KWAMM-KWAMM!
He was halfway to the Big Ramp worksite, at the northeast end of the Rock, just under the loading dock of the 7-11 store, when twin explosions ripped the sky, rocking him back and sending gouts of dust boiling upward. The smoky cloud quickly drifted across the car dealership and then out over the endless red and lime jungle.
There had been no warning whistle or alarm. Worse, Mark was horrified to see curious students running forward, excited to see what a pair of dynamite sticks had done to the very north end of Rimpau Avenue.
“Stop!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Take cover you fools!”
A dozen or so halted, glanced back at him and obeyed, diving for shelter. Too slowly, as dirt and gravel—lofted high by the explosions—were yanked back by gravity, pattering over the street, followed by one larger chunk of earth … then another, and blocks of asphalt.
Somebody screamed.
I never should have gone to the damn meeting. Mark cursed as he raced forward, disobeying his own advice, pelted by a final wave of falling pebbles. Near the Edge, waving his way through dust, he found rescuers already gathered around the stupid, the unlucky … the injured. One student whimpered as classmates pushed away at a slab of black paving that pinned her leg. And one of the carnies—Rafael Something—who had offered to help the ramp project with explosives from his private stash. Illegal back in California, but here more valuable than gold. Now, Rafael lay on his back, unconscious but breathing, with a long gash along the left side of his skull.
“Grab that piece of pipe,” he told Froggi Hayashi. “Nick, we’ll need solid chunks, for cribbing.”
Mark elbowed his way through the crowd. “Get back! You can’t lift that off of her by hand. You’ll only make things worse.”
The girl was crying, but speaking clear words and up on one elbow. Good. No sign yet of shock. Mark peered under the slab and could see most of her leg. More good news. There were oozing red smears, but no bright red gushers of arterial blood. Okay, one thing at a time. “Someone send for Ms. O’Brien!”
Camie Rosa, an earnest and hardworking sophomore, answered. “Already done. They’re on their way. What should we do, Mark?”
“I need four strong guys here. Nobody else! Don’t move Rafael till Ms. O’Brien can look at him. The rest of you get away!”
Froggi came up, dragging a length of metal pipe.
“That one you pointed at was no good. All bent. But this one should do.”
“Great. Nick, slide that big chunk there … no there … to serve as a fulcrum. You,” he pointed at a big townie. “Help Froggi wedge the pipe there, at that angle. Don’t go near her leg!”
He knelt next to the girl, whose head now rested on the lap of a kneeling friend.
“Hi there. You’re sure being brave.”
“I’m … trying …” It came out as half a moan, but not a sob.
“What’s your name?”
“J-Julia.”
“Well Julia, we’re gonna get that slab of Rimpau off of you. We’ll do it by prying and cribbing. It’s an old method that firefighters use all the time. So just hang in there, okay?”
She nodded, bravely. Mark knelt lower to peer again beneath.
“Shift it left. No the other left! Now a little deeper. Okay, two of you grab that second big chunk and get ready to slide it in, when we lift.” He stood up next to Froggi and Nick at the makeshift lever. Mr. Davis joined them, avoiding Mark’s eyes.
You were supervising here? How could you let this happen? Mark wanted to shout. But he left it unspoken.
“Ready? Now. Lean into it!”
The pipe—freshly blown out from beneath the street—quivered and seemed almost about to buckle. But as four men pushed downward, the fulcrum held. And the slab of asphalt lifted … maybe six centimeters.
“Push … it … in.” He grunted at the two who were already shoving their crib stone into place. Gingerly, Mark released his weight. Nick and the others followed suit, letting the lever go slack. The crib held.
At Dad’s last posting, Mark had trained for certification with CERT—the local Community Emergency Response Team—all that remained of American civil defense nowadays, taught by local firefighters all over the nation. All pretty basic stuff, but different in a lot of ways from what you learned in scouting. Of course, he had hoped never to use any of it, in real life.
“All right, let’s move the fulcrum and re-set the lever.”
Glancing over a shoulder, he saw that Ms. O’Brien was already tending Rafael, with two of her assistants. Good. Fast action.
But you and I are going to have a talk, he thought, sending a sharp glance at Mr. Davis, who should have known better. Around explosives, you run things taut, or not at all.
Davis responded with a silent, abashed nod. And Mark realized: No talk would be needed.
“Okay,” he nodded at those gathered around Julia. “Get ready to drag her out. Only when I tell you!”
In two minutes, Julia was free, on a stretcher being rushed to the school’s makeshift infirmary. To the crowd that had gathered, Mark could only growl.
“What’re you staring at? Come on. Let’s all get back to work. We need a ramp by sundown.”
✽✽✽
The idea seemed sound enough. Blast chunks out of the very end of Rimpau, then tumble debris over the edge. Make a ramp leading down to the native surface, below. Something both convenient and secure, since it would descend between two easily defended walls, with a strong gate planned for in between.
Mark approved, overall, since it would make things easier for Alex and Gracie and the rest of the Donner Expedition, when they returned, instead of having to use ropes again.
But dumb things happen when you rush inexperienced people.
Mark glanced over to where Scott Tepper stood, along with Colin Gornet, Helene Shockley and a covey of female students, who clustered around them, taking notes and bringing messages on slips of paper, then dashing off with more orders.
“Please take this to Principal Jeffers,” the student leader told one of his errand girls, handing her a written report. And Mark noted: well, at least the principal is still in the loop. And Tepper’s polite. Heck, you had to give Scott points for charisma and decisiveness … which may be exactly what we need, Mark thought. So don’t rush to judgment.
The inspection tour did seem to make the work crews buckle down harder, hauling slabs of Rimpau to the Edge, aided by a small gardening tractor from the hardware store.
Mark noticed Scott staring at him, as he swung a pick, breaking up chunks of under-soil to go into a waiting cart. Something in the student leader’s expression did not seem pleased.
Hey, we’re working as hard as we can. And it’s not even close to noon, yet.
Or was something else bothering Tepper?
Mark tried to minimize the way people kept coming up and asking him what to do next. He refrained from pointing and instead muttered suggestions under his breath, between swings of the pick. But girls and guys would dash off purposefully, making it clear who was in charge, here.
So he gave up pretending. Mark handed the pick to his relief man and did a quick round, making sure that everyone wore hats and took sips of precious water, while teams with shovels and buckets and ropes cleaned out all the loose stuff, piling it into trailers for the tractor crew to haul off. At least no one was doing anything stupid, at this moment.
Mark joined Mr. Davis and two students, huddled over a crudely sketched work plan. Jane Shevtsov, whose many passions included architecture, rolled her wheelchair to a laser-theodolite, took some measurements, and confirmed that the trench was ten meters long, five wide and slanting down to more than three meters deep at the Edge. Soon, a runner returned from the Edge with a breathless account. The last street slab had been pushed over the precipice, and the rubble pile now made a pretty big platform, rising from the forest floor almost to meet the ramp.
Impressive, Mark thought. But that’s as far as we go, using explosives and chunks of pavement. Sure, a Big Ramp—straight down to the forest floor—could be completed, some time in the future. Right now though, Mark didn’t care about a full road for vehicles. His concern was the Donner Expedition. Today, all we need is a trail.
Jane must have reached the same conclusion. She spoke as Scott Tepper and his staff approached for a report.
“We need to turn 90 degrees,” Jane suggested.
“Right.” Mark nodded, glad that someone else spoke first, with the obvious. “We can start at the platform, at the bottom of the ramp. That’s halfway down to the forest floor. But from there, we then turn left and descend the rest of the way by slanting along the Rock’s edge, right behind the 7-11.”
Jane agreed. “It’s how they built the early highways. Chisel along the side of a mountain. We only need to drop another six meters or so. Of course … it’ll be sweaty work. Fortunately, this is Mojave sandstone, not granite.”
Colin Gornet grunted. “How soon can we get a crew working down below? We need to start cutting trees for a clearing, right away.”
Mark, too, was eager for that to happen, having his own reasons.
“We can lower some guys by rope and bring the trail down to meet them.”
“I’ll go!” Volunteered Nick Hammar.
“And me,” said his brother. All the X Guys who weren’t with the Donner Group stepped up. Yep, anything having to do with rope. They were all crazy, of course, heedless of any dangers that might lurk in that jungle. And Mark was proud of them.
“Good,” said Scott Tepper. “Great work. Let’s get it done.” And he turned to go, followed by his Management Team.
Taking up the rear, Helene looked back over her shoulder, then hurried after Scott with her tablet.
Good choice, Mark nodded after her. That’s where the sun is rising.
✽✽✽
Along with a dozen other boys, Mark labored hard on the trail—digging along the edge of the Rock where it faced the nearest hills, just a couple of kilometers away to the north. Early this morning, the Donner Expedition had to use ropes in a controlled scramble to reach the forest floor. But there would be a useful footpath when they returned. That is, if Mark and this crew had anything to say about it.
A pair of sharp-eyed girls with archery gear kept watch—Mark had sent Colin Gornet’s appointed spearmen back to the top and that pair lurked now at the plateau’s rim, flourishing their new lances, stabbing pretend monsters and getting in the way of several carpentry shop students, who were building a gate.
Intermittent packets of bio-kids—three or four members of Future Medical Professionals or Biology Club—edged past burly, sweating road builders to go fetch more samples of foliage or local insect-like things for Ms. Takka’s lab. Some of them carried baited traps, in hope of capturing animals.
As if any critter with sense would come near all this racket we’re making. Still, it felt good to know that Barry was busy indoors, cracking safeguards on the gene-testers and other sophisticated lab instruments, so they might be useful on an alien world. We all have tools appropriate to our talents, Mark thought as he mopped his brow and got back to work, pounding away at the Rock.
You can get a lot done with picks and shovels and sledge hammers, in a few hours. Starting on the rubble platform, at the end of the Big Ramp, their new trail turned ninety degrees to descend at a gentle slope, parallel to the Edge, along the Rock’s barely perceptible curve.
There it met a second work crew—braver than this one and working almost as hard—that chopped and hacked away at native vegetation, creating the first clearing. In places, vines were so tangled they looked almost woven. Now and then, faced with a bigger trunk, the crew fired up a chain saw, careful to be miserly with gas. A couple of larger trees, in toppling over, had done much of the work for them.
No one knew what dangers that team risked, so near the riot of purple, red and green. Though one problem became apparent when a student stepped into a foot-sized hole, badly twisting his ankle. Similar pits were all over the place. Soon one kid’s sole duty was probe for them, sticking upright branches into each cavity, as a warning.
Mark might have volunteered for the brush-clearing party, except that by working higher up, he could scan for sight or sound of the returning Donner Group. I should have gone with them, he thought, for at least the eightieth time. Instead of attending that damn meeting.
A rustle of hurried footsteps made him turn and look upslope. Leo Kelly appeared at the rim, spotted Mark, and hurried along the new trail. Colin Gornet’s Public Safety Committee had requisitioned for their own use every phone with walkie talkie capability, so the rest of the crews made do with runners. Leo was among the best.
“They …” he panted a bit, swallowed, then told Mark: “They’re ready. At the lawn.”
What? Mark blinked. Oh, yeah. That. He put down the heavy sledge and one of the other volunteers, a carnie named Manny, took over, slamming the nearly vertical wall that a Garubis ray had sliced out of Mother Earth. Fortunately, Mojave Desert sandstone was fairly soft.
“Please go tell the clearing crew.” He pointed at the fellows chopping and hauling vegetation, below. “They need to focus on digging. On digging you-know-what.”
Leo nodded and hurried downslope, dodging around sweat-shimmering young men swinging pickaxes. Mark cringed at sending the little guy … but it was getting easier to delegate tasks, even dangerous ones. Stuff’s got to get done. Something maybe Dad would say, though with better grammar.
Muscles quivered as he ascended, step-by-step to the rim, where the new gate was rising, with watch towers on each side. Just ten meters or so to the left, another team was rebuilding one of the Poop Decks, so that human waste would funnel toward a catchment at the base of the Rock. For later use. If there’s a later.
Glancing back down at the new clearing, Mark saw that crews had pulled every bit of brush away from some newly bared ground. Now, most of the girls and guys were hard at work with shovels. Sighing, he turned back to a task that could not be avoided.
Rimpau seemed busier than ever, even back home during rush hour. Former students and others hurried in all directions at their assigned tasks, like bees in a hive, and from window glimpses he could tell that just as much work was happening indoors. Colin Gornet’s patrols had sifted every room, closet or attic for shirkers. Even those cowering in shock had been rousted, told to shake it off, and put to one job or another, even if just a rote task, indoors. The incentive was pretty clear: work, if you want to eat.
Ms. O’Brien seemed to be everywhere, demanding that each person wear a hat outdoors, and long sleeves. No one knew what this sunlight would do to Earthling skin … or if there might be daylight versions of the bat-things, for that matter.
Noise and smells spilled from the metal shop, along with a steady stream of needed implements. After filling Colin’s top priority order for weapons—and re-fitting football gear into armor—they had to make brackets and fasteners for Gornet’s ridiculous watch towers. There was plenty of raw material, for now. A crew led by Mr. Marshall was out there, harvesting metal—rebar and piping—from two collapsed houses and the ragged edges of his Chevy dealership.
As Mark passed, the metal students, supervised by Mr. Lumumba, were bending sheets into what looked like gutters. Oh, yeah. Makes sense. Nothing was more important than water. They should be ready, in case those dark, western clouds chose to come close and be generous. By nightfall, each rooftop must drain into catchments. The hardware store only offered a small number of rain barrels, so it seemed that every tub, basin and trashcan now squatted under one gutter or another.
If only I remembered that Mayan rain dance Dad and I saw in Guatemala, that time.
Other teams were busy doing Scott Tepper’s bidding. One, led by Helene Shockley, was going from house to house with clipboards and shopping carts, backed up by Gornet’s biggest teammates and two of Serpa’s carnies, seeking anything that might be useful and hauling it away to one of three assigned storehouses. Mark saw one dazed homeowner staring at a neatly printed receipt in her hand, and he sympathized with her resentment … till he saw two shopping carts leaving her house piled high with desperately needed blankets and pillows. All right. Scott’s doing needful things. So far.
Finished with that house inventory, Helene was turning to the next when she caught sight of Mark and gave him a wave, a warm smile. And if he trusted his own emotions, he might have imagined it more than just friendly. Perhaps his return nod seemed curt, but seriously. I’m just too tired to do more.
And maybe that’s a good thing.
Passing along the high school’s New Building, he glanced up and saw a figure standing at the big, main office window. Principal Jeffers seemed to be watching Mark, specifically. Well, he knows where I’m heading.
The lawn next to the parking lot. The one that Kristina had deemed best for a starter seed garden, because it was much softer and more fertile than the athletic field, and within easy reach. It could be fenced and well guarded. A team of 4-H kids and carnies stood by a pair of donkeys who were hitched to—it looked like a big lawn mower, converted into a wheeled plow. Someone had been ingenious and quick. He made a mental note to find out who.
They were waiting for diggers to finish a sad task. Mr. Perez and Mr. Castro refused to let any students take their place. Digging up what had been put there just ten or so hours ago, as dawn rose in what they now called “east.”
Was it really this morning?
Despite the long, long day, Mark tried to quash his worry. This was, after all, his assigned team. His and Kristina’s. Bodies wrapped in flags emerged from the loose earth and were borne gently to a waiting gardener’s trailer, normally pulled by a lawn tractor. But no one suggested using precious gasoline this time. It was just too personal.
Mr. Perez sat on the edge of the last grave and sobbed, while students pushed dirt back into the others and the plowing team got ready. Mark glanced at Kristina, who nodded back: I got this.
Heck, it was her lawn, her club’s seeds, her team. Who was Scott, anyway, to declare this Mark’s domain? He needed to be elsewhere.
A long pole had been rigged with crossbars and Mark took position among six volunteers pulling the wagon. Taking a glance back, he saw Kristina’s farmers already at work, calling to the donkeys, flipping slabs of lawn upside down and consulting a big book as they argued about proper planting depths and such.
And it won’t do a damn bit of good, without water, he thought, while leaning into his crossbar. Seven student bodies added up to weighty cargo.
As they rolled along Rimpau, workers paused, removing their caps, hats, and head scarves. For many of the kids, this might be their first direct contact with death. Fortunate American youths, whose luck had turned, on a dime. As luck can do.
The only one who spoke was Avenue Annie, the homeless woman, whose wanderings and babblings no one tried to interrupt.
“Verginns Oh you verrrgins! Chumps don’ ask for no hep? Oh, oh! Then you GET no hep!” Her jovial wave and shuffling dance did no wonders for Mark’s mood, or any of the other haulers.
Back again at the edge gate, they had to turn around, so that the pull-yoke was uphill. And Mark realized. My body is spent. I can’t do everything … anything … anymore.
And something else. Mr. Castro said … I need to learn to lead.
On impulse, he strode over to the two big football player guards, pulled the helmet off of one of them and gently tugged the spear out of his hands. Mark gestured toward the cart, and his meaning was clear.
Overcoming initial surprise, the fellow nodded his dense afro before shrugging out of his armor and moving swiftly to take a crossbar. Micah Johnson, yeah, that’s his name. I’ve seen him play. Pretty good, in fact. Had a scholarship at San Diego State? And I never saw him bully anyone.
The other guard, after brief resistance, also gave up his lance to an exhausted trail builder, taking a position next to Mr. Perez and …
… and Principal Jeffers, who joined the team, backing gently, carefully, slowly down the newly made ramp, then shifting sharply to head down the new Edge Trail. And Mark’s respect for the man went back up a notch.
He was tempted to follow, to participate in the second interment. But with spear in hand, he had a new job. Guardian. Right now, the archery girls would be far more useful than I am. Still, he peered out across jungle toward the northern hills, hoping for a glint of metal, or a flash of clothing, or the sound of human voices.
This time the ceremony was abbreviated. Jeffers and Perez departed quickly, returning to the Rock with bleak expressions. Get some sleep, man. For heaven’s sake, Mark wanted to shout at the principal, who seemed on the verge of collapse. When the cart crew re-emerged, Micah and his teammate kept pulling, returning it to the high school. Good for you. I shouldn’t assume all the sports guys are like Gornet. Another lesson.
But he stopped Leo Kelly, who was following the cart.
“Please go back down and tell them,” he indicated students who were slowly filling in the graves. “Ask them to recover the flags, first. Replace ’em with brush. Then pile on rocks.”
Leo blinked comprehension, then spun and hurried back the way he came. Ah, the energy of youth.
We can’t afford to waste anything, he thought. Even flags could come in handy.
Micah had left a pair of binoculars. Mark used them to resume scanning. The jungle clearing crew was done toppling trees—for today, at least. Now they kept busy making piles of chopped bushes and tangled vines—presumably free of any critters who could scurry away. But three of the guys were acting peculiarly.
What the hell are they doing? Through binoculars he recognized Froggi and the Hammars. I might have known. They were using machetes, hacking leaves and stems away from what looked like several slender trunks, peering and inspecting their handiwork. Soon they could be seen dragging several past the new cemetery, to the base of the sloping trail. Nick Hammar shouted, beckoning Mark to come down.
I’ve got no time for games, he thought, shaking his head and resuming his sentry scan. Only then Micah and his partner returned. And Mark knew it wouldn’t do for Colin Gornet to catch them out of armor. So, he handed back the spear and binoculars and helped them back into their pads. Mark gave Micah a brotherly fist bump and turned to find out what the X-guys wanted.
“Look at this!” Froggi demanded, pointing at a trio of long, straight trunks, stripped of stems, lying near the base of the Edge Trail. The thinnest was about as wide as Mark’s arm. Another, as thick as his thigh. They were far too heavy-looking to serve as pikes. Maybe … as fence material?
“I took a short stroll in there, a while back,” Froggi motioned to the forest, and quickly cut off Mark’s rebuke. “Not far! Just to take a whiz, y’know? When I found a whole grove of these things. They’re different than the big trees or the low brush or the vines. Do they remind you of anything?”
Mark stared down at them for a few seconds, then blinked.
“Bamboo? I guess they’re kind of similar.”
He grabbed Froggi’s machete, using its blunt backside to strike the nearest trunk. It gave a booming “thunk!”
“Hollow,” Nick said, with evident satisfaction.
“Hollow,” Greg Hammar repeated his twin’s eloquence, as implications began to dawn on Mark.
“And you say there’s a lot of this?”
“Acres of it. All different sizes. Wherever the ground seems a bit soggy.”
Mark nodded. “Okay. Let’s get these to the wood shop, so we can look inside.”
But he didn’t follow them beyond the crest of the trail. The Edge Trail was still far from finished.