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Invid Scout rotated slightly to track the rider's swift departure...
"Ken, please come with me!" Annie was shouting. "I'll be good for you, I
promise! I love you! You promised you'd stay with me!"
He was dragging her down the road now, his hands underneath her arms.
They were a good half mile from the causeway checkpoints already, and Annie
was still causing a scene. Finally he dropped her on her butt.
"Whaddaya want from me-you want me to leave my family and friends?"
She looked up at him and said, "Yes."
Ken bent down eye to eye with her. "Look, I know it seems bad right now,
but you'll find somebody to take care of you."
"Don't worry about me!" she yelled in his face as she got up. "I can
find my own way around. Men are a dime a dozen for someone like me." Then
suddenly she was all over him again: "Please, Ken!"
Ken shook her off, sending her down to the ground on her knees. Fed up,
he began to walk back to the checkpoint. Ten steps away, however, he turned at
the sound of approaching vehicles. Scott and Rand were just coming around a
bend in the tree-lined road. They halted their Cyclones where Annie sat
crying. Ken took one look at the cycles and saw a sweet deal in the making. He
went over to them with a gleam in his eye.
Closest to Annie, Rand was asking, "What's the matter, kid, are you
hurt?"
She looked up, surprised, and told him in no uncertain terms that she
wasn't a kid. "So, beat it!"
Ken ambled up and gestured appreciatively at Scott's mecha. "Nice
wheels, rogue." Ken smiled. "Where'd you forage 'em?"
"I'm Commander Bernard of Mars Division," Scott said when he had raised
the helmet faceshield. "I'm looking for other survivors of my unit."
Ken glanced over at Rand and stepped back. "You're for real,
then-soldiers, I mean."
"Have you seen any of the others?"
"Come with me," Ken said after a moment, already setting off for the
causeway.
Scott was suddenly full of hope. "They're here?"
"And you can come, too, Annie," Ken added without turning around.
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Annie's eyes opened wide. "I take back what I said." She hurried to
catch up with him and attached herself to his arm lovingly.
Rand and Scott exchanged looks and brought the Cyclones back to life.
"What's the chance of landing some belly timber?" Rand wanted to know. "We've
got trade goods."
"Follow me," Ken told him.
Annie beamed. "You've made me so happy, Ken." She went up on tiptoe to
kiss him on the mouth.
Ken whisked them through the checkpoint and escorted them along the
causeway that led to the main island. It was a picturesque spot for a city,
Rand had to admit: a crystal-blue lake surrounded by forested hills. But there
was ample evidence of the war's hold over the place-the scorched and rusted
hulks of Zentraedi battlecruisers, downed Adventurers, Falcons, and Bioroids.
He noticed that there was a second island, accessible only from the main one,
and that it, too, was host to a densely packed cluster of tall, mostly ruined
buildings, rubble, and debris heaped up in the streets. Up close the city was
somewhat less than inspiring, literally a shell of its former self, but so far
they hadn't been searched, hassled, or otherwise bad-vibed, and Rand was
beginning to wonder where all those rumors had come from.
"These are Robotech soldiers!" Ken announced to the sullen-faced people
huddled inside the buildings, postapocalypse cave dwellers in high-rise cliffs
of slagged steel and fractured concrete. "They were with the forces who have
returned to Earth to rid us of the Invid." No one moved, no one returned a
word. There was only the slight howling of the wind and the steady throb of
the Cyclones' engines. "They're looking for lost members of the assault group.
I'm going to take them over to the other island."
Ken turned a wan smile to Scott and Rand. "As you can see, folks around
here aren't used to strangers," he said by way of apology. "They're always a
bit suspicious at first, but don't worry about it. They'll soon get used to
you."
Scott, Rand, and Annie followed Ken's lead to the causeway linking the
main island with its twin.
"There it is." Ken pointed. "If any of your comrades have come through
here, they'll have been taken over to the other island."
"Thanks a lot for your help, Ken," Scott said.
Ken disengaged his hand from Annie's two-fisted lock on it. "Why don't
you show them over the causeway while I go talk to the Elders about your
staying here?"
Annie called out to him as he was walking away.
"Yes?" he said impatiently, not bothering to turn around.
"Bye-bye, sweet things"
"And don't forget that food!" Rand thought to add.
Annie made an elaborate gesture, then laughed. "Now, if you gentlemen
will just follow me..."
Rand chuckled and patted the rear seat of the Cyclone. "Hop on," he told
her. "It'll be fun."
CHAPTER FOUR
The Invid Regis ruled her empire from Reflex Point (located in what was once
the United States of America, specifically the Indiana-Ohio frontier); but
there was scarcely a region without one or two large hives (except the poles
and vast uninhabited tracts in Asia and Africa). In this way her Scouts were
always about, with Enforcers (a.k.a. Shock Troopers) not far behind. Brazilas
was no different from other northern regions in that it was effectively an
occupied zone. Like Vichy France of the Second World War, each town had its
sympathizers and resistance fighters; but the former far outnumbered the
latter, and it was not uncommon to encounter gruesome and ghastly acts of
betrayal and butchery undertaken in the name of self-survival.
Bloom Nesterfig, Social Organization of the Invid
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As Rand himself would later write:
"There was something about Ken's telling Annie to lead us across the
causeway that hit me like a cold wind, but for some reason I just turned my
back to it. Scott's innocent enthusiasm had something to do with this. Psyched
about seeing some of his friends, he was off in a flash, the Cyclone's rear
end chirping a quick good-bye to me and the kid. So I told her to climb on and
followed Scott's carefree course, Annie laughing and hanging on for dear life
while I goosed the mecha into a long goldcard wheelie.
"The bridge was a simple affair, a flat span no more than fifteen feet
wide and a quarter mile long, its plastar surface every bit as holed and
bellied as the rest of Laako's streets. The causeway seemed to bisect the
island's stand of colorless truncated towers, which rose before us like some
ruined vision of the future, an emerald without its shine. Beyond it, a ridge
of green hills and a soft-looking autumn sky.
"Scott was a block or two ahead of me when we hit the island, and talk
about your low-rent downtown...the place looked as though it had seen some
intense fighting with conventional weapons as well as the usual Robo upgrades.
Scott had slowed his cycle to a crawl and was using the mecha's externals to
broadcast our arrival.
"`This is Commander Bernard of the Twenty-first Armored Tactical Assault
Squadron,' his voice rang out. `I'm looking for any Mars Division survivors.
If you can hear my voice, please respond...Is anybody there? I just want to
talk!'"
"Annie and I looked around but didn't see anyone moving. I would have
been happy to see some more of those sunken-eyed citizens we had seen on the
other side, but suddenly even those shadowy cliff dwellers were in short
supply. Up ahead, Scott was stopped near a pile of trashed mecha, a perverse [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]