Systemic Shock Page 28

  Their fire positions established by chemlamp, they huddled together for warmth in the starflecked night, Sanger taking first watch because she could not, as her partner could, shrug off the effects of violence and drop off quickly into slumber. Marbrye Sanger held her sleeping youth close, gently massaged his back and shoulders, watched for moving lights, and now and then silently kissed the unresponsive lips. Quantrill, normally a light sleeper, could have made no greater demonstration of trust than to abandon care in her arms; and Sanger's silent tears were of purest contentment.

  Control advised Sanger, at three AM, to turn her watch over to her partner. She roused him, found that sleep came easily to her now, and smiled to herself as she felt his hand glide gently along her arms. Perhaps, she thought, he even returned her affection in some small way.

  When Sanger's breathing steadied into sleep rhythms, Quantrill eased out of his jacket and spread it over her. He was tempted to rouse her with subtle caresses but knew that she needed sleep more than he needed active love-making.

  He made himself content to feel her warmth and her implied faith. He steadfastly refused to dwell on the possible meanings of their mutual accommodation to one another, for in that direction lay acknowledged friendship; love; vulnerability. Had Sanger given him reason to suspect her yearning Quantrill would have been shocked and, to a degree, disappointed. Gunsels knew better than that, he told himself: the only viable response to tenderness was retreat.

  He found it easier to think about Sandy Grange, but not much easier. From the women of the prophets he had learned that Louise Grange had been near the end of her strength even before her escape. Little Sandy had taken her tiny sister and her prized backpack, and had fled shortly before Quantrill's first arrival, her mother stumbling away into the dark not knowing which way the two had gone, Coates and Ryerson too far in arrears to find them.

  It was patently ridiculous to be worrying about two small lives at risk in the wild country when his quarry was still capable of razing whole townships. But there it was: given a choice, Quantrill would cheerfully abandon his assignment in hopes of finding Sandy before some stupendous predator did. But the choice was not his. He was rigidly bound by Control—more accurately, by his growing suspicion that his implanted critic might levy the ultimate criticism upon him if he abandoned an assignment.

  He thought on the problem for an hour before contacting Control, speaking softly to avoid waking Sanger. "If those captive women and children run loose tomorrow, they could wind up in another band of crazies. Or feeding some really nasty predators out here. I recommend a sweep of the whole area, Control."

  The answer was prompt. "Neg; we can pass that on to the locals, but we need you to hold the lines against Mexicans north of Alamogordo. The situation is deteriorating all along the border."

  "Since when is that T Section business?"

  "Since you volunteered, Q."

  "I never volunteered for a personal destruct mechanism."

  "You are a personal destruct mechanism, Q. It doesn't have to be a self-destruct. You still have free will to choose."

  "Like Simon Goldhaber did?"

  "If suicide is your choice. That would gain no one anything."

  "Sounds like we're all losing, doesn't it?"

  "It sounds from here as if you need a rest. Some of your decisions tonight have been amateurish."

  "For instance?"

  "You attacked two armed men while they were in control of a moving vehicle, in terrain you did not choose."

  Privately, Quantrill had already cursed Sanger for that but, "You weren't here and we were. It worked," he observed drily. "If your situation is going to hell, why not give us a longer leash?"

  "The news from Asia is good, Q. We're having setbacks here but nothing we can't handle. I recommend you defer your objections until debriefing. T Section has now relocated from San Simeon to Santa Fe. If all goes well, you will be apprised of the big picture there." The unspoken warning was clear enough: if you slip up, you won't be around for debriefing.

  "Thank you, Control." Quantrill coded out, frowning into the false dawn, planning his disobedience with care.

  Dawn swelled through a golden haze and Quantrill listened to a lark's a capella welcome of the light for long minutes. He saw an insolent jackrabbit stand erect, ears turned to the south, then spring away. The lark fell silent. "Okay, Sanger," he grunted, "company's coming."

  Quantrill had rolled his M-27 into a blanket forty meters from Sanger's bower. He ran to it, swung its bipod into place, lay prone in the protection of a stone outcrop. He placed his spare magazines where they could not be spattered by a ricochet. The curl of the road would hide the battered pickup until an approaching vehicle was past, below his and Sanger's hidden positions. They would each have the advantage of enfilade.

  But they had forgotten the choking dust that would prompt a second vehicle to stay well behind. With the first arc of sun came two vehicles, trailing dust clouds, a hundred meters apart.

  The terratired vehicle squalled to a stop thirty meters from the pickup. One short-sleeved man exited running, turned to shout to the driver who pulled a sporting rifle from the floor. Sanger's first burst tattooed the truck, the driver turning in time to receive her next burst. He seemed to leap backward as if jerked on a wire, the rifle spinning like a majorette's baton. The second man was unarmed. Quantrill watched him snatch up one of the weapons Sanger had placed at the verge, and smiled. If it would shoot gravel, Sanger might have a problem.

  The driver of the second vehicle must have seen dust spurt from the jacket of the first driver. The all-terrain pickup swung hard out of the ruts and began a desperate U-turn, throwing gouts of dust and gravel as it veered toward Quantrill, chips of paint flying as Sanger poured automatic fire into its rear quarter panel.

  Quantrill saw the shirt-sleeved man hunkered behind his truck away from Sanger, frantically shaking his useless trophy, an absurdly easy target from the nearside. Then, in one long easy burst, Quantrill perforated the windshield of the moving vehicle from edge to edge, watched the rider plummet to the ground, the pickup bucking and snorting as it slowed to a stop a hundred meters distant, the driver hanging half out of the cab.

  "Down, Sanger," he shouted, and sent two singles moaning high over her nest. He put a round into the dust at the feet of the lone survivor, grinned at the man's impromptu leap. "Tell Sanger to stay the hell down," he muttered to Control as Mr. Shirtsleeves scrambled into his truck. The next few seconds would be critical. Quantrill drew breath and held it, his sights on a man who seemed to be fighting an invisible brushfire at the wheel.

  The truck roared, lurched. Quantrill disintegrated its windshield, punctured both rear tires, and then emptied an entire fresh magazine into the other vehicle for effect.

  "Permission to pursue, Control," he said, and called Sanger down on the double. He was shaking with silent laughter as he dragged Beasley's body from the pickup, and hand-signed silence to Sanger whose glance at her partner was furious. The pickup was cold, but not for long.

  Quantrill steered directly across a wide arc in the trail, gesturing for Sanger to withhold her fire at the fleeing prophet. Her face was a scowl of mimed protest until she saw their quarry lurch away from the trail on flat tires. Only then did she realize that Quantrill was registering joy as he herded the man away from the ranch house.

  "Subject is heading north in open country at his best speed, Control," Quantrill said, grinning at Sanger. "I propose to close on him after we pass the ranch, to avoid witnesses. We have a deader in the back seat. We can disappear him out here."

  Sanger shook her head in disgust, aware that Quantrill was playing Control's game for reasons of his own. Control could not possibly know how many witnesses had identified the T Section team, and gave the sanction for the delayed kill.

  Cutting his speed, hand-signing his explanation to Sanger as best he could, Quantrill paced their quarry for twenty minutes. He was wondering how much farther he dared go when
the pickup faltered. "Bag him," he shouted, and braked savagely. The pickup was out of fuel.

  Sanger fired through the dust pall. The fleeing truck lurched, began to circle. Quantrill fumbled for his own M-27, added his short bursts to Sanger's, saw their quarry grind to a stop a hundred meters away.

  "Got him," Sanger cried.

  "He's on fire," Quantrill said, gesturing for Sanger's silence. "He will be in a minute," said his hands.

  Hands on hips, Sanger watched as Quantrill carried Jansen's body to their most recent target. He managed to set the pock-marked truck afire with matches. Now they were afoot, he advised Control, and would head back toward the ranch to intercept the one vehicle that had not shown up at their ambush. Control agreed.

  By now Sanger had had time to fume over the fact that they were searching for a small blonde girl with a tiny baby. For a time, they pondered a thin vertical smudge to the north, then decided it was a dust-devil.

  "You deliberately shanghaied us here, and abandoned those poor devils at the ranch," Sanger's hands accused as they turned eastward.

  "I don't think that last pair of prophets will go any farther than the ambush,"' he replied manually.

  "Two dozen hostages against two," Sanger insisted.

  "But one of those is my," he began, and could not make the sign for friend. "I knew that kid," he signaled.

  Sanger rolled her eyes toward heaven, squelched a smile, then pointed a finger in warning and added, "Don't you ever put me in the middle like this again. Clear!"

  His sheepish nod was almost that of innocence, and disarmed her wrath into inaudible chuckles.

  Together, Quantrill and Sanger covered several sections of land before resting, at noon, beneath a lone scrub oak. He admitted via signs to Sanger that he hadn't really expected to cut a fresh trail from Sandy Grange.

  "But you had to try," she signed.

  A shrug.

  "Would you do as much for me"1."

  Dust-covered, sweat-stained, he could not help grinning. “For you I do other things."

  "Promises, promises," she signed, licking cracked lips, fully aware that she was a dust-caked travesty of herself at the moment. She found that he did not care about the dust; warned herself that Quantrill's unusually gentle and deliberate love-making was only a ploy to keep their breathing quiet—one more way to allay the suspicions of Control.

  At midafternoon they set out again, this time quartering toward the ranch, and found it at last. Control meted out a small punishment then, insisting that they head straight for the south. The last pair of prophets had been intercepted by a civil patrol outside the town of Menard. Was there any reason why the team could not buy a ride and rendezvous with others north of Del Rio?

  Quantrill and Sanger spat cottony fluff, accepted their new assignment, and trudged toward the highway. Sanger signed once, as they waited coins in hand to buy a ride just before dark: "Don't feel bad. You risked your head for the kid, when we both know she's probably been iced days ago."

  Quantrill nodded. He made no other reply then or later; it was not the first time he had exiled a memory.

  Sandys jurnal 30 Jul. Wens.

  Im the black sheep, yessiryessir 3 bagsful. When these bags offormla is gone I dont know what Child will drink, but I bet she can live on sheep milk if I can do it right like mom but I wisht I knew where mom is. I try to chew food for Child but she just spits it up and grins. She dont know nothing.

  When I saw myfreind Sunday my legs about gave way. I tried to keep still but Child fijited and there wasnt no place to run and this poor title knife in my napsack didnt scare him none and maybe it was right to cry. Myfreind sniffed me and Child a long time then shoved us toward this old dugout shack. I heard that ants keep bugs and rats keep mice but my dady never told me big animals keep sheep, he just said Rusian bores was devils. I gess even my dady didnt know everthing. My freind likes getting scrached on top high as I can reach and I think it tikles him to give me and Child rides but he dont like grownups. Today I thout hed go after them 2 with the guns but I scrached him and we kept hid. Jurnal I swear the man looked like sombody I knew once but no, his hair and face was a little diffrent. Besides Ted was nice but this man did bad things with the woman unless they was maried. One thing sure, he wasnt no profet to judje from what they did to them devils in the burnt truck if it was them, I dont know. I gess Child and me will stay here long as I can feed her. This is your last page jurnal and I dont have no more paper just when Im having crazy ideas with words. Like Knifetooth Hammerhoof Windswift

  Treetoptall.

  Enemy of my enemy

  Is my freind.

  O well, paper or no paper I have Child and I have my freind and thats enouf. I know folks call him Bale but hes freind to Child and me. Thats good, boy Id sure hate to have him for a enemy!!

  Almost had afire going today but too much smoke, next time will try at nite. We sure dont need blankets when my freind is here in the dugout, what we need is earplugs. I never knew hogs snored but ever day you learn somthing new. Keep your pages dry jurnal ha ha.

  Love Sandy

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Eve Simpson had expected to find some careworn drudge in a closet-sized office in a forgotten corner of Sound Stage West. Her first astonishment was that Commander Boren Mills rated office and apartment space nearly as large as her own. It did not sweeten her mood much.

  "You know damned well who I am," she flashed at the female rating who screened Mills's callers. "And your inky-fingered censor is about to find out who my friends are if I don't see him right now."

  The heavy door behind the secretary slid back. The harried rating flushed as she turned. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, "I was about to—"

  "It's okay—ah, as you were," Mills said easily. "I think I know—"

  "It's not okay," Eve stormed, stalking around the desk. "I came to beard this old bastard Mills in his den. Nobody chops up an interview of mine like that, mister."

  "The old bastard is in," said the young commander with a rapid wink at the rating. "Let's beard him together."

  Eve swept past the young officer, determined to maintain the fine edge on her anger, glaring about her in search of a third party in the inner office. She thought the young officer's handshake would be perfunctory until he kissed her hand.

  "Where is Mills?"

  "Praying for forgiveness," he murmured, "and holding your hand."

  She jerked back, made an open-palmed gesture, then dropped both hands to her ample hips. "Shit oh dear," said the rosebud mouth, fighting a smile. "I suppose you think I haven't been charmed by experts."

  "You deserve nothing less," he said, meaning it. Now buxom to the point of pudginess, Eve no longer provoked dry mouths and itchy fingers in most young men—except on video, where NBN's image enhancement magic made her appear merely a bit plumpish. To Boren Mills, she was a classic by Titian, a haughty nymph with the mouth of a cruel Cupid; intelligence to match her arrogance; perfection itself.

  Eve did not have to trust a man to enjoy him. This cool natty customer with the widow's peak and the smooth line just might be susceptible to her young-old charm if not to her threats. Besides, she thought with a tingly rush, he swung a heavy stick around NBN for such a young guy. Probably a pal of Brucie's. But oh, well, whatthehell… "What I really deserve," she said musically, "is freedom of the press."

  Mills poured her a Cointreau, sat with her on a well-lighted couch, listened to her argument. Her interview with an English-speaking Chinese refugee in Mexico, she insisted, was just what the American public wanted: a dirge for a dying China. "That stuff about the little matter synthesizer was pure dynamite," she added, "even if it was just rumor."

  "And could blow up in our faces," Mills replied. "If you weren't who you are, I wouldn't be discussing it. But obviously you have the need to know. Forget about what Americans believe, for the moment. What if the RUS believed—and I happen to know it couldn't be true—that the chromium and platinum they trade us might
not be key minerals if someone could synthesize them? Even a rumor like that could damage relations with them."

  Eve fumed, invoked a name in White House Deseret. Mills, undaunted, countered with optimal control theory and the awe in which it was held by the Secretary of State—not to mention the White House Press Secretary. The message optimization program, he said, had shown that no rumor about matter synthesizers should be offered to credulous Americans. Mills did not add that he controlled the numerical biases of that computer program.

  "Anyhow," said Eve, her formidable curiosity abubble, "what makes you so sure matter synthesis isn't possible?"

  "It is possible," he said; "it's been done. But at incredible cost, using big experimental facilities. The clincher lies in the idea that any government as rigidly controlled as China would mass-produce a small gadget like that, even if it could. Give a few million Chinese their own personal synthesizers, and the government's control would vanish overnight. Think about it."

  While she sipped and thought, Mills wondered whether any girl Eve's age could possibly juggle the subtleties of the problem. It had never occurred to him that her intellect might rival his own.

  "Seems to me that would be true everywhere. Chinese, us, the RUS, the Canadians,—any government that thrives on central control," she reflected.

  He said, "Uh—to some degree you may be right." She was precisely, preternaturally right, he thought, elevating his opinion of this morsel—no, this banquet!

  But Mills was a patient man, and managed to avoid figuratively licking his chops. He had already been tempted by dizzying offers for his civilian services; knew the day would come soon when he could pick his banquets, even without the synthesizer. But with it? He could rule a country as Rothschilds and Rockefellers never had. As Eve dallied with the scenario he had suggested, Mills was wondering if the Chinese had scaled up the device, and whether copies still existed other than his own. He must set up a research team and somehow compel their loyalties—but all in good time. Sooner or later, scaled up or merely mass-produced as it was, the synthesizer could make an economy dependent on Mills.