Ark

55

Even inside the Buckskin Street compound there was chaos, with troops and civilians running everywhere.

Patrick Groundwater checked his watch as he ran, his coat flapping around him. He’d meant to be at Mission Control by now. The warp bubble fire up was only minutes away-or rather, off in the orbit of far Jupiter, it had or had not already happened, his only daughter was on her way to the stars, or not. And the news of that terrific event was limping its way at mere light speed across the solar system, with no regard for the anxious beating of a human heart. He looked up, but the sky was full of broken cloud, and pillars of smoke rose up to obscure it even more. If the eclipsed moon was risen, he couldn’t see it.

He was fifty-nine years old. He couldn’t run any faster. Damn, damn.

By the time he reached Mission Control the smell of burning was looming close, the crackle of gunfire closing in. He found troops ringing the building. Even in the urgency of the moment he had to show an ID and submit his retina to a laser-flash test. As he fumbled for his papers a great beating, as of huge wings, descended on him from above. He ducked, and some of the soldiers around him flinched and raised their weapons. It was a Chinook, maybe the last one flying anywhere in the world, its dual rotors roaring over the battered township, and playing its lights down in dusty beams to assist the ground operations.

When at last Patrick got inside the Mission Control building, Gordo Alonzo was making a speech. He was standing on a table at the front of the room, before the rows of consoles with their glowing screens. At his back a map of the solar system glimmered, the dark swoop of the Ark’s orbit like a loose signature. Thandie Jones stood beside him, enigmatic.

Alonzo was saying, “In the generations to come, in the long centuries that will unfold on Earth II, what we have achieved together in this place, and in Gunnison and Denver, will always be remembered. You will be remembered. You know, Alma, the town, was named for the daughter of the guy who ran the grocery store when the town was incorporated in 1873. But I’m told that ‘alma’ is also the word for ‘soul.’ in Spanish. And that’s what you have been here-the soul of the grandest mission in human history…”

Patrick scanned the room. The technicians still manned their stations, and data chattered in scrolls of numbers and in graphic forms across the screens. But, short of a catastrophic failure, there was nothing more these people could do to influence the Ark’s fate, its stupendous flight across twenty-one light-years to the planet of a star in the constellation of the river. The ship had either gone, or it had not. He checked his watch again. There was still no confirmation.

Edward Kenzie came bustling up to him. Even now he wore a suit and tie, though his shirt hung out of his pants and his hair was mussed. “Patrick. Thank God you’re here.”

“You can’t stop Gordo Alonzo making speeches.”

“At least he’s keeping these people calm. After all, if there has been some disaster up there, we need to keep the technicians in their seats as long as we can.”

“And how long is that?”

“Take a look,” Kenzie said grimly. He offered Patrick a handheld.

The screen showed a map of the area, of the military assets in green, the deployment of hostiles in angry red. The outer cordon had been broken to the north and south along Highway 9, and to the west from up Buckskin Gulch. Elements of the mob coming in from all three directions were already closing on the bright green triangle that marked the Buckskin Street compound, and the glowing yellow jewel of Mission Control itself.

“Shit,” Patrick said. “This looks organized.”

“Precisely. Abider agitators, that’s what I’m told. Weapons caches and radios. I heard the military saying it was a mistake to time the launch to that lunar eclipse. They were right.”

Gordo had finished his speech. Seventy-three years old, he jumped down off his table with an almost arrogant athleticism, and the controllers applauded. But a rattle of gunfire, clearly audible through the walls of the building, drowned them out. Tailed by Thandie Jones, Gordo came striding up to Patrick and Edward. “You guys see a Chinook hovering outside? That’s our ride out of here.”

Patrick felt oddly betrayed. “But the project isn’t over-we don’t even know about the warp bubble-”

Kenzie said, “You know, Gordo, I always thought you’d be the last man to leave the bridge.”

“That’s the fucking Navy,” Gordo said. “And anyhow we did all we could. We kept the lamps burning in Alma, Colorado, we didn’t let those kids go off into the dark alone. But our job’s done now.”

“And he really does have his orders,” Thandie Jones said. Here she was at the end of it all, Patrick thought, as she had been at the very beginning, when she had spoken to the IPCC as another, earlier disaster unfolded around New York, back in the days when Holle the interstellar astronaut hadn’t even been conceived. “President Peery has ordered that the continuity of the nation should be preserved. According to the Presidential Succession Act the line runs through the Vice President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and then selected members of the Cabinet-”

“And at last me,” Gordo said, “as governor of this fucking fortified mountaintop. Peery wants us out, dispersed, safe.”

“Safe?” Kenzie asked wildly. “Where?”

“Into whatever assets are available.”

“In our case the USN New Jersey, ” Thandie said. “Of which I’m an informal crew member, and I have orders to make sure Gordo here gets his ass on the sub.”

Kenzie said, “And then, maybe, Ark Two, which-”

There was a boom, like a huge door slamming. The building shook, and the screens fritzed, flickering on and off, while plaster rained down from the ceiling. Smoke started pouring in through the aircon.

Troopers formed up around Gordo. “Time to go,” he said. “Get behind me.” Thandie Jones stayed with him, and Edward Kenzie.

Patrick longed to stay in Mission Control, to wait for news of the Ark, but the screens were failing anyhow, and he submitted when Edward grabbed his arm.

The troopers formed a flying wedge and pushed through the crowd. The main doors were forced open, and smoke billowed out around them as they staggered into the open air. Patrick was briefly overwhelmed by the screams, the gunfire, the smoke-filled air, and another immense crash that seemed to shake the very ground. He saw a line of troops not fifty meters from where he stood, trying to hold their position against a mob of eye-dees, who bayed, throwing bits of rubble and waving glinting machetes.

Over their heads, hovering in the air, the Chinook waited. An airman dangled a rope ladder from an open hatch. Two troopers ran up, clutching the base of the rope ladder. Patrick’s heart thumped when he recognized Don Meisel and Mel Belbruno, his daughter’s lover. But Mel’s face was hard, pinched, his eyes hollow.

They shoved forward, to the ladder.

“This isn’t going to be glamorous,” Thandie shouted.

Gordo growled, “I just hope none of those ragged assholes have got a surface-to-air.”

A woman broke out of the melee and hurled herself at the ladder. She was young, no more than twenty, twenty-one. She was dressed in rags, and she had a baby in a kind of improvised papoose on her chest. Don and Mel fielded her. She started struggling. “Let me on that thing!” The baby was wriggling, screaming. Don and Mel were reluctant to deal with the woman, Patrick saw, for fear of harming the baby.

Gordo stepped forward, a knife in his hand. Briskly he cut the papoose harness, plucked the baby off its mother, and hurled it away into the crowd. The woman instantly gave up her struggle and followed it. Gordo said, “And I will see that woman’s face on my deathbed.” He tucked his knife into a sheath in his sleeve.

Don was all business. He handed the ladder to Gordo. “Sir, there are four places on the chopper. We can’t take everybody.”

Thandie pushed Gordo forward. “Up you go, Colonel. Orders, remember.”

“And you,” Gordo snapped, and grabbed her hand.

Edward Kenzie dragged Patrick forward by the arm. “Come on, Patrick, we’ve been in on this from the beginning. Without our money the Ark wouldn’t have got built-and that’s our kids flying the bird. We’re owed.”

But Patrick pulled his arm away.

The chopper dipped and bucked; some sniper was getting his range, and a round pinged off the hull.

Don said, “Sir, this bird is lifting in one second.”

Edward Kenzie was on the ladder. He yelled down, “Groundwater, what the fuck?”

“Not me, Edward. We had our time.” And just as the chopper lifted Patrick lunged forward and shoved Mel against the ladder.

Mel grabbed on to keep from falling, and was immediately borne away, raised up from the ground like an angel. Patrick could see Mel’s open mouth, his shocked expression.

Patrick said grimly, “That’s for Holle.”

Don Meisel just laughed. “Nice timing, Mr. Groundwater.”

A trooper faced Don, a woman, her face hard, a frizz of gray hair loose under her helmet. “Sir. The position is lost. Some of us are going to try to break out to higher ground.”

Don nodded. “Stay close to me, sir,” he said to Patrick.

“I’m no soldier, son.”

Don thrust an AK-47 into Patrick’s arms. “You are now.”

The Chinook had gone, its roar receding into the sky, its lights a dying constellation. And over Patrick’s head the sky was clearing, to reveal a bloody eclipse light.