Fade Out (60 page)

They walked up towards the crest of the Ridge.

‘Last time we were up here, we had Friday sitting behind us,' said Connors.'

‘Yes,' said Wedderkind. ‘I miss him.'

They reached the weathered slabs of rock at the top and looked out across the land to the southwest. Connors saw a distant group of riders, probably some of the National Guardsmen Reese had sent in to scout for stragglers.

‘You know, in spite of these last-minute, ulcer-making hangups, in a curious kind of way I feel – glad to be back. That must sound absolutely crazy.'

‘Not really,' said Wedderkind. ‘Do you know why?'

‘No. I just feel…different.'

‘Must be the Ridge. Did you know that Al Wetherby found out that Crow Ridge was regarded by both the Crows and the Apaches as a “good medicine place”?'

‘No…'

Wedderkind turned to look at Crusoe. ‘I've been thinking about what you told me about Commissar coming out of the ground. When we got the first indications of another site, I immediately thought that Crusoe must be one part of a spacecraft that split up on entering the atmosphere like one of our MIRV missiles.'

‘Isn't that what happened? One landed in the middle of North America and the other almost in the middle of
Europe and Asia. The two places, where most of the action is.'

‘The other possibility is that the spacecraft split up once it was underground. Each part travelling to its appointed position by burning its way through the Earth's crust.'

‘Arnold, we know Crusoe demonstrated that capability, but the distances involved are enormous.'

‘I know,' said Wedderkind. ‘That leads me to my latest theory – that Crusoe and Commissar
didn't
land.'

‘Say that again?'

‘They didn't land. They were here all the time, buried deep within the Earth. Lying dormant.'

‘And –?'

‘The blue-white disc of light that the people of Broken Mill caught a glimpse of could have been a separate energizing unit – that landed to reactivate Crusoe and Commissar. Do you remember Wetherby telling us that legend of the Incas where God sends men underground to the regions of the Earth they are to occupy?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘There was another he told me. From Australia. The aborigines there revere the Great Green Ant God. They believe it is a spiritual being that laid down the pattern for the development of human beings – and that can still influence their lives. There's an area of hallowed ground they call the Dreaming Place of the Green Ants and they believe that if it is desecrated, man-eating monsters will emerge to ravage the world. Don't you think there're some interesting similarities?'

‘Well, I suppose you could confuse Friday with an ant. But even though he gave me the creeps, he was hardly out to ravage the world.'

‘Maybe it's
us
who will emerge as the man-eating monsters.'

‘Well, I'm not going to dispute our proven and infinite capacity for destruction. We also have an equally great potential for good. But that's beside the point. Commissar didn't have a hatch –
or
a Friday.'

‘And there was no Russian sighting report of a descending blue-white disc of light, even though it was night time in Russia when whatever it was entered the atmosphere and landed on Crow Ridge,' said Wedderkind.

‘So you see Crusoe as the central character?'

‘Yes. And if you want to continue the analogy, the others are playing bit parts.'

‘Others?' From the beginning Connors had steadfastly tried to ignore the possibility.

‘Bob, I
know
it's been on your mind ever since the President coined the code word.'

‘But surely – not
six
?'

‘Now that we know there's one in Russia, it means that the computer picture York and Al Wetherby produced is right. And since Fraser's going to haul him in you might as well know. Yes – it now looks as if there
are
six sites, four of them underwater, and arranged in a neat pattern, on the equator, forty-five to forty-seven degrees above and below it, and all ninety degrees of arc from one another.'

‘And are they all magnetic sub-poles like Crow Ridge?'

‘Well, York's magnetic data coverage was incomplete so he had to interpolate a lot of the figures. But, yes – they're all polarizing the existing field, and drawing it into a new pattern around the existing north and south magnetic poles.'

‘Wow… If you're right about Crusoe lying dormant, it gives this situation a kind of – permanent quality. How long have you been sitting on this?'

‘Not long. We've suspected the possibility for some
weeks, but I was trying to get some harder evidence. I didn't want to come to you with yet another theory.'

‘And it was the Air Force that came up with the proof.'

‘And even they didn't tell you about it officially.'

‘No, everyone had their own angle… Boy, when Mel Fraser hears about this he's going to go bananas.'

Wedderkind smiled. ‘That's exactly how I said you'd react when you got the news. But you've taken it rather well.'

‘I ran out of my supply of the cold sweat of fear on the way down to that forced landing by the Little Dry. But I can see Fraser coming after you with a knife.' It was Connors' turn to smile. ‘After the way I blew out in Russia, maybe it would be a good idea if we both stayed out of Washington for a while.'

Connors looked at his watch. 5 P.M.… In forty-eight hours one of Allbright's B-52s would hit Crusoe with the ultimate weapon, and then the whole wearisome discussion of what he was and whether he'd sprung out of the ground or from under God's armpit would become totally academic.

‘Come on, Arnold, let's clear out of here.' Connors started down from the crest of the Ridge. ‘And if you're hiding anything else, save it till after the bomb goes off. I'll be able to take it then.'

In the small hours of Monday morning, nearly everyone at the base camp was woken up by what sounded like a
fast freight passing at right angles underneath the highway. The ground shook so violently that some people, sleeping on the edge of their bunks, woke up on their way to the floor. People spilled out of their trailers and clustered together in an effort to find out what was happening. When a search confirmed that the ground was still in one piece under their feet and that there was no visible damage, most of them drifted back to their trailers and tried to grab another couple of hours' sleep. Wedderkind put on his dressing gown and slippers and prowled about in the darkness puffing endless cigarettes.

At about five o'clock, Connors stumbled out of bed, decided he didn't need to shave, and yawned his way across to the canteen and the delicious smell of coffee, frying bacon, and hot fried eggs. At least Crusoe hadn't been able to stop them cooking with gas. Wedderkind joined him, drinking his coffee with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.

‘I thought you had your own pot.'

‘I left it in my trailer up on the Ridge,' said Wedderkind. ‘Do you want to go up and have a look?'

‘For your coffee pot?'

‘No. To see what all that noise was about.'

‘Okay, Arnold. But the idea is for everybody to be moving
away
from the Ridge, not back on to it.'

When Neame heard of the projected trip, he asked if he could come along to check if Crusoe had grown anymore. Vincent and Hadden offered to hold the other end of the tape, and in the end it was decided to take along ten of the cadets just in case they needed some help. Before they left, Connors got together with Harris and Cameron, the two senior cadets in charge of the Crow Ridge evacuation, and Bill Rizzik, the CIA front-office manager of the base camp.

‘Have we got all our vehicles back now?'

‘Eight,' said Rizzik. ‘There are still two with Reese at Miles City and two up at the airstrip at Jordan – the new pickup point for Glasgow.'

‘All with cadet crews?'

‘Yes,' said Harris. ‘And they all have Presidential passes.'

‘Okay, load up as many of your people as you can. Leave me about twenty-five, and ship the rest up to the airbase at Glasgow for transfer to Colorado.' Connors turned to Rizzik. ‘How about your people?'

‘We'll go the same way. There're only a dozen of us, plus the NASA medical team. What about their equipment? Some of it's pretty fancy.'

‘Better leave them till last just in case someone breaks a fingernail. If there's any transport to spare, we can think about moving hardware then.'

‘Right…'

Connors shook Rizzik's hand. ‘Bill, if I don't see you again, good luck. And thanks for covering us.'

‘It's what I'm paid for. First thing I'm going to do when I get back home is go around the house and switch everything on.'

Kinner drove Connors' party up to the Ridge. He was a little slower with the truck than he was with the jeep. When they got up to the gate, they found their way was barred by an enormous block of black crystal that had grown out of the hillside. The block, which had thrust its way straight out of the side of the slope, had uprooted several pines, demolished the flimsy wooden gatehouse that had been directly in its path, shattered a concrete post and driven straight through the heavy tube-metal and wire-mesh gate.

Connors stepped back and took a good look at the block. He estimated it was about ten feet high and twelve feet wide. The front edge was cut back in a series of nine
steps at an angle of 45 degrees. There wasn't a mark on it. He put a hand on the crystal. It was warm, and he could hear a humming sound that seemed to be coming from inside.

Connors exchanged a look with Wedderkind. ‘He really is full of last-minute surprises.'

They clambered over the smashed gate.

‘Hey, look, steps,' said Kinner. He climbed up them, and walked along the top of the block to the point where it entered the slope. ‘Trouble is they don't go anywhere.'

Wedderkind dispatched the cadets to check all sides of the Ridge. They found that Crusoe had pushed twelve stepped blocks sideways out of the Ridge. Four, one of which had demolished the gatehouse, faced North, South, East and West, and were on a higher level than the other eight which radiated out at 45-degree intervals. Connors walked down and looked at two or three of them with Wedderkind, then returned to Crusoe.

Neame, Vincent, and Hadden completed their measurements. Crusoe was now fifty-six and a half feet tall, with a base measurement just a few inches short of one hundred feet. The last trace of his curving lines had disappeared and he was a pure pyramid of solid black crystal. The light flickering over the buried cortex was like an angry swarm of blue fireflies.

The news Greg brought back from Montana sparked off a series of meetings which went on almost until dawn. The President slept for a couple of hours, showered, shaved and then went back to his office to meet Fraser, General Wills, and General Clayson.

Faced with the horrendous possibility that Crusoe's cutoff zone could expand to engulf the whole of the
United States, the President had asked the state governors to call out all National Guard units, and had secretly put the three Armed Forces on full alert. Throughout the night, by road, rail and air, troops had been moved into position around the major urban areas of the nation. If the worst happened, their task would be to seal off the cities, preventing an uncontrolled mass exodus into the open country beyond.

‘Everything now hangs on the outcome of this air attack,' said Fraser. ‘If the cutoff zone is expanding at ninety-hour intervals, then we're in the clear. Any other kind of situation is unthinkable. I've been going over the various contingency plans with my people most of the night and there's no way we can cover it. We have plans for survival after a nuclear war, civil defence organizations in each state, fallout shelters to house one hundred and ninety-five million people, emergency rations to last sixty-five million people fourteen days – but every plan is predicated on having emergency power available. Apart from those twelve converted trucks out in Montana and the freaks with their hang-gliders, there won't be one fucking thing able to move! There aren't
any
plans to cover a breakdown on this scale.'

‘And the fade-out could get worse too,' said the President.

‘Don't worry about that,' said Fraser. ‘The fade-out only affects the transmission and reception of radio waves. If we get hit by the cutoff zone, we won't even be able to switch on the sets.'

‘Then how can we keep this whole thing together?' asked the President.

‘Well, the Romans managed,' said Fraser. ‘We'll find a way if we have to.'

‘Do you think I ought to say something? You know – address the nation?'

‘No, not yet. It's still small potatoes. If Allbright does his stuff, then we can relax. You can go on radio and television and tell everyone we and the Russians have saved the world.'

‘Not quite. There are still the other four,' said the President.

‘Yeah… did you know that the Defense Department helped pay for that computer up in Baltimore? I'd like to throw that bastard York in jail – and Wedderkind along with him.'

‘What happens if the zone expands – before the attack?'

‘According to the figures Greg Mitchell brought back, it will still only black out a circle seven hundred miles across,' said Clayson.

‘Do you know how many big towns that covers?' asked Fraser. He looked back at the President. ‘The short answer to that question is, call in your speechwriter.'

‘Yes… I really don't understand why Bob went out there.'

‘All the commanders down to regimental level are being issued with sealed orders,' said General Wills. ‘If the cutoff zone goes to the seven hundred mark, then on your decision they'll get a radio signal to open 'em up. If there is a total radio blackout, that is also a signal to open the orders.'