Thunderbird (34 page)

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

—Alexander Pope, “Ode on Solitude,” c. 1700

“F
OR
G
OD
'
S
SAKE
,
wait a minute
.” Walker looked on the verge of a stroke. “You're telling me that inferno is the future Earth? That's where we're headed?”

“A long time from now.” April was holding both hands in the air, trying to calm him.

“So the Roundhouse isn't just a teleporter? It's a time machine, too?”

“Yes, James. Either that, or somebody stole the moon and took it to that place.”

“All right.” They were in Walker's car in the parking lot. “Then whoever came here ten thousand years ago to go sailing—”

“Might have been
us
. Human beings from the future. Or the past.”

“This is crazy.” He stared out at the night sky. “So who are the devils?”

“We think they operate a tourist service.”

“For whom? Who's going to go sightseeing on that hellhole?”

“That's a good question. You want an answer?”

“Yes. If you have one.”

“Patrick thinks probably
us
.”

“What?”

“Tourists visiting the home world. Maybe they like to go back and see where it all started. More or less the same reason they came to the Dakotas twelve thousand years ago.”

“So there are still people a billion years from now?”

•   •   •

B
RAD
NEEDED
AN
hour to get past the media circus and reach his car. He started for home and turned on the radio. It was tuned to KLYM, which normally ran country music until midnight. But he was startled to hear his own voice: “. . . floated to the ground as if there was no gravity.”

Then one of the reporters: “You're sure, Brad?”

“Yes, I'm sure.”

And Matt: “Brad, of course, will be here tomorrow morning to describe in more detail what he saw on Brimstone. That's what they're calling it now, by the way, which should give everybody an idea what that place is really like. Tune in at seven for
Grand Forks Live
, which will be extended by an hour, until eleven, to accommodate the scope of the story. We'll also have the Rev. Jimmy Carstairs, host of The Evangelical Club, and neurologist Michael Fossel, who will chime in on all this. That's tomorrow at seven.”

They went to country music. He tried other stations and discovered quickly that Matt was right.
Desolation Point
had been dropped elsewhere, probably everywhere, in favor of
Brimstone
. They've got a large surprise coming, he thought.

The streets were quiet. He took his time, trying to decide what he would tell Donna. She'd certainly want him to quit now. Stay away from the missions. Maybe he should. But he suspected he'd be on
Face the Nation
again Sunday.

He had been trying to play the role of a modest but heroic character. But it was going to be hard to forget that, at the critical moment, when
the devil had come walking toward them, he'd panicked. They all had. Even George and John. But that didn't make it any easier.

Donna had left the lights on, of course. He pulled into the driveway, climbed out of the car, and collected his gear. A full moon floated over the rooftops, a moon that caused his heart to skip a beat. He was also happy to see that the Big Dipper was back in the sky. Inside, the TV was on. And Donna appeared from nowhere and threw herself into his arms. “Brad,” she said. “I'm so glad you're—” It was as far as she got before stopping to choke back sobs.

He held on to her while a car swung into the driveway. Someone said, “There he is.” A van showed up, and lights started coming on. He tried to persuade himself it was annoying. But, in fact, he loved it.

•   •   •

E
VERYTHING
ELSE
THAT
was happening on the planet, religious wars, racial strife, political scandals, all went away. Guests on cable news shows were denying that time travel was possible, a few preachers claimed that we had wandered into Hell, and politicians, depending on which side they were on, either damned the policies of an idiot president that put the entire nation at risk, or lauded the cautious approach of a smart leader that had kept all the dangers at a distance.

The phone rang all night at Walker's house. He and Carla retreated upstairs, turned off the second floor phone, and switched on the TV. Seinfeld was running. Just what he needed. They both loved the show. Jerry and Julia were sinking into a confrontation with the Soup Nazi.

They lay on the bed, watching the scene play out. Then Carla muted it. “You sure you're okay?” she asked.

“Yes. I just wonder what else could happen?”

“Maybe you should have kept it quiet. About its being Earth in the future.”

“No way we could do that, love. It would have gotten out, and nobody
would ever have trusted me again. Anyhow, it's such a huge story that everybody has a right to know about it.”

“I suppose. But I hate to think that's the way the world is going to look someday.”

“It's a long way off. And it's not as if scientists didn't know it was coming.” He fell silent. She put the sound back on. And they watched for almost an hour. The bedroom door was shut, and they had to concentrate to hear the phone ringing downstairs.

“What are you thinking about, Jim? It's not like you to be so quiet.”

He hesitated. And turned on his side, facing her. “I keep thinking about the thunderbird.”

“How do you mean?”

“The space station. It has to be the future, too. I'd like to think we did something here that people still talk about thousands of years from now.”

“Jim—” She was shaking her head, smiling, groomed in her trademark tolerant expression.

“I know, babe. It's ridiculous. But I'm allowed to use my imagination, right?”

•   •   •

M
ATT
WAS
WAITING
for Brad next morning when he arrived at the station. Brad couldn't remember the last time that had happened. But the boss was gloriously happy. Another rare occurrence. “Magnificent,” he said. “Though I can't help thinking about the story we'd have if you'd tried to interview that thing.” The smile grew even wider. “Just kidding. You're okay, right? How's it feel to have the biggest story anybody's ever heard of?”

“Pretty good, actually.”

“Were you scared?”

“Not a chance. If he'd gotten near me, I'd just have taken him out.” They both laughed.

Brad sat down and attended to his regular tasks. His three early-morning colleagues, a staff assistant, the news reader, and a secretary were all
breathless with excitement. Todd Baxter, the reader, wanted to interview him on the next newscast, which ran at six o'clock. Brad would have gone along with it, but Matt intervened. “Not a good idea,” he said. “We publicized
Grand Forks Live
as being an exclusive opportunity for Brad's listeners to ask questions. We don't want to spoil things.”

“This would just give us a little more PR,” said Brad.

Matt was wrestling with it. “All right,” he said finally. “Let's do it. But try to save something.”

•   •   •

A
LL
THE
OTHER
news, the turmoil in the Middle East, the latest political scandal, a mine cave-in, a massive rainstorm headed east across the plains directly for Grand Forks, got barely a mention. “KLYM's own Brad Hollister is with us this morning,” said Todd, as the newscast opened at the top of the hour. “Brad, in case anybody out there is just back from the North Pole, you were a member last night of the Roundhouse team that encountered something unusual on the world they've begun calling Brimstone. Can you tell us what that was?”

Brad described the experience, trying to make it sound relatively uneventful, the sort of thing you can expect when you're visiting another planet. Toward the end, he was explaining that the pilot was wearing a uniform. “Or a jump suit. Something like that.” Keeping in mind Walker's wish to avoid talk about devils, he referred to it throughout the interview as “the pilot.”

“We've all seen the pictures,” Todd said. “It does look very much like a devil, wouldn't you say?”

“I guess you could describe it that way.”

“Did he have a tail? We can't tell from the photos.”

Matt was watching him from the control room. He looked gloriously happy. “I don't know,” he said. “I didn't notice.”

“Why not?”

“I was too busy getting out of there.”

At seven, the conversation carried directly into
Grand Forks Live
. The phone lines were overwhelmed before they even got on the air.

•   •   •

“W
HAT
HAPPENED
?”
DEMANDED
Walker.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” said Taylor. “You were supposed to keep control of those missions. How the hell could you let all that goddam stuff get out? Devils? A dead Earth? You have any idea what you've done? The voters are not happy, James, and they are blaming me. I can name the Roundhouse a threat to national security, which it is, and demolish the damned thing. Or you can do it. If you elect to manage it on your own, I'll see that you and the tribe are rewarded. Not on the scale you would have been a few days ago, but, nonetheless, your people will never find themselves short of resources. I'm sorry it has to go this way, James, but I really have no choice.”

Walker could not get the thunderbird out of his mind. He knew it was nothing more than a piece of artwork on a station that might have been abandoned for thousands of years. There was no connection to the Spirit Lake Sioux. But, nonetheless, there it was. Of all the pieces of art, of blooming flowers and beautiful women and planetary rings they might have found, they found instead a bird with lightning bolts gripped in its claws. It almost seemed like a message.

He stood at a critical moment. It was possible that his decision would alter the course of history. Keep the door open? Or shut it down? What chance was there to be remembered for backing away?

The only route that could lead the tribe into a bright future was to stand up. To resist the political pressure.

•   •   •

T
HE
CHAIRMAN
WAS
listening to
Grand Forks Live
when one of Brad's callers asked whether the Brimstone action figures were realistic. “Is that what they really looked like?”

“What action figures?”

“The ones at Wal-Mart. The devils.”

Brad responded that he hadn't seen them yet.

“I thought they looked pretty good,” said the caller. “Like the pictures, I guess. Gives me a chill.”

Walker googled them. They were packaged in plastic, armed with pitchforks, wearing a complacent smile.

Damn it, he was not going to cave in.

My friends, quit ye like men, and be firm in the battle.

—Homer,
The Iliad
, VI, c. 800
B.C.E.

W
ALKER
MET
D
AVID
Woqini the following day in the Main Street Café. “It's been a nightmare, David,” he said.

“I can understand it, Jim. How's Carla getting through it?”

“She's okay. She's been by my side throughout this whole thing. Thank God. I wouldn't have made it this far without her.”

“Tell her I said hello.” Walker was eating a salad with some grilled chicken fingers. He had to watch his weight.

“I will. She'd want me to do the same with you.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to keep the Roundhouse functioning as long as I can. Look what we've learned. And we've walked on other worlds. I never would have believed something like that could happen in my lifetime. I mean, we went to the Moon, and then we forgot how to do it.”

“There's certainly some truth to that.” David was working on a trout sandwich.

“You still don't think it's a good idea, do you?”

“No, I don't, Jim.”

“Well, we'll just have to disagree on this one.”

“I know. And that's not a problem.”

“This is a chance for the Oyate to have a major influence on the world. To make life better for everyone.” Woqini took another bite out of his trout. “Go ahead,” said Walker. “Say it.”

“When you say ‘everyone,' are you including the Arkons?” All these years since that high-school physics class, and somehow nothing basic had changed.

“Sure. Why not? I know a lot of people want to move over there, to Eden. But I'm not going to play the role of the Europeans. We aren't going to allow it. If they were able to get a court order or something, then I
would
destroy the Roundhouse.”

“Jim, you've already had an impact on them. On the Arkons.”

“How do you mean?”

“You've sent your people to talk to them. To let them know we're here. You've given them electric lamps. And a collection of books.”

“That doesn't seem like a big deal.”

“It wouldn't to us. But there's no way to know what the long-range impact will be on
them
. It might lead to a widespread belief in magic. Professor Proffitt says the Arkons were surprised to hear their world is round. That could start a religious conflict. We just don't know, Jim. It's why we should keep our hands off.”

“Okay, David.”

“You'll notice that the people in the river city haven't paid us a visit. Maybe they don't know we're here. Or maybe they're simply keeping their distance. Encountering a civilization that probably has a connection with the transport system would not be good for us. And I'd be surprised if they're not aware of that. We should have the same concern for the Arkons.

“Jim, I know you want to do whatever you can for the tribe. And God
knows, after all we've had to endure, we deserve a break. But the risk to the world at large isn't worth whatever advantage
we
might get from all this. I saw the images of the thunderbird. And I know you well enough that I'll bet they've inspired you. But maybe the gutsy thing to do here, and the correct thing, is to walk away from it. Close the door. You'll take a lot of criticism, but I think you'll sleep well at night.”

•   •   •

H
E
'
D
BEEN
BACK
in his office about an hour when Miranda told him there was a caller who wouldn't give her name. “She says she
has
to talk with you.”

“Put her through.” He sighed, waited for the buzz, and picked up. “This is Chairman Walker. Who's calling, please?”

“Mr. Chairman, I work for Dorothy.”

He recognized the voice. It was Wasula Graybear, one of Dorothy Kalen's staffers. The Woodlake representative. “Yes, what can I do for you?”

“This is in confidence, Mr. Chairman. I don't want anyone else to know about this call.”

“Okay.”

“Dorothy and one of the other representatives, I think Les Krider, are going to file a lawsuit against you demanding that they get access to the Roundhouse. A lot of people want to be able to visit Eden. And some are even talking about moving there. Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

•   •   •

W
ALKER
HAD
HAD
enough. He checked the schedule, saw that Jack Swiftfoot was off duty, and called him. “I need a pilot and a plane,” he said.

“Back to old-fashioned travel, Mr. Chairman? Sure, I can manage that. When?”

“Wednesday afternoon if you can arrange it.” That would give him two days.

“Hold on a second,” said Jack. After a moment he was back: “Local flight?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Where are we going, and what time do we want to leave?”

“About noon be okay?”

“Two o'clock would be better. I'm committed until then.”

“All right. Two o'clock works.”

“I'll meet you at the airport. Where are we going, sir?”

“The middle of Lake Superior.”

Jack hesitated. “I don't understand.”

“I want to go out over the lake, then just come home. Okay?”

Jack didn't sound comfortable. “Sightseeing?”

“I've never been out there before. Oh, and I'd be grateful if you'd keep this to yourself.”

When it was done, he called Ivy Banner. “Can you meet me at the Roundhouse?”

•   •   •

A
NDREA
H
AWK
WAS
on duty when she heard from the chairman. “Who's out there now?” he asked, meaning off-world.

“Just the Eden mission.”

“Dolly?”

“Yes.”

“We still have two people with her?”

“Right. George is near the cabin. John's at the Cupola.”

“Okay. We're going to close down the operation as soon as we can. Tell them all to get back here within twenty-four hours.”

“We closing down permanently?”

“Yes. Nobody else goes out anywhere.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have the marshals remove the package. If they have a problem with it, tell them to check with the White House. And one other thing, Andrea, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep a lid on this as much as you can.”