“Well, how about that,” Seth said softly. He stood looking down at the skeleton. “I said I’d take bets, an’ I was wrong. Dr. G., I guess I owe you an apology.”
“Or maybe you don’t. Oliver Guest was a genius, but even a genius can’t think of everything.” Art squatted onto his haunches, staring at the scorched head with its naked cranium and empty eye sockets. He reached down and carefully removed something from the corpse’s grinning mouth. “When Guest was sentenced to judicial sleep, he was stored away naked. We know, because we found him that way.”
He held up what he had taken out of the mouth, showing Dana and Seth a partially melted object made of plastic and metal. “They put him into judicial sleep for six centuries. What do you think the chances are that they’d have stuck him into the syncope facility wearing dentures?”
They stared at what Art was holding, then at the burned body. Finally Dana said, “Who?”
“I doubt we’ll ever know.” Art tossed the melted dental bridge back into the ashes. “I’d like to believe that Guest found a corpse somewhere. There are plenty around, we saw signs all the way here.”
“Or maybe he dug one up,” Seth said cheerfully. “But knowin’ old Ollie, it’s more likely that’s number nineteen on his little list. Look on the bright side, though — it could easily have been one of us.”
Each of them straightened, turned, and scanned the trees and bushes.
“Come on.” Art took Dana’s hand. “Let’s get back to Ed and Joe. For once in my life I’ll feel safer with a few more guns around.”
46
As the full moon slid behind clouds and darkness became absolute, Celine gave it one last try.
“I know the layout of the corridors and the feel of the place. You don’t. It could make all the difference.”
“I realize that, ma’am.” The captain, no more than five years younger than Celine, treated her with the deference appropriate to some great and venerable head of state. “Your help in bringing us here and your description of what we are likely to find underground were really important. But you don’t know how to use any of this.”
He gestured around them. He, Celine, and nine black-clad strike team members were sitting in a vehicle that from the outside might be taken as a standard and old-fashioned electric van. Inside, gas masks, gas bombs, rifle mortars, and suits of body armor lined the walls. Four small screens showed black-and-white images. Two displayed the terrain using thermal infrared and active microwave sensors. The third observed in visible wavelengths, and was at the moment dark. The fourth was a general purpose television. Once it would have picked up any of ten thousand channels. Now there was one channel only, and that was dedicated to official government broadcasts and announcements.
“I wouldn’t have to know how to use everything,” Celine said. “You would do all that. I would just help you to find your way in the underground tunnels.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know you are keen to help. But let me ask you this. You trained for many years before you went to Mars. What would you have said if, the day you left, someone without any training came along and told you they wanted to go along, too? My team has worked together for six years in this type of exercise. We know each other, we trust each other.”
When Celine said nothing, he went on, “And there’s one other reason, ma’am, why we don’t want you along. This one sounds selfish, and maybe it is. But it’s true. You went to Mars and you made it back. You’re a legend. How do you think we’d feel, all of us, if you went along and somehow we got you killed? We’d never get over that.”
Celine admitted defeat. This was supposed to be a neat surgical operation, fast in and fast out, with minimum violence and no casualties. But the Mars expedition had provided the ultimate proof that, plan as you liked, things went wrong.
“Will you do me one favor?” she asked. “I’d like to know what’s going on. Can you show me the controls for the display units?”
“Glad to do that, ma’am.” The captain nodded to one of his companions. The woman came forward and showed how each sensor could be controlled in look direction, focus, magnification, contrast, saturation level, and sensitivity. It was crude, it was cumbersome, and it had to be done manually. With the failure of the chips, none of the old taken-for-granted automatic features worked.
Celine made a practice run. Under her control, the visible wavelength display at maximum sensitivity showed a faint gray ghost of a scene. Outside, dawn was approaching.
Zero hour.
The strike team adjusted their equipment, picked up gas cylinders and projectors, and prepared to leave.
With their black body armor, goggles, helmet communication antennae, and long-muzzled gas masks, they were like strange mutant insects. The captain had a final word with the driver. “Two hours. If we’re not back, or you don’t have radio contact at that time, you’re on your own. Use your best judgment.”
“Yes, sir.” The driver checked his headset.
“Good luck,” Celine added.
“Thank you, ma’am.” The captain fixed his mask in position and slipped quietly out of the open rear of the vehicle.
Celine turned to the display controls. The microwave and thermal infrared channels showed the group snaking their way downhill toward the little schoolroom. As usual, her mind threw off half a dozen questions. What would the strike team do if the elevators were no longer in service? Would Pearl Lazenby, worried about Celine and Wilmer’s escape, have moved her headquarters? What were the chances of an ambush, somewhere belowground? Were Jenny and Reza safe, or had they been sacrificed to atone for their help in the escape? Had they been tortured, to tell whatever they might know? The rules of civilized behavior did not apply to the Legion of Argos. The strike team did not care about Reza and Jenny, their whole focus was on the rapid capture of Pearl Lazenby.
The group reached the school. Celine watched them vanish inside. After that came the frustration of a view with nothing to offer but the gradual brightening of dawn outside the van.
She turned to the driver. “Are they all right?”
He gave the shrug of a man who had been through this sort of thing many times. “So far, so good. They’ve reached the elevators. We may lose radio contact once they go deep underground. Unfortunately, that’s when it gets interesting.”
He was deliberately casual, but Celine noticed that he did not take his eyes off his own monitor. It showed the same scene as hers. But suppose that the Legion of Argos came from some other direction?
She went to the open rear of the van, stepped outside, and looked around. All she saw was a peaceful morning of late spring. She returned to her seat and turned on the television that picked up general broadcasts. Apparently it was too early in the day. The little screen showed nothing but a test pattern.
“A few more minutes.” The driver had observed her actions. “Then we’ll get the channel news.”
Presumably, that would come on the hour. But by then, the strike team would be well on the way to success or failure.
Celine tried to estimate times. Say, five or six minutes to descend. Another five to advance, cautiously, and determine the situation. The neural gas was supposed to make a person unconscious in seconds, quickly enough that there would be no time to use a gun. Then, say, five more minutes to take bearings and hurry along to Pearl Lazenby’s private quarters. Would she be asleep, or awake — or there at all? In any case there would be more gas, followed with luck by a quick retreat carrying her body. Then into the elevator, and back to the surface.
Clean, tidy, efficient. Every task looked like that — until you came to carry it out. Then you discovered dirt, mess, and muddle.