Doomsday Warrior 11 - American Eden (10 page)

Rockson said, “Great. We’ll set out as soon as we take a look around here—for the record. And to see if anyone was here first. We might not be the only people seeking Eden,” he said darkly.

They went into the gift shoppe and, because there were few windows, lit a Coleman lamp. Rock seated himself at a table, the Freefighters and Danik gathered around him. He unfolded the detailed topographical map the Freefighter carried. It was ancient, drawn on the basis of satellite photographs from the twentieth century.

“Now we know where we are, and we know—” he said, drawing his finger down south of the U.S.—Mexican border, “approximately where we are going. A week’s walking distance is about—
here.”

Rock’s finger had traced down to the San Piedro mountain range.

“Danik might remember some landmarks if we can get him close to the mountains that Eden is hidden in. So we head south to, say, the tallest mountain in the range.”

“Mt. Obispo?” Rona asked.

“With a stopover at Yumak City—to retire these sleds and wolf-dogs. It’s a good thing Yumak City is only a slight diversion from our route to Mt. Obispo. Look here—” Rock traced his finger south about seventy miles and then east for twenty. “See? Not so great a detour. I hope there’s enough snow on the ground to allow us to get there without lugging everything by foot.”

“We could make some sort of wagon.” Detroit said.

“We have to hurry. I think there will be enough snow. I hope so. Let’s get going.” He folded the map. “First, Yumak City, our resupply point; then on to Mt. Obispo. And keep your collective fingers crossed,” Rock said.

Eleven

M
eanwhile in Eden, Coronation Day had arrived . . .

The orchestra was all brass, no strings, no drums. The instruments were badly corroded, not having been used in a hundred years. Nobody knew how to play them either, but that didn’t matter. Nobody in Eden knew what music was supposed to sound like, or exactly what it was for. The founder—in all his wisdom—had forgotten to store any music in the vaults of Eden. The inhabitants knew that music was important to have on momentous occasions. And they did their best to recreate the concept from what they remembered of their grandparents’ humming tunes.

The music played by the one-hundred-man marching orchestra was a cacophonous rendition of “God Save the King.” People plugged their ears with their fingers as the marching band passed. Then they bowed their heads as the only car in Eden—a 1989 red Ford Fiesta—crawled by with the window rolled down in the rear and the king-to-be Charles Stafford waved and nodded.

The end of the parade was made up of thirty bulldozers, two abreast, also fouling the limited air with their dioxides.

Everyone in the city had lined the parade route to view the inaugural parade—for it was not wise to miss the show. It would appear that they didn’t respect and adore their new leader-for-life. And to oppose meant to die.

King Charles, for his part, was pleased with the way things were going. He stepped out of the car when it reached the Government Building to appropriate
oohs
and
aaahs
from the public. And why not? He was wearing a vermilion satin robe encrusted with 1000 five- to ten-carat diamonds that glinted in the spotlight especially arranged to be trained upon his gleaming body at that precise moment. Vainly he smiled, then turned to walk up the twenty-one steps to the throne that was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. The orchestra below raged and fretted with their untuned instruments in an attempt to make up with noise for what they lacked in musicianship, for their lack of knowledge on how to play the tubas, trombones, and trumpets they held to their bleeding lips.

“Where is my crown?” Stafford said, annoyed. He sat down. His personal servant Mannerly came running with the vermilion pillow upon which rested the newly constructed crown. The only model the craftsmen had for such a thing was an old wallet-sized depiction of Jesus, who was reputed to be, by legend, some sort of king. They had thus constructed the gold and jewel crown in the shape of a crown of thorns, and realizing it would be difficult to wear, had lined the sharper points with plastic buttons. It gleamed in the spotlight also.

“Crown me, Mannerly,” Stafford said.

The bleating of the maniac brass reached new heights of shrilldom as the servant leaned over and did just that. The coronation was over.

Nobody knew what to do, they all waited for their new king to tell them. But he just sat there smiling. Several of the orchestra players—all rather pale and emaciated—collapsed, noses and lips bleeding from the strain of their frantic playing.

Finally, as the wind went out of more and more of the mad musicians, until only a whimpering trumpet carried on, Stafford arose. He lifted his hand in a blessing and said, “From this day forth it is retroactively illegal to have disagreed with me. Treasonable thoughts are illegal, and any opposition is treason, punishable by death. Amen.”

“Amen,” yelled the populace.

“We tried democracy and it just didn’t work,” said Stafford, once the amens had died down. “It is time for the entertainment I promised you all. Let the executions begin.”

In his cell, Tab Subscript had heard the orchestra, the cheering, and the bellowing voice of his enemy Stafford on the microphone. One of the executions Stafford had spoken of was probably Subscript’s, he realized with apprehension. He had spoken out against Stafford’s plan to seal Eden off from the outside world. And for that he must die.

If only, he thought, hitting his puny fist against the cold steel bars, if only I had left with Danik and Dutil and the others. If only I had risked the dangers of the surface—rather than remaining behind. Oh, people in the resistance thought he had stayed behind out of a sense of duty, out of the desire to rally a counter-force to Stafford. But the fact was he had stayed behind because he was afraid of what lay out there.

If only Danik and his men would return with the help they believed they could get on the surface
. Of course it was only a theory, a pipe dream, that Danik had. He said men walked up there, not monsters. He said that the surface people would be civilized, that he could bring some back to convince the unconvinced to open up Eden to the light and fresh air above. But the weeks went by and Dutil had failed to return from the surface. Then, Stafford’s Civil Guard had begun rounding up all dissidents, ferreting them out of their jobs in the offices and factories of Eden, sometimes tearing their bedsheets off their cringing bodies in the middle of the night. Tyranny had come to Eden. And terror.

The large minority—about forty percent of the population—that had supported Stafford in the beginning had now dwindled to a few percent. But everybody was scared. Especially since the alterations at the planetarium. Once a place of rest and renewal under the artificial stars, the planetarium had become something horrible, something unknown but horrible after Stafford
altered
it. All that Subscript knew about those alterations were the results. Those persons arrested for violation of the new edicts would go in, and after a long while there would be screaming. And then no one would come out. No bodies, no bones—nothing.

And those new
edicts
. They were the sure sign that Stafford was a madman.

Edict Number One—promulgated just two weeks earlier—stated that all persons caught congregating without a permit would be subject to arrest.

Edict Number Two enlarged the small Civil Guard, previously just ceremonial soldiers stationed in front of Government Building, into a force of five thousand. This was to enforce Edict Number One.

Edict Number Three was
the elimination of Time itself
. This wasn’t that impossible in Eden. For the “sun” above was stationary and constant. To remove all clocks, as Stafford ordered, effectively ended time. Stafford decided what time it was, and announced it whenever he chose to over the central P.A. system connected to his newly refurbished office.

Edict Number Four abolished democracy—if he hadn’t done so already—and made Eden a kingdom.

And now Edict Number Five. The retroactive edict. All who opposed Stafford were retroactively guilty of treason.

And now the executions.

Subscript heard the heavy booted feet of the guards coming for him. He cringed, whimpered, for he was not strong and brave like Dutil. No, he would cry and scream and beg—no, no he would not.

“Your time has come to die, traitor,” said the burly guard. Subscript knew that face and thick body anywhere—the head of the Civil Patrol the meanest, most dangerous man in Eden—Bdos Err. Chief of the terror. “Come with us.” Subscript was savagely brought to his feet by the heavy hands of the guard and shoved out of the cell. There was no place to run, no place to hide. He determined to face his death—probably at the scaffolds he had seen being constructed outside the Government Building shortly before he was arrested a few day earlier. Hanging—not a pleasant death.

Suprised at his own calmness he walked between the guards, head held high, toward his death. The populace stared and he heard mumbles of “must be very brave . . . damned cool traitor, isn’t he . . . see how brave he is . . .” and Subscript felt proud. He would perhaps make a speech as the rope was tightened to his neck. Yes. What were those words?
Give me liberty or give me
—

They reached the foot of the steps. He looked up at Stafford, said, “You may hang me but you have not scared me.”

“Who’s going to hang you, brother?” Stafford said with a wide smirk appearing on his thin lips. “Take him to the Planetarium.”

“The—the—planetarium?” Subscript stuttered. “N-no, not the planetarium . . . please . . . I beg you—” His knees felt weak, they collapsed under him. The guards dragged him whimpering away.

“Not the planetarium, oh please. God, not that . . . not the planetarium.”

“Let them hear the traitor cry and beg,” Stafford yelled. “Let them all know that the traitors are cowards, weak men. Let them all know that the planetarium awaits all who oppose me.”

Lowered eyes everywhere around the town square attested to the degree of fear that the new ruler had managed to inject into the day’s activities. “Now,” said Stafford, “let the hangings begin. The first hanging is of Ren Newname, for the crime of eating more than his quotient . . .”

The first of the regular criminals were brought forth, screaming and struggling, and placed upon the scaffold. Death would come to them, but only the traitors need fear the planetarium.

Bored eventually by the jerking bodies, which soon filled the six scaffolds, Stafford yawned. He said, “That will be all for today—everyone back to their jobs—and be very conscientious,” and went into the building behind the throne.

With his engineers he went over the drawings of the city. He pointed to the map of the Cave of Tombs, the cave where the honored dead of Eden lay at rest. It was higher than the rest of the complex. “Finish the shaft for the surface probe here.” He jabbed at the map . . . They nodded.

They trooped off to the work Stafford had assigned.

Stafford retired to his study, where he tried to watch a video tape. He soon drifted of to sleep, smiling. He was dreaming of firing the Factor Q canister up the shaft in the Hall of Tombs, forever ending the fractious demands of some Edenites to go up to the surface.

If the surface isn’t totally unlivable now, he smiled, it will soon be.

Twelve

R
ockson and his companions had reached the approximate area of Yumak City. As a matter of fact, the sextant readings on the smeary sun low in the southwest indicated that they couldn’t be more than a mile from the city of five thousand. Where the hell was it? The coordinates that Rock had been given back in Century City were the coordinates the Yumak people themselves had given Rath. Was this some kind of sick joke? Bringing the Freefighters into the middle of nowhere?

There were some scraggly bushes around. Rockson saw nothing else. “Let’s take a break,” Rock said, down in the dumps. “Maybe when I have some tea I can find out what is going on here.”

They made a small fire with some twigs and McCaughlin brewed some tea in a bent metal pot. The dogs hunkered down to get some rest on the inch or so of snow. To them the just-above-freezing weather was a heat wave, and they liked to sleep through heat waves.

Rockson sat on a small boulder and sipped his mug of hot tea slowly. And then he heard Detroit exclaim, “Rockson, those bushes are—moving.”

As Rockson looked up, the bushes were thrown aside by laughing Indians of the Yumak tribe. The tallest of the bunch of camouflage experts walked toward Rockson, hand extended.

By their odd outfits, Rockson realized that these villagers must be related to the Crazy Alligator tribe he’d spent an uncomfortable visit with years ago. The Yumak were wearing moccasins—that’s how they’d sneaked up quietly. But that was about the only strictly Indian gear they wore.

The tall Indian, a hook-nosed man about seven one in height, shoot Rockson’s hand. “How,” he articulated, “are you?”

“Fine,” Rockson answered. “I’m glad to see you—I presume you’re Chief Smokestone?”

“Yes.”

The man was deep tan, bare-armed, ten or twelve red feathers in a headband. He wore a rawhide tasseled jacket, and a like pair of pants. All the material was covered with beadwork of blue and red, intricate scenes of fantastic birds and animals. He had a metal breastplate that seemed to be from a twentieth-century car. A hubcap that was shined to perfection. Its barely visible insignia said
OLDSMOBILE
. The man’s face was rugged, with deep-set dark eyes and high cheekbones. His muscled arms looked as full of sinewy strength as Rockson’s.

“Where did you put your city, Smokestone? Aren’t we near it?”

Smokestone laughed heartily. “You are less than a hundred meters from it. Come, you will see. But first may I introduce my son and nephew. Steelring and Wild Horse.”

The two braves approached and shook Rockson’s hand. They too had what appeared to be polished up ancient car hubcaps tied together as breast and shoulder plates. They had no feathers. Both looked around twenty, and strong. The two braves wore their hair in two pigtails. They had pants made of some sort of multicolored cloth that shimmered like the rainbow, and were bare chested. Wild Horse wore an armband that had a little naked plastic doll of the dime-store variety tied to it.