Counting Up, Counting Down by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345454997
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2002-02-05T21:00:00+00:00

Victoria was used to getting up at dawn. From sun to sun never seemed time enough to get through a day’s chores. But she was not used to being blasted out of bed by a horn that sounded as if Satan himself would wind it come Judgment Day. “That’s technology,” Mr. Griffin shouted, trying to make himself heard above the hellish din. “What are the damned Federation people playing at, using their accursed technology here?”

Victoria did not answer. Lavinia was screaming in terror from the next room. She ran to comfort her daughter, who cried, “Make it stop, Mommy! Make the bad noise stop!” But Victoria could not make the bad noise stop.

In fact, the noise got worse, for it turned to bellowed words, and terrifying words: “Victoria Griffin! Where are you, Victoria Griffin? Come out!”

From the other bedroom, Mr. Griffin yelled, “Don’t you go, Mrs. Griffin! I’ll fetch the axe to protect you.”

All at once, Victoria felt a warm burst of affection for her husband. She also felt fear for him—what could an axe do against the demonic dangers of technology?

“We need to talk with you, Victoria Griffin,” the impossibly loud voice went on. “No harm will come to you; you have our promise.”

“Don’t believe them, Mrs. Griffin,” Mr. Griffin said. “Those from outside the Church are by nature liars and cheats.”

Now that the horn was no longer blaring, Victoria found she could think again, after a fashion. She said, “Let me go out, Mr. Griffin. How can they have any reason to wish me harm? And even if they should, well, as a martyr for the faith I will sit at the right hand of God and His Son. And besides,” she added, slipping from the spiritual to the purely pragmatic, “if I talk with them, maybe they’ll quit roaring.”

Her sudden switch jerked a startled chuckle from her husband. “All right, Mrs. Griffin. God go with you.”

“God go with you, Mommy,” Lavinia echoed as Victoria walked out of her room and went to the front door. Despite her brave words, her legs were fear-light, ready to turn and bolt the instant her will released them. She took a deep, determined breath and kept walking.

Several men and women of New Zion were already out of doors, staring in disbelief and horror at the smoothly curved metal device that floated a couple of feet above the grass of the village square, and at the wantonly dressed man and woman sitting inside the device. Cornelia Baker’s avidly curious glance flicked from the flying machine to Victoria and back again. Victoria looked away, sick at heart. Cornelia would never let her live down such scandal.

She decided the quickest way to be rid of the scientists (even thinking such a filthy word made her lips purse in dismay) would be to let them have their say. She forced herself to take a step toward the flier. “Here I am.”

“That’s her, all right.” Victoria recognized Janice more by voice than by face. Janice jumped down from the flying machine.

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