Missile Gap

Cannon Fodder

Madeleine and Robert Holbright are among the last of the immigrants to disembark on the new world. As she glances back at the brilliant white side of the liner, the horizon seems to roll around her head, settling into a strange new stasis that feels unnatural after almost six months at sea.

New Iowa isn’t flat and it isn’t new: rampart cliffs loom to either side of the unnaturally deep harbor (gouged out of bedrock courtesy of General Atomics). A cog-driven funicular railway hauls Maddy and Robert and their four shipping trunks up the thousand-foot climb to the plateau and the port city of Fort Eisenhower—and then to the arrival and orientation camp.

Maddy is quiet and withdrawn, but Bob, oblivious, natters constantly about opportunities and jobs and grabbing a plot of land to build a house on. “It’s the new world,” he says at one point. “Why aren’t you excited?”

“The new world,” Maddy echoes, biting back the urge to say something cutting. She looks out the window as the train climbs the cliff-face and brings them into sight of the city. City is the wrong word: it implies solidity, permanence. Fort Eisenhower is less than five years old, a leukaemic gash inflicted on the landscape by the Corps of Engineers. The tallest building is the governor’s mansion, at three stories. Architecturally, the town is all Wild West meets the Radar Age, raw pine houses contrasting with big grey concrete boxes full of seaward-pointing Patriot missiles to deter the inevitable encroachment of the communist hordes. “It’s so flat.”

“The nearest hills are two hundred miles away, past the coastal plain—didn’t you read the map?”

She ignores his little dig as the train squeals and clanks up the side of the cliff. It wheezes asthmatically to a stop besides a wooden platform, and expires in a belch of saturated steam. An hour later, they’re weary and sweated-up in the lobby of an unprepossessing barrack hall made of plywood. There’s a large hall and a row of tables and bunch of bored-looking colonial service types, and people are walking from one position to another with bundles of papers, answering questions in low voices and receiving official stamps. The would-be colonists mill around like disturbed livestock among the piles of luggage at the back of the room. Maddy and Robert queue uneasy in the damp afternoon heat, overhearing snippets of conversation. “Country of origin? Educational qualifications? Yes, but what was your last job?” Religion and race—almost a quarter of the people in the hall are refugees from India or Pakistan or somewhere lost to the mysterious east forever—seem to obsess the officials. “Robert?” she whispers.

“It’ll be alright,” he says with false certainty. Taking after his dad already, trying to pretend he’s the solid family man. Her sidelong glance at him steals any residual confidence. Then it’s their turn.

“Names, passports, country of origin?” The guy with the moustache is brusque and bored, irritated by the heat.

Robert smiles at him. “Robert and Madeleine Holbright, from Canada?” He offers their passports.

“Uh-huh.” The official gives the documents a very American going-over. “What schooling have you done? What was your last job?”

“I’ve, uh, I was working part-time in a garage. On my way through college—I was final year at Toronto, studying structural engineering, but I haven’t sat the finals. Maddy—Maddy’s a qualified paramedic.”

The officer fixes her with a stare. “Worked at it?”

“What? Uh, no—I’m freshly qualified.” His abrupt questioning flusters her.

“Huh.” He makes a cryptic notation against their names on a long list, a list that spills over the edge of his desk and trails towards the rough floor. “Next.” He hands the passports back, and a couple of cards, and points them along to the row of desks.

Someone is already stepping up behind them when Maddy manages to read the tickets. Hers says TRAINEE NURSE. Robert is staring at his and saying, “No, this is wrong.”

“What is it, Bob?” She looks over his shoulder as someone jostles him sideways. His card reads LABOURER (unskilled); but she doesn’t have time to read the rest.