This Perfect Day Part 30

The members moved down the aisle, looking from one side of the plane to the other.

The five were sitting in the last row, next to the dispensers. Dover took his wrapped kit from the aisle seat and Chip sat down. Dover said, "Not bad."

"We're not up yet," Chip said.

Voices filled the plane: members telling members about the explosion, spreading the news from row to row. The clock said 10:06 but the plane wasn't moving.

The 10:06 became 10:07.

The six looked at one another, and looked forward, normally.

The plane moved; swung gently to the side and then pulled forward. It moved faster. The light dimmed and the TV screens flicked on.

They watched Christ's Life and a years-old Family at Work. They drank tea and c.o.ke but couldn't eat; there were no cakes on the plane, because of the hour, and though they had foil-wrapped rounds of cheese in their kits, they would have been seen eating them by the members who came to the dispensers. Chip and Dover sweated in their double coveralls. Karl kept dozing off, and Ria and Buzz on either side of him nudged him to keep him awake and watching.

The flight took forty minutes.

When the location sign said EUR00020, Chip and Dover got up from their seats and stood at the dispensers, pressing the b.u.t.tons and letting tea and c.o.ke flow down the drains. The plane landed and rode and stopped, and members began filing off. After a few dozen had gone through the doorway nearby, Chip and Dover lifted the emptied containers from the dispensers, set them on the floor and raised their covers, and Buzz put a wrapped kit into each. Then Buzz, Karl, Ria, and Jack got up and the six went to the doorway. Chip, carrying a container against his chest, said, "Would you excuse us, please?" to an elderly member and went out. The others followed close behind him. Dover, carrying the other container, said to the member, "You'd better wait till I'm off the escalator," and the member nodded, looking confused.

At the bottom of the escalator Chip leaned his wrist toward the scanner and then stood opposite it, blocking it from the members in the waiting room. Buzz, Karl, Ria, and Jack pa.s.sed in front of him, false-touching, and Dover leaned against the scanner and nodded to the member waiting above.

The four went toward the waiting room, and Chip and Dover crossed the field to the portal and went through it into the depot area. Setting down the containers, they took the kits out of them and slipped between two rows of crates. They found a cleared s.p.a.ce near the wall and took off the orange coveralls and pulled the toeguards from their sandals.

They left the depot area through the swing-door, their kits slung on their shoulders. The others were waiting around the scanner. They went out of the airport by twos-it was almost as crowded as the one in '91770-and gathered again at the bike racks.

By noon they were north of '00018. They ate their rounds of cheese between the bike path and the River of Freedom, in a valley flanked by mountains that rose to awesome snow-streaked heights. While they ate they looked at their maps. By nightfall, they calculated, they could be in parkland a few kilometers from the tunnel's entrance.

A little after three o'clock, when they were nearing '00013, Chip noticed an approaching cyclist, a girl in her early teens, who was looking at the faces of the northbound cyclists -his own as she pa.s.sed him-with an expression of concern, of memberlike wanting-to-help. A moment later he saw another approaching cyclist looking at faces in the same slightly anxious way, an elderly woman with flowers in her basket. He smiled at her as she pa.s.sed, then looked ahead. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the path and the road beside it; a few hundred meters ahead both path and road turned to the right and disappeared behind a power station.

He rode onto gra.s.s, stopped, and looking back, signaled to the others as they came along.

They pushed their bikes farther onto the gra.s.s. They were on the last stretch of parkland before the city: a span of gra.s.s, then picnic tables and a rising slope of trees.

"We're never going to make it if we stop every half hour," Ria said.

They sat down on the gra.s.s.

"I think they're checking bracelets up ahead," Chip said. Telecomps and red-crossed coveralls. I noticed two members coming this way who looked as if they were trying to spot the sick one. They had that how-can-I-help look."

"Hate," Buzz said.

Jack said, "Christ and Wei, Chip, if we're going to start worrying about members' facial expressions, we might as well just turn around and go home."

Chip looked at him and said, "A bracelet check isn't so unlikely, is it? Uni must know by now that the explosion at '91770 was no accident, and it might have figured out exactly why it happened. This is the shortest route from '020 to Uni- and we're coming to the first sharp turn in about twelve kilometers."

"All right, so they're checking bracelets," Jack said. "What the hate are we carrying guns for?"

"Yes!" Ria said.

Dover said, "If we shoot our way through we'll have the whole bike path after us."

"So we'll drop a bomb behind us," Jack said. "We've got to move fast, not sit on our a.s.ses as if we're in a chess game. These dummies are half dead anyway; what difference does it make if we kill a few of them? We're going to help all the rest, aren't we?"

"The guns and bombs are for when we need them," Chip said, "not for when we can avoid using them." He turned to Dover. "Take a walk in the woods there," he said. "See if you can get a look at what's past the turn."

"Right," Dover said. He got up and crossed the gra.s.s, picked something up and brought it to a litter basket, and went in among the trees. His yellow coveralls became bits of yellow that vanished up the slope.

They turned from watching him. Chip took out his map.

"s.h.i.t," Jack said.

Chip said nothing. He looked at the map.

Buzz rubbed his leg and took his hand from it abruptly.

Jack tore bits of gra.s.s from the ground. Ria, sitting close to him, watched him. "What's your suggestion," Jack said, "if they are checking bracelets?"

Chip looked up from the map and, after a moment, said, "Well go back a little way and cut east and by-pa.s.s them."

Jack tore up more gra.s.s and then threw it down. "Come on," he said to Ria, and stood up. She sprang up beside him, bright-eyed.

"Where are you going?" Chip said.

"Where we planned to go," Jack said, looking down at him. "The parkland near the tunnel. We'll wait for you until it gets light."

"Sit down, you two," Karl said.

Chip said, "You'll go with all of us when I say we'll go. You agreed to that at the beginning."

"I've changed my mind," Jack said. "I don't like taking orders from you any more than I like taking them from Uni."

"You're going to ruin everything," Buzz said.

Ria said, "You are! Stopping, turning back, by-pa.s.sing-if you're going to do a thing, do it!"

"Sit down and wait till Dover gets back," Chip said.

Jack smiled. "You want to make me?" he said. "Right out here in front of the Family?" He nodded to Ria and they picked up their bikes and steadied the kits in the baskets.

Chip got up, putting the map in his pocket. "We can't break the group in two this way," he said. "Stop and think for a minute, will you, Jack? How will we know if-"

"You're the stopper-and-thinker," Jack said. "I'm the one who's going to walk down that tunnel." He turned and pushed his bike away. Ria pushed hers along with him. They went toward the path.

Chip took a step after them and stopped, his jaw tight, his hands fisted. He wanted to shout at them, to take his gun out and force them back-but there were cyclists pa.s.sing, members on the gra.s.s nearby.

"There's nothing you can do, Chip," Karl said, and Buzz said, "The brother-fighters."

At the edge of the path Jack and Ria mounted their bikes. Jack waved. "So long!" he called. "See you in the lounge at TV!" Ria waved too and they pedaled away.

Buzz and Karl waved after them.

Chip s.n.a.t.c.hed up his kit from his bike and slung it on his shoulder. He took another kit and tossed it in Buzz's lap. "Karl, you stay here," he said. "Buzz, come on with me."

He went into the woods and realized he had moved quickly, angrily, abnormally, but thought Fight it! He went up the slope in the direction Dover had taken. G.o.d d.a.m.n them!

Buzz caught up with him. "Christ and Wei," he said, "don't throw the kits!"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n them!" Chip said. "The first time I saw them I knew they were no good! But I shut my eyes because I was so fighting-G.o.d d.a.m.n me!" he said. "It's my fault. Mine."

"Maybe there's no bracelet check and they'll be waiting in the parkland," Buzz said.

Yellow flickered among the trees ahead: Dover coming down. He stopped, then saw them and came on. "You're right," he said. "Doctors on the ground, doctors in the air-"

"Jack and Ria have gone on," Chip said.

Dover looked at him wide-eyed and said, "Didn't you stop them?"

"How?" Chip said. He caught Dover's arm and turned him around. "Show us the way," he said.

Dover led them quickly up the slope through the trees. "They'll never get through," he said. "There's a whole medicenter, and barriers to prevent the bikes from turning."

They came out of the trees onto an incline of rock, Buzz last and hurrying. Dover said, "Get down or we'll be seen."

They dropped to their stomachs and crawled up the incline to its rim. Beyond lay the city, '00013, its white slabs standing clean and bright in the sunlight, its interweaving rails glittering, its border of roadways flashing with cars. The river curved before it and continued to the north, blue and slender, with sightseeing boats drifting slowly and a long line of barges pa.s.sing under bridges.

Below, they looked into a rock-walled half bowl whose floor was a semicircular plaza where the bike path branched; it came down from the north around the power station, and half of it turned, pa.s.sed over the car-rushing road, and bridged to the city, while the other half went on across the plaza and followed the river's curving eastern bank with the road coming up to rejoin it. Before it branched, barriers channeled the oncoming cyclists into three lines, each of them pa.s.sing before a group of red-cross-coveralled members standing beside a short unusual-looking scanner. Three members in antigrav gear hovered face-down in the air, one over each group. Two cars and a copter were in the nearer part of the plaza, and more members in red-crossed coveralls stood by the line of cyclists who were leaving the city, hurrying them along when they slowed to look at the ones who were touching the scanners.

"Christ, Marx, Wood, and Wei," Buzz said.

Chip, while he looked, pulled his kit open at his side. "They must be in the line somewhere," he said. He found his binoculars and put them to his eyes and focused them.

"They are," Dover said. "See the kits in the baskets?"

Chip swept the line and found Jack and Ria; they were pedaling slowly, side by side in wood-barriered lanes. Jack was looking ahead and his lips were moving. Ria nodded. They were steering with their left hands only; their right hands were in their pockets.

Chip pa.s.sed the binoculars to Dover and turned to his kit.

"We've got to help them get through," he said. "If they make it over the bridge they may be able to lose themselves in the city."

"They're going to shoot when they get to the scanners," Dover said.

Chip gave Buzz a blue-handled bomb and said, "Take off the tape and pull when I tell you. Try to get it near the copter; two birds with one net."

"Do it before they start shooting," Dover said.

Chip took the binoculars back from him and looked through them and found Jack and Ria again. He scanned the lines ahead of them; about fifteen bikes were between them and the groups at the scanners.

"Do they have bullets or L-beams?" Dover asked.

"Bullets," Chip said. "Don't worry, I'll time it right." He watched the lines of slow-moving bikes, gauging their speed.

"They'll probably shoot anyway," Buzz said. "Just for fun. Did you see that look in Ria's eyes?"

"Get ready," Chip said. He watched until Jack and Ria were five bikes from the scanners. "Pull," he said.

Buzz pulled the handle and threw the bomb underhanded to the side. It hit stone, tumbled downward, bounded off a projection, and landed near the side of the copter. "Get back," Chip said. He took another look through the binoculars, at Jack and Ria two bikes from the scanners looking tense but confident, and slipped back between Buzz and Dover. "They look as if they're going to a party," he said.

They waited, their cheeks on stone, and the explosion roared and the incline shuddered. Metal crashed and grated below. There was silence, and the bomb's bitter smell; and then voices, murmuring and rising louder. "Those two!" someone shouted.

They edged forward to the rim.

Two bikes were racing onto the bridge. All the others had stopped, their riders standing one-footed, facing toward the copter-tipped to its side below and smoking-and turning now toward the two bikes speeding and the red-cross-coveralled members running after them. The three members in the air veered and flew toward the bridge.

Chip raised the binoculars-to Ria's bent back and Jack's ahead of her. They pedaled rapidly in depthless flatness, seeming to get no farther away. A glittering mist appeared, partly obscuring them.

Above, a hovering member downpointed a cylinder gushing thick white gas.

"He's got them!" Dover said.

Ria stood astride her bike; Jack looked over his shoulder at her.

"Ria, not Jack," Chip said.

Jack stopped and turned with his gun aimed upward. It jerked, and jerked again.

The member in the air went limp (crack and crack, the shots sounded), the white-gushing cylinder falling from his hand.

Members fleeing the bridge bicycled in both directions, ran wide-eyed on the flanking walkways.

Ria sat by her bike. She turned her head, and her face was moist and glittering. She looked troubled. Red-crossed coveralls blurred over her.

Jack stared, holding his gun, and his mouth opened big and round, closed and opened again in glittering mist. ("Ria!" Chip heard, small and far away.) Jack raised his gun ("Ria!") and fired, fired, fired.

Another member in the air (crack, crack, crack) went limp and dropped his cylinder. Red spattered on the walkway below him, and more red.

Chip lowered the binoculars.

"Your gas mask!" Buzz said. He had binoculars too.

Dover was lying with his face in his arms.

Chip sat up and looked with only his eyes: at the narrow emptied bridge with a faraway cyclist in pale blue wobbling down the middle of it and a member in the air following him at a distance; at the two dead or dying members, turning slowly in the air, drifting; at the red-cross-coveralled members, walking now in a bridge-wide line, and one of them helping a member in yellow by a fallen bike, taking her about the shoulders and leading her back toward the plaza.

The cyclist stopped and looked back toward the red-cross-coveralled members, then turned and bent forward over the front of his bike. The member in the air flew quickly closer and pointed his arm; a thick white feather grew from it and brushed the cyclist.

Chip raised the binoculars.

Jack, gray-snouted in his gas mask, leaned to his left in glittering mist and put a bomb on the bridge. Then he pedaled, skidded, sideslipped, and fell. He raised himself on one arm with the bike lying between his legs. His kit, spilled from the bike's basket, lay by the bomb.