“We did it,” Rosamund said in a relieved voice.
“What do you mean?”
“I was talking to Kieran and Jamas. We reckon the odds are in our favor now. If two of them make it to Aphrodite’s Seat, and one of them is the Starflyer agent, what can they actually do? None of them have any weapons. And if all three of them make it, then the problem’s solved.”
“Tell that to Adam,” Paula said harshly.
Rosamund glowered at her, but said nothing.
Paula tried to review the background to the navy three again. She’d done that once before with Adam. There had been something then, some little flash of knowledge that he’d tried to hide from her. As if anyone could do that. She’d seen it quite plainly on his face.
He knew one of them was innocent. So why not tell me? It must have implicated them in another crime? What? What could possibly make him shield them at a time like this?
“Do we have all the short-wave transmitters?” Paula asked.
“Yes.”
“So the hypergliders can’t pick up anything we transmit on them?”
“No.”
“I need to ask Johansson something.”
Rosamund kept one hand on the wheel, and pulled out the array with the short-wave function built in. “Here you go. It’s a hell of a distance. Don’t count on them picking it up.”
“It’s night, that’ll help.” She switched on the set, and set it to infinite repeat. “Johansson, this is Paula Myo. Adam was murdered at Stonewave. I need to know who contacted Oscar to ask him to review the Second Chance logs, and why you picked him. Please reply with a guarantee identity information from Alic Hogan.” She listened to it start its first cycle.
“How’s that going to reveal the traitor?” Rosamund asked.
“I’ll tell you if we get an answer.” She glanced at the horizon, not sure if it was lighter or if she was just imagining it.
Sunrise was drawing a gray hue across the eastern sky above the veldt. When Bradley looked out of the armored car’s narrow side window he could see the peaks of the Dessault Mountains away to the west, cold, sharp pinnacles jutting up amid the vanishing stars. He imagined the superstorm billowing around them to descend on the veldt like some apocalyptic force, scouring the land clear of all its new terrestrial life.
It wouldn’t happen for hours yet, if it did at all. They’d heard nothing from Samantha’s group since that last message yesterday about her being ready to surf. If she was keeping to schedule then the storm might be on time. They were still several hundred kilometers from the Institute, but making better time than they’d expected. So was the Starflyer convoy.
All of them had spent a long anguished night as the road rolled onward. Once they left the fringes of the rainforest behind the landscape reverted to featureless expanses of veldt with the occasional tree and bush poking up. It was as though their vision was locked in to some long loop of scenery that kept playing over and over. At night, with nothing to see outside of the headlight beams, the sense that they were making no progress at all was even worse.
After midnight they’d finally made contact with the Guardians who’d massed for the Final Raid. Watchers had been stationed along the last few hundred kilometers of Highway One to monitor the Starflyer’s movement. Their arrays and secure tight-beam links circumvented the wrecked nodes along the side of the road to put them back in contact with the main body of the Guardians, in itself a nice boost for morale among their little group as well as giving them a decent overview of the situation. When the reliable information started coming in they found they’d closed to within forty minutes of the Starflyer, but that still put it a hundred kilometers in front of them, and there were no more major bridges left to demolish. Highway One ran on across the veldt in an unbroken strip of concrete that was Roman in its brashness. At their current rate, they’d catch the alien just as it reached the Institute and before the storm hit. That was too close, Johansson knew. He was going to have to attack the Starflyer head-on. The warriors of the Final Raid would have their moment, sweeping down to block Highway One. The thought of how much blood would be spilled was chilling. The planet’s revenge would have been so much more effective. Isolation and exposure followed by death; but now that careful strategic plan was all but ruined. The fact that it was he who in the end had underestimated the Starflyer gave his situation its wretched poignancy. His one small grasp at salvation was the Paris team and Cat’s Claws; their armor might yet prove the winning hand.
“Picking up a short-wave signal,” Keely said from her seat at the back of the armored car. “Sounds like Paula Myo …” Her voice trailed off.
When Bradley looked around her face was ashen. “Put it through,” he told her gently. Interference generated by the sun as it rose in the east was now so bad it took nearly four minutes of the repeated message before they had a full version. There was silence in the armored car for some time as Paula’s voice cycled through its grim message again and again.
“Turn that fucker off,” Stig snarled. He was sitting in the back alongside Keely, where he was supposed to be resting after finally relinquishing the wheel to Olwen just before midnight. “He can’t be dead. She’s lying. I knew that bitch was trouble the moment I saw her.”
Bradley was still in shock from the news; otherwise he would have told Stig to calm down and keep quiet. That Adam might not survive had never occurred to him in the wildest worst-case scenario.
“After we kill the Starflyer I’m going to track her down and sort her lying mouth out once and for all.”
“Stig, pack it in,” Olwen said from the driver’s seat. Her attention hadn’t wavered from the road. She’d popped several beezees, but nowhere near as many as Stig. “We need to deal with this calmly and professionally.”
A communications icon flipped up into Bradley’s virtual vision. He opened it without thinking.
“This isn’t good,” Alic said. “The Starflyer agent is getting bolder.”
“But it’s not relevant,” Morton said. “I’m sorry, I know Adam was a big help to the Guardians, but their part is over. You said so yourself, the planet’s revenge team has finished setting up.”
Bradley frowned. Morton was right, and Paula would know that. She also knew that short-wave communications were completely open. Her message was still repeating, so she obviously considered it important. Why? “They must be doing something else,” he decided. “Paula’s many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. She’s telling us why this is so important. What’s at Stonewave?”
“Nothing right now,” Olwen said. “The travel companies mothballed it when the tourists stopped coming.”
“So what did it do?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a town out in the wet desert, they use it as a base for the hypergliders. There’s nothing else there.”
“Oh, dreaming heavens,” Bradley murmured in consternation close to panic.
“What is it?” Alic asked.
“They met Samantha and then they went hypergliding,” Bradley said. “Do you see?”
“Not a clue,” the navy commander admitted.
“The observation,” Olwen said. “Samantha needed them on Aphrodite’s Seat.”
“The navy people can all fly,” Bradley said. He stared at his watch. “And the morning storm’s about to hit the Grand Triad. One of them is the Starflyer agent, and they’re going to do the observation. Commander Hogan?”
“Yes?”
“Give me the guarantee she needs, some bit of trivia the Starflyer couldn’t possibly know.”
“In the Almada hotel lobby she told Renne she’d been running an elimination entrapment operation on her as well as Tarlo. There was only John King and myself there, and John and Renne are both dead now.”
“Good enough. Keely, we need to be absolutely sure this gets through. Link every short-wave transmitter we have, and crank them up to full power. Then put our message on constant repeat, no limit.”
&nbs
p; “Yes, sir.”
Bradley grinned contritely. Having to tell the Investigator the reason behind the contact would effectively condemn Oscar, but he couldn’t afford not to, not anymore.
“Ready,” Keely said.
“Paula, this is Bradley. You told Renne you were running an entrapment against her in the Almada hotel lobby. It was Adam who contacted Oscar because they were at Abadan station together.” And I wonder what the Starflyer makes of that? He settled back into the seat and closed his eyes, suddenly very weary.
“Are you sure about that?” Alic asked.
“I’m afraid so, yes.”
“But … Oscar Monroe was a senior manager in CST. He’s a navy captain. He couldn’t be involved in Abadan.”
“People change,” Bradley said. “What did you do in all your earlier lives, Commander?”
“This is my second, and I’ve been part of the legal profession in both. Look … I can possibly ignore what I heard, but Myo can’t.”
“I know. Presumably that’s why Adam never told her. He was protecting Oscar to the end.” He peered out of the slit window again, the Dessault Mountains were clearer now, the sky above them shifting to a dark lavender. The tallest of them, StOmer, stood high above the others, its conical snowcap already glowing a musky white as it guarded the northeastern extremity of the range. Its shape was familiar enough, even though he hadn’t seen it in decades. The sight of it triggered a reluctant acknowledgment he couldn’t put off his decision any longer. His virtual hand pulled up the icon for Scott McFoster, who was commanding the Final Raid.
“Yes, sir,” Scott responded instantly.
They rode down out of the foothill forests, over a thousand Charlemagnes each carrying a clan warrior. There was no need for concealment, they wanted the Starflyer to know they were there, so they sang as they trotted out across the veldt, a slow marching song that rumbled on ahead of them amid the dust their hooves kicked up. Such scouts the Starflyer had positioned along the road babbled frantically into their communications links and raced back to the safety of the Institute valley twenty-four kilometers away, chased by clan outriders.
Six hundred riders formed up a crescent shape with Highway One at their center where it reached the bottom of a shallow fold in the land. They blew up the small bridge across the stream, and parties of McSobels trotted down the road scattering mines on the concrete and across the land on either side. Mortar launchers and missile racks were dug in on the higher ground overlooking the road. The remainder of the warriors divided into groups of two hundred and withdrew from the road, loitering a couple of kilometers to the north.
There they all waited as the sun rose to transform the sky into its daily sapphire brilliance. The heat built around them, pressing the air into silence.
In the placid silence of midmorning, the Starflyer convoy hove into view. Thirty armored Land Rover Cruisers were interspaced by several larger trucks, three buses, and a couple of small fuel tankers. A squad of ten big BMW bikes growled along out in front, ridden by armor-suited figures. The big MANN truck was positioned two-thirds of the way down the line of vehicles, its force field rippling the air around the buffed-aluminum capsule.
The bikes slowed as they crested the top of the fold and saw the Guardians blocking the way ahead. Their heavy engines grumbled loudly as they approached at walking pace down the long slope. The rest of the convoy followed them cautiously down. A kilometer from the rubble of the little bridge, the whole convoy came to a halt.
Out on the lush veldt, the remaining clan riders moved forward, spreading wide until the Starflyer convoy was completely encircled. The first armored car appeared on Highway One, rumbling forward until it reached the group of Charlemagnes standing on the road a kilometer behind the convoy. Olwen braked to a halt. “Finally!” she hissed.
The armored car’s thick door hinged up, and Bradley stepped out. Ten meters away, the door on the second armored car was already open. The Paris team and Cat’s Claws hurried out onto the sun-baked concrete and stretched elaborately. Scott McFoster handed the reins of his Charlemagne to one of his lieutenants and walked over. He threw his arms around Bradley. “Dreaming heavens, it is good to see you, sir.”
“You do the clans proud, Scott. There are more here than I expected.”
“Aye, and many more would be here with them. I had to be firm, else we would have had babes and elders riding with us.”
Bradley nodded slowly, thinking of Harvey’s corpse in one of the Mazda jeeps. He looked down the mild incline to the convoy. The growl of their engines was clean in the still, humid air. When he raised his eyes to the south, he could just see the saddle in the foothills that was the Institute valley.
“We’d best be quick. It will try to push through as soon as it can. Are there any signs of reinforcements?”
“No movement around the Institute. We’ve lost a couple of scouts, which is to be expected. But the rest are still in place. Besides, we’ll see anything approaching.”
“How many troops can it have left in there?”
“It’s not been easy to track movements along Highway One these last few months. But I’m confident there can’t be more than a couple of hundred humans left in the Institute.”
“That’s good. We have some zone killers on the armored cars, which should take out some of the convoy before we even start close-quarter fighting.”
“Can they puncture the truck’s force field?”
“I’d imagine not, but we’ll find out soon enough. We also brought some powerful dump-webs that’ll help break it down.”
“In that case, we’re ready.”
“All right then, I’ll suit up and join you.”
Just for a moment Scott hesitated. “Of course.”
“Don’t worry,” Bradley said softly. “I won’t get in the way. Besides, our friends here”—his gesture took in the Paris team and Cat’s Claws—“have agreed to escort me to the Starflyer itself.”
Scott took in the bulky armor with a professional glance. “I don’t suppose anybody would consider loaning me one of those fine suits for a couple of hours?”
There were several chuckles from the blank helmets.
Bradley turned to face the mountains that guarded the western skyline. The tall dazzling white peaks jabbed high into the clear sky. There was no sign of any cloud, not a breath of wind.
“We’ve heard nothing from Samantha,” Scott said, following his gaze. “That could mean it’s started.”
“Yes. Of course. Are there shelters nearby?”
“We’ve allocated some caves. I’ve got McSobels installing force fields in them now.”
“Let’s hope that’s good enough. No one really knows how powerful we can get—”
“Hey,” the Cat said. “We’ve got incoming. Very weird incoming.” Her gauntlet pointed into the western sky.
No DNA from Earth’s dinosaur epoch had ever been recovered despite some very creative science applied to the problem. This clearly hadn’t deterred the Barsoomians in their aspirational genetic experimentation. Bradley’s jaw opened in silent astonishment at the shapes that swam out of the lucent sapphire of Far Away’s sky. The creatures were clearly modeled on petrosaurs, with wings that were scaled membranes stretched over long tough bones. Sunlight shimmered in oil-rainbow patterns across the leathery tissue as the wings beat in long steady movements. Lizard ancestry was apparent in the body, though Bradley suspected a lot of sequences derived from crocodiles had been wound into the creature’s genome. Certainly the giant wedge head looked ferocious, and the four legs had lethal black talons.
As they approached, swooping lower toward the veldt, he could see the cloaked figures of Barsoomians sitting astride their thick necks. Some kind of saddle straps were wrapped around their pale oyster-gray hide. There must have been over thirty of them in the flock, all keeping a healthy distance from each other.
The first one came in low beside the road, its wings sweeping fast, then twisting around to pound a
t the air in giant downdrafts. It settled fast, its stumpy legs bowing into a crouch. A head that was three meters long, most of it jaws and teeth, swung around to align big protuberant eyes on Bradley. Wings that must have had a total span of fifteen meters fluttered once, and folded back with lazy neatness against the creature’s flanks. It bellowed out a high ululation that made Bradley clasp his hands over his ears. The cry was taken up by the rest of the flock as they plummeted down on the veldt as if they were descending on prey.
“Cool,” the Cat declared. “Hey you, Scott, I’d swap my armor for one of them.”
Their arrival never even flustered the Charlemagnes, who held their ground stoically. It was their riders who were gawping around in stupefaction. A ragged cheer began for the Barsoomians.
Bradley watched as the leader dismounted, seemingly gliding down the big creature’s side. “Greetings,” he said. “We wondered if you would join us for this event. I always hoped you would.”
“Bradley Johansson.” The Barsoomian had a dulcet female voice. “Your return to this world is auspicious, as we foretold. I am Rebecca Gillespie, and this is my congregation. We are happy to give what aid we can, but you must know we are also here to safeguard the Raiel.”
The shadows inside Rebecca Gillespie’s hood thinned slightly as she turned to look at Qatux. Two Barsoomians who had dismounted were gliding toward the big alien that had lumbered down from the back of the truck it’d traveled in. Tiger Pansy stood beside it in a very paternal fashion, giving the gray-robed figures a suspicious stare. The Barsoomians bowed deeply to Qatux, whose smaller tentacles extended toward them with the tenderness of a priest administering a blessing.
“What is Qatux to you, then?” Morton asked, his voice heavy with derision. “Some kind of old lost god?”
Rebecca Gillespie rotated slightly so that the front of her hood faced Morton. “The Raiel neural structure is supreme of all the sentients we have encountered in the galaxy,” she said. “As such it deserves our utmost respect. One day, we hope and believe our DNA can be elevated to such levels. In the meantime we are content with whatever insight it cares to grant us.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 224