by Mike Moscoe
“I apologize for interrupting your evening,” Ray began, “but some very strange things have been happening here on Santa Maria, since just before we arrived.”
Annie huddled beside the fireplace, taking what little warmth it offered. The wagon had rolled on long after dark. The wind and the rain had whipped at them, soaking their clothes. Finally the young woman had pointed the old man at a large stone house far beyond the edge of a village. The woman had greeted a man with cheer; they talked quietly at the other end of the great room. Two youths, one hardly older than Annie, did their bidding, preparing a meal. They said nothing, but the looks they cast Annie were as frightened as the ones she spared them.
What have we gotten into? Oh, to be home, with Da, and Ma, and Jeff. To have a warm bed, warm food, and dry clothes. The older servant cautiously approached the two. “Master, the television in the kitchen is behaving strangely. All channels show only the starman.”
“Let’s see what he has to say for himself,” the woman answered. The two left the room.
“Nikki, stay here,” Annie said as soon as they were gone.
“Don’t go,” Nikki whimpered.
“I have to. Stay here.” Quickly Annie stepped off the distance. Yes, she could hear the Colonel’s voice, so calm, so confident, explaining what Jeff had told her about the tumor growing in their heads, and the machine that was trying to make contact with them but failing.
“You believe any of that?” the man asked.
“We’ve been here three hundred years with no problems.”
“But you will admit, people have been acting rather strange of late. Even, dare I say, the divine Miss V. This might explain it better than anything.”
“It might,” the woman said slowly. Then the Colonel told the world about Nikki and Daga’s vanishing box.
“Oh, shit. That lets the cat out of the bag,” the man snarled and stomped around the kitchen.
For the first time Annie was learning about them. She’d heard Jeff growl about the divine Miss V, his sister.
Now they talked in hushed tones, too low for Annie to hear, so she hastened back to Nikki. She had heard enough; they were in Vicky Sterling’s hands.
As Annie settled down beside Nikki, she moved her wallet over to keep it from coming between them. It was bulky with Dumont’s automatic. No one had searched her, no one had violated the privacy of a young woman’s wallet. The two in the kitchen, still discussing the Colonel’s call for help, thought they had everything planned.
Annie knew at least one thing that was not in their plans.
Jeff sat quietly, nursing a no longer hot tea and trying to keep from thinking of Annie out in this weather. Surely whoever had taken her would have her inside on a miserable night like this. Even Old Ned had agreed to stay in an inn. So the two sat with their backs to a corner, forming a quiet space in a happy babble as the customers watched a replay of last summer’s soccer championships. People cheered their favorites, as if the outcome were unknown. Then the Colonel came on.
There were groans and demands to put the channel back. Several channel switches showed only the same earnest visage, with the same unbelievable message—assuming you hadn’t been living it the past few weeks. While the message sank in, the general complaining continued. Several people voiced loud doubts that everyone had a lump in their head, even when Ray showed them brain scan after brain scan. Over time, more grew thoughtfully silent. Finally it was the ones who interrupted who were told to shut up so others could listen. The room was a deathly hush when the Colonel told about a mountain vanishing beneath his ship as it made its first orbit. The camera panned to show Willow and Emma, describing the box, what it had done, and how they’d run.
“They’re just girls,” someone grumbled dismissively.
They were roundly shushed.
“Well, the fox is in the henhouse,” old Ned whispered. “What’s the starman think he’s doing?”
“Begging for help,” Jeff whispered, and kept watching.
Hen was meeting with her security consultants when her assistant stuck his head in the door. “Ma’am, I think you better see this. It’s even interrupted the letter I was typing.”
Hen fumed as Longknife told everyone what he said was happening to them. Behind her, some consultants marveled at things they didn’t know, as if they needed to know it all to do their jobs. She doubted anyone really understood all that babble about viruses causing lumps in their heads and the huge computer that was trying to talk to them and had made Rose’s life so miserable. Now he was telling everyone that the strange box could make anyplace disappear. That would certainly help people sleep tonight. He had to be out of his mind.
But his ending was the most puzzling. Why tell everyone that he and his people were starting to extract metals and would make it available to the manufacturers of New Haven and Refuge? When the metal was ready was soon enough. If he failed, now he faced embarrassment and disappointed people.
“The man is a fool. He does not understand us,” she snapped at her consultants when he finished.
“If the right people are listening, we may find out who knows where the vanishing box went,” one ventured.
“The panic we will see in the streets tonight will hardly be worth the few extra days this gives us in finding it,” San Paulo snapped. No one disagreed with her on that.
Ray leaned forward. “The problems you and I face today may seem daunting. The power of the vanishing box is immense, yet the six who have it have not used it since fleeing Hazel Dell. The threat of the teaching computer and its ability to rattle even our very skulls is terrifying, but we can choose to control our fear, anger, terror even as we feel them beating at us. The choices are ours. If we work together, we can make good ones.
“If you have reason to believe that you have seen the six with the box, call us at the number on the screen. If you operate a manufacturing concern and need metal to keep your employees working, call us at the second number. We can arrange for at least a minimum supply to keep you going over this disruption. There is no reason for us to fear. There is no reason for us to tear at each other.
“Together, we can make it through this.”
“Now everybody knows about us,” Sean the bully whined. “They’ll all be after us.”
“Not if we stay far from view,” the nameless woman said. “Saddle our horses. We ride tonight.” Three men moved to obey her, stepping out into the wind and rain without a backward glance. The woman of the house dismissed herself for the kitchen to pack a basket with all the food she had.
“But what if we’re caught?” Sean stayed where he was.
“Then we see how good the vanishing box is,” the woman answered with a voice so even it made Daga shiver worse than the cold wind from the door as the boys moved to obey.
“Should I call the Colonel?” Jeff asked as people around the Public Room discussed the first real news any of them had probably ever gotten from a TV.
Ned shook his head. “They’ll be getting calls from anyone who saw six people they don’t know. I know the people I talk to. If they know something, they’ll tell me. Maybe they’ll call your colonel. Maybe they won’t. Maybe their call will be answered. Maybe the starfolk will need a month to sift through all the calls they get. You want to be chasing calls for them, or you want to do it my way?”
Jeff said nothing and followed Ned up to their room.
Ray watched the map table light up with small yellow dots. Each was a call from someone to the base, telling of the six. Dots showed from way south of New Haven to surprisingly far north of the James River. Apparently everyone up there wasn’t crazy or off net; somehow Ray doubted they’d seen the right six people.
“The computer’s doing the initial assessment of each call,” Kat told him. “If the light goes out, the call doesn’t appear to have anything to do with our search. Red means it’s got a fifty percent chance of contributing to our hunt. If it starts flashing, it’s a hot datum.”
“And if the map suddenly disappears,” Mary drawled, “we know they used the damn gizmo again.”
Ray studied the lights. A few turned red. There was no pattern to them; they were just as scattered as the yellows. Kat winced as even she concluded that her computer was just as stymied as they were. “It’s too early to tell,” she said. “In the morning, we’ll see a pattern.”
“I’m betting on Annie’s ma,” Mary said. “She’s sure her kids went southeast, Jeff and his native guide sure did.”
“Have we located Jeff yet?” Ray asked.
“No, we’re working our way outward. Looks like he and Old Ned are riding faster than we expected.”
“Faster than we modern techs think biological can move, you mean.” Ray allowed himself a smile. He’d done his best; still, his gut was knotted as if he’d spent the past hour in a firefight. He had been in a fight, a fight for the trust of six million people. Only time would tell if he’d won.
Daga was mounted; Sean and Jock were to either side. The woman thanked the couple. “We’ll ride for the mountains west of here, find a place to hole up and wait for things to cool down. I’ll send a man back in a week or two to find out how things are.”
“We’ll follow the news for you.”
They rode out of the farmyard. Once out of sight of the house, they turned east, toward Richland, not west. The woman urged her horse to a trot, and the rest followed.
Jeff and Ned were in the saddle at first light. The morning brought clear skies and air washed clean by the rains. The ride would have been pleasant if he and Ned weren’t driving themselves so hard. The second village they paused at that morning brought more information than usual. Yes, a wagon driven by an old man had rolled through there yesterday. The son of the woman providing the information had seen the wagon stop at the big house just past town. The woman shook her head and spat.
“A young man just bought it. Doesn’t plant much. Don’t know where his copper comes from. Doesn’t have much to say.”
Ned was circumspect in his approach to the stone house, but it quickly became clear the place was empty. Not quite. In the barn, an old man slept beside a mud-spattered wagon. The hay he snored in and the stalls his old plug wandered alone had been full of other men, other horses the night before. The wagon held Jeff’s attention. The wood was rough; a bit of wool yarn stuck there. A few strands of hair were higher up. Jeff retrieved them, held them against the sky. “Annie’s skirt. Her hair. I swear.”
“I think so, too.”
“What direction did they take?” Jeff asked, looking around for tracks, knowing held miss what was in plain sight for Ned.
“Southeast, like always, but cross-country this time.”
“They heard the Colonel. They know they have to find them fast before someone else does.”
“Then we ride fast, too.” The trail was clear enough that even Jeff could follow it once Ned pointed it out. They cut across the fields, through a wood, and were trotting around a hill when Jeff spotted a man walking toward them. A wide-brim hat hid his face. His clothes were black as night. Boots. One hand swung free. The other rested on a strap that had to support an airgun. He kept walking their way.
“Do we turn off?” Jeff asked.
“Could lose the trail.” Ned kept riding.
The man kept his head down, face in shadow, but Jeff knew he was watching them as they got closer. The woods might hold more riflemen, but Jeff spotted none. At fifty yards, Jeff reached for his rifle, changed the magazine selector to sleepy bullets, and left his hand resting on the rifle butt.
They were fifty feet away and closing at a fast trot when the man looked up. “You really ought to return the Colonel’s calls, Jeff. The old man don’t like being stiffed.”
Jeff almost fell out of his saddle. “Dumont, what are you doing here?”
“Chasing you, who’s chasing the girl, who’s chasing the vanishing box. You must be Ned,” the marine said, offering a hand. Ned shook it. “You hear the Colonel last night?”
“Could hardly miss him,” Ned drawled.
“That was the idea, I understand. Listen, we can do this two ways. I and the half squad I got waiting on the other side of this hill can follow you, or we can work together. Colonel thinks we’d do better that way. What’s your call?”
“We’re doing pretty good on our own,” Ned answered.
“Can’t argue that, but our search map shows a definite bias to this area, even before we factored you in. All the Colonel asks is that you listen to what we’ve got and share what you’re willing. You know you’re not the only search party out.”
“Not after last night,” Ned growled, but he smiled.
“Not before either. Vicky Sterling has had a team out for a while, we think. Some religious fanatics are on the trail, too, though we don’t know how long they’ve been at it. We picked that up from net chatter, but that’s kind of drying up this morning.”
“Wonder why?” Ned grinned sardonically.
“Anything you do has upsides and downsides; at least that’s what Mary keeps telling me. Most of my life, everything I done had its downside and its downer side, but the padre is helping me find a bright side. You willing to help?”
“I’ll at least take a gander at your map,” Ned conceded.
“How’d you find me?” Jeff asked as he helped Dumont up on a horse for a quick ride to his team.
“Electrocardiac fingerprint,” Dumont said, settling himself none too confidently on his mount, then making a stab at his chest. “Everyone’s heart is a bit different. Doc took your cardiacprint as a matter of course when you signed on with us. We set the sky eyes”—now he pointed up—“looking for you. Found you this morning. Since Mary and Harry were headed south to start mining, I was told to hitch a ride and tie in with you. Now, how do you put this animal in gear?”
Jeff shook his head. How could someone find you by your heartbeat but not know how to mount a horse or get it walking. Starmen were full of contradictions.
Ray took Dumont’s call. He was glad Old Ned was throwing in with them and he and Du were hitting it off. Ray needed Mary at base, and Cassie in Refuge. That left either Dumont or Tico, Mary’s junior sergeant, chasing the vanishing box. Dumont had drawn the long straw; The word that Annie and Nikki were just ahead of them was encouraging; that half a dozen riders were with them now was not. Somebody was hot on the box’s trail; Ray chose to assume that group was Vicky’s. The two sky eyes he could spare were now sweeping ahead of Dumont. Between Old Ned’s information network and their own, they just might find the box ahead of the others.
Lek brought the first hint that Refuge’s attitude might be changing. It seemed that all official workstations were now isolated in specific pools—and turned on only when in use. Phone usage and net traffic were way up, lots of people talking over Ray’s message. Official traffic was as close to zilch as you could get and still pass along weather reports and train schedules. Maybe he had been a bit too sweeping in his approach.
His calls to San Paulo went unanswered. When Hen did call, she was alone. Without preamble, she launched into a long list of Refuge’s requirements, including a veiled hint that all the blimps were needed back. Ray pointed out that their security depended on blimp-based surveillance systems and offered to pay for them. That brought forth a not very veiled hint that the Monetary Reform Act of yesterday could be repealed today. Ray had just taken a call from Mary about her reception in New Haven, so Ray countered that threat with one of his own. Chu Lyn was in no rush to side with Vicky Sterling on monetary policy. The call ended quickly after that, nothing resolved.
Mary’s reception in New Haven had not gone all that well, since she had opened the meeting with Chu by buying all the land they intended to mine. It about wiped them out of spare change, but the land was theirs free and clear. Chu had the good grace to accept the purchase. Mary had the miners quickly at work, producing the raw metal that could, if confidence returned, fuel New Haven’s return to normal b
usiness.
Encouraging was the number of calls from people who wanted to help find the vanishing box. Not just people who thought they might have seen it, but people willing to join search parties. A few called with suspicions that their brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles might be one of the mysterious three. Kat followed those up. It looked to Ray like he’d called it right.
Still, being right made all the powers-that-be around here wrong. That put him in the wrong by definition. Oh, for the good old days when an artillery shell was either aimed right—and blew away your enemy—or was aimed wrong and gave him time to blow you away. Life was so much simpler then.
When Ray’s nostalgia got cynical, it was time for a break.
A call to Cassie found her off duty and in church. Yes, she could ship back her second squad to reinforce the base. She could throw another thousand volunteers at the base, too. Ray accepted and had Chief Barber rotate blimps down to Refuge to pick them up. Never more than one blimp on the ground, so San Paulo couldn’t repossess but one. That ought to do it.
Personnel was getting critical. Automated plants were a contradiction in terms; someone had to provide their feedstock. Someone had to take the packages off the assembly line. A lot was being done by backbreaking labor, much of it carried in horse-drawn wagons.
The chief was pulling out what little hair he had left, hiring anything that walked on two feet and the doc assured him had a small enough tumor. That was something Mary and the doc agreed on. Anyone below a certain age and above a certain tumor diameter was given a thanks-but-no-thanks slip and hastened out of town. This still left Hay wondering if they were covering all the bases.
Just because a human wasn’t being driven crazy by the Teacher didn’t guarantee they wouldn’t act dumb out of normal human cantankerousness. Mary and Barber just looked at Ray and asked for more workers. Base security was at rock bottom. Only half a squad of marines were left, six lonely troopers headed by Tico, Mary’s junior NCO. Mary had assigned a chief to help Tico out, providing adult leadership and such.