Skylock (22 page)

His voice rang coarse and demanding.

"What the hell happened at that station?"

She raised silent eyes as the others looked over.

"Why did you live and nobody else?"

The amber flames painted the young woman's face with a wash of distress. She answered simply.

"I have no idea. It certainly should've been me who died, instead of all those wonderful people."

"So what happened?" Trennt repeated.

She directed her eyes back toward the flames.

"The project was almost over. And I couldn't stand the thought of being separated from Martin and the group. So I took things into my own hands."

"How?"

She stared even harder into the blaze.

"I had a key. One I was supposed to use to shut the power systems down only when things were done and we were ready to be evacuated."

Trennt remembered the tiny chrome key and obscure lock at the mangled power station.

"Why would a housekeeper be trusted with something that important?"

Geri looked him frankly in the eye.

"How should I know? I was told it was one of the things I had to do if I wanted to go along. And to get away from where I was I'd've bitten the head off a snake. All I know is that the project was ending. And I didn't want it to. I didn't understand much of the work, but I did know enough to realize that a constant temperature was critical in the greenhouse. I figured if I turned off the power systems, the experiments would be spoiled and things would have to be started over."

Trennt offered the papers. "Have you looked at these?"

She nodded. "Some."

"Understand any of it? Anything make sense to you?"

"No."

Trennt clenched the text, close to simply pitching the whole lot into the flames—but he held back.

"Any more questions?" she asked with scorn.

He replied sullenly, "No."

Geri stood and brushed off her knees. "The fire needs more wood," she said and walked off.

Top nodded his approval as she left.

"Buttercup is one strike troop. She's got sand enough to go the distance on this gig, no sweat."

Baker forgot his weapon cleaning as she walked by. A switch suddenly closed in his own head.

"Hot damn!" he said, offering his personal seal of approval. "I bet she could at that."

Trennt gazed over irritably. "What?"

Baker scooted closer.

"I make her now, Jimbo. Why sure, she was one of the special vintage dollies reserved for visitin' muckety-mucks at the tech village. It was her I 'member seein' on the lap o' some big army brass at one party a year or so back."

Baker rocked delightedly with his insight.

"I knowed she didn't look like no housekeeper. Private squeeze for the brain trust—all makes sense now."

Trennt's silence brought a familiar criticism from the shooter.

"Now there you go again. So high'n'mighty. She's trained as a good-time girl. Ain't nuthin' wrong with that. And I for one say it's exactly the kinda trainin' that shouldn't go to no waste."

He glanced over a shoulder. "Ain't that so, Whiskers?"

When the old man also reserved comment, Baker dismissed him with a sweep of his hand.

"Yeah, you're probably too old to remember."

There, Top did reply.

"What I do remember is what we start crossing in a few days, Slick. Hard ground. Tough going. So save your energy."

The old-timer's word was gospel. Everything remotely tolerable was shortly traded for a place as bleak and barren as the homestretch to hell. They crossed a desolate range of spotty hardpan born from a marriage of thick volcanic ash, killer rains, and merciless sun. In some spots it set hard as the best concrete; in others, it was like as a powdery blanket that rose in a talclike fog with the slightest breeze, lingering forever and smothering every fabric weave and fold of skin.

Temperature swings were equally savage. Daylight blasted to triple digits, while nights hovered in the low teens. Nothing except the lone truck struggled through the vicious environment. No mammals or lizards of any kind were seen. Not a solitary bird crossed the sky.

Each of the group took turns clenching the skillet-hot steering wheel, fighting its torturous twists and jolts with muscles long frayed and spent. Swaddled in layers of loose clothing, they sucked quick breaths of blast furnace air through bandannas kept moist with small doses of precious water. Exhaustion and monotony became dangerous companions. The inevitable consequence awaited not far off.

Dawn of desert-day four approached. The last gray of night was mingling with the first flecks of daytime blue as Geri finished up her turn at the wheel. Her shift had been through deceivingly gentle terrain. Riding shotgun beside her, even Top, the trip's ramrod, had finally succumbed to a doze.

Awake alone, Geri drove on like a marionette. Her limbs, gone over to the jerking strings of fatigue, seemed to work outside her control. Cresting yet another gentle hill, she took a breath and closed her eyes for just the briefest moment.

A bloodcurdling scream split the crisp early air. A frenzied, wild-revving engine joined the clamor as the truck cut hard aside and came up on two wheels. Equipment and sleeping bodies were flung out into the darkness.

The truck continued on full circle, flipping a huge glut of sand over itself like an elephant dusting off. Then, with a moment's pause, it fell back, bouncing hard before going silent.

Stunned, Baker, Trennt, and Top climbed to their feet. All fired wild-eyed glances at each other.

"Everybody okay?" shouted Trennt gazing into a dark precipice just yards away. "Have we got everybody?"

He bit off a sharp breath and rushed screaming to the truck where Geri still sat, hands welded to the steering wheel and skin as white as the rock dust settling about her.

"What the hell's wrong with you? Trying to kill us all?"

"My fault, Cap," blushed Top, intervening from behind. "I eff-yewed just as much from zee-ing out with a rookie at the wheel. I should've been awake to keep an eye on her."

Trennt raged, jabbing an accusing finger ahead. "It wasn't you driving! It was her!"

Finally able to catch her breath, Geri wheezed through terrified sobs.

"I'm sorry. I was so tired I didn't see it until the last second. I'm sorry."

But Trennt had no room for sympathy.

"Tired!" he repeated in a scalding tone. "That makes it okay? We're all tired! And damn right, you're sorry—a sorry excuse! All the big, tough talk and now all you can do is sit there and cry!"

"Jimbo," interrupted Baker, "she did make one kickass recovery. Kept us from goin' over the edge altogether."

Trennt booted a loose piece of gear.

"With half our equipment gone, we might be better off down there!"

Geri buried her face deep in the backs of her filthy hands and continued to cry. Trennt loomed beside her, then issued a low spiteful hiss. He stomped up the loose tire ruts to the deceptive rise that crashed off into a nearly vertical shaft. In its shadowed bottom was a twisted dark jumble of balled-up gear. The two other men arrived and, side by side, all three pondered the depths like inquisitive little boys over an open manhole.

"Long freakin' way," Top granted.

"Aint no lie," added Baker.

Trennt glanced back to the truck.

"What did we lose?"

"All but one water and two fuel cans," replied Baker. "Rations, most everything else went over."

"Dammit," Trennt groaned. "Any water stops out here, Top?"

The old-timer ran a thumbnail over his chin stubble in thought.

"Farther ahead than we'd want to try. If we turn around now, we could probably make it back okay. But that'd be the end of it as far as you bankrolling this trip."

"Alternatives?"

The old-timer gazed far in a different direction.

"I can't be sure about the water table. But I do remember some sandstone lowlands a few days east."

Trennt moaned. "East."

"Best I can think of, Cap."

Trennt gazed over the edge again.

"Either way, we need to get down there and save what we can. Baker, rig me a harness."

"I should go," offered Geri meekly, from the side.

"You?" he mused. "Ever walk a line—rappel?"

"No. But I still think . . ."

"No, thanks. You've done more than enough already."

The truck was brought right to the cliff edge. Trennt latched himself to the dusty spool of braided winch cable and hooked a flashlight to his belt. Straddling the cable spool with heels planted astride the truck's channel-iron bumper, he turned his ball cap around and readied for his descent.

"Watch yourse'f," cautioned Baker from behind the idling throttle. "Shaft walls look tricky as a porcupine's crotch."

Trennt pulled a bandanna over his nose and set goggles against the abrasive dust waiting below. He flashed a somber thumbs-up, then leaned back, testing his weight on the cable once before pushing off. A quick shove and Trennt was out in the chilly, black space of the dark well.

The shaft walls offered a treacherous checkerboard of brittle, razored spikes that had to be met flat-on with boot soles. A twisted rebound and an ankle might be slashed; a knee split to the bone. Several times Trennt nearly lost his footing to the loose rock face. But he also rediscovered the forgotten exhilaration of a clean descent, the comfort found in the familiar rattle and sway of rapelling gear and his ability to use it.

The winch paid out line with a confident hum. Slack fed easily between Trennt's broad downward hops. Old sensations familiar and reassuring took him away, back to his days at Forts Benning and Bragg, to times before right and wrong seemed so tangled, before there were people in his life who would love and depend on him . . . those he'd love back—and hurt. A dreaminess settled in his motions that Trennt wished would go on forever, straight down and out the other side of the universe.

A clap of thunder broke above. The cable snagged and stopped. For an instant Trennt bounced weightless, a floating bit of milkweed idly waiting for the next breeze to give him direction.

But a second later he was an anvil, screaming in hot from low earth orbit. Far overhead a muffled cry sounded.

"Cover up, Jimbo!"

The cable snapped taut. Trennt recoiled like a yoyo, shooting ten feet straight up, then spinning off into the shaft wall. He barked a shin, barely shielding his face with a forearm before an elbow and cheek impacted, splitting open.

Down came a hail storm of rock chips. A table-sized boulder flashed by like a jet fighter. A volley of bowling-ball hunks whistled passed. Pounds of gritty shrapnel trailed after. A piece nicked his ear. Another slashed between his protecting forearms, lancing his scalp.

The avalanche rumbled past, dragging its thunder toward the crevice floor. In its wake Trennt clutched at himself, swaying gently like a silent pendulum.

Again, he heard Baker's voice.

"Jimbo! You okay, Pard?"

Trennt shook himself off and capped his breath against the heavy settling dust.

"Yeah," he coughed.

"The whole cliff face gave way up here! Damn near took the truck with it. You want back up?"

Trennt squinted up through the last dust stringers separating him from the others, 100-plus feet above. For a moment he had the overwhelmed feeling of a lost little boy. Touching fingers to the split in his scalp, they came away smudged with pink mud.

"No! Finish it!"

He flipped on his flashlight and the cable started again. This time it delivered him flawlessly to the taffy-like darkness of the narrow crevice floor.

The bottom had surrendered most of its definition to the rock slide and powdery blanket. Beneath, their lost gear was reduced to an amorphous, twirled heap.

Trennt pulled at some loose ends, liberating fresh gouts of the heavy talc-like dust. Amazingly, their hard goods appeared mostly salvageable. But dread flashed through him when his boots squished through a mucky low spot. A muddy rainbowed ooze, mixed of water and fuel, glinted like metallic slivers in the dusty light beam. Trennt yanked at the first can.

The morning's salvage sat piled beside the truck. Their insulated medical kit and much of the fuel had survived the drop, but a substantial amount of rations and nearly all of the water was lost. Off to the side, Top meticulously picked rock splinters from Trennt's scalp. He made a dressing that he set the man's fingers to.

"Keep it there while I try to find a butterfly for that cheek."

Geri cautiously approached from the side.

"Feeling any better?"

"Wonderful," Trennt hissed, squinting through a headache.

"I just want to apologize, okay?"

He framed her with hard eyes.

"Apologies won't bring the water back, will they? Or replace the lost food. Now we've got to waste time trying to find more. And hope it doesn't cost our lives."

Top returned with a fresh bandage as the woman wretchedly brushed past. He glanced after her with a touch of compassion, then tilted his patient's head to clean the gash. Clearing his throat tentatively, he began to speak in Geri's defense.

"You know, Cap. It's none of my business, but. . ."

Trennt flinched at the bite of disinfectant.

"Keep it that way, alright?"

The old Marine nodded and dropped the subject.

"What about getting water?" Trennt asked of Baker, studying maps on the truck's hood.

"Terrain agrees with Whiskers. This rock tapers down to a central low spot eighty or ninety miles east. But there's also some showin' straight north and a lot closer."

Top shook his head vehemently. "No way, dude. I know the place and it's dead water, man."

Baker squinted. "Dead, like stagnant? We got filters."

"Worse. Shaky ground poison; real number ten bummer. Pockets of that stuff run in a straight line all through there. I'll tell you about it when we got time to spare. But for now, just know to stay clear."

Bathed in the morning's first true rays, Trennt pulled the gauze from his scalp. He studied its bloody smudges like a palm reader.