Worlds (27 page)

“Besides, the Worlds are all pacifistic. We’re too vulnerable to get involved in revolutions and wars.”

“You’re involved in this one, I’m afraid.” It would be two days before we found out how catastrophically true that was.

The U.S. military had game plans for everything, even revolution. They even had plans for what to do in case parts of the military were on the other side.

What they didn’t have a game plan for was the case where the man ultimately in charge of personnel allocation, a four-star general in the Pentagon, happened to be on the other side. Thus whole regiments, even divisions, were composed entirely of 3R members. They were all dispersed—“night maneuvers”—when the revolution started.

There were also game plans, of course, for retaliation. You could push a button and wipe out Cuba, or France, or the entire Supreme Socialist Union. A short-tempered and prejudiced man, who could only have been overruled by people who were vaporized by the Washington bomb, pushed the button for Worlds.

Nearly two hundred missiles leaped from the sea toward forty-one targets in various orbits. It was bloody murder.

The killer missiles were not nuclear. They were in essence giant shotgun shells, each blasting tonnes of metal shrapnel in east-to-west orbits calculated to intercept each World’s orbit as the World rolled west to east, the shrapnel impacting with meteoric velocity.

The missiles were rather old, dating back to the 2035 SALT XI agreement. But they had been scrupulously maintained, and most of them did their job well.

Most of the smaller Worlds, such as Von Braun and the twins Mazeltov/B’ism’illah Ma’sha’llah, were instantly and utterly destroyed. Devon’s World had a huge chunk torn out of its side, and the ninety percent of the population who were not at that time inside the hub or spokes all died of explosive decompression.

Some of the Worlds had up to thirty minutes’ warning. Three quarters of Tsiolkovski’s population survived, since it was made up of a series of airtight compartments: they’d had enough time to calculate the direction from which the brutal salvo would come and move nearly everyone to the other side. Uchūden braced itself for death, but the cloud of metal missed it by hundreds of kilometers. The nimble Worlds Galileo, OAO, and Bellcom Four were able to dodge in time.

Only one person died in New New York: a shotgun can’t do much against a mountain. A few scraps of metal smashed through the observation dome, and one of them killed a janitor. Air loss was insignificant.

But the fifty missiles aimed at New New York hadn’t been intended to penetrate the hollow rock. What they did do was reduce most of the solar panels to ribbons and disable the heat-exchange mechanism. If it couldn’t be repaired, a quarter of a million people would cook.

It took only three days to fix, though, and the loss of the surface solar panels was no problem. The powersat that had serviced the Eastern Seaboard hadn’t been a target, and it was easily pressed into service.

In the Worlds, fourteen thousand people had died in the first hour. Another five thousand would the over the weeks to follow, because New New was the only large World with its life support systems intact Shuttles brought a constant stream of refugees from Tsiolkovski and Devon’s World, but there were only so many shuttles and they could only move so fast.

Nineteen thousand dead is not a large number in historical context Three times that number died in the first hours of the battle of the Somme, for a scant kilometer of worthless mud; fifty times as many in the battle for the possession of Stalingrad; 2500 times as many during World
War II. But the Decimation, as it came to be called, would be more important historically than any of these affairs.

It was not a “catalyst,” for a catalyst emerges from reaction unchanged.

It was not a “pivot,” because the forces had already been in motion for a long time.

It was an excuse.

We made it to Florida, barely. A red
FAILSAFE ENGAGED
light blinked on and we descended rapidly toward a soft-looking pasture. Jeff steered us past a red barn and silo.

“We’re a little north of Gainesville,” he said. “If we can find a vehicle, we can get to the Cape in a day or two.”

We landed hard. Before I could draw a new breath, Jeff had slid the canopy back, grabbed a weapon from behind the seat, and vaulted out. “Get out quick,” he said.

It took me a while to untangle myself from the safety net, and then I just sort of dropped over the edge, lacking commando spirit. It was hard to feel too threatened with the dawn reflecting prettily off the dewy grass, birds cooing, clean country smells.

Jeff was peering over the floater’s stern, looking at a farmhouse about fifty meters away. “Wonder if—”

There was a loud gunshot and, at the same time, the fading whine of a bullet that must have bounced off the floater. I cringed down.

“Not smart!” Jeff shouted. Another shot; no ricochet Jeff aimed toward a tree (curious bell-shaped foliage) and a laser blast stabbed out. The middle of the tree burst into flame.

“That happens to your barn in five seconds,” he shouted,

“and then the silo, and then the house. Come out with your hands over your heads.”

“What the hell do you want?” The shout cracked on “hell.”

“Don’t you worry about what I want,” Jeff said. He fired again and a haystack burst into flame. “Worry about what I’ve
got!”

A white-haired man came out of the farmhouse door, followed by two younger men and a young woman. They stood on the porch with their hands in the air.

“Come on up to the floater,” Jeff shouted. “We won’t hurt you.” He made a patting motion to me. “Stay down,” he whispered.

They walked up the incline toward us, having a little trouble on the slippery grass. Jeff didn’t move. When they were in front of us, he said, “Put your hands down. Move together, shoulder-to-shoulder. Now shuffle to the left… there.” They formed a human shield between him and the farmhouse.

He stood up and handed the laser rifle over to me. “Stay down, O’Hara. If there’s a shot, burn everything.” I wasn’t even sure which button to push. Jeff stepped around the end of the floater.

“I have to assume you left someone back there,” he said, drawing the hand laser from its holster. “He better not peep. You want to go back and tell him that?” He kept the laser pointed at the ground.

The farmer stared at Jeff steadily, maliciously. “Ain’t no one down there. We all there is.”

“Sure.” Jeff leaned back against the floater. “This is government business. If you cooperate with us, we’ll forget those two shots. Understandable, the way things are.”

“The way things
are”
the farmer said, still staring, “is that we got no guv’ments, or maybe two. Which one might you be from?”

“The legitimate one.” He showed his badge. “I’m a field agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

He laughed. “That don’t mean shit. It was you and those goddamn spacers got us into this.”

“Not true. Richard Conklin’s a traitor, but most of the FBI is loyal. We’re trying to straighten things out We need help.”

The man kept looking at him, silently but not as maliciously. “Look at it this way,” Jeff said. “If we’d meant to
do you harm, you never would’ve got out the first shot. You’d be roast meat by now, if that’s what we wanted. Isn’t that true?”

“That’s right, Pop,” the young woman said.

“You shut up,” the farmer said mildly. “What kind of help is it you want?”

“Food, water, and transportation. We can pay.”

“What we hear on the cube, your dollar ain’t worth bum fodder. Food’s worth plenty.”

“We can pay in gold.”

“Gold.” The farmer took a step forward.

“
Get back.”
Jeff raised the weapon halfway.

“Sorry. Just wanted to look at your machine. Never seen a Mercedes before.”

“It’s a special police model. Got us all the way from Denver on fuel cells.”

“Now, that might be worth somethin’. Once the power net gets up again.”

Jeff hesitated. “I could kid you about that, but I won’t. It’s not mine to barter, even though we’ll have to leave it here. It’s government property and it has a tracer signal embedded in the fuselage. If you tried to drive it you wouldn’t get ten kilometers.”

The farmer stroked his chin. “You just said the right thing, I think.” He half-turned, and shouted down to the farmhouse. “Maw! It’s all right. They jus’ cops.” He shrugged at Jeff. “Left the ole lady and the baby down there. Didn’t know what the hell you was up to.”

“How far you got to go?” one of the young men said.

“The Cape. New New York Corporation.”

“Why you want to go there?” the farmer asked.

“Bring them something they aren’t expecting,” Jeff said, smiling.

The farmer nodded. “Can’t do you no good there. Floater’s down in a soybean field five plat away.” He glared at one of the boys. “Goddamn Jerry comin’ back from a night on the town. Got a pigfart tractor—”

“Methane,” Jerry translated.

“—get you into Gainesville. You might could pick up somethin’ there.”

So for one gold coin we got a knapsack full of dried meat, bread, fruit, and cheese, and several jugs of well water, and a ride into Gainesville. The “baby,” who was ten or eleven, traced us a copy of their map of Florida. Jeff
had him draw in the areas that were state parks and recreation areas; if possible, we wanted to find an overland vehicle, so as to avoid roads and towns.

They traded me a change of clothes—I’d been abducted in a bright red kaftan—and Jeff changed into his FBI uniform. We took from the floater a first-aid kit, compass, burglary kit, and enough armament to start our own revolution.

The tractor ride was at top speed, about equal to a fast walk. Both of the sons came along with us, armed and alert. Martial law evidently wasn’t working too well in Gainesville.

“Americans aren’t really bad people,” Jeff said, nearly shouting to be heard over the hammering engine. “But we’ve been trigger-happy for three hundred years. There are four hundred million firearms registered in the various states, and probably just as many unregistered. Two per person, and you can bet every one of them is greased up and loaded today. The people
and
the firearms.”

I was maintaining the national average. Ten-shot laser pistol stuck uncomfortably in my belt, riot gun on my lap. It was similar to Perkins’s shotgun but worked on compressed air rather than gunpowder. It kept shooting as long as you held the trigger down, eight seconds per cassette. I was certain I could never use it.

The farmland gave way to lowrise suburbia, then high-rises and malls. Whole blocks were burned out. There were squads of soldiers at some intersections; they saw Jeff’s uniform and waved us on.

The city proper was a mess. Nearly half the stores were gutted, shoals of glass on the sidewalks and streets. Other stores were being guarded by conspicuously armed men and women.

The boys had a city directory. They took us first to Honest Ed’s RV Rental, which was a smoking ruin, and then to Outdoors Unlimited. It was unharmed, and a fat man with a hunting rifle lounged in the doorway.

“You rent cross-country vehicles?” Jeff shouted.

“Got three,” he answered. We unloaded our gear and the boys backed up to the intersection, and roared away with obvious relief.

“We need something that’ll get us to the Cape and back,” Jeff said. “About five hundred kilometers’ range.”

“That’s no problem. Problem is, will you bring it back.”

“I have no reason not to. This is FBI business—”

“I can read.” The three letters were prominent on Jeff’s right breast pocket.

“If I don’t make it back, you can bill the government I’ll write you out a statement, good for the replacement price of the vehicle.”

“Now that’s just it. The money situation is really confusing. I’ve been doing business by barter, all day.”

“I have some gold. Four thousand.”

He shook his head. “My cheapest one’s worth twenty times that. Tell you what. Your statement, the gold, and one of your lasers.”

“That’s against the law.”

“Not much law around, you may have noticed.”

“Let’s see the vehicles.”

None of them was a floater. Jeff selected one with six large wheels; he verified the charge in the fuel cells and checked the manufacturer’s handbook. There was plenty of power for the trip.

He wrote out the statement and signed it, then gave the man two gold coins and his laser pistol. The man asked for the holster, too. Then he handed over the keys.

We started for the door. I heard a soft
click
and turned around. The fat man was standing there with a fading smile on his face, the pistol pointed in our direction. Jeff was already halfway to him in a smooth
balestra
. He gracefully kicked him on the chin. He fell like a fat soft tree.

Jeff buckled on the holster and retrieved his laser. “It’s not common knowledge, but the thumbrest on an agent’s personal weapon is a sensor keyed to his thumbprint. Good insurance.” While he was talking, he checked the fat man for a pulse. “Still alive.” He found a tube of liquid solder and squeezed a few drops down inside the barrel of the hunting rifle. Then he searched the man’s pockets for the gold and the statement. “We’re felons, now. Let’s go.”

The RVs motor was a quiet hum. The seats were soft and deep. “Ah, sportsmen,” Jeff said. He pushed a button and the windows rolled up. He said the glass had to be shatterproof but he didn’t know whether it would deflect a bullet. He told me to keep the riot gun very visible.

We sped through the streets of Gainesville with only one incident. We both saw the silhouette of a man with a rifle, standing on the roof of a building across the street. Jeff slewed the RV to the left and we passed under him
driving along the sidewalk, horn blaring to warn pedestrians. If he shot at us, I didn’t hear it.

Jeff zigzagged through the city, following his compass. We were stopped several times by military and police road-blocks but didn’t have any trouble.