Hello America. J. G. Ballard
its belief in itself. He looked out over the thirstlands of New Jersey, certain that he could master and tame this wilderness, in some way make it bloom again.
Almost three hundred yards away now, Steiner rode his black mare at the head of the expedition, his dark figure shimmering in the haze that rose from the metalled road. At times the Captain would seem to disappear, leaving a leaky question mark on the quivering air, as if he were slipping away into a parallel continuum. Behind him came the baggage train of twenty horses, loaded with supplies, camping equipment and the scientific instruments – half the laboratory from the Apollo packed into dozens of saddlebags.
‘Orlowski, can you call Steiner back? He’s leading his own separate expedition again…’ Dr Ricci had dismounted, and was setting up the seismographic tripods and radiation counters, ready to carry out the latest in the series of five-mile measurements. Anne Summers, meanwhile, was unstrapping the radio receiver tuned to the transmitter of a gamma-ray detector mounted on the roof of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan. On the last day Wayne and a young sailor had made the heroic climb up the endless stairways to the helicopter pad, where they had set up the machine, recompensed by a breath-taking view of the American desert stretching to the Appalachians.
As usual, Ricci seemed tired and fractious, slapping the dust from his elegant leather jacket – clearly the American wilderness was not glamorous enough for him. However Anne Summers, Wayne was glad to note, looked trim and self-possessed, and worked the radio in a business-like way. Three days after their arrival in New York she had suddenly pulled the pin from the bun behind her neck, and there had emerged, like a flare of light from a grenade, the long blonde hair that now shielded her from the sun. Already, in Wayne’s eyes, this white mane made her resemble some beautiful nomadic widow, endlessly crossing the desert in search of a young husband.
The baggage horses plodded along, heads down in the heat, nervous of the cactus-dotted terrain to the east of the Turnpike. As Wayne had discovered, the animals needed to be watched all the time, and the expedition was undermanned. Orlowski had assigned two reluctant seamen to join the party, but within an hour of leaving New York they had defected, slipping away among the cars and trucks that littered the wadi of the Hudson. Naturally they preferred to stay behind in Manhattan with the rest of the Apollo’s crew, repairing the ship by day and carousing in the empty bars by night, looting the abandoned apartments for the treasure of exotic clothes and record players that would make each of them a millionaire when he went home.
Wayne had fully expected to be left behind with the ship, especially after Steiner’s surprise insistence on joining the expedition and leaving his command in the hands of McNair. But after the defection of the sailors a bad-tempered Ricci had galloped back to collect Wayne, and he found himself in charge of the supply wagon. Fortunately, the mules responded to Wayne, though as he snapped at their ambling flanks with the dusty reins he wondered how to keep up with the rest of the party. The surface of the six-lane highway was littered with the husks of rotting suitcases and jerricans. At least, they were moving south along a relatively empty road. The north-bound lanes, towards New York and the Jersey harbour, were lined with the rusting hulks of cars and buses, bizarre charcoal-burning vehicles with gas cylinders on their roofs, left behind here when they ran out of fuel and their passengers stepped down to walk the last miles to the evacuation points.
Reassuring himself, Wayne listened to the splash and murmur in the metal tanks behind him. No one was going to leave him here, he realised, they were all dependent on the supply wagon, both for the thousand gallons of fresh water in the steel casks, and for the distillation apparatus that would supplement their rations from any damp salt pans or freshwater springs they might come across. In an emergency they could always head for the sea, fuel the still with driftwood and dried kelp and sit it out on the beach until the Apollo arrived. All the same, they needed Wayne. If he chose to steer the supply wagon behind one of these derelict buses, they would certainly be in something of a spot.
‘Professor Summers! Would you join me? Dr Ricci!’
Wayne sat up with a guilty frown. Had Steiner read his thoughts? The Captain had stopped in the shade of a route indicator that overtopped even the giant cactus beside it. He was calling to the two scientists as they finished packing their equipment and remounted. Steiner still wore his mariner’s cap, but under the narrow peak his face already had the expressionless yet wary look of the solitary sheriff or gunfighter. But Wyatt Earp, Wayne thought idiotically, had never worn sunglasses…
‘Come on, Wayne. Don’t play at being left behind. Orlowski!’
‘Captain, I’m not your galley slave.’ Perspiring, Orlowski dug his heels into the pinto and cantered the last few yards. With his short legs and plump chest, sweating freely in his grey Brooks Brothers lounge suit, Orlowski had already cast himself as Sancho Panza to Steiner’s Quixote.
‘“Trenton…Wilmington…Atlantic City…“‘ Orlowski peered up at the route indicator, wiping his face with a silk handkerchief, one of several dozen he had calmly removed from a store on Fifth Avenue. ‘What a help these signs would have been to the founding fathers, they might have taken a sharp U-turn…May I remind you, Captain, that I am in charge of this expedition—you are here to assist in navigation.’
‘And supervise the horses,’ Ricci added, fidgeting in his saddle. ‘This beast you picked for me, Steiner, is already lame.’
Steiner circled him on his strong black mare, nodding thoughtfully at the physicist. ‘I’d rather guess it’s your backside that’s lame, Doctor. Could I suggest that you ride side-saddle?’
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