Skylock (31 page)

Hate and rage now poured after the bold invasion. Lathered profanities bloomed in their wake. Return fire narrowed the gap. A bullet whizzed over Trennt's head. Another cracked in the water at his side, singing off with an angry hum.

He felt the trip wires give way to his ankle. In a millisecond the blackness flared to a silver-white spray of erupting magnesium and phosphorous.

Top, where are you? he thought.

"Hit the deck, Skipper!"

The trio dove straight ahead on command, landing hard and skidding on their bellies in the astringent mineral waters. A second later, the old-timer's vintage carbine was growling its rage at the approaching enemy.

Fanned in its muzzle blasts, Top dispensed ancient 7.62 mm rounds with surgical precision. Textbook fire raked the enemy charge: side to side, and back again.

His cover bought Trennt and Baker time enough to unholster their 10 mm pistols and rejoin the fray. Savages dropped in heavy splashes. Attacking footsteps soon became retreating ones. They were free.

Top hefted the smoking SKS in a defiant shake.

"First time, every time! Semper fi!"

The celebration was brief though, just long enough to catch their breath. Then it was a mad dash, through the moonglade at breakneck speed, back to the distant poison flats.

After four hours they could go no more. With bodies numb and senses half dead, the group tumbled in an unceremonious heap. They gasped for breath, rubbing at faces and limbs left slashed and burning from their headlong charge through the dark miles of razored sedge and thorned vines.

But from the moment they stopped, Trennt's eyes were hot on Wayne. Gulping jagged breaths, he struggled across to stand over the stranger in silent loathsome appraisal.

Trennt grabbed the man's shirt and hauled him up, eye to eye.

"You caused a lot of death back there for no good reason. And it's not over. You can damn well bet the survivors have gone straight for help."

More words failed him and Trennt fired a punch into the man's stomach.

He followed with a slap to the face; a backhand and another punch.

Top and Baker looked on, silently neutral. But Geri watched in obvious distress.

"You lousy bastard! What I should do is tie you to a goddam tree right here and leave you for them! Give you what you deserve and slow them down for the rest of us!" Trennt shook the man and slapped him again.

Then Geri lunged, grabbing his arm. "He's had enough, Jim! Leave him be!"

Trennt shucked off her hands. "Lady, I'm just getting started."

He yanked the sagging man erect.

"It might not matter now. But I want to know what the hell were you trying to do back there, huh? What?"

Blood welled up on Wayne's split lips.

"My job."

Trennt squinted. "What the hell's that mean? You work for Corealis? You do, don't you!"

He rattled the man with another shake.

"No. For no man. That was my church back there. I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt. Above all I didn't want that! I just wanted to destroy that stuff." Wayne's voice fell off in convulsed sobs.

But Trennt's rage grew even hotter. He throttled the man again. "Dammit! What is that stuff? Tell me or I swear I'll beat you to death right here—priest or not!"

Geri's voice stopped him cold. "It's a grain catalyst."

Wayne slipped through Trennt's fingers like so much forgotten sand. Trennt turned slowly around.

"And just how do you suddenly know so much?"

She looked down at Wayne. "He told me. He's known from the moment he set hands on Martin's diary. And because he knew how much I loved Martin, he wanted me to know. So, if you need to leave someone behind, tie me up as well. I'm just as guilty for keeping quiet."

Trennt sucked in a hot, threatening breath. "I just might!"

Geri knelt beside Wayne. Gently wiping his bloodied face, she continued:

"That stuff is a chemical and enzyme concentrate developed to get more grain production from crops—wheat, rice, whatever. It worked well enough to give a threefold harvest in half the growing time. But in it they also found something else. Made a certain way, it can permanently sterilize young adults: male and female both."

To the side, Baker croaked in a weak chuckle. He retrieved the muddy bandoleer, sarcastically hoisting it like a mock banner.

"That's a good one, Jimbo. All we been through to get us a birth control prescription!"

Top surged with his own exhausted snort.

But Wayne shook his head vigorously, talking passed his broken, swollen lips. "No! No, it's more than just that! Don't you see? They can use it in food distribution to control the population. To limit races or ethnic groups—anybody they want! Doctor Keener saw this for what it was and it destroyed him! That's why he ruined the lab and tried committing suicide. In his diary he outlined it all."

Wayne drew the tattered journal from a hip pocket. "Listen to his last entry. Then you decide."

Wayne squinted at the dim, faded script.

"I have never intentionally hurt anyone in my life. But I am guilty just the same through my many acts of omission. Wanting only to help my fellow man, I have instead, again and again, been pressed into service against him through words of false patriotism, and hollow pledges by Corealis and those of his kind.

"Too many times I have turned a blind eye to the true implications of my work. And once more I am confronted by a product I've developed which can serve no purpose, beyond an even greater manipulation of humanity. But no longer will I allow it to continue. And if that means a sacrifice be offered in substitute, then let it be me."

Wayne raised his face to Geri.

"What I haven't even told you is what I suspect was your planned part in it. The key you were given was a crucial link in tying up any loose ends for the people behind the program. It had to have been meant to trigger a mechanism that would gas everyone there. Then those in charge could have what they wanted with no evidence to worry about. But in trying to turn off the power systems, you only made it happen early—and that probably saved your life."

Trennt fell against a tree in anemic laughter. "With all the death from the quakes, N.A. Flu, ozone inversions, and everything else—someone is actually worried about birth control?"

"Yes!" nodded Wayne vigorously. "Exactly! They know Skylock will break. And when that happens they want a guaranteed, secret way to control the population, without political or religious interference. Think of what a powerful tool it would be!"

Trennt shook his head.

"Who cares? It's the same stuff people have been glad to have for the last ninety years—have wanted for the last nine thousand."

"It's more," defended Wayne, "the absolute power to render full involuntary control over anyone!"

Trennt raised a questioning hand.

"Is that so bad? In Chicago, I lived near the Zone D abortion clinic. Any idea what went on in places like that? I saw it on a regular basis. All the unwanted commoner babies were flushed out once a week and dumped in clear specimen bags for sanitation pickup. Dozens and dozens of pickle-sized blobs, in their own little zippered, plastic shrouds; poured in trash cans at the curb. Only, the sanitation pickup schedule wasn't as regular as it should have been, so they piled up quite often. Then they'd spoil in the heat and the starving dogs would come."

Geri turned away.

"This is worse than even that!" Wayne argued. "It dehumanizes the very core of mankind."

Trennt dropped his gaze.

"I'm not sure I even know what that means. But I do know how I stood helpless as my own babies drowned in their snot one night, because there wasn't enough proper help to tend them. That was pretty dehumanizing. If I can spare other people that kind of pain, maybe there is some good to be found in that stuff."

Geri took exception. "And what of the joy they'd also be denied? The same store of fond memories you've hung on to, even through the pain?"

Trennt licked his parched lips. "Baker?"

"Yeah, Pard."

"Go ahead. Smash them and be done with it."

The gunman hoisted the bandoleer to eye level and regarded the dirty vials. He cocked an arm to dash them as ordered, and Wayne vigorously entreated him:

"Yes, Baker! Do it! For God's sake, break every single one! Right now!"

His tone caused the shooter to pause.

"Bustin' these little glasses means that much to you, Cuz?"

Wayne faced Trennt. "I'm begging you. Do it and you won't have to tie me here. I'll walk back toward their camp. I give you my word as a priest. Just destroy that evil here and now!"

Baker lowered the vials. "If this guy is so set against this stuff, mebbe it's worth more than we know."

Trennt threw his hands out, divorcing himself of the entire matter.

"I've got no more time for this. It's another full day's travel back to the crossing. And the path we're leaving might as well have road signs."

"No!" protested Wayne. "Don't keep them! In the name of God! Don't!"

But Baker only clenched the bandoleer tighter.

The day festered on. Drawing from a threatening sky and saturated earth, humidity grew in powers of ten. The soggy forest air became a smothering near-solid, something needing to be bitten off and chewed, rather than simply breathed. But Trennt never let up the pace.

Another four hours passed. Six. Eight. He drove his people through thickets and deadfalls; across marshy sandbars and gut-slick, rooty stretches. Fleeing unseen yet certain pursuit, they banged shins, barked elbows, and skinned hands: fumbling zombies plodding along in a waltz of fatigue, gulping bugs and rank swamp water with every step.

But even Trennt's adrenaline surge was fading, flaking off from the raging hunger, thirst, and pure exhaustion it had smothered in fear. Their steps slowed, then dragged. There was no choice but to rest.

The group plunged to the swampy ground for only the second time. Their clothes hung like soaked burlap. Runnels of foul sweat cut stark, weblike tributaries across their soiled faces and throats.

On his rump, Trennt kneaded stiffening calves. With eyes that came back to Wayne again and again, he found strength enough to once more confront the man. Only this time, it wasn't to punish, but to challenge.

"What you said back there, was that exactly what you read in that booklet?"

Closed-eyed, Wayne merely bobbed his head, huffing thin, swift breaths.

"Even if that stuff is what you say, how could they pull off such a thing? Why would they want to?"

Between more gulps of air, Wayne explained.

"Technology is the one thing which hasn't been lost. Even now, its precious secrets are locked away somewhere, ready to resurface when needed by those in power. And a large, unnecessary population feeding off that technology is a draining burden. Why have millions of people to deal with if you only need a percent to function? A country with that control has the ultimate economic weapon."

Trennt swiped at a trickle of sweat on his nose, debating the scope. "It'd be impossible to coordinate something like that."

Wayne licked his dry lips. He offered a melancholy record.

"The Nazis once worked out a pretty efficient system for something similar. So did a less polished and totally insane force in Cambodia named the Khmer Rouge. They tried restructuring their country by eliminating every educated person they could find. Not foreigners, either. Their own teachers, doctors, engineers. Countrymen they needed. What sense was that? This new method allows attaining the same end by a much less complex mechanism."

Wayne focused on Trennt.

"Remember how our own government tried legislating the two-child family law before the crash? That arose from something as simple as the call to decrease aggravated petroleum usage. But there was too much political 'due diligence,' religious interference, and minority backlash to get it moving.

"Now, they could pick and choose—manipulate behind the scenes as they pleased. As for getting it organized, don't forget the nice tight little groups they managed countrywide for the millennium census. Who says it couldn't be arranged again?

"They could blend special flours and breads at will. An empty stomach is always the best magnet. In times like these, food handouts are never questioned. Even in good times, soup kitchens . . ."

Wayne's voice fell away. His eyes swept toward the mucky woodland fog, recalling a personal failure just as gray.

"There was a time when I prayed for soup kitchen work. Fresh from college, I heard the Lord's call and headed straight for the seminary. Came out all set to be the new Saint Francis—roll up my sleeves and go to harvest for the Lord. I put in for a poor neighborhood, no nonsense stuff."

His head swayed mournfully.

"Instead, I was assigned to just the opposite. Made assistant pastor to a huge wealthy parish. Three thousand families with big bucks. Brand new church. Best of everything. My dreams of a dirt floor and cot were derailed by a multilevel rectory and private bedroom. Intercom, cable TV, housekeeper. A freezer loaded with T-bones. Amenities galore and no real responsibility. Pretty heady stuff for an apprentice saint.

"Amid all that, my life drifted away from shepherding and into the role of a dinner guest and cheerleader; all banquets and meetings. It got to the point where I was more concerned over a scratch in some parishioner's new Buick, than if they'd made their Easter duty or not. Slowly, the world started seeming to need less salvation and more understanding.

"Then came the collapse. Suddenly there was no money, barely any food. The church was filled with a new kind of people—the frightened, praying kind. It was time for me finally to be their shepherd. Only by then, I was no different than they were. And putting on the team uniform didn't make a difference. So I left them all behind and ran away.

"When I finally returned, I found just what you did—nothing. I stayed there by myself, on and off. Alone, until you came."

"So why get in on this hassle?" asked Top.