TimeRiders: The Eternal War

CHAPTER 64. 2001, HMS Defiant

All she could see, staring up at the bunk above her, all she could see, were fleeting images of the bodies, large and small, lined up head to toe at the side of the street. Just like sacks of rubbish. Sal realized she didn’t really have a word that described how she felt right now. Empty? Hollow?

Is this shock I’m feeling? Am I in a state of shock?

The bunk creaked as Lincoln stirred on the mattress above. One booted foot hung over the side; he was far too long in the leg for these cramped bunks. She could hear the gentle thrum of far-off engines vibrating through the carrier’s hull, the quiet murmur of men along a passageway. The faint clang of pots and pans in a galley.

About thirty-six hours … That’s about all she remembered Liam saying as she and Lincoln were taken aboard the carrier and some army doctor quickly inspected them.

About thirty-six hours — he’d said something about the carrier picking up troops then heading north and they were getting a lift part of the way … and then, she was here, stretched out on this bunk in the vessel’s sickbay, and she suddenly realized how completely exhausted she felt. As if the mattress beneath her had somehow drained her of life; sucked the very blood from her veins and left a withered husk lying on top of it.

She saw their bodies … glassy-eyed, dead animal-human faces gazing up at the blue sky.

Samuel, his small ragged mouth hanging open, frozen in an uneven ‘O’ of terror.

She watched them being tossed on to the back of a vehicle like so many sacks of oatmeal. She heard one of the men say the bodies were to be ‘processed’ and fed to the huffaloes. Then she saw some other creatures, new types of eugenics: large shaggy bull-fronted animals with vaguely horse-like heads and slender hind quarters and dog-like creatures with heads that reminded her of baboons. Both types seemed to have the dull eyes of dim-witted beasts. Faces that lacked emotion or expression.

Not like Samuel and his fellow runaways. New breeds … ones less intelligent, less inquisitive, less likely to question their lot.

Controllable.

She closed her eyes reluctantly, too tired to keep them open, but knowing that against the smooth dark canvas of her eyelids she was going to see Samuel’s blood-spattered face once again.

‘Several stops, actually,’ said Captain McManus. ‘We’re collecting the rest of the regiment.’

‘The rest?’ Liam frowned. ‘There’s more of you on this … ship?’

‘Eight hundred and thirty-six, if my memory serves me. Six hundred and twenty-seven men and officers of the regiment. Twenty-four hunter-seekers and fifty huffaloes … and, of course, the carrier’s crew and support personnel — a hundred and twenty-three in total.’ He sipped his tea. ‘But we have three companies of men spread out across the Virginia countryside on various manoeuvres … patrols, peace-keeping.’ He smiled.

Peace-keeping?

The term didn’t sit well with what he’d witnessed earlier this morning.

‘When we’ve got them all aboard, we shall head north and set down outside New Wellington, New Jersey. It’s at the mouth of Lower New York Bay,’ said Captain McManus. ‘There’s a carrier dock there. We’ll be stopping to resupply the regiment and refuel the carrier before heading north again. You and your friends can get off there if you wish.’

Liam nodded. He’d noticed there was a buzz of activity going on aboard the ship: junior officers scurrying to and fro with clipboards under their arms. ‘Is there something happening?’

McManus looked up from his teacup. The officers’ mess was small, little more than a space for three bench tables and stools either side. The walls decorated with regimental trophies and grainy sepia group photographs of smiling young men in smart formal dress uniforms. Overhead, a glass chandelier swung gently from the low ceiling, tinkling softly from the vibration of the carrier’s engines.

They had the officers’ mess to themselves.

‘A little situation appears to be developing up north that needs to be dealt with.’ McManus shrugged. ‘Nothing my lads can’t handle.’ It was obvious to Liam the officer wasn’t going to give him any more on that.

Liam stirred a teaspoon in his china cup absently, while Bob looked down at his tea, studying a pattern of leaves floating on the surface.

‘My ordering the disposal of those eugenics …’ said McManus, ‘that’s troubling you, isn’t it?’

‘To be honest … yes.’ Liam picked up a hard-tack biscuit off a plate between them and turned it over and over. Not really hungry. Not really sure why he’d picked it up. Something for his hands to do. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘They were older genics. Ones designed and grown a while back. Some of them were twenty … even thirty years old. They were unreliable, Liam. Dangerous.’ He sighed. ‘Back in the 1970s, they produced tens of thousands of them for all sorts of different roles.’ McManus shook his head. ‘Good grief, even as household workers … cooks, butlers, would you believe? And for those sorts of tasks they needed to be intelligent enough.’

He sipped his tea. ‘We’ve learned a lot about eugenology since then. How it’s far easier to design the shape and musculature of a creature than it is to design how it will behave, what it will think. These days we know better. The eugenics are crafted with far simpler minds.’ McManus shook his head. ‘It was madness, looking back now with hindsight, madness to have created eugenics intelligent enough to, for example, read and write. To hope we could grow creatures who would be our engineers, technicians, doctors … and assume they could be controlled like pets.’

‘Those creatures …?’ Liam looked up at him. ‘Are you saying those creatures were smart enough to read and write?’

McManus shrugged. ‘Most of them were the old-class manual labourers. More intelligent than the heavy-lifter genics we produce now … but not by much.’

He studied Liam’s troubled frown. ‘Look, Liam … I think you are making the mistake of thinking of these creatures as some form of natural life. They are not. They are organic products, bone and muscle machines … nothing more. And when a machine starts acting unreliably then it is time for it to be dismantled. Otherwise, people get hurt.’

Bob muttered. Something was going through his head. Liam glanced across the table at him. He looked troubled as well. Liam wondered whether his support unit felt some sort of kinship with the eugenics. After all, from what he could guess, they’d all sprung from the same science.

‘They were machines that had gone bad. And quite dangerous.’ He leaned forward across the small table. ‘I shall be honest with you, Liam. I wasn’t quite sure whether we would find your stepsister and friend in one piece. They are really very lucky to be alive.’

‘I s’pose.’

‘Lord knows how many more of those things are still out there. Most of the old-generation genics have been rounded up and processed, but I think there are still quite a few hundred scattered among the Confederate states: runaways living in derelict dwellings, or living wild in woods and mountains. It is a problem that needs to be addressed … and one day, I suppose, we shall have to track down the last of them. But it’s not something we can do right now.’

‘Why not?’

McManus looked like he was going to ignore Liam’s question.

‘Let’s just say the British army is being kept very busy at the moment.’ He changed the subject. ‘You and the others, what are your plans once we have dropped you off? A return to the safety of Ireland, may I suggest?’

Liam shrugged. ‘We were going to visit New York —’

‘You know, it really is as if you have arrived from another world entirely.’ McManus studied him intently. ‘Did you really not know that New York has been a war zone for nearly seventy years?’

Liam nodded. ‘Uh? Yes, of course. Maybe me an’ Bob and the others’ll go explore the west instead.’

McManus nodded. ‘It would be a much safer excursion for you. I believe it is still an unspoiled wilderness if you seek the far western mountain states like New Wessex and New Albany. I have heard from White Bear that there are still tribes of Indians living in that wilderness.’

‘Eight hundred and twenty-four,’ said Bob.

The other two looked at him.

‘Uh?’

‘Eight hundred and twenty-four personnel,’ said Bob. ‘You have itemized that number of personnel, but initially you said there was a total of eight hundred and thirty-six personnel. That leaves twelve unaccounted for.’

McManus made a face. ‘Ah well, I am no mathematician …’

A klaxon sounded softly.

McManus looked up. ‘We shall be descending shortly for a pick-up. If you’ll excuse me?’