Chapter Sixteen

 

 

"How did these tunnels get here?" Mildred asked. Despite her fear and anger, her scientist's mind wouldn't allow her to ignore the miracles she was walking through.

 

The chambers were evidently underground, their walls always covered with fibrous bark, letting her know she was walking through an organic thing. Sounds were more muffled here, didn't carry as far.

 

"They were grown," Boldt stated, "for the people."

 

"As dwellings?" The guards on either side of Mildred stayed close, making sure the distance was great enough there would be no mistaking if she made a try for their weapons.

 

"They were intended as primary dwellings only," the Celt prince said. "When the roots grew, the inner core of them was very soft, easy to work. But when combined with lacquers that were also specially designed, they became as you see them now. Nothing will easily get through these walls. My father intended for his people to live outside once it was safe. No matter how long it took. They were supposed to reclaim the land the spoilers had so carelessly thrown away."

 

Mildred trailed after the prince, examining the designs etched into the walls of the tunnel. Most of them seemed heroic in nature, carrying out a theme of men armed with blasters and swords taking a stand against great, roaring machines that resembled dragons and other fearful beasts.

 

The machines were manned by demihumans, fully as frightful and twisted as any mutie she'd ever seen.

 

"Who were the spoilers?" she asked.

 

"Your kind," Boldt stated. He paused at the bottom of a twisting corkscrew of a staircase that led up inside a hollow shank of fibrous growth. "The kind who took from nature but never returned anything to her. The ones who poisoned the air and the seas, defiled the land, killed the creatures who lived upon and within it without a second thought save for profit."

 

"You sound like something out of Greenpeace," Mildred said.

 

"Greenpeace," Boldt said, "lacked vision that included a real response against the spoilers." He went up into the staircase. "Had the world not ended, that was coming. My father was not a man who gave up easily."

 

Mildred followed, a guard in front of her so she couldn't make a sudden lunge at Boldt. She studied the steps as they twisted and went up. They were carved out of the wood, just as the tunnels were, leaving no joints. The exposed surfaces were smooth, showing the work of hours of sanding and years of wear.

 

"I wouldn't say that," she replied. "We had our share of ecoterrorists even back then."

 

"By inference you're saying I'm nothing but an ecoterrorist."

 

"Am I?" Mildred watched the figure ahead of her. Boldt gave no sign of being offended. His movements remained the same, confident and sure.

 

"It doesn't matter. Our mission here is sacred."

 

"And what is that mission?"

 

"To repollinate the earth," Boldt said, "and bring her into the future that was to be ahead of her before the greed of the spoilers nearly destroyed everything."

 

"Sounds like something out of the Old Testament," Mildred said. It irritated her that Boldt's words were uttered with the same flat conviction of a zealot.

 

"Rubbish," the man said. "That book is filled with promiscuous behavior and larcenous murder. The story of David alone is enough to turn most sane men from it. David went from the Christian God's favorite, smiting the mighty Goliath with just a pebble, to an adulterer who conspired to kill his lover's husband by placing him at the front of a battlefield. Still, the Christian God watched over him."

 

"So it's not a pretty story."

 

"What do you know about the Celts?" Boldt asked.

 

Mildred had to search through dusty memories of university to come up with anything at all, but she found more than she thought. "A couple hundred years B.C., they were one of the largest cultures in Europe. But they never built an empire or organized areas the way the Romans did. The tribes were linked only by language, religion, art and a respect for nature. Once the other civilizations began to grow, they got the shit kicked out of them by the Romans, Germans, Angles and Saxons."

 

"A simplified version," Boldt said, "and somewhat false. The Romans in particular practiced genocide against the Celts. Yet we managed to survive. We even managed to survive the nukestorm that shattered the world."

 

Mildred listened to the fire in the man's words. At the top of the next turn of the stairway, she came out onto the mouth of a tree that opened over a cul-de-sac.

 

Small buildings littered the land before her, spilling down the gentle grade toward a twisting stream that glinted in the afternoon sunlight. In between each dwelling and every road, a garden grew, sometimes on different levels as vines and growths were curled up along strings instead of being allowed free run along the ground, optimally maximizing the available space. All of them looked luxuriant. Carts and oxen appeared to be the major form of transport. Men on horseback in green garb and wearing the silver patch of Boldt's personal army cycled within the populace. They gave the appearance of being more oppressive than defensive.

 

Mildred immediately recognized the presence as martial law. People walking along the streets beside the men on horseback didn't look up, just kept their gaze directed toward the ground and kept on moving.

 

"This is Wildroot," Boldt said.

 

If she'd been viewing the countryside under other circumstances, Mildred admitted to herself that she might have thought she'd walked into a child's fantasy story. Everything that had been built in Wildroot had been designed to blend into the countryside, not really to camouflage it.

 

"Would you care to see it?" Boldt asked.

 

Mildred glanced at him. "Sure you're not just talking me into following you along to my own public execution? I saw those men in the forest."

 

"Those men in the forest only got what they deserved," Boldt said. He waved to one of the men below, then followed the narrow steps carved into the gnarled tree roots and stone beside him.

 

The man below nodded and quickly raced to bring a cart and horses into view, then stood waiting, holding the horses' halters.

 

"They were poachers trespassing on our lands," Boldt said. "They raid us frequently. My people have never been into New London except to exact vengeance. Besides the poaching, those men have also taken our women and children into slavery, to be used in brothels. Apparently their tastes are not so discriminate. I've even heard stories about the liberties they take with beasts."

 

"Don't sound like friendly souls, do they?" Mildred believed what the Celtic prince said, but she also kept in mind the fear she saw in the faces of the people around them as the man descended the stairs. For his part Boldt didn't seem to care about the terror one way or the other.

 

"The New Londoners are not." Boldt stepped up into the cart. One of his guards took the reins and sat beside him.

 

Mildred was sandwiched in the back between her two captors. Both kept their shoulders ahead of her, where they could easily pin her by simply leaning back.

 

"Your friends are with them now," Boldt said.

 

The guard snapped the reins against the horses' backs, and they stepped into a quick trot. The cart's wheels rattled as they turned.

 

"I don't suppose you'd tell me if your people happened to kill one of my friends," Mildred said.

 

Boldt turned to look at her, his face looking more like a skull than before. "I'd tell you. Honesty, I feel, is something you and I are going to need between us before your part is done."

 

Mildred turned the cryptic statement over, not liking any of the directions it led. She glanced back up the hill at the trees that crowned the crest, which didn't look much different from the other trees surrounding Wildroot. Yet she knew they had to be. If the trees around the ville possessed root systems like the ones they'd walked through, there would have been no way the gardens would have grown.

 

"I take it your father worked with the environment," she said.

 

"It became his crusade," Boldt agreed. "My father's successes weren't commercial. He was a brilliant geneticist and dedicated his lifeand the fortunes of his father and grandfather before himto his cause."

 

"Awfully generous of him."

 

"Yes." Evidently Boldt heard none of the sarcasm in her words. "He was a selfless man."

 

"Even having you when he was young," Mildred said, "it's kind of hard to believe that you're as youthful as you are."

 

"I was born back then," Boldt said. "As you were. I was nine years old when the world ended. My father placed us in cryo sleep. So you are not the only traveler through time."

 

Mildred watched a pair of men tilling the ground by hand, working with long-handled tools that looked like overambitious hoes. "Where is your father?"

 

"Dead," Boldt said. "He died in the cryo chamber."

 

"So you've been alone." For a moment Mildred almost felt empathetic for the loneliness she heard in the man's voice. "I'm sorry."

 

"I have my memories of him. And I have his work to carry on."

 

"How many of these people were in cryo sleep with you?"

 

"None. Just my father and I. There was supposed to be another man who joined us. Henry Walker."

 

"Colonel Henry Walker?" Mildred asked.

 

Boldt turned to eye her curiously. "You know him?"

 

"Not personally," Mildred said. "My friends and I found his body in the place I was in before I got here." She quickly explained about the corpse the companions had found in the White Sands redoubt. Giving Boldt the information couldn't hurt anything, and it would suggest that she was trying to deal with him honestly.

 

"Too bad," Boldt said. "He helped my father build Wildroot."

 

"How?"

 

"Walker worked with the United States," the Celtic prince said. He switched his attention to a small field to the right. An old woman dressed in a dark green dress that had been patched over many times sat on her folded knees before a couple dozen vine beds. She was singing, and her voice carried over to the cart.

 

Mildred didn't recognize all the words or the music, but the song itself was captivating, speaking of cold mornings and high places, of the will to survive.

 

"At the time," Boldt continued, "the United States was involved in a number of research projects. You've heard of the Totality Concept?"

 

"Yes."

 

Boldt regarded her. "I thought you might have. If you knew about the mat-trans units, you'd know about the Totality Concept."

 

"Walker worked for the Totality Concept?"

 

"No. For another like it. You must remember, in those times no one fully trusted anyone else. The organization Walker worked for, the Lydecker Foundation, was a shadow of the Totality Concept, exploring many of the same interests as the researchers in the Totality Concept, but working independently."

 

"Cross-referencing their findings."

 

"Yes." Boldt signaled for the cart driver to stop. "Sometimes the research followed along the same lines as the other redoubts'. Sometimes it took new paths."

 

"Like Project Calypso."

 

"I've never heard of that." Boldt stepped out of the cart. "Come with me."

 

Mildred got out and followed. Her guards stayed close to her.

 

"Colonel Walker was in charge of the funding and disbursements of the foundation," Boldt said. "He created the means and managed the money my father needed to build the seedings of Wildroot."

 

"Why?"

 

Boldt gestured toward the vine spread out over the ground. "Watch."

 

The old woman kept on singing, though she had to have known of the others now watching her. Her eyes were closed in concentration. Slowly, beseechingly, she lifted her hands.

 

As if to mimic the movement, the vines suddenly started lifting, as well, digging themselves free of the earth and standing at rigid attention. The old woman swayed her body back and forth, and the vines mirrored her movements.

 

"Tanglers," Boldt said. A smile carved his lean face. "One of my father's chief successes. They have become our defense, a source of clothing in their fibers, and food, because they bear three different varieties of fruits and vegetables."

 

Hypnotized, Mildred reached out toward one of the delicate vines. None of them was over six feet in length. They looked like thin rope, hard and twisted.

 

"No!"

 

Boldt's shout galvanized the guard nearest Mildred into action. He slapped her hand away just as the vine came speeding toward it, just before she saw the thorn suddenly jet out the end of the vine, dripping ichor.

 

The vine twisted and curled anxiously, searching for her. It caused the vines next to it to become unsettled, as well, and they went on the defensive, too.

 

The old woman opened her eyes and started to back away, her face paling in terror.

 

Boldt grabbed her roughly by the back of her dress, not letting her rise from the ground. He knelt beside her. "Sing to them, damn you!" he roared.

 

"They will not listen. They need to be given time."

 

"There is no time," Boldt said.

 

Mildred saw that his actions had drawn the attention of several people in the area. They all stopped their work, and their faces were filled with hate and loathing.

 

"Sing to them!" Boldt repeated.

 

The vines swept back and forth like cobras scenting the air. One darted out, almost faster than the eye could see, streaking for the Celtic prince.

 

Using the flat of his hand, Boldt turned the attacking vine away. The thorn buried itself in the loose folds of his robe. "Sing to them, old woman! Or I shall let the next crop of tanglers sort through your body for mulch! I am not going to lose the plants!"

 

Haltingly the old woman began to sing. Boldt continued to hold her, only inches from the menacing tanglers.

 

Mildred felt tense and angry. She wanted to do something for the old woman, but there was nothing she could do without endangering both of them. It took hard work to keep her face from showing how she felt.

 

Gradually the singing calmed the tanglers, and they started to droop.

 

"Good," Boldt said. "Very good." He released the old woman and moved away.

 

Tears leaked out of the old woman's frightened eyes, but her voice never faltered.

 

"She's one of my best singers," Boldt said. "The seedling tanglers recognize her before any other."

 

"Good thing for her," Mildred said in a neutral voice.

 

"It's a good thing for all of Wildroot," the Celtic prince said. "These plants are the lifeblood of our community."

 

"They kill."

 

Boldt nodded. "And devour, given the opportunity. Children are taught at a very young age to stay away from the tangler beds."

 

"And if they don't?"

 

"They die. The thorns of the tanglers are very poisonous."

 

Mildred watched the way the tanglers danced in quiet syncopation to the singer's song. "Your father made these things."

 

"They are very useful, as I've said. We derive food and clothing from them, and they are a defense."

 

"Once you get them on your good side."

 

"They can be trained," Boldt said. "During cryo sleep something must have happened to the seedlings. There was some radiation seepage in the main vaults. They must have mutated."

 

Mildred filed away the mention of the vaults, not wanting to show too much interest. "Your father died during cryo sleep."

 

"Yes."

 

"And you were the only two in the cryo chambers."

 

"Yes."

 

"Then where did these people come from?" Mildred gazed around them as they walked back to the cart.

 

"He had frozen embryos obtained from med centers he had access to. He chose only the best genes available to remake the world. There are cloning chambers below, as well. After I was awakened, Merlin set about bringing the first people to fruition."

 

"Merlin?"

 

"The computer system my father had built. He did most of the parameter programming himself."

 

Back in the cart, Mildred glanced over the populace of Wildroot. "When did Merlin cause this to happen?" The insidiousness of what had occurred, coupled with Boldt's cold telling of the particulars, made her skin want to crawl.

 

"I am fifty-one," Boldt said. "It was forty-two years ago."

 

"Many of these people look older than that."

 

"Take us back," Boldt told the driver. The man pulled the horses around in a tight circle, and the stomping of their hooves and the jingle of the harnesses slowly drowned out the old woman's plaintive singing. "Many of these people are older than that. Merlin brought them out of the pods full-grown."

 

"What about their memories, their education?"

 

"All given to them," Boldt said. "Merlin had several templates available to it, and my father's guidelines gave the quotas for each."

 

"How many people?" Mildred asked. She made herself cold and distant, reminding herself that every scrap of information she garnered would aid in her escape attempt. And there was no doubt of the necessity of an escape.

 

"In the beginning," Boldt said, "one hundred."

 

"Your father knew how to do this, too?"

 

"The Lydecker Foundation," the Celtic prince replied. "Some knowledge was borrowed."

 

"Then these people started having children of their own?"

 

"No," Boldt said. "It was forbidden by my father's edicts. He wanted each individual in this community to be placed as carefully as a seedling, each to perform its function and design."

 

Mildred watched the parents huddled around the children so protectively as they drove past.

 

"The people, though," Boldt said with rancor, "weren't able to view the children as a harvesting. They becameattached. And when I placed some of them in charge of the human seedlings, they carefully concealed the fact that some of the people in the thorpe were having children of their own."

 

Mildred was stunned.

 

Boldt nodded. "I see you're surprised. So was I. Some of Merlin's programming managed to deduce what was happening. Our food surplus, our seeds, all these things are carefully measured. I was alerted to what was going on. It took months to figure out who was behind it. When I did, I killed the responsible parties."

 

Mildred refused to let herself say a word. Nothing she could have said would have been what the madman sitting in front of her would have wanted to hear.

 

"I couldn't believe the betrayals," Boldt said. "These people were given a taste of heaven, unfettered by what was going on in the outer world. In turn they tried to foul everything they'd been given."

 

"What of the children?"

 

"Those I had killed, as well. The ones I could find. But some of them must have been carefully hidden."

 

The cart stopped at the foot of the mountain overlooking the ville.

 

Boldt got out and ascended the stairs. "My father had visions of a new world, one filled with perfection, a pedigreed selection of the finest the old world had to offer. These people, they've spit on his dream and introduced hybrids. Some of those hybrids have manifested esper powers. The ones with obvious physical deformities were destroyed. I myself examined every child."

 

"And killed the ones that didn't measure up."

 

"Yes. When you're growing a garden, you don't allow weeds in," Boldt said. "They have a tendency to try to take over and choke the life from everything else. You can think of me what you will, but my father's way is the only path to the salvation of this world."

 

Mildred followed the man back into the mouth of yawning root, through the corridors, walking through new twists and turns that she was sure took her farther and farther into the depths of the mountain. "That's your plan?" she asked.

 

"The salvation of this world?" Boldt asked as he led her into a vast chamber hollowed out in a space thirty feet in height and easily three times that in length. Computer hardware lined the cavern, seemingly on the verge of being absorbed into the root walls, the fibrous bark highly polished and reflecting the lights and the sheen of the machines. "My father's plan would have allowed nothing less."

 

"Do you have any idea what is waiting out there?" Mildred asked. She couldn't help herself, couldn't rein in the disbelief.

 

"Yes." Boldt walked to the end of the room, his staff in his hand as he sat in the sculpted wood throne at the head of a conference table. "I've sent seed heralds out into the world. Past New London, past the chunnel, where some gaps yet remain that a man might make it from here to the European mainland under the sea. The way is arduous, of course, but it can be made. I've even allowed some exploration through the mat-trans unit."

 

Unconsciously Mildred scanned the room. She spotted the familiar lines of the mat-trans unit in the softened shadows against one of the far walls. "Where have they been?"

 

"Over most of what remains of the British Islands," Boldt replied, waving her to a chair.

 

Mildred sat, steeling herself to appear relaxed.

 

"To Europe and even as far as the Russian climes. Through the mat-trans we've been to what's left of the United States. Deathlands, as you people seem so fond of calling it."

 

"Not my idea," Mildred said, "but it fits."

 

"Yes. Quite appropriate."

 

"Did all your seed heralds return?"

 

Boldt leaned back in the throne. "Most but not all. Never all. That is a vicious world awaiting us out there."

 

"How many didn't return by their own choosing?"

 

Boldt's smile was cold, cruel. "None. They were given an inducement to return. Before any of them left, an explosive device was implanted deep into muscle tissue by med-bots under Merlin's watchful eye. If, after sufficient time for their journey to have elapsed, they did not return, the devices exploded. Managed by an internal clock." He paused. "I am quite thorough."

 

"Yes." Mildred felt the presence of the guards at her back even though they stayed out of her sight.

 

"More of the human race survived the bombing and the nukestorm than my father had anticipated."

 

"Your father knew the war was going to happen?"

 

"You were there," Boldt said. "Given the circumstances, was there any other way for things to end?"

 

Mildred held her tongue. There were dozens of other ways events could have gone. But they hadn't.

 

Boldt waved to encompass the room. "My father planned to restock the world after it destroyed itself. Using the money he borrowed through his contact with Colonel Walker, who was also in agreement, with enough biological material set aside to continue the future of this planet."

 

"Only they wanted things to be different," Mildred said. She looked into the lean man's eyes and saw the fanatical lights burning there. For a moment she lost herself in her imagination, wondering what it had been like for a nine-year-old child to wander through the complex by himself. She found herself wanting to know when he'd first had human companionship again.

 

"Of course they wanted things to be different. The human race, such as it was, was a cancerous growth on this planet."

 

"Was he a Celt?"

 

"No. My father was my father." The lack of reply indicated that the nine-year-old boy had never known his father at all. "He chose the Celtic way of life for his people. All of the ones who were fast-grown in the vats were imprinted with the beliefs and values of the Celts. They revered nature, and wanted to be one with her. Not like the generations spawned afterward."

 

"Not overly appreciative of your father's grand designs."

 

Again the cruel smile flashed. "They shall be sorry, though, in the end. And it is nearer than they think."

 

Mildred didn't like the ominous sound of that at all, and when Boldt continued, she liked it even less.