Gridlock and Other Stories Part 20

Again, Beckwith struggled back from oblivion to a myriad of aches and pains. A fire seemed centered in his nose, and his breathing was accompanied by a recurring pain in his chest. Of more immediate concern was the arm that he could not feel at all, and the low placed ache that signaled at least one sharp-toed kick to the groin. A single cough welled up unbidden. He waited for the pain to subside before opening his single uninjured eye to survey his surroundings.

To his surprise, he found himself in his own room in the hacienda. Judging by the light streaming through the window, the time was early afternoon. Preciselywhich early afternoon was impossible to determine since the sky was the same pale blue it had been for the past several days. As he scanned his field of view, he noted a number of changes. Someone had gone to the expense of equipping the window with an iron grille. The pegs on which he had hung his clothes were bare and his valise was not in the corner where he had left it.

Beckwith carefully turned over in bed. The sudden torrent of pain that accompanied the movement left him with tears in his eyes. He let a sudden dizzy spell pa.s.s and gazed in the direction of the door leading out into the hall. He noted with interest that a ten-centimeter square hole had been messily chopped in the oak door to form a peephole of the sort guards use to periodically check their prisoners.

At the thought that a guard might be nearby, Beckwith croaked out the single word,"Agua!" He waited a few seconds and then repeated it in a voice that sounded like a nail being sc.r.a.ped across concrete. After a dozen seconds, a blond bearded face appeared at the peephole.

"Get me water," Beckwith cried out. The face disappeared and he lay back, panting from his exertions. Another minute pa.s.sed before a rattling on the other side of the door signaled the unlocking of a padlock. The door opened and Espe Galway entered the room. Her face still showed the marks of her beating, but she had washed and changed into clean clothes. She smiled when she saw him awake.

"Get me a drink!" he gasped.

"Right away, Doctor Darol," Espe replied. She moved to the rough table beside his bed and poured from the pitcher sitting there. She then cradled his head aloft and let him sip the cool liquid from a ceramic cup. After two painful swallows, he signaled that he was through. She lowered him gently to the pillow.

"Thank you. How long have I been out of it?"

"Two days. I was very worried. I thought the fat general had killed you!"

"To judge from the way I feel, he came close. What are my injuries?"He listened quietly as she cataloged the damage that Trujillo had inflicted on him. He had already deduced that he had suffered broken ribs from the fact that his chest was wrapped tightly in bandages, and every breath felt like a lung full of fire. The swollen eye was accompanied by facial lacerations; and the dizziness, coupled with the length of time he had been unconscious, confirmed Espe's tentative diagnosis of a mild concussion.

He waited until she finished her list of his ills, and then smiled painfully. "You have remembered your lessons well. What is your prognosis, Doctor Esperanza?"

"That you will live to face a Sonoran firing squad, Doctor Darol, as will I."

"Is that what they have decided to do with us?" he asked.

She nodded. "Those were the orders General Trujillo gave his men when he finally stopped kicking you. He told them to bring you here, and ordered me to care for you so that you would be awake and aware when the bullets tore into you."

"What about the s.h.i.+p? Have they raised it yet?"

Espe shook her head. "All work has stopped. General Trujillo gave orders that he must be present during the attempt. He was directing the salvage yesterday when he collapsed in the s.h.i.+p cavern. They have him in my parents' room."

"What is his condition?" Beckwith asked.

"His fever is very high. Forty-one degrees the last time I checked. He has developed convulsions and is raving. He has had numerous diarrhea attacks. I have tried to care for him, but he does not respond. Capitan Villela is very worried."

Beckwith grunted his understanding, and then struggled to sit up. He tried to ignore the pain as he swung his feet over the side of the bed.

"What are you doing?" Espe asked.

"I'm going to see the patient," he replied through clenched teeth. "Now bring me my pants."

"But he tried to kill you, Doctor Darol, and will have both of us shot as soon as he regains consciousness."

"No one ever said the practice of medicine was easy. Now do as I say, girl!"

Beckwith dressed with Espe's help, and then rose unsteadily to his feet. He hobbled out into the hallway with Espe supporting him under one arm. The dozen meters of hallway was the longest Beckwith had ever walked in his life. They were met at the door to the master bedroom by Captain Villela. From the bags under his eyes and the deep worry lines in his face, Beckwith knew that the Mexican officer hadn't slept in several days.

"Doctor Beckwith, you are awake!"

"No thanks to your chief. I understand that he is ill."

"Si," Villela said, his head bobbing rapidly. "It is most mysterious. He was whole yesterday morning, but by afternoon had lapsed into a deep coma."

"What are the symptoms?""Before he lost consciousness he complained of a severe headache and pain in his chest. Do you have any thought as to what the problem could be?"

Beckwith started to shrug, remembered his ribs, and thought better of it. "From your description, Captain, it could be a number of things. I will have to examine him."

Villela snapped out a series of orders and Beckwith quickly found himself ushered into the sickroom. The expedition's priest stood at the edge of the bed and watched as the guards helped Beckwith into a chair at General Trujillo's bedside. He found a position that was less uncomfortable than any other, and quickly examined the ill man while letting Villela handle the manual labor involved. When he was finished, he asked, "Where is my luggage?"

"Your equipment cases are down in the church where you left them. Your personal bag is in the study downstairs. General Trujillo was inspecting it before he fell ill."

"Fetch the bag. I need to consult my library."

Beckwith's leather case was brought to him. He noted that the false bottom was still sealed, and concluded that Trujillo's inspection had been a cursory one. He had probably planned to return to it after organizing the salvage operation. Beckwith fished a small pre-Catastrophe computer from its carrying case. He opened it up to reveal a small, calculator size keyboard and an LCD screen. He carefully typed in an inquiry, and then let his eyes scan the scrolling words. He did this a number of times before he looked up and nodded.

"What is it?" Villela asked.

"I can't be completely sure, Captain, without tests I'm not equipped to make. However, I think your commander is suffering from septicemic plague. If that is the case, I'm afraid there is nothing I can do for him."

"Madre de Dios!"the priest said from the foot of the bed as he crossed himself.

"But how can this be?"

"Who besides General Trujillo entered the s.p.a.cecraft?" Beckwith asked.

"No one, Medico," Villela replied. "The General's orders were quite strict on that point. He alone was to enter the s.h.i.+p. He didn't wish to risk one of the common soldiers damaging the equipment."

"Then from the fact that he was the only one struck down, I can only conclude that he ran into an old war germ inside the s.h.i.+p. Both sides are known to have used mutatedPasteurella pestis , the plague bacteria, in their germ warfare laboratories. The war germs were bred for quick action and deadly effect."

"Surely there must be something we can do," Villela replied.

"For the General, no," Beckwith said. "Not if it's truly modified septicemic plague. We have ourselves to think about."

"What do you mean?"

""I mean the d.a.m.ned stuff is contagious, you idiot! Why else would they call it The Plague?"

The priest crossed himself once more, while Villela merely gulped as his complexion lightenedseveral shades. Finally, he said, "What must we do, Medico?"

"The first thing is to seal up that devil's sp.a.w.n in the cave where you found it. If the original source ever gets loose, it could decimate every town and village between San Francisco and Mexico City. The next thing is to call for help."

"But we have no radio!" the priest exclaimed. "It failed several days ago and the technicians have been unable to fix it."

"In that case, we must get you and your men to a Public Health Service station, Padre. The nearest is in Blythe, but you can't very well use that one, can you?"

"There is such a station in Hermosillo, Doctor," Villela said.

"So there is. You will have to go there, Captain."

"But there isn't time. General Trujillo was struck down within twelve hours of first entering the s.h.i.+p.

If we too are infected, we will be dead before we reach the imperial border."

"I admit that I don't know how it hit him so quickly," Beckwith replied. "Perhaps he cut his finger while he was in the s.h.i.+p and the bacteria went directly into his bloodstream. You will have to pray that it does not attack you that quickly. However, if any of your men have been infected, they have no more than a week to reach adequate medical care. Perhaps you can send a small party ahead with remounts and alert the doctors at Hermosillo Station. The Duke can loan them one of his aircraft to fly out to meet you on your line of march."

"What of the village, Doctor Darol?" Espe asked, terror in her voice.

"We'll have to do the same. We will send riders as quickly as possible to Blythe. Perhaps they too can get an aircraft to bring serum here. In any event, as soon as General Trujillo dies, we will burn his body and all of the bedding in this room. I am sorry, Espe, but it is all we can do.

Darol Beckwith stood on the balcony ofHacienda Galway and gazed toward the south where a cloud of brown dust hung low on the horizon. It had been long minutes since even his electronic binoculars had been able to pick out the retreating Sonoran column. Even so, he continued to watch until the cloud of dust kicked up by their pa.s.sage had begun to dissipate on a gentle easterly wind.

Despite their obvious fear of the plague, the Sonorans had retreated in good order. Captain Villela had waited for the moon to rise the previous evening before dispatching a group of his best riders toward Hermosillo. The main column had followed at dawn. Judging by the swiftness with which the men and horses disappeared from sight, Beckwith estimated that they would make at least sixty kilometers their first day.

He lowered his gaze to the remains of the Sonoran encampment just beyond the village wall. The two steam wagons were parked where he had first seen them. Like the rest of the heavy equipment, they had been judged too c.u.mbersome to take along on the forced march and had been abandoned. The cavalrymen had been gone only a few minutes when the first villagers ventured forth to salvage what they could. Since then, practically the entire population of Nuevo Tubac had joined in the excitement. The abandoned equipment would go a long way toward repaying the people of the village for the occupation.

On a small rise beyond the abandoned encampment lay a mound of blackened wood and gray ash from which a thin wisp of oily smoke rose lazily into the air. The smoke marked all that remained ofGeneral Miguel Stefan Trujillo's funeral pyre. The Sonoran commander had stopped breathing at 04:16 that morning, and had been cremated shortly thereafter. The expedition priest had prayed for the soul of the departed even as soldiers doused the body and bedding with alcohol. Immediately following the funeral, Nuevo Tubac had been rocked by a series of distant thunderclaps from the excavation site. It had taken all of the expedition's remaining stocks of explosives to reseal the entrance to the underground base, but reseal it they had.

Beckwith was jolted from his reverie by the sound of footsteps. He turned in time to see Espe Galway join him on the balcony. "Did you get through?"

She nodded. "They said to tell you that they were sending a team via aircraft, and that it will be here this afternoon."

"And the troops?"

"The first party of California dragoons will arrive in three days. The rest will follow a week later."

"Very good," he said, smiling. Espe had been in contact with Public Health Service Headquarters in San Francisco via Beckwith's hidden radio.

"Are they gone?" she asked, gesturing after the departed column.

Beckwith nodded.

"Good riddance! Now maybe you will explain all of this to me."

"Nothing to explain," he said. "General Trujillo ran into an old war germ, got sick, and died."

"I don't think so," Espe replied.

"Oh?" Beckwith responded, his single arched eyebrow asking far more than that simple monosyllable ever could.

"General Trujillo told us that the s.h.i.+p had been filled with inert gas until just a few hours before we arrived. Remember?"

Beckwith nodded.

"As you taught me, "Pasteurella pestisis carried by the fleas on rats. I hardly think the rats, the fleas,or the bacteria could have survived eighty years in a s.h.i.+p without oxygen."

Beckwith shrugged. "How else could he have been infected?"

"I think your saliva was filled withPasteurella pestis when you spat on him."

"Then I should be dead, too."

She shook her head. "Not if you've been vaccinated against the plague. That was what that injection you gave me in the equipment shed was for, wasn't it?"

"Are you saying that I, a medical man, would intentionally infect another human being with a deadly bacteria?"

Espe slowly nodded her head."Do you have any proof to back up such an allegation?"

She nodded again. "I checked your teeth while looking over your injuries. I thought the fat Generalissimo might have loosened one with his blows. I found an artificial molar broken off at the root.

That is where you kept the bacteria culture until you were ready to release it."

Beckwith sighed and put his arm around Espe's shoulder. "My ribs are beginning to ache. Why don't we go inside and we'll talk about this."

Espe a.s.sisted Beckwith to one of Ynicente Galway's softer chairs. Beckwith gestured for her to sit on the floor in front of him. She did so in a manner that made him envy the recuperative powers of the young. He reached into the pocket of his robe, fished out his pipe, and made a production of lighting it.

Only when he was surrounded by a blue haze of tobacco smoke did he continue: "You seem to have some very definite ideas, Esperanza. Why don't you tell me what you think you know."

"I know your superiors sent you here to stop the Mexican Empire from establis.h.i.+ng a plutonium mine. I imagine you were quite relieved when you realized that what they had found was not a nuclear fuel depository after all. Then you discovered General Trujillo planned to salvage the command s.h.i.+p in order to raidHigh Citadel 's nuclear a.r.s.enal, and you killed him. Did I get that right?"

"Sorry, no," Beckwith replied. He watched his star pupil as her smile of triumph turned to a look of confusion. For a brief instant during the transformation, he caught sight of the beautiful young woman she would soon become. "The truth, Espe, is that there aren't any nuclear weapons aboard the battle station. High Citadel was a command-and-control facility, and as such, was prohibited from stocking nuclear devices. True, it commanded such weapons during The Catastrophe, but those were ground and s.p.a.ce based systems long since expended.

"And while I'm clearing things up," he continued, "I'm afraid that I owe you an apology. That story about my coming here to stop the Sonorans from looting a nuclear depository was not the truth.

Actually, the last of the fuel depositories was discovered and neutralized thirty years ago."

"But if there wasn't any fuel depository, andHigh Citadel doesn't stock nuclear weapons,why did you kill General Trujillo?"

Beckwith sighed. "That is difficult to explain. To begin, what caused The Catastrophe?"

Espe blinked at Beckwith's sudden change of subject. "The Sevastopol Incident, of course."

"Sorry, but you're wrong."

"That's what all the history books say!"

"Then they confuse the incident that touched off the conflagration with its root cause. It is true that the nuclear exchange was triggered by the sinking of two American destroyers off Sevastopol. The reasons the bombs began to fly were far more complex and spring ultimately from a single source. The underlyingcause of The Catastrophe was due to our ancestors tarrying too long in an era."

"What era?"

"That of unbridled offense, the period that began with the mating of nuclear warheads to intercontinental ballistic missiles and ended with the lofting of the first orbital defense systems. Nuclear tipped ICBMs were weapons of irresistible power. They so overwhelmed all other military technology that for decades no defense was possible. That unpalatable truth drove our ancestors slightly insane."You see, Espe, once the option for self protection is taken away, all that's left is for one side to threaten the other with extermination should they launch an attack. The a.n.a.logy that was often used was that of two men standing in waist deep gasoline, each holding an unlit match, and each ready to strike a spark at the first sign of his opponent's doing likewise. The only recourse to having one's own citizens incinerated was to incinerate the other side's citizens. Is it any wonder that they were a bit paranoid?"

"But what else could they do?" Espe asked.

"Nothing," Beckwith replied. "And that's the point. So long as there was no defense against nuclear tipped ICBM's, the strange logic of mutual destruction made sense. However, that logic carried with it a terrible price. Throughout history, the race has become more unified as its level of technology has risen. Nothing mysterious about that, of course. The effect is mostly a function of the ease of travel and long distance communications.

"The invention of nuclear weapons halted that process. In a world of such destructive power and half-hour flight times, a nation's first mistake could well have been its last. No one dared take the risk that always accompanies trusting one's enemies. So, the world divided into two hostile camps and hunkered down to glare at each other across their respective battlements.