Voyagers IV - The Return Page 32

  At the lunch break, Angelique looked almost frantic.

  “Where is Stoner?” she demanded as she sat with Tavalera at a table for two in the cafeteria that had been set up out at the beach for New Morality staff members.

  “He’ll be here when he wants to be here,” Tavalera replied carelessly. He looked out across the sea of tables to the sparkling blue ocean surging gently against the black sand beach. The sky was a perfect blue, dotted with puffy cumulus clouds riding on the trade wind.

  “He’s got to be here by tomorrow,” Angelique said, her lovely face marred by worry lines between her brows. “We’ve set up the demonstration for the third day of the conference. He’s got to be on the flight to New Mexico.”

  Tavalera knew that Archbishop Overmire, the President of the United States, and the leaders of Greater Iran and China were scheduled to attend the dismantling of a token American nuclear weapon.

  “He’ll be there,” Tavalera said, trying to show a confidence he didn’t really feel.

  But that night, as Tavalera brushed his teeth in preparation for bed after a wearying afternoon of listening to forecasts of doom from scientists and assurances of prosperity from politicians, Stoner appeared in the bathroom doorway. He was wearing a gaudy islander shirt hanging loose over khaki-colored shorts. And sandals.

  “Knock knock,” said Stoner.

  Tavalera spat out toothpaste-foamed water. Instant anger at Stoner’s deception boiled up in him, but he forced it down and said coldly, “We were wondering when you’d show up.”

  “We?”

  “Angelique and me.”

  “I haven’t missed anything important, have I?”

  He’s not inside my head anymore, Tavalera realized. He doesn’t know what I know anymore.

  “Naw,” he replied. “Just a lot of hot air. But she’s in a sweat about getting you to New Mexico in time to witness them dismantling a nuke.”

  “I’ll be there,” Stoner said.

  “They’ve got a special flight to take the VIPs from here to—”

  “I won’t need it,” Stoner interrupted. A ghost of a smile curved his lips. “I’ve got my own transportation.”

  Tavalera grunted. “Yeah. I know.”

  With that, Stoner vanished.

  Bertram Feingold was much more startled when Stoner appeared in his hotel bedroom. As he sat up in bed the scientist had an ancient frayed Tibetan robe pulled around his shoulders, a gift from an anthropologist friend who had died years earlier. Feingold was reading a technical report projected from his pocket phone onto the display screen that spanned one entire wall of the modest room.

  “Who the hell— Oh! It’s you.”

  Stoner sat in the room’s only chair. “I’m sorry to startle you. I wanted to find out if you’ll be at the demonstration in New Mexico.”

  “Demonstration? What demonstration?”

  “The United States is going to dismantle one of its nuclear weapons as a show of good faith to the leaders of Greater Iran and China.”

  Feingold’s petulant expression showed what he thought of the idea. “And they expect Iran and China to do likewise?”

  “It’s a step toward disarmament,” Stoner replied.

  “Hooey. If they dismantle a hundred bombs, that’s a step toward disarmament. One nuke—that’s just a public relations stunt.”

  Stoner nodded. “That’s what you think?”

  Hunching forward slightly, Feingold said, “I’ve done my homework. I’ve read up on the disarmament treaties of the past, particularly the ones between the U.S. and the old Soviet Union.”

  “The Cold War,” Stoner murmured, recalling it from his previous life.

  “Scientists took a major role in moving East and West toward disarmament,” Feingold said. “Guys like Bethe and Sakharov. Took them years. Then the politicians and diplomats got into the act. Took them even longer. More years. Nobody disarms just because one bomb’s been dismantled.”

  “But it’s a step,” Stoner insisted. “A first step. That’s important, don’t you think?”

  Feingold shrugged and his robe slipped down off his skinny shoulders. “Maybe,” he conceded grudgingly. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  CATHY

  Cathy sat beneath a big bright umbrella at a tiny round table set up on the sidewalk in front of the café, sipping at the strong black coffee, scanning the crowded street.

  She told me she’d be here at one o’clock, Cathy said to herself. It’s almost half-past.

  It really doesn’t matter, her mother said in her mind. You could start with any woman, anywhere.

  I know, but I wanted it to start with Mina. She’s my friend. I wanted to start with her.

  You’re sentimental! Jo sounded surprised.

  Cathy smiled. Maybe when this is all over, Mom, and things have stabilized, maybe I’ll come down here to live for a while. Find a man to love, like you found Dad.

  Jo went from surprise to shock. You can’t do that!

  Why not, Mom? I’m just as human as you are. When I want to be. Cathy giggled inwardly at her mother’s consternation.

  And then Cathy saw Mina hurrying through the crowd, the expression on her face strained, worried.

  Cathy waved to her friend and Mina’s eyes widened with recognition. She pushed through the crowd and slipped into the chair next to Cathy’s.

  “I’m so sorry to be late,” Mina said before Cathy could even say hello. “I had to take my mother to the hospital this morning.”

  “The hospital?”

  “She had a fainting spell. We were afraid it was her heart.”

  “And?”

  Mina took in a deep breath. “It’s all right. Her blood pressure was very low, but the doctors injected her with an iron supplement. All she needs now is a day or so of rest.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Cathy. “It must have scared you.”

  “Yes, it did. My grandmother died at the same age.”

  “In her sixties?” Cathy guessed.

  “Fifty-seven,” said Mina. “My mother is fifty-seven.”

  She looks ninety, Cathy thought.

  Signaling to a waiter, Cathy ordered a coffee for her friend.

  “I can’t stay long,” Mina said apologetically. “I’ve got to get back home and do the shopping for dinner. And the cooking, with Mama in the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here. I should have brought a pocket phone with me.”

  “It’s all right,” Mina said as the waiter placed the delicate cup before her. “It’s good to get away, even for a few minutes.”

  Cathy looked into her friend’s face. She’ll be an old woman before she’s fifty, just like her mother and her grandmother, Cathy thought. Unless I act.

  Reaching out, Cathy clasped Mina’s free hand. “I hope everything works out for you,” Cathy said as a batch of nanomachines swarmed from her skin to Mina’s and made their purposeful way into her body.

  “Thank you,” said Mina, never realizing the gift Cathy had just given her.

  For the rest of the day Cathy shopped in the stores, walked along the crowded streets, bumped into other women in the crowds, touched hands with saleswomen, spread her nanomachines with each woman she contacted.

  The nanomachines were programmed to spin a protective shell around almost all the eggs each woman carried within her. Almost all. The women would not be infertile, nor would they change in any discernable way. They simply would not have more than two children, three at the most.

  Six degrees of separation, Cathy thought. It’s been proven that each human being on Earth is only six contacts away from every other human being. Within a few months, a couple of years at most, they’ll all be protected. All the women on Earth. Birthrates will decline. Population pressure will ease.

  Do you think that will save the world? Jo asked in Cathy’s mind.

  Cathy smiled. It might. It just might.

  BOOK VI

  THE NEW WORLD

>   All men by nature desire to know.

  Aristotle

  CHAPTER 1

  It was nearly dawn on Tahiti. The eastern sky was turning from milky white to a glowing pink. The stars were fading in the growing radiance, even though the Sun had not yet risen above the ocean’s horizon. The waiting Clippership’s diamond hull glinted in the pale light.

  Tavalera thought that Angelique seemed apprehensive as they walked together down the enclosed ramp that connected the Faa’a Aerospaceport terminal to the waiting Clippership.

  “Nothing to be nervous about,” he said to her. “It’s just a rocket. It’ll get us to New Mexico in less than an hour.”

  She nodded absently, her mind obviously elsewhere.

  As they entered the hatch of the squat, cone-shaped rocket vehicle, Tavalera continued, “The conference’s goin’ good. Everybody seems happy about it.”

  “Yes, I agree,” said Angelique.

  “Nobody knows the Archbishop’s goin’ to New Mexico. He’ll be back for the big breakfast session tomorrow.”

  Angelique nodded. She’s torqued up about something, Tavalera thought. And it ain’t the conference.

  They sat side by side in the Clippership’s lower passenger compartment. Only four others were with them, all men, strangers to Tavalera. Archbishop Overmire, together with Melillo and several other White House staffers, rode in the upper compartment.

  The rocket lifted off with a blast of thunder, pushing Tavalera and the other passengers into their seats with a force more than twice normal gravity. After a few rattling, roaring minutes the engines shut down and everything went eerily silent. Tavalera felt the old sensations of weightlessness. Grinning inwardly, he felt an urge to unstrap and float out of his seat. But he stayed put.

  Beside him, Angelique asked, “You’re sure that Stoner will be at the demonstration? It’s important, urgent. . . .”

  Tavalera tried to shrug, but the shoulder straps of his safety harness made it difficult. “He said he’d be there. He’ll be there.”

  “How does he know where it is? Where he’s supposed to be?”

  “He knows; don’t worry about it.”

  But the lines on her fashion model’s face showed that she was worried. Very worried.

  In the Clippership’s upper compartment, Archbishop Overmire and Oscar Melillo were discussing their own worries.

  “What if Stoner doesn’t come to the . . . eh, demonstration?” the Archbishop mused. He had expected to feel sick in weightlessness and had dosed himself heavily with antinausea medications.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Melillo. He seemed to be handling zero gravity without difficulty. “We launch the preemptive strikes just as the bomb goes off. They’ll never know what hit them.”

  “China and Iran both.”

  “That’s right. Ten missiles each.”

  “Ten?” Overmire felt a pang of alarm. “Isn’t that much more than you need?”

  “Got to figure their antimissile defenses. Ten ought to assure us that at least two or three of our birds will hit their targets.”

  “Two or three megatons,” Overmire muttered.

  “Enough to do the job. More than enough.”

  “Overkill.”

  “Better than underkill,” Melillo said with a sly chuckle.

  “And the collateral damage?”

  Melillo waggled a hand in the air. “Those facilities are way out in the boonies. Nearest towns are miles away.”

  “But the people working at the facilities,” the Archbishop murmured.

  “They’re dead meat.”

  Overmire lapsed into silence. I’ll have prayers said for their souls, he told himself. Even though they’re heathens, we can offer up prayers for them.

  Folding his hands over his bloated middle, the Archbishop closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. But his mind was active.

  Stoner, he thought. He’s got to be there. We’ve got to put an end to him.

  The Archbishop took in a deep, steadying breath and said to himself, Once we’re rid of this star man and we’ve decapitated the Chinese and Iranian threats, then we can begin the process of bringing the peace of Christ to the entire world.

  He actually did fall asleep. With a smile on his face.

  Meanwhile, Nagash Janagar was at his post in the New Mexico desert, checking out the coffin-sized warhead that contained the hydrogen bomb.

  He had removed the covering panels so that he could inspect the bomb’s innards. He stared into it, his dark, soft eyes wide with a mixture of awe and dread. Such a complicated device, so intricate, he thought. So powerful. So very powerful. The energy of the atom is locked up inside it.

  For the hundredth time he surveyed the components of this instrument of death. There is the fission bomb that triggers the hydrogen device, he said to himself, actually touching the plutonium bomb’s outer shell with the palm of his hand. He expected it to feel hot, but the metal alloy was only slightly warmer than his own flesh. There is the fusing device, and here in the middle is the hydrogen bomb itself, tritium and lithium. So small to contain the power of a million tons of explosive. So small. So deadly.

  Jagash went over each and every one of the safety interlocks, making certain that they had all been disabled. Then he activated the master computer and started its countdown. At the preset moment, the explosive bolts will fire, forcing the two halves of the plutonium sphere to come together. The plutonium goes critical and explodes. Picoseconds later the tritium reaches its ignition temperature and the main bomb goes off.

  A megaton of energy is released in the flash of a nanosecond, he knew. This building and everything around it will be blown into star-hot plasma. The mushroom cloud will rise into the stratosphere. The light will blind any creature who looks this way.

  Everything for five kilometers around will be evaporated, Jagash told himself. Everything. Including this man who claims he has been to the stars. Including me.

  I am become death, shatterer of worlds, he quoted from the Bhagavad Gita. I will leave this vale of tears and achieve Nirvana. Away from all the pain and strivings of the world. Safe in the arms of Vishnu and the other gods.

  His own thoughts surprised him. I accepted Christianity, he said to himself. I let them make me a Christian. But only in my mind, he realized at last. Only because it was offered as a way out of poverty and grief. Not in my heart. Not in my soul. Vishnu, Krishna, Rama—they are with me always. And soon I will be with them.

  CHAPTER 2

  From his vantage point atop the butte Stoner could see the complex of buildings dotting the drab, dusty desert floor. It was mid-morning, and the New Mexico sun beat down out of a cloudless turquoise sky. For this appearance he had chosen to clothe himself in a light open-collared shirt, denims, and scruffy brown boots. I should have included a cowboy hat, he thought as he squinted in the brilliant sunshine, almost laughing aloud at the idea.

  Focusing on the small concrete building standing alone far out in the scrubby desert, he said to himself, That must be where the bomb is. A single unpaved road led to it. A lone Humvee was parked outside it, ancient and dusty brown with faded lettering on its doors that read: U.S. ARMY.

  Somebody’s in there, Stoner realized. With the bomb.

  Slightly more than ten kilometers away stood a group of three concrete bunkers, clustered together in the bare landscape like an alien presence in the arroyo-seamed land. There was a parking lot off to one side. More than a dozen trucks and vans were lined up there in neat, militarily precise rows. Farther off, almost lost in the dust-hazed distance, was a landing strip and a small glassed-in control tower. Must get pretty warm in there, Stoner thought, with all this sunshine pouring down.

  The thrumming noise of a helicopter reached his ears. No, he saw: three helicopters. All three of them were unmarked, as if the occupants didn’t want anyone to know who was in them.

  Raoul’s in the one on the left, Stoner realized. He sensed Tavalera’s presence, even though he didn’t make a
firm mental contact with him. Raoul doesn’t want me in his mind, Stoner knew. I’ve fiddled with his head enough to make him angry with me. I’ll have to make amends to him, somehow, after this is over.

  With the lightest of mental touches Stoner identified the others in the helicopters. Sister Angelique was riding with Tavalera, together with Archbishop Overmire and the President of the United States and that man Melillo from the White House. And a half dozen Secret Service agents in dark suits that bristled with sensors and weaponry. Ling Po and General Bakhtiar were in the other two choppers, each accompanied by his personal staff people and bodyguards.

  Stoner smiled to himself. They don’t fully trust one another. Can’t say that I blame them.

  High overhead a squadron of fighter planes etched thin white contrails against the otherwise unblemished sky. Honor guards, Stoner thought, although he knew the fighters were prepared to attack anything that threatened the VIPs’ helicopters.

  Jo’s presence sounded in his mind. You know that this is a trap, she said.

  You’ve got a suspicious mind, Stoner replied lightly.

  I know how they think, how they work, Jo insisted. I was a captain of industry once, remember? Not a starry-eyed scientist, like you.

  Stoner smiled inwardly. Jo, they’re trying to take a step toward disarmament.

  They could blow that bomb instead of disarming it.

  And kill the technicians? Just to get me?

  That’s what I’d do if I were in Overmire’s place, she said implacably.

  I’m glad you’re not, then.

  It’s a trap, Jo warned again. They want to kill you.

  With a sigh that was almost reluctant, Stoner said to his wife, Well, they can try, I suppose.

  He was waiting for them as their little motorcade of black minivans drove up to the observation building, standing at the entrance to the windowless concrete structure, squinting slightly in the blazing late morning sunshine.

  The minivans they rode in were painted dead black. White would be better for the desert, Stoner thought. They pulled up and the bodyguards got out first. American, Iranian, or Chinese, they were all pretty much alike, Stoner thought: bulky men in dark suits and darker glasses. There were two women among the Americans, none with the Chinese or Iranians.