Part 24 (2/2)
”Lek, can you patch me into every net on this planet, media, entertainment, communication, whatever? If it can carry a sound, I'd like to be the sound they hear.”
”Boss, you sure about that? Vicky's already destroyed one workstation. You want everyone to know they can run, but they can't hide from us?” Ray's eyes swept the table.
”If we agree we want everyone to know we need help and they ought to help us, I don't see an alternative,” Mary summed it up. Kat nodded. Doc shrugged.
”Holy Mother of G.o.d, help us,” the priest prayed.
TWELVE.
DAGA HAD BEEN in trouble before. In her twelve years, she prided herself on how often her da or her ma said she was in trouble. What she was in now went so far past trouble, it terrified her.
”I say we just zap Richland. No Richland, no Sterlings, no problems,” Sean the bully said with an empty grin.
”Sean, you're a dumb ox. All the copper is under Richland. We make it vanish, where we gonna get copper for a TV?”
”TV rots your brain” was Sean's usual comeback, and he used it again. Daga prayed the quiet woman would tell them to shut up; sometimes she did. The woman and the two men with her just stared out the window at the pouring rain. They'd slept outside since leaving Hazel Dell; tonight they were in a house. The couple who owned it had given them their upstairs room and were downstairs, listening to a muted weather report.
There was running on the stairs. The man of the house skidded to a halt at the open door. Behind him, the sound of the TV grew loud. ”You better come hear this.”
The unnamed woman turned from the window. She and the two men swept past Daga. Sean and Jean Jock followed, Daga trailing them. On the stairs, she stopped to watch. The amba.s.sador from the starfolk was on the TV.
”I apologize for interrupting your evening,” Ray began, ”but some very strange things have been happening here on Santa Maria, since just before we arrived.”
Annie huddled beside the fireplace, taking what little warmth it offered. The wagon had rolled on long after dark. The wind and the rain had whipped at them, soaking their clothes. Finally the young woman had pointed the old man at a large stone house far beyond the edge of a village. The woman had greeted a man with cheer; they talked quietly at the other end of the great room. Two youths, one hardly older than Annie, did their bidding, preparing a meal. They said nothing, but the looks they cast Annie were as frightened as the ones she spared them.
What have we gotten into? Oh, to be home, with Da, and Ma, and Jeff. To have a warm bed, warm food, and dry clothes. The older servant cautiously approached the two. ”Master, the television in the kitchen is behaving strangely. All channels show only the starman.”
”Let's see what he has to say for himself,” the woman answered. The two left the room.
”Nikki, stay here,” Annie said as soon as they were gone.
”Don't go,” Nikki whimpered.
”I have to. Stay here.” Quickly Annie stepped off the distance. Yes, she could hear the Colonel's voice, so calm, so confident, explaining what Jeff had told her about the tumor growing in their heads, and the machine that was trying to make contact with them but failing.
”You believe any of that?” the man asked.
”We've been here three hundred years with no problems.”
”But you will admit, people have been acting rather strange of late. Even, dare I say, the divine Miss V. This might explain it better than anything.”
”It might,” the woman said slowly. Then the Colonel told the world about Nikki and Daga's vanis.h.i.+ng box.
”Oh, s.h.i.+t. That lets the cat out of the bag,” the man snarled and stomped around the kitchen.
For the first time Annie was learning about them. She'd heard Jeff growl about the divine Miss V, his sister.
Now they talked in hushed tones, too low for Annie to hear, so she hastened back to Nikki. She had heard enough; they were in Vicky Sterling's hands.
As Annie settled down beside Nikki, she moved her wallet over to keep it from coming between them. It was bulky with Dumont's automatic. No one had searched her, no one had violated the privacy of a young woman's wallet. The two in the kitchen, still discussing the Colonel's call for help, thought they had everything planned.
Annie knew at least one thing that was not in their plans.
Jeff sat quietly, nursing a no longer hot tea and trying to keep from thinking of Annie out in this weather. Surely whoever had taken her would have her inside on a miserable night like this. Even Old Ned had agreed to stay in an inn. So the two sat with their backs to a corner, forming a quiet s.p.a.ce in a happy babble as the customers watched a replay of last summer's soccer champions.h.i.+ps. People cheered their favorites, as if the outcome were unknown. Then the Colonel came on.
There were groans and demands to put the channel back. Several channel switches showed only the same earnest visage, with the same unbelievable message-a.s.suming you hadn't been living it the past few weeks. While the message sank in, the general complaining continued. Several people voiced loud doubts that everyone had a lump in their head, even when Ray showed them brain scan after brain scan. Over time, more grew thoughtfully silent. Finally it was the ones who interrupted who were told to shut up so others could listen. The room was a deathly hush when the Colonel told about a mountain vanis.h.i.+ng beneath his s.h.i.+p as it made its first orbit. The camera panned to show Willow and Emma, describing the box, what it had done, and how they'd run.
”They're just girls,” someone grumbled dismissively.
They were roundly shushed.
”Well, the fox is in the henhouse,” old Ned whispered. ”What's the starman think he's doing?”
”Begging for help,” Jeff whispered, and kept watching.
Hen was meeting with her security consultants when her a.s.sistant stuck his head in the door. ”Ma'am, I think you better see this. It's even interrupted the letter I was typing.”
Hen fumed as Longknife told everyone what he said was happening to them. Behind her, some consultants marveled at things they didn't know, as if they needed to know it all to do their jobs. She doubted anyone really understood all that babble about viruses causing lumps in their heads and the huge computer that was trying to talk to them and had made Rose's life so miserable. Now he was telling everyone that the strange box could make anyplace disappear. That would certainly help people sleep tonight. He had to be out of his mind.
But his ending was the most puzzling. Why tell everyone that he and his people were starting to extract metals and would make it available to the manufacturers of New Haven and Refuge? When the metal was ready was soon enough. If he failed, now he faced embarra.s.sment and disappointed people.
”The man is a fool. He does not understand us,” she snapped at her consultants when he finished.
”If the right people are listening, we may find out who knows where the vanis.h.i.+ng box went,” one ventured.
”The panic we will see in the streets tonight will hardly be worth the few extra days this gives us in finding it,” San Paulo snapped. No one disagreed with her on that.
Ray leaned forward. ”The problems you and I face today may seem daunting. The power of the vanis.h.i.+ng box is immense, yet the six who have it have not used it since fleeing Hazel Dell. The threat of the teaching computer and its ability to rattle even our very skulls is terrifying, but we can choose to control our fear, anger, terror even as we feel them beating at us. The choices are ours. If we work together, we can make good ones.
”If you have reason to believe that you have seen the six with the box, call us at the number on the screen. If you operate a manufacturing concern and need metal to keep your employees working, call us at the second number. We can arrange for at least a minimum supply to keep you going over this disruption. There is no reason for us to fear. There is no reason for us to tear at each other.
”Together, we can make it through this.”
”Now everybody knows about us,” Sean the bully whined. ”They'll all be after us.”
”Not if we stay far from view,” the nameless woman said. ”Saddle our horses. We ride tonight.” Three men moved to obey her, stepping out into the wind and rain without a backward glance. The woman of the house dismissed herself for the kitchen to pack a basket with all the food she had.
”But what if we're caught?” Sean stayed where he was.
”Then we see how good the vanis.h.i.+ng box is,” the woman answered with a voice so even it made Daga s.h.i.+ver worse than the cold wind from the door as the boys moved to obey.
”Should I call the Colonel?” Jeff asked as people around the Public Room discussed the first real news any of them had probably ever gotten from a TV.
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