Keith Laumer - Future Imperfect

VIP免费

2024-12-04 0 0 1.08MB 256 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

CATASTROPHE PLANET

Chapter One

I held the turbo-car at a steady hundred and forty, watching the strip

of cracked pavement that had been Interstate 10 unreel behind me,

keeping a sharp eye ahead through the dust and volcanic smog for any

breaks in the pavement too wide for the big car to jump. A brand-new

six-megahorse job, it rode high and smooth on a two-foot air cushion. It

was too bad about the broken hatch lock, but back in Dallas I hadn't had

time to look around for the owner. The self-appointed vigilantes who called themselves the National

Guard had developed a bad habit of shooting first and checking for explanations later. True, I had

been doing a little informal shopping in a sporting goods store—but the owner would not have

cared. He and most of the rest of the city had left for points north quite a few hours before I

arrived—and I needed a gun and ammunition. A rifle would probably have been the best choice, but

I had put in a lot of sociable hours on the Rod and Gun Club thousand-inch range back at San Luis,

and the weight of the old-style .38 Smith and Wesson felt good at my hip.

There were low volcanic cones off to my right, trickling black smoke and getting ready for the

next round. It was to be expected; I was keeping as close as the roads allowed to the line of tectonic

activity running along the Gulf Coast from the former site of New Orleans to the shallow sea that

had been northern Florida. Before I reached Atlanta, sixty miles ahead, I would have to make a

decision; either north, into the relative geologic stability of the Appalachians, already mobbed with

refugees and consequently drastically short on food and water, to say nothing of amusement—or

south, across the Florida Sea to the big island they called South Florida, that took in Tampa, Miami,

Key West, and a lot of malodorous sand that had been sea bottom until a few months before.

I had a hunch which way I would go. I have always had a fondness for old Scotch, sunshine,

white beaches, and the company of sportsmen who did not mind risking a flutter at cards. I would

be more likely to find them south than north. The only station still broadcasting dance music was

KSEA at Palm Beach. That was the spirit for me. If the planet was going to break up—all right. But

while I was alive I would go on living at the best speed I could manage.

The map screen had warned me there was a town ahead. Just a hamlet which had once had ten

thousand or so inhabitants, it would be a better bet for my purposes than a big city. Most of the

cities had been stripped pretty clean by now, in this part of the country.

The town came into view spread out over low hills under a pall of smoke. I slowed, picked my

way around what was left of a farmhouse that had been dropped on the road by one of the freak

winds that had become as common as summer squalls. A trickle of glowing lava was running down

across a field from a new cone of ash a quarter of a mile off to the right. I skirted it, gunned the

turbos to hop a three-foot fissure that meandered off in a wide curve into the town itself.

It was late afternoon. The sun was a bilious puffball that shed a melancholy light on cracked

and tilted slabs of broken pavement. In places, the street was nearly blocked by heaps of rubble

from fallen buildings; hoods and flanks of half-buried vehicles, mud-colored from a coating of dust,

projected from the detritus. The downtown portion was bad. Not a building over two stories was left

standing, and the streets were strewn with everything from bedsteads to bags of rotted potatoes. It

looked as though the backlash from one of the tidal waves from the coast had reached this far, spent

its last energy finishing up what the quakes and fires had started.

Clotted drifts of flotsam were caught in alley mouths and doorways, and along the still-

standing storefronts a dark line three feet from the ground indicated the highest reach of the flood

waters. A deposit of red silt had dried to an almost impalpable dust that the ragged wind whirled up

into streamers to join the big clouds that rolled in endlessly from the west.

Three blocks east of the main drag I found what I was looking for. The small street had failed

even before the disaster. It was lined with cheap bars, last-resort pawnshops, secondhand stores

with windows full of rusted revolvers, broken furniture and stacks of dog-eared pornography,

sinister entrances under age-blackened signs offering clean beds one flight up. I slowed, looked

over what was left of a coffee and 'burger joint that had never made any pretense of sanitation,

spotted a two-customer-wide grocery store of the kind that specialized in canned beans and cheap

wine.

I eased off power, settled to the ground, gave a blast from the cleaner-orifices to clear the dust

from the canopy and waited for the dust to settle. The canopy made crunching noises as I cycled it

open. I settled my breathing mask over my face and climbed out, stretching stiff legs. A neon sign

reading Smoky's Kwik-Pick was hanging from one support and creak, creaking as the wind moaned

around it. I heard the distant soft buroom of masonry falling into the dust blanket.

As I reached the curb, the dust lifted, danced like water, settled back in a pattern of ridges and

ripples. I spun, took two jumps and the street came up and hit me like a missed step in the dark. I

went down. Through a rising boil of dust, a clean-cut edge of concrete thrust up a yard from my

nose with a shriek like Satan falling into Hell. Loose gravel fill cascaded; then raw, red clay was

pushing up, a foot, two feet. There was a roaring like an artillery bombardment; the pavement

hammered and thrust like a wild bronco on a rope. The uplifted section of street jittered and danced,

then slid smoothly away, squealing like chalk on a giant blackboard. I got to hands and knees,

braced myself to jump. Then another shock wave hit, and I was down again, bouncing against

pavement that rippled like a fat girl's thigh.

The rumble died slowly. The tremble of the ground under me faded and merged with a jump of

my muscles. There was not much I could see through the dust. A little smoke was curling up from

the new chasm that had opened across the street; through the mask I caught a whiff of sulphur.

Behind me, things were still falling, in a leisurely, ponderous way, as though there were no hurry

about returning what had once been the small city of Greenleaf, Georgia, to the soil it had sprung

from. * * *

The car was my first worry; it was on the far side of the fissure, a ragged two-yard-wide cut

slicing down into the glisten of wet clay far below. I might have been able to jump it if my knees

had not been twitching like a sleeping hound's elbow. I needed a plank to bridge it; from the sounds

of falling objects, there should be plenty of loose ones lying around nearby.

Through the smashed front of a used-clothing emporium two doors down, I could see racks of

worn suits of indeterminate color, powdered with fallen plaster. Behind them, collapsed wall

shelves had spilled patched shirts, cracked shoes, and out-of-style hats across a litter of tables

heaped with ties and socks among which tones of mustard and faded mauve seemed to predominate.

A long timber that had supported the ends of a row of now-exposed rafters had come adrift, was

slanted down across the debris. I picked my way through the wreckage, got a grip on the plank,

twisted it free to the accompaniment of a new fall of brick chips.

Back outside, the dust was settling. The wind had died. There was a dead, muffled silence. My

plank made an eerie grumbling sound as the end scored a path through the silt. I found myself

almost tiptoeing, as though the noise of my passing might reawaken the slumbering earth giants. I

passed the glassless door of Smoky's Kwik-Pick, and stopped dead, not even breathing. Ten seconds

crept by like a parade of cripples dragging themselves to a miraculous shrine. Then I heard it again:

a gasping moan from inside the ruined store.

I stood frozen, listening to silence, the board still in my hands, my teeth bared, not sure

whether I had really heard a noise or just the creak of my own nerves. In this dead place, the

suggestion of life had a shocking quality, like merriment in a graveyard.

Then, unmistakably, the sound came again. I dropped the plank, got the pistol clear of its

holster. Beyond the broken door I could make out crooked ranks of home-made shelves, a drift of

cans and broken bottles across the narrow floor.

"Who's there?" I called inanely. Something moved in the darkness at the back of the room.

Cans clattered as I kicked them aside. A thick sour stink of rotted food penetrated my respirator

mask. I stepped on broken ketchup bottles and smashed cans, went past a festering display of lunch

meat, a freezer with raised lid, jumped and almost fired when a foot-long rat darted out.

"Come on out," I called. My voice sounded as confident as a rookie cop bracing Public Enemy

Number One. There was the sound of a shuddering breath.

I went toward it, saw the dim rectangle of a dust-coated window set in a rear door. The door

was locked, but a kick slammed it open, let in a roil of sun-bright haze. A man was sitting on the

floor, his back against the wall, his lap full of plaster fragments and broken glass. A massive double

laundry sink rested across his legs below the knees, trailing a festoon of twisted pipes. His face was

oily-pale, with eyes as round as half-dollars, and there was a quarter-inch stubble across hollow

cheeks. Mud was caked in a ring around each nostril, his eyes, his mouth. Something was wrong

with his nose and ears—they were lumped with thick, whitish scar tissue—and there were patches

of keloid on his cheekbones. Joints were missing from several of the fingers of his clawlike left

hand, which was holding a .45 automatic, propped up, aimed approximately at my left knee. I

swung a foot and kicked the gun off into the shadows.

"Didn't need. . . . do that," he mumbled. His voice was as thin as lost hope.

I got a grip on the weight across his legs, heaved at it. Water sloshed, and he gave a wail as his

head fell sideways.

It took five minutes to get him free, drag him up front where the light was better, settle him in

comparative comfort on the floor with his head propped up on broken flour sacks covered with

newspaper. He snored with his mouth slackly open. He smelled as though he had been dead for a

week. Outside, the sun was glaring low through drifting smoke and dust layers, shaping up for

another spectacular sunset.

I used my Boy Scout knife to cut away stiff cloth, examined his legs. They were both badly

broken, but the bruises were several days old, at least. The last tremor had not been the one that

caught him.

He opened his eyes. "You're not one of them," he said, faintly but clearly.

"How long have you been here?"

He shook his head, a barely perceptible movement. "Don't know. Maybe a week."

"I'll get you some water."

"Had plenty. . . . water," he said. "Cans, too. . . . but no opener. Rats were the worst."

"Take it easy. How about some food?"

"Never mind that. Better get moving. Bad here. Tremors every few hours. Last one was bad.

Woke me up. . . ."

"You need food. Then I'll get you to my car."

"No use, mister, I've got. . . . internal injuries. Hurts too much to move. You cut out

now. . . . while you can."

I sorted through the strewn cans, found a couple that seemed sound, cut the tops off. The odor

of kidney beans and applesauce made my jaws ache. He shook his head. "You've got. . . . get clear.

Leave me my gun."

"You won't need a gun—"

"I need it, mister." His whispering voice had taken on a harsh note. "I'd have used it on

myself—but I was hoping they'd find me. I could take a couple of them along."

"Forget it, old-timer. You're—"

"No time for talk. They're here—in the town. I saw them, before. They won't give up." His

eyes got worried. "You've got a car?"

I nodded.

"They'll spot it. Maybe already have. Get. . . . going. . . ."

I used the knife blade to spoon beans into his mouth. He turned his face away.

"Eat it, sailor—it's good for you."

His eyes were on my face. "How'd you know I was Navy?"

I nodded toward his hand. He lifted it half an inch, let it fall back.

"The ring. I should have gotten rid of it, but. . . ."

"Now take your beans like an old campaigner."

He gritted his teeth, twisted his face. "Can't eat," he protested. "God, the pain. . . ."

I tossed the can aside. "I'm going out and check the car," I said. "Then I'll be back for you."

"Listen," he croaked. "You think I'm raving, but I know what I'm saying. Get clear of this

town—now. Got no time to explain. Just move out."

I grunted at him, went out into the street, recovered my plank, propped it with its end resting

on the upper edge of the ravine that split the pavement. It was a shaky bridge; I went up it on all

fours. As I was about to rise and step clear, I saw a movement ahead. My car sat ten yards away

where I had left it, thickly coated now with new-fallen pumice. A man was circling it warily. He

stepped in close, wiped a hand across the canopy, peered into the interior. I stayed where I was,

kneeling on the plank over the dark fissure, just the top of my head above ground level.

The man went around to the driver's side, flipped the lever that opened the hatch, thrust his

head inside. I shifted position, eased my gun out. I could not afford to be robbed of the car—not

here, not now.

Instead of climbing in, he stepped away from the car, stood looking intently around at the

ruined storefronts. He took a step my way, abruptly stopped dead, reached inside his coat, snatched

out a small revolver, brought it up and in the same movement fired. The bullet threw dust in my

face, sang off across the street and struck wood with a dull smack. Two more shots cracked before

the first had stopped echoing—all this in perhaps three-quarters of a second. I hugged the board

under me, dragged my gun clear as another shot scored concrete inches from my face. I squinted

through haze, centered my sights on the black necktie of the man as he stood with his feet planted

wide apart, frowning down the length of his outstretched arm. His small automatic flashed bright in

the same instant that my shot boomed. He leaped back, bounced against the side of the car, went

down on his back in the dust.

My breath went out in a long sigh, I holstered the .38, scrambled up to stand on the side of the

riven street. He was lying on his side like a tired bum curled up for a nap, his face resting in a black

paste of bloodied dust, lots of dustcaked blood on his shirt front. He was wearing a neat, dark suit,

now dusty, new-looking shoes with almost unscratched soles. His age might have been anything

from thirty-five to fifty. His eyes were open and a film of dust had already dimmed their shine. One

hand was outflung, still holding the gun. I picked it up, looked it over absently. It was a Spanish

automatic, nickel-plated. I tossed it aside, went through his coat pockets, found nothing except a

small rectangle of paper stating that the garment had been checked by Inspector 13. Maybe that had

been a bad omen. But then maybe he had not believed in omens.

His pants pockets were as empty: no wallet, no identification. He was as anonymous as a store-

window dummy. And he had tried, without warning and without reason, to kill me on sight.

* * *

Back inside the store, the man with the broken legs lay where I had left him, staring toward me

with glass eyes in a skull face.

"I met your friend," I said. My voice sounded strange in my ears, like an announcement

beyond the grave.

"You're all right," he gasped.

"He wasn't very smart," I said. "Perfect target. He shot at me. I didn't have much choice." I felt

my voice start to shake. I was not used to killing men.

"Listen," the skull-face said. "Get out now—while you can. There'll be more of them—"

"I killed him," I said. "One shot, one dead man." I looked down at the gun at my hip. "The

world is coming apart and I'm killing men with a gun." I looked at him. "Who was he?"

"Forget him! Run! Get away!"

I squatted at his side. "Forget him, huh? Just like that. Get in my car and tootle off, whistling a

merry tune." I reached out, grabbed his shoulder, not gently. "Who was he?" I was snarling between

my teeth now, letting the shock work itself out in good healthy anger.

"You. . . . wouldn't understand. Wouldn't believe—"

"Try me!" I gripped harder. "Spit it out, sailor! What's it all about? Who are you? What were

you doing here? Why was he after you? Why did he shoot at me? Who was he?"

"All right," he was gasping, showing his teeth. His face was that of a mummy who had died in

agony. I'll tell you. But you won't believe me." * * *

"It was almost a year ago," he said. "I was on satellite duty on Sheppard Platform when the

first quakes hit. We saw it all from up there—the smoke on the day side and the thousand-mile fires

at night. They gave the order to evacuate the station—I never knew why."

"Pressure from Moscow," I told him. "They thought we were doing it."

"Sure. Everybody panicked. I guess we did, too. Our shuttle made a bad landing southwest of

Havana. I was one of three survivors. Spent a few days at Key West; then they flew me in to

Washington. Hell of a sight. Ruins, fires, the Potomac out of its banks, meandering across

Pennsylvania, the Washington Monument sticking up out of twenty feet of water, the capitol dome

down, a baby volcano building up where Mount Vernon used to be—"

"I know all that. Who was the man I shot?"

He ignored me. "I gave my testimony. No signs of enemy activity. Just nature busting loose

like nineteen hells. There was some professor there—he had all the facts. A hell of an uproar when

he sprang his punch line, senators jumping up and yelling, M.P.'s everywhere, old Admiral

Conaghy red in the face—"

"You're wandering," I reminded him. "Get to the point."

"The crust of the earth was slipping, he told them. Polnac, that was his name. Some kind of big

shot from Hungary. The South Polar ice cap building up, throwing the machinery out of kilter.

Eccentric thrust started the lithosphere sliding. He said it had slipped more than four miles then.

Estimated it would hit an equilibrium at about a thousand. Take about two years—"

"I read the papers—or I did while there were any papers to read."

"Conaghy got the floor. Hit the South Pole with everything we had, he said; bust up the icecap.

He scribbled on the back of an envelope and said fifty super-H's would do the job."

"They'd have loaded the atmosphere with enough radioactivity to sterilize the planet."

"No, might've worked. Propaganda. Scared of the Russkis, what they'd do. I missed out on the

rest. They cleared the hearing room then. But I heard rumors later they'd put it to Koprovin and he

said that at the first sign of a nuclear launch he'd hit us with his whole menagerie." The hollow eyes

closed; a dry-looking tongue touched blackish lips. He swallowed hard. Then his eyes flew open

again and he went on: "That's when Hayle came up with his plan. Secret force to be dispatched to

the Pole, loaded with modified nuclear generator plant gear. There was a lot of resistance, but they

bought it. He picked me to go with him."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Vice-Admiral Hayle was lost on a routine orbital mission," I told

him. "I never heard of any polar expedition."

"That's right—that was the cover story. Cosmic Top Secret. Operation Defrost, we called it."

"Sounds as though you were on the inside."

He nodded, a weak twitch. All his strength was going into his story. "We sailed from San Juan

on Christmas Day. Two deep-water battlewagons, Maine and Pearl."

"They were lost with the submarine station at Guam."

"No. We had 'em. A dozen smaller ships, three thousand men. This was a major effort. New

York was already gone, Boston, Philly, most of the East Coast, San Diego, Corpus—you remember

how it was. Blue water over Panama. Hell, we spotted bodies floating a thousand miles at sea after

the tornadoes. Surface covered with floating pumice as far south as Tierra del Fuego; new

volcanoes there that made a glow in the sky six hundred miles east.

"Ice everywhere; a two-hundred-mile field of bergs broken loose from the cap. Looked like a

lot of ice, but it was just crumbs. I saw those blue ice cliffs, rising two miles sheer out of the sea,

peaks covered with black dust. That's a sight, mister. . . ." His voice trailed off; his eyes wandered

from me, staring into the past—or into a pipedream.

"The man with the gun," I brought him back. "Where does he come in?"

"We made our landfall; lost our first men scaling the ice cliffs. Never even found the bodies.

Treacherous footing. Used the new model laser-type handguns to melt a path up, then blasted. Took

two weeks to get our gear ashore. Funny, wasn't too cold. Big yellow sun shining down on the ice,

balmy breeze blowing. Gorgeous sunsets, but not much dust that far south. Ice looked fairly clean.

We started inland in heavy assault and landing craft. Made two hundred miles a day. Our target was

a spot Hayle had picked in Queen Maud Land—the Pensacola Mountains, under the ice. The plan

was to cut the glacier at the ridge and free a couple of hundred square miles of it to move off toward

the sea, with a little help from us. We were to bore sinks to the rock, and pump hot air down.

Theory was we'd create a lubricating fluid layer at the interface.

"We reached our site, set up a base camp, and started in. I had the north complex—six drill

sites stretched out over forty miles of glare ice. Things went pretty well. We were sinking our shafts

at the rate of about two hundred feet a day. Couldn't go faster because of melt disposal. On the

thirty-first day, I had a hurry-up call from Station Four. I went out on a snowcat. Trench—he was in

command there—was excited. They'd spotted dark shapes down in the ice, lying off some yards

from the shaft. Bad visibility, he said; the ice was as clear as water, but light did strange tricks down

there. I went down to see for myself.

"It was a regulation-type mine lift, open-work sides. I watched the ice slide up past me—lots

of dirt in it at places, strata two and three inches thick as black as your hat. We reached bottom.

Trench had widened out a chamber down there, thirty feet wide, walls like black glass, damp, cold.

Water dripping from the shaft above, puddling up underfoot, pumps whining, the stink of decay. He

took me over to where they'd smoothed off a flat place, like a picture window. It was opaque—like

polished marble—until we put the big lights on it. Then I saw what the excitement was all about.

"Rocks, bits of broken stone, tufts of grass, twigs. Looked as if they were floating in water,

frozen. Swirls of mud here and there, all petrified in the ice. And way back—maybe fifty yards—

you could see other things—bigger things."

"What kind of things?" I asked him, but he did not see me any longer.

"I told Trench to go ahead," the whispering voice went on. "Cut a side tunnel back. Sent word

to the admiral to come down. By the time he got there we were sixty feet into the side wall. I'd had

them steer for the nearest big object. He came down that tunnel swearing, wanting to know who the

damned sightseers were who were diverting our resources into jaunts off into the countryside. I

didn't answer him—just pointed.

"There, about forty feet away, a creature slumped a little sideways as though he'd leaned

against a wall for a rest. His trunk was curled back against his chest and his tusks sort of glowed in

the searchlight. Looked just like the old elephant they had in the zoo at home, when I was a kid,

except he had a coat of two-foot-long hair, reddish-black, plastered to his body as if he was wet.

"Hayle damn near fell down. He stood there and gaped, then yelled at the crew to work in

closer. We cleared the way, and they went at it. Water was sloshing around our feet, ankle deep; the

pumps weren't keeping up. Air smelled bad. Lots of small items melting out; small animals,

vegetation, black mud. He called a halt at ten feet. You could see old Jumbo now as if you were

standing just beyond a glass cage. There was dirt caked on his flanks, and you could see mud still

adhering to his feet. His eyes were open, and they caught the light and threw it back. His mouth was

half open and the inside was dull red, and his tongue poked out at one corner. One of his tusks had

the tip broken and splintered. They were yellower than elephant ivory, long and thin, and they

curved out. . . ."

"I know what a mammoth looks like," I said. "So you found one frozen; it's happened before.

What makes it important?"

He moved his eyes to look at me. "Not like this one, they haven't. It wasn't a mammoth! It was

a mastodon. And he was buckled into a harness like a circus pony."

Chapter Two

"A mastodon in harness," I snorted, I was humoring him. "I suppose that implies that

Antarctica was warmer once than it is now, that it was inhabited, and that the natives had tamed

elephants. If the world weren't in the process of shaking itself to pieces, I'd find that pretty

interesting, I guess—but still nothing to do murder over."

He lay there, his eyes shut, his chest rising and falling unevenly. His wrist was like a dry stick

when I checked it; the pulse was fast and light. I did not know whether he was asleep or in a coma.

Then his eyes opened suddenly. They were the only part of him that moved now.

"That was only the beginning," he said. His voice was fainter now, as though it were coming

from somewhere far away. "We went on down with the main shaft. At seventy-three hundred feet,

we came into a layer filled with artifacts like the Field Museum in Chicago before the lake got it.

Wood, vegetation, planks, pieces of structures, paper, cloth items. Clothing in vivid colors,

furniture, broken dishes—and some that weren't broken. Then we found the man." He stopped, and

his face twitched. I waited and he went on.

"Short—not over five six, thick in the body, arms like a wrestler. Covered with hair—like

Jumbo; pale, dirty-blond hair, and a face like your bad dreams. Big square teeth, and he was

showing 'em. Thin lips, pulled back. He looked mad—plenty mad. He was wearing clothes—mostly

straps and bits of brass, but well made. And there was a gun in his hand—a mean-looking weapon,

short, like a riot gun, with a big chamber. We tested it later. It blew a forty-foot crater in the ice on

the shortest burst I could fire. Never did figure out how it worked.

"It was all pay dirt from then on. More of these ape men, more animals; then we saw the peak

of what we thought was a mountain, rising up from below. It wasn't a mountain. It was a building.

We melted our way down to it, forced a door. There was no ice inside. We wondered about that;

then we decided that snowfalls had buried the buildings; and the inhabitants had evacuated, set up

temporary camps on the top of the snow. But it kept snowing. In time the weight compressed the

snow into clear ice. Probably there was some tunneling down to the city; we found what looked like

old bores, flooded and frozen.

"I was in the advance party that broke into the tower. Terrible odor. Strange-looking furniture,

mostly rotted, rotted rugs and wall hangings, some bones—men and animals. And one skeleton of a

modern man with a broken skull. We got the idea the Neanderthal types were slaves. Maybe one of

them paid off a grudge.

"There were plenty of metal and ceramic items around—not primitive. We were all pretty

excited. Then—things started to happen. We heard noises, saw signs that somebody had been there

ahead of us. Then men started disappearing. Found one man dead, with a hole in him. Hayle called

topside for reinforcements. No answer. He figured the cable was broken. He sent me up with a

couple of men to check on things, report what we'd run into. He was worried—plenty worried.

"At the top, Bachman and the other sailor stepped off. I stayed in the lift to run a test on the

telephone. I got Hayle: he yelled something at me, but I couldn't make it out. Sounded like shots;

then nothing.

"I started out to join the men—and it blew. I saw a flash; ice hit me in the face, and the car

started to fall. . . .

"When I came to, I was still in the car, in the dark. It was canted sideways, half full of

pulverized ice. I wasn't hurt much—a few bruises, but my left glove was gone, and my faceplate.

"I could see a dim glow up above. I went to work on the ice. It was like loose gravel. Maybe I

should have gone down to check on the Admiral—but I didn't. I got to the surface the quickest way

I could. The car had jammed in the shaft about ten feet down. There was nothing in sight but ice.

No sign of the camp, or of Bachman or the other men. And no signs of a big quake, either. Just a

sort of crater where the tunnel mouth had been.

"It was eight miles to Station Three. My snowcat was gone with the rest. I took a bearing on

the sun and started walking. Made it in just under five hours. Nothing there. Just a lot of broken ice.

"I took a break, rested, ate part of my suit rations. The coverall was keeping me warm enough.

The batteries were good for another couple of hundred hours. I headed for Station Four. Half a mile

out from it I found a motor sledge, loaded and fueled and footprints leading off to a ridge of ice,

blood on the snow. I followed. It was Hansen, dead.

"I took the sledge, went on in. It was the same—just a stretch of ice. No trace of the huts, the

equipment—or the men. The shaft was closed, obliterated. I used the radio on the sledge to try to

raise Base Camp. No answer.

"It took me four days to check out the camps and get back to the coast. We'd left the squadron

at anchor, sub-surface. I made it out to a tender—it was the closest to shore, and in shallow water. I

got in and found her flooded. We'd left a skeleton complement behind. Three of them were there,

dead, no marks on their bodies. I could have pumped her out, but I couldn't handle a two-thousand-

tonner alone. I took a motorized lifeboat, stocked it with canned goods, and headed north.

"Seven days at sea; then I made port at a small Argentine town that had been a plantation

village halfway up a mountain. It was a port now; a couple of hundred boats tied up to makeshift

wharves, refugees everywhere. I tried to find a doctor for my hand and face—frostbite. There

weren't any. No communications, either. I tried to pull rank on an Argentine gunboat skipper and

nearly got myself shot.

"That night I went down to my boat with an armful of fresh fruit I'd gotten for my wristwatch.

They jumped me as I was untying the dinghy to row out to her. I was lucky. The light was bad and

the first one missed with his knife and I nailed him with a boathook. I shot the other one, and

pushed off. Lots of lights on the beach by the time I headed out of the harbor, but nobody chased

me. "I made landfall south of Baton Rouge in four days. Played it cagey, brought her into a bayou

mouth at night, kept out of sight behind flooded-out houses. Left the boat hidden and got into town.

Tried to get a message off to a contact in Washington, but no luck. Chaos in the town. Famine was

beginning to pinch then. All the refugees from the coast and from the fault areas farther west. Air

like a foundry, soot everywhere, and more tremors every day.

"I took a car and headed east. Near Vicksburg a car tried to force me off the road. I fooled 'em;

they hit instead. I went back and looked them over. Two men, dressed in plain suits, no

identification. Looked about forty, fifty, might have been Americans, maybe not.

"Reached here on the third day—maybe a week ago. Saw food in here; then a quake caught

me. Thought it was them, at first—like the ice shaft." He twitched his face in a ghastly grin.

"You think the polar expedition was wiped out by—whoever is chasing you?"

"You can stake your life on it!" His whisper was fierce. "And they're in town now. They're out

there—looking for me. I was shrewd. I parked the car blocks away, meant to walk back. . . ."

"They're not there now," I reminded him, trying to speak gently.

"Searching the town," he said. "Won't give up. Find me in the end. And I'll be ready. . . ." He

lifted his hand an inch, looked puzzled. "Where's my gun?"

"You won't need it," I started. "I'm going to take you—"

"They got it," he said. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye, ran down his scarred face.

"Must have. . . . gone to sleep. . . ."

I got to my feet, fitted my mask back on. "Come on," I said. "Time to go." I got an arm under

his back, started to lift him. He gave a thin cry like a stepped-on kitten. His eyes blinked, settled on

my face.

"You take it," he said. "Show it. . . . them. Make. . . . listen. . . ."

"Sure, old-timer. Come on, now; got to pick you up—"

"Pocket," he gasped out. "Take it. Show. . . ." His jaw dropped and his eyes glazed over like

hardening solder. I checked his wrist again. The last feeble flutter was gone.

For a minute, in the total silence, I looked at him, wondering how much, if any, of the wild

story he had told had been true, and how much delirium. His pocket, he had said. I tried two, found

only dust. There was an old-fashioned watch pocket under his belt that I almost missed. I stuck a

finger in, felt something smooth and cool. I eased it out—a big, thick, round coin, just smaller than

a silver dollar, with the tawdry yellow shine of pure gold. There was a stylized representation of a

bird on one side; the obverse was covered with an elaborate pattern of curlicues that didn't quite

seem to be writing.

I pocketed it, stood up—and heard a sound from the street.

* * *

Below the level of the glass- and plaster-littered sill where the front window had been was a

scatter of glass chips and broken brick. I went flat on them, the gun in my hand without a conscious

move on my part. The sound came again; the rattle of my plank bridge under the weight of feet. It

was thirty feet to the back of the shop, through an obstacle course of fallen cans and broken bottles.

I made it with no more sound than smoke makes going up a chimney, got to my feet in an alley half

choked with flood-washed rubbish over-sprinkled with fallen stucco and drifted dust. It was almost

dark now; the sun had sunk behind the dust clouds. I moved along silent-footed in the dust carpet,

keeping near the wall to make my prints a little less obvious to anyone who might try to follow.

The street at the end was empty. I went along it to the corner, risked a look, saw a man in a

dark suit come out of the store. He went to the plank, climbed up. The street was dark except for

long shafts of blood red light striking across through gaps in the buildings. There were no birdcalls,

no hum of insects, just the creaking from the man on the bridge, going carefully on all fours. He

reached the top, stepped off. He must have found the dead sailor; that would satisfy him. Now he

would be on his way. I watched him move off out of sight; then I stepped out, hugging the building

fronts. I was not thinking—just reacting. It seemed suddenly important to keep him in sight, get the

license number of his car; maybe trail him. . . .

I heard the click of metal and dived, hit hard on cracked concrete, rolled, came up among the

folds of a dangling awning, heard the flat crack! of a gun. I could not tell what direction the shot

had come from; the dust muffled everything, killing echoes. Feet were hurrying toward me. I heard

a shout, an answer from above. The steps were slower now, passing by mere feet from me—

They halted, and I crouched, almost feeling the bullet crashing through my brain. It was not a

time for indecision. I doubled my legs, launched myself from my hideaway in a driving tackle, hit

him just below the knees—face-first. I saw a blinding shower of stars, and he was down, and I

lunged, caught a swinging arm, drove a fist into what felt like his throat. He made a noise like

broken pipes, kicked out, but I was across his chest now, my right hand on his throat. He pounded

my back like a pal trying to clear my windpipe, then quit and lay back. I got to my knees, breathing

hard. Blood was running down into my mouth, I squinted up at the higher section of the street, saw

a head moving along away from me. He had not heard the skirmish—or had not interpreted it

correctly. He thought his partner was still padding along the street, following whatever it was he

had fired at.

Kneeling, I checked the dead man's pockets. They were clean. He wore no watch, no ring,

nothing personal.

Steps were coming back. I saw, not thirty feet away, a silhouette against the streak of red sky

under the smoke layer. The man looked at the plank, swung round, started down, twisting his head

to look over his shoulder; dim light from below cast a ruddy highlight on his cheek. Then he saw

me. His mouth opened and I jumped, caught the edge of the two-by-six, heaved it up. He went over

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

CATASTROPHEPLANETChapterOneIheldtheturbo-caratasteadyhundredandforty,watchingthestripofcrackedpavementthathadbeenInterstate10unreelbehindme,keepingasharpeyeaheadthroughthedustandvolcanicsmogforanybreaksinthepavementtoowideforthebigcartojump.Abrand-newsix-megahorsejob,itrodehighandsmoothonatwo-footai...

展开>> 收起<<

Keith Laumer - Future Imperfect.pdf

共256页,预览10页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Keith Laumer - Future Imperfect

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: