Desolation Road

61

“Must be well on eight thousand of them,” said Mr. Jericho, straining his disciplined eyesight to make sense of the shifting heatshimmer out among the crystalloids. Sevriano Gallacelli shifted his shovel and pretended to be working while the guard was watching.

“So, what are those things then?” He nodded toward the enormous threelegged machines that had been stalking arrogantly around the crystal landscape vaporizing chunks of ferrotrope with vicious blue-white beams.

“I don’t rightly know,” said Mr. Jericho. “They’re something like the scout walkers ROTECH used to use years back. Tell you one thing, when the action starts, it’s going to get mighty hot around here. Those things are toting tachyon beams.”

The two men swung their shovels and pretended to dig while they watched the ungainly contraptions march around the desert without the slightest attempt at concealment, and they formed the mutual and inescapable conclusion that the end was nigh for Desolation Road.

In forward observation post 5 Arnie Tenebrae was reaching similar conclusions.

“Evaluation?” she asked her aide, Sub-colonel Lennard Hecke.

“Fighting machines, ideally suited to the terrain. I hate to say such things, ma’am, but they could step right over our mine defences.”

“That’s what I thought. Weaponry?”

“Ma’am, I hate to say this too, but…”

“But those tachyon beams could timeslip past our field-inducer defences and punch holes right through our canopies.” She left Lennard to inspect the invincible fighting machines and went in search of Dhavram Mantones. She wished to ascertain the state of her own invincible fighting machine. As she climbed the bluffs she passed the bodies of the two SRBC newsmen who had tried to fly a flag of surrender. Spreadeagled upside down on wooden frames, their bodies were beginning to turn to leather after three days in the sun and smelled abominably. Surrender was not just impermissible, it was inconceivable.

In forward command station Zebra, Marya Quinsana observed the mummifying bodies through field glasses. It was not the barbarism of the execution that shocked her; it was the familiarity of many of the stooped figures at work upon the terraces and fortification. Even the town of Desolation Road itself, that part of it sandwiched between the ugly concrete carbuncle of the basilica and the towering pipeworks of the factory, was unchanged, a messy conglomerate of wind-pumps, flashing solar lozenges, and red tile roofs. She wondered what Morton was doing. She had not seen him at work upon the bluffs, but there were other constructions under progress within the town. She had not thought of him in twelve years. She thought, too, of Mikal Margolis; poor stupid boy who let the wind blow him where it would. She wondered what had become of him after she had left him at the soba bar in Ishiwara Junction.

There would be time enough for reverie afterward. The Whole Earth Army defences looked strong but not so strong, she thought, as to defy her tachyon-beaming fighting machines. She had spent a lot of political capital in obtaining the specifications for ROTECH’s scout walkers from the wise ones of China Mountain and she was confident that the investment would be well spent. Her ground forces outnumbered the opposition three or four to one, her tachyonic weapons systems gave her the edge over the Whole Earth Army field-inducers… It was tempting to toy with notions of victory and ambition. She needed a clear head and a calm constitution. As she left command post Zebra she became aware of a faraway insect drone.

The same sound infringed upon the lunatic perceptions of Arnie Tenebrae while she sat at her desk toying with string. Her mind latched onto the insect drone and forgot to listen to

Dhavram Mantone’s report on the progress in deciphering Dr. Alimantando’s hieroglyphics. Drone, buzz, lazzzy beee in the bonnet of winter-she remembered flower-filled mornings splashing in the irrigation canals, days filled with sun and bee buzz.

“Pardon?”

“We’ve something you might like to take a look at.”

“Show me.”

The drone sat in her ear all the way to Dr. Alimantando’s house and up in the weather-room, thick with dust and littered with half-empty teacups left by Limaal Mandella, her attention kept wandering out of the four windows in airborne pursuit of the drone.

“This is it, ma’am.” Dhavran Mantones pointed to a patch of the faded red scrawling at the precise apex of the ceiling. Arnie Tenebrae stood on the stone table and peered with a hand lens.

“What is it then?”

“We believe it is the Temporal Inversion formula which will render the time winder and anything within its sphere of influence timeloose and chronokinetic. We’re going to try it out this evening.”

“I want to be there.”

Where was that droning coming from? Arnie Tenebrae was beginning to fear it originated from within her own head.

The sound even filtered down to the sub-basement of the Bar/Hotel, where a clandestine resistance meeting was in session. Five souls gathered around a brown wooden box: a radio transmitter built into a packing crate.

“Pray they don’t intercept us,” said Rajandra Das, mindful of crucified television news reporters.

“Have you got them yet?” asked Santa Ekatrina Mandella, dedicated anti-authoritarian. Batisto Gallacelli thumbed the transmit switch again.

“Hello, Parliamentarian forces; hello, Parliamentarian forces; this is Desolation Road, can you hear me, this is Desolation Road.” He repeated his incantation several times and was rewarded by a crackle of voice. The antiliberationists pressed close around the hand-set.

“Hello, this is Free Desolation Road, we warn you, exercise extreme caution, Whole Earth Army in control of temporal displacement weapon: I repeat, be alert for time displacement weapon. Urgent you attack soon as possible to save history. Repeat, urgent you save the future: over ..

The voice crackled an answer. Alone of the five, Mr. Jericho was not concentrating on the static syllables. His attention was fixed on some point beyond the roof.

“Shh.” He palm-downed for hush. ‘There’s something up there.”

“Over and, out,” whispered Batisto Gallacelli, and cut transmission.

“Do you hear it?” Mr. Jericho turned slowly, as if trying to maximize a little lost memory. “I know that sound, I know that sound.” No one else could even hear it through tile, brick and rock. “Engines, air engines… wait a moment, Maybach/Wurt engines, push-pull configuration! She’s come back!”

Heedless of pass laws and illegal congregations, the counter-revolutionaries boiled up out of the sub-basement into the sfreet.

“There!” Mr. Jericho pointed to the sky. “There she is!” Three pinpricks of light winked in midbank and swelled with a breathtaking shout of power into three shark-nosed propeller airplanes. In arrowhead formation the three airplanes pounded over Desolation Road, and as they passed the lead plane snowed leaflets. The streets were instantly full of running guerrillas. They separated the five counter-revolutionaries and drove them into shelter. Mr. Jericho glance-read a leaflet blowing past him in a cloud of dust and prop-wash.

“Tatterdemalion’s Flying Circus Has Come to Town,” it read. “Bethlehem Ares, Beware!” The innocence made him smile. Thirty years old and she still hadn’t learned worldly wisdom, God bless her. The flying circus looped over Desolation Road and came in at roof height. Six ripping explosions tore across the town. Mr. Jericho saw blue-white beams flash from the airplanes’ wingtips and he whistled in blatant admiration.

“Tachyonics! Where in the world did she get tachyonics from?” Then he was hurried into the Bar/Hotel and the soldiers took up rooftop positions to return fire.

As she led her formation in across the railroad lines for a strike at Steeltown, Persis Tatterdemalion realized she was having the time of her life.

“Angels green and blue,” she sang, “commence second attack run.”

There had been no escaping. Ed was gone and gone was Ed, but she could fly over the edge of the universe and never be far enough away to forget about him. Even in Wollamurra Station there had been no escaping. There had been a filling with craziness instead, a craziness that found her two crop-spraying punks out of jobs to fly the two stunters she’d bought from Yamaguchi and Jones, equip them with the very latest in military technology, and make a crazy, name-of-love attack first on a Bethlehem Ares Steel train chuffing across the High Plains and then on the slag-black heart of the dreamgrinding Company itself, fortress Steeltown. She waggled her wings and the flying circus closed behind her.

She loved the way the soldiers ran like chickens from the snap snap snap of her tachyon blasters. She loved the purity of the blue-white beams and the bright flowers of the explosions as she destroyed offices, storage tanks, trucks, bunkers, draglines, solar collectors. She’d loved it from the instant she’d pressed the firing buttons and sent two Class 88 haulers, fifty wagons and two engineers up in a blaze of subquantal fusion.

“Boom!” she sang, and pressed the firing studs. Behind her three parked cargo ’lighters exploded in gouts of fire.

“Whee!” she cried, and banked the Yamaguchi and Jones for another pass. Her radio crackled and a familiar voice hissed in her ear.

“Perssiss, dear, it’ssss me. Jimmmm Jericho, you know?”

“Yah, I know,” she shouted. Her tachyon blasters cut long smoking gashes through Steeltown. Chimneys collapsed, pipework tumbled.

“Immmportant infffformation. Desssolattttiion Road isss under occupattttion, repeat, under occupattttion, by the Whole Earthhhh Army Tactical Group, repeat, Whole Earthhhh Army Tactical Group. Company isss defffeated, repeat, defeated.” A fan of missiles broke from ground and homed in on her.

“Kaboom!” she said and vaporized them. “Defeated?”

“Yesss. Am sssspeaking to you ffffrom the Bar/Hhhotel on illegal rrradio sssett. Sssuggessst you attack military targetsss, repeat, military targetssss. Arnie Tenebrae in command.”

She passed low over Desolation Road again and saw the trenches and dugouts. She flew over the bluffs and saw there the crucified bodies and the sunshiny helmets of the soldiers in their cliffside positions. Arnie Tenebrae? Here?

“Angel Group, reform,” she ordered.

“Good girl,” hissed Mr. Jericho, and broke transmission. Angels green and blue fell into arrowhead formation behind her. Good kids. She briefed them on the new situation.

“Check,” said Callan Lefteremides.

“Check,” said her brother Venn.

Angel flight turned as one and closed on the Whole Earth Army positions. They flew scant metres above the desert. Wingtip tachyon-blasters snipped at the defences, missiles burst from the revetments toward them.

“Angel green angel green, missile on your…” A Long Brothers Type 337 “Phoenix” surface-to-air missile, fired in panic by one Private Cassandra 0. Miccini, caught Venn Lefteremides, and blew the tail clean off his Yamaguchi and Jones. Angel green rolled into a death spiral and crashed in the middle of the abandoned new housing complex beyond the railroad lines.

Persis Tatterdemalion thought she had seen the flutter of a parachute. So, Arnie Tenebrae, this is for you. She turned the nose of her airplane Steeltownwards and thumbed the firing studs.

Arnie Tenebrae watched the air strike from her window with curious admiration.

“They’re good. Awfully good,” she mused as the two survivors of Tatterdemalion’s Flying Circus skipped in at rooftop height to launch another tachyon strike into Steeltown.

“Ma’am, don’t you think you should move away from such an exposed position?” suggested Leonard Hecke.

“Certainly not,” said Arnie Tenebrae. “They can’t harm me. Only the Avenger can harm me.”

Out in the Land of Crystal Ferrotropes the Avenger Marya Quinsana watched the dogfight.

“Whoever they are, they’re very good. Get a check on the registration numbers. I want to know who’s flying them.”

“Certainly. Marshall, a communication from the town, from the hostages.” Albie Vessarian, a fawning sycophant destined never to stop a bullet, handed her a memo from telecommunications and hurried to comply with her order to identify the pirate aircraft.

She scanned the communique. Temporal weapons? She threw the flimsy away and returned to the air attack in time to see Venn Lefteremides roll, crash and burn.

“So,” she breathed. “This is it. Order the attack!” Fifteen seconds later the second attacker was shot down and crashed into the Basilica of the Grey Lady.

“Order the attack!” shouted General Emiliano Murphy.

“Order the attack!” shouted Majors Lee and Wo.

“Order the attack!” shouted assorted captains, lieutenants, and sublieutenants.

“Attack!” shouted the sergeants and group leaders, and forty-eight longlegged fighting machines took their ponderous first steps toward Desolation Road.

“Ma’am, the Parliamentarians are attacking.”

Arnie Tenebrae received the news with such phlegm that Lennard Hecke thought she had not heard.

“Ma’am, the Parliamentarians…”

“I heard you, soldier.” She continued shaving her scalp, scything away great meadows of hair until her head gleamed naked beneath the sun. She regarded herself in a mirror. The result pleased her. Now she was the personification of war, the Vastator. Avenger beware. She spoke unhurriedly into her whisper-mike.

“This is the commander. The enemy is attacking with unconventional armoured forces employing tachyonic weaponry: all units exercise extreme caution in engaging. Major Dhavram Mantones, I want the time winder running.”

Dhavram Mantones came on the thimble-phone, crackling and distressed.

“Ma’am, the Temporal Inversion is untested: we’re still doubtful about one of the operands in the equation; it could be plus or minus.”

“I’ll be there in three minutes.” To her forces at large she said, “Well, this is it, boys and girls. This is war!” As she gave the order to attack, the first explosions came from the perimeter positions.