Part 26 (1/2)
”I don't know.” Dumont asked the base. Suddenly the gridlines on their display s.h.i.+fted. ”About one mile in.”
Still, they covered the distance at a walk, Ned following the signs. At the trail, the horseprints led west. ”Tracks are deep. They're riding hard.”
Dumont eyed the trail to the east, toward Refuge, Richland. It showed no signs of travel. He worked his reader. ”They had more than an inch of rain here after the Colonel's little talk. What would that do to a trail?”
”Wipe it out entirely,” Ned answered. ”Especially if they were riding slow, like I would at night.”
”d.a.m.n! Chief, have one of the sky eyes cruise east on this trail. See what you get.”
”Will do,” came from the commlink.
”Now we go west, I suppose,” Du said to Ned.
”It's the only trail I have to follow.”
”Annie's that way,” Jeff blurted out.
”How long will the trail last?” Dumont asked.
”Not long, if I was riding it,” Ned answered curtly.
An hour later they called the Colonel to tell him the one trail they had had broken up, and they had no idea which way the box had gone. ”What's your best guess, Du?” the Colonel asked.
Du handed his commlink off. ”This is Ned. If I had the vanis.h.i.+ng box, I'd have gone east. Either the folks at the house lied to the second party, or they believed that the first group went west. That's guessing. What I know is that we've lost them, all of them. Best we wait around and see what happens next. I can talk to some folks, have them talk to others. Until somebody sees something, I think we're just chasing ghosts.”
”Sounds like it. Du, Mary's coming back north this evening. She's got things started in New Haven. You want a ride?”
Du glanced at Jeff, who was having a hard time staying in his skin. ”We can't just leave Annie out here with people like that! We've got to keep trying!” Jeff insisted.
”Colonel,” Du said, ”I know you're short manpower, but this is where the action is on the vanis.h.i.+ng box. Some pretty nasty people want it; we need it. I want to stay down here.”
”Take care,” the Colonel said. ”Those nasties won't be ignorant about you for long.”
”Kind of hope they come looking for us, sir.” Du turned to Ned as he tapped off. ”Okay, tracker. Let's find the s.h.i.+ts that did that house. I think it's time Vicky Sterling learns there's some things her money can't buy.”
”She hurts Annie, Du, I swear, I'll hold her down while you cut her heart out.” Jeff said the words without thinking, meaning them without reflection.
”I'll try to save you from that, Jeff.”
Ray had experienced the calm before a storm. South, miners were making metal, and people acted like they might listen. In the center, Refuge and Richland were quiet. North side was terribly quiet, not a peep. All he could do was wait, worry, and miss Rita.
So Ray got busy, working with Tico and the new recruits. Since riot control was all he could expect from them, they were equipped with ceramic s.h.i.+elds, helmets, and clubs of a resilient local wood. Uniforms were armbands; they marched, wheeled, did column rights and lefts, and changed fronts by the flanks. It was a drill as ancient as the Greek hoplite, but it was the best Ray had to fight primal human screams and a super computer. He took a turn with each platoon of one hundred, drilling them, letting them see him, hear his voice. That was what command was; not paperwork, but eye contact.
It felt d.a.m.n good to have his legs underneath him, moving at the proper cadence and step. Almost made up for the hour spent arguing production priorities with Mary as soon as she got back. He fell into bed ready for the innocent sleep of a baby.
And found himself facing the Dean. ”Sociology, isn't it?”
”Close enough,” the dapper image in khaki and tweeds agreed.
”What're you folks up to?” Ray asked.
”I might ask you the same.”
”You'll have to explain the question better,” Ray said, still feeling good from the afternoon's workout.
”Why do you want the displacer, the *vanis.h.i.+ng box'?”
”Because I don't trust it in anyone else's hands. There's something about someone on a hill twenty klicks away making my base vanish that tends to upsets me.”
”Then I think you'll understand when I say that your having it upsets me.”
”I don't understand.”
”Come, now. You heard my complaint when you removed portions of our net from the rocks up North. You've figured out that we build ourselves into this world. The surface is our weakness. We need sunlight for power. You burn off our solar cells and we are helpless, just waiting for you to leach the rest of our metal out, like you did the Gardener. No. Colonel, you are a killer, and I don't trust you.”
Ray went over the statement slowly. He couldn't really blame the Dean. Given a choice, he wouldn't want the d.a.m.n thing on the same planet with him. Too much power. Way too much. But something else niggled at the corner of Ray's mind.
”You seem a lot more comfortable talking about yourself. There were quite a few *I's' in that last statement.”
”And you are a savvy type who deflects conversations from where you don't want them to go. The vanis.h.i.+ng box, Colonel.”
”I'm trying to get my hands on it. What deep hole do you know that I can throw it down as soon as I've got it?”
”I don't trust you to have it that long.”
”Has anyone told you that you have a problem with trust?”
”No, nor is anyone likely to. You are about the only one I am talking to these days.”
”Then the *I' does mean something?”
”Yes. We are fractured, divided. Some are at war with others of us. I never expected to see anything like this.”
”Are you at war?”
”No. I am just an expert on group dynamics. I can do nothing to destroy net nodes, hijack energy lines, silence static, or garble communication packets.”
”Sounds like things have gotten bad.”
”Bad and worse. Many are retreating to the mainland. It is better to be elsewhere when the President and Provost fight.”
”You haven't gone, though.”
The image across from Ray fidgeted in, his chair. ”No, I haven't, yet. I keep hoping that something can be worked out. That somehow we can find a way to persuade you that you really do want us for your teachers. I'm an idealist, I fear.”
”Do you have to be our teachers?”