War Mountain Page 5

  Chapter Eight

  Thorn Rolvaag’s voice was not as steady as he would have liked, but he was still little-used to speaking before the leaders of his own government and representatives from all the nations of the Trans-Global Alliance.

  At least, this time, he was sitting at a conference table rather than standing at a podium, and not even at the head of the table. But the President of the United States, who had just come up from Mid-Wake, was now asking him a direct question. “Do I get it straight, Dr. Rolvaag, that you’re saying we might be looking at the end of the world here?”

  Rolvaag exhaled, tried steadying his hands. “Yes, Mr. President, we could be. There’s no way to tell. At the moment, the fissure is opening toward the east, toward North America. So far, the fissure has remained stable to the west. At this stage, the possibility exists of a major cataclysm, or a final cataclysm.”

  The ambassador from New Germany interrupted. “How can we know, then, Professor? What I mean to say is that we cannot act on so little information, can we?”

  “I see several choices, sir,” Rolvaag blurted out. He hadn’t wanted to list the options as he saw them just yet, because they sounded wild, insane. But he was into it now, and these were the only options he had. They were based on computer scenarios he still had being rerun in the event of an error; but, he did not think there were any errors. “The worst-case scenario, I’m afraid, is for the end of the planet’s existence. If the fissure continues and dead-ends, that’s one thing. But the fissure could split against the North American plate and follow the old course of the Western Hemisphere’s ring of fire. That would mean that we’d see volcanic activity of a magnitude unprecedented in human history. The interim effects would be incalulable, but the end result seems inescapable. The Pacific Basin would, in effect, separate from the remaining body of the planet. The exact mechanism for human destruction is only speculative, but nonetheless certain.”

  “If that happens, Dr. Rolvaag, when?” the president asked.

  “Those calculations are still in the works. Not immediately, but not in a hundred years, either. We’d be talking months at the least and perhaps a decade at best.”

  “What are the other options, I mean for averting disaster, Professor,” the ambassador from Lydveldid Island queried.

  “Well, we can attempt to divert lava buildup, hence pressure, all along the trench, then carefully utilize nuclear explosions—those would be the only things powerful enough, and I have no idea of the explosive force we’d ultimately need, perhaps all of the nuclear weapons in existence on the planet. We’d have to seal the trench to prevent further expansion.”

  “What of the side effects of such a thing?” the ambassador pressed.

  “Those can be calculated, I believe, but use of such explosives would present a certain amount of unavoidable risk.”

  “If nothing worked to stop it, Doctor?” the president asked, his voice sounding almost too controlled.

  “Well, then, uh—we’d have only two choices.”

  “They are?”

  “Well, Mr. President, we could wait around for eventual extinction, mass death, really—”

  “Or not wait around,” the president said, finishing Rolvaag’s thought for him.

  “Yes, sir, not wait around, but leave. Some few of us, persons younger than ourselves, persons best suited not only to survive, but to thrive.”

  “Elsewhere,” the president said.

  “Yes, elsewhere than here.”

  “You’re the scientist, Dr. Rolvaag. What are the chances of finding an ‘elsewhere’ as we’ve been putting it?”

  Rolvaag looked the President of the United States squarely in the eye. “Opinion or fact?”

  “Try both.”

  “Fact is that ever since the Night of the War, we—as a race, the human race—have done nothing to find out anything about what’s out there. Presumably, the Eden Project records which were recorded in the fleet’s computers, might tell us something. But the government of Eden won’t release any scientific data because it might have military implications,” and he said what was on the tip of his tongue. “That’s a pile of crap as we all know. But, beyond that, we don’t have any data.”

  “That’s the facts, right? What’s your opinion, Dr. Rolvaag?”

  “Opinion, Mr. President? I believe that out among the countless billions of stars there is a hospitable place. The trick is finding it, which could take an almost incalculably long period of time.”

  “Does the technology exist, should such a course of action ultimately prove necessary, to—” the president seemed to be struggling for the right phrasing.

  “Send out an ark,” the Icelandic ambassador supplied.

  “Yes,” the president said.

  “It could be gotten together,” Rolvaag told them, “if we all pulled together, pooled our scientific talents, our resources.”

  “And the war we’re currently preparing for? That could deplete a wide range of needed resources, isn’t that correct, including the nuclear warheads that might obviate the planet’s destruction?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “And the fissure, Professor Rolvaag,” the Icelandic ambassador began, “was likely precipitated by the destruction on the Night of the War?”

  “Yes. I’d say that’s very possible,” Rolvaag told him.

  “So, mankind has brought about his own undoing through war, and his last hope for salvation will fail because of war. What fools we are,” the Icelander suggested.

  “But we must consider another human trait, Mr. Ambassador,” the president said. “That’s the will to survive. No matter how bleak it appears, we have only to recall past adversities—from the recent past and all throughout time—to see that even if the means of survival eludes us now, there is still hope.”

  Thorn Rolvaag was beginning to wonder. But he said, “Six hundred and twenty-first years ago, one country alone launched one hundred and thirty-two human beings into space and they survived. So, perhaps—” Rolvaag let the sentence hang.

  “Let us remember what they became,” the Icelandic Ambassador said sombrely. And Rolvaag had no words to counter his words. The Eden Project became Eden, and Eden had nothing to do with Paradise . . .

  Martin Rourke Zimmer let himself into the cryogenic laboratory. There was a palm-print reader beside the vault door and it would only respond to his own palm or that of his father, Deitrich Zimmer. The forces of the new Reich and those of Eden were in position for the attack against the mountain community in the wastelands along the northern Atlantic coast, their objectives the securing of a strong outpost near the easternmost edge of Eden and, of even greater importance, the retrieval of the Führer’s remains.

  Martin Zimmer’s father, Deitrich Zimmer, had personal charge of these forces, and (with Martin’s considerable assistance, because it seemed he had a natural talent for strategic and tactical planning) was beginning the final plan for ultimate victory.

  This was really why Martin Zimmer entered the cryogenic vault where the bodies of the clones were kept. The process was not easy, of course, as the bestial things which had preceded these ultimate creations of genius attested.

  But there were, at last, the required replicants or clones.

  It was like the wax museum at Eden City, really, except the figures were never wholly visible, but only partially so as the wisps of bluish gas would part, then reassemble. There was another difference, too. Within the cryogenic chambers were living human beings.

  “Father! And how are we, hm?” He stood before the chamber which housed the clone of John Thomas Rourke. “You’ll soon be out of there and leading a marvelously interesting life—as soon as we have the real brain to download into that empty thing of yours. Now, here’s a question, Daddy. What if we got you to hump the clone of my mother—who may already be getting herself humped by Wolfgang Mann, of course. But, would the two of you make me again? Or one of them?” And Martin gestured next down the line of chambers t
oward the clones of Annie Rourke and Michael Rourke.

  He walked past them and stopped before the chamber in which Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna rested. Like the others, she was naked. Unlike the others, however, she was exquisite, as physically perfect as one of the goddesses of Nordic legend. Soon, she would be his.

  Yet, Martin sighed, it would be fascinating to experience the real thing, if only just once, with her kicking and screaming because she knew what was happening. He’d have to see if he could arrange that. He looked at the sleeping clone of his birth father, saying, “You wouldn’t mind if I screwed good old Natalia, would you, Daddy?”

  Chapter Nine

  The black-and-white camouflaged jet aircraft was already visible in the distance, terrain following over the icefield, and perhaps already visible on Nazi sensing equipment as well.

  John Rourke and Paul Rubenstein were at the height of a steep, windswept slope, at the midway point down the mountain, still a considerable distance from the icefield where the V-Stol would land. It could only remain on the ice for moments at the most before having to take off again. Well beyond the icefield there was a sheer drop, and through his binoculars Rourke could see a canyon wall beyond. Within it, shimmering like a ribbon of silver from a Christmas card, there was a river, snaking eastward.

  John Rourke lowered his binoculars and checked the bindings of his skis, looked at his friend and asked, “Ready?”

  “Makes me wish I’d spent more time in Vermont than Florida when I was a kid, but yeah.” Paul had skied, he’d told Rourke once in conversation, but had never considered himself good at it. Yet, Paul was a better athlete these days than he had been in his youth, was in top physical condition and, if he was careful, would do all right. “Just remember I’m not Jean-Claude Killy or James Bond, okay?” Paul laughed.

  “Well, the resemblance is uncanny, actually,” Rourke told him, “but I’ll try to keep it in mind.” Rourke checked his gear, then pulled down his goggles and readied to dig in his poles. But, behind him, he heard a high-pitched whistle. Rourke craned his neck, turning to look back up the slope. About two hundred yards back, already in motion, there was a contingent from a factor he had failed to even consider: land pirates.

  Paul saw them too, saying hurriedly, “Those assholes won’t only draw attention to themselves, but to us. Idiots!”

  “We’ve got rifles, warm clothing, things they want, need.” There were four vehicles, improvised things, tracked, welded-up snow-tractor Frankensteins cobbled together with parts from junked transportation defying Rourke’s imagination. One of them was once, it appeared, a minitank of the type with which Rourke was familiar from New Germany, during the last days of the great war with the Russians.

  The four were arcing along a ridgeline paralleling the slope along which Rourke and Rubenstein had to travel. “Let’s go!”

  “I’m with you!” Paul shouted.

  Together, they dug in their poles and jumped off onto the slope . . .

  Wilbur climbed like a mountain goat; there were goats in New Germany which Emma Shaw had seen once during a Trans-Global Alliance field exercise.

  But it would have been unfair to ride the horse as he struggled, so instead they scrambled along with him, Alan Crockett leading the animal, Emma Shaw behind. “Wilbur, you’re a gentleman. I’ve been behind you for almost an hour now and you haven’t done anything to make me regret it, yet,” she announced.

  Crockett evidently heard her, calling back, “Well, we still have a few minutes left of this trail until we reach the canyon rim. There’s still time for Wilbur to disgrace himself.”

  She started to make a crack, but instead something she heard made her look upward so rapidly that she nearly lost her balance. Coming low over the far wall of the canyon she saw a German V-Stol, cammied up for operations over snow-covered terrain, but clearly, from its fuselage markings as it passed overhead, an allied craft, neither Nazi nor Eden.

  “Hey! Look!”

  “I saw it.” And Crockett urged Wilbur along the trail more rapidly now.

  Emma Shaw’s palms began to perspire within her gloves and her mouth was suddenly dry . . .

  Deitrich Zimmer looked up from his notes, the radio operator standing before him at stiff attention. “Forgive me, Herr Doctor, but you wished to be informed should—”

  “Yes, yes, I know.” Zimmer took the note from the young soldier’s hand and read it. An allied aircraft had been detected coming in below usual scanning levels from the east. That would be for Rourke and his Jew friend, of course, just as Zimmer had anticipated. He looked up from the transcription and told the young soldier, “You will notify all commanders in the sector that my orders concerning this aircraft are to be carried out to the letter.” The young man was scribbling hurriedly in his pad. “Reiterate to them that under no circumstances is this Allied aircraft to be interdicted.” And Zimmer waved the young man away. The thing about heroes—and Dr. John Rourke certainly was one—was that they were so wonderfully predictable.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time they reached the summit of the canyon wall, Emma Shaw heard gunfire, conventional small arms and heavier cartridge arms. The aircraft she had seen overflying the canyon was coming in for a vertical landing on the ice field, but it was neither the origin nor the target of the gunfire. The origin was a group of vehicles—four of them, as motley a collection as she had ever seen—riding recklessly along a ridgeline paralleling a smooth, snow-swept slope. There were two men on skis coming down along the slope, one of them moving quite easily it seemed, the other moving steadily but with considerably less apparent grace.

  “Land pirates,” Alan Crockett said very simply as he crouched beside her. Then he took her by the shoulder and turned her around. “That V-Stol’s big enough, isn’t it? You’re a pilot.”

  “For Wilbur?” Emma looked at Alan Crockett, then at his horse. “The cargo bay, you mean, big enough to handle—”

  “You know what I mean. Let’s go.” And Crockett didn’t say another word. He wrestled Wilbur up from the snow, great clouds of it rising as the animal’s hooves settled and it shook itself. Alan Crockett almost literally vaulted into the saddle, throwing down his hand for her to grab him at the wrist. She did and he swung her up behind him. “We ride toward the aircraft. You have to promise me that you’ll get Wilbur out of here.”

  “He’s not your horse, he’s your friend and you love him.”

  But Alan Crockett didn’t answer her. Instead, he dug in his heels and rasped, “Gyaagh!” Wilbur, despite his docile appearance, lunged ahead, across the ice field, toward the aircraft . . .

  There was a mogul, and Rourke forced the heel ends of his skis apart, bearing down on the toe ends, but only slightly. As he started to turn, Rourke twisted his upper body, his left shoulder pointing away from the mogul. As his knees bent, he drew the heel ends of the skis into his new direction, almost imperceptibly throwing his weight to the outside ski, jabbing his poles deep into the snow and thrusting forward.

  He was accelerating, hoping that Paul saw the mogul in time.

  But there was no time to look back toward his friend. The nearest of the four land pirate vehicles was closing from the left, gunfire emanating from the open hatch in the crude turret at its top, bullets lacing through the snow mere feet from where Rourke skied.

  The land pirates might be some of those who worked hand-in-glove with the Eden Defense Forces, or independents. But Rourke was mildly surprised that the gunfire had not already attracted Nazi forces.

  There were rocks ahead and to the left. Rourke christied again, veering toward them, then dug in his poles, twisted his body left and skidded to a lateral halt in a spray of wet snow.

  Paul was coming fast, but controlled, and Rourke shouted to his friend over the gunfire and the roar of the vehicle engines, “Make the plane! I’ll be right behind you!” Rourke kicked out of his bindings, then dove to cover behind the rocks as Paul skied past.

  Rourke loosened the sling for the
HK-91, bringing the rifle to his shoulder, cheeking it as he bit away his right outer glove. He thumbed the selector off 0 to 1, settling the .308’s sights on the gunman in the lead vehicle’s turret. As a burst of automatic weapon-fire rang across the rock near him, John Rourke squeezed off his first shot.

  The HK-91 was a true rifleman’s rifle, in the World War II sense of the term. It was accurate, rugged and fired a manstopping cartridge. It wasn’t a spray and pray gun in a caliber that many experts—himself not included, because he’d always found the .223 adequate in antipersonnel work—considered questionable at best.

  Leading the tracked vehicle ever so slightly, Rourke’s finger finished the trigger squeeze with the rifle’s sights settled on the throat of his target, thus allowing for terrain variances which might raise the head or lower it, still giving the opportunity for an instantly killing shot. The man’s head snapped back and his weapon—it looked like some sort of belt-fed machine gun fitted with an improvised stock and vertical front hand-grip—sprayed upward.

  Rourke looked over the rifle’s sights, searching for a chink in the vehicle’s armor. And, he found one, a slotted panel; at the front and through which the driver viewed the terrain. The slot seemed to be about three or four inches high and at least twice that wide. Rourke inhaled, let out part of the breath, held the rest in his throat and began the trigger squeeze. Such a small target on a moving vehicle would be a dicey shot at best, but if he connected, the following vehicles would have to stop or pull off the ridge-line in order to avoid striking this one.

  Rourke led the target less, mentally adjusting for elevation as he squeezed the trigger again, then again, no ricochets visible this time, and for a moment no sign that he had struck his target. Then the vehicle began to swerve, cut a sharp right and started straight toward Rourke’s position. But the rocks which formed the boundary for the ridge-line got in its way. The vehicle slammed into the low rock wall and stopped dead.