Doomsday Warrior 01 (42 page)

“This is where the missiles were?” Rockson asked.

“Yes, that is a positive theorization,” Ullman said, stopping and stepping back from the ladder. He walked over to the Americans who stared in awe at the home of one of America’s missile fleet from a century before. They had never seen the actual launching mechanism for one of the big ICBMs and were somehow bizarrely fascinated.

“You haven’t got a few old spares lying around, do you?” McCaughlin asked. “Can you imagine, Rock? If we could get our hands on ten or twenty of these babies, the Reds wouldn’t know what hit ’em. Probably ain’t got no more defenses against missile attack. We could take out Moscow, Leningrad . . .” His voice trailed off in wishful tones.

“Unfortunately, I must reply in the negative,” Ullman replied. “All the missiles were shot in the first hour of war. And from our information, which you are welcome to assimilate, the Soviets were able to shoot most of the U.S. strike from the skies, using technology similar to this.” The Technician pointed to his pistol.

“So that’s how they were able to survive the attack,” Rock said softly. “All our data indicated that they shot down the missiles with some, sort of super-elaborate anti-missile system.” Shecter would be fascinated. It seemed to be extremely important information though Rockson wasn’t quite sure why.

Ullman again started down the long silo ladder. Rock had McCaughlin and a few of the other men carry big sacks of food from their kitchen supplies in backpacks. They came shakily down the metal ladder, hanging on for dear life as the big loads of food, including two boar, shifted unnervingly on their backs. It would be the height of absurdity to have traveled a thousand miles, to have fought off mutants, Reds and everything else in this Godforsaken part of America, and then be killed falling off a ladder. The sheer possibility of having gravestones with epitaphs that read, “He died missing a rung” made them move with unusual caution.

They came to the bottom of the long, black metal track of rungs and started across a vast underground warehouse, filled with electronics and equipment of long ago.

“As you can see, Ted Rockson,” Ullman said, pointing around as they walked across the immense concrete floor filled with every kind of furniture, lamp, wire and fuse, “we’ve let the place deteriorate. Factors have gotten quite bad over the last ten years.” Ullman opened the Computer Room door and the others of his people shrank back in horror when they saw the large, dirty creatures that followed closely behind their leader.

“It is all right,” Ullman said reassuringly. “These are not negative quantities. They have food.” Whatever misgivings or childhood fears the Technicians had of the other beings quickly vanished when they heard the word food. They stirred in their plastic chairs and moved in their blankets spread out on the floor of one of the most advanced computer rooms in the world.

“Here, men, put the chow down here,” Rock said, pointing to an unoccupied corner of the room. “McCaughlin, why don’t you and Erickson get a fire going out there in the big storage room. Got to be all kinds of old wood furniture you could use to get something started.”

“I can just use the stoves, Rock,” Erickson interjected.

“To barbecue a whole hog on a spit?” Rock asked with a grin. “These people need some livening, not to mention fattening up,” Rock said, sweeping his hand around the roomful of lethargic Technicians who did indeed look as if they were at death’s door.

“Oh, you want
that
kind of dinner?” Erickson said, opening his eyes wide. “I got you, Rock. Archer,” he yelled out, “you’re needed on work detail.” The huge bowman rose and accompanied the other two to gather wood for the bonfire that Erickson already had visualized. As the three men were the largest Freefighters in the expedition, they made quite a sight; their 250 to 300 pound bodies, over six and a half feet tall, barely fit through the Technicians’ small entrance.

“Here, while we’re waiting,” Rock said, “we have some canned juices and bread. Please, help yourselves.” He opened a sack and spread the victuals out on a work table. The Technicians eyed the presence of the precious sustenance as a criminal eyes a gold necklace. Moving slowly at first, so as not to appear desperate, they headed slowly over to the tableful of bounty. But by the time they reached it they couldn’t contain themselves. They reached down greedily and ripped chunks of bread, stuffing them in their mouths in huge pieces that they were barely able to swallow. They took tremendous gulps of the apple and orange juice. Rock looked on, remembering his own childhood days of hunger and how wonderful it had been to come into a Free City and be given all that his growling stomach could hold.

Ullman seemed embarrassed by the manners of his people and looked at Rockson disapprovingly. “We’re usually not like this, I assure you. There aren’t more well-mannered people on this planet than the Technicians. We—”

“It’s all right,” Rock said, smiling down warmly, repressing an urge to pat the childlike creature on the head. “I’ve been hungry myself, believe me. Very hungry! And I don’t remember waiting politely when food was offered.”

“You are x = x,” said Ullman, his huge black eyes looking directly into Rockson’s. “You are a straight equation, Rockson.” Rock wasn’t sure of the mathematics but he understood the emotion.

In no time at all, Erickson had a big fire going outside in the ten-football-fields sized, concrete underground complex. Two autostoves burned sharp blue flames alongside the wood fire, which had a whole boar on a spit, turning slowly. Food sizzled away and the smell of all the rich juices positively saturated the stale air of the underground silos. Rock led Ullman, with his people tightly grouped together behind him, out to the waiting victuals.

Some of the other Freefighters had gathered tables and chairs from the piles of junk that lined the walls and dusted the spider webs and dirt from them. The entire area around the cooking fires was ringed with eating tables, like a picnic ground.

“Everybody just sit down now,” Erickson bellowed out. “Me and my staff—that’s you,” he said, pointing to Green, “and you, Archer, will help me serve. So just sit down, twiddle your thumbs or some appendage and get ready for a feast.” The Technicians sat down around the tables that were too high for them, on chairs from which their legs dangled loosely. But their faces were shining, their hearts beating with vigor for the first time in years. Rock sat next to Ullman at the head of one of the three long tables. Soon the food was being piled out in steaming, delicious helpings.

The Technicians gobbled it all down and asked for more. Rock knew they would regret it later but didn’t say a word. They had to gorge themselves, to fill that acid-grinding emptiness in their stomachs. They ate and they ate and then they ate some more. Two hours later, all thirty-one of the Technicians were lying on the floor groaning in painful happiness.

Rockson sat and talked with Ullman who still chewed on some of the artifruit pudding that McCaughlin had whipped up out of powders mixed with the Technicians’ water.

“I can’t thank you enough, Ted Rockson,” the leader said. “We were at our breath’s end. You have given us a respite. Now you must tell me what it is like on the outside. None of us has ever been beyond a few miles surrounding these silos. Vorn told us of lands beyond the blackness, but even he had just gone out to the edges where there was some hunting. Animals would stray there to roll in the black dust. Vorn thought it helped them alleviate bugs and insects that had attached to their hides. What is out there, Rock? Is it all black? Are there more Americans like you? Have the Russians—”

“One question at a time,” Rock said, laughing, leaning back in his folding wooden chair. “First, there
is
a huge world out there. Although much damage was done by the war, large parts of the United States are healthy, and damaged parts, at least many of them, are starting to come back as well. This blackness that surrounds you, Ullman, is the worst of it. You had the insane luck to have your people evolve in the center of possibly the worst concentration of hits in the country. So, no, it’s not all black. Not at all. It’s green and blue—there are forests, lakes, birds and flowers. Many parts of our country are still as beautiful as the day before the bombs went off. As for there being more Americans out there, why there are over—” Rock looked across at the Technician. Ullman was sound asleep, his small mouth open and breathing deeply. Rock glanced around the floor. All the Technicians had fallen asleep. They lay with little smiles on their white faces. Rock grinned. He felt a strange tenderness for the peculiar race. Across the vast storage depot, the Freefighters sat around, finishing up the remains of dinner and playing cards. A serious poker game was in progress with the clothing and goods they had received from the Macy’s creatures as bets. Lang was sitting upright, though Rock knew his leg hadn’t been healing too well. Perkins sat off to the side, breathing raspily. Rock was worried about him. The man just didn’t look well at all. Tomorrow he would have to ask the Technicians if they had any medical devices that might be of help.

But for now he would let them sleep. Let them dream pleasurable dreams for the first time in years instead of the nightmares they were used to. Tomorrow he would learn some of the secrets of the Technicians.

Thirty-Seven

C
olonel Killov sat in his eightieth-floor office in the monolith watching the Olympic Games from Crete via satellite TV. Twenty years after the war the Olympics had been promoted by the Russians as a tool for getting the peoples of the occupied countries to take their minds off the realities of their harsh, everyday lives. The Reds now did gala publicity worldwide for the games, making the different nationalities root for their country—as if it mattered. The satellite hook-up was lined and fuzzy—perhaps because the Reds were using a 110-year-old American Telsat. Technology connected with space development had gradually deteriorated over the last century, with maintenance of existing ground controls to the Russians’ own killer satellite force still orbiting around the planet being the only thing kept up to date. Several of the Russian premiers had wanted to do away with the ground stations, the main one located in Moscow, as being too costly. But each had been voted down by the entire Presidium. The killer sats were the Reds’ ace in the hole. They ruled now, but their country’s own volatile history made them collectively aware that anything could happen. If, somehow, one of the captive nations got hold of a missile—none were capable of building one—and launched it, the Reds would still be able to knock it from the sky. Thousands of technicians manned radar and other defensive early-warning control systems around the world, waiting to detect the missile or plane that never came.

Killov banged the twenty-six-inch color TV with the side of his hand. There! A little better. The fact that the American satellite could continue to transmit television signals around the world was a testament to their technology at the time of the war. Somehow, it always slightly amazed Killov, when he had read of the past, that the Russians had been able to defeat the Americans, who he had to confess, to himself only, had been quite intelligent and ingenius when it came to technological breakthroughs and long-lasting equipment. The stuff the Russians sent out of their factories was lucky if it made it off the assembly line without cracking or dropping into a hundred useless pieces.

Killov sat back in his velveteen armchair and watched as the pole vaulter from the Soviet Union easily beat the Malawi pole vaulter. Once again, the Russians were winning nine out of ten medals. Guess we’re all just better athletes, Killov thought cynically. He reached over to the bar bureau next to his chair, opened it and mixed himself a martini, dry. The sour taste poured down his throat with an easy pleasure. He took another swig and watched the Olympic games continue.

The Reds won the next three events—long jump, hurdle and tumbling—gold, silver, and bronze. They’d better let someone win, Killov thought, or there’ll be riots around the world. The boys back in the Athletics Committee in Moscow were getting a little greedy.

The phone on his desk rang. A report of strange occurrences in the Far West region—sector five, vector three.

“An entire Blackshirt parakite commando squad was wiped out, sir,” the KGB major in charge of coordinating incoming data from the western regions told Killov.

“What?” the commander of all the Blackshirts in America screamed into the phone. “What the hell do you mean was wiped out? You mean crashed? What?”

“No, sir, I wish I did,” the officer on duty, just forty-five floors below Killov, said meekly. “The report just reached me, Colonel, and I felt you would want to hear it. Three days ago, one of our drone watchers saw what looked like a line of rebels in that region. The drone suddenly went dead and the officer in charge felt that there was enough information to warrant sending out a search-and-destroy team. Parakite commandos—the best, sir, elite corps. They were dropped right over the target area according to the pilot of the Soyuz transport. He saw the rebels himself. The men headed down, seemed to be getting the best of the bandits and the plane headed off. The commandos were to be picked up by helicopter within the next hour with whatever prisoners they had taken.” The officer stopped suddenly, as if afraid to go on.

“And?” Killov said brusquely.

“And—they were all dead when the chopper force arrived. Every last one of them, Colonel. Cut to bits. The crew found four dead mutant horses that the bandits had apparently used as cover but no dead. I just now received the message, sir, and called the officer in charge to confirm the story in its entirety. It’s all true.”

“Damn!” Killov exploded, slamming down the phone. This, he would have to see for himself. He called his service officer and had him arrange a flight of four choppers, the big jet-powered Minsk IIs, armed to the teeth, for immediate flight to sector five, vector three.

The screaming fleet of helicopters hovered over the battle zone, settling down just off to one side, sending up waves of black soot from the scorched earth. Killov, attired in full Blackshirt strike uniform, black leather, full plastasteel face mask, carrying a sub himself in case of attack, stepped out of the lead chopper and walked quickly over to the bodies, still lying where they had fallen. Buzzards had congregated around some of the more rapidly festering corpses, picking out eyeballs and tongues and other tasty morsels. Killov fired a full burst from his submachine gun, beheading five of the long-necked, ugly birds as the rest flew off, wings flapping like sheets, screeching shrilly.