Fade Out (35 page)

Wedderkind and Connors stood on the shaking roof of the cab to watch what was happening. Despite his revulsion, Connors couldn't resist a feeling of sympathy for Friday now that he was hemmed in and apparently helpless.

Wedderkind called down to Max who was by the side of the cab, ‘Tell your boys to go easy, we don't want to crush him.'

Max relayed the message through cupped hands.

Retreating from the first blade, Friday doggedly tried to climb the other three walls of his pen, and was shaken off. On the fourth attempt, he almost got over. The driver, a man called T-Bone, raised and lowered the blade in rapid succession as Friday balanced his body on top of the blade and tried to get his four left legs on to the hood of the bulldozer. His four right legs scrabbled over the blade, but each time it thumped back on the ground he lost his grip. In such a precarious position there was a real danger of Friday getting some of his legs crushed.

Wedderkind looked around for Max but couldn't see him. He waved at T-Bone and shouted, ‘Let him go – we'll have to find some other way!'

With the noise of all four engines T-Bone didn't hear. Wedderkind called down to Spencer and while he was explaining what he wanted him to do, Max clambered up on to the hood of T-Bone's bulldozer with a long wooden stake. As Friday rocked to and fro, Max got the stake underneath him and sent him tumbling backward off the top of the blade. Connors winced as Friday landed on his head with a sickening thud. For a few seconds, his eight
legs waved feebly in the air. Then he folded them two at a time close in against his body, and lay there upside down.

Wedderkind climbed off the top of the cab and ran forward along the hood. ‘What did you do that for?' he shouted angrily.

Max looked bewildered. ‘I thought the idea was to keep him inside.'

‘Yes, but not like that, you clumsy ape!'

Max threw down the stake in disgust and turned to Connors with outspread hands. ‘What the hell did I do wrong?'

Wedderkind squeezed through the gap between the right-angled blades of two bulldozers, followed by Spencer, Milsom, Neame, and Tomkin. Connors moved to the hood of the bulldozer on which he had been standing and looked down at Friday.

After what was probably a quiet moment of reflection, Friday extended two of the retractable eyestalks set in the flat top of his body, and tipped it over on to one side. The two legs pinned underneath unfolded like scissor jacks, lifting his body sideways into the air. Pivoting upright, Friday put out his six other legs on the ground and raised himself up to his normal height. He shook the dust from his two eyestalks and retracted them.

‘What do we do now?' asked Neame.

‘If we can get him to curl up and play dead,' said Wedderkind, ‘we can scoop him up on the shovel of one of the small earthmovers, and take him down to the field lab. We should be able to get him through the door sideways – and once he's in, unless he goes berserk, he's going to have a hard time getting out.'

Wedderkind called in some more people until there were twelve of them in a ring around Friday. As they
closed in, he shrank down, and then folded his legs neatly against his body.

The bulldozer facing Connors backed away and the earthmover took its place with Wedderkind standing behind Aaron, the driver. Aaron lowered the long-toothed shovel and edged forward. Max jumped down from the hood of the bulldozer and gave the signal to start biting dirt.

Friday tilted sideways as the earth lifted beneath him. Max signalled to the opposing bulldozer to drop its blade into the earth and bring a pile forward to act as a buffer.

Aaron freed the ragged wedge of earth that Friday was sitting on, and carefully angled it up clear of the ground. Spencer and Milsom packed some thick plastic foam sheeting behind Friday, then wrapped a length of thin rope several times around the shovel to make sure Friday didn't fall out. Max signalled Aaron to lift it clear of their heads, then walked over to Connors and Wedderkind.

‘Okay, away you go.'

‘Thanks,' said Wedderkind. ‘I'm sorry I got upset back there. I thought you might have damaged him.'

‘What are you gonna do when you get him to the lab, give him a bowl of milk?'

‘Well, no, but if and when we decide to take him apart, the idea is to do it scientifically.'

‘Okay,' said Max. ‘But if you run into any problems, tell me. One of the boys in my crew is an ace with a seven-pound hammer.'

‘I'll let you know,' said Wedderkind. He walked away.

Max turned to Connors. ‘Lee Ryder…' He picked up the wooden stake from the ground. ‘I was with him at this fair in Phoenix. He took twenty shots at a '47 Buick. It looked like it'd been run over by a tank.'

Connors smiled.

‘Okay, laugh.'

‘I'm not laughing, Max.'

‘Just tell me, how far have they got with their fancy instruments? Nowhere. Right?'

‘Be fair, there were problems when Crusoe was surrounded with a magnetic field and none of their gear was working. Also, I think the idea at the moment is to show we're friendly.'

‘Why?' Max jabbed his stake towards Crusoe. ‘Hasn't that son of a bitch caused us enough problems?'

‘It has, but for the moment, the heat's off.'

‘Then why not fix them both for good while we can get at them?'

‘Max, we can't risk any drastic action until we know exactly what we're dealing with – or at least have a better idea of the problems than we have now.'

‘Who needs it?' said Max. ‘It cost me a lot of my friends to learn one thing during the war in 'Nam. Never give the enemy time to dig in. This guy's had enough time to start pouring concrete.'

‘We're keeping a close eye on everything, Max, believe me. I'm just as aware of the dangers as you are. That's what my job is – to see this thing doesn't get off the rails.'

‘Yeah, okay.' Max nodded wisely. ‘I just hope you're still around if and when we have to start shovelling up this pile of shit.'

‘I'll be around,' said Connors. ‘In the meantime, let's leave it to the scientists.'

‘Scientists?' Max snorted. ‘Those guys don't even know which end of a test tube to fart into.' He stuck the stake into the ground in front of Connors and stomped off.

There is no way to win this one, thought Connors. This time, he was really the meat in the sandwich. The President had Fraser breathing fire down the back of his neck in Washington, while on Crow Ridge, Allbright was playing the local heavy. And now Max. There would be
plenty of people in the country who would share Max's view.

Ranged against them was Wedderkind and the forces of reason – but not necessarily common sense. They were committed to keeping this project alive. Just how far would they go to achieve that objective?

In crossing up the Russians and hiding the truth from the rest of the world, the White House had laid itself wide open to a little discreet blackmail from the scientific community on Crow Ridge. They were sealed off from the outside world, but what about their friends who had kept the press happy with the idea that new, inexplicable solar flares had been the cause of the fade-out? What kind of a deal had Wedderkind done with them?

Connors thought back to his first meeting with the research group at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and the feeling he had had that the group had known Crusoe was due to arrive. He dismissed the idea yet again, as simple nonscientific paranoia. People were always dreaming of mad scientists plotting to take over the world. They overlooked the fact that most of them were so bad at management that they would never be able to get it together.

That was why God, in his infinite wisdom, had made some men politicians.

The field lab consisted of two facing pairs of prefabricated units linked to a fifth, central unit that ran transversely between them. The four units each housed part of the research group – physics, chemistry, biology, and systems engineering. The central unit was common ground, with various shared facilities, a canteen conference area and a corner for the inevitable paperwork.

Friday was manhandled from the shovel of Aaron's earthmover on to a wooden pallet where he was brushed
clean, then a fork-lift truck lifted the pallet through the double doors of the central unit on to a wheeled metal base. Friday's legs were still pulled in tight against his body, and his eyestalks and feelers were fully retracted.

Milsom, who was one of the people pushing the low trolley, had one hand on one of Friday's legs. The black crystal surface felt very cold. When they got Friday to the centre of the room, they saw a thin film of condensation misting his shiny surface.

‘Look, he's sweating again. Just like when we first had him surrounded.' Milsom patted one of Friday's sloping side panels. ‘Don't worry, baby, this isn't going to hurt.'

‘Much,' added Neame.

Spencer felt a cold draught and shivered. ‘What happened to the air conditioning?'

Wedderkind, Brecetti, Lovell and the others all became aware of the cold. They didn't need a thermometer to tell them something they could see with their own eyes. Friday was reducing his body temperature.

The thin film of condensation began to turn into creeping patterns of frost over Friday's black body. Wedderkind turned to Milsom. ‘Now you know he wasn't sweating, and he wasn't frightened.'

‘Shit…' said Milsom. ‘He's a walking deep freeze.'

Brecetti blew into his hands and rubbed them together.

‘How about rustling up some fast heat?' suggested Spencer.

‘Good idea,' said Wedderkind. ‘Can you get that organized?'

Page, who had gone to get a thermometer from the chemistry unit, said, ‘You'd better hurry. The room temperature is minus two degrees centigrade already.'

They left Friday in possession of the central unit and gathered outside the entrance where it was twenty degrees
plus
– a sunny, sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

‘Of course the one thing we won't have on the Ridge is a cold suit,' said Wedderkind. ‘That would be asking too much.' He buttonholed Milsom. ‘Go over to operations, and see if they can get some flown in fast.'

Connors drove up to the field lab in a jeep. ‘What are you all doing out here?'

‘Take a look inside,' said Wedderkind.

Connors give them all a puzzled glance, pushed open one of the doors to the lab, and gasped as the block of ice-cold air hit him. His lungs felt full of icy needles.

Friday sat on the wooden pallet, his legs still folded in close to his body. Both were now entirely covered in a layer of glittering white frost. He looked like a wedding cake designed by Salvador Dali.

Connors shut the door hurriedly and stepped back outside. He beat his arms across his chest and shivered.

‘We can't get near him,' said Wedderkind.

‘Isn't there anything you can do to stop it?'

‘We're rustling up some gas heating units, and I've sent Milsom to try and organize delivery of some cold suits.'

‘Look,' said Page. ‘The windows in the side units are misting over.'

Wedderkind tried the handles of the entrance doors, then jerked his hand away as he felt the flesh begin to stick to the metal. The lock was beginning to ice up. Connors cleared a circle of condensation and peered through the panel in the door. Everything inside the central unit was now covered with frost.

Spencer and a cadet came running back with a cylindrical gas turboheater on a wheeled frame. Behind him were six more cadets with another heater and two fat drums of butane.

‘How's it going?' asked Spencer breathlessly. Page pointed to the windows. The insides were now an opaque
white, and frost was beginning to form on the outside of the glass.

‘Shit,' hissed Spencer. ‘Aren't those units double glazed?'

Wedderkind took Connors' arm and moved him farther away from the field lab. ‘I don't think it would be advisable to go in there until we get the cold suits.'

‘What's the temperature in there now?' asked Connors.

‘We left all the thermometers inside,' said Page. ‘Along with everything else.'

‘Okay, let's light these two blowers and shove 'em through the door,' said Spencer.

Brecetti shook his head. ‘Complete waste of time. If I had a slide rule I could prove it quickly, but just take my word for it, the number of thermal units those two can put out won't make any difference. If you had fifty perhaps…'

‘Well, we could at least try,' insisted Spencer.

‘Okay,' said Connors. ‘Go ahead. There's nothing else we can do.'

They connected up the two turboblowers to the butane drums and lit the ring of gas jets.

‘Don't touch the door with your bare hands!' said Wedderkind.

Spencer took the proffered handkerchief, wrapped it round his right hand, and put his own on the left, then grabbed hold of the two handles of the entrance doors. They were frozen solid. He put his shoulder to the door and heaved.

‘Can someone lend me a hand to get a little more weight on here?'

‘Let me try, sir.' It was one of the cadets. TURNER. The danger hit Wedderkind a fraction too late. As he opened his mouth to cry ‘Stop!' Turner hurled himself shoulder first at the doors, burst them open and went
crashing through to hit a wall of air at minus triple figures centigrade.

Spencer recoiled as the white cloud of cold air rolled outward. They saw Turner spin round with his mouth open, then fall with outstretched arms against the partially open doors, slamming them shut.

‘Jesus Christ!' yelled Spencer. ‘Help me get him out.'

Connors grabbed his driver's arm. ‘Get the medics!' The cadet leaped into the jeep and roared away.

Wedderkind ran across to the entrance door as four of the cadets who'd brought the heaters got their shoulders to it. ‘Get back! It's no good! You'll have to leave him in there!'