The Far Side (37 page)

“Busy morning, eh, Sergeant?” Collum asked Melek cheerfully.

Melek could see the dawning realization among the men.  It wasn’t as though either Collum or Ezra had been in their faces, but the fact was that in the span of a half hour, they had come under attack twice.  Collum had killed one of their enemies and startled another, while Ezra had slain three.  The rest of the men had stood with their mouths agape, Melek included.  And now Collum and Ezra had each killed a dralka and again Melek and the others had been bystanders.

“Busy enough, Sachem.”

Ezra said something and Melek forced himself to listen and understand.  “Sachem, Ezra says it would be best to have breakfast in an hour, far from here.”

“Ezra is no fool.  Tell everyone we go in ten minutes.  If anyone isn’t ready on time, they’ll be on point.”

Sure, odds were, they had just killed the two dralka they’d seen before.  Odds were also that whoever was on the point would find any more dralka first.  It wasn’t a duty you wanted if you could avoid it.

They moved about six miles before they stopped again.  Everyone was weary, and not a little stiff from the night’s interrupted rest.

Melek went to Collum.  “Sachem, I did not see to the watch as I should have last night.”

“You slept, eh?”

“Yes, Sachem.”

“Well, I was going to be on watch because I’m tougher than any three youngsters like you.  I was asleep.  Ezra... he is a stark warrior, and I think he was at least mildly surprised at falling asleep as well.  But you did notice that he was camped away from the rest of us?”

“Yes, Sachem.”

“Remember that in the future.  Tell your guards where to reach you in an emergency; and then go off in the dark by yourself.  It is a risk, of course, but the ability to survive an attack like this one... that’s priceless knowledge.”

“We all survived,” Melek tried to temporize.

Collum jerked his thumb at Ezra and the two young women.  “Surely you’ve noticed who is always up first, eh?”

It was Kris, most of the time and Andie now and then.  So, the odds were that Kris had alerted Ezra.  How could a warrior suffer that kind of shame?

Collum laughed, reading his expression.  “The surviving sort of warrior, Melek.  That’s what battle is all about, really.  You live, they die.  It doesn’t really matter who ‘they’ are, so long as they die.”

“Yes, Sachem.”

Shortly they were back on the trail, none of them taking more than a moment or two before they were ready to go.  They didn’t go far and they certainly didn’t go very fast.  They came to a much smaller lake, and Melek decreed a stop there for the night.

Instead of having different men on watch, he ordered the same schedule as the night before.  None had wanted to be the one to admit he was the first to fall asleep, and Melek didn’t want to punish everyone for a transgression he was guilty of as well.  But everyone not on duty knew how close it was that they’d come to getting killed.

Melek was sure that those three men weren’t likely to fall asleep this night!

After that, they saw no more Tengri and they saw no more dralka.  The pace slowed after a second day that Collum saw that there weren’t any Tengri behind them, and after four days, Melek called a halt for an entire day to rest and to mend equipment.

This time, the halt was next to a stream that a man could step across without getting his feet wet.  They hadn’t really faced any angry torrents, but some of the streams had been broad and fast.  Collum told Melek on the day he ordered the halt, that the next day, he was going to scout along the old road.

They’d seen enough of the road to know that it had been virtually destroyed by the storm, that at every watercourse the runoff had cut it, and the road was going to require at least weeks to make emergency repairs and more months of heavy work to restore.

It was on their ninth day of traveling north that Collum came as the light was fading at midday with a report that he could see a body of men marching south, along the old road, although they were still some ways off.

It was too late to do anything about it; the next day would be soon enough.  He told Ezra who simply nodded and showed no expression.  Andie showed even less; only Kris shrugged, but her face too showed no sign of anything else.  Melek and Collum spent most of the afternoon a distance from the camp, discussing how they wanted to meet the party from Arvala.

The evening was filled, as it usually was, by Chaba telling tales of her life with the Tengri through Rari.  The girl didn’t know much of military value, but there was no doubt at all that her words had an impact on all of them, even Kissom.

* * *

It didn’t take long before a limo pulled up and Jack Schaeffer gave the bemused bystander ten hundred dollar bills, while the others got in the limo.  The exception was Oliver.  “We can’t go without Helen and Linda.”

“Oliver, I’m sending someone in to ask about them now.  He will tell the police, no matter what they tell him, that he will remain available should they be released at some later time.  He will also report to me anything that is said.  We can’t stay here, Oliver.  Kurt is right.  It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that as soon as we try to leave they’ll try to kill us.”

He waved at the limo.  “Except I bought this at a DEA auction -- it’s an armored limo prepared for a former drug kingpin who should have spent more time making sure his tax forms were in order.  If Helen or the other woman comes out, they will have someone here in one minute, I swear.

“If they are unwilling to hurt us, Oliver, they are going to make doubly sure the women aren’t hurt either.”

“Then where are they?”

“Oliver, you know the answer to that as well as I do: I have no idea.  We can do far more from a secure location.”

Olive Boyle let himself be pulled away, however reluctantly.

Jack spent his time on a cell phone and simply refused to lend it to any of the others.

They arrived at the building his law offices were in and they went up in a single elevator, and his assistants prevented anyone else from getting on.

In a few minutes they were in a conference room.  Jack Schaeffer stood at the head of the table.  “In front of you is a notepad.  Please note shirt, pants and shoe sizes.  We’ll get some clothes for you.”

“I’d just as soon go home,” Shorty told him.

Jack Schaeffer sighed.  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but those of us who were guests of the government are now eligible to be called ‘homeless.’”

“They’ve confiscated my home?” Oliver asked.

“Worse.  They’ve burned them to the ground.  Also, Oliver, the sound stages where you filmed your last project, and David, I’m sorry to say, six of your sound stages as well.”

“What?” David Solomon’s jaw dropped.

“The contention is that Kristine and Andrea may have introduced alien pathogens to Earth -- they’ve been ‘cleansed with fire.’”

He met Oliver’s eye.  “Oliver, you and I have been friends and have had a professional relationship for two decades.  I tell you true two important things that you are going to need to remember going forward.  First, the average person on the street thinks they should stand the girls against a wall and shoot them for endangering their lives.  Second, as much as I’d like to find a way to advocate for the girls -- and you -- I have to say that I’m not sure that the government isn’t right.”

Oliver looked at him.  “Jack, two three-word phrases.  ‘Apollo Moon Landings’ and ‘Mars Sample Mission.’

“Jack, sure, another planets might have living organisms and those organisms, some of them, may resemble life on Earth.  There are billions of species on our own planet and just a few hundred are pathogens -- and they’ve had a very long time to take aim at us.  I read someplace that if mankind were to go extinct tomorrow the only animals that would accompany us to Valhalla would be the human louse and some intestinal bacteria.  Others would cry, but they don’t need us.”

Jack held up his hand.  “Oliver, once I told you how tired I was fighting pygmies.  Just because I find myself contesting with Titans, doesn’t mean I’m going to quit.  But you have to know that Kris and Andie have taken a lot of risks.”

“And Columbus brought back VD from the New World,” Oliver told him.  “He also brought back new vegetables, all sorts of things -- not to mention new peoples.  We don’t know what’s out there, and we can’t turn our back on it because someone might catch a new kind of clap.”

“True, but we could be more proactive about the risks.”

“Jack, Andie told you what she was doing, right?”

“Yes, she did.”

“You knew she was going to other planets?” Oliver pressed.

“Yes, I knew.”

“And of course you immediately raised the risk of pathogens with her?”

“No.  I didn’t think of it.  But for something this big, she should have.”

“Yeah, and Columbus should have had his crew keep their pants zipped.  He didn’t know -- and if he’d listened to the nay-sayers, and there were plenty, I’m sure -- he’d have stayed in port.  Armstrong -- he had to know he could catch moon clap.  Do you think it slowed him down?”

Jack laughed.  “Oliver!  Please!  I’m just telling you that this isn’t going to be a slam dunk!  That even reasonable people -- including me if I was just Joe Schmoe on the street -- are going to be fighting us.

“I’m pretty sure I know what AUSA Baldwin’s message was.  Andie is a young woman you wouldn’t want to play poker with, Oliver.  She’s fond of maxing her raises.  She’s calling it her ‘F-Bomb.’”

“F-Bomb?” Oliver asked warily, knowing Andie’s favorite word.

“Fusor or Fusion bomb.  About two hours ago all sorts of people, all around the world, started receiving plans for the fusor she built, plus the little extra gizmo that lets you go wherever it is you go.  The government tried to suppress it, but she put it on a server in the Ukraine.  They’re not stupid -- this is energy independence for them, and evidently a whole lot of people have told them that this is golden.

“In the two hours since it went public, there have been maybe two million hits to the web site.  The number is increasing by the fifth power, I’m told.  To put it mildly, the cat is out of the bag.”

Kurt Sandusky spoke up, “And Richards?  And that asshole Foster?”

“Kurt, I hope you will be able to contain yourself,” Jack Schaeffer told him.  “You don’t want to probe too deeply into Foster.  On the fourth day the Feds were supposed to take him to a meeting.  Instead, they found him in his apartment, dead by electrocution, ostensibly an accident. There were no obvious signs of foul play, but it’s certainly an odd coincidence.

“Since then, Richards has been in a secure location.”  Jack laughed nastily.  “Actually, I’m told it’s the fourth secure location he’s been in, every day or so, someone fires a round into the room he’s in.”

“So where do we stand?” Oliver asked.

Jack tapped his ear where he had an earpiece.  “Helen is safe now, as is the young woman.  Helen sends her love, but they weren’t going to release the other young woman and Helen refused to leave without her.  The young woman is off to the hospital, and Helen is going to stay with her.”

Jack looked around.  “I have some broken teeth and I desperately want to visit my dentist.  Oliver, you’re cradling your left wrist.  Kurt, you have a coal miner’s tattoo on one cheek and God knows what else.  I have a couple of doctors and two dentists en route.”

“Jack, one thing,” Oliver interjected.  “Well, two things.  What are you doing to get them to go after Kris and Andie?  And just what the fuck are we going to do about what has happened to us?”

“The last is going to take some study.  The first -- Oliver, I just don’t know.  Now that we know the possible risks of off-world travel we would be liable if a plague did break out.  It is going to take a lot of study -- because no one, at least now, is willing to risk the entire planet for two teenagers who took risks with everyone’s lives.”

“I have never made a sci-fi movie, ever,” Oliver told him.  “But that’s because I’m not fond of the cheesy special effects most of them have.  I think I’m being honest here, when I tell you that if it was someone else’s child, male or female, I’d be in favor of rescuing them.  Sure, quarantine -- weren’t the Apollo astronauts quarantined?  I’m betting NASA plans on quarantining the first Mars expedition, right?”

“Oliver, we’re just going to have to take it step by step.  I’m as aware of deadlines and all of that as anyone.  But right now I’m told that public opinion has been poisoned by the scare stories Richards has told the public since we went into the slammer.”

“Start action against him for violating his NDA.  Evidently it’s moot against Foster, but make sure that his heirs or assigns get absolutely no profit from this.”

Jack nodded.  “I will, Oliver.  Now, we all need to see medical personnel.  Trust me on this -- every scratch, every bruise is going to cost someone in this.  Shucks, if I’m as good as I think I am, every cross word is going to cost people!”

Chapter 14 :: Let’s Take a Meeting

Andie shook Kris awake as the sky began to brighten in the east.  For the last few days they’d made a morning ritual of watching the sunrise.  The big moon in the sky overhead made the world seem claustrophobic, a continual looming presence, although now they could make out detail on the surface, that they couldn’t when the moon first rose at sunset.

Nearly all of half of the planet facing them was visible, and for both of them it was a truly remarkable sight.  “This has to be something like what the shuttle astronauts see,” Andie told her as they oohed and ahhed at the view.

Kris was more phlegmatic.  “It’s blocking off most of the sky, making for a bizarre day.  We have a few hours of dawn, then six hours of darkness during the eclipse, then twenty minutes of sunset.  Another day and dawn is going to be coming very late in the day.  I wonder how they adapt to it here?”

“I don’t know,” Andie replied.  “They seem to be able to sleep longer than we can, so maybe they just sleep more.  No wonder they’re so primitive -- they spend maybe eight hours a day awake, on average.  Most people on Earth get twice that many waking hours -- and their days are shorter on top of that.

“And if you think these people have it bad -- we know there is at least one large city on that planet,” she waved at the orb in the sky.  “Those people have some really strange hours.”

Ezra joined them.  “We need to talk about how we’re going to deal with the situation.”

“I thought the plan was to stay loose, cross our fingers and pray hard,” Andie said bitterly.

“Yeah, that was the original plan, but then along came the Tengri.  Last night I spent a lot of time with Melek and Collum.  They asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to -- and I don’t think they expected I would.  They were really asking the question of you, Andie.”

“What’s their fucking question?”

“Well it’s like a lot of things here: fucking complicated.

“We’ve talked before about how they had to leave their homeland.  They were a little more forthcoming about things now.  Andie, their ancestors sailed into the blind unknown when they came west.  They had literally no idea what was out here.

“From the sounds of it, they were a bit further south than where we are now, but not as far south as their watch post.  Melek says they had a fair wind at their back most of the time.  As near as I can tell, their ships sailed about a hundred miles a day.”

“Twenty hour days, right?” Andie asked.

“Yes.  Andie -- they raised land on the ninety-third day of their voyage.”

“They came nine thousand miles?  In a fucking rubber duckie?” Andie was stunned.

“Well, they were the best ships they had.  And most of them never made it.  Most of their people vanished on that voyage, never to be seen again.”

Andie shook her head in wonder.  “That’s -- a long ways.  A very long ways.”

“Yeah, well, he says they’ve explored about two thousand miles west of here on this continent and haven’t found any people -- or another ocean.  They didn’t know how wide their original continent was either.  They think the Tengri came from the southeast of their home continent, but they weren’t sure.  Anything more than about two thousand miles away was terra incognita: barbarian tribesmen, dangerous animals -- every danger under the sun that you can imagine.

“Put it all together, and we’ve got probably four thousand miles of landmass on that continent to east, and nine thousand miles of ocean, more or less to get there, then at least three thousand miles here, and another ocean of unknown size beyond that.  I’m thinking the circumference of the planet is like maybe forty thousand miles.”

Andie whistled and Kris echoed that.  Andie looked around and then asked, “That’s a lot of territory.  Still -- what’s the question?”

“Melek and Collum are Chain Breakers.  Their ancestors vowed to return to free the ones they left behind.  But, there are nine thousand reasons why that hasn’t worked.”

“Yeah, we heard that before.  A ship big enough to carry enough food and water is pushed backwards by the wind.  Anything light enough to row can’t carry enough supplies.”

“Exactly.  I don’t know how a ship can sail against the wind.  I shit you not, if you can do that, we’re safer than safe -- we instantly go to ‘national treasure.’

“In the past, only a couple of times have ships been blown here from the east.  Usually the crews were dead or insane -- there was never a problem killing them.  Now there are maybe a hundred survivors of a much larger ship, including slaves.  That’s a whole different kettle of fish.

“Chaba and those slaves are going to remind Collum, Melek and the others of the oath that their ancestors took.  They’ve had their own problems, make no doubt about it, but no one has been serious about trying to return east for centuries.  You don’t need to be a genius to understand that in another couple of generations those oaths would have been swept under the rug, permanently.  Now, though, it’s not likely.  Now there’s every possibility that they are going to try to go back.

“And a ship that can sail against the wind would really help...” Ezra concluded.

“Well, I can build a small sailboat easily enough,” Andie told him.  “But I’m telling you now, that that’s just going to get their hopes up -- objective reality is that you’d need something better than wind to do it.”

“Why?”

“Well, tacking into the wind is possible, but with most classic designs, your average velocity is lower than it would be running before the wind.  Not hugely lower, but still, they might only be able to manage fifty or sixty miles a day.  Packing six months of food in a ship is tough.  Six months of water?  You’d have a submarine, not a ship.”

“That doesn’t sound very hopeful.  I thought the Pacific Islanders sailed really long distances.”

“Well, they did... but there is no way to tell how many thousands of them died in the attempts.  Also, they cheated by using multi-hulls.”

“Multi-hull is like a catamaran?”

“Exactly,” Andie told him.  “They can sail against the wind better, and they really fly if you’ve got the wind coming from behind you.  You can crank two or three times the wind speed.”

“Pardon?  How can that be?”

“Well, the fact is that a properly designed triangular sail makes its own wind.”

Andie pursed her lips.  “Those steady winds sound like trade winds.  Do you know about trade winds?”

“They mainly blow in one direction?”

“Right.  They occur on Earth from about ten degrees north of the equator to thirty degrees north and from ten degrees south to thirty degrees south of the equator.  The trades south of the equator blow the other way, I might add.  Back in the day, ships would go out of their way to catch the easterly or westerly trades -- even if they had to go miles out of their way, it was a lot faster than tacking back and forth into the wind.

“But while that might be a good idea on Earth where a degree is seventy miles, here going south thirty degrees is going to be a big deal.  Here, if the planet does have a circumference of forty thousand miles, a degree of longitude here is more than a hundred and ten miles.

“And, don’t forget those twenty degrees between the trade wind belts have their own name -- ‘the Doldrums.’  Guess why they have that name?” Andie concluded.

“Bummer,” Ezra said.  “I don’t know if we should be falsely optimistic or just tell the truth.”

Kris spoke quickly.  “Ezra, if we lie to them about something important, why would they ever trust us again?”

“I was thinking we could tell them Andie could build a sailing ship that can sail against the wind.  That’s not a lie.”

“Yes it is, if you know it can’t be scaled up,” Kris told him.

“Ezra, we have to tell the truth.  Yes, it took a couple of hundred years of research to go from square-rigged sailing ships to schooners that could sail across the Pacific in a few weeks and made sailing around the world in eighty days something less than a pipe dream,” Kris told him.

“And, Ezra, there are other ways.  It took a hundred years to go from steam-power paddle wheels to screw-driven ironclads.  Ask if they have black rocks that burn -- coal by another name.  If they do, ask if it’s soft or hard.  Another fifty years after that, and we were building aircraft carriers, Ezra,” Andie chimed in.

Andie tapped her forehead.  “Up here, I know enough to jump them a hundred years ahead of long bows, virtually overnight.  Gunpowder, gun cotton, explosives... you name it.  Kill me and they kill the proverbial golden goose who lays technological eggs.”

Kris couldn’t stand it.  “What about Captain Kirk’s Prime Directive?”

Ezra laughed.  “Surely you know what Kirk would do in a situation like this?  Find someone to...”  He shook his head ruefully.  “Sorry, I get a little carried away.  Honestly, Kris, I have no idea what the best thing to do is.  Ditto for you, Andie.

“I’d say from what I’ve seen, Melek and his people are about where the Roman Empire was at Zero BC, with the exception of the long bows.  We’re talking two thousand years of technology -- that isn’t something three people can put much of a dent in, no matter how hard they try.

“I think, though, that if it looks like we’re here permanently, we’re going to have to teach them all we can,” Ezra said soberly.  “But the real bitch will be if the cavalry rides to the rescue -- particularly if the cavalry comes in the next few days.

“We’re going to have to be very careful,” Ezra concluded.

“We should tell Melek the truth,” Kris replied, knowing she was sounding stubborn.  That was okay, because she was stubborn.  “As for that Prime Directive, Andie, you’ve watched enough Star Gate.  SG-1 would tell a primitive culture ‘Sorry, we can’t trade weapons technology with you’ but every time they met an advanced culture they would say, ‘We’re peaceful explorers!  We’d like to trade for your weapons technology.’”

Andie made a face and cautioned, “And just how are you going to tell Melek where we came from and how we got here?  We don’t even know if we’re in the same galaxy, Kris!  We could be in some alternate universe.  How can we be honest when we don’t know the answer ourselves?”

“I don’t know,” Kris replied.  “I do know if we lie to them and they figure it out...”

Ezra chuckled.  “The problem is that Andie is a purist.  Me, I’m a pragmatist.  No matter how you cut it, Andie, that Far Side Door makes space here close to space back home.  Use the folded piece of paper metaphor, and somehow I’ll try to explain to him that we have no idea how far we came.  It’s conceptually true, which should keep Kris happy.”

“The folded paper metaphor?” Andie asked, momentarily drawing a blank.

Kris rushed to answer before Ezra could, enjoying the moment.  “Take a piece of paper and draw dots on it at opposite ends, and then draw a line between the dots.  That’s the distance from A to B.  Then fold the paper and put the dots in contact.  The distance has decreased dramatically.”

Andie was dubious.  “I don’t think that’s at all like what’s happening.”

“But it’s conceptually true, right?” Ezra asked.

“Well, sort of.  I’m still holding out for a wormhole.”

The three laughed easily, the earlier tension gone.

Melek and Collum appeared while the rest of the camp was starting to stir.  “Anything?” Melek asked Ezra, who translated for the girls.

“Nothing.  We talk about things, between us.”

For an hour they spent trying to get the idea that they had arrived in the rookery across to Melek.  At least the paper metaphor helped there.

In the distance they could see a party of a half dozen men moving down the road, coming over a small hill about six miles away.  A few minutes later, more people were visible, then wagons and then more people.

“A hundred,” Ezra told Kris, “give or take a few.”

Kris kicked her backpack.  “I figure we have twice as much food as we need to get back to the rookery.”

“And they’re going to be just behind us,” Ezra reminded her.

Melek pointed, showing considerable excitement.  Kris understood, even if she felt cold inside as he pointed at the newcomers, showing considerable animation.  Sure, he was now assured of personal survival.  What about Andie and Ezra?

Speaking of Ezra... “Ezra, you have about five minutes to convince Melek of the value of Andie’s knowledge of ships.”

“Weapons, too!” Andie reminded them.

Ezra said a lot of words while Melek watched him carefully.  Andie nudged Kris.  “I get the distinct impression he’s waiting for us to fold.”

“Yeah.  Ezra -- it has to be quid pro quo.”

“Yeah, if they think they’re going to get jack from torturing anyone,” Andie piped up, “one day they will think the sun is rising early -- because I’ll blow the fuckers up.”

* * *

Melek could hardly contain himself.  He was sure it was Captain Dumi coming.  The men marched in good order, and the formation was tight and well-disciplined.  Seros wasn’t capable of that sort of discipline.