"Harry, be careful, don't drop it--"
"Not me. Yep." He took out a smaller box that had been nested in foam packing. "And here we are. One IMU--"
The room lights came on.
"Harry, damn you--" Needleton shouted.
"Me?"
"Hello-o!"
They turned. An Air Force captain in combat fatigues stood at the door. The captain's submachine gun didn't quite point at either Harry or Needleton.
"Oh, shit," Harry said.
"Now what?" Needleton said. He eyed the distance to the gun. There were two desks in the way. He glanced at Harry, who nodded slightly.
"Death will not release you," the captain intoned. The submachine gun was pointing straight at Harry's navel.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Fire in the Sky
Jenny Trout stared down the road. "Where the hell are they?"
"Maybe the lock was tougher than Harry thought," Sherrine said.
"It wouldn't be the lock," Jenny said. "Harry's good with locks. I'm sure glad Bob went along. Where the hell are they?"
"There's something coming." A light, a long way away. Fantastic, how far you could see out here.
"Two lights! It's a car!" Jenny shouted. "Get Hudson."
"Jenny, for God's sake put that gun away!" Sherrine said. "Gary!"
C.C. Miller came running out of the office. "Jenny, for God's sake, shooting people isn't the answer to everything!"
"Cissy, sometimes it is!"
"Not this time," Gary Hudson said. "Look, if you start a firefight there'll be a hundred Air Police up here long before any possible launch window." He stared moodily at the approaching headlights. "Whatever we do, it has to be done quietly."
"Oh. Okay." Jenny put the gun back in her boot.
Miller edged closer to Fang and spoke in a low urgent voice. "Stay with her, just in case."
"We can't just give up now!"
"No, and we won't," Miller said. "But there're more ways to futter a cat than just to stuff its head in a sea boot."
"Eh?"
"Ted Sturgeon's other law. Just go wait with Jenny."
The car was a small gray sedan, totally inconspicuous if you didn't notice that it had six antennas. It pulled up in the pool of light in front of the office, and Bob Needleton got out on the driver's side. He was moving slowly, carefully. Harry got out of the passenger's side, moving e same way, as if they were underwater.
"What the hell is going on?" Gary Hudson demanded. Somebody slid out of the back seat, lithe and quick like a striking shark.
Bob Needleton said, carefully, "Gary Hudson, this is Captain, Lee Arteria, U.S.A.F. Office of Special Investigations."
"Oh, shit--"
"Death will not release you." Captain Arteria's voice carried even over the roar of the let engine. Headlights glowed on the intruder's blue uniform and compact machine gun and sharp white smile. The Air Police captain moved like a man in free fall, Alex thought. Like Steve Mews. Strong and dangerous.
Harry Czescu and Bob Needleton had stopped moving. The night seemed to wait. C.C. cleared his throat and said, "Even if you die."
"Pay your dues! Pay your dues!" Was that a man's
voice or a woman's?
"Lee Arteria?"
"Right. You're… Miller? C.C. Miller. Director of the LASFS.
"Chairman now," Miller said.
Gary Hudson demanded, "Will someone please tell me--"
"She's a LASFS member," Miller said.
"Or was," Bob Needleton said.
Lee Arteria said, "Nobody leaves the LASFS. Death did not release me, nor fafiation. It took me a while to figure that out."
"Which is all very well, but where is the IMU?" Hudson said.
"I have it here." Arteria handed across a box. She held her weapon like a prosthetic attachment. Hudson took the box while trying to evade the machine gun's snout.
"And you better get it installed fast." Arteria glanced at her watch. "It's twenty-three forty-two now. By oh-eight-hundred, oh-eight-thirty tops, this place will be crawling with police. OSI, blues, Greens, Army, Immigration agents, Post Office inspectors for all I know."
"Yes. OK." Gary Hudson held the box gingerly, like a hot potato. Small wonder, Alex thought, considering what--who--had come attached to it. "Okay. And, Alex, you'd better tell Jenny to stand down."
Alex went.
The hangar was larger from inside than it had looked from across the ride. Phoenix stood proudly, enshrouded by scaffolds now. They turned on all the lights. That was safer than using flashlights. Furtive lights might be investigated immediately. Working lights could wait until morning.
"God, it's beautiful," Lee said.
"Not as beautiful as when she flies," Hudson said.
"It really will work, then."
Hudson gave her a sour look. "I don't want to seem ungrateful, but you're about the hundredth person to ask that. Yes, Phoenix is ready. More precisely, I'm enough convinced that it will work that I'm going up with it."
Hudson took the IMU and climbed up into the well above one of the landing legs. The opening was barely large enough to admit him. A few moments later he came out far enough to take a wrench out of his pocket, then climbed back in. Finally he emerged with a big grin.
"All's well?" Lee Arteria asked.
Hudson grinned wider. "Yeah. Now let's check things out." He led the way up the ladder.
The cabin was crowded. The only empty spaces were the four seats, which could just be reached from above. Chickens protested the disturbance when Hudson turned on the lights. Lee watched from the hatchway as Hudson wormed into the command chair and pulled the panel toward him. He threw switches. Lights blinked yellow, then green, and the readout screen came alive. Hudson typed furiously at the keyboard.
"Hot damn," he announced.
"All's well?" Lee asked.
"Like a charm." He typed more commands. "There. I've got it in a test loop, but I don't expect any problems."
"And you can launch when?" Lee asked.
"In about ten minutes, or at oh-six-forty. We won't be ready in ten minutes."
"Six and a half hours," Lee said.
Jheri Moorkith was trying to be polite. After all, this was an Air Force Base, and he was talking to Air Force officers. It wasn't easy, though.
"Dammit, she lied to me," Moorkith said.
"How?" Lieutenant Billings asked.
"She said that message on the sermon board, 'Sermon by Nehemiah Scudder,' would lure them in."
"And it didn't. What makes you think they went anywhere near your church?" Colonel Murphy demanded.
"We know they went through Denver, and they crossed the California border at Needles four days ago. Four days! And you've known it all this time, and didn't tell me!"
"I sent you a memo," Billings said.
"Through channels," Moorkith said through his teeth. "Yeah, and we all know how that game is played. All right, but it's played out now. I have a directive here from the National Security Council putting me in charge of finding these enemies. Do you acknowledge my authority?'
Murphy braced. "Yes, sir." He didn't pretend to like it.
"Good. Where is Captain Arteria?"
"We don't know exactly," Billings said. "She's communicating through the Mount Emma relay station. That serves the entire Mojave Desert. She could be anywhere out there, but for all I know she's here in Victorville. This is where she told me to wait for orders."
Moorkith grimaced. "Colonel, I am ordering you: find her. I want to know where Captain Lee Arteria is."
"Why?" Murphy demanded.
"Because I think she has gone over. Find Arteria, and we'll know exactly where those astronauts and their fannish friends are. I'm sure of it. So find her!"