“But this one—we’re not supposed to know about it, but we have a source in the TNG’s Defense Department down in Athens. Three weeks ago the TNG’s Department of Intelligence sent a team of six Rangers across here”—he tapped a black arrow south of Terre Haute—“and they disappeared with no trace. One of them, too decayed for the pathologist to determine how he died, was found floating dead in the Wabash three days ago.”
Ecco tried to look imperturbable while his heart thumped. “And things are so bad over there, they think, that they’ll lose that many men trying to find out?”
Arnie’s finger traced out the arc of red crosses that paralleled the Wabash. “Assassinations since Apriclass="underline" twenty-two. Town constables, militia officers, sheriffs, mayors, one very diligent postmaster—anybody who was making things work on our side of the Wabash. The seven black circles are the four towns—villages really, none of them had more than two hundred people—that were burned out, and the three Castles. Nineteen black squares mark farms where the family was killed and the house burned. All that’s since April first. A few of them might have been Provi or Temper partisans burning each other out, or plain old bandits. But this looks much more to me like we have an enemy on the other side of the Wabash, and it doesn’t plan to stay there. Right now the thing we need most is information. We need you to see things, figure out what’s going on, understand it all—and most of all, bring it back.”
Ecco nodded, made serious by Arnie’s evident passion. “I understand the mission.”
Heather said, “Well, we can’t define what you should look for, exactly, or where you should look for it. We know nothing once you get any distance north or east of Pale Bluff. If it’s too hot south of Terre Haute, head north, maybe try crossing the Tippecanoe. And bring back what you see. That’s the most important thing on this mission. Don’t be a brave lion; what we need is a perceptive weasel.”
“Got it.”
Arnie said, “Now, this might or might not come up. We’re making a guess that the Lost Quarter is nearly hollow—most of the tribes are right up near the edge, where they can live by looting civilization. We’re basing that partly on the photos from the surviving Navy reconnaissance planes, which we can’t fly nearly often enough now, and partly just on the fact that so much of the Lost Quarter was a radioactive dead zone for months, so it doesn’t seem like there could be enough there to keep any sizable number of people alive. So our guess is there’s a tough outside and an empty inside. If it turns out we’re right, then just a few miles past the border you might find it much easier and safer to travel than it was getting in. So here’s something I’d like you to look into if—and only if—it looks like we’re right about that.” His fingers traced many pencil lines on the vellum. “Our direction-finding operation has gotten fixes on two stations broadcasting in a code that’s not ours, or either Federal government, or any Castle’s; all these bearing lines crisscross in these two small areas. We think this one near Bloomington is just a relay or a subHQ: it only broadcasts occasionally, usually after the other one does but not every time. When it does broadcast, it broadcasts for about as long as the first station did.
“The really active transmitter, the one that seems to start conversations, both with Bloomington and with other stations in the Lost Quarter, is this one, between Warsaw and Palestine, Indiana.” He laid down a few photographs. “These air photos from February show nothing in Warsaw or Palestine, but this one from April looks like dirt ramparts and walls under construction. So if by any chance, once you’re over the Wabash and you’ve evaded whatever has already cost twenty lives, if you need something to go take a look at, this might be something to look at.”
“But you’re really figuring I should just get in far enough to see what stopped the others, and then come back?” Ecco tried for a laconic drawl, but the more he looked at that map, the more his heart hammered and his stomach sank.
“Yeah,” Heather said. “Arnie is just making sure that if you get a really lucky break it won’t go to waste. You remember your Rogers’ Rangers rules, the bastard version?”
“‘Don’t take no chances you don’t have to’? You bet. Just by going on this trip, I’ve about used up my luck.”
“Right answer.” Heather nodded to Arnie. “I see why you said to send this guy.”
“I want him back,” Arnie said. “We’ve got beer to drink and waitresses to hustle.” The two men shook hands; Arnie added, “No kidding. I recommended sending you for a whole long list of good reasons. Make sure you come back!”
“Got it,” Ecco said. “And thanks for giving me the break; I wanted a mission like this.”
After he left, Heather said, “Is he crazy or what, to want this kind of mission?”
Arnie shrugged. “He wants to be the kind of man who can do it. Men all have dreams about what kind of guy they’d like to be—usually the kind of guy that can do something. It keeps you going when nothing else will, sometimes.” He rolled up the maps. “I myself want to be the kind of guy who hangs around with tough manly types. Why do you think I always come right over when you call, boss?”
Heather stuck her tongue out and made the raspberry noise.
On his way home, Ecco kept to the centers of the dark streets. The high, dark haze, the floating ashes of burned civilization, dimmed the waning moonlight more than usual. That was fine with Ecco. Nowadays, the moon was enemy territory; he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he could see it, it could see him.
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 12:15 AM MST. TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2025.
The moon was still low in the sky and dim. Darkness wrapped the old, empty tract houses in monochrome shadow; not just a ghost town, but the ghost of a town.
Arnie wished he’d asked Ecco to walk with him. We could have gone over mission details, and I could’ve had somebody to eat late supper with.
Or he could have just taken a house close to the center of the city in the first place. I’d already be home. Why did I act like a guy who wanted to be lonely?
He could see the watch’s lantern glinting half a mile away. I could run and join them and just stay with them till they passed my house. Lots of people do that. But the time to have done that would have been to catch them on Main, in front of the courthouse; now, they’d wonder what had frightened him. They might ask. What could he say?
Deep breath. Walk and breathe like you’re going to fight; if it turns out you are, it’s one less thing to worry about, and if not, it calms and clears the—
“Doctor Yang. Doctor Yang, doctus in the doctrine, the indoctrinated doctor.”
Arnie spun one step backward into the space he’d been about to walk into, cross-drew his knives and held them at ready. “I’ve been expecting you.”