Brothers to Dragons (26 page)

Job intended his main preparation to be sleep, as much as he could manage. He waited until the others had left, then went to stare out of the southern window. Across the frozen wastes of the Tandy, less than a mile away, he could see the outer fence of Xanadu and the beginning of the outside world. But that world could not be reached, by people or machines. The guarding lasers made it as inaccessible as the surface of the Moon.

We are talking of managing a very large area. . . .
That sounded as though it referred to the country beyond Xanadu. But what could Gormish and her colleagues have in mind that might conquer or even threaten a world that they could not reach? . . .
though admittedly a sparsely populated one.
With its four hundred million people, the country beyond Xanadu was far from sparsely populated.

It was all mystery. Job retrieved his crutches and made his way slowly back downstairs. He had not eaten since breakfast, but he was exhausted and had no appetite. On the way he stopped at the dining area and forced himself to spoon down a bowl of thick corn soup. It made him even more weary. He descended to the basement level and his own little room, lay on the bed, and waited for sleep.

When at last it came it was shallow and unsatisfying, full of disturbing dreams. Wilfred Dell was sitting next to Job. It was night, and they were squeezed together inside the driver compartment of a Tandyman, riding through towering mountains of glowing trash. "Do you want to see the world population double—again?" Dell was saying. "That's what it might do, if we could eat cellulose. It's nice to have plenty of young and poor, to look after the needs of the old and wealthy, but the biggest threat to all of us is
change
."

"Change."
Job awoke on the final word. There was someone in his room, leaning over him and examining the ID badge on his chest. The man's touch was light but he had accidentally brushed against Job's arm, where the weeping sores were still exquisitely tender.

It was the blue-clad Oriental, the scribe and aide to Gormish. Job began to sit up, but already the man was hurrying away, out of the room.

Job felt for his chest. The plastic badge was still there, apparently untouched. When he went across to the light and examined the ID it appeared exactly as it had always been.

He lay back on his bed. Why should anyone come in and look at his ID? If they thought there was something wrong with it, why not check it openly, in the meeting or after it?

As Job fell asleep again he decided that today he had learned one thing of paramount importance: there were levels within levels at Xanadu, subtleties and interplays and cross-tensions of which Skip Tolson, and perhaps most others at Headquarters, understood nothing.

* * *

The location of the Nebraska Tandy had been chosen thirty years earlier, when disposal of toxic materials became a major public concern.

The site selection had been made with care. An ideal dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste would be totally isolated. That was impossible, but at least the flow of water, on the surface and below, should be
into
a Tandy and not away from it. That meant a self-contained catchment basin, admitting runoff from outside but never discharging to it.

Those same facts now decided the Xanadu population pattern. A settlement close to the outer boundary enjoyed lower toxin and radioactivity levels, as far as possible from the lethal central dumps. Water supplies, draining in from outside, were most pure at the outer perimeter. Thus the towns and villages of Xanadu were set within an annulus, no more than a couple of miles from the circular outer boundary.

The survey team would proceed clockwise from Headquarters, visiting one or two settlements each day. According to the catalog of facilities provided to Job, that should bring them to the fenced installation that interested Wilfred Dell late on the third afternoon.

They started out an hour after dawn, in cold so intense that the truck's engine had to be kept ticking over even when they were not moving. Freezing air gnawed at Job's weak lungs and provided exquisite pain to any inch of his exposed and ulcerated skin. He wore multiple layers of clothing, a face mask that left only small eye-holes, and triple pairs of gloves and socks. As he waddled through the snow to the waiting truck he stared straight up into the cloudless blue sky. According to Wilfred Dell there was daily monitoring of Xanadu by the orbital imaging systems; if Job were outside for an hour, he would be spotted.

Maybe. Job was skeptical. He might be
seen
, but the chance that he would be
recognized
in his mask and present swaddling garb was negligible.

The more he thought of his escape mode from Xanadu, the more terrifying it became. When he decided to leave he was supposed to lie down outside, flat on the ground with arms and legs splayed, for at least an hour. He would be seen by the orbiting observation posts, identification would be made, and orders passed to the Tandy perimeter defense. That same night, between eight P.M. and two A.M., the defensive lasers would be turned off on the road at the eastern boundary of Xanadu. In that six-hour period Job must pass through the outer fence.

But suppose that the observation system was out of action for a while—it had happened before—and he was not seen? Or suppose that he was seen, but in his hairless and wasted condition he was not
recognized
by the imaging systems interpreters? Or what if the information were not passed on to the perimeter defense system? Or Job arrived early or late at the fence, when the lasers were in operation?

It could even be that Dell had already solved his problem in some other way, and no longer needed Job at all. (Job had no illusions about smiling Wilfred's magnanimity.)

He forced himself to stop. He could imagine a dozen other snags; if he allowed himself to accept any one of them he would never dare to leave Xanadu. He climbed into the waiting truck and settled himself delicately on the hard seat.

The first stop proved to Job that Skip Tolson had made a wise decision. Work assignments in the Tandy were on the basis of experience and competence, but the residents chose to live as ethnic groups. This community was ninety-nine percent Filipino. While the questions of the survey team were asked and grudgingly answered in the Tandy's own version of
chachara-calle
, the comments and conversation all around them went on in rapid
Tagalog.
Job, listening but rarely speaking, found out ten times as much about the community's real feelings as the rest of the survey team combined. People here were concerned that they did not receive their fair share of the new materials sorted out from the air drops. They did not like the foods grown in their area of the Tandy, and they would like permission to make changes. They thought that the quality of road repair was poorest in their region. Most of all, they worried because the community population was growing while resources were not; worried, not for themselves but for their children.

Job wondered if they understood the idea of a survey. He switched to
Tagalog
and began to explain, but he was soon interrupted.

"We know," said a man with two infants in his lap. He was totally bald from radiation. "We were told, and we approve. The survey is needed for preparation. This place is enough for us, but these"—he smiled down at the children—"they cannot live here forever. We need freedom for
them
."

Job felt excitement in the air at those words, a sense of expectancy. He knew that this community was loyal to Bonvissuto, and it must be his promises, vague but glorious, that Job was hearing now. But he could not understand Bonvissuto's motive. The jovial fat man was presenting himself to his followers as a Moses, ready to lead them to the promised land—yet that land was unattainable, guarded by a wall of fire.

But it was not just Bonvissuto. The next day the team came to a community of a thousand people, all of Chinese origin. Their main allegiance was to Gormish, not Bonvissuto, their practical worries were different from the previous day, and yet their expectations were the same. The routine of the survey plodded on, statistics and census data and complaints, but all around it, invisible to anyone who did not speak their language, the people revealed their dreams. "It is all right for
us
"—the speaker's gesture was inclusive, sweeping Job into her circle of seated Chinese—"we can live in the Tandy as we live now, and then die. But what of the children? The little ones must not suffer shortened lives. They must have freedom."

Freedom.
That word again.

They spoke readily to Job when they realized that he was fluent in their tongue. His weeping radiation sores were an added credential. He was one of
them
, tested and tried by the gods of Xanadu. One woman brought him her newborn, so that he could touch its head for good luck. He reached out with one tentative finger, while the rest of the survey team looked on in amazement. He was amazed himself. How long since he had touched a baby, or held an infant? Years and years. He put his forefinger to the tiny, scowling forehead, and was rewarded with a shriek of rage. Everyone in the group burst out laughing.

Job stared around him. He was astonished by the number of infants. They were everywhere. Xanadu was supposed to be a deathtrap, a grave for people without hope. But there was more hope here than he had seen back in the city. And the Mall Compound, he now realized, had no children at all.

As the people in the circle spoke, Job learned that
all
they had was hope. They knew no facts. They had no idea of anything that might achieve the longed-for release from the Nebraska Tandy.

But surely the Big Three had at least an
idea
of a mechanism. They could not hold out the promise of a bright future for very long, without something to support that optimism. And yet the mechanism remained as obscure to Job as it had ever been.

At dinner that night, the woman whose baby he had touched introduced him to her sister, Jia. She stood there shyly, a slim girl about the same age as Job. She was placed next to him during the meal. He felt ashamed when she tried to serve him with the best tidbits, and he had to explain that his throat and stomach could tolerate only the soft-boiled rice, and poorly at that; after the first mouthful he felt nauseated. She smiled understanding, brought him a drink that was soothing and lukewarm instead of the spicy herbal infusion that the rest were drinking, and found for him a sweet, chilled mush to substitute for the chewy dessert. Job's mouth was sore, and he encouraged her to talk more than listen. But she hung on his every word, and took his hand in hers when she left.

Before he eased himself into bed that night, Job did what Skip Tolson had warned him not to do: he found a mirror, and stared into it. The bald, raddled nightmare that peered back at him made him feel sicker than the boiled rice. A few wisps of thin dark hair were appearing on his scalp, worse in Job's opinion than total baldness. His eyes were like black holes in the furnace-slag of his cratered face, and his receding chin was a minefield of open sores. How had Jia even been able to
look
at him, still less to talk to him without disgust, smile at him, and touch his hand? But she had done all that, and invited him to visit the village again when the survey was finished.

He climbed into bed. There was only one possible explanation: in the topsy-turvy-Tandy world, radiation sores did not send a woman screaming away. They were Job's saber scars, his mark of manhood, the scalps at his belt, his red badge of courage showing that he had been through stern testing and survived.

So far. But the real test lay ahead. Tomorrow the schedule would take them to the mysterious fenced facility.

Job should have been worried. Instead he drowsed off oddly content, and slept easy for the first time in two months.

Chapter Eighteen

For now I shall sleep in the dust;
and thou shall seek me in the morning,
but I shall not be.

— The Book of Job, Chapter 7, Verse 21

Morning brought a great change. While Job slept, high winds carried away the deadly cold of late February and left in its place a false spring that mimicked full summer. By eight o'clock snow was turning to gurgling rivulets, warm fogs rose to blanket the gentle slopes of the Nebraska Tandy, and birds were appearing from nowhere to peck at newly exposed earth.

As great a change had been taking place inside Job's own body. He overslept, to awake with an unfamiliar sensation. It was
hunger.
His mouth was sore and his skin itched, but for the first time in months he was eager to eat breakfast.

Everyone on the survey team was already in the dining area when he arrived. They too were responding to the outside changes with more animation than Job had ever seen before. Give us three or four days like this, they were saying, we'll be ahead of schedule, we can be back at Headquarters within two weeks. . . .

Which was where all of them longed to be. They hated the survey—stupid questions, uninteresting people, jabbering away in unintelligible languages. Job was hurried through his meal and into the truck. By nine o'clock they were in the far west of the Tandy, passing through the boundary fence of the biggest town Job had seen so far.

He stared about him with quivering intensity. Here, at last, was Techville, the preferred home of scientists exiled to the Nebraska Tandy, the town where according to Wilfred Dell as many as three thousand of them lived. Job saw nothing unusual within the surrounding fence. The buildings were standard Xanadu construction, set in regular rings around a central cleared square from which the streets ran off like spokes of a wheel. Job stared along one of those streets as they arrived at the center. Follow it for three or four hundred yards, and you would reach another facility, this with its own boundary fence. Would the survey team be allowed to follow that road, later in the day?

If Job found the town interesting, his curiosity did not seem to be returned. In the other communities people had crowded around the truck. Here, the arrival of the survey team was noted with no more than mild interest. It was as though they had been expecting visitors, and knew just why the team was in Techville.