Worlds in Chaos (50 page)

Keene watched the hapless group through one of the forward windows as the Rustler turned to begin taxiing out, standing expressionlessly before their vehicles. They were still there when the plane roared back along the runway and lifted off, as if not knowing where to go next.

The sea seemed amazingly calm, Keene thought as the strip of dunes and beaches came into view. Then he realized that what he was looking at was mud. The tide was out to a distance that must have been close to a mile.

At the back of the plane, the woman with the crushed legs was starting to scream.

Cliff scanned through frequency bands as the Rustler climbed. “Santa Barbara’s out. LAX is out. Seems the West Coast is about out of business,” he reported. Charlie Hu was behind him in the jump seat, following the procedures. “Military Sector Control is operating at San Bernardino. They’re routing us over Phoenix. Come around onto zero-nine-eight degrees and make for thirty thousand to try and get over the turbulence. Two transports and a high-altitude reconnaissance flight in the area. I’ve got ’em on radar. Otherwise free of traffic. Still a lot of clutter. Reports of heavy rock falls in the Midwest, all flights grounded there.”

“Gotcha,” Dan drawled from the captain’s seat.

When they leveled out, Alicia and the medic in Mitch’s team, whom the others called Dash, opened up the Rustler’s medical locker and went back to see what they could do for the injured who had been brought aboard. With some sedation, the woman with the hurt legs quietened down. There were two more women, both hit by falling rocks, one with a shattered arm and shoulder, the other comatose from a head wound. A man had a leg almost severed at the thigh by a piece of flying metal. Two more were head injuries, both with concussion. One had lacerations and probably fractures from being in a truck hit by a mast that was blown down. The last was a youth of about seventeen who had been blinded by flying glass. Dash confided quietly to Mitch that he didn’t think the kid’s sight could be saved.

Between washing and dabbing with pads, and helping to place dressings and tie bandages, the two couples—Denise and Al, Cynthia and Tom; it was funny how they had suddenly become people now that they had names—who had accompanied the injured recovered their faculties sufficiently to tell the gist of their story. They had been among somewhere around fifty or sixty friends, neighbors, and relatives from nearby Vandenberg village, many of them employees of the base, who had decided to travel inland to Arizona as a group. Less than twenty miles along the highway, they had been caught in the the gravel storm of the previous day. Seven of the party were dead, including the husband and sister of the woman with the crushed legs, who was called Joan and worked as a teller in one of the banks on the base. A group of them had brought the worst cases back into the base believing they would find help, while the rest had arranged to meet farther up the highway. There were a lot like that out there. Police, paramedics, and volunteers had set up emergency dressing stations along the way, but they were swamped.

As the Rustler with its forty-two souls aboard climbed above the denser blanket of cloud, the surroundings transformed into a shimmering panorama of surreal yellow and orange sculptures twisting and unfolding upward toward a sky woven from streamers of electric violets and pink. Beneath them, foaming curtains of vapor descended, raining amber and ochre into the cauldron that the world had become. Above it all, blurred through the watery opacity of the cloud and the plasma filaments, glowed the light of two suns.

Cavan and Mitch were up front, immediately behind the flight deck, conferring in low voices. One of the NCOs handed out breakfasts, which today consisted of reconstituted egg, sausage and hash browns, rolls with butter and jelly, apple juice and coffee. Colby sat next to Keene, staring past the seats in front and for a while lost in thoughts of his own. Then, suddenly, he said, “Those people back there. Just imagine, a week ago they were anyone you might have sat next to at a movie or met in a restaurant. Last night we mounted armed guards against them as if they were enemies. The veneer’s about to come peeling off, Lan. We’re all about to go back to being jungle tribes again.”

Those that survive, Keene thought. He had been thinking similar things too. For what they’d just heard described had to have been typical of events that had been happening on other highways too, leading inland from San Diego and Anaheim, San Luis Obispo and San Jose, Napa and Kelso; and not just in California but every other state and all the provinces he’d never heard of in every other country too. If the rate worldwide was even a tenth as great as the sample figures he had heard, Keene estimated that the number killed would already be about equal to the total battle and civilian dead of both world wars put together.

40

The hit came with a bang like a bomb exploding in the forward part of the cabin. Keene had a fleeting impression of a flash and Charlie being hurled back from the flight deck like a rag doll; and then came a roar with an invisible, freezing fist that snapped him back in his seat. Mitch, Cavan, and a couple of others who had been near the front were swept back along the aisle in a tangle of arms and legs. Shouts of alarm came from all round, terrified screams from the back. Next to Keene, Colby had gone into an emergency crouch, head down, arms crossed and braced against the seat in front. Keene hauled himself up against the pressure and peered forward with streaming eyes. A hole the size of a door had appeared where Cliff and the electronics officer’s station had been. Around the sides, torn edges of metal and a section of switch panel still attached to a finger of ribbing flapped crazily in the airstream. The plane was dipping to starboard. On the still-intact left side of the cockpit, Dan pulled a yellow oxygen mask over his face, at the same time fighting to keep control as violent judderings shook the plane from end to end. One of the smashed consoles began smoking, and moments later choking fumes poured back into the cabin.

“
Jesus! Jesus!
” one of the women at the rear was shrieking.

“What is it? What’s happened?” Jed, the blinded kid, yelled from his pallet.

The pressure drop following the blast pulled air the other way, carrying bodies and loose objects toward the breach. Dan banked and throttled back, shedding speed, and the press of bodies trying to untangle themselves in the aisle fell forward and went down again. Mitch dragged himself out and braced himself half-standing between the front seats and bulkhead, where he was able to tear a fire extinguisher from its mount and smother the burning. Then he folded over and sank to his knees. Keene tried to stand up further and leaned over the seatback to find Charlie . . .

A report sounded somewhere distantly, like a bucket being struck by a hammer, and a shock jolted him. Then came two more, sharper. Keene found himself slumped over an arm of the seat; he realized muzzily after a few moments that he had passed out. He straightened up stiffly. Dan’s voice shouting into his microphone came from up front over the roaring of the wind.

“Still taking multiple impacts. What’s your range, what’s your range? I need a vector. I have no radar and controls are jamming. Visibility nil up here.” Keene looked around. Some of the others were moving groggily, others slumped unconscious in their seats or lay still on the floor. At the back, Alicia was standing, clinging to the side netting with one hand while she tried to revive Dash, the medic, with the other. Dan’s voice came again, louder this time, switched into the cabin address. “Attention all. We’re near an evacuation reception area, but going down. This wagon is shot. Get everyone into seats or buckled down. Use whatever you can for padding and brace hard. This may not be the softest landing I ever made. . . . And thanks for choosing U.S. Government Air.”

Keene turned and lifted Colby up in his seat. He was out cold, his face ashen, lips blue. Keene took his glasses, which were hanging from one ear, and slapped his cheeks alternately, then shook him by the shoulders.

“Uh? . . . Wha . . .”

“Colby, snap out of it. We’re going down. We need you here, fella.”

Colby leaned his head back and gulped in a series of long breaths. “God I’m cold. . . . The job description never said anything about this.”

“You need to move. There’s guys the other side of you that we have to get up off the floor.”

Still wobbly, Colby moved into the aisle, and Keene followed. Mitch was up again, and several others were moving to assist, including Cavan, who seemed to be okay. They maneuvered the still-inert forms into seats or positions against the bulkheads, wedging their limbs with seat cushions, packs, and clothing. Keene went around the front seat to see to Charlie, who was crumpled across three seats and motionless. Colby helped Keene buckle him into one of the seats and pile up as much protection as they could. Then the floor tilted back, and the roar came of the engines diverting to reverse and vertical thrust. “This is it!” Dan’s voice yelled. “Maybe ten seconds. Hang on!” Keene wedged a pack on his lap and hugged it to his chest, arms gripping the seatback in front.

The impact was fierce but not as bad as Keene had feared—Dan was using what power he had as a brake. They were thrown sideways, and then the starboard side of the cabin imploded amidships as the broken main spar of the wing plowed into the ground and was driven inward. The plane pivoted around the wing, grating over rocks, and slewed to a standstill with its fuselage broken into two parts lying joined at an angle. Cries of pain and fear came from all sides as the last movements and shrieks of rending metal died away. Keene raised his head gingerly. It was as dark as night, dust everywhere. Shadowy figures were moving, cursing, fumbling with flashlamps. Somebody farther back was calling for help. Keene spat blood from his mouth. He had bitten his tongue. His knee burned and his neck felt as if it had been wrung, but nothing seemed broken. Releasing his seat harness shakily, he rose to follow Colby, who was feeling his way into the aisle. A thudding concussion like an artillery shell landing came from somewhere outside.

In front, Dan was clambering back from the flight deck over a crazily leaning floor panel. “
Move, move! Get ’em out!
” Mitch’s voice came through the gloom and the dust. “This whole thing could blow. Furle, are you there? You okay?”

“I . . . think so.”

“Good. Go check the tail section. The rest of you who can move, give a hand with the ones that can’t.” One of the soldiers rose and just stood, staring dazedly. Mitch jabbed him several times in the chest and shoved a shoulder. “Behind you. Out that way. Move it!”

Ignoring the doors, the ones who were able began passing the injured and unconscious out through the break in the ruptured fuselage. Slowly, the rest came to their senses and lent help. Colby already had Charlie by the shoulders; one of the troopers took his legs. Several who had been sitting where the wing root had broken through were past any help. From the rear section, Al was helping Denise out, blood streaming down her face, while Alicia and Dash directed others lifting out the pallets and stretchers. A corporal called Legermount—strong, black-haired, always silently competent—became a human conveyor line, effortlessly carrying out one limp form after another and returning for the next.

They were on a slope of rock and sand that could have been a valley side or part of a mountain, vanishing into the dusty air. A hundred yards or so away was a ravine flanked by mounds of boulders. Mitch waved everyone toward it, then, while they were making their way across, he ducked back inside the front section of the fuselage to check that no one had been left. Keene and Dan hung back in case he should need help. Mitch reappeared briefly to go into the tail, and reappeared finally, hauling two packs of provisions and a medical chest. He threw them down and jumped after. “Let’s get out of here!” he yelled. Keene grabbed one of the food packs, Dan, the other, and Mitch picked up the medical box. They got to the ravine, which was dry, and passed the items down to the others, who were spreading along the sides and finding places. And then, suddenly, the murk in the direction away from the plane lit up as if aflame, and for several seconds a ridge above them, rising to a rocky peak at one end, was silhouetted through the haze against a blaze of light from somewhere behind. Darkness closed again. Five seconds or so went by, and then the foot-jolting shock wave arrived through the ground, causing everyone standing to stagger. Cynthia and one or two others were knocked over. They all looked at each other bemusedly. And then, as if responding to the same cue, everyone not already down there threw themselves into the ravine. “
Cover!
” Mitch shouted one way, then again the other.
“Get down! Take cover!”