Descending Star

RUINS

Rex turned his back on the approaching diesels and strode through a vast empty corrugated steel structure toward the octagonal headquarters beyond it. From above, eight prefabricated box-like structures radiated like spokes from the central stop-sign shaped building. The entire assemblage clung like a beached starfish to an arid chalky hill on the outskirts of one the most squalid infestations of humanity that Rex had ever seen on earth. He heard the diesels laboring up the dirt and gravel road, grinding their gears and belching soot into the grimy air. He entered the central building and there found Emelia, already busy with containers and hastily arranged tables. She reconstituted her map room on one end of the building. Diesel generators and ventilation pumps would take much of the rest. In the center of the radial structure would be the Hole.

The Hole to where, Emelia had not yet explained to Rex. He wondered if she even knew, herself. This change of itinerary had been inspired entirely by Colleen's power of suggestion. They were supposed to have been encamped to the south of Tanzania's Lake Victoria, by now. Instead, they were on some nondescript hill on the outskirts of a post-industrial tenement in central Asia.

The work crews had been here all month, busy with preparatory staging, erecting the buildings. Two of the radial arms had been set up as dormitories; a third and fourth served as the kitchen, slaughterhouse and cafeteria; a fifth housed the vehicle maintenance department and machine shop, and the rest would be warehouse space for whatever Emelia found in the Hole.

The operation had one hundred ninety-two workers and counting, all managed by the human foreman, a middling hirsute chain smoker named Sergei. His chief qualifications for the position were his personal relationships with all the government officials that had to be bribed.

Emelia called out, "I hear the trucks. Have they all made it?"

Rex had counted trailers additional to the drop containers that had been flown here from SeaTac. "How many are we expecting?"

Emelia considered the question. She honestly didn't know. Sergei was running all of the logistical matters related to the care and upkeep of the considerable human workforce. "I'm most concerned with the shipments from Tacoma. We need the generators and ventilators." Everything else, Sergei could scrounge from local sources.

Rex needed a high vantage point, but he had to check his impulse to simply step outside and leap onto the roof. Dozens of workers were busy outside, erecting timber stockades and electric fencing down the rolling hill, for all the livestock that were being brought to the site over the next couple days. The animals had a twofold purpose. They would feed the human workforce. They would also feed the vampires. One could not easily hunt from here. This city was one of the oldest continuously populated places on earth. The entire region had been cultivated for ages; the hills and plains had been deforested for centuries, and there was no wild game larger than geese to be found in a radius of at least four hundred miles. Even the timber for the stockades had been imported, over the past month, by Sergei's advance guard.

The dearth of forage posed no difficulties for Colleen, of course. Humans were in ample supply, in the sprawling tenements to the east.

"Where is she?" Rex asked. "Don't tell me," he muttered, with envy.

Emelia glanced up at him pointedly. "If you want to join her, you'll hear no reproach from me. Carlisle and his philosophy are on the other side of the planet. I'm seriously considering diversifying the menu, myself."

"I'll take it under advisement," he said, as he sprinted back out the way he'd come, to take more accurate stock of the approaching convoy. He returned in moments. "Twenty-one trucks. The four drop containers are present. Emmie, you'll have to wrap it up. We have to make ourselves scarce, so the porters can bring the generators and ventilators in."