There was another long silence, then Morris nodded reluctantly.
"Understood."
"Master, I think it's a mistake," Blake Taggart said to the featureless panel which hid the Troll. "We know they're ready. Why risk it now?"
"It is illogical to assume that what has not been tested will function as desired," the Troll replied coldly. Deep within himself, he was amused to be preaching logic to a human after all the endless years in which the Shirmaksu had prated of it to him.
"But it's too soon, Master," the Blake Taggart human argued stubbornly, and the Troll felt a grudging respect for the creature's courage. Or was it simply that it sensed his own dependence upon it? No matter.
"It is not too soon." The mechanical voice was even harsher than usual, and the Troll smiled mentally as he felt the human's fear. It had argued too long once before, and days had passed before it even began to forget the anguish that had earned it.
"Blake Taggart," the Troll went on more evenly, "the plan requires increasing violence as the election nears, but it must be controlled, directed. I must know that I can begin it when I wish and aim it as I will, and also that I can call these vermin to heel when I must. Much depends upon that, and I will not rely on a tool I have not tested. Besides-" the hideous sound of trollish laughter grated in the control room "-a foretaste should improve the panic. And this town of Asheville is perfect. Close enough to watch with my remotes, small enough for an excellent laboratory, yet large enough to determine how well our tool fares against one of your urban centers. And I do not care for this Asheville, Blake Taggart. Its leadership has proved too hard to touch, to control, and it is close to my base. No, I will destroy it."
"Destroy it?" Taggart was alarmed. "But that would take-"
"More strength than I have recruited here. Yes, Blake Taggart, I know. My creatures are already on the move-not all, but enough."
"In that case, why not call in the Brigade? We don't know exactly what will happen, but it might be better to have some of our own people handy-people we can trust to do exactly what they're told, not just what you can suggest to them indirectly."
"Yes," the Troll mused. "Yes, Blake Taggart, that may be an excellent idea. Summon them all. We will test your mobilization plan, as well."
"I will, Master," Taggart said.
destruction n. 1. The act of destroying. 2. The means or cause of destroying. 3. The fact or condition of being destroyed. [Middle English destruccioun, from Latin destructe, from destructus, past participle of destruere, destroy.]
destroy v. -stroyed, -stroying, -stroys. -tr. 1. To ruin completely; to spoil beyond restoration or repair; consume. 2. To break up; tear down; raze; demolish. 3. To put an end to; to do away with; to get rid of. 4. To kill. 5. To render useless. 6. To defeat; to subdue completely; crush. -intr. To be harmful or destructive. [Middle English destruyen, from Latin destruere (past participle destructus): de (reversal) + struere, pile up.]
-Webster-Wangchi Unabridged Dictionary of Standard English Tomas y Hijos, Publishers
2465, Terran Standard Reckoning
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"I don't know what they're going to do! But whatever it is, I don't have enough men to stop them." Bill McCoury, Buncombe County's sheriff, glowered at Jeremiah Willis and Hugh Campbell, Asheville's Chief of Police.
"Bill's right, Jerry." Campbell rubbed his eyes wearily, then replaced his glasses and regarded the mayor levelly. "Neither of us do. I'd hoped refusing them a permit would stop them, but it didn't. As for this-" he waved a copy of the court injunction against any assembly "in Buncombe County, in the State of North Carolina, by the Appalachian White People's Alliance and/or the Ku Klux Klan and/or the American Nazi Party and/or any individual members of those organizations, however styled" "-I don't see any way to enforce it. Not without an awful lot more manpower."
"I know." Willis sighed. "All right. I guess we all knew it had to start somewhere. I'll call the Governor."
"Mordecai?" Morris looked grubbier than ever, and he felt it as he looked up and saw Jayne Hastings-as immaculate as ever-in the door of his office. At least he had an excuse; he hadn't stopped moving, one way or another, in the thirty-six hours since his return from Camp Lejeune.
"Yes, Jayne?" He waved at a chair heaped in computer printouts, and she moved them carefully to the floor before she sat. "What have you got?"
"I'm not positive," she said. "Has Milla gone up yet?"
"She's due to go tomorrow-if Dick doesn't convince himself he can't afford to risk her." Morris shook a cigarette from a pack. "Why?"
"We swung one of the Hydra multi-sensor birds to cover the Southeast last night. Exhausted her maneuvering mass to do it, too. I've been looking over the data." She shook her head. "It's amazing what the new systems can do."
"I know." Morris nodded. "I don't have your technical background, but I'm always amazed by how steadily the quality of satellite data keeps going up."
"Well, I think I found something," Hastings told him, and he leaned forward over his desk.
"What?"
"Look." She laid an oddly murky photo on his littered blotter and adjusted his desk lamp carefully. "See this?"
She used a pencil as a pointer, tapping with the eraser. Morris leaned a little closer and saw a bright, hair-thin line that snaked across the photo and ended in a small, crescent-shaped smear of equal brightness.
"That," Hastings told him, "is the road up Sugarloaf Mountain. It's not much of one-only one lane of macadam to an abandoned logging area."
"So?" he asked.
"The brightness," Hastings said, "is heat, M&M. Lots of heat."
"Heat?" He frowned. "Sunlight soaked up during the day?"
"No way. First, there's too much of it. Second, a lot of this road's pretty heavily shaded. See these brighter sections? They're from direct sunlight, all right, but this almost equally bright section here's an oblique into an area under heavy tree cover. Nope, Mordecai. Only one thing could account for this-" her eraser tapped the second area for emphasis "-and that's traffic. Lots of traffic."
"What sort of traffic?"
"I don't know, but it was headed here." She drew out another photo, this one in bright, artificial colors-obviously a computer-generated and enhanced enlargement of a portion of the first. The thin line was a broad ribbon, and the crescent at its end had refined itself into several regularly spaced heat sources.
"These are buildings in an installation of some sort," she said quietly. "A good-sized one, judging by the number of people we're picking up." Her eraser tapped again, indicating a dusting of tiny, individual heat sources scattered about the buildings. "They're moving around too much for us to get a hard count, even with the Hydra's IR sensors, but there are lots of them. And look at this." She laid out another photo, this one of peaceful green trees, just beginning to show the first touches of autumn color, in a bright, sunlit mountain valley. "See anything?"
"No."
"You should. It's a daylight shot of exactly the same area, and a lot of traffic went into it. According to this one-" she indicated the computer generated enlargement again "-it stayed, too. As I say, we can't get a hard point source count, but our minimum estimates puts hundreds of people in the area-hundreds, Mordecai. So where are they?"
"Hmmm." Morris took a powerful magnifying glass from his drawer and examined the bland photo minutely. "I don't see a thing," he confessed.
"Neither can any of the photo analysts," she agreed, pulling out yet another computer print, "so we did this spectroscopic shot on the next pass." The blur of colors told Morris absolutely nothing, but the light in her green eyes said it told Hastings a lot. "This area here-" her eraser circled and then stabbed "-is the same area as the IR shot, and it doesn't match its surroundings." Morris looked up at her, and she gave him a thin, sharklike smile. "It's a fake, Mordecai. All this greenery here-" she tapped again "-is a fake."