Despite the excessive speed, the journey, mainly over water, seemed to continue endlessly. Suddenly, Kenjo reduced speed. The sea became less of a blur to starboard, and on the port side, the vast, approaching land was just visible through the mist of squall. Sunlight broke through cloud to shine impartially on tossing vegetation and denuded alleys.
“It’s an ill wind,” Jim Tillek remarked, pointing to the sea, which was disturbed more by underwater activity than by wind. “By the way, before I left Monaco Bay, I sent our finny friends to see what they could find out.”
“Good heavens!” Bay exclaimed, pressing her face against the thick plastic canopy. “They can’t have made it here so fast.”
“Not likely,” Jim replied, chuckling, “but the locals are feeding very well indeed.”
“Stay seated!” Kenjo cried, fighting the yoke of the sled.
“If the dolphins can find out where it started . . . Data, that’s what Dieter and Boris need.” Paul resumed manning the forward scope. “Sadrid wasn’t entirely lucky,” he added, frowning. “Just as if someone had shaved the vegetation off the ground with a hot knife,” he muttered under his breath, and turned away. “Get us down as fast as possible, Kenjo!”
“It was the wind,” Wade Lorenzo told the rescue team. “The wind saved us, and the squall. Came down in sheets, but it was water, not Thread. No, we’re mostly okay,” he assured them, pointing to the dragonets, grooming themselves on the rooftrees. “They saved us, just like I heard they did at Landing.” The younger children were just being shepherded out of one of the larger buildings, wide-eyed with apprehension as they looked about them. “But we don’t know if Jiva and Bahka are all right. They were trawling.” He gestured hopelessly to the west.
“If they went west and north, they’d’ve had a good chance,” Jim told him.
“But we are ruined,” Athpathis added. The agronomist’s face was a picture of defeat as he indicated the ravaged fields and orchards.
“There’re still plenty of seedlings at Landing,” Pol Nietro assured him, patting his back with clumsy sympathy. “And one can grow several crops a year in this climate.”
“We’ll be back to you later,” Paul said, helping to unload flamethrowers. “Jim, will you organize the mop-up here? You know what to do. We’ve got to track the main Fall to its end. There you are, Wade. Go char the bastards!”
“But Admiral—” Athpathis began, the whites of his large fearful eyes accentuated in his sun-darkened face.
“There’s two other stakes in the way of this menace,” Paul said, climbing back into the sled and fastening the hatch.
“Straight to your place, Paul?” Kenjo asked, lifting the sled.
“No, I want you to go north first. See if we can find Jiva and Bahka. And until we find the edge of the Fall.”
As soon as Kenjo had hoisted the sled, he slapped on the jet assist, slamming his passengers back into their seats. But almost immediately he eased back on the power, “Sir, I think it’s missed your place.”
Instantly Paul pressed his eyes to the scope and, with incredible relief, saw the vegetation along the beach tossing in the wake of squall winds. Reassured, he could concentrate on the job at hand without divided priorities.
“Why, it just cuts off,” Bay said, surprised.
“Rain, I think,” Pol remarked as he, too, craned his neck to see out the siliplex canopy. “And look, isn’t that an orange sail?”
Paul looked up from the scope with a weary smile. “Indeed it is, and intact. Mark your position, Mister Fusaiyuki, and let’s get to Caesar’s with all available speed.” He took a more comfortable position in his seat and gripped the arm rests.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The six passengers once again endured the effects of speed and, once again, Kenjo’s abrupt braking. That time he added such a turn to port that the sled seemed to spin on its tail.
“I’ve marked my position, Admiral. Your orders, sir?”
Paul Benden’s spine gave an involuntary shudder, which he hoped was due more to the unexpected maneuver than to Kenjo’s naval address.
“Let’s follow the path and see how wide a corridor it punches. I’ll contact the other stakes to stand down from the alert.”
He permitted himself to contact his wife first and gave her a brief report, as much to lock the details in his own mind as to relieve hers.
“Shall I send a crew to help?” she asked. “Landing’s report says the stuff often has to be burnt to be killed.”
“Send Johnny Greene and Greg Keating in the faster sled. We’ve spare flamethrowers with us.”
Others volunteered to send their sons, and Paul accepted those offers. Caesar Galliani, making the same offer, added that he wanted his sons back in time to milk the big Roma herd.
“I was right, wasn’t I,” the vet said with a chuckle, “to spend so much energy on stone buildings?”
“You were indeed, Caesar.”
“There’s nothing like stone walls to make you feel secure. The boys’ll be on their way as soon as you give me a position. You’ll keep us posted, won’t you, Admiral?”
Paul winced at that second unconscious use of his former rank. After seven happy years as a civilian agronomist, he had no wish to resume the responsibilities of command. Then his eyes were caught by the circles of destruction, so hideously apparent from the air, interspersed with untouched swaths where squally rain had drowned the Thread before it could reach the surface. Rain and dragonets! Fragile allies against such devastation, if he had his way . . . Paul halted that train of thought. He was not in command; he did not wish to be obliged to take command. There were younger men to assume such burdens.
“I make the corridor fifty klicks wide, Admiral,” Kenjo announced. Paul realized that the others had been quietly conferring on details.
“You can watch vegetation disintegrating by the yard,” Bay said anxiously. She caught Paul’s eyes. “Rain isn’t enough.”
“It helped,” Tarvi answered her, but he, too, looked at Paul.
“We’ve got reinforcements coming from Thessaly and Roma. We’ll scorch where we have to on our way back to Sadrid. Set down where you can, Kenjo. Landing will need to know the details we’ve gotten today. Data they want, data they’ll have.”
By the time all the available HNO3 cylinders were exhausted, so were the crews. Pol and Bay had followed diligently after the flamethrower teams, taking notes on the pattern of the stuff, grateful that squall activity had somewhat limited the destruction. When Paul had thanked the men from Thessaly and Roma, he told Kenjo to make reasonable speed to Sadrid to collect Jim Tillek.
“And so we must arm ourselves with tongues of flame against this menace to our kind and generous planet,” Tarvi said softly to Paul as they finally headed eastward toward a fast-approaching night. “Will Sadrid be safe now?”
“On the premise that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place?” Paul’s tone was droll. “No promises can be made on that score, Tarvi. I am hoping, however, that Boris and Dieter will soon come up with a few answers.” Then, his expression anxious, he turned to Pol. “This couldn’t fall at random, could it?”
“You prefer the theory that it’s planned? No, Paul, we’ve established that we’re dealing with an unreasoning, voraciously hungry organism. There isn’t a discernible intelligence,” Pol replied, clenching and releasing his fist, surprised at his own vehemence, “much less a trace of sentience. I continue to favor Bay’s theory of a two- or three-stage life cycle. Even so, it is only remotely possible that intelligence develops at a later stage.”