Part 33 (1/2)

It took him a long time to find vines st.u.r.dy enough, drag them free, and tie them together. Their joining would be the rope's weakest point, where it might pull apart. When he had done his best to make it strong, he coiled the rope over his shoulder and limped back out to the northern tip of the island. He followed its edge until he reached the base, where the index finger curved out from the main land ma.s.s. Then he walked along the finger to its tip. His cast felt as if it weighed a ton, and he was so tired, he could barely drag his foot.

Thomas blinked and shook his head. He had fallen into a trance and lost awareness of his surroundings. So stupid. He had no cover out here; if Charon or Alpha showed up now, they could easily pick him off. What spared him, apparently, was their logical but uninspired belief that his focus would be the jets. Maybe it should be. He might have lost his reason with this plan. But he kept going.

After all his painstaking efforts, he ended up at the fingertip a few yards from where he had started on the terraces. The shelves were within jumping distance. He paused to catch his breath, and then he explored the tip of land. At least here he had cover; this part of the ”fingertip” was all outcroppings, no flat ground, just rocks scissoring into the sky.

Climbing among the formations reminded him of the time he and Fletcher had gone hiking in the Appalachians. Leila had been at Johns Hopkins and Tom Jr. had long since joined the workforce, so Fletcher was the only child at home. At fourteen, the boy was taciturn to the point of surliness. He always answered his father with grunts, until Thomas felt as if he spent all his time gritting his teeth in frustration. He had hoped to improve matters with a week in the mountains. He and Fletcher spent their days challenging the rough terrain, and at night they kicked back with hot chocolate or a beer. Thomas had never told Janice about the beers. Fletcher confided his hopes of becoming an architect. He talked about a girl he liked at school, which teachers did a good job, and which he never wanted to see again. Thomas spoke about his childhood in Iowa and how he had joined the Air Force so he could see the world.

It had been Janice's idea that he and Fletcher go for the trip. She had seen how her son and husband argued even though neither of them spoke much. Somehow she knew. She understood those things with an intuitive ease that had never stopped astonis.h.i.+ng Thomas through forty-five years of marriage.

Thomas bit his lip and fought the hotness in his eyes. Awkward in his cast, he sat down in a hollow formed by a circle of rock spurs, hidden from the island. ”Janice,” he whispered. ”I'm coming soon.” He wasn't certain he believed in traditional concepts of heaven or h.e.l.l, but he did believe in G.o.d, and it comforted him to think of Janice waiting for him after he died.

He questioned, though, whether he would end up in as pleasant a place as his wife. He had tried to live a good life, to be a good husband and father, but he had doubts about how well he succeeded. He had served in the defense of his country, and when that included killing, he had done so, but he felt no pride in having taken life. Yet at times, during his days as a fighter pilot, he had wanted to shoot down those other fighters so much, he had almost tasted it. His fire had calmed over the decades, but he suspected Janice was far more likely to go to heaven than himself.

”Stop it,” he muttered. His concentration was shot to pieces. He took off his tennis shoe and crammed it in a crevice on the side of the promontory facing the terraces. The shoe just barely stuck out from behind the rocks, as if he were trying to hide, but his foot had slipped. Then he climbed to the end of the fingertip, which looked out over the cove. He winced as rock slivers jabbed his foot through his sock. Maneuvering in a cast was hard enough, and without a shoe on his good foot, he couldn't walk much at all. Not that he was going anywhere. This tip of land was only a couple of yards wide. Unlike a real finger, it had no underside; it just dropped down in a cliff.

Thomas looped his rope around a spear of rock at the end of the promontory. He had enough line to let himself down to a cup of stone about fifty feet down and ten feet across. He doubled up the rope and knotted it at intervals, leaving the loop at the top. Even with the knots, hanging on would be hard. If he slipped or the rope broke, he would fall and smash into the rocks below. With luck, he wouldn't need this escape; both Charon and Alpha would step on the terrace and fall. Then he would get the Banshee and fly home. With luck.

His preparations finished, he hunkered down in the thicket of rock spears that hid him from the main island and also from anyone on the promontory. By peering between the knifelike formations, he could see the terraces; by twisting around, he could look through another break and see the approach along the finger.

Then he had nothing to do but wait.

Thomas leaned against the rocks and closed his eyes. He was hungry, and afraid, too, but he felt a

curious sort of peace. He had done what he could do. If this failed and he died, well, so, he died. He had lived a full life and left behind three great kids and a pa.s.sel of grandkids. If his time had come, he could accept that.

The afternoon pa.s.sed without event. He found rainwater in hollows of rock and eased his thirst, but his lips were swollen and his mind was thick. No matter how hard he tried to stay alert, he kept nodding off.

He sunk deep into a haze.

”Maybe he went swimming,” a deep voice said, intruding on his isolation.

Thomas jerked up his head, blinking and groggy. Then he peered at the terraces. Alpha and Charon were

standing on the edge of the island there, Alpha in her black clothes and Charon in his fatigues, with the EL-38 on his shoulder.

”Or he's trying to reach the jets,” Alpha said. Her voice had no inflections.

”He doesn't seem to be anywhere else.” Charon sounded impatient. ”We need to finish this. I've more

important matters to attend.”

”The Air Force is probably still searching for him,” Alpha told him. ”You're safer in hiding here.”

”I wasn't planning on leaving,” Charon said. ”I can keep using the meshes on my jet to work.”

No wonder Charon had stayed on the beach; he was working. Let nature kill Thomas while Charon

tended his empire, both the legal and illicit. Thomas gritted his teeth, unsure which provoked him most, that he ranked so low in Charon's estimation of the universe or that he could so easily die here exactly as his tormentor intended.

”See if you can pick up a signal from either aircraft,” Charon was saying. ”Maybe he found a way to get past us.”

Thomas's pulse leapt. If she left, his chances improved.

Alpha didn't go anywhere, though; she just unhooked a handheld from her belt. He couldn't fathom their logic. With both of them here, the jets were unguarded. If Thomas reached the aircraft, he might break their locks. He would take the Banshee and bomb the h.e.l.l out of the other jet before he left. If he got around the tip of the island. If he didn't fall. If he didn't drown. If his heart didn't give out. If, if, if. Well, why the h.e.l.l should they post a guard? They could calculate just as well as he could the infinitesimally small probability of his ever reaching that beach.

Alpha was studying her handheld. ”I detect no tampering with the onboard systems. No alarms tripped.”

Charon was staring in Thomas's direction. ”Look.”

Alpha lifted her head. ”What?”

Charon motioned toward where Thomas had left his shoe. Alpha hooked her handheld on her belt, and

the two formas stood together, staring at the shoe, neither speaking, though they made abbreviated gestures as if they were conversing. With their wireless capability, they could communicate volumes at high speeds, like technology-induced telepathy. Had Charon never been human, they probably wouldn't have spoken aloud or gestured at all. Charon probably did it out of habit; he still reacted more like a man than a construct.

A question came to Thomas, one he would have asked sooner had he been in better condition: How