«They go nowhere in particular,» she said. «They have not spent enough time in any one place to see very much.» She frowned. «I am almost certain they do not suspect me, yet.»
«Good,» said Blade. «Can you be ready to escape tonight?»
«Tonight?»
«If you can, take what you'll need,» Blade added.
She nodded. «I have the essential material of my research on film, everything that is not common knowledge. I have no hiking gear, though. I do not think it would be wise for me to try to get it.»
She was probably right. «Do you at least have good shoes? That's the one thing you're certain to need. We've got at least a twenty-five-mile walk ahead of us, possibly twice that much.»
Another nod. «Oh yes, I have that. It will not be hard for me to get out of my cottage at night, either. Where do I meet you?»
Blade disliked the idea of using the same place twice. On the other hand, where they were now offered the best concealment of any place along the whole shore of the cove. Anywhere else, even a casual passerby might catch a glimpse of them. Security men were close at hand, so that casual passerby might feel more willing than usual to tell them what he'd seen, to prove his loyalty to the Red Flames.
Blade made a gesture that took in the water and the land around them. «Here, at midnight or as soon after that as you can come. Dress as warmly as you can, and try to bring some food.»
Rilla smiled. It was obvious that she would have laughed out loud if there'd been no danger of being overheard. «My friend, I grew up in the North Country of Russland. There the woods stretch for ten days' fast walking from one village to another, and it does not go above freezing from September to May. Give me advice about things I do not know so well as traveling in forests.»
Blade smiled back. «When the time comes, I will.» He gave her the recognition code for the night rendezvous, then lay still while she swam back out into the cove and back toward the beach. Again she swam with a strong and sturdy grace of movement. Blade was half tempted to wait and watch her climb out of the water again. He would not at all mind seeing her body gleaming naked in the sun again.
But it was never wise to spend a single unnecessary second in any place that might be dangerous. Before Rilla was halfway to the beach Blade was crawling back up the slope again. Long before she climbed out of the water he was back in the forest, heading for his hiding place and the few hours of sleep he would need before the night's work began.
Chapter 14
Blade returned to the cove that night, grimly prepared to have any number of things go wrong. Much to his surprise and delight, nothing at all out of the ordinary happened.
He reached the shore at 11:30 and lay under cover in the forest until midnight. Then he crawled along the shore and out onto the little rock spur, far enough to be well hidden. Then he lay down again to wait. Half of any field mission was always waiting for things to happen, to him or to others.
Rilla Haran came slipping along the shore just before one o'clock in the morning. A half-moon gave Blade enough light to see her clearly without the infrared viewer. She was carrying a small sack over one shoulder and a walking stick cut from a fallen branch in one hand. She was also quite obviously having to work hard to keep her nerves under control.
Blade didn't blame her. Her long training and brilliant scientific mind were no real preparation for tonight or anything that might come after tonight. Before tonight she'd been in comparatively little danger. The Security Administration might suspect her, but scientists like her were seldom bothered without very good reason. They were too valuable to the Red Flames' war effort.
After tonight, though, Security would have all the reasons they could need to arrest her, torture her, and stand her up against a wall. She had made her final break with the Red Flames. After tonight she would be out in the open, exposed, vulnerable, and protected only by men whose abilities she had no way of knowing. This would last until she reached Englor.
So Rilla had plenty of reasons to be even more nervous than she seemed.
At the edge of the forest she stopped, crouched down, and gave the recognition signal three times. Then she slid back under a bush, waiting and watching. Blade crept out of cover and returned her signal. Then he crawled along the shore until he was safely hidden behind the same clump of bushes that sheltered Rilla.
«Any trouble?» he whispered.
She shook her head, licked dry lips, and swallowed several times. Then suddenly she raised her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek. «Thank you,» she said quietly.
Blade smiled. «Wait until you've got a little more to be thankful for. We've got a bit of a way to go yet.»
They moved out through the forest at a good pace, one neither of them would have any trouble keeping up for days on end. If they did end up having to walk for days, it would mean something had gone fatally wrong with Route Purple Two, and they would have very little chance of getting out of Rodzmania alive. Blade was also determined that even if things came to that they would still go down fighting, and that meant saving their strength.
They covered half the distance to the primary pickup before dawn. They could have gone farther, but ahead lay a stretch of farming country with fewer woods to provide cover. They found shelter in the cellar of an abandoned farmhouse and settled down for the day, taking alternate three-hour watches. The day passed without trouble and with few signs that there were any other human beings in all the world. Blade found he could easily imagine he and Rilla were Adam and Eve, alone in a world just created out of whatever had gone before it.
If this was Eden, though, it held far too many snakes, in the form of Russland soldiers.
At nightfall they moved on. They had to move more carefully during this night's march, giving the scattered farms a wide berth, staying off the roads, and twice ducking for cover as Russland patrols passed too close for comfort. One patrol was eight soldiers in two jeeplike vehicles, the other was a truck bristling with machine guns and searchlights, which fortunately weren't turned on.
Two patrols were nothing unusual. No doubt the Red Flames had discovered Rilla's disappearance by now. But they didn't seem to have launched an all-out manhunt. Even when they did, it might not be disastrous. They might indeed comb the land house by house, but that would take time-perhaps more than enough time for Blade and Rilla to make their way safely along Route Purple Two and home to Englor.
They were only four miles from the pickup at dawn. Again they found safe cover while the sky was still gray and settled down as comfortably as they could. This day's cover was under a bridge, a damp hiding place swarming with mosquitoes that kept both of them from getting any sleep. Rilla was bitten until her eyes were swollen half shut, but she did not protest.
«Mosquitoes are nothing,» she said, brushing some off her neck. «To get away from my masters, I think I would risk tigers or sharks. The Red Flames give a scientist much, so it was easy to do what they wanted for a long time. Too easy, and too long, I think. I was not as strong as I should have been, not soon enough.» She shook her head. «They asked what they should not have, and I gave them more than I should have. Now it is too late for me, but perhaps for others, there is still time.»
Blade didn't know what to make of these rather cryptic words, and didn't particularly care for their grim, almost fatalistic tone. He did not try to get anything more out of Rilla about her work.