The road was draftsman straight. The rural roads of Wisconsin had been laid out by a maniac armed with T squares and straight edges. It stretched toward the vanishing point on the horizon, where it converged with the fence lines on either side. Sherrine had the sudden, disorienting notion that it was the road that was fenced in, and they drove along a long, thin, blacktopped pasture.
A weathered sign dangled at the roadside. JUNCTION, COUNTY ROADS F AND CC. Wisconsin county roads bore letters. A, B, C; AA, BB, CC. Steve had joked that if they found Route KKK he'd just as soon turn back.
They came on the intersection, right-angled as she had known it would be, and Bob spun the wheel and they turned right, leaving the Interstate farther behind.
It made sense to assume that the Interstate Highways out of Minneapolis would be watched; sure it made sense to take back roads. But she was tired of watching the richest dairylands in the world turning into desert; she was tired of watching patiently starving milch cows convert the last of the northern prairie into cow pats and methane. Every year, more and more water was locked into the Ice. The prairie lands at the foot of the glaciers were becoming scrub desert. Like West Texas, only cold.
"Cornish game hens," Fang said suddenly.
Her head came up. "What?"
"Alex! How about Cornish game hens? For the ship. They're small, but they're great eating."
The Angel grunted. "They sound delicious."
"They taste like chicken."
Sherrine heard the wistful humor in the older man's voice. "I'm sure they do."
"Say, Alex," said Thor. "Don't just take female animals up with you. Take pregnant female animals. Embryos don't weigh anything and you get two critters for the mass of one."
Bob braked suddenly and Sherrine jerked into her harness and then bounced against the headrest. Steve, who had been sitting lotus-fashion in the back, caught himself on the back of her seat. "What the hell?"
"What happened?" asked Alex.
Sherrine turned. "Are you guys all right?"
"I'm sorry," said Bob. "The bridge is out."
Sherrine followed his finger. The road bed crossed a crumbling concrete slab. Holes gaped in the paving and corroded reinforcing bars showed through. The bridge abutments looked as if they had come loose from the earth embankment. Off to the left the dirt had been chewed into muddy ruts by truck tires. Matching ruts corrugated the farther bank. "Doesn't look like anyone has used that bridge for a while," Sherrine said.
Bob hopped from the van and walked to the edge of the creek bank. "Ford over here. Doesn't look deep."
Sherrine left the van and joined Bob at the bridge. Where was the county road crew? How bad had the infrastructure gone that they hadn't had the time or resources to fix this bridge? She ran her glove along the crumbling masonry. Not for a long time.
Thor and Fang joined them.
"I think the van can make it across," Bob said.
Fang walked out onto the bridge span. "Slab bridge," he commented. He crouched with his hands on his knees peering at the cracks and holes. Then he jumped across one gaping hole to the other side, and Sherrine held her breath, afraid that he might fall through.
Thor said, "It looks bombed. Maybe we've driven into a war?"
"No. Spalling," Fang called back. "Worst case of spalling I ever saw."
"What causes it?"
"Water and salt get down cracks in the concrete. The salt corrodes the steel reinforcing rods. Then the water freezes and expands. Concrete chunks pop right out of the road surface."
And the freezing season has grown a lot longer, Sherrine thought, and they salt the roads a lot more.
Fang danced back to the bank where Thor waited. "So what do we do?" asked Thor. Fang looked at Bob.
Bob said, "Drive across the ford."
Fang ran one of his outsize fingers along his nose. "Maybe. But if we try to cross and get stuck, we won't be up the creek, we'll be in it."
Bob worked his lips; then he sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Jesus, can you imagine being stuck out here in, the middle of nowhere? It's so empty. I haven't seen a soul for the last score of miles."
"Don't you believe it," said Thor. "There were eyes in every one of those farmhouses watching us as we went past. They don't like or trust strangers out here. If you ain't white and Protestant, you ain't shit. Sorry, Steve."
Stephen Mews was standing by the opened side door of the van. He shrugged. "It isn't exactly news to me."
Sherrine waited, shivering. It was worse than that. This was Proxmire country. These were the people who had elected and reelected the nation's premier technophobe to the Senate, where he could give his Golden Fleece Award every month to some especially vulnerable example of scientific research.
Most of the targets he had drawn bead on had cost less than a single Washington bureaucrat. So how would these people react to a band of technophiles travelling in their midst? The Senator had always voted for dairy price supports. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. She supposed that if she had been a Wisconsin farmer she might have voted for him, too. Farm subsidies never won the Golden Fleece.
Bob nodded. "Okay. We'll look for a detour. Maybe the next road over goes across." He patted his jacket. "At least we can't get lost while we have the transponder. We know which way we want to go. It's just a matter of finding a road that will cooperate."
They trudged back toward the vehicle. "Sure hope so," said Fang.
"Yeah," said Bob. "I'm tired of zigzagging all over Pierce County."
Sherrine took hold of the handle to hoist herself back into the van. Fang shook his head. "Ah, sightseeing, I don't mind. It's the blizzard that bothers me." He pointed skyward with his chin.
Sherrine jerked her eyes upward. Black clouds huddled on the northern horizon. The wind blew cold and from the north. There was a taste of ice in the air.
Yeah, she thought. Thor and Fang have no jobs. They didn't have to call in and take vacation days. They could have trucked the Angels themselves, if Bob would lend them his van. But that sunuvabitch, Bob, he had to go and volunteer to do the driving. She dropped into her seat and pulled the door shut with a slam. Was she in a contest with Bob to see who would take the most risks?
She stole another glance at the northern clouds while Bob made a U-turn on the county road. Risky business, she thought. I sure hope I'mback at my desk next week. Not that she didn't have more vacation days coming, but … Risky business, she thought again, but at least they don't know I'm involved with the Angels.
The INS was late for the meeting and Lee Arteria spent the time waiting by doodling on the scratch pad. All the seats around the table had scratch pads and pencils in front of them. Arteria had never seen anything useful recorded on one. The pencil traced a light circle, slightly oblate. Arteria studied it, grinned and added two smaller circles on the sides. Chipmunk cheeks. A tiny pout of a mouth. Two large, little kid eyes, with eyebrows twisted to give the caricature a credulous look. Not too bad for a quick sketch. Sometimes Arteria missed the art world.
"Not bad," said Jheri Moorkith over her shoulder. He stole a glance at Shirley Johnson, then whispered, "But maybe make her a trifle plumper."
And you're next. Moorkith was a good-looking man, square-jawed, square-shouldered. Arteria would have sketched him as a Flash Gordon-style hero… but her sketches never came out flattering, somehow. She changed her mind and tossed the pencil to the table. "Where's Redden? I don't have time to waste in these meetings."