Shadow of alpha v1 0, p.10
Shadow of Alpha (v1.0), page 10
Parric felt irritatingly helpless as the girl subsided into an incoherent muttering that was muffled when 'Jessica shifted around to pull her close, stroking her hair and cooing meaninglessly to blunt the point of her hysteria. He lifted a hand, pulled it back to silently, lightly pound a fist against the inverted dash. He saw Ike’s lips moving and wasn’t sure whether he was swearing or talking to the car, which seemed finally to act its age. Its low-speed whine coughed intermittently, causing the vehicle to stumble as if the gears weren’t functioning properly.
Unreal, he thought, watching the hills pass in cool shades of green, the road sweep by in monotonous brown. Except for the disrepair of the landcar, he could have been riding in any one of a dozen past decades, escaping from the relentless crush of the cities by refamiliarizing himself with what land looked like, and space and the peace that fertilized it. They could have been searching for patches of truly blue sky, delighting as Lupozny aimed his camera at half-imagined glimpses of retreating wildlife.
It could have been, but he only needed to listen to the sobs of the girl in the back to remind him. Or, to look at his hands.
They were soft, once pale in exposure only to artificial light. Now they were darker and mottled with tracks of scratches and dried rivulets of blood. His palms stung when his fingers curled, and several nails had torn to the quick. And if Ike’s face was any mirror indication, his own was blotted with patches of dirt turned mud from his exertion’s perspiration. He pulled at his shirt to keep it away from his skin, wishing now he had kept the loose-fitting one he usually wore. And in pulling, he noticed the splits along his forearms and across his stomach, as if he had been ambushed by a frenzy of sharp-toothed rodents.
“No wonder she was afraid when she saw us,” he muttered.
“Huh?” Ike glanced over, frowning, his hands trembling in the landcar’s driving cuffs as he fought to keep the vehicle on the road.
“Nothing. Thinking aloud, that’s all.” He nodded toward the twin steering mechanisms. “I thought you said this would be easy to drive?”
“It would be if it was in decent shape,” Ike said, licking his lips when they harrowingly avoided a jutting boulder. “But it’s better than walking. We couldn’t have gotten this far in a day, much less a couple of hours.”
Parric returned to the unassuming landscape, picturing the three, no, four of them trying to hike through the hills.
“I’m hungry,” Ike said. “What are we going to do for food?”
Parric looked back to Jessica and Peg, who had finally separated and were staring out the side windows.
"The next town, not Oraton, do you know how close it is?”
Peg didn’t answer. Her forehead rested against the gray glass, and though her eyes were open, he doubted she was seeing anything.
“Peg,” he said, more insistently, “Peg, do you know where the next place is on this road?”
Jessica tried to warn him with a frown, but he ignored her. It was fine that they had rescued Peg from certain death, but she couldn’t be allowed to become deadweight in their flight. There were too many hazards, and everyone would be needed to cope with them.
“Peg,” he said sharply, reaching over and poking her before Jessica could stop him. “Peg, come on, we need your help. Where is the next town? We need to get food.”
She stirred, pushed herself away from the window, blinking as if she’d recently awakened from a dream-filled sleep. “I don’t know,” she answered, scratching a cheek, the other hand unconsciously working to pull the tangles from her hair. “We flew in and out. In Oraton they burned the copter. I think ...” And she looked outside again, straining, squinting until she shook her head. “I’m not sure. I remember a townlet nearby with a road over a bridge. It might be the one we’re on, I don’t know. We didn’t stop. We were too late, couldn’t see anyone. Funny, because the houses looked new.”
Parric sympathized with the pain that shadowed her face, but he was impatient now to keep her talking.
"Look, you probably went from place to place in some kind of arranged sequence. Oraton is back there to the left. You were heading in my direction, so look at the sun and see if you can remember if you were coming from the west or not.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, the dead look fading from her eyes. “That much I know because our shadow was always ahead of us. We traveled only during mornings, you see, because it usually took us all day and night to do . . . to do what we had to. If this is the road we flew over, we should hit two or three places before sunset."
Parric nodded, heard Lupozny release a long-held breath and knew a moment’s telepathy: the townlet Peg had referred to was most likely another experimental Town, one that hugged the road to test directly the androids’ chances of human acceptance. Jessica tried to extract more information, most of which was useless since the mediteam had only hovered a few minutes before resuming their travel. Peg remarked that they had been puzzled because the settlement wasn’t on their itinerary.
“How far?’’ Parric wanted to know.
Peg shrugged. “Now that you’ve got me thinking, we should have been there already.’’
“The girl’s magic,’’ Ike said, and Parric turned to see the road take a slight dip before forking. To the left it continued into the hills, reappearing at intervals as though it had been woven into the landscape; to the right it crossed a tiny wooden footbridge and stopped. In the tongue that extended less than a hundred meters beyond the bridge were three barely distinguishable parallel grooves.
“Yes, that’s it,’’ Peg said excitedly. “I’d know it even from here.’’
Ike pulled the landcar to the side of the road, depressing the brake but keeping the motor running. “I don’t dare stop it,’’ he said when Parric asked if he wanted to get out and look. “If I do, I may not be able to start it again. And you’d better hurry because we’re running low on fuel.’’
Parric nodded and, without waiting for either of the women to volunteer company, he unlocked and lifted the side door, cocked it, and climbed out.
There was nothing to see, less to hear. The stream under the bridge had long ago faded, its bed blanketed with weeds and fallen needles and leaves. As he approached the grooves, he felt none of the anticipatory residual electricity and knew at once the barrier was down, either by design or accident. Using the grass-cushioned shoulder to quiet his footsteps, he passed into the Town proper, moving hurriedly as he searched the two short blocks for signs of their inhabitants. There were three houses, an all-purpose government store, and what he supposed was the clinic. He tried every door, and all were unlocked, all buildings empty, all except the last.
When he finally decided to check the clinic’s examining room, he shoved aside the door, immediately wheeled around and gagged. The floor was littered with the bodies of half a dozen mangled androids, each torn apart and its limbs scattered; there was no blood, but Parric’s mind provided it. Unwilling to cross the room, he stumbled out the front and, using the building for support, made his way to the backyard. Two more in equal sets of destruction, and the body of a man. His face was unrecognizable, his arms missing, and when Parric heard distant crashing in the woods beyond, he fled, waving his arms in front of him as though trying to brush away what he had seen like a spider’s web that clung to his face.
Ike needed no further urging than the look on Parric’s face to set the landcar in motion, almost leaving before Parric had closed the door. No one spoke to him until the road had unraveled a kilometer behind them.
Then, “What?”
“Jess,” he said, “you wouldn’t believe it.” He closed his eyes, opened them quickly. “All the androids, at least I think it was all, pulled apart like they were made of paper.”
“Did you check around the barrier?”
“No.” Flatly.
“I don’t blame you,” Ike said, grunting to keep the car on the road and wind it to its highest possible speed.
“Was there a ... a doctor?” Peg asked and, when Parric looked at her, said, “They told me about you when you were gone.”
He tried to smile, knew it flashed crooked. “We never expected anything like this. Not in a hundred years. And yes, there was a doctor." He waited, sighed gratefully when he wasn’t asked to elaborate. A man killed, androids destroyed, and it was obvious none was done by a human. It’s possible they destroyed each other, but then, he thought, who had dismembered the last android?
“There was something coming in the woods. That’s what got me running or I would have stopped to get some food.”
“Forget it,” Ike said. “I’m not all that hungry. I suppose I’m too fat anyway.”
“Lose any more,” Jess said, “and your camera’ll be bigger than you.”
Ike made a noise that might have been a laugh.
“What was it in the woods, Frank?”
“Don’t know, Jess.”
“That’s the second time, third if you count the car being pushed out of its hiding place.”
“Third time for what?” Ike and Peg asked simultaneously, and Jessica explained about the noise Parric had heard the night before.
“Are we being followed?” Peg asked, the intensely frightened look ghosting her face once again.
“I don’t think so,” Parric said quickly. “We’re in this car, remember? If we’re being followed, it would have to be on foot, and no one can travel that fast.”
“You ever try running from a riot?” Ike said, then shook his head. “Forget it. And in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been climbing, not dropping. Deeper into the mountains. Hills. Foothills, Whatever they call them.’’
Parric shaded his eyes with one hand to see past the glare of a white sun that swung back and forth directly in front of them as the road edged along the erratic curve of the slopes. It was true, he realized when the humid haze veiling the horizon thinned to permit sight of the higher peaks, and he couldn’t help feeling a palpable relief; the mountains were something he could look at and count upon being there whenever he needed them, stolidly erect between him and the terror that stalked even the daylight hours.
They stopped twice. The first alongside a shaded clearing to ease the cramps in their backs and legs. During the second stretch of riding, Parric squeezed himself into the back, allowing Peg to sit with Ike, who was driving slower now, barely reaching 30 kpm as the road roughened and oftentimes narrowed to the width of the car. Jessica spent most of the time watching where they had been, but the sense of immediate danger faded as they filled the small compartment with talk, summoning memories that had lost their meaning, forcing exclamations of delight at the scenery less appreciated than the dread of its shadows. Parric stared at the back of Lupozny’s head, wanting an opportunity to assist, refusing to volunteer at the risk of angering him again. There was little physical fear involved, but a definite dismay at the continuing sniping at his confidence. He told himself he was imagining it, twisting Ike’s words to suit his own depression, but he couldn’t make himself believe it.
They passed through a deserted village. Stopping at the far end, Lupozny shattered the seals of a fuel pump and filled the landcar to its capacity while Jessica and Peg broke into a nearby house to bring back pans of oven wall food and news that a discovered comunit was as useless and dead as Parric’s had been. They ate quickly, in silence, sitting on the ground with their backs to the main street. Trees pointed shadows like flattened lances, shifting as a nightwind crept in early to lift the dust and set leaves scratching across untended grass.
Where did they go? Parric wondered as he climbed back into the car, automatically resuming his seat behind Ike. Did they run before or after their inoculations? Perhaps they had reverted to savagery and had melted into the hills; perhaps ContiGov had led them away to a relocation center of sorts. He was considering the possibility of all of them having died when Peg pointed to the right, up a thinly covered hill.
“A house,” she said.
Parric only shrugged while Jessica hunched her legs and spun around to see for herself.
“Hey, there’s another,” she said.
When he bent forward, Parric could see, more than halfway up, swiftly vanishing glimpses of low, flat-roofed homes. He blinked and rubbed his eyes to clear them of weariness, and knew he wasn’t mistaken when he saw brief glinting moments of reflection that seemed suspended in the air.
“A Town,” he said. “Ike, find a way up. That barrier is still good. We could stay the night if everything’s clear.”
Ike drove a kilometer further, then pulled off to the side, squeezing the landcar into a flattened area barely its size. “Can’t get up there in this,’’ he said. “If we go, we have to leave it.’’
“But you said if you shut it down, you might—’’
“—not be able to get it started, that’s right. But the way I feel now, I’ll take that chance.’’
The women agreed, and Parric had no choice but to listen to the unaccustomed silence as the whine receded and died. But once outside, he refused to climb until they had at least made an attempt to cover the car with brush and leaves.
“What for?’’ said Ike, already leaving. “We haven’t seen anyone all damned day, for crying out loud.’’
“Somebody might take it, and we’re not that close to McLeod yet.’’
Ike stopped, turned, and pointed. “Look. Dr. Parric, I don’t know why you’re so damned excited about getting to this guy, and right now I think maybe your mind’s a little baked. What we should be doing is heading for a city where there’s people, soldiers, anyone who can tell us what’s going on. Do you realize the whole thing could be over now and we’re running around like a ... a ... a I don’t know what?’’
“Ike,’’ Jessica said, climbing to him, stopping when he backed angrily away. “Ike, for God’s sake, you saw what happened to that Town back there, and the village.’’
“We’re kilometers from nowhere, Jess, and the people around here would run if I said boo.’’
“McLeod could be in trouble,’’ Parric said quietly.
“So what? I don’t know him. Jess doesn’t, and neither does Peg. He’s probably like that poor bastard in the last place.’’
“Don’t!” Parric said, his throat closing to prevent the words he was thinking from boiling like acid onto the road. “He may need us. Peg’s a nurse. She could help.”
“She could help a lot more in some city, Parric." He took another step away, then wheeled and began to climb. Jessica remained as she was until he called, and she followed.
"Go ahead,” Parric said to Peg, who looked to him, confused. “I’ll be up in a second. There’s something I want to do.”
She balked a moment more, then hurried to catch up with the others.
The landcar creaked as it settled into the cool air pushed by the wind, and he kicked at it once before grabbing handfuls of debris and scattering it over the roof. He worked rapidly, faster, until he was running with bushes yanked by their roots, throwing, arranging, nearly crying in frustration when the car refused to disappear. He imagined Ike’s face set into the ground and crushed it with as big a rock as he could lift. He ran into the road, looked forward and back, his arms spread to catch whatever might come his way; and when he tired, he climbed, slowly and carelessly, no longer worrying that he might be heard.
“Hey!” And he looked up.
Jessica was standing in the now-familiar cleared area in from the barrier. Parric felt the hair on his arms lift and knew the Town’s protection was still activated. A good sign, and he instantly regretted how childishly he’d acted, mutely thanking the women for not mentioning it or asking what had taken him so long.
"Come on, Frank," Peg said, coming partway down 'to meet him, taking his arm and pulling. “Jess already let Ike in. We were waiting for you.”
“Good, thanks," he said, and in a minute was standing at the end of a street that could have been his own except for the houses: they were burned out, on the right charred and splintered, on the left totally destroyed with only a few contorted beams standing. Planks and grotesquely convoluted lengths of metal were strewn on the lawns and tarmac. Panic’s elationx drained as he walked with the women, keeping well away from wreckage still smoldering.
“Where’s Ike?” he said when they’d covered the four blocks, seeing the clinic the only building undamaged.
Jessica shrugged, was mirrored by Peg.
“All right, then,” he said, “he’s probably taking some damned pictures. For history. Let’s get the bad hews over with first,” and he moved quickly up the walk to the clinic door, pushed and stepped inside. The building was empty even of its furniture, but he nodded, pleased, that someone had had the foresight to disable the diagunit.
“It’s okay,” he said, returning to the front door. “We’ll look around and see if we can’t scrounge something to use for mattresses and we can sleep in here tonight. I doubt we’ll find any food, but we can try.”
A shout brought him around in a circle. Ike was running out of a house a block away. “In there,” he called, but held up his palms when they started toward him. “It must be like when Doc went into the other one,” he said, deliberately shuddering, then grinning broadly at Parric. “Like a mess of toys in a madhouse. There must be nearly twenty of them.”
Parric frowned. “Wait a minute. Twenty?” “Maybe a few more, why?”
“My Town wasn’t much bigger, and I had forty-seven.”
“Missing,” Peg said, standing closer to him. “Some of them must have gotten out.”
“No, they didn’t,” Ike said and pointed behind them.
There were four, all males, standing shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the street just beyond the clinic. Their hair was gone, their clothes tom or singed off, leaving splotches of black on their skin. Their faces were blank, but Parric knew they were looking at him.
“Frank?” It was Peg, and he realized these were probably the first she had ever seen.
“Ike,” he said without turning around, “there’s some metal lying in the street. Kick something good-sized to me, and find a chunk for yourself." He heard a footstep. “And take it slow. Very.”
