The Future War

He suspected that if this was his Ninel, she was being duped into helping with this. But what he had to do now was stop this mass emigration.

'Well, if we get to the Junction and things don't look right, we'll just come back here,' a man said. The others nodded agreement.

'If you go there, they may force you to go with them,' John warned.

Paul put his hand on John's shoulder. 'Look,' he said, 'we can't tell you how grateful we are to you and your mother and your big friend Dieter for all that you've done for us. But you can't protect us from a winter that never ends.'

'Yeah, this ain't Narnia,' one of the women said. 'If we can't grow food and those trucks are gone for good, then we'll starve here.'

'That's right,' her husband put in. 'This program makes sense.' He shook his head. 'We've got kids, John. We can't afford to take chances.'

But you'll take a chance on this, John thought. 'Look,' he said, 'I'm just saying be careful. Maybe it would be better if you sent a couple of the guys to check it out. You know, stand at a distance and watch what happens, see how people are treated, that kind of thing. Even follow them for a ways, just to be sure.'

The couples looked at one another. 'We'll be careful,' Paul said. He held out his hand.

John took it. How could they know? he thought in regret.

Nothing in their lives could have prepared them for what's going to happen. And there wasn't a thing he could do to stop them. Oh, he could try telling them the truth, but then they'd run, not walk, to Delta Junction and whatever hell Skynet had planned for them.

'Good luck,' he said, and got back on his bike. 'Can I keep this?' he asked. Smiling, they nodded and waved happily as he rode away. He could almost weep for the children; in fact, he thought he would, later. But for now, he and Dieter would have to come up with some sort of plan.

* * *

'You think you know this girl?' Dieter said.

'Slightly,' John said. 'I've played chess with her.'

'So she could be a dupe or she could be one of them.'

'She could be both,' John said. 'But I didn't get a sense of the kind of fevered lunacy that makes an ecoterrorist from her the one time we interacted. She seemed like an interesting, normal girl.'

Dieter suppressed a smile, thinking, But, John, most of the world thinks that you're an ecoterrorist.

Aloud he said, 'Psychiatrists say that most terrorists aren't insane. In fact, most groups go to some lengths to rid themselves of any psychotic elements. And, of course, they are taught to seem normal, even when they're about to blast themselves and the people around them to kingdom come.'

'Yeah, I know, I've read the literature. But I've also met some of them, Dieter. There's something about them. You know what I mean.'

The Austrian sighed. 'The thing is, my friend, when you met them you knew they were terrorists, and they knew that you knew. That gave them permission to let their guard down, to perhaps strut for your benefit. I know they wouldn't be so free in a public place.'

John stared into the distance. 'When you're right, you're right,' he finally said. 'Maybe I'm not as quick on the uptake as I like to think I am.'

'You're a lot quicker than I was at your age. And I was never slow. Your upbringing will be a huge advantage to you in the coming years.'

The younger man's mouth twisted sardonically.

'Meanwhile…' John said.

'Meanwhile it's time to do some triage, so to speak. We need to consolidate our allies, to get them in a place where we can do the most good. Because the fact is we're going to have to watch Skynet kill a lot of people before anyone even suspects anything.

If we told them what was going on, they might actually be more resistant to the truth. I'm afraid that no one will believe this until they see those HKs and Terminators coming for them. Even then a lot of people will just stand there and let themselves be killed rather than believe it's really happening.'

John looked away, frowning. 'I hate to just give up on these people. Especially the kids.'

Dieter understood that kind of stubbornness. No doubt John felt that he was losing his first real battle in the war with the machines and it galled him to see innocents suffer. 'Try to remember, John, that Alaska is very big and that you're just one man. We need allies to accomplish anything. It's not just the machines against you and your mother now, it's the machines against the human race. You need to adjust your way of thinking, to scale things up enormously. Yes, we may lose a lot of people to the machines. It is tragic, but not your fault, and not your failing.

'You have to go south. Make contact with those survivalists you and your mother have been cultivating. And there are Sector agents down there who can be of help to you.'

'Assuming they aren't unwittingly helping Skynet,' John reminded him.

Dieter threw up his hands. 'Well, you knew the job was hard when you took it.'

'Except I didn't take it; it was shoved down my throat!' John glared at nothing. 'Sorry,' he said a moment later.

'I need to get to the coast,' Dieter said. 'Our old friends Vera and Tricker will have Love's Thrust waiting for me at Dilek in ten days.' He watched the younger man, waiting for a reaction.

'Why did we bother to set up supply dumps here if we were just going to abandon them?' John demanded.

'To keep in practice and because one day we might need them.' He waited, but John seemed disinclined to say more. 'It is a hard fact that sometimes you have to retreat to have a chance at winning.'

'I know.'

'And sometimes a commander must sacrifice a lot of lives in order to achieve victory.'

'Yeah,' John said. 'Can I hitch a ride down the coast with you guys?'

Surprised, Dieter nodded.

'See,' John said. 'I can be ruthlessly practical.'

CHAPTER NINE

BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

Mary held the Stratzman baby, Sonya, rocking her gently. The poor little thing was no longer able to drink on her own; the only sound was the tiny labored breathing and the creak of the canvas camp chair beneath her.

And I don't think the IV is doing any good.

Sonya's fever was a hundred and six the last time it had been checked and it felt hotter by the moment; her face was withered and thin, like a tiny grandmother's. Mary no longer noticed the smell; it was all-pervasive through the clinic now.

Sonya's four-year-old brother was doing a bit better than she was, but not much. He lay in the next cot, eyes half-shut; they were dull and sunken in a hollow-cheeked face. The lids barely flickered as one of the volunteers changed the soiled pad under his hips and rolled him to one side to straighten the bedclothes beneath; there were bedsores where the bones of his pelvis and shoulder were wearing through the skin.

Mrs. Stratzman had labored over her children to the point of exhaustion, leaving her with little in reserve when she came down with cholera. She'd died this morning. Her husband was delirious, but he was the most likely to survive. Though with this kind of fever, there were no guarantees.