Keith Laumer & Eric Flint - Future Imperfect

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Future Imperfect

Keith Laumer

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is

purely coincidental.

Catastrophe Planet (aka The Breaking Earth) was first published by

Berkley in 1966. "The Walls" was first published in Amazing, March

1963. "Cocoon" was first published in Fantastic, December 1962.

"Founder's Day" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy &

Science Fiction, July 1966. "Placement Test" was first published in

Amazing, July 1964. "Worldmaster" was first published in Worlds of

Tomorrow, November 1965. "The Day Before Forever" was first

published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1967.

thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3606-7

Cover art by Richard Martin

First printing, May 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Laumer, Keith, 1925-1993

Future imperfect / by Keith Laumer ; edited by Eric Flint.

p. cm.

Contents: Catastrophe planet — The walls — Cocoon — Founder's

day —

Placement test — Worldmaster — The day before forever.

ISBN 0-7434-3606-7 (trade pb.)

1. Science fiction, American. I. Flint, Eric. II. Title.

PS3562.A84F88 2003

813'.54—dc21

2003041678

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

A DISCOVERY OF MAMMOTH PROPORTIONS

The dying man stared at me with glass eyes in a skull face. "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 grabbed his shoulder, not gently. "Spit it out! Who are you? Why was he after you?

Why did he shoot at me? Who was he?"

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

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

"When the first quakes hit," he said, "they flew me in to Washington. Hell of a sight.

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. "Admiral Hayle came up with a plan. The South Polar ice cap was

causing the crust of the Earth to slip. Send an expedition to the Pole, loaded with nuclear

generator plant gear. We made our landfall. Lost men scaling the ice cliffs. Never even

found the bodies.

"We reached our site, set up a base camp, and started in. We were sinking our shafts

at the rate of about two hundred feet a day. On the thirty-first day, I had a hurry-up call

from Station Four. They'd spotted dark shapes down in the ice. I went down to see for

myself.

"They had widened out a chamber down there, thirty feet wide, pumps whining, the

stink of decay. They'd smoothed off a flat place, like a picture window. They put the big

lights on it. Then I saw what the excitement was all about. Rocks, tufts of grass, twigs.

Looked as if they were floating in water. And way back you could see other things—

bigger things."

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

"About forty feet away, a creature slumped sideways as though he'd leaned against a

wall for a rest. Looked 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."

"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. He was buckled

into a harness like a circus pony. . . ."

—from Catastrophe Planet

Baen Books by Keith Laumer,

edited by Eric Flint:

Retief!

Odyssey

Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side

A Plague of Demons & Other Stories

Future Imperfect

The Bolo Series:

The Compleat Bolo by Keith Laumer

Created by Keith Laumer:

The Honor of the Regiment

The Unconquerable

The Triumphant by David Weber & Linda Evans

Last Stand

Old Guard

Cold Steel

Bolo Brigade by William H. Keith, Jr.

Bolo Rising by William H. Keith, Jr.

Bolo Strike by William H. Keith, Jr.

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

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FutureImperfectKeithLaumerThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©2003byBaenBooksCatastrophePlanet(akaTheBreakingEarth)wasfirstpublishedbyBerkleyin1966."TheWalls"wasfirstpublishedinAmazing,M...

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Keith Laumer & Eric Flint - Future Imperfect

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