Voyagers IV - The Return Page 34

  Keith! Jo called. Keith!

  We’re all right, he answered. All around him the turmoil of doom churned and seethed. But the men inside the van were unharmed: frightened as men who had seen hell firsthand, gibbering, shaking, but physically safe. Neither the heat nor the blast nor the radiation of the explosion penetrated the shield of energy that englobed the minivan.

  But Stoner’s eyes saw beyond the chaos that surrounded him. Raoul, he thought. He tried to warn me. He tried to save me.

  Keith, the missiles, Jo said. They’re on track for China and Iran.

  You’ve got to stop those missiles, Jo. It’s up to you.

  I’m tracking them, she said.

  They’ve got to be destroyed.

  I’m trying!

  The billowing cloud of dust and gas that surrounded the minivan was thinning now. The technicians inside the vehicle had gone silent, wide-eyed, frozen with terror and awe.

  Stoner turned to Janagar, kneeling just inside the van’s sliding door, his whole body shaking violently. He grasped the Indian by his neck once again, calming him.

  “You’re not going to be a martyr after all,” Stoner said calmly.

  Janagar could only stare, his mouth hanging open, unable to speak.

  “Your tumor will be erased in a few hours. You will live for many years. You will see your grandchildren growing up around you.”

  The clouds outside the energy shield were dissipating rapidly now. Stoner could see the New Mexico sunshine piercing through them.

  “Krishna,” Janagar muttered, staring at Stoner. “You are the avatar of Krishna.”

  Stoner didn’t reply. Instead he left Janagar huddled among the terrified technicians and walked around the van to the driver’s door. “Slide over, please,” he said in Mandarin to the shuddering Chinese behind the steering wheel. “I’ll drive.”

  As he started the engine Stoner noted that not even the dust from the explosion had penetrated his energy shield. He didn’t need to use the windshield wipers at all.

  “We’re going back to the observation bunker,” he said to the shock-stunned technicians. “There are a few things I want to say to your leaders there.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Streaking above the thin layer of Earth’s atmosphere, twenty ballistic missiles rose on tongues of rocket flame, each headed for targets in Greater Iran and the People’s Republic of China. From the starship riding in high orbit invisible beams of energy lanced across thousands of kilometers of space and sliced into each and every one of the missiles. Each and every one of them exploded silently, raining debris down on the broad swath of deep blue ocean.

  I got them! Jo exulted.

  Good shooting, Sheriff, Stoner replied.

  None of the warheads detonated, she reported. I got the missiles before they armed themselves. The only explosion was there in the desert, where you are.

  Stoner was driving the minivan across the scrubby desert floor back toward the observation bunker, bouncing and squeaking across the denuded ground. For more than three kilometers from ground zero the desert floor had been turned to glass by the heat of the explosion. Stoner was back on the old road now, after skidding and sliding across the glassy waste. The half dozen technicians huddled in the van were utterly silent, stunned, dazed by their brush with nuclear death and their seemingly miraculous salvation. Janagar sat among them, wide-eyed with shock. And perhaps, Stoner thought, the beginnings of hope.

  In the rearview mirror he saw the pillar of dirty smoke and dust that rose like a cloud of evil high into the clear blue sky. But he only glanced backward. He quickly snapped his attention to the road, searching for a sign, a scrap of the van Tavalera had been driving when the bomb went off. Nothing. The shock wave of the explosion had crushed the minivan; the star-hot intensity of the plasma cloud had vaporized the vehicle and the man who had been driving it.

  Greater love hath no man than this, Stoner remembered from his childhood Bible classes, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  Tavalera. Raoul Tavalera. Not even a scrap of his DNA remains. There’s no way we can clone him, bring him back to life.

  Stoner felt sad, weary, frustrated by the finality of death. But as the minivan approached the observation bunker, a seething anger began to fill him. Murderers! he snarled inwardly. They tried to kill me. They were willing to kill these technicians and this poor frightened, bewildered Hindu. They killed an innocent, instead.

  When Stoner reached the observation bunker he stopped the minivan with a squeak of brakes and a swirl of dust, killed the engine, and then hopped down to the ground. Without waiting for the technicians he yanked open the bunker’s steel door and strode into the room full of politicians.

  The chamber was in chaos. They were all talking, yammering, hollering, at once. The President of the United States was standing at the front of the room, a pair of giant display screens behind him showing the mushroom cloud of the explosion dissipating into the clear New Mexico sky. A trio of contrails traced across the blue: planes from a nearby air base scrambled because of the nuclear blast, Stoner presumed.

  The President was shouting, red faced, his arms raised above his head in righteous anger. The Iranians and Chinese were on their feet, screaming at each other. Archbishop Overmire sat off to one side, soaked with perspiration and looking pale, drained. Sister Angelique stood beside him. She looked up at Stoner and her eyes went wide with shock.

  “Be quiet!” Stoner bellowed.

  They went right on yelling at one another.

  “Shut the fuck up, all of you!”

  Immediately they all fell silent, unable to utter a sound. They stared wildly around the room, several of them reaching for their suddenly muted throats.

  “Sit down,” Stoner commanded.

  Slowly, staring uncomprehendingly at him, the politicians took their chairs.

  “That’s better,” Stoner said, freeing them to speak once again. But they still sat mutely, staring at him as he strode to the front of the room.

  Radiating fury, Stoner leveled a finger at the Archbishop and said, “You tried to murder me.” Looking toward the rear of the room, where the pale, shaken technicians were filing in, he continued, “You were willing to sacrifice them to murder me. But it didn’t work. The only one you killed was a young man who had nothing to do with your schemes.”

  “Raoul!” blurted Angelique.

  “He’s dead,” Stoner said. “But I’m still here.” Turning to the President of the United States and his scar-jawed chief of staff, Stoner announced, “The missiles you fired have all been destroyed. Your scheme has failed completely.”

  General Bakhtiar found his voice. “Missiles? You launched missiles?”

  “At China?” Ling Po demanded.

  The President whimpered, “We thought . . . the explosion . . .”

  “He’s lying,” said Stoner. “The nuclear warhead that was supposed to be dismantled was actually triggered in order to kill me. And it was to serve as an excuse to destroy your nuclear facilities.”

  Ling Po shot to his feet, his face ashen with anger. “You attacked China!”

  Bakhtiar rose, too, fists clenched.

  “No one attacked anyone,” Stoner said. “The missiles have all been shot down.”

  “By whom?”

  “By me.” Stoner swept the room with his eyes. The politicians were confused, shocked, unable to believe what they were being told.

  Planting his fists on his hips, Stoner said, “I tried to help you. I wanted to allow you to solve your problems by yourselves. But I see that I was being naïve. I was allowing my own hopes to override your stupid fears and ambitions.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the President.

  “If you can’t learn to live peacefully by yourselves, then you’re going to live peacefully under my protection. I didn’t ask for this responsibility. I don’t want it. But I can see that there’s no way for me to avoid it.”

  “You can’t—”

 
; “You have no concept of what I can do,” Stoner said darkly. Pointing to the shaken technicians milling nervously in the back of the room, he added, “Ask your technicians what I can do. Ask them how they survived in the heart of that nuclear blast.”

  The room fell silent.

  Stoner beckoned to Janagar, gestured for him to come up and stand beside him. “This man was willing to give his life so that his wife and children could survive.” Pointing to Archbishop Overmire, “And this man was willing to allow him to kill himself, so that he could murder me and your technicians who were lured into witnessing what was supposed to be the dismantling of a nuclear weapon.”

  The Archbishop struggled to his feet, perspiring like a snowman in the desert sun. “I . . . it was for the good . . . I would never allow . . .” He gasped, then thunked back down into his chair, mouth gaping open, eyes blinking uncontrollably.

  Turning back to the assembled politicians, Stoner said more mildly, “I have a lot more to tell you. I’ll do it tomorrow, at the closing session of the conference on Tahiti, where your scientists will be in attendance. I’ll tell you everything you need to know then.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Stoner chose to fly back to Tahiti with Sister Angelique. He sat beside her in the plush passenger compartment of the Clippership. Archbishop Overmire, his face gray and sweaty, sat in the row behind them together with a half dozen various aides, all male.

  “It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

  “My idea?” Angelique echoed.

  “The bomb. You meant to murder me.”

  “The Archbishop—”

  “He approved the plan, but it was you who originated it. You killed Raoul.”

  Her eyes fluttered away from his. “I . . . I warned him. . . . I tried to make him stay inside the bunker. . . .”

  “You wanted to get rid of me. You’re guilty of attempted murder. Eight counts, including the technicians and that poor Janagar fellow. And the actual murder of Raoul Tavalera.”

  “That was an accident!” she cried.

  “Do you believe in hell?”

  Angelique twisted in her chair and asked the Archbishop, “They won’t prosecute me, will they?”

  Wiping his perspiring brow with a lily-white handkerchief, Overmire muttered, “That’s out of my hands, my child. It’s a matter for the civil authorities.”

  “But I only—”

  “You only wanted to get rid of a threat to your ambitions,” Stoner said, his voice low, accusing. “You had the technology from the stars at your fingertips and all you could think to do was to commit murder.”

  “It wasn’t that,” Angelique pleaded.

  “Of course not. You only wanted to protect the New Morality against the threat of something new.”

  Tears brimmed in Angelique’s eyes. “Yes. Yes, I did. I’m guilty. Guilty.”

  Stoner heard Jo’s scornful voice in his mind: When everything else fails, try crying.

  “What you didn’t understand is that I’m not a physical body that can be killed.”

  “But you’re here! I can touch you. . . .”

  “What your senses show you is an advanced form of virtual reality. I’m an illusion, Angelique. A projection. A thousand nuclear blasts couldn’t harm me because I’m not physically here. I’m more than a thousand kilometers away from here.”

  She blinked, trying to absorb what he was telling her.

  Behind them, the Archbishop lifted his chins a notch and said, “If she is to be charged with a crime, then I should be, too. I approved the plan. I’m just as guilty as she is.”

  Stoner turned toward Overmire, a grim smile on his bearded face. “You’re pretty crafty, aren’t you? You know damned well that no jury would convict you. No prosecutor in the United States would dare to file charges against you.”

  “Perhaps not,” said the Archbishop. “But I will stand beside my misguided assistant, nevertheless.”

  Still smiling, Stoner said, “I hope you really do believe in God. I hope your God deals with you justly. You belong in hell, you pompous self-deceiving hypocrite.”

  Overmire’s eyes flew wide. “You can’t speak to me like that!”

  “The truth hurts, doesn’t it? But don’t get upset; it’ll aggravate your condition.”

  “My condition? What condition?”

  “You’re dying. Killing yourself, actually. You don’t have long to go.”

  The Archbishop started to answer, but his words caught in his throat. Panting, perspiring, he finally choked out, “How do . . . How do you know . . .?”

  “It doesn’t take a genius.”

  “How long . . . do I have?”

  Stoner shook his head. “Be prepared to meet your God. If He’s willing to meet with you.”

  Overmire clutched at his chest and groaned.

  “That was cruel,” Angelique said.

  “So is murder,” Stoner replied. “So is starting a nuclear war. So is ambition that stops at nothing.”

  He looked hard at her and Angelique found that she could not turn away from his gaze. For many long moments she stared into his gray, angry eyes, feeling her body burning with shame and guilt, her mind tumbling a wild tornado of thoughts, fears, yearnings, remorse.

  “What’s to become of me?” she whispered. “What’s to become of me?”

  Four Clipperships rocketed across the broad Pacific that evening. Stoner sensed the other three, bearing the President of the United States and his aides; China’s chairman, Ling Po, with his inner staff; and the head of Greater Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, General Bakhtiar, and his closest advisors.

  A task force of the Chinese navy was steaming toward Tahiti, Stoner realized. And several squadrons of Iranian military jets carrying a full battalion of airborne troops. The U.S. Navy already had a carrier task group patrolling off the island.

  All the makings for a confrontation, Jo warned him. A confrontation that could trigger a war.

  It won’t, Stoner assured her. We won’t let it come to that.

  He sensed Jo’s ironic laughter. I wish I had your confidence.

  The children? he asked silently. Are Cathy and Rick all right?

  Yes, Jo replied. Although I don’t know if you’re going to like what they’re doing.

  What? What are they doing?

  Jo hesitated a heartbeat, then replied, Your daughter is solving the population problem and your son is wiping out the narcotics cartel.

  On their own? Without talking it over with us? Then Stoner realized that Jo knew exactly what the kids were doing and allowed them to go ahead.

  Stoner sighed unhappily. I wanted to avoid this. I didn’t want to have to take charge. I wanted them to solve their own problems.

  Jo’s reply rang in his mind: Darling, you’ve told us more than once that we’re part of them. There’s no them and us. We’re all part of the human race. We’re all Earthlings. What happens to them happens to us, as well. Rick and Cathy understood that better than you and I did. We’ve got to accept the responsibility. There’s no alternative.

  He knew she was right.

  I suppose I was too rough on Angelique, Stoner mused.

  She deserves whatever she gets, Jo snapped.

  He wondered about that. I could have stopped her long before she opted for murder. I could have tried to make her see, make her understand. Tavalera’s death is just as much my fault as hers.

  Jo’s reply was filled with disdain. Don’t blame the victim for the crime, Keith.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nagash Janagar shuffled through the physical exams with the six technicians who had also been at the blast. The hospital in Albuquerque was modern, sparkling with the latest equipment and staffed with energetic, young, competent medics.

  The seven men were accompanied by a squad of army Military Police, there to enforce security. As far as the medical staff knew, these men had been out in the open when the hydrogen bomb was accidentally triggered. The government would have preferred to keep the blast a secret
, but the star-hot flash and towering mushroom cloud had been clearly visible from Albuquerque. Seismographs around the world recorded the ground tremor. Satellites automatically flashed images of the explosion around the world before security agencies could stop them.

  In Washington and Atlanta, phalanxes of advisors and spin masters were working on explanations for the news media. The story was too big too suppress; it had to be “handled,” instead.

  With each medical inspection, each test, Janagar’s hopes rose a little higher. No external signs of injury: no bruises or burns anywhere on his body. X-rays and full-body scans revealed no internal injuries, either. No radiation damage whatsoever.

  He told the examiners of his brain tumor, and they pulled him aside from the technicians for special scans of his head.

  “Are you sure you were diagnosed with a tumor?” asked a puzzled doctor. “We can’t find any sign of it.”

  Sitting up on the examination table, Janagar told them to check his medical file. The physician turned to his palm-sized computer and projected its data onto the tiny room’s wall screen.

  “Wow!” he exclaimed. “That’s a tumor, all right.”

  Janagar peered at his own death.

  But then the image changed. Same brain, but no tumor. None at all.

  The physician blinked with disbelief. “I’ve seen spontaneous remissions, but nothing like this. Six weeks ago you were a dying man. Now you’re normal, healthy. I don’t understand it.”

  Janagar smiled like a little boy receiving a birthday gift. He understood. The star voyager. The man Stoner. A gift from the stars.

  The doctor insisted that Janagar stay in the hospital for a full battery of tests. Janagar laughed and easily agreed. Then he asked his M.P. escort for permission to phone his wife and tell her the happy news.

  Once the Clippership settled down on its landing jets at the Faa’a Aerospaceport, Stoner climbed into the waiting limousine with Angelique and Archbishop Overmire. The Archbishop started to protest, but one look at Stoner’s stern, unrelenting expression silenced him.