EarthRise (13 page)

Knowing how few supplies Sool had to work with, and mindful of the horrendous injuries she dealt with on a daily basis, Manning refused a topical anesthetic and focused on her rather than the pain. As the doctor fought to push the much-dulled needle through the security chief ’s leathery epidermis he saw the very tip of a tiny pink tongue emerge from the corner of her mouth. The sight was endearing somehow, and Manning found himself transported back in time to a vision of a little girl seated with legs crossed, as she worked on a puzzle. “So?” Sool inquired gently. “Do I get an answer or not?”

Manning realized he had missed something, and apologized. “Sorry, I was distracted.”

“By the pain?”

“No, by you.”

Sool looked up into his eyes, liked what she saw there, and felt her heart jump. It was silly, not to mention unforgivably juvenile, but real nonetheless. A fact which made her next words all the more perverse. “What about Jina?”

It was a stupid thing to say, motivated by jealousy more than anything else, and Sool regretted the words the moment that she said them.

Manning flinched, as if reacting to the needle, and pain clouded his eyes. Sool felt him pull back and cursed her own stupidity. He had been there, trying to reach out, only to have her slap him down.

The security chief smiled gamely. “It was that obvious? Look, I was out of line, it won’t happen again.”

A voice inside Sool screamed, “Please, I want it to happen again!” But it was too late. There was an uncomfortable silence as Sool placed a dressing over the stitches, Manning thanked her, and pulled the curtain aside. Seconds later he was gone.

There were no interior walls, which meant that Dixie, working only a few feet away, had been a witness to the entire conversation. The clinic was momentarily empty, and she stood, hands on hips. “You know, for such a smart doctor, you are one stupid lady.”

Sool nodded sadly. “Yup, that pretty much sums it up. I’ll find time to cry about it later tonight . . . In the meantime, patients are waiting. Okay, who’s next?”

SOUTHEAST OF HELL HILL

The horse nickered, and shook its head back and forth, as it continued to pick its way down the trail. The Ra ‘Na, who had been strapped into a car seat intended for human juveniles, was himself facing backward. Though not especially cold, the night was pitch-black, and without benefit of the light-intensification goggles that the human wore Pol could see very little beyond Hell Hill’s distant glow, the occasional glint of a star, and for one brief moment, the steady blink, blink, blink of running lights as a shuttle descended toward the water off to the west.

Could the Saurons “see” them? Using the infrared detection equipment the Ra ‘Na had designed for them? Yes, without a doubt. The combined body heat generated by a human, a Ra ‘Na, and a horse would show up as a ghostly green blob meandering across the countryside below. Visible, but not worth pursuing given the number of deer, elk, and large farm animals now free to roam the countryside. Or so the humans claimed, although Pol, who knew the Saurons a good deal better than they did, knew that a sufficiently large blob of heat was almost certain to attract a fighter if not a barrage from space.

Still, uncomfortable though the horseback trip was, it certainly beat trying to keep up with the long-legged humans on some sort of cross-country hike. So, having nothing in particular to do, Pol fell asleep and remained that way till the sound of voices and a sudden wash of white light served to wake him up.

The Ra ‘Na initiate blinked as he straightened up to look around. The room was huge. It had a high ceiling, electric lights, and featured gray concrete walls. Most were lined with shelving, a lot of it, all loaded with carefully arranged equipment. Not
human
equipment, as Pol might have expected, but Ra ‘Na, which was to say Sauron equipment, salvaged from who knew where. Judging from the smell, and the sounds that came from nearby, horses were quartered there as well.

A black-skinned human appeared, smiled, and introduced himself. He had short-cropped black hair, even features, and wore rimless glasses. The human had long slender fingers and they made quick work of the fasteners that held Pol in place. “Hello there, welcome to the skunk works. My name is Jared Kenyata . . . I hear we have a lot in common.”

“We do?” Pol asked, allowing himself to be lifted down onto the cement floor. “Such as what?”

“Well,” Kenyata said, grinning widely, “we both have trouble dealing with authority figures, we enjoy electronics, and we hate the fucking Saurons.”

Pol’s translator rendered the last part of the human’s sentence as “intercoursing Saurons” which called for an immediate correction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Jared . . . but it’s important to understand that the Saurons don’t have intercourse.”

Kenyata’s grin grew even wider. “Yeah, the poor bastards don’t know what they’re missing, do they?”

Pol decided to ignore the fact that it was impossible for a Sauron to be a “bastard” in the technical sense . . . and went with what he now knew to be the human (male) version of humor. “Nope, them fuckers ain’t got a clue.”

The human laughed and gestured to the room. “So? What do you think?”

The horse had been led away. Pol saw that there were some additional humans, three in all, one of whom was seated at long workbench. “Where are we?”

“This is the basement of a church,” Kenyata replied. “It looks like the building caught fire at some point, and collapsed, but the heavy-duty concrete floor held everything up. The wreckage provides the place with camouflage and helps to block radiated heat.”

Pol eyed the steel crossbeams and the concrete floor above. “No offense, friend Jared, but the layers of concrete and wreckage won’t be sufficient to protect us.”

The human nodded agreeably. “You’re absolutely correct. Listen, can you hear that humming sound?”

Pol’s ears rotated to either side, and he agreed that he could.

“We have a generator,” Kenyata explained, “which not only powers the lights, and the wall outlets, but a water pump as well. We use a portion of the well water for drinking . . . but the vast majority passes through half a mile of tubing woven into the wreckage. The constant drip, drip, drip of water helps keep the site nice and cool.”

“Very clever,” Pol said, happy to learn that his new friends were appropriately cautious. “So, where do the skunks come in? Do you ride them like horses? And what do they look like?”

Kenyata remembered the comment made earlier and laughed. “No, there aren’t any skunks. Not real ones. The term ‘skunk works’ refers to a place where people work on some sort of project . . . often outside of the way that things are normally done.”

“Ah,” Pol replied, “now I understand. This is where we will work to how do you say it? Throw a monkey into the works?”

“A
monkey wrench
,” Kenyata replied, “but yes, with your help we hope to do a much better job of tapping into Sauron communications, and then, if all goes well, we’ll use their system against them.”

Pol eyed the heavily loaded shelves. “Good. I like the way humans think. What’s the fur dryer for?”

Kenyata followed the pointed finger to a small device with a flexible hose attachment. “That’s a fur dryer? You could have fooled me . . . Is any of this stuff any good?”

Pol nodded. “Have no fear, friend Jared . . . we can make lots of monkeys. But first we must eat. Do you have any seafood?”

The human frowned. “Nothing fresh . . . Is canned tuna okay?”

“Tuna? What is ‘tuna’?”

“It’s a fish.”

Pol nodded. “First we eat . . . then we work the dogs.”

“
Like
dogs.”

“Whatever . . .” Pol replied, his nose sampling the air. “Take me to the tuna.”

SOUTHEAST WASHINGTON STATE

The road train was traveling at a steady thirty-five miles per hour. Not especially fast but consistent with the tractor’s gearing, which had been set up with off-road conditions in mind.

There was no need for that, however, not with such a well-developed system of roads already in place, which explained why the Sauron convoy was eastbound on a secondary highway.

Ivory had been clinging to the roof of the trailer for hours by then, cursing the fact that he didn’t have enough water, but reluctant to abandon his ride. He was half-conscious much of the time, not truly awake, but not really asleep either.

Perhaps, had Ivory had been less fatigued, and therefore more alert, he would have noticed the fact that the train had started to slow and prepared himself for what occurred next. But he wasn’t and didn’t.

The convoy jerked to a halt, doors banged open, and ramps touched the ground. Though not especially vigilant up to that point, orders were orders, and the Kan were supposed to check the entire train twice each day. The main purpose of the inspection was to look for maintenance problems, but security was an issue as well. Some of the feral slaves possessed projectile weapons, and liked nothing better than to take potshots at the road train from high in the hills.

One such individual had even managed to bag a Kan who had been riding atop one of the trailers. Subsequent analysis indicated that the warrior had been killed by a single .50-caliber bullet fired from twelve hundred yards away. That’s why none of the warriors were willing to ride topside anymore, not unless an officer was present, which thankfully there wasn’t.

The inspection was a routine and therefore boring chore—one which the Saurons had performed many times before without any results. That being the case, Rol-Baa could hardly believe his eyes when he made the necessary leap, felt his feet thump down on the trailer’s metal roof, and saw the human lying prostrate two cars away.

The slave was still in the process of trying to sit up when Rol-Baa landed with one foot on the human’s chest. The impact cracked two of Ivory’s ribs and knocked the wind out of him. The racialist was still fighting for breath when the Kan aimed the t-gun at his head and uttered a series of incomprehensible noises.

There were no humans aboard the train, or hadn’t been, so there was no reason for the warrior to wear a translator. He
did
need to communicate with the noncom in charge of the convoy, however, and proceeded to do so, using what Ivory thought of as “click speech” since that’s the way the unmediated language sounded to him.

Rol-Baa listened to the reply via the radio attached to his combat harness, sent an acknowledgment, and jerked Ivory to his feet. Once the human was in motion a quick series of pokes, jabs, and shoves were sufficient to herd the unfortunate slave to the edge of the roof, where he was forced to sit, swing his legs over the side, and drop to the ground. There were no ladders attached to the road train for the simple reason that the Saurons didn’t need them.

As the impact hit his ribs, the racialist screamed, clutched his side, and nearly fell.

Guided by another series of jabs, Ivory was forced to make his way to the very front of the tractor, where he was “encouraged” to mount the massive front bumper.

That was the moment when the human noticed the dimples that bullets had made in the vehicle’s armor, a patch of dried blood, and four strategically placed Velcro-like straps.

The Kan were already in the process of securing him in place when Ivory realized that other slaves had been bound to the front of the vehicle before him, and, judging from the evidence, been killed by their own kind. By accident? Or as an act of mercy? There was no way to know.

Shortly thereafter the engines started, the road train jerked into motion, and Ivory started to pray. He beseeched the great Yahweh to save him, or, barring that, to put him out of his misery so that he could take his place in a heaven alongside all the other whites who had been judged as worthy.

But the minutes passed, the yellow line passed under the human’s feet, and Ivory’s prayers went unanswered. That’s the way it
seemed
anyway, although sixty miles ahead, completely unaware of her husband’s dire circumstances, Ella Howther, along with a force of some thirty skins, worked to put the finishing touches on a well-conceived ambush.

Unlike most of the women who had chosen to associate themselves with racialist doctrine during the years prior to the alien attacks, or, having nowhere else to go had aligned themselves with the White Rose Society since, Ella took a backseat to no man.

In spite of the fact that she was pregnant, or partly because of it, she worked to fill the vacuum left when her husband, along with a party of warriors, had departed for Hell Hill, where they had hoped to foment a revolution in which whites would rise up against both the muds
and
the Saurons.

Most of those who remained behind believed that Jonathan Ivory was dead, and had been for a long time, but Ella knew better. Her mother, the much-revered Marianne Howther, race wife to Old Man Howther, was given to dreams.
Important
dreams in which truths were often revealed. In one such dream she had seen Ivory struck down, only to rise out of the flames, and then, like Jesus himself, hang crucified for all to see. But dead? No, her mother had been certain of that, which meant that her baby would not only have a father, but a
race
father, to whom he could turn for knowledge and guidance.

In the meantime there was work to do, and with no one else to take care of it, Ella would handle the chores herself. The site of the ambush had unknowingly been chosen by the Saurons themselves the moment one of their shuttles touched down on the surface of the small, undistinguished lake, released the sausage-shaped fuel bladder clutched beneath its belly, and lifted again. Such an abomination might be tolerated elsewhere, but not
here
, within the large, vaguely defined chunk of territory that the Howthers and their followers referred to as Racehome.

No, the racialists feared that the fueling station was an encroachment that, if tolerated, would soon lead to even more territorial violations and must therefore be dealt with in no uncertain terms.