Termination Shock

Queen of the Netherworld

Frederika Mathilde Louisa Saskia’s new plane didn’t fly as high as the old one. The stratosphere was out of reach for her now; it was a realm where other people carried out wild schemes to change the climate, but not a place she would go. So the journey from Houston back to the Flying S Ranch took a little longer than doing it in a bizjet. But if she was going to take this Queen of Netherworld thing seriously she couldn’t keep doing things the old way. And it gave her that much more time to get acquainted with Mohinder. She’d met him briefly last year, when she and the other guests had lunched on brisket at his T.R. Mick’s Mobility Center. But they hadn’t really talked, of course. So during the flight now across the endless rangeland of West Texas he was able to acquaint her with some of his people’s traditions around funerals and mourning. And she was able to explain some of the practical challenges to him.

The case on Laks’s back, she explained, turned out to contain a small cylinder of Cobalt-60 dust wrapped around an explosive charge. Just enough to have rendered the Pina2bo gun unusable, if everything had gone according to plan. T.R. would have been forced to fill the hole with concrete. Instead of which, a small area on the surface, near the head frame, had been contaminated and would have to be buried and capped before anyone could go near the place.

Unfortunately Laks’s body was in the middle of it, and there was no way to stop buzzards and other scavengers from getting to it. Out of respect for the dead, and to prevent animals from spreading the contamination, the army had already covered the site in the only material that was near to hand in sufficient quantity: sulfur. Gravel and concrete were en route to finish the job.

By the time they were lining up the approach to the airstrip at the Flying S Ranch, Saskia had sat in the co-pilot’s seat during a dozen landings. Like a lot of modern planes, the thing practically flew itself. Ervin felt comfortable having her at the controls during the landing. He could take over at a moment’s notice. Or just let the thing land itself on Flying S’s long, dry, and swine-free runway.

> Down safe. Go to bed!

> Good luck and good night Mama

> Same to you, Your Majesty

> LOL

Their approach had swung well clear of the big gun. Part of that was just the usual precautions taken by pilots who didn’t want to get punched out of the air by supersonic bullets full of molten sulfur. There were no bullets in the air today, but there were other reasons to stay clear of that area. Still, they’d been able to view it from a distance. A lake of yellow sulfur had begun to form near the head frame, marking the extent of the contamination. Huge khaki-colored machines were moving around on tank treads. Those were the only impressions Saskia was able to take in, glancing out the side window during the preparation for landing.

The end of the airstrip closest to the terminal had become a little military hub. Several army planes and choppers were parked there instead of the usual lineup of bizjets. They’d stretched nets everywhere and set up defensive emplacements that Saskia recognized as being special transmitters that would supposedly knock drones out of the air by shooting out beams that would jam their electronics. And as a last line of defense, there were just a lot of soldiers cradling shotguns. But it was all precautionary; T.R.’s people, who had been feeding them status reports, were saying that no hostile drones had been sighted on the property since about noon yesterday, when the government of India had announced formal cessation of their Climate Peacekeeping action in the lawless, war-torn tribal region of West Texas.

She parked the plane where she was told to and thanked Ervin. He’d now have his hands full trying to figure out how to get a hydrogen truck through the military cordon. But she didn’t plan on going anywhere soon. She deployed the plane’s stairway and looked down the steps to see Amelia waiting for her.

Amelia raised her arms tentatively as if to inquire whether it would be altogether unprofessional for her to hug Her Royal Highness. Saskia came down off the last step and all but body-slammed her, knowing that she could take it. The hug was a long one. And by the time it was over, and they parted, so much had been said in that wordless clinch that Saskia felt no compunction about getting straight to business.

“You’ll remember Mr. Singh, from last year’s luncheon,” Saskia said.

Mohinder had paused at the top of the steps while Saskia and Amelia greeted each other, but now descended to shake hands and exchange pleasantries.

“Do I smell barbecue?” Saskia asked.

“As Mr. Singh can probably explain,” Amelia said, “it turns out that this is called grilling. Barbecue is different—takes longer. Red only lit the fire half an hour ago.”

Saskia had instinctively made for the door of the terminal, but Amelia waved her around the side. “Unusable,” she explained, “no power, no air-conditioning.”

They could now peek around the corner of the building to the point where Saskia could see T.R. talking to a tall slender girl with auburn hair, who reminded her a bit of Lotte. “Who’s she?”

“Pippa. A friend of the deceased.” Amelia turned to Mohinder. “She’s been shooting some video, but she’ll leave you out of it if you prefer.”

“Video of what?”

“Of the conversation you’re about to have. How to show respect to the remains.”

“Happy to offer some pointers,” Mohinder said, “but it’s really a question for the family. What’s their status? I heard they got held up crossing the border?”

Amelia nodded, with just a trace of an eye roll. “American CBP is freaking out about anyone who has connections to India. We’re working the problem. But they won’t be here until tomorrow, best-case scenario.”

Amelia led them all the way around the corner, revealing a little encampment. Tarps had been anchored to the side of the terminal building and stretched with ropes and poles to shade a little patch of level desert. But the sun was getting low enough that it was cutting under and making everyone look like they’d been dipped in honey. Picnic tables were scattered around. At one of them Saskia recognized Piet and Thordis, whom she had met during their work at Schiphol, as well as two other women whom she could guess were the other falconers she’d heard about. They were busy tending to a golden eagle, working on one of its feet. Thordis glanced up and saw Saskia. She and Piet stood up. Saskia waved at them and they smiled back.

T.R. was striding their way. “Howdy, Mr. Singh. So grateful you could make the journey.”

“Evening, boss. My new friend here made it very easy. How may I be of service?”

“I am informed that priests don’t exist in your faith. Very wise, if you ask me. Not that anyone’s asking me.”

“Until the family arrives,” Mohinder said, “I am more than happy to consult on how to show proper respect for the young man’s remains.”

“That is indeed our chief concern,” T.R. said, “now that the site has been locked down and covered up. The army boys have some maps and photos and so on if you’d like to come over and take a look.”

T.R. led Mohinder toward another table where an army officer was putting rocks on documents to keep them from fluttering in the breeze.

In the middle of the little encampment, Rufus was sitting on a cooler tending a grill. He was wearing a Flying S swag T-shirt, a little too small for him, but Saskia didn’t mind. A pair of cargo shorts showed a heavily bandaged lower leg, which he had propped up on a footstool improvised from two cases of Mexican beer. He gave her an understated nod as she approached.

Amelia had silently peeled away.

His eyes swiveled calmly over the scene, taking inventory, as she could guess, of who was watching.

Not wanting to make him uncomfortable, Saskia slowed as she approached.

“Are you radioactive?”

“Been checked out,” he said. “Answer’s apparently no. But I guess it really depends on what you mean by that.”

“You aren’t, in my book.”

“Good to know. Welcome to Texas.” He pulled a plastic plate from a stack and used his fingers to snatch a sizzling morsel of steak onto it, then handed it to her. The grill was crowded with pieces of chicken, beef, and sausages that were swelling up and beginning to split open to show chunks of red and green pepper and orange cheese inside. Saskia, who had been subsisting on granola bars for twenty-four hours, could have eaten everything there. She accepted the plate and tried not to just shove her face into it.

“Get you a beer?”

“I’m fine for now, thanks.” She knew everything about this was terrible: burning wood to cook meat from methane-farting cows and serving it on throwaway petrochemical plates.

“Bison,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Supposedly better.”

“It’s really good to see you, Red.”

“Pleasure’s all mine.”

“Tell me about what happened.”

“You want the full version? Or—”

“There’ll be time for that later, I hope.”

“You know about what was on his back.”

“Just enough Cobalt-60 to make the site unusable for a hundred years.”

Rufus nodded.

“But other than that—there would be no collateral damage.”

He nodded. “That was the idea. Minimal casualties. But enough of a mess to stop geoengineering activities here until T.R. could build a new gun—at least a couple of years.”

“And send a message.”

“Messages ain’t my area of specialization,” he said.

“Shutting down the gun would cause a termination shock.”

“Chance they were willing to take, I guess.” He sighed. “Anyway, I didn’t know what it was.”

“Of course not.”

“Thought it was a bomb. Thought I could disable it. Maybe give him a chance to get out of this in one piece.” Rufus stared off across the desert, replaying it in his mind’s eye. He stuck out his tongue, then, after a few seconds, pulled it back in. “He stopped.”

“What?”

“Yeah. When he saw Jules, apparently. That’s how Jules tells the story. I didn’t see nothing but the device, through the sights of my rifle, so Jules had to tell me that later.”

Saskia nodded.

“He stopped,” Rufus repeated. “Like he realized, at that instant, that people were taking shelter down in the bottom of the shaft.”

“He understood that he was about to take our lives,” Saskia said, nodding.

“I hit it three times. Just to be sure. Tore it wide open. But because of what was inside of it, he got a lethal dose of the gamma rays. Something was wrong with his leg before, he wasn’t moving right. Anyway. Down he went. In the army I learned enough about NBC—”

“NBC?”

“Nuclear-biological-chemical warfare. I didn’t want to come near any of that shit. Soon as I seen him go down I scooted down the pile into the pit under the hopper cars and sheltered in place. Drones stopped coming. I heard the sheriff driving up from Bunkhouse. Hopped down the railroad tracks, keeping the boxcars between me and any radiation, and waved ’em off. Told ’em to call in the NBC guys from Fort Bliss. White Sands. All of that. But they’d already picked up the gamma rays from the air. So NBC was already on-site.”

“The people who came and rescued us.”

“Yeah.”

“I saw the lake of yellow from the plane—”

Rufus nodded. “Sulfur’s what they got in abundance, it’s what they’re using for the first layer. Army had rad-hardened bulldozers. They brought ’em in on trains overnight.”

“Amazing.”

“What?”

“That they have such things.”

“This country is a mess,” Rufus allowed, “but it’s still one of the only outfits that can pull a fleet of lead-lined bulldozers out of its ass on short notice. They got started at first light, moving the pile over to cover the contaminated area and keep that shit from spreading on the wind. Gravel’s on its way. Later they’ll cap it with concrete.”

“The dead man?”

“Still there. Will be forever.” Rufus looked toward the table where T.R. had been talking to Mohinder and the army officer. They were looking down at maps and aerial photos, talking it over.

“Let’s talk later,” Saskia said. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“You enjoy horseback riding?”

“Love it.”

“Western style?”

“English, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll put you on Patch,” he said, “he’s as easygoing as they come.”

“I am very much looking forward to you taking me on a ride, Red,” she said as she was turning away. But she wasn’t sure that double entendres were his cup of tea. There was a stratum of society in which she had lived most of her life where that kind of persiflage was something you were expected to know how to do, just as you were expected to know how to shoot pheasants and use a finger bowl. She felt a bit stupid, just for a moment, that she’d used that sort of conversational gambit on this man who’d lived his life on the opposite pole of the world from all that. It wasn’t quite fair of her. She hesitated, thinking she really ought to just say what was on her mind in a more plainspoken way.

While she was dithering over how to phrase it, Rufus had turned his attention back to his grill. “Woo-eee!” he exclaimed, “I got a hot sausage here that’s about to bust open from the heat if I don’t take good care.”

She spun away to hide a blush and nearly collided with Pippa. There was a brief awkward moment. The Kiwi bent her long legs in a passable curtsy. “Your Majesty.”

“Royal Highness, if you’re going to be that way.”

“Royal Highness it is.”

“Pippa, is it? Short for Philippa?”

“Yes.”

“Saskia.” They shook hands. “I’m told you were a friend of the deceased. I’m terribly sorry.”

The low afternoon sun on Pippa’s freckled face made it obvious she’d been crying. But she wasn’t crying now. “Talking to the family will be difficult,” she said. “Not looking forward to that. Hope they don’t blame me.”

“Why ever would they?”

“I had some role in telling his story. Making him famous. Could be that I egged him on.”

“But surely you had no hand in this.”

“Oh, no, ma’am. Not at all. I drove out from L.A. when Red told me what was happening. Was hoping I could talk him out of it. But I got here too late.”

“Well . . . now you can tell the rest of his story,” Saskia suggested. “Even if it is a sad one.”

Pippa nodded. “Ma’am—to the extent you’re becoming part of that story now—I was wondering—”

“Go right ahead, dear,” Saskia said. “This is what I do now.”

Pippa gave a grateful nod and stepped out of her way.

“Gentlemen!” Saskia exclaimed, striding toward the picnic table. “Can anything be done? What’s that I see on that laptop?” It looked like a picture of some kind of obelisk or spire.

Mohinder turned his head to look back at it. “Oh, I was showing T.R. some monuments that exist in the Punjab. Built to honor the heroes of our past. Saint-soldiers who fell in battle defending our homeland”—he looked significantly between T.R. and Saskia—“from foreigners who would seek to deprive us of the Breadbasket.”

“Let’s have a talk about that, shall we?” Saskia suggested, stepping between the two men and taking each of them by an arm. They turned to follow and began walking into the most magnificent sunset Saskia had ever seen. Amelia cut in front of them to look for rattlesnakes. Pippa, flanked by a couple of video drones, fell in behind as they strolled out into the desert. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” she said, “but I just took a new job and it’s time I got started.”