by Allen Steele
“I’ll do that.” Carlos watched as Chris crawled into the tent, shoving his pack before him. He waited while he heard him unroll his sleeping bag, then he put aside the rifle and picked up the flask once again.
He dropped another piece of wood into the fire. Sparks flickered upward into the bare branches, melded with the stars in the black sky. He was about to look down again when he spotted a single point of light, slowly moving east to west across the night.
The latest Union starship. Watching it, he felt a twinge of unease, as if someone up there was spying upon him. An irrational thought. He took a last swig of bearshine, then stood up and headed for the tent.
One more day on the trail, and then he’d be home again. He missed Wendy and Susan. He hoped that the rest of the journey would be uneventful.
GABRIEL 75/2302—FORT LOPEZ
“Captain Baptiste?” The warrant officer standing near the map wall cupped a hand against her earpiece. “Receiving orbital telemetry from the Spirit. They report tracking two clear signals from the ground.”
“Thank you, Acosta. Put it up, please.” Baptiste stood up from the chair in which he had been dozing for the last half hour, walked across the dimly lit situation room to join her. He needed to go to bed; it had been a long day, and the only thing keeping him awake was coffee. But he had been waiting all evening for his ship to fly over Midland; now that it was in position, they should be able to get a fix upon the extralow-frequency signals coming from the ground.
Giselle Acosta tapped a few keys, and a holograph formed within the map wall: a topographic map of Midland, its mountains and valleys depicted as contour lines. As Baptiste watched, two illuminated cross-hatches appeared on the southeastern corner of the island, so close together that they almost merged.
“Enlarge this area,” he said, pointing to the markers. Someone came up behind him; looking around, he saw Lieutenant Cortez. “Didn’t know you were still here,” Baptiste murmured. “Are you off duty?”
“Thought you might need me, sir.” Cortez watched as the image expanded, becoming a broad valley surrounded on three sides by mountains. “That’s the southern end of the Gillis Range . . . Mt. Shaw up here and Mt. Aldrich down there.” He pointed to a sinuous line weaving through the center of the valley. “This river comes down between them and empties into the Great Equatorial about a hundred miles to the south.”
Baptiste nodded. The two markers had moved farther apart now: one on the river almost midway between the two mountains, the other near the top of Mt. Aldrich. “They’ve separated,” he said, then he turned to call across the room. “Any further contact from the patrol?”
“No, sir.” A corporal seated at the com station swiveled in his chair to look at him. “Last report was at 0830 this morning.”
“Looks like we may have lost someone.” Cortez frowned. “But the other two signals are still active. Should I wake the Matriarch?”
Baptiste shook his head. If they got Luisa Hernandez out of bed, she’d only demand immediate action. But a night sortie in unknown terrain was an invitation to disaster; their target wasn’t likely to go anywhere before morning. “Let her sleep,” he replied, then patted Acosta’s shoulder. “Good work. Get a lock on those coordinates and tell your relief to keep an eye on them when Spirit makes its next flyover in about six hours.”
Acosta typed another command into her keyboard, and a translucent grid appeared above the map, displaying latitude and longitude lines. Baptiste yawned, then he looked at Cortez once more. “Get a few hours of shut-eye, then muster two Diablo recon teams at 0500.”
“Diablos?” Cortez raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure we’re going to need them, sir?”
“Rigil Kent’s been pretty good at taking down light infantry. Let’s see how they handle heavy stuff.” Baptiste raised a hand to stifle another yawn as he walked away. “Four Diablos on the flight line for liftoff at six. Tomorrow we go hunting.”
ZAMAEL, GABRIEL 76/0753—MT. ALDRICH
“From here on, we walk the rest of the way.” Carlos hopped down from his shag into the snow. “You can leave your pack,” he added as he withdrew his carbine from its scabbard and pulled its strap over his shoulder. “They’ll carry that . . . just not you.”
Chris carefully climbed down from his mount. His shag had come to a stop on its own, and it waited patiently for him to take the reins in hand. Ever since they had resumed their journey just after sunrise, the trail had gradually led down a gentle incline, taking them off the ridge where they had spent the night until they had come to the top of a sixty-foot granite bluff. Below them, the Pioneer Valley narrowed, becoming a deep and heavily wooded canyon. On the other side, only a few miles away, they could see the lower slopes of Mt. Shaw; Goat Kill Creek lay several hundred feet below, invisible save as a slender line that meandered across the valley floor.
“Watch your step. It gets pretty steep after this.” Clucking his tongue, Carlos led his shag toward a break in the trees, where the trail began to descend into the canyon. He stopped to pick up a fallen branch; breaking it over a boulder, he tossed the other half to Chris. “Here, use this. Might make it a little easier.”
“Thanks.” They’d spoken little that morning; too much had been said the previous evening, and neither of them felt like talking. “Y’know, I’m just curious . . . why do you call this Goat Kill Creek?”
“First spring after we moved here, we let the goats graze near it.” Keeping his eyes on where he put his feet, Carlos was paying more attention to the trail than to what he was saying. “We didn’t know that it floods after the snow melts. Lost a few that way. The name stuck.”
“Makes sense.” Chris felt the soles of his boots slide on loose gravel beneath the snow; he used the stick to balance himself. “So I guess we’re not far from Defiance.”
Carlos suddenly realized that he’d revealed more than he should. “Not that far,” he said noncommittally. “Maybe a few . . .”
He stopped. From somewhere not far away, a new sound drew his attention. At first, he thought it was trees rattling in the wind, yet it had a different quality: artificial, more repetitive. Carlos peered at the overcast sky through the snow-laden branches, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from.
“What?” Chris asked. “You think you—”
“Hush.” Carlos held up a hand. The sound was louder. It also sounded like . . .
A gyro suddenly roared overhead, passing only a few hundred feet above them. It swept over the top of Mt. Aldrich, the rattle of its blades clattering against rock and timber, shaking snow off the treetops. The shags brayed in terror; Carlos grabbed his beast’s reins and fought to keep it under control as the gyro skimmed out over the valley.
What the hell? Where did that . . . ?
And it wasn’t alone. He could see another gyro, cruising at low altitude up the valley several miles away. As the first aircraft banked to the left, making a sharp turn that brought it back toward them, the second slowed to a near stop, its twin nacelles canting upward into vertical position. Like a giant dragonfly, the second gyro slowly descended into the canyon, gliding back and forth as if searching for a place to touch down.
“Duck!” he yelled, but it was much too late for that. The first gyro hurtled toward them once more, this time even closer. Carlos couldn’t restrain his shag any longer; in blind panic, the beast tore loose from its reins, then turned and galloped back uphill. For an instant it seemed as if the shag would trample Chris, but he let go of his own mount and threw himself out of the way. The animals nearly collided with one another as they charged up the trail.
“They’re getting away!” Chris scrambled on hands and knees in an absurd attempt to grab his shag’s reins. “They’ve got our—”
“Let ’em go!” Carlos grabbed him by the back of his jacket, hauled him beneath the nearest tree. But Chris was right; all their gear—including, he realized, his radio, along with extra cartridges for his rifle—were in packs and saddlebags lashed to t
he shags. Given time, they might be able to chase them down. But they were out of time, and the gyro was closing in.
It was at treetop level, its propwash causing twigs and clumps of wet snow to rain down upon them; the noise of its rotors was deafening. Raising a hand to shield his face, he caught a glimpse of the gyro’s undercarriage. The craft was hovering directly above them, nacelles rotated into landing position. In another few seconds, it would come down and . . .
Yet it seemed to hesitate in midair. A couple of seconds passed, then the gyro veered away. Coughing against the snow flurry, Carlos watched the aircraft as it retreated. Gaining altitude, it glided toward the summit, searching for . . .
Of course. There was no way it could touch down there. The mountainside was much too steep, with too many trees in the way; the pilot would have to find a level spot near the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, they had passed several clearings where the gyro could safely land. Once the pilot located one of them, then he could drop into it. And Carlos had little doubt that a squad of Union Guard soldiers was aboard.
“C’mon. We’re going.” Carlos pulled Chris to his feet. For a second, it seemed as if he was about to resist. Carlos shoved him in the back, propelling him down the steep trail.
Their bootheels dug into snow as they half ran, half fell down the rocky slope, grabbing at saplings for support. Within minutes, Carlos lost sight of the trail. Desperately trying to spot it again, he slipped, fell back onto his butt. Swearing beneath his fogged breath, he stumbled to his feet. Chris was already a dozen yards ahead of him; as much as they needed to put distance between themselves and the ridge, he couldn’t afford to lose him. He’d had suspicions before; now their survival depended upon his instincts being correct.
Carlos charged downhill until he reached the base of the bluff. A massive stone wall rose above him, shelves of granite slate forming an overhang that loomed over his head. Piles of broken talus lay at the bottom of the bluffs, where erosion had caused the bluffs to gradually disintegrate, forming ancient rockslides. From far away, he could hear a low, steady rumble, like distant drums. The trail might be gone, but Johnson Falls was only a half mile away.
Chris was struggling across the talus when Carlos caught up with him. Grabbing his shoulder, Carlos turned him around, slammed him against the cold rock wall.
“Where is it?” he demanded.
“Where’s what? I don’t know what you’re—”
“They didn’t find us by accident.” Carlos yanked the rifle off his shoulder. “You’re wearing some sort of tracking device. Hand it over.”
Chris’s mouth trembled. “Man, you’re paranoid. There’s no—”
“I’m not kidding.” With a flick of his thumb, he disengaged the safety. He backed up a step rested the stock against his armpit, and raised the muzzle so that it was aimed straight at Chris’s chest. “So help me, I’ll kill you if you don’t show me where it is. And I won’t count to three.”
Chris stared back at him, not quite believing what he’d heard. Carlos’s forefinger moved within the trigger guard, and that was all that it took. “All right, all right!” Chris tore off his jacket, turned around. “It’s here!”
A small plastic unit was hooked to the back of his belt. “Take it off,” Carlos said, and watched as Chris fumbled at the buckle. “Who else was carrying these things?”
“We all were.” His belt now unfastened, Chris reached back to pull it off from behind. “If you’d checked the guys you shot, you would have found theirs. But you buried them. . . .”
“Leaving just you and Constanza. And we separated you.” Carlos took the belt from him, gave the unit a quick examination. An ELF transponder of some sort, its signal capable of being received from orbit. Probably by the Union starship he’d spotted the previous night. He yanked the unit off the belt, dropped it on the ground, and stamped on it a couple of times until it made a satisfying crunch beneath the sole of his boot. “I figured this was some sort of setup. Finding you out here was too convenient.”
“Damn, you’re swift.” Chris’s smile was fatuous, the smug look of someone who’d played a good game and figured that he held the winning hand. “They’re looking for you, genius. The famous Rigil Kent. And now they’ve got you where they . . .”
The distant sound of rotors interrupted him. Looking around, Carlos spotted the second gyro lifting off from farther down the canyon; it looked as if it had touched down somewhere on the river, at least three or four miles away. He couldn’t see or hear the gyro that had been tracking him and Chris, but he had little doubt that it had managed to find someplace to land farther up the mountain.
One squad coming at them from above, another from below. The team in the canyon would be homing in on Constanza’s transponder, though, and he’d just destroyed Chris’s. He had something of a head start. So long as Marie and her guys weren’t still . . .
“So what now?” Chris was almost casual about this. “Leave me? Shoot me? Better make up your mind. I think you’re going to have company soon.”
“That way.” Carlos gestured in the direction of Johnson Falls. “You’re coming with me.”
“Sure. Why not?” Chris gave a nonchalant shrug. “Sort of figured you’d say that.” He turned, then stopped to glance back over his shoulder. “In fact, so did she.”
“What’s that?” Carlos didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “What did she say?”
“That you’d never kill me.” Again, the self-assured smile. “To tell the truth, though, that’s not why I told her I’d go along with this. I just want to be there when they bring you down.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. I’m not dying today.” Carlos pointed in the direction of the falls. “Now march.”
GABRIEL 76/0837—FORT LOPEZ
“Flight One reports Diablo Alpha is on the ground.” The master sergeant seated at the carrel closest to Baptiste didn’t look away from his wraparound console. “They’ve lost the transponder, but they’ve had visual contact with primary target. Closing in to intercept.”
“Diablo Bravo reporting in, sir.” Acosta, seated at the adjacent carrel, glanced back at him. “They have a clear fix on secondary target. It appears immobile. Moving to investigate.”
“Thank you.” Baptiste continued to study the map wall. Two red markers on a ridgeline below the summit of Mt. Aldrich indicated the position of Diablo Alpha. As Sergeant Cartman had just said, the crosshatch indicating the location of the ELF beacon worn by Chief Proctor Levin had disappeared shortly after he had been spotted by Flight One. The transponder worn by Enrique Constanza, though, was still active; it hadn’t changed position since it had been acquired by the Spirit the night before, though, and that worried him.
He walked over to the Diablo Alpha carrel. “Tell them to proceed with caution,” he said quietly. “This could be a trick of some sort.”
“What makes you think that, Captain?” Luisa Hernandez came up from behind him, her cloak brushing softly against the cement floor. The situation room was crowded, filled with Union officers monitoring the operation. “For all we know, that might be the location of the Alabama party.”
She had a point. Constanza’s signal was coming from a point a considerable distance from the last-known whereabouts of the advance team. The loss of contact with its other four members tended to support the theory that it had been ambushed by Rigil Kent nearly fifty miles down-river; it had to be assumed that they were now dead, their transponders buried along with their bodies. If Constanza had been taken prisoner, then his captors might have taken him to a site somewhere upstream . . . perhaps even their ultimate objective, the Alabama party’s hideaway.
Baptiste absently rubbed his chin as he watched the images being transmitted from Bravo Leader. One of the screens displayed a shot from the camera mounted on the Diablo’s chest: fuzzy and monochromatic, lurching a bit with each heavy step that the team leader took, it showed a riverbank overgrown with dense brush, the river itself a silver surface
reflecting the morning sun.
“Too easy,” he murmured, not so much to the Matriarch as to himself.
“What did you say?” She stood next to him, her arms folded across her chest. “You think this is easy? Captain, this operation has been months in the planning. I assure you, we have the ability to . . .”
“And from what you’ve told me,” he said quietly, “you’ve consistently underestimated them. You seem to believe that, simply because you have more men and more equipment, your adversary lacks resources. That’s a mistake.”
Her hands fell to her sides, and she glared at him with something close to contempt. Although he hadn’t raised his voice, Baptiste was conscious of the fact that the room had gone quiet; all around them, officers were listening to the exchange. He wondered how many had felt the same way themselves but had been unwilling to challenge the authority of the colonial governor.
Hernandez stepped back, her eyes narrowing. “Perhaps you’re correct, Captain. We should change the purpose of this operation.” She turned away, walked over to the Diablo Alpha carrel. “Where are your men now?”
“Descending the ridge now, ma’am.” Cartman pointed to a screen depicting the location of Diablo Alpha, a pair of asterisks slowly making their way down a close-set pattern of contour lines. Its chest camera displayed a blurred image of trees and snow-covered boulders. “They haven’t made visual contact yet, but sonic patterns indicate movement about five hundred yards ahead. . . .”
“Show me the shot Flight One caught of them,” she demanded. Cartman worked his keyboard, and another screen lit to depict a jolting overhead image: two men, captured for a few brief seconds by a gyro’s belly camera, peering up at them from beneath snow-covered branches. “Freeze!” She pointed to the man on the right: young, bearded, a Union carbine slung over his shoulder. “Take a good look, Captain . . . Carlos Montero, Rigil Kent himself. Tell me, do you think this is a person you’d underestimate?”