“Why aren’t they shooting?” I ask. It’s unnatural, not returning heat.
“Patience,” Joe says, shaking his head. He does not know, does not believe our luck, if luck it is and not a pregnant pause. The Antags have us right where they want us. Why not just blast away?
Are they afraid of damaging the Drifter?
“Two more Tonkas around the left,” Joe says after the first pair have vanished beyond the left shoulder. They are followed by the General Puller—the Chesty. The big Trundle has stopped firing and is soon kicking up a plume behind the Chesty. If I were Joe, I’d station the Trundle and a couple of Deuces just around the northern slope of the Drifter.
And so he does.
But there’s still no Antag response.
“I know just what they’re going to do,” Joe says. “They’re going to wait until we’re all inside, then they’re going to nuke us from orbit and boil us like lobsters.”
“Don’t think that will work, Joe, sir,” I say.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it’s big and deep.”
And because they want the Drifter as much as we do?
“But nukes would seal us in, wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe.”
I ask myself what it would be like to live like moles forever, breathing green dust, struggling to raise crops in the faded glimmer of hydroelectric power from a hobo that’s mostly drained away. What’ll that give us, a couple of months before we start dining on raw Voor and I fight for Teal’s honor, or the Antags dig us out—
Joe sees my pensive gaze. “Stop thinking, shithead,” he says. “Sorry to engage your fucking intellect.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there food in there?”
“Some.”
There’ve been no shots since our last platform-mounted bolt cutters. But now an aerostat is on the move above the northwestern horizon, like a small black cloud covering the stars. It will be over us in a few minutes.
Joe looks at me. The vehicles have no doubt piled up behind the lava ridge, at the northern gate. I very much doubt they can all cycle through before the aerostat rains needles.
“Tell them to abandon the last vehicles,” I say to Joe. “Tell them to run to the lock and pack in like Vienna sausages. And do the same at the southern gate.”
“Right,” Joe says.
If the Antags can hear and understand, this will be fun. For them, this will be a rollicking slaughter of frantic little rats. Needles will do the trick—no need to waste energy or big ordnance. Then they can perch on the Drifter and wait out the survivors.
“Our turn, Vinnie,” Joe says. We quickly round the clenched fist of the lava arm and come up on the Skells and Tonkas. Skyrines are leaping out and jogging toward the rusty gate. A quick glance behind shows the aero looming, no more than a few hundred meters until it can loose the first curtain of needles.
We seal helms and exit the buggy’s rear lock together. The run is a blur—feet barely touching sand and dust and rock, skipping, stumbling, rolling and jouncing on the upswing, zigging by abandoned Skells and a Tonka, almost catching up with our fellows, around the rough point of the ridge, into the rocky harbor of the northern gate.
Get in line, except there is no line. Skyrines are bunched up waiting to cycle through. DJ must be crazy, I think, not opening the vehicle lock, the big gate—but then I see it yawn wide, the first crowd has cycled through, and another group packs in—all but twenty making it before there’s absolutely no way to add more without crushing bone or getting caught in the hatch.
The lock closes.
Joe and I stay back. Eighteen others pace, cringing, in the embrace of the ridge.
“Find cover in the rocks!” I call over suit-to-suit.
Seven guys try to fit into one cubby large enough for two. Joe and I have found low ridges we can hide under, if we dig out some sand. I can see him across the harbor, not far from the gate.
Ten left out in the open.
The aero is at zenith. Three or four minutes at minimum until DJ can cycle and open a lock again.
We’ve done our best.
Puffs in the sand. Dozens of little plumes shoot up and fall back quick. The ten out in the open are running around like rats in a dog pit. I can barely hear their screaming. Then I can hardly see for all the needles, a gray haze of falling death. Our stragglers cover their heads with arms and groping hands, but it doesn’t matter—one needle and you go crazy and then, at leisure, twitching on the dust, puff up until your skintight splits its seams.
I can’t bear to watch.
Four gang up to yank two Skyrines from cover, but get kicked off, then give up and just stand slouched under the deluge, heads bowed, hands stiff by their sides. Needles make them flinch.
They look like hedgehogs.
Then they begin that slow, awful dance.
Four more flail out from cover, plucking needles that have swooped in and found them.
Big gate still sealed.
I close my eyes and pray.
LAST EXIT TO HELL
The apartment is cool, almost cold, and sunset outside the window is a faint gray-yellow over the Olympics beyond the sound. I’ve changed out of my robe into civvies, Hawaiian shirt, and jeans. Alice Harper stands by the big window, arms crossed. “Wherever man goes,” she says, and clenches herself tighter, “history sucks.”
Can’t disagree. The bad shit builds as I resurrect these awful memories. I say, “Do you think Green Camp actually wanted to flush Teal out on the Red?” I want, I need, to change the subject.
“Absolutely,” she says. “Rationals believe in tight intellectual order, total logic, everything determined, DNA is fate, blue-blooded pedigree is your only hope—Asians beat whites beat blacks and Hispanics. Like a bloody-minded religion, only don’t tell them that. Everything statistical, mathematically sound… Atheists by law, strict dogmatists, reductionists… Techno-racists. Libertarianism pushed to the ultimate extreme.” She lowers her arms.
I watch her, fascinated by her calm, her weird enthusiasm. I wish I could be like that, feel as she feels right now. Anything not to be me. I say, “Just doesn’t make sense.”
“Use your head. Someone like Teal who apparently insists on one man at a time… no sharesies… She’s baggage. The top bitch would shove her out soon as spit.”
That would be Ally Pecqua, I’m guessing. “Pretty harsh.”
Alice Harper shrugs. “It only got worse when Earth cut the data and stopped sending supplies. Mars not making anybody money, couldn’t pay their bills. Time to slice the umbilical. Might drive anyone over the edge.”
“What in hell are we fighting for, then? If we don’t give a shit about the Red, why not just leave it to the Antags?”
“Because Gurus…” She gives me a stern look. “Rhetorical question, right?”
My turn to shrug. “I’m still out there. In my head. I have to sort it out or I’ll never come home.”
“So tell me more. Tell me what happened with you and Teal,” Alice says.
That’s not easy. I’m having a hard time moving on, still locked on the image of my fellow Skyrines dancing under that curtain of darts, until the aero passes over, circling at the end of its dragline, and the rain stops.
It’s coming back to me now in full force, that awfulness. I’m sweating heavy. I stink like a gymnasium full of wrestlers.
JOE BREAKS COVER and makes a run for the personnel lock gate. He starts pounding on it. Me and four guys join him, we’re all pounding. I can’t hear my fist hitting the hatch. I can’t hear anything. I’m too busy looking down at my arms, my legs, too busy inspecting myself.