Q: We can check on it. Who brought you to Oak Ridge?
A: Ab — about a dozen people. Rides. You know…
Q: Captain Chartrand says you had a scout uniform on beneath your coverall when you came aboard.
A: (NOD)
Q: Tell us about it in your own words, Ted.
A: I, uh, had a scout uniform on beneath my coverall. Uh, when I came aboard.
Q: Um-hmm. Now tell us what it's like to rescue a delta.
A: Felt pretty good, sir.
Q: There are some fellows your age who would give anything to serve our country as you've done, Ted. What do you have to say to them?
A: (SHRUG)
Q: I'll put it another way. Ted Quantrill, what have you learned from your Oak Ridge experience?
A: Kill the sonofabitch. Uh, I'm sorry. I have to go.
Kraft and Bixby waved cheerful goodbyes as Quantrill limped away to find friends in yellow flight suits. By the time the tape was massaged into news, fifteen-year-old Ted Quantrill would be edited into a model scout. Like all media professionals, the interviewers shared an easy cynicism about the moments that would remain non-news.
Juliet Bixby studied her rival over her coffee cup. "That last question of yours was a heller, Kraft."
"News to me. I couldn't open him up at all."
"Oh, but you did." Shuddering: “Once when I was about five, I got separated from my parents at the San Diego zoo. I sat down in a quiet place, just waiting for them to catch up, and I kept having this funny feeling. And then I looked over my shoulder. Right on the other side of the bars from me was the biggest, cold-heartedest-lookjng Bengal tiger I have ever seen. Just looking down at me, like you'd study a chocolate drop. Well, that was how the kid looked, right at the last. No anger or remorse, Kraft — just cold competence."
"Christ, how you dramatize! Anyhow, he'll be only tonight's hero, Bix. Tomorrow he'll be forgotten."
"Maybe," said the famous Bixby contralto, "but not by me. You'll never catch me stepping between that little fucker and anything he really wants."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The full extent of the logistics problem faced by the US in late August of 1996 was only dimly visible to any fifteen-year-old — and scarcely less so to the Quartermaster General. During the next week, while the Norway's gondola grew small projectile ports like pimples, Quantrill learned to pay less attention to holovision and more to what was happening around him. Holo charts, for instance, showed only a series of paranthrax hotspots east of the Alleghenies. Late summer harvests were supposedly a success with decontamination procedures and, admittedly, a new standard of acceptable contaminants. Yet Quantrill knew that the National Guard was now prohibiting any traffic across the Mississippi River because, after convincing medics that he no longer needed a thigh crutch, he served on the Norway's overnight flight which supplied intrusion detectors to troops on the west bank. And the short-range missile pods under the Norway's gondola suggested a breakdown of law and order. He inferred more about the scope of immunology when Bemie Grey told him what the Norway would deliver halfway across Texas to an A & M—"Aggie" — research station in Sonora.
Quantrill was learning to polymer-bond glass rope to a shackle fitting at the time. "Twelve thousand hamsters?" He squinted at Bemie's long horse-face, suspecting a joke.
"Plus life-support stuff, plus breedin' cages. And if you don't lay that shackle down, pard, the exotherm's gonna zap your fingers."
Quantrill did as he was told, saw a faint swirl of vapor from the aperture where the glass rope fitted, resumed his train of thought. "I thought Sonora was in Mexico."
"Bite your tongue," Bernie glowered, and winked. "We're still a little edgy about bein' confused with Mexico." He went on to explain that Sonora, Texas, was suitably isolated for immunological work, with natural caves and facilities for researchers dating back many years. "There's Aggie research stations all over. I grant there ain't much to see but you're welcome to come cuss it with me." Bernie held the shackle fitting by the rope; nodded.
"Bernie, where'd you learn your trade?"
"Rice University." Sigh: "Gone with the rest of Houston, I reckon. I was a basketball jock, but they had good courses in Aerospace structures. I got along."
"Personal question; okay?"
"Flog it by me."
"Why does everybody in Texas talk like old cowboy movies?"
Bernie Grey threw his head back and guffawed, then mimed a mystified fool. “Beats hell outa me, Ted." Sobering, still amused: "We don't all do it, and I don't do it all the time. You can't run a high-tech cargo system with cowpoke's lingo. Call it a linguistic badge; it tells folks you won't have no truck with eastern shuck."
Quantrill found himself smiling for the first time in a week. "But it is a shuck. Isn't it?"
"Yup. One you could stand to learn if you're here long. Just don't pile it on too deep 'til you learn how to spread it. And don't feel obliged. It ain't your fault if you can't carry the tune."
Quantrill followed Bernie to the great dome where deltas underwent refitting, watched the rope terminal pass a tensile test, listened while his friend rhapsodized on the favorite topic of Texans: Texas. Despite the leveling influence of media, a state the size of Texas had plenty of room for subcultures. A Beaumont Cajun's dialect might be barely intelligible to an Odessa roughneck unless one of them had traveled a bit. Geography had something to do with it, but much of it was a matter of choice. Only half joking, Bernie argued that air conditioning had nearly destroyed the urban Texan's identity, his acceptance of occasional hard times and determination to survive them with good humor.
"Wouldn't be a bit surprised," said Bernie, "if the war brought back the old frontier in some parts. There's fellers in Fort Stockton still packin' Colts to use on rattlers and road-signs. And the weather drives the sissies out; in Sonora the sun'll melt the fillin's outa your teeth."
Quantrill assumed a slightly bowlegged slouch. "Purely makes a feller mean, don't it?"
Bernie cocked his head, fighting a grin, and nodded. “Too many sharps and flats, pard, but you got a good ear fer-bullshit. You'll do," he added, letting the grin come, ruffling Quantrill's hair. "Now let's get this shackle on the Norway. We'll be liftin' about three ayem; put us over Sonora by breakfast."
Quantrill groaned. "Doesn't anything start in broad daylight?"
"You bet it does." Lowering his voice as they passed an Aggie undergrad in the tunnel, Bernie continued. "Cap'n says we shot down an Indian photorecon job near Lake Charles today. You can bet it didn't fly from New Delhi."
"Mexico? Jeez, I thought they were on our side."
"They were 'til they joined OPEC and didn't need us anymore. If you know any history, you can't blame 'em. But cap'n thinks that recon ship came from somewhere off the gulf coast. If there's more, — well, we'd be sugar candy for some fuckin' Injun on a long sortie. So we're goin' tonight. We don't make much of a signature for night fighters."
"Boy, that's a weird idea," Quantrill said.
"What?"
"One of those guys shooting us down."
"Weird ain't exactly how I'd put it."
"It is if you think about it. Here we go again: cowboys and Indians."
Bernie Grey paused with his hand on a mooring strut of the Norway; shook his head. "I swan if this kid ain't one for the books." In mock dejection, he climbed into the airship.