Part 30 (1/2)
Du reached over, punched Jeff on the shoulder. ”Maybe I don't want to either. But we're here, and you and your girl could be nothing but atoms any second, so I'm doing what Mary and the others trained me to do-think with my head, not my a.s.s. For what it's worth, the echos show a cave up there, more like an overhang. The folks with the vanis.h.i.+ng box are camped there. We can get above them. That's what I plan to do tonight, when there's no sun, and, with luck, the d.a.m.n thing will have no power. Get above them and take them from behind.”
”When?”
”Probably when the group that has your Annie walks her and her sister into camp. That ought to distract enough people to let us do what we have to before they know they're being done to. That close we can use the sleepy bullets. Maybe n.o.body else will have to die in this lash-up. Maybe. That would be nice.”
Jeff nodded. What could he say? Dumont held all the cards in this game; Annie would live or die by his rules.
Harry's hand laser cut a wide chunk out of the gravel roadbed. He gawked; the d.a.m.n rock was fused solid. And not just where the wagon wheels had pounded it down. An inch or two below the loose gravel, it was solid rock again. He cut a wedge a good foot down and a foot across.
”You think that'll slow the Pres?” a voice chided him from his commlink. ”His repair crew'll have that patched in no time.”
”And this is?” Harry answered his unrequested message.
”You call me Net Dancer. I just thought I ought to look in on you, see how you were doing. Not very well, if I may say so.”
”Ca.s.sie, are the explosives in?” Harry asked.
”About there.”
”Hang around for a second,” Harry suggested. ”I'd make sure I was on our side of this break, though. It'd be a shame for us to slam the door with you on the outside,” Harry grinned. Actually, he'd love to.
”I'm inside,” Net Dancer answered peevishly. ”I'm observing this through your thin commlink.” Ten minutes later the charges went off; Net Dancer gave them a bit more respect. ”That'll slow them down for a couple of hours. Is that all you're doing?”
”We'll cut it in a couple more places. You just keep your eyes open for other work-arounds your old boss might try.”
Net Dancer might be happy, but the refugees they'd held up on the road while they blew it were anything but. ”We'll have the devil's own time getting Granny and the wagon through that. Ya got no respect, man.”
”Sorry,” Harry called. He got his crew remounted and headed for the next valley, where he would blow another hole in the road.
”You starmen, ya got your nice wagons. Well, the rest of us got what we got. Why ya making it harder on us?”
Ca.s.sie shook her head as she ordered the driver to go. ”If you have to explain what's going on, there's no use bothering. They don't like it, and they're fools to think not liking it will change G.o.d's will.” Harry had no answer for either man or marine. He held on tight as they gunned across an open field, leaving what was left of the road to the people on it.
Daga wrapped her arms around her knees, swaying slowly where she'd collapsed when the mountain vanished. The explosion had brought Sean and Jean Jock rus.h.i.+ng from the cave. They'd taken one look at the rising smoke and set up the box. They hadn't known how to open it. She'd refused to tell them until Sean bent her arm behind her and threatened to break it if she didn't tell. She'd opened the box and showed them how to aim it.
The noise and light had come again-and the gray, stone mountain had gone.
Then the woman and the two men returned. She'd been livid with Sean and Jean Jock. Shouted at them, demanded to know what they were thinking, why they'd done it. ”You heard the blast. There's something out there. It's gone now.” Sean had insisted.
”Gone, you say. You're sure,” the woman had torn into Sean. ”Something goes boom and you have to make a mountain disappear. Was the little boy frightened? You're disgusting.”
Daga was shocked that Sean let the woman talk to him like that, but under her tongue-las.h.i.+ng, Sean deflated like a broken blimp. When the woman finished with Sean, she turned to her two followers. ”Well, we'd better get ready. Someone is out there, despite what these idiots have done. Get your rifles.”
”Shall I put away the box?” Jean Jock asked the woman.
”No. Keep it out. We may have to use it again.”
Harry used a crowbar on the railroad bed, sc.r.a.ping aside the top layer of rocks. Below them, the bed was melded stone. What turned rocks into something that made fiber optics look like two kids holding cans with a tight string between them? ”Well, give us another few years and see what we've got,” Harry muttered to himself.
”It'll take millions,” Net Dancer answered from Harry's commlink. ”Unless you get us to help you. Want a hand, pops?”
Harry bit back several retorts. He never had liked his workstation; it always failed when he most needed it. It seemed to have a mind of its own. Did he want one that really did? ”How deep does this rock go?” was what he finally said.
”Railroad specs say three, four feet of rock. Don't know if the Gardener used it all or went farther.”
”I thought you knew everything.”
”Maybe the Gardener knew what he did. We lost all that when you humans fixed his wagon. Okay?”
A train's airhorn sounded in the distance. Harry strained into the gathering gloom. Right, train lights. They could rig the charges, let the train pa.s.s, then blow the section. Marines waved to the pa.s.sengers as the train rolled by, then blew the line charges. The explosions started in the distance and marched with majestic violence up the tracks, hurling rock, rails, and dirt in large, ever-widening plums. Try fixing that break, you arrogant bunch of circuits, Harry said to himself. With Net Dancer listening, he said nothing aloud.
Electricity gone, the train rolled to a slow stop. Harry and Ca.s.sie piled into their mule and headed home, carefully clear of the train. They weren't far enough.
”Ca.s.sie, did you do that?” came in a loud, piercing shout.
”Ms. San Paulo,” Ca.s.sie muttered under her breath. Sure enough, standing on the steps of the lead car was the Chair of the Central Circle of Santa Maria.
”Driver, over there.” Ca.s.sie pointed him toward San Paulo.
”What's the meaning of this?” San Paulo shrieked as soon as they were in talking distance. ”You've killed the train to County Clair. How are we supposed to get people to safety now?”
”They'll have to walk, ma'am. The big computer the Colonel is fighting has been using the rocks in the roadbed as a network. We had to take it out.”
”You can't send messages through rocks. That Colonel is crazier than I thought. You'll just have to drive me to the base.” Ca.s.sie looked distinctly uncomfortable.
”I'll have to call that in, Ma'am. Colonel's restricting access to the base right now.”
”He'd never turn me away. I have to see my daughter.”
”Can't argue with that,” the Colonel agreed, none too happily. ”Give her a ride in.”
San Paulo insisted that someone walk to make more room for her. Ca.s.sie crammed her and her luggage aboard.
Jeff climbed; the cold stone cut his hands. Blood made the next grip slippery. The marines had gloves. Bo, who'd stayed behind with the horses, had offered his gloves to Jeff. Too small, they fit Ned's grip. Jeff thought of Annie and climbed, taking up the slack in the safety rope. It was pitch-black; even with night goggles, he could hardly see the handholds. Jeff climbed, thinking of Annie, and not the latest argument he'd lost with Du.
The group coming from the west was following a trail. The marines had crossed ahead of them. Jeff wanted to set up an ambush, get them now, and free Annie. Dumont quickly dismissed the option. ”We're too d.a.m.n close to the box. Even sleepy bullets make noise. We stage a firelight here, they'll make us all vanish.” Jeff had wanted to say more, but he couldn't find the words. d.a.m.n, why did Dumont always have to be right? Did right matter when Annie's life was at risk?
It started to rain, first gentle bits of moisture on the wind, then angry drops. The marines grumbled despite their magic s.p.a.ce clothes keeping them warm. Jeff's outfit had been worn out to begin with. Now the wind and rain went straight through him. All he had to keep him warm were his anger with Dumont and his love for Annie. For the time being, these seemed enough. Ahead, Du signaled for a halt with a dark light. It had to be magic, a light you could see only with night goggles. Magic. And the computer was like magic to them. Junior mages fighting master mages. What chance did he and Annie have against them? We and our grandparents built this place. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'll let anyone take it away from us.
Jeff pulled himself up the last handhold. There was a flat s.p.a.ce where Du and the other marines huddled out of the wind. Jeff joined them; Du was talking. ”We got a shoulder here that leads around to the overhang we're headed for. Let's take five, then follow it. Jeff, show me your hands.”
”They're fine.”
”I got two big marines that'll hold you down if you don't show me those paws of yours. I see blood dripping from here.”
”It's just rain.” Without a word from Du, the two marines beside Jeff grabbed his arms and held his hands out, palms up. One was a woman; still, they held him like a solid metal vise. Du applied medicine to Jeff's hands; they hurt for a second, then went numb. Du finished by spraying something over it all. ”That'll hold them. You want to shoot straight, don't you?”
”You've seen Annie?”
”No, but it's a good bet they brought her here for something. Knowing the trust level of the s.h.i.+ts we're dealing with, they'll have a gun or knife on her to make sure she does what she's supposed to.”