20
As the sun descended and slipped past the horizon, SCEV Five made its way across the former state of California, picking its way across the Sierra Nevada mountain range, sticking to roads wherever it could. Day died and night was born, but the rig continued its trek, bumping along through the darkness, unimpeded by the utter blackness thanks to its array of infrared devices. By the next morning, the burly machine had descended from the mountains and accelerated across the mostly flat deserts of Nevada. It then turned on a southerly course, aiming for New Mexico, where it would cut a path across the lowest part of the Rocky Mountains. Once clear of the rugged spires of rock, the SCEV would change course again, this time northeasterly, where she would return directly to Harmony Base.
It would take six days. If all went according to plan, the rig would deliver its precious cargo of replacement supports thirteen days after the Core had gone offline.
Andrews oversaw the SCEV as it sped into the glowing gloom of another night, and he wondered how many more friends might have perished waiting for them to return. As the lights grew dimmer inside the base, as the CO2 scrubbers slowly failed, how many of the people he had known for the last decade had slipped away? None? A dozen? Fifty?
Bathed in the cold glow of the instrument panel, he found he didn’t want to contemplate such things. Instead, he urged the SCEV onward, putting his trust in its computer systems to get them back to where they needed to go, to propel the hulking machine on the course they had mapped on their outbound leg.
The cockpit door slid open behind him, and he glanced back as Rachel slipped inside. She handed him a cup, and it was warm to the touch. He regarded it in the glow of the instruments as she settled into the copilot’s seat and strapped herself in. She held a cup of her own.
“It’s coffee,” she told him.
He nodded and reached across the center console so he could squeeze her hand. “You’re the bestest, hon.” He was happy to have the caffeine. Shifts were longer now that Mulligan was out of commission. Everyone was already dog-tired from the voyage, not to mention the stress of dealing with Law and his people. Now that he had some time and distance separating him from the events in San Jose, Andrews marveled that several hundred people there had managed to survive. From the deformities he had witnessed, he knew Law hadn’t been idly boasting when he said the survivors were fertile. Even though Law was obviously a psychotic madman, he had done an incredible job of keeping his people alive over the years, scavenging whatever they needed from the corpse of the shattered metropolis. It was truly a commendable feat.
Of course, that also included eating other survivors, he reminded himself. Viewed in that light, Law’s accomplishment seemed a little less warm and fuzzy.
“How’s Mulligan?” he asked, sipping from his cup. The coffee was hot and bitter, so strong it was almost overpowering—just how he liked it.
“Still out, but it looks like he’s in a normal sleep, now. Kelly’s keeping an eye on him.” She paused and shook her head. “Well, whenever Leona isn’t, anyway.”
“Come again?”
Rachel looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Babe, you really need to pay more attention. Lee’s got the hots for Mulligan.”
“Eklund?” Andrews chuckled at the thought. “No way!”
Rachel shrugged and sipped from her own cup. “I can’t imagine why, but it sure looks like it.”
Andrews didn’t know what to make of that—the two most disconnected people in Harmony Base had somehow managed to find one another after practically living on top of each other for years. Well, at least Leona saw something in Mulligan. It remained to be seen if it was a two-way street, especially since Mulligan was twice Eklund’s age.
That ought to be something to see.
“Anyway, what are you going to tell Benchley about San Jose?” Rachel asked.
“Everything we know. Those … people back there might not be what we were hoping for, but it’s a start. And Law mentioned something about survivalists from the north, so that’s something else we’ll need to look into—”
A tone sounded suddenly, and the rig began to slow down. Andrews looked at the engineering display as he disconnected the autopilot and took control of the vehicle. He didn’t like what he saw—a gear chip warning in the number two differential. The computers had automatically disconnected the faulted system, essentially placing the system in neutral to preserve the complicated array of meshing gears.
“That doesn’t look good,” Rachel said, looking at the same display.
“No, it’s not,” Andrews said. “We’ll need to shut down and check it out. Without it, we’ve lost the center set of wheels. They’ll still roll, but they won’t provide any power, and that’s going to screw us up big time.”
“We could get stuck,” Rachel said.
Andrews nodded, slowing the rig until it came to a halt. “Yeah. And getting stuck out here would be a permanent duty station.”
***
While they didn’t have Spencer’s skills to draw from, both Laird and Andrews had enough technical smarts to figure out what had to be done, assisted by the SCEV’s electronic system manuals. Rachel was able to pitch in as well; while her forte was not vehicular transmissions, she knew enough about them to be able to assist the two men as they pulled up the floor in the SCEV’s center compartment to gain access to the differential. When they opened the case, they found that one gear had been partially stripped. Fishing around through the fluid in the case, they were able to find a few fragments, but were unable to recover all of them.
“It’s definitely FUBAR, Mike,” Rachel said finally. “I think we can still keep going, but we’ve got to be careful. Like you said, we get stuck now, it’ll be permanent.”
Laird regarded the failed gear. “I guess there’s no chance of fixing this, huh?”
“Not out here,” Rachel said. “We don’t have any spares aboard, and I’m not familiar enough with these systems to jury-rig something. If I blow it, we might wind up worse off than we are now.”
“You know, I don’t think that would take a lot of doing,” Laird said. He handed the gear to Andrews, who turned it over in his hand. It was still slick with lubricant, but the metal around the stripped teeth was sharp enough to cut skin. He sighed and wrapped a paper towel around the warm circle of alloy and placed it in a drawer by the engineering station.
“All right, let’s button it up and get moving,” he said.
“How much will this slow us up?” Kelly asked.
Andrews sighed. “Well, we’re not going to be able to cruise as fast as we might, and we have to be damned careful about where we put the wheels. Getting stuck out here, especially in the mountains, would be a total bag of day old dicks. We’ll have to be on our toes for the entire trip, and that means we’ll have to take it slow.”
“Mike, Harmony doesn’t have a lot of time left.” Leona looked at him with a grim expression that had nothing to do with the painful injury to her leg. Even under the numbing effects of the oxycodone Kelly had given her, she was still alert enough to understand the risks of arriving late.
“I know that, Lee,” he said.
“You guys are all tired,” she said, looking around the compartment. “Mulligan’s still out, but I can pitch in and help out.”
“Not while you’re half in the bag from the pain meds,” Laird said as he bent over the opening in the compartment deck. He matched up the seals they had disturbed opening the differential’s casing and prepared to seal it up again. His hands were filthy with glistening, gray lubricant.
“I’ll stop taking them,” Leona said.
“Probably not an awesome idea,” Andrews said, looking over Laird at Kelly.
Kelly shrugged. “It’s not like she’s going to be doing calisthenics, Captain. She’ll be in some measure of discomfort, but as long as she takes it easy and doesn’t tear open the sutures I put in her, she’ll be fine.”
“I can deal with it, Mike,” Leona said.
“How long ago did you take your last dose?” Andrews asked.
Leona looked down. “Just before we came to a stop,” she said, which meant a little over an hour ago.
He looked at Kelly. “How long until it gets processed by her system?”
“Six hours, to be safe. It does tend to make her a bit loopy, but that’s an expected side effect for some patients. We can substitute it with acetaminophen, which won’t be as effective at managing the pain, but there shouldn’t be any side effects that could impair her performance.”
“A little bit of the lightfighter candy all right by you, Lee?”
Leona nodded.
“All right. Go hit one of the racks, and we’ll see about bringing you up front in about six hours,” Andrews said.
“Hooah,” Leona responded, and she slowly limped to the rig’s third compartment. Andrews caught a glimpse of Mulligan lying in one of the lowermost bunks, wrapped up in a blanket. Half of his face was covered by an angry mass of black and purple bruises.
He picked up a torque wrench and bent over the differential casing as Laird fitted it back together.