the electricity cuts, the empty shops, no gas bottles, and all these rumors flying about? Forgotten about us, they have, stuck away in this festering hole . . . I'll tell you this. Very first thing in the morning I'm taking my husband and my son and we're going to the city where there's plenty of everything."
Some youngster made a remark the Mayor couldn't hear, but she rounded on the boy immediately.
"You'll laugh the other side of your face when there's no more fuel for that rattletrap of yours! Least it'll keep you quiet: no more of that confounded racket first thing in the morning." She returned to her theme. "My sister's got more than enough room for us and a lovely deep cellar in case any old bombs go astray. I'm not standing for any more of this shilly-shallying and I strongly advise you to follow my—our—lead. . . ." How long she would have gone on nobody would ever know, for at that moment a man burst through the doors at the back and shouted, his face full of horror, "Lights in the sky! We're being attacked. . . ."
The Passengers - (iii)
The girl slept uneasily, her tear-stained cheek resting against Padraig's shoulder. The six students had shared out what little food they had, but it seemed she didn't fancy garlic sausage and gherkins; instead she opened her suitcase and took out a pack of jam sandwiches and a small carton of milk, amusing them by the fastidious way she wiped her hands and mouth afterwards on a paper napkin.
She had been no bother at all, except to ask once, anxiously: "When will Papa come?"
They had glanced at one another. "On the next train," said Padraig soothingly, knowing full well this was the last one. When she had finally fallen asleep they discussed what to do with her when they reached their destination.
"The orphanage, perhaps?" said Arne, who was the eldest. "Or the police, to see if they can trace any relatives."
"They'll have their hands full already," said Erik. "And the orphanage is Catholic. She's Jewish, unless I'm mistaken."
"Orphanages will take any faith," said Rod, rummaging for another beer. "Leastways I think so. . . ."
Alan yawned. "I'm for a piss. I'll take the child for a bit when I come back, Paddy." He prepared to fight his way through the crush of bodies, followed by the sixth of the group, Stew.
