CANNON
FODDER
Madeleine and Robert
Holbright are among the last of the immi grants to disembark on the
new world. As she glances back at the brilliant white side of the
liner, the horizon seems to roll around her head, settling into a
strange new stasis that feels unnatural after almost six months at
sea.
New Iowa isn’t flat
and it isn’t new: rampart cliffs loom to either side of the
unnaturally deep harbor (gouged out of bedrock courtesy of General
Atomics). A cog-driven funicular railway hauls Maddy and Robert and
their four shipping trunks up the thousand-foot climb to the
plateau and the port city of Fort Eisenhower—and then to the
arrival and orientation camp.
Maddy is quiet and
withdrawn, but Bob, oblivious, natters constantly about
opportunities and jobs and grabbing a plot of land to build a house
on. “It’s the new world,” he says at one point. “Why aren’t you
excited?”
“The new world,”
Maddy echoes, biting back the urge to say something cutting. She
looks out the window as the train climbs the cliff face and brings
them into sight of the city. City is the wrong word: it implies
solidity, permanence. Fort Eisenhower is less than five years old,
a leukemic gash inflicted on the landscape by the Corps of
Engineers. The tallest building is the governor’s mansion, at three
stories. Architecturally, the tone is Wild West meets the Radar
Age, raw pine houses contrasting with big grey concrete boxes full
of seaward-pointing Patriot missiles to deter the inevitable
encroachment of the communist hordes. “It’s so flat.”
“The nearest hills
are two hundred miles away, past the coastal plain—didn’t you read
the map?”
She ignores his
little dig as the train squeals and clanks up the side of the
cliff. It wheezes asthmatically to a stop beside a wooden platform
and expires in a belch of saturated steam. An hour later they’re
weary and sweated-up in the lobby of an unprepossessing barrack
hall made of raw plywood. There’s a large hall and a row of tables
and a bunch of bored-looking colonial service types, and people are
walking from one position to another with bundles of papers,
answering questions in low voices and receiving official stamps.
The would-be colonists mill around like disturbed livestock among
the piles of luggage at the back of the room. Maddy and Robert
queue uneasily in the damp afternoon heat, overhearing snippets of
conversation. “Country of origin? Educational qualifications? Yes,
but what was your last job?” Religion and race—almost a quarter of
the people in the hall are refugees from India or Pakistan or
somewhere lost to the mysterious east forever—seem to obsess the
officials. “Robert?” she whispers.
“It’ll be all right,”
he says with false certainty. Taking after his dad already, trying
to pretend he’s the solid family man. Her sidelong glance at him
steals any residual confidence. Then it’s their turn.
“Names, passports,
country of origin?” The guy with the moustache is brusque and
bored, irritated by the heat.
Robert smiles at him.
“Robert and Madeleine Holbright, from Canada?” He offers their
passports.
“Uh-huh.” The
official gives the documents a very American going-over. “What
schooling have you done? What was your last job?”
“I’ve, uh, I was
working part-time in a garage. On my way through college—I was
final year at Toronto, studying structural engineering, but I
haven’t sat the finals. Maddy—Maddy’s a qualified
paramedic.”
The officer fixes her
with a stare. “Worked at it?”
“What? Uh, no—I’m
freshly qualified.” His abrupt questioning flusters
her.
“Huh.” He makes a
cryptic notation against their names on a long list, a list that
spills over the edge of his desk and trails toward the rough floor.
“Next.” He hands the passports back, and a couple of cards, and
points them along to the row of desks.
Someone is already
stepping up behind them when Maddy manages to read the tickets.
Hers says TRAINEE NURSE. Robert is staring at his and saying, “No,
this is wrong.”
“What is it, Bob?”
She looks over his shoulder as someone jostles him sideways. His
card reads LABORER (UNSKILLED); but she doesn’t have time to read
the rest.