Walter nodded.
“Could it have been killing in the name of—Olga?” asked Val. “That eerie buckeye wizard with the crystal ball—could he be a Follower of Olga?”
Walter’s old face darkened as he fumbled for his box of buckeye artifacts. The beads were potentially sacred relics to him now, for they might lead him to Olga. Cyanosis darkened his lips as he asked his viewscreen for a projection of planetary positions. Astronomy charts began to take shape.
“No, no,” he interrupted. “Astrology—geocentric zodiac.”
Occult diagrams appeared. Symbols of the planets moved from sign to sign as a calendar rolled through the months. The projections were given a very low probability rating. The Big ES had little use for such data, and it had not been updated for years. Walter moved the planets back and forth through time, but saw no chance for the four planet conjunction in the forseeable future. He slumped, visibly depressed.
Val looked over his shoulder, patting the old man’s back.
“We tried that before. Remember? If Olga is waiting for the planets to match those beads, she has centuries,” said Val.
Walter wasn’t being soothed. “I want to see Olga with these eyes—” he mumbled. “Perhaps if we consider one bead as our own moon—add the major asteroids to the chart—where is Pluto? Neptune?”
Val watched the viewscreen jump with its own guesses. The Big ES just did not know. Ancient positions were given.
“Those are buckeye beads,” reminded Val. “They are probably based on visible planets—six at the most. Eyeballs.”
The two tecks stood behind Val as he warmed up the tightbeam. The screen flashed with pulsing lights as the music increased in volume. Val rotated the antenna. Concentric rings appeared. He tried to focus the shaped magnetic field.
“If I can trick them into establishing a tightbeam with us we should be able to pinpoint their location—Damn! Where is all that smoke coming from?” cursed Val.
The black capacitor barrel steamed as the insulation bubbled. Sparks jumped. Acrid fumes billowed out of the heat sink. One of the tecks poured water into the sink with a loud hiss.
“It was dry.”
“Obviously,” grumbled Val. “The screen has clouded. That’s about all we can do now until we get replacement parts.”
“Can we still listen?” asked Walter weakly.
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Val. “But we’ll never catch them that way.”
Walter lay back with his eyes shut listening—
6
Dundas Incident
Tinker moved eastward ahead of the villagers. As they left their mountain retreat he searched out the buckeye sensors and disabled them. He worked carefully—subtly—a loose fitting, a pile of kale leaves, mud on a lens: enough to protect the villagers; not enough to alert Hunter Control.
Two spearchuckers stood by Mu Ren and Junior while Tinker smeared himself with mud and leaves. He peeked through the rhubarb toward the next ridge. Two hundred yards of freshly plowed synthesoil separated him from the tower of a buckeye detector.
“I recognize that BD model. Its optics ought to be pretty senile by now. If I crawl slowly it shouldn’t be able to pick me out of the dirt.”
Mu Ren clutched her child. They watched him crawl almost casually toward the tower. The ball of neurocircuitry and sensors continued its monotonous rotation at the top. His muddy camouflage seemed to be working. A Tiller worked the soil at the base of the tower. The bulky machine politely moved out of the way while he studied the cable. Pulling the plug, he smeared the contacts with mud. Then he replaced the plug—waving at Tiller as he left.
“That should fog up reception enough to protect us,” he said, waving the first villagers over the ridge.
Moses followed the Harvester’s tracks up to the blank face of the shaft cap—ten yards of wall broken only by baleful optics and the huge doors of the Agromeck garage. The grill above was dark. Toothpick spoke silently to the door—exerting his class six authority. Nothing happened. Moses tightened his grip on the cyber.
“Are they suspicious?” he whispered.
“Just sluggish,” said Toothpick. “We’re just items in their memory banks until we cause loss of life or materials.”
The door opened. Moses stepped into the nest of machines.
“Try to find a door to the spiral along the inner wall,” said Toothpick. “Watch out for those little service robots. Some are blind. This isn’t the safest place for a soft-skinned human.”
Powerful Agromecks slept in their bays while small Servomecks worked. Some dangled from ceiling cables while others sat on the floor surrounded by new and used components. The outer wall was piled high with broken parts and vegetable debris. Moses picked his way carefully until he came to an inactive bay he could cross safely.
On the spiral Moses melted into the apathetic crowd and softened his face to match the surrounding lethargy. He matched their sluggish gait. Toothpick remained silent until they reached the first dispenser.
“Let me handle this,” hissed Toothpick. “Your Au-grams were confiscated long ago.”
The dispenser issued one item in each food category and one issue tissue garment. Moses staggered away under the load.
“Caution,” whispered Toothpick. “The lighting is changing. Shorter wavelengths have been added. The Watcher optics must be searching for your melanin and carotenoids—they fluoresce. If they get a fix on you they’ll know you’re from the Outside.”
Moses continued to walk casually with the clots of listless citizens.
“Did the dispenser report us?”
“No,” explained Toothpick. “For all it knew we were just one of the maintenance teams. Perhaps it was the routine Watcher circuits. Your clothes are rags covered with dust and chlorophyll. Your skin is thick, a better insulator—probably reads way down on the thermal scale.”
Moses quickened his pace. Several hours later they were Outside again—back on their north-by-northeast course.
More weeks of travel carried them through Lake Country. The air was much colder now. Moses wore several layers of issue tissue. They invaded other shaft caps as the need arose. Always they triggered Watcher circuits, but never quickly enough for Security to arrive. With Toothpick in his fist, Moses had little fear of the fat, sluggish guards that patrolled in the hive. Their quarterstaffs and throwing nets were enough for handling docile citizens, but it took a couple of well-placed arrows to bring down a buckeye. And there were no arrows inside the hive.
On frozen nights Moses sought the warmth of the plankton tubes. Food production in this area was all greenhouse—both environmental heat and energy for photosynthesis had to be provided. It was a hostile place for a human. All he could see were the misty domes sweating frost on their insulated outer walls and the pipes pulsating with coherent light. The ground was permanently frozen.
Moses huddled against an outcropping for protection against the wind. He reached under his outer layer of clothing for his water bag and a food bar.
“Smell brine in the air,” he said, drinking.
Toothpick was propped against the rocks. He flexed his membrane charge and rotated his optic eastward.
“We’re getting close to the sea,” said the cyber. “The haze blocks the horizon at your wavelength, but I can see the shore—about seven miles.”
Moses chewed slowly.
“Not much sign of life around here. Just the machines making food.”
Toothpick rotated back and looked at his human.
“And expensive food too. The energy cost per calorie must be almost prohibitive,” said Toothpick. “These units would be much more efficient in a tropical sea.”