Doomsday Warrior 11 - American Eden (20 page)

Stafford went to his chair, and climbed up on one broad flat arm of it. “Edenites,” Stafford shouted, his voice echoing in the chamber, “Danik has returned and brought us some curious surface dwellers. What shall we do with the traitor and his friends from the dark realms above?”

“Kill . . . torture . . . burn . . .” came the assortment of replies from the floor.

The situation didn’t look good.

Twenty-Four

S
tafford waved his hand for the assemblage to be quiet. “In a while. In a while . . .” he promised.

Stafford walked back down the line to Danik.

“Why so dour,” Stafford taunted, “on such a joyous occasion? By the way, what happened to Run Dutil and the others of your traitorous party?”

“They perished, but not because of radiation or mutant animals attacking. But because we, as underground dwellers all our lives, were unprepared for the vast distances, the cold temperatures of this season. They perished from exhaustion, exposure, lack of food. All of this is no reason to remain underground here in this tomb you so ironically call a
paradise.”

“Perished, huh,” Stafford said. “Well, I told you, I told
all
the dissenters, that the surface was dangerous. Now the remaining dissenters will give up their mad desires to reach the outer world.”

Danik shouted, “
No
, you must not heed this madman. Stafford is wrong, dead wrong. The surface isn’t as he says. Sure, it is dangerous—but only because we don’t know how to deal with it. But we can learn, learn from the great Americans who live and fight and triumph up there in God’s nature. You should see it, you should
feel
it. I was hungry, and cold, and tired, and I fully expected to die—and so did the others. Yet not one of us, once we had been outside for more than a few minutes, once we had seen the sunrise, the clouds, once we had smelled God’s good air, tasted fresh water and drank of the infinitely good sunlight, would have ever returned to our dismal lives here. Eden is not beautiful, not a paradise, it is a drab
hell.”

Stafford yawned. “This is tiring, really, Danik.” He went to sit down on his black throne. Evidently, Rockson noted, a bit of walking is all the man can endure as exercise. He’s even in worse shape than I imagined.

Stafford opened up a compartment in the arm of the chair and extracted a sharp instrument. He started picking at his manicured nails. The epitome of cool, that’s what he wants to appear before his minions, Rock knew. He had seen that act before, that posed nonchalance. All the sick leaders of the world wanted to appear above it all.

“Ah yes, the surface has its dangers,” Stafford muttered, smiling up at Bdos Err, who stood at rigid attention to his right. “Why leave paradise? I told them—but they wouldn’t listen. I only want to save my people from death, and the likes of Danik tries to lead them to it.” He pointed to Danik with the nail file. “Well now, Danik, you know the penalty for treason. So what I do with
you
is simple. But what about these others? What do I do with this bearded monster with the crystals growing out of his head? What do I do with the one with the white streak in his hair, the masculine woman, the others from the surface hell?”

Rockson spoke up, having observed Stafford’s behavior for a sufficient time to develop a psychological strategy.

Rockson now saw that there was no talking to the little man-who-would-be-God. His megalomania allowed no rational discourse. And with that realization, Rockson developed another strategy. The man was proud, vain. A little god. And with such men, there was only one course, until you could overpower them through cunning. Rockson would
play up to Stafford
. He would feed the man’s ego.

“I am the leader of my group,” said Rockson, “I am a mutant, that is true, but I can appreciate true leadership and knowledge. I never dreamed that Eden could be so beautiful and clean. Had I known what wonders there were here, I would never have believed Danik’s madness. This is paradise. The surface is hell. If I die, I will die happy to have seen the beauty here, happy to have witnessed true leadership.”

Stafford eyed him up and down, and finally said, “You are wiser than you look. Though you are a mutation. I might have a use for you—but not for the others . . .”

Stafford ordered the rest of the Freefighters and Danik held in the detention cells until suitable arrangements for their public humiliation and then execution could commence.

And Stafford ordered the senators to leave also. He told Bdos and his two henchmen and a contingent of six guards to remain behind. And bade Rockson stay and talk for a while.

Once the prisoners had been escorted from the chamber, and the senators, gossiping and gesturing to one another, had left, Stafford clapped his hands and said, “Mannerly, have the doctor come and treat our friend’s leg—it obviously needs help.”

The servant returned with a squat silent man, who opened a bag and took out some salve that he applied to Rock’s wound. It worked wonders.

Rockson sat, tasting hors d’oeuvres and what looked like cheese but tasted like shit from the tray Mannerly brought. He took a little wine, which wasn’t as bad, because he was thirsty.

Pouring on the flattery. Rock ingratiated himself to the dictator for more than an hour. Finally, Stafford said, “Perhaps you would like to see more of our wondrous city.”

“I would be honored,” Rockson replied. Now this was more like it. Perhaps he could find some way out—maybe if they got careless he could still instigate his original plan. Seize Stafford, and order the patrols to lay down their arms.

But Stafford was a cunning sort, well used to intrigues and treachery. When he and the Doomsday Warrior set out on their brief tour of Eden, they were accompanied by ten guards. And Rockson was not unbound. However, his elbow bindings were removed to make him more comfortable, though his wrists were still held in check behind his waist. Ah well, some progress is better than no progress.

The two-bit “king” started pointing out the “grand” sites.

Always the watchful phalanx of Civil Guards with drawn weapons kept a close eye on them.

“First, Rockson, I will show you the new sources of food. I realized that we were exhausting the canned and preserved foods provided in abundance over a hundred years ago. I have instituted bold new measures to produce more food. We do not need the poisonous surface soil to raise food.”

“What is your new means of production, King Charles? Is it hydroponic gardening? If you intend to do that you need grow lights. Your sun is not sufficiently full-spectrum,” Rockson stopped and smiled broadly. “Of course, I am being foolish. You have some completely new revolutionary method of food production in mind. Am I right?”

“Yes,” the king said. “We will have no need for water and minerals and grow lights. There is an easier way than hydroponics . . . Come along, I will show you.”

Soon they had passed through a blasted-away rock wall into the most foul-smelling place Rockson had ever encountered. Machines similar to big Soviet bulldozers were moving around piles of fecal matter and garbage. The air—if it could be called that—was filled with little gnats that insisted on buzzing his face. What was all this mad activity about? The cacophony of grinding gears, the smell of the fecal rot was hardly endurable to the Doomsday Warrior. But evidently the Edenites, including the king, had less sensitive sensory apparatus.

The King boasted, “Here, the fecal waste of four generations of Eden has lay wasted. We are in the so-called ‘disposal cave’,” Stafford said. “This precious resource has been lying here sealed off, wasted.

“I have decided to use this precious resource. The excretions of the past can be processed into tasty replicas of all the necessary proteins, minerals, and fiber necessary to the human body. It can be shaped by machinery into what appears to be steaks, potatoes, and such. Coloring can be added. People would hardly know the difference. I venture to say that they
won’t
know the difference between this new food supply and their old canned and preserved real foods.”

In his wildest nightmare Rockson couldn’t imagine this . . . People would be forced to eat—“Shit,” Rockson blurted out.

“What?” asked Stafford.

“I said I am awed. This is very interesting.” Rockson tried to turn his attention from the bulldozers moving the excrement piles to the metal hoppers, where a conveyor belt carried the matter through a wall—presumably a processing plant lay beyond that wall.

The flies were getting to him; he wanted to leave. But Stafford wanted Rock’s attention on a set of fifty long slender poles hanging from high above. “Note that the flies are congregating, swarming around the poles?”

“Yes,” Rockson said, brushing at his face, trying to keep the little gnats from his eyes at least. Indeed the flies were droning around the many hanging poles. The poles seemed to have a sticky surface on them. Flies were massed in some places inches deep on the stickiness.

“I see you’re trying to do something about the fly problem,” Rockson said, not knowing what was expected of him.

“
Do
something about them?” the king said, as if incredulous at the stupidity of the comment. “My dear fellow, we are
collecting them
, they will be the source of the
flavoring
of the new food.”

Rockson was happy he had a strong stomach. Still, the remark was almost too much. He watched in mute horror as special “skimming” vehicles crawled up to the most fly-clogged poles and a cylindrical device slid up over the poles and sucked off the dead flies. The trucks, once this was accomplished, deposited their flies in a hopper next to the fecal conveyor belts.

“See,” bragged the king, “we have no need of returning to the surface to make food. With these innovations, we will have enough food forever.”

“Fascinating. King Charles . . .” muttered the Freefighter. “Now, could we perhaps see that park you mentioned? The one that doesn’t need maintenance?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the king said. They exited the abominable scene, and Rockson was never so glad to leave a place in his life.

The “park,” which was two blocks from the fecal cavern, consisted of thirty brown-metal poles painted with barklike graphics. They were supposed to be the maintenance-free trees of Eden. Rockson leaned against one. It was cold and steely to the touch. The grass below their feet was the kind of matting they’d used to use in football stadiums—when the pollution of the 1980s made it impossible to maintain real grass fields.

Several backless benches in the park, among the evenly distributed “trees,” were occupied by oldsters. The withered men and women, sacklike forms that drooled out on their tunics, were watching a group of painters repaint a peeling “tree.”

“Nice park,” Rockson said. “I dont see any children playing, though.”

“We have—reproductive problems,” Stafford admitted begrudgingly. “It’s our one negative. But I have teams of my best scientists working on the problem. Years ago we had some experiments in genetics that resulted in the three strong leaders of the Guard. I am hoping to reproduce those successes without the necessity of sexual intercourse, which is, of course, a filthy animal practice.”

“Of course,” Rockson agreed. What else could he say? “Well, it’s a very nice park . . .” Rockson glanced up—the homogenously green painted boughs above had no individual leaves, just a mottled texture created by paint brushes. “I see there’s no troublesome leaves to rake up in the fall.”

“Leaves? Fall?”

“On the surface, parts of the trees—er—peel off at a certain time each year, and have to be raked up.”

“We don’t have any such problems in Eden.”

Onward they walked. Rockson never had a chance to seize a weapon from the eternally watchful guards.

The king was tired, though the tour was less than a half-hour old.

They went back to the Government Building.

Stafford said, “Rockson. I have decided not to kill you surface people. You will be exhibited. I fancy that I will create a zoo. Danik will die, of course, and most painfully and publicly. You and your company of freaks will be well fed, with the best of the new food.”

“That is kind of you.”

“It is not kindness. The one thing that Danik has said that seemed to be right is the fact that our genes
have
suffered somehow from being underground. Sex is a dirty and primitive thing, but the race must go on. The need for fresh genetic material is obvious, and you surface men—and that buxom surface woman—must have some potency I will let my scientists use you for experiments. To our genetic problems, you surface beings present a possible solution both simple and practical.

“I am not unfamiliar with the sciences. Do you realize that a single fertile woman of the past—who was, I suppose, of the type similar to the redhead surface woman—could produce ten, twenty ova a month? If removed surgically, each ova could be implanted in our barren women and fertilized by inserting genetic material derived from you surface men.”

It was all Rockson could do to contain himself. Zoo exhibits, specimens for experiments, horrible operations on Rona—there wasn’t much time to act. He didn’t relish being a farm for genes to keep propagating these mole people. And Rockson gagged at the thought of Rona being a “donor,” confined to a hospital bed, constantly operated upon for removal of human egg cells. He nodded, though, as if it were a good deal, to eat all that great shit-food, to be alive.

Twenty-Five

T
he king excused himself to “tend to his toilet.” He ordered that Rockson be unbound and treated to some food and drink while he “freshened up”.

This was more like it, Rock thought. His easy acquiescence to the abominable ideas of this madman finally had paid off. Rockson, unbound, rubbed his sorely aching wrists. He didn’t want to drink or eat anything offered to him, though he was powerfully hungry. The thought of the way they were making food here in this underground madhouse stayed his hunger.

He sat for five minutes in the second chair in the audience room, but Stafford did not return. Instead Mannerly, the butler in the tux, came in and said. “The king wishes you to come to his study, for further conversation in a more comfortable environment.”