The War of Immensities (59 page)

He sat, leaning
forward on the sofa, his hands clasped before him and if he wasn’t
wearing a pleading expression, it was at least implied. For a final
time she shrugged.

“Okay,” she
said. “And now there’s something I want you to do for me.”

“It will be a
pleasure,” he smiled.

She smiled
back. He truly had no idea how close to the truth he was.

Captain Maynard
had traded his helmet for a baseball cap with US Navy emblazoned
thereon, but otherwise he was still dressed as a fully equipped
combat soldier.

“They scattered
pretty badly while you were away, Andromeda.”

“Weren’t no
alternative, Cap’n,” she said grimly.

They met on
this barren hilltop with a commanding view of the surrounding
countryside. The thing to do was to make herself as prominent as
possible, now that she was back. That meant a lot of standing in
the open back of vehicles, choking in the dust, and otherwise
positioning herself in prominent places like this, where she could
be seen and reported to be seen.

“The flanking
units report that they are turning inward. Apparently word of your
re-appearance has begun to spread.”

“There been a
lot of trouble?”

Maynard shook
his head. “No. They’re all happy to keep moving and leave their
former lives behind them. And the locals remain so awed that they
don’t interfere as our people pass by.”

“And the
direction?”

“Just off
north.”

“Which takes us
where?”

“Into Tanzania.
They’ll walk straight into Lake Victoria if they keep going this
way.”

They had a map
spread out on the bonnet of his jeep. Andromeda had only glanced at
it before spying out the surroundings. Still to the left lay the
steamy remnants of Lake Nyasa, and otherwise the flatlands reaching
to the mountains on the right. Everywhere, in the lightly forested
terrain below, she could see evidence of people moving toward her.
Somehow she felt the need to explain.

“I’m sorry you
got dumped with all this. But it was a big deal.”

“I’m sure it
was.” Plainly Maynard was still not happy about it. “What
happened?”

“We had a
meeting to cut off our leader’s head, but he chopped us off at the
knees instead.”

“I guess you’re
meaning Professor Thyssen?”

“Yep. When the
link occurs, they’ll swing West.”

“That will run
us into Lake Tanganyika instead.”

Andromeda
groaned and walked over to the map. Maynard had drawn a line to
indicate the path the pilgrims had generally followed, from the
capital in the south of the country, to the north, almost two
hundred miles since the trek began. But the supplies kept flowing,
and there was plenty of water. In fact, there was too much water.
The long lakes formed natural barricades all the way along the
route.

“Well, can we
get to here?” she asked, pointing at the spot to the southern
extremity of Lake Tanganyika.

“That’s almost
due west of our present position.”

“The next
linkage ain’t til the 17th. Right now we can lead them
anywaywhichway we like. We jest stand me someplace, have the
supplies dumped there, and they will follow. Ain’t that so?”

“It will also
take us into Zambia.”

“Just sneak
along the edge of it—below the lake. I don’t reckon the Zambians
will mind.”

“And then into
the Republic of the Congo.”

“But on course.
And no more lakes or major rivers to worry about, leastwise for the
moment.”

“The government
in the Congo is not going to like it.”

“Otherwise we
push north, risk running them into the lake when they link, and
then have to get through Rwanda, where I hear tell there’s a lot of
trouble.”

“But at least
the population there is familiar with mass migrations.”

“Sure, and they
got rebels who know how to hold whole nations hostage. I think it
wise to avoid them.”

“Yes ma’am,
they surely will. Maybe we could get some boats and sail them right
up the middle of the lake?”

Andromeda had
to laugh. Maynard was not one to hide his true motivations. “Yeah,
I can see how you sailors might fancy that, but I’m sure it ain’t
practical. And remember what happened on those crowded trains in
Rwanda. No, I reckon they’re better off doing what they do
best—walking.”

“If you say so
ma’am.”

“Whatever way
we go, we eventually gotta cross the Congo Republic from one side
to the other. We deal with that when we come to it.”

“You’re the
boss.”

She paused and
looked him in the eye with a wry smile. “Still think this job is
better than the brig, Captain?”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

“Okay, Sailor.
Let’s get them past Lake Tanganyika. Then we worry about the
rest.”

As they flew in
the Orion, Felicity insisted on doing Lorna’s physio-telemetry
herself, and the girl brazenly stripped off her blouse right there
and then and, since she wasn’t wearing a bra, seriously compromised
the technical team’s ability to concentrate. Felicity pushed her
into a seat behind the meteorological monitors which offered basic
modesty and some chance of the seismic data making sense. There, as
she began to stick on the patches with their micro-transmitters,
Felicity saw that those breasts—amongst the top ten of the most
admired in the world if you read the trashy women’s mags—were in
fact somewhat small, and very perky, and splattered all over with
freckles. She shook her head to get it back into her almost
forgotten detached medico mode, but Lorna had seen the look and was
grinning at her. Even faced with crisis, she couldn’t help being a
tease.

“Now look,
Lorna, one more time...”

“I know. I
know,” Lorna sighed, the those breasts heaved up and down far more
than the occasion demanded. “I don’t have to do this. I know. But
really, Fee, if you disapprove so strongly, why not let someone
else do this?”

“Because I want
to make damned sure it all works perfectly,” Felicity said
doggedly.

“It always
does, and it will this time.”

“Your blood
pressure is dangerously high for someone of your age and fitness,”
Felicity said coldly. “Admit it, Lorna. You’re scared witless.”

“Well, what to
you expect, Fee?” Lorna laughed. “I am, after all, as Chrissie put
it, about to walk straight into the valley of death.”

“But why are
you doing it?”

“Because
somebody has to, and I’m the right person for the job.”

“He’s using you
as a guinea pig for...”

“Eeekkk!”

Felicity rolled
her eyeballs toward the ceiling and said through gritted teeth.
“Was that supposed to be a guinea pig sound?”

“No. I always
squeal when someone touches me there.”

Felicity
groaned, and sat with her head bowed. It was all just too
exasperating. Amazingly, Lorna slipped her bare arms about her head
and pressed her to her bosom.

“Fee, Fee,
don’t worry so much. It’ll be alright, really. You’re being far too
emotional about this.”

Felicity
allowed the moment, then gently disengaged herself—not only because
no patient had ever done that before, but because one of the
transmitters was sticking into her cheek.

It was probably
true. She was plainly feeling the strain and all her bodily signs
assured her it was so. It was like being constantly at the weepy
stage just before menstruation. She had visited her family, and
they were as thoughtful as ever, but Wendell especially seemed
frayed. They had at no time discussed the subject that had
dominated their lives this past year—when it would end and she
would come home. Wendell, plainly, had grasped the fact that the
planet would be destroyed sometime before that would be possible.
Instead they had been tender with each other, in a way they never
had been before, as if both of them were made of some exquisite and
extremely fragile glass. For the first time since it began, the
family departed tearfully as the Orion warmed its engines at
Wellington airport.

They picked
Lorna up in Auckland where she had been visiting family and
friends—farewelling? Not according to Lorna. But now they had
hopped to Darwin and Denpassar, where the Orion had taken on
maximum fuel. When they landed in Makasar in the Sulawesi Islands,
they would be a hundred miles inside the expected Zone with the
linkage only hours away.

There, Harley
would be waiting with an especially modified Land cruiser and a jet
helicopter. The Orion would drop Lorna off and return to Denpassar
until dawn approached on the following, fatal day. It would be
airborne, as usual, when the Effect occurred, and just outside the
Zone with the usual margin of safety. The Zone was expected to
swallow the southern half of Sulawesi, but there were no active
volcanoes within it. However just to the south, along the main
spine of Indonesia, there were a hundred volcanoes waiting to erupt
and destroy their surroundings.

Against which
the Indonesian government had taken no precautions whatsoever, for
the government was composed of hard-line Islamics who weren’t about
to believe anything the Americans or the United Nations told them.
On Sulawesi, there were six million people—about four million of
whom were likely to become new Sleepers. And along the volcanic
line from Timor to Sumatra, a hundred million people would face the
devastation of the volcanoes. Felicity’s mind could not cope with
such massive figures. In reality, the Indonesian government was
right to take no precautions, for both sets of victims had nowhere
to go and would have had to take their chances where they stood
anyway.

Into this hell,
Lorna was to walk like a lamb to the slaughter and Felicity found
the prospect unbearable. She despised Harley for making it so, and
for choosing this wonderful healthy young woman as his victim, but
most of all, that he had the power to make Lorna go so
willingly.

Now, as the
Orion made its approach toward Makasa and Lorna buttoned her
blouse, Felicity had run out of arguments. Lorna could smile for
her.

“You just don’t
understand, do you Fee.”

“Why you need
to do this? No. I don’t.”

Lorna cocked
her head on one side and gave a sparkling smile. “I’m doing it for
the only reason I ever do anything, Fee. I’m doing it for
love.”

“Love?”

“Yes, Fee.
Remember you heard it here first.”

Logistically,
it was a very difficult thing to organise, for although there were
no volcanoes within the expected Zone, the region would be
subjected to severe earthquakes. 10.1 on the moment-magnitude scale
was anticipated—with the potential to kill far more millions than
in California. The main catastrophe would be in the very active
volcanic regions lying outside the Zone, but still the dangers from
falling buildings and trees, earth fissures and uncontrolled
vehicles and animals, flooding and explosions—the list went on, and
Lorna was to take herself right into it all, and presumably find a
place were she could safely lie unconscious until help arrived.
Then they had to find her again, before the ants ate out her
eyes.

For this,
Harley had obtained a big solid four-wheel drive with extra fuel
tank, reinforced on all sides, airtight, unbreakable glass, stuffed
with transmitting equipment. Lorna would drive northwest along what
seemed to be a reasonable road out of Makasa, moving as the lure of
the focal point directed. Of course, no one could go with her. The
place had been chosen because there was a good road heading in the
right direction, arrowing the anticipated focal point.

They had made a
bed for her in the back of the vehicle where she would lie herself
down as sunset approached, hooked up to the array of monitors and
wait for it to happen. Several different types of homing devices
would direct rescuers to the spot—in fact Harley himself would be
airborne in the jet-helicopter positioned just outside the Zone and
race to collect her as soon as the Shastri moment had passed.

“The plan is
perfect,” Lorna insisted. “Nothing can go wrong.”

Underground gas
chambers might explode, the sedimentary soil could liquefy and
swallow the vehicle whole, boulders and snakes might fall out of
the sky.

“The snakes
will all be Shastri-ed too,” Lorna said stoically. “Bring a
shovel.”

She drove along
the bumpy road with dense jungle to either side. There were people
and villages all the way, and all of them stopped doing what they
were doing to watch her go by.

“Keep looking
for the turn off on your left,” Harley was saying on the radio.

“I don’t see no
turn off. Nor any hill for that matter.”

“It’s there.
Just keep looking..”

She found her
hill. The sun was already below the treetops and she knew from
experience how suddenly night fell in the tropics, but she found
the right road. It went through three crowded villages in less than
a kilometre and was not made for motor vehicles. She bumped and
jolted her way forward, soothed along by Harley’s deep controlling
voice and then the upward incline and she broke up into sunlight
again.

“Good hill,”
she reported faithfully. “No doubt about it.”

The land around
was relatively flat, a swampy plain between the sea and the
mountains and there was a village in visual distance just below the
barren crest of the hill.

“You there,
darling?” she asked.

He always was.
Harley remained in radio contact for every moment of her
journey.

“Don’t you ever
go to the toilet or anything, Harley? You don’t need to nursemaid
me. I’m fine.”

“Your
blood-sugar is down. You need to eat something now,” he
replied.

She was doing
it for love, she had told Felicity. Well that was true enough.
Felicity had stared, and did so all the more when they were on the
tarmac in Makasa and Harley directed her to the vehicle, offering
unnecessary final instructions. Lorna had kissed him full on the
lips, mostly to shut him up. She glanced over at where Felicity
stood not actually wringing her hands but looking like she wanted
to, and saw her jaw drop. It was worth the whole damn thing, just
for that moment.