Kyle looked around at them. "Gathering spots?"
The trooper looked uncomfortable, as did Ravenheart, though he could see some of the anger and coldness had returned to her eyes. "It would seem that human, or human-appearing, agents of the insect spirits, maybe insect shamans, are gathering people into groups."
"What the frag for?"
"We know the bug spirits are kidnapping people for the new hives," Ravenheart explained. "But they've got to be careful about the rate they grab host-bodies since the nests can only convert a finite number at a time."
"So they're herding people into holding areas," said Vathoss, looking up again. "That way they're all ready and waiting when it comes time to take them to the nest."
Kyle was shocked. "Spirits! How are they managing that? How can they control the people? Force?"
"Food," said Ravenheart. "Some of the fragging things, like the ants, can secrete an edible substance. They lure the refugees in with promises of food, give it to them, and then keep them there. Naturally, the sites are safe since it's the bugs themselves that control them."
"Jesus fragging Christ,"
She nodded. "We've disrupted six of these sites already, and we think we have leads on two more. If we can't handle it we pass word over the barricades and let the army send in choppers."
Kyle shook his head. It was all monstrous. And somewhere out there, maybe even in one of those sites, were Beth and Natalie. Kyle reached into his pocket and pulled out the holopix of the two that he'd been showing among the refugees. The troopers passed them around.
"Do you remember either of them at any of the sites you broke up?" he asked.
They all shook their heads.
"Even if we did," Ravenheart put in, "we probably wouldn't remember. We weren't paying that much attention to human faces."
"Have you tried any conjuring?" Kyle asked her.
"Just minor stuff, a couple of watchers," she said. "I haven't had the time or the materials to try anything bigger. We did hear about a shaman who got himself torn to pieces while trying to summon up a nature spirit. Apparently the bugs are particularly sensitive to that."
"Makes sense," Kyle said. "Seeks-the-Moon indicated that they were very sensitive to him as well. He's been walking around physical and masked the whole time."
"Bet that thrills him."
Kyle grinned. "Yeah, I bet it does." He was about to ask her if she knew of any specific spells or magical techniques to which the bug spirits were vulnerable when one of the piles of gear in front of him began to emit a series of loud electronic beeps.
"Son of a bitch!" said the Asian trooper as he kneeled down in front of it He opened the casing, and Kyle saw that it was a compact field communication unit. Its three liquid crystal displays were active, showing data that he couldn't read and three-dimensional wave and field matrices that he didn't understand. "Mr. Cryptographer strikes again," the trooper said with a smile.
"What's the ident code?" Ravenheart asked.
"Operations HQ. This one's from the top of the drek chain. The box is verifying the codes." He leaned in and reread the data display, then turned to Ravenheart. "It's 'eyes only'," he said. "Yours."
"Can we reply?" she asked him.
"No. It's a hyperburst transmission, and it looks like UCAS has already changed their jamming algorithms." He shook his head. "I for one would never have believed they'd have anything we couldn't breach."
This time Kyle grinned. "What? You don't think that's been a priority at the National Security Agency for at least thirty years?"
"Point taken," the trooper said, then stood up and gestured to the communications rig. "It's all yours, Captain."
"Thanks," Ravenheart squatted down next to it, shifting it slightly for a better view. As she did, Kyle spotted the lightweight optical cable attached to its back. His eyes followed it through the pile of gear, up a support column, and out the room through a perfectly round hole in the ceiling. He guessed the hole was recent, and that the cable led to a field satellite dish on the roof.
Ravenheart typed in her personal ident code, and then pulled a small cupped device from a panel on the side of the case. Another optical cable led from it into the case. She placed it against her right eye and held it there for a few moments until the communication rig beeped its approval. It began verifying her retinal pattern.
"Doesn't Ares have any satellites with laser downlink capability?" he asked. "That would eliminate the jamming problem."
Ravenheart sighed and shook her head. "Sure we do, but we're not getting any replies on the linkup. I don't know if it's us or them."
The machine beeped again, and Kyle saw the data display change, and a couple of words on it began to flash.
"Tox," Ravenheart said, her eyes widening slightly. "The message is cyber-encoded." She reached down and pulled out the retinal scanner unit, but detached the optical cable from it. From the same compartment she removed a small adapter plug with a round swivel-pad attached. She connected it to the end of the optical cable and then slotted the entire attachment into a jack behind her right ear, from which it hung. That done, the displays on the communication rig changed, and Ravenheart's eyes became unfocused. Her jaw, though, suddenly clenched.
Kyle turned toward the Asian trooper. "Induction link?" he asked.
The trooper nodded. "Easier to interface with helmet gear I and the like."
Kyle nodded and then leaned in toward the man, extending his hand. "Kyle Teller," he said.
The trooper shook Kyle's hand. "Corporal David Lim."
While Ravenheart stared into nowhere, Kyle exchanged introductions with the rest of the troopers present. Vathoss merely gave him a grim smile when Kyle came to him. "Yes, I suppose we do already know each other," Kyle said, turning away just as Ravenheart yanked the cable out and stood up quickly. Her body was tense, and her eyes hard. She looked around at the other troopers, and then at Kyle. "I need to talk with my team," she told him tersely. "Why don't you go get your friend?"
Kyle nodded and turned to leave the room. "Soaring Owl did get out," he just barely heard Ravenheart say. "The message was from him. He sends his condolences that we survived."
27
Seeks-the-Moon was waiting on Beth's porch when Kyle finally returned. The sight of the spirit standing there in the slowly growing morning light somehow reminded him of his father. Stern and silent, conveying everything with a glance and a tilt of the head, expecting everyone to understand him implicitly. The spirit said nothing as Kyle climbed the short stair and began describing what he'd seen and where he'd been.
"But you don't trust them," the spirit said as soon as he'd finished.
Kyle sighed. "No… I…" He looked away, seeing nothing. "I just don't know. I'm beginning to think that their mysterious behavior was them trying to conceal the fact that they were hunting the insect nest."
"Why would they do that?"
Kyle shrugged. "I don't know. They're a megacorp-who knows why the frag they do anything? When I was with the FBI it baffled the drek out of us half the time. We rarely had enough information to evaluate their actions, so a lot of it seemed to come from nowhere. It will be interesting to see whether or not Ravenheart tells us what the message from her boss was."
Just over an hour later, Kyle and Seeks-the-Moon reached the Knight Errant safehouse. This time Kyle knocked.