No, there wouldn’t be, Jonelle thought, not with those. They were made for this kind of work.
“Thank you,” Jonelle said after a moment. The old woman said, “Te’ bienvegni” and turned to head back to the house.
They went back with her, for courtesy’s sake, to talk just a little more and thank Duonna Mati for her help before leaving. But Jonelle’s mind was abuzz, and Matt was looking at her with an expression of barely concealed horror. She could understand why.
Right on our doorstep, Jonelle thought. Right in our back yard. An alien base, twenty miles away…full of God only knows what.
What the hell do I do now?
Seven
Jonelle made her way back to Andermatt Base in a state of mind varying between panic and fury, but the chilly ride through the rail tunnel, with Matt watching her in silent assessment, steadied her mind. When she got back, she had her courses of action fairly well lined up.
The first thing she did was to look around the hangar to see what was there. Two Lightnings—that was good. And one of their pilots was there, doing a walk-around of his craft, preparatory to going out on a routine patrol. Better still, Jonelle thought.
“Ross,” she said, joining him at the back of the craft and looking it over with him. “Getting ready to head out?”
“That’s right, Commander. About fifteen minutes. Just routine stuff.”
“That’s fine. Could I get you to do something for me?”
“Sure, Commander. What?”
“I want to do an infrared survey of the mountains in the neighborhood,” she said. “The weather people have been complaining about not being able to predict the air currents around here, due to some of the mountains being hotter than others, they say We need to start getting a handle on it. When you finish your patrol—when will that be?”
“About ten, Commander.”
“Fine. Take an extra half hour or so, and just have a high-level look at the mountains within a twenty-mile radius. You see any hot spots, make a note of them. I’d like to see your results when you get in. I promised Meteorology that I’d have some preliminary data for them tonight. Can you do that for me?”
“No problem at all, Commander,” Ross said. “Anything else you need?”
“Not a thing. I’m going down to the cafeteria to see if I can get something fit to eat.”
Ross laughed hollowly “Good luck, Commander.”
She waved at him and left him to his walk-around. Jonelle did indeed go to the cafeteria and did eat the food there, though she hardly tasted it. She chatted amiably enough with the staff and assault crews she met there, but afterwards she could hardly remember anything she said. She was watching the clock. Ross had left for his patrol just shortly after they talked, at about eight-thirty Jonelle dawdled over her coffee for as long as she thought looked natural, then headed out to do an informal evening rounds. She stopped in the main lounge of the living quarters, where an incipient game of Crud paused. She looked at it, tempted, and then waved at her people and moved on. All through the base she walked, the finished parts and the empty ones, peering at everything. Her people greeted her wherever they met her, and Jonelle returned the greetings and went on, leaving behind her an increasing number of X-COM staff who wondered whether perhaps “the colonel” had had some kind of relapse. One maintenance crewman who saw Jonelle come into the hangar for the third time in twenty minutes, around ten-thirty that evening, later said, “I saw her bite her nails. You ever see her do that before?”
The Lightning that had been out on patrol landed shortly thereafter, and almost before its pilot was down the ladder, the commander was back. The hangar staff saw her and Ross stand together for a moment, chatting. Then the commander grinned at him, thanked him for the extra work, and walked off whistling. That at least looked normal, and the hangar staff went back to what they had been doing, shrugging at one another. “She’s been under a lot of stress lately,” said one of them. “Cut her some slack.”
“Completely routine, Commander,” Ross had said to Jonelle. “Nothing much out there tonight—at least nothing we’re interested in.”
He handed her a cassette from the Lightning’s mission recording console. “1 taped that IR survey for you,” he said, “just in case the weather boys need extra detail.”
“That was a good thought. Anything in particular stand out?”
“I’m not sure, Commander,” Ross said, scratching his head. “Weather’s not my area of expertise. There’s one mountain out there, though, looks like it’s got a hot spring under it or something.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Mountain called Scope. No, Scopi—I just thought it said Scope at first. Funny name. Anyway, it reads about seven Kelvin higher than everything around it. A little higher in places, up to say eight point five. The air currents around there were pretty fierce.”
“Huh,” Jonelle said. “The geologists are going to have fun with that. This area wasn’t supposed to be volcanic anymore.” She sighed, smiled. “Well, thanks, Ross. I appreciate the extra time you took.”
And off Jonelle went to her office, her mind already much calmer than it had been. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, that was always the hardest part of an operation for her, but dropping the shoe herself—that would have its own peculiar pleasures.
She went into her office, closed the door, picked up the secure phone, and dialed a certain number.
“Hallo?”
“Hello, Konni. It’s Commander Barrett.”
“Commander! What a pleasure. What can I do for you?”
“Just help me with a general knowledge question.”
“Anything.”
“What do you know about a mountain called Scopi?”
“A good climbing mountain,” Konni said, casually enough. “I know a lot of people who go up there for holidays.”
“Do you indeed? Well, I think I know a few, as well. Konni, what’s underneath that mountain?”
“Uh. Commander, you know that kind of information is on a need-to-know basis—”
“Well, Konni, you’d better believe that I need to know!” she hollered down the phone. “Because there is something in that mountain! And unless you convince me otherwise, I am going to first tear that mountain open, and then blow it to kingdom come! If it’s something of yours, then I want to give you a chance to explain. If it’s not, then I’ve got the unhappy duty to tell you that you have squatters on your property—and if they’re who I think they are, this call is to give you ample warning of what I’m going to do about it, so that your government doesn’t become upset when I change the terrain of a small area in their Alps! And I am going to change it. So you start getting me some answers!”
There was a lot more than that to the phone call. It was interrupted for a while, so that Konni could go off and make a call on another phone. Then it resumed again, in a much more communicative and conciliatory style on both sides. After it was finished, Jonelle sat back, put her feet up on her desk, and felt briefly much better, for whatever was going on in that mountain, it had nothing to do with the Swiss government. There had been a facility there once, a long time ago, but it had been quite small compared to, say, Andermatt, and it had been closed for almost thirty years.
Jonelle explained to Konni that it was not closed anymore. Konni, speaking to her on the government’s behalf, said that he, and they, understood entirely, and that if Jonelle needed to have something happen to that mountain, they would not charge X-COM for damage to their real estate. But they did ask that they be consulted when final plans were in place, so that a suitable cover story could be arranged.