The woman raised her eyebrows. She stepped off the porch of the general store into the full sunlight. “Is there a United States anymore?”
Lance cringed. Bayclock glared. The general gestured to the front row of footsoldiers. “You men, take sufficient supplies to carry on our march. Do it now.”
Several pueblo women left their gardens and stepped onto the porch of the general store. A young teenaged boy with his left arm wrapped in a filthy cast joined them. They stood in front of the door, blocking the way.
The general’s men hesitated. “You people clear a path,” Bayclock said, watching from astride his gelding. “Or we’ll have to use force.”
The men unshouldered their weapons, looking uncomfortably at each other. Some faced forward, entirely focused on their targets.
The storekeeper looked at them without blinking, facing down the rifle barrels. She jutted her prominent chin forward. “Are you sure those weapons work? Our own shotguns fired once or twice, and then they’re no good. You going to risk a backfire that’ll kill your own men?”
Bayclock’s voice was grim. “I assure you these weapons will work.”
“So what are you going to do?” she continued. “Shoot women and children?” She looked to the others standing on either side of her. Most of them did not look nearly as confident as she did.
Bayclock said, “Clear a path. This is your final warning.” In that moment, Lance could see that Bayclock believed his own threat.
The stern woman must have believed it herself. Her shoulders slumped as she stepped to one side. “I suppose that doesn’t surprise me.” With a nod, she signaled the others to stand down.
Bayclock did not gloat. “We’ll take only what we need.”
The woman shook her head. “You’re taking what we need.”
Later, as the troops moved out, the horsemen took the point, riding ahead as the footsoldiers marched behind them. Lance could not stop himself from looking back at the angry, betrayed glares of the people in the pueblo.
The expedition made another five miles before stopping for the evening. The troops built fires, while camp personnel set up tents and prepared a meal with fresh supplies from the pueblo.
Lance wanted to collapse. His muscles felt like tangled piano wires; his body was a mass of aching blisters, dried sweat, and stinging sunburn. But he was deeply troubled by the events of the afternoon, and he went to speak with Bayclock—partly as an excuse to avoid doing more back-breaking setup work, but also because he wanted answers.
“General, why did we have to bully those people at the pueblo? It could have escalated into a hostile situation, and we already had enough rations to last us for the whole journey.”
Bayclock looked at Lance as if he were an interesting but minor specimen in an insect collection. “You’re missing the point, Dr. Nedermyer. Missing it entirely. The supplies are an irrelevant detail in all of this.”
He folded his hands over his hard stomach and stood beside the command tent, watching the preparation of the campfires. “This expedition isn’t merely to go to White Sands and occupy the solar-power farm. It’s also a unifying tactic, a demonstration of how we must hold together. Without our lines of communication, the United States is unraveling. People must not be allowed to think they can just laugh at the law.”
Bayclock narrowed his eyes as he stared into the deepening dusk. “I’m one of the men charged with that responsibility. Often I don’t like it, and it’s a great burden to protect humanity from its own tendencies toward anarchy.” He turned to Lance. “But just because I don’t like the job, doesn’t mean I can shrug my shoulders and ignore it. I have a responsibility to this nation, to the people.
“I am like a great hammer and these people are the anvil. Between us, we can forge the nation again—but it won’t happen spontaneously. Only through effort, strenuous effort.” Bayclock said softly, “Now do you understand, Dr. Nedermyer? Is that clear enough for you?”
Lance swallowed. “Yes, sir.” He was afraid he understood the general… all too well.
Lance awoke to the sound of gunshots breaking through the darkness.
As the troops scrambled out of their blankets, he sat up on the hard ground, wincing in pain from his stiff back and looking around. He grabbed his glasses and tried to make out details in the blurred shadows. He heard horses, but they sounded scattered, growing more distant.
Climbing to his feet, Lance stepped on a sharp rock and hobbled backward. More small popping sounds came from off to his left. Other men scrambled in that direction. They shot their weapons into the darkness, but those shots sounded different—clearer and more contained.
They were being attacked by people from the pueblo! But how could the Indians have working rifles? Lance took a deep breath. The attackers could still use shells and gunpowder to make small explosives, tiny bombs that would shatter the night.
The horses ran the other direction, on the opposite side of the camp from the explosions. A diversion? He heard the general bellowing, but the men were panicked, and even Bayclock could not keep the situation under control.
One of the airmen finally shot a flare into the sky; it burst into an incandescent white spotlight surrounded by glowing smoke streamers. Under the sudden glare splashing across the landscape, they spotted horses running off in all directions.
Two young men rode a pair of stolen horses, galloping off into the night. Bayclock yelled for the riflemen to shoot, but they missed. The young riders vanished into the dark distance. Waving his arms, Bayclock sent his troops out to round up the horses and to search for the attackers.
Lance hurriedly pulled on his hiking boots and went to help, but he knew it was a lost cause.
Chapter 66
With somber tears burning his eyes, Spencer stood at the electromagnetic launcher. Although he knew in his heart it was necessary, the beautiful dream he had chased for so long was being torn apart piece by piece to build a defense against “barbarians.” He felt sick at what they were doing to the launcher, possibly destroying his hope for the solar-power satellites—it wasn’t fair, especially now that an expedition from JPL was on its way!
Rita Fellenstein supervised connecting the power-transmission line from the microwave farm to the launcher’s battery facility. He was thankful they didn’t need a transformer to boost the voltage, like the one that had failed at the water pump. Spencer’s other techs were still working on that problem.
Gilbert Hertoya grunted as he helped Arnie, his refugee scientist friend from Sandia, pry open an aluminum side wall of the launcher housing. Spencer glimpsed the two gleaming parallel rails lined with capacitor banks and batteries.
Gilbert’s workers had unbolted and lifted a ten-meter-long section of the launcher, mounting it on a swivel so the railings could turn through a 45-degree arc, horizontal as well as vertical. The launcher looked like a giant tuning fork jutting from the dismantled building, anchored by black cables running to the capacitors. He called to Spencer. “What do you think?”
“This thing is going to save us from Bayclock, huh?” Spencer stepped over the cables, careful not to trip. He sighed, trying not to show his brooding despair.
Gilbert proudly swept an arm along the length of the device. “The hardest part was mounting the rails on the swivel.” He motioned. “Get behind the base.”
Stepping around blue capacitor boxes, Spencer could see the equipment he himself had worked on just a few days ago. Now, timing cables, rail-gap switches, induction lines, and wire from the battery array littered the floor. Gilbert had cleared the area by the base to where they could lift five-pound metal-coated sabots onto the railgun.