Shibo. Alone there. Alone with whatever had landed next him. They were all vulnerable ... no retreat but the desert, no help but the sidearms he and Kadarin had, against an armed shuttle-craft.
He grimaced and strained his eyes to resolve the outlines, hoped, by what he saw, and kept quiet
Think that's one of ours," Kadarin gasped after a moment
He kept moving, with Boaz struggling between them, breaths rasping in sometime unison, hers and theirs. His eyes began to confirm it, the other ship a copy of their own. He had a cold knot at his gut all the same. It was trouble; it could not be otherwise.
Recall; that was likeliest, a decision to pull the mission out
Or disaster elsewhere.…
The possibilities sorted and re-sorted themselves in agonizing lack of variety. He had a man dead, neglected in his report; he had lost credibility by that. He had no success to claim, nothing, save Boaz's eloquence; and against distant orders… there was no appeal.
He tightened his arm about her, trying whether she needed to stop, whether they were hurting her. "Stop?" he asked her.
She shook her head and kept walking.
No hatch opened in advance of their coming… ought not; they wasted no comfort to the winds. They limped up to a blind and closed wall. No need at the last to hail them machinery engaged, and the ramp and lock welcomed them, too small to afford them access all at once. Kadarin climbed up, Boaz next, himself last
Two men were waiting for them. Shibo. Another, black against the light from the port. Galey pulled the breather-mask down, sought to guide Boaz to a cushion, but she was not willing to sit. She stood, braced against a cushion in the dark, seat-jammed space.
"Harris, sir," the other said. "Orders from upstairs.”
Gene Harris. Galey gathered himself a breath and sank down into the co-pilot's cushion, tried to adjust his eyes to the daylight as Harris slipped a paper into his hand. Kadarin leaned past, switched on an overhead light. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on it, past a throbbing head and hands that wanted to shake, blurring the letters.
Mission codes and authorizations. Koch's office.
Cooperative rapprochements with allies are underway at highest levels. Agreements have been reached regarding a mutually acceptable solution to the future threat of mri retaliations . . . There was more.
"What are they wanting?" Boaz interrupted his reading.
"We're ordered to destroy the machines.”
"The computers?”
He spread the paper on his knee, read aloud. "'… ordered to use successful techniques of access to effect demolition of high tech installations and power sources, beyond any remote possibility of repair. Allies have applauded this operation and will make on-site inspections at the termination of your phase of operations. Request utmost dispatch in execution of this order. Probe Flower will remain onworld outside estimated limit of fire of city sites. Orbiting craft will not be in position to receive or relay messages. Exercise extreme caution in this operation regarding safety of crew and equipment Your knowledge is unique and valuable. Luiz will be your contact during this operation should mission-abort prove necessary. Re-stress extreme priority this mission, crucial to entire operation. Urge extreme caution regarding possible allied operations onworld out of contact with allied high command. Do not provoke allied observers. Use personal discretion regarding sequence of operations and necessary evasions in event weapons are triggered Shuttle two and crew under your command. Transport civilian aide to ground command if feasible, your discretion.'“
There was a harsh oath from Boaz.
Galey folded the paper, slid it into the clip by the seat, sat still a moment. "How many with you?" he asked Harris.
"Magee and North; we opted Bright out to get cargo in.”
"Demolitions?”
Harris nodded. "Enough, at least to start.”
Galey ventured a look toward Boaz, toward a face gone old, red-marked with the breather-mask, her gray-blonde braids wind-shredded. Agony was in her eyes. Kadarin rested a hand on her shoulder, his own face saying nothing.
"We lost Mike Lane," Galey said. "A mistake with those machines. They have defenses.”
There was silence. He ran a hand through his knotted hair, haunted still by Boaz's eyes. His heart labored like something trapped.
"TThey're going to take everything we've done," she said, "and use that to destroy the sites. To wipe out their past and their power sources. They take that on themselves.”
No one spoke. A muscle in Boaz's cheek jerked convulsively.
"And mri aren't the only ones involved. You don't know. You don't know what you've got your hand to.”
He shook his head.
"Refuse the order.”
He considered it ... actually considered it. It was madness. Harris's presence brought sense back. "Can't," he said. They've got us, you understand. They can blow the world under us if we don't do this. You, all of us, we're expendable in a going operation, in a policy they've got set. It's better than losing them, isn't it? It's better than killing kids.”
"To Idll their past? Isn't that the other face of it?”
There was an oppression in the narrow cabin, a difficulty in breathing. Boaz's anger filled it, stifled, strangled.
"No choice." He reached out toward Harris, made a weary gesture toward a cushion; his neck ached too much looking up. "Sit down.”
Harris did. "We run the doctor back to base?”
Galey lifted a hand before Boaz could spit out the next word. "She's ours," he said. "She goes back only if she wants.”
"She doesn't," Boaz said.
"She doesn't." Galey drew a deep breath, wiped at his blurred eyes, looked from one to the other of them. “Ye penetrate the sites; that's easy; we carry the stuff in on our backs, set it, the margin we know, walk out, get the ship clear… nothing easier. Chances are we'll trigger something that will blow us all. I figure if Saber says there's no one in position for relays, that means they and the regul are backing off for fear of a holocaust down here. We're in the furnace. Flowers safe, maybe; you understand that, Boz; you'd have a better chance on the ship; and maybe there's nothing more you can do out here.”
She shook her head.
"Got a message for you," Harris told her, fished it from his pocket, a crumpled envelope.
"Luiz," Boaz said without having to read the name. She opened it, read it, lips taut. "'My blessing,'" she said in a small voice. "That's all it says." She rubbed at her cheek, wadded the paper and pocketed it "Who does this profit? Answer me that, Mr. Galey?”
"The mri themselves. They live.”
"Excluding that doubtful premise.”
"I'm not sure I follow.”
"Our command ship is backing off. We've got a regul operation onworld. Whose benefit?" He sat there with an increasing pulse, adding that up. "I'm sure that's been calculated at higher levels than this one.”
"Don't give me 'calculated.' The admiral's been taking advice from Sim Averson and he can't see past his papers.”
"Boz-”
She said nothing more. He gnawed at his lip and looked at Harris. "You stay on standby, here. If we go out there afoot, I want to be sure we don't have any regul prying about here.”
"How do we stop them?" Harris asked.
"Shoot," he said, reckoning on protest from Boaz; he knew her principles. She said nothing. "You and Boaz stay here; if we get any regul contact, I want her by a com set in a hurry. And you listen to her, Gene. She doesn't carry guns. Doesn't approve. She knows regul. If she calls strike, she'll have reason. You monitor everything that moves; make sure Boz understands the limits of our scan and how long it takes to react And if she says go, go to kill. Agreed?”
Harris nodded without a qualm evident. "You're going back?”
"Better," he said. He rose up in the narrow confines, rubbed his beard-rough face, wishing at least for the luxury of washing; could not. He took a drink from the dispenser and started gathering supplies from the locker, replenishing what they had used out of the kits. Kadarin did the same, and Harris went with Shibo to gather up the demolitions supplies.
He let them; that gave a little time for rest. When it was all ready he gave Boaz a squeeze of the hand and walked out down the ramp, with Kadarin, and Shibo, and Harris's man Magee. He pulled the breathing mask up and started them moving. He was cold already; his feet were numb, beyond hurting. He could have sent Harris.
Could have.
Duncan was lost. He admitted that now. Lost; dead; or lost; with the mri. There was no hope, no miracle, only this ugly act that was better than other choices.
Their past, Boaz had called it, killing the past. He looked about him; reckoned there was for this barren, dying world… little else left. He shook his head, set his eyes on the city whose name he did not even know, and walked.
Pillars rose, spires of the same hue as the hills against which they stood, such that they might have been made by nature… but they were baroque and identical, and there were others round about them in the distance, marching off toward the south; there was beyond that a jewel-gleam, a shining the eyes could not resolve.