Just the sight of her daughter struggling for breath was enough to make the tears well up in Angela’s eyes.
“She’s still getting enough oxygen,” David, the paramedic, said. Angela knew the whole county’s emergency services staff by their first name now. “We don’t need to intubate,” he assured her.
“All right. Okay,” Angela said, dabbing at her tears, desperate for the good words. “What do we do?”
“Her lungs’ oxygen-processing capacity has been in decline for a while,” said Alkhed, the other paramedic who had been studying the monitors. “We’ll take her in and they can find out why.”
Angela squeezed her eyes shut. Take her in. Back to Palmville County General; the pediatric wing that she knew better than her own half-built house, its too-dark blue paint, the breezy lumin-pictures of anthropomorphized animals on the walls, the bed linen with its bees and dinosaurs, the parents’ lounge: Hell’s own waiting room with its dead-eyed weepy occupants where she didn’t belong.
“Let’s go,” Angela said. She held her jaw rigid, trying to get a grip on her tumultuous emotions. Another problem. Another vulnerability for that tiny body to deal with. She’d thought Rebka’s lungs were out of danger, that the steroids were working now the respirator had been disconnected two weeks ago.
There had been no indicator; the pregnancy had gone well. Tests, and there were dozens, always showing mother and daughter were doing fine. New Florida might be an new American world, but it didn’t lack for medical facilities, and Oakland was a fully fledged state now, with senators back in Washington. Palmville County General had an effective professional pediatric department. The Howard family’s medical insurance, taken out with an Earth-registered company, was top-rated, and fully paid up.
It was only after the birth that they got an inkling of the dread that would befall their beautiful daughter. Rebka’s jaundice, perfectly normal for babies, developed into full-blown liver failure that required a genemod pig organ transplant. That was the first of a deluge of medical calamities the child underwent. Each one was skillfully treated by the hospital and its devoted team. But every time one was sorted out, another disorder would appear. Their accumulation had led the doctors to suspect a systemic failure they hadn’t managed to diagnose.
Most worrying to her distraught parents was her lack of growth. At nine months she was five and a half kilograms, and barely fifty-three centimeters high. But with her hypoplastic left heart syndrome, polycystic kidney disease, protein deficiency resulting in poor muscle development, weak immune system, and various allergies, below-the-curve growth was inevitable, the chief pediatrician warned them. Fortunately, her neurological development was unaffected. Saul had sworn she smiled once, only ten days ago.
David and Alkhed wheeled the cotbed out of the door, with the paraphernalia of critical medical support equipment resting on the shelves below the mattress. It was designed to fit in the ambulance’s treatment bay. Once it was locked into place, David started plugging the systems into the vehicle’s power and data sockets.
Angela picked up her bag that was kept permanently packed and ready beside the front door. Saul took his, then they were both in the back of the ambulance, with David tending the young patient, and Alkhed in the front, supervising the auto.
At least they didn’t have to use the sirens, though Alkhed did keep the speed at a steady 120 kph down the freeway. It was early, so there wasn’t much traffic yet. The familiar signs and farm roads slipped past the blackened windows. Angela stared at them blankly, refusing to let her utter misery rise up lest it drown every last rational thought in black despair. She hated the helplessness, the pathetic gratitude every time the hospital pediatricians countered a new crisis. Hated asking herself what was next, because that meant she was expecting some new problem to manifest when she should be willing her darling sweet child to get better. But her greatest hatred was directed right at the heart of an uncaring universe that could inflict so much suffering on a life so precious and innocent.
They drove past the off-ramp for Stamford, and Angela automatically reached for the bag. She was a mess, wearing a fitness vest and shorts, hair all tied up in bands, sweat-soaked socks in muddy trainers. There was a fleece jacket in the bag, some sports pants, netlens glasses and audio interface, even some cash, along with toiletries in a tatty old washbag. She blinked at that bag in surprise as she rummaged through looking for socks. It was probably her oldest possession, the one she’d brought with her from New Monaco with the smuggler’s bar of soap.
That life was gone. If she recalled it at all now it was like the memory of a zone drama. It was hard to believe she was that billionaire princess. She’d gotten over it—that had been her triumph where she suspected so many of her kind would have failed; she’d started to build a real life, not a fabulous life, but an adequate one that had potential. After all, she had centuries to develop her stakeholding on a new planet into an empire that one day even her father might have approved of. And sweet soppy Saul was a pleasant enough companion.
It had been perfect. Truly, two years of newlywed bliss while the farm flourished. They had friends, and most nights were spent hurrying to get naked in bed.
“What the hell is that?” Alkhed asked.
Angela looked past him through the ambulance’s windshield. Outside, the sun seemed unnaturally bright. Then she realized that something else was searing through Oakland’s cloudy sky. Trees along the side of the freeway developed a second shadow that started sliding around quickly. Something brighter than a solar flare streaked down out of the heavens away to the south, dropping below the horizon.
She looked at Saul, whose jaw had dropped open.
Then her e-i was clamoring for attention. The HDA was officially declaring a Zanthswarm alert in the New Florida system. Evacuation procedure files were being downloaded to every citizen. She was too shocked to say anything.
“We have to go back,” Saul said. “The … the farm. It’s everything we have. We’ve got to get—to get—”
“Sorry, man, I ain’t going anywhere,” Alkhed said. “I’m taking this bus to collect my family. We’ve got to get out of here, off this whole planet.”
“We’re not going back,” Angela said, ignoring Alkhed and staring directly at Saul. “This is a Zanthswarm. Do you understand? In a day there will be nothing left. Nothing! It’s over. There is no farm, not anymore.”
Daylight changed again, with a bright glare sweeping through the eastern sky like slow-motion lightning.
“What do we do,” David cried in a frantic voice. “We have to get to my house.”
“No fucking way, man,” Alkhed snarled. “We’re picking up my people.”
“My girl is pregnant.”
“I’ll drop you off close.”
“You’re on the other side of town.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Angela said. “We’ve got days before it gets critical. The Thunderthorns will be flying soon, they’ll knock the Zanth rifts out of existence. They are there to give us all time we need to get to the gateway.”
“I’m getting my family,” Alkhed said stubbornly.
“You’re going to drive us to the hospital,” Angela said. “Both of you parked your cars there. You get into them and drive to your families. That way we all get what we want.”
“No,” Alkhed repeated stubbornly. “You can ride with us if you want, there’s room, but I ain’t taking no detours.”
“Screw you man,” David yelled.
“I’ll drop you off, I said I would.”
Angela didn’t have time for this shit, and Saul wouldn’t be any use. He’d carry on with trying to be reasonable. They were past that now. She knew exactly how people reacted when their lives fell apart in a single moment. Down at the bottom of the washbag were some tox sacs, for when it all got too hard at the hospital, when she couldn’t stand to watch her baby swamped by tubes, when five doctors were bent over her working frantically. She picked them out and swung her arm around, bumping three sacs simultaneously against Alkhed’s exposed neck.
“Hey!” Alkhed yelped. He was clawing frantically at his neck while Saul and David stared at her wide-eyed. “What the fuck, man? What …? Oh, whoa.” He started fast blinking. “That is … whay?” His head started to flop about as if his neck muscles had lost all their strength.
“Angela!” Saul said.
She gave him her cold look. “Yes? You want to go to his house? You want to get thrown out when his family realize there isn’t enough room for all of us, and we have to keep Rebka’s support units going? That what you want?”
Saul colored bright red. “No.”
Alkhed slumped forward over the steering wheel.
“Help me get him out of there,” Angela said.
Together David and Saul pulled the semiconscious, tox-delirious man out of the driver’s seat. Angela climbed in and switched the ambulance to manual. “David, I’m dropping the two of you off at the hospital.”
“Okay,” the paramedic said nervously.
Angela grinned savagely at his meek tone, and switched the siren on as she twisted the throttle, accelerating up to 150. Alkhed’s sunglasses were lying on the dashboard. She put them on even though the clouds were building and she could see the gray sheet of rain advancing toward Palmville. It was a good choice. A few minutes later the first nuclear explosions detonated five hundred kilometers above them as the Wild Valkyries squadron began their impossible task of intercepting the Zanth chunks descending on the planet. The clouds diffused the violent lightbursts, but even their gray underbellies glowed with monochrome brilliance from the explosions.
The ambulance hit the outskirts of Palmville with its neat rows of white bungalows sitting in their lakes of lush green lawns. Cars were pouring out of the prim estate roads, charging onto the feeder road to the freeway. People didn’t care about speed limits anymore. Traffic lights were being ignored as the fusion bombs continued to explode above the atmosphere. Three junctions were badly snarled, Angela had to drive up on the sidewalks to get around. The air was jammed with the sound of furious horns. Heading into town was easier than it was going to be getting out.
The rain arrived at the hospital at the same time as the ambulance. Angela drove straight to the staff car park and braked. “Out, David!”
For a moment he looked like he wanted to argue. But now Saul wasn’t showing any sympathy. The rear door popped open, and Saul shoved Alkhed’s dreaming body out onto the wet asphalt. “Good luck,” Saul yelled at David as a heavier belt of rain swept across the cars. He was given a venomous glare in return.
Angela didn’t wait. She slapped her hand down on the door-close button and twisted the throttle again. They went racing out of the car park, back onto the main arterial road leading back to the freeway.
“How’s she doing?” Angela demanded.
“Angela! You attacked Alkhed.”
“He was being an asshole, and we don’t have the time. Now, how is she?”
Saul took a breath and went over to their daughter. “Okay I guess. Her lungs are still getting enough oxygen into her blood.”
“Good. We’re going straight to Yantwich and the gateway, it’s only sixty klicks. Now listen, if she starts getting critical, you’ll have to deal with it, okay?”
“I’m a farmer! We needed the paramedics, we needed David and Alkhed.”
“We’ve been looking after her for eight months. Us, just as much as them. You’ve learned the basics, they gave us those emergency courses, now fucking concentrate. This is the mother of all emergencies. You have to keep her alive until we reach Miami and a hospital.”
“I … yes, yes, okay. Shit, Angela, you toxed Alkhed out of his head.”
“I did what I had to. This world is ending, Saul. The Zanth is swarming, and there’s no happy ending. But the three of us, our family, we’re going to survive it.”
“I get it. I do now. I really get it. Drive, get us onto the freeway. Go on, get us to Miami. I’ll look after her until then, I promise.”
“Okay then.”
With everyone driving on manual, the road was thick with slow-moving bad-tempered traffic. “Screw this,” Angela announced, swinging the wheel. The ambulance bumped over the central barrier and started off the wrong way along the other side, lights and siren blazing. The few cars heading toward her dodged to the side. Several other cars on the outbound side pushed over the center and started tailgating her.
Three times she grazed cars coming the other way. Then they were past the suburbs, and more and more people were using both sides of the road to get to the freeway. There wasn’t a cop car in sight. They slowed to a crawl.
Angela looked around, seeing the slim thread of the raised freeway a couple of kilometers ahead. They were rolling forward at walking pace with the rain bouncing off the asphalt, smearing everyone’s lights. The siren and strobes made no difference, no one was budging, no one giving up their place in the giant crunched-up queue.
Something dropped out of the base of the clouds, a lump of debris, Zanth or Thunderthorn—it was impossible to tell. Flame and black smoke followed it down. It hit the ground over where she knew the Conolley farm was.
That decided it for her. She turned the wheel sharply again, and they went bouncing over the verge and down into the drainage ditch.
“Angela!” Saul moaned.
“This is a rural area, ambulances are designed to get across virgin country here. A ditch isn’t any problem.”
She began to accelerate, with the wheelbase straddling the stream trickling along the bottom of the grassy ditch. Memories from long ago bubbled up to help her; a thousand-kilometer rally she and Shasta had taken part in on Nagpur. Driving big luxury four-by-fours through the Slapan plains and into the Donrital Mountains where the majestic Antrodyiils soared on the thermals. It had been tough but she had mastered the fundamentals of off-road driving.
After five minutes they were at the freeway, and she aimed the ambulance at the slope where the dike curved around, engaging torque management, sending the vehicle grinding up the spikegrass to lumber out onto the slip road’s verge. Cars scattered at the unexpected appearance of the bigger vehicle, and she jammed them into a gap, ignoring the honking horns and screamed insults. At least no one had shot at them yet.