“Home Base, Home Base, this is Eagle One. Do you read me?”
Nicole sat up, bringing a thumping welcome from Cricket, who was stretched out at her feet. The air had taken on a definite chill now, and for a moment she debated about snuggling back into the pleasant warmth of the bag. But she had seen the radio strapped on the packhorse and wanted to hear what was going on.
After a burst of static, Cliff Cameron’s voice answered, clearly recognizable even through the distortion of the speaker. “Eagle One, this is Home Base. We read you loud and clear. Over.”
Nicole moved with infinite slowness, every muscle in her legs and hips screaming in protest, as she put on her tennis shoes, then walked stiffly to sit down next to the fire. A twig snapped under her feet, and Eric’s head jerked around. He watched her for a moment, then turned back to the radio. “You’re coming in fine, Eagle One. How’s everything going? How’s Nicole holding up?”
Eric half turned again. “She’s sitting right here. Why don’t you ask her?”
“Nicole?” Cliff called. “Is Eric treating you okay?”
Eric held up the mike in her direction.
“Hardly!” she muttered.
“I didn’t catch her answer.”
Eric watched her across the fire as he put the mike back to his mouth. “She said, ‘Superbly.’ How are things in Shalev?”
There was a deep chuckle. “Alert. I think that would be the best word.”
“Are you out of the city now?”
“Yes. We’re all clear.”
“Have you done the other operations yet?”
Nicole’s head jerked up. Operations?
“Yes, they’re all complete.”
“Any problems?”
“Not really. It’s too bad we couldn’t use Sodium Pentothal on you. Once we gave them a shot of that, just enough to put them in a state of relaxed euphoria, they didn’t have a moment’s problem.”
“Good. Who all have you done?”
“We did Dick Andreason and his wife and their two children first. He’s the radioman Chet told us about. In fact, these are his radios we’re using now. We cleaned out a bit of his equipment before he closed up his shop. Also, he’ll have walkie-talkies, set on an unused frequency, for each of us once we reach the dam.”
Nicole leaned forward to hear better. Dam? That could only be Hungry Horse Dam, a few miles northeast of Shalev. The only other dam in the area was Libby Dam, but that was almost ninety miles west of the city.
“Good,” Eric was saying. “Who else?”
“We also did Dick’s friend, a man by the name of Rod Loopes.”
Nicole leaped to her feet. “Rod Loopes!”
“Hold it, Cliff,” Eric said, turning to stare at her. “I think you just got Nicole’s attention.”
Cliff’s chuckle was distinctly evident, even over the speaker. “He wanted to see Nicole’s face when she heard. He’s the one I told you about. He was, until this afternoon, the head of computer services at Central Control.”
“I don’t believe you,” Nicole cried.
“She says she can’t believe that,” Eric dutifully repeated.
“You think Nicole is shook—you should’ve heard the Major on the news broadcast tonight. He was absolutely livid.”
Nicole sat back down slowly, dazed by what she had heard.
“So we have four men?” Eric asked.
“Five counting you, and each one is good to very good with a rifle.”
“But can they use them? Or have they been so conditioned to implantation that they’ll freeze up in a crisis?”
“I don’t think so. Chet and I have talked about that with them. They may have to make a conscious effort to overcome their conditioning, but they all feel very strongly that what we’re doing is right. We think they’ll be fine. We’ll have a few surprises of our own for Travis on Saturday if he decides not to play it straight.”
“You made contact with him all right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think we can trust them to hold to the bargain?”
“Not for a minute. I expect the Major will come early to lay a trap, but we’re camped up above the dam now, and the exchange is not for two more days. We’ll see whatever he does and be ready for him.”
Nicole turned, suddenly tired beyond measure, the two more days before she would be free stretching out before her. But as she got up, she froze in position. Eric had built himself a lean-to shelter a few feet away from hers, and sticking out from beneath his sleeping bag, glinting dully in the faint light of the moon, was the barrel of his deer rifle. He had carried it in the scabbard on the saddle all day long, and she had eyed it longingly several times, hoping he would step away from it for just a moment or two. Now it lay there, invitingly.
She glanced up quickly at Eric, but his back was to her again, the bandage on his neck glowing like a target in the moonlight. With her heart pounding wildly, she began inching slowly toward the weapon, silently praying that Eric would not turn around and that Cricket would stay put. With a leap she covered the last few feet, yanked the rifle out, and spun around, levering a shell into the chamber.
“Eric!” Her voice cracked like a bullwhip.
He jerked around and stared for a moment, his eyes widening. Then he slowly stood up, his arms lifting into the air, bringing the microphone up with them.
“Get away from the radio, Eric.”
For what seemed like an eternity he stared at her, his expression lost in the darkness; then he brought the microphone back down to his mouth. “Cliff,” he said, “we’d better quit for now. I’ve got a slight problem here. I’ll call you again tomorrow night at the same time.” He clipped the mike back in place without waiting for a response, then straightened slowly.
“Well, well,” he mused.
“Stay where you are, Eric. I’m not bluffing.” She jumped slightly as Cricket brushed against her leg, looking up at her curiously.
“I know the accommodations are not first class, Miss Lambert,” Eric drawled, “but I’d hoped the rates would kinda make up for that.”
“I mean it, Eric. Move away from the radio. I’m going to call Central Control.”
She could see him smile in the dim light as he dropped his hands. The smile infuriated her. “Now, Eric!” she shouted. “Move away from the radio.”
“But you told me to stay where I was.” He took a step toward her. “You’re not nervous, are you, Nicky?”
“Eric, stay back!” she commanded, raising the muzzle higher.
“Make up your mind. Do you want me to stay back, stay where I am, or move away from the radio?”
When she spoke, her voice was steady and cool. “It’s not funny, Eric. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I must.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Oh, really? I have a hard time believing that.” He took another step toward her.
The rifle bucked in her hands with a deafening roar, and Eric jumped to the side as the bullet cut the air a foot wide of his head.
“I may seem to you to be a foolish, frightened female,” she said, levering a new shell into the chamber, “but I know how to use this. Now move away from the radio, slowly.”
Eric shook his head sadly. “I’ve never thought you were either foolish or frightened.” He took another step toward her. “But I don’t think you can blow a man’s head off either.”
“Eric! Stay back!”
“I’m coming, Nicky. Either use the rifle or give it back.”
As he took another step, she dropped the muzzle, aimed just wide of his feet, and squeezed the trigger again. As the bullet plowed into the dirt and forest debris, Eric jerked backwards and fell to the ground, writhing violently. “My eyes! My eyes!” he screamed, digging at his face with his clenched fists.
Nicole gaped at him in stunned surprise. She had missed him by almost two feet—unless the bullet had ricocheted or kicked dirt into his eyes. Cautiously she moved around the fire toward him, rifle ready.
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Eric rolled wildly, moaning in agony, but suddenly as she neared him, his feet shot out, smashing into her leg just below the knee. With a startled cry she went down, the rifle flying from her grasp. She rolled frantically, but Eric was already to the rifle, and he spun around to face her. For several moments, he didn’t move, just stood there, half hunched over, breathing heavily. Then he straightened. “Well,” he said softly. “I can see I’ve been taking you for granted.”
Nicole stared at him. Then she felt the tears of rage and frustration well up. Without a word she got up, limped past him, crawled back into her shelter, and buried her face into her sleeping bag, biting back the tears. A moment later she heard his footsteps. She yanked off her shoes and burrowed into the sleeping bag.
“Nicole?”
She pulled the bag over her head. “Please go away.”
He sighed wearily. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Please! Just leave me alone!”
For a moment he was silent, then she felt a sudden weight lifted off the sleeping bag. She jerked up into a sitting position. “What are you doing? Why are you taking my shoes?”
“You’ve proven yourself to be a very resourceful young woman,” he said softly. “I can’t take you for granted anymore.”
“But why my shoes?” Then suddenly she understood. Barefooted people don’t go very far in the mountains.
He moved away, not answering.
“You must be real proud of yourself, Mr. Lloyd,” she said. “Real proud.”
Chapter 21
The full moon had cleared the trees and bathed the tiny clearing and campsite in softly diffused light. The fire had nearly died, leaving only a few glowing embers. Even with the bright moon, the clarity of the star-filled sky was breathtaking. Eric sat and stared across the embers into the night, hunched in his jacket against the chill. The soft hoot of an owl mingled with the sighing of the wind in the trees, giving the night a quiet sense of peace and tranquillity—a feeling totally lacking in Eric Lloyd. By noon tomorrow he would join up with Cliff and the others. At five-thirty he would walk onto the top of the dam, very likely into a trap.
Irritated at the tightness in his stomach, he glanced at the lean-to where Nicole was asleep. As he peered into the darkness of her shelter, he acknowledged another conflict churning inside him. Since her attempted escape, they had settled into a sullen truce that left him filled with a nagging sense of guilt. She spoke only when it was absolutely necessary and steadfastly ignored him whenever he tried to be even minimally sociable. And yet, over the past three days he had developed a grudging admiration for her stubborn courage. Only today had his own body begun toughening up, the chafed skin callousing over and the crippling stiffness leaving him. And he had spent his life on a horse! Yet never once had Nicole complained or asked for an early stop. Part of that was the result of her anger at him, but part was sheer courage.
He picked up a log and set it carefully on the fire so as not to awaken her, but Cricket suddenly stood up and trotted to his side. Eric reached over and scratched behind her ears as she lay down next to him contentedly. A moment later Nicole emerged out of the shelter. She walked over to the fire, picking her way carefully in her stockinged feet, and sat down across from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t wake me. I was already awake.”
“You too?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow’s a big day. For both of us.”
She didn’t reply, and for several minutes they both stared at the flames licking hungrily at the log Eric had added to the fire.
“Nicole?”
“Yes?”
He hesitated, trying to sort out his thoughts. “Are you sure you want to go back?”
Her head came up slowly, and in the moonlight he could see a look of disbelief on her face.
“I mean, well, I know you want to go back home, but do you think you really can go back to Central Control and be a Guardian again?”
“Again? I didn’t realize I had stopped.”
“I heard what you said to Travis that night in your living room. You don’t want to be a Monitor anymore, right?”
“That was before you came back,” she snapped. “That changed a lot of things.”
He ignored that. “It’s open war now, Nicole. I wish we could stop the Major without an open confrontation, but we can’t. Are you ready to face another Cliff Cameron choice? Because that’s what it’s coming to.”
She brushed that away. “You’re free. Tomorrow your family will be free too. Why can’t you just go away?”
“What about the rest of my village—do I just write them off? And what about the other villages and towns dragged into this mess—do I have any obligation to them?”
“Is it your obligation to save the whole world?”
“Look,” he said, suddenly weary of the verbal fencing, realizing she had steered him away from what he wanted to say. “I’ve said some things about you during the past two months, about your lack of concern, about your commitments, and about your insensitivities. I want to apologize for them.”
“What? Do I hear something that sounds faintly like a conscience?”
“You have a lot of reason to be bitter, but then so do I. So for once why don’t we stop talking to each other as if it’s an artillery duel. I want to say something and your blistering replies don’t help.”
She looked at him steadily and then finally said, “Okay, I’m listening.”
“In the past three days you—well, frankly, you’ve really surprised me. I thought I was going to have to drag you every step of the way.”
“And you haven’t!” she snapped.
He stopped and sighed, shaking his head in frustration.
Her eyes softened slightly, and the tightness around her mouth gradually relaxed. “I’m sorry. I’ll just listen.”
“I knew it was going to be a rough few days. I expected you to be—” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought you were going to be a pampered, whining female and that by the time these four days were up, I’d be a screaming wreck.”
“I have been all you say. It’s just that I’ve kept it all inside.”
“Maybe so, but even that says a lot. I was wrong about you. You are courageous, determined, and, I’ve got to admit, you’ve earned my respect.”
That took her by surprise, and for once she had no reply.
“You lack only one thing for making an outstanding Guardian.”
Instantly she was defensive again, the coolness back in her voice. “Oh?”
“You’ve got the courage and the ingenuity and the determination—”
“But?”
“What you lack is conviction. You don’t have the emotional nature, or perhaps a better word would be spiritual nature, to be a Guardian.”
“And maybe,” she said quickly, “the problem is that you don’t really know my nature.”
“I meant that as a compliment, but you may be right. I don’t know Nicole the person, only Nicole the Monitor. But I do feel I know her. If the Major or Travis had had the rifle the other night, they wouldn’t have shot at my feet.”
“I wish I hadn’t either.”
His head came up slowly, and his eyes challenged hers. “Do you really mean that?”
“Yes.”
He laughed softly. “I think you do.”
“I do!”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’d be free now.”
“Free of what?”
“Free of you!”
“If you’d killed me the other night,” he said, “you’d never be free of me again, and you know it. That would haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Nicole stared at him, the anger draining slowly out of her. He was right. “Were you the resident psychiatrist in your village?” she muttered, not willing to openly acknowledge what he had said.
He smiled. “I don’t have a diploma on the
wall, but my references are impeccable.” When she didn’t answer, he went on more soberly. “Should I be really honest with you? Give you the full diagnosis?”
“Can I stop you?”
“You could always go for the rifle again.”
She shook her head. “Is turnabout fair play?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, you first. I’m braced.”
“You said the Major pushed the buttons to terminate Cliff. Right?”
In a flash, and against her will, he had thrust her mind back to that horrifying moment. She stared down at her hands, unaware that she was twisting the ring on her left hand around and around.
“Why? Why could he do it and you couldn’t? He may pontificate about his great love for mankind and his desire to protect us from everything from first-degree murder to dirt under our fingernails, but however benevolent his dictatorship may appear on the surface, when the crisis hit, his real nature surfaced. He’s willing to kill to maintain his little empire.”
“You killed three Guardians when you dynamited the truck that was headed for your village. That was a crisis too. What does that mean?”
He shook his head slowly. “A man is justified in resorting to violence as a solution to his problems only under a very limited set of circumstances—when he is defending his life, his liberty, or his family, and when he has no recourse to normal law-enforcement procedures. We approached your men in peace, and they shot Cliff down without warning. Come on, Nicky. Are you telling me that what I did trying to protect the village and what the Major did to Cliff are equivalent acts?”
After a long silence, she finally shook her head. “No.”
“But let’s get back to that night in the monitoring room. The Major pushed the buttons, but you were caught in exactly the same crisis situation as the Major. You were faced with the same choice, but you refused to terminate Cliff. Why?”
When she looked up, he could see in the firelight that her eyes were shining. “I just couldn’t.”
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