Fade Out (43 page)

Connors glanced away and looked out across the empty grassland beyond the river. How, he asked himself, could Wedderkind have heard of Operation CAMPFIRE? For him to have just plucked the same idea out of the air seemed to be stretching coincidence
too
far. Wait a minute… Connors' brain backtracked. Plucked the idea out of the air… They had virtually accepted that Crusoe had established some form of telepathic contact. Was he also passing on everybody's secrets?

Just after eleven o'clock in the morning, Friday jerked out of his trance. For a full five minutes he clicked away like a convention of castanet players, then headed back down the hill towards Crusoe.

In contrast to his zigzag ascent, Friday's descent was on a straight line back to Crusoe. As they only had two legs each, Connors and Wedderkind took the long way down and, consequently, were a hundred yards behind him by the time he reached the level ground and entered the grid.

Connors paused on the slope and saw that their jeep had gone. It didn't matter. Their return would have been picked up by one or more of the TV cameras covering Friday so someone would be on their way to pick them up. Down over on their left, four of Max's men in their telltale bright orange hard hats were hitching a towline to the last of the shattered bulldozers. Back in Rockville, everyone would probably be watching a TV set to see if Crusoe's hatch would open for Friday. If it did, there was a chance Crusoe might also cough up Milsom, Max, and Spencer. Connors privately rated their chances of a return ticket as slim to nonexistent but whatever happened, the project would continue.

In the monitor hut, Neal Zabrodski was heading up the six-man day shift. Seated in front of the bank of TV monitors, Neal saw Friday heading through the grid towards Crusoe. Connors and Wedderkind were still picking their way down from the crest. He glanced at the bottom left-hand screen and saw six men climb into a jeep and drive of towards Rockville.

Neal picked up the phone and called the transport section. ‘Have you got the White Knight's wheels down there?'

‘Yeah, it's parked outside.'

‘Okay, get it up on the Ridge. He's on his way down the hill.'

As Neal hung up, the top sergeant on his right pointed up to the middle screen of the bottom bank of five. ‘Where are those guys going?'

Neal looked up. Moving through the grid was the jeep with the six men aboard. Instead of driving down from the plateau, it had turned eastward towards Crusoe and parallel with Friday.

‘Give me a close-up on that.'

The sergeant hit the traverse button of the camera to the east of Crusoe and closed in tight on the jeep with the zoom lens. Neal put the picture on the main screen. It was Max's six roughnecks. He couldn't remember the name of the driver, but the man next to him was Lee Ryder. He had a sledgehammer across his lap.

Neal leaned towards the mike and switched it to Allbright in the command hut. ‘Sir? We seem to have some unscheduled activity on Screens 5 and 8.'

‘Thank you, Mr Zabrodski, I have the situation in view.'

Connors and Wedderkind reached the bottom of the hill at the same time as their own jeep bounced on to the plateau. It came racing towards them, then slid the last
five yards with all four wheels locked by the brakes. KINNER, D. J., was at the wheel. He had been Connors' driver all week. Kinner seemed to be under the impression that everyone in the White House hurtled about their business at the speed of sound. Consequently, he drove Connors around as if he was out to win the Indianapolis 500.

Allbright watched the TV screen. The roughnecks' jeep turned towards Friday. When he was quite sure what was going to happen, he glanced up at his senior cadet commander. ‘Make sure it doesn't get out of hand, Mr Harris.'

Wedderkind climbed into the back of the jeep. Connors got in the front beside Kinner and put one foot up on the dashboard. Kinner looked across at him expectantly, his right arm braced against the gear lever for a racing start.

‘Tag along behind Friday.'

Kinner gunned the motor.

‘Just keep it nice and slow,' said Connors. ‘We've got all day.'

The words were no sooner out of his mouth when the roughnecks' jeep roared across their front and smacked into Friday at forty miles an hour. In the split second before they collided, Friday managed to dart a half pace backward so that instead of mowing him down, the jeep struck him a glancing blow, buckling his two front left legs and hurling him sideways into one of the grid posts. As Friday crashed against it, the thick post snapped over on top of him like a broken matchstick.

‘Jesus Christ!' said Connors.

Behind him, Wedderkind cried out sharply as if in pain. ‘
Meshuggener!
'

Over his shoulder, Connors saw three jeeploads of cadets put daylight under their wheels as they shot up the
slope and on to the plateau. ‘It's okay, look, there's some help on the way.'

The roughnecks' jeep slid to a halt. Lee and the four others in the back piled out with sledgehammers and watched as T-Bone put his foot on the gas pedal and reversed in four-wheel drive.

Connors grabbed Kinner's arm. ‘Can you block that jeep?'

‘Yes, sir-r-r,' said Kinner. He stepped on the gas so hard he nearly lost his distinguished passengers overboard. Ahead of them, Friday struggled to his feet but before he could move out of the way, T-Bone ploughed backward over Friday's front right leg and rammed into his feelers and eye pod with a sickening crunch.

‘Hang on tight!' yelled Kinner.

As T-Bone curved away backward over the uneven ground, Kinner hit him with a glancing blow that shot T-Bone out of his seat and put his jeep into a slow roll. Connors was better braced for the impact. While Wedderkind was still picking himself up off the floor, Connors thumped Kinner on the back and dropped out of the jeep.

‘Don't stop till you get to Rockville.'

The cadet put his foot down and carried Wedderkind out of cursing range. Connors ran back to the roughnecks.

‘Okay, just hold everything right there!'

Lee Ryder pointed a huge finger at him. ‘Shut your ass, Connors.'

As Aaron and Fish blocked off Connors, T-Bone ran limping from the overturned jeep.

‘Better hurry, Lee. We've got trouble from the Air Force.'

‘No sweat,' said Lee. ‘We've got them outnumbered.'

Lee, Cab, and Dixie only had about thirty seconds before the cadets surrounded them, but to Connors it
seemed like thirty minutes as Friday was struck with a rapid series of massive, alternating blows every third one of which was delivered by Lee with the force of a huge piledriver.

When the cadets made their grab, Connors tensed up in anticipation of a barroom brawl. Nothing happened. Lee just dropped his sledgehammer and offered no resistance. The other five did the same. Connors pushed his way through to confront Lee.

‘Do you realize you may have just screwed up this whole operation?'

‘Tough shit…' growled T-Bone.

Connors ignored him. ‘But why, Lee? I mean, what were you trying to prove?'

‘Nothin'. I just wanted to get in a few licks for Max.' Lee stared back at Connors.

Connors looked at the other five.
A few licks for Max
… It was as simple as that. They were all quite unrepentant. And with good cause. What the hell could he hit them with, destroying extraterrestrial property? The worst that could happen would be losing their jobs with the CIA. Big deal… ‘Get them out of here,' he said wearily.

Connors turned to look at Friday. His black crystal skin had caved in like the laminated windshield of a car. Patches of frost had formed on the three unbroken body panels and two of his legs. The battering had obviously knocked his cooling system out of action. Kinner returned with Wedderkind, Tompkin, and Davis. Neame and the three other engineers were in a second jeep behind them. They got out to survey the damage.

‘
Meesemachine die verbrecher
… how could we hire such people?'

‘There wasn't a lot I could do, Arnold.'

‘Well, you tried, anyway…' Wedderkind gave Connors a perfunctory pat on the back.

Thanks a bunch
…

Friday hauled himself more or less upright and began to crawl back towards Crusoe, trailing his three broken legs behind him. The four feelers were flattened and twisted. The eye pod had taken a brutal battering.

Wedderkind turned to Tompkin. ‘What do you think, Vic? Is he going to make it?'

Tompkin looked doubtful. ‘I would guess that whoever designed Friday must have envisaged the possibility of his losing a leg or two. It's the damage to the carapace, eye pod, and pedipalps that may be more serious.'

‘There's also the small problem of how he is going to open the hatch without the right number of serviceable feet,' said Connors.

‘I would think that situation must have been foreseen too,' said Tompkin. ‘In any case, we'll soon know the answer.'

Friday lurched sideways and blundered into a stake. He backed off, felt his way around it, then zigzagged off to the right of Crusoe and walked slap into another stake.

‘They must have blinded him,' said Davis.

‘Savages,' muttered Wedderkind, ‘Savages…'

Connors thought back to what Wetherby had said about the characters in Robinson Crusoe, and the savages who had finally succeeded in killing Friday. Was this the role that Man had been assigned in this updated version of the story?

‘You're all talking as if he's alive,' said Neame. ‘It's a repair problem. Crusoe's bound to have a few spare parts tucked away somewhere.'

‘Is that all you feel about it?' snapped Wedderkind.

‘Well, I don't feel any moral outrage, Arnold. It's just a piece of machinery. I admit that I no more enjoy seeing
him smashed up than I would enjoy watching those goons go ape over a computer or a Steinway concert grand. But I don't look on him as one of the family.'

‘Maybe you should,' said Wedderkind. ‘Maybe we all should.' He turned his back on them and hurried after Friday.

‘I think we're crazy to let him go back to Crusoe.'

Connors looked at Gilligan. ‘Why?'

‘Because now this has happened, Crusoe may not feel like swapping Dan, Chris, and Max. In fact, the three of them may not be hostages at all.'

‘What are they?'

‘Specimens – in which case, I think we deserve a specimen too.'

They got into the jeeps and drove over to Crusoe. Wedderkind was standing at the edge of the hull already. Despite what Neame had said, Connors had come to regard Friday as something more than a machine. Faced with the sight of this broken body struggling towards safety, Connors' feelings were a mixture of sympathy and fear. Within him, there was a desire to help. Yet, at the same time, he felt exultant at the near destruction of this object which stirred up a host of irrational fears within him.

Friday dragged himself over to Crusoe and climbed up towards the dome like a rundown clockwork toy. Halfway up the curving hull, his remaining right legs locked solid and his two undamaged left legs buckled under him. Friday keeled over in slow motion, then slid sideways down the hull onto the earth at the rim of the spacecraft.

Connors eyed Neame. ‘Looks as if he's here to stay.'

Friday didn't move as they crowded around him. Tompkin hooked a stethoscope into his ears and sounded him out carefully. He looked up at Wedderkind and shook his head.

‘Great…' muttered Neame to Gilligan. ‘Now we can take him apart.'

Another jeep carrying Brecetti, Lovell, Armenez, and Page pulled up behind them. They joined the group and surveyed the damage.

‘Look,' said Page. ‘He's turning grey.'

Page was right. A grey opaque film was spreading outward from the damaged body panels, dulling the deep brilliance of the black crystal the way a cataract clouds a human eye.

‘Arnold, can we take him over to the lab?' asked Neame.

Wedderkind nodded. Gilligan waved to the driver of the nearest jeep and got him to back up. Dark brown blotches started to appear on Friday's greying skin.

‘You'd better hurry,' said Page. ‘It looks as if that crystalline coating is unstable. If he's made of organic…'

‘Don't say it,' said Neame. ‘You'll bring us bad luck. Jess, Lew, give us a hand with this thing.'

Vincent and Hadden moved to help Neame and Gilligan.

‘Okay, spread out. Get a grip under the body somewhere and lift on three, right? One, two, three – '

Gilligan was holding two of the stiffened right legs at the point where they joined the body. When they were halfway to the jeep, both legs snapped clean off.

‘Goddammit, Steve, the idea is to get this thing back in one piece.' The words were no sooner out when the eye pod Neame was holding sheared away from the body. Before anyone could grab him, Friday slipped out of Vincent and Hadden's grasp, hit the ground and split apart like a cheap plaster ornament.

‘I thought that might happen', said Page.

Neame turned on Page with a snarl. ‘Listen, if you're
such a fucking wise guy, why don't you help pick this thing up?'

‘Gentlemen, please!' protested Lovell.

‘Creep…' muttered Neame.

‘Cool it,' said Connors. ‘If you guys don't get this together fast, we'll need a vacuum cleaner.'

Neame and the others turned back to look at Friday's fractured body. Whatever had been packed inside had collapsed into a meaningless junkheap of gooey crystals, honeycombed with decay. Brown blotches spread rapidly through Friday's greying skin, then spots of dark, fungoid yellow began devouring the brown. But as always, there was a twist. Friday was not only decomposing, he was disappearing.

Connors sniffed the air. ‘I know that smell… what is it?'

‘Jasmine,' said Davis.

Connors shook his head. ‘Crazy…' He watched the group slide Friday's fragments into clear plastic bags and place them carefully on a thick sheet of foam in the back of one of the jeeps. Neame spent several minutes manoeuvring a leg segment into a bag. Although it was heavily pitted with brown and yellow blotches, he managed to get it as far as the jeep in one piece, but as he laid it down it crumbled apart like a dried corn husk. Neame thumped the side of the jeep in anger and jarred some more fragments into dust.