Dejerine whistled.
“Yes, high-powered technicians were at work,” Majewski continued. “As for the reason why nobody was stationed in town—they’d have received the alarm signal as soon as my office did. But Mayor Hanshaw had asked them to help search for a flyer that had called to say a storm was forcing it down in the Stony Mountains. Well, sir, your orders are to grant any reasonable request. They all four went. A wild goose chase, I suspect but can’t prove.”
“This is crazy!” Dejerine protested. “Hanshaw wouldn’t get involved with saboteurs… Does he know you know about the burglary?”
“He asked why we were back in the storehouse. I thought I’d better consult you, and gave him a vague story about possibly unsafe conditions having been reported. He raised his eyebrows but made no comment.”
“Good man, Majewski. I’ll see this gets into your career file. Pro tempore, you and your group stay in quarters and answer no questions. I’m on my way.”
Dejerine clicked off, mumbled an apology to Jerassa, and hastened out. Unseasonably, the day sweltered. Thunderheads towered black in the west. Light elsewhere seemed a still angrier red than before. He was glad to enter his vehicle and lift it.
On the short hop to Primavera, he called Hanshaw. It was a relief to find the mayor at home. No matter how unlikely, apocalyptic visions had jittered in the Earthman’s brain. “Dejerine here. I must see you at once.”
“Ye-es, Captain, I was sort of expecting you. Best we keep talk between the two of us, huh?”
Dejerine parked outside the house. Two passersby stared through him. He clattered into its shaded shelter. Stiff-faced, Olga Hanshaw brought him into the living room and closed that door as she departed. Her husband’s big-bellied form occupied an armchair near a recorder. He didn’t rise, but he lifted a hand and smiled slightly around a cigar. “Hello,” he said. “Squat yourself.”
Dejerine gave him a soft salute and tensed down into a seat opposite. In English: “I’ve just gotten terrible news.”
“Well?”
“Sir, please allow me to be blunt. This is too serious for pussyfooting. Stolen high explosives, and reason to believe you may have connived at the theft.”
“I wouldn’t call it stealing. The stuff belongs to us.”
“Then you admit guilt?”
“Wouldn’t call it guilt either.”
“That material was sequestered for Navy use. Sir, in spite of our disagreements, I never imagined you might get involved in treason.”
“Aw, come on.” Hanshaw let out a blue reek of smoke. “I do admit I’d hoped we could operate on the QT. You had the place gimmicked, hey? But relax. We’re not giving aid and comfort to enemies of Earth. And you’ll never miss that smidgin we, uh, re-appropriated.”
“Where is it?”
“Off in the boondocks, along with a few technics and their apparatus. I can’t tell you where; didn’t want to know, in case you interrogated me. You’ve no way of arresting them till they’ve completed their mission. And—Yuri, I foresee your grabbing any excuse you can, to let them off the hook.”
“Tell me.” Dejerine clamped fists together on knees.
“I think we should play back a conversation of mine a couple of days ago.” Beneath Hanshaw’s easy drawl dwelt bleakness. “I always record such things. You recall the situation in Valennen? Jill Conway and Ian Sparling-prisoners in the outback, and Port Rua under near-as-damn continuous storm by what looks like every brave in the continent.”
A twisting went through Dejerine. Jill—“Yes,” he said.
“When Ian went there, he smuggled in a microcom, and brought relays for the soldiers to distribute which’d connect him to Port Rua. And therefore to us, if occasion demanded.”
“You never told me!” Dejerine exclaimed. He felt sick with hurt.
“Well, you’re a busy man,” Hanshaw grunted.
Dejerine thought of streets where he walked like a ghost, and work in the desert slowed to a crawl, and the hours he spent composing reports euphemistic enough to stay the Federation’s hand from Primavera for at least a while. “Didn’t you think I’d be interested? Why, those two—they may have turned from me, but I am still their friend—”
Again Jill rode over the valley, the long hair aflow in her speed; again she jested and discoursed and showed him wonders which her eagerness about them turned into miracles; again she fed him in the amiable clutter of her home, and played and sang to him under the high stars of her planet. Again she came back when he lay sleepless, alone at night. Again he swore wearily at himself for being an adolescent inside, then claimed he wasn’t really infatuated—attracted, as any normal man would be, but no more than a brief acquaintance would cause—besides, one should allow for a loneliness that other encounters, in bed and out, had never filled since Eleanor left.
Dejerine stiffened in a lift of anger. “If you are quite through punishing me,” he said, “you can turn on that recording.”
“Touche,” Hanshaw conceded. His expression turned warmer. “Understand, because of limited battery they hadn’t contacted us directly before. Through Port Rua we heard they were in good health and spirits, well treated, on a sort of estate in the western uplands. I did pass on word about the strike, since that might conceivably affect their plans or actions. Then day before yesterday I got a call straight from them.”
His finger poised near the on switch. “In case you’d like to visualize,” he said, “we know that general area from air and orbit pictures, plus Ishtarian accounts. The hills and the mountains behind them are rather beautiful in an austere fashion. The woods are mostly low and gnarly, not much underbrush, red and yellow leaves partly shading off a cloudless sky. But in places you get T-vegetation, blue foliage; a couple kinds like the phoenix are impressive. It’s hot there, kiln-hot and dry. With less wildlife than hereabouts and little running water, it’s pretty silent. Jill and Ian hiked well beyond sight and earshot of their keepers, two of them alone in that singed and dying forest.”
“Thank you,” Dejerine nodded. “I do visualize” her withy-slim among crooked dwarf trees, sunlight flaring off her silver fillet and sheening copper along her hair, brilliant eyes and gallant smile… beside her a man who has long been her single companion… Assez.’ Arretons, imbecile!
Her tone shocked him, not the clear huskiness he knew but rough and uneven. “Hello, that you, God? Jill Conway and Ian Sparling here, calling from Valennen.”
“Huh?” gusted Hanshaw’s reply. “Yes, yes. it’s me. Is anything wrong, girl?”
JILL: Everything is—
SPARLING: We’re in no present danger personally.
HANSHAW: Where are you? What’s happened?
SPARLING: Oh, the same place under the same conditions. We figured the chances were you’d be home at this hour. But are you private?
HANSHAW: No, I’m public. However, if you mean am I alone and can I keep it that way, the answer is yes.
JILL (not chuckling at his feeble joke): How about monitors? We won’t want this conversation overheard.
HANSHAW: Safe, if you refer to the Navy. It doesn’t listen in on transplanet sendings, probably not local ones either, so much talk being in Sehalan. I have Joe Seligman bring his kit around irregularly and check my house for taps or bugs, but he never finds any. Captain Dejerine’s a gentleman at heart. And he must know I’m not conspiring,
JILL: You will be.
HANSHAW: What?
JILL; If I know you. After you’ve heard.
HANSHAW: Okay, let’s get to the point. What’s happened?
JILL: Larreka… is… dead. Killed. He—
HANSHAW; Oh, no-o. When? How?
SPARLING: (and a few fought-against sobs in the background): You’d have heard when the legion made its next report to the Mother Base. But we, being anxious because of the combat there, checked with Port Rua this morning. He fell last night, leading a sally. The maneuver worked, but he took an arrow between his helmet bars and—Well. the garrison’s hanging on; but I doubt they can last as long as they would have with him in charge.