Adam went to check on Paula again. The cab’s air-conditioning unit was now blowing warm air through the vents, compensating for the chill of altitude. She moaned when he slid the composite door open, instinctively turning away from the pink twilight that shone in through the windshield.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
A skeletal face peered up at him from a nest of blankets.
Adam sniffed the air, and tried not to grimace in disgust. Paula had been sick; sticky brown fluid stained the blankets she was clutching. He thought there might be specks of blood in it.
“Here.” He handed her a bottle of water. “You’ve got to drink more.”
Just looking at it made her shudder. “Can’t.”
“You’re dehydrating, that just makes this worse.” He began to tug his dark red sweater off over his head. “Give me the top blanket and put this on.”
She said nothing, but released her grip on the blanket. He bundled it away in a polythene bag, then adjusted the vent controls for a quick blast of clear air to rid the little compartment of the rancid smell. Paula took a long time to pull the sweater on. The one time he tried to help, she pushed his hands away, determined to do it herself. He didn’t offer again; if she still had pride there was hope for her personality yet.
“I’ve got some sedatives left,” he said when she fell back down onto the cot, completely exhausted.
“No.” She beckoned at the bottle he was holding. “I’ll try and drink.”
“You need more than that.”
“I’ll try and remember.”
“The Guardians will have a doctor.”
“We’ll stick to the diagnostic array, thank you. I trust that more than any doctor on this world.”
“That’s prejudice.”
“It’s my life.”
“Look, we both know—”
“We’ve got company,” Rosamund sang out. “Trucks up ahead, coming our way.”
Adam gave Paula a long look. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“It’s hard for me to avoid you.”
He went back into the cab, glancing at the radar display. “What have you got?”
Kieran pointed out through the windshield. Several points of light were moving along the side of the mountain ahead of them, shining bright in the deep shadow.
“See if you can contact them,” Adam told Rosamund. He wasn’t particularly worried. If the Institute had by some miracle tracked them down, they wouldn’t be so blatant.
“Answering signal,” Rosamund said. “It’s Samantha all right, she says they need to get started with the equipment straightaway.”
They drove on for another kilometer before finding a broad section of the road shelf where they could all park. Samantha’s vehicles roared in ten minutes later as the sapphire sky finally faded to black, and the stars shone with an intensity Adam rarely got to see on any Commonwealth world. Seven medium-sized trucks and five old Vauxhall jeeps parked around the Volvos, all with tough primitive-looking AS suspension; their engines thundered in the thin air, exhaust pipes blowing out mucky vapor. Twenty Guardians climbed out, giving the new Volvos an inquisitive examination.
Samantha was younger than Adam was expecting, certainly still in her twenties, with an enormous cloud of dark red hair that was wound back into a boisterous tail which hung a long way down her broad back. A face that was eighty percent freckles smiled curiously at him when they met in front of the Volvos, illuminated by the bright blue-tinted headlight.
Adam took out the crystal holding the Martian data and handed it over to her with a flourish.
“Adam Elvin.” She shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’ve heard your name a lot from people who come back.”
There was something in the way she said that, almost like an accusation. “Thanks. We weren’t expecting to see you for a while yet.”
“Yeah, I know. Change of plan. Have you been following the Highway One reports?”
“Yes.”
“The Starflyer’s making better progress than we expected. We really need to get those last manipulator stations up and running. I figured it would be quicker to offload the equipment to my people now, and they’ll disperse from here.”
“Sure, hey this is your field. We’re just the delivery team.”
“You’ve done a good job. With this.”
Again, there was that tone. “Anything the matter?”
“Hey, sorry, pal.” She gripped his arm tightly. “No offense, but I’m Lennox’s mother. I was good friends with Kazimir, too. Real good friends.”
Adam didn’t understand the Lennox reference. “Oh, I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Kazimir was a good man, one of the best.”
Rosamund gave a discreet cough behind him. “Bruce was Lennox’s father.”
Adam looked from Rosamund to Samantha, completely flummoxed. “Christ. Uh, did you know he’s dead, too?”
“Been dead a long time, pal. Just his body been walking around out there.” Another firm squeeze on Adam’s arm. “After this, if you’ve got time, I’d like to hear about it. Be good coming from the horse’s mouth.”
“Of course.”
“For now we need to shift our asses into gear, and sharpish. How much did you bring?”
“Just about everything we said we would. There’s twenty-five tons in each truck. Some got damaged en route, not much.”
“Yeah, heard you had some trouble.” Samantha eyed the navy people. “How’s that going?”
“It’s under control.”
Samantha mulled that over for a while. “You’re our top man in the Commonwealth; Bradley Johansson trusts you, so I will, too. But I don’t need any surprises, pal. Out here we have a very easy solution for Starflyer agents.”
“Understood. You won’t get any surprises.”
Samantha produced a handheld array that was old enough to have been on Far Away right from the start. “I’ll need the inventory, but that kind of tonnage! Dreaming heavens, sounds like we’ve got more than enough. Thanks again; this planet might just get its revenge after all. That must have been some ride to get here.”
“It had its moments.”
“Let’s hope it wasn’t for nothing. Time really is being a bitch to us right now. Can we start unloading?”
“Sure.” He got Rosamund and Jamas to open the trailers while he handed Samantha a spare handheld array and showed her how to use it. She whistled appreciatively at its adaptive-logic voice recognition, and started searching the inventory list. A minute later she was bellowing instructions to her people. Guardians and trolleybots were soon beavering away unloading the crates.
“Just how time-critical are things?” Adam asked. He was beginning to feel redundant, standing with the navy people in a little cluster while Jamas and the others were smiling away as they greeted friends they hadn’t seen in years.
Samantha sucked on her lower lip and lowered her voice. “My teams should pull through. The drivers will dose up on beezees and run the mountains like a bat out of hell tonight, each of the stations will get their load tomorrow; Zuggenhim Ridge is the farthest away, and that should be done by midday, which is cutting it fine for assembly, but I’ll take that one myself. We’re going to start the planet’s revenge the day after tomorrow no matter how many stations are ready. No choice, pal.”
Adam did some quick mental arithmetic. “That is going to be tight.” He reckoned the Starflyer would reach the Institute sometime after midday.
“Very,” she said. “But that’s not the real problem.”
“What is?”
“Our observation team is badly behind schedule. As soon as we heard the Starflyer was through the gateway we tried to tell them to start. They were camped in the Nalosyle Vales, and there was a bad weather front around there. We didn’t get through until early this morning, bastard short wave is good for crap all. If they have nothing but good luck, it’ll take them three days to get up to Aphrodite’s Seat.”