Heaven's War (12 page)

“Don’t be too sure about that,” Weldon said, “and I won’t need a gun to do it.” But Zhao knew he was bluffing and decided to press that point in front of everyone.

“If we’re going to survive here, we need every available pair of hands. And in spite of what Mr. Nayar knows, or thinks he knows…I’m technically trained. That may be useful.”

Weldon looked to Jones, Drake, and Stewart. None of the three called for Zhao’s execution. Then Weldon turned to Nayar. “Any suggestions?”

Nayar was shaking his head. “Do whatever you want with him,” he said. He seemed tired and distracted. Zhao decided the
Brahma
director was no longer a factor.

But Zack Stewart was smirking at him. “Mr. Zhao, you seem to have a keen sense of the world and its workings. Suppose the situation were reversed. What would
you
do with a captive like you?”

“Social norms require some kind of punishment. I should be confined for several days and limited to a strict diet of bread and water.”

Now Stewart laughed out loud. “I’d
pay
for some real bread and water right now.”

“I’m aware of the ironies,” Zhao said. “Obviously some adjustments will be required.”

At that moment a baby screamed nearby, and the whole issue of Zhao’s punishment was tabled, leaving him, finally with a moment to reflect.

For a man who didn’t want to be in India, who hadn’t wanted to be swept up by the Object, who was reluctant to call attention to himself—

And who didn’t want to shoot the American—

Zhao had sure stepped in it.

“She’s just hungry,” Sasha Blaine said.

Zack and Harley had gone around to the front of the Temple at the sound of the baby’s wail. There, at the edge of the sprawled, exhausted crowd, they had found Sasha Blaine walking the infant like a new mother. Zack recognized the familiar posture, carry, and rocking motion…he had done it enough with a colicky Rachel fourteen or so years in the past. “You’ve done this before,” Zack said.

“Two older sisters and four nieces and nephews. And I worked my way through MIT doing childcare.”

Sasha was even letting the baby suck on her finger.

“Couldn’t someone nurse her?” That was Wade Williams, speaking from the shadows. “Maybe we need a little pioneer spirit,” he said.

“After you, Wade,” Sasha snapped.

“Where’s her mother?” Zack asked.

“Not good,” Sasha said quietly, nodding to the far end of the crowd. “She’s over there somewhere, in a crouch, almost catatonic. Can’t say I blame her. It’s tough enough when you’re facing this yourself…I can’t imagine what I’d do if I felt responsible for a baby.” She made a face and cooed at the child, who was blessedly subdued for the moment.

Harley said, “Who is the mom? Bangalore or Houston?”

“What difference does that make?” Sasha said.

“I don’t know. Maybe it will make it easier to find out where her head is at if she speaks English.”

“Got it, but right now the priority is to get this child some nourishment.”

“Daddy, what about all these fruits and veggies you were talking about?” Rachel said, trying to be helpful.

“People are out gathering right now,” Williams said, pointing back the way they had come, and forward, indicating the range of scouting parties. “It’s pretty funny when you think about all this.”

“How so?” Zack said. Zack only knew the sci-fi writer Wade Williams from his books, and from infrequent appearances on television. He had long-ago outgrown his affection for the man’s work, and if his suggestion that Sasha Blaine should become a wet nurse was typical—

“Here we are, transported from the Earth to a small moon by advanced alien technology, being sustained in some kind of habitat…yet we’re reduced to life as our ancestors lived it before the invention of cities or even language. We’re hunter-gatherers.”

“I think we’re only gatherers, Wade,” said Harley Drake, who didn’t bother to conceal his scorn. “Unless you’ve spotted a Keanu wildebeest.”

“Have not, and do not expect to,” the older man said. “I doubt we could do much in the way of hunting, in any case. I see nothing we could use for spears or flints, just to be nearly Paleolithic for a moment.”

“There are tree branches,” Zack said. He had used one to spear the Sentry that killed Megan.

“Fine. That’s half of what we need.”

Harley looked at the Temple. “Maybe we can chip off bits of that thing and get useful flints.”

“I love optimism,” Williams said. “I often sneer at it, but I do so love it.”

“A far cry from the
Neolithic Trilogy
, aren’t we, Mr. Williams?”

Williams blinked and looked every bit of what had to be seventy-five years of age. “I wrote that series a long time ago. I was younger then.”

“So were your readers,” Zack said. At one time he had been a committed consumer of sci-fi and fantasy books and graphic novels, and he had read several of Williams’s books, which he’d found entertaining and provocative. Williams offered devastating critiques of modern technological society—heavy on the idea that children were being “softened” by a life of ease—in contrast to the benefits of pioneer life on habitable alien worlds or adventures in a different terrestrial past. “We must have some baby-friendly food around here.”

“Power bars and Red Bull?” Sasha said. “I got hold of a packet of Pop Tarts. God knows how long they’ve been sitting, or where.”

“Hell,” Williams said. “Those things contain enough preservative to make them edible for a century.”

“Going into Wade Williams mode, Sasha, how about this,” Zack said. “Think like a mama bird.”

Sasha stared. It took Rachel a moment to understand what Zack was suggesting. Rachel said, “Oh, Daddy, gross!”

But Sasha nodded. “That might be the only option.” She smiled. “Feel free to do some prechewing, too. Given the circumstances, I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference to the baby.”

She ripped open the Pop Tart and bit off a corner.

Zack took one, too.

The sad thing was that Zack hadn’t wanted to share the mulched-up plastic pastry with the baby…he had wanted to eat it all himself.

As he forced himself to chew gently, and not swallow, he grinned at Harley Drake. “I wonder what the poor people are doing this summer afternoon?”

Some time later the baby had been fed, after a fashion, and burped, and carried off to sleep.

Somebody on the Bangalore team had performed the miraculous function of locating water…it turned out there was a pond of sorts a third of a kilometer up-habitat from the Temple. Open water, seemingly spring-fed, and cleanish.

It wasn’t pure, but it was wet.

Another refugee had completed the second most vital chore for a group of humans in circumstances like this—siting and digging a latrine. Weldon had approved the location, down-habitat from the Temple, far enough from the pond, which was already known as Lake Ganges. “I think the trench is far enough downwind to minimize the odor.”

“Assuming the wind ever blows here,” Zack said. He and several of the men had just paid an inaugural visit to the trench. Dozens of women were clustered not far away, impatiently waiting their turn. “I do think we’re going to need a ladies’. Remember what happens at sporting events.”

“Already on it,” Weldon said. He smiled. “I put our Chinese spy to work with the shovel.”

“Excellent. When he’s done with the ladies’, he can dig new ones farther away, because this ain’t gonna be good for long.”

“You think we’re going to be here forever?” Weldon said.

Zack was about to tell him,
I’m afraid so
, but he collided instead with a tall young Hindu. “Sorry,” Zack said, suddenly feeling old and tired—especially when the young man glared and shook his head, and edged past with energy and attitude.

There was something about the young man that bothered Zack—not the rudeness, but a sense that he had seen him before. But where? Or was it just déjà vu triggered by extreme fatigue?

As they reached the leading edge of the gaggle of waiting women, Rachel approached Zack. “What happened with Pav?” she said.

“Who?”

“Pavak Radhakrishnan. You just slammed into him.”

Shit! No wonder the boy had looked familiar! He was the son of Taj Radhakrishnan, commander of the
Brahma
mission, Zack’s closest friend among the international astronaut community.

“I didn’t recognize him.”

“Do you ever recognize anybody?”

“Come on! Last time I saw him he was two years younger. And he had a different haircut and no piercings or tattoos.” He wanted to laugh, or shout with relief; this was the first normal father-daughter conversation he had had with Rachel in weeks. “But your point is taken.”

“Sorry.” She moved off.

“Tempers are frayed,” he said, as he and Weldon resumed their trek back to the Temple.

“It’s not going to get better, not until people have been fed and given some rest.”

“And we start all over the next day.”

“We need to get organized now,” Weldon said.

“Agreed. We need to elect a leader and the equivalent of a city council to assign tasks and referee arguments—”

Weldon smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I nominate you.” They had caught up to another clutch of male urinators, including Harley Drake, Gabriel Jones, Vikram Nayar, and several men Zack didn’t know. You could tell they were engineers and astronauts, Zack realized; they
didn’t just piss against the nearest wall, but rather waited patiently. Zack had not been present when his wheelchair-equipped friend performed whatever maneuvers were required to urinate. He could only imagine—

“Hey, Harls,” Weldon said. “I’ve just told Zack that he should be Supreme Leader.”

Gabriel Jones perked up. This was his area of expertise. “Sorry, Vikram,” he said to the
Brahma
mission director. “What Shane means is, he’s proposing Zack as a
candidate
for…mayor of our combined community. The job should also be open to someone from Bangalore, too. In fact,” Jones continued, with enthusiasm so genuine that Zack actually believed he was sincere, “you would be an excellent candidate yourself. Assuming that you agree that we need some kind of structure if we’re going to avoid slipping into chaos here.”

But Nayar threw up his hands. “I know nothing about this place. I have no more business leading these people than that baby. Make Stewart the mayor. He was
Destiny
commander. He has been here longer than any of us.”

Zack didn’t like where this political process was going. “Listen,” he said, “you guys have been through two days of hell, but I’ve been on the wire for the last ten. Right now, my judgment is seriously for shit.”

“All the more reason to ignore your protests,” Harley said.

Zack turned to Jones. “Gabe, this is right in your wheelhouse. You’ve got the experience and you even know some of the Bangalore folks.” Zack realized that he had never called the JSC director anything but “Dr. Jones.”
And so our circumstances degrade courtesy.

But Gabriel Jones was just as reluctant. “I’m a bureaucrat, Zack. What we need here is more like an operational military leader. Some kind of…genius.”

“Fine, then.” Zack was growing tired of the debate. He was tired of everything. “Vote for Mr. Zhao. Look at what he’s managed to accomplish.”

“Well,” Harley said, “he’s our only known criminal. That certainly qualifies him for a political job.” Tired as they were, some of them laughed at this. “Okay, to be real, if Zack can’t or won’t do it, Shane’s already been acting mayor—”

Then Nayar spoke. “What do you think, Dale? You bridge these worlds.”

The beefy, red-faced man stepped forward. He looked and sounded American but was dressed in garb more suited to Bangalore, with a fat gold medallion hanging around his neck like an Olympic medal.

Dale Scott, the former astronaut who had been exiled first to Russia, then, when that nation licensed its spacecraft technology, to India.

“Maybe we ought to have an actual election,” Scott said. “Could just be a show of hands, or, hell, do a voice vote and pick whoever you want. But it will make people feel as though they had a say.”

He turned to Jones and Weldon, and you didn’t need to know the history to know how much he despised both men. “You guys ought to run. And I’ll run against you. We’ll all have a good time.”

“Before we get too pleased with ourselves,” Zack said, “we should remember that half of our population is women, none of whom are part of this discussion, and some of whom might be worthwhile candidates.”

“Listen to Mr. Politically Correct,” Scott said, directing his gaze at Zack. “Of course, that was always your style, wasn’t it?” Because, of all the people on Earth, there was one Dale Scott disliked more than Gabriel Jones and Shane Weldon, and that was Zack Stewart.