Chapter 13

2076 a.d.

Journey

Béla lay in the boxcar watching the scenery rumble past. Her body tingled as though it didn't know what to do with all this available restorative energy from all the exciting sexual activity a few hours earlier. The lazy swaying and bumping of the boxcar as it traveled down the tracks didn't do anything to help her relax. She had already raped Jeff twice since they left New Hope, and was wondering if he was up for it again.

The Great Bard Geoffrey was having considerable difficulty working his goddess' sexual appetites into his understanding of her divinity. Béla wasn't concerned about whether or not he would work it out. Jeff was incredibly imaginative. Besides, she hadn't had any trouble instigating a ritual spring orgy among the druids when she had lived with them ... It wasn't really her fault that they had turned it into a ritualistic sexual sacrifice – but blood does make a really good fertilizer...

To have something to do, and to keep her mind occupied with something other than Jeff and (hopefully) his recovery capabilities, Béla decided to practice her teleportation. It was getting easier.

She took two empty vials she had managed to secure and lay down in the sunlight and the buffeting breeze coming through the open side door. Concentrating on one of the vials, she watched as it slowly filled with blood from her veins. She then filled the other one and put them both away in the first aid kit. They would probably need them in the next town if someone stopped their railcar, which was likely, as the next town bordered the Equator River.

The air, while still refreshing as it passed over and caressed her body, was starting to get more humid. The smell of marshland was more evident as they neared the equator. After all, most of the water flowed around the equator in a shallow, wide river, driven here by the same centrifical force that currently dragged their rail car toward the equator.

After another hour of travel, and one more sexual assault on poor, exhausted Jeff, the railcar swayed sharply as it was suddenly shunted onto a sidetrack. The automatic brakes engaged at the same time as buffers noisily pressed against the sides of the car. The sudden swerve and lack of forward motion somersaulted Béla off Jeff, upon whom she'd been languishing after her last orgasm.

"Ride's over," she heard Jeff chuckle from somewhere behind her.

She looked around where she landed and discovered that she had rolled completely over with her bare legs smacked up against the front of the railcar. She was almost standing on her shoulders.

'Oh, Joy! My favorite position!' she thought sarcastically. 'Pile driver!'

She leaned sideways and flopped down on the floor. There were voices of men approaching outside the car. Then someone was striking the metal side with a hard object, possibly a rifle barrel or a wooden club.

"Anybody in there?" someone called out.

Looking around, Béla grabbed her shirt and slid her arms through the openings. She had no idea where her trousers were and she was already feeling annoyed that some illiterate ass hole had run their railcar into a freight stop when the pennant on the front of the car was plainly YELLOW, indicating PASSENGERS, and not blue or green, indicating cargo or livestock.

Jeff retrieved the replenished first aid kit and hopped down to the ground through the open side door, then held it out for the rail guards to see. Béla stuck her head around the corner and looked around, then gingerly hopped down beside him, still pantless, with her shirt half open as well. The guards looked at her with some disdain mixed with lust. Béla glared back; she knew what she smelled like. She was what she smelled like and she didn't care if the guard liked it or not!

The guard on the right put the barrel of his rifle under the front of Béla's half-buttoned shirt and pulled it aside, admiring her slender torso and tight belly. He stared at her lack of pubic hair longer than was politely necessary.

"Please, do not anger The Goddess," the Great Bard Geoffrey said. "The last person who assaulted her is a pile of ash on the road leading north from New Hope."

"New Hope is under quarantine," the guard told them, "as are all the northern communities. No one is allowed to bridge the equator."

"I have the cure for the wasting disease," Bard Geoffrey announced. "It is a gift from her mother, the Goddess of Light." Jeff held the red and white case in front of him and opened it. He produced the two vials of Béla's blood.

"You may test it if you like," Bard Geoffrey informed them. "You should dilute it, first, as the pure essence of the Goddess is extremely potent."

"We don't have the disease here," the guard told him. "We turn back all who approach, whether they are sick or not."

"It looks like somebody has it, though," Béla said, interrupting them.

The guard looked at her, then looked to see where she was looking. High above, on the other side of the Equator River, a fire was burning in a town square.

"We need to go there," Jeff said, urgently. "We have the cure. We can save them!" Jeff tried to push his way past the guard.

"It won't do you any good!" the guard said, shoving him back. "You can't get over the bridge!"

"What do you mean we can't?" Jeff asked, anxiously. "We need to get to Southern, to get a transport..."

Béla interrupted him. "Jeff," she said, quietly, but with urgent intent, "nobody can get across the equator. At least, not here. The bridge is too damaged to cross."

Béla had raided the mind of the senior guard and saw the horrifying destruction by his own terrified people. He had been unable to stop a railcar with three families in it. As it approached the far side of the bridge, someone had thrown an explosive device, derailing it. He had watched helplessly as the railcar and everyone in it plunged down and disappeared into the swift water, far below.

Béla looked at the guard, still mind-linked with him.

'The disease is in the water now, ' she made him think. 'Soon the whole world will be infected. There will be no stopping it without our help!'

"There is nothing I can do," the guard told her. "Even if I were to attempt to return, I would be shot by my own people."

"Well, I can get across without using the bridge," Béla told him. "What kind of reception would I get if I suddenly appeared in the Town Square?"

The guard had no idea. "Most of the people who have guns are guarding the perimeter," he informed her. "You might possibly be overcome by brute force, but you probably won't be shot. At least, not right away."

"Are there any of you here who are sick?" Béla asked, "Please tell me. I ... we can cure them."

"Those of us who get sick go out from the station to die in the fields," the guard replied, "away from those whom they would sicken. They live with each other, in the death camp, there."

He pointed to a colorful patch of tents several miles north and to the east of them. Off to one side of the encampment raged a bonfire.

"That looks like a good place to start," Béla told Jeff. She noticed that there were no rail tracks going near the encampment. "It looks like we get to walk there."

On the orders of the senior guard, whose mind Béla had ransacked, they were released on the north side of the station with directions to the settlement. They didn't really need directions, as it was far enough away for them to see it on the rising landscape. As they got closer, it disappeared behind a small wood, but reappeared as Jeff and Béla emerged from the trees.

There were no guards preventing entrance from this direction. Béla felt the minds of the people before her. Many were not very sick yet. A few were dying. There were two non-infected guards on the northern road, set there to prevent anyone who wasn't ill from entering.

For a camp where people came to die, it was remarkably well kept, with latrines dug into the ground downwind from the camp. Over the individual campfires, whatever they were cooking smelled good. After a moment, a lad noticed them approaching.

"You don't look sick," the young boy said, looking at Béla. "You shouldn't be here. If you stay, you'll get sick and die."

"Run and tell whoever is running the camp that we've brought a cure for your disease," Bard Geoffrey told the lad.

Their reception was only slightly less than enthusiastic, tempered only by the fact that everyone there was sick. The Great Bard Geoffrey and his goddess were set up in the middle of the camp, injecting everyone with Béla's diluted blood.

Those who they cured were bringing their families to see the goddess, carrying those who were too weak to walk on their own. Those who no longer had families brought food as an offering of gratitude. In less than a day, the encampment was declared free of disease of any kind.

Béla lay on a soft blanket (a gift from a grateful family), basking in the light from the crystal sun. She was gazing at an encampment similar to the one they were currently in, about twenty miles up the horizon. In the background, she could hear the Great Bard Geoffrey retelling the story of the Goddess' birth and her Great Purpose to save man from being cast from the second paradise to a fascinated group of people. She knew her story almost by heart, now, having heard it about fifty times.

'We should go there, tomorrow, ' Béla thought to herself, easily able to feel the anguish radiating from the distant encampment and knowing she could help them. She also realized that if she made too many detours like that, it was possible that she wouldn't get to Southern before their crystal sun began to shine, shutting down all transport to the great ship for the next two months, at least. Somehow, it didn't seem to be as important to get back as it had been.

'Perhaps the journey itself is what's important, ' Béla thought to herself, then smiled as she remembered how many old earth philosophers had said exactly that.

She went to sleep in the sunlight, her mind closed to the stares and whispers of the people around her as they tiptoed by, being careful not to awaken the nude, sleeping goddess.

The next day (when Béla awoke, she considered it the next day, although the crystal sun never moved), the Great Bard Geoffrey and his pet goddess returned to the rail station and convinced the attendant there to let them use the electric railcar they had arrived in to travel to the next rail station along the equator. The papers were still with the car indicating they had time on it; enough time to actually reach Southern, if the bridge had been passable. The only change needed was the destination.

Riding in the railcar with the electric motor powering it was completely different than riding in it as it coasted gently down to the equator. The motor annoyed Béla the same way Earth's sun did during the daylight when she'd lived there. In addition, there was an odd vibration in the floorboards that physically set her nerves on edge.

They'd left all their vials of her diluted blood at the death camp behind them for use on any late arrivals, so Béla didn't know what she was going to use to collect her blood in when they arrived at the next camp.

"Don't worry about it," Jeff told her. "We'll just ask for a couple of jars and you can do your 'stand-in-the-sun-and-ask-your-mother-goddess-for-the-cure' routine just like we've been doing since New Hope."

It sounded reasonable. For the two of them, it would be easy to pull off. He was a born showman. She grinned, remembering her journey across France in the sixteenth century with a traveling 'gentleman doctor'. That was before the French Revolution, but after the so-called 'Hundred Year' war, but things still got interesting at times.

After forty minutes they arrived at the next rail station. They felt the car being shunted off the main line. Béla braced for the jolting stop they'd experienced the last time. As they glided smoothly to a stop, a platform appeared alongside the open door at the same level as the floor of the railcar.

As the pair stepped out onto the platform, an attendant greeted them, bowing formally.

"Greetings, Goddess," he said, "and salutations to you, Bard Geoffrey. You are expected. Please follow me."

Béla and Jeff looked at each other and shrugged, then followed the uniformed attendant down through a tunnel to the ground level. An open horse-drawn carriage waited at the curb.

"The Captain of the Lorraine Station wishes you to join him for dinner, if you would," the attendant informed them. "This carriage will take you to his residence."