Aftermath

23

Celine had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and the week before that had been one long effort. Fatigue and the familiar-yet-strange air and gravity of Earth gave to everything a dreamlike halo. She stared at the red utility vehicles in the opened A-frame barn. She could hear running engines and see spouting black smoke behind the rear balloon tires.

Two of the trucks moved out of the building and came rolling toward them. One woman and one man sat in the front seat of each, apparently identical people dressed in identical tunics. They halted ten yards in front of Reza and Jenny, blocking progress toward the barn. One of the men descended.

Celine froze, and her dream mood vanished. The man in front of her was holding a light submachine gun, which he swung easily in an arc to cover the whole of her group. The woman in the other truck had a second weapon, raised and ready.

Celine became unnaturally alert. Who greeted strangers — unarmed strangers, who had made an obvious emergency landing — in such a fashion?

“You probably think that guns don’t work no more,” the man said in a Texas twang. “Well, folks, that sure don’t apply to this one. You wouldn’t like it one little bit if I have to demonstrate. In one minute, you’re going to tell me why you came here. First, though, I want you to explain how you could fly that danged thing.” He pointed his gun toward the Clark orbiter. “It’s recent make, an’ it sure has to be full of chips.”

“It is full of chips.” Celine disliked everything about the man. Belts of ammunition hung over his shoulders and around his chest. Two handguns sat in holsters at his waist. His smile was fixed, without a trace of humor, and he had the cold, unblinking gaze of Celine’s own abusive father.

“As you can see,” she went on, “we couldn’t fly the orbiter too well even with working chips. We were lucky to be able to make a landing at all. We need help.”

The man nodded slowly. His brow furrowed, as though he understood — or listened to — only a few of her words. “Now, lady, was your ship stored underground? So that the gamma pulse didn’t ruin it?”

“No. The chips in that orbiter were a long way from Earth when the pulse hit.” Celine gestured, to include Wilmer, Jenny, and Reza. She spoke slowly and carefully, seeing his finger tight on the trigger. “We were in deep space, returning to Earth from Mars. We landed at this location because we had no choice. We had to adapt an orbiter using our own equipment and programs, and this was the only landing site that we could reach.” She hesitated before the next words. “We are the only surviving members of the first Mars expedition.”

It was a bad moment. Nowhere near as awful as watching Zoe and the others immolated on their attempt at reentry, but piercing and heartbreaking in its own way. Talking about the expedition made the contrast more striking. A couple of weeks ago they had done it all, they had won it all. The crew was returning intact and healthy, coming home to certain honor and glory and acclamation.

Now they stood, the lonely four who had lived, cold and exhausted in this snow-covered valley, facing a hostile man who showed no shred of interest or excitement at meeting the first people ever to walk the surface of the red planet. So far as he was concerned, they were just intruders. At her words he had raised his gun and was pointing it at her chest.

“You are defilers of Heaven.” He was broad-chested and tall, topping even Wilmer by a few centimeters. The left side of his chest and the cuffs of his long-sleeved gray tunic bore an unfamiliar emblem, a bird’s scarlet talons enclosing a green globe. “If your fate lay in my hands, it would lead you straight to hell. Into the vehicles. And giddyup!”

Celine was afraid, for Wilmer and Reza more than for her and Jenny. They were all used to taking orders — but not from strangers. Jenny would be cautious. Unless Celine acted at once, though, either Reza or Wilmer was likely to balk. Given Reza’s unpredictable mood for the past few days, he might do absolutely anything.

“Come on,” she said, and moved quickly forward to climb the step into the backseat of one of the trucks. She sensed rather than heard the stir of rebellion on her right, and patted the seat. “That includes you, Wilmer. This is no time for heroics.”

Her companions hesitated, looking from the man to the woman with the gun in the other truck. To her relief they moved forward without arguing. Wilmer settled himself on one side of Celine, placing his little backpack on the seat next to him. The man with the gun took the seat on the other side. “Smart move, lady,” he said gruffly. “If you got troubles, you sure brung ’em on yourselves. Didn’t you know your actions defiled God’s domain? As for your arrival here, that was foreordained.”

Reza and Jenny had gone to sit in the other vehicle. Celine decided that they would have to fend for themselves — perhaps not too difficult, since no one but the man with the machine gun had so far said a word. She turned to face him, and found that his gun was still pointing at her chest.

“You must know who we are,” she said. “I’m sure that for months before Supernova Alpha, the media were full of news about the Mars expedition. I’m Celine Tanaka, and I was in charge of instrumentation. But who are you, and what is this group? Why do you say that our arrival was foreordained?”

Knowledge is power. When you can’t do anything else, try to collect information.

He scowled. “Call me Eli, an’ a devoted servant of the Legion of Argos. That will be enough. As for news of you and your flight, I didn’t hear nothing. The media, as you call them, are pure corruption.” His voice changed to a programmed chant. “ ’Attend not to their mindless babble of invented trivia, nor to the self-aggrandizing trumpeting of their own importance. They are the instruments of Satan. Reject them, and dismiss their posturing.’ We done that, even at the height of their power. Then God’s strike came, and they were smashed. That is a blessing.”

“So, Eli,” asked Wilmer, “if you didn’t get news from the media, how do you know anything about the Mars expedition?” He was leaning across Celine, and she knew that look. It was blind obstinacy combined with a lack of concern for consequences. Wilmer was as tired as she was, and at the end of his patience. If he started needling Eli it could be fatal.

“Wilmer Oldfield, shut up,” she said, and gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs. Before he could do more than grunt in surprise, she turned to the other man. “Forgive his lack of control — or my lack of control over him. I’m afraid that our party lacks the strong discipline of the Legion of Argos since the death of our original leader. I now serve as leader, but I am new to the task. I request that you ignore all communications from this group that do not come to you directly from me.”

She was taking a chance — among other things, on what Reza and Jenny might be saying in the other car. But Wilmer had understood the message of the elbow. He remained silent. And organizations generally approved of what they practiced. Eli was nodding with what might be approval.

“Without discipline,” he said seriously, “there can be nothing.”

He made no attempt to answer Wilmer’s question of how the Legion of Argos knew about the Mars expedition. Celine wondered if she could find a more tactful way to phrase the same inquiry, but the two cars were already moving into the A-frame barn. The wooden door swung closed, and Eli indicated with his gun that they should step down from the truck.

Celine descended with difficulty. Their original mission plan had called for them to be coddled and resting after the return to Earth, sitting in a quarantined facility while their bodies made a first readjustment to higher gravity and physicians tested them inside and out for evidence of un-Earthly organisms. Instead, after days of tension and sleeplessness they were forced to remain alert for new danger.

She stepped close to Jenny, waiting by the other vehicle, and said softly, “Anything I should know about while you were driving in?”

Jenny shook her head. “I think they must have taken vows of silence. Nobody spoke, so we didn’t.”

“Good. Take my lead, and tell Reza to do the same. Treat me as an absolute boss. Don’t say anything unless I ask you to. I’ll explain when we have privacy.”

“I’ll tell Reza, and hope. But he’s still acting weird. That guy giving you trouble, is he? Bet he’s not one of their top people. Pushy type.” But Jenny was turning away as she muttered the last words, so that the approaching Eli did not hear her.

Maybe he wouldn’t have noticed anyway. Celine saw that he was talking and listening on a black handset. At least some radio communication was still working — or more likely working again. The world was fighting back. Supernova Alpha was not going to wipe out civilization.

“Right,” Eli was saying deferentially. “Very good. I sure understand that.” Then, in quite different tones to Celine and the others, “As I said, your arrival was foreordained. Our leader, newly returned to us, confirms it. She says that she will meet with you and she will speak to you in person. It is a great honor.”

Celine saw Reza’s expression. Angry now, he seemed ready to say, Damn right it’s an honor. She’ll have the honor of meeting the members of the first Mars expedition. Jenny gave him a warning nudge.

“Meet here?” Celine asked, before Reza had a chance to speak.

Eli shook his head. “Six kilometers from here.”

“Which is where?”

He stared at her. “You don’t know where you are?” His smile for a moment seemed as though it might reflect an actual feeling of pleasure. “Oh, I like that. We got us one prize example of arrogance and folly. You fly across space, millions an’ millions of miles to no place, intruding upon the very domain of God. You come on back. An’ you tell me you don’t know where you are when you git here. Do I have it right?”

“We don’t know where we are. I am not from this part of the country, and the last step of the return to Earth was not as we had planned it. We landed somewhere in the northeastern United States, that I am sure, but I could not tell you where within a hundred kilometers. Where are we? And where will we be going?”

Eli turned to wood again. “I don’t believe I oughta answer that question, ’cept to say you’ll travel to the headquarters of the Legion. If the leader permits, you may ask questions. If she chooses, she may decide to answer.”

“How should I address her? Doesn’t she have a name, other than just being your leader?”

“If the leader permits, you may ask her name.”

And if she chooses, she may decide to tell me. We already went through that one. Celine was fishing again — and getting nowhere. If she couldn’t do better than this, she ought to hand over to one of the others.

“We are ready to go,” she said. Delay would do nothing but make them more tired, and she was beginning to feel giddy and nauseated. They were long overdue for food and sleep. The members of the Mars expedition had been chosen for cast-iron stomachs and physical stamina, but there were limits. “We all need rest.”

“After you meet with our leader.”

“When will that be?”

“Right soon. We’re heading there at once.”

Celine expected to be told to return to the vehicles. Instead, Eli motioned them forward. At the rear of the barn a wooden trapdoor had been lifted. An iron ladder descended from it. Wilmer followed a woman with a shotgun, climbing down backward but turning his head to see where he was going. Reza and Jenny went after him.

Celine stood on the brink, staring down. The ladder was not a long one, it had nine or ten steps and ended in a narrow space lit by hanging lanterns. The walls and floor, all that she could see of them, were dark-stained wooden boards. Celine smelled creosote, turpentine, and moldering earth.

“Don’t just stand there, lady.” Eli spoke from close behind her. “Git on down.”

Had it all been a lie? Eli had made his own feelings clear. He would kill them gladly. And the space below more resembled a grave than a meeting place with the Legion’s leader. For all Celine knew, the command had been “Get rid of them — at once.”

With the gun at her back, Celine had no choice.

She took a deep breath and climbed down the ladder.