The Seeds of Time (36 page)

The close roar of artillery startled her. “The fighting is half a kilometer away,” the lieutenant said. “It’s under control.” Clio looked up into his round, black face. On his breast pocket she read
RYERSON
.

He led her to the end of the greenish-yellow corridor, and opened the door to a room smelling of Lysol and dust, with a low refrigerator and cot. Behind a cheap desk was the mandatory framed photo of President Gaylor in a prim red suit and cloche hat.

Ryerson nodded to another door in the far wall. “Lavatory,” he said. He locked the door behind him, but Clio tried it anyway. Then she folded her blanket, set it on the end of the cot. Opened the refrigerator, found a Hostess pot pie and package of frozen vegetables. She ate the pot pie with her fingers and crunched down the vegetables until her throat was too cold to swallow. Laying the package aside, she went into the lavatory. A real toilet, with a warm seat. Started to wash her hands in the sink, made the mistake of looking in the mirror. A bald, hawkish, and white face, all eyes, mouth, and ears. Gods. Long face, very large hazel eyes, jutting cheekbones. Reddish five-o’clock shadow around her scalp instead of hair, with nicks as though dive-bombed by birds. Her eyes grew hot and a croaking noise emerged from her throat. She hung her head, bracing her hands on the sink, tears leaking into the basin.

After a long time she was able to shower.

When she emerged from the lavatory, naked, she saw a pile of clothes on the cot, but her folded blanket was gone. She looked around for the blanket. My damn blanket. Earned it, by God.

Pawed through the pile of clothes, finding army fatigues. Put them on, including army cap. Need that one, no mistake. She pulled it over her scalp. Strung the belt through the loops, cinched it in with a foot to spare. Put on shoes that just about fit. Always had big feet. When you’re tall, gotta have long feet so you don’t tip over, Mother always said.

Gunfire crackled between the bellowing of airplane landings and departures. Levelor blinds covered the room’s sole window. She turned them open and peered through them to find that the glass was painted white. Yanking the blinds up, she pulled on the aluminum window lever. It didn’t budge, but no surprise there. Still a prisoner, yes,
after what you’ve done
, a criminal by any standard. She rifled the desk for a paper clip, and was in the process of picking the lock when the door made a clicking sound and Ryerson was back.

He led her down the corridor. Gunfire again in the distance. She looked over at Ryerson. “NRA throwing a party out there, Lieutenant?”

He paused a moment before a door with opaque glass in the top half. “Food riots. This base is a supply depot.”

As he opened the door, she saw a room not much larger than the one she’d just left, glowing greenish-yellow in the fluorescent light. The colonel sat behind a desk among papers and a half-finished meal. He waved at the tray and Ryerson retrieved it.

“Come, come, Clio,” the colonel said, gesturing her to sit across the desk from him.

She sat. He regarded her, nodding. “You look better, that you do.”

Meanwhile, a young corporal appeared in the doorway, carrying another food tray. A look of terror took over his face as the colonel sprang from his chair, gun drawn and pointing at the youngster’s head all in one fell swoop.

“Who is this?” the colonel growled at Ryerson.

“Corporal Doran, sir,” Ryerson said, frozen in place, holding the tray of the colonel’s table scraps.

Corporal Doran backed up as the colonel advanced a few paces, still holding the gun at eye level. “No new people! I said no new people come near her!” He spoke to Ryerson, but never left off staring at Doran.

“He checks out, and replaces Okada, sir.”

“Checks out, does he? How long you been in service, mister?”

The silverware on Doran’s tray rattled against each other. “Eighteen months, sir,” the youth said, looking at the pistol.

“Eighteen months,” the colonel repeated. A glance at Ryerson was enough to convey,
not long enough
. “Put the tray down, soldier.” Doran did so, placing it in front of Clio. “Now get out my sight.” Corporal Doran fled. The colonel holstered the gun and turned to Ryerson. “Any more surprises?”

“Nosir.”

The colonel smiled in mock gratitude. “Good. Call me the minute we’re ready.”

“Yessir.”

Even as the door shut behind him, Clio’s attention was all on the tray in front of her. Filet mignon, buttered broccoli, small red potatoes, real coffee. Clio looked up at the colonel. He nodded his permission.

She set upon it, hardly stopping to chew. Like a dog, Clio thought, eating like a dog, but can’t help it. Now she noticed for the first time a small paper cup with two red pills in it.

“Take them,” he said. “You’re depleted. These will help.”

She ate her broccoli instead, and he watched her eat for a while. “You don’t know my name, of course,” he began. “Jackson Tandy.”

Clio concentrated on her plate.

“A name doesn’t tell you much,” he said. “I couldn’t choose my name, unlike you Dive pilots. Clio Finn. There’s
a name that says something. Would you like to know what that name says to me?”

The steak was delicious beyond the normal bounds of food. It disappeared quickly.

“Clio reminds me of Cleopatra. The exotic Egyptian queen. But you’ve shortened it, made it a nickname. Therefore you don’t think much of rank and regalia. But you still want to be superior, looked up to. Therefore Clio. And Finn. For Huckleberry Finn, of course. Probably your favorite childhood book. Adventure and the old ties of childhood. You hearken to the past while ranging out to your adventures. I like that, respect for the past.” He watched her chew for a moment. “How’d I do, eh?”

“Missed,” she said. The potatoes were buttered and had flakes of parsley and pepper.

Tandy pursued his lips. “Somehow I doubt that. But we’ll see as we get to know each other better.”

She glanced up at him as he leaned back in the cheap swivel chair, holding a pen between two hands, elbows on the chair arms. He held her gaze. A man of few nervous gestures, a patient man, watching her attentively.

Seconds ticked by. “You see me as the enemy,” he said.

Clio shrugged.

“I represent the army. They tracked down your flight into the Amazon, eradicated your seeds, your planned Niang infestation. You believed they would save the Earth.” He slowly shook his head. “That was a naive and dangerous mistake. I’m afraid the solution to our problems is far more complicated than your Niang fantasy.” He stood up from the chair, tossing the pen onto the desk. He turned toward the unpainted window behind him. Evening came on amid spatters of rain, pressing against the glass of the lighted room like melting pearls. “For you, it was a great cause, I realize that. The rest of us were just the bad guys, afraid of change, eh?” He turned to see her reaction.

“What happened to Zee and Russo?” Clio asked. “You find them and execute them for treasonous agriculture?” She pushed the empty plate away.

“They’re dead. Another case of overzealous prosecution. I’m sorry. Got too close to the defoliant spray. Heart failure. I’m …”

“Sorry. Yeah, I know.” Dead, all dead, just as she thought. Even Zee, young, sweet Zee. To hear it straight out gave death recognition, released those small, festering hopes. OK, dead. Got it.

“To you—and them—any change was better than the demise of Earth. You’d seen the future—used Dive and traveled up twenty years—saw the Earth, it’s biotic mantle gone, Earth, heading toward cinders. Niang represented the last hope: a nonmetallic future, and therefore without technology, but a future nonetheless.” He leaned against the wall, arms folded. “What you didn’t stop to consider is the downside of your alternative future. What was that downside?”

“Guess you’re gonna tell me, right?”

He had a way of smiling for a millisecond, stabbing the conversation with a token smile. “It’s a future I’ve seen myself, Clio. We take little Dive forays downstream, yes we do. I’ll tell you what Niang means for Earth: the Dark Ages. The collapse of civilization. Of all technology, culture, law and order. Marauding hordes and bestiality beyond anything I’d want you to witness. The loss of all knowledge, all agricultural knowledge, medical knowledge, literary, architectural, electronic, philosophic.”

“Which we’re going to lose anyway, right?”

Tandy continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “All lost in three generations as metal and plastic decay into compost.”

“But the Earth could have survived. There would be green again.”

“Yes, green. Means a lot to you, doesn’t it? Even with the return of the Dark Ages. Ever read about the first Dark Ages?”

“They had the plague,” Clio responded. “A rigid society controlled by a fanatical church. Burned people at the stake for acting strange. Yeah, I read about it.”

Tandy brightened. “Not much different from today.
That’s sharp, Clio. I enjoy that; someone who can engage in real conversation. But of course there
are
differences. Then, millions died. In the space of three hundred years, a quarter of the population of Europe, dead of the plague. Today, a tenth die, those that choose sexual and drug-based lifestyles. The difference between then and now? Science. And yes, quarries, as you call them, quarantine, is part of that. Not pretty, certainly. But necessary. The Niang future …”

A knock at the door. Tandy’s aide. “We’re ready, sir.”

Tandy rose from his chair. “Later,” he said to Clio. As she stood, he glanced down at the paper cup. “Take your meds.” An order this time. She swallowed them with the last of the coffee.

From the coat tree in the corner he grabbed two army raincoats, handed one to Clio. He urged her out the door as she struggled to pull it on, trying to find the belt and failing.

Back down the hallway then, at a fast walk, with Ryerson holding the outside door open.

“What about Rita and the baby, Colonel? At the quarry,” Clio asked as they emerged into the night rain.

“The dead man’s wife? She’s of no consequence, no consequence. Place your energy on your destiny, Clio. Not on hers.”

A nasty east wind whipped her face. All Clio could see was the columnar beams of a car’s headlights penetrating the drift of light rain. The smell of wet asphalt. She found herself helped into an open army jeep. Ryerson swung in after her. They sped off, past several massive hangars, and around to the vast tarmac of an airfield.

Ahead of them, a small commuter jet warmed up for takeoff. Ryerson leaned over to Tandy, pointing off to their right, where a dark van was speeding toward them. “Step on it, Lieutenant,” Tandy ordered. The jeep sped forward and jerked to a stop at the end of the jet companionway as the van met them, and two doors swung open. Tandy jumped down from his seat, drew his service pistol and aimed it at the first person to emerge from the van: a slender, blond man in the black uniform of DSDE. Ryerson yanked Clio up two steps toward the open jet door, at the same time
drawing his gun and, in a crouch, resting the barrel against the companionway railing.

The van’s engine was still running, its headlights throwing the DSDE agent into silhouette as he stood before them. “Colonel Tandy,” he said, “I understand from Captain Beecher that you are aiding a dangerous individual to break quarantine. The department has a problem with that, as you might imagine.”

Without lowering the gun, Tandy responded, “I certainly can imagine that you have a problem with that, however, this individual is actually Clean, and therefore improperly placed under quarantine. Shocking, really. Fortunately, I was able to save DSDE the embarrassment of further infringements of this woman’s civil rights.”

The shadow noted the lieutenant’s slow climb up the stairs, Clio in tow. “And stop right there, Lieutenant, unless you wish to be brought up on charges as well.” Ryerson stopped. “I am placing this woman under arrest, as a federal officer of the Department of Social and Drug Enforcement.”

Raising his hands, the agent moved forward until his features became visible in the airfield floodlights. The man was slim and fair, with delicate features as beautiful as any woman’s. “This is a misunderstanding over jurisdiction, Colonel Tandy. I think we can settle this without violence.” He nodded at the pistol. Tandy lowered the gun a fraction. “Clio Finn is a dangerous felon. Placed temporarily at the Issaquah Quarry until her trial date. You may have misunderstood the situation, Colonel. But you will hand her over to me at this time.” He reached into his breast pocket, flashed an ID at Tandy. “Jared Licht, special agent, Department of Social and Drug Enforcement.” He swung the ID around to Clio and the aide, though they were too far to read it, cocking his head and smiling in a provocatively cheerful manner.

The colonel, still with pistol, smiled back at Licht. “These jurisdictional disputes are always vexing, Agent Licht. On the one hand, we both want what’s best for the entire situation. But on the other, we have our orders. I
believe there is one way to resolve this quickly.” Tandy drew a paper from his back pocket, reached out with it.

Licht stepped forward to look at it for several long moments. He smiled, a kind of “you win,” generous, and lovely smile.

Tandy took the paper back. “Ultimately, we do all report to her. That’s what brings all of the branches of government into one cooperative force. Chain of command. Frees us, lower down as we are and perhaps lacking the complete picture, from making ignorant mistakes.”

Licht laughed, threw back his head and laughed, waving his associate back to the van. Then he spun on Clio. Pointed his finger straight at her face. “You. You, Clio Finn, are going to see me again. I look forward to that as much as you must dread it.” The pointing finger became a raised hand of farewell. Again, the heartbreaking smile. He turned back to the van, then pivoted around to face Tandy once more. “Just one more thing. It
is
in my purview to search for contraband substances. She’s a notorious drug user, Tandy, you realize.”

“Your point?”

“Let’s just be sure she’s clean.”

Tandy closed his eyes in apparent exasperation. “Lieutenant, get her on that plane.”