Ill Wind (69 page)

As he reached Tracy, moving westward to the grassy Altamont Range, he caught his first glimpse again of the white windmill towers lining the
hill crests
. He pulled Bayclock’s black horse to a halt and stared up at them with a pang. Anxiety shuddered through him, and he seriously considered turning around and heading back to White Sands, or making the long journey off to his parents’ ranch in Wyoming.

But he couldn’t do that. Todd could never live with himself if he gave up now. He had braved armies and murderers and mobs—he could not let a five-foot three-inch woman make him turn tail!

As he approached the Altamont commune, he saw that it had tripled in size in the months since he had been gone. Most of the windmills whirled in the breeze. Looking around the settlement, Todd didn’t recognize most of the people, but they somehow looked less . . . weird.

Daphne Harris came out to meet him. Her skin was dark and glistening with perspiration as she worked in the garden; her colorful tie-dye blouse looked as startling as a gunshot. She strode up to him with a grin. “Hey, look what the cat dragged in!”

Todd dismounted and tied up the gelding as other people came to see who had arrived. Jackson Harris appeared, his hands grimy from working on wind-turbine rotors, but he clapped Todd on the back. “We already heard what happened! Over the
short-wave
, Dr. Lockwood made sure we all knew what a hero you were down at the solar-power farm. Even Tibbett at Sandia got excited telling the story, if you can believe that.”

“We were wondering when you would finally haul your butt back here,” Daphne said.

Todd couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “What about Iris? Is she still in the same old place?”

Daphne and Jackson flashed a knowing glance at each other that made Todd uneasy. “Go see her for yourself, Todd,” Daphne said.

On weak knees—which he told himself was just from too many hours on horseback—Todd clumped up to their old trailer. His cowboy boots crunched on the dry grass. He spotted Ren and Stimpy off to the side, munching on dry grass.

The battered white aluminum siding of the trailer looked the same, with water spots and algae in the crevices; the rusty wheel rims still sat on concrete blocks. The metal screen on the door had been fixed; Todd wondered if Iris had done it herself.

He stared for a moment, terrified,
then
he finally rapped on the door frame.

Deep inside, Todd
knew
another man was going to answer. And what could he say to that? It was his own fault he had left. He made up his mind just to shake hands and leave.

But Iris opened the door herself, blinking up at him in the bright late-morning sunlight. Her almond eyes widened. She flashed an instinctive, shocked grin, but then she recovered. She cocked her head and looked wryly up at him. “So you came back.”

“I promised, didn’t I?” He took off his hat, wringing the brim in his big hands. “I’m ready to take you up on that offer—if you still want me. But you’ll have to marry me,” he said doggedly.

She was silent for a long moment,
then
made a
tsk
ing sound. “And you still didn’t remember to bring flowers.”

Iris laughed, then she hugged him.

Dramatis Personae

San Francisco

Connor Brooks—Seaman

Miles Uma—Captain,
Oilstar Zoroaster

Ed Dailey—Second Mate

Dr. Alex Kramer—Oilstar Microbiogist

Maureen Kramer—his wife

Jay Kramer—his son

Erin Kramer—his daughter

Dr. Mitchell Stone—Alex’s assistant

Jackson Harris—Environmental activist

Daphne Harris—Environmental activist, Jackson’s wife

Todd Severyn—Petroleum Engineer

Dr. Iris Shikozu—Stanford University

William Plerry—Environmental Policy Office

Emma Branson—CEO Oilstar

Walter Cochran—Oilstar executive

Moira Tibbett—Sandia, Livermore researcher

Dave Hensch—Stanford student

Officer Orenio—security guard

Jake Torgens—Environmentalist, radical activist

Reverend Timothy Rudge—Pastor, Holy Grace Baptist Church

White Sands, New Mexico

Dr. Spencer Lockwood—Physicist, Solar Satellite project head

Rita Fellenstein—Chief technician

Dr. Lance Nedermyer—Department of Energy program manager

Dr. Gilbert Hertoya—Director, Electromagnetic Launch Facility

Juan Romero—technician

Dr Arnold Norton—Sandia scientist

Albuquerque, NM

Brig General Bayclock—Commander, Kirtland Air Force Base

David Reinski—Mayor of Albuquerque

Sgt Catilyn Morris—Helicopter mechanic

Colonel David—Commander, Phillips Laboratory

Colonel Nichimya—Commander, Base Personnel

Washington DC

Henry Holback—President of the US

Harald Wolani—Vice President of the US

The Honorable Jeffrey Mayeaux—Speaker of the House

Rita Mayeaux—his wife

Franklin Weathersee—Mayeaux’s Chief of Staff

General Wacon—Chairman, JCS

Other locations

Heather Dixon—Insurance adjuster (Flagstaff, AZ)

Al Sysco—Manager, Surety Insurance (Flagstaff, AZ)

Dick Morgret—Gas station owner (Death Valley, CA)

Carlos Bettario—Rancher (Death Valley, CA)

Lt Bobby Carron—F/A-18 pilot, USN (China Lake, CA)

Lt Ralph “Barfman” Petronfi—Bobby’s wingman (China Lake, CA)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Look for these and other digital works by Kevin J. Anderson:

RESURRECTION, INC.

In the future, the dead walk the streets—Resurrection, Inc. found a profitable way to do it. A microprocessor brain, synthetic heart, artificial blood, and a fresh corpse can return as a Servant for anyone with the price. Trained to obey any command, Servants have no minds of their own, no memories of their past lives.

Supposedly.

Then came Danal. He was murdered, a sacrifice from the ever-growing cult of neo-Satanists who sought heaven in the depths of hell. But as a Servant, Danal began to remember. He learned who had killed him, who he was, and what Resurrection, Inc. had in mind for the human race.

CLIMBING OLYMPUS

They were prisoners, exiles,
pawns
of a corrupt government. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek’s
adin
, surgically transformed beings
who
can survive new lives on the surface of Mars. But they are still exiles, unable ever again to breathe Earth’s air. And they are still pawns.

For the
adin
exist to terraform Mars for human colonists, not for themselves. Creating a new Earth, they will destroy their world, killed by their own success. Desperate,
adin
leader Boris Tiban launches a suicide campaign to sabotage the Mars Project, knowing his people will perish in a glorious, doomed campaign of mayhem—unless embattled, bitter Rachel Dycek can find a miracle to save both the Mars Project and the race she created.

BLINDFOLD

Atlas is a struggling colony on an untamable world, a fragile society held together by the Truthsayers. Parentless, trained from birth as the sole users of Veritas, a telepathy virus that lets them read the souls of the guilty. Truthsayers are Justice—infallible, beyond appeal.

But sometimes they are wrong.

Falsely accused of murder, Troy Boren trusts the young Truthsayer Kalliana…until, impossibly, she convicts him. Still shaken from a previous reading, Kalliana doesn’t realize her power is fading. But soon the evidence becomes impossible to ignore. The Truthsayers’ Veritas has been diluted and someone in the colony is selling smuggled telepathy. Justice isn’t blind—it’s been
blinded
.

From an immortal’s orbital prison to the buried secrets of a regal fortress, Kalliana and Troy seek the conspiracy that threatens to destroy their world from within. For without truth and justice, Atlas will certainly fall…

GAMEARTH

Book 1 of the Gamearth Trilogy

By Kevin J. Anderson

It was supposed to be just another Sunday night fantasy role-playing game for David, Tyrone, Scott, and Melanie. But after years of playing, the game had become so real that all their creations—humans, sorcerers, dragons, ogres, panther-folk,
cyclops
—now had existences of their own. And when the four outside players decide to end their game, the characters inside the world of Gamearth—warriors, scholars, and the few remaining wielders of magic—band together to keep their land from vanishing. Now they must embark on a desperate quest for their own magic—magic that can twist the Rules enough to save them all from the evil that the players created to destroy their entire world.

GAME'S END

Book 3 of the Gamearth Trilogy

By Kevin J. Anderson

The finale to the Gamearth Trilogy.
It’s all-out war between the players and characters in a role-playing game that has taken on a life of its own. The
fighter Delrael, the sorcerer Bryl, as well as famed scientists Verne and Frankenstein, use
every trick in the Book of Rules to keep the world of Gamearth intact while the outside group of players does everything possible to destroy it.

CAPTAIN NEMO

The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius

By Kevin J. Anderson

The life story of the enigmatic dark hero most readers know from Jules Verne’s novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. A boyhood friend of Verne’s, Nemo goes off to explore the world, adventuring aboard sailing ships, crossing Africa in a balloon, exploring deep caverns that lead to the center of the Earth, and eventually building the
Nautilus
, the terrible submarine in which he wages war against war.

Short stories:

“Drumbeats”

A chilling story cowritten with
Rush
drummer and lyricist Neil Peart.
A rock drummer bicycling through the African wilderness encounters a village that makes very special drums. This one will make your heart skip a beat.

“Frog Kiss”

A humorous fantasy tale.
An evil wizard has turned the entire royal family into frogs and set them loose in the marshes, and only a kiss can restore them to their natural forms . . . but there are so many frogs, and so much swamp,
who
is willing to kiss them all?

“Fondest of Memories”

Everyone tends to edit their memories of lost loved ones, emphasizing the admirable qualities and good times, downplaying the unpleasant aspects. For a man given the chance to have his dead wife cloned, he can rebuild and restore her memories . . . with a few slight modifications.