Marty's last words blended with the revving up of the helicopter. It lifted from the station and swung low across the chaparral.
"We have three choices," Mike said. "Hole up somewhere, try to find Kip, or head for Pearly Gates and hope we can get in to see Bernie."
"You won't make it to Pearly Gates," Lieutenant Fuller said. "They'll use every tracking device they have looking for you. They may not close in until they're sure you won't lead them to Kip, but they'll be watching. Probably watching now."
"I thought as much," Mike said. "So maybe the thing to do is make them believe they can find Kip by following me."
"That will work for a while, but I can't say for how long," Fuller said.
"So what should I do?" Mike asked.
"Do you think Mr. Tarleton knows that Kip is the heir?" Fuller asked.
"Not when this started, but I think he does now," Mike said.
"That's my guess too," Fuller said. "When this began it was no big deal, just an explosion at a research station, and I was the only one who really cared. Or thought I was. But as time went on, Mr. Tarleton took a personal interest. He already had Kettering"—Fuller nodded toward Gil Kettering handcuffed in the back of the helicopter—"at the station."
"You didn't know Kettering was Tarleton's man?"
"Not until I took over the station," Fuller said. "All I really knew was that the station was important to GWE headquarters, and Dr. Henderson was in some kind of conflict with the General Manager. And then Kettering found out Kip was in communication with the GWE central computer, and after that Tarleton personally got into the loop. I didn't know why, but that Endgame file explains it."
"So what should we do?" Mike asked.
"Captain, what's our objective?"
Mike nodded. "Good question. OK, the objective is for one of us to get to Bernie Trent. Since we can't do that, we can buy time for Kip." Mike hesitated. "And if Bernie's the real criminal, we're sunk, but hell, that's the only chance we have."
"Buy time and lead them away from Kip," Fuller said. "I know what I'd do. Kip was last located near the big cave system. They'll start there, on the downslope side. What I'd do, Captain Gallegher, is make them think he's still in the caves. I'd land at the lake entrance. They'll think you're trying to reach Kip, so—"
Mike thought about it. "Gallegher's last stand. Well, I sure don't have anything better to do." He turned the helicopter toward Strumbleberry Hill.
PART EIGHT: Endgame
They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their job when they damn-well choose.
—Rudyard Kipling, The Sons of Martha
Chapter Forty-Seven
Identification Papers
THERE were lights in the sea station building. Kip gingerly dismounted from the centaur—the third one he had ridden since they began—and helped Lara get down. The bareback ride had left them stiff-legged and sore. When they went to the gate the dogs followed eagerly, glad to be away from the centaurs. The centaurs stood just at the edge of the circle cast by the research station security lights. "We're here, and I see the boat."
There was no answer. Communications with the Starswarm had become weaker as they moved northward, and somewhere in the last ten kilometers Kip had lost contact entirely. Gwen would have known how to use the satellite system as a relay, but she'd never told Kip how that was done, and evidently hadn't had time to teach the Starswarm. The thought of Gwen nearly overwhelmed him for a moment. He turned on the gate intercom.
"Mrs. Harriman," he called.
The door opened immediately. "Kip!"
"Yes, ma'am—"
"We've been expecting you. I'll come open the gate—Oh!" She stopped to stare at the circle of centaurs, Blaze in the lead.
"They're—friendly," Lara said. "We rode them here."
"Rode the centaurs? Is it all right if I open the gate?"
"Yes, ma'am," Kip said.
"If you say so." She punched in a code at the gate control, and opened the smaller gate. Lara went in first. As Kip was starting to go in, he heard a sound behind him. The dogs stopped and turned, teeth bared.
Blaze was calling. He didn't know any human words, but he was trying to speak as he came forward. It came out a babble. Kip stopped. "What do you want?" he asked. "I know, that's silly, you don't understand. Silver. Mukky. Go inside." He pointed, and waited until the dogs were inside the gate. Then he turned to Blaze. He kept his voice even and calm, friendly, the way he would speak to a strange dog. "What do you want, Blaze?"
The centaur removed his backpack and laid it on the ground. Kip went over to pick it up. It held a dozen bright red gourds about the size of baseballs. From their weight they were full of liquids.
One of the gourds had stripes and was slightly larger than the others. Blaze took that one and drew a stick from his belt. The stick just fit into a small leather pouch attached to the gourd. Blaze held the stick and gourd high, and trotted away from them, over to the bluff edge. As he reached the edge he used the stick to throw the gourd in a high arc that carried it over the rocks at the bluff edge and into the sea. Then he trotted back and gestured at the backpack on the ground.
Another centaur came forward. This one, like Blaze, was larger than the others, and had darker fur. It also carried a backpack which it laid beside the one Blaze had dropped. The two centaurs stood in the security light, waiting for something.
Finally Kip picked up the backpacks. The centaurs reared high, then turned and trotted to the cliff edge. They watched the sea as if waiting for something. The others followed.
"What was that all about?" Mrs. Harriman demanded.
"I'm not sure," Kip said. He handed one of the backpacks to Lara. "The centaurs carry these things back and forth from the lake to the sea. They're messages."
"Kip—"
"Yes, ma'am, I know it sounds goofy. But these are messages from the lake Starswarm to the sea Starswarms, and since the centaurs wanted us to have them, I think they're like identification papers."
The research station had only four rooms counting the bathroom and kitchen. There was the large central laboratory and conference room, a spacious bedroom, and the kitchen that was actually part of the big central room but separated by a waist-high counter. The laboratory table was covered: microscopes, dissection trays, a computer console, boxes and jars of specimens from both land and sea, mineral and water samples, a clutter of scientific instruments, and the remains of the Harrimans' supper.
Lon Harriman was short and round, and considerably older than his wife. Kip and Lara had met him at the station, but they didn't know him well. He was cooking something at the stove, and when Kip and Lara came in he brought a tray. "Soup," he said. "I expect you kids are starving."
"Well, yes, sir," Kip said.
Mr. Harriman piled the used supper dishes on a tray. "You can sit here," he said. "I'm afraid we don't have enough chairs, but then we seldom have visitors here. So. Sit down, eat some soup—and you just might tell us what in the world is going on."
Chapter Forty-Eight
Blaze Follows Orders
BLAZE stood at the edge of the sea and watched the water. It was low but rising, and he waited until he was certain that the water was coming toward him. He'd never been this far north before, but he had traveled to the seacoast on errands for the Master all his life. He knew that sometimes the water was high and sometimes low, and that it was dangerous to be at the water's edge when it was coming toward you, but he had not understood the concept of a regular tide. Now he did. He wasn't sure how long he had known of tides. Probably he'd learned at the same time that he learned to ask other questions. He was learning many things now.
The world was changing. Blaze served the Master, as his father had, and his father's father, generations without number of Highlanders carrying messages for the Master. Most of the messages were to or from the sea. Now that would change. Blaze wasn't sure how
he knew that, but he did. What he was about to do would change the world forever. His children would not carry messages for the Master. There would be no need.
What would they do?
He signaled, and Strongarms came to him. Blaze removed his littermate's backpack and took out the small metallic box. It looked much like the one the Things had left near the Master's lake, but it was smaller and lighter. Better, Blaze thought. The Master's work. It had levers, larger than those on the Thing box, easier for the centaur's clumsy hands to work.
There was a box within the box, and inside that was a roll of what looked like two metallic leafless vines held apart by ceramic sticks. Blaze waited until the water was high along the bluff, then let the vines dangle over the cliff and unroll themselves until their end reached the water. Then he moved some of the levers on the box. Lights flashed, spelling the end of the world that Blaze knew.
Would it be the beginning of another?
He waited for the time it would take to run from the grove to the lake three times, then waited more to be sure. Then he took a gourd from Strongarms's backpack and tossed it into the sea. A large shape formed in the sea below him, and lights winked furiously below the bluff. Blaze lifted the box and dropped it into the sea below. There was no splash.
He threw his last gourd into the sea and waited. After a while two gourds came over the lip of the bluff and fell to the ground. Blaze gathered them up, then turned and trotted southward. The others followed.
Chapter Forty-Nine
This Is Not Entity You Call Starswarm
SHOULDN'T I call your father?" Mr. Harriman asked. "No, please," Lara said. "It's really important that we get to Pearly Gates, and if the grayskins know where we are they'll stop us."
"Why?" Lon Harriman asked.
"Just what is this all about?" Rachel Harriman demanded. "Mr. Flynn said you needed help and Dr. Henderson asked us to cooperate with you, so we will, but I can't say I understand why. They said they didn't have time to explain. Why are the police looking for you?"
"Pretty complicated," Kip said. "It will take a while to tell you."
"We have time," Lon Harriman said. "We're not going anywhere until morning. That coast is far too dangerous for night travel, and anyway we'll need sunlight to charge up the fuel cells."
"Oh," Kip said. "But we have to move fast—"
"May be, but we're not going anywhere without power," Mr. Harriman said. "So that gives us time for you to tell us what's going on."
"I don't even know where to start," Kip said.
"Start at the beginning," Lara said. "Tell them who you are."
Kip woke in the middle of the night. The floor was hard despite his insulating sleeping pad. Lara was asleep a few feet away, with two dogs nestled against her. Her own Little Lil served as a pillow, and seemed contented with the arrangement. Kip sat up, trying to remember what had awakened him.
"HELLO. ALARM."
"Starswarm. Hello."
A torrent of thoughts and pictures poured into his mind, enough to overwhelm him. He fought to cut them off until he could get back in control, sort out the feelings from the thoughts, understand the few words that were used. He felt he was drowning in thoughts.
"THIS IS NOT ENTITY YOU CALL STARSWARM." This came in feelings and pictures more than words. There were suggestions of words, as if whoever was calling him had only recently learned about the concept of language, and used it only when all else failed. There was something else. When he received the thought of the lake Starswarm there came with it a feeling of awe, almost reverence.
"Who are you?"
There was another flood of pictures. The sea dominated them. There were also pictures of centaurs, large brown ones like Blaze, and the smaller gray centaurs who had come with Blaze. The larger ones went up a steep trail until they were gone, as the gray ones watched. Then the brown ones returned. One, who might have been Blaze, threw a gourd into the water, and another laid a box on the ground and threw wires into the sea. The box looked much like the ones Uncle Mike had set up in Pearly Gates, then at the lake. It took Kip a moment to realize how he knew Uncle Mike had done that.
"You are the sea Starswarm."
"SEA. AFFIRMATIVE. MESSAGE FOLLOWS.
"THIS IS MESSAGE FROM ENTITY YOU CALL LAKE STARSWARM.
YOU GO NOW. SEA ENTITIES WILL HELP." There was a picture of the boat moving northward toward the GWE towers. Kip and Lara and some vague shape that might have been human were aboard. There was also a small gray centaur on the boat. "GO NOW. URGENCY. CARRY MESSAGES." Another picture formed, Kip and Lara throwing gourds into the sea on the cliffs below GWE tower. "URGENCY."
"No power." So how do I explain the lack of solar power? Kip thought. He tried to picture the fuel cells that powered the boat. He thought of them as full, let the boat move, and let them empty as it moved. Then he pictured the boat on its davits, and the cells empty, and the sun out and the cells filling. It was hard to think in pictures rather than words.
"UNDERSTOOD. GO NOW. URGENCY." Once again a picture of the gourds and the sea below GWE towers. It was followed by another, of GWE tower collapsing. "URGENCY."
The dogs stirred. Kip saw that Lara was watching him. "Sea Starswarm," he said. "It doesn't talk very well. I don't think it's as smart as the one in the lake. But it wants us to launch the boat now, and it seems desperate."
"Kip, it will be dark for an hour or more, and Dr. Harriman said the boat fuel cells aren't charged."
"I know that. I even managed to explain to the Starswarm. Or I think I did. But it wants us to go now, and it's being pretty emphatic."
"What should we do?" Lara asked.
"I think we wake up the Harrimans, but God only knows how we'll explain any of this."
"You did pretty well last night," Lara said. "All those years, with Gwen able to get you anything you want—"
"I don't think they believed me," Kip said.
"Sure they did," Lara said. "And if they don't, I've got some proof with me—"
"Proof?"
She smiled. "My earrings. They're real, aren't they? And, Kip, it was nice of you to think of it, but there's no way you could have bought anything that expensive! I'll show them to Mr. Harriman. He'll believe us."
Chapter Fifty
Budonnic's Eel
THIS is a damn-fool errand," Lon Harriman said. He looked up from his seat at the workbench in the research boat's cabin and stared out across the sea to the east. The boat hung steady in its davits at the cliff top above the sea. There were flashes in the water below the cliff, but it was impossible to see any distance in the dim moonlight. "At least we can wait until there's enough light to see by. But there's not more than half an hour's worth of power in those cells, and let me tell you, you don't want to be out in that sea without power. Not even in calm weather, and the report is there's a hell of a storm brewing up out there." He grinned. "And I don't want to get killed. Not now! Last night you told me more about the ecology of this planet than we learned in fifty years. I'd hate to get killed before I can publish. But that's what will happen if we run out of power at sea."
"Well, we can get ready," Kip said. He went below to stow another load of provisions. The boat was plastic-steel, fiberglass and metallic fibers woven into a net and sealed with high-strength plastic. It was nearly twenty meters long and built like an oceangoing tug, high bow sloping back to a lower stern deck. There was a steering cabin just forward of the boat's center. Masts and booms forward of the cabin controlled nets and dredges for taking ocean samples. The area aft of the cabin was a flat deck with a high rail around it. The bridge was rigged with electric motors and winches so that two people could handle the boat, one in an emergency, but only so long as there was power. Here above the sea the boat looked sturdy and powerful, but Kip knew it wouldn't feel that way once it was launched.
He came back up the companionway and went over to the workbench, where Lara was watching over Lon Harriman's shoulder. Harriman was just putting the cover b
ack on the navigation electronics box. "OK," he said. "We can use the receiver to tell where we are, and the transmitter will tell anyone who's curious that we haven't left here. It makes the navigation a little harder, but not enough to matter, just means I have to keep track of our position on the charts, and I've got those. OK, Kip—Mr. Trent, sir!—I can understand why you don't want the security people to know where we are, but why the all-fired hurry?"
Kip laughed, but it felt good to have adults call him sir, even if Mr. Harriman was half joking. "I don't know why the Starswarm is so anxious for us to get moving, but it is," Kip said. He thought of the picture of GWE tower crumbling and shuddered. "And I think we have to do it."
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