by Dean Ing
But: "No big hurry. In fact, first we've got to let a gaggle of earth scientists scratch around nearby and decide whether to discover oil or a gravel mine," he sighed. "I'd say no less than two weeks nor over a month." Impeccable in summer tans, Boren Mills strode near the great window of Eve's office. It was nearer the street than his own office and gave a more detailed view. Rocking on his heels, stroking his chin: "I'd go myself if I could afford to leave while Chabrier's juggling his priorities on me. Some things require face-to-face negotiating right here."
"With IEE's board, or with the Lion of Zion?"
"Both, maybe. I talk to Young nearly every day just to make sure he's still,"—a finger circling like a drill at his temple—"among us. Today he's all excited about his S & R people."
"Who've they assassinated now," she said, yawning.
"Nailed one of their own rovers," Mills said, amused. "Young wants to be at the control center when—good God!"
During his previous few words, a faint whistle had become a bellow outside. He threw his hands up, ducked and whirled away from the window as the source of the noise thundered past. Eve saw the huge window bow inward, crazing the faint reflection of Mills before it reflexed, returned to normal. Even with the insulation in the IEE tower they were momentarily deafened by the catastrophic roar as a sleek black something missed the tower by scant meters.
"God almighty, what was that?" Mills was erect again, hands pressed against the window, straining to see while the thundering wail was still audible.
"I don't know, but it was below this floor," Eve said in awe.
Then, "I see it," he said, and chuckled shakily. "Must be a victory pass or something. It's an S & R sprint chopper, going like a tracer bullet!"
PART II
Chapter 33
Quantrill banked northward toward Brigham City, so near the surface of the Great Salt Lake that his passage ruffled the steel-tinted wavelets. He saw Sanger's desperate gestures, backhanded the air to stop her.
"Mayday mayday mayday," she signed, leaning forward. "If you run North they pull your plug! I was briefed," her hands insisted.
He whipped the Loring around, nodding, and eased up on the turn as Sanger clawed to keep from tumbling into his lap. She squeezed his arm in camaraderie. Only then did they shrug into their harnesses.
Then in his mastoid he heard, "Report, Q. Report, Q."
"So you can follow my signal in a stealthy bird?"
"Affirm, Q. Presidential directive: Q's programs will be cancelled the moment he reaches Idaho."
It made sense; he didn't doubt they'd do it and wondered why they hadn't already. "You have a link with The Man, do you?" Meanwhile he steepened his bank again, judged his sweep over Ogden would clear the IEE tower.
The President is in Control center," said his mastoid primly. "He wants to avoid further violence. You must leave us viable choices, Q. Is your hostage conscious?"
Quantrill glanced toward Sanger, whose hands were saying, "Control trying to raise me."
"She may be possuming, Control. With my loop around her neck I don't blame her. Walloped her head on the cowl but she's a tough bitch. I don't trust her. One word from her and I'll shorten her a little." He fought the sideslip, believed for an instant that he had delayed for a fatal fraction of a second. With six tons of black comet hurtling through an absolutely vertical bank, he skimmed past the IEE tower, then eased back on the throttles. "Maybe I should kamikaze into you, Control."
"If you knew where we were."
"Maybe I do," he said.
"We'd like to talk about that, Q. You're too valuable to waste. But if we can't raise S. soon you'll be less valuable."
"Why not call us by names, Control, you miserable jilloff." He was planning furiously. He'd have more time aloft if he kept the sprint chopper at cruise speed—particularly if he stayed over population centers. Loudly, over the turbine wail, he said, "Sanger, report!" His free hand said, "You're hurt. But do it."
She groaned, "Go to hell, Quantrill," and signaled him to continue on his course. Below them was the unbroken urban sprawl that had been well underway when Salt Lake City became the heart of Streamlined America, and which now spread from Brigham City to Nephi. He nodded. His readout showed something less than a two-hour fuel supply.
"You get no more from Sanger. I just tightened my loveknot to remind her," Quantrill said aloud, watching Sanger rifle the map compartment for hard-copy air navigation charts.
"We don't have to be nice. For example," said Control, as a tone began in his head. No, a cacophony of tones. Its effect was something like a squalling infant dragging its nails over slate while running a power saw. It was louder than any transmission he had ever heard from Control, but still bearable. For awhile.
In defiance: "Can barely hear you, Control. Say again."
The maddening noise increased slightly and stayed that way for a moment as Quantrill gritted his teeth. It ceased abruptly with Control's, "Loud enough, Q?"
"The name is Quantrill. Let's hear you humanize us, shithead."
"If you want to live," said his tormentor, "don't let your signal fade. Can you land a sprint chopper?"
His signal wouldn't fade as long as he was in range of a relay, which gave him much of Streamlined America. He had landed a Loring twice during maintenance checkouts but, "I can try," was all he said. Keep the fuckers guessing.
Sanger signed, "Maybe I can find us a hole. Wait one."
Quantrill: "Not always sure whose side you're on."
Her eyes widened before she squeezed them shut, her mouth open in a silent agony. Her hands said nothing. The garrote wire said a great deal; she had not bothered to remove it. He saw moisture coalesce at the corner of her eye, begin coursing down her lean high cheekbone. She wiped it away in anger. Still said nothing, only stared at the nav charts.
Merely to keep the channel alive he said, "If you're so goddam smart, Control, where am I?"
"A hundred thousand citizens are complaining about you,—Quantrill," said Control. He had never heard his own name spoken conversationally by Control; the victory seemed larger than it was. "You're over the Zion strip."
"Bet your ass I am." He glanced at Sanger; realized that pursuing sprint choppers or scrambled jets might soon make visual contact. If they got near enough, they could see into the canopy. "At this altitude, you wouldn't want me to make a bobble. You might think about that while you're telling people to jump me. And if you value your other aircraft, keep 'em out of chiller range. These little maintenance ports in the cockpit are made to order for it."
At this mention of a sidearm, Sanger frowned, then quickly stripped the flesh-colored rover glove from her right hand, holding its thumb before him for inspection.
Quantrill did not understand until Control replied, "Your chiller was in your locker at Dugway, Quantrill. Any other little bluffs you care to try?"
He said one filthy word, drawing it out, then laughed. Sanger was offering the glove to his own right hand. "I'm wearing the thumb of Sanger's right glove, control. It has her ID, and it's her chiller—so don't worry about me, sweetie; you worry about anybody who gets near me." He saw Sanger mime "OK".
"You've been planning this a long time, Quantrill."
"For minutes and minutes," he said, letting the truth satirize itself. Ahead, the urban strip was thinning. He tapped Sanger's arm, pointed at the all-channel commset. "Maybe I should make this public," he mimed.
"Zap you right now," was her silent reply. "Looking for area I know. Coal mines. Safe if we get deep?" She ended with an interrogative; S & R had never intended its rovers to know how to mask a critic's reception.
"Quantrill: "Near?"
A shrug, then the jab of a finger on the chart near Price, Utah. Between Nephi and Price were peaks reaching three klicks above sea level but a sprint chopper could clear them.
He nodded, pulled the Loring into a steep climb that skirted the southern edge of Salt Creek Peak. The closer he kept to the terrain, the less lik
ely that any pursuer could maintain visual contact. Quantrill kept very, very close, choosing not to think what would happen if one of his prop shrouds gulped a bird or a fir tip, and veered to the East in a rocketing climb.
When Control spoke again it was with a different voice. The signature would have voice-printed the same, thanks to CenCom's reprocessing. But Quantrill intuited the differences; contractions, cadences. All pointed to a humanness that Control did not normally permit in its transmissions. "Quantrill, haven't we proven we don't want you hurt?"
"Su-u-ure. Cross convinced me," he rejoined. He was trying to activate the map video display but did not know the cockpit layout that well. For a harrowing instant he found that he had set the autopilot; rushed to regain manual control as he flashed across the phalanx of treetops.
"We could ice you with the flip of a toggle," Control went on imperturbably. "You're valuable to us, Quantrill. Whatever was responsible for this momentary lapse, we need to talk about it. We're reasonable, Quantrill. If you head for Canada or try some—home remedy—to blanket our signal, we'll have no choice. If you give us a chance we can talk you down in one piece. Think of Sanger; we don't want her hurt any more than you do."
Now the sprint chopper flicked above obscuring peaks, and Quantrill saw a secondary road winding through a valley far below. Now, also, the dense cover of trees was thinning. "If you think I don't want Sanger hurt, try me," he said evenly, eyeing her obliquely. Buying more time: "But do I hear you offering me an amnesty?"
Control, after a pause: "Something like that."
Sanger, her face pleading, her headshake redundant: "Never happen."
Quantrill, aloud: "Let me think about that. I'm a little pressed for time, Control."
Sanger's hands spoke again. "They'll promise anything; afraid other rovers have been turned."
He nodded, scanning the distant range of bluffs ahead. These prominences were lower, dotted with vegetation, tinted orange and dusty rose under a pitiless sun. Sanger's finger thrust dead ahead.
"You must realize you're under surveillance, Quantrill," said Control smoothly. "But we'll honor your request to keep a respectful distance." To Quantrill it meant they probably did not have visual contact—but no doubt they were trying.
At least now he knew why they hadn't pulled his plug before this: they were fouling their knickers in fear that the cadre of S & R rovers had somehow become honeycombed with treason. "Control, if I pack it in, do I have your oath that I'll be released alive?"
"Absolutely," said Control.
"Interrogate, then ice you," Sanger signed. Beneath her tan lay a dreadful pallor.
Quantrill, you are now in the vicinity of Seely Mountain, proceeding East," said Control. But they might know that from the relay station there. Perhaps they still didn't have a visual.
Well, let 'em think he was convinced. "What sharp eyes you have, granny," he said, craning his neck to see the lake far away. He pointed, unnecessarily. Sanger was already aware of it.
"Five minutes that way," she signed, her hand slicing a point northward.
In five minutes, unless Sanger was a lousy chart reader, they'd have some real deceptions to practice. Now the land was sere and hostile; box canyons sharply defined, horizontal strata of black and blonde painting the canyon walls. They had over an hour's fuel left, and he was tempted to stay aloft until the last possible second. Which was, in all probability, just what Control expected. It wasn't like Control to negotiate; those bastards depended on absolute obedience. Which suggested that they might have a fresh brain in the circuit, a slick negotiator, perhaps a psychologist.
But psych people had their knee-jerk reactions too. "Thinking it over, Control," he said. "Do you have anybody online who can tell me how to land this thing? Just in case," he added that tiny bit too quickly, smiling to himself. He was developing an idea, a balls-out crazy one. "Don't kid yourself that I can't do it alone. I'm not afraid," he said. That last word, he judged, would convince them he was scared shitless.
So scared, in fact, that he could never contemplate the action he was about to take as Marbrye Sanger pointed a triumphant finger ahead.
Chapter 34
Sanger was mentally exhausted from trying to ignore the demands of Control. They'd asked if she could communicate and she'd ignored them. Then they'd suggested she try removing the garrote wire; bolting toward the rear of the Loring; half a dozen scenarios, all based on two fallacies. The first was that Quantrill's psychomotor responses were anywhere near normal; and the second was that Marbrye Sanger had not committed herself, once and for all, to her lover.
Even while he doubted her fidelity.
"These little mines East of Carbonville," she signed, taking too long to spell out the name. "Catholics, Indys. I had a mission here. She did not elaborate; why waste time admitting you'd disappeared a woman for pushing media unscramblers to the tough local miners?
Quantrill knew that Sanger expected him to attempt a landing with the sprint chopper. "Where's our DZ," he signed.
She paused, vaguely disoriented. The township was further down the valley; the access road twisted below. In the distance was a mine tower, like a scarlet silo protruding from the earth—but Sanger knew that meant big business. They'd have a better chance in one of the small mines operated by men and women who competed against the Fed consortiums. Nearer, she saw two tailings piles, suggesting horizontal shafts typical of small coal mines.
"There," she signaled, pointing near a two-story structure of stone and mortar that was too large to be a residence. Sanger did not study it closely; assumed it housed crushers and sorters. She could not have known that her decision of that instant, that momentary gesture, would decide a great many things.
Quantrill eased back on the throttles, scanning the bright heavens for swift birds of prey. "Take the cable down," he signed. "I'll follow."
Almost, she spoke aloud. "If you leave it hovering, they'll soon realize we're down."
But he was already waving her back, speaking aloud. "I'm going to mull it over, Control," he said. "Don't know where the hell I am but I know how to circle. I think," he added. At that moment he slowed the Loring's forward motion. He'd have to program a steady tight bank for himself, but he didn't have to risk Sanger's bod that way. Without looking, he brought his left fist up over his shoulder, thumb jerking downward. Then he pulled the tee-handle for the belly hatch. The aircraft wafted nearly motionless above baked earth.
Stunned, Sanger realized that Quantrill expected her to exit the ship on her cable harness. If he kept it hovering while he followed, the first pursuer on the scene would penetrate his deception. Then she grinned at his back—her first smile in two days—and hurried. She'd concluded incorrectly that he intended to shoot the aircraft down with her chiller.
She snatched up the cable from its overhead stowage, reeled it out, saw it writhe below; fitted a handgrip with its frictioner to the cable, then attached its carabiners to her epaulets. Hers was an easy drop, less than a hundred meters, and she made it in a dozen seconds. The instant she touched the ground, Quantrill banked the Loring and began to climb. She raised both arms in supplication, certain that he had decided to leave her.
Then, three hundred meters up, the craft began to circle, one coleopter shroud angled more than the other, and she saw the stubby wings wavering as Quantrill sought a smooth pattern. He wasn't all that good at it. He steepened his bank, the cable whipping below, and moments later she saw his legs through the belly hatchway. The autopilot was now in charge.
Quantrill hadn't wasted his maintenance experience. He stripped a rubber tiedown cord from stowage, gripped it in his teeth while improvising a sling with harness straps. His work coverall, of course, had no epaulets for a cable drop. With the straps across his back and under his arms he linked them into a loop, fitted the cable frictioner, locked it. The cable drum had its own brake and automatic rewind stud. He set it for auto rewind, sat in the hatchway with his feet against the hatch, pried the downlock tr
igger from its clasp. Now the wind pressure thrust the hatch against his bootsoles, but he could not be certain it would slap the hatch more than halfway shut. His last jury-rig was the rubber tiedown, hooked to the hatch and stretched to a handhold inside.
He dropped, batted by the hatch door as it snapped against the cable. The sling bit into his arm sockets. He was rotating helplessly, sliding down the cable and, linked as he was, Quantrill could not stabilize himself with a free-fall arch. Strictly speaking, his descent was not even a true rappel. It was a pirouetting slide down a cable that slowly unreeled against a preset drag, and a survivor of this experiment would be one who did not make the same mistake once.
Quantrill cocked a leg outward, increasing drag on that side. His rotation slowed and his spiral narrowed slightly. He arched then, legs spread, elbows back, and found himself tracking in a great arc—but a lesser arc than that of the droning sprint chopper. If his pursuers made visual contact now, his ruse would be all for nothing.
Each time he tightened his hand frictioner, more of the cable paid out from its reel in response to the drag of his, body. In fifty-meter increments he descended to treetop height—if there had been any tall cottonwoods near. He had intended to set the Loring's circle low enough that the cable's weighted end would finally drag the ground—though if it caught on a rock outcrop he knew the cable would part. He hoped he could descend swiftly, stabilize his track again, and slip from his harness loop to approximate a chutist's landing. But it did not work out that nicely.
Wind drift caused the aircraft to stray from a perfect circle. He found himself at the end of the cable, still moving at a respectable speed, still ten meters up. But the ground was uneven; by closing his limbs he further narrowed the radius of his circle. Now he was eight meters up, fighting a fresh rotation; now six. And just ahead was a two-meter hillock made by an old road-grader. Beyond that, his drop would be greater.