But when she had finally got him back, he had been damaged. Lying now, in this shelter in the Dorsai hills, she once more faced the fact that it might not have been her in-laws handling of him alone that had been to blame. It could also have been something genetic in their ancestry and her first husband's. But whatever it was, she had lost a healthy, happy baby, and regained a boy given to sudden near-psychotic outbursts of fury and ill judgment.
But she had encompassed him, guarded him, controlled him - keeping him always with her and bringing him through the years to a successful life and a quiet death. Only - at a great cost. For she had never been free in all that time to let him know how much she loved him. Her sternness, her unyielding authority, had made up the emotional control he had required, to supply the lack of it in himself. When he lay dying at last, in the large bedroom at Fal Morgan, she had been torn by the desire to let him know how she had always felt. But a knowledge of the selfishness of that desire had sustained her in silence. To put into plain words the role she had played for him all his life would have taken away what pride he had in the way he had lived, would have underlined the fact that without her he could never have stood alone.
So, she had let him go, playing her part to the last. At the very end he had tried to say something to her. He had almost spoken; and a small corner of her mind clung to the thought that there, in the last moment, he had been about to say that he understood, that he had always understood, that he knew how she loved him.
Now, lying in the darkness of the shelter, Amanda came as close as she ever had in her existence to crying out against whatever ruled the universe. Why had life always called upon her to be its disciplinarian, its executioner, as it was doing now, once again? Cheek pressed against the tough, smooth-worn leather of the skimmer seat cushion, she heard the answer in her own mind - it had been because she would do the job and others would not.
She was too old for tears. She drifted off into sleep without feeling the tide that took her out, dry-eyed.
A rustle, the sound of the branches that completely enclosed her being pulled apart, brought her instantly awake. Gray daylight was leaking through the cover below the cap of the groundsheet, and there was the sound of a gust of rain pattering on the groundsheet itself.
"Amanda - " said Ramon, and crawled into the shelter. There was barely room for him to squat beside her skimmer. His face, under a rain-slick poncho hood, was on a level with hers.
She sat up.
"What time is it?"
"Nine hundred hours. It's been daylight for nearly three hours. Ekram's still in town. I thought you'd want to be wakened."
"Thanks."
"General Amorine - that brigadier in charge of the troops - has been phoning around the homesteads. He wants you to come in and talk to him."
"He can do without. Twelve hours," said Amanda. "How could I sleep twelve hours? Are the patrols out? How did the troops on them look?"
"A little sloppy in execution. Everybody hunched up - under rain gear of course. But they didn't look too happy, even aside from that. Some were coughing, the team members said."
"Any news from the homesteads - any news they've heard over the air, by phone from town?"
"Ekram and the military doc were up all night."
"We've got to get him out of there - " Amanda checked and corrected herself. "I've got to get him out of there. What's the weather for the rest of today?"
"Should clear by noon. Then cold, windy and bright."
"By the time Cletus is here we should have good visibility?"
"We should, Amanda."
"Good. Pass the word. I want those patrols observed all the time. Let me know if you can how many of the men on them become unusually sick or fall out. Also check with Cow's escort troops, at Foralie. Chances are they're all in good shape, but it won't hurt to check The minute Cletus arrives, pass the word for the four other teams closest to Foralie to move in and join up with your team. Ring Foralie completely with the teams - what's that?"
Ramon had just put a thermos jug and a small metal box on the deck of her skimmer.
"Tea and some food," Ramon said. "Mene sent it down."
"I'm not an invalid."
"No, Amanda," said Ramon, backing out through the opening in the shelter on hands and knees. Outside, he pushed the branches back into place to seal the gap he had made entering. Left to herself, her mind busy, Amanda drank the hot tea and ate the equally hot stew and biscuits she found in the metal box
Finished, she got up and donned her own poncho, dismantled the shelter and put the ground cloth back in the boot, the seat-back and cushions back in place. Outside, the wind was gusty and cold with occasional rain. She lifted her skimmer and slid it down to just behind the lower ridge, where the ponchoed figure of Ramon sat keeping a scope trained on the cantonments and town below.
"I've changed my mind about that commanding officer," Amanda told him. "I'm going in to talk to him-"
A gust of wind and rain made her duck her head.
"Amanda?" Ramon was frowning up at her. "What if he won't let you out again?"
"He'll let me out," Amanda said. "But whether I'm there or not, the teams are going to have to be ready to move against deCastries' escort and any troops they send up with Cletus, once Cletus gets to Foralie. Just as they want Cletus for trial, we want Cletus safe, and we want deCastries, alive - not dead. If most of the rest of the districts can't break loose, we want something to bargain with. Cletus'll know how to use deCastries that way."
"If you're not available and it's time to attack them should we wait for Eachan to come out and take over?"
"If you think there's time - you and the other Ancients. If time looks tight, don't hesitate. Move on your own."
Ramon nodded.
"I'll look for you here when I come back," Amanda said; and lifted her skimmer, sending it off at a slant behind the cover of the ridge to approach the town from the opposite, down-river side.
She paused behind a ridge to drop off her handgun and then came up along the river road, where she encountered a Coalition-Alliance sentry in rain gear, about five hundred meters out behind the manufactory. She slid the skimmer directly at him and set it down, half a dozen meters from him. He held his cone rifle pointed toward her as he walked forward.
"Take that gun out of its scabbard, ma'm," he said, nodding at the pellet shotgun, "and hand it to me-butt first."
She obeyed.
He cradled the cone rifle in one arm to take the heavy weight of the pellet gun in both hands. He glanced at it, held it up to look into the barrel and handed it back to her.
"Not much of a weapon, ma'm."
"No?" Amanda, holding the recovered pellet gun in the crook of her arm, swung it around horizontally until its muzzle rested against the deckface between her and the boot, the deckface over the power unit. "What if I decide to pull the trigger right now?"
She saw his face go still, caught between shock and disbelief
"You hadn't thought of that?" said Amanda. "The pellets from this weapon could add enough kinetic energy to the power core to blow it, you, and me to bits. In your motor pool I could set off a chain explosion that would wipe out your full complement of vehicles. Had you thought of that?"
He stared at her for a second longer, then his face moved.
"Maybe you think you better impound it, after all?"
"No," he said. "I don't think you're about to commit suicide, even if they'd let you anywhere near our motor pool - which they wouldn't."
He coughed.
"What's your business in town, ma'm?"
"I'm Amanda Morgan, mayor of Foralie Town," she said. "That's my business. And for that matter, your commanding officer's been asking to see me. Don't tell me they didn't give you an image and a description of me?"