Morris was silent for a long moment, looking back and forth between the photos while his mind raced.
"You're positive?" he asked eventually, and she nodded.
"Something else turned up on the enlargement, too. Look here." She drew his attention back to the infrared shot. "See this little dot?" He nodded again. "That's up the mountain above the installation, and it's another hot spot. Intermittent-it only shows on a few of the shots-and a lot smaller and cooler than the others. Not only that, the vegetation on the slope is exactly the same kind of fake as the rest of it."
Morris rubbed his nose as he pondered. The regularly spaced oblongs of heat formed a horseshoe-shaped arc, its ends sweeping back to touch the steep mountain face on either side of the small heat source. Like a shield, he thought. A shield hiding what? And composed of whom?
"What do you make of it, Jayne?" he asked finally.
"It could be lots of things, I suppose, but that's part of Pisgah National Forest, and according to the records, there's nothing there at all. My opinion? It's a military camp. The point sources are way too dense for a good count, but there could be an entire battalion in there."
"A battalion?" Morris shook his head, trying to clear it. "Damn." He thought for a moment longer, then reached for the secure phone and started punching numbers. The phone at the far end was answered quickly.
"This is Commander Morris," he said. "Get me Admiral Aston."
"They're right, Governor," Melvyn Tanner said. Despite his words, the attorney general looked as if he wished he could disagree. "Some really ugly reports are coming in. The State Patrol reports a lot of out-of-state license plates flowing into the area, and Tennessee and Kentucky say more are on the way. They're not just leaf-watchers out to see the Fall colors, either," he added with graveyard humor.
"I know." Governor Farnam toyed with the pen stand on his desk. "But if we call out the Guard, we show just how alarmed we are. I purely hate giving a bunch of racist psychos that much satisfaction," the great-great-grandson of one of his state's largest slave-owners said grimly.
"Maybe so, but it's your responsibility to maintain order and protect public safety when the local authorities can't."
"All right," Farnam said finally. "Draw up the proclamation. And get me a line to the Justice Department."
"What do you make of it, Milla?" Aston asked. The two of them were bent over a table studying the photos Morris had transmitted to them by secure land line.
"I think it's him." Ludmilla spoke with obvious restraint, controlling her own exhilaration. "It fits."
"But where'd he get the manpower?"
"Dick, you've seen the kind of hate he can whip up. If he can do that, why can't he recruit a small, elite force under his direct control?"
"I'll buy that he could get them together," Aston said with a frown. "But hang on to them?" He shook his head. "If this is a paramilitary outfit, there has to be a chain of command, and who's going to take orders from a machine? Besides, why run the risk of revealing himself to them?"
"He probably didn't," she said, and Aston raised an eyebrow. "He probably found himself an Alexson," she explained, then frowned. "A quisling, you'd call it. A collaborator. He'd only need one to front for him, and once he had one, I guarantee he could control him." She shivered.
"Okay," Aston agreed. "I'll accept that. But if they're camped right on top of the objective, we've got a hell of a problem. Jayne says they could be in battalion strength, and we don't have any idea what kind of hornet's nest we're walking into."
"You know," she said slowly, "this looks like a standard Kanga encampment." She ran her finger over the computer imagery, moving from one bright smear of light to another. "See this one here-the one with so many fewer heat sources?" Aston nodded. "In a Kanga installation, that would be the armory. And these here-" she indicated two smaller, fainter smears, one at either end of the horseshoe "-would be the scanner posts, while these with more people in and around them would be the barracks. And these speckles out here-" she tapped a loose necklace of tiny heat sources scattered out around the main encampment "-would be weapon emplacements."
"Jesus! Are we looking at twenty-fifth-century weapons?!"
"I doubt it. Oh, he could design them, I'm sure, but he doesn't have the components. If you were marooned in the fifteenth century, could you build one of your LAVs without parts? Even if you had the manuals and a complete maintenance shop?"
"I don't suppose I could." Aston made no effort to hide his relief.
"Exactly. He'd need molycircs, superconductors, high-energy capacitors, multi-dees... . The tech base to build the parts he needs won't exist for over a century, at least. He probably has enough spares to build a few light weapons, but not enough to equip on this scale. No, Dick. It may be a Kanga-style installation, but he's using mainly local weapons."
"Mainly!" Aston snorted. "I like that."
"It's the way it is," she said calmly.
"I know. I know." He frowned. "I don't like the numbers, though-not when I don't know how good their tactics will be."
"I don't know either," she admitted. "Normal Troll ground combat has to be seen to be believed, but he can't use standard tactics. He's only got a fighter, not an assault tender, so he can't have many combat mechs and they won't be heavies. Light armor's all a fighter usually carries." She plucked at a lock of her hair.
"Normally, they rely on speed, mass, and firepower, Dick. They run right at you, then hammer you into the ground with close-range fire. Their heavies' armor is tough enough to take most power-gun fire, and their battle screen takes care of anything else. But those are heavy armor tactics. At worst, his combat chassis's not going to be much heavier than a medium, and Trolls don't know infantry tactics. Terran Marine Raiders would take this place apart like a soggy pretzel. Of course, they've got equipment Dan and Alvin would sell their children for, but-" she nodded slowly to herself "-I think our boys can hack it. They know their weapons, they've got good doctrine and tactics, they ought to have the advantage of surprise, and they're some of the best assault troops I've ever seen. I don't see how the Troll's troops can match their quality, and he doesn't have any familiarity with twenty-first-century weapons or tactics."
"What if he's 'recruited' somebody who does?"
"It probably won't matter. Trolls are arrogant; he may have picked the brains of competent present-day tacticians, but he'll dictate his own tactics. At best, he'll be a Book soldier without experience. Sort of a brand new, overtrained second lieutenant with a colonel's command." She grinned suddenly. "How do you think the butter-bar would make out?"
"He'd get handed his ass," Aston said with a note of satisfaction.
"Don't get cocky," Ludmilla cautioned, "but I think that's essentially what we're looking at."
"Don't worry about cockiness," he growled. "I'm scared to death, and we'll go in assuming the worst. But we've got time to plan. They may disperse, and if they don't, even a dug-in mechanized battalion would have trouble with what we can throw at them."
"Good. Then I'd better get into that Forestry Service plane and double check things."
"No way! We know where the bastard is, now, and-"
"Dick, we can't afford to assume that. I've got to-"
"No, Goddamn it! We'll watch it for a few days, see if they disperse, and then we'll-"
Aston broke off, glaring at her, as the phone rang. She met his glare calmly, knowing his anger stemmed from a jumble of sources he could hardly have disentangled himself. The critical necessity of her blaster, his own deep emotions, the pressure of mounting the operation at last... . The list was endless.