"This
meeting is now convened." Avery Murchison looked round the
folding table that had been set up in the observation room. Mary
Savage, her graying hair wilder than ever, sat at the other end from
him, wheelchair versus wheelchair. Behind Mary's chair sat Selk, one
of her "wizards." To Avery's right were two even frailer
women: the recently widowed Ellen, Avery's mother, and Elsa Chaney,
the mystic, who was filling in for her husband, Tom. To Avery's left
were Wilson, formerly his right-hand man at Ridge, currently of
Murchison's, and Emilio of New Ames. All sat in expectant attention.
Ro-eena, the Recorder, sat unobtrusively in a corner. Her red hair
was longer than Avery had last seen it, and she was braiding it
absent-mindedly. He knew that though she was gazing out the thick
quartz window toward the white snows of the Three Sisters, she
wouldn't miss a thing.
"Wednesday, May
25, 2051. Thank you for meeting with us on a full moon, ladies."
This was greeted with tolerant chuckles; meetings held on or near the
new moon had been known to fall apart over histrionics. No one
disputed the connection; most Creek women ovulated with the full moon
and then, two weeks later, went through symptoms that could not
entirely be discounted. Not that it affected their work in general,
but meetings had sometimes been a noted exception.
The joke was that, Ro-eena excepted, those present were well past
menopause.
"Agenda? One; visitors. Two;
patrols. Three; prospects for the year, agriculturally. Four; state
of the armory. Five; matters concerning Karen, 'munitions engineer.'
These last two are related? Hmm, okay. Six; proposal by Selk to
investigate the purpose of the control console – I presume this one
behind me? – the purpose for which the console was constructed.
Take them in order?"
Heads nodded.
"Okay, one; visitors."
Emilio and
Wilson looked at each other. Wilson gestured with an open hand to
Emilio, who looked round the table and cleared his throat. "We
have exchanged visitors with the Roundhouse tribe and have a few
observations. A Mr. Josep, one of their leaders, stayed two weeks in
the Clinic in the care of Doctor Marcee under Doctor Tom's
supervision. He's young, healthy, mentally agile, enterprising, and
has been surprisingly forthcoming. His people are not what we would
call well-to-do; a few crops, dogs. They've become expert
hunter-gatherers and trackers. They've been encouraged by adverse
circumstances to take up residence in a single fortified building,
hence their name, and have suffered some attrition through
deprivation and warfare, as we have. Notably they've reportedly
encountered different invaders than we, which tends to confirm our
impression that the risk of new hostilities may come from more than
one source. Mr. Tomma has visited with the tribe and his story
corroborates that of Mr. Josep. You may refer to Ro-eena here for
details."
Emilio cleared his throat
again. "Several on the Creek have said it might be useful to
encourage wider visitation with a view to recruiting the Roundhouse
people to join with us in our life here, perhaps by, it would be,
stages – say five to ten people at a time. We are very short on
labor of all kinds at present."
Elsa
raised her hand. "What about religion? I've heard some
unsettling things."
"Yes, it would
be the Christianity. Roundhouse has a version what used to be called
Evangelical Protestantism, with emphasis on adult conversion, baptism
by immersion, and 'worship' once every seven days. They regard the
adult conversion as characterized by something called 'redemption,'
after which the deity 'provides' what is prayed for, in the 'worship'
time and whenever one prays. Those whose requests are fulfilled more
frequently than the rest are regarded as the 'favored' of the deity,
and respected accordingly. Mr. Josep is foremost among these, and as
such, though very young, is what we would call an elder; I think they
use the term, but with a different, it would be, intent, than
we."
"All innocuous enough; but
have they commented on our social ... our ways in any way? What I'm
getting at is views that might be prejudicial to an intensified
relationship between us and them."
"That
would be the 'unsettling' part. I have visited with Mr. Josep. He
does not say so, directly, but I think he does not think highly of
Jeeah. And Tomma and Vernie are a worry to him."
Here Ellen raised her hand, and Ro-eena called on her. "The not
saying so is a help. At least, so far, they're not the Lawsons."
Avery nodded, over his shoulder, to Ro-eena, and she called his name.
"I think, from what Mr. Emilio says, there is a sentiment abroad
to ask Roundhouse to send a few more people for another round of
acclimatization, to feel out possible cooperative ventures. Eventual
joint patrols, say. Does anyone here object at this stage?"
Elsa signaled to Ro-eena impatiently, and before Ro-eena could
respond, put in: "Assuming we behave ourselves and they
behave themselves, none at all. But I'd also query the
stores – can we feed them?"
Avery looked to Ro-eena, who waved her hand resignedly. "Well,
that leads into item three. Shall we skip Wilson's patrol stuff for
the moment?" Heads nodded. "I can tell you that we're not
in a terrific position here at Ridge, with the granary, veggie
seed and root storage. Things have worn thin over the last
year. Inadequate irrigation, insufficient labor for fall harvests of
course, uncooperative weather, and transportation from field to here
was very slow, with too much exposure in transit. We've had to hold a
lot of things on the farms, and there has been loss to molds and
such, and to vermin. Wilson?"
"It's
bad. The favas were not planted 'til March, and, worse, we'll have no
winter wheat, to which ever'one was looking forward. It's a hot
spring this year, and we've been in a rush with th' oats, barley and
veggies. Potatoes are lookin' good, but if we lose this crop there'll
be no seed potatoes – no reserve at all – and of course there's
no place to get more."
Emilio lifted a
hand. "Irrigation is a matter for concern. We are behind on the
production of fabric and the windmills have fared poorly over the
winter. People are requesting that electricity be at least run from
Ridge to operate pumps in the Creek."
"By 'people' I presume mainly you mean the Bledsoes?" asked
Avery.
Wilson signed to Ro-eena and replied.
"Yes, Armon at Bledsoe has gone 'round the Creek suggesting that
Ridge wants all the juice for itself, for political
advantage."
Elsa fairly exploded. "What
is with those people? They're our neighbors at Chaney and
Murchison, but when we ask or offer help with the planting they make
excuses; and I'm hearing about hoarding there, too."
Ro-eena sat with her hand half-raised, unsure if procedure had been
abandoned. Avery smiled over his shoulder at her, and she voiced his
name, almost in a whisper.
"Well, Wilson
has fingered it; Mr. Armon has taken upon himself a work of
dissension on the Creek, by representing Ridge as despotic in some
way. Are we?"
Dr. Mary signalled
to reply. "A fair question, m'lad. You're the heir apparent to
the elder Murchisons, who have been seen, by most, as the Adam and
Eve of our little world. Yet you're seldom seen, or rather, in recent
years, through no fault of your own, never seen, except by
those who have direct business here. So there's a 'Lord Avery
brooding on the heights' perception that will be tough to live down,
even if all your actions are completely benign."
Ellen started to raise an objection, but Mary plowed on. "It's
about perception, my dear; and I'm about to tar myself wi' th' same
brush. I'm 'Savage' Mary, remember; it even says so on our
maps, f'goodness' sake. And I'm only a hair more ambulatory
than your boy, Ellen, so some folks have barely or never laid eyes on
me in all these years. Th' situation begs for a mystique, and
people who feel themselves deprived by war and famine will easily
latch on to that and embellish it to what they'll perceive as their
best ends. And we have done little but play into that; the
secretiveness about Ridge over the years, then we let word out
there's power here, but keepin' it all to ourselves."
Avery and Ellen both raised their hands, but Mary held out hers, palm
up. "Not done! I know; we're doin' th' right things an'
for th' right reasons, an' th' 'reactor' should be used sparingly to
extend its useful life. But we have communicated this poorly, because
we've all been anxious to put our heads down an' make hay while the
sun shines. Kiddos, I think we have been guilty of a little hubris,
and it may come home to roost. I have had a shakeup lately that gives
me some insight; but I'll clam up now and let Mr. Avery think his way
out of the consequences of our isolation." She grinned. "Out
loud, of course."
Avery signed again,
looking to Ellen, who acquiesced by putting out her hand, palm down,
toward Ro-eena. "Do you mean it's time for a proposal?" he
asked.
"I dunno, do you have one?"
asked Mary, grinning.
Emilio, who'd been in a
brown study, came to life and signed. "I too have had my
thoughts about this thing."
Everyone
turned to him. "Morale is low; where morale is low, those who
would profit from disorder will seek to increase disorder. Let us
hold a spring festival, and, though it is logistically inconvenient,
let Ridge attend – in the valley, it may be."
Almost everyone lit up at the suggestion. "And hold open house
up here after we get back!" said Wilson, out of turn.
"Is that an amendment?" asked Avery, signing hurriedly.
"Umm, sure."
"We'll have to
consider it separately; there might be security considerations. Mary?
You look unconvinced."
"Oh, well.
'Bread and circuses.'"
"I'm not
sure I know the reference but I can guess its meaning. So, I sense
Emilio has a proposal – " Avery looked to Ro-eena.
She summed up. "Let us hold a spring festival, and let Ridge
attend."
"Discussion?" All
eyes followed Avery's to Mary's.
Mary waved
her hand. "It's a start. Gotta check our pulse sometime."
"Well, if there's consensus – Emilio, how shall we present
this idea without a prior scheduled GM?"
Emilio considered. "From us here, this should not come. I will
see if Juanita will like to have a great idea."
"Settled? Amendment?"
"Lots of
decisions have been made in council lately," offered Wilson.
"And this isn't really even council. So, let's have this
festival, and then an open house, and schedule a GM, get everything
out into th' open and winnowed, then we can all buckle down an' try
not to starve next winter."
"I like
it. Consensus on that?"
Nods all
round.
"All right. Item four –
armory."
:::
Billee
sat in the shade of a boulder, and Karen leaned back against it. The
upper valley of the Calapooia wound east into the hills at their
feet. Out of sight to the right, both knew, the hole in the ground
that had been the Lawsons' house was already healing, carpeted with
new fireweed. Across the river, three buzzards sailed lazily in an
updraft, and near them a hawk flew steadily off, pestered by a small
blackbird, toward the distant hills.
Karen
inhaled the strange, to her, air of the heights. A sachet of lichens,
mosses, and May flowers, vaporized by an unrelenting sun, hung round
the summit.
"Like it?" asked
Billee.
"Of course. It's not much like
the Creek, is it?"
"No; Mr. Avery
says it's a different buy-home."
"'Biome.' One word; means the plants and animals here have to
meet different conditions, so they're a different mix."
"Uh-huh. Whatever, it smells like my-home to me."
"You've lived here for some time."
"All my life. Don't remember any place else."
"Your folks?"
"What folks I
have are the Ridge crew, and now you and all the Marys'. I was found
way little –" she made a pinching gesture with her
thumb and forefinger "– and brought to Ridge because one of
the girls that was here then had lost a baby."
"She adopted you?"
"No, just
fed me till I could get onto solid food. Then she moved back to
Bledsoes."
"Oh."
"Yeah, 'Oh.' So, I've been underfoot ever since."
"And you're –what – thirteen now, and a war vet, and
marriageable age."
"Huh! I don't
know my age. Lotsa foundees here don't. Well, everybody is in the
habit of thinking I'm still, I dunno, five or something. I was
the only kid, except for Mo-reen, and they all acted like she was
a grown-up from th'
git-go."
Billee stood up, leaning on her
bow. "Mr. Avery, I think, he sees me as a – repeat? Umm, one
thing for another, that's lost?"
"Substitute?"
"Yeah,
substitute Mo-reen, but in a little-girl way. Mo-reen was a soldier,
she got around, she got responsibility; I get to go peek over th'
hill and run back, over an' over. I maybe shouldn't complain; it feeds
me an' I like the hillside. But, mmh, I got stuff in me I
never get to show."
"Maybe I'd be,
in your place, glad I never had to show it."
Billee's eyes widened. "Oh, well, you've been around
enough to last anybody."
"Billee,
get this. Almost none of it has been fun. I sense what
you think you need; and trust me, once you get there, maybe it will
taste just like yesterday's ashes. That's if you're lucky.
Mo-reen wasn't."
:::
"Item
five. Karen ... ?" Avery raised his eyebrow at Dr. Mary.
"That face you make; I assume it means I have th' floor,"
she said, sardonically. "Well, I just want to do a little
confessing, s'all, and we can get back to Selk, and then Wilson. Good?"
"Sure, Mary, what's to
'confess'?" asked Avery, both eyebrows lifted.
"Well, that girl, I see her as prone to court risks. She
runs out and gets her arm blown off when I'm looking for her, then I
find her, then she goes home for a 'weekend', sends me a runner
asking for an extension, I grant it and it runs to three weeks,
and she comes back a widow, and starts barfing all over the
lab, and I find out I've got to re-rig to keep her further away from
the fumes, which is the very stuff that's her work."
Elsa, Wilson, Ellen and Emilio all opened their mouths at once. Mary
held up her hand, palm out.
"I know,
I'm just describing how it looked inside my wonky old head, 'K? So I
blew up. Substance, if any, was she's a soldier and a scientist and
how did getting knocked up fit into her mission. And she says ...
hang on a minute ... l'never forget this ... " Mary's eyes
watered up, a new sight to those present.
"What?" asked Avery, softly.
"...
says, 'we soldier and science for the Creek, yes, ma'am?' and I said,
'well, yeah.' And she puts her hand on her bump and says, 'well,
ma'am, this is the
Creek
.'"
Wilson grinned. "That
does sound like her."
"So, anyway,"
Mary went on, "just so ya know, as I was never married and never
had kids and was just starting to think I'd kinda adopted one ...
well, I just hit panic mode." She placed her hands on the
arms of her wheelchair and glared across the table.
Avery rolled his eyes, then signed to Ro-eena.
"I take it there was no AWOL."
"Oh,
we see-sawed back and forth and then Emilio here intervened for th'
kid. She's in th' clear. Just sayin', we hit a rough patch an' it was
my doin'." And I'm not about to tell you I spent
decades trying to get pregnant myself.
Ellen reached across and – a bit apprehensively – patted Mary's
hand. "So, you're confessing you're about to become a
grandmother."
Mary almost crumpled –
but held herself together. "Wise ass."
"Umm, is this over?" asked Avery. "Okay, good. Item
six."
Everyone turned to Selk.
:::
"I
do not very much see the
point of keeping him alive, my lord. He has been a
danger to you for years. He
recruited half the able-bodied young men in the area for his little
bid for parity. Had it worked, they would have come here to conquer
you. That is a given. And now you are short of forces."
She lifted the porcelain cup to her pursed
lips and paused, inhaling the aroma of coffee. It had been vacuum
packed before the Undoing – at least twenty years ago; but it would
have to do. Everything, nowadays, would have to do. The morning sun
glinted from her auburn tresses and pearl earrings as she shook her
head.
If, he thought, and not
for the first time, she could have had that pronounced nose and
that bit of overbite worked on in days gone by, she'd have been the
beauty of the age. But then, her tastes being what they are, that
smile would always have been chilling. I like it; not many
would – or do. "My dear, that's why I enjoy havin' ya
around. You're direct; and your calculation of the human equation is
precise."
He looked past her at his own
reflection. Not that I'm
a prize – not in that way. Stoop-shouldered, slightly paunched,
hair thinned almost to the vanishing point, the unremarkable-looking
man in suspenders that peered back at him from the refectory window
wore bifocals that were not even his own prescription – where would
one find an optometrist now? Perhaps there would be one in Port Land,
if he could ever extend his sphere of influence that far. Everything,
except his own will to power, remained forever slightly out of focus,
and lent to his eyelids that slightly swollen and red-rimmed look
that belongs to those with insomnia. Yet he had always slept the
sleep of the righteous. Not in that way; but power is its own
aphrodisiac.
Shifting his vision, he
looked briefly though the window at the activity in the courtyard.
Two of his more trusted men, former Kluxers, were conducting routine
maintenance on an old Army truck. On its flatbed, covered by a canopy
of old blue tarps, stood a diesel generator, idling gently round the
clock. It sipped at a fuel line from one of hundreds of barrels of
fuel –the source of much of his regional hegemony – and converted
the oil, with dreadful inefficiency but great practicality, into
electricity for the old base headquarters.
Beyond the truck, under armed guard, sat his great pride and joy –
a functional LAV-35, which the Army must have requisitioned from the
Marines in that last brief war.
"We
tested the chain gun a few days ago," he remarked.
"Really? I did not hear it." She lifted her plucked
eyebrows at him across her cup.
"You
were in the cell block, Doctor, training your A & P students.
It's well sound-proofed there, as ya know. The Army, back in the day,
was sensitive about the carrying distance of screams. I, ah, tested
that m'self," he added wryly, almost reaching to touch, through
his white cambric shirt, the scars he still bore.
"So. Did all shells function?" She set down the cup and
attacked, with a silver fork, a plateful of scrambled ostrich
egg.
"Ignition of all three primers and
explosion of all three rounds – on target, I might add. Destroyed a
little outcrop on the Butte. You woulda wondered at the fire it made
– scorched half an acre. Some of the boys had roast rattlesnake for
breakfast yesterday." He lifted a forkful of fried chevon, and
chewed slowly. "Still a bit of smoke drifting around."
"Then my old scheme of rounding up all dessicants in the remains
of the city and packing them into the munitions bunker has borne
fruit." She smiled that crooked smile.
"Yes, and you are to be thanked, honored, admired, adored, and
elevated to a place of worship by all the Volunteers."
"You are flattering, my lord, but I know well I am but to be
tolerated by them. Yours is a very male enclave. But as to
your prisoner. He should not live."
"I
understand ya; but he's been to two places of interest."
"And they are?"
"A source of
small arms in working condition, with good ammunition. This is
real clear from the weapon he hid in the brush when he moved on our
outpost. This fits in with what he did tell Mullins. I'd like to have
that source. It would help us in our balance of power with the
Eastern Tribes. That treaty has held, but as you know, it's shaky.
There are far more of them than there are of us, and we haven't quite
the leverage to simply assimilate them as yet."
"The other?"
"He's
clearly been near the DARPA facility that we found on th' Army's
maps. There are people in possession."
"Ooh."
"Exactly. What that was
for, I have no idea, but the little documentation I've uncovered
suggests there'd have been an independent power source. We haven't
the manpower or the expertise – yet – to rebuild any full-size
dynamos. If it can be acquired and put in service, I want it."
"Did he see the actual site?"
"I
have no idea as yet. These two things he has chosen not to report; it
could be vital information."
A fly
touched down on the Formica tabletop and began creeping hopefully
toward the unfinished egg. The Doctor watched it for a few seconds,
then suddenly clapped her hands together, directly behind and above
the crawling fly, which leaped to its death between her palms. She
shook the tiny corpse off onto the tiled floor and reached for a
sanitary wipe. "I begin to see how it is," she said. "Your
man hopes to find some form of leverage in what he has withheld, or
hopes yet to escape and make good the knowledge in some way,
independent of you – or worse, and this is what I have believed all
along, and why I have urged his termination – he has come here to
depose you and assume lordship himself."
"With all that I am in agreement, dear Doctor, and it's why he
has been so closely held."
"With
all due respect, my lord, your Volunteers should be able to canvass
the northern reaches just as he did, and, if not find the weapons, at
least invest the power plant, saving your invaluable fuel oil for
transportation and enforcement work."
"And it may easily come to just that, honey. Are you going ta
finish those eggs?"
She offered him the
plate. He reached for her fork with one hand and a bottle of syrup
with the other. "The problem is that as Wolf got near that power
plant, he lost exactly thirty good men, a shotgun, and a pistol in
about four days. It's not like him. Something's up with that
place. I don't want my army to go in there blind if I can help
it."
The Doctor winced at her lord's
table manners; she pulled a paper napkin from the booth's dispenser,
unfolded it and dropped it in his lap. "Well, then, we will
place every resource at your disposal, my lord."
Absent-mindedly, he thanked her for the napkin. "As to
resources, why, you always have, my dear; wouldn't have it any other
way. And, oh, my, I do thank you for your supervision of the
prisoner; the intravenous feeding has been a help. Now, has he had
his preliminary dose yet?"
"Yes, my
lord; we used the phecyclidine we found in the veterinary building at
the animal park. I was surprised to see it there; it is very
stressful for the animals. You might know it as angel dust. One-tenth
CC of that concentration will have given him a most extraordinary
night, after these weeks of sensory deprivation, and he should be
ready for the SP-117, at your convenience."
He cracked his broadest smile, the one that had made him a success in
the showroom to the very end, when even the rich had begun at last to
doubt the eventual utility of automobiles.
"My dear, you are the marvel of the age."
"But of course, my lord."