Now the sprint chopper flicked above obscuring peaks, and Quantrill saw a secondary road winding through a valley far below. Now, also, the dense cover of trees was thinning. "If you think I don't want Sanger hurt, try me," he said evenly, eyeing her obliquely. Buying more time: "But do I hear you offering me an amnesty?"
Control, after a pause: "Something like that."
Sanger, her face pleading, her headshake redundant: "Never happen."
Quantrill, aloud: "Let me think about that. I'm a little pressed for time, Control."
Sanger's hands spoke again. "They'll promise anything; afraid other rovers have been turned."
He nodded, scanning the distant range of bluffs ahead. These prominences were lower, dotted with vegetation, tinted orange and dusty rose under a pitiless sun. Sanger's finger thrust dead ahead.
"You must realize you're under surveillance, Quantrill," said Control smoothly. "But we'll honor your request to keep a respectful distance." To Quantrill it meant they probably did not have visual contact — but no doubt they were trying.
At least now he knew why they hadn't pulled his plug before this: they were fouling their knickers in fear that the cadre of S & R rovers had somehow become honeycombed with treason. "Control, if I pack it in, do I have your oath that I'll be released alive?"
"Absolutely," said Control.
" Interrogate, then ice you," Sanger signed. Beneath her tan lay a dreadful pallor.
Quantrill, you are now in the vicinity of Seely Mountain, proceeding East," said Control. But they might know that from the relay station there. Perhaps they still didn't have a visual.
Well, let 'em think he was convinced. "What sharp eyes you have, granny," he said, craning his neck to see the lake far away. He pointed, unnecessarily. Sanger was already aware of it.
" Five minutes that way," she signed, her hand slicing a point northward.
In five minutes, unless Sanger was a lousy chart reader, they'd have some real deceptions to practice.
Now the land was sere and hostile; box canyons sharply defined, horizontal strata of black and blonde painting the canyon walls. They had over an hour's fuel left, and he was tempted to stay aloft until the last possible second. Which was, in all probability, just what Control expected. It wasn't like Control to negotiate; those bastards depended on absolute obedience. Which suggested that they might have a fresh brain in the circuit, a slick negotiator, perhaps a psychologist.
But psych people had their knee-jerk reactions too. "Thinking it over, Control," he said. "Do you have anybody online who can tell me how to land this thing? Just in case," he added that tiny bit too quickly, smiling to himself. He was developing an idea, a balls-out crazy one. "Don't kid yourself that I can't do it alone. I'm not afraid," he said. That last word, he judged, would convince them he was scared shitless.
So scared, in fact, that he could never contemplate the action he was about to take as Marbrye Sanger pointed a triumphant finger ahead.
CHAPTER 34
Sanger was mentally exhausted from trying to ignore the demands of Control. They'd asked if she could communicate and she'd ignored them. Then they'd suggested she try removing the garrote wire; bolting toward the rear of the Loring; half a dozen scenarios, all based on two fallacies. The first was that Quantrill's psychomotor responses were anywhere near normal; and the second was that Marbrye Sanger had not committed herself, once and for all, to her lover.
Even while he doubted her fidelity.
"These little mines East of Carbonville," she signed, taking too long to spell out the name. "Catholics, Indys. I had a mission here." She did not elaborate; why waste time admitting you'd disappeared a woman for pushing media unscramblers to the tough local miners?
Quantrill knew that Sanger expected him to attempt a landing with the sprint chopper. "Where's our DZ," he signed.
She paused, vaguely disoriented. The township was further down the valley; the access road twisted below. In the distance was a mine tower, like a scarlet silo protruding from the earth — but Sanger knew that meant big business. They'd have a better chance in one of the small mines operated by men and women who competed against the Fed consortiums. Nearer, she saw two tailings piles, suggesting horizontal shafts typical of small coal mines.
"There," she signaled, pointing near a two-story structure of stone and mortar that was too large to be a residence. Sanger did not study it closely; assumed it housed crushers and sorters. She could not have known that her decision of that instant, that momentary gesture, would decide a great many things.
Quantrill eased back on the throttles, scanning the bright heavens for swift birds of prey. "Take the cable down," he signed. "I'll follow."
Almost, she spoke aloud. "If you leave it hovering, they'll soon realize we're down."
But he was already waving her back, speaking aloud. "I'm going to mull it over, Control," he said. "Don't know where the hell I am but I know how to circle. I think," he added. At that moment he slowed the Loring's forward motion. He'd have to program a steady tight bank for himself, but he didn't have to risk Sanger's bod that way. Without looking, he brought his left fist up over his shoulder, thumb jerking downward. Then he pulled the tee-handle for the belly hatch. The aircraft wafted nearly motionless above baked earth.
Stunned, Sanger realized that Quantrill expected her to exit the ship on her cable harness. If he kept it hovering while he followed, the first pursuer on the scene would penetrate his deception. Then she grinned at his back — her first smile in two days — and hurried. She'd concluded incorrectly that he intended to shoot the aircraft down with her chiller.
She snatched up the cable from its overhead stowage, reeled it out, saw it writhe below; fitted a handgrip with its frictioner to the cable, then attached its carabiners to her epaulets. Hers was an easy drop, less than a hundred meters, and she made it in a dozen seconds. The instant she touched the ground, Quantrill banked the Loring and began to climb. She raised both arms in supplication, certain that he had decided to leave her.
Then, three hundred meters up, the craft began to circle, one coleopter shroud angled more than the other, and she saw the stubby wings wavering as Quantrill sought a smooth pattern. He wasn't all that good at it. He steepened his bank, the cable whipping below, and moments later she saw his legs through the belly hatchway. The autopilot was now in charge.
Quantrill hadn't wasted his maintenance experience. He stripped a rubber tiedown cord from stowage, gripped it in his teeth while improvising a sling with harness straps. His work coverall, of course, had no epaulets for a cable drop. With the straps across his back and under his arms he linked them into a loop, fitted the cable frictioner, locked it. The cable drum had its own brake and automatic rewind stud. He set it for auto rewind, sat in the hatchway with his feet against the hatch, pried the downlock trigger from its clasp. Now the wind pressure thrust the hatch against his bootsoles, but he could not be certain it would slap the hatch more than halfway shut. His last jury-rig was the rubber tiedown, hooked to the hatch and stretched to a handhold inside.
He dropped, batted by the hatch door as it snapped against the cable. The sling bit into his arm sockets.
He was rotating helplessly, sliding down the cable and, linked as he was, Quantrill could not stabilize himself with a free-fall arch. Strictly speaking, his descent was not even a true rappel. It was a pirouetting slide down a cable that slowly unreeled against a preset drag, and a survivor of this experiment would be one who did not make the same mistake once.