Part 28 (2/2)
”Nothing. But at least he was my own kind.”
”Your own kind are killing you,” Ray pointed out. He held out his right hand, palm up. The Dean stepped forward, put his hand on top of Ray's. A sheepish grin crossed the Dean's face. ”This is the way you do it, isn't it?”
”Close enough,” Ray answered hard. His gut was in knots. He'd called time on their dithering; either they all joined him, or it was over. Another stepped forward. Then another. The pile of hands grew. If they'd been real humans, Ray wasn't sure the thirteen of them could have made the circle, piled the hands on. Pothead was the last in.
”Yes!” Ray shouted. The others tried to follow suit. It was a bit weak, but it was a yes.
”Now what?” Pothead asked.
”Any way you could help me find the vanis.h.i.+ng box?”
”Not with anything you got,” Pothead answered surely.
”We collected chunks of you up north. Could any of them help?”
”No,” Pothead shot back. Then, ”Maybe. For a while after you've used a displacer, it has harmonies. If you picked up a harmonator as well as a couple of projectors, I might be able to knock something together. No. They'd be too small. You'd have to get too close.”
”I got a blimp that can move those rocks,” Ray said. ”You find the right ones and we'll have them in the air in an hour.”
”I'll have to get back in your net.”
”You're our ally. It's open to you. To all of you if you need a place to retreat.” Ray hoped he hadn't just screwed humanity. Trust was a two-way street.
”We will work with you,” the Dean said. ”We'll start moving this way. Net Dancer”-the Dean nodded at the one wearing a pot-”will work with you to find the vanis.h.i.+ng box. The rest of us will do what we can to resist the President and the Provost.”
”Anything you do to the Weather Proctor will be appreciated.”
”WP has gone back North,” Pothead/Net Dancer noted.
Ray came awake, grabbed his commlink, and punched for Lek. ”Old boy, that gremlin that was in our net is gonna be back any time now. Only this time, he's on our side.”
”You sure?”
”We'll know soon. He's supposed to help you go over Harry's samples and see if there's a harmonator-whatever that is-and a couple of projectors. That might help us find the vanis.h.i.+ng box, a.s.suming we can get a blimp up in this weather.” Out Ray's window, the clouds were scudding past, headed south. Hurricane number one must not be too far away.
”I'll get right on it, sir.”
Ray sat back on his bunk. He'd just sworn alliance with a dozen of the strangest critters ever to cross a human's path. Had he done right? Was the enemy of my enemy really my friend? Humanity had survived by that creed for a long time-and paid no small price. Ray considered the string of hurricanes pointed at his base, weighed the odds, and found them acceptable. Matt could still rock this place if all else failed. Nice thoughts for a loyal ally. He wondered what the AI's were thinking. Probably not far from his own. Trust took time to build. Time they didn't have. Experience they were about to get too much of.
The barefoot girl ordering a pail of beer was the first lead they had in a month. Jeff wanted to run after her the second she said her grandma knew where the box was. Ned and Du followed more cautiously. The girl stopped outside a small stone house. Ned hurried ahead to open the door for her; she disappeared inside. Ned and Jeff followed her into an unlit room. Dumont stood in the doorway for a long minute, eyes searching the street, then ducked inside and closed the door.
”Your man's a nervous one,” a voice said from a dark corner.
”He's alive. Others of his ken are not,” Ned answered.
”Fill me gla.s.s, baby duck, then run along home. That's a good one,” the voice told the girl who struggled to pour beer from her large pail. Ned took over. Dumont opened the door for her as she left hurrying, as much as her load would permit.
”What do you know of Annie?” was what Jeff wanted to blurt out. He squatted down, waiting for Ned to do his magic. Today, Ned seemed in no hurry. ”Do you think it will rain?” he asked.
”Da ya think it will ever stop raining?” the voice replied.
”Ya'll need a high mountain. And strong friends,” Ned said.
”Like yours?”
”They're not a bad bunch at your back, not bad at all.”
”I hear tell the starfolk are building a wall around their base. And they're letting those who build it stay inside. You'd need a lot of people to build a wall around all that. How do you get a job like that?” the shadow woman asked.
”You'd need to be a starman's friend.”
The woman edged out of the darkness into the light of the single window. Old, her hair was white, most teeth gone. ”I can't dig, but I do know something you want to know.” Ned said nothing. ”I know where the girl is that the other two seek. The six that came South a month ago, my son takes them food. High up in the hills, at the rock castle. From the chatter of old women around town, I'm not the only one who knows. And if many know, someone is likely to talk to the others who want to know.”
”Who else asks?” Jeff demanded.
”You're the young Sterling boy, aren't you,” the old woman reached for Jeff's face. Cold, calloused hands turned his head from side to side. ”Why should you be asking?”
”Annie's my...” Jeff choked.
The woman cackled. ”So the Sterling boy has lost his girl to his sister's toughs. That's a funny one. Why don't you run home and ask your big sis for her? Wouldn't she be glad to give her back to you?” Jeff's face burned, but he said nothing. Still chuckling, the woman held out a paper to Dumont. ”Write to your people to let me and mine in the base.”
Du pointed his wrist unit at the woman. ”I'll do you one better. Duty section, Dumont here. This woman's doing us a good turn. If she shows up at the gate, let her in.” Dumont got an acknowledgment, then added, ”If you don't hear from me, a.s.sume her good deed was a trap and act accordingly.”
”That wasn't a nice thing to do,” the crone whined, but she turned to Jeff and shoved the paper under his nose. ”You say something nice to your sister about me, too. You can never tell where I might need friends.”
Jeff scribbled, ”Help her, she helped me, Jeff” on the paper and shoved it back. Still cackling, the woman slipped out a back door Jeff hadn't known was there.
”Team, home on my signal. Bring the horses. We're out of here,” Dumont snapped into his commlink in the curt way of talking the starmen had among themselves.
Ned rubbed his chin. ”Think she told the others?”
”The more the merrier,” Dumont sighed. ”Let's move it, folks. Guns up. I wouldn't put it past her to have sold us to Vicky.” So saying, Du slammed the front door open, waited a moment, then crossed the threshold at a run. He stopped only when he was across the street, his back to the stone fence, head and rifle high, sweeping the roofs.
”All clear,” Du called without a trace of the embarra.s.sment Jeff would have felt if he'd admitted to such a fear, let it make him act like that, only to find it meant nothing. What would make a man like that? Jeff wasn't sure he wanted to know. Then he remembered where he was headed and who was racing him there. There was no one better than Dumont to go there with.
The mule rolled up the alley, a dozen horses capered behind it. They piled in with the rest; it was a close fit. ”Head east out of town, then take the south fork. We're going back country. And boys and girls, heads up. We ain't alone on this trip, and there's no second prize.”
Then Du called the Colonel. ”I got a handle on the vanis.h.i.+ng box,” they both said at once, then laughed. The Colonel explained a blimp would be heading their way with some kind of gadget aboard that might locate the box. Du told him what the woman had said. Their review of the rock castle formation showed several large mounds of boulders covering thirty hectares. ”Lots of places to hide,” the Colonel concluded.
”If your gadget ID's the hideout, I'd be much obliged.”
”We'll try. You say there are two other teams on this.”
”At least.”
”I'll get a spy eye going south to give you a hand. Du, we got bad weather coming with north winds. Once they get up to sixty, seventy knots, there's not a thing on Santa Maria but the shuttle that can work its way upwind.”
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