V: The Crivit Experiment

by Allen Wold

  "Durk Attweiler has been taken to Camp T-3," Bill said without preamble, "and we think that's somewhere in Fort Bragg."

  "Who's with you?" Anne asked.

  "Paul."

  "Okay, put everything on auto and come on up."

  "Right." He hung up and turned to Paul. "I think we're going to see some action," he said. "Let's go."

  They went up the elevator to the second floor, and from there to Anne's office. They met Lester Ortega on the way. Mark Casey was already there when they arrived.

  "Are you sure it's Fort Bragg?" was the first thing Mark asked them as they came in.

  "No," Bill said, "but it fits the other data very well. We had the range, but not the direction, and that call from the skyfighter gave us that. Fort Bragg, about the middle of the artillery range should be about right."

  "What kind of facilities did the Army have down there?" Anne asked.

  "A special set of barracks for exercises," Paul said. "There's a lot of sand too."

  "Perfect for crivits," Mark said. "Except you'd think they'd take over the whole base."

  "Probably have some kind of undersand fencing," Lester said. "But so what? Are we going to rescue this Attweiler?"

  "We'll have to, and Professor Barnes as well," Anne said. "As to so what, if the crivits are confined to a sand moat, that's one thing. If they've been allowed the run of the base, we couldn't come within a mile of the place."

  "Everything we've heard so far," Paul said, "indicates that the Visitors don't like to let the crivits have too much freedom. Seems to me that was one of the complaints Diana made about Leon's project—lack of crivit security."

  "Okay," Mark said, "so we'll just have to assume the crivits are kept under control. But we're still going to have to locate Camp T-3 more precisely and figure out some way not only of getting to it but of getting people out."

  "As to the first," Anne said, turning to Paul, "how well do you know Fort Bragg?"

  "I worked there for two years," Paul answered. "If Camp T-3 is where I think it is, I can lead you right to it."

  "Good. And as to the second—" Her phone rang. She answered it, and when the person on the other end spoke, she smiled. "Couldn't be better timing," she said. "As to the second," she repeated as she hung up, "that was word that professional help is on the way. Bill, go over to the airport right now. We've got some friends coming in from Los Angeles."

  The wait for Bill Gray to return seemed interminable. In the meantime Anne got hold of Jack Corey and asked him and Wendel Fenister to meet them at the courthouse in Pittsboro, which was on the way to Fayetteville. Mark went off to scare up whatever equipment might prove useful. Paul Freedman went home to get maps of Fort Bragg which he'd saved from when he'd worked at their computer facility there some years ago. And Lester Ortega went over to Diger-Fairwell to let Dr. Lucia Van Oort know what was happening. Everybody had come back to Anne's offices before Bill returned from the airport.

  When he finally arrived, he had three people with him. Everybody recognized the large but graceful figure of Chris Faber, though it had been nearly two years since Ham Tyler's henchman had been seen on TV in his role as a freedom fighter in Los Angeles. The other two were completely unknown.

  "This is Grace Delaney," Chris said, introducing a strong, hard woman, "and Fred Linker," a slender man who looked too soft to be of much help. "Two of the toughest people you're ever likely to meet, short of The Fixer himself. We don't have much of the picture, other than that your espionage efforts here are in danger if this guy Barnes is made to talk. Can you fill us in?"

  "Let's do that on the way down," Anne said. "The sooner we get on the road, the better chance of success we'll have."

  "That's right," Grace said. "Chris's movements are pretty hard to conceal, and the lizards will know he's somewhere in the area before the day is out."

  "All right then," Chris said, "let's move."

  They took three cars for the eight people, and thirty minutes later met Jack Corey and a rapidly recovering Wendel Fenister, who were in a car of their own, in the small town of Pittsboro, sixteen miles south of Chapel Hill. From there it was another hour to Fayetteville.

  Paul, in the lead car, led them south around the city and along a state highway that ran east and west on the south edge of the military base. They took a side road north onto the base until the pavement ended at an abandoned barrier. Chris got out to make sure that the drop bar was not connected to any signaling device and then raised it by hand. They drove through onto a dirt road leading into the heart of the base.

  By the time Paul got them to where they could see the lights of the camp, it was just an hour before dawn. Chris, Grace, and Fred opened the luggage they'd brought down with them and distributed small but powerful machine pistols and ammunition. Then they moved through the scraggly pines toward the camp.

  "Be careful," Mark said as they neared the edge of the trees, beyond which was the sand moat. "There are crivits in there. They—"

  "I know all about them," Chris said. "This isn't the first prison camp I've had experience with." He looked out at the barracks buildings just beyond the fence. "We can't go in here," he said. "But the lizards have to have some means of access."

  "How about over there?" Lester suggested, pointing to the left where a second, smaller compound adjoined the larger one.

  "Good for you," Chris said. "Most of their prisoners would come in by flyer, landing on that roof there, but the lizard staff themselves will have some kind of walkway, and that's where it's likely to be."

  They worked their way around through the trees until they could see the front of the building at the side of the secondary compound. Sure enough, a broad paved road led right up to the front door.

  "But won't they have guards in there?" Mark asked.

  "Of course they will," Grace said. "But it's like any castle. It's impenetrable on all sides except where the door is, and that's where the guardhouse is, because it's not impenetrable."

  "Makes sense," Bill muttered, though it didn't to him. "So what do we do, shoot our way in?"

  "Unless you can rig a bridge across that moat," Chris said, "that's exactly what we do."

  Everybody except Grace and Fred were appalled by the idea. Even Jack Corey, who'd seen combat in Vietnam, wasn't thrilled at the prospect. "We could get killed in there," he said simply, not protesting but just stating a fact.

  "We could," Fred Linker said. "And nobody has to go in who doesn't want to. But the information you people have gotten out of the Visitor headquarters up at the Park has been very useful. More lives than our own might be at stake, at least those who Barnes and Attweiler could name as being involved in the espionage."

  "So how do we do it?" Lester Ortega asked.

  "First we blow the door," Grace said.

  "No," Anne interrupted. "First I pick the lock."

  "That's better," Chris said. "Then Paul, you know the building, you and I lead the way through to the main compound."

  "And then?" Mark asked.

  "Then either we break them out or we die trying."

  Without any more conversation, Anne went up to the door and knelt down to examine the lock. She reached into an inside jacket pocket and took out what looked like a fat wallet. Inside were her collection of lockpicks. The others couldn't see what she was doing, other than that she selected something, fiddled with the lock a moment, put it back, and got out another tool and tried again. She put that one away and stood up from her crouch.

  "Didn't it work?" Chris asked.

  "Of course it worked," Anne said. "I didn't spend four years at Caltech for nothing." She put her hand on the knob and the door swung open.

  Now it was Paul's turn to take charge. With the others following, Paul led them through a more than typical foyer, down a hall past several closed doors, and into a room where large doors opened on either side.

  "This is where the prisoners would be brought in," Paul said. "That door there, the one on the left, leads up
to the copter pad on the roof, which is where the skyfighters would land. The door on the right goes to other parts of the building, but this one," he pointed to the one opposite the door by which they had entered, "should go straight back through to the compound, if they haven't changed things around any."

  "Where are the guards?" Grace Delaney asked. She and Fred Linker were sharply alert, but not nervous, as Bill, Mark, and Anne were. Jack and Wendel seemed calm.

  "I don't know," Paul said, "but they could be anywhere. This used to be a ready room."

  "The only thing we can do," Chris said, "is to go through and be prepared to fight. Will you know this guy Barnes when you see him?"

  "Yes," Anne said, "and Attweiler too." She checked to make sure that her machine pistol was off safety, as did the others. "Let's do it," she said.

  Paul opened the door. Beyond was another corridor with no other doors except the one at the far end. Tense with apprehension, they went down it and found the far door locked. Once again Anne got out her lockpicks while the others kept alert for any signs of discovery. This lock proved as easy to open as the other had been.

  Beyond this door was another room where there were three guards. Their expressions of surprise indicated they had expected only friends instead of the ten grim humans with drawn guns.

  "Don't even squeak," Chris warned the three Visitors, who raised their hands in surrender. Grace and Fred quickly went to work tying them to their chairs.

  "We thought you were our relief," one of the guards said. "They're due right about now."

  "We'll deal with them when they come," Chris told him.

  When the guards were secured, Fred and Grace stood on either side of the door to the compound, facing into the room to meet the relief when they came. Jack and Wendel took positions by the inner doors to listen for the sounds of approach. Under Anne and Chris's direction, Paul, Lester, and Bill went through into the compound itself to stand watch outside the door while Chris stood in the now open doorway to lend aid wherever it would be needed.

  There were no guards in the compound, but there were a few prisoners walking around in the gray of early morning. They did not notice Mark and Anne at first as they crossed the barren ground to the nearest of the barracks buildings. Then one of them, a tall black man, turned to stare and said softly, "It's a breakout."

  "Where is Morton Barnes?" Anne asked him urgently, "And Durk Attweiler?"

  "They're both over in building C," the man said. "You got time for the rest of us?"

  "We'll free as many as we can," Mark said as he and Anne hurried toward the indicated barracks, with the black man beside them, "but those two know things that can endanger hundreds, maybe thousands of people if the lizards get them to talk."

  "I understand," the man said. He looked back over his shoulder where he could see Paul, Bill, and Chris still at the door of the compound entrance. "We'd better move. They change guards about now. "

  "So the lizards inside told us," Anne said. They came to the door of building C and went inside. The black man pushed past them and went to a bunk halfway down the long room.

  "Professor Barnes," he said softly, shaking the sleeping man's shoulder "Get up and be quiet. We're going to break out."

  Barnes roused quickly, looked around the room until he saw Mark and Anne, and then got out of bed.

  "You too, Cliff?" he asked as he pulled on his pants and shoes.

  "Everybody who can make it," Mark said. Cliff Upton went on to the far end of the room where Durk Attweiler was already getting up. Several other people had awakened as well.

  "Get everybody up and moving," Anne told those who were awake. "Get the other barracks alerted and head toward the main entrance."

  Barnes went across the center aisle and aroused a short, muscular young man. "Peter, get up, we're breaking out," he said. Peter Frye just snarled.

  "Sure," he said, his voice thick with sleep. "Tell me how." He rolled over as if he didn't want to hear the answer.

  Barnes started to go to other bunks, but Mark took his shoulder. "They'll have to come on their own," he told the professor. "You and Durk Attweiler here," he nodded at the farmer, who was coming up to join them, "are the ones we really want."

  "We know too much," Durk said in answer to Barnes's questioning look.

  Cliff Upton had sent others off to notify the other barracks, and now he came back to join Mark and Anne and the others. "Let's make tracks," he said. "The relief guards are overdue—"

  And that's when the shooting started.

  Mark and Anne grabbed Barnes and Attweiler and hurried toward the door, with Cliff Upton close behind them. The others were now frantically getting out of bed and dressed. Peter Frye rolled over, stared at the ceiling, then rolled back facedown on his bed.

  From the door of the barracks, with people pressing behind them, they could see Paul and Bill crouched in the doorway of the compound entrance, firing into the room beyond. There was no sign of Chris Faber. Mark and Anne hurried their charges across the barren ground, which was rapidly filling with other prisoners, mostly confused, but some also running toward the exit. Paul saw them coming, spoke to Bill, and the two stood to enter the guard room ahead of the others. When Mark and Anne got there, the battle had moved inward.

  The three guards were dead in their chairs, caught in the crossfire. The sounds of shots came from several directions inside the building, but Anne didn't pay any heed. Those who were fighting had their jobs to do. It was Anne's responsibility to get Barnes and Attweiler out of the prison camp.

  They went up the hall to the ready room where they found Grace Delaney wounded and Jack Corey keeping other Visitors from entering. They fired rapid single shots until the escapees entered. Then Grace put her pistol on full automatic. Mark and Anne also fired, blindly, through doorways on either side as they crossed the room. More shots came from ahead of them.

  Paul came up beside them while Bill helped Grace to her feet. Cliff Upton had picked up a Visitor weapon and was taking shots at whatever moved. Other prisoners, some now also armed, poured into the ready room behind them.

  To Anne and Mark, the details of the next few minutes were never clear. They remembered shooting and ducking, and unarmed prisoners throwing themselves through doorways and dragging out screaming red-uniformed guards. They remembered movement, shouts, a turmoil of humans overwhelming the Visitors by sheer force of numbers. They remembered Paul going down with a hole in his forehead, Jack and Wendel moving as if stalking deer, and the bulk of Chris Faber, who now seemed to be everywhere, moving gracefully and steadily, directing the breakout as if he knew what he was doing.

  And then suddenly they were outside the building and running for the trees. Other Visitors from other buildings were running, shooting, shouting, but the stream of prisoners from the compound would not be stopped. Many humans went down. But many Visitors fell as well.

  Then for a while it was a long run through the trees, toward the parked cars. Behind them were the sounds of the escape growing more distant. Bill and Grace were the last to arrive, with Cliff Upton covering their rear.

  "Everybody in and let's move," Chris said, sorting people into cars. The engines revved and they were away.

  Chapter 10

  Dr. Lucia Van Oort was just about to go up to the cafeteria for lunch when Penny Carmichal came into her office.

  "We've misinterpreted this whole crivit business," Penny said. "As much of a problem they would be if they were released into the contryside, they're nothing compared to what would happen if these other animals were set loose."

  "The verlogs?" Lucia asked. "But they're just vegetarians."

  "So were the rabbits in Australia," Penny said. "And think about plagues of locusts that can strip square miles of vegetation right down to the ground. These verlogs breed quickly, with large litters, eat almost any plant life that exists in massive quantities, and get this—they have no known predators—except crivits."

  "Good God! You mean Leon has been
breeding crivits just to keep the verlogs under control?"

  "That's what it looks like. The verlogs are the Visitors' main source of protein. Our animals, and humans, are just extra. Verlogs are to Visitors what beef and pork are to us. As near as I can figure, Leon plans to let the verlogs loose with the crivits to keep their population under control. But it won't work. The crivits can't climb trees. They can't cross ground that is too hard. The verlogs would eventually overwhelm the whole East Coast, and then the rest of the country. By the time they'd overbred and started dying of starvation, so would everybody and everything else."

  "That means that Mark is after the wrong target," Lucia said.

  "Have they already started?" Penny asked.

  "About an hour ago. Durk Attweiler volunteered to go down with them, even though they'd been back from Fort Bragg only two hours."

  "You don't suppose they'd let the verlogs loose by accident," Penny said, knowing full well that that was almost certain to happen.

  "We've got to warn them," Lucia said. "Killing crivits is all right, but, damn, the verlogs must be destroyed." She got on the phone and called over to Anne Marino's office at Data Tronix. Anne was not in, but Steve Wong took her call.

  "We've got to abort Project Silicon," Lucia said urgently, heedless of being overheard.

  "But they've already set off," Steve said.

  "I know, but you've got to stop them. I can't explain—uh, it's not the wolves, it's the rabbits, do you understand?"

  "Wait a minute. Okay, right, not the target but the other thing."

  "Exactly," Lucia said, hoping he really did understand it was verlogs and not crivits that she was referring to. "Think of a plague of locusts," she said, taking Penny's analogy. "With no predators."

  "Holy shit," Steve said, and now Lucia knew that he did in fact understand. "It was staring us in the face all the time, and we never saw it. And we've gotten further information that—Oh, my God, if those figures mean what I think they mean, the rabbits could eat the country to the ground within ten years."